1769 – 1821
Napoleon: a life in chapters
Fifty-one years in ten chapters. Some are told in depth; more will follow.
- 1769–1785
Corsica and Brienne
He was born in Ajaccio on 15 August 1769, a year after Corsica passed from Genoa to France. At nine he was sent to the royal military school at Brienne-le-Château. As a lonely, Italian-accented boy he spent five years there, and then went on to the École Militaire in Paris. In 1814 he would fight a battle around the same château.
- 1785–1795
Artillery officer of the Revolution
He was commissioned into the artillery at sixteen. He made his name at the siege of Toulon in 1793, and in October 1795 his guns cleared the streets of Paris of royalist insurgents.
- 1796–1799
Italy and Egypt
In March 1796 he married Joséphine de Beauharnais and took command of the Army of Italy, where he beat army after army. In 1798 he took an expedition to Egypt. He came back in 1799 and seized power in the coup of 18 Brumaire.
- 1799–1804
First Consul
He won at Marengo, made peace with the Church, and created the Civil Code. On 2 December 1804 he crowned himself Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame.
- 1805–1809
Master of Europe
He won at Austerlitz in 1805, Jena in 1806 and Friedland in 1807, and agreed the Treaties of Tilsit with Russia and Prussia. Then came the long ulcer of Spain from 1808, and Wagram in 1809. Desperate for an heir, he divorced Joséphine.
- 1810–1812
The Austrian marriage and Russia
In 1810 he married Marie-Louise of Austria, and in 1811 their son, the King of Rome, was born. In June 1812 the Grande Armée crossed the Niemen into Russia. Only a remnant came back.
- 1813
Germany
With a new army of conscripts he won at Lützen, Bautzen and Dresden. But Austria joined the Coalition, and in October the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig drove him back to the Rhine.
- 1814
The Campaign of France
The first story told in full on this site. He fought for three months on French soil and had his most brilliant week in February. Paris fell on 31 March, and he abdicated at Fontainebleau. On 4 May he landed on Elba.
Follow the campaign on the map →
- Napoleon leaves Paris for the front
- Paris capitulates
- The marshals’ revolt
- Unconditional abdication
- Treaty of Fontainebleau
- A night at Fontainebleau
- Farewell to the Old Guard
- Napoleon lands on Elba
- 1815
The Hundred Days
He escaped from Elba and landed in France on 1 March, and he was in Paris without a shot fired. On 18 June he was defeated at Waterloo. He abdicated a second time and surrendered to the British.
- 1815–1821
St Helena
He was exiled to a remote island in the South Atlantic, where he dictated his memoirs and fought with his jailers. He died at Longwood on 5 May 1821, aged fifty-one.