Russia, Italy, and Spain — The Kingdom of Etruria — The Consulate and Royalty — The Church in France — The Concordat — Affairs in England — France and Russia — The Battle of Copenhagen — Preliminaries of Peace — Terms of the Agreement — France and the United States.
1801
The genius of Bonaparte was all-embracing, because it made one forward step follow close upon another, and that with no appearance of compulsion; for this reason he went so far. The treaty of Lunéville was the first move toward a general pacification. What was to be done with the rest of Italy, with Spain and with Portugal, in order to secure his preponderance in western Europe? To the blandishments of the Consulate, the Czar gave a hearty response. He suggested some sort of demonstration against Great Britain, not alone in the Orient but on her very shores; he advised Prussia to seize Hanover, turned the pretender, Louis XVIII, and his court away from Mittau in midwinter, and dismissed the Bourbon emissary from St. Petersburg. To checkmate Austria he espoused the cause of Piedmont and the Two Sicilies, suggested the Rhine as the French frontier and the restitution of Egypt to Turkey.His Oriental plan was corollary to the armed neutrality he organized to checkmate England. To give respectful heed and retain the good will of Russia, which thus interceded for a monarchical Naples, nothing was said about restoring the Parthenopean Republic. Instead, Ferdinand IV, though compelled to evacuate the Papal States, and to restore the pictures and other booty which in the manner of the time he had removed to his capital, was left in full possession of his crown. English ships were to be forbidden his ports, and the expenses of a French army corps, which should lie, under Soult, at Tarentum, were to be borne by his treasury.
The affairs of Spain had reached a crisis in the low intrigues of her court. Marengo destroyed the influence of the anti-French party at Madrid. Godoy, styled "Prince of the Peace" from his having negotiated the treaty of Basel, had been made prime minister through the influence of Queen Louisa, whom he had infatuated. Though successful in being both the Queen's lover and the King's intimate friend, he was nevertheless an incapable statesman. In 1796 he made Spain still more subservient to France by the first treaty of San Ildefonso; and such was the public resentment that he had to resign. Through Bonaparte's influence he was restored to power, and in a second treaty of San Ildefonso Spain became the servile ally of the Consulate. By the terms of this compact, as already partly expressed in the treaty of Lunéville, not only were Parma and Elba left in the hands of France, but Louisiana was ceded to her, the French colonies in South America were enlarged,and a combined force of French and Spanish troops was organized, which compelled Portugal to abandon the English alliance and accept Bonaparte's terms. The little but important realm was also to shut her harbors to English ships, and pay twenty-five million francs to France. In return, Tuscany was to be erected into a kingdom, with the name of Etruria, for Louis, the heir of Ferdinand of Parma. The latter was a son of Don Philip of Spain, and as his son, the young King, had married the daughter of the ruling sovereigns of Spain, the new royal family was virtually Spanish, their infant boy having only one remote strain of Austrian blood.
When, shortly after, an actor in Paris recited from the stage, in Bonaparte's presence, the line, "J'ai fait des rois, madame, et n'ai pas voulu l'être," the house rocked with applause. The young King was also brought to Paris and paraded as an attendant in the First Consul's antechamber. A few felt the unworthiness of such a game, but the national vanity was tickled. Attendant republics already revolved about the great central French republic; were kingdoms, too, beginning to join the round? It will be seen that, in comparison with the radical anti-royalist policy of the Directory three years before, these arrangements must be considered moderate. To abandon the Roman and Parthenopean republics, and to constitute a new kingdom for a Bourbon, were actions of great significance to the courts of Europe.
But a still more pregnant step was the relation established between the Consulate and the papacy. Among all the institutions erected by Bonaparte, none proved more valuable than that which restored the French Church to Rome. The "civil constitution" of the Jacobin republic virtually created a voluntary Gallican Church, because all the conforming priesthood, of whom it will be remembered that Madame Mère's half-brotherFesch was one, became dependent on the state in support and allegiance. By the laws of 1790 the old diocesan boundaries were wiped out, bishops and priests were chosen by the people, and the celibacy of the clergy was abolished. In consequence, there had at first been bitter resistance and stern repression. But during the last years of the Directory both liberty of conscience and freedom of religion reigned in theory throughout France. There was, however, continuous social disturbance, bickering between sectaries both Christian and infidel, license of speech and conduct; in short, a condition pregnant with possibilities of disaster. Napoleon passed through a stage of rampant unbelief in his youth, and wrote a thesis in which he compared the Saviour unfavorably with Apollonius of Tyana. But with advancing years the dimensions of the papacy impressed his imagination, while ripening political wisdom convinced him of its power. As his ambitions became dominant he defied the Directory, and in 1797 left standing the framework of the papal edifice, because he already saw that the French people had returned to papal allegiance. In spite of the course imposed upon him by the events of Fructidor, he understood that no reunion of all elements in the population was possible except under the favor of Rome.
Shortly after Bonaparte's inauguration as First Consul there began to be circulated a moving tale of how the great man was frequently and visibly affected as he listened to the village chimes from his windows at Malmaison, evidently recalling the hallowed influences of his mother's faith. The act of the Consulate in ordering the performance of funeral obsequies for Pius VI was a recognition of the popular movement. After an interregnum of eight months a new pope, Pius VII, was elected at Venice on March thirteenth,1800. This was done under the auspices of Austria and after long, fierce contention by the fugitive members of an incomplete conclave, yet soon afterward Bonaparte informed the Pontiff that, excepting the legations which Austria still occupied, the territories of his predecessors were under certain conditions at his disposal. The papal secretary, Cardinal Consalvi, set out for Paris, after what was considered a becoming delay; and before the middle of July, 1801, the treaty known as the Concordat was concluded. The First Consul conceded that the laws of 1790 should be abolished, and that the Pope should be officially recognized by the State as head of the Church. The appointments of archbishops and bishops made by the government were not to be valid until confirmed at Rome. In return the Pope was to end the conflict of State and Church in France, rally all good Catholics to the support of the republic, accept the loss of the confiscated ecclesiastical estates in return for a subsidy of fifty million francs, and recognize the clergy as civil officials in the pay of the State. Thus, at a single stroke, the measure of religious liberty which revolutionary atheism had unwittingly established was destroyed and the French nation relegated to a modified control by Rome; but on the other hand, the strongest support of the Bourbons was struck down, the existing order recognized, and Bonaparte felt assured, as he declared at St. Helena, that in view of France's overwhelming influence in Italy, the Pope, as a petty Italian prince, would become entirely subservient to himself. As is the case in all instances of that judicious compromise which is the foundation of statesmanship, no party or clique in either France or Rome was entirely satisfied. The Pope and his councilors chafed under a series of "organic articles" which, though integral to the treaty, emanated from the secular authority aloneand interpreted the treaty in a sense favorable to the secular power. The free-thinkers of France sneered, the philosophers smiled sarcastically, the military authorities were shocked, the returned emigrants outraged. But the great French nation was consolidated in a twinkling, and the Concordat stood for more than a century. The Pope felt that the church in France had been saved as by fire, and forced the treaty upon his unwilling associates, while Bonaparte was even more peremptory and high-handed with his recalcitrant officials. Both knew that it was this or religious anarchy.
