French government put in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, April, 1793.
The loss of the Netherlands and the treason of their best general made a deep impression upon the members of the Convention. If the new French republic was to defend itself against the "tyrants" without and its many enemies within, it could not wait for the Convention to draw up an elaborate, permanent constitution. An efficient government must be devised immediately to maintain the loyalty of the nation to the republic, and to raise and equip armies and direct their commanders. The Convention accordingly put the government into the hands of a small committee, consisting originally of nine, later of twelve, of its members. This famous Committee of Public Safety was given practically unlimited powers. "We must," one of the leaders exclaimed, "establish the despotism of liberty in order to crush the despotism of kings."
The Girondists.
235.Within the Convention itself there were two groups of active men who came into bitter conflict over the policy to be pursued. There was, first, the party of the Girondists, so called because their leaders came from the department of Gironde, in which the great city of Bordeaux lay. They were moderate republicans and counted among their numbers some speakers of remarkable eloquence. The Girondists had enjoyed the control of the Legislative Assembly in 1792 and had been active in bringing on the war with Austria and Prussia. They hoped in that way to complete the Revolution by exposing the bad faith of the king and his sympathy with the emigrant nobles. They were not, however, men of sufficient decision to direct affairs in the terrible difficulties in which France found herself after the execution of the king. They consequently lost their influence, and a new party, called the "Mountain" from the high seats that they occupied in the Convention, gained the ascendency.
The extreme republicans, called the 'Mountain.'
This was composed of the most vigorous and uncompromising republicans. They believed that the French people had been depraved by the slavery to which their kings had subjectedthem. Everything, they argued, which suggested the former rule of kings must be wiped out. A new France should be created, in which liberty, equality, and fraternity should take the place of the tyranny of princes, the insolence of nobles, and the impostures of the priests. The leaders of the Mountain held that the mass of the people were by nature good and upright, but that there were a number of adherents of the old system who would, if they could, undo the great work of the Revolution and lead the people back to slavery under king and church. All who were suspected by the Mountain of having the least sympathy with the nobles or persecuted priests were branded as counter-revolutionary. The Mountain was willing to resort to any measures, however shocking, to rid the nation of those suspected of counter-revolutionary tendencies, and its leaders relied upon the populace of Paris to aid them in reaching their ends.
Girondist leaders expelled from the Convention, June 2, 1793.
The Girondists, on the other hand, abhorred the furious Paris mob and the cruel fanatics who composed the commune of the capital. They argued that Paris was not France, and that it had no right to assume a despotic rule over the nation. They proposed that the commune should be dissolved and that the Convention should remove to another town where they would not be subject to the intimidation of the Paris mob. The Mountain thereupon accused the Girondists of an attempt to break up the republic, "one and indivisible," by questioning the supremacy of Paris and the duty of the provinces to follow the lead of the capital. The mob, thus encouraged, rose against the Girondists. On June 2 it surrounded the meeting place of the Convention, and deputies of the commune demanded the expulsion from the Convention of the Girondist leaders, who were placed under arrest.
France threatened with civil war.
The revolt of the peasants of Brittany against the Convention.
The conduct of the Mountain and its ally, the Paris commune, now began to arouse opposition in various parts of France, and the country was threatened with civil war at atime when it was absolutely necessary that all Frenchmen should combine in the loyal defense of their country against the invaders who were again approaching its boundaries. The first and most serious opposition came from the peasants of Brittany, especially in the department of La Vendée. There the people still loved the monarchy and their priests and even the nobles; they refused to send their sons to fight for a republic which had killed their king and was persecuting the clergymen who declined to take an oath which their conscience forbade. The Vendean royalists defeated several corps of the national guard which the Convention sent against them, and it was not until autumn that the distinguished general, Kléber, was able to put down the insurrection.
Revolt of the cities against the Convention.
