Napoleon Bonaparte

Mr. Bonaparte was born in 1769 to a family of minor nobles on the island of Corsica, which the French took possession of in 1768. He attended French military schools, and in 1785 was made an artillery officer. If the French Revolution would not have happened then Napoleon would have remained a junior officer, because remember prior to the Revolution, the senior officers were those who were members of the aristocracy and had wealth and power, but then the Revolution put people there out of merit. Napoleon was humble and Corsican, thus he wasn't French aristocracy nor powerful nor wealthy. In 1793, shorty (5 ft. 4 in. I think) was made a General. Shorty was lucky because after Thermidor no body touched him. Napy destroyed the Austrian army in Italy. So Shorty took out the Austrians and Sardinians out of the war leaving Great Britain still in it. In 1798, to strike at British trade with the East, he led an expedition to Ottoman-ruled Egypt, which he conquered. His fleet, however, was destroyed by the British admiral Horatio Nelson, leaving him stranded. Undaunted, he reformed the Egyptian government and law, abolishing serfdom and feudalism and guaranteeing basic rights. The French scholars he had brought with him began the scientific study of ancient Egyptian history. There his troops when they were practicing their shooting knocked down one of the Sphinx's nose. France, meanwhile, faced a new coalition; Austria, Russia, and lesser powers had allied with Britain. So Napoleon left his army in Egypt and ran off to France where the Directory was unstable. On 19 Brumaire (November 10, 1799) he joined the Abbé Siéyés, who was one of the 5 directors, and did a coup d' état on the Directory. Siéyés thought that he could control Napoleon. He was wrong. When these two did a 3-member Consul, Napoleon one month after 19 Brumaire made himself First Consul. Shorty did a plebiscite (vote by the people) for his new constitution to show popular support, and it passed overwhelmingly. This plebiscite for his constitution - which included Universal Male Suffrage, but at the same time overwhelming support for a Napoleon leadership position - was one of the first that Shorty would use throughout his reign in France.

Shorty put in a general amnesty to fix all of the rivalry that stemmed from the French Revolution. The émigrés started to come back. Shorty only wanted loyalty so both Revolutionaries and Anti-Revolutionaries were able to serve in the administrative body that he set up. Napy established a secret police -  the same kind that totalitarian regimes would establish in the 20th century - to get those who were against him. Shorty was smart in that he saw that the Revolution pissed off the Catholic Church, so he tried to reconcile it. Concordat of 1801: Done with the Pope Pius VII, basically it helped out Shorty more than anything. It said, "Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French", which didn't establish Catholicism as the official religion of France, and remained tolerant towards Protestants and Jews. The Papacy would select the bishops, but had to have approval of Shorty, the state would pay the clergy, in return the clergy had to support the State (which was Shorty), and the Church couldn't get the lands taken away from them during the French Revolution, yet they also erased the Revolutionary Calendar, which the Church hated because it excluded Sundays and Religious holidays.

Thanks to a plebiscite in 1802, Shorty made himself Consul for life. The Civil Code of 1804, known as the Napoleonic Code, which is the base of today's French legal system. It provides for a single uniform legal code throughout France. All people were equal under law, and guaranteed rights of property. Also affirmed Paternalistic nature of French Society.

In 1804 Shorty decided to name himself:

Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte

He used a plebiscite to name himself Emperor. He invited the Pope to the ceremony at Notre Dame. When he was ready to be crowned by the Pope, Napoleon took the crown out of the Pope's hand and he crowned himself, in essence to show that he ruled because of his own achievements, not because God, Family, or Birth wanted to. Then he crowned his wife, Josephine. Napoleon created a new aristocracy which was based on service not heredity. They didn't have special privileges, and couldn't pass down their titles to their children.