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THE FIRST EUROPEAN ELECTIONS? VOTING AND IMPERIAL STATE-BUILDING UNDER NAPOLEON, 1802–1813*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2014

MALCOLM CROOK*
Affiliation:
University of Keele
*
School of Humanities, Keele University, Keele, Staffs, ST5 5BG[email protected]

Abstract

This article establishes the significance of elections held in the annexed departments of the Napoleonic Empire from 1802 to 1813. It thus represents an original, and perhaps surprising, contribution to recent debate on the nature of Napoleonic imperialism, in which attention has shifted from core to periphery, and away from purely military matters. The electoral process under this authoritarian regime has been alternately neglected or derided, especially where the newly created departments of the Low Countries and parts of Germany and Italy are concerned. However, extensive archival research demonstrates that it was taken extremely seriously by both regime and voters, especially outside metropolitan France. These ‘First European Elections', as they may be dubbed, took place in regular fashion right across the Empire and are studied here on a transnational basis, which also involves the metropolitan departments. Though open to all adult males at the primary level, they were not exercises in democracy, but they did create some rare political space which local people were not slow to exploit for their own purposes. Above all, they served as a means of integrating ‘new Frenchmen’, particularly members of indigenous elites, into the Napoleonic system.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank the journal's two anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms and comments and Devadas Moodley for commenting on a late draft.

References

1 Englund, Steven, ‘Monstre sacré: the question of cultural imperialism and the Napoleonic empire’, Historical Journal, 51 (2008), pp. 215–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 216.

2 Her contribution in Broers, Michael, Englund, Steven, Rowe, Michael, and Jourdan, Annie, ‘Napoléon et l'Europe: le point de vue anglo-américain’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 354 (2008), pp. 131–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 153.

3 Woolf, Stuart, Napoleon's integration of Europe (London and New York, NY, 1991)Google Scholar. We use the word ‘empire’ starting with a lower case to refer to the wider and looser collection of territories within the French sphere, ‘Empire’ to the directly ruled polity.

4 Resulting publications include: Rowe, Michael, ed., Collaboration and resistance in Napoleonic Europe (Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2003)Google Scholar; Dwyer, Philip G. and Forrest, Alan, eds., Napoleon and his empire (Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2007)Google Scholar; Broers, Michael, Hicks, Peter, and Guimera, Agustin, eds., The Napoleonic empire and the new political culture (Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2012)Google Scholar; Braun, Guido, Clemens, Gabriele B., Klinkhammer, Lutz, and Koller, Alexander, eds., Napoleonische Expansionspolitik: Okkupation oder Integration? (Berlin, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Antoine, François, Jessenne, Jean-Pierre, Jourdan, Anne, and Leuwers, Hervé, eds., L'Empire napoléonien: une expérience européenne? (Paris, 2014)Google Scholar.

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6 Broers, Michael, ‘A Turner thesis for Europe? The frontier in Napoleonic Europe’, Napoleonica. La Revue, 5 (2009), p. 157–69Google Scholar, online at www.cairn.info/revue-napoleonica-la-revue-2009-2-page-157.htm. He first articulated the concept in his Europe under Napoleon, 1799–1815 (London and New York, NY, 1996).

7 Broers, Michael, ‘Napoleon, Charlemagne and Lotharingia: acculturation and the borders of Napoleonic Europe’, Historical Journal, 44 (2001), pp. 135–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 137 and 141.

8 In particular, Broers, Michael, The Napoleonic empire in Italy, 1796–1814 (Basingstoke, 2005)Google Scholar.

9 See Englund, ‘Monstre sacré’, pp. 246–7.

10 Ibid., p. 217.

11 The only detailed study of Napoleonic elections is Coppolani, Jean-Yves, Les élections en France à l’époque napoléonienne (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar. For a broad survey, which takes them rather more seriously than most, see Lignereux, Aurelien, L'Empire des Français, 1799–1815 (Paris, 2012), pp. 152–4Google Scholar.

12 An important exception, Rowe, Michael, From Reich to state: the Rhineland in the revolutionary age, 1780–1830 (Cambridge and New York, NY, 2003)Google Scholar, devotes five illuminating pages to the subject: pp. 109–14.

13 Grab, Alexander, Napoleon and the transformation of Europe (Basingstoke and New York, NY, 2003), p. 207Google Scholar.