The great cities of Marseilles and Bordeaux were indignant at the treatment to which the Girondist deputies were subjected in Paris, and organized a revolt against the Convention. In the manufacturing city of Lyons the merchants hated the Jacobins and their republic, since the demand for silk and other luxuries produced at Lyons had come from the nobility and clergy, who were now no longer in a position to buy. The prosperous classes were therefore exasperated when the commissioners of the Convention demanded money and troops. The citizens gathered an army of ten thousand men and placed it under a royalist leader. The Convention, however, called in troops from the armies on the frontier, bombarded and captured the city, and wreaked a terrible vengeance upon those who had dared to revolt against the Mountain. Frightened by the experience of Lyons, Bordeaux and Marseilles decided that resistance was futile and admitted the troops of the Convention. Some of the Girondist deputies had escaped from Paris and attempted to gather an army in Normandy; but they failed, too. The Convention's Committee of Public Safety showed itself far more efficient than the scattered and disunited opponents who questioned its right to govern France.
The French repulse the English and Austrians.
While the Committee of Public Safety had been suppressing the revolts within the country, it had taken active measures to meet its foreign enemies. The distinguished military organizer, Carnot, had become a member of the Committee in August and immediately called for a general levy of troops. He soon had five hundred and fifty thousand men; these he divided into thirteen armies and dispatched them against the allies. The English and Hanoverians, who were besieging Dunkirk, were driven off and the Austrians were defeated, so that by the close of the year 1793 all danger from invasion was past, for the time being at least.
The Reign of Terror.
The Revolutionary Tribunal.
236.In spite of the marvelous success with which the Committee of Public Safety had crushed its opponents at home and repelled the forces of the coalition, it continued its policy of stifling all opposition by terror. Even before the fall of the Girondists a special court had been established in Paris, known as the Revolutionary Tribunal. Its duty was to try all those who were suspected of treasonable acts. At first the cases were very carefully considered and few persons were condemned. In September, after the revolt of the cities, two new men, who had been implicated in the September massacres, were added to the Committee of Public Safety. They were selected with the particular purpose of intimidating the counter-revolutionary party by bringing all the disaffected to the guillotine.[408]A terrible law was passed, declaring all those to be suspects who by their conduct or remarks had shown themselves enemies of liberty. The former nobles, including the wives, fathers, mothers, and children of the "emigrants," unless they had constantly manifested their attachment to the Revolution, were ordered to be imprisoned.
Execution of Marie Antoinette, October, 1793.
In October, the queen, Marie Antoinette, after a trial in which the most false and atrocious charges were brought against her, was executed in Paris, and a number of high-minded and distinguished persons suffered a like fate. But the most horrible acts of the Reign of Terror were perpetrated in the provinces. A representative of the Convention had thousands of the people of Nantes shot down or drowned. The convention proposed to destroy the great city of Lyons altogether, and though this decree was only partially carried out, thousands of its citizens were executed.[409]
Schism in the party of the Mountain.
Robespierre as dictator.
Soon the radical party which was conducting the government began to disagree among themselves. Danton, a man of fiery zeal for the republic, who had hitherto enjoyed great popularity with the Jacobins, became tired of bloodshed, and believed that the system of terror was no longer necessary. On the other hand, Hébert the leader of the commune felt that the revolution was not yet complete. He proposed, for example, that the worship of Reason should be substituted for the worship of God, and arranged a service in the great church of Notre Dame, where Reason, in the person of a handsome actress, took her place on the altar. The most powerful member of the Committee of Public Safety was Robespierre, who, although he was insignificant in person and a tiresome speaker, enjoyed a great reputation for republican virtue. He disapproved alike of Danton's moderation and of the worship of Reason advocated by the commune. Through his influence the leaders of both the moderate and the extreme party were arrested and executed (March and April, 1794).
Fall of Robespierre, July 27, 1794.
It was, of course, impossible for Robespierre to maintain his dictatorship permanently. He had the revolutionary tribunal divided into sections, and greatly increased the rapidity of the executions with a view of destroying all his enemies; but his colleagues in the Convention began to fear that he would demand their heads next. A coalition was formed against him, and the Convention ordered his arrest.[410]He called upon the commune to defend him, but the Convention roused Paris against the commune, which was no longer powerful enough to intimidate the whole city, and he and his supporters were sent to the guillotine.
