The career of Napoleon - First consul at thirty years, emperor with thirty-five, off-set in Sainte-Hélène with forty six - is marked by a relative brevity which has equal only frantic rate on which it was carried out. Its history necessarily merges with that of the Consulate and the First Empire, but it is also that of a success out of the commun run born of the Revolution. The legend will very quickly give a second life to that which, a time, dominated Europe.

Military formation
Raise average, the Bonaparte young person remains in Brienne until October 1784. Weak, solitary, being expressed badly in French, it will have of his stay in this establishment a mitigated memory. At the military School royal of Paris, where its knowledge in mathematics enabled him to enter, it obtains its patent of artillery lieutenant, after only one year of studies, in September 1785. It is then sixteen years old. Set on history and geography, impassioned by the political theories and the economic doctrines, it reads much: Rousseau, Voltaire, Mably, strategists and technicians military, of Guibert with Gribeauval. But its culture remains extremely lacunar.  

In the wake of Paoli
Only one thing really imports to him: the destiny of its native island. Its stays in Corsica are frequent besides. It is true that, since the death of his father (February 1785), it is affirmed more and more like the chief of the family clan. The Revolution surprises it in Auxonne, where it is pilot first disorders, which burst in April 1789. Firmly opposed to the intrigues of the “rabble”, it takes as its distances with monarchy and the privileged people, persuaded as the bankruptcy of this one will make the play of Corsica, tired to be treated in conquered country. In September, Bonaparte is in Ajaccio. Appointed lieutenant-colonel as a second of the National guard of the city, he intends to fasten the Corsican nation in revolutionary France by means of a federal bond.

Then near to the strong man of the island, Pascal Paoli, Bonaparte take share with the internal conflicts which tear the country. Turned over on the continent, it must, after August 10th, 1792, join Corsica once again: the king of Sardinia having declared the war in France, it receives mission of occupying the Sardinian small islands of Maddalena. It is a failure, but the events accelerate. Bonaparte takes his distances with Paoli, whose separatist aimings worry it. In hillock with the public opinion, which supports the old patriot massively, Bonaparte flees of Ajaccio, takes refuge in Calvi, then exiles itself in Toulon. The rupture with Corsica is consumed.  

The General

The head office of Toulon (1793)
While the cause of Paoli merges little by little with that of Of Gironde, recently eliminated, Bonaparte pours on the side of the Mountain dwellers. On September 16th, 1793, it leaves to order artillery of the army which besieges Toulon, delivered to the English by the federalists. It will acquire notoriety there: vis-a-vis the impéritie of its chiefs, it forces the victory; the English beat a retreat in December. Named on the battlefield brigadier, on the proposal of the representative on mission Augustin Robespierre, brother of Maximilien, it appears very quickly with the eyes of Convention like the “man of Incorruptible”. But Bonaparte remains careful. After Thermidor, the loads which will be retained against him (it will be an imprisoned time) will not have irremediable continuations. It will be however put of availability to have refused a command in the Vendée.  

Against the royalist insurrection (October 5th, 1795)
Very quickly however, fortune smiles to him again. After having subdued it without-culotterie Parisian, Thermidorian Convention must face the intrigues of the royalists. To avoid the insurrection in sight, a civilian, Barred, sees itself entrusting the command of the army of the interior. It is surrounded by generals then without employment. Bonaparte is these. It is him which saves Convention the 13 vendémiaire year V (October 5th, 1795) by crushing the royalist insurrection. On October 26th, he becomes commander-in-chief of the army of the interior instead of Barras. The “Vendémiaire general” has just obtained his patent of republicanism. He is from now on close to the spheres of the power.  

The countryside of Italy (1797)
While marrying, on on March 9th, 1796, Joséphine de Beauharnais, it concretizes what dictate to him its feelings while consolidating its position at Barras. Maintaining fully French - it is at that time that it is made call Bonaparte -, it is a man in sight, to which one lends an unquestionable future. The principal enemy of the Revolution remains England. As this one is inaccessible, one needs, declares Bonaparte, to strike his main ally, Austria, while carrying the effort Italy, its most vulnerable point. He manages to decide Carnot, who makes name it on on March 2nd, 1796, at less twenty-seven years, ordering army of Italy. At the time of a campaign where its speed of operation compensates for its numerical inferiority, Bonaparte flies of victory in victory.

