the uh format for this evening is pretty simple really each of our speakers Andrew arguing that Napoleon should be called The Great and Adam arguing that he shouldn't we'll speak for about 12 minutes or so uh then we'll have a bit of Ary barie for a few minutes uh and then you'll all be free to ask any question you wish no matter how rude it may be uh and do feel free please to take part in in that part of the debate each of tonight's historians and they're both distinguished historians uh have written has written an enormous book um here we are the other way around this one is heavier uh each comes in its own parcel Force truck should you order them from Amazon uh the proposition we G to discuss is Andrew's claim that Napoleon should be called great there is no question mark in his assessment on the spine of this book it's just Napoleon the Great by Andrew Roberts now Andrew as you know is a very distinguished historian who has made the business of Napoleon and what Napoleon got up to one of his main interests in life he is the keep in many ways of the Napoleonic flame his books include Napoleon and bonapart Napoleon and Wellington sorry an investigation into the relationship between the two generals waterl Napoleon's last Gamble and his latest Napoleon the great is also going to be the subject of a TV series which starts on the BBC next year isn't it next year yes as I say he's going to have 12 minutes or so to lay out his case now it's often struck me that bre was pretty right when he said happy is the land that has no need of Heroes and I was trying to think of anyone in British history who is called the great and I could only think of Alfred and I only know him as great because of his baking achievements rather in the spirit of the times I suppose but why Andrew is going to make the case that Napoleon should be called great when I Googled what did Napoleon do for France the other day I learned that he took the country to war had the country declare him Emperor nationalized anything he felt like nationalizing and introduced a secret police now we have heard of him of course we've all heard of him he used to be used to terrify children in this country he certainly won battles he was everyone agrees a brilliant General he rebuilt cities he invented a legal system he's even responsible for the street numbering system is he not that still pertains in most of this country with odd numbers on one side of the street and even numbers on the other but what is it about this man who even Andrew In This Very lengthy book which I had the pleasure of finishing this morning just in time admits was a pretty sanguinary fellow at times what is it about him that makes him so great so Andrew tell us why can I borrow the uh the bottom book there the bottom yeah you could learn something from it I know it's a wonderful book ladies and gentlemen it's a great honor to be invited to address you and to answer Jeremy's question the central point about Napoleon is the way in which he saved France and to understand the dangers that uh he overcame in the course of this I'd like to quote from a extremely good book a phantom Terror written by Adam zi um and what Adam writes on page 77 quite rightly is when he became first Consul and effective dictator of France in 1799 Napoleon had been faced by IND describable chaos resulting from 10 years of Revolution and counterrevolution in sign political struggle random political Terror class war and open Civil War in some parts of the country the authority of the state had been undermined by the rapid succession of governments Each of which overturned the legitimacy of its predecessor the law had been turned into a tool by rival political factions and Justice had been politicized uh Napoleon may have been a product of of the Enlightenment and what conservatives saw as its depraved values but he was a pragmatist if he did not believe in divine right he certainly had no time for jacobine ideology Illuminati or dreamers of any kind he believed in order and he knew how to impose it so what did he do with this order well the first thing as uh as Jeremy pointed out was the code Napoleon he ripped up the 42 often contradictory legal systems that had so held France back and instead had one single code which was from then on been able to uh to basically make France into a modern State and it's been adopted by 40 countries of the world in every inhabited continent he also created the glories of Paris when you go on a romantic weekend to uh to Paris you will walk along the keys that were built by Napoleon the great you will cross one of the Four Bridges uh built by Napoleon the great you will see the vondom column in the pl vondom or the arct the trium carousel in the Lou it is partly because of him that it is such a glorious and beautiful city today he built also the the useful things like the reservoirs and the uh and the sewers he was a true creator he created the bank de France which is the uh still around and of course at the time was the reason that he was able to get inflation down from 10,000% a year to 6% a year he was the man who ended the war in the Von day this incredibly vicious war that had claimed 40,000 lives more than were guillotined in the terror and he ended that uh that war he's the man Napoleon the great who is behind the system of prefects in departments there were Departments of course before but he managed to centralize that system with the prefects which again we have today he set up the con deta um which meets every Wednesday today um in in uh able to to vet the laws of France he managed also to organize the first proper public accounting system and he also reformed the tax code he did the things that you need to do in order to make a country work he set up ladies and gentlemen the Leon Don which is still quite rightly coveted by Frenchmen and he also signed the concordat which brought to anend end the uh horrific system of uh of discrimination against Christians in the French Revolution which had led to the desecration of the altars and the deaths of hundreds of nuns and priests so when his mother Madame mayor was asked about Napoleon about Napoleon's achievements and she said so long as they last she was right in a sense or at least so long since she last they she wasn't to know that they have lasted they have lasted 200 years and uh they alone quite apart from anything to do with fighting or conquests or Wars or battles um mean that when you vote this evening uh you should vote um you should vote Yes they seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person he said in 1804 after an assassination attempt of him one on one of 30 assassination attempts uh that he survived um uh I will defend it for I am the revolution and this was right what he did was to save the best bits of the Revolution uh equality before the law religious toleration uh the abolition of feudalism and he got rid of the he just Swept Away the worst Parts the um the 10day calendar The Cult of the Supreme Being the um and the terror the uh the mass guillotining and in a sense one can understand why uh he felt that it was necessary to do all of this and why also the British and indeed the old legitimists uh the Onan regime old reactionary Powers desperately wanted to get rid of him and uh it was Spencer persal the British prime minister who wrote in a book entitled caty title this uh the observations intended to point out the application of a prophecy in the 11th book of David to the French power um you wouldn't allow Publishers wouldn't allow you get away with that uh as a title any longer um and this book um this book said that the Bible foretold the death of Napoleon and that the world would end in 1926 uh when finally Spencer Bal was assassinated by somebody even more deranged than him uh in 1812 his mantle as prime minister was taken out by Lord Liverpool who was also completely committed to the destruction of Napoleon and it was important of course to create this bogeyman figure that Jeremy say was used quite rightly was used to scare children but the fact is 200 years later we can now appreciate that that he was a great man not somebody that needed to be um used for uh for for propaganda he also was a man with a great sense of humor which you don't get in in Monsters he was uh when at the Opera an escape lunatic from a lunatic asylum came up and told him that uh he was in love with the empress uh Napoleon replied you seem to have chosen a curious person for your Confidant uh and when the Archbishop deran um wrote him a letter on the eve of the coronation saying that he would willingly give his life for Napoleon uh Napoleon noted on the uh on the letter pay 12,000 Franks to the Archbishop out of the theatrical fund and then when all his