The History of The First Emperor of France, Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the greatest military commanders in French history and also one of the most controversial leaders in history. Napoleon's rise to power culminated in his coronation as the Emperor of France in 1804 and he led many successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars ruling from 1804 until 1814. The rest of his reign consisted of years of wars across Europe against coalitions, and the defeat of Waterloo led to his abdication in 1815. He lived the rest of his life in exile on the remote island of Saint Helena.

Napoleon attended school in France, and as a teen, he went to the prestigious Ecole Militaire in Paris. However, he graduated early, which caused his grades to suffer, to help his family financially after his father died. 

Napoleon's parents opposed French rule before he was born and when he was young, Napoleon wrote a series of treatises on the history and government of Corsica that he called the French monsters. He returned to Corsica and on his visits, he was struck with how provincial the island was. 

Josephine became imprisoned in Les Carmes while the Revolution swept through Paris. She would have been executed, but the government was deposed, and all executions were halted. She barely escaped death and became a popular socialite, later meeting Napoleon at a party in 1795. 

From all of the letters between Josphine and Napoleon that were found, it was obvious that Napoleon was very infatuated with his wife. Just after being married, Napoleon embarked on his Italian campaign and wrote to Josephine almost daily. 

It was rumored that Napoleon was extremely short, and he was even depicted as comically diminutive in critical cartoons during the Napoleonic Wars. However, he was about five foot six, which was pretty average for the era. 

Napoleon Bonaparte wrote a romance novel not long before he met and married Josephine in 1795. The story told a fictionalized account of the young soldier's relationship with Bernardine, whose sister married his brother Joseph. 

Napoleon considered himself a scientist and was even elected as a member of the National Institute in 1797. He seized Egypt, cutting off Britain's trade route and bringing one hundred and fifty scientists, scholars, and engineers along with his troops. 

Beethoven greatly admired Napoleon, and when he started working on Symphony 3, he was inspired by Napoleon's heroic exploits and ideals. He wrote in a letter that the title of the symphony was "Bonaparte" and that it was composed to celebrate the memory of a great man. 

When Napoleon was a child, he was baptized Catholic but later began to question Catholicism and the existence of any god. He lacked a strong personal faith but also admired the power of organized religion. 

Napoleon had a horrible campaign in Russia, and because of pressures from the Sixth Coalition, he was forced to abdicate as part of the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Although, first he was sentenced to live out a comfortable life as sovereign of the island of Elba.

Napoleon escaped from Elba but was defeated at Waterloo and forced to surrender to the British. He then drafted a letter to the future king and requested Asylum and a small estate outside of London, but the letter was never delivered. 

The British made sure to secure Napoleon's final exile location. St. Helena was isolated, guarded by twenty-eight hundred men with five hundred cannons, and was ringed with steep cliff faces. The island was also patrolled by the Royal Navy squadron. 

Nicholas Girod was the mayor of New Orleans, a Frenchmen, and an avid supporter of Napoleon. He helped members of Napoleon's Imperial Guard escape to the New World, and he hoped Napoleon would also move to New Orleans. 

Napoleon was only fifty-one years old when he died in 1821. It was thought that he died from arsenic poisoning because his body was so well preserved. However, he complained of abdominal pain and nausea in the last weeks of his life, and his personal physician reported that he died from stomach cancer. 

When Napoleon was at his most powerful, he developed a habit of dressing up as a lower-class citizen, disguising himself, and then wandering the streets of Paris. 

When Napoleon was agitated, he would sing or hum. However, his singing voice was horrible, but he had the bad habits of tone-deafness and compulsive singing. "He began to hum the air, became abstracted, and, leaving his seat, marched around the room, keeping time to the song he was singing." 

Many thought that Napoleon was scared of cats, but there is no record to support that claim. Several leaders during that era were scared of cats, which might have led people to think Napoleon was as well. 

Napoleon carried a vial of poison attached to a cord around his neck. He wore it so that he could quickly take it if he were ever captured. He wanted to be prepared in case he needed to kill himself. 

Napoleon became the first ambassador in 1799 and worked to establish a European empire under his military autocracy. He won several wars and the majority of his battles after building a large empire. 

Napoleon was a sore loser and did not like losing at games. He wasn't very fond of playing cards, but he loved to play the game called Vingt-et-un because it was a fast game, and he could cheat while playing it. 

Napoleon was born in Corsica, where they spoke Corsican, an Italian dialect closely related to Tuscan. It was easy to tell that he was a foreigner when he tried to speak French, and he was often teased about his accent when he was at a military school in France. 

Before Napoleon died, he stated that he wished to be buried on the banks of river Seine. However, his wishes were not honored; he was laid to rest next to other French military leaders in Les Invalides in Paris. The formal funeral procession carried Napoleon to St. Jerome's Chapel on a carriage drawn by sixteen horses.

Napoleon was almost always seen with one of his hands concealed inside his shirt or vest. Many wondered why he did that, but it was long considered a display of gentlemanly restraint and was associated with nobility. In Ancient Greece, it was claimed that restricting the movement of one's hand was the proper way to speak in public. 

