Napoleon's date of birth, in Corsica in 1769, makes him by just fifteen months a native French citizen. Most of Corsica's traditional links are with Italy, from which Napoleon's family, the Buonaparte, have arrived during the 16th century.
The Corsicans have been fighting for much of the 18th century to liberate their island from the rule of Genoa. In 1768 the Genoese, unable to control this troublesome island, sell it to France. The French invade, overwhelm the Corsicans and from 1769 administer the region as a French province.
Napoleon's father, a member of the Corsican nobility, accepts a position in the French administration. He is therefore able to arrange education in France for his two eldest sons. Napoleon is the second son in a large family. Eight Bonaparte children survive infancy.
The young Corsican (who changes the spelling of his name to the more French-seeming Bonaparte in 1796) is educated in a military academy at Brienne-le-Château. At the age of sixteen, in 1785, he becomes a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment. In the early years of the French Revolution he shows an interest in radical politics. Stationed in Valence in 1791, he becomes president of the localJacobin club - and duly fulminates against aristocrats and bishops.
His first significant military engagement is at Toulon in 1793. In July this Mediterranean port and arsenal is seized by royalist counter-revolutionaries who deliver it into the hands of an Anglo-Spanish fleet. In the ensuing siege by French republican forces the commander of the artillery is wounded. Napoleon is promoted to the post. When the city is taken, in December, Napoleon's artillery tactics and his leadership during the final assault are recognized as having played a crucial role.
Augustin Robespierre writes to his brother Maximilien in Paris, praising the brilliant young officer. In February 1794 Napoleon, aged twenty-five, is appointed commander of artillery in the army of Italy. His career seems assured.
But nothing is assured at this time, the peak of the Terror. That summer the Robespierre brothers go together to the guillotine. In the mood of reprisal after the events ofThermidor, the Robespierre endorsement of Napoleon brings suspicion upon him. He is arrested and seems in danger of his life, but is released after a month in prison.
This setback is followed by a period of inactivity in Paris on half pay. But his reputation from Toulon remains vivid in military circles. When the republicanConvention is threatened by a royalist uprising in 1795, Napoleon's help is enlisted. He is later presented as having, almost single-handed, saved the legitimate government.
The guns of Vendémiare: 5 October 1795
Napoleon's part in the saving of the Convention, and of its plans for the new regime of five directors, is a simple one. On being appointed one of the commanders to defend the seat of government in the Tuileries (with a force which looks like being outnumbered six to one by the rebels), he asks one simple question: 'Where is the artillery?' He has appreciated that in the straight streets around the Tuileries the issue may be decided by a few cannon rather than thousands of muskets.
Forty guns are known to be in a camp six miles away. Joachim Murat(a brilliant cavalry officer, and later Napoleon's brother-in-law) is despatched to fetch them.
A rebel force is already on its way to seize these valuable weapons but Murat, galloping at the head of a squadron of 200 troopers, reaches the camp first. His men drag the cannon to Paris.
Fortunately for the members of the Convention, waiting nervously in the Tuileries, the rebels decide on a direct frontal attack rather than anything more subtle. During the afternoon of 13Vendémiaire(October 5) columns of armed men, marching to drums, arrive in the Rue St Honoré and turn into the streets leading to the Tuileries. They are exchanging musket fire with the Convention's troops when the first volleys of grapeshot from Napoleon's cannon tear into their ranks.
The encounter is repeated two or three times during the afternoon, but eventually the rebels scatter. The day belongs unequivocally to the Convention, enabling plans for the new Directory to continue on schedule.
Much credit, very possibly exaggerated, is given to the 26-year-old Napoleon for this narrow escape from disaster. In the early months of the Directory he is rapidly promoted until, in March 1796, he becomes commander-in-chief of the French army in Italy. His success in this role brings him such a reputation in France that by 1799 he is himself in a position to replace the Directory.
The Italian campaign: AD 1796-1797
When Napoleon joins his army in March 1796, he finds himself in command of 37,000 men who are demoralized, badly fed and unpaid. During April he leads them in a series of rapid victories which vastly raise the soldiers' spirits and hold out the promise of rich loot under this energetic young commander.
The allies facing Napoleon are the Austrians, committed to defending their extensive territory around Milan - and the Sardinians whose realm extends from Savoy and Nice west of the Alps to Piedmont, with its capital at Turin, on the Italian side. (They are called Sardinians because the duke of Savoy is also the king of Sardinia, a senior title.)
Napoleon's strategy is to divide and to surprise his enemies. Instead of taking the obvious route along the coast, he leads his army through Alpine passes to catch the Austrians unaware at Montenotte on April 12. It is the first of a rush of victories against Austrians and Sardinians separately. The allies are successfully prevented from joining forces against their fast-moving opponent.
At the end of the month Napoleon issues a proclamation to his men, using a certain degree of hyperbole to trumpet their achievements: 'Soldiers! In fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one colours and fifty-five pieces of artillery, seized several fortresses and conquered the richest parts of Piedmont.'
By April 28, in the armistice of Cherasco, the king of Sardinia is ready to make peace with France and to cede his territories of Savoy and Nice - both in practice already occupied, since 1792, by French republican forces.
Napoleon's conquest of Piedmont is repeated, in similar piecemeal fashion, in other regions of Italy. He defeats the Austrians at Lodi on April 10 and enters Milan five days later. Subsequent campaigns lead rapidly to armistices with the dukes of Parma (May 9) and Modena (May 17) and with the pope, Pius VI, on June 23. Ancient and enfeebled Venice is unable to offer any opposition to the conqueror. In May 1797 Napoleon deposes the last of the doges and sets up a provisional democracy.
In all these subdued territories Napoleon has been energetically imposing the new French ways, often with the enthusiastic support of locals as impatient as the French with the remnants of feudalism. Northern and central Italy is reorganized as the Cisalpine Republic, while the territory of Genoa becomes the Ligurian Republic.
During the winter of 1796-7 there are prolonged and complicated engagements between French and Austrian forces round Mantua, but by April Napoleon is secure enough to move northwards against Vienna itself. He is just two days' march away from the city, at Leoben, when the Austrian emperor agrees an armistice.
By the terms of the peace, signed at Campo Formio in October, Austria cedes to France theAustrian Netherlandsand all her territory in northern Italy. In return, as a sop, Napoleon gives the emperor Venice.
All this is negotiated by the young general on his own initiative. The Directory, busy with the coup d'état ofFructidor, is in no position to control him in his triumph. Moreover, like Napoleon's troops, the government can hardly be indifferent to the material result of his success. A steady stream of booty, both of money and art, makes its way back to France (including, looted once again, the famous bronze horses from St Mark's in Venice). Exported French republicanism may be a blessing, but it does not come cheap.
Plans to invade England: AD 1797-1798
The terms agreed by Napoleon at Campo Formio are displeasing to the Directory in one important respect - they fail to secure conclusive French possession of the German areas west of the Rhine. This is accepted by the Austrians in principle (and for part of the region only), but it is to be discussed further at a congress of German princes at Rastatt. However Campio Formio has one widely popular result. It restores peace to continental Europe for the first time in five years.
Now the only nation still at war with France is her traditional enemy, Britain. Napoleon is appointed commander of an army to be assembled for an invasion across the Channel. In Paris in December he settles down to detail.
Sixty specially designed gunboats and 250 fishing vessels are to convey an army of about 25,000 men from a dozen different embarkation points. Wolfe Tone, eager to arrange another French invasion of Ireland, is involved in the discussions. In February 1798 Napoleon sets off for a tour of the coast, from Normandy to Belgium, to inspect the preparations. What he sees, in the motley flotilla being assembled, convinces him that this is a most risky undertaking - both in itself and for his own reputation as a commander, invariably associated until now with success.
He tells the Directory that it is unwise to launch an attack on Britain until such time as France has command of the seas.
Napoleon finds it difficult to get out of this dangerous command without tendering a resignation which would in itself be damaging. The situation is only resolved when he proposes a much more exotic course of action. He argues that Britain is best attacked in the region of her underlying strength, that of the overseas empire. He suggests that a French seizure of Egypt would harm British communications with India and would add a rich and strategically placed colony to France's own empire.
In March 1798 the Directors, perhaps welcoming the chance to send this popular and ambitious general far from the centre of power, approve his plan - as yet to be kept a closely guarded secret.
During the next two months, while troops continue to assemble on the Channel coast to conceal the change of plan, Napoleon puts together an invasion force against Egypt which is intended to have a glamorous profile. In addition to the regiments of troops he will be accompanied by distinguished scientists, academics and artists to study and report on this ancient oriental civilization. They cannot as yet be allowed to know where they are going. Even so, 150 of France's most distinguished men of science accept Napoleon's invitation.
Surprisingly soon, everything is ready. On May 19 some 400 vessels sail from Toulon and four other ports on their dangerous journey east.
The Egyptian campaign: AD 1798-1799
The voyage is dangerous because the British prime minister, William Pitt, aware that something other than the invasion of Britain is being planned, has sent a strong naval squadron under Nelson into the Mediterranean. If Nelson chances upon the unwieldy French fleet, with its vulnerable cargo of infantry and cavalry (some 38,000 men in all), horses, artillery and scientists, the result is likely to go heavily against the French. But Napoleon is lucky. The ships get out of their various harbours unobserved. Once at sea, they will be hard to find.
The five French fleets meet up in early June at their first target - Malta, headquarters of the Knights of St John.
This once mighty order of knights puts up little resistance. After just one day, and with only three French casualties, Napoleon is master of an island from which he removes vast quantities of treasure. He expels the knights and spends five days reorganizing Malta along republican lines before sailing on eastwards (see theKnights of St John).
The French fleet (narrowly missed one night by Nelson, passing close in the dark) reaches Egypt unobserved at the end of June. Alexandria is taken. The army then marches south, in appalling conditions of midsummer heat and drought, through the desert towards Cairo.
