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136-565: The Girondins were a group of loosely affiliated individuals rather than an organized political party and the name was at first informally applied because the most prominent exponents of their point of view were deputies to the Legislative Assembly from the département of Gironde in southwest France. Girondin leader Jacques Pierre Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, therefore

272-414: A Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and a Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The new constitution was approved by plebiscite on 7 February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that

408-716: A Seventh Coalition , which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51. Napoleon is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and Napoleonic tactics are still studied at military schools worldwide. His legacy endures through the modernizing legal and administrative reforms he enacted in France and Western Europe, embodied in

544-725: A Supreme Being and a strong executive. Attribution: Departments of France In the administrative divisions of France , the department ( French : département , pronounced [depaʁtəmɑ̃] ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities "), between the administrative regions and the communes . There are ninety-six departments in metropolitan France , with an additional five overseas departments , which are also classified as overseas regions. Departments are further subdivided into 333 arrondissements and 2,054 cantons (as of 2023). These last two levels of government have no political autonomy, instead serving as

680-463: A county of the United States . At the 2001 census, the median population of a department in continental France was 511,000 inhabitants, which is 21 times the median population of a United States county, but less than two-thirds of the median population of a ceremonial county of England and Wales. Most of the departments have an area of between 4,000 and 8,000 km (1500 to 3000 sq. mi.), and

816-525: A coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on 4 September—the Coup of 18 Fructidor . This left Barras and his republican allies in control again but more dependent upon Bonaparte who finalized peace terms with Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio . Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand , France's Foreign Minister, and took command of

952-583: A Girondin sympathizer. It covers her work for the Girondins while her husband Jean-Marie Roland was Interior Minister. The book echoes such popular novels as Rousseau's Julie or the New Héloise by linking her feminine virtue and motherhood to her sacrifice in a cycle of suffering and consolation. Roland says her mother's death was the impetus for her "odyssey from virtuous daughter to revolutionary heroine" as it introduced her to death and sacrifice—with

1088-445: A combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under a promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics. Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across

1224-484: A complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and

1360-641: A draft constitution known as the Girondin constitutional project , which was presented to the National Convention in early 1793. Thomas Paine was one of the signers of this proposal. The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondins, who had a majority in the Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministries, believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in

1496-667: A group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone , and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Hospitaller Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller . Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with

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1632-483: A majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution. Historians have variously described Bonaparte's new regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite," "absolutist rule decked out in the spirit of the age," and "soft despotism." Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by

1768-746: A military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies in the War of the First Coalition , scoring decisive victories and becoming a national hero. He led an invasion of Egypt and Syria in 1798 which served as a springboard to political power. In November 1799, Napoleon engineered the Coup of 18 Brumaire against the Directory , and became First Consul of the Republic. He won the Battle of Marengo in 1800, which secured France's victory in

1904-500: A more uniform division into departments ( département ) and districts in late 1789. The process began on 4 August 1789 with the elimination of provincial privileges, and a 22 December 1789 decree (with letters patent in January 1790) provided for the termination of the provincial governments. The modern department system, as all-purpose units of the government, was decreed on 26 February 1790 (with letters patent on 4 March 1790) by

2040-568: A plebiscite since the Revolution. France had regained her overseas colonies under Amiens but did not control them all. The French National Convention had voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, but, in May 1802, Bonaparte reintroduced it in all the recovered colonies except Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe which were under the control of rebel generals. A French military expedition under Antoine Richepanse regained control of Guadeloupe and slavery

2176-513: A population between 320,000 and 1 million. The largest in area is Gironde (10,000 km (3,900 sq mi).), while the smallest is the city of Paris (105 km (41 sq mi).). The most populous is Nord (2,550,000) and the least populous is Lozère (74,000). The departments are numbered: their two-digit numbers appear in postal codes , in INSEE codes (including "social security numbers") and on vehicle number plates . Initially

2312-405: A president. Their main areas of responsibility include the management of a number of social and welfare allowances, of junior high school ( collège ) buildings and technical staff, and local roads and school and rural buses, and a contribution to municipal infrastructures. Local services of the state administration are traditionally organised at departmental level, where the prefect represents

2448-566: A series of victories. The Republic, however, was bankrupt and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him. Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of the Council of Five Hundred and Directory: Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès , Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché to overthrow

