Ruler · Age of revolutions · France

Napoleon Bonaparte

1769–1821

First Consul after 18 Brumaire (1799), Emperor of the French from 1804, defeated at Waterloo in 1815. Preserved property and administrative reforms while centralizing power.

Facts

Born: 15 August 1769, Ajaccio, Corsica.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Napoleon I
Died: 5 May 1821, Saint Helena.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Napoleon I
Coup: 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799); First Consul under the Constitution of Year VIII.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Napoleon I
Civil Code: Code civil des Français, 1804: legal equality for adult males, secure private property, secular civil law.; Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Napoleonic Code

The record

Napoleon rose as the Directory failed. The coup of 18–19 Brumaire made him First Consul; by 1804 a plebiscite and Senate decree created the Empire. At Notre-Dame on 2 December 1804 he crowned himself after papal anointing.

The Civil Code fixed property rights and civil equality for men while the political order became autocratic. Wars from Austerlitz to Russia and Leipzig ended in abdication, the Hundred Days, and Waterloo. He died in exile on Saint Helena.

This page records offices, law and the sequence from revolutionary collapse to centralized rule. Battle narratives belong elsewhere.