While you wait for an answer, /u/MySkinsRedditAcct did a great answer to a similar questions here which should provide some insight.

There were some, such as General Dumas (Napoleon’s Black-French general) who were disappointed by the switch from Republic to Empire and were ultimately sidelined. By and large the military loved Napoleon, and had tremendous loyalty to him personally, as well as to France. None of his most important generals abandoned him, though Marquis de Lafayette declined to serve as a general in the Grand Army.

The Jacobins gave Napoleon considerable trouble and he banned their newspapers. He was also deeply irritated by British newspapers, which spread mixes of truth and lies and generally painted a very unflattering picture of him.

Before Napoleon, the Republic was led by the Public Safety Committee, which was infamous for the Reign of Terror, which featured mass executions by guillotine. As different figures gained power they would seek to execute their rivals, and many in France were appalled by the unending fear and bloodshed. If you supported one politician today, you could be dragged out of your house and summarily beheaded if his rival gained power. People were routinely executed based on rumors.

Napoleon offered stable, competent governance and put an end to the Reign of Terror. On the other hand, over the decades, the wars killed a tremendous number of people and the country was less enamored with him in later years, except for the military. His popularity with the military allowed him to re-install himself as Emperor in just a few months after he was exiled, as the military abandoned the king in favor of Napoleon. (He was eventually exiled to an extremely remote island so he could not do it again, after he’d considered sneaking into the US. He had wondered if he could have become governor of Louisiana. What an alternate history that would have been, but he felt it was too undignified to hide himself, the Emperor of France, in a barrel in a cargo ship.)

Napoleon was passionately hated by the kings of Europe, generally speaking, because France had violently abandoned the monarchy and other kings did not want to suffer the same fate by their own people. The Coalition wanted to force him out and reinstall the next King, which they eventually were able to do after Napoleon successfully fought off most of Europe in a series of wars, growing the empire each time. He also survived a series of assassination attempts, believed to have been ordered by England.

Napoleon’s Code Civil proved to be very popular, and it remains to this day the foundation of law in much of Western Europe.

You can learn a lot about Napoleon by reading Napoleon: A Life.

Sooo late to this post, but I'll take a swing at your questions about the political reactions within France (my focus is mostly on moderate republicans & neo-jacobins).

First, let me hit the brakes before I slip into a determinist spin on the First Empire. The republic did not fall because republicans in name only (pun intended) were defrauding their supporters and shilling for Napoleon. However, reactions were very muted, for reasons I'll consider later.