uh brothers and sisters were trying to um were were were arguing and complaining about the various principalities and and uh countries that they've been assigned in the Napoleon Napoleonic Empire um Napoleon Shrugged and said you'd have thought that I'd been misappropriating the legacy of our late father the king he wasn't a warmonger there were seven wars that were um seven wars of the Coalition that were uh declared against him and he did attack uh both um uh Spain and Portugal in 1807 and 1808 and of course Russia in 1812 two Wars that he started against the seven that were declared against revolutionary in Napoleonic France if you're looking for an inveterate warmonger you have to go back to the British who were funding all of those seven coalitions to a huge uh to a huge degree and rightly so he wanted to invade us we you know I'm I'm delighted that the British won the Battle of waloo as an Englishman it set up the British British Empire very nicely after 1815 but it doesn't mean that we still have to be inth to the old propaganda of the um of the cartoonists the caricaturists like Thomas rolinson and James gilray and George krook shank that make out this uh this man to be a monster what's more he didn't have a Napoleon complex this idea that there was a hubristic concept where he had to go around invading uh countries is completely absurd the way in which we try to fit his career into hubris versus Nemesis this old uh ancient Greek drama dramatic um conceit just simply doesn't work the reason he invaded Russia in 18122 was because he had beaten the Russians twice before he' fought in blizzards before he had the largest army in the history of the world it was the same size as the whole population of Paris twice the size of the Russians he had no intention of going to Moscow he wanted to fight within 20 days along the borders of Russia uh he had no idea that typhus was going to kill 140,000 of his men he had no idea that the Russians were going to fight such a scorched Earth policy that they would allow they would actually burn down Moscow or at least three quarters of it so uh and he tried to stop several times on the way to Moscow as I say he had no intention of going there when he started that war and he did know about the winter um which is why he allowed himself 3 weeks to get back to smallin he made a terrible mistake after the battle of malaro slavit um but the idea that he had no concept of the Russian winter is absurd he'd read Charles the 12th the book by voler and knew perfectly well that it did so it's not he's not a matter of hus he was defeated but plenty of people have been defeated in history and are still great Peter the Great Lost the aov campaign um Frederick the great lost the battle of Colin Katherine the Great Lost the war against Sweden uh Alfred the Great Lost so many battles he spent most of his time in the uh in the marshes of athl but it doesn't stop them from being great and neither should it stop Napoleon he was a great meritocrat 10 of his uh Marshals came from the working classes a fact totally unknown in the history of France up until then they were the sons of Coopers and Tanners and BFFs and inke Keepers and Millers uh one of them actually um claimed to have had a royal claimed that his father had had a royal appointment but the Royal appointment was in fact the Royal molecatcher uh so in a sense you could actually add him as well and make uh make 11 of the marshals Winston Churchill said that Napoleon was the greatest man of action since Julius Caesar and I believe he's also his life is a standing rebuke to people who don't believe in the uh great man theory of history and who think that history is all created like the marxists do by vast impersonal forces standing against that ladies and gentlemen is the career and life of Napoleon and um one of the midshipman on HMS bapan which uh that Napoleon surrendered to and uh was taken back to uh to Plymouth on in said he showed us what one little human creature like ourselves can accomplish in a span so short and that ladies and gentlemen is so true and one of the major reasons why tonight you should vote yes thank you very much [Applause] indeed [Applause] you well now to make the case that there is no argument for calling Napoleon great we have another distinguished historian Adam zisi his book books include the bestselling epic about Napoleon's biggest blunder although apparently according to Andrew just now he couldn't really help himself uh 1812 Napoleon's fatal march on Moscow and its sequel rights of Passage he's also written the fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna his latest book is Phantom Terror the threat of revolution in the repression of Liberty 1789 to 1848 Adam is as you will deduce from this about as much of a fan of Napoleon as Nigel farage is of David Cameron so uh Adam give us the feat of Cl in fact give us the whole corpse really thank you well first of all I must thank you for this opportunity to lose my virginity at my grand old age um and then many thanks to intelligence Squad um and and to Jeremy for sharing this um this is uh indeed an impressive book Thank you for quoting from my book um although it's slightly out of context this my words weren't meant as an approval um this book is absolutely marvelous I picked it up Andrew very kindly sent me a copy I picked it up and I opened it and I said to myself go he's got a nerve putting the author photograph on the end papers until I until I suddenly realized that it was was in Napoleon I then turned to the title page and I read Andrew Roberts in big capitals and I thought oh who's this book about and underneath it said neodon the great ladies and gentlemen it is a very good book I recommend it it's a rattling good read um made all the more enjoyable if as you read about Napoleon strutting the European stage and making making a rightful Nuance to himself you superimpose on your mental image of him Andrew's [Applause] face seriously um Napoleon should have been called the great history gave him several unique opportunities to reinvigorate his country to restore its prosperity and influence to make it the dominant power on the continent and to make most of Europe a better place instead of which he messed up he succeeded in ruining France's position in Europe for several decades if not in the entire 19th century he hugely built up the power of her greatest enemy Great Britain and he provoked a great increase rise in the power of both Russia and Prussia both of which inflicted both of which resulted in very unfavorable uh consequences for Europe and indeed France Andrew says he was a great man of action so does Churchill apparently and this is always what we hear of him the doer the achiever well one could go on about this but um since the subject of virginity came up funny enough in um 1787 um the 18-year-old young officer Napoleon decided it was time he lost his so he sauntered off to the red light district of Paris the P Royale and picked up a tart and took her home and um did his business the next morning being the person he was he wrote the whole episode up and we have this now the most interesting thing about this account is that it transpires that he had attempted three times before to pick up Tarts now excuse me if a young officer can't pick up a tart I mean I don't see that as some Mark of the great achiever in 1793 he went off to Corsica to bring the revolution to his native Island he made such a holix of it that the entire family had to get on board a French ship and be evacuated while their family house was sacked by the angry populace um at the moment at The crucial moment of the K of which was to bring him to power he completely mocked up he barged into the Assembly of the oan um trumpeting ludicrous phrases about the God of Fortune and the God of War March behind me everybody laughed him out and he had to retreat Retreat out of the door under a hail of abuse um only rescued by a couple of grenadiers he then marched into the other assembly where he was beaten up and injected and he sat around in a state of total dejection not knowing what to do next and it was only because his younger brother lucier took the upper hand and sent in the troops that anything came of it one could quote endless um cock-ups of this kind um in his life now he's usually also thought of as the great military genius well yeah he did win a few battles but when you take a close look at the great the famous ones you know moringo everybody says fantastic well he Jolly nearly lost that and the reason the only reason he won it was because the Austrian General thought he'd already won it and went home to have lunch and at that moment Napoleon's reinforcements arrived and a completely un planned