Napoleon: The Early Years
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Everyone knows that Napoleon was French, right? Nope!
Napoleon was actually Italian. He came from Corsica, a Mediterranean island, located west of Italy and southeast of France. His family was the Buonapartes, who had ties to the island for at least 300 years.
As a young man, Napoleon deeply hated France. As part of France’s conquest of Corsica, he was forcibly re-educated in the French mainland. Isolated and bullied in French schools, his heart still belonged to his Italian homeland.
But when a revolution overthrew France’s corrupt king and queen, the mighty Corsican embraced his new motherland and its new republican ideals. Abandoning his Italian roots, he became a loyal son of France and a ferocious defender of her values: liberty, equality, fraternity.
With his fateful siege of Toulon, the myth of Napoleon Bonaparte—the unconquerable Frenchman—was born. Here is the electrifying story of Napoleon’s early years, from 1769 to 1793.
Corsica’s independence
Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 in the town of Ajaccio, Corsica.
Corsica had long been ruled by the Italian city-state of Genoa since the 1200s. The island was briefly occupied by France during the Italian Wars, but the French were kicked out under the Treaty of Cateau-Cambréssis in 1559. But over the centuries, Genoa’s control over Corsica grew weaker.
By the 1750s, a movement led by Pasquale Paoli called for Corsica’s independence. One of its members was Carlo Buonaparte, Napoleon’s father. The Corsicans kicked out Genoa in 1755, and were briefly independent. But Genoa made a back-door deal with France, which agreed to annex Corsica in 1768. The Corsicans tried to resist, but were defeated by the French at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769, forcing Paoli to flee to Britain.
By the time of Napoleon’s birth, Corsica had fully fallen into French hands. Bonaparte was born in the city of Corte, the former capital of Paoli’s republican government. Corsica was formally annexed in 1770, and its inhabitants were forced to adopt French culture.
Napoleon’s parents
Napoleon was the son of Carlo Buonaparte and Maria-Letizia Ramolino. Both parents were Corsican nobles, who came from the Lombardy region of northern Italy.
The Buonapartes came from Florence and Tuscany, who established ties in Corsica in the fifteenth century. The family would later remove the “u” from their name to better assimilate into French society in the 1790s (when Napoleon was in his mid twenties).
Carlo studied at the University of Pisa, in Italy’s mainland. At age eighteen, he returned to Corsica to marry the 15-year-old Maria in June of 1764, thus uniting the two Corsican families through marriage.
Napoleon was very proud of his Italian heritage, and styled himself as an heir to the ancient Romans.
Seven siblings
Napoleon was the fourth of thirteen kids, but only eight of them survived past infancy. Two of them died before Napoleon’s birth.
Napoleon had seven siblings: Joseph, Lucien, Louis, Jerome, Maria Anna, Pauline, and Caroline.
His older brother was Joseph, born in January of 1768.
His three younger brothers were Lucien, Louis, and Jerome. They were born in 1775, 1778, and 1784.
His three sisters were Maria Anna, Pauline, and Caroline. They were born in 1777, 1780, and 1782.
Through Napoleon, the Bonaparte family would exert much influence over Europe’s politics. They would eventually make up three kings, a prince, a queen, a princess, and a grand duchess. Given this nepotism, it must have been a tight family. When Napoleon became France’s Emperor, she became known as Madame Mère (“Madame Mother”).
Kingdom of France
In the century before Napoleon’s birth, Britain and France competed for dominance of Europe.
The Kingdom of France, during the long reign of Louis XIV, aggressively expanded into the Low Countries and German lands. It also possessed overseas colonies in North America and the Caribbean. Together with Spain, France was ruled by the Bourbon dynasty.
But by Napoleon’s birth, Britain had replaced France as Europe’s strongest power. Thanks to its superior navy and capitalist economy, the British reversed French gains in North America and India.
Under the influence of the Enlightenment, many Europeans began to call for democracy. But France failed to make any meaningful reforms. By the early summer of 1774, when King Louis XVI came to power, France was at the brink of a violent revolution. Napoleon was just aged four.
