74 Napoleon’s Government
23.1.7: Napoleon’s Government
Napoleon’s government quickly became an authoritarian one-man system, but he surrounded himself with talented and skilled collaborators and experts and supported a merit-based system in the military.
Learning Objective
Assess Napoleon’s governmental structure and merit system
Key Points
- Napoleon’s new government, the Consulate, was composed of three parliamentary assemblies: the Council of State, which drafted bills; the Tribunate which debated bills but could not vote; and the Legislative Assembly, which could not discuss the bills, but whose members voted on them after reviewing the Tribunate’s debate record. The Conservative Senate was a governmental body equal to the three aforementioned legislative assemblies.
- The executive power was vested in three Consuls, but all actual power was held by the First Consul, Bonaparte. In 1802, Napoleon became the First Consul for Life and two years later he was elected as Emperor of the French.
- As Napoleon increased his power, he borrowed many techniques of the Ancien Régime in his new form of one-man government. Like the old monarchy, he re-introduced plenipotentiaries, an over-centralized, strictly utilitarian administration that constructed or consolidated the funds necessary for national institutions, local governments, a judiciary system, organs of finance, banking, codes, an a conscientious well-disciplined labor force.
- Napoleon was largely able to quell dissent within government by expelling his more vocal critics. However, he was also able to look beyond partisan and ideological divisions if he recognized exceptional skills and talents that could support his vision of France. The most illustrative example of this phenomenon is his collaboration with Charles Maurice de Talleyrand and Joseph Fouché.
- In strengthening the machinery of state, Napoleon created the elite order of the Légion d’honneur (The Legion of Honor – a substitute for the old royalist decorations and orders of chivalry, to encourage civilian and military achievements), signed the Concordat, and restored indirect taxes.
- Of permanent importance was the Napoleonic Code created by eminent jurists under Napoleon’s supervision. Praised for its Gallic clarity, it spread rapidly throughout Europe and the world, marking the end of feudalism where it took effect. The Code recognized the principles of civil liberty, equality before the law, and the secular character of the state.
Key Terms
- The Consulate
- The government of France from the fall of the Directory in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (1799) until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804. By extension, the term also refers to this period of French history. During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul, established himself as the head of a more liberal, authoritarian, autocratic, and centralized republican government in France while not declaring himself head of state.
- Napoleonic Code
- The French civil code esta