Authoritarian Republic: The

Consulate, 1799-1804

Section 9.46

Napoleon• 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 AccomplishmentsMade peace• Russia is out of the picture• Austria is defeated at he battle of

Marengo in June 1800 and makes peace

– Treaty of Lunevelle (1801) reconfirms Campo Formio

• Peace is made with Britain in 1802Domestic affairs are settled• Secret police • Powerful and centralized

administration• prefects rule firmly over regional

departments• peasants no longer terrorized• 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• 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• 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– 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• 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• 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