14 Archives nationales, Paris (hereafter AN), F1c iii Esprit public et élections, classified by department.

15 For the importance of studies of conscription in particular in the development of the historiography, see the bibliographical essay in Dwyer, Philip G., ed., Napoleon and Europe (Harlow, 2001), p. 272Google Scholar.

16 The Constitution of 1799 implemented Sieyès's idea of replacing a more conventional electoral process with the successive drawing up – by ballot – of communal, then departmental, then national lists of notables which would determine eligibility for public office at each level, including, at the summit, legislative office. See Halperin, Jean-Louis, ‘Élections’, in Tulard, Jean, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon (2 vols., Paris, new edn, 1999), i, pp. 710–11Google Scholar.

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18 Halperin, ‘Élections’, p. 712.

19 Owing to its abolition in 1807, no members of the Tribunate were actually selected in this way. When filling vacancies in the Senate, unlike those in the Corps législatif, senators had to choose from a list of three candidates pre-selected by Napoleon from all those put forward by the departmental colleges for this body. As there were also other ways of appointing senators, only a minority were chosen from candidates elected by these colleges.

20 See Durand, Charles, L'exercice de la fonction législative de 1800 à 1814 (Aix-en-Provence, 1955), p. 93Google Scholar. Literally ‘the Senate having been consulted’, these pronouncements originated in that body's right to annul measures it deemed unconstitutional. Thanks to its complete compliance, Napoleon was able to use the procedure to get through contentious measures, including, ironically, major constitutional change, without recourse to the Tribunate or Corps législatif.

21 Under a regime of military occupation following its cession to France in 1768 by the Republic of Genoa, after 1786 the island was assimilated into the French kingdom.

22 Coppolani, Élections, p. 186.

23 Ibid., p. 187.

24 Ibid., pp. 150–3.

25 For some initial findings, see Crook, Malcolm and Dunne, John, ‘Où se situe l'apogée du régime napoléonien dans l'esprit des sujets de l'Empire? L'apport des données électorales’, in Bernet, Jacques and Cherrier, Emmanuel, eds., 1807: l'apogée de l'Empire? (Valenciennes, 2009)Google Scholar; John Dunne, ‘Les premieres élections européennes? Organiser des élections dans les départements réunis de l'Empire napoléonien. Quand? Où? Pourquoi?’, and Malcolm Crook, ‘Les premieres élections européennes? La pratique électorale sous le Premier Empire’, both in Antoine, Jessenne, Jourdan, and Leuwers, eds., L'Empire napoléonien.

26 ‘Projets d'arrêtés concernant les quatre départemens réunis’, 19 Messidor IX, online at www.napoleonica.org/gerando/GER00080.html. For Coppolani, Élections, p. 445, however, it resulted from government's fear of ongoing popular unrest.

27 See, for example, the senatus consultum of 16 Vendémiaire XIV (8 Oct. 1805) annexing the Ligurian Republic: Bulletin des lois de l'empire français (hereafter Bull.), 4e série, iv, 90/1093.

28 Ibid. Article 3 reads ‘Les députations des départemens de Gênes, de Montenotte et des Apennins, seront nommées en l'an XIV; elles seront renouvelées dans l'année à laquelle appartiendra la série [électorale] où sera placé leur département.’ The senatus consulta of 24 Apr. and 5 June 1810 regarding the incorporation of the Bouches-du-Rhin and Bouches-de-l'Escaut do not conform to the general pattern.

29 Senatus consultum, 16 Feb. 1806, Bull., 4e série, v, 275/1325.

30 3 Oct. 1808, Bull. 4e série, 209/3809.

31 AN, F1e 1, ‘Départemens dans lesquels les institutions constitutionnelles ne sont pas toutes en activité’, n.d. but late 1810, and Coppolani, Élections, p. 455 n. 565. The dates when members were elected by the cantonal assembly are specified in the college membership lists in the series AN, F1c iii (by department). Where a particular carton in this series is referred to and only a date is supplied, this document is understood: AN, F1c iii Méditerranée 1, 10 Apr. 1813; F1c iii Arno 1, 27 Jan. 1813; and F1c iii Ombrone 1, prefect to Interior, 17 Oct. 1813.

