He made Beethoven’s heart soar, then broke it. As much as the Civil Code or the Banque de France, what survives of Napoleon two centuries on is the art he provoked. (“Inspired” doesn’t do it.) There is the old tale of the Third Symphony, the Eroica, being named after him until he went and crowned himself Emperor. England’s Romantics, whether pro (Byron) or anti (Wordsworth), were no less obsessed. Even Stanley Kubrick attempted a biopic before settling down to easier subjects: the Vietnam war, the nature of free will.

It is not a woke fad, then, to contest the meaning of the man whose death’s bicentennial has divided France. Nor will I join in: that country and its former colonies are better placed to judge if he was “the Enlightenment on horseback”. All I know is that if France has derived some of its identity from embroidered facts, it is in plentiful company.

There are two reasons why I answer to the slur “globalist”, and neither is gooey idealism. The first is an absence of choice in the matter. My country of citizenship is not the same as my country of birth, which is not the same as my country of ancestry, which is not the same as my country of residence. I could substitute “continent” for “country” all four times in that sentence. Who would I be fooling if I played the jingo or the stickler for sovereignty? Even Peter Ustinov, the omnilingual actor and world-government enthusiast, could be said to have had a continent. It is easier for me to marry into South America, move to Australasia, and complete the set.