(The following article first appeared in the October-November 2022 newsletter of The Napoleonic Historical Society. I am presenting it here to in an effort to reach as many readers as possible for this little discussed topic.)

The safety and security of a people is the bedrock of any successful society. To achieve this, structured governments establish laws to guide the society along with measures of policing to ensure that said laws are obeyed, be they the Constables of England to the police officers of the United States. French policing under Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) utilized various forces to not only maintain the peace and to enforce its laws, but to ensure compliance with edicts and proclamations. Policing and security in Napoleonic France and its territories was an evolved extension of governmental control to suppress and eliminate political dissent while enforcing Napoleon’s mandates.

In the years preceding Napoleon’s political ascendency, law and order was maintained by the authority of the Maréchaussée of the ancien régime of the Bourbon aristocracy which would be renamed the Gendarmerie Nationalearound 1791.[1]  The Maréchaussée were for all purposes a uniformed royal force, acting on the whims of the monarchy with their priorities being the safekeeping of the country’s main roads and the occasional excursion into the countryside. The force in its entirety never numbered more than a 2-3,000 and was ineffective as to foreseeing the events of the coming Revolution and downfall of the French monarchy. Joseph Fouché (1759-1820), Napoleon’s Minister of Police, would go on to say: “’The Crown only succumbed in 1789 because of the inefficacy of the police, those in office being incapable of unmasking the plots which threatened the royal house.’”[2]

The ancien régime also made use of a secret police of sorts that had been put in place since the time of Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642). Unlike the political motivations of similar organizations, this group was more focused on the “private affairs” of citizens and to “suppress private disorders, lest they should spread and give rise to scandal.”[3] The members of this force, right up until the time of the Revolution, were closely intertwined with the judiciary and therefore were able to investigate matters ranging from those of a religious nature to those that were publishing books of political dissent.

The rebranding and reinvigoration of the Maréchaussée into that of the Gendarmerie Nationale was extensively built upon under Napoleon. Upon assuming power in late 1799, Napoleon inherited a corps that numbered 10,564 men who were spread throughout 24 territorial divisions within France.[4] The gendarmerie needed to be greatly expanded for them to be properly effective, so Napoleon did so by adding over 200 new brigades in western France alone so that by 1801, they would number over 15,000 with a mounted-to-foot ratio of two-thirds to one.[5]

This newly expanded corps underwent vast quality changes as well to combat the rampant thievery and brigandage that was occurring throughout the country. Napoleon believed policing and security should be built upon a strong image of imperial power and to do that, he needed his gendarmerie to be as effective as possible. Immediately, Napoleon set stricter regulations and requirements for joining the gendarmerie to raise its status and trustworthiness among the people. A standard was set that gendarmes should be at least six foot tall, literate (which was extremely difficult early on), ideally be free of any previous disciplinary issues and have had experience in the regular army.

Taking this further, Napoleon set an expectation that these gendarmes would always present an air of impartiality to the locales they served and to raise the standard further established three guidelines for them to abide by. First, the Gendarmerie and their families would reside in barracks. Second, gendarmes would be from locations different than where they were policing, no locals. Third, gendarmes answered only to the Minister of War, taking civilian authorities out of any oversight. Additionally, the force was redeployed throughout the country in brigades of “units of six to ten men” which allowed the force to more effectively police and manage the vast parcels of rural towns and villages.[6] In centralizing the control of the policing components of the country, Napoleon could more effectively wield it as a personal extension of his power. 

Top Right: “Portrait of Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu,” Wikipedia.org. 

Middle Left: “Joseph Fouché, duc d’Otrante, Napoleon’s ruthless Minister of Police,” Napoleon-empire.net.

Bottom Right: “Engraving of the explosion of the “infernal machine” assassination plot on 24 December 1800,” Nationalgeographic.co.uk.

Bottom Center: “Imperial Gendarmerie of Paris, 1813. A print by Francois Cudet, 1887,” Ageofstock.com.