2584-516: A temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee ). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish , Gaza , Jaffa , and Haifa . The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered

2720-399: A three-digit number. The number is used, for example, in the postal code and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates . Residents commonly use the numbers to refer to their own department or a neighbouring one, for example inhabitants of Loiret may refer to their department as "the 45". More distant departments are generally referred to by their names, as few people know

2856-584: A typical Corsican of the time. In January 1779, at age 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French (his mother tongue was the Corsican dialect of Italian). Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke with a Corsican accent and his French spelling was poor. In May, he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he

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2992-551: A vote of the Convention. This was enough to secure him the votes of the Paris electors when he was elected mayor ten days later. The Mountain was strengthened by the accession of a significant ally whose one idea was to use his new power to avenge himself on his former colleagues. Mayor Pache, with procureur of the Commune Pierre Gaspard Chaumette and deputy procureur Jacques René Hébert , controlled

3128-413: A week after the execution of his wife. A very few escaped, including Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai , whose Mémoires give a detailed picture of the sufferings of the fugitives. The survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after the fall of Robespierre on 27 July 1794, but it was not until 5 March 1795 that they were formally re-instated forming the Council of Five Hundred under

3264-533: Is commonly associated, though not all are officially recognised or used. Unlike the rest of the French possessions in Africa , Algeria was divided into departments just like Corsica or Normandy from 1848 until its independence in 1962. These departments were supposed to be "assimilated" or "integrated" to France sometime in the future. There are a number of former departments in territories conquered by France during

3400-411: Is known as the prefecture ( préfecture ) or chef-lieu de département and is generally a town of some importance roughly at the geographical centre of the department. This was determined according to the time taken to travel on horseback from the periphery of the department. The goal was for the prefecture to be accessible on horseback from any town in the department within 24 hours. The prefecture

3536-562: Is not necessarily the largest city in the department: for instance, in Saône-et-Loire department the capital is Mâcon , but the largest city is Chalon-sur-Saône . Departments may be divided into arrondissements . The capital of an arrondissement is called a subprefecture ( sous-préfecture ) or chef-lieu d'arrondissement . Each department is administered by a departmental council ( conseil départemental ), an assembly elected for six years by universal suffrage , with

3672-703: The Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise two months later, gave him a pretext to arrest about 100 suspected Jacobins and royalists, some of whom were shot and many others deported to penal colonies. After a decade of war, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Under

3808-595: The Ponts et Chaussées (Bridges and Highways) infrastructure administration. Before the French Revolution , France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the end of the Ancien Régime it was organised into provinces . During the Revolution they were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. The National Constituent Assembly decided to create

3944-618: The 1823 French intervention ending the trienio liberal ) and the 1833 territorial division of Spain , which forms the basis of the present day Provinces of Spain with minor modifications, are also based on the French model of departments of roughly equal size. Most French departments are assigned a two-digit number, the Official Geographical Code, allocated by the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques ( Insée ). Overseas departments have

4080-577: The Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He was arrested on 9 August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria and, in March 1795, he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by

4216-639: The French Republican calendar —he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (later called: "a whiff of grapeshot "). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family the patronage of the new government, the French Directory . On 26 October, he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796 he

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4352-694: The French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire that are now not part of France: Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Dutch Republic : Holy Roman Empire : Holy Roman Empire : Electorate of the Palatinate Electorate of the Palatinate Kingdom of Prussia : Imperial Free City of Wesel (after 1805) Notes for Table 7: Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I ,

4488-474: The ISO 3166-2 country subdivision codes for the metropolitan departments. The overseas departments have three digits. Originally, the relationship between the departments and the central government was left somewhat ambiguous. While citizens in each department elected their own officials, the local governments were subordinated to the central government, becoming instruments of national integration. By 1793, however,

4624-593: The Maison Bonaparte home in Ajaccio , where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. He had an elder brother, Joseph , and, later, six younger siblings: Lucien , Elisa , Louis , Pauline , Caroline , and Jérôme . Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic , under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte . In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione , Nabulio , Napolionne , and Napulione . Napoleon

4760-543: The Napoleonic Code . He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of feudalism , emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition , enacted the principle of equality before the law for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities. His conquests acted as a catalyst for political change and