After Rivoli (January 14th, 1797), the Austrians are on the defensive. On October 18th, 1797, the treaty of Campoformio devotes the young general, who has brought peace to a continent in war for five years. In Italy, Bonaparte concentrates in his hands all the powers: soldier, policy, diplomatic, financier even. He constitutes himself, by means of various exactions, a solid fortune, acquires tastes of luxury and holds a brilliant court. Popular in addition, it knows that it is from now on an essential part of the political game. He acknowledges: “I cannot obey any more.” Popular engraving, the song and poetry seize the victorious hero.  

The countryside of Egypt (1798)
But Bonaparte feels that a new coup d'etat would be premature. Its honesty with the republic is for the time being its only money. Also, fault of being able to unload in England, it turns to Egypt in order to satisfy objective triple: to let rot the political situation in France, cut to the English the road of the Indies, mix with the political projects, soldiers and economic of the scientific concerns.

Victorious of the Mamelukes to the battle of the Pyramids (July 21st, 1798), but blocked in its conquest by Nelson, which destroys his fleet with Aboukir (August 1st), Bonaparte succeeds in preserving its aureole of victorious general.  

The consul

Returned to Europe, Bonaparte will be the armed wing as a result of State fomented by Sieyès against the Directory and carried out in the night from Friday to (17-18 brumaire year VIII). According to the proclaimed Constitution on on December 15th, 1799 - and which it personally improved -, Bonaparte becomes the first of the consuls within the new mode.  

In 1802, the First consul - who has just signed with England the peace of Amiens - is appointed for life and becomes a “king without crown”. The count of Provence, in exile, had hoped that Bonaparte would be the restorer of monarchy: the failure of the plot of Cadoudal and the execution of the duke of Enghien (removed abroad and shot of night in the ditches of Vincennes) dissipate the last illusions. On December 2nd, 1804, Bonaparte is crowned by the pope emperor of the French.

The emperor

A caricatural character
Bonaparte had the thin face, the olive-greenish dye, the long hair. Napoleon, small, paunchy, has the waxy dye. Only the glance, in turn charmer and pressing, constitutes a hyphen between the young general of the army of Italy and the emperor of the French thinking of dominating the world. Proud, scorning, coleric, the man is anxious, sometimes undecided. The taste of the power and the exercise of the authority carry all, even the women, who, ultimately, count little in her life. All was known as on its enormous capacity of work. Sleeping little, treating several business at the same time, untiring traveller, the emperor seems to have the gift of ubiquity. However, at the end of the reign, overwork - testimonies are concordant on this point - fact of lowering its energy and its perspicacity. Remain the character: few great men will as push far the concern of being composed a silhouette, as the sentimental pictures will reproduce to satiety.

The Napoleonean dynasty
Seldom also the family entourage will have played such a great part in the life of a sovereign. The crown being hereditary, brothers and sisters of the emperor constitute the framework of a dynasty which becomes the auxiliary of its policy. Joseph I er, elder I', receives the kingdom of Naples (1806), then the throne of Spain. Louis obtains the kingdom of Holland (1806), Jerome that of Westphalia (1807). Only Lucien, a time Home secretary, will not be placed in charge of a satellite State. The sisters of the emperor, Elisa, Pauline and Caroline, all are married and possessionnées. Caroline, in particular, is plain in Murat. She consequently becomes grand duchess of Berg, then queen of Naples. Also, even if his/her brothers and sisters gradually tend to marry the aspirations of their people and to thus threaten the unit of the Empire, all give to the French the indication of a clan which exploits Europe at personal ends.  

A dictatorial will
However, the vacuum is done gradually around Napoleon. The counterweight of the assemblies (legislative Body and Senate) disappears very quickly. The quality of his/her collaborators decreases: Talleyrand is replaced in 1807 by the conscientious one but dull Champagny; Fouché is returned in 1810. In short, the strong personalities are drawn aside little by little and the ministers become simple executants. The emperor only slices, even the business of second order. The dictatorial character of the mode is not then any more a doubt. While the censure muzzles any form of opposition, most means of expression are put at the service of the glorification of the emperor. The press, which publishes and comments on the bulletins of the Large army, becomes a formidable resonance chamber which magnifies all the military victories. The effect on the public opinion is considerable. This propaganda appears however impotent when it is a question of choking the doubt which seizes the spirits when the reverses multiply. There like elsewhere, the war of Spain constitutes a turning in the history of the mode. Since 1808, the providential man lived. In France, in the campaigns, one starts to compare the emperor to an ogre. Abroad, Goya paints the Back of mayo while Beethoven stripes the name of the emperor of the dedication of the symphony known as “Heroic”.  
 

