Today, like a citywide game of "connect the 
dots," wide Parisian boulevards
lead to famous landmarks:
like the Pantheon...the old opera...
the Arc de Triomphe...
and the Hotel des Invalides.
Built by Louis XIV in the 1600s 
as a veterans' hospital,
this massive building now houses 
Europe's greatest military museum.
And, at its center, under a grand dome—
which glitters with 26 pounds of
thinly pounded gold leaf,
lies the tomb of Napoleon.
It's hard to imagine a building 
dedicated to a mortal that's more
impressive.
Gazing at Napoleon's tomb,
I love to ponder the story of the charismatic
leader who took France from
revolutionary chaos to near total dominance 
of Europe and then,
catastrophically, to near ruins.
Just a humble kid from Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte went to military school here
in Paris.
He rose quickly
through the ranks during the 
tumultuous years of the Revolution.
By 1799 he was the ruler of France.
After that, within
five years, France had conquered most 
of Europe
and Napoleon declared himself emperor
of it all.
As the head of France's grand million-man
army, he blitzed Europe.
His personal charisma on the battlefield was
said to be worth 10,000
additional men.
Imagine Napoleon the emperor—all of 
Europe at his feet.
The laurel wreath, the robes, and the Roman
eagles proclaim him equal to Caesar.
As Emperor, he worked feverishly to implement
the ideals of the revolution
into a well-designed and modern society.
Probably no single individual destroyed so
much and yet built so much.
To this day, the French remember Napoleon 
for his legacy:
infrastructure, education system, and 
legal code.
But, ultimately, his megalomania got the 
best of him.
Napoleon invaded Russia with the greatest
army ever assembled and
returned to Paris with a frostbitten fraction of 
what he started with.
Two years later, the Russians marched into
Paris, and Napoleon was deposed.
After a brief exile on the isle of Elba, in 1815
Napoleon skipped parole and
returned to France, where he bared his breast 
and declared,
"Strike me down or follow me!"
For 100 days, the people of France followed 
him until finally, in Belgium,
Napoleon was defeated once and for all by 
the British at Waterloo.
Exiled again, Napoleon spent his final years on 
a remote island in the South
Atlantic until he died in 1821.
