Bonaparte, Napoléon (Napoleon I) (1769–1821)

Abstract Napoleon's spectacular career, which took him from the ranks of the impoverished nobility on the island of Corsica to ruler of territories that at their height stretched from the Elbe River to the Iberian Peninsula, had profound repercussions for the whole of Europe, including those states such as Britain which never came under direct Napoleonic rule. Like a number of other able military men such as Louis‐Lazare Hoche, a former stable‐boy, and Michel Ney, the son of a cooper, his rise was inconceivable without the collapse of the old regime and the French Revolution, which opened up careers to talent. Alongside his military abilities, it was his intelligence, ruthlessness, and charisma, as well as a sense of destiny, that were the personal qualities underpinning his rise to power.