Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte rose from minor Corsican nobility to rule most of continental Europe, and remade its law and administration more durably than its borders. Born in Ajaccio in 1769, a year after France annexed Corsica, he trained as an artillery officer and made his name at the siege of Toulon in 1793 and by dispersing a royalist rising in Paris in 1795. His Italian campaign of 1796-97 defeated Austria through speed and concentration of force, and the Egyptian expedition of 1798, though a military failure, established him politically at home. He seized power in the coup of 18 Brumaire in November 1799, took the title of First Consul, and crowned himself Emperor in 1804. The Civil Code he promulgated that year swept away feudal privilege, secured property rights and equality before the law, and was carried across Europe by his armies; it remains the basis of legal systems from Belgium to Latin America. He centralised tax collection, founded the Banque de France and the lycées, and settled the Church question with the Concordat of 1801. He also reintroduced slavery in the French colonies in 1802, reversing the abolition of 1794, and his police and censorship were extensive. Austerlitz in 1805 destroyed the Third Coalition and marked his peak. The Continental System, meant to strangle British trade, instead drew him into the Peninsular War from 1808, which bled his armies for six years. The invasion of Russia in 1812 took over 600,000 men across the Niemen and returned a fraction of them. Defeated at Leipzig in 1813, he abdicated in 1814, returned for the Hundred Days, and lost at Waterloo in June 1815. He died in British custody on Saint Helena in 1821.
- Lived: 1769 CE – 1821 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: emperor, military_leader, head_of_state
