Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Eloge de Marc-Aurele de Thomas

Villemain's 1854 _Souvenirs..._ (available on Gallica) has a long dialogue between Narbonne and Napoleon. Napoleon refers to Thomas' eulogy several times. It gives a sort of shadow portrait of the afterlife of the éloges as teaching texts. This chapter (visit to Normale sup in 1812) also gives a portrait of Napoleon's vision of the nature and purpose of a humanist education and refers to the failure of the prix decennaux.

Note that Villemain wasn't there for this conversation, and he's (re)creating it many years later. So it's as much a fictional representation of what he thinks Napoleon was thinking at the time as an actual historical document, and there's even a bit where he admits to it at the end of the chapter.

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