Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte’s natural character can best be exemplified of that being of a revolutionary and nationalist individual. The political, social, and economic reforms personify Napoleon Bonaparter’s natural characteristics as both a revolutionary and a nationalist. Napoleon Bonaparte’s characteristics as a revolutionary can be seen is his consolidation and institutionalization of many reforms of the French Revolution during his leadership of France. In addition, Napoleon’s nationalist attributes can be best expressed in his ambitions to strengthen the power of France and the waging of the many wars in Europe historically referred as the Napoleonic Wars.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s revolutionary and nationalist attributes are characterized in his political reforms. At first Napoleon favored the republic established by the French Revolution and he supported the Jacobins. Soon after he joined Abbe Sieyes in a successful coup d’ etat to overthrow the Directory. In overthrowing the Directory, Napoleon issued the Constitution of the Year VIII. The new constitution was established universal male suffrage that suggested democratic principles, a complicated system of checks and balances that appealed to republican theory, and a Council of State the evoked memories of Louis XIV. The new constitution in fact established the rule of one man—the First Consul, Bonaparte. He was elected the First Consul, he was the first modern political figure to use the rhetoric of revolution and nationalism, to back it with military force, and to combine those elements into a mighty weapon of imperial expansion in the service of his own power and ambition. He can also illustrate his characteristic as a revolutionary by establishing an empirical government in France. As First Consul, Napoleon issued a general amnesty and employed in his own service persons from all political factions. He was ruthless and efficient in suppressing opposition, he established a highly centralized administration in which prefects directly responsible to the central government in Paris managed all departments, and he also employed secret police. All of these political reforms characterized his revolutionary attributes due to the fact that he embodied reforms that changed the political structure of France; also these reform characterized his nationalist attributes in that these political reforms were for the good of the state of France.

The social reforms that Napoleon Bonaparte instituted distinguish his traits of an individual as a revolutionary and nationalist. Napoleon continued the policy, of the French Revolution, of abolishing all the social inequality that marked the Old Regime.