With the military dictatorship of Napoleon, many of the gains of the Revolution appeared to vanish, while others spread throughout Europe. Born in Corsica, Napoleon rose through the officer corps of the Revolutionary army. In 1795 he suppressed a royalist rebellion against the Directory and in 1796 assumed command of the French Italian army with which he defeated Austria. Despite his failed expedition to Egypt, his popularity remained high, and he joined a conspiracy to overthrow the Directory. After the coup he quickly gathered all power to himself. In 1802 he had himself appointed first consul for life and in 1804 crowned himself emperor. Napoleon rose so quickly because of revolutionary reforms-e.g. careers open to talent-and his personal traits, including charisma, a powerfully rational mind, and romantic drive for glory and power.

As absolute ruler, Napoleon preserved many social gains of the Revolution while suppressing republicanism. Governing like an enlightened despot, he continued dismantling the Old Regime by building an efficient centralized state. He created a uniform and truly national administration, but censored the press and repressed opposition with instruments of the police state. To foster national unity he signed the Concordat of 1801 with the Catholic church, but maintained tolerance of Protestants and Jews. His Code Napoleon established a uniform legal system and recognized equality before the law, but it denied equal rights to women, children, and workers. With the University of France he created a national secular education system that both indoctrinated the young and trained officials to administer the state. Finally, he strengthened the state by strengthening the economy through policies that included protective tariffs, establishment of the Bank of France, and price controls on food.

Napoleon's military skill made him master of Europe. Harnessing the martial values of the Revolution, he created an enthusiastic national army that he led through his brilliant synthesis of eighteenth-century military thought. By 1810 he had brought most of Europe into the Grand Empire, through which he disseminated the revolutionary ethos and institutions that he had cultivated in France. England remained his most implacable enemy, which he could defeat neither militarily through invasion nor economically through the unpopular Continental System. Napoleon's effort to enforce this system led to the disastrous campaigns in Spain and Russia. The failure of the latter enabled a reformed and resurgent Prussia to defeat France during the German War of Liberation. A coalition of European powers then defeated Napoleon, exiled him to Elbe, and restored the Bourbon monarchy in France. After escaping from Elbe, Napoleon retook control of France and held it for three months until his final defeat at Waterloo in 1815. He died six years later in exile in St. Helena.

Napoleon portrayed himself as defender of the Revolution, but his legacy is mixed. He dealt severe blows to republicanism and developed further the techniques of nationalistic total war that would prove so destructive in the twentieth century. However, his rule spread Revolutionary ideas and institutions throughout Europe, entrenching them so thoroughly that, after his fall, the old regimes he undermined could not recover.