Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) was a French military leader and statesman. He rose to the rank of general during the French Revolution and became First Consul of the Republic in 1799. In 1804, he crowned himself Emperor of the French and ruled—with a brief interruption—until 1815. Among his most significant reforms was the Code civil, enacted in 1804. It unified French civil law and influenced legal systems in other European countries. After his final defeat, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.