4896-597: The National Constituent Assembly . Their boundaries served two purposes: The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments. Most were named after an area's principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine . Savoy , during its temporary occupation, became the department of Mont-Blanc . The provinces continued to exist administratively until 21 September 1791. The number of departments, initially 83, had been increased to 130 by 1809 with

5032-405: The National Convention of 1792–1795. Five were lawyers: Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud , Marguerite-Élie Guadet , Armand Gensonné , Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve and Jean Jay (who was also a Protestant pastor). The other, Jean François Ducos , was a tradesman. In the Legislative Assembly, they represented a compact body of opinion which, though not as yet definitely republican (i.e. against

5168-659: The Peninsular War . In 1809, the Austrians again challenged France in the War of the Fifth Coalition , in which Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after winning the Battle of Wagram . In summer 1812, he launched an invasion of Russia , which ended in the catastrophic retreat of his army that winter. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russia in the War of the Sixth Coalition , in which Napoleon

5304-661: The President of the Departmental Council as executive of the department. Before 1982, the chief executive of the department was the prefect ( préfet ), who represents the Government of France in each department and is appointed by the President of the French Republic . The prefect is assisted by one or more sub-prefects ( sous-préfet ) based in the subprefectures of the department. Since 1982,

5440-834: The Rhineland , Poland and the Netherlands with a goal of creating a protective ring of satellite republics in Great Britain , Spain and Italy by 1795. The Girondins also called for war against Austria , arguing it would rally patriots around the Revolution, liberate oppressed peoples from despotism, and test the loyalty of King Louis XVI . Girondins at first dominated the Jacobin Club, where Brissot's influence had not yet been ousted by Maximilien Robespierre and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay

5576-621: The Septembriseurs (the supporters of the September Massacres such as Robespierre, Danton , Marat and their lesser allies) realised that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the Girondins, had proposed to include them in the proscription lists of September 1792: The Mountain Club to a man who desired their overthrow. A group including some Girondins prepared

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5712-775: The Sultan of Mysore , an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent . In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences . His Egyptian expedition included

5848-586: The Territoire de Belfort ; the remaining parts of Meurthe and Moselle were merged into a new Meurthe-et-Moselle department. When France regained the ceded departments after World War I , the Territoire de Belfort was not reintegrated into Haut-Rhin. In 1922 it became France's 90th department. Likewise the Lorraine departments were not changed back to their original boundaries, and a new Moselle department

5984-675: The UMP , said in December 2008 that the fusion of the departments with the regions was a matter to be dealt with soon. This was soon refuted by Édouard Balladur and Gérard Longuet , members of the committee for the reform of local authorities, known as the Balladur Committee. In January 2008, the Attali Commission recommended that the departmental level of government should be eliminated within ten years. Nevertheless,

6120-607: The War of the Second Coalition , and in 1803 sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States . In December 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, further expanding his power. The breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens led to the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered the coalition with a decisive victory at the Battle of Austerlitz , which led to the dissolution of

6256-608: The Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain. After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the British Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India . Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan ,

6392-619: The Assembly. Temperament largely accounts for the dividing line between the parties. The Girondins were doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action. They initially encouraged armed petitions, but then were dismayed when this led to the émeute (riot) of 20 June 1792 . Jean-Marie Roland was typical of their spirit, turning the Ministry of the Exterior into a publishing office for tracts on civic virtues while riotous mobs were burning

6528-413: The Austrians at Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo increased his popularity and political authority. However, he still faced royalist plots and feared Jacobin influence, especially in the army. Several assassination plots, including

6664-722: The Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben , signed on 18 April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries , and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender , ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark . In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards . The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during

6800-476: The Austrians, laying siege to Mantua . The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione , the Battle of Bassano , the Battle of Arcole , and the Battle of Rivoli . The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The French then invaded

6936-412: The Balladur Committee has not retained this proposition and does not advocate the disappearance of the departments, but simply "favors the voluntary grouping of departments", which it suggests also for the regions, with the aim of reducing the number of regions to 15. This committee advocates, on the contrary, the suppression of the cantons. Each department has a coat of arms and a flag with which it

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7072-421: The Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland. Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of a coastal battery. In July 1793, he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire ), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was now heavily influenced by the Jacobins. In September, with