But a spectacle even stranger was soon to be offered to the world. Whatever form the struggle between France and England for ascendancy had taken throughout the long centuries it had lasted, it was ever and always bitter and envenomed. The French Revolution had offered the English Tories an opportunity, as they believed, finally and literally to crush France, even to the extent which Lord Chatham had always declared necessary for enduring peace. The younger Pitt inherited his father's idea, and the conquering policy of the republic had enforced his position, so that since the beginning of the present struggle between the two countries the British nation had reposed unbounded confidence in him. Unfortunately, he used this popular feeling to retain power after his convictions had changed. But successful as the war had been, it seemed to many as if there were no limits to its duration, and to timid minds the payment of lavish subsidies to the successive coalitions, combined with the expensive mismanagement of the naval establishment, augured bankruptcy. Pitt fell from power on the question of Catholic emancipation in Ireland, a matter in which he disagreed with George III, the unnerved, feeble King; the Addington ministry which succeeded waspopular because it was understood to be above all else a peace ministry.
When, in 1799, Russia, furious at the perfidy of Austria and weary of the tyranny exercised by England over the seas, had instigated a renewal of the armed neutrality, and banished the French pretender, the delicate attentions and substantial offers of Bonaparte, already enumerated, completely won the heart of the Czar. Early in 1800 a confidential Russian agent appeared in Paris, and urged the First Consul to declare himself King. He also proposed to arrange terms for an alliance of the two rulers in order to destroy English power in India, according to plans already outlined by the Czar. An agreement was quickly reached, which early in 1801 resulted in a proposition by Paul for two expeditions: one Russian, by way of the Don and across the carry to the Volga, thence through the Ural Mountains to the Indus, and from the Indus to the Ganges; the other Franco-Russian, to proceed by the Danube, the Black Sea, the Don, and the Volga to Astrakhan and Persia, where it was to combine with the former. The plan for the latter was worked out in the minutest detail, and every item was carefully commentated by Bonaparte.
England's reply to the armed neutrality of the Northern powers was the despatch to the Baltic of a powerful fleet, which reached Copenhagen late in March, 1801. Negotiations were opened by Sir Hyde Parker, who, because of his diplomatic abilities, had been made first in command, and lasted for some days, but failed. On April second, Nelson, who was next in command, opened fire on the lines of defense erected before the city. His success was only partial. During the intervals of a parley opened by him, ostensibly in the interest of humanity, he withdrew his crippled shipsout of danger and accepted an inconclusive armistice. England's object, however, was reached in another way. During the night of March twenty-third, 1801, Paul was assassinated in his bed, not without suspicion of connivance on the part of his son Alexander, who succeeded him. The murder was done by a band of drunken brutes, officers of important regiments who had been wrought to a pitch of frenzy. A clique of conspirator nobles had persuaded themselves and the assassins that Paul was crazy and was leading the country to ruin. Like the rest of Europe, the empire was divided into French and English parties, the latter comprising all who lived at ease on government places or inherited fortunes. The mass of the nation and the troops worshiped their Czar for his defiance of Great Britain, his French sympathy, and the reversal of Catherine's policy. It was a palace clique which, as again and again in Russian history, did to death a monarch thwarting the plans of aristocrats and placemen. The new Czar, whatever his share in the compact which set him on the throne, behaved at least like an agent of the conspirators, for he did not continue his father's policy. On the contrary, he immediately liberated the English ships in his harbors, and, further, waived all claim to Malta. The league of Northern neutrals fell by its own weight. For all this, however, Great Britain was still left without a supporting Continental coalition in the face of Marengo and Lunéville.
The death of Paul likewise affected the position of France, which again became insecure. This disposed the First Consul more than ever to yield to the universal clamor for peace. Addington's overtures had at first been coldly received, for Bonaparte wanted the restoration of all the colonial conquests England had made during the long war. But the death of the Czar andthe attitude of his successor changed the situation. Still further came news that since Kléber's death one disaster after another had overtaken Menou in Egypt. He had been compelled to surrender Cairo in June, and the fall of Alexandria was only a question of time. Negotiations with England were thereupon seriously resumed. Both sides being equally eager for peace, arrangements were completed within a reasonable time, and on October first, 1801, the resulting preliminaries were ratified. The news was received in London with joyous acclamations.
England bound herself by the preliminaries of London to restore all her colonial conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon, and to withdraw from Malta and the other Mediterranean ports which she had seized. France was to restore Egypt to the Porte, to withdraw her troops from Naples, and to guarantee the integrity of Portugal, which the First Consul had intended to incorporate with Spain for his further purposes. A week later a secret treaty between France and Russia was signed: the two powers were to settle the affairs of Germany and Italy in concert. The idea of perpetual intervention in the German empire by France originated with Richelieu; no Russian monarch since the time of Peter the Great could feel his dignity secure without the same privilege. Such an agreement was, therefore, a final seal to France's new alliance. With Turkey likewise the old relations of amity were reëstablished by a new treaty. Bavaria was appeased by promises.
There would have been one other war-cloud on the distant horizon had it not wisely been dispelled in time. The United States had suffered much from the pretensions of the Directory to control its commerce in the French interest, on the plea of gratitude. The declaration of neutrality made by Washington in 1793 was illreceived in Paris; the treaty of commerce concluded with England in the following year was regarded by the French government as a breach of neutrality, and the Directory suspended diplomatic relations. Their insolent agents in the United States had so embroiled the question of the relations of that nation with the two countries respectively that a rupture with France was threatened, especially when Talleyrand's unblushing effrontery in demanding enormous bribes from the American envoys was made public. Great as their obligations were, the United States had no intention of becoming tributary to France. The recognition by England of their neutrality had given them the whole colonial trade of France, Holland, and Spain. Their principle was virtually that of the armed neutrality of 1780: that neutral ships made neutral goods, "free ships, free goods." For this they were ready to fight. The First Consul had recognized the value for his own schemes of a great neutral maritime state, and on September thirty, 1800, had concluded a convention regulating commerce which for the time removed all sources of friction between his government and that at Washington. It was reciprocally agreed that the flag protects the goods, and that merchantmen under convoy may not be searched.
The Uses of Peace — General Zeal for Reform — The First Consul's Diligence — State Control of the Church — Bonaparte and the Pope — The Organic Articles — Establishment of the Prefectures — The Bank of France — Its Successes — Funding of the Public Debt.
With this general pacification there was widespread contentment. Addington thought the peace would be no ordinary one, but a true reconciliation of the first two nations of the world. The continental dynasties believed that at last the expansion of liberal France had been curbed. The French themselves could not restrain their joy at the prospect of a new social and political structure sufficiently commodious for the exercise of their awakened energies, sufficiently strong to command respect from enemies at home and abroad. The builders were already at work before the ground was fairly cleared; the regeneration of French institutions which has indissolubly linked the name of Napoleon with the life of modern Europe was under way before the peace negotiations were concluded.
