French Consulate

French Consulate Consulat français
Executive government of the French First Republic
The three consuls, Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Napoleon Bonaparte and Charles-François Lebrun (left to right) by Auguste Couder
History
Established	10 November 1799
Disbanded	18 May 1804
Preceded by	French Directory
Succeeded by	First French Empire (with Napoleon Bonaparte as emperor)

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The Consulate (French: Le Consulat) was the top-level government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the French Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to this period of French history.

During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul (Premier consul), established himself as the head of a more autocratic and centralised republican government in France while not declaring himself sole ruler. Due to the long-lasting institutions established during these years, Robert B. Holtman has called the consulate "one of the most important periods of all French history."^[1] By the end of this period, Bonaparte had engineered an authoritarian personal rule now viewed as a military dictatorship.^[2]