![]() ![]() He was heir to the militarism of the French Revolution and he made himself the idol of his conscript soldiers. Ii.ěonaparte possessed an effective means of satisfying his ambition. Fatalistic and even superstitious he believed that he was a “ man of destiny” He was thoroughly convinced of his own abilities, Ambitious, selfish and egoistical, he was always thinking and planning how he might become world famous. On Decemamid imposing ceremonies in the medieval cathedral of Notre Dame, in the presence of Pope Pius VII who had come from Rome to grace the event, General Bonaparte placed a crown upon his own head and assumed the title of Napolean I, emperor of France.įACTORS FOR HIS SUCCESS: His success was due in large to the extra ordinary opportunity which French Politics at that time offered, but it was due, likewise to certain qualities of the young General. Two years later, his subservient Senate proposed that his office be made hereditary and its title changed from Consul to Emperor and the proposal was ratified by another plebiscite. In 1802 Bonaparte was made Consul for life with the approval of a popular plebiscite. But in the political order, he was more despotic than the monarchy of Louis XIV. “What the French people want.” He declared “is equality, not liberty.” In the social order, he maintained the achievements of the Revolution, and recognised no distinction of class. Yet in practice, he emphasizes equality rather than liberty and by interpreting fraternity in a rather national than international sense. ![]() Throughout his career Bonaparte professed himself to be the: son of the Revolution: the champion of the ideals of “Liberty, equality and fraternity.” It was to the Revolution that he owed his position in France and it was to France that he claimed to be preserving the fruits of the Revolution. Already an engineer and an artilleryman he sympathise with the Jacobins during the Revolution and acquired from the Italian Campaign of 1796 the reputation of being the most brilliant general of the French Republic. In this way he received a good military education at Brinne and at Paris.ĭuring his youth he dreamed of becoming the leader of a movement for Corsican independence, but the outbreak of the French Revolution afforded him a wider opportunity for his ambition. He had been selected along with the sons of other Corsicans families to be educated at public expense in France. Belonging to a prominent Italian and numerous Italian families, his name at the outset was written Napoleon di Buonarpate. He had been born at Ajaccio in Corsica on August 15, 1769, just after the island had been purchased by France from Genoa but before the French had fully succeeded in quelling the stubborn insurrection of the Corsicans. In 1709 when Napoleon Bonaparte executed his coup de’ etat and seized power in France he was thirty years of age, short, of medium build, quiet and determined, with cold gray eyes and rather awkward manners. ![]()
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