Napoleon (2000) s01e03 Episode Script

The congregation shivered in the court.
Notre Dame echoed with the sounds of 400 musicians and singers.
Napoleon Bonaparte was about to be crowned Emperor of France.
"If I have any ambition," he said, "it is so natural to me "so intimately linked with my existence that it is like the blood circulating in my veins.
" It was December 2, 1804.
Napoleon was 35 years old.
His faith in his guiding star had been justified.
Riding the tide of revolution that shook all of Europe the young lieutenant from Corsica had ascended to the rank of general married the woman he loved, Josephine de Beauharnais and with victory after victory on the battlefield made himself the most powerful figure in France.
And there's this young Corsican bringing whole empires toppling, kings losing their thrones, causing this magical belief in him.
He had enormous presence.
a coiled-spring intensity like a bomb about to go off, when he entered a room.
He is ambition in motion.
As time went by, he only had confidence in himself.
He considered himself invincible.
Napoleon mounted the steps to the altar alone.
Seizing the crown in his own hands, he held it aloft then brought it to rest on his own head.
Created, Adapted and syncronyzed by @Goanzaloo.
It's almost incredible: A little boy from Corsica quite good at mathematics, nothing more; father was a clever lawyer, nothing more; became Emperor of the French; he got the better of them.
Wonderful story.
PART THREE: SUMMIT OF GREATNESS As 1805 began Napoleon was planning to cross the English Channel and invade Great Britain with 2,000 ships and 200,000 soldiers.
The French and British were at war once again irreconcilable enemies struggling for dominance on the continent of Europe.
I think Napoleon reckoned that if he got across the Channel his chances would have been excellent.
And he was probably right, we had no army, we had a pathetic army and Napoleon seemed to be invincible.
As he said, "If I am master of the Channel for six hours I will be master of the world.
" "I will take you to London," he told his empress, Josephine.
"I intend the wife of the modern Caesar to be crowned in Westminster.
" To the British, Napoleon seemed capable of fantastic deeds, he might fly over the Channel, or dig a tunnel beneath it.
The Bogeyman, or "Boneyman," as they called him might be coming any day.
We despised him and the cartoons at the time were incredibly vicious.
Napoleon was portrayed as a little Corsican upstart and Josephine as a tart.
He was a little dwarf facing the great might of the British establishment.
On the other hand, mothers would tell their children at night "If you don't say your prayers, Boney will come and get you.
" British schoolchildren were terrified by a popular lullaby: "Baby, baby, naughty baby "hush, you squalling thing, I say; "hush your squalling or it may be Napoleon might pass this way "Baby, baby, he will hear you as he passes by the house "and he, limb from limb, will tear you just as pussy tears a mouse.
" But Napoleon needed ships to carry his men across the Channel and his fleet width no match from the British, the most powerful maritime force in the world.
The Royal Navy was always there and Napoleon says at one point in despair "Wherever I went, I always found the Royal Navy.
" And by August of 1805 he realized that the invasion of England was just not on.
At the end of the summer Napoleon paraded his soldiers along the Channel shore then, to everyone's surprise ordered them to turn their backs on England and march into Europe.
Austria and Russia had joined Britain in an alliance to destroy him.
Already tens of thousands of Russian soldiers for lumbering forward to united with their austrian allies.
Napoleon had inherited the struggle begun over ten years before when revolutionary France facedoff against the monarchs of Europe who were determined to crush the Revolution before its spread.
Napoleon inherited this extraordinary dynamism left over from the French Revolution.
Everybody who had a crowned head, they thought: "Well, you know, what happened to Louis XVI might happen to him.
" Napoleon represents the Revolution and the expansion of the Revolution not only the territorial expansion but the expansion of revolutionary ideas.
Napoleon goes into Europe with his bayonets but also with the Civil Code.
Restless after long months of waiting his soldiers were eager to fight.
They were superbly disciplined hardened veterans of the wars in Italy and the Rhineland.
Napoleon called them "La Grande armée," The Great Army.
He's got a bunch of the toughest, hammered-down, ironed-out roughnecks you ever saw, from generals down to buck privates.
And he just, "Sic 'em, boys.
" They were the most feared men on the continent.
They could begin marching well before dawn and with little rest, continue until nightfall.
"The emperor has discovered a new way of waging war" one soldier said.
"He makes use of our legs instead of our bayonets.