Reaction after the overthrow of Robespierre.
237.In successfully overthrowing Robespierre the Convention and Committee of Public Safety had rid the country of the only man, who, owing to his popularity and his reputation for uprightness, could have prolonged the Reign of Terror. There was an immediate reaction after his death, for the country was weary of executions. The Revolutionary Tribunal henceforth convicted very few indeed of those who were brought before it. It made an exception, however, of those who had themselves been the leaders in the worst atrocities, for example, as the public prosecutor, who had brought hundreds of victims to the guillotine in Paris, and the brutes who had ordered the massacres at Nantes and Lyons. Within a few months the Jacobin Club at Paris was closed by the Convention, and the commune abolished.
Constitution of the year III.
The Convention now at last turned its attention to the great work for which it had originally been summoned, and drew up a constitution for the republic. This provided that the lawmaking power should be vested in a legislative assembly consisting of two houses. The lower house was called the Council of the Five Hundred, and the upper chamber the Council of the Elders. Members of the latter were required to be at leastforty years of age. The executive powers were put in the hands of aDirectoryof five persons to be chosen by the two chambers.
The dissolution of the Convention, October, 1795, its achievements.
In October, 1795, the Convention finally dissolved itself, having governed the country during three years of unprecedented excitement, danger, and disorder. While it was responsible for the horrors of the Reign of Terror, its committees had carried France through the terrible crisis of 1793. The civil war had been brought to a speedy end, and the coalition of foreign powers had been defeated. Meanwhile other committees appointed by the Convention had been quietly working upon the problem of bettering the system of education, which had been taken by the state out of the hands of the clergy. Progress had also been made toward establishing a single system of law for the whole country to replace the old confusion. The new republican calendar was not destined to survive many years, but the metric system of weights and measures introduced by the Convention has now been adopted by most European countries, and is used by men of science in England and America.
On the other hand, the Reign of Terror, the depreciated paper currency,[411]and many hasty and unwise laws passed by the Convention had produced all sorts of disorder and uncertainty. The Directory did little to better conditions, and it was not until Napoleon's strong hand grasped the helm of government in the year 1800 that order was really restored.
General Reading.—In addition to the references given at the end of the preceding chapter,Belloc,Danton(Charles Scribner's Sons, $2.50) andRobespierreby the same author (same publisher, $2.00).
General Reading.—In addition to the references given at the end of the preceding chapter,Belloc,Danton(Charles Scribner's Sons, $2.50) andRobespierreby the same author (same publisher, $2.00).
The Napoleonic Period.
238.The aristocratic military leaders of old France had either run away or been discredited along with the noble class to which they belonged. Among the commanders who, through exceptional ability, arose in their stead, one was soon to dominate the history of Europe as no man before him had ever done. For fifteen years, his biography and the political history of Europe are so nearly synonymous that the period that we are now entering upon may properly be called after him, the Napoleonic Period.
Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1769), a Corsican by birth, an Italian by descent.
Napoleon Bonaparte was hardly a Frenchman in origin. It is true that the island of Corsica, where he was born August 15, 1769, had at that time belonged to France for a year. But Napoleon's native language was Italian, he was descended from Italian ancestors who had come to the island in the sixteenth century, and his career revives, on a magnificent scale, the ambitions and the policy of acondottieredespot of the fifteenth century.[412]
The young Bonaparte in a French military school.
When he was ten years old he was taken to France by his father. After learning a little of the French language, which he is said never to have mastered perfectly, he was put into a military school where he remained for six years. He soon came to hate the young French aristocrats with whom he was associated. He wrote to his father, "I am tired of exposing my poverty and seeing these shameless boys laughing over it, who are superior to me only in their wealth, but infinitely beneath me in noble sentiments." Gradually the ambitionto free his little island country from French control developed in him.
