Napoleon Bonaparte – The Boy Who Became Emperor || English Listening Practice ✅

0:00 Hello my friends.

0:01 Welcome back to Storyline English.

0:04 It's so good to have you here.

0:07 Let's take a breath together.

0:10 Now, imagine for a moment

0:13 you are standing on a cold hill in

0:16 Europe.

0:17 The wind is quiet.

0:19 The sky is gray.

0:22 And in front of you, a young man looks

0:25 out at the world.

0:27 He is not tall.

0:29 He does not look

0:30 powerful.

0:32 But inside his mind, something is

0:35 burning.

0:37 A fire.

0:39 A dream.

0:40 A question that will change history

0:44 forever.

0:46 Who is this man?

0:48 And how did a boy from a small island

0:51 become one of the most famous people who

0:54 ever lived?

0:55 Stay with me, because today we are going

0:59 to travel back in time together.

1:02 We are going to listen to one of the

1:04 greatest stories in all of human

1:07 history.

1:09 This is the story of Napoleon Bonaparte.

1:13 And it begins on a small, quiet island.

1:17 Far from the power.

1:19 Far from the glory.

1:21 But full of something important.

1:24 Full of hunger.

1:26 Full of purpose.

1:28 Are you ready?

1:30 Then let us begin.

1:33 The year was 1769.

1:36 On a small island called Corsica in the

1:38 Mediterranean Sea, a baby boy was born.

1:43 His name was Napoleone di Buonaparte.

1:47 Corsica was not a rich or powerful

1:50 place.

1:51 It was a small island far from the great

1:54 cities of Europe.

1:55 The people there were proud, but they

1:58 were simple.

1:59 They lived simple lives.

2:02 And this baby boy, this small and quiet

2:05 child, was born into a family that was

2:09 not very wealthy.

2:11 His father, Carlo, was a lawyer.

2:14 His mother, Letizia, was a strong and

2:17 serious woman.

2:19 She raised her children with discipline.

2:22 She taught them to work hard.

2:24 She taught them that life is not easy.

2:27 And that you must fight for everything

2:30 you want.

2:31 Napoleon was the second of eight

2:34 children.

2:35 Life in the family home was busy and

2:38 sometimes difficult.

2:40 But young Napoleon was different from

2:42 the other children.

2:43 He was serious.

2:45 He was focused.

2:47 And from a very young age, he loved to

2:50 read.

2:52 He read books about great leaders.

2:54 He read about wars and battles and

2:57 history.

2:58 He was quiet.

3:00 But his mind was always

3:01 moving.

3:02 Always thinking.

3:04 Always dreaming.

3:07 And then, when Napoleon was just 9 years

3:10 old, something happened that would

3:12 change everything.

3:15 His father made a very important

3:17 decision.

3:19 And that decision would send young

3:21 Napoleon far, far away from his island

3:24 home.

3:26 But where was he going?

3:28 And what would he find there?

3:31 When Napoleon was 9 years old, his

3:33 father sent him to France.

3:36 To a school for soldiers.

3:38 A military school.

3:41 For a young boy from a small island,

3:44 this was a big journey.

3:46 France was a powerful country.

3:49 A rich country.

3:51 Full of noise and history and culture.

3:55 But for Napoleon, it was also a lonely

3:58 place.

3:59 He was different from the other boys.

4:02 He spoke French with a strong Corsican

4:04 accent.

4:06 The other boys laughed at him.

4:08 They called him names.

4:10 They said he was not really French.

4:13 He was an outsider.

4:15 And Napoleon felt this deeply.

4:19 But he did not cry.

4:21 He did not give up.

4:23 Instead, he studied harder.

4:26 He became very good at mathematics.

4:29 He loved geography and history.

4:33 He read everything he could find.

4:36 And slowly, something began to grow

4:39 inside him.

4:41 Not just knowledge, but confidence.

4:45 A quiet, strong confidence.

4:49 He began to feel that he was not less

4:52 than the other boys.

4:54 He was different.

4:55 And different, he believed, was

4:58 something special.

5:00 He was not the most popular boy at

5:02 school.

5:04 But he was one of the most focused.

5:06 One of the most serious.

5:09 And when he graduated from the military

5:11 school in Paris at the age of 16,

5:14 he was ready.

5:16 Ready to become a soldier.

