Was Napoleon Bonaparte Selfish Or Enlightened Despot?

After the French Revolution, men were no longer constrained to their estates and could rise to power. Napoleon Bonaparte was no exception to this rule and within a dozen years of the fall of Bastille, he became the ruler of France (Haberman and Shubert 174). Napoleon wanted to spread France’s enlightened culture and habits to the rest of Europe and later the world. However, in Europe, they tried to resist these revolutionary ideas, which eventually led to Napoleon’s downfall. The motives behind his actions have been debated to great extent, whether his actions were selfish or were to benefit France. However, Napoleon’s actions proved him to be an enlightened despot as he negotiated the Concordat of 1801, adopted the Continental System, and

The Napoleonic Code is the code of French civil law and is still in force in France (Code Napoleon). It was the main influence on the 19th-century civil codes of most countries of continental Europe and Latin America (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). Under the code all male citizens were equal, hereditary nobility and class privileges are eliminated along with freedom of person, contract and inviolability of private property are fundamental principles (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica). The Napoleonic Code tried to maintain social order by protecting property and giving the husband absolute authority over the family (Haberman and Shubert 176). The Napoleonic Code was a compromise between the northern Germanic law and Roman law of the south and east (Code Napoleon). It also helped centralize power in the hands of the State, which became the source of all law (Code Napoleon). Also, it became influential in other European countries and a model for the civil codes of the province of Quebec, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and some Latin American republics (Code Napoleon). Napoleon was able to preserve the accomplishments achieved by the revolutionaries of the French Revolution. The civil code gave post-revolutionary France its first clear set of

Napoleon transformed France into an enlightened country and upheld the values of the French Revolution. The Concordat of 1801 gave the government control over the actions of the church and deprived the Catholic Church of its monopoly it had on religion. The continental system was put in place to defeat or at least weaken England boycott. Additionally, the Napoleonic Code upheld many of the liberal ideas of the philosophes and influenced the laws of Europe and other areas. Although Napoleon was exiled to the island of St. Helena and did not completely succeed on his mission as an enlightened despot, his attempt to revolutionize Europe impacted the world forever. Hence, Napoleon was an enlightened despot since he negotiated the Concordat of 1801, adopted the Continental System and established the Napoleonic