breach between the state and the Catholic Church that had opened during the Revolution. Such reconciliation would gain the approval of the mass of the French people. The Concordat of Worms in 1801, recognized Catholicism as the religion of the great majority of the French, rather than as the official state religion. This Concordat made his regime acceptable to Catholics and to owners of former church lands. In 1802, Napoleon was made first consul for life, with the right to name his successor. On December 2, 1804, in a magnificent ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French. General, first consul, and then emperor, it was a breathless climb to the heights of power. He was determined never to lose his power. He was not a tyrant; he was essentially an enlightened despot. Napoleon did not identify with the republicanism and democracy of the Jacobins; rather, he belonged to the tradition of eighteenth-century enlightened despotism. Like the reforming despots, he admired administrative uniformity and efficiency, disliked feudalism, religious persecution, and civil inequality, and favored government regulation of trade and industry. The disastrous defeat of the Prussian at Jena in 1806 and French domination of Germany s

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Paris Napoleon, Corsica August, Revolution Prussia, Moscow Russians, Austrians Napoleon, Concordat Worms, Elba March, Prussian Jena, Russia Fighting, French Revolution, grand army, neman river, french revolution, french army, paris napoleon, lonely island,