How Did Napoleon Bonaparte Betray The French Revolution

It is said that Napoleon considered himself a “child of the Revolution” and that his rise to power represented the natural culmination of the French Revolution. Others, such as Ludwig von Beethoven and Francisco Goya, argued that Napoleon had betrayed the values and ideas of the French Revolution. It seems more credible that Napoleon had betrayed the values and ideas of the French Revolution. Some ideals that Napoleon have betrayed were liberty, equality, and fraternity.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an ambitious man of conquest and showed his passion of it by conquering most of Western Europe. Napoleon had betrayed the idea of liberty of the French Revolution through his conquests and new laws. His conquests led to multiple reforms and laws which failed because they were considered politically impossible. He established new codes that limited the freedoms that the conquered had previously. After crowning himself Emperor, Napoleon started regulating public opinion, censoring books and media, and monitoring his people to avoid rebellion. He had suppressed anyone who tried to write articles that attacked him, curtailed free speech and freedom of the press, and

Napoleon Bonaparte had crowned himself Emperor of the Grand Empire in 1804 and believed himself to be equal to god with his own divinity. He had given émigrés that had taken a loyalty oath high positions in his government and recreated the imperial nobility. He believed that only the rich and talented deserved an education and higher paying jobs, while women and the lower class did not deserve any sort of education. Women had lost many rights they had gained in the 1790s and basically became the property of their fathers/husbands. (McKay, pp 607) He had taxed the French colonies to keep the French public from paying for his endless wars.