1800—01
The master workman found at his disposal two most important conditions: a clean tablet so far as the monarchicaland revolutionary systems were concerned, and a great body of able and educated men anxious to coöperate with him. Their aim, like his, was to make the nation strong and illustrious. But for them the Revolution, confined in their minds to France, was over; while for him, viewing it as a European movement, it was in full operation. Whether they were royalists like Dufresne, or Girondists like Defermon, or radicals like Fourcroy, or moderates like Regnault and Roederer, or pardoned anti-Fructidorians like Portalis and Barbé-Marbois, they were all alike animated with zeal for a strong national life. But Bonaparte and a few of his intimates looked on renovated French nationality as only the means to a further end. In a pamphlet review of the situation, written in 1801, Hauterive declared that the rotten European structure resting on the balance of power had been overthrown by the wars of France, which was now, by her military and financial strength, and by the principles of her government, ready and able to make the beginning in a peaceful and prosperous federation of nations. This was the revolutionary program in another form: under the new conditions of French organization it eventually developed into a scheme of European empire, in which a modernized and glorified reproduction of Charles the Great, a French Charlemagne, was the central figure.
Careful students of the life and labors of Bonaparte can scarcely believe that human power could accomplish what he had already done. His activity as strategist and general, as statesman and administrator, had hitherto been fabulous: in the first years of the Consulate it was simply doubled. To the minutest detail, every department of the rising state received his attention, more or less complete as occasion required. During the year 1801 the ablest observers in the country, havingbeen assigned one to each of the military divisions into which the land was divided, were occupied in compiling comprehensive reports to serve as a basis for legislation. These papers took into consideration finance, the army, the administration, public instruction, the alms-houses, the roads and canals, commerce and industry, the public temper—in short, everything which concerned the well-being of the people. They were the material of Bonaparte's studies, and for the most part he mastered them. In this work he utterly discarded the theory and ideals of the revolutionists; the romance was ended, history must begin, he said. To govern France as it is, to forget France as it had just been; to discard the type unit of humanity, to deal with the real man in every station; to scorn generalities, to assemble details; to abandon possibilities, to secure actualities,—this was the trend of his mind; the practical, the useful, the working machine were his goal. At this task he often toiled fourteen hours a day, never less than ten, and in his secretary Maret he had a minister as indefatigable as himself, able to catch every thought and suggestion, to amplify and execute every order, to coördinate the activity of his chief with all the subordinate branches of the government. As a consequence, there is not one of the great structures which combine in the logical unity of French life as it exists to-day that did not receive the impress of the First Consul's colossal mind.
For example, the Roman Church, which he had brought again to life, comprised in equal numbers prelates who had accepted and those who had refused the "civil constitution" of the republic. To impress the imagination of the people, a service in honor of the Concordat was celebrated at Notre Dame. Augereau and a number of his friends asked to be excused from attendance, but were compelled to be present. TheFirst Consul went, with all the style—coaches, harness, lackeys, and the like—which had been used by the Bourbon kings. But, after all, it was a Napoleon Bonaparte and not a Louis Capet who was the personage, and the remark attributed to an old general, whether correctly or not, is utterly inapt—that everything had been restored except the two million Frenchmen who had died for liberty. The difference was great. For instance, a priest who had refused the rites of burial to a dancer was removed from office for three months, in order that he might reflect how Jesus Christ "prayed even for his enemies." Could anything have been more antipodal to the state of things as it had been in 1762 and 1766, when the cases of Calas, Sirven, and Labarre, innocent men, done to cruel, unmerited death by the connivance of church and state, enabled Voltaire to launch his first thunderbolt on the devoted system of the ancient monarchy so abhorrent to all intelligence and so opposed to righteousness?
The Pope, moreover, was compelled to prohibit those who offended the First Consul from residing at Rome, and when he suggested that compensation should be made for the loss of Avignon, and that the legations Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna should be restored,—not, of course, in return for the Concordat, which would savor of simony, but as the proof of a heart magnanimous, wise, and just,—the First Consul gravely forwarded to Rome the mortal remains of Pius VI, which had so far rested in the common cemetery at Valence. Bonaparte is credibly reported to have said ironically that the Concordat was the vaccine of religion: in fifty years there would be no more in France. The army openly expressed its contempt for the arrangement, the council of state tittered when announcement was made that the Pope's ban was withdrawn from Talleyrand, and fora long time the public ministrations of a clergy which was called "a consecrated constabulary" were not taken seriously by the multitude. A century has failed to restore in France the consideration which even scoffers felt for the hierarchy antecedent to the Concordat; nay, more, the First Consul's augury has been largely fulfilled; but on the other hand, the former bitterness has never since been equaled.
Bonaparte's innermost thoughts were not at the time revealed; if indeed he had a clear and definite idea of his policy. Later explanations are, however, probable interpretations. Protestantism is at once sectarian and individualistic in its tendencies, Romanism makes for central unified control, secular as well as religious. The restorer of Romanism in France found consideration throughout Roman Europe for his later plans of imperial expansion. The clerical or white police of France was a model for the like institution elsewhere, as the military or black police of France became the basis of armed force everywhere. But the degree of spiritual mission yielded to the Pope was measured with a hand as sparing as that which doled scanty stipends to archbishops and bishops, now a prelacy of public functionaries which had once been princely in its incomes. Furthermore, the organic articles, which were nothing more nor less than consular decrees, were unsparing in their use of the police power for the control of public worship. No bull nor ecumenical ordinance was valid in France, no council nor synod could assemble within its borders unless authorized by government, nor could a prelate leave his diocese without its assent, even though summoned to Rome by the Pope. The temporalities of the church were in the hands of the state. Galled by such pitiless restrictions, the hierarchy winced and cried out, but France has remained inexorable. Later the cultsof both the Protestants and the Jews were similarly organized.
On February seventh, 1800, were promulgated the measures which still control departmental administration in France, the law which virtually revived the Bourbon system of intendants, imposing on the country that rigorous hierarchical-political centralization which no succeeding government—royalist, imperial, or republican—has been willing to dispense with. Working in coöperation with the wonderful social system of private life, it minimizes the consequences of political revolutions, and preserves the identity of France. Each local administration was a consulate in miniature. Every department had its prefect, every arrondissement its subprefect, every commune its mayor. These officials were all appointed by the executive, and were subordinate to the minister of the interior. Each had an advising associate appointed from the electoral lists; and the various councils, some likewise appointed, some, however, elected, were in ordinary times only the registers of the decrees sent down from above. Before these measures were put into operation, neither country roads nor city streets were safe, and brigandage was rife to the very gates of Paris. The courts of law were disorganized, the police undisciplined, and local government for the most part was a farce. Within two years the whole machine was working smoothly throughout the length and breadth of the land. Public order was restored, life and property were safe, industry was guaranteed in its rewards, and the productive energy of the people was unhampered by the fear of injustice or by the uncertainty of possession. This transformation made the institution tolerable to the Frenchmen of Napoleon's time, but thoughtful men understand to-day that it annihilated liberty under the Consulate andEmpire, and that it still has undiminished possibilities as an instrument of oppression.
