section_path: Religion/Religious beliefs
section_name: Religious beliefs
paragraph_text: Religious beliefs
  
  Napoleon was baptized in Ajaccio on 21 July 1771, and raised a Roman Catholic. He began to question his faith at age 13 while at Brienne. Biographers have variously described him from that time as a deist, a follower of Rousseau's "natural religion" or a believer in destiny. He consistently expressed his belief in a God or creator.
  
  He understood the power of organized religion in social and political affairs, and later sought to use it to support his regime. His attitude to religion is often described as utilitarian. In 1800 he stated, "it was by making myself a Catholic that I won the war in the Vendée, by making myself a Moslem that I established myself in Egypt, by making myself an ultramontane that I turned men's hearts towards me in Italy. If I were to govern a nation of Jews I would rebuild the Temple of Solomon."
  
  Napoleon had a civil marriage with Joséphine in 1796 and, at the pope's insistence, a private religious ceremony with her the day before his coronation as Emperor in 1804. This marriage was annulled by tribunals under Napoleon's control in January 1810. In April 1810, Napoleon married Austrian princess Marie Louise in a Catholic ceremony. Napoleon was excommunicated by the pope through the bull Quum memoranda in 1809. His will in 1821 stated, "I die in the Apostolical Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born, more than fifty years since."
  
  Napoleon read the Koran in translation and had an interest in Islam and the Orient. He also defended Muhammad ("a great man") against Voltaire's Mahomet.