By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

The film has grossed $88.2 million worldwide.

Plot: In 1793, amid the French Revolution, young army officer Napoleon Bonaparte watched Marie Antoinette beheaded by the guillotine.

Later that year, Revolutionary leader Paul Barras had Napoleon manage the Siege of Toulon; he successfully stormed the city and repelled the British ships with artillery.

After Maximilien Robespierre was deposed and executed at the end of the Reign of Terror, French leaders, including Napoleon, attempted to restore stability. Again employing artillery, Napoleon suppressed the royalist insurrection on 13 Vendémiaire in 1795.

Napoleon woos aristocratic widow Joséphine de Beauharnais and the two eventually marry. Despite their vigorous sex life, they bear no children. In Egypt, he prevails again at the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798 but rushes home when he hears Joséphine has an almost 10-year younger lover, Hippolyte Charles. The Directory criticizes him for abandoning his troops, but he condemns them for their poor leadership of France and, alongside several collaborators such as Talleyrand, Fouché, Sieyès, and Ducos, overthrows them in a coup and becomes First Consul.

Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French by the pope in 1804, during which he audaciously put the crown on his head.

Foreign Minister Talleyrand suggests to Austria an alliance, though the Austrians dismiss the idea. A year later, Napoleon outmaneuvered and defeated the Austrians and Russians at the Battle of Austerlitz, forcing them to retreat over frozen lakes before bombarding the ice and drowning them. Afterward, he invites Austrian Emperor Francis II for wine—which Russian Tsar Alexander I declines to attend—and tells Francis that since he did not destroy their armies, he expects the latter to be grateful.

Napoleon's mother has him impregnate a mistress, proving that Joséphine is infertile. He divorces her in 1810, publicly slapping her in the face when she initially refuses to read her portion of the decree, but the two remain on good terms and continue exchanging friendly letters. Napoleon marries Marie Louise of Austria, who bears a son one year later.

In 1812, Napoleon invades Russia after Alexander reneges on a peace treaty with France. He prevails, despite bloody guerrilla resistance by Don Cossack forces, at the Battle of Borodino, but finds Moscow empty and later set aflame. Napoleon retreats during the winter to France, having lost about half a million men. In 1814, the Coalition force Napoleon's abdication and exile him to Elba.

In 1815, upon hearing that Joséphine is unwell, Napoleon escapes the island and returns to power in France. She, having been forced into reclusion at the Château de Malmaison, dies before he arrives. King Louis XVIII sends the Fifth Regiment to stop Napoleon, but he charms them into joining him.

At the Battle of Waterloo in June, Napoleon, having amassed more troops, confronts the British army under the Duke of Wellington. French cavalry charges are repulsed by British infantry squares, and a desperate Napoleon urges his remaining soldiers forward, but this advance is decimated by re-formed lines of enemy infantry. The forces of Prussian Marshal Blücher arrive to reinforce Wellington, and the French are broken. As Napoleon retreats, he salutes Wellington.

Napoleon is exiled, this time to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and is seen bantering with children, writing his memoirs that would become a worldwide best-seller, and presenting to his listeners a version of history where he is always right.

Napoleon died in 1821, hearing Joséphine beckon him to meet her again. An epilogue notes that roughly 3 million people died in his wars.

 

 

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