It is a profoundly demoralized invading force which finally confronts theMameluke army at Gizaon July 21. But the French are arranged by Napoleon on the open terrain in solid six-deep divisional squares, and their fire-power slices with devastating effect through the wild charges of the Egyptian cavalry. Victory in the Battle of the Pyramids delivers Cairo to Napoleon.
While emphasizing his respect for Islam, Napoleon sets about organizing Egypt as a French territory with himself as its ruler, assisted by a senate of distinguished Egyptians. All is going according to his plan. His team of scientists can now begin to look about them (in the following year, 1799, a French officer finds theRosetta stone).
But there is already a major snag. Some ten days after Napoleon's victory, Nelson finally comes across the warships of the French fleet - at anchor in Aboukir Bay, near the western mouth of the Nile. On August 1, in the Battle of the Nile, he destroys them as a fighting force (only two French ships of the line survive).
Napoleon, master of Egypt, is stranded in his new colony. He has no safe way of conveying his army back to France. Moreover he has provoked a new enemy. Turkey, of whose empire Egypt is officially a part, declares war on France in September 1798. In February news comes that a Turkish army is preparing to march south through Syria and Palestine to attack Egypt. Napoleon moves first.
The Syrian campaign: AD 1799
Napoleon's Syrian campaign is the first unmitigated disaster in his career. It is a military failure and it provides another dire example of European brutality in Palestine, in the bleak tradition of thecrusades. Marching north in February 1799, Napoleon is irritated by the resistance put up by ancient garrison towns along the coast. He is delayed first at El Arish, then at Gaza and again at Jaffa.
At Jaffa the 3000 defenders in the Ottoman garrison are promised by a French officer that their lives will be spared if they submit. But once inside the city, Napoleon orders them all to be executed.
To conserve ammunition, the instruction is given for the condemned to be either bayonetted or drowned. The gruesome scene, reminiscent ofMongolcustoms but also of Richard I's atrocity at Acre in 1191, is one which even Napoleon's presentational skills later fail to justify. This event is rapidly followed by plague in the French army, and by the famous moment of flamboyant courage when Napoleon, to reassure his men, visits and touches the sick in the plague hospital at Jaffa.
Later in the campaign Napoleon wins several victories against the Turks, but Acre withstands a French siege of two months. By early June the French army is making a bedraggled and desperate retreat south through the Sinai desert.
Naturally Napoleon enters Cairo on June 14 as if returning from a triumph, and in July he recovers his reputation with a brilliant victory over a Turkish army which has landed at Aboukir. But by now he has other matters on his mind.
News, arriving late and unreliably from France, suggests that a crisis is approaching. The political situation in Paris is increasingly unstable, with the Directory distrusted and discredited. And recent events have rekindled the European war, bringing a new alliance of nations back into the field against France. It seems that this may be Napoleon's last chance to make a bid for power.
Determined now to abandon his army in Egypt, Napoleon describes to his generals the danger in which France stands and the need for him to hurry home. He does not share with them a more personal reason. Rumour has reached him that one of the Directors, Sieyès, has been looking for a general to support him in a coup d'état. If that general is anyone other than Napoleon, he may have lost his chance for good.
With a few colleagues he leaves Egypt in two frigates on August 23. By good luck they complete the journey unnoticed by any of the British squadrons in the Mediterranean. They land at Fréjus on October 9. Napoleon reaches Paris a week later.
Napoleon at first conceals his hand, pretending merely to enjoy the social delights of Paris. But within a couple of weeks he is actively engaged in planning a coup.
A false rumour about an imminent Jacobin plot against the Directory is the first step. This is used, on 18Brumaire, to persuade the senior of the nation's two councils (the Ancients) to appoint Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris. The Ancients are also induced to vote that they and the junior chamber (the Council of the Five Hundred) shall move for safety to Saint-Cloud, where they will convene on the following day.
The conspirators meanwhile place under house arrest those Directors who are not in the plot, falsely announcing that they have resigned.
On the next day the Ancients and the Five Hundred, assembling at Saint-Cloud, find themselves surrounded by 6000 troops. Tense debate continues in both assemblies until Napoleon impatiently bursts in upon them. His illegal intrusion causes uproar, from which he emerges visibly shaken. Further deception is needed. The troops are told that there are assassins among the deputies who have attempted to murder Napoleon. They empty the two halls by force. The deputies flee for their lives.
Later that night a quorum from both the Ancients and the Five Hundred is rounded up. The terrified and exhausted deputies are persuaded - at about 2 a.m. - to pass a motion formally ending the Directory and swearing an oath of loyalty to a new provisional consulate of three men.
This provisional trio of consuls consists of two of the previous five directors, Sieyès and Roger Ducos (both of them party to the plot), and one newcomer - Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the next month an appointed committee wrangles ceaselessly about the terms of a new constitution for the proposed consulate. Sieyès and Ducos, browbeaten by Napoleon, drop out of the running.
On December 12 a constitutional document drafted by Napoleon is finally accepted. It provides for an executive first consul who will be supported by advisory second and third consuls and 'checked' by no less than four assemblies with differing functions.
It is a calculated recipe for inertia and muddle at all levels but the very highest, where the first consul will - in effect though not in theory - have virtually unlimited power. It is no surprise that the first consul is to be Napoleon, with a Jacobinand a royalist selected as second and third consuls to appease both factions by a continuation of this well established balancing act.
The proposed package is put to the nation in a referendum (in February 1800) asking for a simple Yes or No. With a franchise limited by property qualifications, and without a secret ballot, the result nationally is 3,011,007 voting Yes (meaning for Napoleon) and only 1562 registering No.
After ten years of upheaval and terror the French are ready to accept dictatorial rule by a man who is decisive and undoctrinaire, professionally equipped to direct France's wars against her many enemies, sympathetic to the principles of the revolution (as his early career has proved) and yet inclined to safeguard people's resulting windfalls. Napoleon and the times are well suited to each other.
First Consul: AD 1800-1804
The plebiscite of 1800 gives Napoleon the mandate to play a role for which he is well suited both in character and in terms of his 18th-century education - that of theenlightened despot.
He now has the power, like a monarch, to select the members of the council of state over which he presides. As in a king's privy council, these councillors specialize in different departments of state. They give their advice. But on any important issue it is the first consul who makes the executive decision.
With these powers, Napoleon sets about a thorough reform of France's administrative systems. Despotism and enlightenment are carefully balanced. Censorship of the press is introduced, but so are measures to improve secondary and university education. Police powers are strengthened and judges are now appointed (previously they were elected), yet the judges are given an important new independence in the form of security of tenure.
Similarly the pragmatic first consul, himself indifferent to religion, is well aware that much of rural France deeply resents the French republic's attack on Catholicism. Napoleon sets about mending this fence.
The estrangement from Rome has recently been absolute. PopePius VI, humiliated by the French, is a prisoner in France when he dies in August 1799. Napoleon now makes overtures to his successor, Pius VII.
In a Concordat agreed in July 1801, the pope accepts that Napoleon will appoint French bishops (an argument between church and state which goes all the way back to theinvestiture controversy in the Middle Ages) and that church lands seized during the revolution will not be restored. In return Napoleon agrees to pay the salaries of the clergy and to recognize Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French people.
Napoleon has a trick up his sleeve to make the Concordat acceptable to French republicans. He unilaterally adds the so-called 'organic articles', requiring government permission for any papal action or pronouncement on French soil. The pope is outraged by this deception. But the Concordat serves its purpose in appeasing religious sensibilities within France.
The most famous and lasting of Napoleon's reforms during the consulate is his code of civil law. Since 1790 there have been several attempts to codify French law - chaotic in its ancien régime form and made more so by a flood of revolutionary legislation.
In 1800 Napoleon appoints a committee of lawyers to work on the preparation of a code. He himself takes a keen interest, attending more than half the meetings in which their proposals are discussed. Statutes are enacted piecemeal from as early as 1801. By 1804 they are ready to be embodied in a single Code Civil, which in 1807 is renamed theCode Napoléon.
The change of name reflects Napoleon's ever-growing stature in France. In 1802 the people are asked 'Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' As in 1800, the vast majority say Yes. For good measure it is agreed that he can designate his successor. This vote of confidence follows his achievement of peace with France's two main enemies, first Austria and then Britain.
Napoleon against Austria: AD 1800-1801
Napoleon's military priority, on becoming first consul in 1799, is to reverse gains recently made by Austria during his absence on the Egyptian campaign. To give himself a freer hand he makes a tentative offer of peace to England in December 1799, but it is firmly rejected.
As in 1796, the Austrians could be attacked by French armies either north of the Alps in Germany or south of them in Italy. No doubt remembering his own triumphs in that year, Napoleon selects Italy. He hopes to surprise the enemy by bringing his army south through the Great St Bernard pass in May 1800 before the snows have cleared. He himself slithers through the pass on a mule, but this does not deter the painter Jacques-Louis David from depicting him on a magnificent rearing stallion among the snowy peaks.
When the crucial encounter with the Austrians occurs, at Marengo on June 14, it is very nearly a disaster for Napoleon. By mid-afternoon it seems that the Austrians have won the day. But a brave French counter-attack reverses the situation.
Victory at Marengo is followed by an armistice and a truce - which Napoleon breaches in November, when he sends a French army north of the Alps against Vienna. Another French victory, at Hohenlinden in December, prompts the Austrian emperor to sign a treaty at Lunéville in February 1801. It goes even beyond the terms of Campo Formio. France keeps the Rhineland. Austria recognizes the four French sister republics.
Napoleon against Britain: AD 1800-1802
The conflict between France and Britain, continuously atwar since 1793, tends always towards stalemate. The two nations are evenly matched but have very different strengths. Britain has a much smaller population (11 million compared to 27 million in France in 1801). This disadvantage is offset by Britain's wealth (from a more developed economy and extensive overseas trade) and by the British superiority at sea. In 1803 France has 23 ships of the line; Britain has 34 in service and another 77 in reserve.
For these reasons the British contribution to any war against France in continental Europe is largely limited to providing funds for allied armies.
