CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER X.Napoleon's Amatory Correspondence with Josephine—His Court at Montebello—Negotiations and Pleasure mingled there—Genoa—Revolutionary spirit of the Genoese—They rise in insurrection, but are quelled by the Government, and the French plundered and imprisoned—Buonaparte interferes, and appoints the Outlines of a new Government—Sardinia—Naples—The Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian Republics, united under the name of the Cisalpine Republic—The Valteline—The Grisons—The Valteline united to Lombardy—Great improvement of Italy, and the Italian Character, from these changes—Difficulties in the way of Pacification betwixt France and Austria—The Directory and Napoleon take different Views—Treaty of Campo Formio—Buonaparte takes leave of the Army of Italy, to act as French Plenipotentiary at Rastadt.When peace returns, it brings back the domestic affections, and affords the means of indulging them. Buonaparte was yet a bridegroom, though he had now been two years married, and upwards. A part of his correspondence with his bride has been preserved, and gives a curious picture of a temperament as fiery in love as in war. The language of the conqueror, who was disposing of states at his pleasure, and defeating the most celebrated commanders of the time, is as enthusiastic as that of an Arcadian. We cannot suppress the truth, that (in passages which we certainly shall not quote) it carries a tone of indelicacy, which, notwithstanding the intimacy of the married state, an English husband would not use, nor an English wife consider as the becoming expression of connubial affection. There seems no doubt, however, that the attachment which these letters indicate was perfectly sincere, and on one occasion at least, it was chivalrously expressed;—"Wurmser shall buy dearly the tears which he makes you shed."[290]It appears from this correspondence that Josephine had rejoined her husband, under the guardianship of Junot, when he returned from Paris, after having executed his mission of delivering to the Directory, and representatives of the Frenchpeople, the banners and colours taken from Beaulieu. In December, 1796, Josephine was at Genoa, where she was received with studied magnificence, by those in that ancient state who adhered to the French interest, and where, to the scandal of the rigid Catholics, the company continued assembled, at a ball given by M. de Serva, till a late hour on Friday morning, despite the presence of a senator having in his pocket, but not venturing to enforce, a decree of the senate for the better observation of the fast day upon the occasion. These, however, were probably only occasional visits; but after the signature of the treaty of Leoben, and during the various negotiations which took place before it was finally adjusted, as ratified at Campo Formio, Josephine lived in domestic society with her husband, at the beautiful seat, or rather palace, of Montebello.This villa, celebrated from the important negotiations of which it was the scene, is situated a few leagues from Milan, on a gently sloping hill, which commands an extensive prospect over the fertile plains of Lombardy. The ladies of the highest rank, as well as those celebrated for beauty and accomplishments,—all, in short, who could add charms to society,—were daily paying their homage to Josephine, who received them with a felicity of address which seemed as if she had been born for exercising the high courtesies that devolved upon the wife of so distinguished a person as Napoleon.COURT AT MONTEBELLO.Negotiations proceeded amid gaiety and pleasure. The various ministers and envoys of Austria, of the Pope, of the Kings of Naples and Sardinia, of the Duke of Parma, of the Swiss Cantons, of several of the Princes of Germany,—the throng of generals, of persons in authority, of deputies of towns,—with the daily arrival and despatch of numerous couriers, the bustle of important business, mingled with fêtes and entertainments, with balls and with hunting parties,—gave the picture of a splendid court, and the assemblage was called accordingly, by the Italians, the Court of Montebello. It was such in point of importance; for the deliberations agitated there were to regulate the political relations of Germany, and decide the fate of the King of Sardinia, of Switzerland, of Venice, of Genoa: all destined to hear from the voice of Napoleon, the terms on which their national existence was to be prolonged or terminated.Montebello was not less the abode of pleasure. The sovereigns of this diplomatic and military court made excursions to the lago Maggiore, to lago di Como, to the Borromean islands, and occupied at pleasure the villas which surround those delicious regions. Every town, every village, desired to distinguish itself by some peculiar mark of homage and respect to him, whom they then named the Liberator of Italy.[291]These expressions are in a great measure those of Napoleon himself, who seems to havelooked back on this period of his life with warmer recollections of pleasurable enjoyment than he had experienced on any other occasion.It was probably the happiest time of his life. Honour, beyond that of a crowned head, was his own, and had the full relish of novelty to a mind which two or three years before was pining in obscurity. Power was his, and he had not experienced its cares and risks; high hopes were formed of him by all around, and he had not yet disappointed them. He was in the flower of youth, and married to the woman of his heart. Above all, he had the glow of Hope, which was marshalling him even to more exalted dominion; and he had not yet become aware that possession brings satiety, and that all earthly desires and wishes terminate, when fully attained, in vanity and vexation of spirit.The various objects which occupied Buonaparte's mind during this busy yet pleasing interval, were the affairs of Genoa, of Sardinia, of Naples, of the Cisalpine republic, of the Grisons, and lastly, and by far the most important of them, the definitive treaty with Austria, which involved the annihilation of Venice as an independent state.GENOA.Genoa, the proud rival of Venice, had never attained the same permanent importance with that sister republic; but her nobility, who still administered her government according to the model assigned them by Andrew Doria, preserved more national spirit, and a more warlike disposition. The neighbourhood of France, and the prevalence of her opinions, had stirred up among the citizens of the middling class a party, taking the name of Morandists, from a club so termed,[292]whose object it was to break down the oligarchy, and revolutionize the government. The nobles were naturally opposed to this, and a large body of the populace much employed by them, and strict Catholics, were, ready to second them in their defence.The establishment of two Italian democracies upon the Po, made the Genoese revolutionists conceive the time was arrived when their own state ought to pass through a similar ordeal of regeneration. They mustered their strength, and petitioned the doge for the abolition of the government as it existed, and the adoption of a democratic model. The doge condescended so far to their demand, as to name a committee of nine persons, five of them of plebeian birth, to consider and report on the means of infusing a more popular spirit into the constitution.[293]The three chief Inquisitors of State, or Censors, as the actual rulers of the oligarchy were entitled, opposed the spirit of religious enthusiasm to that of democratic zeal. They employed thepulpit and the confessional as the means of warning good Catholics against the change demanded by the Morandists—they exposed the Holy Sacrament, and made processions and public prayers, as if threatened with a descent of the Algerines.May 22.Meanwhile, the Morandists took up arms, displayed the French colours, and conceiving their enterprise was on the point of success, seized the gate of the arsenal and that of the harbour. But their triumph was short. Ten thousand armed labourers started as from out of the earth, under the command of their syndics, or municipal officers, with cries of "Viva Maria!" and declared for the aristocracy. The insurgents, totally defeated, were compelled to shut themselves up in their houses, where they were assailed by the stronger party, and finally routed. The French residing in Genoa were maltreated by the prevailing party, their houses pillaged, and they themselves dragged to prison.The last circumstance gave Buonaparte an ostensible right to interfere, which he would probably have done even had no such violence been committed. He sent his aide-de-camp La Valette to Genoa, with the threat of instantly moving against the city a division of his army, unless the prisoners were set at liberty, the aristocratic party disarmed, and such alterations, or rather such a complete change of government adopted, as should be agreeable to the French commander-in-chief. Against this there was no appeal. The inquisitors were laid under arrest, for having defended, with the assistance of their fellow-citizens, the existing institutions of the state; and the doge, with two other magistrates of the first rank, went to learn at Montebello, the headquarters of Napoleon, what was to be the future fate of the City, proudly called ofPalaces.[294]They received the outlines of such a democracy as Napoleon conceived suitable for them; and he appears to have been unusually favourable to the state, which, according to the French affectation of doing every thing upon a classical model, now underwent revolutionary baptism, and was called the Ligurian Republic. It was stipulated, that the French who had suffered should be indemnified; but no contributions were exacted for the use of the French army, nor did the collections and cabinets of Genoa pay any tribute to the Parisian Museum.[295]Nov. 11.Shortly after, the democratic party having gone so far as to exclude the nobles from the government, and from all offices of trust, called down by doing so a severe admonition from Buonaparte.Hedischargedthem to offend the prejudices, or insult the feelings of the more scrupulous Catholics, declaring farther, that to exclude those of noble birth from public functions, is a revolting piece of injustice, and, in fact, as criminal as the worst of the errors of the patricians.[296]Buonaparte says, he felt a partiality for Genoa; and the comparative liberality with which he treated the state on this occasion, furnishes a good proof that he did so.The King of Sardinia had been prostrated at the feet of France by the armistice of Cherasco, which concluded Napoleon's first campaign; and that sagacious leader had been long desirous that the Directory should raise the royal supplicant (for he could be termed little else) into some semblance of regal dignity, so as to make his power available as an ally. Nay, General Clarke had, 5th April, 1797, subscribed, with the representative of his Sardinian Majesty, a treaty offensive and defensive, by which Napoleon expected to add to the army under his command four thousand Sardinian or Piedmontese infantry, and five hundred cavalry; and he reckoned much on this contingent, in case of the war being renewed with Austria. But the Directory shifted and evaded his solicitations, and declined confirming this treaty, probably because they considered the army under his command as already sufficiently strong, being, as the soldiers were, so devoted to their leader. At length, however, the treaty was ratified, but too late to serve Buonaparte's object.Naples, whose conduct had been vacillating and insincere, as events seemed to promise victory or threaten defeat to the French general, experienced, notwithstanding, when he was in the height of triumph, the benefit of his powerful intercession with the government, and retained the full advantage secured to her by the treaty of Paris of 10th October, 1796.A most important subject of consideration remained after the pacification of Italy, respecting the mode in which the new republics were to be governed, and the extent of territory which should be assigned to them. On this subject, there had been long discussions; and as there was much animosity and ancient grudge betwixt some of the Italian cities and provinces, it was no very easy matter to convince them, that their true interest lay in as many of them being united under one energetic and active government as should render them a power of some importance, instead of being divided as heretofore into petty states, which could not offer effectual resistance even to invasion on the part of a power of the second class, much more if attacked by France or Austria.The formation of a compact and independent state in the north of Italy, was what Napoleon had much at heart. But the Cispadane and Transpadane republics were alike averse to a union, and that of Romagna had declined on its part a junction with the Cispadane commonwealth, and set up for a puny and feeble independence, under the title of the Emilian Republic. Buonaparte was enabled to overcome these grudgings and heart-burnings, by pointing out to them the General Republic, which it was now his system to create, as being destined to form the kernel of a state which should be enlarged from time to time as opportunities offered, until it should include all Italy under one single government. This flattering prospect, in assigning to Italy, though at some distant date, the probability of forming one great country, united in itself, and independent of the rest of Europe, instead of being, as now, parcelled out into petty states, naturally overcame all the local dislikes and predilections which might have prevented the union of the Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian republics into one, and that important measure was resolved upon accordingly.CISALPINE REPUBLIC.The Cisalpine republic was the name fixed upon to designate the united commonwealth. The French would more willingly have named it, with respect to Paris, the Transalpine republic; but that would have been innovating upon the ancient title which Rome has to be the central point, with reference to which, all other parts of Italy assume their local description. It would have destroyed all classical propriety, and have confused historical recollections, if, what had hitherto been called the Ultramontane side of the Alps, had, to gratify Parisian vanity, been termed the Hither side of the same chain of mountains.The constitution assigned to the Cisalpine republic, was the same which the French had last of all adopted, in what they called the year five, having a Directory of executive administrators, and two Councils. They were installed upon the 30th of June, 1797. Four members of the Directory were named by Buonaparte, and the addition of a fifth was promised with all convenient speed. On the 14th of July following, a review was made of thirty thousand national guards. The fortresses of Lombardy, and the other districts, were delivered up to the local authorities, and the French army, retiring from the territories of the new republic, took up cantonments in the Venetian states. Proclamation had already been made, that the states belonging to the Cisalpine republic having been acquired by France by the right of conquest, she had used her privilege to form them into their present free and independent government, which, already recognised by the Emperor and the Directory, could not fail to be acknowledged within a short time by all the other powers of Europe.[297]TREATY OF CAMPO-FORMIO.Buonaparte soon after showed that he was serious in his design of enlarging the Cisalpine republic, as opportunity could be made to serve. There are three valleys, termed the Valteline districts, which run down from the Swiss mountains towards the lake of Como. The natives of the Valteline are about one hundred and sixty thousand souls. They speak Italian, and are chiefly of the Catholic persuasion. These valleys were at this period the subjects of the Swiss Cantons, called the Grisons, not being a part of their league, or enjoying any of their privileges, but standing towards the Swiss community, generally and individually, in the rank of vassals to sovereigns. This situation of thraldom and dependence was hard to endure, and dishonourable in itself; and we cannot be surprised that, when the nations around them were called upon to enjoy liberty and independence, the inhabitants of the Valteline should have driven their Swiss garrisons out of their valleys, adopted the symbol of Italian freedom, and carried their complaints against the oppression of their German and Protestant masters to the feet of Buonaparte.The inhabitants of the Valteline unquestionably had a right to assert their natural liberty, which is incapable of suffering prescription; but it is not equally clear how the French could, according to the law of nations, claim any title to interfere between them and the Grisons, with whom, as well as with the whole Swiss Union, they were in profound peace. This scruple seems to have struck Buonaparte's own mind.[298]He pretended, however, to assume that the Milanese government had a right to interfere, and his mediation was so far recognised, that the Grisons pleaded before him in answer to their contumacious vassals. Buonaparte gave his opinion, by advising the canton of the Grisons, which consists of three leagues, to admit their Valteline subjects to a share of their franchises, in the character of a fourth association. The moderation of the proposal may be admitted to excuse the irregularity of the interference.The representatives of the Grey League, were, notwithstanding, profoundly hurt at a proposal which went to make their vassals their brother-freemen, and to establish the equality of the Italian serf, who drank of the Adda, with the free-born Switzer, who quaffed the waters of the Rhine. As they turned a deaf ear to his proposal, deserted his tribunal, and endeavoured to find support at Bern, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere, Napoleon resolved to proceed against them in default of appearance; and declaring, that as the Grisons had failed to appear before him, or to comply with his injunctions, by admitting the people of the Valteline to be parties to their league, he therefore adjudged the state, or district, of the Valteline, in time coming, to belong to, and be part of, the Cisalpine republic. The Grisons in vain humbled themselves when it was too late, and protested their readiness to pleadbefore a mediator too powerful to be declined under any ground known in law; and the Valteline territory was adjudged [October 10] inalienably annexed to and united with Lombardy; of which, doubtless, it forms, from manners and contiguity, a natural portion.[299]The existence of a state having free institutions, however imperfect, seemed to work an almost instant amelioration on the character of the people of the north of Italy. The effeminacy and trifling habits which resigned all the period of youth to intrigue and amusement, began to give place to firmer and more manly virtues—to the desire of honourable minds to distinguish themselves in arts and arms.[300]Buonaparte had himself said, that twenty years would be necessary to work a radical change on the national character of the Italians; but even already those seeds were sown, among a people hitherto frivolous because excluded from public business, and timorous because they were not permitted the use of arms, which afterwards made the Italians of the north equal the French themselves in braving the terrors of war, besides producing several civil characters of eminence.Amid those subordinate discussions, as they might be termed, in comparison to the negotiations betwixt Austria and France, these two high contracting parties found great difficulty in agreeing as to the pacific superstructure which they should build upon the foundation which had been laid by the preliminaries exchanged at Leoben. Nay, it seemed as if some of the principal stipulations, which had been there agreed upon as the corner-stones of their treaty, were even already beginning to be unsettled.It will be remembered, that, in exchange for the cession of Flanders, and of all the countries on the left side of the Rhine, including the strong city of Mayence, which she was to yield up to France in perpetuity, Austria stipulated an indemnification on some other frontier. The original project bore, that the Lombardic republic, since termed the Cisalpine, should have all the territories extending from Piedmont to the river Oglio. Those to the eastward of that river were to be ceded to Austria as an equivalent for the cession of Belgium, and the left bank of the Rhine. The Oglio, rising in the Alps, descends through the fertile districts of Brescia and Cremasco, and falls into the Po near Borgo-forte, enclosing Mantua on its left bank, which strong fortress, the citadel of Italy, was, by this allocation, to be restored to Austria. There were farther compensations assigned to theEmperor, by the preliminaries of Leoben. Venice was to be deprived of her territories on the mainland, which were to be confiscated to augment the indemnity destined for the empire; and this, although Venice, as far as Buonaparte yet knew, had been faithful to the neutrality she had adopted. To redeem this piece of injustice, another was to be perpetrated. The state of Venice was to receive the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, in lieu of the dominions which she was to cede to Austria; and these legations, it must not be forgotten, were the principal materials of the Cispadane republic, founded by Buonaparte himself. These, however, with their population, which he had led to hope for a free popular government, he was now about to turn over to the dominion of Venice, the most jealous oligarchy in the world, which was not likely to forgive those who had been forward in expressing a desire of freedom. This was the first concoction of the treaty of Leoben, from which it appears that the negotiators of the two great powers regarded the secondary and weaker states, whether ancient or of modern erection, merely as make-weights, to be thrown into either scale, as might be necessary to adjust the balance.It is true, the infant Cispadane republic escaped the fate to which its patron and founder was about to resign it; for after this arrangement had been provisionally adjusted, news came of the insurrection of Venice, the attack upon the French through her whole territory, and the massacre at Verona. This aggression placed the ancient republic, so far as France was concerned, in the light of a hostile power, and entitled Buonaparte to deal with her as a conquered one, perhaps to divide, or altogether to annihilate her. But, on the other hand, he had received their submission, ratified the establishment of their new popular constitution, and possessed himself of the city, under pretence of assigning it a free government, according to the general hope which he had held out to Italy at large. The right of conquest was limited by the terms on which surrender had been accepted. Austria, on the other hand, was the more deeply bound to have protected the ancient republic, for it was in her cause that Venice so rashly assumed arms; but such is the gratitude of nations, such the faith of politicians, that she appears, from the beginning, to have had no scruple in profiting by the spoils of an ally, who had received a death-wound in her cause.By the time the negotiators met for finally discussing the preliminaries, the Directory of France, either to thwart Buonaparte, whose superiority became too visible, or because they actually entertained the fears they expressed, were determined that Mantua, which had been taken with such difficulty, should remain the bulwark of the Cisalpine republic, instead of returning to be once more that of the Austrian territories in Italy. The Imperial plenipotentiaries insisted, on the other hand, that Mantua was absolutely necessary to the safety of their Italian possessions, andbecame more so from the peculiar character of their new neighbour, the Cisalpine republic, whose example was likely to be so perilous to the adjacent dependencies of an ancient monarchy. To get over this difficulty, the French general proposed that the remaining dominions of Venice should be also divided betwixt Austria and France, the latter obtaining possession of the Albanian territories and the Ionian islands belonging to the republic, of which the high contracting powers signed the death-warrant; while Istria, Dalmatia, Venice herself, and all her other dominions, should be appropriated to Austria. The latter power, through her minister, consented to this arrangement with as little scruple, as to the former appropriation of her forlorn ally's possessions on the Terra Firma.But as fast as obstacles were removed on one side, they appeared to start up on another, and a sort of pause ensued in the deliberations, which neither party seemed to wish to push to a close. In fact, both Napoleon, plenipotentiary for France, and Count Cobentzel,[301]a man of great diplomatic skill and address, who took the principal management on the part of Austria, were sufficiently aware that the French government, long disunited, was in the act of approaching to a crisis. This accordingly took place, under circumstances to be hereafter noticed, on the eighteenth of Fructidor, creating, by a new revolutionary movement, a total change of administration. When this revolution was accomplished, the Directory, who accomplished it, feeling themselves more strong, appeared to lay aside the idea of peace, and showed a strong disposition to push their advantages to the utmost.Buonaparte was opposed to this. He knew that if war was resumed, the difficulties of the campaign would be thrown on him, and the blame also, if the results were not happy. He was determined, therefore, in virtue of his full powers, to bring the matter to a conclusion, whether the Directory would or not. For this purpose he confronted Cobentzel, who still saw his game in gaining delay, with the sternness of a military envoy. On the 16th October, the conferences were renewed upon the former grounds, and Cobentzel went over the whole subject of the indemnifications—insisting that Mantua, and the line of the Adige, should be granted to the Emperor; threatening to bring down the Russians in case the war should be renewed; and insinuating that Buonaparte sacrificed the desire of peace to his military fame, and desired a renewal of the war. Napoleon, with stern but restrained indignation, took from a bracket an ornamental piece of china, on which Cobentzel set some value, as being a presentfrom the Empress Catherine. "The truce," he said, "is then ended, and war declared. But beware—before the end of autumn, I will break your empire into as many fragments as this potsherd."[302]He dashed the piece of china against the hearth, and withdrew abruptly. Again we are reminded of the Argantes of Tasso.[303]The Austrian plenipotentiaries no longer hesitated to submit to all Napoleon's demands, rather than again see him commence his tremendous career of irresistible invasion. The treaty of Campo Formio therefore was signed on the following day; not the less promptly, perhaps, that the affairs at Paris appeared so doubtful as to invite an ambitious and aspiring man like Napoleon to approach the scene where honours and power were distributed, and where jarring factions seemed to await the influence of a character so distinguished and so determined.The fate of Venice, more from her ancient history than either the value of her institutions, which were execrable, or the importance of her late existence, still dwells somewhat on the memory. The ancient republic fell "as a fool dieth." The aristocrats cursed the selfishness of Austria, by whom they were swallowed up, though they had perilled themselves in her cause. The republicans hastened to escape from Austrian domination, grinding their teeth with rage, and cursing no less the egotistic policy of the French, who, making a convenient pretext of their interest, had pretended to assign them a free constitution, and then resigned them to become the vassals of a despotic government.The French secretary of legation, who had played a remarkably active part during the Revolution, hazarded a remonstrance to Buonaparte on the surrender of Venice to Austria, instead of its being formed into a free democracy, or united with the Cisalpine republic.[304]Buonaparte laughed to scorn a man, whose views were still fixed on diffusing and propagating the principles of Jacobinism. "I have received your letter," was the stern and contemptuous reply, "and cannot comprehend it. The Republic of France is not bound by any treaty, to sacrifice its interests and advantages to the Committee of Public Safety in Venice, or to any other class of individuals. France does not make war in behalf and for the benefit of others.[305]I know it costs nothing fora few chattering declaimers, whom I might better describe as madmen, to talk of a universal republic—I wish they would try a winter campaign. The Venetian republic exists no longer. Effeminate, corrupted, treacherous, and hypocritical, the Venetians are unfit for liberty. If she has the spirit to appreciate, or courage to assert it, the time is not unfavourable—let her stand up for it."[306]Thus, with insult added to misery, and great contempt thrown by Napoleon on the friends of liberty all over the world, the fate of Venice was closed. The most remarkable incident of the final transfer to the Austrians was, that the aged Doge Marini dropt down senseless as he was about to take the oath of allegiance to the Imperial commissioner, and died shortly after.CONGRESS OF RASTADT.Nov. 12.Napoleon Buonaparte had now finished for the present his career of destiny in Italy, which country first saw his rising talents, and was always a subject of peculiar interest to him. He took an affecting leave of the soldiers,[307]who could scarce hope ever to see him replaced by a general of merits so transcendent, and made a moderate and judicious address to the Cisalpine republic. Finally, he departed, to return through Switzerland to Rastadt, where a congress was sitting for the settlement and pacification of the German empire, and where he was to act as a plenipotentiary on the part of France.[308]On the journey he was observed to be moody and deeply contemplative. The separation from a hundred thousand men whom he might call his own, and the uncertainty of the future destinies to which he might be summoned, are enough to account for this, without supposing, as some have done, that he already had distinctly formed any of those projects of ambition which Time opened to him. Doubtless, however, his ardent ambition showed him remote and undefined visions of greatness. He could not but be sensible that he returned to the capital of France in a situation which scarce admitted of any mediocrity. He must either be raised to a yet more distinguished height, or altogether broken down, levelled with the mass of subjects, and consigned to comparative obscurity. There was no middle station for the Conqueror and Liberator of Italy.

