Word: napoleonism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Price of Napoleon...
...they have for generations, Frenchmen hedge their bets on the future by buying up and hoarding "napoleons"*-golden 20-franc pieces. Napoleons are thus the truest reflection of a small Frenchman's faith, or lack of faith, in his government's financial stability. Last week, after a climb of 30% in the past ten months, the price of the gold napoleon stood at 3,310 francs (about $9.45), the highest since the nervous last days of the war in Indo-China. In bullion terms, this made the napoleons worth $50 per oz., v. the U.S. price...
...good are the forecasters? In recent years, even the best prophets have been caught with the seat of their pants down. As late as 1945 and 1946, most business analysts insisted that World War 11, like every other major conflict since Napoleon's day, would be followed by a depression. They failed to take into account the huge backlog of buying power behind bottled-up wartime shortages. Many of them underestimated the 1953 boom; many oversold the 1954 recession. Even in January 1955, as the U.S. hummed into an alltime record year, eight economists at a congressional hearing foresaw...
...from roller to roller, from ball to ball, from dinner to dinner, and, with each day that passes, flattens him out a little more." The genius of the Romantic movement had "lost his way" and might never have found it again if the coup d'etat of Louis Napoleon (which Hugo fought in the Assembly, then in the streets) had not caused him to flee into exile...
Hugo spent 18 years in Channel Island exile, with his wife, children, and Juliette Drouet (when their combined ages came to 125, Mme. Hugo and Mistress Drouet actually exchanged a few words, eventually became quite good friends). When Napoleon the Little fell, the "prophet of the Republic," white-haired and bursting with emotion, returned to Paris with the more-than-vague hope that the Republic would reciprocate by making him its head. That was not to be. Through the siege of Paris by the Prussians and the bloody uprising of the Commune ("Both sides are mad"), Hugo wrote and loved...