By the end of the French Revolution, the hopes of the early stages of the Revolution had been mutilated, leading to a reign of terror. France had dissolved into anarchy, with internal and international unrest. It was thanks to foreign wars that Napoleon came to power. Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power, victory after victory, eventually making himself Emperor of France, creating a strong central government while continuing foreign wars, creating a mass French empire. Although Napoleon was a product of the French Revolution and maintained the image of a "son of the Revolution", idealism always fell into pragmatism since Napoleon's main goal was to create a strong and unified France. Napoleon's policies reflected some of the ideals of Enlightenment thought, and he sought to spread them across Europe as he conquered. One of the fundamental beliefs of the Enlightenment is that the universe is ordered and that there are natural laws that apply to everyone. Although the nature of these rights was open to debate, the central idea was that everyone should have them. When Napoleon conquered Europe, he applied the same laws to everyone, everywhere. This set of laws is known as the Napoleonic Code. Some of the laws enforced by the Napoleonic Code can be seen in Napoleon's imperial decree in Madrid, where Napoleon abolished feudal rights, such as banalities, and seized Church lands to distribute to the people. Other actions he took included creating “constitutions” which created laws that applied equally to everyone and could not be changed on a whim. These are the same actions taken during the French Revolution and applied to all other areas. In fact, the promises of these reforms gave Napoleon's forces supporters in the countries he controlled...... middle of paper...... the manipulations he used. Napoleon's reign was greatly influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, but he was not a "son of the Revolution". Louis Bergeron considers Napoleon to be an enlightened despot: “the dynamism of Bonaparte and his rigorous administration revived the experience of enlightened despotism, a little late, because in the context of Western Europe it was already a little outdated”. Napoleon seemed like an enlightened despot because he defended absolute power while encouraging legal and social equality for all classes of people (who were not him). What makes Napoleon unique among Enlightenment despots is that he formatted his image to appear as something else. Discrepancies between the image he presented and the person he was give rise to interpretations as to whether Napoleon was a dictator, an enlightened despot or a champion of revolution..