Napoleon

Early life

Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century. His maternal ancestors, the Ramolinos, descended from a noble family from Lombardy. Napoleon's parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino, lived in the Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio, where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. He had an elder brother, Joseph, and six younger siblings: Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, and Jérôme. Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte. In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione, Nabulio, Napolionne, and Napulione.

Napoleon was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France through the Treaty of Versailles. His father supported Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile to Britain, Carlo became friends with the French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf, who became his patron and a godfather to Napoleon. With Marbeuf's support, Carlo was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI, and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in mainland France.

The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time.

In January 1779, aged 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French, his mother tongues being Corsican and Italian. Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke it with a Corsican accent, and his French spelling was poor. In May he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor".

Early career

Return to Corsica

Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment. Bonaparte served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 but spent long periods of leave in Corsica, which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789 he returned to Corsica and promoted the French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence.

Bonaparte plunged into a complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and the French garrison in Ajaccio.

In February 1793 Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia. Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent, the French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers, and the island came under the control of Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that the Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland.

Siege of Toulon

Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of a coastal battery. In July 1793 he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was heavily influenced by the Jacobins.

In September, with the help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti, Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon, which was occupied by allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the allies to evacuate. The successful assault on the position on 16–17 December led to the capture of the city.

Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre, the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre, a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794 he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia.

The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794 and then advanced to seize Ormea in the mountains. From Ormea it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge. After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France.

13 Vendémiaire

After the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He was arrested on 9 August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria, and in March 1795 he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the Royal Navy.

From 1794 Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary, whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795 Bonaparte was assigned to the Army of the West, which was engaged in the War in the Vendée—a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general, and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting. During this period he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie, about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary.

In August he obtained a position with the Bureau of Topography, where he worked on military planning. On 15 September he was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in the Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III. The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post.

On 3 October royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras, a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction, knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of the forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace. Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the king's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat, to seize cannons, and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On 5 October 1795—13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican calendar—he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (described by Thomas Carlyle as "the whiff of grapeshot"). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family the patronage of the new government, the French Directory. On 26 October he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796, he was appointed head of the Army of Italy.

First Italian campaign

Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign, he knocked the Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on the Austrians, laying siege to Mantua. The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione, the Battle of Bassano, the Battle of Arcole, and the Battle of Rivoli. The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner.

The French then invaded the heartlands of the House of Habsburg. French forces in southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben, about 100 km from Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben, signed on 18 April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark.

In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards. The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during the campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures.

During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Charles-Pierre Augereau to Paris to support a coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on 4 September—the Coup of 18 Fructidor. This left Barras and his republican allies in control again, but more dependent upon Bonaparte, who finalized peace terms with Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio. Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, France's foreign minister, and took command of the Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain.

Egyptian expedition

After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan, the Sultan of Mysore, an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent.

In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Hospitaller Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with the loss of only three men.

Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks, Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids. Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale.

On 1 August 1798 the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile, preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799 he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa. The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered the garrison and some 1,500–5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days.

Ruler of France

18 Brumaire

Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By the time he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by a series of victories. The republic, however, was bankrupt, and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him.

Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of the Council of Five Hundred and Directory—Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché—to overthrow the government. On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls.

French Consulate

On 13 December, Bonaparte introduced the Constitution of the Year VIII, under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as first consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established a Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and a Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The constitution was approved by plebiscite on 7 February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that a majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution.

Historians have variously described Bonaparte's regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite", "absolutist rule decked out in the spirit of the age", and "soft despotism". Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by a combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under a promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics.

Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across the Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on 2 June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at the battle of Marengo on 14 June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised the French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under French General Louis Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon northern Italy.

When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Jean Victor Marie Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over the Austrians at the battle of Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. On 26 January 1802, following the Consulte de Lyon, Napoleon was declared president of the Italian Republic.

