OPPapers.com

Napoleon I

Napoleon Bonaparte
Born at Ajaccio in Corsica in 1769, from the start he was lucky. The island had been given to France by Genoa the previous year, so Napoleon was born a French subject. For a time, his father opposed the French, but then switched sides and became a prominent administrator.

Early years
Claiming a Corsican noble heritage, his father sent Napoleon to the exclusive royal military academies in France. In 1778, the nine-year-old Napoleon enrolled at Brienne, where fellow pupils mocked him because of his pride and poor French. His first language was Italian, he spoke French with a heavy accent and never learned to write it properly.

Thanks to a scholarship from Louis XVI, he completed his education at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, where his sharp mind and remarkable powers of concentration meant that he passed the highly competitive exam to become an artillery officer in one year rather than the usual two or three. He graduated in 1785, aged 16, to join the artillery as a second lieutenant. Since royal officers had generous leave, Napoleon had plenty of time to read history and literature as well as studying mathematics, chemistry, physics and engineering.

When the Revolution broke out in 1789, he approved of its rational ideals but, like most professional soldiers, disliked its crowd violence. The sight of market women mutilating the corpses of guardsmen in an attack on the Tuileries in 1792 sickened him. French prejudice against Corsicans worked in his favour, and he was not denounced as an 'aristo'. Although suspicious of democracy, he had dreams of personal glory.

First triumphs
In the winter of 1792/3, the 'little corporal' joined the French revolutionary army in Italy. On the way, he passed Toulon, which was occupied by the British. With the aid of a Corsican patron, he got command of the siege artillery and, with his tactical and organisational skills, forced the enemy to evacuate. Promoted to brigadier-general at the age of...