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Napoleon Bonaparte: Governments
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Napoleon (as he should now be called) wished to establish effective government. Important in this process was the codification of laws in a manner that maintained the social hierarchy and asserted the authority of the male, the father, and the state [see Code Civil]. A centralized financial system with the Banque de France controlling the currency was introduced in 1800. Elected bodies were largely ignored, and the regime became more dependent on the administrative system, in which nobles of the ancien régime and a new nobility, derived from the bourgeoisie and the popular classes and attracted by the Légion d'Honneur, cooperated. Censorship was rigorously imposed, dissident groups were brutally suppressed, and the monarchist threat was disposed of by the execution of the duc d' Enghien, an incident which provoked great indignation.
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Bonaparte took care to gain the attachment of the revived Church by his favours. While he dissolved the associations of the Fathers of the Faith, the Adorers of Jesus, and the Panarists, which looked to him like attempts to restore the Society of Jesus, he permitted the reconstitution of the Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of St. Thomas, the Sisters of St. Charles, and the Vatelotte Sisters, devoted to teaching and hospital work, and made his mother, Madame Lætitia Bonaparte, protectress of all the congregations of hospital sisters. He favoured the revival of the Institute of the Christian Schools for the religious instruction of boys; side by side with the lycées, he permitted secondary schools under the supervision of the prefects, but directed by ecclesiastics. He did not rest content with a mere strict fulfilment of the pecuniary obligations to the Church to which the Concordat had bound the State; in 1803 and 1804 it became the custom to pay stipends to canons and desservants of succursal parishes. Orders were issued to leave the Church in possession of the ecclesiastical buildings not included in the new circumscription of parishes. Though the State had not bound itself to endow diocesan seminaries, Bonaparte granted the bishops national estates for the use of such seminaries and the right to receive donations and legacies for their benefit; he even founded, in 1804, at the expense of the State, ten metropolitan seminaries, re-established, with a government endowment, the Lazarist house for the education of missionaries, and placed the Holy Sepulchre and the Oriental Christians under the protection of France.
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Bonaparte became commander of the army of the interior and, consequently, was henceforth aware of every political development in France. He ... became the respected adviser on military matters to the new government, the Directory. Lastly, he came to know an attractive Creole, Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie, the widow of Gen. Alexandre de Beauharnais (guillotined during the Reign of Terror), the mother of two children, and a woman of many love affairs.
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Napoleon returned to find the Directory was a mess. He, in his selfish way, saw this as the perfect time for self-advancement. So in November of 1799 he overthrew the Directory. Napoleon set up a government called the Consulate. He was the first of three consuls. About three years later he made himself first consul for life.
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While Napoleon believed in government "for" the people, he rejected government "by" the people. His France was a police state with a vast network of secret police and spies. The police shut down plays containing any hint of disagreement or criticism of the government. The press was controlled by the state. It was impossible to express an opinion without Napoleon's approval.
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Napoleon is credited with introducing the concept of the modern professional conscript army to Europe, an innovation which other states eventually followed. He did not introduce many new concepts into the French military system, borrowing mostly from previous theorists and the implementations of preceding French governments, but he did expand or develop much of what was already in place. Corps replaced divisions as the largest army units, artillery was integrated into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid, and cavalry once again became a crucial formation in French military doctrine.
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