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    Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: Great Biographies
    Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: Great Biographies
    Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: Great Biographies
    Ebook102 pages1 hour

    Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: Great Biographies

    By THE HISTORY HOUR

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    About this ebook

    Napoléon Bonaparte was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a large empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815.

    Inside you'll read about

    • A happy childhood in Corsica
    • Napoléon: Solid 'B' student
    • This man may be a great leader! The French revolution
    • The Italian Campaign
    • Napoléon in Egypt
    • Napoléon's triumphant return
    • Monarch of all he surveyed
    • The bloody Austrian Campaign
    • The misbegotten invasion of Russia
    • Exile on Saint Helena
    • The inglorious death of Napoléon


    And much more!
    Napoléon is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe History Hour
    Release dateNov 14, 2018
    ISBN9781980930020
    Napoleon Bonaparte: An Intimate Biography: Great Biographies

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      Book preview

      Napoleon Bonaparte - THE HISTORY HOUR

      I

      Introduction

      When people hear the name Napoléon Bonaparte, they think of a great conqueror, a man who crowned himself as the first Emperor of France, snatching the laurels from the hands of the pope, and a man who codified modern democratic principles. In the same breath, we think of the conquered and exiled prisoner, St. Helena and Elba, who was reviled after 1815 as the tyrant he became. Napoléon was a contradictory figure in European and world history, a person who brought together great powers and person who brought great powers against him.

      In broad strokes, he was a statesman and a military leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814 and again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoléon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoléonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a vast empire that ruled over continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He is considered as one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoléon's political and cultural legacy has endured as the most celebrated and controversial leaders in modern human history.

      II

      A Happy Childhood in Corsica

      Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

      NAPOLÉON BONAPARTE

      Napoléone di Buonaparte (as he was named at birth) was born on August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. As luck would have it for his future career, the island of Corsica, which had been under the control of the city-state of Genoa in northern Italy for several centuries, was in the process of transferring its allegiance to France. He was the second of eight surviving children born to Carlo Buonaparte (1746-1785), a lawyer, and Letizia Romalino Buonaparte (1750-1836), members of minor Corsican nobility.

      Napoléon’s family was drawn from the minor Italian nobility of Tuscan origin who had come to Corsica from Liguria in the 16th century. As Italians, his mother tongue was Corsican and his second language was Italian. He only began to learn French when he was ten years old.

      His parents, Carlo Maria di Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino, lived at the ancestral home called "Casa Buonaparte" in Ajaccio, the largest city in Corsica. Napoléon was born there on 15 August 1769, their fourth child and third son. A boy and girl were born first but died in infancy. He had an elder brother, Joseph, and younger siblings Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, and Jérôme. Napoléon was baptized as a Catholic. Although he was born as Napoléone di Buonaparte, he changed his name to the more French-sounding Napoléon Bonaparte when he was 27.

      Napoléon was born in the same year the Republic of Genoa, a former commune of Italy, transferred from Corsica to France. The state, ceded sovereign right a year before his birth in 1768, was transferred to France during the year of his birth and formally incorporated as a province in 1770 after 200 years under the Genoese rule. His father was an attorney who went on to be named Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI in 1777. Napoléon’s mother was the most important figure in his childhood; she restrained a very precocious child. Her uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, became Napoléon’s protector, allowing him to leave Corsica and study in France when he was nine years old.

      While in Corsica, his life was exciting and challenging. His father, deeply involved in the Corsican independence movement, was often away from home. Napoléon's parents were very considerate towards their children. As a young child, Napoléon and his older brother, Giuseppe, were given a room in their house that was undecorated – as a result, he was allowed free reign to draw on the walls, to play, and to play games as much as he wanted.

      Napoléon was quite short in stature, 5 feet 5, and very hot-tempered. Though short, he often beat his brother in fighting even though Giuseppe was more than a year older than he. He kept this fiery temper throughout his life. Napoléon's mother, Letizia, was very religious, forcing her children to attend mass and slapping their faces if they tried to skip it. As an adult, Napoléon gradually became less and less pious through his life, although he once remarked that

      religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

      On the other hand, he also noted –

      Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love, and at this hour, millions of men would die for him.

      At the time, this was considered a radical perspective, a humanist perspective, and a democratic perspective.

      As a child, Napoléon developed two habits that he maintained for his whole life – habits that changed Europe. He bathed daily in a time when English people believed that bathing would cause illness, this was very modern.

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