Napoleon's coup of 18 Brumaire ends the Revolution

Date

9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire)

Category

Politics & governance

Region

France

Era

Early Modern

Significance

On 9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire, Year VIII) General Napoleon Bonaparte seized power in France in a coup d'état that overthrew the Directory and established the Consulate.

Plotted with Abbé Sieyès and Talleyrand and executed with the aid of Napoleon's brother Lucien, president of the Council of Five Hundred, the largely bloodless coup exploited fears of renewed instability after a decade of revolutionary turmoil. Under the new Constitution of the Year VIII, approved by plebiscite, Napoleon became First Consul with sweeping executive authority, soon consolidated as effective sole ruler and, in 1804, Emperor of the French. Most historians treat the coup as the close of the French Revolution: it preserved revolutionary gains such as the abolition of feudal privilege and legal equality—later codified in the Napoleonic Code—while extinguishing republican self-government. Napoleon's subsequent wars carried revolutionary legal and administrative reforms across Europe even as he established an authoritarian, expansionist empire.

Empires active in 9–10 November 1799 (18–19 Brumaire)

• British Empire
  1583 CE – 1997 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE – 1917 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE – 1912 CE
• Spanish Empire
  1492 CE – 1976 CE
• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE
• Mughal Empire
  1526 CE – 1857 CE

Related politics & governance events

• The storming of the Bastille and the outbreak of the French Revolution
  14 July 1789
• The Reign of Terror
  September 1793 – July 1794
• The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen
  26 August 1789
• Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws and the separation of powers
  1748
• The United States Constitution drafted and ratified
  17 September 1787
• The Declaration of Independence
  4 July 1776

Further reading

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

The wider story

Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire

Roger Crowley

Fast-paced narrative of Portugal's seaborne empire.

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