The Louisiana Purchase included Missouri, Iowa, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Southern Minnesota, all of South Dakota, most of North Dakota, Montana, part of Wyoming, North Eastern New Mexico, Northern Texas, part of Louisiana, and half of Colorado. 

Napoleon left Elba just ten months after he was exiled there because the Treaty of Fontainebleau allowed him the freedom to go anywhere. In 1815, he made his way to Paris, where he began his second term as emperor, but soon he was forced to abdicate again. 

Napoleon's valet, Louis Constant Wairy, stated that every morning after he was ready for the day, his handkerchief, snuffbox, and a little box of licorice were handed to him. He even had discolored teeth due to his habit of eating licorice, which he always kept in his waistcoat pocket. He also carried a mixture of licorice powder and brown sugar as a remedy for indigestion. 

Napoleon was very proud of his hands, and he took very good care of his fingernails. The people of that era said that his hands were the prettiest and fattest, his knuckles were dimpled like those of a baby, and had beautifully tapered fingers. 

Napoleon was extremely superstitious, and he hated when people said that superstition was a weakness. He believed in demons, omens, the concept of luck, disliked Fridays and hated the number thirteen. 

Napoleon signed up for an official venture by the French Crown in 1785. Before the French Revolution broke out, two ships were sent on an around-the-world voyage to Australia, Alaska, the Solomon Islands, and California. 

Napoleon was known to like to pinch people. He thought it was funny to pinch his intimates by the tip of the ear. Other people wrote that Napoleon would pinch womens' noses as a prank and pinch friends' cheeks until they were on the verge of tears. 

Napoleon was known to have rage issues, and he was never more than a few seconds away from suicide. He actually survived two suicide attempts, one was when he took the poison from around his neck, but it just made him ill. 

Napoleon built the original Alcatraz between 1801 and 1857. He built the fort on the Atlantic Ocean, and it was called Fort Boyard. The fort stood twenty meters tall, and its original purpose was for defense, but later it housed a prison. 

While Napoleon's army went to Russia and Egypt, He offered a cash reward to someone who could make food last longer. It was Nicolas Appert who, in 1809, discovered that food cooked inside a sealed glass jar didn't spoil unless the jar leaked. 

Napoleon captured the island nation of Malta in 1798 for France. He was on his way to Egypt and spent six days in Malta, where he reformed the national administration and abolished feudal privileges. 

Napoleon is the reason why we drive on the right side of the road in the United States and the British drive on the left side of the road. It was thought that right-hand traffic deterred fighting while on horseback because most people are right-handed. 

Napoleon emancipated Jews from laws that restricted them to ghettos, and he expanded their rights to worship, property, and careers under his rule. 

Several of Napoleon's inventions and policies are still influential today. For example, when Napoleon was in power, he demanded a method of communication that would require light or sound to be developed. 

Napoleon Bonaparte was a firm believer that torture should be abolished because the information obtained from it is worthless. In 1816, he wrote to Louis Alexandre Berthier, "The Barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished." 

While Napoleon was in total exile, he escaped the island and met enemy soldiers. The regiment had been sent to prevent him from reaching Paris. However, after just six words, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish," he had them convinced to fight for him. 

"A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words" is one of the most popular expressions in the English language and is often credited to Napoleon. However, those were not the exact words of Napoleon; he actually said, "Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu'un long discours." 

Napoleon's relationship with his wife Josephine started off very passionate, but her wandering eye plagued their marriage. Napoleon's letters from the battlefield started off passionate and loving and later went to rage and anger. 

Napoleon eventually had his marriage to Josephine annulled and married Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Franziska Therese Josepha Lucia in 1810. She was the daughter of Austria Emperor Francis I. 

It was the tradition during Napoleon's time to cast a death mask of a great leader who died. A death mask was made with a mixture of wax or plaster and then placed over the deceased's face and removed once hardened. 

It was written about Napoleon that he always ate his meals fast and then would immediately rise from the table. He wanted his favorite food to be ready at any hour of day or night, and his favorite foods were roast chicken and potatoes fried with onions. 

Napoleon's French Army was defeated by two of the Seventh Coalition armies in the Battle of Waterloo. The defeat brought an end to the Napoleonic era of European history, and Napoleon returned to Paris and abdicated in favor of his son. 

Napoleon was born in Ajaccio and was the fourth child of Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer, and Letizia Ramolino. He was the second surviving child of the couple as they had two children die before Napoleon was born. 

Napoleon typically only slept about three to four hours every night, and he had the ability to sleep and wake up at his own will. He could even skip a nights' worth of sleep without any problems. He was also known to nap right before major battles as soundly as ever. 

Napoleon was also known to love snuff, and he would sometimes place it under his nose just to smell it. He liked it rasped largely, and his snuff habit earned him friends among the local wild gazelles. He became fond of it after he fed it to them and had a collection of snuff boxes. 

Napoleon's vests and breeches were made from white kerseymere, which was a fine twilled woolen fabric. He changed into them every morning, but they were white, and he had a problem with wiping his inky pen on his breeches.