ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the major features of the government Napoleon created during the Consulate period. It analyzes the reasons why most of the French population accepted Napoleon’s regime. The chapter discusses whether Napoleon continued the Revolution or ended it. As long as Napoleon marched from victory to victory, there was a little visible opposition to him at home. Under the surface, however, there was quiet resistance to the regime’s increasing authoritarianism. Napoleon himself thought that he might find support among the thinkers associated with the revival of Catholicism that had begun even before the Concordat. As a result of the controversy over the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the de-Christianizers’ attacks on the Church, those priests who lacked a real commitment to the faith had left the Church.
