His Majesty the Emperor on his Throne by Ingres	As a revolutionary with a petit aristocratic background, 35-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte was not the most likely candidate to be crowned emperor of France in December 1804. But within three years he extended his empire across almost all of Europe, ruling more than 70 million people. But his metamorphosis from rebel supporting the progress of the French Revolution to ruthless emperor is intriguing. He was above all ambitious, with an obsessive love of power. He said 'I love power like a musician loves his music.' In its pursuit, he was willing to do almost anything. From beginnings in Corsica, hating the French as the invaders of his homeland, he rose not on the basis of his blood, not on the basis of his background, but on ability. He was no ordinary military man. He had an insatiable desire to learn, reading history, military memoirs, law, a little science. Rousseau and the philosophies of the Age of Enlightenment were particular favourites. Liberty, equality, fraternity - the abolition of privileges. ^TOP It was the Revolution on 14 July 1789 that set Bonaparte free. A defiant National Assembly challenged the absolute right of the king and stripped nobles and clergy of their ancient feudal privileges. Bonaparte was serving in the army far from Paris. He distrusted the violent mobs, but welcomed the changes transforming the country. As Corsican outsider to the French establishment, the Revolution was critically important to him, giving him an opportunity to escape the prejudice that had held him back. As a 20-year-old during the revolution, his own destiny and that of France become the same. When the Republic was proclaimed in 1792, Bonaparte was 23. An idealist and revolutionary, he returned to Corsica as a familiar base from where to launch his rise to power. As he rose in the ranks, it became clear that he was actually a man of order. Order has to serve ideals - as argued by revolutionary leader Robespierre. It is necessary to suspend liberties in the name of liberty. ^TOP Bonaparte was not the first and certainly not the last rebel to take a similar path from rebel to actual or de facto emperor. Stalin and Mao, Hitler and Mussolini all rose on their own public tide of rebellion against the status quo, and all of them ruthlessly expanded and guarded their power and privilege. Such a character flaw is explored also in literature. Shakespeare’s Macbeth starts as a humble, but successful soldier but over-ambition fuelled by the witches' fortune-telling lead to his destruction. Some of the answer lies in the association of might and right. Henri Turenne (1611-1675) is famous for saying: 'God is always on the side of the big battalions.' In other words, if you are powerful, whatever you do is right. ^TOP Edmund Burke (1729-1797) understood the attraction of power when he said: 'Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it.' This was echoed more recently by US Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger when he said: 'Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.' Perhaps most famously, Lord Acton (1834-1902) said: 'Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are always bad men.' The attraction of power is, therefore, clear, but how can the possession of power be justified? Clearly if you are convinced of your own moral standpoint then anything can be justified to that end. Some writers, such as philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), argued that what matters is whether the power is legitimate - gained through some democratic process, for example. For others, most famously Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), such legitimacy is irrelevant. ^TOP For Machiavelli, an Italian statesman and philosopher, power belonged to anyone who had the ability to take it. He saw that a popular government was more successful in its job in being less cruel and unstable than a tyrant. Therefore, it was preferable not because it is morally better but because it is more practical. But power is the key. The limitation to this theory is, of course, that once in place, a ruler can twist the interests of the state to meet their own ends. Judging when this has happened is often difficult and it is usually even more difficult; to do anything about, as those who opposed Bonaparte discovered. ^TOP