Every new institution of importance so far created by Bonaparte might, with no great ingenuity, be turned into a prop of autocratic government. The Legion of Honor was a measure easily manageable in the interest of any government which might control it. Priests and emigrants were now his natural allies, the constitution had been virtually superseded, the troublesome senators, tribunes, and legislators had been either dismissed orelse called to order, and the surrounding nations, one of them a kingdom, were, in relation to France, like the sheaves bowing to Joseph's sheaf. Roederer declared that the great deeds of the nation made it essential to revive the sentiment of honor. Though the Convention abolished all titles it nevertheless provided that "arms of honor" might be granted to soldiers who had won distinction. An article of the new constitution guaranteed, in the name of the French people, a recompense to its armies. This simple phrase was the sanction chosen for the erection of a corporation which, like the orders of absolutism, might intermediate between the people and their magistrate in order to lend him the same mystery which ever surrounds any monarch who is the "fountain of honor." In well-considered and weighty words the First Consul declared that truly great generals must possess a high degree of civil virtue. That men in civil life were concerned in the main, not with force as were mere soldiers, however brave, but with reason and truth, with the general welfare and the discussion of principles: this was the conclusive evidence to him of their right to drink at this fountain, a right more imperative than that of military men. They could not therefore be excluded. The republicans saw the trap, and resisted sturdily, but to no purpose. The law having passed on May nineteenth, 1802, the ranks were at once constituted, and the decorative badges determined. Every member swore devotion to the service of the republic and resistance to any effort toward the restoration of feudalism in all its attributes: consciences were thus quieted. Right and left the men of science, of art, and of literature appeared with their ribbons and rosettes; the nation applauded, and Bonaparte's opinion was justified. "You call these toys! Well, you manage men with toys," he had declared. The event justified him.
In August the result of the plebiscite was announced: among three and a half millions of votes only a few thousand were in the negative. One of them was Lafayette's. His gratitude to Bonaparte for release from his Austrian prison had so far expressed itself in abstaining from open opposition to his liberator's will, although in reality he was the strongest exponent of what little enlightened liberalism was left in France. Determined not to approve even negatively of what was passing, but to withdraw from public life, he wrote to the First Consul remonstrating against the latter's course. "Surely," he said, "you, who are the first in that order of men who lay tribute on all the ages in order to find a compeer and a place, would wish that such a revolution, such conquest and bloodshed, such sufferings and marvelous deeds, should have for you some other end than arbitrary power." The protest was of course unheeded.
Thus, then, to use Bonaparte's language, "liberty and equality were put beyond the caprice of chance and the uncertainty of the future." A few finishing touches were given to the work after the announcement of the vote. The lists of notables were abolished, and small cantonal assemblies designated the candidates for lower offices. Electoral colleges of manageable size sent up from the districts the names of candidates for the tribunate; similar colleges sent up from the departments the names of candidates for the legislature and the senate; while all the electors of these primary assemblies were appointed for life. The functions of the tribunate were limited, and it deliberated thenceforward behind closed doors. The council of state was stripped of its supremacy by the creation of a small privy council which did most of its work. The powers of the senate were so enlarged as to make it nearly sovereign. Itcould suspend or interpret the constitution, reverse the decisions of the courts, and dissolve the tribunate and legislature, always provided the proposition came from the government. And the government retained only three prerogatives—the pardoning power, the right to designate a successor in the office of chief magistrate, and the right to nominate forty senators. In reality, the clever manipulation of these provisions made the First Consul supreme for life, and his office hereditary, without recourse to a further plebiscite.
A few wise men understood how the nation had been fettered, and one of them proposed in a pamphlet that Bonaparte should be made king if only he would restore constitutional government. It was easy to dismiss with scornful disdain a proposition so subversive of "liberty." The nation was content. The Revolution had at last culminated through the fulfilment of its ideals in the person of a warrior strong to realize them at home and defend them abroad. The boundaries of France were enlarged, order prevailed within her borders, peace had been made with honor, the "empire" of liberal ideas was established in the "empire" of France, a favorite phrase of the Convention; and in it the existence of beneficent institutions permeated by a liberal spirit was guaranteed by the assured control of one who could turn experiments into national habits.