32 AN, F1c iii Arno 1, Finance to Interior, 20 June 1809.

33 AN, F1c iii Rome 2, minutes of departmental college, 15 Mar. 1812.

34 AN, F1e 1, ‘Départemens’.

35 Stubbe da Luz, Helmut, ‘Élections napoléoniennes à Hambourg et Lubeck 1812’, Francia, 33 (2006), pp. 147–59Google Scholar, at pp. 153–4; AN, F1c iii Bouches-de-la-Meuse 1, prefect to Interior, 17 Mar. 1812; F1c iii Bouches du Rhin 1, 10 Dec. 1812; F1c iii Bouches de l'Yssel 1, 16 Aug. 1813; F1c iii Simplon 1, prefect to Interior, 14 Nov. 1812; F1c iii Ems-Occidental 1, 18 Oct. 1813; F1c iii Trasimène 1, administrative report, 31 Oct. 1813; F1b ii Zuyderzée 1, prefect to Interior, 15 Nov. 1813. On account of its meagre population, the Simplon had only one electoral college but retained cantonal elections.

36 AN, F1b ii Zuyderzée 1, prefect to Interior, 15 Nov. 1813; Palluel-Guillard, André, ‘Hollande’, in Tulard, , ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, i, p. 964Google Scholar.

37 AN, F1c iii Ems-Oriental 1, note for the emperor, 16 Nov. 1813.

38 AN, F1b ii Zuyderzée 1, prefect to Interior, 15 Nov. 1813; Stubbe da Luz, ‘Élections napoléoniennes’, pp. 153–4.

39 AN, F1c iii Ombrone 1, Finance to Interior, 22 Jan. 1814.

40 Archives d’état, Geneva, A11 Registre civique du canton de Genève, 1809; ADL B 224 Registre civique de l'arrondissement de Genève, vol. 1, n.d. but 1806–7, and ADL B 225 Registre civique de l'arrondissement de Genève, vol. 2.

41 AN, F1c iii Ombrone 1, prefect to Interior, 17 June 1812.

42 On the transition process, see Woolf, Napoleon's integration, pp. 45–53 and 69–74.

43 See n. 41 above.

44 Ibid., Interior to prefect, 22 Aug. 1812.

45 Constant, Benjamin, De l'esprit de conquête et de l'usurpation: texte de la première édition, 1814 (Geneva, 1980), p. 58Google Scholar; Interior to Napoleon, 28 Nov. 1810, apparently repeating the latter's instructions, cited in Lechevalier, Michel, ‘Aux sources de l'histoire du département du Simplon’, Vallesia, 53 (1998), pp. 307–63Google Scholar, at p. 336.

46 See Blaufarb, Rafe, ‘Napoleon and the abolition of feudalism’, in Forrest, Alan and Wilson, Peter H., eds., The bee and the eagle: Napoleonic France and the end of the Holy Roman Empire, 1806 (Basingstoke, 2009)Google Scholar.

47 Dunne, John, ‘L'Empire au village: les pratiques et le personnel de l'administration communale dans l'Europe napoléonienne’, in Martin, Jean-Clément, ed., Napoléon et l'Europe: colloque de la Roche-sur-Yon (Rennes, 2002)Google Scholar.

48 For France, see Map 3 (ii) in Broers, Europe under Napoleon, p. 73; on the suspension of juries in annexed departments, AN, F1e 1, ‘Départemens’. By contrast, trial by jury was greatly appreciated in the Rhineland: Rowe, Reich to state, p. 107.

49 On the recruitment of local officials in annexed departments, see Dunne, ‘L'Empire au village’.

50 Rowe, Reich to state, p. 98.

51 Article 56 required of primary voters the same oath taken by members of electoral colleges and Grand Dignitaries of the Empire: ‘Constitution de l'an XII (1804)’, in Fierro, A., Palluel-Guillard, A., and Tulard, J., Histoire et dictionnaire du Consulat et de l'Empire (Paris, 1995), p. 672Google Scholar.

52 Woolf, Napoleon's integration, p. 190.

53 For a rare glimpse into this relationship, see Adeline Beaurepaire-Hernandez, ‘Un modèle de notable européen? Les “masses de granit” des départements liguriens et leur intégration au système impérial’, in Antoine, Jessenne, Jourdan, and Leuwers, eds., L'Empire napoléonien, pp. 347–59.

54 de Rivaz, Charles Emmanuel, Mes souvenirs de Paris, 1810–1814: publiés avec une introduction et des notes par Michel Salamin (Martigny, 1967)Google Scholar. Although ‘provisionally’ appointed, there is no reason to think that his role was any different from that of an elected deputy.

