A new constitution was drawn up which specified that three Consuls would share power as a sort of triumvirate. Napoleon, of course, was one of these Consuls. His ambition, however, forced him to aspire to much more. In 1802, Napoleon was made first Consul for life with the right to choose his successor. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French. So, by 1804, the fate of both France and Europe depended upon this one man. Well, what sort of a man was he?

Like most men of stature and power, Napoleon's was a complex personality. We naturally think of Alexander, Augustus, Charlemagne, Peter the Great, Hitler and Stalin. His intellectual ability was clearly impressive. He had grandiose ideas. He had a philosophic mind. He could work 18 to 20 hours at a stretch without so much as a break in concentration. He was, as one French historian put it, "a typical man of the 18th century, a rationalist, a philosophe who placed his trust in reason, in knowledge and in methodical effort." But Napoleon was no disembodied brain - his personality was not pure intellect. He also had a love of action and a boundless ambition. "I live only for posterity," he said, "death is nothing . . . but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day." He was an artist, a poet of action, for whom France, Europe and a mankind were but instruments. He had charisma, he could move men to obedience, to loyalty and to heroic acts. He was also quite arrogant - he manipulated people at will. "A man like me," he once said, "troubles himself little about the lives of a million men."

Living in a revolutionary age, Napoleon observed firsthand the precariousness of power. He knew what happened to Louis XVI. He knew that the Girondins had been executed and that Robespierre had fallen victim to the Reign of Terror. Napoleon assumed that he would not make the same mistakes. He knew that he must become both a statesman and a tyrant. He had to consolidate the Revolution and bind together the different social classes of the French nation.

His domestic policy then, is crucial to our overall understanding of Napoleonic France. Here, he was clearly influenced by the Revolution. He was also affected by the ideas of the philosophes. He considered himself "enlightened." There are five areas of domestic policy worth our attention: government, religion, law, education and the economy.

Government
Napoleon provided France with a strong centralized government - a government he would himself dominate, as an emperor, a Caesar. Previous monarchs like Louis XIV and Louis XVI could not overcome political barriers (the remnants of feudalism, an obstinate nobility, local traditions and legal problems). But, when the Revolution basically swept away these remnants, administrative unity could become a reality. This left an opening for a man like Napoleon. So Napoleon created an army of officials - civil servants and bureaucrats - an army which reached into every village, town and city. The entire nation was linked together under rational administration. The result was that Napoleon concentrated power and this provided him with taxes and soldiers.