The cliche that Napoleon was the gravedigger of the French Revolution has no basis in fact. While he was no democrat and he held the people in contempt, this book argues that Napoleon saved the work of the Revolution, albeit unintentionally. After Waterloo the triumphant allies dismantled in their territories almost everything about the Revolution they hated; but it proved too deeply rooted in France to be destroyed. The centralized state, the legal codes, religious toleration, a constitution, careers open to talent, equality before the law, even the seeds of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly, all endure to this day. The fabulous military career of Napoleon put the Revolution on horseback, as his contemporaries recognized, and his lust for conquest ultimately was his downfall. His creative work and his reforms remained - Napoleon fixed in law, in institutions, and men's dreams what the Revolution had failed to preserve in such durable ways.