Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was the French general who seized power in the coup of 1799, crowned himself Emperor in 1804, and for a decade ruled most of Europe — spreading the Revolution’s legal reforms across the continent while waging wars that killed an estimated three to six million people.
His Napoleonic Code — equality before the law, property rights, secular civil law — still underpins the legal systems of dozens of countries. His Russian campaign of 1812 destroyed his army; Waterloo in 1815 ended his empire; he died a British prisoner on St Helena.
