Treaty of Amiens — 25 mars 1802

The Treaty of Amiens brought a temporary end to hostilities with the United Kingdom. Napoleon preserved his conquests. This fragile truce would last only a little over a year before the resumption of war.

A peace nobody believed in

After Lunéville, England stood isolated on the continent; the Addington ministry, weary of nine years of war, opened negotiations. Signed by Joseph Bonaparte and Lord Cornwallis, the treaty returned to France and its allies almost every conquered colony: the Cape to the Batavians, Martinique and Guadeloupe to France; London kept only Trinidad and Ceylon.

Clauses that bound no one

England was to evacuate Malta, France the kingdom of Naples and the Papal States. There was no commercial clause: Bonaparte refused to open the continental market to English manufactures, and the protective tariff stayed in force. The peace therefore left the real cause of the war untouched.

Fourteen months

Thousands of English visitors rushed to Paris to see the First Consul. But he annexed Piedmont, made himself president of the Italian Republic and sent Sébastiani to reconnoitre Egypt; London then refused to leave Malta. War resumed on 18 May 1803 and would not stop until 1814: Amiens remained the only complete break in twenty-two years of conflict.