Englund suggested that Napoleon did not actually run a police state, but had a ‘security state’ which was actually beneficial by using police force to prevent social chaos. Englund gives a view about the scale of repression in the Napoleonic regime, comparing with Hitler and Stalin it could not be consider as a police state. It makes Englund more convincing when we look at the effective numbers of Napoleon’s measures on censorship and judiciary. It has been estimated that the number of prisoners tripled to approximately 16,000 ordinary convicts during the period 1800-1814, however in comparing with the French population of 38,000,000, it appears to be a small number of people. Englund appears correct noting the number of prisoners in the state prison was ‘relatively limited’ by 1814. Englund’s view is supported by…show more content… Englund’s view can be further justified that there were limitations of Napoleon’s power when we consider the administrative measures, Judges were appointed by Napoleon and were made for life, this suggests that Napoleon can never have absolute control over the judges and can never get rid of them as well, meaning that the officials can actually go against him, like Fouche and Talleyrand. The limitation to scale of police force upholds Englund’s judgement as we can see France were actually not all in Napoleon’s hand. Englund noted that the budget of secret police in the Napoleonic era was ‘a derisory sum’, this can be endorsed by the fact that the budget of 75,000 francs of a branch of secret police in 1811 were only three times the salary of one senator. Looking in the censorship, Englund appears to be more persuasive that Napoleon was not as controlling as we thought, manuscripts rejected by the government were 11.6% in 1811, 4% in 1812 and only 2.4% in 1813, showing that the suppression of speech were not that
