Authoritarian
Republic: The
Consulate, 17991804
Section 9.46
Napoleon
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Understood the importance of a
popular mandate
B. in Corsica in 1759
Father moved family to France,
climbed French social ladder and got
Napoleon in military academy
Hated French at first
Rose through ranks quickly during
Revolution and many nobles had fled
Short, dark, coarse manners, temper,
no gentleman but a genius in many
ways
Machiavellian, eventually a
megalomaniac
Genius with capacity for hours of study
in varied subjects
Very admired at first by (Beethoven,
Goeth)
Bonaparte as First Consul
• Considered the last and most eminent
enlightened despot
• Presented a constitution to a public
referendum (plebiscite)
• Accepted 3 million to 1 thousand
• Set up ‘a make believe of parliamentary
institutions
• Gave universal male suffrage
• only allowed for the selection and
installment of “notables”
• Notables were then appointed by
government to positions
• Had no power on their own (more of a
debating club)
• Government also had a Tribunate and a
Conservative Senate
• Little power was exercised outside of the
First Consul
Marengo
Early Accomplishments
Made peace
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Russia is out of the picture
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Austria is defeated at he battle of
Marengo in June 1800 and makes
peace
– Treaty of Lunevelle (1801)
reconfirms Campo Formio
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Peace is made with Britain in 1802
Domestic affairs are settled
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Secret police
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Powerful and centralized
administration
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prefects rule firmly over regional
departments
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peasants no longer terrorized
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Allows the return of émigrés and
others
Early Accomplishments
• Picks capable and effective people to staff the
administration
• Talleyrand- minister of foreign affairs and
stayed in US during the Terror
• Fouche- minister of police had been a
Herbertist in 93 and helped bring fall of
Robespierre
• Used propaganda to build confidence in his
leadership
• Bomb to assassinate him was blamed on a
Jacobin conspiracy
• even thou he knew royalist had done it
• deported 100 Jacobins
• Exaggerated “royalist plots”
• Invaded Baden and had Duke of Enghien (a
Bourbon) shot
• keeps the Jacobins satisfied that they, as
regicides, are safe under his rule
Charles de Talleyrand
Louis Antoine Henri,
duc d'Enghien
Napoleon’s Iron Hand
The Settlement with the Church
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Bonaparte makes peace with the Church
Regarded religion as a convenience
advertised himself as a Muslim in Egypt, a
Catholic in France, a freethinker among
professors
he recognized Catholic revival in France and
wanted to eliminate refractory clergy (aided by
England)
Concordat of 1801 (with the Vatican)
Pope can depose French bishops and controls
the Church in France
Pope (by signing) recognizes the French
Republic and raises no question over former
church lands
Clergy are salaried by the state
Pope cannot question French toleration
Also put Protestant ministers and the state
payroll
Disarmed the counterrevolution
Republic is no longer ‘godless’
Consulate reforms
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No privileges were recognized
Citizens were to rise according
to their abilities (merit over
birth)
Careers open to talent
education came to be a
determinant of social standing
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So long as it (book) didn’t
question the First Consul
(Germaine de Stael exiled)
Tax reform
no tax exemptions
taxes were actually collected
Bank of France was created
and a new currency was
established
Staël, Anne Louise Germaine de.
1766-1817
The Napoleonic Codes
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curtailed 300 legal systems of Old Regime,
thousands of laws past by Revolutionaries into
One Code of Five sections
Civil (Code Napoleon)
Civil procedure
Criminal procedure
Commercial
Penal
Made France legally and judicially uniform
Assured legal equality
Left wife with very restricted powers over
property
Paternalistic view of law
New property laws to create a framework for an
economy of private enterprise
Contracts, Debts, Leases, Stock companies
Sets the character for French life
Socially bourgeois
Legally egalitarian
Administratively bureaucratic
Napoleon’s Early Accomplishments
Restoration
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In France with the Consulate the Revolution was
over
The worst evils of the Old Regime were cured
The beneficiaries of the Revolution felt secure
Working class movement vanished
France was a peace with the Papacy
1802 Napoleon has himself elected First Consul
for life
1804 Napoleon has himself made emperor
Napoleon I Emperor of the French
Napoleon becomes the terror of Europe
The principle of civic equality proved not only to
have the appeal of justice, but also to be
politically useful---The resources of France were
hurled against Europe
Emperor Napoleon I