" Imagine yourself carrying between 40 and 60 pounds of rations and musket and cartridges.
Most of them were farmers' boys, grown up used to misery and walking and working from day and night.
And these men would march something like 30 miles in a day.
They'd march for four hours and stop and then march another three or four hours and then stop again.
And they would forage as they went.
I mean, they wouldn't have to worry about these big supply trains behind them.
The Grande Armée was an impressive sight.
The splendid uniforms helped to soldier feel stronger, bigger and braver than he was; made him forget the brutal facts of warfare.
They would fight for riches, the glory of France and devotion to their emperor.
Napoleon was very popular with his soldiers.
He developed a kind of cult of the emperor.
Napoleon was very clever.
He knew how to talk to simple people, especially his soldiers.
When he is inspecting the army or when he's on a battlefield he can remember which officer commands which regiment which division, or which battalion and can ask why this officer is not there when he should be there.
Once, he said, "Who is the bravest man in this unit?" The officer said, "This man.
" He took the Legion of Honor off his own coat and stuck it on the soldier's uniform.
Can you imagine how that would spread in the army? His soldiers idolized him, eager for just a few words of praise or an even greater tribute, saved only the bravest an affectionate yank on the ear.
He stood five feet, two inches tall.
With one hand thrust under his coat he struck a pose common at the time and made it his own.
His little coat and hat were a kind of propaganda, because he created a simple character austere, but very recognizable.
He appealed to the privates by wearing clothes like that.
Here is a man who dresses like we do, like the soldier does like not like the generals and the marshals, but like us.
Napoleon drove his men hard but he drove no one harder than himself.
He could ride for ten hours at a stretch often eating lunch on horseback.
He slept in a tent or under the stars lying down on his camp bed at 8:00 and rising after only a few hours sleep to spend the rest of the night studying reports and issuing orders.
He still found time to write Josephine reminding her of his love and showering her with kisses "everywhere.
" Summer turned to fall.
Napoleon's soldiers marched deeper and deeper into Europe.
Waiting were two enemy armies that outnumbered them almost two to one.
The Russians and Austrians planned to defeat the French by sheer force of numbers.
The Russians and the Austrians thought that they would lick him.
They were quite convinced that once they'd got him in the center of Europe they would finish him off.
But Napoleon saw at once the flaw in the allied strategy.
Their forces were widely dispersed across the continent.
By moving quickly, he could strike at the Austrians before the Russians arrived.
Well, he will swing in across Germany and cut off the leading Austrian forces.
His plan is just hit first, hit with mass forces and catch these boys before they can all link up.
In less than six weeks, the French reached the Danube catching the austian army of general Karl Mack by surprise.
While his enemy wavered Napoleon struck the decisive blow.
He comes down behind them and any sensible general would have run.
But the Austrian general there, Mack, decided he'd make a fight for it, and so he held his position.
And Napoleon just whipped his army around him and isolated him and forced him into surrender just in a matter of days.
27,000 men surrendered.
Mack had lost almost his entire army.
"I did not intend to fight any but the English" Napoleon told the defeated Austrian general "until your master came along and provoked me.
All empires come to an end.
" Now nothing stood between Napoleon and Vienna.
"I have been rather overdone, my good Josephine.
"Eight days spent in the soaking rain and with cold feet "have told on me a little "but I have accomplished my object; I have destroyed the Austrian army by simply marching.
" Napoleon, having moved with this great speed 200,000 men marching 500 miles in 40 days.
So there he has already he's defeated half the Austrian army.
On November 14, Napoleon led his soldiers into Vienna capital of the ancient Austrian Empire.
The emperor Francis I had fled leaving his palaces and gardens to the enemy.
As Bonaparte triumphantly paraded through the winding streets, he portrayed himself as the representative of the French Revolution a symbol of freedom and enlightenment.
But many who had once worshipped him had by now changed their minds, including Ludwig Beethoven.
When Napoleon decided to make himself emperor Beethoven denounced him as a vulgar person who lowered himself to the level of an ordinary king.
Beethoven had dedicated his third symphony to First Consul Bonaparte.
Now he angrily blotted out his name.
"Emperor Napoleon," he said "is nothing more than an ordinary mortal.
He would trample on all human rights and become a tyrant.
" Two months before Napoleon had been encamped on the English Channel.
Now the Viennese elders were giving him the keys to their city.