It is significant that the great measure which went hand in hand with this one was a true reform of the most vital nature. On January eighteenth, 1800, was founded the Bank of France. The monarchy in its straits had issued bills with no security; the Convention and the Directory also flooded the country with worthless paper, although they assumed to find an adequate collateral in the domains of the crown and of the emigrants, which were seized and held as national property. But war and internal strife destroyed the value of these lands, and in 1795 a gold livre was worth seventy-five in paper, while a year later the price had risen to three hundred and forty. The Directory had recourse to forced loans and the statutory regulation of values, but to no avail: at the close of their career the public lands, except a small part estimated to be worth four hundred million francs, had all passed into private hands at a price about one hundredth of their estimated value. The greediest usury, the most disgraceful speculation, had been universal, and of all those who had owned property in any shape in 1785 there was scarcely one who was not reduced to beggary, while, with numerous exceptions of course, adventurous men of doubtful character were now the landed proprietors and controlling capitalists. The public creditors had seen their obligations legally scaled to a nominal value of one third the face, payable in paper, and these bonds were almost worthless. Under such conditions it was not remarkable that the collection of taxes even by the use of force had become well-nigh impossible. The amount of arrears on the eighteenth of Brumaire was eleven hundred million francs. The Directory and, for a time, the Consulate subsisted on contributions levied on conquered states.
1801
The avowed object of the Bank of France was the support of trade and industry. To its capital of thirty million francs the government subscribed five millions, which it took from the guarantee bonds given by its employees on their assuming positions of trust. The operations of brokers and money-lenders were then subjected to the strictest control, and the enterprises of agriculture and manufactures were regulated and encouraged by the reëstablishment of chambers of commerce and by public rewards for excellence. In the first year of his financial administration Gaudin inaugurated the success which continued for the rest of his term. In every department a new and equitable system of tax-collecting was instituted, and the assessments were so fixed for a definite period at moderate rates as to awaken public confidence. In a single year the returns from the public forests were doubled, and the reorganization of the customs produced similar results.
For the control of expenditures, Barbé-Marbois was appointed state treasurer; Mollien was made director of a special office for the gradual payment of the public debt. To this office was assigned the management of about a quarter of the remaining public lands for the purchase of state securities; and when their price rose, as it soon did, to fifty per cent. of their par value, new obligations were issued, and quickly subscribed at the same rate. The floating debt was soon wiped out. Of the remaining public funds a hundred and twenty million francs were assigned for the maintenance of public instruction, and forty million for the pension list. The victorious army remained quartered abroad. The effect of all these wisely calculated measures was electrical. Taxes were promptly and willingly paid, the public credit was revived, and the moneyed classes became the stanchest supporters of the Consulate.
The Preparation of the Code — The Men who Made it — Its Defects — The Changes it Wrought — The Benefits it Conferred — French Education under Royalty — Schemes of the Revolution — Bonaparte's Aims in Education — His Preliminary Measures — The University of France.
The climax of these beneficent changes was a corresponding reform and simplification of the laws. The name of Napoleon has been erased from many of his institutions, but it still endures on that splendid system of jurisprudence known as the Code Napoléon, and in the annals of law-making it vies in luster with that of Justinian. The monarchy, before its fall, had become aware of the inconvenience attaching to the diversity of legal practice in the various French provinces. At one extreme was the old customary law of the northern inhabitants, at the other was the nearly pure Roman law of the south, and between them every variety of peculiar and complicated local practice. One of the meanings of the Revolutionary watchword "Equality"was the reform of this inequality; but the turmoil prevalent during the years of the Assembly, the Convention, and the Directory had made it impossible to complete the work. Nevertheless, those years had been full of discussion, and Cambacérès had a project in readiness. So convinced was Bonaparte of the urgency of reform that on the very night in which he assumed the reins of government the two commissions were charged with the performance of the repeated promises which every republican government had made. A statute was formulated, and passed on August twelfth, 1800. In accordance with its provisions, a committee of three great jurists—Tronchet, Bigot de Préameneu, and Portalis, with Malleville as secretary—was appointed to make a draft. This was completed in four months, submitted to the courts of appeal for suggestions, and then in the council of state, the sessions of which Bonaparte regularly attended, was speedily revised into its final form. In the following year the code was promulgated.
The famous body of laws owes its solid value to its historical foundation; for it is a compound of the ancient customs, the Roman law, and the experiences of the Revolution, the third element dominating the other two. Cambacérès's project is its basis, the deliberations of the commissions molded its form, its paragraphs were polished in the council of state according to the opinions of Boulay de la Meurthe, Berlier, Treilhard, Cambacérès, and Lebrun, and Bonaparte himself was the author of many radical regulations concerning marriage, divorce, and property. Simplicity, directness, comprehensibility, and appropriateness are the marks of the entire structure, as they are confessedly characteristic of the First Consul's mind. His good sense and his diligence are stamped on every page. On the other hand, in manyplaces it bears also the marks of his unscientific and untrained intellect; and Savigny, the Prussian jurist, went so far as to characterize it as a "political malady."
This remark is true, but only in the sense that, as in the Roman empire, so in Napoleonic France, civil liberty developed in an inverse ratio to political liberty. Austin thought the code was compiled in haste and ignorance, and that its lack of definitions to the terms employed, together with the absence of expositions either of principles or of distinctions, gave it a "fallacious brevity." Nevertheless, this very simplicity and brevity have been its strength, and to this day—with, of course, many substantive modifications, but still in an undisturbed identity—it successfully dominates France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, and many important parts of Germany. Believing it to be the most enduring portion of his labors, Bonaparte to the latest day of his life claimed the exclusive credit of its creation, to the unjust disparagement of the other great minds which coöperated in its formation.
A few of the more easily comprehensible changes which it wrought will illustrate its character. There are four divisions—one introductory, the other three treating respectively of the law of persons, the law of things, and the law of property and inheritance. The subject of the civil law, the ego, the object of the civil law, the objective or natural world, the relation between the two, or property—such is, in a word, the method; the equality of all men before the law is its principle; the respect for property and the directness of litigation are its aims. Hereditary nobility and primogeniture were definitely abolished—every child, of either sex, having equal rights of inheritance before the law. The right of testamentary disposition was extended so as to give greater liberty while not interfering with theprinciple of family solidarity. To Jews were given the complete rights of all other citizens, under a series of far-seeing and wise provisions, set forth in special statutes, which destroyed many of their antiquated customs, and all the shifts by which they had hitherto avoided many civil obligations and still evaded the performance of duties which weighed heavily on others. Every religious confession was recognized, and all were alike supported by the state; but the members of all were obliged to submit to official registration, and to consent to the rite of civil marriage. While, on the one hand, the necessity of divorce under certain conditions was recognized and provisions were made for it; on the other, a series of stringent and even barbarous regulations knitted the family more closely together than ever before, or elsewhere in the world, and made it a social rock against which political storms beat in vain to shake the established order. Napoleon's iron will alone realized the notions of regenerating feudal society which philosophers had formed and agitators had sought in vain to establish.