Its military engineering is however undeniable. The young officer in garrison with Auxonne had all the leisure to meditate on the general Test of tactic of Guibert, published in 1773. This one preaches the articulation of the army in autonomous bodies, the reduction of the troops and the services, the distinction between the functioning order dispersed and the device of battle concentrated. General then chief of the imperial army, Napoleon applies these great principles and puts at the service of a tactic which wants to be fast and striking down. All rests on the mobility of the troops and promptitude to exploit the errors of the adversary before and during the battle. In January 1797, at the time of the countryside of Italy, Masséna division makes more than 100 km and takes part in three battles in four days, of which that of Rivoli.

In Austerlitz, the emperor voluntarily weakens his line; the enemy then dismantles his center to reinforce his left: as soon as the fault is made, Napoleon climbing the plate of Pratzen, inserts the center of the device austro-Russian thus dismantled and divides the enemy army in two. But Europe will well quickly learn the rules from this new handset. Since 1808, the effect of surprise, which supported the lightning war in open country, ceased playing.

The myth

Abdication (June 1815) and the exile
Demolishes in Waterloo, the emperor abdicates on on June 22nd, 1815. It gains Rochefort and goes to the English, who off-set it in Sainte-Hélène. But the Napoleonean legend will not await its death, which has occurred on on May 5th, 1821, to shape. As of the first times of the Restoration, while France saw hours of national humiliation and economic difficulties, the myth nourishes memory of the great military victories and golden age of the high wages and low price of the bread in force under the First Empire. Very quickly, one refers to the Memorial of Grey waxbill, Mow Boxes, appeared in 1823, which is an enormous best-seller. Las Cases brings back the remarks of Napoleon to it to Sainte-Hélène. Skilfully, this one is posed as a defender revolutionary conquests there and a liberator of Europe. It is thus made the promoter of the two governing ideas of the XIX E century: liberalism and nationalism. Prisoner of the Holy Alliance, it succeeds in the amazing feat to become the champion of the oppressed people. Republicans and liberals, but also veterans of the Large army and common people then cultivate with enthusiasm the myth of the “Small Corporal”.  

The emperor in art
Sentimental pictures, lithographies of Charlet and Raffet give life to the legend and allow that which wore “small hat with gray frock coat” to penetrate in each hearth. The literature seizes some. In the Country doctor, of Balzac (seven editions between 1833 and 1846), Benassis, the doctor, and Genestas, the captain in half-pay officer, dedicate to the emperor a wild worship - whose testifies celebrates it episode of taken care which camps “Napoleon of the people”. Of Hugo with Vigny via Lamartine, the romanticism pours in the Napoleonean homage, while the songs of Béranger are made the echo of this admiration for the “great man” and the “good emperor”.  

A recovered myth
July monarchy will try to recover with its profit the Napoleonean myth, more especially as the death of the son of Napoleon and Marie-Louise of Austria, the duke of Reichstadt, delivers it since 1832 of the preoccupation with a dynastic restoration. In 1836, the Triumphal arch, where the Marseillaise of Hard day before on the names of the generals and the victories of the Revolution and the Empire, is inaugurated. In 1840, ashes of the hero are brought back to France and are deposited with the Invalids in a big competition of moved memories and shared admiration. But popular Napoleon, that of Louis-Philippe or that still of the republicans and the liberals, quickly will leave room to put boots on Napoleon, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, who will use largely of the imperial myth to reach the power and to build the Second Empire.  

At the evening of his life, Napoleon pretends to wonder about his work: “On what could one attack me that a historian cannot defend me?” However, the man of exception which marked the history while taking care to build its own legend always causes passionate debates. How to dissociate the saver of the Revolution of the despot? How to make the share enters the military strategist and the “Ogre” scorning the sufferings endured by its army and its people? How to distinguish, behind the premonitory dream of Europe freed from the old order, the setting out of cut regulated of the oppressed nations? If perplexity is of setting, it does not decrease of anything the epic character an adventure of which the hero fascine until perpetuating the myth in the contemporary collective memory of it.  
 
Various campaigns of Napoleon