Napoleon Bonaparte Research Paper

Although he was small in stature, Napoleon Bonaparte stood head and shoulders above other giants of his time. With the records of his great rise to power to conquest of Europe and finally his exile, we would understand the “Little Corporal”. He would be compared to those such as Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, and Julius Caesar. Other countries were looking to France, for it was weak and filled with chaos, to take it for their own until young Napoleon took power and returned France into its golden age of its empire. While he was laughed at behind his back, he was feared and respected on the battlefield. His very presence demanded respect and admiration from foe and ally alike. Both on the battlefield and the court, he showed great composure

He was the fourth born and the second to survive. He was born on a small island of the west coast of Italy called Corsica. The island was Italian speaking and Napoleon grew up with an Italian accent and this would later affect his life negatively. The island was under France occupation and this caused a lot of resistance which Napoleons Father supported until the leader was sent into exile. His father then switched sides to support the French. In doing so, his father got a nice job with the French and was paid a lot. With the upgrade in his social status, he was able to send his sons to highly prestigious schools such as the college D’Autun. This was a military college where Napoleon only spent a few years here before gaining acceptance to the military academy at Brienne. It was here that he found his passion in the works of ancient empires such as Greece and Rome. He avidly studied Plutarch’s The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans. This gave him the inspiration for the empire who would soon start to build. Not all was a good time at the college however, one of his professors, Albert Guerard, wrote that, as a lonely cadet who was often teased by his fellow students, he became an avid reader and acquired a taste for the classics of Ancient Greece, Rome, the Renaissance and of France's Age of Louis XIV. While studying these books he started to try and understand why France had all of the corruption, poverty, and injustice and how he could fix it. He started having aspirations of what he would do if was in power. Also it was here also that he was teased by his peers because of his stature and that he spoke Spanish and could not speak French very well. His small stature was the cause for the nickname “little Corporal”. Although he was teased a lot and didn’t have many friends, Napoleon excelled in his studies. After five years of studies, he graduated to the military