French Consulate

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The Consulate (

During this period,

French military disasters in 1798 and 1799 had shaken the Directory, and eventually shattered it in November 1799. Historians sometimes date the start of the political downfall of the Directory to 18 June 1799 (

In the coup of 18 Brumaire Year VIII (9 November 1799), Napoleon seized French parliamentary and military power in a two-fold coup d'état, forcing the sitting directors of the government to resign. On the night of the 19 Brumaire (10 November 1799) a remnant of the Council of Ancients abolished the Constitution of the Year III, ordained the consulate, and legalised the coup d'état in favour of Bonaparte with the Constitution of the Year VIII.^[3]

The new government

The initial 18 Brumaire coup seemed to be a victory for Sieyès, rather than for Bonaparte. Sieyès was a proponent of a new system of government for the Republic, and the coup initially seemed certain to bring his system into force. Bonaparte's cleverness lay in counterposing Pierre Claude François Daunou's plan to that of Sieyès, and in retaining only those portions of each which could serve his ambition.^[4][3]

The new government was composed of three parliamentary assemblies: the

By consolidating power, Bonaparte was able to transform the aristocratic constitution of Sieyès into an unavowed dictatorship.^[3]

On 7 February 1800, a public referendum confirmed the new constitution. It vested all of the real power in the hands of the First Consul, leaving only a nominal role for the other two consuls. A full 99.9% of voters approved the motion, according to the released results.

While this near-unanimity is certainly open to question, Napoleon was genuinely popular among many voters, and after a period of strife, many in France were reassured by his dazzling but unsuccessful offers of peace to the victorious

Napoleon's consolidation of power

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Bonaparte needed to rid himself of Sieyès and of those

The Peace of Amiens (25 March 1802) with the United Kingdom, of which France's allies, Spain and the Batavian Republic, paid all the costs, finally gave the peacemaker a pretext for endowing himself with a Consulate, not for ten years but for life, as a recompense from the nation. The Rubicon was crossed on that day: Bonaparte's march to empire began with the Constitution of the Year X dated 16 Thermidor or 4 August 1802.^[3]

On 2 August 1802 (14 Thermidor, An X), a second national referendum was held, this time to confirm Napoleon as "First Consul for Life."^[5] Once again, a vote claimed 99.7% approval.^[6][7]

As Napoleon increased his power, he borrowed many techniques of the

France enjoyed a high level of peace and order under Napoleon that helped to raise the standard of comfort. Prior to this, Paris had often suffered from hunger and thirst, and lacked fire and light, but under Napoleon, provisions became cheap and abundant, while trade prospered and wages ran high. The pomp and luxury of the nouveaux riches were displayed in the salons of the good

Tallien, and the "divine" Juliette Récamier.^[8]

In strengthening the machinery of state, Napoleon created the elite order of the

Légion d'honneur (The Legion of Honour), the Concordat

, and restored indirect taxes, an act seen as a betrayal of the Revolution.

Napoleon was largely able to quell dissent within government by expelling his more vocal critics, such as

Madame de Staël. The expedition to Saint-Domingue reduced the republican army to a nullity. Constant war helped demoralise and scatter the military's leaders, who were jealous of their "comrade" Bonaparte. The last major challenge to Napoleon's authority came from Moreau, who was compromised in a royalist plot; he too was sent into exile.^[8]

In contradistinction to the opposition of senators and republican generals, the majority of the French populace remained uncritical of Bonaparte's authority. No suggestion of the possibility of his death was tolerated.[8] The Napoleonic age began here when he became officer of the French state and established the consulate.

The Duke of Enghien affair

Because Napoleon's hold on political power was still tenuous, French Royalists devised a plot that involved kidnapping and assassinating him and inviting

Charles Pichegru for their return to France from England. Pichegru met Jean Victor Marie Moreau, one of Napoleon's generals and a former protege of Pichegru, on 28 January 1804. The next day, a British secret agent named Courson was arrested and he, under torture, confessed that Pichegru, Moreau and Cadoudal were conspiring to overthrow the consulate. The French government sought more details of this plot by arresting and torturing Louis Picot, Cadoudal's servant. Joachim Murat

ordered the city gates of Paris to be closed from 7 pm to 6 am while Pichegru and Moreau were arrested during the next month.

These further arrests revealed that the Royalist conspiracy would eventually involve the active participation of the Duke of Enghien, who was a relatively young Bourbon prince and thus another possible heir to a restored Bourbon monarchy. The Duke, at that time, was living as a French émigré in the Electorate of Baden, but he also kept a rented house in Ettenheim, which was close to the French border. Perhaps at the urging of Talleyrand, Napoleon's foreign minister, and Fouché, Napoleon's minister of police who had warned that "the air is full of daggers", the First Consul came to the political conclusion that the Duke must be dealt with. Two hundred French soldiers crossed the border, surrounded the Duke's home in Baden and arrested him.

