Napoleon A Revolutionary Leader

Napoleon’s whole world was shaped by the French Revolution. It was the time period in which he grew up and it is what ultimately shaped him as a person. From instilling new, modern government ideas to fighting for the rights of the people, Napoleon had been a direct product of the revolution. As he rose to power in 1799, we saw how he was tolerant of people’s beliefs and also believed in their equality, but also had acquired some other traits from the revolution.

In the French Revolution, there was a lot of competition. Everyone always wanted to be on top, have the most resources, and be the most successful. This was seen in Napoleon since he was a short, poor man who had not even been a French native. All of his life he had been competing

We saw it with Marie Antoinette during Louis’ reign and by all of the other nobles. As the rest of the country suffered in poverty, they enjoyed their luxuries and wanted even more for themselves. This relates to Napoleon because he was never satisfied by his position. He was always rising higher and higher and gaining more power. As he was craving more power , he started neglecting his wife. Robert Ingersoll revealed that he would’ve rather been a poor peasant who had a loving wife and children than be a greedy nobleman who took it all for granted. Another thing that revealed Napoleon’s greed was an entry in his diary, where he stated that without all of his glory and victories, he would lose his power. This being said, he needed to continue to have more victories and see more bloodshed in order to feel accomplished. He desired to be the most powerful man in France, or even better,

Violence is something that was extremely prevalent in the French Revolution and had greatly affected Napoleon. From growing up in those conditions, he became accustomed to solving his problems with violence. In fact, that is how he rose to the throne. His military victories were what brought him to power and shaped his reputation. In his diary entry, he talks of how he would lose all of his power if he were not a violent, effective leader, always striving to do better. After all, he had been studying the campaigns of Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, and Frederick the Great prior to his reign, so he had known a great deal about violence. In his imperial decree he invested in getting more forces for the police and giving them spies. Joseph Fouche remarked that there was a stronger force put into place and that they were more spies than he ever had. From all of the turmoil of the revolution, Napoleon introduced stronger powers that could then be more capable of protecting them. Napoleon was paranoid due to all of the events that happened in the revolution so he figured if Fouche had more spies, then he could catch people and stop things before they happened. Madame de Remusat also said that the people of France believed Napoleon would be their solution, and save them from the anarchy that they had faced. But, Napoleon being heavily influenced by the