It was the cult of Napoleon in the 19 th century, a young man's craze that went on for generations--the craze that Stendhal described in his character Julien Sorel in The Red and the Black and Victor Hugo in his character Marius in Les Miserables . In the 19 th century, intelligent people in France knew perfectly well that Napoleon had embodied the worst aspects of the French Revolution, had betrayed the revolution's democratic ideals, and had spread death and fire from Spain to Moscow.
Some intelligent people in France supported Napoleon's ideals, despite the general consensus.