5:19 Ready to begin his journey.

5:22 But the world he was stepping into was

5:24 about to become very dangerous.

5:27 France was changing.

5:30 And the change was coming fast.

5:33 It was the late 1780s.

5:35 France was in trouble.

5:38 The poor people of France were very

5:40 angry.

5:41 They had no food.

5:42 They had no money.

5:44 And the king and the rich people lived

5:47 in beautiful palaces and ate wonderful

5:49 food.

5:51 The people said, "This is not fair."

5:55 And in 1789, the French Revolution began.

6:00 It was a time of great change and also

6:04 great danger.

6:05 People were angry.

6:07 Cities were loud with

6:09 noise and fear.

6:11 The old world was falling apart.

6:14 And in this chaos, a young soldier named

6:17 Napoleon began to rise.

6:20 He was brave.

6:21 He was smart.

6:23 And he understood something very

6:25 important.

6:26 He understood that in times of change,

6:29 the people who act quickly and think

6:32 clearly are the ones who win.

6:35 Napoleon fought in several battles and

6:38 showed great skill.

6:40 He was not afraid.

6:42 He made fast decisions.

6:44 He inspired the soldiers

6:46 around him.

6:47 And people began to notice

6:49 him.

6:50 At the age of 24, he became a general.

6:54 A general.

6:55 At 24 years old.

6:58 This was remarkable.

7:00 This was extraordinary.

7:04 The lonely boy from Corsica, the

7:06 outsider who was laughed at in school,

7:09 was now one of the most important

7:11 military leaders in France.

7:15 But Napoleon did not stop there.

7:17 No.

7:18 Because for Napoleon, becoming a general

7:21 was only the beginning.

7:23 The real question was this.

7:26 How far can one person go?

7:30 And Napoleon, it seemed, was not

7:33 finished asking that question.

7:36 The years passed.

7:38 Napoleon won battle after battle.

7:41 He fought in Italy.

7:43 He fought in Egypt.

7:45 He became a hero to the French people.

7:48 They loved him.

7:49 They trusted him.

7:51 And in 1799, Napoleon made a bold and dangerous move.

7:58 He took control of the French

8:00 government.

8:02 It was not a normal election.

8:04 It was fast.

8:06 It was calculated.

8:08 And it worked.

8:10 Napoleon became the leader of France.

8:13 And then, just a few years later, in

8:16 1804, something happened that nobody in

8:19 history had seen for a very long time.

8:24 In a beautiful ceremony in the Cathedral

8:26 of Notre Dame in Paris, Napoleon took a

8:30 crown.

8:31 And he placed it on his own head.

8:35 He did not wait for someone else to

8:37 crown him.

8:38 He crowned himself.

8:42 He was now Napoleon the first, emperor

8:46 of France.

8:48 The room was full of powerful people.

8:51 Generals, politicians, kings and queens

8:55 from other countries.

8:57 But Napoleon looked at no one.

9:00 He looked forward.

9:02 Because for Napoleon, this was not an

9:05 ending.

9:07 This was not the top of the mountain.

9:09 This was just another beginning.

9:13 An empire now stood behind him.

9:16 And he believed the whole world was

9:19 waiting ahead.

9:20 But power, as many people in history

9:23 have learned, is a difficult thing to

9:26 hold.

9:27 And the higher you rise, the harder the

9:29 fall can be.

9:32 Napoleon controlled most of Europe.

9:34 He changed laws.

9:36 He created systems that

9:38 still exist today.

9:40 He built roads and schools.

9:42 He brought order to a continent that had

9:45 been in chaos for years.

9:48 Many people respected him.

9:50 Some people feared him.

9:53 But Napoleon was never satisfied.

9:56 He always wanted more.

9:59 And in 1812, he made the greatest mistake of his

10:04 life.

10:05 He decided to invade Russia.

10:09 Russia was a massive country,

10:12 cold, vast, and very, very difficult to

10:17 fight in.

10:18 Napoleon took an army of more than

10:20 600,000 soldiers east into Russia.

10:25 It was the largest army in the history

10:28 of Europe at that time.

10:30 At first, the Russian army moved back.

10:34 They did not fight directly.

10:36 They pulled back.

10:38 And as they moved, they burned their own

10:41 villages.

10:42 They burned the food.

10:44 They left nothing for Napoleon's army.