55 For example, ibid., pp. 25 and 109–10.

56 Ibid., p. 109.

57 Donnet, André, ‘Personnages du Valais fichés par l'administration française du département du Simplon, 1811’, Vallesia, 41 (1986), pp. 195307Google Scholar, at p. 244.

58 Collins, Irene, Napoleon and his parliaments, 1800–1815 (London, 1979), p. 13Google Scholar.

59 For example, Clack, G. D., ‘The nature of parliamentary elections under the First Empire: the example of the Mont-Tonnerre’, Francia, 12 (1984), pp. 355–70Google Scholar, at pp. 364–5.

60 Richter, Hedwig, ‘A cultural history of elections in the USA and Germany: meanings and functions of elections in the 19th century’, InterDisciplines: Journal of History and Sociology, 2 (2011), pp. 6584Google Scholar, at p. 77 (open access at www.inter-disciplines.org/bghs/index.php/indi/article/viewFile/28/24).

61 AN, F1c iii Trasimène 1, administrative report.

62 Alford, Robert R. and Friedland, Roger, Powers of theory: capitalism, the state, and democracy (Cambridge, 1985), p. 263CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Ginsberg, summarizing Benjamin, The consequences of consent: elections, citizen control and popular acquiescence (Reading, MA, 1982)Google Scholar.

63 Famously articulated in the ‘Declaration of the rights and duties of Man and of citizens’, published as preamble to the Constitution of Year III, esp. Duties: articles 3 and 9.

64 Article 3, senatus consultum, 24 May 1808, Bull., 4e série, viii, 321/3408.

65 ‘Projet de décret sur la mise en activité des lois françaises’, 23 Oct. 1810, online at www.napoleonica.org.

66 ‘Projet de décret relatif à une levée de 1800 conscrits dans les départemens des Bouches-du-Rhin, des Bouches-de-l'Escaut, et dans l'arrondissement de Breda’, 21 Jan. 1811, online at www.napoleonica.org/gerando/GER02451.html.

67 The phrase has been popularized by Burbank, Jane and Cooper, Frederick, Empires in world history: power and the politics of difference (Princeton, NJ, 2010)Google Scholar.

68 Collins, Parliaments, p. 101.

69 Davis, John A., Naples and Napoleon: southern Italy and the European revolutions, 1780–1860 (Oxford and New York, NY, 2006), p. 232Google Scholar; Collins, Parliaments, p. 102.

70 Ibid., p. 101.

71 d'Hauterive, E., La Police secrète du Premier Empire: bulletins quotidiens adressés par Fouché à l'Empereur (5 vols., Paris, 1907–22)Google Scholar, iv (1808–1809), p. 98.

72 Collins, Parliaments, p. 102, and Coppolani, Élections, p. 447 n. 465.

73 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, is excellent on college proceedings in the department but has nothing on cantonal elections; Stubbe da Luz, ‘Élections napoléoniennes’, has a few pages on the latter.

74 Coppolani's title is, after all, Les élections en France.

75 Crook, Malcolm, Elections in the French Revolution: an apprenticeship in democracy, 1789–1799 (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar.

76 Rowe, Reich to state, pp. 111–12.

77 Without actually doing the arithmetic, Coppolani, Élections, p. 231, believes that participation in the 1807 elections in the Moselle ‘everywhere exceeded 80 per cent’ but on our reckoning it was just below 50 per cent: see Table 1b.

78 The median for annexed departments is calculated over a longer period; over the comparable period it comes down to 27 per cent.

79 Cited by de Lanzac de Laborie, Léon, La domination française en Belgique (2 vols., Paris, 1895)Google Scholar, ii, p. 201.

80 AN, F1c iii Trasimène 1, prefect to Interior.

81 For references to Broers's publications dealing with this concept, see nn. 6, 7, and 8 above.

82 AN, F1c iii Simplon 1, 4 Dec. 1812.

83 AN, F1c iii Stura 1, prefect to Interior, 14 Floréal XI (4 May 1803).

84 Cantonal turnout in a dozen metropolitan departments from 1797 to 1799 rarely averaged above 20 per cent: Crook, Elections, p. 139.

85 Bourguet-Rouveyre, Josiane, ‘La survivance d'un système électoral sous le Consulat et l'Empire’, Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 346 (2006), p. 29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 AN, F1c iii Trasimène 1, administrative report.