Napoleon's Amatory Correspondence with Josephine—His Court at Montebello—Negotiations and Pleasure mingled there—Genoa—Revolutionary spirit of the Genoese—They rise in insurrection, but are quelled by the Government, and the French plundered and imprisoned—Buonaparte interferes, and appoints the Outlines of a new Government—Sardinia—Naples—The Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian Republics, united under the name of the Cisalpine Republic—The Valteline—The Grisons—The Valteline united to Lombardy—Great improvement of Italy, and the Italian Character, from these changes—Difficulties in the way of Pacification betwixt France and Austria—The Directory and Napoleon take different Views—Treaty of Campo Formio—Buonaparte takes leave of the Army of Italy, to act as French Plenipotentiary at Rastadt.

Napoleon's Amatory Correspondence with Josephine—His Court at Montebello—Negotiations and Pleasure mingled there—Genoa—Revolutionary spirit of the Genoese—They rise in insurrection, but are quelled by the Government, and the French plundered and imprisoned—Buonaparte interferes, and appoints the Outlines of a new Government—Sardinia—Naples—The Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian Republics, united under the name of the Cisalpine Republic—The Valteline—The Grisons—The Valteline united to Lombardy—Great improvement of Italy, and the Italian Character, from these changes—Difficulties in the way of Pacification betwixt France and Austria—The Directory and Napoleon take different Views—Treaty of Campo Formio—Buonaparte takes leave of the Army of Italy, to act as French Plenipotentiary at Rastadt.

When peace returns, it brings back the domestic affections, and affords the means of indulging them. Buonaparte was yet a bridegroom, though he had now been two years married, and upwards. A part of his correspondence with his bride has been preserved, and gives a curious picture of a temperament as fiery in love as in war. The language of the conqueror, who was disposing of states at his pleasure, and defeating the most celebrated commanders of the time, is as enthusiastic as that of an Arcadian. We cannot suppress the truth, that (in passages which we certainly shall not quote) it carries a tone of indelicacy, which, notwithstanding the intimacy of the married state, an English husband would not use, nor an English wife consider as the becoming expression of connubial affection. There seems no doubt, however, that the attachment which these letters indicate was perfectly sincere, and on one occasion at least, it was chivalrously expressed;—"Wurmser shall buy dearly the tears which he makes you shed."[290]

It appears from this correspondence that Josephine had rejoined her husband, under the guardianship of Junot, when he returned from Paris, after having executed his mission of delivering to the Directory, and representatives of the Frenchpeople, the banners and colours taken from Beaulieu. In December, 1796, Josephine was at Genoa, where she was received with studied magnificence, by those in that ancient state who adhered to the French interest, and where, to the scandal of the rigid Catholics, the company continued assembled, at a ball given by M. de Serva, till a late hour on Friday morning, despite the presence of a senator having in his pocket, but not venturing to enforce, a decree of the senate for the better observation of the fast day upon the occasion. These, however, were probably only occasional visits; but after the signature of the treaty of Leoben, and during the various negotiations which took place before it was finally adjusted, as ratified at Campo Formio, Josephine lived in domestic society with her husband, at the beautiful seat, or rather palace, of Montebello.