The concept of a police service separate from that of the gendarmerie was inherited by Napoleon as well. This civilian-centric force would grow to be in every town of at least 5,000 inhabitants and would have a commissaire de police appointed by the Paris-based, Ministry of General Police.[7] These civilian police were greatly enhanced in their authority under Napoleon as they could call upon the strength and power of the Gendarmerie to make arrests and to generally enforce their authority within their communities. Since commissaire de police were appointed by the State, this also afforded Napoleon and his officials more oversight of them, which allowed for more control, as its members were typically ex-Revolutionaries and those with strong and highly charged political pasts. Again, more centralized control and oversight of a critical security apparatus.

It was necessary to have someone of incredible drive and ruthlessness to directly oversee such an extensive civilian police operation and Napoleon did not have to look far. One of the conspirators of Brumaire that helped sweep Napoleon into power and whom he would retain as his Minister of Police (several times over) was that of the unscrupulous Joseph Fouché, duc d’Otrante. Fouché was 

a creature of opportunity, having gone from being a fervent member of the Convention who vociferously called for the execution of the king, to denouncing his Jacobin views during the coup of 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) to his appointment as Minister of Police in 1799 by the Directory.[8] Being on the “right” side of the coup ingratiated him with Napoleon, who retained his services as Minister of Police, albeit with a suspicious eye.

 Fouché believed strongly that police should provide safety and security for all citizens which often required a strong focus on preventing situations from occurring.  This emphasis on prevention served as his justification in applying any measure necessary in achieving this goal, often resulting in impositions on personal liberties including surveillance and detention. The ends justified the means with Fouché, which fit perfectly under the rule of Napoleon.

The Minister had deep and pervasive connections throughout Paris and beyond, having carefully cultivated and recruited spies that were made up of everyone from peddlers, butchers, and hairdressers to bartenders, royalists, and even Louis XVI’s (1754-1793) former valet.[9] This network along with his singlemindedness to apply them to achieve the mission was a source of immense value for Napoleon who would go on to say that “’Fouché, and Fouché alone, is able to conduct the ministry of police. We cannot create such men; we must take as we find.’”[10]

This network would prove useful many times over, but especially so on 24 December 1800. First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, his wife, family, and friends were to attend the Opera not far from the Tuileries that night. The party took two coaches, one with Napoleon, Jean Lannes and others along with a cavalry escort proceeding first, followed by Josephine and her guests and entourage. In between Napoleon’s coach arriving at the theater and Josephine’s that was making her way behind, a massive bomb that was built into a barrel on a cart exploded. Missing Napoleon by mere seconds, its intended target, the bomb killed at least five people and injured up to fifty-two in the area, including one of Napoleon’s escorts.[11]

 Fouché, though initially decrying it as an act of attempted assassination by Jacobines which led to more than 100 being exiled, put his network to work in uncovering the true culprits. His efforts soon discovered that the “Infernal Machine” plot as it became known due to the created bomb device, uncovered that the true masterminds were the French military veterans Pierre Robinault de Saint-Regent and Joseph-Pierre Picot de Limoelan and the royalist insurgent Carbon. Fouché soon had Saint-Regent and Carbon in custody with both being guillotined on 21 April 1801.[12]Limoelan managed to escape Fouché and his dragnet and to never be seen again.

The police apparatus of France under Fouché had stayed busy in uncovering plots against Napoleon beginning in September of 1800 when seventeen men were arrested for plotting the assassination of the First Consul. Following this in early October a plot to stab Napoleon when he left the Opera was uncovered, followed by twelve people being arrested for plotting to throw grenades into his passing carriage just mere weeks later. Early November saw yet another foiled attempt when Fouché and his police arrested a royalist Chevalier who was plotting to kill the First Consul with a multi-firing gun. All told, Fouché and his police would go on to foil over ten plots against Napoleon within his first year in power alone, with the “Infernal Machine” coming the closest to seceding.[13]

The internal security arms of France were utilized in other important measures in addition to uncovering anti-Napoleon plots and sentiments. Among them was the censoring or closing of dozens of newspapers that Napoleon determined were contrary to his interests and therefore could not be allowed to operate. Years later Napoleon would say that “’a free press may become a strong ally’” if it were “’controlled by the government.’”[14]  Knowing the full power of the press to make or break a political figure such as himself, Napoleon took direct and strong action to exercise control of their messaging. In an age of no true sense of freedom of speech, Napoleon’s actions were very much standard practices of the time by someone in power.

