NAPOLEONIC EUROPE (1799-1815)
The
Consulate (1799-1804)
In 1799, the French
government of the Thermidorean Reaction, called the Directory, was foundering. A
brilliant young French general, having already won fame with a series of victories
for Revolutionary France in Italy Napoleon Bonaparte, was
then busy fighting a fruitless war in Egypt. Hearing of the chaos, Napoleon
abandoned his army and with geat fanfare returned to Paris a hero. On November
9, 1799 (the month of "Brumaire" in the French Revolutionary
calendar) Napoleon Bonaparte and Abbe Sieyes pulled off a coup in France. They
overthrew the current Directory and replaced it with a new government: the
Consulate. Sieyes and Napoleon both installed themselves as consuls, though the
popular Napoleon became First Consul.
A career warrior, Napoleon
now claimed he only wanted peace. At the time, Austria was the only continental
country that remained at war with France. On June 1800, Napoleon led the French
army against the Austrians at the battle of Marengo and emerged with a
staggering victory. In February 1801, the Austrians were forced to sign the
Treaty of Luneville, reaffirming the earlier Treaty of Campo Formio, which had
created the Cisalpine Republic in Italy. The Cisalpine Republic was really a
puppet-state controlled by France. On March 1802, France signed the Peace of
Amiens with Britain, ending their warring, and briefly bringing Europe to
peace, a rare occurrence in this violent period.
As First Consul, Napoleon
moved rapidly to institute order in France. He put down rebellions in the
French provinces. He created a secret police, led by Fouche. He centralized the
government of the various French departments under a system of prefects. To
reduce the number of potential revolutionaries floating around Europe, he
issued a general amnesty, allowing various exiles, from aristocrats to
Jacobins, to return home. Napoleon ended the exclusion of the nobility from power
that had been the trademark of earlier post- revolution regimes. He simply
wanted the best men he could find, even if they happened to be from
aristocratic families. As an example, he took in Talleyrand as his foreign
minister despite Talleyrand's aristocratic heritage.
Napoleon was not
universally loved, however. On Christmas Eve, 1800, he was nearly killed by a
bomb planted by conspirators wanting to restore the old Bourbon line of kings.
Although it was clear that the plot had been royalist in origin, Napoleon felt
more threatened by the Jacobins and used the event to persecute and intimidate
them.
Though unreligious, in
1801, Napoleon signed a Concordat with the Catholic pope. This agreement
smoothed over the rift between France and Rome the Revolution had caused, in which the French
state assumed control over appointment of bishops and confiscated church lands.
Napoleon did not give the property back, but he did make Catholicism the
official religion of France, admitting, "the majority of France is
Catholic." In exchange, the Vatican recognized the Consulate. Even under
this new agreement with the Church, Napoleon upheld religious tolerance, which
remained a fundamental principle of French life under his "enlightened
despotism."
Napoleon also set about
improving and modernizing French government. He wanted government power to
apply to everyone equally, legal class differences and hereditary government
offices to be abolished, and salaries to be given to his bureaucrats, who were
to be selected based on talent, not birth. Napoleon stabilized French currency
by creating the Bank of France, and he simplified the tangle of French law by
producing the Napoleonic Code.
In 1802, having brought
prestige, power, and a sense of patriotism to France, Napoleon was elected
"Consul for Life". Monarchy was returning to France. In 1804,
Napoleon did away with niceties and started calling himself what he had already
been in reality for some time: the French Emperor.
Commentary
Napoleon was born in 1769
on the island of Corsica, a former Genoan island in the Mediterranean that had
recently been handed over to the French. Technically minor French aristocrats,
Napoleon's family got him a scholarship to go to school in France. Trained at
French military schools to command artillery, Napoleon proved capable of
commanding far greater military contingents: after leading the revolutionary
army to victory at the battle of Toulon, Napoleon was promoted to general.
Next, on the Italian Campaign, in which he defeated Austria and gained
territory in Italy for France, Napoleon became famous as a brilliant strategist
and French national hero. The government, frightened by his massive popularity,
next sent him on the Egyptian campaign. The government stated the reason for
the Egyptian campaign as a means to threaten British trade with India, but in
reality it seemed mostly a ploy to get the dangerous and ambitious Napoleon
away from Paris. The overthrow of the Directory and establishment of the
Consulate marked the real end of the French Revolution. The Consulate was
outwardly an institution of self-government, with its Council of Notables and
Senate. This bicameral (two house) legislature was largely for show: Napoleon
controlled the Consulate. Under his rule, France entered a period of
"Enlightened Despotism", or dictatorial rule by someone who really
was intelligent, wise, and in many ways looked to the welfare of his people.
Napoleon's executive decisions were carried out by his chief agency, the
Council of State.
Why was it that the French
army was so dominant in this period? Although the "great-man" bias in
history makes us want to attribute it all to Napoleon's strategic brilliance,
there were other underlying factors. First, the reforms of the French
Revolution created a higher amount of equality of opportunity in France than
had been seen previously in Europe. The most talented men, rather than simply
men of noble birth, now gained power at every level. French efficiency improved
as result, as did the population's general enthusiasm. While other nations
still fought largely with mercenaries, the French army was a national army of
proud and patriotic citizens, who had very high morale and a sense of heroism.
At the same time, France also boasted the largest population of any European
country: an advantage for a nation trying to build a large army.
Why did Napoleon move to
sign the Concordat of 1801, normalizing relations with the Church, when he
wasn't himself religious? Napoleon was a smart politician. With the Church
officially at odds with France, the clergy (influential with the masses) would
become a source of resistance to his government (as could be seen in the revolt in the Vendee during the Terror of the French
Revolution). By gaining recognition from the Pope, who was bound to comply
since Napoleon's armies threatened the Papal States, Napoleon ended this
potential source of conflict.
Though he was a dictator,
Napoleon's reforms represented a victory for the goals of the bourgeoisie in
the revolution: legal equality reigned; government posts went to the "men
of talent"; education increasingly determined people's social status;
tax-exemptions based on noble birth ceased to exist, providing more funds for
the government, which then engaged in bigger and more ambitious projects. The Napoleonic
Code was one of Napoleon's most important creations. After the various
governments of the Revolution, French law was a complete mess. Lawyers, not to
mention the people, hardly knew what was legal and illegal anymore, since there
were so many confusing and conflicting laws on the books. The Napoleonic Code
created a single, streamlined system of law, which enshrined the basic tenants
of the Revolution, such as the legal equality of all citizens. The code,
however, did have some negative aspects: it was harsher than Anglo- American
"Common Law" in regards to the rights of criminals (Napoleonic law
favored the prosecution and downplayed the "rights of the accused").
The Napoleonic Code also outlawed labor unions.
The other powers in Europe
were understandably scared of Napoleon. He was a leader that fought tradition,
and, furthermore the leader of the European nation with the biggest population,
and which had been Europe's intellectual leader for the past century. Under a
more merit-based system of selecting France's bureaucrats and officer, France
became especially efficient, powerful, and patriotic. Napoleon threatened not
only everything the old regime in Europe stood for, but that regime's very
existence.
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