Napoleon redrew Europe by cannon; the tricolor then sailed it around Africa and Asia. France built two empires: the first, Napoleon's, conquered the continent in a decade; the second, colonial, stitched a tricolor belt across Africa and Southeast Asia. Both ended in the same lesson — that empires built on glory are mortgaged to it.
Paris ★ Alger Dakar Saigon Madagascar Vanuatu Greatest extent — stylized map 1804 Crowned 1811–1812 Zenith 1830 Algiers seized 1954 Dien Bien Phu 1962 Algeria free Rise · zenith · fall The road to Moscow, 1812 Men who marched in 600,000 men Men who returned 30,000 returned By the numbers The rise The first empire began on 2 December 1804, when Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor in Notre-Dame — taking the crown from the pope's hands, as the story goes, to show he owed it to no one. Within a year came Austerlitz, the masterpiece battle that shattered two empires at once. By 1811 Napoleon ruled or dominated nearly all of Europe: 130 départements, satellite kingdoms for his brothers, and the Napoleonic Code imposed from Madrid to Warsaw.