charge by um General Kellerman totally flamu the aans who all started running um the other great victory at arala was a complete nonsense I mean he never got on the bridge well there are two accounts one says he never got on the bridge the other one says he got on the bridge but fell off it into the into the bog below um the reason these um victories were um perceived as being so great was because he shamelessly wrote them up as such lying through his teeth uh about numbers and um results he was the most fantastic spin doctor um you know even even AIT his greatest Victory well you know it's partly the fact that kusov his opponent refused to adopt his own plan and just sat there saying it's all going to be a mess anyway and nothing's going to work um so the Russian forces weren't even being properly directed and he originally was helped by the fact that he he was up against very old generals commanding armies of an 18th century type which just sort of ploted along stood in line short and then waited you know either to advance or Retreat whereas he adopted tactics he encircled them and so on the point is that they all gradually leared from him and from their mistakes he never learned from his mistakes he carried on the same old tactics um with less energy as he grew older they learned to improve to bring in new Weaponry uh the British famously brought in the rifle uh the Russians brought in extraordinary aiming devices um to their artillery he did nothing he carried on with the old equipment um of the 18th century and just thrw more men into the breach whenever he needed it he got sloppy and that's why he began to lose and he didn't think um that tactics that could work in rich countries like Northern Italy or Southern Germany couldn't work in Spain where there was no fodder no forage no food no water anything or let alone Russia and he therefore presided over well the greatest military disaster rarely of of History which is the Russian campaign he went to war without any War aims his War aim if you put it down to this was you could liken he really wanted he he set off to war with the greatest army anybody's ever collected in Europe in order to try and persuade the other guy to become his ally you know it's a bit like um thinking you're going to get your girlfriend back by going burning down her house and beating her up um he went in with no war aims he completely ignored par Andrew the climate kept teasing kakur who'd spent three years out in Russia saying H kangur is trying to scare us with the Russian winter it's perfectly nice look at it he was saying in in in in October um he took no account of that he wouldn't take the advice of people who told him to shoe his horses um he presided over the greatest military cups in history not least waterl which he should have won and I mean almost everything he did that day which Andrew Andrew himself points out um was as though he'd meant to lose it his diplomacy his politics International politics were no better at first he began he followed the Revolutionary um theme of exporting the revolution he then decided to turn to to a more um conventional role and he followed the traditional French World the patent set by Lou the 14 of the f p defam whereby they put boror on the Thrones of Spain and Naples thereby guaranteeing themselves allies so he put his brothers on Thrones except instead of letting them become popular in those countries bring those countries to a state of prosperity and um efficiency from which they could have helped France he continually undermined them um pulled resources out and turn succeeded in turning all those um States into either useless burdens such as Spain or um states which came out against him such as Naples under mua in the end um every single Alliance he made he laid down terms ter which were simply not bearable to the Ally and he just bullied and treated the Allies as vassals as a result gradually he was left with not one single Ally anywhere which is not really a very clever way of operating as for his great achievements in France the Cod Napoleon wasn't written by him it was written by comares and a group of other people Napoleon's only contribution he'd suddenly come in and and offer sort of what he thought was common sense when they were trying to decide whether which of a pair of twins should be regarded as the first born he said well it's obvious isn't it um what went in first comes out second so the second child out it's got to be the first born good corsan philosophy no doubt but you know that was his contribution to the C Napoleon um yes He restored Law and Order only then to break it in the most fantasticly callous way to trample law yes there was equality before the law but not if he didn't like you if he didn't like you it was worse than the oan regime let the C you sent off um to vanen or or or or Guana or or or simply exiled he uh he was a terrible awful prude and a PRI and he brought this into his awful little small town morality into public life you know some official would be seen somewhere with his mistress publicly he'd say this is not possible you can't be seen like that he repudiated when Josephine became when he became first Consul he he made her give up all her friends who had a a bit of a past you know nice girls that she'd be what she had quite a past and so all her friends were gone on um he was continually sort of um bringing this this this um culture in and at the same time he in order to gain influence and friends and to reward people he would give money and position he was always bribing people you know somebody' come along and say give him some money give him a position make him a prefere or something and what he introduced into French public life was a tremendous sense of um everything was based on property on money and service to the state but all to do based on money and um and loyalty to him and any Minister who suggests did um a course of action he didn't agree with would be immediately made to feel his displeasure and very often lose his job for it not even for contradicting him simply saying when asked his advice what would you do you know and he'd say I would would do this sire and if he didn't like the idea this man was out finally the man well he didn't rarely have friends he only had cultures yes he cried when Lan was killed he cried when Duro was killed but he um he didn't really treat any of them as friends he treated them extremely badly he would berate senior officers even Marshals in front of juniors in the most disgusting way and he was always always persecuting um people he didn't like for instance he was a racist he didn't like black so General jumar a very very brave General was sidelined and wasn't allowed to have the leion on because you couldn't give it to a black um he hated women having any influence at all and treated them like dir he was his his uh persecutions of people like Madame Dy were legendary for well she wasn't allowed to live in Paris because people went to her salon and they talked and he didn't like them talking CU they might talk about him unfavorably so she was exiled endlessly exiled and if anybody went to see her even when met Madame ramier passing through Switzerland went to dropped in on her she was then penalized and told she had to move out of Paris um unbelievably unpleasant poor old General kulaku the grand e was forced to go as ambassador to Russia which he didn't want to do he was forced to by an opponent who said okay if you go and spend two years there as my Ambassador I will allow you because of course he wouldn't allow anybody to marry anybody he he had to give his ascent and he said I will allow you to marry your mistress the woman you love Madame de canesi after three years kakor came back and Napoleon exiled Madame de cani from Paris so they couldn't see each other only because kakur kept warning him about the fact that it was not a good idea to invade Russia Napoleon the great ladies and gentlemen not to me Napoleon the bungler Napoleon the bully and Napoleon the unbelievably Petty thank you very much well thank you very much uh Adam I've got some bad news for you though the preliminary vote the vote that people cast before they'd be exposed to your argument was for the proposition that he should be called the Great 49% against it 24% but 27% not knowing so perhaps you'll have persuaded them but we'll see congratulations Andrew an uninformed audience um well un unexposed to your view anyway no and sorry sorry sorry and also your view because in your 2011 book Empire you call Napoleon a despot he was a despot no he was not a despot tell this is the moderator ladies and gentlemen can you just remind us how he was elected well actually he he had three great uh referendum pbits that were