The War Against the Insurrectionary Movement in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Creation of a System of Social Control in the Time of Napoleon

Abstract

The insurrectionary movement in the former exclave of the Sardinian kingdom — the county of Nice, began in 1792, immediately after the conquest by the French army, as a reaction to military violence, requisitions and robberies of the local population. The author of the article shows how and by what means this popular anti-revolutionary movement was suppressed in the first years of Napoleon's Consulate. As during the Directory, the government initially relied on forceful methods of suppressing the insurgents and “brigandage”. The civil administration, appointed by Napoleon as early as March 1800, took a different stance. The course towards establishing social peace and political reconciliation required other methods. The authorities tried to force and interest the local elites and the population to dissociate themselves from the rebels and achieved quick success in this. Now a fine selection was carried out: the ringleaders were severely punished, but not ordinary members of the “bands”. Special courts, which worked simultaneously with military tribunals, also acted in the same direction. The national guard was revived, and in some cases re-created in rural communes. As a result, a system of social control was created and the rural oligarchies began to support the new regime, but the cost of this success was the local civil war of 1800—1801, which probably claimed several thousand lives. The remnants of the rebels, excluded from society, marginalized, turned into criminal robbers from the main road, but the threat of the revival of the insurgent movement bothered the authorities even later. The article is based on materials from the National Archives of France, a report to the government of A. Français from Nantes in 1801 and other materials. In the article the author analyzes the different approaches of French historians to the problem of “brigandage” in the Mediterranean region during the period of Napoleon's Consulate.