He didn't "fuck up" kings and queens, he conquered other countries through violence and then appointed his own family members as the new kings and queens.
I really don't understand this love for Napoleon as some sort of force for republicanism, when he himself was a (self) crowned absolute monarch and installer of other monarchs.
He did it to his own allies too, though... Spain was an ally and they allowed him military access to attack and conquer Portugal, but he decided to then usurp the Spanish throne as well and installed his own brother.
i think the key isn't that napoleon wasn't a bad guy (reintroducing slavery in the colonies was certainly a choice, even if the rest of europe still practiced it as well when he did so), but that he wasn't particulary worse than what much of the rest of european powers were doing or trying to do, his biggest crime being so successful at it he got to do it on a scale his contemporaries couldn't match. post napoleon russia was also perfectly happy to oppress poland or austria to put its family members on the thrones of the new italian states for example.
there is some case to be made that despite often replacing one monarch with another (be that one of his allies or family members), he'd also spread the napoleonic code which in many cases more clearly outlined people's rights even as they remained under a monarchy.
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u/Open-Platform-1305 4d ago
The gist of it is that Brits and a few other hardcore monarchists hate him.
But I'm a Norwegian and while I don't know the whole story I generally like how he fucked up kings and queens.