7208-403: The Directory . On 3 October of that same year (11 Vendémiaire , year IV), a solemn fête in honour of the Girondins, "martyrs of liberty", was celebrated in the Convention. In her autobiography, Madame Roland reshapes her historical image by stressing the popular connection between sacrifice and female virtue. Her Mémoires de Madame Roland (1795) was written from prison where she was held as

7344-428: The European powers. They supported an aggressive foreign policy and constituted the war party in the period 1792–1793, when revolutionary France initiated a long series of revolutionary wars with other European powers. Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, one that Napoleon later pursued aggressively. Brissot called on the National Convention to dominate Europe by conquering

7480-461: The French garrison in Ajaccio. In February 1793, Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia . Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent, the French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers and the island was now controlled by Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that

7616-505: The French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon Northern Italy. When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over

7752-462: The Gironde supported a free market – opposing price controls on goods (e.g., a 1793 maximum on grain prices), supported by a constitutional right to public assistance for the poor and public education . With Brissot, they advocated exporting the Revolution through aggressive foreign policies including war against the surrounding European monarchies. The Girondins were also one of the first supporters of abolitionism in France with Brissot leading

7888-471: The Gironde, as traitors and enemies of their country ( Charles-Louis Antiboul , Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrêde, Brissot, Carra, Gaspard-Séverin Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Jean Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Claude Romain Lauze de Perret, Lehardi, Benoît Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, the Marquis de Sillery, Vergniaud and Louis-François-Sébastien Viger). Those were sent to trial. Another 39 were included in

8024-455: The Girondins were the war party in 1792–1793. Other prominent Girondins included Jean Marie Roland and his wife Madame Roland . They also had an ally in the English-born American activist Thomas Paine . Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland (who had gone into hiding) committed suicide when he learned about the execution. Paine was imprisoned, but he narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting The Death of Marat depicts

8160-420: The Holy Roman Empire . In the War of the Fourth Coalition , Napoleon defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, marched his Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in 1807 at the Battle of Friedland . Seeking to extend his trade embargo against Britain , Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain in 1808, provoking

8296-406: The Italian form "Napoleone di Buonaparte." Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign , he knocked the Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on

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8432-421: The Kingdom of Sardinia. The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794, and then advanced to seize Ormea in the mountains. From Ormea, it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge . After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France. After

8568-409: The Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale. On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile , preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in

8704-455: The Montagnard faction). Their numbers were increased by the return to national politics by former National Constituent Assembly deputies such as Jean-Paul Rabaut Saint-Étienne , Pétion de Villeneuve and Kervélégan, as well as some newcomers as the writer Thomas Paine and popular journalist Jean-Louis Carra. The Girondins called on the local authorities to oppose the concentration and centralisation of power. The Girondins proposed suspending

8840-427: The Paris National Guards, purged the Convention of the Girondins (see Insurrection of 31 May – 2 June 1793 ). A list drawn up by the Commandant-General of the Parisian National Guard François Hanriot (with help from Marat) and endorsed by a decree of the intimidated Convention, included 22 Girondin deputies and 10 of the 12 members of the Commission of Twelve , who were ordered to be detained at their lodgings "under

8976-667: The Republic (all created in 1946) – French Guiana , Guadeloupe , Martinique and Réunion – the total number of departments in the French Republic had become 101. In 2015 the Urban Community of Lyon was split from Rhône to form the Métropole de Lyon , a sui generis entity, with the powers of both an intercommunality and those of a department on its territory, formally classified as a "territorial collectivity with particular status" ( French : collectivité territoriale à statut particulier ) and as such not belonging to any department. As of 2019 Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse are still administrative departments, although they no longer have

9112-445: The Royal Navy. From 1794, Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795, Bonaparte was assigned to the Army of the West , which was engaged in the War in the Vendée —a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general and he pleaded poor health to avoid

9248-436: The Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on 2 June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at Marengo on 14 June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised

9384-404: The Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III . The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post. On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras , a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction , knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of

9520-423: The administrative basis for the local organisation of police, fire departments as well as, in certain cases, elections. Each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council ( sg. conseil départemental , pl. conseils départementaux ). From 1800 to April 2015, these were called general councils ( sg. conseil général , pl. conseils généraux ). Each council has

9656-442: The anti-slavery Society of the Friends of the Blacks . Certain Girondins such as Condorcet supported women's suffrage and political equality . They sat to the left of the centrist Feuillants . The Girondins supported democratic reform , secularism and parliamentary sovereignty at the expense of a weaker executive and judiciary as opposed to the authoritarian left-wing Montagnards , who supported public acknowledgement of

