English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. John Ashton
had already set one, when an unlucky doctor prescribed some medicine to the sick man which carried him off to the other world.’9
There is an extremely forcible acrostic in Latin on his name, which deserves reproduction:—
N ationibus10 A uctoritatem P rincipibus O bedientiam L ibertatem E cclesiæ O mni modo N egans B ona U surpavit O mnium N eutrorum A urum P opulorum A nimas R evera T yrannus E xecrandus.
But not only was his name thus made a vehicle for political purposes, but the expounders of prophecy got hold of it, and found out, to their great delight, that at last they had got that theological bugbear, the Apocalyptic beast. Nothing could be clearer. It could be proved to demonstration, most simply and clearly. Every one had been in error about the Church of Rome; at last there could be no doubt about it, it was Napoleon. Take the following handbill as a sample of one out of many:—
A Prophecy
(From the 13th Chapter of Revelations) ALLUDING TO BUONAPARTE.
Verse 1st.
‘And a Beast rose out of the Sea, having ten crowns on his head,’ &c.
This Beast is supposed to mean Buonaparte, he being born in Corsica, which is an island, and having conquered ten kingdoms.
Verse 5th.
‘And a mouth was given him speaking blasphemies; and power given him upon the earth, forty and two months.’
Buonaparte was crowned in December, 1804; it is therefore supposed the extent of his assumed power upon earth will now be limited, this present month (June) 1808, being exactly the forty-second month of his reign.
Verse 16th.
‘And he caused all to receive a mark in their hands, and no one could buy or sell, save those that had the mark of the Beast.’
To persons conversant in commercial affairs, these verses need no comment. There are, at present, some of these marks to be seen in this country; they had the Crown of Italy, &c., at top, and are signed ‘Buonaparte,’ ‘Talleyrand’; and all of them are numbered.
Verse 18th.
‘Let him that hath understanding, count the number of the Beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is Six hundred, Sixty and Six.’
This verse is curious, and should be read attentively. The method of using letters for figures at the time the Revelations were written is proved by many monuments of Roman antiquity now extant.
| The Ancient Alphabet of Figures | Buonaparte’s name with the Figures | Ten Kingdoms conquered | |||
| A | 1 | N | 40 | France | |
| B | 2 | A | 1 | Prussia | |
| C | 3 | P | 60 | Austria | |
| D | 4 | O | 50 | Sardinia | |
| E | 5 | L | 20 | Naples | |
| F | 6 | E | 5 | Rome | |
| G | 7 | A | 1 | Tuscany | |
| H | 8 | N | 40 | Hungary | |
| I | 9 | Portugal | |||
| K | 10 | B | 2 | Spain | |
| L | 20 | U | 110 | ||
| M | 30 | O | 50 | ||
| N | 40 | N | 40 | ||
| O | 50 | A | 1 | ||
| P | 60 | P | 60 | ||
| Q | 70 | A | 1 | ||
| R | 80 | R | 80 | ||
| S | 90 | T | 100 | ||
| T | 100 | E | 5 | ||
| U | 110 | ___ | |||
| V | 120 | The Number of the Beast | 666 | ||
| X | 130 | ||||
| Y | 140 | ||||
| Z | 150 | ||||
| Napole | an Buon | aparte | |||
| 6 | 6 | 6 | |||
The above verses are not the only parts of the chapter which have reference to Buonaparte, but the most prominent ones; the connection throughout has been clearly ascertained.
In a curious little book called The Corsican’s Downfall, by a Royal Arch Mason, published at Mansfield in 1814, at p. 6, it says, with reference to the numeration, ‘The oldest treatise on the theory of arithmetic is comprised in the seventh, eighth, and ninth books of Euclid’s Elements, about two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. The first author of any consequence who used the modern way of computing by figures, instead of letters of the alphabet, was Jordanus of Namur,