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2 August 1802
Napoleon made consul for life
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Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed 'consul for life' after a plebiscite
in which 3.5 million votes are cast in support of the proposition and
just 8,000 against – most of them, intriguingly, from the army. (A similar
plebiscite – with similar results – had confirmed him as first consul
in 1800.) A new constitution will concentrate power in his hands, including
the right to choose his own successor. Rule by decree will replace the
last remnants of a democratic legislature. Barely a decade after the overthrow
of the Bourbon dynasty and the abolition of the monarchy, France has voted
for the reinstitution of rule by one man, who has been given the powers
to establish his own dynasty.
'Men who have changed the world never achieved their success by winning
the chief citizens to their side, but always by stirring the masses.'
Napoleon
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