After the French Revolution, France was launched into complete and utter chaos; however, out of the ashes of the French Revolution rose one of the most prominent leaders in history: Napoleón Bonaparte. Napoleón’s various military successes quickly raised him as a national hero and a fervent defender of the revolution; however, it wasn’t until an attempted military coup that his appetite for political office was sparked. In 1799, Napoleón used this popularity to become the First Consul of Paris; and by 1802, he became the absolute ruler of France. Napoleón quickly invaded other western European countries, and through a series of conquests, established a massive French Empire with a vast collection of proxy states. Although, Napoleón initially invaded foreign territory in the name of the ideals of the revolution, those ideals were not always held up. While Napoleón’s reign was plagued by rollbacks in personal freedoms and despotism; he saved the French Revolution by supporting many ideals of the revolution including the cementation of personal freedoms, reorganization of the judicial systems, and economic reorganization.
Napoleón began his political career by riding the back of the French population to the position of First Consul of Paris in 1799. He was quick to reform France with his Civil Code of 1804 (later renamed the Code Napoleón in 1806), which Tim Blanning describes as “a model of rationality and equity and was recognized as such by grateful recipients.” At first, the Code Napoleón seems as if it can be easily criticized as counter-revolutionary, as it flagrantly violates women’s rights, a non-integral, yet significant, ideal of the revolution; however, when its impacts and core principles are closely examined, it is easy to see the Code Napoleón’s fervent support for the core principles of the revolution. Examples of this include the abolition of all birth privileges, such as inherited titles and noble rights; the establishment of freedom of occupational choice; and freedom of religion. These three ideals were all consistently discussed and regarded as core social reforms that were to be accomplished by the French Revolution; and while women’s rights were an significant idea of the revolution, they were not integral to the revolution. Therefore, the Napoleonic Code’s subordination of women to men was not in direct contrast with the fundamental ideas of the revolution; so when Napoleón implemented the Code Napoleón he massively impacted the success of the revolution. However, while the social reforms of the Code Napoleón were a significant step in securing the success of the French Revolution, this was not the only way in which Napoleón saved the French Revolution.
Throughout French history, the governmental systems of France had been incredibly corrupt in both civil and national governments and because of the cataclysmic consequences of this, namely, the terror of 1794, Napoleón completely restructured the governmental systems of France in his aforementioned Code Napoleón by introducing three main reforms. First, Napoleón restructured the civil governments by reforming the judicial practices of France by structuring the new system based on: Roman Law, equality, and fairness. Secondly, Napoleón reformed the national government by officially recognizing, and enforcing, a separation of church and state. Third, Napoleón took great strides in an attempt to lessen the corruption throughout France on both civil, and governmental level. By introducing these three reforms, Napoleón was able to cement the political ambitions of the French Revolution in law. In addition, Napoleón also restructured the economic system of the French Empire to fit the ideals of the French Revolution by officially abolishing Feudalism, as Feudalism promoted birth rights and inequality. However, despite these positive legal and economic reforms, opponents of Napoleón would argue that his cessation of the freedom of the press, secret police task force, and despotism were detrimental to the ideas of the revolution; however, these actions can be justified by one argument: stability. After Napoleón’s various reforms, the French Empire was quite unstable, as previous social and economic policies had just been completely uprooted which naturally introducing instability into the region. To combat this, it is likely that Napoleón suppressed the freedom of the press and kept threats to the regime under wraps with a secret police force until the reforms could be fully implemented in France to secure the success of the revolution.
Overall, the legacy of the Napoleonic Regime was incredible. The ideas of the French Revolution brought forth in the Code Napoleón were incredibly pervasive in legal documents across Europe (including the current French Constitution!) While he didn’t support all of the ideas of the French Revolution, Napoleón was still a savior of the French Revolution as he was able to unify France and still implement the major facets of the revolution into law. This made Napoleón a savior of the revolution, not because of his support for the revolution, but for the reforms which introduced the main ideas of the revolution which lasted throughout time.