But his triumph had been shadowed by a disaster.
On October 21 British Admiral Horatio Nelson had caught the French fleet at Trafalgar and utterly destroyed it at the cost of his own life.
Great Britain had lost its greatest sailor but never again would the French challenge the might of the British navy.
Napoleon no longer had a fleet he could count on and now, in December 1805, the Grand Army itself was in danger.
Although Napoleon had crippled the Austrian army and driven the emperor from Vienna his conquest threatened to become his undoing.
It is winter, it is December, it is cold.
He surronded by hostile population.
The Russians are coming to help the Austrians.
His troops are dwindling in number and supplies.
He was almost a thousand miles from Paris.
All of Europe had become a deadly trap.
He was deep in the center of the continent; Prussia was now threatening to declare war.
And on November 22 the Russian and Austrian armies finally united in a single fighting force 90,000 allies against 75,000 Frenchmen.
You might say any sensible man would have stopped and perhaps done a deal with the Russians and the Austrians.
He really had two choices: either to go back or go forward.
Napoleon would never go back.
So he thought, you know, "One more battle.
" As November drew to a close, Napoleon roamed the countryside studied the battles of Frederick the Great, pored over maps.
Then he pointed to a spot not far from the little village of Austerlitz.
It was a hilly field bounded by woods, marshy ponds and small towns.
Here he would make his stand.
Looking it over, the emperor told his marshals "Gentlemen, examine this ground carefully.
"It is going to be a battlefield you will have a part to play upon it.
" 70,000 Russian soldiers would have a part to play, too commanded by the czar himself, Alexander I.
Just 28, he was eager, one of his aides said "to experience and win a battle, to cover himself with glory by defeating the invincible Corsican upstart.
" Alexander I hated Napoleon.
He was jealous of him.
He was a Russian emperor born to inherit the most enormous monarchy in the world and he was talked about much less than Napoleon.
He had this mystical side and thought that destiny had given him a mission to organize Europe and defeat the revolution.
That gave him a certain amount of strength but also made him rash.
Vain, inexperienced, the young czar was an easy target for one of the greatest strategists who ever lived.
Napoleon was outnumbered but if he could control the battlefield make the czar attack him when and where and how he wanted he had a chance to carry the day.
Napoleon knows that the enemy is aware that he is in a difficult position.
So he will exploit it like in judo-- he will use a seeming weakness and turn it against the enemy.
He will convince the enemy he is afraid.
And that is where he shows his genius.
He's going to make the enemy think that he is weaker than he actually is to draw the enemy into an attack.
The battlefield at Austerlitz was dominated by a gently sloping hill, the Pratzen Heights.
"If I wanted to stop the enemy," Napoleon said "it is there that I should post myself; "but that would lead only to an ordinary battle and I want decisive success.
" Napoleon's army controlled the Heights but he would now sacrifice his commanding position in a daring gambit to lure the Russians to attack his right flank.
With a thin line of soldiers on his right he ordered his men to abandon the Heights and watched as enemy forces occupied it.
So the Russians figure, "Boy, 've got it made.
"We've got the best position, in the south.
"The French have very few troops.
We can attack the south and roll up the whole French army.
" Napoleon knew his man.
The czar called a council of war and argued for an immediate attack.
The Russian General Mikhail Kutuzov objected.
Blind in one eye from a battle wound the hard-drinking veteran was contemptuous of his Austrian allies, and wary of Napoleon.
Kutuzov tried to calm the czar's fervor.
He sensed the trap.
Perhaps he didn't understand the trap, but he felt it.
He was an old fox.
He advised Alexander to wait.
But Alexander found this unacceptable.
He was a young Russian czar.
He had more men than Napoleon, and he couldn't accept the idea that Napoleon had not been conquered.
He was also surrounded by young soldiers of the most aristocratic families in Russia, who said, "Napoleon must be crushed right away.
" They felt Napoleon was afraid of them and they should attack at once.
The logic of their battle plan was correct but they forgot who they were up against.
The night before the battle Napoleon dined on his favorite campaign dish potatoes fried with onions.
All across the French camp his soldiers settle in to their evening chores.
He had already inspected the troops and sighted some of the cannons himself.
He appeared a model of optimism and confidence.
As he rode past his men, they shouted, "Long live the Emperor" and waved flaming torches.
The camp blazed with light.
