18 Brumaire

18 Brumaire, the coup of 18 Brumaire or sometimes simply Brumaire refers to the coup d'état by which General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the government of the Directory to replace it by the Consulate. This occurred on 9 November 1799, which was 18 Brumaire in the year VIII under the French Republican Calendar.

Aftermath

The Directory was crushed, but the coup within the coup was not yet complete. The necessity to use military force had certainly strengthened Bonaparte's hand vis a vis Sieyès and the other plotters. With the Council routed, the plotters convened two commissions, each consisting of twenty-five deputies from the two Councils and essentially intimidated them into declaring a provisional government, the first form of the consulate with Bonaparte, Sieyès, and Roger-Ducos as consuls, and then into drawing up what Malcolm Crook refers to as the "short and obscure Constitution of the Year VIII" http://www3.uakron.edu/hfrance/reviews/napoleoncrook1.html, the first of the constitutions since the Revolution without a Declaration of Rights.

Related Topics:
Consulate - Constitution of the Year VIII

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The lack of reaction from the streets proved that the revolution was, indeed, over. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "A shabby compound of brute force and imposture, the 18th Brumaire was nevertheless condoned, nay applauded, by the French nation. Weary of revolution, men sought no more than to be wisely and firmly governed." Resistance by Jacobin officeholders in the provinces was quickly crushed, twenty Jacobin legislators were exiled, and others were arrested.

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Bonaparte completed his coup within a coup by the adoption of a constitution under which the First Consul, a position he was sure to hold, had greater power than the other two. In particular, he appointed the Senate and the Senate interpreted the constitution. The Bonapartist Senate allowed him to rule by decree, so the more independent State Council and Tribunate degenerated into the status of window dressing.

Related Topics:
Senate - State Council - Tribunate

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