This villa, celebrated from the important negotiations of which it was the scene, is situated a few leagues from Milan, on a gently sloping hill, which commands an extensive prospect over the fertile plains of Lombardy. The ladies of the highest rank, as well as those celebrated for beauty and accomplishments,—all, in short, who could add charms to society,—were daily paying their homage to Josephine, who received them with a felicity of address which seemed as if she had been born for exercising the high courtesies that devolved upon the wife of so distinguished a person as Napoleon.

COURT AT MONTEBELLO.

Negotiations proceeded amid gaiety and pleasure. The various ministers and envoys of Austria, of the Pope, of the Kings of Naples and Sardinia, of the Duke of Parma, of the Swiss Cantons, of several of the Princes of Germany,—the throng of generals, of persons in authority, of deputies of towns,—with the daily arrival and despatch of numerous couriers, the bustle of important business, mingled with fêtes and entertainments, with balls and with hunting parties,—gave the picture of a splendid court, and the assemblage was called accordingly, by the Italians, the Court of Montebello. It was such in point of importance; for the deliberations agitated there were to regulate the political relations of Germany, and decide the fate of the King of Sardinia, of Switzerland, of Venice, of Genoa: all destined to hear from the voice of Napoleon, the terms on which their national existence was to be prolonged or terminated.

Montebello was not less the abode of pleasure. The sovereigns of this diplomatic and military court made excursions to the lago Maggiore, to lago di Como, to the Borromean islands, and occupied at pleasure the villas which surround those delicious regions. Every town, every village, desired to distinguish itself by some peculiar mark of homage and respect to him, whom they then named the Liberator of Italy.[291]These expressions are in a great measure those of Napoleon himself, who seems to havelooked back on this period of his life with warmer recollections of pleasurable enjoyment than he had experienced on any other occasion.

It was probably the happiest time of his life. Honour, beyond that of a crowned head, was his own, and had the full relish of novelty to a mind which two or three years before was pining in obscurity. Power was his, and he had not experienced its cares and risks; high hopes were formed of him by all around, and he had not yet disappointed them. He was in the flower of youth, and married to the woman of his heart. Above all, he had the glow of Hope, which was marshalling him even to more exalted dominion; and he had not yet become aware that possession brings satiety, and that all earthly desires and wishes terminate, when fully attained, in vanity and vexation of spirit.

The various objects which occupied Buonaparte's mind during this busy yet pleasing interval, were the affairs of Genoa, of Sardinia, of Naples, of the Cisalpine republic, of the Grisons, and lastly, and by far the most important of them, the definitive treaty with Austria, which involved the annihilation of Venice as an independent state.

GENOA.

Genoa, the proud rival of Venice, had never attained the same permanent importance with that sister republic; but her nobility, who still administered her government according to the model assigned them by Andrew Doria, preserved more national spirit, and a more warlike disposition. The neighbourhood of France, and the prevalence of her opinions, had stirred up among the citizens of the middling class a party, taking the name of Morandists, from a club so termed,[292]whose object it was to break down the oligarchy, and revolutionize the government. The nobles were naturally opposed to this, and a large body of the populace much employed by them, and strict Catholics, were, ready to second them in their defence.

The establishment of two Italian democracies upon the Po, made the Genoese revolutionists conceive the time was arrived when their own state ought to pass through a similar ordeal of regeneration. They mustered their strength, and petitioned the doge for the abolition of the government as it existed, and the adoption of a democratic model. The doge condescended so far to their demand, as to name a committee of nine persons, five of them of plebeian birth, to consider and report on the means of infusing a more popular spirit into the constitution.[293]

The three chief Inquisitors of State, or Censors, as the actual rulers of the oligarchy were entitled, opposed the spirit of religious enthusiasm to that of democratic zeal. They employed thepulpit and the confessional as the means of warning good Catholics against the change demanded by the Morandists—they exposed the Holy Sacrament, and made processions and public prayers, as if threatened with a descent of the Algerines.

May 22.

Meanwhile, the Morandists took up arms, displayed the French colours, and conceiving their enterprise was on the point of success, seized the gate of the arsenal and that of the harbour. But their triumph was short. Ten thousand armed labourers started as from out of the earth, under the command of their syndics, or municipal officers, with cries of "Viva Maria!" and declared for the aristocracy. The insurgents, totally defeated, were compelled to shut themselves up in their houses, where they were assailed by the stronger party, and finally routed. The French residing in Genoa were maltreated by the prevailing party, their houses pillaged, and they themselves dragged to prison.

The last circumstance gave Buonaparte an ostensible right to interfere, which he would probably have done even had no such violence been committed. He sent his aide-de-camp La Valette to Genoa, with the threat of instantly moving against the city a division of his army, unless the prisoners were set at liberty, the aristocratic party disarmed, and such alterations, or rather such a complete change of government adopted, as should be agreeable to the French commander-in-chief. Against this there was no appeal. The inquisitors were laid under arrest, for having defended, with the assistance of their fellow-citizens, the existing institutions of the state; and the doge, with two other magistrates of the first rank, went to learn at Montebello, the headquarters of Napoleon, what was to be the future fate of the City, proudly called ofPalaces.[294]They received the outlines of such a democracy as Napoleon conceived suitable for them; and he appears to have been unusually favourable to the state, which, according to the French affectation of doing every thing upon a classical model, now underwent revolutionary baptism, and was called the Ligurian Republic. It was stipulated, that the French who had suffered should be indemnified; but no contributions were exacted for the use of the French army, nor did the collections and cabinets of Genoa pay any tribute to the Parisian Museum.[295]

Nov. 11.

Shortly after, the democratic party having gone so far as to exclude the nobles from the government, and from all offices of trust, called down by doing so a severe admonition from Buonaparte.Hedischargedthem to offend the prejudices, or insult the feelings of the more scrupulous Catholics, declaring farther, that to exclude those of noble birth from public functions, is a revolting piece of injustice, and, in fact, as criminal as the worst of the errors of the patricians.[296]Buonaparte says, he felt a partiality for Genoa; and the comparative liberality with which he treated the state on this occasion, furnishes a good proof that he did so.

The King of Sardinia had been prostrated at the feet of France by the armistice of Cherasco, which concluded Napoleon's first campaign; and that sagacious leader had been long desirous that the Directory should raise the royal supplicant (for he could be termed little else) into some semblance of regal dignity, so as to make his power available as an ally. Nay, General Clarke had, 5th April, 1797, subscribed, with the representative of his Sardinian Majesty, a treaty offensive and defensive, by which Napoleon expected to add to the army under his command four thousand Sardinian or Piedmontese infantry, and five hundred cavalry; and he reckoned much on this contingent, in case of the war being renewed with Austria. But the Directory shifted and evaded his solicitations, and declined confirming this treaty, probably because they considered the army under his command as already sufficiently strong, being, as the soldiers were, so devoted to their leader. At length, however, the treaty was ratified, but too late to serve Buonaparte's object.

Naples, whose conduct had been vacillating and insincere, as events seemed to promise victory or threaten defeat to the French general, experienced, notwithstanding, when he was in the height of triumph, the benefit of his powerful intercession with the government, and retained the full advantage secured to her by the treaty of Paris of 10th October, 1796.

A most important subject of consideration remained after the pacification of Italy, respecting the mode in which the new republics were to be governed, and the extent of territory which should be assigned to them. On this subject, there had been long discussions; and as there was much animosity and ancient grudge betwixt some of the Italian cities and provinces, it was no very easy matter to convince them, that their true interest lay in as many of them being united under one energetic and active government as should render them a power of some importance, instead of being divided as heretofore into petty states, which could not offer effectual resistance even to invasion on the part of a power of the second class, much more if attacked by France or Austria.

The formation of a compact and independent state in the north of Italy, was what Napoleon had much at heart. But the Cispadane and Transpadane republics were alike averse to a union, and that of Romagna had declined on its part a junction with the Cispadane commonwealth, and set up for a puny and feeble independence, under the title of the Emilian Republic. Buonaparte was enabled to overcome these grudgings and heart-burnings, by pointing out to them the General Republic, which it was now his system to create, as being destined to form the kernel of a state which should be enlarged from time to time as opportunities offered, until it should include all Italy under one single government. This flattering prospect, in assigning to Italy, though at some distant date, the probability of forming one great country, united in itself, and independent of the rest of Europe, instead of being, as now, parcelled out into petty states, naturally overcame all the local dislikes and predilections which might have prevented the union of the Cispadane, Transpadane, and Emilian republics into one, and that important measure was resolved upon accordingly.

CISALPINE REPUBLIC.

The Cisalpine republic was the name fixed upon to designate the united commonwealth. The French would more willingly have named it, with respect to Paris, the Transalpine republic; but that would have been innovating upon the ancient title which Rome has to be the central point, with reference to which, all other parts of Italy assume their local description. It would have destroyed all classical propriety, and have confused historical recollections, if, what had hitherto been called the Ultramontane side of the Alps, had, to gratify Parisian vanity, been termed the Hither side of the same chain of mountains.

The constitution assigned to the Cisalpine republic, was the same which the French had last of all adopted, in what they called the year five, having a Directory of executive administrators, and two Councils. They were installed upon the 30th of June, 1797. Four members of the Directory were named by Buonaparte, and the addition of a fifth was promised with all convenient speed. On the 14th of July following, a review was made of thirty thousand national guards. The fortresses of Lombardy, and the other districts, were delivered up to the local authorities, and the French army, retiring from the territories of the new republic, took up cantonments in the Venetian states. Proclamation had already been made, that the states belonging to the Cisalpine republic having been acquired by France by the right of conquest, she had used her privilege to form them into their present free and independent government, which, already recognised by the Emperor and the Directory, could not fail to be acknowledged within a short time by all the other powers of Europe.[297]

TREATY OF CAMPO-FORMIO.

Buonaparte soon after showed that he was serious in his design of enlarging the Cisalpine republic, as opportunity could be made to serve. There are three valleys, termed the Valteline districts, which run down from the Swiss mountains towards the lake of Como. The natives of the Valteline are about one hundred and sixty thousand souls. They speak Italian, and are chiefly of the Catholic persuasion. These valleys were at this period the subjects of the Swiss Cantons, called the Grisons, not being a part of their league, or enjoying any of their privileges, but standing towards the Swiss community, generally and individually, in the rank of vassals to sovereigns. This situation of thraldom and dependence was hard to endure, and dishonourable in itself; and we cannot be surprised that, when the nations around them were called upon to enjoy liberty and independence, the inhabitants of the Valteline should have driven their Swiss garrisons out of their valleys, adopted the symbol of Italian freedom, and carried their complaints against the oppression of their German and Protestant masters to the feet of Buonaparte.

The inhabitants of the Valteline unquestionably had a right to assert their natural liberty, which is incapable of suffering prescription; but it is not equally clear how the French could, according to the law of nations, claim any title to interfere between them and the Grisons, with whom, as well as with the whole Swiss Union, they were in profound peace. This scruple seems to have struck Buonaparte's own mind.[298]He pretended, however, to assume that the Milanese government had a right to interfere, and his mediation was so far recognised, that the Grisons pleaded before him in answer to their contumacious vassals. Buonaparte gave his opinion, by advising the canton of the Grisons, which consists of three leagues, to admit their Valteline subjects to a share of their franchises, in the character of a fourth association. The moderation of the proposal may be admitted to excuse the irregularity of the interference.

The representatives of the Grey League, were, notwithstanding, profoundly hurt at a proposal which went to make their vassals their brother-freemen, and to establish the equality of the Italian serf, who drank of the Adda, with the free-born Switzer, who quaffed the waters of the Rhine. As they turned a deaf ear to his proposal, deserted his tribunal, and endeavoured to find support at Bern, Paris, Vienna, and elsewhere, Napoleon resolved to proceed against them in default of appearance; and declaring, that as the Grisons had failed to appear before him, or to comply with his injunctions, by admitting the people of the Valteline to be parties to their league, he therefore adjudged the state, or district, of the Valteline, in time coming, to belong to, and be part of, the Cisalpine republic. The Grisons in vain humbled themselves when it was too late, and protested their readiness to pleadbefore a mediator too powerful to be declined under any ground known in law; and the Valteline territory was adjudged [October 10] inalienably annexed to and united with Lombardy; of which, doubtless, it forms, from manners and contiguity, a natural portion.[299]

The existence of a state having free institutions, however imperfect, seemed to work an almost instant amelioration on the character of the people of the north of Italy. The effeminacy and trifling habits which resigned all the period of youth to intrigue and amusement, began to give place to firmer and more manly virtues—to the desire of honourable minds to distinguish themselves in arts and arms.[300]Buonaparte had himself said, that twenty years would be necessary to work a radical change on the national character of the Italians; but even already those seeds were sown, among a people hitherto frivolous because excluded from public business, and timorous because they were not permitted the use of arms, which afterwards made the Italians of the north equal the French themselves in braving the terrors of war, besides producing several civil characters of eminence.

