The republic's had lots of breaks - First Empire and restored monarchy in 1804-48, Second Empire in 1852-70, Vichy and occupation in 1940-44 - each drawing support from an anti-republican element that might have prevailed but for its internal divisions (Emperor? King? - and if the latter, which of various rival claimants?). Even amid the Revolution, monarchist candidates won most of the seats at stake in the legislative elections of 1795 and 1797. A large part of the population hoped if not for the Revolution's undoing, at least for its more orderly governance.

Reaction to Bonaparte's coup and subsequent elevation was thus muted: here perhaps was an end to the chaos of the 1790s, and even his assumption of the rank of Emperor was partly aimed at preventing a future Bourbon restoration by incorprorating the hereditary principle in favour of a new dynasty, securing one of the Revolution's acts by unconventional means. He could for a time be all things to all Frenchmen, or at least most - much like that motto, itself open to various interpretations and simultaneously satisfying radical sans-culotte and respectable bourgeois alike.