Napoleon I of France





NapolŽon Bonaparte (August 15, 1769 - May 5, 1821) functioned as effective
dictator of France beginning in 1799 and as emperor of France as NapolŽon I
from May 18, 1804 to April 6, 1814; he also conquered and ruled over much of
western and central Europe. He was the first ruler of the Bonaparte dynasty.
Napoleon was one of the so-called "enlightened monarchs".

Early years and rise in the military

NapolŽon Bonaparte was born in the city of Ajaccio on Corsica shortly after
Corsica had been sold to France by the Republic of Genoa. His family was a
member of the minor Corsican nobility. His father Carlo Bonaparte arranged
for NapolŽon's education in France and he moved there at the age of nine.

NapolŽon initially considered himself a foreigner and an outsider;
accusations of foreignness would dog him throughout his life. He had become
an officer in the French army when the French Revolution began in 1789.
NapolŽon returned to Corsica, where a nationalist struggle sought separation
from France. Civil war broke out, and NapolŽon's family had to flee to
France. NapolŽon supported the Revolution and quickly rose through the
ranks. In 1793, he freed Toulon from the royalists and from the British
troops supporting them. In 1795, when royalists marched against the National
Convention in Paris, he had them shot.

Nicknamed the Little Corporal, NapolŽon was a brilliant military strategist,
able to absorb the substantial body of military knowledge of his time and to
apply it to the real-world circumstances of his era. An artillery officer by
training, he used artillery innovatively as a mobile force to support
infantry attacks. When appointed commander-in-chief of the ill-equipped
French army in Italy, he managed to defeat Austrian forces repeatedly. In
these battles, contemporary paintings of his headquarters show that he used
the world's first telecommunications system, the Chappe semaphore line,
first implemented in 1792. Austrian forces, led by Archduke Charles, had to
negotiate an unfavorable treaty; at the same time, NapolŽon organized a coup
in 1797 which removed several royalists from power in Paris.

Invasion of Egypt, rise to dictatorship

In 1798, the French government, afraid of Bonaparte's popularity, charged
him to invade Egypt in order to undermine Britain's access to India. An
indication of NapolŽon's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment was
his decision to take scholars along on his expedition: among the other
discoveries that resulted, the Rosetta Stone was translated. He was defeated
by Cezzar Ahmet in Syria near the Castle of Saida. NapolŽon's fleet in Egypt
was completely destroyed by Nelson at The Battle of the Nile, so that
NapolŽon became land-bound.

A coalition against France formed in Europe, the royalists rose again, and
NapolŽon abandoned his troops and returned to Paris in 1799; in November of
that year, a coup d'Žtat made him the ruler and military dictator ("First
Consul") of France. According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, the date
was 18 Brumaire.

He instituted several lasting reforms in the educational, judicial,
financial and administrational system. His set of civil laws, the Napoleonic
Code or Civil Code, has importance to this day in many countries.

He was also a dictator and military adventurer who would cost France and her
allies the lives of millions of men. In the end, all the Napoleonic Empire
Wars did not gain any territory for France.

Struggle in Europe, rise to emperor

In 1800, NapolŽon attacked and defeated Austria again; afterwards, the
British also signed a peace treaty.

In 1802, NapolŽon sold a large part of northern America to the United States
as part of the Louisiana Purchase; he had just faced a major military
setback when his army sent to conquer Santo Domingo and establish a base in
the western world was destroyed by a combination of yellow fever and fierce
resistance led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. With his western forces diminished,
NapolŽon knew he would be unable to defend Louisiana and decided to sell
(see Louisiana Purchase).

After NapolŽon had enlarged his influence to Switzerland and Germany, a
dispute over Malta provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France
in 1803 and support French royalists who opposed NapolŽon. NapolŽon,
however, crowned himself Emperor in 1804. Claims that he seized the crown
out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony in order to avoid
subjecting himself to the authority of the Pontiff are apocryphal; after the
Imperial regalia had been blessed by the Pope, NapolŽon crowned himself
before crowning his wife Josephine as Empress. Then at Milan's cathedral on
May 26, 1805, NapolŽon was crowned King of Italy.

A plan by the French, along with the Spanish, to defeat the British Royal
Navy failed dramatically at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), and
Britain gained lasting control of the seas.

By 1805 the Third Coalition against NapolŽon had formed in Europe; NapolŽon
attacked and secured a major victory against Austria and Russia at
Austerlitz (2 December 1805) and, in the following year, humbled Prussia at
the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806). As a result, NapolŽon became
the de facto ruler over most of Germany. NapolŽon marched on through Poland
and then signed a treaty with the Russian tsar Alexander I, dividing Europe
between the two powers.

Then on May 17, 1809 NapolŽon ordered the annexation of the Papal States to
the French empire.

Battles in Spain, Austria, and Russia

NapolŽon attempted to enforce a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain
called the "Continental System". He invaded Spain and installed his brother
Joseph Bonaparte as king there. The Spanish rose in revolt, which NapolŽon
was unable to suppress. The British invaded Spain through Portugal in 1808
and, with the aid of the Spanish nationalists, slowly drove out the French.
While France was engaged in Spain, Austria attacked in Germany, but after
initial success suffered defeat at the Battle of Wagram (6 July 1809).

