the religion ofthe majority of France which reopened churches and proclaimed religious freedom 27. Inexchange for demanding the Pope to give up the lands that he had detained during theRevolution, Napoleon issued salaries to priests that would be paid by the government 28. These provisions appeased both Napoleon and the Pope, while also bringing him thepeople's support. The next line of duty for him was to attend to administrative problems and proposesolutions. Napoleon's greatest achievement in administrative reform was creating a Ashcraft 6centralized government 29. During the revolution, France had been divided intodepartments that Napoleon was in favor of keeping, because in his eyes, these divisionscould only promote unification and centralization of France 30. What he did not agreewith was the way in which they were governed, and so he took it upon himself to electnew officials called prefects, who were nominated by First Consul but chosen by thenotables 31. Their designated duty was to supervise all that went on under their owndivision 32. If these forms of government failed to do their job, Napoleon would turn tohis action-taking helpers : the soldiers and policemen, and so he had created a police state 33. Napoleon was never forced to turn to his " helpers " but simply used this idea asinitiative for the prefects to do their jobs and do them well. Napoleon also sought financial reform of the government. One of the ideas of theRevolution had been equality, and he aimed at withholding this by creating equal tax whilealso beginning the Bank of France 34. Equal tax meant that no one could be exemptedfrom taxes based on ethnic or social standing . During the time of the Directory,government members were allowed to take money from the treasury as they pleased 35. The bank of France helped to control the flow of money to where it was needed not towhere it was wanted 36. Napoleon himself was very money conscious a...
