Plebiscite confirming Napoleon as First Consul

Background. French military disasters in 1798 and 1799 had shaken the Directory and eventually shattered it in November 1799. On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire VIII) Bonaparte led the coup of 18 Brumaire, seizing French parliamentary and military power and forcing the sitting directors to resign; the conspirators then forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos as provisional consuls.

The Plebiscite. On 7 February 1800 a public referendum confirmed the new constitution of the Consulate. The supplied sources record the date and the confirmation of the constitution but give no vote totals, no reported majority figures, and no specific location for the voting, so the legacy claim of a Paris-based count cannot be substantiated beyond the constitutional confirmation itself.

Aftermath. The Consulate remained the top-level government of the First French Republic from the fall of the Directory until the start of the French Empire on 18 May 1804. In May 1800 Bonaparte led an army across the Swiss Alps into Italy, and a second national referendum on 2 August 1802 later confirmed Bonaparte as First Consul for Life.