The Napoleonic era 1799–1815

Abstract

For the next fifteen years the fate of France and Europe was in the hands of the man described by Chateaubriand as the ‘mightiest breath of life which ever animated human clay’. In his development and consolidation of the results of the Revolution there was much to justify Napoleon’s claim to be its ‘heir’. He also displayed many of the qualities of an old fashioned war lord. Louis Bergeron (France under Napoleon) states the paradox that ‘Napoleon was both behind and ahead of his time, the last of the enlightened despots, and a prophet of the modern state’. Ironically his ultimate downfall was very much due to the very forces unleashed by the Revolution and accelerated by himself.