French Empire

In February 1804 Bonaparte's police made a series of arrests in relation to a royalist plot to kidnap or assassinate him that involved the British government, Moreau and an unnamed Bourbon prince. On the advice of his foreign minister, Talleyrand, Napoleon ordered the kidnapping of the Duke of Enghien, violating the sovereignty of Baden. The duke was quickly executed after a secret military trial, even though there was no proof he had been involved in the plot. Enghien's kidnapping and execution infuriated royalists and monarchs throughout Europe and drew a formal protest from Russia.

Following the royalist plot, Bonaparte's supporters convinced him to convert the Consulate into a monarchy. They argued that the presence of an heir would help to secure the regime in case of his death. As well, they believed a monarchy would make Napoleon more acceptable to constitutional monarchists, and put France on the same footing as other European monarchies. On 18 May the senate proclaimed Napoleon Emperor of the French and approved a new constitution. The following day, Napoleon appointed 18 of his leading generals Marshals of the Empire.The hereditary empire was confirmed by a plebiscite in June. The official result showed 3.5 million voted "yes" and 2,569 voted "no". The yes count, however, was falsely inflated by 300,000 to 500,000 votes. The turnout, at 35%, was below the figure for the previous plebiscite. Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire refused to recognize Napoleon's title. Austria, however, recognized Napoleon as Emperor of the French in return for his recognition of Francis I as Emperor of Austria.

Napoleon's coronation, with the participation of Pope Pius VII, took place at Notre Dame de Paris on 2 December 1804. After having been anointed by the pope, Napoleon crowned himself with a replica of Charlemagne's crown. He then crowned Joséphine, who became the second woman in French history, after Marie de' Medici, to be crowned and anointed. He then swore an oath to defend the territory of the republic; to respect the Concordat, freedom of worship, political and civil liberty and the sale of nationalized lands; to raise no taxes except by law; to maintain the Legion of Honour; and to govern in the interests, wellbeing and the glory of the French people.

On 17 March 1805 Napoleon declared himself King of Italy and crowned himself with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at the Cathedral of Milan. Austria saw this as a provocation because of its own territorial interests in Italy. When Napoleon incorporated Genoa and Liguria into his empire, Austria formally protested against this violation of the Treaty of Lunéville.

Exile to Elba

With the Treaty of Fontainebleau of 11 April 1814, the allies exiled Napoleon to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean, 10 km (6 mi) off the Tuscan coast, where they made him sovereign. The following night, Napoleon attempted suicide with poison he had carried after nearly being captured by the Russians during the retreat from Moscow. Its potency had weakened with age, however, and he survived to be exiled, while his wife and son took refuge in Austria. He was conveyed to the island on HMS Undaunted and disembarked at Portoferraio on 4 May. In the first few months on Elba, he drew up plans for administrative reforms, road and building works, and improvements to the island's mines and agriculture, but results were limited by lack of funds. When Napoleon learned that Joséphine had died in France on 29 May, he was distraught and locked himself in his room for two days.

Napoleon understood that French King Louis XVIII was unpopular. Realizing that his wife and son would not be joining him in exile, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba in the brig Inconstant on 26 February 1815 with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels.

Hundred Days

On 1 March 1815 Napoleon and his followers landed on the French mainland at Golfe-Juan and headed for Grenoble through the foothills of the Alps, taking the route now known as Route Napoléon. The 5th Regiment intercepted him just south of Grenoble on 7 March. Napoleon approached the battalion alone and called to them, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish!" The soldiers responded with, "Vive l'empereur!" and joined Napoleon's men. On 14 March Marshall of the Empire Michel Ney—who weeks earlier had boasted that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage—joined Napoleon along with an army of 6,000.

On 13 March the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw. Four days later, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia each pledged to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule. Louis XVIII, however, fled Paris for Belgium in the early hours of 20 March after realizing that he did not have enough reliable troops to oppose Napoleon. Napoleon entered Paris that evening. Napoleon appointed a government and introduced constitutional changes which were approved by plebiscite in May. A Chamber of Representatives was also indirectly elected that month on a highly restrictive property franchise. Napoleon's priority was to raise an army to face the coalition, but the law did not allow conscription and he was only able to raise about 300,000 men, mostly raw recruits and national guards.