The evils of both absolute royalty and feudalism were thus removed from a vast population in western Europe which had groaned under their burdens long after they had ceased to have any meaning or historical vitality; and besides, the process of assimilation in life and thought was measurably assisted by the adoption of identical laws among millions of men differing in blood and language. The good work was further promoted by a series of complementary codes of criminal procedure and of commerce which are as potent and beneficent to-day as when they were enacted. It is useless in this connection to compare the respective merits of corresponding institutions among the Latin and Teutonic state systems of Europe, or to enter onthe long and bitter controversy waged between French and English publicists. The essential thing is a comparison between what Napoleon found and what he left among the same peoples, and this proclaims him one of the great social reformers of the world.
In no respect was the work of the Revolution more complete than in regard to education. Royal France had a pompous list of academies, scientific and special schools, universities, colleges, and common schools. Their arrangements were haphazard, their origin and management for the most part were ecclesiastical, and their patronage was strictly ordered by social rank. Primary education, being dependent altogether on the parishes, was in the main contemptible. There were many great scholars and teachers, and a few choice institutions; but the dependence of all on either the royal favor or on the Roman hierarchy, or on both, rendered the measure of their efficiency proportionate to the interest taken in them by crown and church. There was consequently no general system efficacious either in all its parts or even in all branches of one division.
The passion for national unity manifested itself, among other things, in a demand for a system of national education. The great men of the Assembly and of the Convention bent their shoulders to the task. For the first time in the history of the nation it was recognized that after the leveling of classes, the only guarantee for social order in the future was to be found in the education of the masses. Accordingly, they outlined a grand scheme of graded instruction. The foundation was popular education by the primary school; then came a system of middle or secondary schools; and then instruction by professional faculties, including a magnificent normal school for the training of teachers, and a polytechnic institution of the first order. The wholewas to be crowned by a museum, the College of France, and the Institute. Education was to be gratuitous and obligatory. The essential feature of the entire plan was the character of the primary school, which was not to teach merely the necessary rudiments of reading, writing, and ciphering, but the introductory elements of the complete encyclopedia of instruction. The whole structure was purely secular, and no account was taken of the education of females after the age of eight. It was declared that young girls should be trained by their parents, and entirely at home. Condorcet alone believed in the intellectual equality of the sexes. Lakanal secured a decree for mixed schools, under certain conditions, in which the daughters of the republic should have the same instruction as its sons "as far as their sex would permit"; but they were to be chiefly occupied with spinning, dressmaking, and the domestic arts then considered the chief ones proper to their sex. Some parts of the enormous design were put into operation, but it was found to transcend the abilities of an unsettled people. Talleyrand pared down its dimensions, but at the fall of the Directory nothing had been accomplished except the foundation of the polytechnic school.
NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSULProfile in sepia by Lemoine. Belonging to M. PetitNapoleon Exposition, 1895.
NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL
Profile in sepia by Lemoine. Belonging to M. PetitNapoleon Exposition, 1895.
It is well known that Bonaparte prepared himself for the rôle of lawgiver by devouring the books lent him by Cambacérès, and by studying the memorials already prepared by the Convention. Even then, however, he was in the main guided by his instinct, combined with his profound knowledge of men. The latter was his sole guide in elaborating his scheme of public instruction. Talleyrand's plan was before him, but the conclusion was his own. He was not at all concerned to make scholars or to increase knowledge. He was stubbornly determined to make citizens, as he understood the word. In a time of utter chaos he professed himselfindifferent to ideals, and was animated by a purely practical spirit, doing nothing but what appeared immediately essential. For this reason, in carrying out his plan, he selected as an agent no expert with wide experience and settled convictions, but an excellent chemist who had been a member of the notorious Committee of Public Safety, and within a narrow horizon had good capacities. To Fourcroy alone was intrusted the formulation of a measure which, as Roederer said in its support, was a political institution intended to unite the present generation with the rising one, to bind the fathers to the government by their children and the children by their fathers—in short, to establish a sort of public paternity.
The religious societies which still retained their hold on such instruction as there was had no connection with the state, and very little with the new society. The new system was ingeniously devised to bind up the youth of the nation with both the political and social life of the new France. There was to be in every commune a primary school with teachers appointed by the mayor, under supervision of the subprefect. Next in order were secondary schools in the chief town of every department, under supervision of the prefect; and coördinate with these were such private schools as would submit to government regulations. The next stage was composed of a limited number of lyceums or colleges with both a classical and a modern side. These were open only to such students as had gained distinction in the grade below, and from them in turn a fifth were promoted to the professional schools. Of these there were nine categories: law; medicine; natural science; mechanical and chemical technology; higher mathematics; geography, history, and political economy; the arts of design; astronomy; music and the theory of composition.The First Consul would listen to no more comprehensive or enlightened plan until this should first be put into successful execution, as it soon was under his impulse and Fourcroy's guidance.
Thereupon his ultimate object was unveiled. A few years later came into existence the so-called University of France, whereby all instruction was as perfectly centralized as administration had been. There were three articulated degrees, primary, secondary, and superior, controlled by a complete and rigid system of central inspection. All institutions of each degree were divided by vertical lines of territorial division into academies, each of which had its own rector. These were in turn controlled by a superior council and a grand master. The normal school was revived, military uniform and discipline were introduced into the lyceums, and the instruction was carefully directed toward imbuing the mind with notions suited to the new conditions of French life, as Bonaparte meant to mold them. The corporate university, as a whole, was not a portion of the ministry, but while subordinate was distinct. This provision has probably been the cause of a permanence which no political revolution has been able to destroy. It is only since the Church secured permission for the erection of faculties supported and controlled by itself that there have been signs of any change of organization or any return to academic liberty in the state institutions.
The New Era — Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte — The Seizure of Piedmont — Genoa — Etruria — The Valais — Holland and Switzerland — Censorship of the Press — Manifestations of Discontent — The San Domingo Expedition — Toussaint Louverture.
1801—02
With the return of forty thousand emigrant families under an amnesty which restored to most of the former owners everything not sold excepting woods and forests, and which in some few cases permitted the redemption under easy conditions of entire estates; with the reorganization of the judiciary, of administration, of legislation, of public instruction, and of the finances under a new constitution worked by the strong hand which had made it, every observer saw that a new epoch had indeed begun. At the same time the trend of affairs toward some form of government in which the power of a single man should be dominant was likewise noticeable. This produced but little effect in the mass of the nation, but there were manifestations of discontent in two small classes of men at opposite poles of conviction. The royalists believed that their "pear was ripe," and again opened negotiations with Bonaparte.The republicans who had repented the eighteenth of Brumaire even on the morrow of their participation were now thoroughly alarmed, and manifested their discontent where alone they had any means of expression—by their voices in the tribunate, and by their silent votes in the legislative assembly.
