People who hate Napoleon generally insist on the fact he seized power for himself and overthrowed the First French Republic to become Emperor. To them, it was a treason of French Republican Ideals and it proves Napoleon was nothing more than a Dictator. In the late years, to my personnal horror, he has been compared to modern days Dictator, particularly Hitler: that is something that I find unfair because, even if Napoleon has bad sides, he isn't as bad as the people comparing him to Hitler think.
The people who made such assumptions tend to forget the mess the French Revolution was before Napoleon seized power... I'm personnally not a big fan of the First Republic who, to me, was only a Republic only in name. The Terror was a glorified dictatorship, as well as the bloodiest and shamest part of the Revolution: to me, it's Robespierre who should suffer a comparison with Hitler, not Napoleon. Robespierre has admirers to this day... Nevermind the fact that he basically sent to the Guillotine everyone thought to be an ennemy of the Revolution, including some old friends like Danton. As for the Directory, it's nothing more than an oligarchic corrupt regime that maintained itself via several coup d'états to me... A regime that would probably have fallen early had it not been for Napoleon! He saved their butts during the 13 Vendemiaire, and his Firts Italian Campaign effectively brought victory to France while it was supposed to be only a diversion. And who negotiated the advantageous peace terms? Napoleon, once again.
Another card that is played against Napoleon is that he reinstuted Slavery. That wasn't his best idea and everyone agrees on it: Slavery is bad. But even Napoleon recognised he had made a mistake: in the
Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, his biography, he even says it was his "greatest mistake". People never heard this part and some even assume that Napoleon is a racist bastard. Nevermind the fact that Napoleon also did things to integrate the Jews into French society... I recently discovered that the integration of Jews had its flaws, but the French Jews still have the pretty solid organization Napoleon gave them and are quite well integrated to this day. And if Napoleon had been a racist, why did he intergrate the Jews?
Then there is the Napoleonic Wars. When People do not admire Napoleon's strategy, they criticize the cost of such wars. They also accused Napoleon of not knowing when to stop waging war and conquering... However, as NoMoreSanity said, Napoleon never made the first move in most of his wars. The Third, Fourth and Fifth coalitions declared war on him first, making him technically the defender. But because Napoleon crushed his opponents during those wars (Austerlitz during the Third Coaltion, Iena-Auerstedt during the Fourth and Wagram during the Fifth), he seems like the agressor. People also tend to see Britain as the hero of the Napoleonic Wars but the British were opponents of Napoleon from Day 1: it's British gold that financed all the Coalitions. The British didn't want a French-dominated Europe: that is understandable, but it means they were as much not wishing to stop the war as Napoleon was.
Of course, I'm a big fan of Napoleon and the above summary is biased in favor of Napoleon. But there are others mistakes the Emperor did that are worth being hated: the Peninsula War started because Napoleon thought he needed a vassalized Spain... Crowning Joseph was an horrible mistake that neglected the opinion of the Spanish people. His disastrous Russian Campaign sent thousands of soldiers to their deaths and everyone know agrees he rushed his preparations. And there is also the conscription he used that forced every country under his domination to give soldiers to the
Grande Armée... And people hate conscription, that is well known.
But at the same time, Napoleon made very good things. His legislative works are impressive: not only did he made the Code Civil for Civil Rights & Laws, but several other legislative codes such as the Code Pénal in regards to crimes. People generally don't give a damn about that, even if these codes served as the basics of the modern-day French Fifth Republic (with a few necessary adjustments added by time of course). Napoleon also created institutions that are still used by France to this day. And, even if you're not a fan of war, Napoleon is pretty much a kick-ass strategist. To who people think when they are asked to name the best strategist of all times? Napoleon, hands down.
The best way to sum up this would be a comparison of French Historian Max Gallo. To him, Napoleon is like Janus, the twin-headed Roman God. He has a bright side (military glory, legislative actions, savor of the Revolution) and a dark one (reinstuting slavery, unstopable conqueror, his ego).
NoMoreSanity said:
He's still very popular in France, and Poland, what with freeing the Poles for a while and all.
His popularity in France remains high but it tends to decrease. December 2, 2005 was the year of the 200th anniversay of Austerlitz: France didn't celebrated it. Shame, because there was a big talk about the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Iena... done by the Germans!
As for Poland, it's only natural for the Poles to love him: even if it failed in the end, he resurrected their country for a short time. Poland had been partitionned between Prussia, Austria and Russia by the time Napoleon came around. He had no personnal reason to create the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but the Poles love him for that. Why would they cite his name when singing their national anthem if they didn't?
Bonaparte has given us the example
Of how we should prevail.