On 12 June Napoleon led about 124,000 men, known as the Army of the North, into Belgium, aiming to drive a wedge between Wellington's army of 112,000 British, German and Dutch troops and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's force of 130,000 Prussians and Saxons. After engagements at the Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, Napoleon confronted Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June. Wellington's army withstood repeated attacks by the French until, late in the afternoon, Blücher's Prussians arrived in force on Napoleon's right flank. The coalition forces broke through Napoleon's lines, inflicting a devastating defeat.

Napoleon returned to Paris and found that the legislature had turned against him. Realizing that his position was untenable, he abdicated on 22 June in favour of his son. He left Paris three days later and settled at Joséphine's former palace in Château de Malmaison. By 28 June, the Prussian army was at Senlis, just north of Paris. When Napoleon heard that Prussian troops had orders to capture him dead or alive, he fled to Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, considering an escape to the United States. However, when he found that British ships were blockading the port, he surrendered to Frederick Lewis Maitland on HMS Bellerophon on 15 July 1815.

Exile on Saint Helena

Napoleon was held in British custody and transferred to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,870 km (1,010 nmi) from the west coast of Africa. Napoleon and 27 followers arrived at Jamestown in October 1815 on board HMS Northumberland. The prisoner was guarded by a garrison of 2,100 soldiers while a squadron of 10 ships continuously patrolled the waters to prevent escape. In the following years, there were rumours of escape plots, but no serious attempts were ever made.

Napoleon stayed for two months at a pavilion in Briars before he was moved to Longwood House, a 40-room wooden bungalow. The location and interior of the house were damp, windswept, rat-infested and unhealthy. The Times published articles insinuating the British government was trying to hasten his death. Napoleon often complained of his living conditions in letters to the island's governor Hudson Lowe while his attendants complained of "colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions".

Napoleon insisted on imperial formality. When he held a dinner party, men were expected to wear military dress and "women [appeared] in evening gowns and gems. It was an explicit denial of the circumstances of his captivity". He formally received visitors, read, and dictated his memoirs and commentaries on military campaigns. He studied English under Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases, for a few months but gave up as he was poor at languages.

Napoleon circulated reports of poor treatment in the hope that public opinion would force the allies to revoke his exile on Saint Helena. Under instructions from the government, Lowe cut Napoleon's expenditure, refused to recognize him as a former emperor, and made his supporters sign a guarantee they would stay with him indefinitely. Accounts of Napoleon's treatment led in March 1817 to a debate in the British Parliament where Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, made a call for a public inquiry.

In mid-1817, Napoleon's health worsened. His physician, Barry O'Meara, diagnosed chronic hepatitis and warned Lowe that Napoleon could die from the poor climate and lack of exercise. Lowe thought O'Meara was exaggerating and dismissed him in July 1818. In November 1818, the allies announced that Napoleon would remain a prisoner on Saint Helena for life. When he learnt the news, he became depressed and more isolated, spending longer periods in his rooms, which further undermined his health. Much of his entourage left Saint Helena, including Las Cases in December 1816, General Gaspard Gourgaud in March 1818 and Albine de Montholon—who was possibly Napoleon's lover—in July 1819. In September 1819, two priests and the physician François Carlo Antommarchi joined Napoleon's retinue.

Death

Napoleon's health continued to worsen, and in March 1821 he was confined to bed. In April he wrote two wills declaring that he had been assassinated by the "English oligarchy", that the Bourbons would fall, and that his son would rule France. He left his fortune to 97 legatees and asked to be buried by the Seine. On 3 May he was given the last rites but could not take communion due to his illness. He died on 5 May 1821 at age 51. His last words, variously recorded by those present, were either France, l'armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine ("France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine"), or qui recule...à la tête d'armée ("who retreats... at the head of the army") or "France, my son, the Army."

