October 6, 2026

Rise & Ruin

Rise & Ruin

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On March 7, 1815, on a road near Laffrey in the French Alps, a battalion of royal soldiers was ordered to stop a small column led by a man in a gray coat. This is the long story of Napoleon Bonaparte, told through the public record: a boyhood in Ajaccio, Corsica, and military schools at Brienne and Paris, the French Revolution and the siege of Toulon, the Vendémiaire uprising and his marriage to Josephine, the Italian campaign of 1796-97, the expedition to Egypt and Syria, the Rosetta Stone, the coup of 1799 and the Consulate, the crossing of the Alps and Marengo, the Concordat, the Legion of Honor and the Civil Code, the restoration of slavery and the independence of Haiti, the Louisiana Purchase, the coronation of 1804, Trafalgar and Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland and Tilsit, the war in Spain and Goya's Third of May, the divorce, Marie Louise and the King of Rome, the invasion of Russia in 1812, Borodino, the burning of Moscow and the retreat across the Berezina, Leipzig, abdication and exile on Elba, the Hundred Days and Waterloo, exile and death on Saint Helena, the return of his remains to Les Invalides, and what remained after him.

Chapters
0:00 Here I am
1:08 An island boy
2:18 Revolution
3:49 Italy
4:57 Egypt
6:34 First Consul
8:59 Emperor
9:45 Austerlitz
11:37 Spain
12:21 An heir
13:06 Russia
14:49 Leipzig
15:56 The hundred days
17:42 Saint Helena
18:46 What remained

Visuals: public-domain paintings, prints, maps and documents (from the Louvre, Versailles, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris Musées, the Rijksmuseum, the Met, Royal Museums Greenwich, the Library of Congress and others) and Creative Commons photos of real places and artifacts (Laffrey, Ajaccio, the Great Saint Bernard Pass, Elba, Waterloo, Saint Helena, Les Invalides), all via Wikimedia Commons; animated route maps drawn on NASA Blue Marble imagery; and limited Pixabay stock footage as brief bridges. Narration is AI voice.

Full photo and video credits, with authors and Creative Commons licenses, are in the pinned comment.

#Napoleon #NapoleonBonaparte #History #Biography #Documentary #Waterloo #FrenchHistory