Amid those subordinate discussions, as they might be termed, in comparison to the negotiations betwixt Austria and France, these two high contracting parties found great difficulty in agreeing as to the pacific superstructure which they should build upon the foundation which had been laid by the preliminaries exchanged at Leoben. Nay, it seemed as if some of the principal stipulations, which had been there agreed upon as the corner-stones of their treaty, were even already beginning to be unsettled.

It will be remembered, that, in exchange for the cession of Flanders, and of all the countries on the left side of the Rhine, including the strong city of Mayence, which she was to yield up to France in perpetuity, Austria stipulated an indemnification on some other frontier. The original project bore, that the Lombardic republic, since termed the Cisalpine, should have all the territories extending from Piedmont to the river Oglio. Those to the eastward of that river were to be ceded to Austria as an equivalent for the cession of Belgium, and the left bank of the Rhine. The Oglio, rising in the Alps, descends through the fertile districts of Brescia and Cremasco, and falls into the Po near Borgo-forte, enclosing Mantua on its left bank, which strong fortress, the citadel of Italy, was, by this allocation, to be restored to Austria. There were farther compensations assigned to theEmperor, by the preliminaries of Leoben. Venice was to be deprived of her territories on the mainland, which were to be confiscated to augment the indemnity destined for the empire; and this, although Venice, as far as Buonaparte yet knew, had been faithful to the neutrality she had adopted. To redeem this piece of injustice, another was to be perpetrated. The state of Venice was to receive the legations of Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna, in lieu of the dominions which she was to cede to Austria; and these legations, it must not be forgotten, were the principal materials of the Cispadane republic, founded by Buonaparte himself. These, however, with their population, which he had led to hope for a free popular government, he was now about to turn over to the dominion of Venice, the most jealous oligarchy in the world, which was not likely to forgive those who had been forward in expressing a desire of freedom. This was the first concoction of the treaty of Leoben, from which it appears that the negotiators of the two great powers regarded the secondary and weaker states, whether ancient or of modern erection, merely as make-weights, to be thrown into either scale, as might be necessary to adjust the balance.

It is true, the infant Cispadane republic escaped the fate to which its patron and founder was about to resign it; for after this arrangement had been provisionally adjusted, news came of the insurrection of Venice, the attack upon the French through her whole territory, and the massacre at Verona. This aggression placed the ancient republic, so far as France was concerned, in the light of a hostile power, and entitled Buonaparte to deal with her as a conquered one, perhaps to divide, or altogether to annihilate her. But, on the other hand, he had received their submission, ratified the establishment of their new popular constitution, and possessed himself of the city, under pretence of assigning it a free government, according to the general hope which he had held out to Italy at large. The right of conquest was limited by the terms on which surrender had been accepted. Austria, on the other hand, was the more deeply bound to have protected the ancient republic, for it was in her cause that Venice so rashly assumed arms; but such is the gratitude of nations, such the faith of politicians, that she appears, from the beginning, to have had no scruple in profiting by the spoils of an ally, who had received a death-wound in her cause.

By the time the negotiators met for finally discussing the preliminaries, the Directory of France, either to thwart Buonaparte, whose superiority became too visible, or because they actually entertained the fears they expressed, were determined that Mantua, which had been taken with such difficulty, should remain the bulwark of the Cisalpine republic, instead of returning to be once more that of the Austrian territories in Italy. The Imperial plenipotentiaries insisted, on the other hand, that Mantua was absolutely necessary to the safety of their Italian possessions, andbecame more so from the peculiar character of their new neighbour, the Cisalpine republic, whose example was likely to be so perilous to the adjacent dependencies of an ancient monarchy. To get over this difficulty, the French general proposed that the remaining dominions of Venice should be also divided betwixt Austria and France, the latter obtaining possession of the Albanian territories and the Ionian islands belonging to the republic, of which the high contracting powers signed the death-warrant; while Istria, Dalmatia, Venice herself, and all her other dominions, should be appropriated to Austria. The latter power, through her minister, consented to this arrangement with as little scruple, as to the former appropriation of her forlorn ally's possessions on the Terra Firma.

But as fast as obstacles were removed on one side, they appeared to start up on another, and a sort of pause ensued in the deliberations, which neither party seemed to wish to push to a close. In fact, both Napoleon, plenipotentiary for France, and Count Cobentzel,[301]a man of great diplomatic skill and address, who took the principal management on the part of Austria, were sufficiently aware that the French government, long disunited, was in the act of approaching to a crisis. This accordingly took place, under circumstances to be hereafter noticed, on the eighteenth of Fructidor, creating, by a new revolutionary movement, a total change of administration. When this revolution was accomplished, the Directory, who accomplished it, feeling themselves more strong, appeared to lay aside the idea of peace, and showed a strong disposition to push their advantages to the utmost.

Buonaparte was opposed to this. He knew that if war was resumed, the difficulties of the campaign would be thrown on him, and the blame also, if the results were not happy. He was determined, therefore, in virtue of his full powers, to bring the matter to a conclusion, whether the Directory would or not. For this purpose he confronted Cobentzel, who still saw his game in gaining delay, with the sternness of a military envoy. On the 16th October, the conferences were renewed upon the former grounds, and Cobentzel went over the whole subject of the indemnifications—insisting that Mantua, and the line of the Adige, should be granted to the Emperor; threatening to bring down the Russians in case the war should be renewed; and insinuating that Buonaparte sacrificed the desire of peace to his military fame, and desired a renewal of the war. Napoleon, with stern but restrained indignation, took from a bracket an ornamental piece of china, on which Cobentzel set some value, as being a presentfrom the Empress Catherine. "The truce," he said, "is then ended, and war declared. But beware—before the end of autumn, I will break your empire into as many fragments as this potsherd."[302]He dashed the piece of china against the hearth, and withdrew abruptly. Again we are reminded of the Argantes of Tasso.[303]

The Austrian plenipotentiaries no longer hesitated to submit to all Napoleon's demands, rather than again see him commence his tremendous career of irresistible invasion. The treaty of Campo Formio therefore was signed on the following day; not the less promptly, perhaps, that the affairs at Paris appeared so doubtful as to invite an ambitious and aspiring man like Napoleon to approach the scene where honours and power were distributed, and where jarring factions seemed to await the influence of a character so distinguished and so determined.

The fate of Venice, more from her ancient history than either the value of her institutions, which were execrable, or the importance of her late existence, still dwells somewhat on the memory. The ancient republic fell "as a fool dieth." The aristocrats cursed the selfishness of Austria, by whom they were swallowed up, though they had perilled themselves in her cause. The republicans hastened to escape from Austrian domination, grinding their teeth with rage, and cursing no less the egotistic policy of the French, who, making a convenient pretext of their interest, had pretended to assign them a free constitution, and then resigned them to become the vassals of a despotic government.

The French secretary of legation, who had played a remarkably active part during the Revolution, hazarded a remonstrance to Buonaparte on the surrender of Venice to Austria, instead of its being formed into a free democracy, or united with the Cisalpine republic.[304]Buonaparte laughed to scorn a man, whose views were still fixed on diffusing and propagating the principles of Jacobinism. "I have received your letter," was the stern and contemptuous reply, "and cannot comprehend it. The Republic of France is not bound by any treaty, to sacrifice its interests and advantages to the Committee of Public Safety in Venice, or to any other class of individuals. France does not make war in behalf and for the benefit of others.[305]I know it costs nothing fora few chattering declaimers, whom I might better describe as madmen, to talk of a universal republic—I wish they would try a winter campaign. The Venetian republic exists no longer. Effeminate, corrupted, treacherous, and hypocritical, the Venetians are unfit for liberty. If she has the spirit to appreciate, or courage to assert it, the time is not unfavourable—let her stand up for it."[306]Thus, with insult added to misery, and great contempt thrown by Napoleon on the friends of liberty all over the world, the fate of Venice was closed. The most remarkable incident of the final transfer to the Austrians was, that the aged Doge Marini dropt down senseless as he was about to take the oath of allegiance to the Imperial commissioner, and died shortly after.

CONGRESS OF RASTADT.

Nov. 12.

Napoleon Buonaparte had now finished for the present his career of destiny in Italy, which country first saw his rising talents, and was always a subject of peculiar interest to him. He took an affecting leave of the soldiers,[307]who could scarce hope ever to see him replaced by a general of merits so transcendent, and made a moderate and judicious address to the Cisalpine republic. Finally, he departed, to return through Switzerland to Rastadt, where a congress was sitting for the settlement and pacification of the German empire, and where he was to act as a plenipotentiary on the part of France.[308]

On the journey he was observed to be moody and deeply contemplative. The separation from a hundred thousand men whom he might call his own, and the uncertainty of the future destinies to which he might be summoned, are enough to account for this, without supposing, as some have done, that he already had distinctly formed any of those projects of ambition which Time opened to him. Doubtless, however, his ardent ambition showed him remote and undefined visions of greatness. He could not but be sensible that he returned to the capital of France in a situation which scarce admitted of any mediocrity. He must either be raised to a yet more distinguished height, or altogether broken down, levelled with the mass of subjects, and consigned to comparative obscurity. There was no middle station for the Conqueror and Liberator of Italy.