Antommarchi and the British wrote separate autopsy reports, each concluding that Napoleon had died of internal bleeding caused by stomach cancer, the disease that had killed his father. A later theory, based on high concentrations of arsenic found in samples of Napoleon's hair, held that Napoleon had died of arsenic poisoning. However, subsequent studies also found high concentrations of arsenic in hair samples from Napoleon's childhood and from his son and Joséphine. Arsenic was widely used in medicines and products such as hair creams in the 19th century. A 2021 study by an international team of gastrointestinal pathologists once again concluded that Napoleon died of stomach cancer.

Napoleon was buried with military honours in the Valley of the Geraniums. Napoleon's heart and intestines were removed and sealed inside his coffin. Napoleon's penis was allegedly removed during the autopsy and sold and exhibited. In 1840, the British government gave Louis Philippe I permission to return Napoleon's remains to France. Napoleon's body was exhumed and found to be well preserved as it had been sealed in four coffins (two of metal and two of mahogany) and placed in a masonry tomb. On 15 December 1840, a state funeral was held in Paris with 700,000 to 1,000,000 attendees who lined the route of the funeral procession to the chapel of Les Invalides. The coffin was later placed in the cupola in St Jérôme's Chapel, where it remained until Napoleon's tomb, designed by Louis Visconti, was completed. In 1861, during the reign of Napoleon III, his remains were entombed in a sarcophagus in the crypt under the dome at Les Invalides.

Religion

Religious beliefs

Napoleon was baptized in Ajaccio on 21 July 1771 and raised a Roman Catholic. He began to question his faith at age 13 while at Brienne. Biographers have variously described him from that time as a deist, a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "natural religion" or a believer in destiny. He consistently expressed his belief in a God or creator.

He understood the power of organized religion in social and political affairs and later sought to use it to support his regime. His attitude to religion is often described as utilitarian. In 1800 he stated, "it was by making myself a Catholic that I won the war in the Vendée, by making myself a Moslem that I established myself in Egypt, by making myself an ultramontane that I turned men's hearts towards me in Italy. If I were to govern a nation of Jews I would rebuild the Temple of Solomon."

Napoleon had a civil marriage with Joséphine in 1796 and, at the pope's insistence, a private religious ceremony with her the day before his coronation as emperor in 1804. This marriage was annulled by tribunals under Napoleon's control in January 1810. In April 1810, Napoleon married Austrian princess Marie Louise in a Catholic ceremony. Napoleon was excommunicated by the pope through the bull Quum memoranda in 1809. His will in 1821 stated, "I die in the Apostolical Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born, more than fifty years since." Napoleon read the Quran in translation and had an interest in Islam and the Orient. He also defended Muhammad ("a great man") against Voltaire's Mahomet.

Concordat

Seeking national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics, Napoleon and Pope Pius VII agreed to the Concordat of 1801. The agreement recognized the Catholic Church as the majority church of France and in return the Church recognized Napoleon's regime, undercutting much of the ground from royalists. The Concordat confirmed the seizure of Church lands and endowments during the revolution, but reintroduced state salaries for the clergy. The government also controlled the nomination of bishops for investiture by the pope. Bishops and other clergy were required to swear an oath of loyalty to the regime.

When the Concordat was published on 8 April 1802, Napoleon presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles which further increased state control over the French Church. Similar arrangements were made with the Church in territories controlled by Napoleon, especially in Italy and Germany.

Arrest of Pope Pius VII

Napoleon progressively occupied and annexed the Papal States from 1805. When he annexed Rome in May 1809, the pope excommunicated him the following month. In July, French officials arrested the pope in the Vatican and exiled him to Savona. In 1812 the pontiff was transferred to the Palace of Fontainebleau in France. In January 1813, Napoleon pressured the pope to sign a new "Concordat of Fontainebleau" which was soon repudiated by the pontiff. The pope was not released until 1814.

