Paris Perspective #7: Rise of the islander - the legacy of Napoleon Bonaparte - Pt.1

The life of Napoleon has been scrutinised and debated in more than 3,000 biographies since he succumbed to stomach cancer on 5 May, 1821, at the age of 51.

Exiled to the island of St Helena following his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon spent his final years writing his memoirs – a requisite mix of fact and fiction – all the while forging a relationship with his captors and others on the remote British outpost in the South Atlantic.

A testament to his loyalties and the root of his ambition, Napoleon wrote in his will: "I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, among the people of France whom I have loved so much.”

As a young man, Napoleon was a Corsican nationalist of sorts, and was looked upon as racially Italian. A talented soldier, he became a French general at just 24 years old. But, as an outsider from an island that had only recently been ceded to France by the Genoese, was Bonaparte really French?

His nationality has always been a big question, says Peter Hicks, an historian with the Fondation Napoléon in Paris. 

"Napoleon comes from a part of Corsica [the coastal capital, Ajaccio] that is Francophile...  while the island's interior is largely Corsican in its culture," Hicks explains.

Problems began when Napoleon's father, an Italian-trained lawyer named Carlo, abandoned the family's Italian ties to the anti-French royalists seeking dominion over the island.

“Carlo registers himself as a fully fledged French noble, and that means Napoleon can go to a school for French nobles’ children. So they take on a French identity,” Hicks says.

Divisions in Corsica, he adds, prompted the Bonaparte family to move to the French mainland.

“Napoleon's in school in France, all his brothers and sisters are in France. So they're very French.”

Making a name for himself

Arriving in Paris to attend the élite Ecole Militaire in the 1790s, following the French Revolution, Napoleon quickly impressed his superiors. After showing his mettle for ruthlessness in quelling a popular uprising in Paris in 1795, he rose to the rank of general.

“The fall of [revolutionary figure Maximilien] Robespierre in 1794 leads to political instability and all the forces that were waiting in the wings – notably royalist forces – thought that the revolution could be coming to an end,” Hicks explains. 

A number of Parisians revolted in favour of the royalists, and this is where fate intervened for Napoleon.

“When the revolt starts, he was not actually ordered in advance. It was happenstance. The man who had supposedly been asked to quell the revolt was deaf and didn’t receive the order," Hicks says.

“So they said, ‘let's put in Bonaparte, he's in the office. Let's get him to do it.’ And he does. He's quick. He's good. He's doing it on behalf of the government. Because Napoleon is interested in order. He doesn't like disorder.”

When the first musket shot was fired from the opposing side, Napoleon responded with fire of his own, having already loaded the canon with small iron balls called grapeshot. Somewhere between 200 and 300 civilians were killed.

“He's a military man. You know, that's what military men do,” says Hicks. “This is an uprising, and it was a key moment in his rise.”

Four years later, with France's economy in tatters and amid crippling inflation, Napoleon seized control in a coup – almost by accident.

“He is brought in to this revolution by other people ... as the muscle to provide the force that will allow for political change,” Hicks explains.

In 1800, Napoleon becomes First Consul. By 1802 he is proclaimed Consul for 10 years. In 1803, he's proclaimed Consul for life. By 1804, he is declared Emperor of France by the Conseil d’Etat – his lavish coronation taking place later that year in Notre Dame Cathedral.

A new Caesar, a new tyrant?

“Politics is still going on,” says Hicks. “When people talk about Napoleon, they want him to be this man who's running everything. And Napoleon gives that impression himself.

“But he has to keep his party on board and there were a lot of negotiations that took place between 1803 and 1804 ... How is he going to continue his regime as Consul for life? What happens if he dies?”

It is at this point the regime became monarchical, says Hicks – once the idea of heredity and a successor became important.

Has the admiration of 20th century dictators affected Napoleon’s legacy?

It is also where Napoleon's attachment to his roots in Italian history came to the fore, as he reminds us in his memoirs: "I come from a race that founds empires," Napoleon wrote, in reference to the glory of Rome under the Caesars.

With the foundation of a new empire, came the ascension of a new class of nobility who could climb the ranks through their service to the state, rather than the entitlement of their birth. For the early 19th century, meritocracy instead of aristocracy was a major paradigm shift.

Hicks explains the impact of this new order: “It’s called the ‘amalgam’ and it's one of Napoleon's overarching ideas to unify France. When he comes to power as the First Consul, France is broken up. There are people in the Vendée [region of France] who are still fighting against the revolution.”

Order on the home front

When Napoleon took control, his priority was pacifying the interior of France before dealing with international politics.

"His first act, that everybody is very impressed with, is bringing peace to Europe. First of all in 1800, then in 1801, then in 1802, with the Peace of Amiens," Hicks says. "There is a sense that he is a man of consensus and everybody's coming together."

But each positive appeared to bring with it a negative.

“He puts state finances back in the right place, but this is quite aggressive, because it means that people have to suddenly pay taxes," Hicks says. “He gets the army working well, but that brings conscription, which is seen as a blood tax."

Thus, the Emperor Napoleon was born, an "enlightened autocrat who invented bureaucracy," and who centralised and regulated a country in turmoil.

Conditions were ripe for his rise to power, and ultimate control over the affairs of state. Post-revolutionary France was traumatised by the Reign of Terror that saw mass executions, while a disenfranchised aristocracy who had lost their lands during the revolution was desperate for the return of the monarchy.

Two centuries on, Napoleon's “Code Civil” of 1802, which returned property rights to landowners, remains at the core of many European nations.

His goal was to create a middle class society, under a civilian government. He was "neither plebeian nor aristocratic", Napoleon wrote in his memoirs, "but somewhere in between".

In part two on the legacy of Napoleon, Paris Perspective explores how the Emporer's retreat from Russia in 1814 led to abdication, and stately exile in Elba, followed by a spectacular return to power that drove him to the battlefield of Waterloo in 1815.

Watch full video here

Written, produced & presented by David Coffey

Recorded, mixed & edited by Vincent Pora

Dr Peter Hicks is an historian and international affairs director with the Fondation Napoléon in Paris