The Russian and Austrian generals who observed this scene from afar thought: "The French are burning thereby wax, because they are planning to retreat.
" It was December 2, 1805 the first anniversary of his coronation.
Napoleon told an aide, "This is the finest evening of my life.
" Daybreak came with an impenetrable fog.
The top of the Pratzen Heights floated like an island above the sea of mist.
Napoleon's soldiers woke early and shook off hunger and fatigue each man preparing for a fight he knew might be his last.
The main killer, they are probably the artillery.
You were just blown apart, ripped apart or had a neat hole put through you.
Coming in close when they did get to bayonet fighting why, it was usually pretty deadly, more killed than wounded.
And then there was, of course, the infantry musket the heavy lead slugs.
Those really smashed and tore.
Modern rifle bullet punches a neat hole but these things just ripped and they'd shatter bones and take out whole sections of the flesh.
From his command post on the Pratzen Heights the czar, eager for battle ordered the allies down off the high ground toward the far end of Napoleon's weak right flank anchored in the little village of Telnitz.
Napoleon had a surprise waiting for them, two divisions of soldiers he had summoned from Vienna.
They had covered the 70 miles in only two days.
Napoleon had put reinforcements where they were least expected and faster than anyone thought possible.
His troops, exhausted after their long march from Vienna struggled to hold on.
So far, Napoleon said, his enemy was behaving like they were conducting maneuvers on his orders.
Napoleon had wanted the enemy to attack his weak right.
He now had enough troops to defend it more than enough for his own plan: an attack on the Pratzen Heights which was left with few defenders.
Napoleon watched from his command post above the battlefield, waiting to spring his trap.
Hidden in the haze at the bottom of the valley below the Heights were two French divisions 17,000 men.
Napoleon gave the order to advance.
"One sharp blow," he said, "and the war is over.
" The fog was so dense the French soldiers could barely see ten paces in front of them.
As the sun began to rise Napoleon's army appeared out of the mist.
On top of the Pratzen the czar watched the French materialize out of the valley.
"They come out of a clear sky," he told an aide.
"Your Majesty," his aide replied "you should rather say they come from hell.
" Alexander didn't know what to do.
He was at an absolute loss.
From that moment on he completely lost control of his army.
After the panic on the Heights he no longer participated in the battle.
"Finding themselves attacked when they thought that they were the attackers," Napoleon said "they looked upon themselves as half-defeated.
" By 9:30, the French controlled the Pratzen Heights demolishing the center of the allied position.
Napoleon swept across the battlefield and attacked the allies from behind.
By 5:00, Austerlitz was silent.
9,000 Frenchmen were killed or wounded along with 16,000 Russians and Austrians.
The czar and his army retreated.
But the Austrian emperor himself, Francis I came to sue for peace from the little Corsican artillery lieutenant who had made himself an emperor only one year before.
"A battle was fought today," Francis wrote his wife "which did not turn out very well.
" Napoleon wrote Josephine "I have defeated the Russian and Austrian army "commanded by the two emperors.
I am a little tired I embrace you.
" Napoleon was actually an artist.
And he always treated military campaigns as an art.
He creates a situation or a situation is imposed upon him by events.
He thinks, and he finds a solution.
He loves war, there's no doubt about that.
But he loves war as an art.
Austerlitz had raised Napoleon's star to new heights.
He had won his greatest victory the victory of which he would always be the proudest.
"Soldiers," he said, "I am pleased with you.
You have decorated your eagles with an inmortal glory.
"You will be greeted with joy "and it will be enough for you to say "'I was at the battle of Austerlitz' for people to reply, 'There goes a brave man.
'" In France, victory was cause for wild rejoicing.
Peace seemed, at last, assured.
But six months later, Napoleon was still deep in Europe preparing for war again.
"Among the established sovereigns," he said "war aims never go beyond possession of a province "or a fortress.
"With me, the stake is always my existence "and that of the whole empire.
"Conquest alone made me what I am; conquest alone can keep me there.
" Alarmed by France's growing power now the Prussians challenged him.
Napoleon made short work of them.
"The idea that Prussia could take the field against me by herself," he said "seems so ridiculous that it does not merit discussion.
" In less than three weeks he brought the Prussians to their knees taking a 140 prisoners, leaving 25,000 dead or wounded.
The might of the Prussian army had been entirely crushed.
Napoleon marched triumphantly through Berlin to the strains of the Marseilles invoking the Revolution, equality and the abolition of privilege.