slightly uh fraudulently manipulated but they were manipulated he actually won by we have the actual uh the proper voting for uh figures in the National Archives the great thing is that um he won about 80% but claimed 95% now that is obviously outrageous and disgraceful and Despicable but he still won 80% of those who dared to vote does the word coup mean anything to you yes yeah yes it certainly does he as you admit in your book he and he came and yes of course he came to power in a in a military coup and thank God he did because look at all the wonderful things he did for France whereas if you try to change the French constitution in hang on please in um in uh 1799 it would take three years it had to go through both houses of Parliament and be past three years three times so you actually had to have and then have a pleit so you actually took nine years to change the Constitution is not absolutely not what it is is an argument for having somebody who is able to cut through all that red tape and actually get things done Adam is there nothing you admire about this man oh no I I was I was brought up rather admiring him and I always thought um you know there was something very sort of Dashing about him the more one very short to dash really wasn't he no well no when he was young he was sort of quite sexy in a way but you know um he wasn't a short ass no he was not a short ass he was 5' taller than you he was exactly my height I when when I was making this BBC TV series I I actually when nobody was looking in in the room in which he died I lay on his deathbed um and uh and my feet just touched the end of the of the bed he's exactly the same height then people the reason people think that he's tiny is because of all those caricaturists um who constantly made him minute against huge John bull figures and George the thir figures he was he was the exact average age for Frenchman of his no people were always remarking that he was of small stat only tall people and he was very [Laughter] puny okay apart from his stature is there anything you admire about him um he did he did he could he was capable of Acts of generosity he did do some very um you know he he he did want win some extraordinary battles he did do some things but you know genus great you know no he wasn't a military genius military genius he rubbish at sea but he was no yeah military genius doesn't take half a million men off into the middle of nowhere and get them all slaughtered Massac or di of disease and and then bring himself down you know you may not mean to do something but if a gen you're a genius you um you make sure that you know what you're doing before you set off he got look he got defeated that's that it doesn't stop you as I mentioned earlier all these other people who got who were still called the Great who got defeated but he w 46 of his 60 battles and that is an astonishing achievement in for anyone uh yes of course the ones that really mattered the ones at the end the Battle of watero he lost and he was and he deserved to lose as I me as I say in the book he that was a series of of blunders the really important ones he didn't win and that's the trouble he he no and by the way by the way when you criticize Morango um that is completely outrageous when you say and then reinforcements happen to arrive who asks for the reinforcements you know he did he went from that moment that he realized the attack the Austrian attack was taking place at 9:30 in the morning he sent out the demands to uh Desi to return to the battle and they did it at the key and decisive moment so it's not fair really to uh to slag offs 46 victories and make such a fuss of seven defeats how many deaths do you think he should have on his conscience all of the ones in in Russia that's half a million which is half a million but not but not the 3 and a half million that died in Napoleonic Wars in wars that were declared on him or his allies a half million compared to the SE the yeah a seventh of the number of people who di there's also a small detail of the hundreds of thousands of Civilian deaths as a result of the Russian campaign um and indeed of Civilian deaths in in in France as a result of the oh speaking of the um the battles in France when you say that he I think I've got the exact quote um um now you say that um that as he got as he got on and as he got slower he got worse and worse and worse what about the four victories in 5 days in the 1814 campaign that was one of the great campaigns in history it's as good as anything he did in Italy 20 years earlier he was not getting worse he was just getting fewer soldiers he had 70,000 against 350,000 he was just getting sloppy and lazy had the more soldiers than anybody had' ever had in Russia look what a Messi made I'm talking about the 1814 campaign you've got to admit that that was one of the very few soldiers he actually W up and did something for but it was a bit late and also you know the military genius he he he left all those garrisons sitting sitting in in in Poland and and Prussia um and you know when he started the 1813 campaign he said I've got 400,000 men except 200 of them were sitting in fortresses from Danzig down to zos which he believed he was going to be able to relieve the uh the after the battle of Dresden in 1813 he had every chance of of relieving those men and then he'd have had an extra 200,000 and what would he have been able to he had every chance but he didn't have a chance no because he no because he lost the battle of leig if you look one of his seven defeats you know oh dear what a shame never mind we good idea not to fight them then well so when let's let's go through that so not to fight them all0 what but they they're fought they're fought get if he's invaded or his allies invaded as in the war of the third Coalition in 1805 what's he supposed to do just sit back and allow that to happen of course not he was not you see despot Menace you know this is the moderator he was he was so not a menace to anyone he never went to water with anyone between 1800 and 1805 throughout the entire consulate he first consulate he did not go to war with anyone and what happened the austrians invaded and attacked Bavaria his ally because he was a menace because he was at because he was taking over Spain and Italy and and and dominating half of Europe and ruining everybody with his wretched blockade people were you know people who started the blockade the British with the orders in Council that also the protectionism that ultimately did bring him down but he didn't have to do Tit for Tat you don't always have to because you know you fight a protectionist war by just by just um allowing them to put um tariffs on your business and then you do nothing to their trade whatsoever come on when that ever happen Okay let's look at something Beyond military though yes you would accept wouldn't you that this man's Legacy in terms of science in terms of urban planning in terms of the law these this is significant in terms of um science uh I think it had very little to do with him it was it was the legacy of the Revolution he promoted it yeah he promoted it whoever would have been ruling France would have promoted it it wasn't you know it was a movement that had started the re I don't think the would have gone anywhere um the the uh revolution had Unleashed such talent and such energy that that was one thing as for the law all it created was the bossiest most awful control freak system of government which which we in in this in Europe are now sort of fighting with at every um you know he created something that generates bureaucracy and regulation um fantastic he's now to blame for the European Union which wasn't set up until 100 years after he died you just been saying Europe has embraced his I can we go back to S and Science and uh and the the the fact is that he was the one who set up the great scientific prizes he was the one who uh for the first time in French history gave scientists made scientists into into important people in society gave them pures you know the first scientist that we ever made appear in this country Lord Kelvin in 1896 the first artist who ever got a peage uh was Lord Leighton in 1892 the first poet who he he he made these Great Men uh into great men and the first poet in this country was Tennyson in 1884 that is ridiculous it's because it's a way of thanking people they oh by the way he brought in life Pages which we didn't do in this country till 1958 that's is it yes it's a it's a way of well what you prefer the hereditary version that we had in this country at the time are Democrats you know the point is that he Unleashed so much human potential through his belief in meritocracy that he is definitely worth what it's astonishing this