In 1795, a young military man by the name of Napoleon Bonaparte was ordered to put down the Parisian mob that was storming the Tuileries Palace. Napoleon, already in 1795, would demonstrate the combination of ambition and ruthlessness that would characterize his entire career. As the mob advanced on the Tuileries, Napoleon, without blinking an eye, ordered his troops to fire into the crowd. The crowd quickly dispersed; this potential threat to the Directory, the then French government, was repulsed. Where had this man come from?
He had been born in Corsica, the second son in a gentry family, and following the traditional aristocratic pattern, the second son winds up with a career in the military. During Napoleon’s early life he attended military academies in France. These somewhat humble origins would be one of Napoleon’s great calling cards; Napoleon would become a great champion of the self-made man. He would become the idol of a great many people, commoners who saw in Napoleon the possibilities of what a man of talent, what a man blessed with ability, with ambition, could do if he were unfettered by the structures of the old regime.
