 Though Napoleon had a warlike reputation , his policies in his first years as First Consul were aimed at restoring peace in Europe , be it at terms favorable to France . The animus of the members of the Second Coalition was mostly against the French Revolution , its ideas and its consequences . By this time Napoleon himself was convinced of their perfidy . Talleyrand and Napoleon therefore saw a possibility of a compromise , in which France would retain its chain of docile client states , but with the " revolutionary " sting removed , to appease the Allies . That <unk> docility was to be assured by constitutions designed to eliminate not only domestic conflict ( as was the new French political order ) , but also any flashes of impertinent nationalism . France therefore embarked on a program of constitutional reform in the dependent republics , first in the Helvetic Republic , where Napoleon as Mediator imposed the Constitution of Malmaison in 1801 ( followed by the Second Helvetic Constitution a year later ) , restoring the old confederal order . 
