Napoleon Bonaparte
1769–1821 3 entries
Biography
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French general and statesman who rose to power during the French Revolution and ruled France as emperor. Born in Ajaccio, on Corsica, in 1769, he trained as an artillery officer in France, made his name at the siege of Toulon in 1793 and won brilliant victories in Italy in 1796 and 1797. After an expedition to Egypt he seized power in 1799, and in 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of the French.
At home he reformed the state, education and finance and gave France the Civil Code, which still shapes the law of many countries. Abroad, victories such as Austerlitz in 1805 made him master of much of Europe, until the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 and the defeat at Leipzig in 1813 led to his abdication and exile on the island of Elba. He returned in 1815 for the Hundred Days, was finally defeated at Waterloo and was sent to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. In 1840 his remains were brought back to Paris, to Les Invalides.
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