Now master of most of Western Europe he swept away feudal laws and forced the nations he had conquered to accept the new ones he had created for France the Civil Code.
But he did not govern in the name of liberty.
"I have come to realize," he said "that men are not born to be free.
"Liberty is a need felt by a small class of people "whom nature has endowed with nobler minds than the mass of men.
" He reigned like kings of old with 44 different palaces, including Fontainebleau.
He believed his own glory, the glory of France and the spirit of the Revolution were all one and the same.
Napoleon didn't have profound political convictions.
He loved order.
He loved authority.
He loved well-run organizations.
He said, "What was the cause of the Revolution? Vanity.
" "Liberty was only a pretext.
" He was 37 years old.
His genius as a general had transformed France into an empire of many nations.
Now he would turn all his restless energy toward ruling them.
He kept his eye on everything.
He dissolved the Jewish ghetto in Rome ordered the execution of a bookseller in Nuremberg for printing a hostile pamphlet devised a curriculum for a girls school.
He said that he was made for work, and that he was tireless.
He said, "There are no limits to how much work I can do.
" Napoleon works 24 hours a day.
He does not need a lot of sleep.
And he has the faculty to sleep for small periods of times.
He slept whenever he wanted just sitting on a chair for five or ten minutes.
That was his great strength.
He commanded even sleep, he commanded everything.
Napoleon always knows the state of his finances the state of his administration and the state of his army.
Nothing escapes him and he practically never delegates.
He managed the tiniest details.
He intervened in administrative issues affecting the whole empire.
He has a fabulous memory.
He understands everything very quickly.
He has a great analytical mind.
He could tackle several problems at the same time and dictate different letters to his secretaries.
He would do it so quickly that his secretaries couldn't keep up with him.
He can dictate a 125 letters in one day some dealing with the organization of government some dealing with the number of buttons on a coat some with the organization of artillery.
All this in one day! Napoleon's moments of relaxation are very short.
He loves hot baths and orders his valet to spray him with cologne water.
Napoleon likes to use a lot of cologne water.
He would brush his teeth with care.
There was no toothpaste at the time but he would do it very carefully.
He took very good careful himself.
Fine food bored him.
He preferred chicken, cooked almost any type of sauce and macaronis with Parmesan cheese.
He was certainly not a gourmet.
He didn't care what ate and he ate very quickly.
His dinners lasted 15 or 20 minutes all of the time, people took 2:30 hours to eat.
Like a good Corsican family man he made his brothers and sisters royalty: Louis became king of Holland; Joseph, king of Naples; Jerome, king of Westphalia.
"I need my family to stabilize my dynasty," he said.
"If I distributed thrones according to merit I should have made different choices.
" He made sister Caroline a queen.
Pauline a princess.
Elisa a duchess.
To his mother, he awarded the title "Madame Mere.
" Napoleon always had a lot of respect for his mother.
He always remained his mother's child, even when emperor.
She was amazed by the success of her son.
And she was afraid it wouldn't last.
She was supposed to have often said in her thick Corsican accent "just as long it last" While Napoleon spent long months on campaign far from France Josephine passed the time at Malmaison.
She was uncomfortable living in the palaces of the great royal families.
"I was never made for so much grandeur," she said.
"I can feel the queen's ghost asking what I am doing in her bed.
" Malmaison was Josephine's refuge.
There, she tended to her gardens importing exotic plants, trees and flowers from all over the world.
Although Napoleon was no longer the inexperienced youth intoxicated by her erotic charms he remained deeply attached to her.
"He considers me," Josephine told a friend "one of the rays of his star.
" Napoleon found in Josephine a woman who met all of his desires.
She was an admirable empress, she complemented him.
As Napoleon said, "I win the wars and she wins people's hearts.
" Josephine appeared more in love now than ever before though she and her husband often quarreled.
He objected to her spending nearly one million francs a year on clothes alone.
She was jealous of his mistresses.
But he made love much the same way he ate his meals quickly.
"My mistresses," he said "do not in the least engage my feelings.
Power is my mistress.
" He could not understand why Josephine was upset.
"She takes things far too seriously," he said.
She is always afraid that I shall fall deeply in love.
" "Can she not understand that love is not for me?" You get the impression that he didn't have many sexual needs.
In any case, the lovers he did have he had them because it was the thing to do.
