I've spent quite a bit of time on some of those same boards, and I can say that on each one there is a tight and very outspoken cadre of John Bulls waving the Union Jack and chanting "Death to Boney" at every opportunity. Their theme song is that there was nothing remotely useful, valuable, remarkable, or just plain old OK about Napoleon or the French. Nothing. There are usually about seven or eight of these gentlemen on each site, and to my mind, they are pretty much interchangeable.

I'm a centrist with regard to the Napoleonic era because I think there was quite a bit of good coming from that period directly from Napoleon beginning in December 1799. I also think he made some whopping errors in judgment, whether they were military, economic, or foreign policy matters. So I don't pick sides. I have engaged these Francophobes on a number of occasions, but there's only so much one can do when one slams into a brick wall, on either side of the coin.

Therefore, Kevin is entirely correct about the comparatively large numbers of folks who loathe the emperor and truly believe anything he did was Bad. And like Kevin, I'm not especially interested in scrolling through board archives to count the number of negative posts. What's the point?