The naval clash between Britain and France is a strange one - not so much a sea war as a coast war. It is the permanent concern of the British navy, commanding the seas, to harm France and her allies by preventing any merchant ships other than those of Britain from reaching continental ports. And it is the permanent concern of the French armies, commanding the land, to prevent British vessels entering those same ports.
Third parties suffer as much as anyone from this form of economic warfare, particularly after Britain adopts the policy of seizing goods carried by the ships of neutral nations if they are destined for a harbour under blockade.
Indignation at this British policy, heightened by diplomatic pressure from Napoleon, prompts Russia, Sweden and Denmark to form in December 1800 a League of Armed Neutrality. They declare the Baltic ports out of bounds to British ships. The embargo is strengthened when the Danes seize Hamburg, the main harbour for British trade with the German states.
Britain responds by sending a naval fleet into the Baltic. The second-in-command is Nelson, who sails into shallow and well-defended waters in Copenhagen harbour. There is heavy fighting, during which the commander of the fleet flies the signal for Nelson to withdraw (this is the famous occasion when he puts the telescope to his blind eye).
Nelson destroys many of the ships in the harbour and damages the shore defences in this battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801). His victory prompts the Danes to make peace in May. Sweden does so in the same month, and Russia follows suit in June.
By now, as afterCampo Formio, Britain and France are the only two nations still at war. From the British point of view one affront still needs to be righted. In March 1801 a fleet is sent through the Mediterranean to help the Turks expel the French from Egypt. The French command in Cairo surrenders in June, followed by Alexandria in August.
Both sides are now exhausted. There have been tentative peace talks since February. Terms are agreed in October, putting an end to hostilities. The peace is signed in Amiens in March 1802.
Napoleon's negotiators do well for France. All overseas territories taken by Britain in the past nine years (including several West Indian islands) are returned into French hands. Similarly Minorca reverts to Spain and the Cape colony in South Africa to Holland. But Britain keeps Sri Lanka (taken from the Dutch) and Trinidad (previously Spanish). Egypt is to be Turkish again. Malta(taken by Napoleon in 1798 and by Britain in 1800) is to be restored to the Knights of St John.
The peace of Amiens: AD 1802-1803
Peace is eagerly greeted by Europeans starved of the pleasures of travel - particularly the British, cooped up in their island for years, who now flock across the Channel to enjoy once again the pleasures of Paris. But this is to prove only a breathing space. Nothing has been resolved in the long rivalry between Britain and France, and each government soon finds much to complain about in the behaviour of the other during the interlude of peace.
Napoleon annoys the British by failing to allow the spirit of harmony into the market place. His refusal to agree a commercial treaty means that British merchants are penalized by high tariffs in French and allied ports. They conclude that peace seems no more profitable than war.
Meanwhile Napoleon alarms the British government by his expansionist behaviour in regions not covered by the treaty - for example in his annexation of Piedmont in 1802, to bridge the gap between France and the Cisalpine republic.
Britain gives France more specific cause for complaint by not fulfilling the terms of the treaty of Amiens. It has been agreed that she will withdraw from Malta. Her failure to do so would be justified in modern eyes by the expressed views of the Maltese. Horrified at the prospect of the return of the Knights of St John, the local assembly passes a resolution inviting George III to become their sovereign on condition that he maintains the Roman Catholic faith in the island.
However, the wishes of local inhabitants carry little weight in diplomatic negotiations in the early 19th century. And Britain, remaining in possession of the island, is undoubtedly in violation of the treaty.
Napoleon complains but avoids pressing the issue to the brink of hostilities. It is likely that his long-term intentions towards Britain are not peaceful, but he is not yet ready for a renewal of war. He needs time, in particular, to build up his fleet. The same logic makes Britain prefer an early renewal of the conflict. For no very good reason, other than long-term self-interest, the British government declares war on France in May 1803.
Emperor: AD 1804
The return of war is followed by renewed royalist plots, openly encouraged by Britain. One such plot leads to an incident which does considerable damage to Napoleon's international reputation - but also prompts him to take the next step up his personal career ladder.
The French police acquire information (incorrect as it turns out) that one of the leading conspirators in the plot is the young duke of Enghien, a member of the junior branch of the French royal family. He has fought in recent years withémigrés armies and is now living a few miles beyond the French border, across the Rhine at Ettenheim.
Napoleon gives orders for him to be seized. In March 1804 French mounted police make a night raid from Strasbourg to kidnap the duke. He is brought to the castle of Vincennes near Paris, where he is tried by a hastily convened court martial and is shot.
In the aftermath of this event there is the near certainty of further royalist conspiracies. One way to draw their sting may be for France to have once again its own crowned head. Thus there emerges the suggestion that Napoleon should trump the opposition by becoming not king of France but emperor, founding a hereditary Napoleonic dynasty. In May 1804 the senate is persuaded to pass a resolution proposing this major amendment to the constitution.
For a third time a plebiscite is held to confirm another of Napoleon's changing roles at the head of state. Again the result, announced on 6 November 1804, is overwhelming (3,572,329 saying Yes and only 2569 registering No). It is fortunate, though predictable, that the result is so clear - because preparations are already almost complete for the great event of the coronation in Notre Dame.
It takes place on December 2. The pope, Pius VII, has been persuaded to come from Rome to conduct the ceremony - evoking deliberate memories ofCharlemagne, the last great emperor to rule France (though if Napoleon sees himself as also becoming Holy Roman emperor, that ambition is scotched byFrancis II's abolition of the ancient but defunct empire).
The pope is allowed to anoint Napoleon, in the sacred and mysterious ceremony with roots in French history as far back as Clovis. But when it comes to the more worldly symbol of the crown, Napoleon prefers to take it from the altar himself and place it on his own head. He then places another crown on the head of the empress, his wife Josephine, who understandably - in these most unusual circumstances - bursts into tears.
This highly theatrical event is accompanied by the equally flamboyant creation of a new aristocracy. Princely titles are invented for Napoleon's close relations. By 1808 there is even a new imperial nobility.
These events shock French republicans and many elsewhere who have until now been inspired by Napoleon's achievements. The most famous response is that of Beethoven, working at this time on his third symphony (now known as theEroica). He has originally given it the nameBonaparte, but he erases the title on hearing that his hero is now calling himself emperor.
Seen from a distance these Napoleonic antics are intrinsically comic (and they provide rich opportunities for Britain's scurrilous cartoonists). But they are made deadly serious by the military genius of the central character. Within four years of his coronation Napoleon is ruler of almost the whole of western Europe.
Determined now to abandon his army in Egypt, Napoleon describes to his generals the danger in which France stands and the need for him to hurry home. He does not share with them a more personal reason. Rumour has reached him that one of the Directors, Sieyès, has been looking for a general to support him in a coup d'état. If that general is anyone other than Napoleon, he may have lost his chance for good.
With a few colleagues he leaves Egypt in two frigates on August 23. By good luck they complete the journey unnoticed by any of the British squadrons in the Mediterranean. They land at Fréjus on October 9. Napoleon reaches Paris a week later.
Napoleon at first conceals his hand, pretending merely to enjoy the social delights of Paris. But within a couple of weeks he is actively engaged in planning a coup.
A false rumour about an imminent Jacobin plot against the Directory is the first step. This is used, on 18Brumaire, to persuade the senior of the nation's two councils (the Ancients) to appoint Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris. The Ancients are also induced to vote that they and the junior chamber (the Council of the Five Hundred) shall move for safety to Saint-Cloud, where they will convene on the following day.
The conspirators meanwhile place under house arrest those Directors who are not in the plot, falsely announcing that they have resigned.
On the next day the Ancients and the Five Hundred, assembling at Saint-Cloud, find themselves surrounded by 6000 troops. Tense debate continues in both assemblies until Napoleon impatiently bursts in upon them. His illegal intrusion causes uproar, from which he emerges visibly shaken. Further deception is needed. The troops are told that there are assassins among the deputies who have attempted to murder Napoleon. They empty the two halls by force. The deputies flee for their lives.
Later that night a quorum from both the Ancients and the Five Hundred is rounded up. The terrified and exhausted deputies are persuaded - at about 2 a.m. - to pass a motion formally ending the Directory and swearing an oath of loyalty to a new provisional consulate of three men.
This provisional trio of consuls consists of two of the previous five directors, Sieyès and Roger Ducos (both of them party to the plot), and one newcomer - Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the next month an appointed committee wrangles ceaselessly about the terms of a new constitution for the proposed consulate. Sieyès and Ducos, browbeaten by Napoleon, drop out of the running.
On December 12 a constitutional document drafted by Napoleon is finally accepted. It provides for an executive first consul who will be supported by advisory second and third consuls and 'checked' by no less than four assemblies with differing functions.
It is a calculated recipe for inertia and muddle at all levels but the very highest, where the first consul will - in effect though not in theory - have virtually unlimited power. It is no surprise that the first consul is to be Napoleon, with a Jacobinand a royalist selected as second and third consuls to appease both factions by a continuation of this well established balancing act.
The proposed package is put to the nation in a referendum (in February 1800) asking for a simple Yes or No. With a franchise limited by property qualifications, and without a secret ballot, the result nationally is 3,011,007 voting Yes (meaning for Napoleon) and only 1562 registering No.
After ten years of upheaval and terror the French are ready to accept dictatorial rule by a man who is decisive and undoctrinaire, professionally equipped to direct France's wars against her many enemies, sympathetic to the principles of the revolution (as his early career has proved) and yet inclined to safeguard people's resulting windfalls. Napoleon and the times are well suited to each other.
First Consul: AD 1800-1804
The plebiscite of 1800 gives Napoleon the mandate to play a role for which he is well suited both in character and in terms of his 18th-century education - that of theenlightened despot.
He now has the power, like a monarch, to select the members of the council of state over which he presides. As in a king's privy council, these councillors specialize in different departments of state. They give their advice. But on any important issue it is the first consul who makes the executive decision.
With these powers, Napoleon sets about a thorough reform of France's administrative systems. Despotism and enlightenment are carefully balanced. Censorship of the press is introduced, but so are measures to improve secondary and university education. Police powers are strengthened and judges are now appointed (previously they were elected), yet the judges are given an important new independence in the form of security of tenure.