It was only normal for a sovereign to have lovers.
They were just passing relationships and Josephine made more out of them than she should have.
In the end, over time, they created a real partnership.
They had risen to the heights together.
If Josephine had given him a son he would have been the happiest man in the world.
As 1806 drew to a close, Napoleon was still at war.
Austria and Prussia had both surrendered but the Russians, bloodied after Austerlitz and Great Britain, all-powerful on the seas remained dangerous enemies.
Against Britain, he made economic warfare a continental blockade forbidding the European nations to trade with the British Isles.
To defeat Russia, he marched his soldiers deep into Poland.
Napoleon's justification is you have to take the war to your adversaries and you have to defeat them, whatever it takes.
So going out to the far reaches of Poland if that's what it takes to get the Russians to capitulate that's what he's going to do.
Napoleon was in Warsaw when he was stunned by the news of a surprise Russian attack.
He struck back at once, first at Eylau just 130 miles from the Russian border.
Then, later, in nearby Friedland.
The carnage in both battles was terrible: 70,000 French and Russian soldiers killed or wounded.
"It is not combat anymore" a Russian general wrote the czar.
"It is butchery.
" Napoleon's army was torn and bloody.
The czar's army was in ruins.
Alexander pass all over what to do next.
When Alexander I was thinking about what to do after the battle of Friedland his brother, Constantine, said "Sire, if you are considering fighting the French "you might as well give each soldier a gun "and let him put a bullet in his head.
The result will be the same.
" On June 25, 1807 Alexander traveled to Tilsit on the western border of the Russian empire to discuss peace with the emperor of France.
To signify their equal status they met on a raft moored precisely in the center of the Niemen River the boundary between Russia and Europe.
When the czar met Napoleon, he had one goal in mind: to find a peaceful solution that would benefit him.
And the first thing he said to Napoleon in French was "Sir, I hate the English as much as you do.
" And Napoleon said, "Then we have made peace.
" Napoleon's peace terms were generous.
He demanded no Russian territory at all.
In return, the czar agreed to become France's ally to join the continental blockade and refuse to trade with Britain.
Napoleon wanted to have this alliance very much and he was prepared to sacrifice for it.
The alliance of Russia and France, two great empires would force the British to make peace.
Finally, there would be peace in Europe.
Only ten days before, they had been bleeding each other dry.
Now the two old enemies were acting like old friends.
The czar and Napoleon spent long hours together inspecting each other's armies awarding medals to soldiers on both sides.
After two weeks, the two men seemed to have grown genuinely fond of one another.
Napoleon was charmed by Alexander describing him as "especially handsome like a hero with all the graces of an amiable Parisian.
" The czar, in turn, seemed in awe of Napoleon and his sheer power.
As they said good-bye, Napoleon was convinced he had turned the czar into a friend and ally.
He tries to seduce Alexander.
He tries to please him, he pays him a lot of compliments.
Napoleon is a great seducer.
"If Alexander were a woman", he wrote to Josephine, "I would make him my mistress.
" This was Napoleon's biggest mistake.
He thought he actually did charm Alexander.
What Napoleon didn't understand was that Alexander would never stick to their agreement.
But for Napoleon the Tilsit peace seemed to be his finest moment for him and for his empire.
He came back to Paris in July 1807 to a huge celebration.
France rejoiced at the signing of the treaty between the two giant powers.
Once again, peace in Europe seemed secured.
In 1807, Napoleon's empire stretched from the Atlantic coast to the steppes of Russia from the North Sea to the Mediterranean.
He ruled over 70 million people: French, Italians, Dutch, Germans and Polish.
There had been no greater empire since the days of Rome.
Rushed with the pride of power he dreamed of uniting all of Europe under French rule.
The defeat of Russia and Prussia was so spectacular Napoleon was stunned by the success.
He had never visualized such success.
And he began to think, "My God, I can do anything.
" His rising star had reached its zenith.
At that moment, he begins to believe that he is infallible a superman, someone protected by destiny his famous star.
He has complete power in Europe and his pride is very great because this is a former little artillery lieutenant who has made it to the top.
"Ambition is never content," Napoleon once wrote "even on the summit of greatness.
" 38 years old, intoxicated with power the ruler of almost all of Europe he was bent on one more conquest.
It was to be a fatal mistake.
Created, Adapted and syncronyzed by @Goanzaloo.