9792-535: The armed militias of the 48 revolutionary Sections of Paris and prepared to turn this weapon against the Convention. The abortive émeute of 10 March warned the Girondins of their danger and they responded with defensive moves. They unintentionally increased the prestige of their most vocal and bitter critic Marat by prosecuting him before the Revolutionary Tribunal , where his acquittal in April 1793

9928-452: The campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures. During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to support

10064-520: The châteaux unchecked in the provinces. Girondins did not share the ferocious fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future Montagnard organisers of the Reign of Terror . On 25 July, according to the Logographe , Carnot promoted the use of pikes (seven feet long) and provided to every citizen. (On this day the points of view between Robespierre and Brissot split.) On 29 July Robespierre called for

10200-630: The civil rights of women and children in France, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule. Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family who emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and his maternal ancestors, the Ramolinos, descended from a noble family from Lombardy . Napoleon's parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino , lived in

10336-414: The country's capital city, is a commune as well as a department. In continental France ( metropolitan France , excluding Corsica ), the median land area of a department is 5,965 km (2,303 sq mi), which is two-and-a-half times the median land area of the ceremonial counties of England and the preserved counties of Wales and slightly more than three-and-half times the median land area of

10472-486: The deposition of the King and the election of a Convention. Early August Brissot urged the preservation of the constitution, advocating against both the dethronement of the king and the election of a new assembly. As the Revolution developed, the Girondins often found themselves opposing its results; the overthrow of the monarchy on 10 August 1792 and the September Massacres of 1792 occurred while they still nominally controlled

10608-551: The deputies to the Convention who were memorialized were only those hailing from the Gironde department, omitting notable people like Brissot and Madame Roland. Former Former The words Girondin and Montagnard are defined as political groups—more specific definitions are the subject of theorizing by historians. The two words were much tossed about by partisans with various understandings of what they were intended to represent. The two groups lacked formal political structures, and

10744-432: The development of nation states . However, he is controversial due to his role in wars which devastated Europe, his looting of conquered territories, and his mixed record on civil rights. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and jailed critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in France's colonies except for Haiti , banned the entry of blacks and mulattos into France, reduced

10880-492: The differences between them have never been satisfactorily explained. It has been suggested that the word Girondin as a useful term be abandoned. Influenced by classical liberalism and the concepts of democracy , human rights and Montesquieu 's separation of powers , the Girondins were republicans , Like the Jacobins, they were also influenced by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . In its early times of government,

11016-420: The domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid and so fell under suspicion of "federalism" as on September 25, 1792. They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by first decreeing its abolition but withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition. In the suspicious temper of the times, their vacillation was fatal. Marat never ceased his denunciations of the faction by which France

11152-466: The economy recovering, Bonaparte became increasingly popular, both domestically and abroad. In May 1802, the Council of State recommended a new plebiscite asking the French people to make "Napoleon Bonaparte" Consul for life. (It was the first time his first name was officially used by the regime.) About 3.6 million voted "yes" and 8,374 "no." 40%-60% of eligible Frenchmen voted, the highest turnout for

11288-406: The establishment of order, which would mean the guarantee of their own power. The Girondins, who had been the radicals of the Legislative Assembly (1791–1792), became the conservatives of the Convention (1792–1795). The Revolution failed to deliver the immediate gains that had been promised and this made it difficult for the Girondins to draw it to a close easily in the minds of the public. Moreover,

11424-683: The fiery radical journalist and denouncer of the Girondins Jean-Paul Marat after being stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday , a Girondin sympathizer. Corday did not attempt to flee and was arrested and executed. The collective name "Girondins" is used to describe "a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention". They were never an formal organization or political party. The name itself

11560-475: The final acte d'accusation , accepted by the Convention on 24 October 1793, which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their "federalism" and above all their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped colleagues to provoke civil war. The trial of the 22 began before the Revolutionary Tribunal on 24 October 1793. The verdict

11696-537: The forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace . Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of 10 August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat , to seize cannons and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On 5 October 1795— 13 Vendémiaire An IV in

11832-411: The garrison and some 1,500–5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days. Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease—mostly bubonic plague . He failed to reduce the fortress of Acre , so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. Bonaparte