Similarly the pragmatic first consul, himself indifferent to religion, is well aware that much of rural France deeply resents the French republic's attack on Catholicism. Napoleon sets about mending this fence.
The estrangement from Rome has recently been absolute. PopePius VI, humiliated by the French, is a prisoner in France when he dies in August 1799. Napoleon now makes overtures to his successor, Pius VII.
In a Concordat agreed in July 1801, the pope accepts that Napoleon will appoint French bishops (an argument between church and state which goes all the way back to theinvestiture controversy in the Middle Ages) and that church lands seized during the revolution will not be restored. In return Napoleon agrees to pay the salaries of the clergy and to recognize Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French people.
Napoleon has a trick up his sleeve to make the Concordat acceptable to French republicans. He unilaterally adds the so-called 'organic articles', requiring government permission for any papal action or pronouncement on French soil. The pope is outraged by this deception. But the Concordat serves its purpose in appeasing religious sensibilities within France.
The most famous and lasting of Napoleon's reforms during the consulate is his code of civil law. Since 1790 there have been several attempts to codify French law - chaotic in its ancien régime form and made more so by a flood of revolutionary legislation.
In 1800 Napoleon appoints a committee of lawyers to work on the preparation of a code. He himself takes a keen interest, attending more than half the meetings in which their proposals are discussed. Statutes are enacted piecemeal from as early as 1801. By 1804 they are ready to be embodied in a single Code Civil, which in 1807 is renamed theCode Napoléon.
The change of name reflects Napoleon's ever-growing stature in France. In 1802 the people are asked 'Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' As in 1800, the vast majority say Yes. For good measure it is agreed that he can designate his successor. This vote of confidence follows his achievement of peace with France's two main enemies, first Austria and then Britain.
Napoleon against Austria: AD 1800-1801
Napoleon's military priority, on becoming first consul in 1799, is to reverse gains recently made by Austria during his absence on the Egyptian campaign. To give himself a freer hand he makes a tentative offer of peace to England in December 1799, but it is firmly rejected.
As in 1796, the Austrians could be attacked by French armies either north of the Alps in Germany or south of them in Italy. No doubt remembering his own triumphs in that year, Napoleon selects Italy. He hopes to surprise the enemy by bringing his army south through the Great St Bernard pass in May 1800 before the snows have cleared. He himself slithers through the pass on a mule, but this does not deter the painter Jacques-Louis David from depicting him on a magnificent rearing stallion among the snowy peaks.
When the crucial encounter with the Austrians occurs, at Marengo on June 14, it is very nearly a disaster for Napoleon. By mid-afternoon it seems that the Austrians have won the day. But a brave French counter-attack reverses the situation.
Victory at Marengo is followed by an armistice and a truce - which Napoleon breaches in November, when he sends a French army north of the Alps against Vienna. Another French victory, at Hohenlinden in December, prompts the Austrian emperor to sign a treaty at Lunéville in February 1801. It goes even beyond the terms of Campo Formio. France keeps the Rhineland. Austria recognizes the four French sister republics.
Napoleon against Britain: AD 1800-1802
The conflict between France and Britain, continuously atwar since 1793, tends always towards stalemate. The two nations are evenly matched but have very different strengths. Britain has a much smaller population (11 million compared to 27 million in France in 1801). This disadvantage is offset by Britain's wealth (from a more developed economy and extensive overseas trade) and by the British superiority at sea. In 1803 France has 23 ships of the line; Britain has 34 in service and another 77 in reserve.
For these reasons the British contribution to any war against France in continental Europe is largely limited to providing funds for allied armies.
The naval clash between Britain and France is a strange one - not so much a sea war as a coast war. It is the permanent concern of the British navy, commanding the seas, to harm France and her allies by preventing any merchant ships other than those of Britain from reaching continental ports. And it is the permanent concern of the French armies, commanding the land, to prevent British vessels entering those same ports.
Third parties suffer as much as anyone from this form of economic warfare, particularly after Britain adopts the policy of seizing goods carried by the ships of neutral nations if they are destined for a harbour under blockade.
Indignation at this British policy, heightened by diplomatic pressure from Napoleon, prompts Russia, Sweden and Denmark to form in December 1800 a League of Armed Neutrality. They declare the Baltic ports out of bounds to British ships. The embargo is strengthened when the Danes seize Hamburg, the main harbour for British trade with the German states.
Britain responds by sending a naval fleet into the Baltic. The second-in-command is Nelson, who sails into shallow and well-defended waters in Copenhagen harbour. There is heavy fighting, during which the commander of the fleet flies the signal for Nelson to withdraw (this is the famous occasion when he puts the telescope to his blind eye).
Nelson destroys many of the ships in the harbour and damages the shore defences in this battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801). His victory prompts the Danes to make peace in May. Sweden does so in the same month, and Russia follows suit in June.
By now, as afterCampo Formio, Britain and France are the only two nations still at war. From the British point of view one affront still needs to be righted. In March 1801 a fleet is sent through the Mediterranean to help the Turks expel the French from Egypt. The French command in Cairo surrenders in June, followed by Alexandria in August.
Both sides are now exhausted. There have been tentative peace talks since February. Terms are agreed in October, putting an end to hostilities. The peace is signed in Amiens in March 1802.
Napoleon's negotiators do well for France. All overseas territories taken by Britain in the past nine years (including several West Indian islands) are returned into French hands. Similarly Minorca reverts to Spain and the Cape colony in South Africa to Holland. But Britain keeps Sri Lanka (taken from the Dutch) and Trinidad (previously Spanish). Egypt is to be Turkish again. Malta(taken by Napoleon in 1798 and by Britain in 1800) is to be restored to the Knights of St John.
The peace of Amiens: AD 1802-1803
Peace is eagerly greeted by Europeans starved of the pleasures of travel - particularly the British, cooped up in their island for years, who now flock across the Channel to enjoy once again the pleasures of Paris. But this is to prove only a breathing space. Nothing has been resolved in the long rivalry between Britain and France, and each government soon finds much to complain about in the behaviour of the other during the interlude of peace.
Napoleon annoys the British by failing to allow the spirit of harmony into the market place. His refusal to agree a commercial treaty means that British merchants are penalized by high tariffs in French and allied ports. They conclude that peace seems no more profitable than war.
Meanwhile Napoleon alarms the British government by his expansionist behaviour in regions not covered by the treaty - for example in his annexation of Piedmont in 1802, to bridge the gap between France and the Cisalpine republic.
Britain gives France more specific cause for complaint by not fulfilling the terms of the treaty of Amiens. It has been agreed that she will withdraw from Malta. Her failure to do so would be justified in modern eyes by the expressed views of the Maltese. Horrified at the prospect of the return of the Knights of St John, the local assembly passes a resolution inviting George III to become their sovereign on condition that he maintains the Roman Catholic faith in the island.
However, the wishes of local inhabitants carry little weight in diplomatic negotiations in the early 19th century. And Britain, remaining in possession of the island, is undoubtedly in violation of the treaty.
Napoleon complains but avoids pressing the issue to the brink of hostilities. It is likely that his long-term intentions towards Britain are not peaceful, but he is not yet ready for a renewal of war. He needs time, in particular, to build up his fleet. The same logic makes Britain prefer an early renewal of the conflict. For no very good reason, other than long-term self-interest, the British government declares war on France in May 1803.
Emperor: AD 1804
The return of war is followed by renewed royalist plots, openly encouraged by Britain. One such plot leads to an incident which does considerable damage to Napoleon's international reputation - but also prompts him to take the next step up his personal career ladder.
The French police acquire information (incorrect as it turns out) that one of the leading conspirators in the plot is the young duke of Enghien, a member of the junior branch of the French royal family. He has fought in recent years withémigrés armies and is now living a few miles beyond the French border, across the Rhine at Ettenheim.
Napoleon gives orders for him to be seized. In March 1804 French mounted police make a night raid from Strasbourg to kidnap the duke. He is brought to the castle of Vincennes near Paris, where he is tried by a hastily convened court martial and is shot.
In the aftermath of this event there is the near certainty of further royalist conspiracies. One way to draw their sting may be for France to have once again its own crowned head. Thus there emerges the suggestion that Napoleon should trump the opposition by becoming not king of France but emperor, founding a hereditary Napoleonic dynasty. In May 1804 the senate is persuaded to pass a resolution proposing this major amendment to the constitution.
For a third time a plebiscite is held to confirm another of Napoleon's changing roles at the head of state. Again the result, announced on 6 November 1804, is overwhelming (3,572,329 saying Yes and only 2569 registering No). It is fortunate, though predictable, that the result is so clear - because preparations are already almost complete for the great event of the coronation in Notre Dame.
It takes place on December 2. The pope, Pius VII, has been persuaded to come from Rome to conduct the ceremony - evoking deliberate memories ofCharlemagne, the last great emperor to rule France (though if Napoleon sees himself as also becoming Holy Roman emperor, that ambition is scotched byFrancis II's abolition of the ancient but defunct empire).
The pope is allowed to anoint Napoleon, in the sacred and mysterious ceremony with roots in French history as far back as Clovis. But when it comes to the more worldly symbol of the crown, Napoleon prefers to take it from the altar himself and place it on his own head. He then places another crown on the head of the empress, his wife Josephine, who understandably - in these most unusual circumstances - bursts into tears.
This highly theatrical event is accompanied by the equally flamboyant creation of a new aristocracy. Princely titles are invented for Napoleon's close relations. By 1808 there is even a new imperial nobility.
These events shock French republicans and many elsewhere who have until now been inspired by Napoleon's achievements. The most famous response is that of Beethoven, working at this time on his third symphony (now known as theEroica). He has originally given it the nameBonaparte, but he erases the title on hearing that his hero is now calling himself emperor.
Seen from a distance these Napoleonic antics are intrinsically comic (and they provide rich opportunities for Britain's scurrilous cartoonists). But they are made deadly serious by the military genius of the central character. Within four years of his coronation Napoleon is ruler of almost the whole of western Europe.
