Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, on August 15, 1769, of a good family in a well-established position. He had many brothers and sisters and these family relations played an important part in his later life. He was a soldier from his childhood, entered the military school at Brienne when he was 10, and obtained his lieutenant’s commission when he was sixteen. He apparently began with some literary ambition and wrote various pamphlets. In these, as in all he ever wrote, there is a curious tendency to rhetoric, coupled with the power to drop such rhetoric completely and speak out with a native vigor and energy that burns and stings.The wars of the French Revolution afforded Napoleon an opportunity to advance his career; in 1796, he was given command of the French army of Italy. In Italy, against the Austrians, Napoleon demonstrated a dazzling talent for military planning and leadership, which earned him an instant reputation. Having tasted glory, he could never do with out it.In 1799, he was leading a French army in Egypt when he decided to return to France and make his bid for power. He joined a conspiracy that overthrew the Directory and created an executive office of three consuls. Napoleon tried to close the breach between the state and the Catholic Church that had opened during the Revolution. Such reconciliation would gain the approval of the mass of the French people. The Concordat of Worms in 1801, recognized Catholicism as the religion of the great majority of the French, rather than as the official state religion. This Concordat made his regime acceptable to Catholics and to owners of former church lands.In 1802, Napoleon was made first consul for life, with the right to name his successor. On December 2, 1804, in a magnificent ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French. General, first consul, and then emperor, it was a breathless climb to...
