CHAPTER 'I 3

NAPOLEON AND

EUROPE

I he royalist, religious writer Fran^ois-Rene de Chateaubriand
once called his enemy Napoleon “the mightiest breath of life which has ever
animated human clay.” In a rare moment of introspection, Napoleon once
remarked, “It is said that I am an ambitious man but that is not so; or at least
my ambition is so closely bound to my being that they are both one and the

same.”

Yet, far more than his imposing will, Napoleon’s career was shaped by
and reflected the breathtaking changes brought by the French Revolu­
tion. Statemaking and the emergence of nationalism, accompanied by the
increased secularization of political institutions, slowly but surely trans­
formed the European continent.
An admirer of the Enlightenment, Napoleon claimed that he was the true
son of the French Revolution. He personally supervised the writing of the
new constitution, which made wealth, specifically propertied wealth, the
determinant of status. Napoleon’s reign was also a watershed in statemak­
ing: he further centralized the French state and extended its reach, making
it more efficient by codifying laws and creating new bureaucratic structures
and a new social hierarchy based upon state service.
Napoleon saw himself as a savior who carried “liberty, equality, and frater­
nity” abroad, freeing the European peoples from sovereigns who oppressed
them. From his final exile on the distant Atlantic island of Saint Helena,
Napoleon claimed to have created European unity. But in the process of “lib­
erating” other nations from the stranglehold of old regimes, he also con­
quered them.

Napoleon’s Rise to Power

Napoleon’s rise to power should be seen in the context of the French Revo­

lution. With the emigration of most of the officer corps during the early

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