The conquests of Napoleon were ephemeral but his civilian work was built on granite. Explain.

The judgement is Napoleon's own. At St Helena he said his true glory was not the forty battles he had won, since Waterloo effaced them all, but the Civil Code, which nothing would destroy and which would live forever.

The conquests were ephemeral. The Grand Empire was built and lost within a decade — Russia in 1812, Leipzig in 1813, abdication in 1814, Waterloo in 1815. Vienna erased the political map he had drawn, and the dynasties he displaced returned.

The civilian work endured.

• The Civil Code of 1804 is the central achievement. It abolished feudal privilege, established equality before the law and the secular character of the state, guaranteed property and freedom of contract, and secured the peasant's title to land bought during the revolution. Written in plain language and logically arranged, it was adopted or imitated across Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Latin America, Louisiana and Japan.
• Administration. Prefects, a centralised hierarchy and a professional bureaucracy chosen by merit — the framework of the modern French state, still recognisable.
• Finance. The Bank of France in 1800, a stable currency and a functioning tax system after a decade of revolutionary chaos.
• Education. Lycées and the University of France in 1808, creating state secondary and higher education.
• Religion. The Concordat of 1801 settled the quarrel with the Church while keeping the state supreme and the sale of Church lands irreversible.
• The Legion of Honour of 1802, rewarding merit rather than birth.

The qualification. The granite has flaws. The Code subordinated women comprehensively — a wife owed obedience, could not contract or sue independently, and divorce was harder for her than for her husband. Slavery was restored in the colonies in 1802. Press censorship and a political police were as much his legacy as the Code.

Conclusion. The statement stands. Napoleon's lasting achievement was to institutionalise the revolution's social settlement — careers open to talent, equality before the law, secure property — while destroying its political liberty.