His political intrigues in Corsica.
The Bonapartes banished from Corsica, 1793.
On completing his course in the military school he was made second lieutenant. Poor and without influence, he had little hope of any considerable advance in the French army, and he was drawn to his own country both by a desire to play a political rôle there and to help his family, which had been left in straitened circumstances by his father's death. He therefore absented himself from his command as often and as long as he could, and engaged in a series of intrigues in Corsica with a hope of getting control of the forces of the island. He fell out, however, with the authorities, and he and his family were banished in 1793, and fled to France.
Napoleon made commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, 1796.
The following three years were for Bonaparte a period of great uncertainty. He had lost his love for Corsica and as yet he had no foothold in France. He managed, however, to demonstrate his military skill and decision on two occasions and gained thereby the friendship of the Directory. In the spring of 1796 he was made by the Directory commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. This important appointment at the age of twenty-seven forms the opening of a military career which in extent and grandeur hardly finds a parallel in history, except that of Alexander the Great. And of all Bonaparte's campaigns, none is more interesting perhaps than his first, that in Italy in 1796–1797.
Prussia and Spain conclude peace with the French republic, 1795.
The campaign in Italy, 1796–1797.
239.After the armies raised by the Committee of Public Safety had driven back their enemies in the autumn of 1793, the French occupied the Austrian Netherlands, Holland, and that portion of Germany which lies on the left, or west, bank of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were again busy with a new, and this time final, partition of Poland. As Prussia had little real interest in the war with France, she soon concluded peace with the new republic, April, 1795. Spain followed her example and left Austria, England, and Sardinia to carry onthe war. General Bonaparte had to face the combined armies of Austria and of the king of Sardinia. By marching north from Savona he skillfully separated his two enemies, forced the Sardinian troops back toward Turin, and compelled the king of Sardinia to conclude a truce with France.
Napoleon Bonaparte during the Italian CampaignNapoleon Bonaparte during the Italian Campaign
This left him free to advance against the Austrians. These he outflanked and forced to retreat. On May 15, 1796, he entered Milan. The Austrian commander then shut himself up in the impregnable fortress of Mantua, where Bonaparte promptly besieged him. There is no more fascinating chapter in the history of warfare than the story of the audacious maneuvers by which Bonaparte successfully repulsed four attempts on the part of the Austrians to relieve Mantua, which was finally forced to capitulate at the beginning of February of the following year. As soon as he had removed all danger of an attack in the rear, the young French general led his army toward Vienna, and by April, 1797, the Austrian court was glad to sign a preliminary peace.
The treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797.
Creation of the Cisalpine republic.
The provisions of the definitive peace which was concluded at Campo-Formio, October 17, 1797, illustrate the unscrupulous manner in which Austria and the French republic disposed of the helpless lesser states. It inaugurated the bewilderinglyrapid territorial redistribution of Europe, which was so characteristic of the Napoleonic period. Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands and secretly agreed to use its good offices to secure for France a great part of the left bank of the Rhine. Austria also recognized the Cisalpine republic which Bonaparte had created out of the smaller states of northern Italy, and which was under the "protection" of France. This new state included Milan, Modena, some of the papal dominions, and, lastly, a part of the possessions of the venerable and renowned but defenseless republic of Venice which Napoleon had iniquitously destroyed. Austria received as a partial indemnity the rest of the possessions of the Venetian republic, including Venice itself.
General Bonaparte holds court; his analysis of the French character and of his own aims.
240.While the negotiations were going on at Campo-Formio, the young general had established a brilliant court. "His salons," an observer informs us, "were filled with a throng of generals, officials, and purveyors, as well as the highest nobility and the most distinguished men of Italy, who came to solicit the favor of a glance or a moment's conversation." He appears already to have conceived the rôle that he was to play later. We have a report of a most extraordinary conversation which occurred at this time.