CHAPTER XI.Retrospect—The Directory—they become unpopular—Causes of their unpopularity—Also at enmity among themselves—State of public feeling in France—In point of numbers, favourable to the Bourbons; but the Army and monied Interest against them—Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred—Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients—Directory throw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte—Buonaparte's personal Politics discussed—Pichegru's Correspondence with the Bourbons—known to Buonaparte—He despatches Augereau to Paris—Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana—Narrow and Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte—Projected Invasion of England.While the conqueror of Italy was pursuing his victories beyond the Alps, the French Directory, in whose name he achieved them, had become, to the conviction of all men, as unlikely to produce the benefits of a settled government, as any of their predecessors vested with the supreme rule.RETROSPECT.It is with politics as with mechanics, ingenuity is not always combined with utility. Some one observed to the late celebrated Mr. Watt, that it was wonderful for what a number of useless inventions, illustrated by the most ingenious and apparently satisfactory models, patents were yearly issued: he replied, that he had often looked at them with interest, and had found several, the idea of which had occurred to himself in the course of his early studies. "But," said he, with his natural masculine sagacity, "it is one thing to make an ingenious model, and another to contrive an engine which shall work its task. Most of these pretty toys, when they are applied to practical purposes, are found deficient in some point of strength, or correctness of mechanism, which destroys all chance of their ever becoming long or generally useful." Some such imperfection seems to have attended the works of these speculative politicians who framed the various ephemeral constitutions of France. However well they looked upon paper, and however reasonable they sounded to the ear, no one ever thought of them as laws which required veneration and obedience. Did a constitutional rule preclude a favourite measure, to break it down, or leap over it, was the French statesman's unhesitating practice. A rule was always devised applicable to circumstances; and before that, the theory of the constitution was uniformly made to give way.THE DIRECTORY.The constitution of the year Three was not more permanent than those by which it had been preceded. For some time, theDirectory, which contained men of considerable talent, conducted themselves with great prudence. The difficulty and danger of their situation served to prevent their separating, as the weight put above an arch keeps the stones in their places. Their exertions in the attempt to redeem the finances, support the war, and re-establish the tranquillity of the country, were attended at first with success. The national factions also sunk before them for a season. They had defeated the aristocratic citizens of Paris on the 13th Vendemiaire; and when the original revolutionists, or democrats, attempted a conspiracy, under the conduct of Gracchus Babœuf,[309]their endeavours to seduce the troops totally failed, and their lives paid the forfeit of their rash attempt to bring back the Reign of Terror. Thus, the Directory, or executive power, under the constitution of the year Three, were for a season triumphant over the internal factions, and, belonging to neither, were in a situation to command both.But they had few who were really, and on principle, attached to their government, and most endured it only as something better than a new revolutionary movement, and otherwise in no respect eligible. To have rendered their authority permanent, the Directory must have had great unanimity in their own body, and also brilliant success abroad, and they enjoyed neither one nor the other. The very concoction of their body included the principles of disunion. They were a sort of five kings, retiring from office by rotation, inhabiting each his separate class of apartments in the Luxembourg palace, having each his different establishments, classes of clients, circles of courtiers, flatterers, and instruments. The republican simplicity, of late so essential to a patriot, was laid aside entirely. New costumes of the most splendid kind were devised for the different office-bearers of the state. This change took its rise from the weakness and vanity of Barras, who loved show, and used to go a-hunting with all the formal attendance of a prince. But it was an indulgence of luxury, which gave scandal to both the great parties in the state;—the Republicans, who held it altogether in contempt;—and the Royalists, who considered it as an usurpation of the royal dress and appendages.[310]The finances became continually more and more a subject of uneasiness. In the days of terror, money was easily raised, because it was demanded under pain of death, and assignats wereraised toparby guillotining those who bought or sold them at less than their full value; but the powerful argument of violence and compulsion being removed, the paper money fell to a ruinous discount, till its depression threatened, unless remedied, altogether to stop the course of public business.[311]It perhaps arose from the difficulty of raising supplies, that the Directory assumed towards other countries a greedy, grasping, and rapacious character, which threw disgrace at once upon the individuals who indulged it, and the state whom they represented. They loaded with exactions the trade of the Bavarian republic, whose freedom they had pretended to recognise, and treated with most haughty superiority the ambassadors of independent states. Some of these high officers, and Barras in particular, were supposed accessible to gross corruption, and believed to hold communication with those agents and stock-brokers, who raised money by jobbing in the public funds—a more deservedly unpopular accusation than which can hardly be brought against a minister. It was, indeed, a great error in the constitution, that, though one hundred thousand livres were yearly allowed to each director while in office, yet he had no subsequent provision after he had retired from his fractional share of sovereignty. This penury, on the part of the public, opened a way to temptation, though of a kind to which mean minds only are obnoxious; and such men as Barras[312]were tempted to make provision for futurity, by availing themselves of present opportunity.Their five majesties (sires) of the Luxembourg, as people called them in ridicule, had also their own individual partialities and favourite objects, which led them in turn to tease the French people with unnecessary legislation. La Reveillere-Lepaux was that inconsistent yet not uncommon character, an intolerant philosopher and an enthusiastic deist. He established a priesthood, and hymns and ceremonies for deism; and, taking up the hopeful project of substituting a deistical worship for the Christian faith, just where Robespierre had laid it down, he harassed the nation with laws to oblige them to observe thedecadesof their new calendar as holidays, and to work at their ordinary trades on the Christian Sabbath.[313]At La Reveillere's theory freethinkers laughed, and religious men shuddered; but all were equally annoyed by the legislative measures adopted on a subject so ridiculous as this new ritual of heathenism.[314]Anothercause of vexation was the philosophical arrangement of weights and measures upon a new principle, which had, in the meantime, the inconvenience of introducing doubt and uncertainty into all the arrangements of internal commerce, and deranging entirely such as France continued to hold with countries who were only acquainted with the ordinary standard.[315]It might have been thought that the distinguished success of the French arms under the auspices of the Directory would have dazzled the eyes of the French, attached as they have always been to military glory, and blinded them to other less agreeable measures of their government. But the public were well aware, that the most brilliant share of these laurels had been reaped by Buonaparte on his own account; that he had received but slender reinforcements from France—the magnitude of his achievements considered; and that in regard to the instructions of government, much of his success was owing to his departure from them, and following his own course. It was also whispered, that he was an object of suspicion to the directors, and on his part undervalued their talents, and despised their persons. On the Rhine, again, though nothing could have been more distinguished than the behaviour of the Republican armies, yet their successes had been checkered with many reverses, and, contrasted with the Italian campaigns, lost their impression on the imagination.While they were thus becoming unpopular in the public opinion, the Directory had the great misfortune to be at enmity among themselves. From the time that Letourneur[316]retired from office in terms of the constitution, and Barthelemy was elected in his stead, there was a majority and an opposition in the Directory, the former consisting of Barras, Rewbel,[317]and La Reveillere—the latter, of Carnot and Barthelemy. Of the two last, Carnot (who had been, it may be remembered, a memberof the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre) was a determined Republican, and Barthelemy a Royalist;—so strangely do revolutionary changes, like the eddies and currents of a swollen river, bring together and sweep down side by side in the same direction, objects the most different and opposed. Barthelemy of course dissented from the majority of the Directors, because secretly and warmly he desired the restoration of the Bourbons—an event which must have been fraught with danger to his colleagues, all of whom had voted for the death of Louis XVI. Carnot also differed from the majority, certainly with no such wish or view; but, his temper being as overbearing as his genius was extensive, he was impatient of opposition, especially in such cases where he knew he was acting wisely. He advised strongly, for example, the ratification of the articles of Leoben, instead of placing all which France had acquired, and all which she might lose, on the last fatal cast with an enemy, strong in his very despair, and who might raise large armies, while that of Buonaparte could neither be reinforced nor supported in case of a reverse. Barras's anger on the occasion was so great, that he told Carnot at the council-board, it was to him they owed that infamous treaty of Leoben.While the Directory were thus disunited among themselves, the nation showed their dissatisfaction openly, and particularly in the two bodies of representatives. The majority indeed of the Council of Elders adhered to the Directory, many of that body belonging to the old republican partisans. But in the more popularly composed Council of Five Hundred, the opposition to the government possessed a great majority, all of whom were decidedly against the Directory, and most of them impressed with the wish of restoring, upon terms previously to be adjusted, the ancient race of legitimate monarchs. This body of persons so thinking, was much increased by the number of emigrants, who obtained, on various grounds, permission to return to their native country after the fall of Robespierre. The forms of civil life began now to be universally renewed; and, as had been the case in France at all times, excepting during the bloody Reign of Terror, women of rank, beauty, talent, and accomplishments, began again to resume their places in society, and their saloons or boudoirs were often the scene of deep political discourse, of a sort which in Britain is generally confined to the cabinet, library, or dining-parlour. The wishes of many, or most of these coteries, were in favour of royalty; the same feelings were entertained by the many thousands who saw no possible chance of settling the nation on any other model; and there is little doubt, that had France been permitted at that moment an uninfluenced choice, the Bourbon family would have been recalled to the throne by the great majority of the French people.But, for reasons mentioned elsewhere, the military were the decided opponents of the Bourbons, and the purchasers of nationaldomains, through every successive sale which might have taken place, were deeply interested against their restoration. Numbers might be on the side of the Royalists; but physical force, and the influence of wealth and of the monied interest, were decidedly against them.PICHEGRU.Pichegru might now be regarded as chief of the Royal party. He was an able and successful general, to whom France owed the conquest of Holland. Like La Fayette and Dumouriez, he had been disgusted with the conduct of the Revolution; and like the last of the two generals named, had opened a communication with the Bourbons. He was accused of having suffered his army to be betrayed in a defeat by Clairfait; and the government, in 1796, removed him from the command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, offering him in exchange the situation of ambassador to Sweden. He declined this species of honourable exile, and, retiring to Franche Compté, continued his correspondence with the Imperial generals.[318]The Royalists expected much from the countenance of a military man of a name so imposing; but we have seen more than once in the course of these memoirs, that a general without an army is like a hilt without the blade which it should wield and direct.An opportunity, however, offered Pichegru the means of serving his party in a civil capacity, and that a most important one. The elections of May, 1797, made to replace that proportion of the councils which retired by rotation, terminated generally in favour of the Royalists, and served plainly to show on which side the balance of popular feeling now leaned. Pichegru, who had been returned as one of the deputies, was chosen by acclamation President of the Council of Five Hundred, and Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, was elected to the same office by the Council of Ancients, while, as we have already said, Barthelemy likewise friendly to monarchy, was introduced into the Directory.These elections were evil signs for the Directory, who did not fail soon to be attacked on every side, and upbraided with the continuance of the war and the financial distresses. Various journals were at the disposal of the party opposed to the majority of the directors, and hostilities were commenced between the parties, both in the assemblies, where the Royalists had the advantage, and in the public papers, where they were also favourably listened to. The French are of an impatient temper, and could not be long brought to carry on their warfare within the limits assigned by the constitution. Each party, without much regard to the state of the law, looked about for the means of physical force with which they might arm themselves. The Directory, (that is, the majority of that body,) sensible of their unpopularity, and the predominance of the opposite party, which seemed for a time to have succeeded to the boldness and audacity of the revolutionaryclass had, in their agony of extremity, recourse to the army, and threw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and of Buonaparte.We have elsewhere said, that Buonaparte at this period was esteemed a steady Republican. Pichegru believed him to be such when he dissuaded the Royalists from any attempt to gain over the General of Italy; and as he had known him at school at Brienne, declared him of too stubborn a character to afford the least hope of success. Augereau was of the same opinion, and mistook his man so much, that when Madame de Staël asked whether Buonaparte was not inclined to make himself King of Lombardy, he replied, with great simplicity, "that he was a young man of too elevated a character."[319]Perhaps Buonaparte himself felt the same for a moment, when, in a despatch to the Directory, he requests their leave to withdraw from the active service of the Republic, as one who had acquired more glory than was consistent with happiness. "Calumny," he said, "may torment herself in vain with ascribing to me treacherous designs. My civil, like my military career, shall be conforming to republican principles."[320]The public papers also, those we mean on the side of the Directory, fell into a sort of rapture on the classical republican feelings by which Buonaparte was actuated, which they said rendered the hope of his return a pleasure pure and unmixed, and precluded the possibility of treachery or engrossing ideas on his side. "The factious of every class," they said, "cannot have an enemy more steady, or the government a friend more faithful, than he who, invested with the military power of which he has made so glorious a use, sighs only to resign a situation so brilliant, prefers happiness to glory, and now that the Republic is graced with triumph and peace, desires for himself only a simple and retired life."[321]But though such were the ideas then entertained of Buonaparte's truly republican character, framed, doubtless, on the model of Cincinnatus in his classical simplicity, we may be permitted to look a little closer into the ultimate views of him, who was admitted by his enemies and friends, avouched by himself, and sanctioned by the journals, as a pure and disinterested republican: and we think the following changes may be traced.Whether Buonaparte was ever at heart a real Jacobin even for the moment, may be greatly doubted, whatever mask his situation obliged him to wear. He himself always repelled the charge as an aspersion. His engagement in the affair of the Sections probably determined his opinions as Republican, or rather Thermidorien, at the time, as became him by whom the Republicanarmy had been led and commanded on that day. Besides, at the head of an army zealously republican, even his power over their minds required to be strengthened, for some time at least, by an apparent correspondence in political sentiments betwixt the troops and the general. But in the practical doctrines of government which he recommended to the Italian Republics, his ideas were studiously moderate, and he expressed the strongest fear of, and aversion to, revolutionary doctrines. He recommended the granting equal rights and equal privileges to the nobles, as well as to the indignant vassals and plebeians who had risen against them. In a word, he advocated a free set of institutions, without the intermediate purgatory of a revolution. He was, therefore, at this period, far from being a Jacobin.But though Buonaparte's wishes were thus wisely moderated by practical views, he was not the less likely to be sensible that he was the object of fear, of hatred, and of course of satire and misrepresentation, to that side of the opposed parties in France which favoured royalty. Unhappily for himself, he was peculiarly accessible to every wound of this nature, and, anxiously jealous of his fame, suffered as much under the puny attacks of the journalists,[322]as a noble steer or a gallant horse does amid his rich pasture, under the persecutions of insects, which, in comparison to himself, are not only impotent, but nearly invisible. In several letters to the Directory, he exhibits feelings of this nature which would have been more gracefully concealed, and evinces an irritability against the opposition prints, which we think likely to have increased the zeal with which he came forward on the Republican side at this important crisis.[323]INTRIGUES OF PICHEGRU.Another circumstance, which, without determining Buonaparte's conduct, may have operated in increasing his good-will to the cause which he embraced, was his having obtained the clew of Pichegru's correspondence with the house of Bourbon.[324]To have concealed this, would have been but a second rate merit with the exiled family, whose first thanks must have been due to the partisan whom he protected. This was no part for Buonaparte to play; not that we have a right to say he would have accepted the chief character had it been offered to him, but his ambition could never have stooped to any inferior place in the drama. In all probability, his ideas fluctuated betwixt the example of Cromwell and of Washington—to be the actual liberator, or the absolute governor of his country.His particular information respecting Pichegru's negotiations, was derived from an incident at the capture of Venice.When the degenerate Venetians, more under the impulse of vague terror than from any distinct plan, adopted in haste and tumult the measure of totally surrendering their constitution and rights, to be new modelled by the French general after his pleasure, they were guilty of a gross and aggravated breach of hospitality, in seizing the person and papers of the Comte d'Entraigues,[325]agent or envoy of the exiled Bourbons, who was then residing under their protection. The envoy himself, as Buonaparte alleges, was not peculiarly faithful to his trust; but, besides his information, his portfolio contained many proofs of Pichegru's correspondence with the allied generals, and with the Bourbons, which placed his secret absolutely in the power of the General of Italy, and might help to confirm the line of conduct which he had already meditated to adopt.Possessed of these documents, and sure that, in addressing a French army of the day, he would swim with the tide if he espoused the side of Republicanism, Buonaparte harangued his troops on the anniversary of the taking the Bastille, in a manner calculated to awake their ancient democratic enthusiasm:—"Soldiers, this is the 14th July! You see before you the names of our companions in arms, dead in the field of honour for the liberty of their country. They have set you an example; you owe your lives to thirty millions of Frenchmen, and to the national name, which has received new splendour from your victories. Soldiers! I am aware you are deeply affected by the dangers which threaten the country. But she can be subjected to none which are real. The same men who made France triumph over united Europe, still live.—Mountains separate us from France, but you would traverse them with the speed of eagles, were it necessary to maintain the constitution, defend liberty, protect the Government and the Republicans. Soldiers, the Government watches over the laws as a sacred deposit committed to them. The Royalists shall only show themselves to perish. Dismiss all inquietude, and let us swear by the manes of those heroes who have died by our sides for liberty—let us swear, too, on our standards—War to the enemies of the Republic, and of the Constitution of the year Three!"[326]It is needless to remark, that, under the British constitution, or any other existing on fixed principles, the haranguing an armed body of soldiers, with the purpose of inducing them to interfereby force in any constitutional question, would be in one point of view mutiny, in another high treason.The hint so distinctly given by the general, was immediately adopted by the troops. Deep called to deep, and each division of the army, whatever its denomination, poured forth its menaces of military force and compulsion against the opposition party in the councils, who held opinions different from those of their military chief, but which they had, at least hitherto, only expressed and supported by those means of resistance which the constitution placed in their power. In other words, the soldiers' idea of a republic was, that the sword was to decide the constitutional debates, which give so much trouble to ministers in a mixed or settled government. The Pretorian bands, the Strelitzes, the Janissaries, have all in their turn entertained this primitive and simple idea of reforming abuses in a state, and changing, by the application of military force, an unpopular dynasty, or an obnoxious ministry.AUGEREAU DESPATCHED TO PARIS.It was not by distant menaces alone that Buonaparte served the Directory at this important crisis. He despatched Augereau to Paris, ostensibly for the purpose of presenting the standards taken at Mantua, but in reality to command the armed force which the majority of the Directory had determined to employ against their dissentient colleagues, and the opponents of their measures in the national councils. Augereau was a blunt, bold, stupid soldier, a devoted Jacobin, whose principles were sufficiently well known to warrant his standing upon no constitutional delicacies.[327]But in case the Directory failed, Buonaparte kept himself in readiness to march instantly to Lyons at the head of fifteen thousand men. There rallying the Republicans, and all who were attached to the Revolution, he would, according to his own well-chosen expression, like Cæsar, have crossed the Rubicon at the head of the popular party—and ended, doubtless, like Cæsar, by himself usurping the supreme command, which he pretended to assert in behalf of the people.[328]Sept. 4.But Buonaparte's presence was not so essentially necessary to the support of the Directory as he might have expected, or as he perhaps hoped. They had military aid nearer at hand. Disregarding a fundamental law of the Constitution, which declared that armed troops should not be brought within a certain distance of the Legislative Bodies, they moved towards Paris a part of General Hoche's army. The majority of the Councils becoming alarmed, prepared means of defence by summoning the national guards to arms. But Augereau allowed them no time. He marched to their place of meeting, at the headof a considerable armed force.[329]The guards stationed for their protection, surprised or faithless, offered no resistance; and, proceeding as men possessed of the superior strength, the Directory treated their political opponents as state prisoners, arrested Barthelemey—Carnot having fled to Geneva—and made prisoners, in the hall of the Assembly and elsewhere, Willot, President of the Council of Ancients, Pichegru, President of that of the Five Hundred,[330]and above one hundred and fifty deputies, journalists, and other public characters. As an excuse for these arbitrary and illegal proceedings, the Directory made public the intercepted correspondence of Pichegru; although few of the others involved in the same accusation were in the secret of the Royalist conspiracy. Indeed, though all who desired an absolute repose from the revolutionary altercations which tore the country to pieces, began to look that way, he must have been a violent partisan of royalty indeed, that could have approved of the conduct of a general, who, like Pichegru, commanding an army, had made it his business to sacrifice his troops to the sword of the enemy, by disappointing and deranging those plans which it was his duty to have carried into effect.Few would at first believe Pichegru's breach of faith; but it was suddenly confirmed by a proclamation of Moreau, who, in the course of the war, had intercepted a baggage waggon belonging to the Austrian general Klinglin, and became possessed of the whole secret correspondence, which, nevertheless, he had never mentioned, until it came out by the seizure of the Comte d'Entraigues' portfolio. Then, indeed, fearing perhaps the consequences of having been so long silent, Moreau published what he knew. Regnier had observed the same suspicious silence; which seems to infer, that if these generals did not precisely favour the royal cause, they were not disposed to be active in detecting the conspiracies formed in its behalf.THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR.The Directory made a tyrannical use of the power which they obtained by their victory of the 18th Fructidor, as this epoch was called. They spilt, indeed, no blood, but otherwise their measuresagainst the defeated party were of the most illegal and oppressive character. A law, passed in the heat of animosity, condemned two directors, fifty deputies, and a hundred and forty-eight individuals of different classes (most of whom were persons of some character and influence,) to be transported to the scorching and unhealthy deserts of Guiana, which, to many, was a sentence of lingering but certain death. They were barbarously treated, both on the passage to that dreadful place, and after they arrived there. It was a singular part of their fate, that they found several of the fiercest of their ancient enemies, the Jacobins, still cursing God and defying man, in the same land of wretchedness and exile.Besides these severities, various elections were arbitrarily dissolved, and other strong measures of public safety, as they were called, adopted, to render the power of the Directory more indisputable. During this whole revolution, the lower portion of the population, which used to be so much agitated upon like occasions, remained perfectly quiet; the struggle lay exclusively between the middle classes, who inclined to a government on the basis of royalty, and the Directory, who, without having any very tangible class of political principles, had become possessed of the supreme power, desired to retain it, and made their point good by the assistance of the military.Buonaparte was much disappointed at the result of the 18th Fructidor, chiefly because, if less decisive, it would have added more to his consequence, and have given him an opportunity of crossing, as he termed it, the Rubicon. As it was, the majority of the directors,—three men of no particular talent, undistinguished alike by birth, by services to their country, or even by accidental popularity, and cast as it were by chance, upon supreme power,—remained by the issue of the struggle still the masters of the bold and ambitious conqueror, who probably already felt his own vocation to be for command rather than obedience.Napoleon appears by his Memoirs to have regretted the violence with which the victorious directors prosecuted their personal revenge, which involved many for whom he had respect. He declares his own idea of punishment would have gone no farther than imprisoning some of the most dangerous conspirators, and placing others under the watchful superintendence of the police. He must have taken some painful interest in the fate of Carnot in particular, whom he seems to have regarded as one of his most effective patrons.[331]Indeed, it is said that he was so much displeased with the Directory even prior to the 18th Fructidor, that he refused to remit a sum of money with whichhe had promised to aid them for the purpose of forwarding that event.[332]Barras's secretary was sent to task him with this contumacy: which he did so unceremoniously, that the general, unused to contradiction, was about to order this agent to be shot; but, on consideration, put him off with some insignificant reply.THE DIRECTORY.It followed, from the doubtful terms on which Buonaparte stood with the Directory, that they must have viewed his return to Paris with some apprehension, when they considered the impression likely to be made on any capital, but especially on that of Paris, by the appearance there of one who seemed to be the chosen favourite of Fortune, and to deserve her favours by the use which he made of them. The mediocrity of such men as Barras never gives them so much embarrassment, as when, being raised to an elevation above their desert, they find themselves placed in comparison with one to whom nature has given the talents which their situation requires in themselves. The higher their condition, their demeanour is the more awkward; for the factious advantages which they possess cannot raise them to the natural dignity of character, unless in the sense in which a dwarf, by the assistance of crutches, may be said to be as tall as a giant. The Directory had already found Buonaparte, on several occasions, a spirit of the sort which would not be commanded. Undoubtedly they would have been well pleased had it been possible to have found him employment at a distance; but as that seemed difficult, they were obliged to look round for the means of employing him at home, or abide the tremendous risk of his finding occupation for himself.It is surprising that it did not occur to the Directory to make at least the attempt of conciliating Buonaparte, by providing for his future fortune largely and liberally, at the expense of the public. He deserved that attention to his private affairs, for he had himself entirely neglected them. While he drew from the dominions which he conquered or overawed in Italy, immense sums in behalf of the French nation, which he applied in part to the support of the army, and in part remitted to the Directory, he kept no accounts, nor were any demanded of him; but according to his own account, he transmitted sixty millions of francs to Paris, and had not remaining of his own funds, when he returned from Italy, more than three hundred thousand.[333]It is no doubt true, that, to raise these sums, Buonaparte had pillaged the old states, thus selling to the newly formed commonwealths their liberty and equality at a very handsome rate, and probably leaving them in very little danger of corruption from that wealth which is said to be the bane of republican virtue. But on the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that if theFrench general plundered the Italians as Cortez did the Mexicans, he did not reserve any considerable share of the spoil for his own use, though the opportunity was often in his power.The commissary Salicetti, his countryman, recommended a less scrupulous line of conduct. Soon after the first successes in Italy, he acquainted Napoleon that the Chevalier d'Este, the Duke of Modena's brother and envoy, had four millions of francs, in gold, contained in four chests, prepared for his acceptance. "The Directory and the Legislative Bodies will never," he said, "acknowledge your services—your circumstances require the money, and the duke will gain a protector.""I thank you," said Buonaparte; "but I will not for four millions place myself in the power of the Duke of Modena."The Venetians, in the last agony of their terrors, offered the French general a present of seven millions, which was refused in the same manner. Austria also had made her proffers; and they were nothing less than a principality in the empire, to be established in Napoleon's favour, consisting of two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants at least, a provision which would have put him out of danger of suffering by the proverbial ingratitude of a republic. The general transmitted his thanks to the Emperor for this proof of the interest which he took in his fortune, but added, he could accept of no wealth or preferment which did not proceed from the French people, and that he should be always satisfied with the amount of revenue which they might be disposed to afford him.[334]But however free from the wish to obtain wealth by any indirect means, Napoleon appears to have expected, that in return for public services of such an unusual magnitude, some provision ought to have been made for him. An attempt was made to procure a public grant of the domain of Chambord, and a large hotel in Paris, as an acknowledgment of the national gratitude for his brilliant successes; but the Directory thwarted the proposal.Nov. 5.The proposition respecting Chambord was not the only one of the kind. Malibran, a member of the Council of Five Hundred, made a motion that Buonaparte should be endowed with a revenue at the public charge, of fifty thousand livres annually, with a reversion to his wife of one half of that sum.[335]It may be supposed that this motion had not been sufficiently considered and preconcerted, since it was very indifferently received, and was evaded by the swaggering declaration of a member,[336]that such glorious deeds could not be rewarded by gold. So that the Assembly adopted the reasonable principle,that because the debt of gratitude was too great to be paid in money, therefore he to whom it was due was to be suffered to remain in comparative indigence—an economical mode of calculation, and not unlike that high-sounding doctrine of the civil law, which states, that a free man being seized on, and forcibly sold for a slave, shall obtain no damages on that account, because the liberty of a citizen is too transcendently valuable to be put to estimation.Whatever might be the motives of the Directory; whether they hoped that poverty might depress Buonaparte's ambition, render him more dependent on the government, and oblige him to remain in a private condition for want of means to put himself at the head of a party; or whether they acted with the indistinct and confused motives of little minds, who wish to injure those whom they fear, their conduct was alike ungracious and impolitic. They ought to have calculated, that a generous mind would have been attached by benefits, and that a selfish one might have been deterred from more doubtful and ambitious projects, by a prospect of sure and direct advantage; but that marked ill-will and distrust must in every case render him dangerous, who has the power to be so.Their plan, instead of resting on an attempt to conciliate the ambitious conqueror, and soothe him to the repose of a tranquil indulgence of independence and ease, seems to have been that of devising for him new labours, like the wife of Eurystheus for the juvenile Hercules. If he succeeded, they may have privately counted upon securing the advantages for themselves; if he failed, they were rid of a troublesome rival in the race of power and popularity. It was with these views that they proposed to Napoleon to crown his military glories, by assuming the command of the preparations made for the conquest of England.

