ABSTRACT
For one thing, he has been called the ‘child of the Revolution’. Certainly, he owed his rapid rise from obscurity to political power to the events of the Revolution and to the opportunities which the ancien régime could not have provided. His success in the Revolutionary War coincided with the political vulnerability of the Directory, enabling him to seize power by a coup which had the tacit support of several ministers. Once installed as First Consul (1799) he proceeded to build on the domestic achievements of the Directory. He stressed that he was the heir to the Revolution, which he had ‘stabilized on the principles which began it’.1