The security measures of the Gendarmerie became increasingly important in their role of power projection and control in newly conquered territories. As France moved from a posture of stabilization and having pushed back its enemies from its borders during Napoleon’s time as First Consul to that of the aggressiveness of the First Empire, new areas would fall under its sway. These new lands presented an opportunity to bring the culture of the French to them, so the Gendarmerie were dispatched to these lands to establish French “cultural superiority.”[15]

The Gendarmerie were expected to exemplify Napoleons will and values throughout the empire, especially in new lands, but often were seen as colonial occupiers. Being that as it may, the Gendarmerie faced frequent and violent uprisings to French control, be it Piedmont, Tuscany, or the Papal states, which they would forcefully and with extreme prejudice, stamp out. In extreme cases, the police and Gendarmerie worked together to identify key instigators that had to be arrested and their followers defeated, with the help of the regular army, if necessary. Napoleon knew that “every nonconformist attitude represented an attack on [his] legitimacy.”[16] These circumstances would find Fouché and his 1810 replacement and former bodyguard of Napoleon, Jean Marie Savary, Duke of Rovigo (1774-1833) working closely with the Gendarmerie to project the power and authority of Napoleon and the central government to all borders of the empire, no matter how obscure or remote.

As an evolving and growing Imperial state, France needed a constant supply of men to replenish its armies as well as a reliable tax base from which to fund its costly wars. Therefore, with the occupation and “French pacification” of newly won lands, the Imperial security forces led by the Gendarmerie were continuously tasked with enforcing conscription mandates while the police worked with local officials to identify and incarcerate (or eliminate) local troublemakers. This entire process would prove to be successful overall in exercising Napoleon’s will into the reaches of the empire, especially in those locations where the French had a longer material presence such as in central Germany.

When a periphery of the empire showed a strong resistance to its new French overseers, such as that evidenced in the urban resistance of Zaragoza in 1808 to the open revolts that accompanied the annexation of Holland in 1810, the Gendarmerie developed new tactics to achieve success. It quickly became apparent to Napoleon that revolts to his rule had to be dealt with swiftly oftentimes with a counterinsurgency. Therefore, the French established a “colonnne mobile” shock tactic where Gendarmerie units, built around a “core of experienced regular troops” melded with less experience troops would engage and displace rebels with expediency and urgency.[17] These units were built around the regular French army corps model, containing infantry, mobile artillery and cavalry and were capable of engaging rebels in open combat or even limited sieges. This tactic and unit formation, while never intended to seek and destroy all opposition, became an effective tool in combating revolts and insurgents in French territories by constantly harassing key rebel units and destroying them where possible.

The Gendarmerie further combated political dissent within French territories by its very presence. When bigger revolts and organized units of resistance to Napoleonic rule became broken and splintered, their offshoots typically resorted to common banditry, thievery, and kidnapping. As the Gendarmerie were on constant and ever-present patrols within these territories, these broken counter-revolutionary guerillas and their brigantine actions worked against them with local populations. The erosion of public support for these guerillas would begin to enhance the standing of the occupying Gendarmerie who were regularly combating them to foster order and security for the locals.

Internal security, with its two arms of the Gendarmerie and police, were always vital components to Napoleon’s wielding of power. Napoleon saw the Gendarmerie as a means to bind the parts of the French empire together through the imposing visage and presence of its men, while the police would serve to be the quiet, preferably unseen glue that kept it together.

The Gendarmerie became the great colonizers for Napoleon and the empire, bore the brunt of the visible pacifications and compliance issues required of the emperor. Whether it was in the dusty heat of the heartland of Spain, the mountainous terrain of Italy or the inhospitable environs of Russia, the Gendarmerie served as both the enforcers and the example of French civilization. Napoleon viewed the Gendarmerie as the preeminent example of what represented French imperial greatness from martial glory to civic duty and as such, they were deployed throughout the empire. Their appearance in a territory was affirmation that Napoleon’s rule was now the law of the land. 