The Corsicans have been fighting for much of the 18th century to liberate their island from the rule of Genoa. In 1768 the Genoese, unable to control this troublesome island, sell it to France. The French invade, overwhelm the Corsicans and from 1769 administer the region as a French province.
Napoleon's father, a member of the Corsican nobility, accepts a position in the French administration. He is therefore able to arrange education in France for his two eldest sons. Napoleon is the second son in a large family. Eight Bonaparte children survive infancy.
The young Corsican (who changes the spelling of his name to the more French-seeming Bonaparte in 1796) is educated in a military academy at Brienne-le-Château. At the age of sixteen, in 1785, he becomes a second lieutenant in an artillery regiment. In the early years of the French Revolution he shows an interest in radical politics. Stationed in Valence in 1791, he becomes president of the localJacobin club - and duly fulminates against aristocrats and bishops.
His first significant military engagement is at Toulon in 1793. In July this Mediterranean port and arsenal is seized by royalist counter-revolutionaries who deliver it into the hands of an Anglo-Spanish fleet. In the ensuing siege by French republican forces the commander of the artillery is wounded. Napoleon is promoted to the post. When the city is taken, in December, Napoleon's artillery tactics and his leadership during the final assault are recognized as having played a crucial role.
Augustin Robespierre writes to his brother Maximilien in Paris, praising the brilliant young officer. In February 1794 Napoleon, aged twenty-five, is appointed commander of artillery in the army of Italy. His career seems assured.
But nothing is assured at this time, the peak of the Terror. That summer the Robespierre brothers go together to the guillotine. In the mood of reprisal after the events ofThermidor, the Robespierre endorsement of Napoleon brings suspicion upon him. He is arrested and seems in danger of his life, but is released after a month in prison.
This setback is followed by a period of inactivity in Paris on half pay. But his reputation from Toulon remains vivid in military circles. When the republicanConvention is threatened by a royalist uprising in 1795, Napoleon's help is enlisted. He is later presented as having, almost single-handed, saved the legitimate government.
The guns of Vendémiare: 5 October 1795
Napoleon's part in the saving of the Convention, and of its plans for the new regime of five directors, is a simple one. On being appointed one of the commanders to defend the seat of government in the Tuileries (with a force which looks like being outnumbered six to one by the rebels), he asks one simple question: 'Where is the artillery?' He has appreciated that in the straight streets around the Tuileries the issue may be decided by a few cannon rather than thousands of muskets.
Forty guns are known to be in a camp six miles away. Joachim Murat(a brilliant cavalry officer, and later Napoleon's brother-in-law) is despatched to fetch them.
A rebel force is already on its way to seize these valuable weapons but Murat, galloping at the head of a squadron of 200 troopers, reaches the camp first. His men drag the cannon to Paris.
Fortunately for the members of the Convention, waiting nervously in the Tuileries, the rebels decide on a direct frontal attack rather than anything more subtle. During the afternoon of 13Vendémiaire(October 5) columns of armed men, marching to drums, arrive in the Rue St Honoré and turn into the streets leading to the Tuileries. They are exchanging musket fire with the Convention's troops when the first volleys of grapeshot from Napoleon's cannon tear into their ranks.
The encounter is repeated two or three times during the afternoon, but eventually the rebels scatter. The day belongs unequivocally to the Convention, enabling plans for the new Directory to continue on schedule.
Much credit, very possibly exaggerated, is given to the 26-year-old Napoleon for this narrow escape from disaster. In the early months of the Directory he is rapidly promoted until, in March 1796, he becomes commander-in-chief of the French army in Italy. His success in this role brings him such a reputation in France that by 1799 he is himself in a position to replace the Directory.
The Italian campaign: AD 1796-1797
When Napoleon joins his army in March 1796, he finds himself in command of 37,000 men who are demoralized, badly fed and unpaid. During April he leads them in a series of rapid victories which vastly raise the soldiers' spirits and hold out the promise of rich loot under this energetic young commander.
The allies facing Napoleon are the Austrians, committed to defending their extensive territory around Milan - and the Sardinians whose realm extends from Savoy and Nice west of the Alps to Piedmont, with its capital at Turin, on the Italian side. (They are called Sardinians because the duke of Savoy is also the king of Sardinia, a senior title.)
Napoleon's strategy is to divide and to surprise his enemies. Instead of taking the obvious route along the coast, he leads his army through Alpine passes to catch the Austrians unaware at Montenotte on April 12. It is the first of a rush of victories against Austrians and Sardinians separately. The allies are successfully prevented from joining forces against their fast-moving opponent.
At the end of the month Napoleon issues a proclamation to his men, using a certain degree of hyperbole to trumpet their achievements: 'Soldiers! In fifteen days you have gained six victories, taken twenty-one colours and fifty-five pieces of artillery, seized several fortresses and conquered the richest parts of Piedmont.'
By April 28, in the armistice of Cherasco, the king of Sardinia is ready to make peace with France and to cede his territories of Savoy and Nice - both in practice already occupied, since 1792, by French republican forces.
Napoleon's conquest of Piedmont is repeated, in similar piecemeal fashion, in other regions of Italy. He defeats the Austrians at Lodi on April 10 and enters Milan five days later. Subsequent campaigns lead rapidly to armistices with the dukes of Parma (May 9) and Modena (May 17) and with the pope, Pius VI, on June 23. Ancient and enfeebled Venice is unable to offer any opposition to the conqueror. In May 1797 Napoleon deposes the last of the doges and sets up a provisional democracy.
In all these subdued territories Napoleon has been energetically imposing the new French ways, often with the enthusiastic support of locals as impatient as the French with the remnants of feudalism. Northern and central Italy is reorganized as the Cisalpine Republic, while the territory of Genoa becomes the Ligurian Republic.
During the winter of 1796-7 there are prolonged and complicated engagements between French and Austrian forces round Mantua, but by April Napoleon is secure enough to move northwards against Vienna itself. He is just two days' march away from the city, at Leoben, when the Austrian emperor agrees an armistice.
By the terms of the peace, signed at Campo Formio in October, Austria cedes to France theAustrian Netherlandsand all her territory in northern Italy. In return, as a sop, Napoleon gives the emperor Venice.
All this is negotiated by the young general on his own initiative. The Directory, busy with the coup d'état ofFructidor, is in no position to control him in his triumph. Moreover, like Napoleon's troops, the government can hardly be indifferent to the material result of his success. A steady stream of booty, both of money and art, makes its way back to France (including, looted once again, the famous bronze horses from St Mark's in Venice). Exported French republicanism may be a blessing, but it does not come cheap.
Plans to invade England: AD 1797-1798
The terms agreed by Napoleon at Campo Formio are displeasing to the Directory in one important respect - they fail to secure conclusive French possession of the German areas west of the Rhine. This is accepted by the Austrians in principle (and for part of the region only), but it is to be discussed further at a congress of German princes at Rastatt. However Campio Formio has one widely popular result. It restores peace to continental Europe for the first time in five years.
Now the only nation still at war with France is her traditional enemy, Britain. Napoleon is appointed commander of an army to be assembled for an invasion across the Channel. In Paris in December he settles down to detail.
Sixty specially designed gunboats and 250 fishing vessels are to convey an army of about 25,000 men from a dozen different embarkation points. Wolfe Tone, eager to arrange another French invasion of Ireland, is involved in the discussions. In February 1798 Napoleon sets off for a tour of the coast, from Normandy to Belgium, to inspect the preparations. What he sees, in the motley flotilla being assembled, convinces him that this is a most risky undertaking - both in itself and for his own reputation as a commander, invariably associated until now with success.
He tells the Directory that it is unwise to launch an attack on Britain until such time as France has command of the seas.
Napoleon finds it difficult to get out of this dangerous command without tendering a resignation which would in itself be damaging. The situation is only resolved when he proposes a much more exotic course of action. He argues that Britain is best attacked in the region of her underlying strength, that of the overseas empire. He suggests that a French seizure of Egypt would harm British communications with India and would add a rich and strategically placed colony to France's own empire.
In March 1798 the Directors, perhaps welcoming the chance to send this popular and ambitious general far from the centre of power, approve his plan - as yet to be kept a closely guarded secret.
During the next two months, while troops continue to assemble on the Channel coast to conceal the change of plan, Napoleon puts together an invasion force against Egypt which is intended to have a glamorous profile. In addition to the regiments of troops he will be accompanied by distinguished scientists, academics and artists to study and report on this ancient oriental civilization. They cannot as yet be allowed to know where they are going. Even so, 150 of France's most distinguished men of science accept Napoleon's invitation.
Surprisingly soon, everything is ready. On May 19 some 400 vessels sail from Toulon and four other ports on their dangerous journey east.
The Egyptian campaign: AD 1798-1799
The voyage is dangerous because the British prime minister, William Pitt, aware that something other than the invasion of Britain is being planned, has sent a strong naval squadron under Nelson into the Mediterranean. If Nelson chances upon the unwieldy French fleet, with its vulnerable cargo of infantry and cavalry (some 38,000 men in all), horses, artillery and scientists, the result is likely to go heavily against the French. But Napoleon is lucky. The ships get out of their various harbours unobserved. Once at sea, they will be hard to find.
The five French fleets meet up in early June at their first target - Malta, headquarters of the Knights of St John.
This once mighty order of knights puts up little resistance. After just one day, and with only three French casualties, Napoleon is master of an island from which he removes vast quantities of treasure. He expels the knights and spends five days reorganizing Malta along republican lines before sailing on eastwards (see theKnights of St John).
The French fleet (narrowly missed one night by Nelson, passing close in the dark) reaches Egypt unobserved at the end of June. Alexandria is taken. The army then marches south, in appalling conditions of midsummer heat and drought, through the desert towards Cairo.
It is a profoundly demoralized invading force which finally confronts theMameluke army at Gizaon July 21. But the French are arranged by Napoleon on the open terrain in solid six-deep divisional squares, and their fire-power slices with devastating effect through the wild charges of the Egyptian cavalry. Victory in the Battle of the Pyramids delivers Cairo to Napoleon.