debate is taking place he of course he of course is uh deserves the title The Great some of the arguments are certainly astonishing he was you would have found him absolutely go you know what he used to do his his idea of um thinking it was a nice thing to do he'd take somebody and pinch their ear or their nose or their cheeks until blood ran and that was you know it's like giving somebody a friendly Pat and they were all standing there with tears pouring down their face with running down terrified because you know if they said look look matey don't do this please they might find themselves um you know they'd be losing their jobs or be sent sent off to toil I mean absolutely not what happened not what happened when he used to tug people's ears and squeeze their noses they and we we have so many in so many in so many different in so many yes there are there are accounts and there and one of them is in my book where the guy comes away and shows his his men after the parade he goes look the emperor this is what the emperor did to me I know he loves me he knows me he was never blood show me a place where culture of Si of fancy that is quite disgusting not in the STIs no they no he was a genuinely charismatic figure and they and they quite l Al adored working with him his friends when you said he didn't have friends what an outrageous remark to me you didn't you didn't make you didn't mention uh besser you didn't mention Desai he had plenty of people who was able to to um to be friendly with the drawback was of course that they all died in battle all four of them um died in uh in battle and so yeah as his life went on he had few and few friends but it doesn't mean that he was incapable of the concept of friendship what about his incompetence with women well um he himself claimed to have had six or seven Mistresses I've named 22 uh in that so if that's incompetence hey right yes I mean they weren't Mistresses 22 I mean there were girls he's left with because he'd come along say come along I'm Emperor you know and he'd give them one but I mean you know that's not exactly a mistress yeah he was he was much loved by um by two um very stupid woman women um Mario Louise his second wife and um and Mar VV is his and Josephine wasn't the brain of Britain really love him she yeah no that's true she didn't really love him it's a much more complex story than the kind of Romeo and Juliet um love story that is much more complex and much more interesting and much more human in my view as well right let's have um let's have some contributions from the floor if you if you'd like to ask either of our uh speakers a question or two please feel free to do so or if you want to direct your question to both of them then then do so so um let's have a show of hands who'd like to get get yes down here in this this block over here please CH chap in the white shirt with his hand up and then should we have somebody over here anyone over here want to ask a question there somebody there he's just pointing no this chap there's a chap here with his hand up holding a program so you go first sir I just wondered how um Andrew would argue away the uh 3,000 prisoners he had executed in the Middle East I which was which was considered a war crime even in those days and we'll take the other one here as well yeah how he got to to stage one where was he born how did he get to be the general that he was or could we have some background on that well I think there's a probably have you got one up there should we have a a third one while we're at it and then we'll my question is for for Adam in particular Adam to what extent was Napoleon bertier's glove puppet okay let's start off with you Andrew uh you better give us a bit bit of backstory to start with perhaps on his childhood all right yes uh well born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica he came from that interesting penumbra between the upper middle class and the lower upper class he was like a sort of Highland Clan Chief family but they didn't have any money um they were officially Noble but um but they had to actually get that uh confirmed he went to school in Mainland France because his father had confirmed him as Noble and had a fantastic education at Brienne um Military Academy and then at the the um Echo military in Paris and then after that he he followed the career of an army officer whilst also at the same time getting involved in Coran politics which as Adam quite rightly pointed out he was very bad at and uh they got the the whole family got chased off the island in 1793 what Adam didn't mention also happened in 1793 a few months later was that he commanded the uh artillery at the siege of tulong and in a brilliant um uh immediate appu as soon as he went up to the uh to the top of the eaglet above the of the uh Heights of tulong he saw how if you captured a particular battery you were able to force the British out of the uh Harbor which he managed to do Adam you take your question now gentle it's it's difficult to tell I mean Napoleon all the ideas came from Napoleon bet did put order in things and he he was the the Workhorse I'd say of the entire um military machine but I don't think um as far as I'm concerned I've never had seen any evidence of Bertier taking or even suggesting major um strategic uh initiatives so I don't think that he was um that is GL puppet I'd say that certainly not um on on this question of the origins um Napoleon was of course famously insecure about the whole business because the reason he was allowed to to to to go to um got the placement at a French military school um was because his father became extremely close with the French governor of Corsica um the cour of Marb um who and basically stuffed um Napoleon's mother into Mar's bed um and absolutely no evidence for that huge amounts of evidence there is not and and the proof of which Andrew is as you should know Napoleon himself several times said to people that he didn't know whether he was his father's son or M's no he did not say that he did say that to some people he said it to not least he was and so um he he was quite insecure about that um and it the other thing was that he started off with this great romantic idea of Corsica as an oppressed nation which he longed to sort of liberate um uh first as a sort of left tenant of of the corsan Patriots pral pares and then to sort of take over and then when that didn't work then he decided that Corso was become part of France and he he while he was still at school he kept saying I'm corsan I'm corsan I hate France and when he suddenly realized that power lay in France and that was where the future was he became French and that's that's really he he then identified himself with the French State the French Revolutionary State it's not when he um actually thought that that's where the power lay it was when he' done his reading and understood the importance of France the Enlightenment and his own belief in Enlightenment Concepts and reading of Russo that he came intellectually over to appreciate that he had that that cors was a um a uh of course he believed in but was not as important as The Wider picture Andrew do you want to deal with this question of his war crimes yes yes very much I I mean I I I rather fear that some people might mistake the idea that this book is a hagiography that doesn't uh ever criticize him he W of course it does and the worst thing he did was to um order the massacre of 3,000 prisoners of war after the battle of Jaffa in March of uh of 1799 um these guys had surrendered to him uh earlier in the campaign in um uh when they were captured at Lish in what is now the Gaza STP and he um and and they gave their promise their perole not to fight again and then they did and were captured now of course morally it was a monstrous thing to do but I would take issue with the gentleman who said that it um it counts as a war crime because under the actual terms of Middle Eastern Conflict at that time if you give your parole and then break it your life is forfeit it was the wrong thing to do it was a terrible thing to do it's a monstrous um you know moral crime and uh and he was a ruthless man but that doesn't mean any more than the things that Peter the Great or Katherine the Great or Frederick the great did that he should be um stripped of the title he deserves I'm I'm bit um worried by this some comparison with Katherine the Great and Frederick the great the only reason they were called great was because they paid all those lick spial journalists like voler who flattered them um and you know this you know I don't think it's it's really relevant to bring those people in um but I will here add also the French um under Napoleon did treat their prison as a war far better than the