There's a better way:
Start with the French Revolution! And let the French build or get a wonder called NAPOLEON and an advance named the same, which provides better troops and spoils diplomatic relationships and so on, new government, too (maybe Fundamentalism to allow the French to build a huge army). Then you could cover the whole period from the French Revolution to imperialism perfectly - and you would have different "chapters" in the game (Revolution, Napoleon, Imperialism). I mean, Napoleon himself was only a side-effect of the revolution.
And maybe you can rename wonders and turn them into historical people, like Fouché, Goethe and so on.