Today in 1804, Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French at at a lavish ceremony in Nôtre-Dame.  He was on the way to becoming the dominant figure in Europe.  In the previous year he had ushered in the Napoleonic Wars, which would bring France to dominate the continent and in the previous decade he had reorganised the French Republic and declared it an Empire.  The new Emperor would last another ten years before being forced to abdicate when the Sixth Coalition of European nations defeated his army.  He would briefly rise in 1815 for the famous Hundred Days after escaping captivity on the island of Elba, before being decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to the South Atlantic island of St Helena.  Napoleon's Empire had fallen.