Napoleon’s upbringing
Napoleon grew up on Corsica, living in his family’s three story manor house: Casa Buonaparte, in Ajaccio. He briefly suffered from a bout of tuberculosis in his youth, which gave him a lifelong heavy cough.
Even from a young age, Napoleon was strong-willed. His childhood nickname was Rabulione (“troublemaker”). The boy Bonaparte was very intelligent and well-read. He loved to read the historical biographies of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. He also enjoyed Enlightenment writers, such as Rousseau and Voltaire.
Fall of Corsica
When the French seized Corsica, Carlo was granted a minor noble title in 1771, just a few weeks after Napoleon’s second birthday. Although the Buonapartes made peace with the French Kingdom, they were still Corsican nationalists in their political outlook.
As a lawyer, Carlo rose through the ranks of the newly established French nobility. In 1778, when Napoleon was eight years old, his father Carlo became Corsica’s envoy to King Louis’ French court at Versailles. Once a Corsican patriot, the elder Buonaparte was now doing business with the French invaders!
The young Napoleon was deeply outraged by the French occupation of his homeland. He hated their politics, culture, and language. As he grew up, Napoleon unfavorably saw his father as selling out Corsica’s independence.
Autun
As a nine-year-old, Napoleon was forced out of Corsica to receive his education in France. This was part of the Gallicization campaign, which imposed French culture on the Italian island.
In January of 1779, Napoleon was sent off to a religious school in Autun, located in the Burgundy region of eastern France. It was the beginning of many years of exile from his Corsican homeland. Napoleon returned only one time to Corsica in the late 1780s and early 1790s. But despite being forced into France, Napoleon never forgot his Corsican heritage. He spoke a lifelong Italian accent, and spelled French words in an Italian way.
During his schooldays in France, Napoleon was ruthlessly bullied because of his Corsican origin and Italian accent. The poor boy had no friends in his new home, but he excelled in his academic studies. In just a few short months, the boy Napoleon quickly learned the French language.
Brienne
Months after arriving in Autun, Napoleon earned a scholarship to the royal military school at Brienne-le-Château in May of 1779. The school was located in Troye, in the Champagne region of France.
Napoleon’s education in France was extremely harsh. He was far away from his family, who were still living in Corsica. The French students lived in utter poverty, sleeping on piles of hay each night.
Despite these difficulties, Napoleon continued to excel in his studies. He was especially good at mathematics, which would later serve him well as a military commander. He also learned the aristocratic arts of dancing, fencing, and music.
Now aged fifteen, Napoleon passed his final exams at Brienne in September of 1784. The boy was now a man.
École Militaire
Upon graduating at Brienne, Napoleon went to the École Royale Militaire (“Royal Military School”) in Paris, where he specialized in artillery. In the 18th century, artillery was becoming a very powerful weapon of warfare.
At the École, Napoleon’s personality was described as being docile, but honest and grateful. A deeply driven man, young Napoleon rarely bothered with leisure time. He performed especially well in history, math, and geography. Napoleon’s teachers recommended that he become a naval officer.
Unfortunately, Napoleon’s studies were sidelined by his father’s unexpected death in 1785. Carlo was only aged 38. His cause of death is unknown, perhaps a stomach cancer or ulcer. Napoleon’s father passed away in Montpelier, located in southern France.
Napoleon was deeply sad by his father’s death. Over the previous six years, Napoleon only got to see his dad twice. Carlo’s death may have influenced Napoleon’s lifelong distrust of doctors.
Upon the death of his father, Napoleon was now the family’s new leader. His family was left in debt, due to his father’s failed mulberry plantation venture. Seeing his father’s untimely death, Napoleon feared he might not live into old age, so he became even more driven than before. He became Corsica’s first-ever graduate from France’s most esteemed military academy.
Valence and Auxonne
Upon graduation, Napoleon was immediately commissioned as a second lieutenant in La Fère, one of France’s oldest artillery regiments.
