Not content with these
advantages, Bonaparte determined thoroughly to terrorize the royalists:
by military force he seized a young Bourbon prince, the due d'Enghien,
on German soil, and without a particle of proof against him put him to
death.
[Sidenote: Transformation of the Consulate into the Empire]
In 1802 a plebiscite had bestowed the Consulate on Bonaparte for life.
Now there was little more to do than to make the office hereditary and
to change its name. This alteration was proposed in 1804 by the
subservient Senate and promptly ratified by an overwhelming popular
vote. On 2 December, 1804, amid imposing ceremonies in the ancient
cathedral of Notre Dame, in the presence of Pope Pius VII, who had come
all the way from Rome to grace the event, General Bonaparte placed a
crown upon his own head and assumed the title of Napoleon I, emperor of
the French.
THE FRENCH EMPIRE AND ITS TERRITORIAL EXPANSION
[Sidenote: The French Empire a Continuation of the First French
Republic]
The establishment of the empire was by no means a break in French
history.
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