Toward the close of the year VIII, that is, early in 1800, appeared a pamphlet, evidently inspired, which was entitled "Parallel between Cæsar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte." It was ostensibly intended to allay the distrust of the latter's ambitions expressed in many quarters, and was gratuitously distributed everywhere throughout France. It declared that, Bonaparte being a man superior to either Cromwell or Monk and comparable only to Cæsar, the office of First Consul should be made hereditary in his family. This was the real purport of the manifesto, that France should already hail a Bonaparte dynasty; if fate destroyed Napoleon, a brother ought to succeed him. The tract was written by Fontanes, its revision and theatrical publication were the work of Lucien. Fouché as the republican standard-bearer had already avowed himself against the principle and practice of heredity. Mme. Bonaparte's sterility was the safeguard of an elective chief-magistracy. To prevent divorce and remarriage for the sake of direct heirs he had allied himself with Talleyrand, Clement de Ris, and the Beauharnais influence. It was his cynical delight that Lucien had been so hasty. This fact the First Consul first suspected, and then by Fouché's help he assured himself of it. He was angry, for, though agreed as to the principle, his preference was Louis, who he thought had all the qualities and none of the faults pertaining to the clan; and, moreover, the publication was so unreasonable and hasty as to be an act of sheer folly, endangering all his plans. So Lucien wasforced to resign his portfolio of the interior and withdraw from the scene. With bitterness in his heart he became ambassador to Spain, and the elegant luxury of his post scarcely softened the blow, under which he winced as he saw the dynastic idea relegated to temporary obscurity by his brother, and himself forever sundered from any share in it. It was only after Louis had proved a broken reed that the question of divorce and remarriage to secure an heir became acute. For the time being a hush fell over the schemers of every sort: Napoleon's health was good and the temple of Janus was closed. Worst of all, the people made no sign, and the wily chief magistrate took no significant step until the preliminaries of peace had been signed in London. Then he made a cautious advance. In January, 1802, Italian delegates were summoned to Lyons in order to outline a constitution for the newly reorganized Cisalpine Republic. As a matter of course, it was determined to reproduce the essentials of that which had been made for the consular republic of France. One exception was important: for a consulate of three members was substituted a single chief magistrate under the title of "president."
At once the question arose, Who should this high official be? Here for the first time it is well to consider the difficulties encountered by the First Consul in connection with his family, inasmuch as with his primitive Corsican devotion to those of his blood, he earnestly desired on the one hand that his brothers and sisters should share in his advancement. He would gladly see them rich, influential, and clothed with a high degree of political power. On the other hand, what he himself had wrought he was grimly determined he would control. To the great ship of state there was to be but one helm and one pilot. Joseph was the eldest, couldhe be considered as a possible president in Italy? To this his reply was flat. If called to surrender his modest life, his consideration as a temperate and simple private man, he must have in return the substance and reality of rule. For instance, to the Italian republic must be added, if Joseph were to be president, all of Piedmont; Murat and the French army of occupation must be withdrawn, and all the fortresses of the frontier toward France must be rebuilt! Joseph could not be a political marionette. But it was exactly a political puppet that Napoleon professed to desire, and Talleyrand had found one. So Joseph was left to ruminate on the charms of a simple life. For him as well as for Lucien these consisted of intrigues and plots: both succeeded in collecting a substantial following, for their brother was childless, and he was a soldier, and there might be almost anything in the womb of the future.
Accordingly, after much apparent intriguing among the delegates at Lyons, their choice fell unanimously upon Melzi, a Milanese nobleman. The First Consul's agents promptly explained that the safety of the "Italian Republic"—the significant name by which it was henceforth to be called, Alfieri's "Italia virtuosa, magnanima, libera, et una"—depended on its being ruled by him. The Italians at once drew up a formal invitation to that effect, Bonaparte accepted, and the servile newspapers of Paris declared that there was no menace to the peace of France in the act; their First Consul could not have refused such a call without a lack of courtesy, even of prudence. Melzi accepted the vice-presidency, the proconsulate. To make a bridge between his two domains, the Consul-President prepared to incorporate Piedmont, not with his Italian republic, but with France. The Czar who had taken up arms in behalf of the house of Savoy was dead. General Jourdaninformed the Piedmontese that their land was a French military division, comprising six prefectures. Bonaparte said that thereby was accomplished a natural reunion of French territory. This idea was a reminiscence of Charles the Great's empire. As soon as the treaty of Amiens was signed a decree of the senate informed the world that Piedmont was a French department.
Valais could not well be given to Piedmont, on account of Swiss jealousy. It was equally impossible to restore it to the Helvetian Republic; for through it lay the splendid military road of the Simplon, which France had been building across the Alps. Accordingly the little land was declared an independent commonwealth. As to Genoa, her still existing directorial constitution would now be as impracticable to work as those of Cisalpina and Batavia. Salicetti therefore offered to her government a new one prepared in Paris on the consular model, and it was gratefully adopted. When the young King of Etruria died on May twenty-seventh, 1803, Murat and Clarke were appointed guardians of his widow, who was made regent for her infant son.
With skilful allowances for national pride, a stroke similar to these was also made in Holland. By the treaty of Amiens, the Batavian Republic was to get back not only a nominal independence, but the major portion of her colonies, including the Cape of Good Hope and her chief East Indian possessions. In return for this a new constitution was imposed upon her, which again was merely that of France under another mask. The chief magistrate was called the "Grand Pensionary," and the place was filled by Schimmelpenninck, the devoted admirer of Bonaparte. A French army continued to occupy the country at the public charge. In Switzerland, also, changes were effected,but of a different nature; for the First Consul thoroughly understood the different character of her people. They had been unhappy under the last constitution, and two embittered parties, the unitary and the federalist, were struggling for mastery. Upon the withdrawal of the French troops in compliance with the treaty of Amiens, it soon became clear that there was danger of serious strife. Ney was sent to occupy the country with thirty thousand men, and the chief Swiss statesmen were summoned to Paris. In February, 1803, they adopted what was called an Act of Mediation prepared by Bonaparte and to be guaranteed by him. Its provisions were most wise, but it made the new state, then called for the first time Switzerland, dependent for its very existence upon him. In token of the new relation the confederation was to furnish a subsidiary army of sixteen thousand men, and the chief magistrate of France formally adopted the title of Grand Mediator of the Helvetian Republic. Although many chafed under the relationship, yet the ten years of Swiss neutrality which Bonaparte guaranteed were probably the most prosperous in the country's history; consequently the influence of Switzerland, so far as it was exerted, was all on the side of Bonaparte.
