Napoleon In 1799, Napoleon, after spectacular victories against the Austrians and later against English armies in Egypt, overthrew the Directory in a coup d'etat and formed a new government, the Consulate, made up of three consuls with Napoleon as head...
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Napoleon In 1799, Napoleon, after spectacular victories against the Austrians and later against English armies in Egypt, overthrew the Directory in a coup d'etat and formed a new government, the Consulate, made up of three consuls with Napoleon as head consul. Napoleon's Domestic Reforms Even as an emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte was committed to many of the ideals of the French Revolutions. Son of an impoverished minor aristocrat and a virtual foreigner – Corsica, the island of his birth, had been owned by Italy for centuries until its annexation by the French shortly before his birth – Napoleon reached the heights he did because the Revolution opened society to the men of ability. His reforms assured the dissolution of the Old Regime by establishing egilitarianism in government, before the law, and in educational opportunity. Napoleon signed The Concordat of 1801 with the Pope whereby the papacy renounced claims over church property seized during the Revolution and was allowed to nominat
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