11968-672: The government, but the Girondins tried to distance themselves from the results of the September Massacres. At the end of August Robespierre was no longer willing to cooperate with Brissot and Roland . On Sunday morning 2 September the members of the Commune, gathering in the town hall to proceed the election of deputies to the National Convention, decided to maintain their seats and have Roland and Brissot arrested. According to Charlotte Robespierre , her brother stopped talking to his former friend, mayor Pétion de Villeneuve . Pétion

12104-789: The government. On 9 November 1799 ( 18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup, and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls. On 15 December, Bonaparte introduced the Constitution of the Year VIII , under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as First Consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established

12240-620: The government; however, regions have gained importance since the 2000s, with some department-level services merged into region-level services. The departments were created in 1790 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity; the title "department" is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after physical geographical features (rivers, mountains, or coasts), rather than after historical or cultural territories, which could have their own loyalties, or after their own administrative seats. The division of France into departments

12376-582: The heartlands of the House of Habsburg . French forces in Southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben , about 100 km from Vienna,

12512-423: The help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti , Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon which was occupied by British and allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the British to evacuate. The successful assault on

12648-404: The hostile camp—their system was established in mere reason, but the Montagnards made up for what they lacked in talent or in numbers through their boldness and energy. This was especially fruitful since uncommitted delegates accounted for almost half the total number, even though the Jacobins and Brissotins formed the largest groups. The more radical rhetoric of the Jacobins attracted the support of

12784-614: The island of Corsica to a family of Italian origin, Napoleon moved to mainland France in 1779 and was commissioned as an officer in the French Royal Army in 1785. He supported the French Revolution in 1789, and promoted its cause in Corsica. He rose rapidly through the ranks after winning the siege of Toulon in 1793 and defeating royalist insurgents in Paris on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795. In 1796, Napoleon commanded

12920-553: The king and summoning of the National Convention, but they agreed not to overthrow the monarchy until Louis XVI became impervious to their counsels. Once the king was overthrown in 1792 and a republic was established, they were anxious to stop the revolutionary movement that they had helped to set in motion. Girondins and historian Pierre Claude François Daunou argues in his Mémoires that the Girondins were too cultivated and too polished to retain their popularity for long in times of disturbance, and so they were more inclined to work for

13056-598: The loss of only three men. Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks , Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids . Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of

13192-625: The monarchy), was considerably more "advanced" than the moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies. A group of deputies from elsewhere became associated with these views, most notably the Marquis de Condorcet , Claude Fauchet , Marc David Lasource , Maximin Isnard , the Comte de Kersaint , Henri Larivière and above all Jacques Pierre Brissot, Jean Marie Roland and Jérôme Pétion , who

13328-402: The monarchy; both were democrats as well as republicans; and both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realise their ideals. Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the central government ("federalism"), the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France. From the first, the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in

13464-447: The name "Brissotins" for his followers. The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention (20 September 1792). "Brissotins" and "Girondins" were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy. In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and patriotic defiance to

13600-659: The new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice and a portion of the Var department. The 89 departments were given numbers based on the alphabetical order of their names. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe , Moselle , Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871 following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War . A small part of Haut-Rhin, however, remained French and became known as

13736-407: The numbers corresponded to the alphabetical order of the names of the departments, but several changed their names and some have been divided, so the correspondence became less exact. Alphanumeric codes 2A and 2B were used for Corsica while it was split but it has since reverted to 20. The two-digit code "98" is used by Monaco . Together with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code FR, the numbers form

13872-442: The numbers of all the departments. In 2014, President François Hollande proposed abolishing departmental councils by 2020, which would have maintained the departments as administrative divisions, and transferring their powers to other levels of governance. This reform project has since been scrapped. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René d'Argenson to serve as administrative areas purely for

14008-412: The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, but spent long periods of leave in Corsica which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789, he returned to Corsica and promoted the French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence. Bonaparte plunged into

14144-542: The position on 16–17 December led to the capture of the city. Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre , the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre , a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794, he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack

14280-452: The posting. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie , about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. In August, he obtained a position with the Bureau of Topography where he worked on military planning. On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in