Religious emancipation

In February 1795, the National Convention proclaimed religious equality for France's Protestant churches and other religions. In April 1802, Napoleon published laws increasing state control of Calvinist congregations and Lutheran directories, with their pastors to be paid by the state. With Napoleon's military victories, formal religious equality and civil rights for religious minorities spread to the conquered territories and satellite states, although their implementation varied with the local authorities.

Jews in France had been granted full civil rights in September 1791 and religious equality in 1795. The revolutionary and Napoleonic regimes abolished Jewish ghettoes in the territories they conquered. Napoleon wished to assimilate Jews into French society and convened an assembly of Jewish notables in 1806 to that end. In 1807, he summoned a Sanhedrin to adapt the law of Moses to those of the empire. An imperial decree of March 1808 organized Jewish worship into consistories, limited usury and encouraged Jews to adopt a family name, intermarriage, and civil marriage and divorce. Jews, however, were still subject to discrimination in many parts of the empire and satellite states.

Personality

Pieter Geyl wrote in 1947, "It is impossible that two historians, especially two historians living in different periods, should see any historical personality in the same light." There is no dispute that Napoleon was ambitious, although commentators disagree on whether his ambition was mostly for his own power and glory or for the welfare of France. Historians agree that Napoleon was highly intelligent with an excellent memory and was a superior organizer who could work efficiently for long hours. In battle, he could rapidly dictate a series of complex commands to his subordinates, keeping in mind where major units were expected to be at each future point.

He was an inspiring leader who could obtain the best from his soldiers and subordinates. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, said his presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 soldiers. He could charm people when he needed to but could also publicly humiliate them and was known for his rages when his plans were frustrated. The historian Frank McLynn sees him as a misogynist with a cruel streak which he often inflicted on women, children and animals.

There is debate over whether Napoleon was an outsider who never felt at home in France or with other people. Hippolyte Taine said Napoleon saw others only as instruments and was cut off from feelings of admiration, sympathy or pity. Arthur Lévy replied that Napoleon genuinely loved Joséphine and often showed humanity and compassion to his enemies or those who had let him down. He had the normal middle class virtues and understood the common man.

Historians are divided over whether Napoleon was consistently ruthless when his power was threatened or surprisingly indulgent in some cases. Those arguing for a ruthless personality point to episodes such as his violent suppression of revolts in France and conquered territories, his execution of the Duc d'Enghien and plotters against his rule, and his massacre of Turkish prisoners of war in Syria in 1799. Others point to his mild treatment of disloyal subordinates such as Bernadotte, Talleyrand, and Fouché.

Many historians see Napoleon as pragmatic and a realist, at least in the early years of his rule. He was not driven by ideology and promoted capable men irrespective of their political and social background, as long as they were loyal. As an expert in military matters, he valued technical expertise and listened to the advice of experts in other fields. However, there is a consensus that once he dominated Europe he became more intolerant of other views and surrounded himself with "yes men". Towards the end of his reign he lost his realism and ability to compromise.

Appearance and image

In his youth, Bonaparte was consistently described as small and thin. Johann Ludwig Wurstemberger, who accompanied him in 1797 and 1798, notes "Bonaparte was rather slight and emaciated-looking; his face, too, was very thin, with a dark complexion... his black, unpowdered hair hung down evenly over both shoulders", but that, despite his slight and unkempt appearance, "his looks and expression were earnest and powerful."

The English painter Joseph Farington, who met him in 1802, said Bonaparte's eyes were "lighter, and more of a grey, than I should have expected from his complexion", "his person is below middle size", and "his general aspect was milder than I had before thought it." In his later years Napoleon gained weight and had a sallow complexion. The novelist Paul de Kock, who saw him in 1811, called Napoleon "yellow, obese, and bloated". He is often portrayed wearing a large bicorne hat—sideways—with a hand-in-waistcoat gesture—a reference to the painting produced in 1812 by Jacques-Louis David.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the British press depicted Napoleon as a dangerous tyrant, poised to invade. A nursery rhyme warned children that he ate naughty people; the "bogeyman". He was mocked as a short-tempered small man and was nicknamed "Little Boney in a strong fit". In fact, at about 168 cm (5 ft 6 in), he was of average height.