87 AN, F1c iii Gironde 3, 22 Aug. 1807 and 19 Jan. 1813.

88 AN, F1c iii Taro 1, prefect to Interior, 8 Aug. 1810; in fact the turnout of 27 per cent was relatively high.

89 AN, F1c iii Escaut 3, 2 Apr. 1813.

90 Ladoucette, Baron J. C. F., Voyage fait en 1813 et 1814 dans le pays entre Meuse et Rhin, suivi de notes, avec une carte géographique (Paris, 1818), p. 249Google Scholar.

91 Rowe, Reich to state, p. 255.

92 Crook, Malcolm, ‘Confidence from below? Collaboration and resistance in the Napoleonic plebiscites’, in Rowe, , ed., Collaboration, esp. pp. 33–4Google Scholar.

93 For a positive interpretation, see Dufraisse, Roger, ‘La fin des départements de la rive gauche du Rhin’, in his L'Allemagne à l’époque napoléonienne: questions d'histoire politique, économique et sociale (Bonn, 1992), p. 553Google Scholar, and for the contrary view, Horn, Pierre, ‘Le mythe de l'obéissance de la Moselle napoléonienne, 1811–1814’, Revue historique, 662 (2012), pp. 421–43Google Scholar.

94 Numerous examples of voters turning out in significant numbers to choose candidates for the post of juges de paix testify to the popularity of the extension of this institution to the Empire as a whole. See Logie, Jacques, ‘Les juges de paix dans le département de la Dyle, l'an IV à 1814’, Revue belge d'histoire contemporaine, 28 (1998), pp. 3169Google Scholar, for a rare study of a département-réuni.

95 For example, payment for votes in the arrondissement of Bobbio, in the department of Marengo, denunciation sent to General Menou, in Turin, 2 Messidor 12 (21 June 1804): AN, F1c iii Marengo 1.

96 Garrigou, Alain, Le vote et la vertu: comment les Français sont devenus électeurs (Paris, 1992), p. 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guionnet, Christine, L'apprentissage de la politique moderne: les élections municipales sous la Monarchie de Juillet (Paris, 1997), pp. 25–9Google Scholar.

97 AN, F1c iii Doire 1 (microfilm), prefect to Interior, 20 Vendémiaire XII (13 Oct. 1803).

98 AN, F1c iii Roër 1, sub-prefect of Creveld to prefect, 21 Vendémiaire XII (14 Oct. 1803).

99 Guionnet, L'apprentissage, p. 28.

100 Bull., 19 Fructidor X (6 Sept. 1802), Règlement … relativement aux assemblées cantonales.

101 Moniteur, 22 Thermidor XI (10 Aug. 1803).

102 AN, F1c iii Forêts 3, protestation, canton de Virton, 10 Sept. 1810.

103 AN, F1c iii Trasimène 1, administrative report.

104 Coppolani, Élections, p. 229.

105 AN, F1c iii Dyle 2, prefect to Interior, 12 Nov. 1810.

106 Coppolani, Élections, p. 231.

107 Ibid., n. 659, p. 466.

108 For example, d'Hauterive, Police secrète, ii(1806–1807), p. 34, ‘English agents’/‘chouans’ versus ‘exagérés’, and p. 329, ‘parti patriote’ versus ‘noblesse’.

109 Poullet, Prosper, Les institutions françaises de 1795 à 1814: essai sur les origines des institutions belges contemporaines (Brussels, 1907), p. 594Google Scholar.

110 Rowe, Reich to state, pp. 124–5.

111 Ibid., p. 127.

112 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, pp. 366–7, regarding Mont-Tonnerre, and Collins, Parliaments, p. 101, regarding the Haut-Rhin.

113 Poullet, Institutions, p. 592.

114 Ibid., p. 592.

115 Poullet, Prosper, Quelques notes sur l'esprit publique pendant la domination française, 1795–1814 (Ghent, 1896), p. 55Google Scholar.

116 N. 102 above.

117 Logie, ‘Juges de paix’, pp. 57–8.

118 Rivaz, Souvenirs, p. 151.

119 de Rivaz, Anne-Joseph, Mémoires historiques sur le Valais, 1798–1834 (Lausanne, 1961), p. 317Google Scholar.

120 Donnet, ‘Personnages’, pp. 16 and 41–2; and Biollay, Emile, Le Valais en 1813–1814 et sa politique d'indépendance: la libération et l'occupation d'un département réuni (Martigny, 1970), p. 209Google Scholar.