"What I have done so far," he declared, "is nothing. I am but at the opening of the career that I am to run. Do you suppose that I have gained my victories in Italy in order to advance the lawyers of the Directory?... Do you think either that my object is to establish a republic? What a notion!... What the French want is Glory and the satisfaction of their vanity; as for Liberty, of that they have no conception. Look at the army! The victories that we have just gained have given the French soldier his true character. I am everything to him. Let the Directory attempt to deprive me of my command and they will see who is the master. The nation must have a head, a head who is rendered illustrious byglory and not by theories of government, fine phrases, or the talk of idealists, of which the French understand not a whit."
There is no doubt whom General Bonaparte had in mind when he spoke of the needed head of the French nation who should be "rendered illustrious by glory." This son of a poor Corsican lawyer, but yesterday a mere unlucky adventurer, had arranged his programme; two years and a half later he was the master of the French republic.
Personal characteristics.
We naturally ask what manner of person this was who could frame such audacious schemes at twenty-eight and realize them at thirty years of age. He was a little man, less than five feet two inches in height. At this time he was extremely thin, but his striking features, quick, searching eye, abrupt, animated gestures and rapid speech, incorrect as it was, made a deep impression upon those who came in contact with him. He possessed in a supreme degree two qualities that are ordinarily incompatible. He was a dreamer, and at the same time a man whose practical skill and mastery of detail amounted to genius. He once told a friend that he was wont, when a poor lieutenant, to allow his imagination full play and fancy things just as he would have them. Then he would coolly consider the exact steps to be taken if he were to try to make his dream come true.
Sources of power in Napoleon's character.
In order to explain Bonaparte's success it must be remembered that he was not hampered or held back by the fear of doing wrong. He was utterly unscrupulous, whether dealing with an individual or a nation, and appears to have been absolutely without any sense of moral responsibility. Affection for his friends and relatives never stood in the way of his personal aggrandizement. To these traits must be added unrivaled military genius and the power of intense and almost uninterrupted work.
The political conditions which rendered Napoleon's wonderful successes possible.
But even Bonaparte, unexampled as were his abilities, could never have extended his power over all of western Europe, had it not been for the peculiar political weakness of mostof the states with which he had to deal. There was no strong German empire in his day, no united Italy, no Belgium whose neutrality was guaranteed—as it now is—by the other powers of Europe. The French republic was surrounded by petty independent, or practically independent, principalities which were defenseless against an unscrupulous invader. Prussia, much smaller than it now is, offered, as we shall see, no efficient opposition to the extension of French control. Austria had been forced to capitulate, after a short campaign, by an enemy far from its source of supplies and led by a young and inexperienced general.
Napoleon conceives the idea of an expedition to Egypt.
241.After arranging the Peace of Campo-Formio, General Bonaparte returned to Paris. He at once perceived that France, in spite of her enthusiasm for him, was not yet ready to accept him as her ruler. He saw, too, that he would soon sacrifice his prestige if he lived quietly in Paris like an ordinary person. His active mind soon conceived a plan which would forward his interests. France was still at war with England, its most persevering enemy during this period. Bonaparte convinced the Directory that England could best be ruined in the long run by seizing Egypt and threatening her commerce through the Mediterranean, and perhaps ultimately her dominion in the East. Bonaparte, fascinated by the career of Alexander the Great, pictured himself riding to India on the back of an elephant and dispossessing England of her most precious colonial dependencies. He had, however, still another and a characteristic reason for undertaking the expedition. France was on the eve of a new war with the European powers. Bonaparte foresaw that, if he could withdraw with him some of France's best officers, the Directory might soon find itself so embarrassed that he could return as a national savior. And even so it fell out.
The campaign in Egypt, 1798–1799.
Nelson destroys the French fleet.