Reforms

Napoleon instituted numerous reforms, many of which had a lasting influence on France, Europe, and the world. He reformed the French administration, codified French law, implemented a new education system, and established the first French central bank, the Banque de France. He negotiated the Concordat of 1801 with the Catholic Church, which sought to reconcile the majority Catholic population to his regime. It was presented alongside the Organic Articles, which regulated public worship in France. He also implemented civil and religious equality for Protestants and Jews. In May 1802 he instituted the Legion of Honour to encourage civilian and military achievements. The order is still the highest decoration in France. He introduced three French constitutions culminating in the reintroduction of a hereditary monarchy and nobility.

Administration

Napoleon introduced a series of centralizing administrative reforms soon after taking power. In 1800, he established prefects appointed to run France's regional departments, sub-prefects to run districts and mayors to run towns. Local representative bodies were retained, but their powers were reduced and indirect elections with a high property qualification replaced direct elections. Real power in the regions was now in the hands of the prefects who were judged by how they met the main priorities of Napoleon's government: efficient administration, law and order, stimulating the local economy, gathering votes for plebiscites, conscripting soldiers and provisioning the army.

An enduring reform was the foundation, in December 1799, of the Council of State, an advisory body of experts which could also draft laws for submission to the legislative body. Napoleon drew many of his ministers and ambassadors from the council. It was the council which undertook the codification of French law.

After several attempts by revolutionary governments, Napoleon officially introduced the metric system in France in 1801, and it was spread through western Europe by his armies. The system was unpopular in some circles, so in 1812 he introduced a compromise system in the retail trade called the mesures usuelles (traditional units of measurement). In December 1805, Napoleon abolished the revolutionary calendar, with its ten-day week, which had been introduced in 1793.

Napoleonic Code

Napoleon's civil code of laws, known from 1807 as the Napoleonic Code, was implemented in March 1804. It was prepared by committees of legal experts under the supervision of Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, the Second Consul. Napoleon participated actively in the sessions of the Council of State that revised the drafts. The code introduced a clearly written and accessible set of national laws to replace the various regional and customary law systems that had operated in France.

The civil code entrenched the principles of equality before the law, religious toleration, secure property rights, equal inheritance for all legitimate children, and the abolition of the vestiges of feudalism. However, it also reduced the rights of women and children and severely restricted the grounds for divorce.

A criminal code was promulgated in 1808, and eventually seven codes of law were produced under Napoleon. The Napoleonic Code was carried by Napoleon's armies across Europe and influenced the law in many parts of the world. Alfred Cobban describes it as, "the most effective agency for the propagation of the basic principles of the French Revolution."

Warfare

In the field of military organization, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists such as Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, and from the reforms of preceding French governments, and then developed what was already in place. He continued the revolutionary policies of conscription and promotion based primarily on merit.

Corps replaced divisions as the largest army units, mobile artillery was integrated into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry returned as an important formation in French military doctrine. These methods are now referred to as essential features of Napoleonic warfare.

Napoleon was regarded by the influential military theorist Carl von Clausewitz as a genius in the art of war, and many historians rank him as a great military commander. Wellington considers him the greatest military commander of all time, and Henry Vassall-Fox calls him "the greatest statesman and the ablest general of ancient or modern times". Cobban states that he showed his genius in moving troops quickly and concentrating them on strategic points. His principles were to keep his forces united, keep no weak point unguarded, seize important points quickly, and seize his chance. Owen Connelly, however, states, "Napoleon's personal tactics defy analysis." He used his intuition, engaged his troops, and reacted to what developed.

Napoleon was an aggressive commander with a preference for the offensive. Under Napoleon, the focus shifted towards destroying enemy armies rather than simply outmanoeuvering them. Wars became more costly and decisive as invasions of enemy territory occurred on larger fronts. The political cost of war also increased, as defeat for a European power meant more than just losing isolated territories. Peace terms were often punitive, sometimes involving regime change, which intensified the trend towards total war since the revolutionary era.

