French Consulate

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The Consulate (French: Consulat) was the top-level government of the French First Republic from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 November 1799 until the start of the First French Empire on 18 May 1804. During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte, with his appointment as First Consul, established himself as the head of an authoritarian and centralized republican government in France while not yet declaring himself sole ruler. As Napoleon increased his power, he borrowed some of the institutions of the ancien régime in his new form of one-man government, but also made some of his own. Like the old monarchy, he re-introduced plenipotentiaries; over-centralized, and used strictly utilitarian administrative and bureaucratic methods. He constructed or consolidated the funds necessary for national institutions, local governments, universities, a judiciary system, organs of finance, banking, codes, and traditions of conscientious of a well-disciplined labour force. However...

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