While emphasizing his respect for Islam, Napoleon sets about organizing Egypt as a French territory with himself as its ruler, assisted by a senate of distinguished Egyptians. All is going according to his plan. His team of scientists can now begin to look about them (in the following year, 1799, a French officer finds theRosetta stone).
But there is already a major snag. Some ten days after Napoleon's victory, Nelson finally comes across the warships of the French fleet - at anchor in Aboukir Bay, near the western mouth of the Nile. On August 1, in the Battle of the Nile, he destroys them as a fighting force (only two French ships of the line survive).
Napoleon, master of Egypt, is stranded in his new colony. He has no safe way of conveying his army back to France. Moreover he has provoked a new enemy. Turkey, of whose empire Egypt is officially a part, declares war on France in September 1798. In February news comes that a Turkish army is preparing to march south through Syria and Palestine to attack Egypt. Napoleon moves first.
The Syrian campaign: AD 1799
Napoleon's Syrian campaign is the first unmitigated disaster in his career. It is a military failure and it provides another dire example of European brutality in Palestine, in the bleak tradition of thecrusades. Marching north in February 1799, Napoleon is irritated by the resistance put up by ancient garrison towns along the coast. He is delayed first at El Arish, then at Gaza and again at Jaffa.
At Jaffa the 3000 defenders in the Ottoman garrison are promised by a French officer that their lives will be spared if they submit. But once inside the city, Napoleon orders them all to be executed.
To conserve ammunition, the instruction is given for the condemned to be either bayonetted or drowned. The gruesome scene, reminiscent ofMongolcustoms but also of Richard I's atrocity at Acre in 1191, is one which even Napoleon's presentational skills later fail to justify. This event is rapidly followed by plague in the French army, and by the famous moment of flamboyant courage when Napoleon, to reassure his men, visits and touches the sick in the plague hospital at Jaffa.
Later in the campaign Napoleon wins several victories against the Turks, but Acre withstands a French siege of two months. By early June the French army is making a bedraggled and desperate retreat south through the Sinai desert.
Naturally Napoleon enters Cairo on June 14 as if returning from a triumph, and in July he recovers his reputation with a brilliant victory over a Turkish army which has landed at Aboukir. But by now he has other matters on his mind.
News, arriving late and unreliably from France, suggests that a crisis is approaching. The political situation in Paris is increasingly unstable, with the Directory distrusted and discredited. And recent events have rekindled the European war, bringing a new alliance of nations back into the field against France. It seems that this may be Napoleon's last chance to make a bid for power.
Determined now to abandon his army in Egypt, Napoleon describes to his generals the danger in which France stands and the need for him to hurry home. He does not share with them a more personal reason. Rumour has reached him that one of the Directors, Sieyès, has been looking for a general to support him in a coup d'état. If that general is anyone other than Napoleon, he may have lost his chance for good.
With a few colleagues he leaves Egypt in two frigates on August 23. By good luck they complete the journey unnoticed by any of the British squadrons in the Mediterranean. They land at Fréjus on October 9. Napoleon reaches Paris a week later.
Napoleon at first conceals his hand, pretending merely to enjoy the social delights of Paris. But within a couple of weeks he is actively engaged in planning a coup.
A false rumour about an imminent Jacobin plot against the Directory is the first step. This is used, on 18Brumaire, to persuade the senior of the nation's two councils (the Ancients) to appoint Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris. The Ancients are also induced to vote that they and the junior chamber (the Council of the Five Hundred) shall move for safety to Saint-Cloud, where they will convene on the following day.
The conspirators meanwhile place under house arrest those Directors who are not in the plot, falsely announcing that they have resigned.
On the next day the Ancients and the Five Hundred, assembling at Saint-Cloud, find themselves surrounded by 6000 troops. Tense debate continues in both assemblies until Napoleon impatiently bursts in upon them. His illegal intrusion causes uproar, from which he emerges visibly shaken. Further deception is needed. The troops are told that there are assassins among the deputies who have attempted to murder Napoleon. They empty the two halls by force. The deputies flee for their lives.
Later that night a quorum from both the Ancients and the Five Hundred is rounded up. The terrified and exhausted deputies are persuaded - at about 2 a.m. - to pass a motion formally ending the Directory and swearing an oath of loyalty to a new provisional consulate of three men.
This provisional trio of consuls consists of two of the previous five directors, Sieyès and Roger Ducos (both of them party to the plot), and one newcomer - Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the next month an appointed committee wrangles ceaselessly about the terms of a new constitution for the proposed consulate. Sieyès and Ducos, browbeaten by Napoleon, drop out of the running.
On December 12 a constitutional document drafted by Napoleon is finally accepted. It provides for an executive first consul who will be supported by advisory second and third consuls and 'checked' by no less than four assemblies with differing functions.
It is a calculated recipe for inertia and muddle at all levels but the very highest, where the first consul will - in effect though not in theory - have virtually unlimited power. It is no surprise that the first consul is to be Napoleon, with a Jacobinand a royalist selected as second and third consuls to appease both factions by a continuation of this well established balancing act.
The proposed package is put to the nation in a referendum (in February 1800) asking for a simple Yes or No. With a franchise limited by property qualifications, and without a secret ballot, the result nationally is 3,011,007 voting Yes (meaning for Napoleon) and only 1562 registering No.
After ten years of upheaval and terror the French are ready to accept dictatorial rule by a man who is decisive and undoctrinaire, professionally equipped to direct France's wars against her many enemies, sympathetic to the principles of the revolution (as his early career has proved) and yet inclined to safeguard people's resulting windfalls. Napoleon and the times are well suited to each other.
First Consul: AD 1800-1804
The plebiscite of 1800 gives Napoleon the mandate to play a role for which he is well suited both in character and in terms of his 18th-century education - that of theenlightened despot.
He now has the power, like a monarch, to select the members of the council of state over which he presides. As in a king's privy council, these councillors specialize in different departments of state. They give their advice. But on any important issue it is the first consul who makes the executive decision.
With these powers, Napoleon sets about a thorough reform of France's administrative systems. Despotism and enlightenment are carefully balanced. Censorship of the press is introduced, but so are measures to improve secondary and university education. Police powers are strengthened and judges are now appointed (previously they were elected), yet the judges are given an important new independence in the form of security of tenure.
Similarly the pragmatic first consul, himself indifferent to religion, is well aware that much of rural France deeply resents the French republic's attack on Catholicism. Napoleon sets about mending this fence.
The estrangement from Rome has recently been absolute. PopePius VI, humiliated by the French, is a prisoner in France when he dies in August 1799. Napoleon now makes overtures to his successor, Pius VII.
In a Concordat agreed in July 1801, the pope accepts that Napoleon will appoint French bishops (an argument between church and state which goes all the way back to theinvestiture controversy in the Middle Ages) and that church lands seized during the revolution will not be restored. In return Napoleon agrees to pay the salaries of the clergy and to recognize Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French people.
Napoleon has a trick up his sleeve to make the Concordat acceptable to French republicans. He unilaterally adds the so-called 'organic articles', requiring government permission for any papal action or pronouncement on French soil. The pope is outraged by this deception. But the Concordat serves its purpose in appeasing religious sensibilities within France.
The most famous and lasting of Napoleon's reforms during the consulate is his code of civil law. Since 1790 there have been several attempts to codify French law - chaotic in its ancien régime form and made more so by a flood of revolutionary legislation.
In 1800 Napoleon appoints a committee of lawyers to work on the preparation of a code. He himself takes a keen interest, attending more than half the meetings in which their proposals are discussed. Statutes are enacted piecemeal from as early as 1801. By 1804 they are ready to be embodied in a single Code Civil, which in 1807 is renamed theCode Napoléon.
The change of name reflects Napoleon's ever-growing stature in France. In 1802 the people are asked 'Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' As in 1800, the vast majority say Yes. For good measure it is agreed that he can designate his successor. This vote of confidence follows his achievement of peace with France's two main enemies, first Austria and then Britain.
Napoleon against Austria: AD 1800-1801
Napoleon's military priority, on becoming first consul in 1799, is to reverse gains recently made by Austria during his absence on the Egyptian campaign. To give himself a freer hand he makes a tentative offer of peace to England in December 1799, but it is firmly rejected.
As in 1796, the Austrians could be attacked by French armies either north of the Alps in Germany or south of them in Italy. No doubt remembering his own triumphs in that year, Napoleon selects Italy. He hopes to surprise the enemy by bringing his army south through the Great St Bernard pass in May 1800 before the snows have cleared. He himself slithers through the pass on a mule, but this does not deter the painter Jacques-Louis David from depicting him on a magnificent rearing stallion among the snowy peaks.
When the crucial encounter with the Austrians occurs, at Marengo on June 14, it is very nearly a disaster for Napoleon. By mid-afternoon it seems that the Austrians have won the day. But a brave French counter-attack reverses the situation.
Victory at Marengo is followed by an armistice and a truce - which Napoleon breaches in November, when he sends a French army north of the Alps against Vienna. Another French victory, at Hohenlinden in December, prompts the Austrian emperor to sign a treaty at Lunéville in February 1801. It goes even beyond the terms of Campo Formio. France keeps the Rhineland. Austria recognizes the four French sister republics.
Napoleon against Britain: AD 1800-1802
The conflict between France and Britain, continuously atwar since 1793, tends always towards stalemate. The two nations are evenly matched but have very different strengths. Britain has a much smaller population (11 million compared to 27 million in France in 1801). This disadvantage is offset by Britain's wealth (from a more developed economy and extensive overseas trade) and by the British superiority at sea. In 1803 France has 23 ships of the line; Britain has 34 in service and another 77 in reserve.
For these reasons the British contribution to any war against France in continental Europe is largely limited to providing funds for allied armies.
The naval clash between Britain and France is a strange one - not so much a sea war as a coast war. It is the permanent concern of the British navy, commanding the seas, to harm France and her allies by preventing any merchant ships other than those of Britain from reaching continental ports. And it is the permanent concern of the French armies, commanding the land, to prevent British vessels entering those same ports.
