Encyclopedia
The
First French Empire, commonly known as the
French Empire or the
Napoleonic Empire, covers the period of the domination of
France and much of continental
Europe by
Napoleon I. Constitutionally, it refers to the period of 1804 to 1814, from the
Consulate to the restoration of the
Bourbon monarchy in the history of the French state, as well as the
Hundred Days period in 1815.
The Empire started when Napoleon became Emperor of France on May 18, 1804 and was crowned on December 2 of the same year at the
Notre Dame cathedral in
Paris. Its existence was immediately threatened by the War of the Third Coalition, but the decisive French victory at the
Battle of Austerlitz ensured its survival.
La Grande Armée, the Empire's military machine, then fought against
Prussia in 1806 and all but destroyed Prussia's armies before swinging into
Poland and defeating the
Russians at the
Battle of Friedland in 1807. After Friedland, the
Treaty of Tilsit in July 1807 ended two years of bloodshed on the European continent. French involvement in
Iberia eventually sparked the
Peninsular War, a brutal six-year conflict that severely weakened the First Empire. In 1809, France and
Austria fought the
War of the Fifth Coalition; France triumphed again and imposed the Treaty of Schönbrunn on the
Habsburgs, but diplomatic tensions with Russia led to the catastrophic
invasion of that country in 1812. The
War of the Sixth Coalition saw the expulsion of French forces from
Germany in 1813 and the abdication of Napoleon on April 6, 1814. Napoleon returned from
Elba in 1815, but the French defeat at the
Battle of Waterloo caused the ultimate downfall of the First Empire.
At its height in 1812, the French Empire had 130
départments, deployed over 600,000 troops to attack Russia, ruled over 44 million subjects, maintained extensive military presence in Germany,
Italy,
Spain, and the
Duchy of Warsaw, and could count Prussia and Austria as nominal allies. The fate of the Empire was inextricably linked to that of the army, whose early victories exported many ideological features of the
French Revolution throughout Europe.
Seigneurial dues and seigneurial justice were abolished wherever French armies went, aristocratic privileges were eliminated in all places except
Poland, and the introduction of the
Napoleonic Code throughout the continent made all people equal before the law, established jury systems, and legalized divorce. However, Napoleon's domination was highly nepotistic as he often placed relatives on the thrones of Europe. Resentment over French occupation was an important factor in the explosion of
nationalism in places like Italy and Germany, which would both become nations a few decades later. The French Empire severely upset international relations in the early
nineteenth century, but the
Congress of Vienna in 1815 finally reversed this trend by instituting a balance of power system in Europe.
Origins
Napoleon Bonaparte was approached by one of a member of the Directory,
Sieyès, seeking his support for a
coup d'état to overthrow the constitution. The plot included Bonaparte's brother
Lucien, then serving as speaker of the
Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, and
Talleyrand. On 9 November 1799 , and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control and dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump to name Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government. Although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, he was outmanoeuvred by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. This made him the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, which made him First Consul for life.
Bonaparte attracted more power and gravitated towards imperial status, gathering support on the way for his internal rebuilding of France and its institutions. He gradually dampened opposition and Republican enthusiasm, using exile, systematic bureaucratic oppression, and
constitutional means. On May 18, 1804, Napoleon was given the title of
emperor by the Senate.
Napoleon got most of his support by appealing to common desires of the French people at the time. These consisted of abhorrence for the emigrant
nobility who escaped persecution, fear of the
ancien régime, a general dislike of foreigners, a hatred of
Great Britain, and the wish to extend France's
revolutionary ideals created by state
propaganda.
Napoleon largely got rid of the pre-Empire government. He saw them as too weak for the regime he wished to create, too dedicated to equality. With the exception of
Talleyrand, after 1808 he would have about him only mediocre people, largely without initiative.
From Consulate to empire
Bonaparte, though an emperor, was in a relatively dangerous position compared to other authoritarian European monarchs of the time. Aware that if the French people could overthrow one monarch, they could overthrow another, Bonaparte used propaganda to align the opinions of the French people with his foreign policy. He had no particular ideology, and did not claim to be an absolute monarch . Although he was an autocrat, he was far less autocratic than most other authoritarian monarchs of the time, and had less power than such modern dictators as
Adolf Hitler. He was in the tradition of the
enlightened despot, embracing certain aspects of
liberalism — for example, public education, a generally liberal restructuring of the French legal system, and the emancipation of the
Jews — while rejecting electoral democracy and freedom of the press.
