Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstance.” Perhaps his self evaluation was correct, but what he did with his circumstance was nothing less than genius for the man who would be Emperor. From his fighting tactics, his insight of people in general and his abilities to motivate the masses and his soldiers to conquer the world, he had the words and skills and the willingness to stand side by side with those from whom he expected so much.
Napoleon was born August 15 1769 in Corsica to a family of Italian ancestry from the minor nobility. He was the second of eight children and even though he was of nobility, the family was not rich. The year before he was born, the French had acquired Corsica so
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He had ideas about the revolutionary principle of equality that won for him the support of the lower middle and working class people (the sans-culottes) Robespierre held the attention of the Jacobins, the pro-revolutionaries. Robespierre and his associates took control of the national government and seemingly of public opinion and so he was able to impose his own ideas concerning the goals of the French Revolution. For him the proper government for France was not simply one based on sovereignty of the people with a democracy, which had been achieved. The final goal was a government based on ethical principles, a Republic of Virtue. He and those of his associates who were truly virtuous would impose such a government, using the machinery of the Reign of Terror to oppose any person who was even rumored to oppose him and the revolution. From 1793 to 1794, thousands of people were beheaded in a guillotine. The Reign of Terror effectively squelched any opposition. This whole chapter of the French Revolution was the ground on which Napoleon was able to lay a foundation for seizing