14416-429: The prefect retains only the powers that are not delegated to the department councils. In practice, their role has been largely limited to preventing local policy from conflicting with national policy. The departments are further divided into communes , governed by municipal councils . As of 2013, there were 36,681 communes in France. In the overseas territories , some communes play a role at departmental level. Paris ,

14552-466: The progress of the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry composed of their partisans, among them Roland, Charles François Dumouriez , Étienne Clavière and Joseph Marie Servan de Gerbey ; and they forced a declaration of war against Habsburg Austria the same year. In all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage between La Gironde and The Mountain . Montagnards and Girondins alike were fundamentally opposed to

14688-616: The revolutionary Paris Commune , the Revolutionary Sections (mass assemblies in districts) and the National Guard of Paris and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. At the trial of Louis XVI in 1792, most Girondins had voted for the "appeal to the people" and so laid themselves open to the charge of "royalism". They denounced

14824-412: The revolutionary government had turned the departments into transmission belts for policies enacted in Paris. With few exceptions, the departments had this role until the early 1960s. These maps cannot be used as a useful resource of voter preferences, because Departmental Councils are elected on a two-round system, which drastically limits the chances of fringe parties, if they are not supported on one of

14960-406: The safeguard of the people". Some submitted, among them Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion, Birotteau and Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Larivière and François Bergoeing, escaped from Paris and, joined later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organise a movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up civil war made

15096-536: The school is that he led junior students to victory against senior students in a snowball fight, which allegedly showed his leadership abilities. But the story was only told after Napoleon had become famous. In his later years at Brienne, Napoleon became an outspoken Corsican nationalist and admirer of Paoli. In September 1784, Napoleon was admitted to the École militaire in Paris where he trained to become an artillery officer. He excelled at mathematics, and read widely in geography, history and literature. However, he

15232-428: The status of departmental " territorial collectivities ": region and department functions have been managed by a " single territorial collectivity " since 2018. Despite the intention to avoid the old nomenclature, often the names of pre-1790 provinces remained in use. For example, the name of Berry , though no longer having an official status, remains in widespread use in daily life. The departmental seat of government

15368-478: The temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber . Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By the time that he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by

15504-593: The territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire . Following the defeats of Napoleon in 1814–1815 the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size and the number of departments was reduced to 86 (three of the original departments having been split). In 1860 France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy , which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from

15640-621: The treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from most of the colonies it had recently captured from France and her allies, and France agreed to evacuate Naples. In April, Bonaparte publicly celebrated the peace and his controversial Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII under which the Pope recognized Bonaparte's regime and the regime recognized Catholicism as the majority religion of France. In a further step towards national reconciliation (known as "fusion"), Bonaparte offered an amnesty to most émigrés who wished to return to France. With Europe at peace and

15776-455: The two rounds by a moderate party. After the 1992 election, the left had a majority in only 21 of the 100 departments; after the 2011 election, the left dominated 61 of the 100 departments. (Mayotte only became a department after the election.) Key to the parties: The removal of one or more levels of local government has been discussed for some years; in particular, the option of removing the departmental level. Frédéric Lefebvre , spokesman for

15912-628: The ultimate sacrifice of her own life for her political beliefs. She helped her husband escape, but she was executed on 8 November 1793. A week later he committed suicide. A monument to the Girondins was erected in Bordeaux between 1893 and 1902 dedicated to the memory of the Girondin deputies who were victims of the Terror. The vagueness of who actually made up the Girondins led to the monument not having any names inscribed on it until 1989. Even then,

16048-641: The unpopularity of the Girondins and seal their fate. The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of the First Coalition (Austria, Prussia and Great Britain) on the west by the Royalist Revolt in the Vendée and the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war. On 28 July 1793, a decree of the Convention proscribed 21 deputies, five of whom were from

16184-429: The wavering and frightened Convention suddenly determined. On 13 June 1793, it voted that the city of Paris deserved well of the country and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the filling up of their places in the Assembly by their suppléants and the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the provinces. The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday on 13 July 1793 only served to increase

16320-615: Was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815. Born on

16456-596: Was a foregone conclusion. On 31 October, they were borne to the guillotine. It took 36 minutes to decapitate all of them, including Charles Éléonor Dufriche de Valazé , who had committed suicide the previous day upon hearing the sentence he was given. Of those who escaped to the provinces, after wandering about singly or in groups most were either captured and executed or committed suicide. They included Barbaroux , Buzot , Condorcet , Grangeneuve, Guadet , Kersaint , Pétion , Rabaut de Saint-Etienne and François Rebecqui . Roland killed himself at Rouen on 15 November 1793,