The French fleet left Toulon, May 19, 1798. It was so fortunate as to escape the English squadron under Nelson,which sailed by it in the night. Bonaparte arrived at Alexandria, July 1, and easily defeated the Turkish troops in the famous battle of the Pyramids. Meanwhile Nelson, who did not know the destination of the enemy's fleet, had returned from the Syrian coast where he had looked for the French in vain. He discovered Bonaparte's ships in the harbor of Alexandria and completely annihilated them in the first battle of the Nile (August 1, 1798). The French troops were now completely cut off from Europe.[413]
Syrian campaign.
Bonaparte deserts the army in Egypt and returns to Paris.
The Porte (i.e., the Turkish government) declared war against France, and Bonaparte resolved to attack Turkey by land. He accordingly marched into Syria in the spring of 1799, but was repulsed at Acre, where the Turkish forces were aided by the English fleet. Pursued by pestilence, the army regained Cairo in June after terrible suffering and loss. It was still strong enough to annihilate a Turkish army that landed at Alexandria; but news now reached Bonaparte from Europe which convinced him that the time had come for him to hasten back. Northern Italy, which he had won, was lost; the allies were about to invade France, and the Directory was completely demoralized. Bonaparte accordingly secretly deserted his army and managed, by a series of happy accidents, to reach France by October 9, 1799.
Thecoup d'étatof the 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799.
Bonaparte made First Consul.
242.The Directory, one of the most corrupt and inefficient governmental bodies that the world has ever seen, had completely disgraced itself.[414]Bonaparte readily found others to join with him in a conspiracy to overthrow it. A plan was formed for abruptly destroying the old government and replacing it by a new one without observing any constitutional forms. This is a procedure so familiar in France during the past century that it is known even in English as acoup d'état(literally translated, a "stroke of state"). The conspirators had a good manyfriends in the two assemblies, especially among the "Elders." Nevertheless Bonaparte had to order his soldiers to invade the hall in which the Assembly of the Five Hundred was in session and scatter his opponents before he could accomplish his purpose. A chosen few were then reassembled under the presidency of Lucien Bonaparte, one of Napoleon's brothers, who was a member of the assembly. They voted to put the government in the hands of General Bonaparte and two others, to be calledConsuls. These were to proceed, with the aid of a commission and of the "Elders," to draw up a new constitution.[415]
The constitution of the year VIII.
The Council of State.
The new constitution[416]was a very cumbrous and elaborate one. It provided for no less than four assemblies, one to propose the laws, one to consider them, one to vote upon them, and one to decide on their constitutionality. But Bonaparte saw to it that as First Consul he himself had practically all the power in his own hands. The Council of State, to which he called talented men from all parties and over which he presided, was the most important of the governmental bodies. This body and the administrative system which he soon established have endured, with a few changes, down to the present day. There is no surer proof of Napoleon's genius than that, with no previous experience, he could conceive a plan of government that should serve a great state like France, through all its vicissitudes, for a century.
The administrative system instituted by Napoleon.
In each department he put an officer called aprefect, in each subdivision of the department asubprefect. These, together with the mayors and police commissioners of the towns, were all appointed by the First Consul. The prefects, "little First Consuls," as Bonaparte called them, resembled the intendants—the king's officers under the old régime. Indeed, the new government suggested in several important respects that of Louis XIV.
The new government accepted by a plebiscite.
The new ruler objected as decidedly as Louis XIV had done to the idea of being controlled by the people, who, he believed, knew nothing of public affairs. It was enough, he thought, if they were allowed to say whether they wished a certain form of government or not. He therefore introduced what he called aplebiscite. The new constitution when completed was submitted to the nation at large, and all were allowed to vote "yes" or "no" on the expediency of its adoption. Over three million voted in favor of it and only fifteen hundred and sixty-two against it. This did not necessarily mean, however, that practically the whole nation wished to have General Bonaparte as its ruler. A great many may have preferred what seemed to them an objectionable form of government to the risk of rejecting it. Herein lies the injustice of the plebiscite. There are many questions that cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no."
Bonaparte generally acceptable to France as First Consul.