The legitimacy of the empire was seemingly always in question by the opposition, be they internal or external and therefore every function of policing was utilized to reassert it. In Fouché, Napoleon found a highly effective enforcer of the law (at least in as much as Fouché went along with it) who viewed the police as “’the regulating power which is felt everywhere, without ever being seen and which, at the centre of the state, holds the place which the power which sustains the harmony of the celestial bodies holds in the universe, a power whose regularity strikes us although we are unable to divine the cause…’”[18] Fouché, though morally pliable and self-aggrandizing, was ruthlessly effective in uncovering plots against the crown and state, be they the Directorate, Emperor Napoleon or the restored Bourbon monarchy with Louis XVIII (1755-1824).

As the turbulence of the Revolution subsided with the rise of Napoleon, matters of internal security took on a new and profound importance. Centralizing and forcefully applying the available aspects of policing from the Gendarmerie to the civilian police, allowed Napoleon to establish a security apparatus that first pacified France, policed its conquests, and most importantly, sought to serve as a direct extension of his political aims and influence of millions of people.

Notes

[1] Peter Hicks, “The Napoleonic ‘police’ or ‘security state’ in context,” Napoleonica. La Revue 4, no. 1 (2009): 5, https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-napoleonica-la-revue-2009-1-page-2.htm.

[2] Yves Lévy and Valence Ionescu, “Policy and Policy,” Government and Opposition 1, no.4 (1966): 488.http://www.jstor.org/stable/44484203.

[3] Ibid., 488.

[4] Peter Hicks, “The Napoleonic ‘police’ or ‘security state’ in context,” Napoleonica. La Revue 4, no. 1 (2009): 5, https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-napoleonica-la-revue-2009-1-page-2.htm.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Michael Broers, "The Napoleonic police and their legacy, " History Today, 5 (1999): 28, https://www.proquest.com/magazines/napoleonic-police-their-legacy/docview/202814185/se-2?accountid=8289.

[7] Ibid., 29.

[8] Philip J. Haythornthwaite, Who Was Who In The Napoleonic Wars (London, UK: Arms & Armour, 1998), 119.

[9] Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 215.

[10] Ibid., 215.

[11] Tom Holmber and Max Sewell, “The Infernal Machine,” The Napoleon Series, accessed October 20, 2021, https://www.napoleonseries.org/research/miscellaneous/c_infernal.html.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014), 288.

[14] Ibid., 243.

[15] Michael Broers, “The Napoleonic Gendarmerie: The State on the Periphery Made Real,” Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies 20, no. 1 (2016): 93, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44985430.

[16] Yves Lévy and Valence Ionescu, “Policy and Policy,” Government and Opposition 1, no.4 (1966): 507.http://www.jstor.org/stable/44484203.

[17] Michael Broers, “The Napoleonic Gendarmerie: The State on the Periphery Made Real,” Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies 20, no. 1 (2016): 100, https://www.jstor.org/stable/44985430.

[18] Yves Lévy and Valence Ionescu, “Policy and Policy,” Government and Opposition 1, no.4 (1966): 507.http://www.jstor.org/stable/44484203.

Bibliography

Broers, Michael. “The Napoleonic Police and Their Legacy.” History Today 5, (1999): 27-33. https://www.proquest.com/magazines/napoleonic-police-their-legacy/docview/202814185/se-2?accountid=8289.

Broers, Michael. “The Napoleonic Gendarmerie: The State on the Periphery Made Real.” Crime, Histoire & Sociétés / Crime, History & Societies 20, no. 1 (2016): 91-105. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44985430.

Haythornthwaite, Philip J. Who Was Who In The Napoleonic Wars. London, UK: Arms & Armour, 1998. 

Hicks, Peter. “The Napoleonic ‘police’ or ‘security state’ in context.” Napoleonica. La Revue 4, no. 1 (2009): 2-10. https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-napoleonica-la-revue-2009-1-page-2.htm.

Holmberg, Tom, and Max Sewell. “The Infernal Machine.” The Napoleon Series. Accessed October 20, 2021.https://www.napoleonseries.org/research/miscellaneous/c_infernal.html. 

Lévy, Yves, and Valence Ionescu. “Police and Policy.” Government and Opposition 1, no. 4 (1966): 487-510. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44484203.

Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A Life. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 2014.