At 9 a minor Corsican aristocrat sent to French military school, mocked by his classmates as a country bumpkin, he buried himself in Caesar and Alexander. At 20 the Revolution broke out while he was an artillery lieutenant; at 24 he relieved Toulon; at 26 his Italian campaign astonished Europe; at 29 he invaded Egypt and abandoned his army to slip back; at 30 the coup of Brumaire made him ruler; at 35 he took the crown from the Pope's hands and set it on his own head. Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland — Continental Europe was his. Then 1812: Russia. 600,000 marched in; 40,000 came out. Leipzig, exile to Elba, the Hundred Days, Waterloo, St. Helena. Died at 51. He had said: "Waterloo will erase the memory of my forty victories — but my civil code will never be erased."
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Minor Corsican nobility — Italian was his mother tongue — sent at 9 to French military school. The French Revolution broke out when he was 20. At 24 he relieved the siege of Toulon; at 26 his Italian campaign astonished Europe; at 29 he invaded Egypt; at 30 the coup of Brumaire made him First Consul; at 35 he crowned himself Emperor. Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland — he conquered Continental Europe. Then Russia: 600,000 troops marched in, 40,000 came out. Leipzig, abdication, exile to Elba, the Hundred Days, Waterloo, exile to St. Helena. He died at 51 on that South Atlantic island — stomach cancer, perhaps, or perhaps British poison.
Born August 15 at Ajaccio on Corsica. Father Carlo Buonaparte was a local lawyer; mother Letizia bore him at 17. France had bought Corsica from Genoa just one year before — at his birth the islanders still considered themselves Italian, speaking Corsican (an Italian dialect). Napoleon learned French only from age 9 and spoke it with an accent for life.
With a noble scholarship, Napoleon entered the Brienne military school at 9. His aristocratic classmates mocked him as a "rough Corsican," his accent thick, his stature small, his family poor. He buried himself in Plutarch, Caesar, Alexander — the seeds of his hero worship. After five years he was promoted to the Paris school and graduated in just one year (42nd in his class).
1789 巴士底攻陷時 20 歲炮兵少尉拿破崙在駐地。革命給平民出身軍官前所未有機會——舊貴族軍官紛紛流亡，職位空出。他親 Jacobin 派、寫小冊《Le Souper de Beaucaire》支持革命。Robespierre 派系倒台時他短暫被囚，後獲釋。
When the Bastille fell in 1789, the 20-year-old Lieutenant of artillery Napoleon was at his garrison. The Revolution gave commoners' sons unprecedented chances — old aristocratic officers fled, positions opened. He sided with the Jacobins and wrote a pamphlet, Le Souper de Beaucaire, supporting them. When Robespierre's faction fell, he was briefly arrested, then released.
The port of Toulon had fallen to royalist rebels and the British. The 24-year-old artillery captain Napoleon proposed a daring plan — seize the heights of L'Eguillette overlooking the harbor, forcing the British fleet to flee. The December night attack succeeded; he was promoted to colonel. His military reputation was made.
葡萄月 13 日·「葡萄彈」鎮巴黎13 Vendémiaire — A 'Whiff of Grapeshot' Saves the Republic
圖：Print made by: Auguste Raffet
Printed by: Gihaut Frères
Published by: Gihaut Fr · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Print made by: Auguste Raffet
Printed by: Gihaut Frères
Published by: Gihaut Fr · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
On October 5 (13 Vendémiaire of the revolutionary calendar), 25,000 royalist insurgents besieged the National Convention. Barras called on Napoleon, who deployed 5,000 troops with cannons and unleashed grapeshot on the mob in front of the church of Saint-Roch — 300 dead, the rising shattered in minutes. He was named commander of the Army of the Interior.
On March 9 he married Joséphine de Beauharnais — her first husband had gone to the guillotine; she had a son Eugène and daughter Hortense. Napoleon was wildly infatuated, writing scorching love letters. Joséphine was cooler — she arrived late to the wedding and altered her birth year on the certificate to narrow the age gap. Two days after the wedding Napoleon left for the Italian front; from the field he wrote endless impassioned letters, while in Paris Joséphine took a lover.
任義大利方面軍司令、26 歲。原本破爛飢餓的軍隊被他用「速度+集中」戰術改造，一年內 12 場勝利擊敗奧地利、Sardinia 聯軍。佔米蘭、威尼斯。簽 Campo Formio 條約：奧地利割北義給法國。年僅 28 歲的拿破崙成歐洲家喻戶曉的名字。
Made commander of the Army of Italy at 26. The ragged, starving army was transformed by his speed-and-concentration tactics; in a single year, 12 victories crushed the Austrians and Sardinians. He took Milan and Venice. The Treaty of Campo Formio gave northern Italy to France. At 28, Napoleon was a household name across Europe.