Valence became the first assignment for the 16-year-old Napoleon. It is located on the banks of the Rhône, halfway between Lyon and Marseilles. There, the young officer lived as a poor man. His room consisted only of a bed, an armchair, and a table. He often relied on local cafes for food and shelter. Nevertheless, Napoleon continued to focus on his studies. He voraciously read the works of Machiavelli, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Jean Racine. The handsome young Frenchman tried to use Racine’s plays to win the heart of a beautiful girl named Caroline du Colombier.
Despite years of education there, Napoleon still deeply hated France. Early in the summer of 1786, he penned an essay called “On Suicide.” In it, he complained bitterly about his life and his occupied Italian homeland. Napoleon was forced to travel to Paris, where he fought off lawsuits against his dead father. There, Napoleon lost his virginity to a French prostitute, whom he met at the gardens of the Palais Royale.
In the autumn of 1786, Napoleon returned to Corsica for the first time since he had left as a child back in early 1779. For the first time, Napoleon met his three siblings: Pauline, Caroline, and Jerome. He got a full year of leave due to falsified medical reports. The trip only fostered his Corscian nationalism. Napoleon then wrote a book about the History of Corsica, which he never finished. The book was inspired by the work of Scottish historian James Boswell. In this unfinished book, Napoleon criticized France’s occupation of the Italian island.
Napoleon was called away to resume his military duties in the autumn of 1787. When he returned to France, he was stationed in the country’s east at the artillery school in the town of Auxonne, near Dijon, in the Burgundy region. He continued to live frugally, sending money back to help his family. He read classical literature, such as Livy, Suetonius, Caesar, and Plutarch. Tales of Alexander, Hannibal, and Caesar inspired Napoleon. He later modeled himself on their exploits.
French Revolution
Napoleon continued to develop himself as an artillery officer. In the spring of 1789, Napoleon saw his first action. He was sent to the town of Seurre, to suppress a riot of hungry peasants.
As he continued his studies in the second half of the 1780s, France was going into full revolution. The economy was collapsing, due to many wars against Britain and Holland. By the 1780s, finance minister such as Jacques Necker were no longer able to control the situation. The eruption of Iceland’s Laki volcano led to extreme weather, killing Europe’s harvests in 1783 and 1784. Famine struck France, causing unrest.
By the spring of 1789, the crisis got worse. In 1788, France’s Minister of Finance Étienne de Brienne tried to devalue the French coinage, but this only caused heavy inflation. Poor farmers were hit the worst, increasing tensions. Necker was fired from his job. To truly fix the economy, France needed to recall its parliament, which had not been convened in a century.
King Louis summoned the Estates General in January 1789. It took months but 1,200 delegates convened at Versailles. When the King threatened to shut down parliament, the Third Estate met at the tennis court at Versailles, swearing an oath not to dissolve until a new constitution was proclaimed. The Crown was no longer in control of France.
This became the National Assembly, which continued to meet in Versailles. On July 14, the French stormed the Bastille. On August 4, feudalism was abolished. On August 26, the Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man. But a counter-revolution broke out. Bread prices rose. Paris’ women marched on Versailles, arresting the King and Queen. The National Assembly moved to Paris, where they began work on a new constitution.
Napoleon warmly welcomed the French Revolution. But despite his republican sympathies, the military man was forced to quell riots in eastern France. So Bonaparte took a leave of absence in August of 1789. He traveled back home to Corsica, where he urged his fellow Italians to support the French Revolution. One of France’s revolutionaries, a man named Antoine Saliceti, convinced the National Assembly to annex Corsica.
In 1790, France sent Napoleon to restore order in Corsica, which was divided in a civil war between republicans and royalists. By this time, the Jacobins in Paris were calling to overthrow the French monarchy. A new constitution was adopted in 1791.
First Coalition
The French Revolution was bitterly opposed by the rest of Europe. Austria and Prussia, led by Leopold II and Frederick William II, announced their intentions to restore King Louis XVI in France. Together, Austria and Prussia organized a pan-European alliance to invade France. It became known as the War of the First Coalition.
