By 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte has seized power as First Consul, but the film argues he was never a man of the people. It traces how a bomb attack on his carriage that year, an assassination attempt he survives by outrageous luck, becomes the pretext he needs to purge political rivals and tighten his grip on France. Historians walk through the maneuvering that follows: plebiscites engineered to look like popular consent, a legal code bearing his name, and a coronation at Notre-Dame where he crowns himself rather than waiting for the Pope. Battlefield reenactments and archival paintings sit alongside expert interviews explaining how a Corsican artillery officer converted military reputation into absolute civil power. The film treats the 1800 plot as the hinge point of the story, the moment fear of assassination gave Napoleon license to move from consul to emperor. It is part of Timeline's ongoing look at the man who would try to rule Europe.