Napoleon Bonaparte Height

Napoleon Bonaparte was 5’5” tall.  Later his soldier called him little corporal.

Napoleon Bonaparte Quotes

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.

The act of policing is, in order to punish less often, to punish more severely.

Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

Napoleon Bonaparte Facts

He was born in Corsica to a relatively modest family of Italian origin from minor nobility.

Napoleon was serving as an artillery officer in the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789.

He rapidly rose through the ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming a general at age 24.

The French Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents.

At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning virtually every battle, conquering the Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing “sister republics” with local support, and becoming a war hero in France.

In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He orchestrated a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic.

Napoleon’s ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805.

Napoleon shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

Napoleon Bonaparte Death

A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto French soil.

The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, and the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power.

Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June.

The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51.

In February 1821, Napoleon’s health began to deteriorate rapidly, and he reconciled with the Catholic Church.

He died on 5 May 1821, after confession, Extreme Unction and Viaticum in the presence of Father Ange Vignali.

His last words were, France, l’armée, tête d’armée, Joséphine (“France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine”).

Napoleon Bonaparte Movie

Napoléon (2002)

Waterloo (1970)

Napoleon Bonaparte Wife

Napoleon married Joséphine de Beauharnais in 1796, when he was 26; she was a 32-year-old widow whose first husband had been executed during the Revolution.

Joséphine did not produce an heir, possibly because of either the stresses of her imprisonment during the Reign of Terror or an abortion she may have had in her twenties.

Napoleon chose divorce so he could remarry in search of an heir. Despite his divorce from Josephine, Napoleon showed his dedication to her for the rest of his life.

On 11 March 1810 by proxy, he married the 19-year-old Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria. She was great niece of Marie Antoinette, beheaded queen of France. Thus he had married into a German royal and imperial family.

Napoleon and Marie Louise remained married until his death, though she did not join him in exile on Elba and thereafter never saw her husband again. The couple had one child, Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles (1811–1832).