Retrospect—The Directory—they become unpopular—Causes of their unpopularity—Also at enmity among themselves—State of public feeling in France—In point of numbers, favourable to the Bourbons; but the Army and monied Interest against them—Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred—Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients—Directory throw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte—Buonaparte's personal Politics discussed—Pichegru's Correspondence with the Bourbons—known to Buonaparte—He despatches Augereau to Paris—Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana—Narrow and Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte—Projected Invasion of England.

Retrospect—The Directory—they become unpopular—Causes of their unpopularity—Also at enmity among themselves—State of public feeling in France—In point of numbers, favourable to the Bourbons; but the Army and monied Interest against them—Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred—Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients—Directory throw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte—Buonaparte's personal Politics discussed—Pichegru's Correspondence with the Bourbons—known to Buonaparte—He despatches Augereau to Paris—Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana—Narrow and Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte—Projected Invasion of England.

While the conqueror of Italy was pursuing his victories beyond the Alps, the French Directory, in whose name he achieved them, had become, to the conviction of all men, as unlikely to produce the benefits of a settled government, as any of their predecessors vested with the supreme rule.

RETROSPECT.

It is with politics as with mechanics, ingenuity is not always combined with utility. Some one observed to the late celebrated Mr. Watt, that it was wonderful for what a number of useless inventions, illustrated by the most ingenious and apparently satisfactory models, patents were yearly issued: he replied, that he had often looked at them with interest, and had found several, the idea of which had occurred to himself in the course of his early studies. "But," said he, with his natural masculine sagacity, "it is one thing to make an ingenious model, and another to contrive an engine which shall work its task. Most of these pretty toys, when they are applied to practical purposes, are found deficient in some point of strength, or correctness of mechanism, which destroys all chance of their ever becoming long or generally useful." Some such imperfection seems to have attended the works of these speculative politicians who framed the various ephemeral constitutions of France. However well they looked upon paper, and however reasonable they sounded to the ear, no one ever thought of them as laws which required veneration and obedience. Did a constitutional rule preclude a favourite measure, to break it down, or leap over it, was the French statesman's unhesitating practice. A rule was always devised applicable to circumstances; and before that, the theory of the constitution was uniformly made to give way.

THE DIRECTORY.

