Since 1792, France’s revolutionary government had been engaged in military conflicts with various European nations. This artifact provided the key to cracking the code of Egyptian hieroglyphics, a written language that had been dead for almost 2,000 years. In 1795, Napoleon helped suppress a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris and was promoted to major general.ĭid you know? In 1799, during Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt, a French soldier named Pierre Francois Bouchard (1772-1832) discovered the Rosetta Stone. However, after Robespierre fell from power and was guillotined (along with Augustin) in July 1794, Napoleon was briefly put under house arrest for his ties to the brothers. During this time, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the army. In France, Napoleon became associated with Augustin Robespierre (1763-1794), the brother of revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794), a Jacobin who was a key force behind the Reign of Terror (1793-1794), a period of violence against enemies of the revolution. In 1793, following a clash with the nationalist Corsican governor, Pasquale Paoli (1725-1807), the Bonaparte family fled their native island for mainland France, where Napoleon returned to military duty.

During the early years of the revolution, Napoleon was largely on leave from the military and home in Corsica, where he became affiliated with the Jacobins, a pro-democracy political group. The French Revolution began in 1789, and within three years revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and proclaimed a French republic.

He then became a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment of the French army. As a boy, Napoleon attended school in mainland France, where he learned the French language, and went on to graduate from a French military academy in 1785.

Napoleon bonaparte