# Did Napoleon promulgate republican ideals post 1800? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 27, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-napoleon-promulgate-republican-ideals-post-1800/735909 "2015-10-27T22:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-napoleon-promulgate-republican-ideals-post-1800/735909/1 "2015-10-27T22:08:53Z")
I read that Napoleon was a strong believer in the ideals of the French Revolution. I also read that after the coup in 1799, he took absolute control, and instituted a monarchy with succession through primogeniture and all that–seemingly a profoundly anti-republican thing to do. During the period in which Napoleon was in charge of France, did he take himself to be promulgating republican ideals in some way? Or had he basically given up on them? Not really a directly related question but topically close enough I’ll ask it here too: Why did he keep conquering things? Was there something about his political situation that made it expedient to do so? Or did he just like conquering things? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-napoleon-promulgate-republican-ideals-post-1800/735909/2 "2015-10-27T23:42:23Z")
Well he was the chief of 3 consuls\* in the French Consulate from 1799 to 1804. They were considerably more authoritarian than previous governments, but at that time he avoided lofty titles. So he at least paid lip service to Republicanism for the first few years of the 19th century. Parts of Germany were considered to be France’s and he conquered those. The First French Empire wasn’t otherwise that large in the grand scheme of things, and many of his wars were due to political disagreements and alliances. I don’t know if he set out to conquer, per se. \*As in the Roman Republic, not as in a representative to a foreign country. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-napoleon-promulgate-republican-ideals-post-1800/735909/3 "2015-10-28T01:42:55Z")
Not explicitly republican in that he was still a monarch, but in the [Hundred Days](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days#Napoleon_abdicates) he shared some political power with the chambers because he had to. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2015, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-napoleon-promulgate-republican-ideals-post-1800/735909/4 "2015-10-28T14:11:14Z")
After 1804 Napoleon transmuted republican ideals into revolutionary ideals. France was no longer republican, but Napoleon had preserved (he said) the _important_ elements of the revolution–the rule of law, equality before the law, the end of feudal and clerical privilege, and careers open to men of talent. Napoleon (again, by his lights) had had to crown himself emperor precisely in order to preserve these elements against the forces leagued against them–it took a monarch to fight monarchs. As for why he kept conquering things, well, read a book about Napoleon. There are thousands to choose from. I will only observe that he _inherited_ a war between France and the rest of Europe, and the only way to win that war was by, well, conquering things.