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In all the new kingdoms created by the emperor, the Code Napoleon was established as law. Feudalism and serfdom were abolished, and freedom of religion established (except in Spain). Each state was granted a constitution, providing for universal male suffrage and a parliament and containing a bill of rights. French-style administrative and judicial systems were required. Schools were put under centralized administration, and free public schools were envisioned. Higher education was opened to all who qualified, regardless of class or religion. Every state had an academy or institute for the promotion of the arts and sciences. Incomes were provided for eminent scholars, especially scientists. Constitutional government remained only a promise, but progress and increased efficiency were widely realized. Not until after Napoleon's fall did the common people of Europe, alienated from his governments by war taxes and military conscription, fully appreciate the benefits he had given them.
In 1812 Napoleon, whose alliance with Alexander I had disintegrated, launched an invasion of Russia that ended in a disastrous retreat from Moscow. Thereafter all Europe united against him, and although he fought on, and brilliantly, the odds were impossible. In April 1814, his marshals refused to continue the struggle. After the allies had rejected his stepping down in favor of his son, Napoleon abdicated unconditionally and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of Elba. Marie Louise and his son were put in the custody of her father, the emperor of Austria. Napoleon never saw either of them again. Napoleon himself, however, soon made a dramatic comeback. In March 1815, he escaped from Elba, reached France, and marched on Paris, winning over the troops sent to capture him. In Paris, he promulgated a new and more democratic constitution, and veterans of his old campaigns flocked to his support. Napoleon asked peace of the allies, but they outlawed him, and he decided to strike first. The result was a campaign into Belgium, which ended in defeat at the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. In Paris, crowds begged him to fight on, but the politicians withdrew their support. Napoleon fled to Rochefort, where he surrendered to the captain of the British battleship Bellerophon. He was then exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the south Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until his death from stomach cancer on May 5, 1821.
The cult of Napoleon as the "man of destiny" began during his lifetime. In fact, he had begun to cultivate it during his first Italian campaign by systematically publicizing his victories. As first consul and emperor, he had engaged the best writers and artists of France and Europe to glorify his deeds and had contributed to the cult himself by the elaborate ceremonies with which he celebrated his rule, picturing himself as the architect of France's greatest glory. He maintained that he had preserved the achievements of the Revolution in France and offered their benefits to Europe. His goal, he said, was to found a European state-a "federation of free peoples." Whatever the truth of this, he became the arch-hero of the French and a martyr to the world. In 1840 his remains were returned to Paris at the request of King Louis-Philippe and interred with great pomp and ceremony in the Invalides, where they still lie.
Napoleon's influence is evident in France even today. Reminders of him dot Paris-the most obvious being the Arc de Triomphe, the centerpiece of the city, which was built to commemorate his victories. His spirit pervades the constitution of the Fifth Republic; the country's basic law is still the Code Napoleon, and the administrative and judicial systems are essentially Napoleonic. A uniform state-regulated system of education persists. Napoleon's radical reforms in all parts of Europe cultivated the ground for the revolutions of the 19th century. Today, the impact of the Code Napoleon is apparent in the law of all European countries.
Napoleon was a driven man, never secure, never satisfied. "Power is my mistress," he said. His life was work-centered; even his social activities had a purpose. He could bear amusements or vacations only briefly. His tastes were for coarse food, bad wine, cheap snuff. He could be charming-hypnotically so-for a purpose. He had intense loyalties-to his family and old associates. Nothing and no one, however, were allowed to interfere with his work.
Napoleon was sometimes a tyrant and always an authoritarian, but one who believed in ruling by mandate of the people, expressed in plebiscites. He was also a great enlightened monarch-a civil executive of enormous capacity who changed French institutions and tried to reform the institutions of Europe and give the Continent a common law. Few deny that he was a military genius. At Saint Helena, he said, "Waterloo will erase the memory of all my victories." He was wrong; for better or worse, he is best remembered as a general, not for his enlightened government, but the latter must be counted if he is justly to be called Napoleon the Great.
Andreas Hofer (1767-1810) The Tirolese patriot Andreas Hofer was born in Saint Leonhard in the Austrian Alps. When the Tirol was transferred to Bavaria, an ally of France, by the Peace of Pressburg of 1805, Hofer became the leader of resistance to Bavarian rule. He raised a force of Tirolese that in 1809 drove out the Bavarian army. In spite of assurances given to Hofer by Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, the Tirol was surrendered to the French by the armistice of Znaim, and a force of 40,000 French and Bavarian troops attempted to occupy the territory. Hofer repulsed the invasion and was elected governor of the Tirol. However, the Treaty of Schonbrunn of October 1809 again ceded the Tirol to Bavaria, and French troops occupied the region. Hofer revolted once more, but he was defeated and two months later was betrayed to the French, who court-martialed and executed him in Mantua, Italy.
Congress of Vienna A European conference was called to reestablish the territorial divisions of Europe at the end of the Napoleonic Wars after the downfall of Napoleon. The conference was held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815. Representatives of all the European powers, except Turkey, assembled at the Congress, which was interrupted in February 1815 by Napoleon's escape from Elba. Most conspicuous among the numerous monarchs who attended the Congress was Alexander I, emperor of Russia, who supported such generally unpopular causes as the unification of the German states and the establishment of a constitutional government in Poland. Of the diplomats, Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian minister of state who acted as the president of the Congress, played what was probably the most prominent part in the negotiations. Although the major powers-Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria-had agreed that neither France nor Spain, nor any of the smaller powers, should be party to any important decisions, the French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, who represented the restored French king Louis XVIII, succeeded in securing for France an equal share in the deliberations. Great Britain was represented mainly by its foreign minister Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, and by the general and statesman Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington. The principal delegate from Prussia was Prince Karl August von Hardenberg.
As a result of the negotiations at the Congress, France was deprived of all the territory conquered by Napoleon; the Dutch Republic was united with the Austrian Netherlands to form a single kingdom of the Netherlands under the house of Orange; Norway and Sweden were joined under a single ruler, Charles XIV John of Sweden; and the independence and neutrality of Switzerland were guaranteed, with the union of its cantons reconstituted as a loose confederation. In addition, Russia received the major part of the former duchy of Warsaw as the kingdom of Poland, with Alexander I as king; Prussia received West Prussia, Posen (now the Polish province of Poznan), the northern half of Saxony, and the greater part of the provinces of the Rhine and Westphalia; Hannover received territorial additions and became a kingdom; Austria was given back most of the territory it had recently lost and was compensated in Germany and Italy (Lombardia and Venice) for the loss of the Austrian Netherlands. The formerly Venetian part of Dalmatia (now in Croatia) also went to Austria; Britain kept Cape Colony in South Africa, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Mauritius, Helgoland, and Malta; the king of Sardinia recovered Piedmont, Nice, and Savoy and received Genoa; the Bourbon king Ferdinand I was restored to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies; and the duchy of Parma was bestowed on Napoleon's wife, Marie Louise of Austria. A territorial commission was convened at Frankfurt, and by 1819 it had established the German Confederation, uniting 39 sovereign states, including Prussia, under the presidency of Austria.
The Congress took the important step of condemning the slave trade and also provided for freedom of navigation on rivers that traversed several states or formed boundaries between states. Its chief accomplishment was in reestablishing a balance of power among the countries of Europe, with the result that the peace of Europe remained practically undisturbed for 40 years.
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