To restore prosperity, Napoleon modernized finance. He regulated the economy to control prices, encouraged new industry, and built roads and canals. To ensure well-trained officials and military officers, he promoted a system of public schools under firm government control. He also repealed some social reforms of the revolution. He made peace with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801. The Concordat kept the Church under state control but recognized religious freedom for Catholics.
Napoleon I won support across class lines. He encouraged the émigré population to return, provided they gave an oath of loyalty. Peasants were relieved when he recognized their right to lands they had bought during the revolution. Napoleon's chief opposition came from royalists and republicans.
Among Napoleon's most lasting reforms was a new law code, popularly called the Napoleonic Code. It embodied Enlightenment principles such as equality of all citizens before the law, religious toleration, and advancement based on virtue. But the Napoleonic Code undid some reforms of the French Revolution. Women, for example, lost most of their newly gained rights under the new code. The law considered women minors who could not exercise the rights of citizenship. Male heads of households regained full authority over their wives and children. Again, Napoleon valued order and authority over individual rights.
Emperor Napoleon abandoned plans to invade England and turned his armies against the Austro-Russian forces, defeating them at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805. In 1806 Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the Russian army at Friedland. He crowned his elder brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples and Sicily in 1806 and converted the Dutch Republic into the kingdom of Holland for his brother Louis. Napoleon also established the Confederation of the Rhine (most of the German states) of which he was protector.
To legitimize his rule, he divorced his wife Joséphine and married Marie Louise, duchess of Parma and daughter of the Emperor Francis I of Austria. Soon she delivered a son and heir to the Bonaparte Dynasty. He was named Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte or Napoleon II and crowned King of Rome from his birth.
At Tilsit in July 1807, Napoleon made an ally of Russian tsar Alexander Romanov and greatly reduced the size of Prussia. He also added new states to the empire: the kingdom of Westphalia, under his youngest brother Jerome, the duchy of Warsaw, and others states.
The Congress of Erfurt sought to preserve the Russo-French alliance and the leaders had a friendly personal relationship after their first meeting at Tilsit in 1807. However, on June 23, 1812, Napoleon went to war with Russia. The French invasion of Russia defeated many Russian cities and villages, but by the time they reached Moscow it was winter. Due to the Russian army's scorched earth tactics, the French found little food for themselves and their horses. Napoleon's army was unable to defeat the Russians. The Russians began to attack. Napoleon and his army had to go back to France. The French suffered greatly in during Napoleon's retreat. Most of his soldiers never returned to France. His army was reduced to 70,000 soldiers and 40,000 stragglers, against more than three times as many Allied troops. Finally at the 1813 Battle of the Nations he was defeated by the Allies: Sweden, Russia, Austria, and Prussia.
Napoleon had no choice but to abdicate in favor of his son. However, the Allies refused to accept this. Napoleon abdicated without conditions on April 11, 1814. Before his official abdication, Napoleon attempted suicide with a pill but it did not work. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled him to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean. The Allies allowed Napoleon to keep an imperial title "Emperor of Elba" and an allowance of 2 million francs a year. Napoleon even requested a 21 gun salute as emperor of the island of Elba. Many delegates feared that Elba was too close to Europe to keep such a dangerous force.
Separated from his son and wife, who had come under Austrian control, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba on February 26 1815. He made a surprise march on March 1, 1815 to Paris. His former troops joined him and Louis XVIII fled to exile. He again became ruler of France for a length of 100 days. Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the British under Duke of Wellington and Prussians on June 18 1815, which was his last battle. Napoleon was again captured and taken to his second exile on the island of Saint Helena on the Atlantic Ocean.
Napoleon was sent to the island of Saint Helena, off the coast of Africa. He died on May 5 1821 of stomach cancer. Napoleon kept himself up to date of the events through The Times and hoped for release in the event that Holland became Prime Minister. There were other plots to rescue Napoleon from captivity including one from Texas, where exiled soldiers from the Grande Armée wanted a resurrection of the Napoleonic Empire in America. There was even a plan to rescue him with a primitive submarine. For Lord Byron, Napoleon was the epitome of the Romantic hero, the persecuted, lonely and flawed genius. The news that Napoleon had taken up gardening at Longwood also appealed to more domestic British sensibilities.
French people remain proud of Napoleon's glory days. The Napoleonic Code reflects the modern French Constitution. Weapons and other kinds of military technology remained largely static through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, but 18th century operational mobility underwent significant change. Napoleon's biggest influence was in the conduct of warfare. His popularity would later help his nephew Louis-Napoléon to become ruler of France more than 30 years later.
On the world stage, Napoleon's conquest spread the ideas of the revolution. He failed to make Europe into a French Empire. Instead, he sparked nationalist feeling across Europe. He was also known as “The Leader Of France”.
Historians have many different views on Napoleon. Some historians say that he caused wars that killed many people in Europe, and therefore he was a bad ruler. Vincent Cronin disagrees with the view, saying that most of the Napoleonic Wars were started by Napoleon's enemies. Others argue that Napoleon made the mistake of trying to conquer too much land and that if he had stopped in 1808, his enemies might have left him alone. Other historians have said that he was a good ruler. They usually focus on the changes he brought to France and the countries he conquered. Andrew Roberts lists the greatest ideas that Napoleon brought to France and other countries as the Napoleonic code, freedom of religion, better civil services, better education, more equality, support for science and art and others.
Wetzlar
Wetzlar is a city at the river Lahn in Hesse in Germany. The number of people in the city is about 53,000.
Wetzlar is near Frankfurt.
Wetzlar is famous for the historic Oldtown and for Goethe.
The camera maker Leica is there.
Wetzlar has a connection to the Autobahn 45 with three junctions.
Wetzlar is twinned with:
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhol, Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was one of the most famous American artists of the latter half of the 20th century. Many people think that Warhol is the "bellwether of the art market".