The Napoleonic Police and their Legacy

Napoleon did not make his political reputation as a warmonger, at least not among the French. Indeed, the reverse was the case, as he smoothed his way to despotism in the first years of his rule after seizing power in 1799. He posed, first and foremost, as the man who would restore order to a society plagued by crime, violence and uncertainty. The first war he fought as First Consul in 1800-01 was intended to bring a quick peace which would enable him to consolidate his grip on France. When this goal was achieved by the Peace of Amiens with Britain in 1801, he set about winning over French society – or at least the propertied sections of it – by a concerted effort to restore civil order ruthlessly, but more effectively, than the unstable regimes of the Revolutionary decade of 1789-99.