Lauren Molyneaux
Amanda Merrifield
Period 3
 Napoleon saw a need to end civil strife in France in
order to create unity and consolidate his rule
 Took power in 1799 and was viewed as a national hero
after he and the conspirators took over the Directory
 Napoleon was named first consul of the republic and a
new constitution consolidating his position was
approved in December of 1799
 Reasserted two of the fundamental principles of the
liberal and essentially moderate revolution of 1789
 Equality of all male citizens before the law
 Absolute security of wealth and private property
 Women lost many gains they had made in the 1790’s
 Women were dependents of either their fathers or their
husbands and could not make contracts of even have bank
accounts in their own names
 Wanted to re-establish the family monarchy, with the
father and husband as an absolute power over the wife
and children just how Napoleon was over his subjects
 With the help of the leading bankers of Paris,
Napoleon was able to establish the privately owned
Bank of France
 Loyally served the interests of both the state and the
financial oligarchy
 The new economic order appealed to peasants who
gained both land and status
 Reassured the solid middle class and peasantry
who had lost a large number of its revolutionary
illusions in the face of social upheaval
 Napoleon accepted and strengthened the position of
the French bureaucracy and built on the solid
foundations that the new revolutionary governments
had inherited from the Old Regime
 Perfected a thoroughly centralized state and
consolidated his rule by recruiting disillusioned
revolutionaries for the network of ministers, prefects
and appointed mayors
 Pushed aside former revolutionaries who leaned too
far radical on either side of the spectrum
 In 1800 the French clergy was still divided into two
groups
 Those who had taken the oath of allegiance and those who
were exiled because they did not
 Napoleon wanted to fix the division in the hopes it
would lead to social peace
 Napoleon and Pope Pius VII signed the Concordat of
1801
 The pope gained for French Catholics the precious right to
practice their religion freely
 Napoleon gained political power and now exerted great
influence over the church in France
 Treaty of Lunéville (1801): Austria accepted the loss of
almost all its Italian possessions and German territory
on the west bank of the Rhine was incorporated into
France
 Treaty of Amiens (1802): France remained in control of
Holland, the Austrian Netherlands, the west bank of
the Rhine and most of the Italian peninsular
 Diplomatic triumph for Napoleon
 Also given right to reshape the German states as he wished
 He aggressively redrew the map of Germany so as to
weaken Austria and attract the secondary states of
southwestern Germany toward France, while trying to
restrict British trade with all of Europe
 Austria, Russia and Sweden joined with Britain to form
the Third Coalition against France
 Battle of Trafalgar (October 21, 1805): French and
Spanish fleet was annihilated by the British Royal
Navy
 Battle of Austerlitz (December 1805): Napoleon
achieved a huge victory over the Austrians and
Russians  Austria accepted large territorial losses in
return for peace for peace  Third Coalition collapsed
 Treaties of Tilsit: Prussia lost half of its population,
while Russia accepted Napoleon’s reorganization of
western and central Europe and promised to enforce
Napoleon’s economic blockade against British goods
 Increasingly Napoleon saw himself as the emperor of
Europe and not just of France
 Core (first part): France, which included Belgium,
Holland, parts of northern Italy and much German
territory on the east bank of the Rhine
 Second Part: a number of dependent satellite
kingdoms on the thrones of which he places the
members of his large family
 Third Part: Independent but allied states of Austria,
Prussia and Russia
 Introduced many French laws, abolishing feudal
dues and serfdom where it had not already been
done so
 Peasants and middle class benefitted from these reforms
 Levied heavy taxes which led him to be regarded
more as a conquering tyrant than as an
enlightened liberator
 French rule sparked patriotic upheavals and
encouraged the growth of reactive nationalism
 First revolt occurred in Spain in 1808 when a coalition
of Catholics, monarchists and patriots rebelled against
napoleons to make Spain a satellite nation
 Spain was a clear warning, yet Napoleon pushed on
 Napoleon’s continental system, designed to exclude
the British from trade, backfired and France ended up
suffering from Britain’s counter-blockade
 Began in June of 1812 with a force of 600,000
 Battle of Borodino was a draw and Russians retreated
 Alexander I of Russia ordered the evacuation of
Moscow and refused negotiation
 After 5 weeks in Moscow, Napoleon ordered a retreat
that would become one of the greatest military
disasters in history
 The Russian army, the Russian winter and starvation
cut Napoleon’s army to pieces
 370,000 men died and another 200,000 had been
taken prisoner
 Napoleon abandoned his troops and went to Paris to
form new army
 On April 4, 1814, Napoleon abdicated the throne and
was granted the tiny island of Elba as his own tiny
state
 Napoleon was allowed to keep his imperial title and
France was required to pay him a yearly income of 2
million francs
 Louis XVIII becomes new monarch
 Louis XVIII was old, ugly, crippled by gout and lacked
the glory and magic of Napoleon
 Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815  Louis
XVIII fled and Napoleon took control
 Allies crushed him at the Battle of Waterloo on June
18, 1815 and imprisoned him on the island of St.
