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Napoleon
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In 1799, Napoleon staged a coup d'etat (when you overthrow the government). What was the result of that?
In Paris 1795 there is rioting. France has just got a new constitution, and universal suffrage has been abolished. Workers and craftsmen are furious. For several years they have been fighting in the revolution to create a more equal society, and they succeeded. The king is gone, and they won the right to vote.
But now they’ve lost that right. They demonstrate violently. A young general is visiting Paris - Napoleon Bonaparte. He takes command of the military, rolls 40 cannons from the city walls of Paris down to the streets.. and fires directly at the people.
Napoleon stops the riot. But hundreds of people die. Four years later, in November, 1799. Military forces, led by the same Napoleon Bonaparte, now take control of the National Assembly in Paris. Napoleon changes the Constitution, dissolves the National Assembly, and replaces the leaders, the directors, with three officials who get all the power.
He calls them consuls, a title he copied from the Roman Empire. One of the consuls is.. himself. Napoleon has performed a coup d'état. But who is Napoleon Bonaparte?
Napoleon was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica, in the Mediterranean. The island used to belong to Italy, but now it’s French. He comes from a noble Italian family - Buonaparte. He later changes this to Bonaparte to make it sound more French. At the age of nine, his parents send him to military school in northern France.
At fifteen, he gets into military college. He becomes a military leader - an officer. He is good at remembering things, quickly assessing situations, and making fast decisions. Napoleon gets more responsibility, and he wins several military victories with the French army, and very quickly, he is appointed general. And now, his coup d'etat has made Napoleon one of three consuls.
But he wants even more power. He wants to change the Constitution so that the country will be ruled by just one ‘first’ consul - himself. He gets the French people to vote for the country being ruled by a first consul, in a referendum. Napoleon wins, with 3,000,000 yes votes against 1,582 no votes. Napoleon is popular.
But there is certainly some cheating going on. Napoleon's brother is in charge of counting the votes. It’s decided that Napoleon alone will rule France for ten years. The French Revolution is over. Ten years of struggle for freedom and equality end, with France once again under the control of a dictator.
But even so, the French people, tired of the chaos caused by the revolution, are satisfied with Napoleon. But Napoleon himself is not satisfied with just being the first consul. He crowns himself emperor of France in Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris. The leader of the Catholic Church, the pope, is there to place the imperial crown on Napoleon's head. But Napoleon chooses to place the crown himself.
He wants to show that nobody is more powerful than he is. During the revolution, compulsory military service was introduced in France. Now there’s an army, and in Napoleon, there’s a strong leader. And the emperor wants to make France big and powerful.