Hi everyone, I’m Antonio Di Mauro from class 2 B, today is May 5, 2021, and exactly 200 years ago on the same day and the same month, the great general and politician, founder of the first French empire, died in Sant’Elena.
Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 in Ajaccio in Corsica from a family of small nobility. From an early age, Bonaparte was passionate about a military career, in fact, at 16 he was appointed second lieutenant of artillery. At the age of 24 during the French Revolution, the young captain Bonaparte who was on the side of the government was rewarded with the appointment of a brigadier general. In 1796, after the directorate chose him, he had a very important position as commander of the army of Italy. Subsequently, Napoleon married a friend of his from Barras, the beautiful Giuseppina Beauharnais. On May 15 of the same year, Napoleon entered Milan. Later he attacked the duchies of Parma and Modena, the Austrian fortress of Mantua, and the papal state. But in 1797 Napoleon decided to come to terms with Austria and suspended the conquest of Italy. On 17 October 1797, with the peace of Campoformio, Belgium, Lombardy, and Emilia were recognized in France, while Dalmatia, Istria, and Veneto were recognized in Austria. After a thousand years of independence, the Republic of Venice became independent many people who believed that Napoleon Bonaparte a bringer of freedom got very angry with him, among these people is the famous poet Ugo Foscolo who let off steam by writing the epistolary novel the last letters of Jacopo Ortis. Subsequently, in the Italian territories occupied by the French, new forms of government called “Sister Republics” were born. One of the greatest French enemies was England which was impossible to defeat by sea, so Napoleon tried to attack in Egypt trying to avoid the English fleet commanded by Horatio Nelson, but he did not succeed. Napoleon remained on the ground completely isolated. While in 1799 the French had to abandon first Turin and then Milan in place of the sister republics there were the previous dynasties. In the summer of the same year, Napoleon becomes the first consul and reorganizes the state by putting a new currency on the silver franc, and introducing high schools, and strengthened the polytechnics. Napoleon also made a concordat with the church guaranteeing freedom of worship. Subsequently, Napoleon instituted a new code, the Napoleonic code, abolishing all fiscal privileges and safeguarded some principles of the revolution. On 2 December 1804, he crowned himself French emperor with the consent of the people and not by the grace of God. Napoleon organized six coalitions to conquer Europe. But in February 1815 there was the battle of Waterloo where he was imprisoned on the island of Elba where he managed to escape with a thousand soldiers in his service and managed to govern for a hundred days after which he was exiled to the island of Elba where he remained there permanently because he died on May 5, 1821.
The thing that amazes me about Napoleon is that despite being exiled to the island of St. Helen, he manages to escape and regain power for a hundred days.
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