The rigid censorship of the press established by the First Consul at the beginning of his supremacy worked well for him. Out of a total of seventy-three corrupt and quarrelsome journals published under the Directory, only thirteen political newspapers had been left in existence. These quickly became the most subservient mouthpieces of the executive, iterating the sentiments which the public was to learn, giving such news as they were allowed to give, and edited most skilfully both to entertain and instruct their readers in all matters foreign to politics. The nation rejoiced in the calmproduced by contemplating indifferent things. "Why did not Tacitus explain how the Roman people put up with the wicked emperors who ruled them?" This was a stock question of Napoleon's, his implication being that there must have been a correspondence between the social state of Rome and the character of her rulers which the historian dared not openly explain. The parallel in the case of the French was manifest. They had reveled in Jacobinism until suddenly the thing and the name alike became intolerable; they had then swung to the opposite vicious extreme of an indifference which courted a paternal hand in the government. No act, however arbitrary or violent, could disturb a people so accustomed to revolutionary shifts. When, three years later, the shameful edict was issued which forbade the printing or sale of books or plays that had not been authorized by a committee of revision, there was scarcely a protest anywhere to be heard.
But from the beginning there were, nevertheless, emphatic protests of more or less importance against the changes which were transforming the vestiges of the republic into shadowy indications of a coming monarchy. There was a single voice, that of Barnabé, lifted up at the very first from the bench to declare that Brumaire was illegal; and many foolish persons indulged to such an extent in loud seditious talk that a charge of conspiracy was with some show of reason brought against Ceracchi and Arena, two Corsicans, who were particularly violent in denouncing their compatriot. The superserviceable police pretended early in the year to discover details, but the alleged complot was a pure figment. The army, in particular that portion which had fought under Moreau, still cherished much of the republican tradition. The soldiers of the Rhine had shown an angry contempt for the Concordat, and theirfriends sympathized with them in the instinctive feeling that a courtly religious hierarchy, when legally restored, would lean toward a restoration of monarchy.
The First Consul, understanding that reactions must be checked in their initial stages, determined to find occupation abroad for the republican soldiers, as he had previously done for republican politicians. Among other measures for the revival of commerce made possible by the peace of Amiens, which secured the long-desired "liberty of the seas," the government had determined to revive the slave-trade, so as to populate the Antilles more densely, and create a larger market. Admiral Bruix recalled that among the ancients slavery had been consistent with the love of liberty; and argued that as negroes, when left to themselves, preferred manioc to wheat, and sweetened water to wine, they must be enslaved in order to give them civilized tastes and make them consume the surplus of the French harvests and vintage! Being natives of a burning clime, there was no cruelty in carrying them to the West Indies! In pursuance of this barbarous policy, Leclerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, was commissioned to conquer San Domingo, which, taking advantage of the disorders incident to the Revolution, had asserted its independence. Bonaparte may not altogether have understood the dangers of such an expedition. If he did, he must have been willing to sacrifice his sister; for he compelled Mme. Leclerc to accompany her husband. The troops selected were mainly taken from the Army of the Rhine. Thirty-four first-rate vessels, twenty frigates, and numerous transports, with more than twenty thousand soldiers on board, sailed on December fourteenth, 1801, and arrived safely about the end of January, 1802.
But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter anobstacle in the most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history. Toussaint Louverture was the descendant, as he claimed, of an African chieftain. Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent education, and had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his innate power of leadership until all the blacks in San Domingo regarded him with affection and awe. Asserting their liberties as men, he and his fellow-slaves then rose against their masters, and a servile war ensued. It was temporarily checked by British interference; but the unacclimatized white soldiers died in such numbers that the English were compelled to leave the fertile colony in full control of the negroes. Louverture, in imitation of Bonaparte, thereupon organized a consular government, and with consummate wisdom inaugurated a civilized rule. When summoned by Leclerc to surrender, he refused. For a time his resistance was successful, but in the end he was compelled by superior force to withdraw to the mountains. Thence he was enticed by guile, captured, and sent to France. Kept a close prisoner in the castle of Joux in Franche-Comté, the rigors of the climate speedily destroyed his health, and he died on April twenty-seventh, 1803. But the heat and mephitic vapors of his native isle revenged him. As the French soldiers sickened and died of yellow fever, the natives inaugurated a struggle for liberation, which was marked on both sides by horrible barbarity. In less than two years the task of subjugation became hopeless, and on December first, 1803, Rochambeau, having succeeded Leclerc, who had retired the year previous to die in the Tortugas, surrendered eight thousand men, the remnants of the expedition, to an English fleet. The island has since been left to its unhappy fate, and under native rule has relapsed into semi-barbarism. The magnificentFrench plan of American colonization, having lost the supports of both San Domingo and Louisiana, collapsed, leaving no trace. Its mere existence, however, was the strongest proof of Bonaparte's confidence in a lasting peace. Whatever his disappointment, he was at least rid of a republican general and a republican army. It was not much in comparison with his hopes, but it was something.
Conspiracies against Bonaparte — The Plot of Nivôse — Bonaparte's Ingenuity — Blunders of the Moderate Republicans — The Tribunate and Legislature Purged — Power of the Senate — Bonaparte's Reticence — The Life Consulate Proposed — Complacency of the Chambers — The Legion of Honor — Lafayette's Withdrawal — Amendments to the Constitution — The Nation Content — Change in the Character of the Army.
The Consulate was scarcely inaugurated before a dastardly attempt was made to assassinate its head. Early in the year 1800 a remnant of Jacobins, terrorists, and anarchists had formed a conspiracy for this purpose. Their doings, however, were betrayed to Fouché, who watched them in such a way that their organization, though not broken up, was reduced to impotence. Many persons have since believed that the wily minister was holding the pack in hand for his own purposes, and that this notorious Arena-Ceracchi conspiracy, as it was called, had been his own creation for use in case the First Consul should be killed in Italy. It is certain that during the long career of Fouché as minister he never failed to have in readiness some kind of a complot for the eve of each decisive battle in which Napoleon Bonaparte must expose his person and riskhis life. This, therefore, might well have been the first of them. The royalists had persistently negotiated with Bonaparte while he was yet a rising soldier. He seemed now to have reached the summit of power, and alone could open or bar the way to the restoration of Louis XVIII. Having toyed with their offers, it is claimed that he gave the pretender to understand that his own highest ambition was an Italian principality. Hopes, thus awakened, had strengthened the royalist party; but as its ranks grew in number dissension kept equal pace, until, while one faction, the strongest, standing on the strictest legitimacy, remained true to the so-called King, who was now living in Mittau, another, under the leadership of Artois, was scheming in England for that prince, and a third, weary of the petulant and quarrelsome feebleness of the other two, favored the young Due d'Enghien, and grew daily stronger in Paris by desertions from both. The members of the Enghien faction were indefatigable, and at last from among their Vendean supporters was formed a secret junta which, on the evening of December twenty-fourth, 1800, placed an infernal machine in front of the First Consul's carriage as he drove to the opera through the narrow street of St. Nicaise. His coachman, catching sight of the strange obstacle in time, swerved, and drove swiftly past, barely saving his passengers from the effects of a terrific explosion which occurred the moment after, killing outright several innocent persons, wounding sixty, and destroying about forty houses. The First Consul and his wife drove on, and, pale with excitement, appeared for a few moments in their box before the expectant audience, which had already heard the news. They then quietly withdrew. The effect on the public was electrical, and the measures subsequently taken by the government were heartily applauded.
