In the years and decades following Napoleon’s death on the island of St. Helena, a kind of nostalgia for lost greatness developed in France, a “Napoleonic legend.”
Few men in human history have aroused so much hatred and admiration, and divided opinion so much. From the beginning of his military and political career, Napoleon became part of the great historical narrative of modernity and the memory of the world, through his exceptional destiny. His meteoric rise, his military victories, the unprecedented scale of his final defeats and his two exiles have made him a legendary figure in the history of France and Europe.
The title accompanying the engraving bears this out: The universe mourns a great man.