10:48 Napoleon reached Moscow, but Moscow was empty.

10:53 And then winter came.

10:56 The Russian winter, cold beyond imagination.

11:02 Soldiers died not from battle,

11:05 but from the cold,

11:06 from hunger, from exhaustion.

11:10 Napoleon had to retreat.

11:13 And that retreat became one of the

11:15 saddest events in military history.

11:18 More than half of his army did not

11:21 return.

11:23 Napoleon had won so many battles,

11:26 but Russia broke something inside his

11:29 empire.

11:30 And his enemies, watching from the edges

11:33 of Europe, began to see that this man

11:36 was not invincible.

11:39 The great wall was beginning to crack.

11:43 After the disaster in Russia, things

11:45 moved quickly.

11:47 The countries of Europe joined together

11:49 against Napoleon.

11:51 England, Prussia, Austria, Russia,

11:54 they all wanted him gone.

11:57 Napoleon fought back.

11:58 He was still brilliant, still brave,

12:01 but he was tired, and his army was

12:03 weakened.

12:05 In 1814, the enemies entered Paris.

12:09 Napoleon, for the first time in his

12:11 life, had no choice.

12:14 He gave up power.

12:16 He was sent away to a small island

12:18 called Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.

12:21 Not so different, perhaps, from the

12:23 island where he was born.

12:26 But Napoleon was not a man who rested

12:28 for long.

12:30 Just 10 months later, he escaped from

12:33 Elba.

12:33 He returned to France.

12:36 And the French people welcomed him back.

12:39 Soldiers who were sent to stop him

12:41 joined him instead.

12:44 It seemed, for a brief and shining

12:46 moment, that the story might continue.

12:51 But it did not.

12:53 In June 1815, at a place called Waterloo in Belgium,

12:58 Napoleon fought his final battle.

13:01 The English General Wellington and his

13:04 allies were too strong.

13:06 Napoleon lost.

13:08 And this time, there was no escape.

13:11 He was sent far away

13:13 to a tiny, remote island in the South

13:16 Atlantic Ocean called Saint Helena.

13:20 He would never leave that island.

13:22 He lived there for 6 years, quiet and

13:25 alone.

13:27 And in 1821, Napoleon Bonaparte died.

13:32 He was 51 years old.

13:35 The boy from Corsica,

13:37 the outsider, the general,

13:41 the emperor, gone.

13:44 And so, my friends,

13:46 the story of Napoleon Bonaparte comes to

13:50 a quiet end.

13:52 But what does it leave us with?

13:54 What can we learn from this remarkable

13:57 and complicated life?

14:00 Napoleon was not a perfect man.

14:03 He made terrible mistakes.

14:04 He caused great suffering.

14:07 Wars are never simple, and the story of

14:10 Napoleon is full of pain as well as

14:12 greatness.

14:14 But there is something in his journey

14:16 that speaks to all of us.

14:19 He was an outsider.

14:21 He was laughed at.

14:23 He spoke with the wrong accent.

14:25 He came from the wrong place.

14:29 And yet, he refused to accept that the

14:32 world had already decided his future.

14:35 He studied.

14:37 He worked.

14:38 He believed that knowledge and effort

14:41 could change a life.

14:43 And they did.

14:45 Not perfectly.

14:46 Not without cost, but powerfully.

14:50 And here you are, my friend.

14:53 You are listening to this story in

14:55 English.

14:56 Maybe English is not your first

14:58 language.

15:00 Maybe sometimes it feels difficult.

15:02 Maybe sometimes you feel like an

15:05 outsider, too.

15:07 But you are here.

15:09 You are learning.

15:11 You are on your own journey of

15:13 discovery.

15:15 And that is something to be proud of.

15:18 Every story you listen to, every word

15:22 you understand, every sentence that becomes a little

15:26 clearer is a small victory.

15:30 Keep going.

15:31 Keep listening.

15:33 Keep learning.

15:36 This is Storyline English.

15:39 And if this story moved you, if it

15:41 helped you learn something today,

15:44 please come back.

15:46 There are many more journeys waiting for

15:48 you here.

15:50 Leave a comment and tell me,

15:52 what did you feel during Napoleon's

15:54 story?

15:56 I would love to hear your voice.

15:59 Until next time, my friends.

16:01 Take care of yourselves,

16:03 and never stop learning.