Napoleon in France Flashcards
Constitutional of the Year VIII
Adopted 24 December 1799
Voting
Communal, Department and National Lists (each proposed 10% of their number to be part of the next list)
The senate selected deputies from the national list to form the legislature
First Consul
voix deliberative
Initiates all legislation, appoints ministers, officials and judges, controls foreign policy
Second and Third Consuls
voix consultative
Cambacérès and Lebru were Napoleon’s consuls
Council of State
Advisory body to First Consul (chosen by him)
Senate
80 members appointed for life by Napoleon
Sieyes and Ducos were senators and they appointed another 29 senators
Selected the legislature
Advised on legislation
Could override the legislature with a ‘senatus consultum’
Tribunate
Lower chamber of the legislature
100 members over 25 years old
Discussed laws proposed by First Consul
Corps Legislatif
Upper chamber of the legislature
300 members over 30 years old
Votes on laws by secret ballot without discussion of them
Plebiscite on Constitution of the Year VIII (date)
7 February 1800 (post-facto referendum)
Plebiscite on Constitution of the Year VIII (stats)
Lucien (Minister of the Interior) announced that 3 million voted in favour and 1,500 voted against
1.5 million men are thought to have voted at all
Number of gendarmes by 1810
18,000 across France
Napoleon quotation on censorship
‘I will never allow the newspapers to do or say anything against my interest’
All except 4 Parisian newspapers had been suppressed by
1811
Reduction in number of newspapers in 1800
73 to 13 (reduced by 60)
Active censorship for each paper by…
1809
Central Excise Office established
1804 - reimplementation of indirect taxation
Franc de germinal introduced
1803 - currency stabilised (backed by silver and gold)
Grand Master of the Imperial University
Louis de Fontanes (a clergyman)
All teachers had to swear an oath of loyalty to Napoleon
1808
Article 22 of DRMC
Right to education
Concordat
Signed 15 July 1801
Published April 1802
Reunification of Church and State
Church would recognise the Revolution
Church would now be state-controlled – clergy would be paid civil servants, appointed by the First Consul and bound by the oath of loyalty
Other religious faiths would be tolerated
Organic Articles
Published April 1802
Limited Papal control
Papal envoys had to be approved before they could enter France and Papal documents had to be approved before they could be published
Seminaries which trained priests would be government-controlled and those running the training had to be French
Imperial Catechism
1806 - combined duty towards the Church with duty towards France, Napoleon and the Empire, powerfully promoting and effectively demanding loyalty towards him
St Napoleon’s Day
16 August (despite this being the day of another saint)
Extra-judicial murder of Duc d’Enghien
1804 - for supposedly supporting a royalist plot
Purge of the Tribunate
1802 (for stating that the civil code wasn’t revolutionary)
Civil Code
1804
Reintroduction of the livret
1 December 1803
Arbitrary arrest allowed
1810
Prefects
17 February 1800
- Tax
- Propaganda
- Conscription
- Monitored opposition / public opinion
Lucien quotations on the prefects (Lucien was Minister of the Interior)
‘Be always the first magistrate of your department, never the man of the Revolution’
‘eyes, ears and voice’ of the central government
Collection of taxes = ‘sacred duty’
Special courts for the suppression of brigandage
1801
Civil Code on inheritance law
Divided estates equally among male heirs (partage)
Legion of Honour created
19 May 1802
Legion of Honour rewards given out
38,000 awards of titles, land and money
Only 4000 to civilians
Imperial Nobility created
1 March 1808
Imperial Nobility rewards given out
3,500 new titles awarded
Napoleon adding to the Senate
1814 – membership of the Senate had increased from 80 to 140 (Napoleon just kept adding loyal people)