The Greatest Invention of the Napoleonic Age

Regarding France as a 'police state' and 'a blueprint' to 'serve any dictator', the following is offered:

From ‘Imperial France in 1808 and Beyond by Thierry Lentz contained in The Napoleonic Empire and the New European Political Culture edited by Michael Broers, Peter Hicks, and Augustin Guimera:

‘That the regime introduced by Napoleon was an authoritarian regime can hardly be disputed. That we can characterize it simply as a dictatorship however seems excessive…the presence of opposing powers, the durability of certain principles limiting the action of the executive, and the circumstances themselves all contrived to reduce the head of state's room to maneuver.'-26.

‘Once this justification for the definition of the regime as a military dictatorship has been eliminated (that based on the origins of the regime), we can ask whether the First Empire was a military dictatorship. And the answer is no.'-27.

'It is unlikely that the army has ever played such a limited role in France, and it certainly did not play a practical role in the maintenance of law and order, a task which was fulfilled by the gendarmerie and the police.'-Gilbert Bodinier

‘Napoleon was constantly on guard against the generals' ambition and the people's discontent; he was unceasingly occupied with stifling the one and preventing the other. He was seen throughout to observe the greatest reserve as regards his generals; he always kept them at a great distance from him.'-Chaptal.

‘We often get the impression that the army had a predominant place in Napoleonic society, and this impression is fuelled by the fact that many generals accepted posts of responsibility at the heart of its institutions and administrative bodies. The presence of military pomp and grandeur at the numerous ceremonies and the precedence accorded to superior officers seem like further proof. It is important, however, to put these facts into perspective, even though, during this period of conflict, the army gives the impression of being one of the mainstays-more symbolic, it must be said, than active, at least domestically speaking-of the imperial regime.'-27.

‘Despite appearances, the First Empire was not a military dictatorship. We can therefore trust Napoleon was sincere when he said: ‘Military authority has no place or use in the civil order. The Emperor appears to have earned the respect of Roederer who, immediately post-Brumaire, stated that he (Napoleon) was ‘the most civilian of generals.'-30

‘Napoleonic power was not exerted arbitrarily but within established judicial norms. The fundamental law of the First Empire was the evolutionary series of reforms begun in 1789, which Godechot called the ‘irreversible options': equality before the law, the abolition of feudalism, and a constitutional and representative government. With a few organizational readjustments (the concentration of the executive, the reorganization of national representation, the division of the legislature) there was constitutional activity under Napoleon, which could even be described as lively. Understanding the interpretation, application and evolution of these constitutional principles without being constrained by ‘liberal thought'-dominant today but not at the time-allows us better to understand the evolution of the Napoleonic state as it gradually but ineluctably advanced towards the ‘legislation' of the exercise of power in France.'-31.

‘Bonaparte was already a partisan of strong government, as can be seen in his letter to Talleyrand, itself a sort of first draft for his constitutional project: ‘In a government in which every authority emanates from the nation, in which the sovereign is of the people, why include in the legislative power such things that are foreign to it?…The power of the government, in all the breadth I give it, should be considered the true representative of the nation, and it should govern in according to the constitutional charter…It would comprise the entirety of the administration or the execution, which is by our constitution conferred on the legislative power…[The] legislative power, impassive, without rank in the Republic, without eyes or ears for that which surrounds it, would have no ambition and would no longer inundate us with a thousand circumstantial laws which are self-defeating through their very absurdity, and which make us a lawless nation with three-hundred large tomes of laws.'-32.

'Truly it is difficult to conceive of a constitution which offers more guarantees for the rights of the people. It is difficult to leave less to the arbitrary judgment of the head of the government. The limits of power are clear and unconfused.'-Chaptal

‘Apart from its leader, the State now stood at the center of French society. One author has even written of a ‘Napoleonic Revolution.' Napoleon succeeded where Louis XVI and his ministers had failed in the 1780s. He strengthened and modernized the state, again imbuing it with both unity and authority.'-34-35.

