| This article is part of a series on |
 |
|---|
 Franceportal |
A referendum concerning the establishment of the French Empire was held in France in June 1804. [1] The result showed a virtually unanimous French electorate approving the change in Napoleon Bonaparte's status from First Consul to Emperor of the French, although the votes are assumed to have been manipulated. [2] [3] [4]
The plebiscite, provided for by article 142 of the Sénatus-consulte , relates to the question of the imperial succession as defined in the Constitution of 1804, which established the First Empire. The vote was public, permitting neither blank votes nor invalid ones.
The counting of the votes ended in 2 August and the results were announced in 6 November. [1] A coronation ceremony was held a month later, on 2 December.
| Choice | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|
 Yes | 3,521,675 | 99.93 |
| No | 2,579 | 0.07 |
| Total votes | 3,524,254 | 100.00 |
| Source: [5] | ||
| No : 2,579(0.07%) | Yes : 3,521,675(99.93%) | ||
| ▲ | |||
The Louisiana Purchase was the acquisition of the territory of Louisiana by the United States from the French First Republic in 1803. This consisted of most of the land in the Mississippi River's drainage basin west of the river. In return for fifteen million dollars, or approximately eighteen dollars per square mile, the United States nominally acquired a total of 828,000 sq mi now in the Central United States. However, France only controlled a small fraction of this area, most of which was inhabited by Native Americans; effectively, for the majority of the area, the United States bought the preemptive right to obtain Indian lands by treaty or by conquest, to the exclusion of other colonial powers.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.
In the history of France, the First Republic, sometimes referred to in historiography as Revolutionary France, and officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire on 18 May 1804 under Napoléon Bonaparte, although the form of government changed several times.
Napoleon III was the first president of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as the second Emperor of the French from 1852 until he was deposed on 4 September 1870.
Napoleon Bonaparte, later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military officer and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led a series of successful campaigns across Europe during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from 1796 to 1815. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1814, and briefly again in 1815.
The Consulate was the top-level government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 9 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.
The French colonial empire comprised the overseas colonies, protectorates, and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First French colonial empire", that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost or sold, and the "Second French colonial empire", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830. On the eve of World War I, France's colonial empire was the second-largest in the world after the British Empire.
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, was a British Tory statesman who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1804 and as Speaker of the House of Commons from 1789 to 1801.
The history of the British Isles began with its sporadic human habitation during the Palaeolithic from around 900,000 years ago. The British Isles has been continually occupied since the early Holocene, the current geological epoch, which started around 11,700 years ago. Mesolithic hunter-gatherers migrated from the Continent soon afterwards at a time when there was no sea barrier between Britain and Europe, but there was between Britain and Ireland. There were almost complete population replacements by migrations from the Continent at the start of the Neolithic around 4,100 BC and the Bronze Age around 2,500 BC. Later migrations contributed to the political and cultural fabric of the islands and the transition from tribal societies to feudal ones at different times in different regions.
A referendum on creating an Islamic Republic was held in Iran on 30 and 31 March 1979. Ayatollah Khomeini did not allow an open referendum, insisting that the Iranian population had chosen an "Islamic Republic" already by demonstrating against the Shah. In response, political parties such as the National Democratic Front and the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillas boycotted the referendum.
A referendum ratifying the new constitution of the Consulate, which made Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul for life, was held on 10 May 1802. The question asked to the voters was: "Should Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?". Out of an electorate of 7 million, 3,653,600 voted in favor, and 8,374 voted against.
A referendum ratifying the constitution of the French consulate was held in February 1800. The official results, as announced by Lucien Bonaparte, Minister of the Interior and brother of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, were 99.9% in favor of the new constitution, with 53.74% of voters abstaining. However, evidence brought to light by the French historian Claude Langlois in 1972 demonstrated conclusively that Lucien massaged the votes in favor of the constitution, adding up to 20,000 'yes' votes in individual localities, and that there were therefore only some 1,550,000 actual votes for the change.
A referendum on re-establishing the Empire was held in France on 21 and 22 November 1852. Voters were asked whether they approved of the re-establishment of the Empire in the person of Louis Napoléon Bonaparte and family. It was approved by 96.9% of voters with a 79.8% turnout. As with other plebiscites under Napoleon III, the results were rigged and only served to legitimize their rule under a false sense of democracy.
A constitutional referendum on the Charter of 1815 of the First French Empire, with Napoleon I restored to power in place of Louis XVIII, was held on 22 April 1815. Like in previous French referendums, the officially announced result was nearly unanimous. Out of seven and a half million eligible voters, 79% abstained that day. Compared to the 1804 referendum, the yes vote had a net loss 2 million votes.
The First French Empire or French Empire and also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 4 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815, when Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena.
A referendum on Maximilian becoming Emperor was held in Mexico on 4 December 1863. The proposal was supposedly approved by 100% of voters, with not a single vote cast against. Maximilian subsequently took the throne on 11 April 1864, starting the era of the Second Mexican Empire.
The Émile Ollivier ministry was the penultimate government of the Second French Empire. Led by Émile Ollivier, a republican opponent of the Empire, it was initially composed of moderate bonapartists and orléanists. However following the constitutional referendum on 8 May liberal members of the cabinet resigned and were replaced with politicians of a more authoritarian type. It lasted from 2 January 1870 until 10 August 1870, on the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, when it was replaced by the Cousin-Montauban ministry. It was often referred to at the time as the Ministry of 2 January.
The Champ de Mai was a public assembly held by Napoleon on the Champ de Mars, Paris, a large open area near the École militaire, on 1 June 1815. This was during the Hundred Days, the period between Napoleon's return from exile and the restoration of the Bourbon kings following his failed Waterloo campaign. The objective of the Champ de Mai was to gather public support behind Napoleon's Charter of 1815, a constitutional reform that promised a more liberal government than under his earlier rule. The Charter was put to the citizens in a constitutional referendum and the results of this would be announced during the ceremony by representatives of the electoral college.
