Napoleon also established French control over Cochin-China (the southernmost part of modern Vietnam, including Saigon), as well as a protectorate over Cambodia. Wikimedia Yet Napoleon’s realms were dwarfed by the Second French Colonial Empire, which reached its peak in 1920, controlling roughly 8.5 % of the world’s landmasses. 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. The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. Global map which shows the First French Colonial Empire in light blue, the second in dark blue. The French colonial Empire was the set of territories that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. On 18 May 1804, Napoleon was granted the title Emperor of the French (L'Empereur des Français, pronounced by the French Sénat (a Senator) and was crowned on 2 December 1804, signifying the end of the French Consulate and of the French First Republic. The Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique founded colonies in Guadeloupe and Martinique in 1635, and a colony was later founded on Saint Lucia (1650). Theme images by Josh Peterson. The early voyages of Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French fishermen to the Grand Banks[?] But Spain's jealous protection of its American monopoly, and the disruptions caused in France itself by the Wars of Religion in the later 16th century, prevented any consistent efforts to establish colonies. The plot included Bonaparte's brother Lucien, then serving as speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, and Talleyrand. The Revolution, needless to say, was a disaster for the old French colonial empire and on the international front things were not improved by the creation of the actual “French Empire” under Napoleon who resigned himself to the loss of Haiti and sold the massive Louisiana Territory to the United States. In Senegal in West Africa, the French began to establish trading posts along the coast in 1624. Early French victories exported many ideological features of the French Revolution throughout Europe: the introduction of the Napoleonic Code throughout the continent increased legal equality, established jury systems and legalised divorce, and seigneurial dues and seigneurial justice were abolished, as were aristocratic privileges in all places except Poland. As the French empire in North America expanded, the French also began to build a smaller, but more profitable empire in the West Indies. The food plantations of these colonies were built and sustained by slavery from the abduction of slaves from Africa. Between the 1920s and 1930s French colonies had an estimated population of about 110 million, half of British India. It might be outdated or ideologically biased. On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire, An VIII under the French Republican Calendar), and the following day, tro… The eastern half of Hispaniola also came under French rule for a short period, after being given to France by Spain shortly after the loss of Saint-Domingue to France by the Haitian Revolution. The French also expanded their influence in North Africa, establishing a protectorate on Tunisia in 1881. The early voyages of Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French fishermen to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland throughout that century, were the precursors to the story of France's colonial expansion. These wars were the War of the Austrian Succession (1744–17… The story of France's colonial empire truly began on July 27, 1605 with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. The first French colonial empire consisted mainly of possessions in the Americas, both on the North Am… Acadia itself was lost to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. The first French colonial empire The early voyages of Giovanni da Verrazano and Jacques Cartier in the early 16th century, as well as the frequent voyages of French fishermen to the Grand Banks off Newfoundland throughout that century, were the precursors to the story of France's colonial expansion. For most of the history of New France, even Canada was far behind the British North American colonies in both population and economic development. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was the second-largest in the world behind the British Empire. 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