The flamboyance of his character has captured the imagination of the world, not only in his own lifetime, but in succeeding generations. From an obscure middle-class childhood in the backward island of Corsica, Napoleon's genius drove him to achieve supreme power by the time he was 33.
His bid to make France the mistress of Europe nearly succeeded and his sweeping legal and administrative changes have survived to the present day. Yet, in the end he was brought down, only to pass his final days in lonely exile on a remote Atlantic island.