Napoleon actively supported the French Revolution. He left Corsica for Valence in 1791, where the young lieutenant rallied behind the town’s local Jacobins. To fight off the rest of Europe, France invaded the Austrian territory of Holland. So the Prussians invaded northeastern France. But the French won a major victory against the Prussians at the Battle of Valmy in September of 1792. Faced with foreign interference, the French revolutionaries now saw their King as a dangerous traitor.
War for Corsica
Back in Corsica, Napoleon found himself clashing with Paoli. Napoleon supported the French Revolution, but Paoli sought British support to ensure Corsica’s independence. Bonaparte enjoyed support from the Parisian government, thanks to his ally Saliceti. In the name of equality, the Church was dethroned from Corsica’s politics. But Paoli opposed these reforms.
Now, Corsica’s fate would be determined between two rival powers: Britain and France. On behalf of France, the now 23-year-old Napoleon went on his first major campaign. He invaded Sardinia, as a way of keeping Savoy-Piedmont out of the anti-French Coalition. Unfortunately for our hero, Bonaparte’s campaign was sabotaged by his jealous rival Paoli. It was Napoleon’s first taste of senior command, yet it ended in a humiliating defeat.
Napoleon continued to embrace the French Revolution, even as it grew more radical. Back in Paris, the French Revolution grew more and more radical. King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette were both seen as traitors, and were executed by guillotine on January 21, 1793. He tried to seize Ajaccio for France, but lacked both the military supplies and the support of the Corsican public. Paoli continued to invite British presence into Corsica, but Napoleon was firmly opposed. As tensions grew between the two men, Paoli’s supporters ransacked Napoleon’s family home.
Finally, in the summer of 1793, Napoleon left Corsica for France. He denounced Paoli, and fully embraced France’s revolution. Napoleon removed the “u” from his last name Bonaparte. Now, he had cut all ties to his native Corsica.
Siege of Toulon
Having hastily abandoned Corsica, Napoleon and his Bonaparte family permanently relocated to France. He joined up with his regiment at Nice, located along the southeast coastline of the French Riveria. There, Napoleon organized gunpowder convoys for the Revolution’s armies in southern France.
The Jacobins were losing their popularity, even among other revolutionary parties. The Girondins opposed the Reign of Terror, while the Montagnards urged even more radical reforms. But Napoleon confirmed his loyalty to the Jacobins in his book Supper at Beaucaire.
Just like Corsica, France now erupted into civil war. It began in Vendée, a coastal province of western France, located south of Brittany. In March of 1793, Catholics and royalists launched a counter-revolution. As Europe threatened to invade France, the French Revolution introduced something radical into their military: mass conscription. Thanks to this new tactic, the French Army raised hundreds of thousands of troops.
In the south of France, the goal was to recapture Marseilles. The port city of Toulon was captured on August 24, southeast of Marseilles. The counter-revolutionaries called upon the British and Spanish navies for aid. Samuel Hood, the commander-in-chief, led the British and Spanish and Italians of 15,000 troops against Toulon.
The French Republic needed to recapture Toulon in order to control the Mediterranean waters off southern France. General Jean François Carteaux led a siege of Toulon in the last days of August 1793. The civil war lasted for several months. France’s royalists boldly proclaimed a new king, Louis VIII, in October.
By the autumn of 1793, French royalists and their British collaborators had established defenses at Fort Mulgrave. Bonaparte was convinced that he could dislodge them using stationed artillery. Through his friend Saliecti, Napoleon was appointed the artillery commander of Carteaux’s right flank. Presiding over 30,000 men, the brave Bonaparte opened fire on the enemy. By the end of 1793, the Jacobins had successfully subdued the counter-revolution. Going into the mid-1790s, the French Republic would continue to win a string of victories over her European enemies.
The Siege of Toulon became the world’s first taste of the mighty Napoleon! He had successfully defended the French Republic, using his masterful artillery prowess. Overnight, Bonaparte became a revolutionary hero. On December 22, just four days after Toulon, the 24-year-old Napoleon was promoted to brigadier general in the French Army.
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