Although an enemy of ideologues, Napoleon followed grandiose visions in his foreign policy. A
condottiere of the
Renaissance living in the 19th century, he used France, and all those nations annexed or attracted by the Revolution, to resuscitate the
Roman conception of the idea of Empire for personal benefit. On the other hand, he was enslaved by the history and aggressive idealism of the National Convention, and of the republican propaganda under the Directory; they guided him quite as much as he guided them. Hence the immoderate extension given to French activity by his classical
Latin spirit; hence also his conquests, leading on from one to another, and instead of being mutually helpful interfering with each other; hence, finally, his not entirely coherent policy, interrupted by hesitation and counter-attractions. This explains the retention of
Italy, imposed on the Directory from 1796 onward, followed by his treatment of
Venice, the foundation of the
Cisalpine Republic — a foretaste of future annexations — the restoration of that republic after his return from
Egypt, and in view of his as yet inchoate designs, the postponed solution of the Italian problem which the treaty of Lunéville had raised.
The
Battle of Marengo inaugurated the political idea which was to continue its development until Napoleon's
Moscow campaign. Napoleon dreamed as yet only of keeping the Duchy of Milan, setting aside
Austria, and preparing some new enterprise in the East or in
Egypt. The Peace of Amiens, which cost him Egypt, could only seem to him a temporary truce; while he was gradually extending his authority in Italy by the union of
Piedmont and by his tentative plans regarding
Genoa,
Parma,
Tuscany and
Naples. He wanted to make this his Cisalpine Gaul, laying siege to the Roman state on every hand, and preparing in the Concordat for the moral and material servitude of the
pope. When he recognised his error in having raised the papacy from decadence by restoring its power over the churches, he tried in vain to correct it by the
Articles Organiques wanting, like
Charlemagne, to be the legal protector of the
pope, and eventually master of the
Roman Church. To conceal his plan he aroused French colonial aspirations against Britain, and also the memory of the spoliations of 1763 , exacerbating British jealousy of France, whose borders now extended to the
Rhine, and laying hands on
Hanover,
Hamburg and
Cuxhaven.
By the "Recess" of 1803, which brought to his side
Bavaria,
Württemberg and
Baden, he followed up the overwhelming tide of revolutionary ideas in
Germany, to stem which
Pitt, back in power, appealed once more to an Anglo-Austro-Russian coalition against Napoleon, who by mastering France, Italy and Germany, hoped to revive the empire of
Charlemagne; who finally on December 2, 1804 placed the imperial crown upon his head, after receiving the iron crown of the
Lombard kings, and made
Pope Pius VII consecrate him in
Notre-Dame de Paris.
After this, in four campaigns, the Emperor transformed his Carolingian
feudal and
federal empire into one modelled on the Roman empire. The memories of imperial Rome were for a third time, after
Julius Caesar,
Trajan and
Charlemagne, to modify the historical evolution of France. Though the vague plan for an invasion of England fell to the ground, the
Battle of Ulm and the
Battle of Austerlitz obliterated
Trafalgar, and the camp at
Boulogne put the best military resources he had ever commanded at Napoleon's disposal in the form of
La Grande Armée first entered the annals of history when, in 1805, Napoleon I [i] ...
.
Early victories
In the first of these campaigns Bonaparte swept away the remnants of the old
Holy Roman Empire and, out of its shattered fragments, created in southern Germany the vassal states of
Bavaria,
Baden,
Württemberg,
Hesse-Darmstadt and
Saxony, which he attached to France under the name of the Confederation of the Rhine. The Treaty of Pressburg, however, signed on the gave France nothing but the danger of a more centralised and less docile Germany. On the other hand, Napoleon's creation of the Kingdom of Italy, his annexation of
Venetia and her ancient
Adriatic Empire — wiping out the humiliation of 1797 — and the occupation of
Ancona, marked a new stage in his progress towards his Roman Empire.
To create
satellite states, Napoleon rested on the idea of installing his close relatives as rulers of many European nations. The clan of the
Bonapartes began to mingle with European monarchies, wedding with princesses of blood-royal, and adding kingdom to kingdom.
Joseph Bonaparte replaced the dispossessed
Bourbons at Naples;
Louis Bonaparte was installed on the throne of the newly formed kingdom of Holland carved out of the Dutch Batavian Republic;
Joachim Murat became grand-duke of Berg,
Jerome Bonaparte son-in-law to the King of Württemberg, and Eugène de Beauharnais to the King of Bavaria; while
Stéphanie de Beauharnais married the son of the Grand Duke of Baden.
