Napoleon Bonaparte was not French, as most assume. He was Italian, from Corsica, an island near Italy north of the Italian island of Sardinia. His family were Corsican patriots who hated the French, but young Napoleon wanted to be a soldier, and was sent off to prestigious officer cadet courses in Paris.
In sophisticated Paris, he was ridiculed by the effete members of the soon doomed aristocracy" Napoleon came to hate them, and through them, guillotine window the arrogant people of Paris, who treated him as a crude peasant from an uncivilized occupied off shore island of no consequence.
But through a series of brave actions in several actions, the troops began to admire and adore their little corporal. And soon the 27 year old Corsican with the angered heart of a lion was in charge of a ragged, underfed group of French troops on the border with Italy, where the north was controlled by Austria. Napoleon gave the first of many stirring speeches to his men.
Napoleon, riding back and forth in front of these hungry, ragged men, he presented that stirring vision that has been painted of him: they were hungry and unpaid and he had no money to pay them. But before them lay the natural riches of the most fertile land on earth, and it was waiting for them. By the time the French soldiers poured into the plains of Italy they were unbeatable, and the shocked soldiers of Austria found themselves in full retreat.
Meanwhile, back in Paris, the Revolution was losing the momentum in the reign of terror, taking the bloody course almost to a natural end, in which all factions began to guillotine each other. Napoleon arrived back to a welcome reserved for a conquering hero, which he had become.
Napoleon was made senior officer for Paris. His timing could not have been better for him, or the current government. They, all with bloody hands, now at the top of the block, found it was their turn as the still starving masses now were coming for them. Napoleon had his troops line all cannons in Paris at the mob, and stood facing them as they swarmed down the street. The soldiers were on guard but no match for the angry crowd, as always.
Napoleon had his cannons lined up across the street, with all government officials nervously at the windows, watching the growing crowd, many with torches or pitchforks, swords and axes, as they filled the street in their approach. Napoleon looked into the disorderly faces and eyes and hated them for their lack of response to his orders to stop. He ordered FIRE! In the smoke and screams and carnage, the French Revolution was over.
Within months, Napoleon was living in the Grand Palace, all officialdom at his feet, now he was First Consul of Rome, pardon me, Paris. His son later became King of Rome. There are so many fascinating tidbits of the life of this extraordinary man, who for a short while did create a United States of Europe, with him by now Emperor. Bad move.
Eventually, so many nations from Russia to Prussia to Austria to Sweden to England to Spain to the bits of Italy that could come, showed up at Waterloo.
And in the frantic last meeting of Napoleon and his War Cabinet back in Paris, they all agreed it was every man for himself. Napoleon made his way to a port and was promised a ship to America. It did not arrive in time, although a vast crescent of Allied forces did, and off he was forever to the South Atlantic. I saw a hair of his in an antique shop in London once.