Episode 39 Building Power – General and First Consul

Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon

Dr Suzanne M Desan

Film Review

By 1799 France, which was still at war with Britain and Austria, had lost nearly all their territory in northern Italy and Austria. In the spring of 1800, First Council and General Napoleon led 93,000 troops across the Alps to attack the Austrians’ rear flank in Milan and cut off their supply lines.

Despite losing to the Austrians in the Siege of Genoa in June, two French generals (Desaix and Kellermann) turned the tide and forced the Austrians to agree to an armistice and withdraw their troops from Genoa and Lombardy.

In his role as First Council, between 1800 and 1804 Napoleon negotiated peace treaties with Bavaria, Naples, Spain, Portugal, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, the US, Great Britain and Austria. The treaties restored French hegemony over northern Italy, Belgium and the left bani of the Rhine. It also recognized France’s satellite republics in Netherlands, Switzerland and Northern Italy. The “Cisalpine Republic” became the  “Italian Republic” with Bonaparte as president. Peace lasted roughly one year.

Although First Consul Bonaparte moved into Louis XVI’s Tuilleries palace, he deliberately dressed as commoner. He also moved the Council of State (created in December 1799 to draft new laws and resolve administrative disputes) into the palace. One of the first measures passed was to shut down all political clubs and to ban most political newspapers. In 1799, the number declined from 73 to 13 and by 1804 it was down to four.

The first serious threat to Napoleon’s rule occurred on December 24, 1800, when a bomb exploded near his carriage. Although his chief of police Joseph Fouche used horseshoe prints to trace the plot to two known royalists, Napoleon insisted anarchists (Jacobins) were involved. He eventually ordered 11 men to be guillotined – two guilty royalists and 9 innocent Jacobins.

Repression deepened as he

• rounded up and deported dozens of Jacobins and established military tribunals in southern and western France.
• granted full amnesty to emigres who wished to return to France.
• crushed the resurgent Vendee Revolt* and recruited some of its leaders to serve in his government.

Following eight months of secret negotiations with Pius VII in 1800, Napoleon issued the Concordat of 1801 (which remained in force until 1905), stipulating that the French government would continued to pay priests, protestant clergy (and eventually rabbis); that Napoleon would appoint bishops and the pope merely consecrate them; and that the Catholic church forswear all claims to church lands that had been nationalized and sold. Although France remained a secular state, on Easter Sunday 1802 French church bells rang out for the first time since the Revolution.

In August 1802, a plebiscite approved a new constitution that made Napoleon First Consul for life, omitted any declaration of rights and centralized power in a strong executive consisting of Napoleon and two other Consuls (who had 10-year terms). The Consuls appointed members of the two legislative chambers: a Trabinaire, which could debate legislation but not vote, on it and a Council of State which could vote on legislation but not debate it. The constitution also allowed for a 60-member senate the Consuls appointed for life that would judge whether laws were constitutional and gave Consults the power to appoint local officials (who ceased to be elected by local residents).

This 1802 constitution was approved with a 20% turnout. The 1799 constitution had ended the secret ballot. All adult males were eligible to vote, but they had to sign their ballots.

*See 1793: The French Revolution Faces Counterrevolution

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149397