Helena
 Louis XVII returned and regained his reign
(May 15,1773- June 11, 1859)
 Congress of Vienna, at the end of Napoleon’s Era
 Bourbon Dynasty revived, Louis XVIII reinstated, as a
lenient settlement from the allies in attempts at a
Balance of Power
 Revolutionary triumph uncertain the idea of
“legitimacy” (belief royal blood is only legit power) 
feeling of irritation because they’ve come full circle
 Metternich felt balance of power meant international
equilibrium of political and military forces to
discourage aggression from anyone
 Reestablishment of political peace domestically =
Metternich crusaded against all ideas about the dual
revolution; lasted until 1848
 1st step: Joined the Holy Alliance
 Austria + Prussia + Russia
 Try to preserve Christian principles
 Became a symbol of repression
 Horrified Metternich; did not want another rev.
battled against liberal political change (Carlsbad
Decrees rooting out liberal papers/universities)
 Believed liberalism embodied revolutionary spirit and
should be crushed
 Felt it coalesced with nationalism, which also should
be crushed
 It’s for national Safety, guys
 People don’t have a voice in gov’t
 Congress System
 Balance of Power- wanted to combine enlightenment
ideals with modern day problems to keep wars like the
Napoleonic Wars from happening again
 In effect until 1848
 Reaction to Congress of Vienna
 "The downfall of empires always directly depends upon
the spread of unbelief. For this very reason religious ,
the first of virtues, is the strongest power... Religion
cannot decline in a nation without causing that
nation's strength also to decline.“
 Metternich
 Emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination,
spontaneity in both art and personal life
 A reaction to conservative politics
 Saw growth of modern industry as ugly and brutalwanted exotic escape
 Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863)- dramatic, colorful
scenes; stirred with emotions
 Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)- first great master
of new classical forms; dramatic and inspiring
symphonies
 Franz Liszt (1811-1886)- the greatest pianist of his age;
a true one in a million performer
 Serfdom still existed in poorer parts of Austria
 Laissez Faire- Adam Smith
 People wanted less conservative, absolute power and
more free rule; saw this in Smith’s “invisible hand”
philosophy
 Free competition among trade
 Saw this as new liberalism (now considered “classical”)
 Inspired by Wealth of Nations
 1815 marked the beginning of Utopian Socialism;
originally started in France
 A gov’t should be rationally organized economically
 New laissez-faire economy denied workers the right to
organize  violently upset the French urban
workers developed a sense of class
 Karl Marx philosophy on the rise
 Communist Manifesto
 Bourgeoiosie/ proletariat
 Upheaval in France revolution in Hungary, first
 Liberals demanded written constitutions ,
representative gov’t and civil liberties from authoritarian
regimes
 Caused Metternich to flee in disguise toward London.
The old absolutist order seemed to be collapsing
 Tried to appease by ending serfdom in the country, but
the city did not rest revolutionaries wanted to join
w/minorities and create a Hungarian nation (didn’t go
over well)
 Gov’t played revolutionaries against minority groups
 Aristocratic forces toppled the revolution. FOR NOW.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfHnwqtJT9U