<P> In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte was confronted by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès--one of five Directors constituting the executive branch of the French government--who sought his support for a coup d'état to overthrow the Constitution of the Year III . The plot included Bonaparte's brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, and Talleyrand . On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire (VIII under the French Republican Calendar)) and the following day, troops led by Bonaparte seized control . They dispersed the legislative councils, leaving a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government . Although Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, the Consulate, he was outmaneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul . He thus became the most powerful person in France, a power that was increased by the Constitution of the Year X, which made him First Consul for life . </P> <P> The Battle of Marengo (14 June 1800) inaugurated the political idea that was to continue its development until Napoleon's Moscow campaign . Napoleon planned only to keep the Duchy of Milan for France, setting aside Austria, and was thought to prepare a new campaign in the East . The Peace of Amiens, which cost him control of Egypt, was a temporary truce . He gradually extended his authority in Italy by annexing the Piedmont and by acquiring Genoa, Parma, Tuscany and Naples, and added this Italian territory to his Cisalpine Republic . Then he laid siege to the Roman state and initiated the Concordat of 1801 to control the material claims of the pope . When he recognised his error of raising the authority of the pope from that of a figurehead, Napoleon produced the Articles Organiques (1802) with the goal of becoming the legal protector of the papacy, like Charlemagne . To conceal his plans before their actual execution, he aroused French colonial aspirations against Britain and the memory of the 1763 Treaty of Paris, exacerbating British envy of France, whose borders now extended to the Rhine and beyond, to Hanover, Hamburg and Cuxhaven . Napoleon would have ruling elites from a fusion of the new bourgeoisie and the old aristocracy . </P> <P> On 12 May 1802, the French Tribunat voted unanimously, with the exception of Carnot, in favour of the Life Consulship for the leader of France . This action was confirmed by the Corps Législatif . A general plebiscite followed thereafter resulting in 3,653,600 votes aye and 8,272 votes nay . On 2 August 1802 (14 Thermidor, An X), Napoleon Bonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life . </P> <P> Pro-revolutionary sentiment swept through Germany aided by the "Recess of 1803", which brought Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden to France's side . William Pitt the Younger, back in power over Britain, appealed once more for an Anglo - Austro - Russian coalition against Napoleon to stop the ideals of revolutionary France from spreading . </P>

Who established the french empire and tried to conquer europe