Napoleon Bonaparte Research Paper

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the 15th August 1769, just three months after his birth island of Corsica had been bought and defeated by the French. Napoleon was born into a family of pure noble blood; his father’s family had lived in Corsica for over 300 years.

Napoleons father Carlo lead the Corsican resistance against the French along side Pasquale Paoli. The small island had just been bought by the French from the Genoese when the leaders grouped together to try and gain independence for Corsica. The Corsicans rallied against the French and managed to waive off the first attack of 10,000 men. However, the next year, led by Comte de Vaux the French returned with 22,000 troops and despite a full effort resistance the Corsicans were too

The young Bonaparte family could not afford to send all of their children to school, so Marbeuf created an arrangement by which the children of French noblemen could attend schools in France for free. The Comte arranged and payed for Napoleon to be sent to Autun, a school in Burgundy and then to be transferred to the military academy of Brienne under the new policy that he created. Marbeuf also arranged for Napoleon’s older brother Gisuppe to be sent to a priesthood school so that he could join the church.

Napoleon first set foot in mainland France on Christmas Day 1778, at the age of nine. His three months in Autun were spent learning French as his mother tongue was Corsican, an idiomatic Italian. The headmaster, Abbé Chardon’s comments about Napoleon’s time in Autun “thoughtful and gloomy character. He had no playmate and walked about by himself…He had ability and learned quickly…if I scolded him, he answered in a cold almost imperious tone: ‘Sir I know it’ ”*5

Throughout his life Napoleon remained to have difficulty in French pronunciation and spelling; the source of much ridicule in his later years in power. The architect of man of Napoleon’s castles once said it is “incredible in a man of his position that he should speak with such an