First Consul

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

The Consulate was the government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804. By extension, the term The Consulate also refers to this period of French history.

During this period, Napoleon Bonaparte, as First Consul, established himself as the head of a more authoritarian, , and centralized 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." Napoleon brought authoritarian personal rule which has been viewed as military dictatorship.

French military disasters in 1798 and 1799 had shaken the Directory, and eventually shattered it. Historians sometimes date the start of the political downfall of the Directory to 18 June 1799 (30 Prairial Year VII by the French Republican calendar), when Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès with the help of Paul Barras successfully rid himself of the other then-sitting directors. An irregularity emerged in the election of Jean Baptiste Treilhard, who retired in favor of Louis Jérôme Gohier. Within days, Philippe-Antoine Merlin (Merlin de Douai) and Louis-Marie de La Revellière (La Révellière-Lépeaux) were driven to resign; Baron Jean-François-Auguste Moulin and Roger Ducos replaced them. The three new directors were generally seen as non-entities.