french+revolution+project

=//**__Napoleon__**//= Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Napoleon decided on a military career when he was a child, winning a scholarship to a French military academy at age 14. Napoleon was one of the greatest military commanders in history. He has also been portrayed as a power hungry conqueror. He argued that he was building a federation of free peoples in a Europe united under a liberal government. Napoleon proved to be an excellent civil administrator. One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized France's government by appointing prefects to administer regions called departments, into which France was divided. Napoleon's own opinion of his career is best stated in the following quotation. “I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution.” Napoleon became a hero again in 1795, defending the government from angry counter-revolutionary forces; Baras rewarded Napoleon by promoting him to high military office, a position with access to the political spine of France. media type="custom" key="7124939"

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