> A century before, yes. If you visit the Arc d’Triomphe in Paris, inside it are stone plaques for each of Napoleon’s victories. <
It’s a bit of a side point, but I was always perplexed by Napoleon-worship. He scattered French bones from Spain to Egypt to Moscow.
It would be one thing if he ended his career as a successful general, like George Washington. But Napoleon ended his career as a miserable failure at Waterloo.
Napoleon was exceedingly victorious. He changed the course of history.
He imposed the French Revolution's liberalism throughout Europe.
That included weakening the Catholic Church, imposing separation of church and state, emancipating Jews, and advancing civic nationalism (the idea that anyone born under French rule, including Africans in French colonies, was French).
He destroyed the Holy Roman Empire, enabling German states to break free of Austrian Hapsburg domination. Beethoven wrote his Emperor Concerto in honor of Napoleon. (Beethoven later lost his admiration when Napoleon turned out to fall short of liberal ideals.)
He destroyed the Spanish Empire. His defeat of Spain enabled many South American states to declare independence.
He introduced Europeans to Egyptian antiquities. During his Egyptian campaign, Napoleon brought scholars along with him, which was unheard of, and they discovered the Rosetta Stone.
Napoleon was not only a general, but a law giver. He supervised the drafting of the Napoleonic Code, which is still used in part of the world, including Louisiana.
And despite his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was a great general and military innovator. He mastered the use of mass armies of common conscripts. He understood the importance of supply lines and promoted discoveries in canned food, as he understood their military value.
Europe in 1780 was the "Ancien Regime" of Church and aristocracy. The French Revolution changed that in France. Napoleon spread the revolution throughout Europe. Metternich tried to put the genie back in the bottle, but Europeons were never the same after Napoleon.