Meeting with less and less resistance, Napoleon went still further and would tolerate no neutral power. On August 6, 1806 he forced the
Habsburgs, left with only the crown of Austria, to abdicate their title of
Holy Roman Emperor.
Prussia alone remained outside the Confederation of the Rhine, of which Napoleon was Protector, and to further her decision he offered her British
Hanover. In a second campaign he destroyed at
Jena both the army and the state of
Frederick William III of Prussia, who could not make up his mind between the Napoleonic treaty of Schönbrunn and Russia's counter-proposal at
Potsdam . The butchery at
Eylau and the vengeance taken at
Friedland finally ruined
Frederick the Great's work, and obliged
Russia, the ally of Britain and Prussia, to allow the latter to be despoiled, and to join Napoleon against the maritime tyranny of the former.
At the crossroads
After the
Treaties of Tilsit, however , instead of trying to reconcile Europe to his grandeur, Napoleon had but one thought: to make use of his success to destroy Britain and complete his Italian dominion. It was from
Berlin, on 21 November 1806, that he had dated the first decree of a continental blockade, a conception intended to paralyze his inveterate rival, but which on the contrary caused his own fall by its immoderate extension of the Empire. To the coalition of the northern powers he added the league of the
Baltic and
Mediterranean ports, and to the bombardment of
Copenhagen by a
Royal Navy fleet he responded by a second decree of blockade, dated from Milan on 17 December 1807.
But the application of the Concordat and the taking of Naples led to the first of those struggles with the pope in which were formulated two antagonistic doctrines: Napoleon declaring himself Roman emperor, and
Pius VII renewing the theocratic affirmations of
Pope Gregory VII. The Emperor's Roman ambition was made more and more plainly visible by the occupation of the kingdom of Naples and of the Marches, and by the entry of Miollis into Rome; while Junot invaded
Portugal, Radet laid hands on the pope himself, and
Joachim Murat took possession of formerly Roman
Spain, whither Joseph Bonaparte transferred afterwards;.
But Napoleon little knew the flame he was kindling. No more far-seeing than the Directory or the men of the year III, he thought that, with energy and execution, he might succeed in the
Peninsula as he had succeeded in Italy in 1796 and 1797, in Egypt and in Hesse, and that he might cut into Spanish granite as into Italian mosaic or "that big cake, Germany". The Spanish were resilient, however; and the trap of
Bayonne, together with the enthroning of Joseph Bonaparte, made the contemptible
Prince of Asturias the elect of popular sentiment, the representative of religion and country.
Napoleon thought he had Spain within his grasp, and now suddenly everything started slipping from him. The Peninsula became the grave of whole armies and a battlefield against Britain. Dupont capitulated at
Bailen into the hands of
Francisco Javier Castaños, 1st Duke of Bailén, and Andoche Junot, Duke of Abrantes at the
Cintra, Portugal to
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington; while Europe trembled at this first check to the hitherto invincible imperial armies. To reduce Spanish resistance Napoleon had in his turn to come to terms with the
Tsar Alexander I of Russia at
Erfurt; so that, abandoning his designs in the East, he could make the
Grand Army evacuate Prussia and return in force to
Madrid.
Thus Spain swallowed up the soldiers who were wanted for Napoleon's other fields of battle, and they had to be replaced by forced levies. Europe had only to wait, and he would eventually be found disarmed in face of a last coalition; but Spanish heroism infected Austria, and showed the force of national resistance. The provocations of Talleyrand and Britain strengthened the illusion: Why should not the Austrians emulate the Spaniards? The campaign of 1809, however, was but a pale copy of the Spanish insurrection. After a short and decisive action in Bavaria, Napoleon opened up the road to
Vienna for a second time; and after the two days' battle at
Essling, the stubborn fight at
Wagram, the failure of a patriotic insurrection in northern Germany and of the British expedition against
Antwerp, the Treaty of Vienna , with the annexation of the
Illyrian provinces, completed the colossal Empire. Napoleon profited, in fact, by this campaign which had been planned for his overthrow.