Third parties suffer as much as anyone from this form of economic warfare, particularly after Britain adopts the policy of seizing goods carried by the ships of neutral nations if they are destined for a harbour under blockade.
Indignation at this British policy, heightened by diplomatic pressure from Napoleon, prompts Russia, Sweden and Denmark to form in December 1800 a League of Armed Neutrality. They declare the Baltic ports out of bounds to British ships. The embargo is strengthened when the Danes seize Hamburg, the main harbour for British trade with the German states.Britain responds by sending a naval fleet into the Baltic. The second-in-command is Nelson, who sails into shallow and well-defended waters in Copenhagen harbour. There is heavy fighting, during which the commander of the fleet flies the signal for Nelson to withdraw (this is the famous occasion when he puts the telescope to his blind eye).
Nelson destroys many of the ships in the harbour and damages the shore defences in this battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801). His victory prompts the Danes to make peace in May. Sweden does so in the same month, and Russia follows suit in June.
By now, as afterCampo Formio, Britain and France are the only two nations still at war. From the British point of view one affront still needs to be righted. In March 1801 a fleet is sent through the Mediterranean to help the Turks expel the French from Egypt. The French command in Cairo surrenders in June, followed by Alexandria in August.
Both sides are now exhausted. There have been tentative peace talks since February. Terms are agreed in October, putting an end to hostilities. The peace is signed in Amiens in March 1802.
Napoleon's negotiators do well for France. All overseas territories taken by Britain in the past nine years (including several West Indian islands) are returned into French hands. Similarly Minorca reverts to Spain and the Cape colony in South Africa to Holland. But Britain keeps Sri Lanka (taken from the Dutch) and Trinidad (previously Spanish). Egypt is to be Turkish again. Malta(taken by Napoleon in 1798 and by Britain in 1800) is to be restored to the Knights of St John.
The peace of Amiens: AD 1802-1803
Peace is eagerly greeted by Europeans starved of the pleasures of travel - particularly the British, cooped up in their island for years, who now flock across the Channel to enjoy once again the pleasures of Paris. But this is to prove only a breathing space. Nothing has been resolved in the long rivalry between Britain and France, and each government soon finds much to complain about in the behaviour of the other during the interlude of peace.
Napoleon annoys the British by failing to allow the spirit of harmony into the market place. His refusal to agree a commercial treaty means that British merchants are penalized by high tariffs in French and allied ports. They conclude that peace seems no more profitable than war.
Meanwhile Napoleon alarms the British government by his expansionist behaviour in regions not covered by the treaty - for example in his annexation of Piedmont in 1802, to bridge the gap between France and the Cisalpine republic.
Britain gives France more specific cause for complaint by not fulfilling the terms of the treaty of Amiens. It has been agreed that she will withdraw from Malta. Her failure to do so would be justified in modern eyes by the expressed views of the Maltese. Horrified at the prospect of the return of the Knights of St John, the local assembly passes a resolution inviting George III to become their sovereign on condition that he maintains the Roman Catholic faith in the island.
However, the wishes of local inhabitants carry little weight in diplomatic negotiations in the early 19th century. And Britain, remaining in possession of the island, is undoubtedly in violation of the treaty.
Napoleon complains but avoids pressing the issue to the brink of hostilities. It is likely that his long-term intentions towards Britain are not peaceful, but he is not yet ready for a renewal of war. He needs time, in particular, to build up his fleet. The same logic makes Britain prefer an early renewal of the conflict. For no very good reason, other than long-term self-interest, the British government declares war on France in May 1803.
Emperor: AD 1804
The return of war is followed by renewed royalist plots, openly encouraged by Britain. One such plot leads to an incident which does considerable damage to Napoleon's international reputation - but also prompts him to take the next step up his personal career ladder.
The French police acquire information (incorrect as it turns out) that one of the leading conspirators in the plot is the young duke of Enghien, a member of the junior branch of the French royal family. He has fought in recent years withémigrés armies and is now living a few miles beyond the French border, across the Rhine at Ettenheim.
Napoleon gives orders for him to be seized. In March 1804 French mounted police make a night raid from Strasbourg to kidnap the duke. He is brought to the castle of Vincennes near Paris, where he is tried by a hastily convened court martial and is shot.
In the aftermath of this event there is the near certainty of further royalist conspiracies. One way to draw their sting may be for France to have once again its own crowned head. Thus there emerges the suggestion that Napoleon should trump the opposition by becoming not king of France but emperor, founding a hereditary Napoleonic dynasty. In May 1804 the senate is persuaded to pass a resolution proposing this major amendment to the constitution.
For a third time a plebiscite is held to confirm another of Napoleon's changing roles at the head of state. Again the result, announced on 6 November 1804, is overwhelming (3,572,329 saying Yes and only 2569 registering No). It is fortunate, though predictable, that the result is so clear - because preparations are already almost complete for the great event of the coronation in Notre Dame.
It takes place on December 2. The pope, Pius VII, has been persuaded to come from Rome to conduct the ceremony - evoking deliberate memories ofCharlemagne, the last great emperor to rule France (though if Napoleon sees himself as also becoming Holy Roman emperor, that ambition is scotched byFrancis II's abolition of the ancient but defunct empire).
The pope is allowed to anoint Napoleon, in the sacred and mysterious ceremony with roots in French history as far back as Clovis. But when it comes to the more worldly symbol of the crown, Napoleon prefers to take it from the altar himself and place it on his own head. He then places another crown on the head of the empress, his wife Josephine, who understandably - in these most unusual circumstances - bursts into tears.
This highly theatrical event is accompanied by the equally flamboyant creation of a new aristocracy. Princely titles are invented for Napoleon's close relations. By 1808 there is even a new imperial nobility.
These events shock French republicans and many elsewhere who have until now been inspired by Napoleon's achievements. The most famous response is that of Beethoven, working at this time on his third symphony (now known as theEroica). He has originally given it the nameBonaparte, but he erases the title on hearing that his hero is now calling himself emperor.
Seen from a distance these Napoleonic antics are intrinsically comic (and they provide rich opportunities for Britain's scurrilous cartoonists). But they are made deadly serious by the military genius of the central character. Within four years of his coronation Napoleon is ruler of almost the whole of western Europe.
Determined now to abandon his army in Egypt, Napoleon describes to his generals the danger in which France stands and the need for him to hurry home. He does not share with them a more personal reason. Rumour has reached him that one of the Directors, Sieyès, has been looking for a general to support him in a coup d'état. If that general is anyone other than Napoleon, he may have lost his chance for good.
With a few colleagues he leaves Egypt in two frigates on August 23. By good luck they complete the journey unnoticed by any of the British squadrons in the Mediterranean. They land at Fréjus on October 9. Napoleon reaches Paris a week later.
Napoleon at first conceals his hand, pretending merely to enjoy the social delights of Paris. But within a couple of weeks he is actively engaged in planning a coup.
A false rumour about an imminent Jacobin plot against the Directory is the first step. This is used, on 18Brumaire, to persuade the senior of the nation's two councils (the Ancients) to appoint Napoleon commander of all the troops in Paris. The Ancients are also induced to vote that they and the junior chamber (the Council of the Five Hundred) shall move for safety to Saint-Cloud, where they will convene on the following day.
The conspirators meanwhile place under house arrest those Directors who are not in the plot, falsely announcing that they have resigned.
On the next day the Ancients and the Five Hundred, assembling at Saint-Cloud, find themselves surrounded by 6000 troops. Tense debate continues in both assemblies until Napoleon impatiently bursts in upon them. His illegal intrusion causes uproar, from which he emerges visibly shaken. Further deception is needed. The troops are told that there are assassins among the deputies who have attempted to murder Napoleon. They empty the two halls by force. The deputies flee for their lives.
Later that night a quorum from both the Ancients and the Five Hundred is rounded up. The terrified and exhausted deputies are persuaded - at about 2 a.m. - to pass a motion formally ending the Directory and swearing an oath of loyalty to a new provisional consulate of three men.
This provisional trio of consuls consists of two of the previous five directors, Sieyès and Roger Ducos (both of them party to the plot), and one newcomer - Napoleon Bonaparte. Over the next month an appointed committee wrangles ceaselessly about the terms of a new constitution for the proposed consulate. Sieyès and Ducos, browbeaten by Napoleon, drop out of the running.
On December 12 a constitutional document drafted by Napoleon is finally accepted. It provides for an executive first consul who will be supported by advisory second and third consuls and 'checked' by no less than four assemblies with differing functions.
It is a calculated recipe for inertia and muddle at all levels but the very highest, where the first consul will - in effect though not in theory - have virtually unlimited power. It is no surprise that the first consul is to be Napoleon, with a Jacobinand a royalist selected as second and third consuls to appease both factions by a continuation of this well established balancing act.
The proposed package is put to the nation in a referendum (in February 1800) asking for a simple Yes or No. With a franchise limited by property qualifications, and without a secret ballot, the result nationally is 3,011,007 voting Yes (meaning for Napoleon) and only 1562 registering No.
After ten years of upheaval and terror the French are ready to accept dictatorial rule by a man who is decisive and undoctrinaire, professionally equipped to direct France's wars against her many enemies, sympathetic to the principles of the revolution (as his early career has proved) and yet inclined to safeguard people's resulting windfalls. Napoleon and the times are well suited to each other.
First Consul: AD 1800-1804
The plebiscite of 1800 gives Napoleon the mandate to play a role for which he is well suited both in character and in terms of his 18th-century education - that of theenlightened despot.
He now has the power, like a monarch, to select the members of the council of state over which he presides. As in a king's privy council, these councillors specialize in different departments of state. They give their advice. But on any important issue it is the first consul who makes the executive decision.
With these powers, Napoleon sets about a thorough reform of France's administrative systems. Despotism and enlightenment are carefully balanced. Censorship of the press is introduced, but so are measures to improve secondary and university education. Police powers are strengthened and judges are now appointed (previously they were elected), yet the judges are given an important new independence in the form of security of tenure.
