Corps législatif

Under Napoleon's Consulate, the Constitution of the Year VIII (1799) set up a Corps législatif as the law-making body of the three-part government apparatus (alongside the Tribunat and the Sénat conservateur).

This body replaced the Council of Five Hundred, established by the Constitution of the Year III of the Directory period as the lower house of the French legislature, but its role consisted solely of voting on laws deliberated before the Tribunat.

The Constitution of the Year X continued the corps' existence, but Napoleon grew more impatient with its slow deliberations and stripped it of much of its power in 1804.

When Napoleon III gained power, he re-constituted the Corps as France's lower chamber through the Constitution of 1852, with members elected by direct universal suffrage for terms of 6 years.

The elected corps législatif of the Second Empire shared its legislative powers with the executive Conseil d'État, made up of functionaries, and the Sénat, whose members were named for life.

The meeting chamber of the corps législatif , published in Le Journal illustré , 1869.
The scene outside the Palais du Corps Législatif after its final sitting, 1870, by Jacques Guiaud .