CaliBoy1990 said:
I was going to say Charles De Gaulle, but he's not on here.............
I should really have put Monarch instead of ruler...
Charles De Gaulle isn't here because, while he probably was the greatest president of the French Republic, he never wore a crown.
On a side note, I'm quite surprised that so many peope criticized the number of votes Napoleon I got.
Napoleon never became unpopular. He remained a popular figure during his whole reign, even after he crowned himself Emperor and even after his fall. If he was unpopular, how the hell could the Hundred Days have happened? Remember : from Golfe Juan to Paris, he walked with no opposition and the soldiers sent to arrest him choose to join him instead.
And how would Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte have been elected President of the Second French Republic, had it not been for the popularity of his Uncle?
I'm also surprised so many people criticized what he left France with... While it's true France's defeat in the Napoleonic Wars severly weakened it, the French remained one of the major World Powers up until today. Besides, if Napoleon hadn't taken power, the ideas of the French revolution wouldn't have settled in the minde of the people. Like it or not, but the Napoleonic Wars were the peacefulest part of the French revolution in France : Napoleon brought stability to the country while the previous government where reigning with Fear to prevent Anarchy.
Napoleon's achivements do not limits to his military career and his incredible destiny (rose from nothing to become Master of Europe before ending his life on a rock after his defeat) : he stabilized Revolutionnary France. The state was on the verge of collapsing on itself many times during the French Revolution before Napoleon came in.
Napoleon also let a huge political legacy which set the base for the later French Republics. He might not have proposed some of the ideas, but hadn't he been there, those ideas could have remained forgotten in History.