Napoleon & Empire

Napoleon was born on August 15th, 1769 in Ajaccio (Corsica), the younger son of Carlo Bonaparte, a lawyer of the Supreme Council of Corsica, and Letizia Ramolino. He is baptized in  the cathedral  of the city on July 21st, 1771, the year the Bonaparte family is given its noble status by the Board of Corsica.

The young Napoleon makes his first trip to France in December 1778. He is admitted the following January 1st to the college of Autun, where his father registers him after obtaining a scholarship. In May 1779, he joins the military school of Brienne , which prepares children of the nobility for a military career. He demonstrates a remarkable aptitude for mathematics.

He leaves this institution in October 1784 to enter the Royal School of Champ de Mars in Paris in the company of gentlemen cadets.

The year 1785 is a sad one for Napoleon, as he mourns the death of his father Charles, probably of stomach cancer, leaving a widow with eight children and little income. In the fall, Napoleon receives his wings of second lieutenant and is assigned to the artillery regiment of La Fere, stationed at Valence.

In 1786, his first leave sees him off to Corsica, which he left nearly eight years ago. He returns to Paris the following year.

In June 1788, Lieutenant Bonaparte rejoins his regiment, stationed at Auxonne, a small town in Burgundy. In 1789, troubled year, he is responsible for suppressing riots in the region, and then returns to Corsica, where he participates in the political turmoil that stirs the island. He demonstrates at the time an insular nationalism, supporting the action of Pasquale Paoli, with whom he has an interview in July 1790, inconclusive.

Back in Auxonne, Napoleon is promoted to first lieutenant in June 1791 and transferred to the 4th Artillery Regiment in Valence. On the occasion of a new leave, he joins a battalion of National Guard of Ajaccio, with which he takes part in the clashes, which forces him to return to Paris in May 1792 to defend himself. He is reinstated in the army in July 1792 with the rank of captain and sent to Ajaccio.

His break with Pasquale Paoli, whose supporters ransacked Bonaparte's house, forces him to flee the island with his family in June 1793. While his family moves near Toulon, he joins his regiment in Nice. After a mission in Avignon, he is appointed by the Convention in command of artillery in Toulon, with the rank of battalion chief. Under the command of General Jacques Dugommier, Napoleon takes a decisive part in the expulsion of the English fleet with his talent as a gunner. He fights alongside future marshals and generals of the Empire, as Auguste Frédéric Louis Viesse de Marmont, Jean-Andoche Junot, André Masséna, Louis-Gabriel Suchet and Claude-Victor Perrin. He is rewarded for his great deeds with the rank of brigadier general.

As Napoleon Bonaparte commands from March 1794 the artillery of the army of Italy and has just drafted the campaign plan, the fall of Maximilien Robespierre on July 27th (9 Thermidor) earns him a short imprisonment and suspension from office.

In spring 1795, in Marseille, Napoleon becomes engaged to Desiree Clary, daughter of a wealthy silk manufacturer. This is one of the few occasions when Joseph Bonaparte, himself married to the older sister of Desiree, shows the way for his younger brother. Later, Napoleon refuses to be appointed as general of infantry in the army of the West, joins for a few weeks the topographical bureau of the Public Health Committee, offers to go to Turkey to organize the army ... before his name is removed from the list of eligible generals.

In October 1795, Paul Barras, commanding General of the Army of the Interior, assigns him the command of forces entrusted with the suppression of the royalists section insurrection in Paris. With the assistance of Guillaume Brune and Joachim Murat, Napoleon Bonaparte ends the 13 Vendemiaire of about 25,000 insurgents. This earns him, in addition to the nickname "General Vendemiaire", the rank of major general and commander in chief of the army of the Interior.