British did right there's um let's have you you gentlemen there with your hand up and anybody else over here want to have a go yes yes let's give it to the lady with the glasses there and about the fifth row back please yes go ahead could I please ask both speakers what was uh Napoleon's primary political objective we've heard all sorts of things about all sorts of his achievements or otherwise but what was his primary polit political objective okay and we'll take that and we'll take the the lady over there didn't uh the abolition of primogeniture by the code Napoleon result in a far lower birth rate in France which subsequently caused problems with their Wars with Prussia and Germany right then should we have one more while we're at it yes let's have one over here uh could you just give the microphone to the chat oh we'll come back to you sorry to the chat with his hand up there well done you're passing it along to him now there we are to both of you militarily who would you consider Napoleon's finest Marshall right that's three things to disc discuss uh what was his primary objective do you think Andrew I think his primary objective was a well obviously um French of Germany in Western Europe he was never he was never attempting to rule the world he was never attempting to rule all of Europe either but he did want to ensure that uh he was not going to be in any kind of um of uh military or strategic Danger from Austria Prussia or Russia um I think that he also wanted to put the most key um parts of the of the Enlightenment into as many countries as he was able to and Adam was absolutely right that the uh that the the brothers of his were pretty uniformly useless as uh as kings but the reason was not that he bullied them so uh so much was because it was con there were constant Wars they were Wars that were as I mentioned uh started by the legitimist and oan regime Powers not Wars that he wanted what do you think his primary objective was um I don't think he knew that well himself I think he meant well to begin with and he meant he wanted order and he he he wanted he wanted to act he wanted I think to um to to to rule and control and I think there was an element of The Sorcerer's Apprentice about the whole Enterprise that you know he he would um embark on one thing and then it would lead to another and then he would and this is I think his greatest fault is that he lost sight of what he was doing a lot of the time and you know by you know 18101 um he's annexing you know he says oh I'll have oldenberg as well and yeah let's get Hanover in here you know part of the French Empire yeah and let's bring in Tuscany and you know he didn't stop to think what is my aim and like going into Russia he had no war aim he didn't know what he was he didn't prepare for you know if you're going to go and try and do something about Russia you say right you tell the Turks who are currently at war with Russia that you will that they should carry on fighting and say you'll help them you tell the swedes who have just had Finland taken off them by Russia you say look we'll help you you know you fight there and we'll help you take Finland back no he just sort of barged in Happily without thinking of the consequences and you know and that was the trouble it sort of went on and on and it it became a great sort roller poster and I think I don't think he ever had a real um objective um and uh certainly not a not a finite one or a or a a completely um you know it certainly wasn't thought out and and I don't you know I don't believe he sort of started out saying I want to rule the world or I want to trample everybody Under Foot that wasn't it um he wanted to make his way in life they all did these this these poor corsicans they were terribly keen on money making you know a future for themselves creating an establishment um but you know so there was a personal um thing but the political Drive was was rarely to restore order and then things began to evolve um and and you know the way that I'm I'm sure that in 1799 it never entered his mind to become emperor or anything but that suddenly became the obvious thing to do and there was a horrible logic to it as there as there often is Adam who do you think was his finest Marshall I would say probably davu um and what do you think Andrew undoubtly davu right and do you want to deal with this question of the abolition you've agreed on something probably by mistake damn I still not agree you on anything it's too easy um what about the abolition of primogeniture um well obviously if the code Napoleon um had nothing to do with Napoleon it can't be blamed on him um but but Adam is wrong about that that he pres he presided over uh well over half of the meetings that set up the code Napoleon and when I say presided he had something to say about absolutely everything and he also provided most importantly Adam's absolutely right when he says that casseres was the um was the intellectual force behind it but casseres had been trying to get a code a revision of the legal code into French law since um the French Revolution broke out and nothing had happened for 15 years what it needed 10 years sorry what it needed 15 by the time it got through was a driving political force willing to cut the guardian knot and that's what Napoleon was now with the question of primogenitor uh which he himself of course had his family had benefited from um because that was the only way that they managed to keep their States together in uh in um in Corsica um yes I think it's a uh I think it's a a very bad idea I've always been against primogenitor I'm the eldest um brother and uh my younger brother who's in the audience here is is is shaking his head but there we are um the uh the fact is that primogenitor is a way in Britain certainly that you kept Estates together and you um sent the youngest and poorest people uh off to the um off to the off to the wars but um I think to blame um to blame Napoleon for the um what has been blamed things that happened literally a century after his uh death um such as the the rise of German nationalism at the time of the first world war really is going too far and I think the case is uh is the same for primary genocide I wasn't talking about the rise of German nationalism in the first world war but in um 18113 well why was that such a bad thing um it's it's only when it gets nasty in 1914 that we have to be or at least 1870 that problem it was quite nasty because it was provoked in a very very nasty way way by Napoleon because he went around humiliating Germany in every conceivable way the other thing we haven't talked about I mentioned is is his appalling um uh through censorship of the most vicious kind his appalling effect on french letters he basically um shut up two generations of of of French literature we are wildly um wildly hypocritical about this the Lord Chancellor had the right and exercised the right to um to censor theatrical Productions in this country until 1968 he did it against Arthur Miller's plays pinder's play well pretty much all the anti-government newspapers and fact 60 newspapers yeah and how much how much genuine it's wartime how much genuine um uh freedom of the press was there in this country in the second world war when Winston Churchill said that um the truth needs to be protected by a bodyguard of Lies he understood exactly what Napoleon was trying to do Andrew it wasn't a question of it wasn't a question of political things you know Madame D wrote a book about German literature you know it had to be confiscated and burned the manuscript was pursued by the police I mean the the way in which you're treating him like he's a madame daal uh was was sent into internal Exile it is hardly a police state when you have one policeman in for every 1,510 Frenchmen in Britain today we have one policeman for every 450 Britain does that make us a police state no no I didn't think internal Exile is a characteristic where police state isn't it Jolly sight better than than being put in prison at least he was able to live in her vast and beautiful mansion on the Lake Geneva the lake C imprison oh fewer no no no no that's not that's not the case the Onan regime and the French Revolution imprisoned more people than Napoleon right let's have some more questions yes I'm sorry I should took the microphone away from you in one two three the fourth row back the lady in with the black hair in black and and and then you can give it to you had your hand up in front just in front of you and let's have let's have a question right at the back there um you put your hand down now no you yes you you waving your arm around with in what color is your shirt blue blue the man in the blue shirt underneath the he ha put a new song in my mouth