He proposed to invade Egypt and sever the British route to India. 38,000 troops and 167 scholars (archaeologists, geographers, naturalists) sailed. In July he crushed the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids. In August Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Aboukir — Napoleon and his army were stranded in Egypt. But the scientific expedition was a triumph: it found the Rosetta Stone, produced the 23-volume Description de l'Égypte, and founded the discipline of Egyptology.
棄軍偷返法國·8 月 Acre 後撤Abandons His Army — Slips Back to France
圖：Print made by: James Gillray
Published by: Hannah Humphrey · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Print made by: James Gillray
Published by: Hannah Humphrey · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Egypt became a stalemate; the siege of Acre failed; plague spread; morale collapsed. In August Napoleon learned of political turmoil in France and secretly slipped away with 200 loyalists, leaving 30,000 troops behind for his deputy Kléber to manage. He was greeted in France as a hero; no one asked about the men abandoned in Egypt (later all taken prisoner by the British).
On November 9-10 (18-19 Brumaire), with Sieyès and others, he conspired to overthrow the Directory. Napoleon burst into the Council of Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud; deputies shouted "Down with the dictator!" and nearly stabbed him. His brother Lucien summoned troops to clear the chamber. The next day a Consulate was established — three consuls, Napoleon as First, in effect dictator. The Revolution was over; the Napoleonic era had begun.
On March 21 the Code Napoléon was promulgated — five years of work in 36 volumes consolidated into a single civil code: property, inheritance, contracts, family, obligations. Principles: equality before the law, religious liberty, freedom of contract, sanctity of property, patriarchal authority. It spread to Belgium, Italy, Poland, Louisiana, Latin America, Japan — and shapes the law of 70+ countries today. Napoleon said near his death: "My real glory is not the 40 battles I won — Waterloo erased their memory. What will never be erased is my civil code."
圖：Jacques-Louis David / Georges Rouget · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Jacques-Louis David / Georges Rouget · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
1804/12/2 Notre-Dame 大教堂，Napoleon 從教宗 Pius VII 手中奪冠自戴，象徵對神權的優越。
In Notre-Dame on Dec 2, 1804, Napoleon seized the crown from Pope Pius VII and crowned himself, asserting secular supremacy.
12/2 Notre-Dame 自加冕為皇帝December 2 — Crowns Himself Emperor at Notre-Dame
圖：Jacques-Louis David / Georges Rouget · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Jacques-Louis David / Georges Rouget · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
12 月 2 日在 Notre-Dame 大教堂加冕為法國皇帝。Pope Pius VII 從羅馬被請來——但儀式關鍵時拿破崙從教宗手中奪過冠冕、自己戴上、再給 Joséphine 戴上。象徵：「我的權力來自我自己、不來自教廷」。35 歲。歐洲所有舊王室震驚——一個科西嘉小貴族成為「皇帝」。
On December 2 he was crowned Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame. Pope Pius VII was brought from Rome — but at the crucial moment Napoleon took the crown from the Pope's hands and placed it on his own head, then crowned Joséphine. The symbolism: "My power comes from myself, not the Church." He was 35. The old royal courts of Europe were appalled — a minor Corsican aristocrat had made himself Emperor.
圖：Clarkson Frederick Stanfield · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Clarkson Frederick Stanfield · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
1805/10/21 Nelson 率英國艦隊在 Trafalgar 擊敗法西聯合艦隊，確立英國海上霸權百年；Nelson 中彈戰死。
Nelson's British fleet crushed the Franco-Spanish fleet off Trafalgar on Oct 21, 1805; Nelson was killed, but British naval supremacy was secured for a century.
Joséphine 一直無法為他生子。1809.12.15 簽離婚法令——她大哭暈倒、需被抬出。拿破崙堅稱仍愛她、保留皇后頭銜、Malmaison 別墅、年金 500 萬法郎。臨終 St Helena 喃喃念「Joséphine」。
Joséphine had borne him no child. On December 15, 1809, the divorce was signed — she fainted in hysterical grief and had to be carried out. Napoleon insisted he still loved her, let her keep the imperial title, the Malmaison estate, and 5 million francs a year. On St. Helena, dying, he murmured her name.
