Constitution of the Year XII
French Senate adopts the Constitution of Year XII, making Napoleon hereditary Emperor of the French
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗The article that created the Empire still called France a Republic — its government was now "entrusted to an Emperor" — and it took effect before the public vote on hereditary empire had been counted.
28 Floréal, Year XII
On 28 Floréal Year XII — 18 May 1804 — the Sénat conservateur adopted an organic sénatus-consulte creating the hereditary Empire.
Article I entrusted the government of the Republic to an emperor bearing the title "Emperor of the French." Article II named the sitting First Consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, to that office.
The constitutional title was Emperor of the French, not Emperor of France, and republican wording persisted in official usage for a while afterwards.
Three against, two abstaining
The Senate approved the measure with three votes against and two abstentions — nearly unanimous rather than unanimous.
Jean-Jacques-Régis de Cambacérès had prepared the constitutional project, and Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis presented it to the Senate two days before the vote.
At Cambacérès's insistence the sénatus-consulte took effect immediately instead of waiting for the plebiscite on hereditary empire, whose results were counted later.
December confirmed what May had already done
The imperial dignity was made hereditary through Napoleon's legitimate male descendants, with Joseph Bonaparte's and then Louis Bonaparte's male lines designated as fallbacks. Women and their descendants were barred perpetually from the succession, and the constitution set an emperor's age of majority at 18.
Officials were required to swear fidelity to the Emperor from that point.
Napoleon was crowned at Notre-Dame in Paris on 2 December 1804 — a consecration of a status the Senate had already created in law.
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Checked against
- Organic Sénatus-Consulte of 28 Floréal Year XII
- The proclamation of Empire, 18 May 1804
- From Life Consulship to the Hereditary Empire, 1802–1804
- Under the Senate of the Empire
- The Egyptian Campaign
- Treaty of Lunéville—historical introduction and text
- French Women and Feminists in History: The Nineteenth Century