Similarly the pragmatic first consul, himself indifferent to religion, is well aware that much of rural France deeply resents the French republic's attack on Catholicism. Napoleon sets about mending this fence.
The estrangement from Rome has recently been absolute. PopePius VI, humiliated by the French, is a prisoner in France when he dies in August 1799. Napoleon now makes overtures to his successor, Pius VII.
In a Concordat agreed in July 1801, the pope accepts that Napoleon will appoint French bishops (an argument between church and state which goes all the way back to theinvestiture controversy in the Middle Ages) and that church lands seized during the revolution will not be restored. In return Napoleon agrees to pay the salaries of the clergy and to recognize Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French people.
Napoleon has a trick up his sleeve to make the Concordat acceptable to French republicans. He unilaterally adds the so-called 'organic articles', requiring government permission for any papal action or pronouncement on French soil. The pope is outraged by this deception. But the Concordat serves its purpose in appeasing religious sensibilities within France.
The most famous and lasting of Napoleon's reforms during the consulate is his code of civil law. Since 1790 there have been several attempts to codify French law - chaotic in its ancien régime form and made more so by a flood of revolutionary legislation.
In 1800 Napoleon appoints a committee of lawyers to work on the preparation of a code. He himself takes a keen interest, attending more than half the meetings in which their proposals are discussed. Statutes are enacted piecemeal from as early as 1801. By 1804 they are ready to be embodied in a single Code Civil, which in 1807 is renamed theCode Napoléon.
The change of name reflects Napoleon's ever-growing stature in France. In 1802 the people are asked 'Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' As in 1800, the vast majority say Yes. For good measure it is agreed that he can designate his successor. This vote of confidence follows his achievement of peace with France's two main enemies, first Austria and then Britain.
Napoleon against Austria: AD 1800-1801
Napoleon's military priority, on becoming first consul in 1799, is to reverse gains recently made by Austria during his absence on the Egyptian campaign. To give himself a freer hand he makes a tentative offer of peace to England in December 1799, but it is firmly rejected.
As in 1796, the Austrians could be attacked by French armies either north of the Alps in Germany or south of them in Italy. No doubt remembering his own triumphs in that year, Napoleon selects Italy. He hopes to surprise the enemy by bringing his army south through the Great St Bernard pass in May 1800 before the snows have cleared. He himself slithers through the pass on a mule, but this does not deter the painter Jacques-Louis David from depicting him on a magnificent rearing stallion among the snowy peaks.
When the crucial encounter with the Austrians occurs, at Marengo on June 14, it is very nearly a disaster for Napoleon. By mid-afternoon it seems that the Austrians have won the day. But a brave French counter-attack reverses the situation.
Victory at Marengo is followed by an armistice and a truce - which Napoleon breaches in November, when he sends a French army north of the Alps against Vienna. Another French victory, at Hohenlinden in December, prompts the Austrian emperor to sign a treaty at Lunéville in February 1801. It goes even beyond the terms of Campo Formio. France keeps the Rhineland. Austria recognizes the four French sister republics.
Napoleon against Britain: AD 1800-1802
The conflict between France and Britain, continuously atwar since 1793, tends always towards stalemate. The two nations are evenly matched but have very different strengths. Britain has a much smaller population (11 million compared to 27 million in France in 1801). This disadvantage is offset by Britain's wealth (from a more developed economy and extensive overseas trade) and by the British superiority at sea. In 1803 France has 23 ships of the line; Britain has 34 in service and another 77 in reserve.
For these reasons the British contribution to any war against France in continental Europe is largely limited to providing funds for allied armies.
The naval clash between Britain and France is a strange one - not so much a sea war as a coast war. It is the permanent concern of the British navy, commanding the seas, to harm France and her allies by preventing any merchant ships other than those of Britain from reaching continental ports. And it is the permanent concern of the French armies, commanding the land, to prevent British vessels entering those same ports.
Third parties suffer as much as anyone from this form of economic warfare, particularly after Britain adopts the policy of seizing goods carried by the ships of neutral nations if they are destined for a harbour under blockade.
Indignation at this British policy, heightened by diplomatic pressure from Napoleon, prompts Russia, Sweden and Denmark to form in December 1800 a League of Armed Neutrality. They declare the Baltic ports out of bounds to British ships. The embargo is strengthened when the Danes seize Hamburg, the main harbour for British trade with the German states.Britain responds by sending a naval fleet into the Baltic. The second-in-command is Nelson, who sails into shallow and well-defended waters in Copenhagen harbour. There is heavy fighting, during which the commander of the fleet flies the signal for Nelson to withdraw (this is the famous occasion when he puts the telescope to his blind eye).
Nelson destroys many of the ships in the harbour and damages the shore defences in this battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801). His victory prompts the Danes to make peace in May. Sweden does so in the same month, and Russia follows suit in June.
By now, as afterCampo Formio, Britain and France are the only two nations still at war. From the British point of view one affront still needs to be righted. In March 1801 a fleet is sent through the Mediterranean to help the Turks expel the French from Egypt. The French command in Cairo surrenders in June, followed by Alexandria in August.
Both sides are now exhausted. There have been tentative peace talks since February. Terms are agreed in October, putting an end to hostilities. The peace is signed in Amiens in March 1802.
Napoleon's negotiators do well for France. All overseas territories taken by Britain in the past nine years (including several West Indian islands) are returned into French hands. Similarly Minorca reverts to Spain and the Cape colony in South Africa to Holland. But Britain keeps Sri Lanka (taken from the Dutch) and Trinidad (previously Spanish). Egypt is to be Turkish again. Malta(taken by Napoleon in 1798 and by Britain in 1800) is to be restored to the Knights of St John.
The peace of Amiens: AD 1802-1803
Peace is eagerly greeted by Europeans starved of the pleasures of travel - particularly the British, cooped up in their island for years, who now flock across the Channel to enjoy once again the pleasures of Paris. But this is to prove only a breathing space. Nothing has been resolved in the long rivalry between Britain and France, and each government soon finds much to complain about in the behaviour of the other during the interlude of peace.
Napoleon annoys the British by failing to allow the spirit of harmony into the market place. His refusal to agree a commercial treaty means that British merchants are penalized by high tariffs in French and allied ports. They conclude that peace seems no more profitable than war.
Meanwhile Napoleon alarms the British government by his expansionist behaviour in regions not covered by the treaty - for example in his annexation of Piedmont in 1802, to bridge the gap between France and the Cisalpine republic.
Britain gives France more specific cause for complaint by not fulfilling the terms of the treaty of Amiens. It has been agreed that she will withdraw from Malta. Her failure to do so would be justified in modern eyes by the expressed views of the Maltese. Horrified at the prospect of the return of the Knights of St John, the local assembly passes a resolution inviting George III to become their sovereign on condition that he maintains the Roman Catholic faith in the island.
However, the wishes of local inhabitants carry little weight in diplomatic negotiations in the early 19th century. And Britain, remaining in possession of the island, is undoubtedly in violation of the treaty.
Napoleon complains but avoids pressing the issue to the brink of hostilities. It is likely that his long-term intentions towards Britain are not peaceful, but he is not yet ready for a renewal of war. He needs time, in particular, to build up his fleet. The same logic makes Britain prefer an early renewal of the conflict. For no very good reason, other than long-term self-interest, the British government declares war on France in May 1803.
Emperor: AD 1804
The return of war is followed by renewed royalist plots, openly encouraged by Britain. One such plot leads to an incident which does considerable damage to Napoleon's international reputation - but also prompts him to take the next step up his personal career ladder.
The French police acquire information (incorrect as it turns out) that one of the leading conspirators in the plot is the young duke of Enghien, a member of the junior branch of the French royal family. He has fought in recent years withémigrés armies and is now living a few miles beyond the French border, across the Rhine at Ettenheim.
Napoleon gives orders for him to be seized. In March 1804 French mounted police make a night raid from Strasbourg to kidnap the duke. He is brought to the castle of Vincennes near Paris, where he is tried by a hastily convened court martial and is shot.
In the aftermath of this event there is the near certainty of further royalist conspiracies. One way to draw their sting may be for France to have once again its own crowned head. Thus there emerges the suggestion that Napoleon should trump the opposition by becoming not king of France but emperor, founding a hereditary Napoleonic dynasty. In May 1804 the senate is persuaded to pass a resolution proposing this major amendment to the constitution.
For a third time a plebiscite is held to confirm another of Napoleon's changing roles at the head of state. Again the result, announced on 6 November 1804, is overwhelming (3,572,329 saying Yes and only 2569 registering No). It is fortunate, though predictable, that the result is so clear - because preparations are already almost complete for the great event of the coronation in Notre Dame.
It takes place on December 2. The pope, Pius VII, has been persuaded to come from Rome to conduct the ceremony - evoking deliberate memories ofCharlemagne, the last great emperor to rule France (though if Napoleon sees himself as also becoming Holy Roman emperor, that ambition is scotched byFrancis II's abolition of the ancient but defunct empire).
The pope is allowed to anoint Napoleon, in the sacred and mysterious ceremony with roots in French history as far back as Clovis. But when it comes to the more worldly symbol of the crown, Napoleon prefers to take it from the altar himself and place it on his own head. He then places another crown on the head of the empress, his wife Josephine, who understandably - in these most unusual circumstances - bursts into tears.
This highly theatrical event is accompanied by the equally flamboyant creation of a new aristocracy. Princely titles are invented for Napoleon's close relations. By 1808 there is even a new imperial nobility.
These events shock French republicans and many elsewhere who have until now been inspired by Napoleon's achievements. The most famous response is that of Beethoven, working at this time on his third symphony (now known as theEroica). He has originally given it the nameBonaparte, but he erases the title on hearing that his hero is now calling himself emperor.
Seen from a distance these Napoleonic antics are intrinsically comic (and they provide rich opportunities for Britain's scurrilous cartoonists). But they are made deadly serious by the military genius of the central character. Within four years of his coronation Napoleon is ruler of almost the whole of western Europe.
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