4 月娶奧地利皇帝 Francis II 之女 Marie-Louise (18 歲、Marie Antoinette 姪女)。Marie-Louise 從小被教育「拿破崙=怪獸」，新婚當夜哭泣。但出乎預料適應宮廷生活、生下「Napoleon II」(1811.03.20，獲封 King of Rome)。拿破崙終於有合法繼承人。但她在 St Helena 流亡期間立刻另愛上奧國伯爵——拿破崙至死未再見子。
In April he married Marie-Louise (18, niece of Marie Antoinette), daughter of Emperor Francis II of Austria. Raised to believe "Napoleon is a monster," she wept on her wedding night. But she adapted unexpectedly well to court life and bore him "Napoleon II" (March 20, 1811, titled King of Rome). Napoleon finally had a legitimate heir. During his St. Helena exile she promptly fell in love with an Austrian count; Napoleon never saw his son again.
6/24 入侵俄羅斯·60 萬大軍June 24 — Invades Russia with 600,000
圖：artists CLARK, John Heaveside, dit Waterloo Clark (c.1770-1863) and DUBOURG, M. · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: artists CLARK, John Heaveside, dit Waterloo Clark (c.1770-1863) and DUBOURG, M. · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
On June 24, leading the Grande Armée of 600,000 — the largest field army in history — across the Niemen into Russia. The aim: force Tsar Alexander I back into the Continental System. The Russians retreated, scorching the earth. Napoleon advanced 1,500 km, won a single bloody day at Borodino, and entered an empty Moscow on September 14.
The night he entered Moscow, the city began to burn — the retreating Russians had ordered it set alight. In four days four-fifths of Moscow burned; every supply depot destroyed. Napoleon waited five weeks in the Kremlin for the tsar to sue for peace; no message came. On October 19 he ordered retreat — by then winter was at the door. His most fatal mistake.
The retreat began in late October. -30°C cold, no food, Cossack raids. At the Berezina crossing, 10,000 froze or drowned. By the time the survivors recrossed the Niemen in December — only 40,000 of the original 600,000 remained. Napoleon himself abandoned the army in early December and raced ahead to Paris by sleigh. One of the greatest military catastrophes in history.
In March the Allies entered Paris; on April 6 his marshals forced his abdication. He first tried to abdicate in favor of his son; the Allies demanded total abdication. On April 11 the Treaty of Fontainebleau: he gave up the throne, kept the title "Emperor," was exiled to Elba as its sovereign with 2 million francs a year. On April 20 at Fontainebleau he bid farewell to his Old Guard — legend says he kissed the regimental standard while the veterans wept. On May 4 he reached Elba.
Waterloo 後英國決定流放他到 St Helena (南大西洋偏遠小島，距非洲 2000 公里)。住 Longwood 莊園——濕、漏雨、老鼠、英軍嚴密看管。拿破崙寫《回憶錄》、口述歷史給隨行 Las Cases。患胃病日重，與英島主 Hudson Lowe 為待遇日日吵。
After Waterloo, Britain decided to exile him to St. Helena — a remote South Atlantic island, 2,000 km from Africa. He was housed at Longwood House — damp, leaking, rat-infested, under tight British guard. He dictated his memoirs to Las Cases, brooded over his career. His stomach pains worsened. He fought daily with the British governor Hudson Lowe over conditions.
5/5 死於 St Helena·胃癌或砒霜?May 5 — Dies on St. Helena, Stomach Cancer or Arsenic?
圖：https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/29/d1/fc7061cf985e6d4fa203fe379b · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia CommonsImage: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/29/d1/fc7061cf985e6d4fa203fe379b · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Died May 5 at Longwood, age 51. Last words: "France... army... head of the army... Joséphine." Official diagnosis: stomach cancer (his father had died of the same). But in the 1960s, hair samples showed unusually high arsenic — fueling a century of conspiracy: did the British poison him? Or was arsenic in the conservative medical treatment of the day? In 1840 his remains were returned to France and entombed at Les Invalides in Paris.
Napoleon II 21 歲死·無嗣Napoleon II Dies at 21 — Without Heir
圖：Franz Xaver Stöber / After Johann Ender · Public domain · Wikimedia CommonsImage: Franz Xaver Stöber / After Johann Ender · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
被剝奪法國皇位的「King of Rome」與母親在維也納長大為奧地利皇室一員、改名 Franz、稱 Duke of Reichstadt。被禁讀拿破崙傳記但偷讀。1832 年 7 月 22 日結核病死、21 歲、無妻無子。歷史上的「拿破崙血脈直系男系」就此斷絕。1940 希特勒下令把他遺體從維也納運回 Invalides 與父親合葬——以政治姿態示好法國。
Stripped of the French throne, the "King of Rome" was raised in Vienna as an Austrian, renamed Franz, titled Duke of Reichstadt. Forbidden to read about his father, he read in secret. He died of tuberculosis on July 22, 1832, age 21, unmarried and childless. The direct male line of Napoleon ended. In 1940 Hitler ordered his remains transferred from Vienna to Les Invalides to be reburied beside his father — a political gesture to France.