On the way back to France d'Enghien stated that "he had sworn implacable hatred against Bonaparte as well as against the French; he would take every occasion to make war on them."^[9]

After three plots to assassinate him and the further financing of a supposed insurrection in Strasbourg, Napoleon had enough. Based on d'Enghien's^{[clarification needed]} who were seized at his home in Germany and the material from the police, d'Enghien was charged as a conspirator in time of war and was subject to a military court. He was ordered to be tried by a court of seven colonels at Vincennes.

D'Enghien during his questioning at the court told them that he was being paid

£4,200 per year by England "in order to combat not France but a government to which his birth had made him hostile." Further, he stated that "I asked England if I might serve in her armies, but she replied that that was impossible: I must wait on the Rhine, where I would have a part to play immediately, and I was in fact waiting."^[10]

D'Enghien was found guilty of being in violation of Article 2 of a law of 6 October 1791, to wit, "Any conspiracy and plot aimed at disturbing the State by civil war, and arming the citizens against one another, or against lawful authority, will be punished by death." He was executed in the ditch of the fortress of Vincennes.

The aftermath caused hardly a ripple in France, but abroad, it produced a storm of anger. Many of those who had favored or been neutral to Napoleon now turned against him. But Napoleon always assumed full responsibility for allowing the execution and continued to believe that, on balance, he had done the right thing.

Consuls

The provisional Consuls (10 November – 12 December 1799)
Napoleon Bonaparte	Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès	Roger Ducos
Consulate (12 December 1799 – 18 May 1804)
Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul	J.J. Cambacérès Second Consul	Charles-François Lebrun Third Consul

Ministers

See also: Cabinet of the French Consulate

The Ministers under the consulate were:^[11]

Ministry	Start	End	Minister
Foreign Affairs	11 November 1799	22 November 1799	Charles-Frédéric Reinhard
	22 November 1799	18 May 1804	Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord
Justice	11 November 1799	25 December 1799	Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès
	25 December 1799	14 September 1802	André Joseph Abrial
	14 September 1802	18 May 1804	Claude Ambroise Régnier
War	11 November 1799	2 April 1800	Louis-Alexandre Berthier
	2 April 1800	8 October 1800	Lazare Carnot
	8 October 1800	18 May 1804	Louis-Alexandre Berthier
Finance	11 November 1799	18 May 1804	Martin-Michel-Charles Gaudin
Police	11 November 1799	18 May 1804	Joseph Fouché
Interior	12 November 1799	25 December 1799	Pierre-Simon Laplace
	25 December 1799	21 January 1801	Lucien Bonaparte
	21 January 1801	18 May 1804	Jean-Antoine Chaptal
Navy and Colonies	12 November 1799	22 November 1799	Marc Antoine Bourdon de Vatry
	22 November 1799	3 October 1801	Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait
	3 October 1801	18 May 1804	Denis Decrès
Secretary of State	25 December 1799	18 May 1804	Hugues-Bernard Maret, duc de Bassano
Treasury	27 September 1801	18 May 1804	François Barbé-Marbois
War Administration	12 March 1802	18 May 1804	Jean François Aimé Dejean

References

1. ^ Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981), 31.
2. ISBN 0-521-43294-4
   .
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Wiriath 1911, p. 860.
4. ^ Antoine-Claire Thibaudeau, "Creation of the Consular Government," Napoleon: Symbol for an Age, A Brief History with Documents, ed. Rafe Blaufarb (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008), 54–56.
5. ^ "From Life Consulship to the hereditary Empire (1802–1804)". Napoleon.org. Retrieved 9 January 2012.
6. ISBN 978-1-55970-631-5
   . August 1802 referendum.
7. ^ Lucius Hudson Holt; Alexander Wheeler Chilton (1919). A Brief History of Europe from 1789–1815. The Macmillan Company. p. 206. August 1802 referendum napoleon.
8. ^ ^{a b c d} Wiriath 1911, p. 861.
9. ^ Cronin 1994, p. 242
10. ^ Cronin 1994, pp. 243–44
11. ^ *Muel, Léon (1891). Gouvernements, ministères et constitutions de la France depuis cent ans: Précis historique des révolutions, des crises ministérielles et gouvernementales, et des changements de constitutions de la France depuis 1789 jusqu'en 1890 ... Marchal et Billard. p. 61. Retrieved 3 May 2014.

Bibliography

• Histoire et Figurines website (English language version). Accessed October 2006.
• Tom Holmberg, "The d'Enghien Affair: Crime or Blunder?" (September 2005), The Napoleonic Series website. Accessed October 2006.
• "Louis Antoine Henri, duke of Enghien"
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wiriath, Paul (1911). "France § History". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 859–860.