A Complex Napoleon

Editor’s note: This entry is the fifth and final in a series on Napoleon I. BIH recommends first reading the previous entries, A brand apart, Rise of the little corporal, The return of Caesar and Emperor of the Republic. They review the origin story of the young Napoleon, and then explore his development as a leader and strategist.

Despite his victories as well as his popularity with the masses and much of Europe, things never really settled down for Napoleon. Royalist and competing republican factions persisted with assassination plots. The one sparking a massive coalition against Napoleon involved the Bourbons, a well-entrenched royal family from the 13th century. It had strong ties throughout Europe. The problem for Napoleon was that he tried and executed a Bourbon duke that had nothing to do with the plot, and royal courts all over Europe consequently went ballistic, resolving to stop the French dictator.

Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David in 1804.

Napoleon used these uncovered plots to bolster his power. Ultimately he was made Emperor of France by constitutional referendum, and his coronation took place in 1804. At that very moment he fully and finally sealed his abandonment of the anti-monarch morality he had when the revolution started. This undermined all his efforts because he himself became a monarch, which, ironically, he'd fought against for almost 15 years.

The Napoleon story we know

Now it was on. By 1805, Napoleon had vexed just about everyone around him, and as far off as Russia. A root coalition began forming led by Britain and Russia. They would be at the core of no less than six coalitions formed for the next 9 years with the singular purpose of defeating Napoleon and the advancement of his French empire. The beginning of the end came in the summer of 1812 with the invasion of Russia. Most know the story from there—that Russia drew the Napoleon in deeper and deeper into its territory, until the Russian winter overcame Napoleons strategic abilities. It didn't hurt that the Russians' scorched-earth strategy severely hindered the French ability to resupply.

Battle of Waterloo by Clément-Auguste Andrieux (1852).

The Grand Army was no longer so grand, so the Allies began to press against French forces. By April of 1814, Emperor Napoleon abdicated. Next came his first exile to the island of Elba. Although he around ten months later and led an uprising, the British suppressed it at Battle of Waterloo. They held Napoleon on the south Atlantic island of Saint Helena until his death six years later. 

Ego and brand overshadow a legacy

Napoleon's influence on the western world is more extensive than may realize. His reforms included the Napoleonic Code, which remains a significant legal basis for as many as 70 nations. It set out the structures for meritocracy, secular education, sound state finances, and even religious toleration. This code essentially ended rural and feudal banditry, as well as encouraged science and art. It gave the French state, and by extension through conquest, much of Europe the foundation for running a modern state.

Among his other "good deeds," Napoleon welcomed Jews and non-Catholics in the French state. Indeed, he expanded their rights to property and careers. He ignored anti-Semitic reaction from foreign governments and within France, believing religious reform benefited France. Napoleon believed religion was a force for social stability. Although he instituted secular education, he left some primary education in the hands of religious orders. All students were taught the sciences along with modern and classical languages. Unlike the system during the old regimes, religious topics did not dominate the curriculum, although they were present with the teachers from the clergy. 

Napoleon helped shape much of Europe, helping consolidate many fractious territories into nations, such as the 300 regions of Germany merging into fewer than 50, helping set up German Unification in the late 19th century. His sale of the Louisiana territory to the United States during Thomas Jefferson's presidency nearly doubled the size of the young democracy.

So how do you sum up Napoleon? Reformer. Revolutionary. Strategist. Visionary. But you also have to acknowledge that he was quite an ego and, well, ultimately overambitious. Each of the things he was and the legacies he left can only be titrated into a single phrase—Napoleon, a brand apart.