16592-478: Was a foregone conclusion. The Commission of Twelve was appointed of on 24 May, including the arrest of Varlat and Hébert and other precautionary measures. The ominous threat by Girondin leader Maximin Isnard , uttered on 25 May, to "march France upon Paris" was instead met by Paris marching hastily upon the Convention. The Girondin role in the government was undermined by the popular uprisings of 27 and 31 May and finally on 2 June 1793, when François Hanriot , head of

16728-490: Was a project particularly identified with the French revolutionary leader the Abbé Sieyès , although it had already been frequently discussed and written about by many politicians and thinkers. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1665 in the writings of d'Argenson . They have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. The 1822 territorial division of Spain (reverted due to

16864-583: Was accused of conspicuous consumption by Desmoulins, and finally rallied to Brissot. When the National Convention first met on 22 September 1792, the core of like-minded deputies from the Gironde expanded as Jean-Baptiste Boyer-Fonfrède , Jacques Lacaze and François Bergoeing joined five of the six stalwarts of the Legislative Assembly (Jean Jay, the Protestant pastor, drifted toward

17000-421: Was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium to speed the retreat. Back in Egypt on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir . Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition . On 24 August 1799, fearing that the Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of

17136-573: Was appointed head of the Army of Italy. Within weeks of the Vendémiaire uprising , Bonaparte was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais , the former mistress of Barras. Josephine had been born in the French colonies in the Lesser Antilles , and her family owned slaves on sugar plantations The couple married on 9 March 1796 in a civil ceremony. Bonaparte now habitually styled himself "Napoleon Bonaparte" rather than using

17272-585: Was being betrayed to her ruin and his cry of Nous sommes trahis! ("We are betrayed!") was echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris. The growing hostility of Paris to the Girondins received a fateful demonstration by the election on 15 February 1793 of the bitter ex-Girondin Jean-Nicolas Pache to the mayoralty. Pache had twice been minister of war in the Girondins government, but his incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism and on 4 February 1793 he had been replaced as minister of war by

17408-400: Was being blamed for their leadership. Other names were employed at the time too, but "Girondins" ultimately became the term favored by historians. The term became standard with Alphonse de Lamartine 's History of the Girondins in 1847. Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde and there were six who sat for this département in both the Legislative Assembly of 1791–1792 and

17544-499: Was bestowed not by any of its alleged members but by the Montagnards , "who claimed as early as April 1792 that a counterrevolutionary faction had coalesced around deputies of the department of the Gironde ". Jacques-Pierre Brissot , Jean Marie Roland and François Buzot were among the most prominent of such deputies and contemporaries called their supporters Brissotins , Rolandins , or Buzotins , depending on which politician

17680-533: Was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France. His father fought alongside Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile in Britain, Carlo became friends with the French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf , who became his patron and godfather to Napoleon. With Mabeuf's support, Carlo

17816-472: Was created in the regained territory, with slightly different boundaries from the pre-war department of the same name. The reorganisation of Île-de-France in 1968 and the division of Corsica in 1975 added six more departments, raising the total in Metropolitan France to 96. By 2011, when the overseas collectivity of Mayotte became a department, joining the earlier overseas departments of

17952-483: Was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig . The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. They exiled him to the Mediterranean island of Elba and restored the Bourbons to power . Ten months later, Napoleon escaped from Elba on a brig, landed in France with a thousand men, and marched on Paris, again taking control of the country. His opponents responded by forming

18088-531: Was elected mayor of Paris in succession to Jean Sylvain Bailly on 16 November 1791. Madame Roland , whose salon became their gathering place, had a powerful influence on the spirit and policy of the Girondins with her "romantic republicanism". The party cohesion they possessed was connected to the energy of Brissot, who came to be regarded as their mouthpiece in the Assembly and in the Jacobin Club , hence

18224-470: Was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in France. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to

18360-631: Was poor at French and German. His father's death in February 1785 cut the family income and forced him to complete the two-year course in one year. In September he was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace and became the first Corsican to graduate from the École militaire . Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment . He served in Valence and Auxonne until after

18496-410: Was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor". One story of Napoleon at

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