The constitution of the year Three was not more permanent than those by which it had been preceded. For some time, theDirectory, which contained men of considerable talent, conducted themselves with great prudence. The difficulty and danger of their situation served to prevent their separating, as the weight put above an arch keeps the stones in their places. Their exertions in the attempt to redeem the finances, support the war, and re-establish the tranquillity of the country, were attended at first with success. The national factions also sunk before them for a season. They had defeated the aristocratic citizens of Paris on the 13th Vendemiaire; and when the original revolutionists, or democrats, attempted a conspiracy, under the conduct of Gracchus Babœuf,[309]their endeavours to seduce the troops totally failed, and their lives paid the forfeit of their rash attempt to bring back the Reign of Terror. Thus, the Directory, or executive power, under the constitution of the year Three, were for a season triumphant over the internal factions, and, belonging to neither, were in a situation to command both.

But they had few who were really, and on principle, attached to their government, and most endured it only as something better than a new revolutionary movement, and otherwise in no respect eligible. To have rendered their authority permanent, the Directory must have had great unanimity in their own body, and also brilliant success abroad, and they enjoyed neither one nor the other. The very concoction of their body included the principles of disunion. They were a sort of five kings, retiring from office by rotation, inhabiting each his separate class of apartments in the Luxembourg palace, having each his different establishments, classes of clients, circles of courtiers, flatterers, and instruments. The republican simplicity, of late so essential to a patriot, was laid aside entirely. New costumes of the most splendid kind were devised for the different office-bearers of the state. This change took its rise from the weakness and vanity of Barras, who loved show, and used to go a-hunting with all the formal attendance of a prince. But it was an indulgence of luxury, which gave scandal to both the great parties in the state;—the Republicans, who held it altogether in contempt;—and the Royalists, who considered it as an usurpation of the royal dress and appendages.[310]

The finances became continually more and more a subject of uneasiness. In the days of terror, money was easily raised, because it was demanded under pain of death, and assignats wereraised toparby guillotining those who bought or sold them at less than their full value; but the powerful argument of violence and compulsion being removed, the paper money fell to a ruinous discount, till its depression threatened, unless remedied, altogether to stop the course of public business.[311]It perhaps arose from the difficulty of raising supplies, that the Directory assumed towards other countries a greedy, grasping, and rapacious character, which threw disgrace at once upon the individuals who indulged it, and the state whom they represented. They loaded with exactions the trade of the Bavarian republic, whose freedom they had pretended to recognise, and treated with most haughty superiority the ambassadors of independent states. Some of these high officers, and Barras in particular, were supposed accessible to gross corruption, and believed to hold communication with those agents and stock-brokers, who raised money by jobbing in the public funds—a more deservedly unpopular accusation than which can hardly be brought against a minister. It was, indeed, a great error in the constitution, that, though one hundred thousand livres were yearly allowed to each director while in office, yet he had no subsequent provision after he had retired from his fractional share of sovereignty. This penury, on the part of the public, opened a way to temptation, though of a kind to which mean minds only are obnoxious; and such men as Barras[312]were tempted to make provision for futurity, by availing themselves of present opportunity.

Their five majesties (sires) of the Luxembourg, as people called them in ridicule, had also their own individual partialities and favourite objects, which led them in turn to tease the French people with unnecessary legislation. La Reveillere-Lepaux was that inconsistent yet not uncommon character, an intolerant philosopher and an enthusiastic deist. He established a priesthood, and hymns and ceremonies for deism; and, taking up the hopeful project of substituting a deistical worship for the Christian faith, just where Robespierre had laid it down, he harassed the nation with laws to oblige them to observe thedecadesof their new calendar as holidays, and to work at their ordinary trades on the Christian Sabbath.[313]At La Reveillere's theory freethinkers laughed, and religious men shuddered; but all were equally annoyed by the legislative measures adopted on a subject so ridiculous as this new ritual of heathenism.[314]Anothercause of vexation was the philosophical arrangement of weights and measures upon a new principle, which had, in the meantime, the inconvenience of introducing doubt and uncertainty into all the arrangements of internal commerce, and deranging entirely such as France continued to hold with countries who were only acquainted with the ordinary standard.[315]

It might have been thought that the distinguished success of the French arms under the auspices of the Directory would have dazzled the eyes of the French, attached as they have always been to military glory, and blinded them to other less agreeable measures of their government. But the public were well aware, that the most brilliant share of these laurels had been reaped by Buonaparte on his own account; that he had received but slender reinforcements from France—the magnitude of his achievements considered; and that in regard to the instructions of government, much of his success was owing to his departure from them, and following his own course. It was also whispered, that he was an object of suspicion to the directors, and on his part undervalued their talents, and despised their persons. On the Rhine, again, though nothing could have been more distinguished than the behaviour of the Republican armies, yet their successes had been checkered with many reverses, and, contrasted with the Italian campaigns, lost their impression on the imagination.

While they were thus becoming unpopular in the public opinion, the Directory had the great misfortune to be at enmity among themselves. From the time that Letourneur[316]retired from office in terms of the constitution, and Barthelemy was elected in his stead, there was a majority and an opposition in the Directory, the former consisting of Barras, Rewbel,[317]and La Reveillere—the latter, of Carnot and Barthelemy. Of the two last, Carnot (who had been, it may be remembered, a memberof the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre) was a determined Republican, and Barthelemy a Royalist;—so strangely do revolutionary changes, like the eddies and currents of a swollen river, bring together and sweep down side by side in the same direction, objects the most different and opposed. Barthelemy of course dissented from the majority of the Directors, because secretly and warmly he desired the restoration of the Bourbons—an event which must have been fraught with danger to his colleagues, all of whom had voted for the death of Louis XVI. Carnot also differed from the majority, certainly with no such wish or view; but, his temper being as overbearing as his genius was extensive, he was impatient of opposition, especially in such cases where he knew he was acting wisely. He advised strongly, for example, the ratification of the articles of Leoben, instead of placing all which France had acquired, and all which she might lose, on the last fatal cast with an enemy, strong in his very despair, and who might raise large armies, while that of Buonaparte could neither be reinforced nor supported in case of a reverse. Barras's anger on the occasion was so great, that he told Carnot at the council-board, it was to him they owed that infamous treaty of Leoben.

While the Directory were thus disunited among themselves, the nation showed their dissatisfaction openly, and particularly in the two bodies of representatives. The majority indeed of the Council of Elders adhered to the Directory, many of that body belonging to the old republican partisans. But in the more popularly composed Council of Five Hundred, the opposition to the government possessed a great majority, all of whom were decidedly against the Directory, and most of them impressed with the wish of restoring, upon terms previously to be adjusted, the ancient race of legitimate monarchs. This body of persons so thinking, was much increased by the number of emigrants, who obtained, on various grounds, permission to return to their native country after the fall of Robespierre. The forms of civil life began now to be universally renewed; and, as had been the case in France at all times, excepting during the bloody Reign of Terror, women of rank, beauty, talent, and accomplishments, began again to resume their places in society, and their saloons or boudoirs were often the scene of deep political discourse, of a sort which in Britain is generally confined to the cabinet, library, or dining-parlour. The wishes of many, or most of these coteries, were in favour of royalty; the same feelings were entertained by the many thousands who saw no possible chance of settling the nation on any other model; and there is little doubt, that had France been permitted at that moment an uninfluenced choice, the Bourbon family would have been recalled to the throne by the great majority of the French people.

But, for reasons mentioned elsewhere, the military were the decided opponents of the Bourbons, and the purchasers of nationaldomains, through every successive sale which might have taken place, were deeply interested against their restoration. Numbers might be on the side of the Royalists; but physical force, and the influence of wealth and of the monied interest, were decidedly against them.

PICHEGRU.

Pichegru might now be regarded as chief of the Royal party. He was an able and successful general, to whom France owed the conquest of Holland. Like La Fayette and Dumouriez, he had been disgusted with the conduct of the Revolution; and like the last of the two generals named, had opened a communication with the Bourbons. He was accused of having suffered his army to be betrayed in a defeat by Clairfait; and the government, in 1796, removed him from the command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, offering him in exchange the situation of ambassador to Sweden. He declined this species of honourable exile, and, retiring to Franche Compté, continued his correspondence with the Imperial generals.[318]The Royalists expected much from the countenance of a military man of a name so imposing; but we have seen more than once in the course of these memoirs, that a general without an army is like a hilt without the blade which it should wield and direct.

An opportunity, however, offered Pichegru the means of serving his party in a civil capacity, and that a most important one. The elections of May, 1797, made to replace that proportion of the councils which retired by rotation, terminated generally in favour of the Royalists, and served plainly to show on which side the balance of popular feeling now leaned. Pichegru, who had been returned as one of the deputies, was chosen by acclamation President of the Council of Five Hundred, and Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, was elected to the same office by the Council of Ancients, while, as we have already said, Barthelemy likewise friendly to monarchy, was introduced into the Directory.

These elections were evil signs for the Directory, who did not fail soon to be attacked on every side, and upbraided with the continuance of the war and the financial distresses. Various journals were at the disposal of the party opposed to the majority of the directors, and hostilities were commenced between the parties, both in the assemblies, where the Royalists had the advantage, and in the public papers, where they were also favourably listened to. The French are of an impatient temper, and could not be long brought to carry on their warfare within the limits assigned by the constitution. Each party, without much regard to the state of the law, looked about for the means of physical force with which they might arm themselves. The Directory, (that is, the majority of that body,) sensible of their unpopularity, and the predominance of the opposite party, which seemed for a time to have succeeded to the boldness and audacity of the revolutionaryclass had, in their agony of extremity, recourse to the army, and threw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and of Buonaparte.

We have elsewhere said, that Buonaparte at this period was esteemed a steady Republican. Pichegru believed him to be such when he dissuaded the Royalists from any attempt to gain over the General of Italy; and as he had known him at school at Brienne, declared him of too stubborn a character to afford the least hope of success. Augereau was of the same opinion, and mistook his man so much, that when Madame de Staël asked whether Buonaparte was not inclined to make himself King of Lombardy, he replied, with great simplicity, "that he was a young man of too elevated a character."[319]Perhaps Buonaparte himself felt the same for a moment, when, in a despatch to the Directory, he requests their leave to withdraw from the active service of the Republic, as one who had acquired more glory than was consistent with happiness. "Calumny," he said, "may torment herself in vain with ascribing to me treacherous designs. My civil, like my military career, shall be conforming to republican principles."[320]

The public papers also, those we mean on the side of the Directory, fell into a sort of rapture on the classical republican feelings by which Buonaparte was actuated, which they said rendered the hope of his return a pleasure pure and unmixed, and precluded the possibility of treachery or engrossing ideas on his side. "The factious of every class," they said, "cannot have an enemy more steady, or the government a friend more faithful, than he who, invested with the military power of which he has made so glorious a use, sighs only to resign a situation so brilliant, prefers happiness to glory, and now that the Republic is graced with triumph and peace, desires for himself only a simple and retired life."[321]

But though such were the ideas then entertained of Buonaparte's truly republican character, framed, doubtless, on the model of Cincinnatus in his classical simplicity, we may be permitted to look a little closer into the ultimate views of him, who was admitted by his enemies and friends, avouched by himself, and sanctioned by the journals, as a pure and disinterested republican: and we think the following changes may be traced.

Whether Buonaparte was ever at heart a real Jacobin even for the moment, may be greatly doubted, whatever mask his situation obliged him to wear. He himself always repelled the charge as an aspersion. His engagement in the affair of the Sections probably determined his opinions as Republican, or rather Thermidorien, at the time, as became him by whom the Republicanarmy had been led and commanded on that day. Besides, at the head of an army zealously republican, even his power over their minds required to be strengthened, for some time at least, by an apparent correspondence in political sentiments betwixt the troops and the general. But in the practical doctrines of government which he recommended to the Italian Republics, his ideas were studiously moderate, and he expressed the strongest fear of, and aversion to, revolutionary doctrines. He recommended the granting equal rights and equal privileges to the nobles, as well as to the indignant vassals and plebeians who had risen against them. In a word, he advocated a free set of institutions, without the intermediate purgatory of a revolution. He was, therefore, at this period, far from being a Jacobin.

But though Buonaparte's wishes were thus wisely moderated by practical views, he was not the less likely to be sensible that he was the object of fear, of hatred, and of course of satire and misrepresentation, to that side of the opposed parties in France which favoured royalty. Unhappily for himself, he was peculiarly accessible to every wound of this nature, and, anxiously jealous of his fame, suffered as much under the puny attacks of the journalists,[322]as a noble steer or a gallant horse does amid his rich pasture, under the persecutions of insects, which, in comparison to himself, are not only impotent, but nearly invisible. In several letters to the Directory, he exhibits feelings of this nature which would have been more gracefully concealed, and evinces an irritability against the opposition prints, which we think likely to have increased the zeal with which he came forward on the Republican side at this important crisis.[323]

INTRIGUES OF PICHEGRU.

Another circumstance, which, without determining Buonaparte's conduct, may have operated in increasing his good-will to the cause which he embraced, was his having obtained the clew of Pichegru's correspondence with the house of Bourbon.[324]To have concealed this, would have been but a second rate merit with the exiled family, whose first thanks must have been due to the partisan whom he protected. This was no part for Buonaparte to play; not that we have a right to say he would have accepted the chief character had it been offered to him, but his ambition could never have stooped to any inferior place in the drama. In all probability, his ideas fluctuated betwixt the example of Cromwell and of Washington—to be the actual liberator, or the absolute governor of his country.