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122 Constant, Benjamin, Cours de politique constitutionnelle (Brussels, 1837), p. 18Google Scholar.

123 Comprising biographical notices on men on departmental lists drawn up to assist with the selection of presidents of electoral colleges, the multi-volume series Les grands notables du Premier Empire, directed by Bergeron, Louis and Chaussinand-Nogaret, Guy, covers ten annexed departments; Dictionnaire des parlementaires français, comprenant tous les membres des Assemblées françaises et tous les ministres français depuis … 1789 jusqu'au 1er mai, 1889 … Publié sous la direction de MM. A. Robert & G. Cougny (5 vols., Paris, 1889–91)Google Scholar.

124 The same was true during the Revolution: the average turnout in the 1790s at departmental electoral assemblies (whose members were elected for one year, rather than for life) was usually in excess of 80 per cent. See Crook, Malcolm, ‘Masses de granit ou grains de sable? Les électeurs des assemblées départementales sous la Révolution française, 1790–1799’, in Turrel, Denise, ed., Regards sur les sociétés modernes XVIe–VIIIe siècle: melanges offerts à Claude Petitfrère (Tours, 1997), pp. 203–10Google Scholar.

125 Coppolani, Élections, Table 1, between pp. 292 and 293.

126 N. 69 above.

127 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, p. 357.

128 Max Springer, cited in ibid., p. 357.

129 AN, F1c iii Rome 1, 22 Feb. 1812, and prefect to Interior, 20 Sept. 1811.

130 Prefects or presidents of colleges regularly held dinners for members on the eve of sessions; for the connection between membership and nobility in Napoleon's mind, see Coppolani, Élections, pp. 100–1.

131 Cited in Poullet, Institutions, p. 594.

132 Poullet, Esprit public, p. 60.

133 His entry in Dictionnaire des parlementaires, i, p. 576.

134 Ibid., their entries: v, pp. 260 and 313 respectively.

135 Collins, Parliaments, p. 142.

136 Entries for Altieri, Capalti, Nelli, Mariscotti, Scarpellini, Trajetto, and Zaccaléoni in Dictionnaire des parlementaires; Corsini's entry in Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, i, p. 562.

137 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, pp. 365 and 367.

138 D'Hauterive, Police secrète, v (1809–1810), p. 290.

139 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, p. 367.

140 Poullet, Esprit public, p. 67.

141 Of candidates who went on to be elected by the Senate under the Empire, nearly half were fonctionnaires, with sub-prefects particularly conspicuous: ‘Corps législatif’, in Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon, i, pp. 548–9.

142 Poullet, Esprit public, p. 66; d'Hauterive, Police secrète, v (1809–1810), p. 310.

143 Clack, ‘Parliamentary elections’, p. 365.

144 Ibid., p. 367.

145 Rowe, Reich to state, p. 148.

146 Cited in Poullet, Institutions, p. 593.

147 Sagnac, Philippe, Le Rhin français pendant la Révolution et l'Empire (Paris, 1917), p. 257Google Scholar.

148 Rowe, Reich to state, p. 113.

149 Cited in Poullet, Institutions, p. 593.

150 Collins, Parliaments, pp. 104–6; Menant, Fabien, Les députés de Napoléon (Paris, 2012), pp. 235–8Google Scholar; and Garrigues, Jean, ed., Histoire du Parlement de 1789 à nos jours (Paris, 2007), pp. 123–4Google Scholar.

151 AN, F1c iii Roër 2, Procès-verbal des opérations du collège electoral du département de la Roër, 25 Dec. 1809.

152 Ladoucette, Voyage, p. 246.

153 The phrase comes from Rowe, ed., Collaboration, p. 12. Other ‘pragmatists’ include Englund, ‘Monstre sacré’, and Grab, Alexander, ‘Napoleon: a civilizing missionary or a pragmatic imperialist?’, in Selected papers of the consortium on Revolutionary Europe (2007) (High Point, NC, 2008), pp. 238–49Google Scholar.

154 AN, F1c ii 32, schedule of elections, n.d., but 1810.

155 See Barkey, Karen, Empires of difference: the Ottomans in comparative perspective (Cambridge, 2008)Google Scholar.

156 Burbank and Cooper, Empires, p. 8.

157 By contrast, the inhabitants of France's diminishing overseas possessions were in effect deprived of political representation by Article 91 of the Constitution of Year VIII.