If Bonaparte had done naught else, he would deserve immortal glory for training the divided peoples of the peninsula for a life of united activity.
The new constitution was modelled on that of France; but the pretence of a democratic suffrage was abandoned.

The right of voting was accorded to three classes, the great proprietors, the clerics and learned men, and the merchants.

These, meeting in their several "Electoral Colleges," voted for the members of the legislative bodies; a Tribunal was also charged with the maintenance of the constitution.
By these means Bonaparte endeavoured to fetter the power of the reactionaries no less than the anti-clerical fervour of the Italian Jacobins.

The blending of the new and the old which then began shows the hand of the master builder, who neither sweeps away materials merely because they are old, nor rejects the strength that comes from improved methods of construction: and, however much we may question the disinterestedness of his motives in this great enterprise, there can be but one opinion as to the skill of the methods and the beneficence of the results in Italy.[194] The first step in the process of Italian unification had now been taken at Lyons.

A second soon followed.