News of Napoleon's coup of Brumaire received a mixed reception in the Rhineland. Talleyrand's agent in the region reported that the majority joyfully welcomed the new regime with great ‘hope that the equity of the members of the government will make cease the vexations which they have suffered, and of which they are still the victim despite protests’. Commissioner Lakanal, who was to blame for the vexations, reported that the coup aroused no disquiet, but that Napoleon's creation of a Commission consulaire exécutive aroused concern of a military dictatorship. The commissioner was obviously expressing his own fears and the justice minister was sufficiently concerned to write: ‘Your sense of civic duty and your talents assure me that you share the general opinion, and that the consuls can count you amongst those who will strive to insure the success of all that has been done up to now, and all that remains to be done.’

Napoleon quickly removed Lakanal and embarked upon the process of winning Rhenish loyalties.