‘…Bonaparte spared France from a violent, military dictatorship. The Napoleonic regime made its soldiers obedient tools of the government, not a state within a state…The gradual tightening of the Napoleonic regime is of course irrefutable. But to criticize the consular and imperial seizure of power, is to do so in the name of the French Revolution, a revolution which had little respect for the principles it sought to impose on the world.'-35

From The First Napoleon by John Ropes:

‘…that in [Napoleon] there exited any very definite and solemn recognition of his responsibilities; that his life was a struggle to come up to the requirements of an educated and vigilant conscience. Be it so. Nevertheless, it remains true, that his powers were always at the service of the public; that his efforts as a whole were on the right side; that he was the unsparing foe of tyranny and injustice; and that he did more than any man of his time to relieve the masses of the people of Europe from the burdens which oppression and intolerance had laid upon them, and to open to them the prospects and hopes which under a liberal and enlightened government give to life so much of its enjoyment and value. He must be classed among the friends and helpers of the race.'-307-308.

‘It is not inconsistent with the views here presented of the character of Napoleon, that we should find him occasionally resorting to measures of extreme severity. Where it seemed to him to be necessary, in order to preserve his army, to suppress dangerous insurrections, or the like, he rarely hesitated to employ what seemed to him the most sure mode of accomplishing his object. It is in this way that we must account for the wholesale execution of the prisoners of Jaffa, most of whom, having been recently released on parole, were found again in arms against the French. In a similar light we should regard the severities which accompanied the final extinction of the insurrections in La Vendee, and those which he recommended his brother Joseph to employ against the fierce and obstinate resistance of the Neapolitan lazzaroni. In this unhesitating employment of force on occasions of this nature, Napoleon much resembled Cromwell.'

‘But this sort of thing does not constitute a man a tyrant, or even a harsh ruler. The stability of society, the welfare of well-disposed citizens, the interests of progress and of liberal government even, may well, in times of turmoil and revolution, be more secure when entrusted to such a man, than if committed to the charge of one less practical and less inflexible.' 309-310.

From Napoleon and Europe edited by Philip Dwyer:

‘Order and stability, in other words, were brought about and maintained by harsh measures of repression, but there was nothing unusual in this. Any regime would have suppressed unrest in much the same way…'-7.

‘The Napoleonic police were able to hold people in detention for an indefinite term by mesure e haute police (an order from the Ministry of Police). In real terms, however, never more than a couple of hundred political prisoners existed at any one time, and very few people were executed or even deported for political reasons. Indeed, the few political executions that were carried out under Napoleon-such as the duc d'Enghien, the Nuremberg bookseller Palm, and the two Austrian booksellers in Linz-seem to have been knee-jerk reactions and not part of a premeditated, systematic attempts to eliminate opposition. Despite periodic lapses, the Napoleonic regime was essentially based on the rule of law, and certainly political repression under Napoleon was mild in comparison to the Terror. Internal exile was a much more common punishment than imprisonment or execution.'

From the Napoleonic Revolution by Robert Holtman:

‘A decree of March 1810 authorized the Privy Council to make punitive arrests. Theoretically these were for a maximum of a year; the reality was quite different. An order signed by the Minister of Police and the grand judge also sufficed to put a man in jail; again there was a theoretical limit, of ten days, but no authority seemed concerned about it.'

‘In addition to the Civil Code, five other codes were drawn up. The Rural Code was never adopted; those which went into effect were a Code of Civil Procedure in 1806, a Commercial Code in 1807, a Code of Criminal Procedure in 1808, and a Penal Code in 1810. The Penal Code was both progressive and reactionary; reactionary in that it provided for severe and unjust penalties-among them branding, and the cutting off of a hand for parricide in addition to decapitation; progressive in its provision for minimum and maximum rather than fixed penalties. The Code of Criminal Procedure was reactionary in that it permitted arbitrary arrest and partially reestablished the secrecy of court proceedings that had prevailed during the ancient regime; the accused could no longer hear the testimony against him.'-93.

Imperial decrees were regarded as law by the French, as were the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure promulgated in 1810. It was not as draconian as its English equivalent.

I would also submit that any reference to a Napoleonic 'police state' does not have the implication ca 1800 as it does today looking at it through 20th and 21st century sensibilities and the results of totalitarian dictatorships from the mid-twentieth century, which dealt in the abrogation of civil rights, mass murder, and wholesale repression-all of which were not characteristics of Napoleon's government and rule.