By the age of 25, Napoleon Bonaparte had been expelled from the army, was disgraced, despondent and suicidal. One year later, he was the youngest general in France, and began winning victories with ragged troops who were at the point of starvation. "He was like an expert chess player, with the human race for an opponent, which he proposed to checkmate," said Madame Germaine de Stael, a writer and intellectual.Napoleon gained the love of the French people by proclaiming, after a victory at Austerlitz, that he would adopt the children of all the soldiers. He then ordered the state to pay for the children's support and education, arrange marriages for the girls, and find jobs for the boys; he let them all add Napoleon to their
By the age of 25, Napoleon Bonaparte had been expelled from the army, was disgraced, despondent and suicidal. One year later, he was the youngest general in France, and began winning victories with ragged troops who were at the point of starvation. "He was like an expert chess player, with the human race for an opponent, which he proposed to checkmate," said Madame Germaine de Stael, a writer and intellectual.Napoleon gained the love of the French people by proclaiming, after a victory at Austerlitz, that he would adopt the children of all the soldiers. He then ordered the state to pay for the children's support and education, arrange marriages for the girls, and find jobs for the boys; he let them all add Napoleon to their