Napoleon I

Napoleon I, also called Napoléon Bonaparte, was a French military general and statesman. Napoleon played a key role in the French Revolution (1789–99), served as first consul of France (1799–1804), and was the first emperor of France (1804–14/15). Today Napoleon is widely considered one of the greatest military generals in history.

Napoleon first seized political power in a coup d’état in 1799. The coup resulted in the replacement of the extant governing body—a five-member Directory—by a three-person Consulate. The first consul, Napoleon, had all the real power; the other two consuls were figureheads. Napoleon eventually abolished the Consulate and declared himself Emperor Napoleon I of France.

Napoleon served as first consul of France from 1799 to 1804. In that time, Napoleon reformed the French educational system, developed a civil code (the Napoleonic Code), and negotiated the Concordat of 1801. He also initiated the Napoleonic Wars (c. 1801–15), a series of wars that carried over into his reign as emperor of France (1804–14/15). As Emperor Napoleon I, he modernized the French military.

After a series of military defeats in 1812–13, Napoleon was forced to abdicate the French throne on April 6, 1814. Napoleon returned to power in early 1815 but was again ousted on June 22, 1815. In October 1815 Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until he died on May 5, 1821, at age 51.

No! “Le Petit Caporal” wasn’t petite—at least not by 19th-century standards. The estimated average height of a French man in 1820 was 5 feet 4 inches (about 1.65 meters). At the time of his death in 1821, Napoleon measured about 5 feet 7 inches (roughly 1.68 meters) tall, meaning that he was actually of above-average height.