even praise unto the Lord right and there's there something feeled okay have we got another microphone we can send over there in a second yes we can right you go first then please thank you may I ask both historians as historians is it right that we should judge Napoleon or indeed anyone from the past by today's standards I mean how do we how should we set this debate because it strikes me that the things that have been listed against him sort of courtiers dis banishing people who are out of favor military casualties all the rest were very much of the time and how people behaved at that time and yet his virtues and the good things he did stand the test of time and we're really Forward Thinking and also Adam zosi who do you admire from the past following on from that question is there anyone who who's perfect enough right yes you said at the back yes you both um luckily agreed on who was um his greatest General but as a master politician and a diplomat I'd love your views on how you felt ton contributed okay and um yes go on um this is a question for Andrew um what do you think Napoleon's most likable trait was have we got a microphone over here now yes yes sir please hello hello yes yeah go on um hold up the microphone that's it speak hello yeah um thank you from Adam's description uh you wouldn't expect um Napoleon's return on Napoleon's return from elor that he would uh sufficient men uh to command a force to restore his power to do whatever the the rest of the um events that happened until his demise you also wouldn't expect um the the Journey of his body to be lined with people of France from the coast back into Paris uh apparently a continual line of uh people on both sides of the river as his barge with his body um came back to Paris and also that Wellington insisted that he wasn't executed when the I understand the other uh allies uh were very much in favor of that okay you might as well deal with that first Andrew yes um the um the return from elur there are several things first of all he wasn't greeted in southern France he had to avoid the cities until he reached grobal because he was actually um he met with hostility um thereafter it was a very mixed picture because and people were jumping both ways it was a very tricky moment and the reason it was a tricky moment was because you must remember one thing is that the bors came in and made themselves unbelievably unpopular and particularly with the Army what's more in the interim while he'd been in Elba all the prisoners had returned from Russia all the ones who'd spent the last five six sometimes eight years in British hulks returned and they were all still they they they couldn't see the they didn't see the sort of decline of France in 18121 13 and they didn't feel the same way as most of the population of France which was just sick of the rising taxes um the endless conscription um and the increasingly bossy government um and so there was there was a huge new Army ready to for him to to to to take up as for the return of his ashes in 1840 it was a propaganda Thing by then you know two generations of Romantic Poets and writers had created the Napoleonic myth which was something that is magnificent and and and completely irrelevant um to to the truth um has no bearing with it and there was a desire for something great because everybody was bored under Louis Philip um and so that explains nothing and as for um Wellington's um generosity in this case that's um you know hats off to him for it right um this lady asked me um about before before you answer that um yes do tell us in a second but I'm just before you do that that you have the opportunity to vote now if you believe that Napoleon should be called the Great you insert the thing that says for the black card into the box that's coming around and if you don't think he should be considered to be great you having torn it in half you put the white bit against and if you still can't make up your mind despite the vehs of the arguments we've heard this evening put both bits in you or you can just Mark liberal Democrat if you like um so okay so who who do you admire then Adam I admire lots of people but they none of them are called the great um and um I mean I there are things I do admire about Napoleon in the end you know you can't not but um not to the great you know I mean there are things you admire about some pretty F people and you know somebody was asking about the role of tahong tahong was the most frightful um sleazy traitor who brought down I mean he was absolutely frightful and yet I hugely admire him because of his intelligence um and you know I think that I don't I simply don't believe in wonderful great people I think you know some people do better or worse things and apparently did do some quite decent things but they're far outweighed in the historical context by um I think his his what he did longterm the fact was that he he rarely eclipsed France you know whether it was his fault whether it was unfair who attacked him it didn't matter you know he came to power in 1799 he put France back um brought back a Prestige he then bungled everything to such an extent that France was really became not quite a second rate power but was not the main player in Europe and she should have been and Europe would be would have been a far better place had she been and um he strengthened the tyrannies of the East Prussia Russia and Austria um which um created um as if you read my book you'll see um um a a sort of prison House of half of Europe um and right sorry can I can I say a few words before everyone's voted um which is that Adam's absolutely right that um that um Telly Rome was a sneaky little weasel um who uh who financially uh um bettered himself who betrayed France as you say for money most of the time but we all love him because he was witty well it's um there are plenty of people that were witty and one of the thing one of the questions was uh from the lady in the front there said what was um what were Napoleon's um nicest traits or best traits I think his sense of humor is is uh something that took me by surprise really he a Napoleon joke I've given I told you I told you three actually in the course of my uh my okay uh the the um sort of cool joke that he came out with at the Battle of um uh vagram when one of his ad Deon had his uh had his hat is his shako um shot off by cannonballs was uh which might imply that he was a small man um said uh said um yeah good job good job you're no taller um but to make jokes during a battle is amazing he actually went to sleep for 15 uh minutes uh in the middle of the battle of vagram where there are a thousand cannons on both sides going off and there extraordinary calmness and coolness uh to this man which um which took me by surprise but there 50 or 60 Napoleonic jokes uh in this book and um it's an aspect it's an aspect of him I wasn't uh I wasn't expecting Pages it's hard going isn't it not the reading of it for fortunately uh and um the very intelligent question from uh from the gentleman over there um about Elba it was quite um it's quite wrong to say that nobody welcomed him into before Grenoble um actually at lafrey he had a regiment um fling themselves on him and in um one of the other um Villages they Sorry towns I think it was Sister all they actually the common people of France just of the town anyway just pulled down the gates and smashed them up and gave him bits of the gates to show that they didn't want him to be kept out of cyon so you know it's not fair he's absolutely right when he says that the B Bourbons ruined everything and screwed everything up in 10 months but nonetheless that wasn't the only reason that people welcomed him back in 1815 what about this point that was made very early on this very interesting point about the standards by which you judge whether someone's entitled to be considered great or not are they the standards of today or the standards of the time your argue you've argued the relativism right the way through your presentation um no I believe in both I believe he was great both by the standards of the day and by the standards of today but I don't believe that um that really uh history makes that much sense if you constantly just see it through the prism of the present day and the fact is that we have seen um Napoleon wrongly through the prism of the second world war again and again he's presented especially by British historians as a kind of Proto Hitler who um was uh was a you know totalitarian monster he wasn't you have to see him through the um actual prism of the day and he would have been a fan of the European Union though wouldn't he yes ex Andrew Andrew day he was regarded as the ogre as as a sort of by the people who are fighting against him but