Concept

Napoleon

Overview

Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was Emperor of the French from 18 May 1804 until his first abdication in 1814, with a brief restoration during the Hundred Days in 1815. He rose to prominence as a general during the French Revolution and led a series of military campaigns across Europe and the Middle East during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. As a statesman, he implemented numerous legal and administrative reforms in France and Europe.

Born on the island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789 and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796 he commanded a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition, scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798, which served as a springboard for his rise to political power. In November 1799 Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the French Directory and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in the War of the Second Coalition, and in 1803, he sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States. In December 1804 Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further consolidating his power.

The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In the War of the Fourth Coalition, Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland. Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking the Peninsular War. In 1809 the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition, during which Napoleon consolidated his dominance over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram. In the summer of 1812 he launched an invasion of Russia. After forcing the Russians to abandon Moscow following the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon briefly occupied the city before conducting a catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813 Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition, in which Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig. The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba and the House of Bourbons was restored to power. Ten months later Napoleon escaped from Elba with around a thousand men and marched on Paris, reclaiming control of the country. His opponents responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51.

Napoleon is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history, and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, most notably the Napoleonic Code. He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism, emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition, enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests also acted as a catalyst for political change and the development of nation-states. However, he remains controversial because of his role in wars that devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and imprisoned critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in French colonies, banned the entry of black people and mulattos into France, reduced the civil rights of women and children, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

In the original texts

Passages from public-domain books where Napoleon is discussed.

Napoleon is a complicated series of occurrences, bound together by causal laws, not, like instances of a word, by similarities. For although a person changes gradually, and presents similar appearances on two nearly contemporaneous occasions, it is not these similarities that constitute the person, as appears from the "Comedy of Errors" for…
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind
names the idea; states what it is; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
He makes what excuse he could for it: that it was necessary to mislead the enemy, to keep up his own men's courage, and so forth. On the whole, there are no excuses. A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in the long-run, _better_ for Napoleon too if he had not told any. In fact, if a man have any purpose reaching beyond the hour and day, meant to be found extant _next_ day, what good can it ever be…
Thomas Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, and
a chapter is titled for it; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
His very life means that; Disorder is dissolution, death. No chaos but it seeks a _centre_ to revolve round. While man is man, some Cromwell or Napoleon is the necessary finish of a Sansculottism.--Curious: in those days when Hero-worship was the most incredible thing to every one, how it does come out nevertheless, and assert itself practically, in a way which all have to credit. Divine _right_, take it on the…
Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
But the essence of an induction is that it infers from one set of facts another set of similar facts, whereas hypothesis infers from facts of one kind to facts of another. Now, the facts which serve as grounds for our belief in the historic reality of Napoleon are not by any means necessarily the only kind of facts which are explained by his existence.
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
states what it is; names the idea
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
We cannot, therefore, dismiss the idea that a stimulus to one sense may, as a result of past events, have an effect upon the organs of another sense. “Images” might be definable as effects produced in this way. It may be that, when you see a picture of Napoleon, there is an effect upon your aural nerves analogous to that of having the word “Napoleon” pronounced in your presence, and that that is why, when you see…
Bertrand Russell, Philosophy
names the idea; author linked in the graph
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Napoleon

Overview

In the original texts

Philosophers who discussed Napoleon

Related ideas

Place in the tradition