2H - The coup of Brumaire and the establishment of the Consulate: the strengths and weaknesses of the new constitution
The coup of Brumaire replaced the Directory in November 1799 through a combination of political conspiracy and military force. The new constitution promised order and preserved important revolutionary gains, but it concentrated practical authority in Bonaparte. Its establishment must be distinguished from the reforms and empire that came later.
France and the Directory in 1799
By 1799 the Directory had preserved the Republic but failed to establish trusted political rules. Electoral annulments and coups had made it difficult to believe that lawful opposition could produce a peaceful change of government. Fiscal reforms had reduced some pressures, yet taxation, debt losses, conscription and requisitions remained unpopular. Royalists, Catholics hostile to religious restrictions and neo-Jacobins had different reasons to oppose it.
The Second Coalition created a renewed external crisis. French armies lost ground in Italy, while fighting in Switzerland and the Netherlands threatened earlier gains. Defeats helped provoke the political changes of Prairial in June 1799. Emergency measures, including a forced loan on wealthier citizens and the Law of Hostages aimed against families linked to rebellion, revived fears of radical government.
The position was not uniformly desperate. Masséna's victory at Zurich in September and the defeat of the Anglo-Russian expedition in the Netherlands in autumn improved security. France still possessed experienced armies, a large population and important territorial gains. The argument that only Bonaparte could prevent imminent national destruction exaggerates the crisis.
Sieyès, a Director from May 1799, nevertheless wanted a stronger, redesigned constitution. Legal revision under the existing constitution was slow and cumbersome, so he sought political and military allies for replacement. Bonaparte's return from Egypt in October supplied a famous general with loyal officers and public prestige. The coup depended on influential insiders abandoning the regime, not merely on an outside soldier attacking it.
The coup of 18–19 Brumaire
On 18 Brumaire, 9 November 1799, conspirators obtained a decision from the Council of Ancients to transfer the legislative councils from Paris to Saint-Cloud, supposedly to protect them from a Jacobin plot. Bonaparte was placed in command of troops responsible for their security. Removing the councils from the capital reduced the risk of popular intervention and allowed the conspirators to control their surroundings.
Sieyès and Roger Ducos resigned from the Directory, Barras was persuaded to resign, and the remaining Directors, Gohier and Moulin, were prevented from acting effectively. The executive lost the ability to function. This helped present the creation of a provisional government as the response to a vacancy, although the vacancy had been deliberately produced.
On 19 Brumaire, 10 November, deputies at Saint-Cloud resisted. Bonaparte's intervention in the Council of Five Hundred was confused and provoked demands that constitutional government be defended against him. His fame did not automatically produce parliamentary submission. Lucien Bonaparte, president of the Five Hundred, played a crucial role in justifying military intervention, portraying opposition inside the chamber as a threat to the assembly and his brother.
Troops cleared the chamber. A remaining group of deputies then approved the replacement of the Directory by a provisional Consulate of Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos and appointed commissions to prepare a constitution. Civilian manoeuvres supplied a legal appearance; force determined which opposition could remain. The coup was neither an orderly constitutional vote nor an operation achieved by Napoleon alone.
The Constitution of Year VIII
The Constitution of Year VIII, adopted on 13 December 1799, retained the language of a republic and provided three Consuls. Bonaparte became First Consul, with Cambacérès as Second and Lebrun as Third. The normal term was ten years, with Lebrun's initial term set at five. Longer tenure promised continuity. The First Consul exercised the decisive executive powers; the other two had consultative roles rather than equal authority.
The constitution provided for male citizens aged twenty-one or over to select lists of eligible men, often called lists of notables. Successive filtering would produce lists at local, departmental and national levels, from which officeholders could be selected. These lists were first to be formed in Year IX; the initial officeholders were appointed without that process. Citizens did not directly choose the national legislature. Broad male citizenship therefore coexisted with tightly controlled selection of those who actually governed.
Law-making was divided among bodies:
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