French Consulate

State · 1800–1804 CE · at its largest around 1800 CE

The government of France led by three consuls after Napoleon Bonaparte's 1799 coup, with Napoleon as First Consul, until he crowned himself emperor in 1804.

On its lands while it lasted

Palmyra (c. 261–1929 CE): Capital of Palmyrene Empire (261–269).
Janissaries (c. 1363–1826 CE): Sultan Murad I created the Janissaries around 1363 as an elite Ottoman infantry corps, later filled through the devshirme levy of Christian boys. They grew into a powerful political force until Mahmud II abolished the corps in 1826.
Kingdom of Kongo (c. 1390–1914 CE): Central African kingdom with its capital at Mbanza Kongo; after Portuguese contact in 1483 its rulers adopted Christianity, and it later became deeply entangled in the Atlantic slave trade.
Slave trade, Angola to Brazil (c. 1550–1850 CE): The largest single branch of the Atlantic slave trade carried millions of captives from West Central Africa, above all Luanda, directly to Brazilian ports such as Salvador and Rio de Janeiro, until Brazil ended imports in 1850.
Kingdom of Dahomey (c. 1600–1904 CE): Fon kingdom centred on Abomey in present-day Benin, known for its female soldiers and its role in the Atlantic slave trade; conquered by France in 1894.
Oyo Empire (c. 1600–1836 CE): Yoruba state that rose to dominate much of present-day western Nigeria and Benin from the 17th century using cavalry, before collapsing in the 1830s.
Ashanti Empire (1701–1901 CE): Akan state founded by Osei Tutu with its capital at Kumasi, which grew wealthy on gold and trade and resisted British expansion in a series of wars.
Francisco Goya (1746 CE – 1828 CE): Spanish painter and printmaker, court painter in Madrid, whose work runs from royal portraits to the Disasters of War and the Black Paintings.
Edward Jenner (1749 CE – 1823 CE): English country doctor in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, who in 1796 showed that inoculation with cowpox protected against smallpox, pioneering vaccination.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 CE – 1832 CE): German poet, playwright, novelist and scientist who lived in Weimar from 1775. Author of Faust and The Sorrows of Young Werther.
Napoleon (1769 CE – 1821 CE): Corsican-born general who seized power in France in 1799 and crowned himself Emperor in 1804. He conquered much of Europe before his defeat in 1815 and died in exile on Saint Helena.
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 CE – 1827 CE): Composer born in Bonn who worked in Vienna from 1792. Despite growing deafness he wrote works bridging the Classical and Romantic eras.
Jane Austen (1775 CE – 1817 CE): English novelist whose six novels, including Pride and Prejudice (1813) and Emma (1815), portray the lives of the landed gentry with wit and irony.
Victor Hugo (1802 CE – 1885 CE): French poet, novelist and dramatist of the Romantic movement, author of Notre-Dame de Paris (1831) and Les Misérables (1862), who spent nearly twenty years in exile as an opponent of Napoleon III.
Coronation of Napoleon (1804 CE): On 2 December 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French in Notre-Dame de Paris, in the presence of Pope Pius VII. He placed the crown on his own head and then crowned Joséphine as empress.