Creating an Empire - The First Consul

On april thirteenth, 18 o four, for the first time, the issue of creating an empire was allowed to be raised within the council of state. Although napoleon left the room and recused himself from the very beginning of these debates, the idea was always to create an empire, not a kingdom. Despite bonaparte's big show of recusing himself, his wishes were clear, and his opinion was the only one that really mattered. In fact, there was no talk of any significant changes to the french political structure. There was no discussion of throwing out the consulate constitution, or even of adding any new amendments. Quite literally, franc was already an empire in all but