you don't have to Subs to political propa years later at war with everybody so of course they were he had the sorry the largest attack that ever took place in the history of the Napoleonic Wars was when he had 21 states on his side going into Russia not I know what happened there but the fact is it was a bigger Coalition than any that fought against him and the by the way just at the time um in the late 1800s um in the you know around 1808 on onwards um French women used to scare their children with the idea the ogre was com going to come and eat them napolian so it wasn't just the English well obviously none of the women that made up the um 1 million people who Lin the root 1 million people you've just written off as mere propaganda I think where your was your work well it's It's Not Mere propaganda is it when uh a a something like a quarter of the whole of Paris turned turns up to see this great man in there's a great spectacle and there was a feast and they'd all forgotten it so if they were trying to scare their children why did they turn up in the streets yes because no long he was no longer a threat he was dead there was a whole lot of ashes in there and look you know look what happen and people do people are ridiculous look what happened when Stalin died everybody came out even in the dominated countries conquered countries of Eastern Europe came out and cried in the street I mean you know people do these things because it's a mass movement doesn't mean that you know they all thought he was wonderful well I don't if a million people come to my funeral I'm going to take it as a compliment you may have to wait for a long time right would you chaps like now to make a final presentation for three or four minutes about as to why people should have already voted the way you want them to vote So Adam I think you should go first really shouldn't you why he should not be considered great well I suppose I have to um I have to um since you all now voted um I have a little secret um which is I've been commissioned to write a book about Napoleon as well and I'm pretty confident that um it will be different in tone to the tone I've taken this evening um the the fact is the ch's got to eat the fact is that Napoleon was and I think this is where Andrew so totally wrong is Napoleon was a very very remarkable individual and the point about him was that he didn't come from nowhere he came out of a great ferment created by the French Revolution which itself was the fruit of the Enlightenment and when the revolution as it were hit the buffers by 1799 most intelligent people in France just realized this cannot go on and everybody wanted some kind of a different a third way they couldn't restore the the the monarchy because well you only had to look at Louis the 18th um and anyway you couldn't go back it wouldn't have worked you couldn't the Republic just wasn't going to go on so they needed something else um and it wasn't neonian who came along and said hello there's me a group of people like keres R and so on said look we've got to change the Constitution create a presidential Republic with the strong executive power to do this we need a general you always need a general um to lead the pooran guard they chose Napoleon they thought he would be a bit of an acolyte he very cleverly realized that it wasn't going to work it was just going to be a talking shop and he very quickly mused them out of the way and took over and I believe that but he kept them all of those who were prepared to collaborate he kept on board and he made went out of his way to keep a lot of those even those who didn't like him who are more leftwing than his him or more rightwing more royalist to keep them on board because I think the whole point was that the people who created Napoleon um who put him in power uh wanted it was it was a joint Enterprise and the reason that you know it's extraordinary one minute they they suddenly decide there must be a consulate for life because otherwise if he gets killed by some assassination attempt and by the way Pit's government was quite outrageous paying people to Assassin him Center um you know the whole thing would fall apart and then the consulate for Life didn't seem good enough because you needed continuity what would happen if he got killed so out came the idea of an Empire and he they didn't think of the Empire because it was grander than a monarchy than a kingship but simply they couldn't call him King because there had been the Bal and it wouldn't look right whereas the Empire and he was Emperor of the French Republic so the idea was cesarian it was they were going back this was the age of neoc classicism they were going back to Rome and this and that is why all these as he says these Cafe owners Sons were suddenly told that they were Prince of this and Duke of that and that they had to call him s and and stand while he sat and so on that's why everybody joined in this extraordinary fast in the coronation with those ious clothes and all that everybody joined in because most of soth thinking people of France said look we've got to try and make this work and uh the I think the greatest problem with Napoleon was that he did lead that ovise and he did do quite a lot to begin with that was very good and he made things happen which were going to happen anyway but couldn't happen because there wasn't a strong executive but then he actually betrayed the Enterprise and then it was me me me because anybody this is the awful thing of absolute power anybody who simply so much as declared a reservation or said well excuse me S don't you think we could do something this way or couldn't we look at it that way was immediately given the chill and they were out and to me it was a great Enterprise a joint Enterprise that went terribly terribly wrong and I think it's very sad that it did and I'm afraid the blame lies with [Applause] him right Andrew will now tell us why we should have voted for the proposition that Napoleon should be called the Great ladies and gentlemen everyone who put in one of these black little cards is following in the tradition of Gerta Hegel BOS Byron carile the great intellectuals who appreciated that he was a Bonafide intellectual a connoisseur a Critic a theorist of drama and music a man who championed science who socialized with astronomers and who impressed these great men as well as all of those of you who uh who were handed in this card he was in the enlighten ladies and gentlemen on Horseback he abolished wherever he or his armies went they abolished uh feudalism they rationalized countries they abolished the Spanish Inquisition um and uh all the all the appalling backward things that had held Europe back for so long under the legitimists and the Anan regimes of whom the spokesman it seems tonight is Count Adam zi um it's very it's wonderful news but by the way that he's writing a biography of Napoleon and I am very much looking forward to reviewing it um but when one sees the uh the the the effects of uh this great man and when they went into these towns one of the first things they do like in the Papal States classic example the Papal States they where Jews still had to wear the yellow star and where they were forced into ghos he not only um opened up the ghettos but he gave civil and religious um rights and Liberties to uh the Jews and to everyone else this is a liberating concept the idea of the Enlightenment on Horseback and for all of you who um voted um yes you can feel yourself part of one of the great liberating Enlightenment Traditions those of you who didn't of course uh are are still uh stuck in the mire of reaction legitimacy and the Onan regime thank you very much indeed [Applause] well um Andrew um Adam thank you both very much indeed uh we will await the results of this vote which I think with any luck is just on its way down to us now brilliant since you've been wasting your breath for the last couple of minutes it's at least polite to tell you what it is right well before people had heard the arguments there were 49% in favor of the proposition and 24 against and 27 didn't know after the debate there are now 56% in favor of the proposition 43 against and 1% who don't know so at least we've helped people make make up their minds even if it's come at the cost apparently I don't understand how this works apparent there's a minus 6% Swing Vote against you in favor of Adam congratulations well done oh boy it's really good fun book selling what the next bit there are a worrying number of Enlightenment people here though any anyway thank you both very much thank you very much to intelligence squ thank you all very much uh for coming uh and um until the next time and the books on sale oh there are books on sale outside here