Yet the accession of the popular young general to power was undoubtedly grateful to the majority of citizens, who longed above all for a stable government. The Swedish envoy wrote just after thecoup d'état: "A legitimate monarch has perhaps never found a people more ready to do his bidding than Bonaparte, and it would be inexcusable if this talented general did not take advantage of this to introduce a better form of government upon a firmer basis. It is literally true that France will perform impossibilities in order to aid him in this. The people (with the exception of a despicable horde of anarchists) are so sick and weary of revolutionary horrors and folly that they believe that any change cannot fail to be for the better.... Even the royalists, whatever their views may be, are sincerely devoted to Bonaparte, for they attribute to him the intention of gradually restoring the old order of things. The indifferent element cling to him as the one most likely to give France peace. The enlightened republicans, although they tremble for their form of government,prefer to see a single man of talent possess himself of the power than a club of intriguers."
Necessity of renewing the war.
243.Upon becoming First Consul, General Bonaparte found France at war with England, Russia, Austria, Turkey, and Naples. These powers had formed a coalition in December, 1798, had defeated the armies that the Directory sent against them, and undone Bonaparte's work in Italy. It now devolved upon him to reëstablish the prestige of France abroad, as well as to restore order and prosperity at home. A successful campaign would, moreover, fill the empty treasury of the state; for Bonaparte always exacted large contributions from the defeated enemy and from those of his allies, like the ephemeral Cisalpine republic, who were under the "protection" of France. Besides, he must keep himself before the people as a military hero if he wished to maintain his supremacy.
Napoleon crosses the Alps and surprises the Austrians.
Early in the year 1800 Bonaparte began secretly to collect an army near Dijon. This he proposed to direct against an Austrian army which was besieging the French general, Masséna, in Genoa. Instead of marching straight into Italy, as would have been most natural, the First Consul resolved to take the Austrian forces in the rear. Emulating Hannibal, he led his troops over the famous Alpine pass of the Great St. Bernard, dragging his cannon over in the trunks of trees which had been hollowed out for the purpose. He arrived safely in Milan on the 2d of June to the utter astonishment of the Austrians, who were taken completely by surprise.
The battle of Marengo, June 14, 1800.
Bonaparte now moved westward, but in his uncertainty as to the exact whereabouts of the Austrians, he divided his force when near the village of Marengo (June 14) and sent a contingent under Desaix southward to head off the enemy in that direction. In the meantime the whole Austrian army approached from Alessandria and the engagement began. The Austrians at first repulsed the French, and Bonaparte saw allhis great plans in jeopardy as he vainly besought his soldiers to make another stand. The defeat was soon turned, however, into one of the most brilliant victories; for Desaix had heard the firing and returned with his division. Meanwhile the aged and infirm Austrian commander had returned to Alessandria, supposing that the battle was won. The result was that the French troops, reënforced, returned to the attack and carried all before them. The brave Desaix, who had really saved the day, was killed; Bonaparte simply said nothing of his own temporary defeat, and added one more to the list of his great military successes. A truce was signed next day, and the Austrians retreated behind the Mincio River, leaving Bonaparte to restore French influence in Lombardy. The districts that he had "freed" had to support his army, and the reëstablished Cisalpine republic was forced to pay a monthly tax of two million francs.
A general pacification, 1801.
A victory gained by the French at Hohenlinden in December of the same year brought Austria to terms, and she agreed to conclude a separate peace with the French republic. This was the beginning of a general pacification. During the year 1801 treaties were signed with all the powers with which France had been at war, even with England, who had not laid down her arms since war was first declared in 1793.
Two most important provisions of the treaties of 1801.
Bonaparte sells Louisiana to the United States, 1803.
Among many merely transitory results of these treaties there were two provisions of momentous import. The first of these, Spain's cession of Louisiana to France in exchange for certain advantages in Italy, does not concern us here directly. When war again broke out, Bonaparte sold the district to the United States, and among the many transfers of territory that he made during his reign, none was more important than this. We must, however, treat with some detail the second of the great changes, which led to the complete reorganization of Germany and ultimately rendered possible the establishment of the present powerful German empire.
Cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France and the results for Germany.
244.In the treaty signed by Austria at Lunéville in February, 1801, the emperor agreed, on his own part and on the part of the Holy Roman Empire, that the French republic should thereafter possess in full sovereignty the territories lying on the left bank of the Rhine which belonged to the empire, and that thereafter the Rhine should form the boundary of France from the point where it left Switzerland to where it flowed into Dutch territory. As a natural consequence of this cession, various princes and states of the empire found themselves dispossessed, either wholly or in part, of their lands. The empire bound itself to furnish the hereditary princes who had lost possessions on the left bank of the Rhine with "an indemnity within the empire."
Secularization of church lands.
This provision implied a veritable territorial metamorphosis of the old Holy Roman Empire, which, except for the development of Prussia, was still in pretty much the same condition as in Luther's time.[417]There was no unoccupied land to give the dispossessed princes; but there were two classes of states in the empire that did not belong tohereditaryprinces, namely, the ecclesiastical states and the free towns. As the churchmen,—archbishops, bishops, and abbots,—who ruled over the ecclesiastical states, were forbidden by the rules of the church to marry, they could of course have no lawful heirs. Should an ecclesiastical ruler be deprived of his realms, he might, therefore, be indemnified by a pension for life, with no fear of any injustice to heirs, since there could be none. The transfer of the lands of an ecclesiastical prince to a lay, i.e., hereditary, prince was calledsecularization. The towns, once so powerful and important, had lost their former influence, and seemed as much of an anomaly in the German Confederation as the ecclesiastical states.
Decree of the German diet redistributing German territory, 1803.
Disappearance of the imperial cities.
Fate of the knights.
Reichsdeputationshauptschlusswas the high-sounding German name of the great decree issued by the imperial diet in 1803,redistributing the territory so as to indemnify the hereditary princes dispossessed by the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France. All the ecclesiastical states, except the electorate of Mayence, were turned over to lay rulers. Of the forty-eight imperial cities, only six were left. Three of these still exist as republican members of the present German federation; namely, the Hanseatic towns,—Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck. Bavaria received the bishoprics of Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg, Freising, and a number of the imperial cities. Baden received the bishoprics of Constance, Basel, Speyer, etc. The knights who had lost their possessions on the left bank were not indemnified, and those on the right bank were deprived of their political rights within the next two or three years, by the several states within whose boundaries they lay.[418]
Importance of the extinction of the smaller German states.
The final distribution was preceded by a bitter and undignified scramble among the princes for additional bits of territory. All turned to Paris for favors, since the First Consul, and not the German diet, was really the arbiter in the matter. Germany never sank to a lower degree of national degradation than at this period. But this amalgamation was, nevertheless, the beginning of her political regeneration; for without the consolidation of the hundreds of practically independent little states into a few well-organized monarchies, such a union as the present German empire would have been impossible, and the country must have remained indefinitely in its traditional impotency.
Extension of French territory.
French dependencies.
The treaties of 1801 left France in possession of the Austrian Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, to which increase of territory Piedmont was soon added. Bonaparte found a further resource in the dependencies, which it was his consistent policy to create. Holland became the Batavian republic, and, with the Italian (originally the Cisalpine)republic, came under French control and contributed money and troops for the forwarding of French interests. The constitution of Switzerland was improved in the interests of the First Consul and, incidentally, to the great advantage of the country itself.
The demoralized condition of France, and Bonaparte's reforms.
245.The activity of the extraordinary man who had placed himself at the head of the French republic was by no means confined to the important alterations of the map of Europe described in the previous chapter. He was indefatigable in carrying out a series of internal reforms, second only in importance to those of the great Revolution of 1789. The Reign of Terror and the incompetence of the Directory's government had left France in a very bad plight.[419]Bonaparte's reorganization of the government has already been noticed. The finances, too, were in a terrible condition. These the First Consul adjusted with great skill and quickly restored the national credit.