Napoleon Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, and was given the name Napoleone Buonaperte. He was the second of eight children of Carlo and Letizia Buonaperte, both of the Corsican-Italian gentry. Before Napoleone, no Buonaparte had ever been a professional soldier. His father Carlo, was a lawyer who had fought for Corsican independence, but after the French occupied the island in 1768, he served as a prosecutor and a judge and entered the French aristocracy as a count. Through his father's influence, Napoleone was educated at the expense of King Louis XVI, at Brienne and the Ecole Militai