Talk:French Consulate

Britannica 1911
This article is based on Britannica 1911. As anybody can see, it's written in a very strong style, with a lot of judgments passed here and there. One must also take into account the fact that Britannica was, at the time, a British encyclopedia, and the British tend to have very strong views against Napoleon. For instance, the article also makes frequent remarks as to Napoleon's "dictatorial" behavior &mdash; but, in fact, Napoleon, as far as I know, had less power or than most of the monarchs of Europe at the time, and also less than more recent dictators (Mussolini, Franco, not to mention Hitler...). For instance, Napoleon is credited with a series of codes of laws &mdash; but it seems that these codes were established after considerable legislative debate. In a true classical dictatorship, these codes would have been adopted as part of rule by decree, without discussion. One would, for instance, have to make a fair and balanced assessment of his rule. I'm not an expert on the era though, so I'd prefer somebody more knowledgeable than me to write on this. David.Monniaux 06:25, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

For instance, do we have any reference for Napoleon having a "bullying police" according to the standards of the day? David.Monniaux 06:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Napoleon's rule
I can tell you now that Napoleon was far more benevolent than the rulers of the Revolutionary period. The Directory was brutal, although not as brutal as the Committee of Public Safety, and it was corrupt. Bonaparte brought the rule of law back to France and ended the corruption that was emptying the nation's treasury. Although the death penalty was retained under his rule, its use was greatly limited and only applied to those who directly threatened the government and the nation. Petty criminals almost never received the death penalty. There can be no doubt Napoleon was a dictator - but more one in the mould of Lee Kuan Yew - who instituted a meritocracy and restored his nation - than in the mould of Mussolini or Hitler. Napoleon was a firm, but fair and virtuous leader. I have also read more extensively on him than almost anyone I have met. That said, having just edited the article on the Napoleonic Wars and created an article detailing the entire length of the Italian campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars I'm not in the mood to embark on another extensive editing spree.

Huh?
I have a hard time following this article. The language is overly flowery and it's constantly throwing out names and events with only the most vague references to what they are. I've tried making some edits here and there to make it more readable. I am fairly familar with this topic, but I'm not an expert. An expert in French history with good english skills needs to go through this and edit away all the crap. user:J.J.


 * I've done a fair degree of cleanup on the lead and on the section Fall of the Directory government. Does someone want to carry on from there? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:33, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Trebbia
Someone recently removed a reference to the Directory falling shortly after the Battle of Trebbia. Obviously not the Battle of Trebia that we have an article on (from the Punic Wars). Can anyone clarify & restore? Thanks. And yes, I agree that this is flowery, even after some recent edits. This article deserves some work, if someone is up for it. -- Jmabel | Talk June 29, 2005 01:42 (UTC)

1802 vote
In the article, citation is requested for "In August of 1802 a second national referendum was held, this time to confirm Napoleon as 'First Consul for Life.' Once again a rigged vote claimed 99% approval." I'm not sure what exactly someone is doubting. Documentation that the vote occurred and that it officially passed 3,653,600 – 8,272 can be found at. I don't have an immediate citation claiming the election was rigged (though it certainly was: in the similar election in 1804 making him emperor, more physical "no" ballots still exist today than were acknowledged in the official count). Does someone else have something appropriate to cite? - Jmabel | Talk 06:38, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You are making a falacy claim here. That the /official/ vote count was incorrect does not - necessarily - imply that an election was "rigged". A "rigged" election - in the context of the time - would imply there was a _purposeful_and_concerted_ effort to CHANGE THE OUTCOME. The fact that the official vote count does not match is NORMAL for pretty much all elections of the time /hell, even of today/ where individual election officials were known to "adjust" election results of a comming /or acting/ power for their constituencies to "look better". That is how 80-20 elections easily became 99-1 simply by no county/town wanting to be seen as "anti-establishment" in the statistics. This can - formally - be considered "rigging" in the absolute sense. Indeed.
 * But! But, legally, it would not pass /e.g. the US/ legal test for such even today: "Would a precise/correct count change the outcome?" No, it would not. Hence the referendum was as much "rigged" as was the US presidential election of 2020. Sure, there were irregularities. In both. Yet, neither were "rigged" per the normal meaning of the word - the /known/ irregularities were not of a scale that could change the outcome. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.240.63.17 (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

wording
Although Guillaume Marie Anne Brune and André Masséna retrieved the fight at the Battle of Bergen   Retrieved? Is there a better word for this? RJFJR 19:18, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

An Explanation of the size of the Consulate?
In the article, and in every other reading I've done about Napoleon, there has never been an exact explanation as to the size of the consulate. It explains how the Republic of italy and all that were under Napoleon, but there has never been a map. Does anyone know of one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveSmithIIV (talk • contribs) 14:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph removed
I removed the following text from the "New Government" section as it really needs to be sourced somehow - it comes off like the writing of an apologist, and I'm really unsure as to what the line "move worthy of a bloodthirsty revolutionary" is referring to or about.

Whilst this would seem to modern day scholars as a move worthy of a bloodthirsty revolutionary, Napoleon was far from that. Forgiving to his foes as much as he was generous to his friends, Napoleon was essentially voted into the government by the people. Although Napoleon now possessed near-absolute powers, many of his early reforms were very progressive, particularly as the Revolution may have otherwise been facing a reaction.

Eldamorie (talk) 16:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Template
This page appears to have the Persondata template (which I discovered during some automatic processing). Not an expert on the template system, but I'm pretty sure that's only for individuals. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.3.207.100 (talk) 21:57, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

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Reference Typo or Unlisted?
There are two references listed to an author called "Cronin" from 1994. These are...

"Cronin 1994, p. 242" and "Cronin 1994, pp. 243–44"

Is this a typo from the reference to "Jones, Colin (1994)" or is there a book from a writer called "Cronin" which is only partly referenced? I wanted to go check something referenced from this Cronin and then realised that there is only half a reference. Zeno491 (talk) 23:56, 30 November 2023 (UTC)