The pope was deported to
Savona beneath the eyes of an indifferent Europe, and his domains were incorporated in the Empire; the senate's decision on 17 February 1810 created the title of king of Rome, and made Rome the capital of Italy. The pope banished, it was now desirable to send away those to whom Italy had been more or less promised. Eugene de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepson, was transferred to
Frankfurt, and Murat carefully watched until the time should come to take him to Russia and install him as King of
Poland. Between 1810 and 1812 Napoleon's divorce of
Josephine, and his marriage with
Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, followed by the birth of the
king of Rome, shed a brilliant light upon his future policy. He renounced a
federation in which his brothers were not sufficiently docile; he gradually withdrew power from them; he concentrated all his affection and ambition on the son who was the guarantee of the continuance of his dynasty. This was the of his reign.
Intrigues, unrest and corruption
But undermining forces already impinged: the faults inherent in his unwieldy achievement. Britain, his chief enemy, was persistently active; and rebellion both of the governing and of the governed broke out everywhere. Napoleon felt his impotence in coping with the Spanish Uprising, which he underrated, while yet unable to suppress it altogether. Men like
Stein, Hardenberg and
Scharnhorst had secretly started preparing Prussia's retaliation.
Napoleon's formidable material power could not stand against the moral force of the pope, now a prisoner at
Fontainebleau; and this he did not realise. The alliance arranged at Tilsit was seriously shaken by the Austrian marriage, the threat of a Polish restoration, and the unfriendly policy of Napoleon at
Constantinople. The very persons whom he had placed in power were counteracting his plans: after four years' experience Napoleon found himself obliged to treat his Corsican dynasties like those of the
ancien régime, and all his relations were betraying him.
Caroline Bonaparte conspired against her brother and against her husband Murat; the hypochondriac Louis, now
Dutch in his sympathies, found the supervision of the blockade taken from him, and also the defence of the
Scheldt, which he had refused to ensure;
Jerome Bonaparte, idling in his , lost that of the
North Sea shores; and Joseph, who was attempting the moral conquest of Spain, was continually insulted at Madrid. The very nature of things was against the new dynasties, as it had been against the old.
After national insurrections and family recriminations came treachery from Napoleon's ministers. Talleyrand betrayed his designs to
Metternich and suffered dismissal;
Fouché corresponded with Austria in 1809 and 1810, entered into an understanding with Louis, and also with Britain; while Bourrienne was convicted of speculation. By a natural consequence of the spirit of conquest Napoleon had aroused, all these
parvenus, having tasted victory, dreamed of sovereign power:
Bernadotte, who had helped him to the
Consulate, played Napoleon false to win the crown of
Sweden;
Soult, like Murat, coveted the Spanish throne after that of Portugal, thus anticipating the treason of 1813 and the defection of 1814; many persons hoped for "an accident" which might resemble the tragic ends of
Alexander the Great and of Julius Caesar.
The country itself, besides, though flattered by conquests, was tired of self-sacrifice. It had become satiated; "the cry of the mothers rose threateningly" against "the Ogre" and his intolerable imposition of wholesale
conscription. The soldiers themselves, discontented after Austerlitz, cried out for peace after Eylau. Finally, amidst profound silence from the press and the Assemblies, a protest was raised against imperial despotism by the literary world, against the excommunicated sovereign by Catholicism, and against the author of the continental blockade by the discontented bourgeoisie, ruined by the crisis of 1811.
Napoleon himself was no longer the "General Bonaparte" of his campaign in Italy. He was already showing signs of physical decay; the Roman medallion profile had coarsened, the obese body was often lymphatic. Mental degeneration, too, betrayed itself in an unwonted irresolution.
At
Eylau, at
Wagram, and later at
Waterloo, his method of acting by enormous masses of
infantry,
artillery and
cavalry, in a mad passion for conquest, and his misuse of his military resources, were all signs of his moral and technical decline. Even as he lost his military principles, he maintained his gift for brilliance. His six days campaign, which took place at the very end of the
sixth coalition, is regarded as his greatest display of leadership. But by then it was the end, and it was during the years before when, instead of the armies and governments of the old system, which had hitherto reigned supreme, the nations of Europe themselves conspired against France. And while the Emperor and his holdings idled and worsened the rest of Europe agreed to avenge the events of 1792. The three campaigns of two years would bring total catastrophe.
The endgame
Napoleon had hardly succeeded in putting down the revolt in Germany when the czar of Russia himself headed a European insurrection against the ruinous tyranny of the continental blockade. To put a stop to this, to ensure his own access to the Medit
