Gregory Mole
Republicanism Without a Republic: The Senatus-Consulte and the Creation of the Napoleonic Empire
Though Napoleon’s engagement with the language and symbols of the French Revolution to legitimate his regime is well documented, scholars have often dismissed this effort as mere propaganda, downplaying any deeper impact that it might have had on attitudes toward the Revolution and its ideology during the Consulate period. Examining the speeches made during the 1804 Senatus Consultum—the senatorial decree that ratified Napoleon’s ascension to the imperial throne—I argue, by contrast, that Napoleon relied upon an ongoing dialogue with the revolutionary past to lay down the very nature of his authority. In so doing, he tied the Revolution to a system of rulership that diverged from many of its defining principles, over time changing both its message and meaning. In examining this process, this paper answers several key questions about the nature of political authority during the Napoleonic era: How did republican language and practices fit within the institutions of a tutelary regime? What purposes did they serve? And how did Napoleon resolve the often destabilizing inconsistencies in revolutionary ideology and symbolism to construct a viable model of political power?
Gregory Mole is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He received a bachelor’s degree from Colgate University and a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His master’s thesis dealt with Napoleon’s reproduction and gradual contortion of French revolutionary ideology to accommodate the tutelary regime of the Consulate period. His Ph.D. dissertation studies the role of patronage, nepotism, and venality of office in the commercial and administrative activities of the Compagnie des Indes, France’s trading corporation in India, and the impact of the Compagnie on the changing public perception toward privilege and personal interest at the end of the Old Regime.
