For a long time, Napoleon Bonaparte has been an enigma, and his legacy has been a subject up for debate: some believe that he was a highly effective leader, while others think that his own ambitions ultimately led to his downfall and that he used his power irrationally. The period after the French Revolution was a time of great confusion among French citizens: the lack of a national religion, social transition from aristocracy to meritocracy, and absence of a leader created anarchy.
Napoleon took advantage of this, quickly rising through the ranks by using his talents in military strategy and staging a coup that allowed for him to proclaim himself emperor. Before the Napoleonic Era, the French people had just killed their monarch in hopes of ending the unfair treatment that they were subject to for so long and replacing it with a system that would allow for equal opportunity to its citizens. On the contrary, when Napoleon claimed his position as emperor, many of the goals that the French Revolution was fighting for were lost.
Napoleon’s rule is fraught with contradictions to the ideals of the Revolution:
- Napoleon did not set up a meritocracy, opting instead for nepotism. The point of the French Revolution was to set up a meritocracy as a way to have an equal chance of opportunity distributed across citizens. Napoleon had gained his own power due to the emphasized shift from aristocracy to meritocracy, which allowed him to rise through the military ranks. However, as soon as Napoleon had gained power, he began to utilize a more nepotistic approach when choosing government positions and wealth. When he proclaimed himself as the emperor of France, he rewarded those who supported him, presided over the extravagant court, and granted wealth, positions, and privileges to his family.
- Napoleon abolished hierarchical systems of power only to replace them with others. In line with the goals of the French Revolution, Napoleon’s initial intention was to secure the hopelessly disorganized state that the French legal system was in by abolishing feudalism and ensuring equality, suffrage, and religious freedom to all male citizens. On one hand, the Napoleonic code is attempting to continue what the French Revolution was pushing for, but at the same time, it didn’t push for change for all citizens. On the contrary, it deprived women of participation in legalities and made them socially subservient to their husbands. While Napoleon’s intentions may have been to resolve issues at the time in France, he failed to implement them in a way that would actually benefit everyone involved.
- Even though Napoleon initially invested much attention to stimulating France’s economy, he ultimately left it bankrupt by the end of his rule. A large goal of the French Revolution was to put an end to monarchs taxing the French people and using the money to fund their own luxurious lifestyles (with no attempt to benefit the people of France). Ultimately, Napoleon ended up doing something similar. Some of the solutions Napoleon used to strengthen the economy were decreasing unemployment, restricting workers from joining guilds, monopolies, and trade unions, and implementing trade restrictions. However, all that money that he worked so hard to gain was used to pay for his highly expensive coalitions and wars that left France with no money. Napoleon had generated all this money to finance his own desires and goals of conquests, which ultimately ended up being more about his ego than the long-term economic stability of France.
- The Napoleonic Wars spiraled out of control under Napoleon’s leadership. Napoleon saw going to war as a pre-emptive move to prevent the reinstatement of the monarchy after the French Revolution, but as war between France and the rest of Europe continued, Napoleon had become too eager on expansion and started his own conquests and invasions of the rest of Europe (Italy, Austria, Poland, German States, Holland, Switzerland, Spain, Denmark, and Norway). These conquests led by Napoleon left France in a worse position than before both financially and territorially, and this damage could have been avoided if Napoleon had remained in a defensive position.
By the end of Napoleon’s rule, France was left with little money, lost territory, and confusion regarding governance. Napoleon’s quest for power left France in a vulnerable position to be overtaken by another monarch; after everything France had been through under Napoleon’s rule, it ended up right back where it started. Although France itself took a long time to ultimately realize its ideals of freedom, its revolutionary ideals did manage to heavily impact other countries in their own fight for social equality and fair governance.