Bonaparte's Government

In the current history unit, we are studying the extensive conquest of a famous French leader by the name of  Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon was an influential leader during the early nineteenth century, whose reign involved redrawing the entire map of Europe to show his conquered regions. Although eventually he was pinned the blame by many of creating a universal monarchy, Napoleon was seen as a hero to another great deal of citizens within France.  A key part in his influences included having a significant impact several of the social and economic troubles in France.

Madame de Staël, a writer who bitterly opposed Napoleon during the time of his reign and had been exiled from France, tells of how he managed to change France within her writing The Ten Years of Exile. In this, she tells of how "Bonaparte's government is his profound contempt for all the intellectual riches of human nature" and that "His system was to encroach daily upon France's liberty and Europe's independence...". In this she expresses her negative views of Napoleon and how although she doesn't believe that Napoleon started a universal monarchy that through force and devotions he has essentially conquered Europe. This goes along with the views of Conservatism within France, in which Madame de Staël was clearly not in favor of.

Napoleon's soldiers, however, admired him as a political figure and were surely in favor of whatever he had in mind. Marshal Michael Nay, one of Napoleon's officers during his reign in France, created a speech upon the return of Napoleon in Paris 1815. In his speech he says that "To the emperor Napoleon, our sovereign, belongs alone the right to rule over our beautiful country" and that "Liberty triumphs in the end, and Napoleon, or august emperor, comes to confirm it". Although non conservative citizens viewed Napoleon as a tyrant, his own soldiers were clearly in complete devotion to all of the movements he has started.

A third source titled The Lost Voices of Napoleonic Historians by Thomas J. Vance shows the two previous points of view combined into one. Throughout the article, Thomas quotes several historians and proceeds to show how although Napoleon may have not been the perfect leader in terms of morality and influences, he still holds his niche in history and deserves to be remembered for the amount of change he caused within France and the amount of time he dedicated to being a master in the art of war. Overall, Napoleon as a whole influenced the way the economic and social structures of Europe  and France operated for the rest of history which created opportunities for eras to come.