His particular information respecting Pichegru's negotiations, was derived from an incident at the capture of Venice.

When the degenerate Venetians, more under the impulse of vague terror than from any distinct plan, adopted in haste and tumult the measure of totally surrendering their constitution and rights, to be new modelled by the French general after his pleasure, they were guilty of a gross and aggravated breach of hospitality, in seizing the person and papers of the Comte d'Entraigues,[325]agent or envoy of the exiled Bourbons, who was then residing under their protection. The envoy himself, as Buonaparte alleges, was not peculiarly faithful to his trust; but, besides his information, his portfolio contained many proofs of Pichegru's correspondence with the allied generals, and with the Bourbons, which placed his secret absolutely in the power of the General of Italy, and might help to confirm the line of conduct which he had already meditated to adopt.

Possessed of these documents, and sure that, in addressing a French army of the day, he would swim with the tide if he espoused the side of Republicanism, Buonaparte harangued his troops on the anniversary of the taking the Bastille, in a manner calculated to awake their ancient democratic enthusiasm:—"Soldiers, this is the 14th July! You see before you the names of our companions in arms, dead in the field of honour for the liberty of their country. They have set you an example; you owe your lives to thirty millions of Frenchmen, and to the national name, which has received new splendour from your victories. Soldiers! I am aware you are deeply affected by the dangers which threaten the country. But she can be subjected to none which are real. The same men who made France triumph over united Europe, still live.—Mountains separate us from France, but you would traverse them with the speed of eagles, were it necessary to maintain the constitution, defend liberty, protect the Government and the Republicans. Soldiers, the Government watches over the laws as a sacred deposit committed to them. The Royalists shall only show themselves to perish. Dismiss all inquietude, and let us swear by the manes of those heroes who have died by our sides for liberty—let us swear, too, on our standards—War to the enemies of the Republic, and of the Constitution of the year Three!"[326]

It is needless to remark, that, under the British constitution, or any other existing on fixed principles, the haranguing an armed body of soldiers, with the purpose of inducing them to interfereby force in any constitutional question, would be in one point of view mutiny, in another high treason.

The hint so distinctly given by the general, was immediately adopted by the troops. Deep called to deep, and each division of the army, whatever its denomination, poured forth its menaces of military force and compulsion against the opposition party in the councils, who held opinions different from those of their military chief, but which they had, at least hitherto, only expressed and supported by those means of resistance which the constitution placed in their power. In other words, the soldiers' idea of a republic was, that the sword was to decide the constitutional debates, which give so much trouble to ministers in a mixed or settled government. The Pretorian bands, the Strelitzes, the Janissaries, have all in their turn entertained this primitive and simple idea of reforming abuses in a state, and changing, by the application of military force, an unpopular dynasty, or an obnoxious ministry.

AUGEREAU DESPATCHED TO PARIS.

It was not by distant menaces alone that Buonaparte served the Directory at this important crisis. He despatched Augereau to Paris, ostensibly for the purpose of presenting the standards taken at Mantua, but in reality to command the armed force which the majority of the Directory had determined to employ against their dissentient colleagues, and the opponents of their measures in the national councils. Augereau was a blunt, bold, stupid soldier, a devoted Jacobin, whose principles were sufficiently well known to warrant his standing upon no constitutional delicacies.[327]But in case the Directory failed, Buonaparte kept himself in readiness to march instantly to Lyons at the head of fifteen thousand men. There rallying the Republicans, and all who were attached to the Revolution, he would, according to his own well-chosen expression, like Cæsar, have crossed the Rubicon at the head of the popular party—and ended, doubtless, like Cæsar, by himself usurping the supreme command, which he pretended to assert in behalf of the people.[328]

Sept. 4.

But Buonaparte's presence was not so essentially necessary to the support of the Directory as he might have expected, or as he perhaps hoped. They had military aid nearer at hand. Disregarding a fundamental law of the Constitution, which declared that armed troops should not be brought within a certain distance of the Legislative Bodies, they moved towards Paris a part of General Hoche's army. The majority of the Councils becoming alarmed, prepared means of defence by summoning the national guards to arms. But Augereau allowed them no time. He marched to their place of meeting, at the headof a considerable armed force.[329]The guards stationed for their protection, surprised or faithless, offered no resistance; and, proceeding as men possessed of the superior strength, the Directory treated their political opponents as state prisoners, arrested Barthelemey—Carnot having fled to Geneva—and made prisoners, in the hall of the Assembly and elsewhere, Willot, President of the Council of Ancients, Pichegru, President of that of the Five Hundred,[330]and above one hundred and fifty deputies, journalists, and other public characters. As an excuse for these arbitrary and illegal proceedings, the Directory made public the intercepted correspondence of Pichegru; although few of the others involved in the same accusation were in the secret of the Royalist conspiracy. Indeed, though all who desired an absolute repose from the revolutionary altercations which tore the country to pieces, began to look that way, he must have been a violent partisan of royalty indeed, that could have approved of the conduct of a general, who, like Pichegru, commanding an army, had made it his business to sacrifice his troops to the sword of the enemy, by disappointing and deranging those plans which it was his duty to have carried into effect.

Few would at first believe Pichegru's breach of faith; but it was suddenly confirmed by a proclamation of Moreau, who, in the course of the war, had intercepted a baggage waggon belonging to the Austrian general Klinglin, and became possessed of the whole secret correspondence, which, nevertheless, he had never mentioned, until it came out by the seizure of the Comte d'Entraigues' portfolio. Then, indeed, fearing perhaps the consequences of having been so long silent, Moreau published what he knew. Regnier had observed the same suspicious silence; which seems to infer, that if these generals did not precisely favour the royal cause, they were not disposed to be active in detecting the conspiracies formed in its behalf.

THE EIGHTEENTH FRUCTIDOR.

The Directory made a tyrannical use of the power which they obtained by their victory of the 18th Fructidor, as this epoch was called. They spilt, indeed, no blood, but otherwise their measuresagainst the defeated party were of the most illegal and oppressive character. A law, passed in the heat of animosity, condemned two directors, fifty deputies, and a hundred and forty-eight individuals of different classes (most of whom were persons of some character and influence,) to be transported to the scorching and unhealthy deserts of Guiana, which, to many, was a sentence of lingering but certain death. They were barbarously treated, both on the passage to that dreadful place, and after they arrived there. It was a singular part of their fate, that they found several of the fiercest of their ancient enemies, the Jacobins, still cursing God and defying man, in the same land of wretchedness and exile.

Besides these severities, various elections were arbitrarily dissolved, and other strong measures of public safety, as they were called, adopted, to render the power of the Directory more indisputable. During this whole revolution, the lower portion of the population, which used to be so much agitated upon like occasions, remained perfectly quiet; the struggle lay exclusively between the middle classes, who inclined to a government on the basis of royalty, and the Directory, who, without having any very tangible class of political principles, had become possessed of the supreme power, desired to retain it, and made their point good by the assistance of the military.

Buonaparte was much disappointed at the result of the 18th Fructidor, chiefly because, if less decisive, it would have added more to his consequence, and have given him an opportunity of crossing, as he termed it, the Rubicon. As it was, the majority of the directors,—three men of no particular talent, undistinguished alike by birth, by services to their country, or even by accidental popularity, and cast as it were by chance, upon supreme power,—remained by the issue of the struggle still the masters of the bold and ambitious conqueror, who probably already felt his own vocation to be for command rather than obedience.

Napoleon appears by his Memoirs to have regretted the violence with which the victorious directors prosecuted their personal revenge, which involved many for whom he had respect. He declares his own idea of punishment would have gone no farther than imprisoning some of the most dangerous conspirators, and placing others under the watchful superintendence of the police. He must have taken some painful interest in the fate of Carnot in particular, whom he seems to have regarded as one of his most effective patrons.[331]Indeed, it is said that he was so much displeased with the Directory even prior to the 18th Fructidor, that he refused to remit a sum of money with whichhe had promised to aid them for the purpose of forwarding that event.[332]Barras's secretary was sent to task him with this contumacy: which he did so unceremoniously, that the general, unused to contradiction, was about to order this agent to be shot; but, on consideration, put him off with some insignificant reply.

THE DIRECTORY.

It followed, from the doubtful terms on which Buonaparte stood with the Directory, that they must have viewed his return to Paris with some apprehension, when they considered the impression likely to be made on any capital, but especially on that of Paris, by the appearance there of one who seemed to be the chosen favourite of Fortune, and to deserve her favours by the use which he made of them. The mediocrity of such men as Barras never gives them so much embarrassment, as when, being raised to an elevation above their desert, they find themselves placed in comparison with one to whom nature has given the talents which their situation requires in themselves. The higher their condition, their demeanour is the more awkward; for the factious advantages which they possess cannot raise them to the natural dignity of character, unless in the sense in which a dwarf, by the assistance of crutches, may be said to be as tall as a giant. The Directory had already found Buonaparte, on several occasions, a spirit of the sort which would not be commanded. Undoubtedly they would have been well pleased had it been possible to have found him employment at a distance; but as that seemed difficult, they were obliged to look round for the means of employing him at home, or abide the tremendous risk of his finding occupation for himself.

It is surprising that it did not occur to the Directory to make at least the attempt of conciliating Buonaparte, by providing for his future fortune largely and liberally, at the expense of the public. He deserved that attention to his private affairs, for he had himself entirely neglected them. While he drew from the dominions which he conquered or overawed in Italy, immense sums in behalf of the French nation, which he applied in part to the support of the army, and in part remitted to the Directory, he kept no accounts, nor were any demanded of him; but according to his own account, he transmitted sixty millions of francs to Paris, and had not remaining of his own funds, when he returned from Italy, more than three hundred thousand.[333]

It is no doubt true, that, to raise these sums, Buonaparte had pillaged the old states, thus selling to the newly formed commonwealths their liberty and equality at a very handsome rate, and probably leaving them in very little danger of corruption from that wealth which is said to be the bane of republican virtue. But on the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that if theFrench general plundered the Italians as Cortez did the Mexicans, he did not reserve any considerable share of the spoil for his own use, though the opportunity was often in his power.

The commissary Salicetti, his countryman, recommended a less scrupulous line of conduct. Soon after the first successes in Italy, he acquainted Napoleon that the Chevalier d'Este, the Duke of Modena's brother and envoy, had four millions of francs, in gold, contained in four chests, prepared for his acceptance. "The Directory and the Legislative Bodies will never," he said, "acknowledge your services—your circumstances require the money, and the duke will gain a protector."

"I thank you," said Buonaparte; "but I will not for four millions place myself in the power of the Duke of Modena."

The Venetians, in the last agony of their terrors, offered the French general a present of seven millions, which was refused in the same manner. Austria also had made her proffers; and they were nothing less than a principality in the empire, to be established in Napoleon's favour, consisting of two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants at least, a provision which would have put him out of danger of suffering by the proverbial ingratitude of a republic. The general transmitted his thanks to the Emperor for this proof of the interest which he took in his fortune, but added, he could accept of no wealth or preferment which did not proceed from the French people, and that he should be always satisfied with the amount of revenue which they might be disposed to afford him.[334]

But however free from the wish to obtain wealth by any indirect means, Napoleon appears to have expected, that in return for public services of such an unusual magnitude, some provision ought to have been made for him. An attempt was made to procure a public grant of the domain of Chambord, and a large hotel in Paris, as an acknowledgment of the national gratitude for his brilliant successes; but the Directory thwarted the proposal.

Nov. 5.

The proposition respecting Chambord was not the only one of the kind. Malibran, a member of the Council of Five Hundred, made a motion that Buonaparte should be endowed with a revenue at the public charge, of fifty thousand livres annually, with a reversion to his wife of one half of that sum.[335]It may be supposed that this motion had not been sufficiently considered and preconcerted, since it was very indifferently received, and was evaded by the swaggering declaration of a member,[336]that such glorious deeds could not be rewarded by gold. So that the Assembly adopted the reasonable principle,that because the debt of gratitude was too great to be paid in money, therefore he to whom it was due was to be suffered to remain in comparative indigence—an economical mode of calculation, and not unlike that high-sounding doctrine of the civil law, which states, that a free man being seized on, and forcibly sold for a slave, shall obtain no damages on that account, because the liberty of a citizen is too transcendently valuable to be put to estimation.

Whatever might be the motives of the Directory; whether they hoped that poverty might depress Buonaparte's ambition, render him more dependent on the government, and oblige him to remain in a private condition for want of means to put himself at the head of a party; or whether they acted with the indistinct and confused motives of little minds, who wish to injure those whom they fear, their conduct was alike ungracious and impolitic. They ought to have calculated, that a generous mind would have been attached by benefits, and that a selfish one might have been deterred from more doubtful and ambitious projects, by a prospect of sure and direct advantage; but that marked ill-will and distrust must in every case render him dangerous, who has the power to be so.

Their plan, instead of resting on an attempt to conciliate the ambitious conqueror, and soothe him to the repose of a tranquil indulgence of independence and ease, seems to have been that of devising for him new labours, like the wife of Eurystheus for the juvenile Hercules. If he succeeded, they may have privately counted upon securing the advantages for themselves; if he failed, they were rid of a troublesome rival in the race of power and popularity. It was with these views that they proposed to Napoleon to crown his military glories, by assuming the command of the preparations made for the conquest of England.

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