From this circumstance Bonaparte reaped a rich harvest, his perfidy being comparable to that of the plotters themselves. The shameful deed was first charged on the radicals, and by decree of the senate a hundred and thirty of them were deported to the slow torture of places like the Seychelles, tropical islands in the Indian Ocean. Fouché, suspected of lingering Jacobinism, was on a trifling pretext temporarily deprived of his portfolio, and was not ostensibly restored to favor until 1804. Appointed senator, however, and enjoying high consideration, his treatment did not please the brothers of the First Consul. Their irritation was further increased by their knowledge of confidential relations between Napoleon and the senator. During the latter's retirement from his ministry he seems to have been quite as influential secretly as he was openly and manifestly when he resumed office. In the interim Ceracchi, Arena, and their fiery-tongued companions were falsely condemned and executed. It was soon known that the true culprits were the Vendeans, but Bonaparte declared that the banished radicals would not be allowed to return because their absence was a guarantee of the public safety. Only two of the real criminals were eventually captured and executed. But the most disgraceful consequences of this conspiracy, known in French history as the Plot of Nivôse, were the fall of Moreau and the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, the remoter causes of which lie as far back as the First Consul's determination, formed at this time, that he would diminish the chance of such murderous attacks by striking terror to the hearts of all his enemies.
In the rearrangement of powers consequent to the eighteenth of Brumaire and the adoption of the constitution of the year VIII, the able men of the republic had been provided for, partly in lucrative offices connectedwith administration, partly in the tribunate and the legislature. The greatest were in the former, and their acknowledged leader was Benjamin Constant, the friend of Mme. de Staël. They represented in a measure the courage and the idealism of the Revolution, but they were in a false position, and showed neither wisdom nor prudence. Accordingly, they made a serious tactical blunder, and fixed upon certain doubtful paragraphs introductory to the civil code in order to manifest their discontent with Bonaparte's self-assertion. They resisted not only the reintroduction of such antiquated barbarisms as the confiscation by the state of property belonging to those who for any reason were deprived of their civil rights, and of the goods of unnaturalized strangers who died within its limits, but attacked likewise provisions of the judicial and financial statutes which were wisely conceived, and were of great utility to the country, some of them being in part their own work. As they talked, their friends in the legislature voted.
By a provision of the constitution both these assemblies were to be continuous, one fifth of the old members retiring every year; but a method of designating the class to be retired first, and of choosing their successors, was not presented. When the appointed time for this change arrived, the First Consul was so determined to be rid of the troublesome republicans in the tribunate that he even contemplated expelling them by force, or abolishing the body as a whole. "There are twelve or fifteen metaphysicians there," he had said on one occasion, "fit only to be drowned. It is a kind of vermin which I have in my clothes, but I shall not allow myself to be attacked like Louis XVI. No, I shall not endure it." However, a less violent method was found by Cambacérès, and adopted. The senate had beenso constituted as to represent the political indifference which made possible Bonaparte's political career, and from the beginning it was a subservient tool. On several occasions—as, for instance, when about to admit Daunou to their number—the members had been made to feel the terrors of its creator's wrath. The constitution and its interpretation being their special charge, they were now ordered as a constitutional measure to select not merely the names of both the tribunes and legislators who should leave, but also those of their successors. Needless to say that all the ardent and outspoken men like Daunou, Constant, and Chénier went out. The only man of importance among those chosen to the tribunate was Carnot. Fifteen generals or superior officers and twenty-five officials took seats in the legislature.
It requires no astuteness to see that with the establishment of an obedient senate as the guardian of the constitution, and superior to its provisions, nothing was thereafter impossible under the cloak of regular procedure. Any measure which was "conservative of the constitution" could be legalized. The time seemed ripe to introduce the hereditary element into the Consulate, a step which had lately been desired by Bonaparte with an eagerness but poorly concealed from his friends.
When the treaty of Amiens was to be formally ratified the opportunity was at last found. This act marked the pacification of the world, a consummation long and ardently desired in France. The popularity of him who was the author of the peace could reach no higher limits. To show the gratitude of the state, and to guarantee the perpetuity of so great a work, his power must be prolonged. As to the extent, no one could learn Bonaparte's wishes: whatever recompense the greatpowers of the state chose to bestow he would accept. In vain were all attempts to sound the depths of his desires; the crowning honor must be forced upon him. But his friends failed to apprehend what would be considered worthy, and the program laid down was consequently of petty dimensions. When the treaty was laid before the tribunes their president proposed that some striking mark of national gratitude should be bestowed on General Bonaparte, First Consul, and a resolution to that effect was adopted. There had already been considerable discussion about presenting to him St. Cloud, the royal residence nearest to Paris; but he had privately declared that he would accept nothing from the people during his term of office, and the proposition had been dropped. With something of this kind in view, a committee of conference at once signified the action of the tribunate to the senate in order that "the first assembly of the nation should interpret a general sentiment" which the tribunes could only express.
With a dexterity acquired by habit, the complaisant senate made ready to formulate a decree. Both the prolongation for life of the Consulate and making the office hereditary were proposed as fitting testimonials. Pretending to believe that the First Consul's public virtue would repulse anything so radical, the majority rejected these suggestions, and prolonged the term of his office for ten years. When he saw himself thus overreached the reticent chief magistrate displayed a dangerous passion. But he soon mastered himself, and replied to the senators with formal thanks, declaring that his respect for the sovereignty of the people would not permit him to accept the prolongation of his magistracy without the authorization of the nation; that he was ready, if called upon, to make a new sacrifice. A meeting between the family and many confidential friends wasat once held, in which either Lucien or the "wise Cambacérès" suggested an appeal to the nation. The council of state then took up the matter and proposed to ask for a plebiscite on the question, Shall Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life? Roederer wished to add, "and have the right to name his successor," but the First Consul declared that that would be an encroachment on popular rights, and struck out the words. On May eleventh, 1802, it was publicly announced that the voting would begin immediately. Three months elapsed before the returns were complete. In the interval both tribunate and senate hastened to vote in favor of the measure. Congratulations as to the foregone conclusion soon began to reach the Tuileries from all quarters.
It was in this interval, moreover, that the two servile bodies finally stamped with their approval the measures which reëstablished the slave-trade, even though nothing decisive had as yet occurred at San Domingo. It is not difficult, considering the circumstances, to understand the popularity of a measure, passed at about the same time, for establishing the now well-known Legion of Honor. The passion for pins, badges, ribbons, and personal decorations of every sort is well-nigh universal. They gratify the sense of achievement among men who are able, and flatter the vanity of those who are not. To this passion, in itself not necessarily ignoble, the First Consul determined to appeal for further support.