Alexander I of Russia had become distrustful of NapolŽon and refused to
co-operate with him against the British. NapolŽon invaded Russia in 1812.
The Russians under Kutuzov retreated instead of giving battle. Outside of
Moscow on 12 September, the Battle of Borodino took place. The Russians
retreated and NapolŽon was able to enter Moscow, assuming that Alexander I
would negotiate peace. Moscow began to burn and within the month, fearing
loss of control in France, NapolŽon left Moscow. The French Grand Army
suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as
over 500,000 men, but in the end fewer than 10,000 crossed the Berezina
River (November 1812) to escape. Encouraged by this dramatic reversal,
several nations again took up arms against France. The decisive defeat of
the French came at the Battle of Leipzig, also called "The Battle of the
Nations" (October 1813).

Defeat, Exile in Elba, Return and Waterloo

In 1814 Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria formed an alliance
against NapolŽon. Although the defense of France included many battles which
the French won, the pressure became overwhelming. Paris was occupied on 31
March 1814. The marshals asked NapolŽon to abdicate. The Allies demanded
unconditional surrender and on April 11 NapolŽon agreed their demand.
NapolŽon abdicated on April 13. His abdication took place on April 6. In the
Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled the Corsican to Elba, a small
island in the Mediterranean. They let him keep the title of "Emperor" but
restricted his empire to that tiny island.

NapolŽon tried to poison himself and failed; on the voyage to Elba he was
almost assassinated. In France, the royalists had taken over and restored
King Louis XVIII to power. On Elba, NapolŽon became concerned about his wife
and, more especially, his son, in the hands of the Austrians; the French
government refused to pay his allowance and he heard rumors that he was
about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic. NapolŽon escaped
from Elba on February 26, 1815 and returned to the mainland on March 1,
1815. The French armies sent to stop him received him as leader. He arrived
in Paris on March 20 with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of
around 200,000 and governed for the Hundred Days.

NapolŽon's final defeat came at the hands of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of
Wellington and of Gebhard Leberecht von Blźcher at the Battle of Waterloo in
present-day Belgium on 18 June 1815.

Off the port of Rochefort, NapolŽon made his formal surrender while on the
HMS Bellerophon, July 15, 1815.

NapolŽon's exile to Elba is the inspiration for the famous palindrome: "Able
was I ere I saw Elba."

Exile in Saint Helena and Death

NapolŽon was imprisoned and then exiled by the British to the island of
Saint Helena starting on October 15, 1815. There, with a small cadre of
followers, he dictated his memoirs and criticized his captors. In the last
half of April 1821, he wrote out his own will and several codicils (a total
of 40-odd pages) himself. His last words were: "France, the Army,
JosŽphine."

In 1955 the diaries of Louis Marchand, Napoleon's valet, appeared in print.
He describes NapolŽon in the months leading up to his death, and led many to
conclude that he had been killed by arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was at the
time sometimes used as an undetectable poison, administered over a long
period of time. In 2001 Pascal Kintz, of the Strasbourg Forensic Institute
in France, added credence to this claim with a study of arsenic levels found
in a lock of Napoleon's hair preserved after his death, with seven to
thirty-eight times normal levels.

More recent analysis on behalf of the magazine Science et Vie showed that
similar concentrations of arsenic can be found in NapolŽon's hair in samples
taken from 1805, 1814 and 1821. The lead investigator (Ivan Ricordel, head
of toxicology for the Paris Police) stated that if arsenic was the cause, he
should have died years earlier. Arsenic was also used in some wallpaper, as
a green pigment, and even in some patent medicines, and the group suggested
that the most likely source in this case was a hair tonic. Prior to the
discovery of antibiotics, arsenic was also a widely used, but ineffective,
treatment for syphilis. This has led to speculation that NapolŽon might have
suffered from syphilis.

NapolŽon married twice, firstly to Josephine de Beauharnais (whom he crowned
as Empress Josephine, and by whom he had no heirs, leading to a divorce) and
secondly to Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, who became his second
empress. He had one child by Marie-Louise: NapolŽon Francis Joseph Charles
Bonaparte (1812-1833), King of Rome (known as Napoleon II of France although
he never ruled). NapolŽon also had at least two illegitimate children:
Charles, Count LŽon, (1806 - 1881) (son of Louise Catherine ElŽonore
Denuelle de la Plaigne 1787 - 1868) and Alexandre Joseph Colonna, Count
Walewski, (1810 - 1868) (son of Maria, Countess Walewski 1789 - 1817), which
both had descendants.

There is other information saying he had more illegitimate children, Emilie
Louise Marie Francoise Josephine Pellapra, (daughter of Francoise-Marie
LeRoy), Karl Eugin von Mźhlfeld (son of Victoria Kraus), and BarthŽlemy St.
Hilaire (unknown). Also Helene Napoleone Bonaparte (daughter of Countess
Montholon).

He had asked in his will to be buried on the banks of the Seine, but when he
died in 1821 he was buried on Saint Helena. In 1840 his remains were taken
to France and entombed in Les Invalides, Paris.

Napoleon's Marshals included Jean Baptiste Bessieres, Bernadotte, Murat,
Davout, Berthier, Ney, Poniatowski, Augereau, Grouchy, Lannes, Marmont,
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr, Oudinot, Soult, Brune, Kellerman, Lefebvre, Jourdan,
Moncey, Macdonald, Massena, Mortier, Victor, Perignon, Serrurier, Suchet