Napoleon's Reaction
In reaction to the attempt on Napoleon's life, 130 prominent Jacobins had been exiled. On 10 Pluviôse Year IX of the French Republic (January 30, 1801) the four “daggers conspirators” – Ceracchi, Aréna, Topino-Lebrun and Demerville – who had been found guilty of plotting to murder the First Consul and condemned to death, were guillotined. Bonaparte had got rid of his remaining Jacobin enemies.
Their deaths, however, did not spell an end to plots against Napoleon. The royalists were still after him, and he saw plotters everywhere, especially in Corsica. The political journalist Roederer claimed that Napoleon told him, “If I die in four or five years, the clock will be wound up and will run. If I die before then, I don’t know what will happen.” One biographer, however, believed that so many Frenchmen needed Bonaparte and feared for his life that their fear made it possible for him to become Emperor of the French within three years.
Read more about this topic: Plot Of The Rue Saint-Nicaise
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“Napoleon wanted to turn Paris into Rome under the Caesars, only with louder music and more marble. And it was done. His architects gave him the Arc de Triomphe and the Madeleine. His nephew Napoleon III wanted to turn Paris into Rome with Versailles piled on top, and it was done. His architects gave him the Paris Opera, an addition to the Louvre, and miles of new boulevards.”
—Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
“The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposite direction.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)