Consulte de Lyon

• 1. Introduction

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  The Consulte de Lyon opened in January 1802 as an extraordinary meeting called to represent the Cisalpine Republic. Bonaparte had helped create that Italian state after his first Italian military campaign. It was held during the French Consulate, drawing hundreds of Italian deputies to a converted chapel in Lyon, far from their home territories. By the time the meeting closed, the republic they represented looked nothing like it had at the start. Bonaparte himself had taken on a role that no vote back in Italy had ever given him. What looked like a parliament reaching its own decisions had, in practice, been arranged well before any deputy set foot in Lyon. Two rival Italian statesmen were each handed the chance to lead the proceedings. Who took charge instead, who refused the honor, and who never lived to take a seat are questions the record answers in detail.

• 2. Assembly By Design

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  Four hundred and fifty two deputies were named to represent the Cisalpine Republic at the consulta. That scale made the invitation look like a genuine parliament. Bonaparte, acting as first consul, drew delegates from Lombardy, Mantua, Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, Cremona, and Rovigo, plus the duchy of Modena, Massa, and Carrara. He also summoned three legations centered on Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna. Despite that scale, the gathering functioned less as a genuine constituent assembly than as a rehearsed performance of one. Its membership had been vetted by Bonaparte beforehand, and its agenda was imposed rather than debated. Pressure was applied throughout to secure approval of Bonaparte's wishes.

  On the 26th of January, the consulta convened in the presence of French ministers, generals, and major functionaries, with Joséphine also attending. In the days before that session, Bonaparte had received deputations from towns and departments near Lyon while the consulta carried on its own business. The gathering took place in the chapel of the Jesuit College of the Trinity, a building known today as the lycée Ampère. There Bonaparte presided over the delegates and rose to address them. His choice of words carried its own diplomatic weight, for reasons the next chapter makes clear.

• 3. A Presidency No One Wanted

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  Antonio Aldini and Francesco Melzi d'Eril had each been offered the presidency of the consulta. Each man, in his turn, had rejected it. Talleyrand wanted the standoff resolved before the assembly's business concluded, so he pushed Bonaparte to take the lead himself. When Bonaparte rose to speak, he addressed the delegates in Italian rather than French, sidestepping the rivalry between the two men entirely. In that address, delivered before the full consulta, Bonaparte converted the Cisalpine Republic into the Italian Republic and named himself its president. The chapel answered with applause. Vincenzo Brunetti, serving as the meeting's secretary, then read the new constitution aloud to the assembled delegates. Dozens of other names filled the chapel that day, including one belonging to a man who had died weeks before he ever reached it.

• 4. Who Filled The Chapel

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  Filippo Maria Visconti, the archbishop of Milan, was 82 years old and a personal friend of Bonaparte when he set out for Lyon. He never reached the consulta at all. On the 31st of December 1801, while talking with Talleyrand at a dinner, Visconti suffered a heart attack and died on the spot. Pietro Moscati, a physician also attending the gathering, tried to save him but could not.

  Alessandro Volta, already known as the inventor of the battery, sat among the Italian delegates who did make it to the chapel. Antonio Cagnoli, president of the Italian Society of Sciences, represented the country's scientific circles alongside him. Church leadership had its own representatives too. The archbishops of Ravenna, Antonio Codronchi, and of Cesena sat among the deputies, alongside the bishops of Pavia, Bergamo, Lodi, and Cremona. The rest of the Italian side included Giuseppe Fenaroli, Luigi Porro Lambertenghi, Giuseppe Lechi, Ferdinando Marescalchi, Giovanni Martinengo, Giovanni Paradisi, Giuseppe Prina, and Giuseppe Zola.

  The French delegation named in the record numbers just five: Bonaparte, Joséphine, Talleyrand, Murat, and Bernadotte. Set against the scores of Italian deputies who filled the chapel, that handful of names is a reminder of exactly whose decision this really was.