Education

Napoleon's educational reforms laid the foundation of a modern system of secondary and tertiary education in France and throughout much of Europe. He synthesized academic elements from the Ancien Régime, The Enlightenment, and the French Revolution. His education laws of 1802 left most primary education in the hands of religious or communal schools which taught basic literacy and numeracy for a minority of the population. He abolished the revolutionary central schools and replaced them with secondary schools and elite lycées where the curriculum was based on reading, writing, mathematics, Latin, natural history, classics, and ancient history.

He retained the revolutionary higher education system, with grandes écoles in professions including law, medicine, pharmacy, engineering and school teaching. He introduced grandes écoles in history and geography, but opposed one in literature because it was not vocational. He also founded the military academy of Saint Cyr. He promoted the advanced centres, such as the École Polytechnique, that provided both military expertise and advanced research in science.

In 1808, he founded the Imperial University, a supervisory body with control over curriculum and discipline. The following year he introduced the baccalaureate. The system was designed to produce the efficient bureaucrats, technicians, professionals and military officers that the Napoleonic state required. It outperformed its European counterparts, many of which borrowed from the French system. Female education, in contrast, was designed to be practical and religious, based on home science, the catechism, basic literacy and numeracy, and enough science to eradicate superstition.

Nobility and honours

In May 1802, Bonaparte created the Legion of Honour whose members would be military personnel and civilians with distinguished service to the state. The institution was unpopular with republicans, and the measure passed by 14 votes to 10 in the Council of State. The Legion of Honour became an order of chivalry after the empire was proclaimed in 1804. In August 1806, Napoleon created an hereditary imperial nobility including princes, dukes, counts, barons and knights. Eventually the empire had over 3,000 nobles and more than 30,000 members of the Legion of Honour.

Memory and evaluation

Criticism

There is debate over whether Napoleon was "an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe" or "a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler". He was compared to Adolf Hitler by Pieter Geyl in 1947 and Claude Ribbe in 2005. Most modern critics of Napoleon, however, reject the Hitler comparison, arguing that Napoleon did not commit genocide and did not engage in the mass murder and imprisonment of his political opponents. Nevertheless, David A. Bell and McLynn condemn his killing of 3,000–5,000 Turkish prisoners of war in Syria.

Historians have argued that his expansionist foreign policy was a major factor in the Napoleonic wars, which cost six million lives and caused economic disruption for a generation. McLynn and Correlli Barnett suggest that Napoleon's reputation as a military genius is exaggerated. Cobban and Susan P. Conner argue that Napoleon had insufficient regard for the lives of his soldiers and that his battle tactics led to excessive casualties.

Critics also cite Napoleon's exploitation of conquered territories. To finance his wars, Napoleon increased taxes and levies of troops from annexed territories and satellite states. He also introduced discriminatory tariff policies which promoted French trade at the expense of allies and satellite states. He institutionalized plunder: French museums contain art stolen by Napoleon's forces from across Europe. Artefacts were brought to the Musée du Louvre for a grand central museum; an example which would later be followed by others.

Many historians have criticized Napoleon's authoritarian rule, especially after 1807, which included censorship, the closure of independent newspapers, the bypassing of direct elections and representative government, the dismissal of judges showing independence, and the exile of critics of the regime. Historians also blame Napoleon for reducing the civil rights of women, children and people of colour, and reintroducing the legal penalties of civil death and confiscation of property. His reintroduction of an hereditary monarchy and nobility remains controversial. His role in the Haitian Revolution and decision to reinstate slavery in France's colonies in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean adversely affect his reputation.

