Napoleon may have been a villain to some of the French and Europeans, but he also has done a lot of good which makes a lot of the French feel that he is a hero. There are several things that were put in place when he was ruling France that were good for France and the Europeans that are still in place today. These will be briefly discussed in the paragraphs below.
One of the first things he had done was remodel the Bank of France. He had based his remodeling on the Bank of England. He issued government securities had to stay high and the taxes remain low. To hold the interest down, he needed the government securities to remain high to prevent mobile capital from speculating on higher interest, to the adverse of commercial and manufacturing enterprises in need of loans and discounts. He had also promoted the industry of France by giving orders for an immense quality of shoes, boots, harnesses and gun carriages to be made there. He created an efficient central government with a stable currency and reasonably just taxes and founded the Bank of France. These solved Frances problems of economic crisis, Frances large debt to England, and the governments low cash reserves.
Secondly he had tackled tax reforms. He had made tax collectors pay 5 percent to the government of France, collectors had to become professional rather than the back-alley collectors. Tax collection had been stabilized for the first time in France. He had started to use the indirect taxes to receive more money through the tax collectors and get a larger portion of money for the government. The tax collection was no longer complicated and the government had gotten enough revenue to pay back England.
Another major thing Napoleon had done was made an agreement that made the church recognize the republicans, Roman Catholics started to run the church, the First Consul appointed the bishops, the church gave up their land, and civil marriage became recognized. The problems this solved were the tension between the Church and the nationalization of Church lands and Civil Constitution of Clergy. This resolved the conflict.
Napoleon had made the Napoleonic Code next. The Napoleonic Code consisted of a system of one law. This included that the citizens were equal before law due process, and women remained as a second class. This solved the problems of the medieval law which was that the people were guilty until proven innocent. He made it so that the people were innocent until proven guilty. He had also sorted out the laws by customs, and the many new laws that were stated beforehand.
Finally we will discuss what he changed about the education system. He had made a secondary school in France that was funded by the government called Lycées, made all schools funded by the state instead of the Church which provided him with capable officials necessary to administer his laws and trained officers to man his army. The young would also be inculcated into obedience and authority. To this day education has not changed much. It is still strictly centralized with curriculum and academic standards set for the entire nation. This solved the problems of only the wealthy being allowed to be schooled as they were the only ones who could afford it.
I feel that Napoleon was a hero. He not only entirely revamped the French system from banking system to the Education system and invented his own version of rights and freedoms, but he gave France the independence that they had always wanted by eliminating the monarchy and Church. In the following paragraphs I will support my evidence of why I feel Napoleon was a hero despite the losses and the craziness that came along with his absolute power in the long run.
Before his reign was the…great… Louis XVI. Louis was overthrown due to his indecisiveness and conservatism that led some elements of the people from France to see him as the symbol of perceived tyranny. During the storming of Bastille he had been overthrown and the Catholic Church had been overthrown. This abolished the fear of being thrown into prison and made the French greatly increase their respect for Napoleon Bonaparte. To this date the storming of Bastille is celebrated as the French Independence Day.
Napoleon was a military genius and is still labeled as one of the greatest military commanders in history. He was able to pull some stunning military victories before his final, mind numbingly stupid tactics at the Battle of Waterloo. Some of his great military victories consisted of the Battle of Corunna, Borodino, Austerlitz, and Jena. Not only had he redesigned the entire format of battles across the world, he had conquered Egypt, which was taken place after the invasion of Egypt. He was different because he would bring the best of Frances scientists with him to war so that they could study the places he had conquered to adapt to their technology and bring it back to France. He unlocked the language of the ancient Egyptians leading to most we presently know about ancient Egypt.
The Napoleonic code was a major benchmark for why I feel he was such a hero. He had made the first French civil code that the people were happy with, established in 1804. The code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and specified that government jobs go to the most qualified. Citizens were now innocent before proven guilty, and the Church had finally not had more power than the general population.
Another reason I find he was such a hero was because he was a revolutionary. But he was a different kind of revolutionary. He does what he does to please the French people, and only for the French people. For example, he allows the nobles and the church state back in France after he was crowned emperor, but they had no power over the rest of the people. This goes well with the French people who despite the fact that they pushed out the Churches, were still at heart Catholic.
He was not just a hero to the French people; he was a hero to the Italians, Egyptians, and somewhat to the Polish. He freed the Italians stats from Austria whom at the time ruled with an iron hand. Napoleon drove Austrians away and ordered his soldiers not to pillage and rape their civilians, which is a ton better than what the Austrian army did. He eliminated the Holy Roman Empire and helped Germanic states build the Federation of the Ryun, allowing them to have their own version of liberal and essentially made Germany.
All in all, Napoleon Bonaparte had strengthened the French identity worldwide and affirmed nationalism in the nation of France. The Europeans on the other hand had been quite upset with his choices in the Battle of Borodino losing so many of their troops. Europe felt betrayed and that they were being led by a short, vulgar military commander that they could not trust commanding their military to fight in the name of peace.
He may have misled the French in his Battle of Borodino but had redeemed himself with all of the positive effects he had on France and Europe beforehand. The fact that he had made the Napoleon Code, made education a necessity, reorganized the entire bank system, reformed taxes, and instated the Concordat is amazing. These had made France and Europe both very nationalistic about their nations.