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In addition to adhering to the ideals of 1789 in their love of their native land, the patriots of the Revolution also were also convinced of their superiority. The French nation was thought of, and saw, itself as the “Grande Nation”. In their preparatory work on the Code civil, the legislators of 1801 expressed their patriotism in such a way that it can be viewed as a sort of avatar of universal nationalism. When the Tribune Carrion-Nisas called patriotism “that sentiment, even when excessive, of superiority which the Revolution has inspired in us”, he was reflecting a general sentiment. For everyone without exception (Consuls, Conseillers d’État and Tribunes), France was depitcted as “a happy land”, the “garden of the globe, palace of the sciences and arts”, a blessed country in which the principles of 1789 had materialized both in law and in fact. Thereafter, people would celebrate the glory of wearing the “medal of being French”.However, whilst the affirmation of this superiority was one thing, agreement on its expression in relation to foreigners was quite another. On this point, the legislators of 1801 were divided, with the patriotic sentiment of the “hommes positifs”, supporters of the consular government, on one side, and that of their opponents, close to the Idéologues, on the other. War and peace were the keys to this distinction. Whilst for one side, peace and commerce constituted the natural state of nature, for the other, normality was constituted by fierce competition between the nations. The article here considers this standoff, with the Tribunes, heirs to the cosmopolitanism of the Enlightenment but reinterpreted according the new doctrines coined by the first liberal economists up against the men in power, with their patriotic sentiment characterised by a love of native land inspired by the city of antiquity and by a reaction against “excessive philanthropy”.