Propaganda and memory

Napoleon's use of propaganda contributed to his rise to power, legitimated his regime, and established his image for posterity. Strict censorship and control of the press, books, theatre, and art were part of his propaganda scheme, aimed at portraying him as bringing peace and stability to France. Propaganda focused on his role first as a general then as a civil leader and emperor. He fostered a relationship with artists, commissioning and controlling different forms of art to suit his propaganda goals. Napoleonic propaganda survived his exile to Saint Helena. Las Cases, who was with Napoleon in exile, published The Memorial of Saint Helena in 1822, creating a legend of Napoleon as a liberal, visionary proponent of European unification, deposed by reactionary elements of the ancien régime.

Napoleon remained a central figure in the romantic art and literature of the 1820s and 1830s. The Napoleonic legend played a key role in collective political defiance of the Bourbon restoration monarchy in 1815–1830. People from different walks of life and areas of France, particularly Napoleonic veterans, drew on the Napoleonic legacy and its connections with the ideals of the French Revolution. The defiance manifested itself in seditious materials, displaying the tricolour and rosettes. There were also subversive activities celebrating anniversaries of Napoleon's life and reign and disrupting royal celebrations.

Bell sees the return of Napoleon's remains to France in 1840 as an attempt by Louis-Phillipe to prop up his unpopular regime by associating it with Napoleon, and that the regime of Napoleon III was only possible with the continued resonance of the Napoleonic legend. Venita Datta argues that following the collapse of militaristic Boulangism in the late 1880s, the Napoleonic legend was divorced from party politics and revived in popular culture. Writers and critics of the Belle Époque exploited the Napoleonic legend for diverse political and cultural ends. In the 21st century, Napoleon appears regularly in popular fiction, drama and advertising. Napoleon and his era remain major topics of historical research with a sharp increase in historical books, articles and symposia during the bicentenary years of 1999 to 2015.

Long-term influence outside France

Napoleon was responsible for spreading many of the values of the French Revolution to other countries, especially through the Napoleonic Code. After the fall of Napoleon, it continued to influence the law in western Europe and other parts of the world including Latin America, the Dominican Republic, Louisiana and Quebec.

Napoleon's regime abolished remnants of feudalism in the lands he conquered and in his satellite states. He liberalized property laws, ended manorialism, abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalized divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and ended the Spanish Inquisition. The power of church courts and religious authority was sharply reduced and equality before the law was proclaimed for all men.

Napoleon reorganized what had been the Holy Roman Empire, made up of about three hundred Kleinstaaterei, into a more streamlined forty-state Confederation of the Rhine; this helped promote the German Confederation and the unification of Germany in 1871, as it sparked a new wave of German nationalism that opposed the French intervention. The movement toward Italian unification was similarly sparked by Napoleonic rule. These changes contributed to the development of nationalism and the nation state.

The Napoleonic invasion of Spain and ousting of the Spanish Bourbon monarchy had a significant effect on Spanish America. Many local elites sought to rule in the name of Ferdinand VII, whom they considered the legitimate monarch. Napoleon indirectly began the process of Latin American independence when the power vacuum was filled by local political leaders such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. Such leaders embraced nationalistic sentiments influenced by French nationalism and led successful independence movements in Latin America. Napoleon's reputation is generally favourable in Poland, which is the only country in the world to evoke him in its national anthem, Poland Is Not Yet Lost.

Children

Napoleon married Joséphine in 1796, but the marriage produced no children. In 1806, he adopted his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais and his second cousin Stéphanie de Beauharnais, and he arranged dynastic marriages for them.

Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise produced one child, Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles (Napoleon II), known from birth as the King of Rome. When Napoleon abdicated in 1815, he named his son his successor as "Napoleon II", but the allies refused to recognize him. He was awarded the title of the Duke of Reichstadt in 1818 and died of tuberculosis aged 21, with no children.

Napoleon acknowledged one illegitimate son: Charles Léon by Eléonore Denuelle de La Plaigne. Alexandre Colonna-Walewski, the son of his Polish mistress Maria Walewska, was also widely known to be his child, as DNA evidence has confirmed. He may have had further illegitimate offspring.

Arms

On becoming emperor, Napoleon adopted the French Imperial Eagle as his arms.