Behind the Consul for life stood a now purged and unified army, recruited by a system which insured its perpetuity and efficiency. The child of the Revolution, the army, was a national institution; but the influence of Bonaparte, combined with the conscription laws of the Directory and the Consulate, had gradually and completely changed its character and its spirit. Fathers no longer gave their sons for a principle; families no longer saw conscripts march forth with the sense that theywere making a sacrifice to patriotism. Long experience had made this a matter of course; young men went out to fight for glory and, alas! too often for booty. Since the first Italian campaign under him who was now chief magistrate for life, the latter motive was always present and often avowed. The leader who could be relied on to gratify the French passion for distinction, and at the same time put money in the purse of his soldiers, might be confident of their devotion.
Bonaparte at Maturity — Ability and Opportunity — Personal Appearance — Mind and Manners — Personal Habits — The Man of France — The Consular Court — The First Consul's Cynicism — The Feud between Bonapartes and Beauharnais — Disuse of the Republican Calendar — The "Genius of Christianity."
Bonaparte was now thirty-four. Thus far he had been not alone the tool of fate nor yet entirely the architect of his own fortunes; he had been both. In Corsica his immature powers had been thwarted by conditions beyond his control. During the Revolution he had caught at every straw which would spare his life and give him a living. Until his marriage he was a soldier of fortune, and fortune made it difficult, either by professional excellence or political scheming, to grasp any of her favors. Accordingly he went without them, suffering, erring, dreaming, philosophizing, observing, and gathering the experience which made him mature at the age when most men are still boys. The observercan descry no revolution in his character when opportunities began to open. There are the same unscrupulous enterprise, the same determination to seize the chances of the hour, the same ability to make the most of circumstances; but the grist is now wheat and the resultant output is flour.
Every success is made introductory to another effort, and his scheming shows the same overweening self-confidence as that of his boyhood. Only now his plans unfold, not in the chill blasts of habitual failure, but in the mild breezes of prospering influences. Many historians proclaim the existence of a great life-scheme, declaring that with satanic powers the boy had prearranged every detail of his manhood. Of this there is not the slightest proof. All that is clear is the continued use, by a great mind tempered in the fires of experience, of ever greater opportunities as they arose. Like all men of commanding ability, Bonaparte belonged, not to one age, but to all ages. His elemental nature made the time and place and conditions in which he actually lived a means to his end, exactly as another century and another environment would have been. Whatever he might have been elsewhere or in another age, he was the personification of France as she was in his time, when he arrived by her desire and connivance at the height of his power.
1803
"Calm on a fiery steed"; thus he desired that the great painter of the time, David, should portray him for posterity. Thus he firmly decided both to appear and to be. But the trustworthy portraits of the time, varying strangely, according to the artist and the mood of the sitter, leave in the composite a quite different impression, expressed by Lamartine as that of a "restless flame." His massive brow jutting over piercing blue eyes, his fine-cut nose, his thin curved lips, hisstrong short chin, all crowned by scant lank chestnut hair and firmly set on a sturdy neck, gave an impression of manly strength; so, too, did his long bust. But his rather muddy complexion, his short stature, his fine and exquisitely modeled hands and feet, the former dazzling in their clear white skin, the easy comfort of supple hat, loose garments, and wrinkled footwear, were evidence of a nervous temperament, impatient of physical discipline. His voice was ordinarily soft and caressing, but his address was cold and haughty, especially to strangers; when roused, however, his speech was brief, sharp, incisive. His gestures were inelegant and his carriage uneasy; his French was incorrect, and the expression of his face had little or no connection with his language. His smiles were forced, but his laughter was hearty. "Smite brass with a glove," he said, "and it is mute, but strike it with a hammer and you get its ring." So he was almost rude in addressing persons of importance, but he was neither affected nor arrogant. It is the universal testimony of those who saw him that his presence was grave and noble, even majestic. De Staël declared that "more and less than human, comparison was impossible."
His imagination was considered by his poet contemporaries to be prodigious: his word memory was poor, but he recalled figures with accuracy, in numbers and details that were bewildering; and he mastered the reports of finance and statistics in such perfection as to stun his agents and ministers. He had an intimate acquaintance with the persons, lives, and family archives of his officers, and as he paced with his hands behind his back, his head on one side, his lips mechanically working from side to side, he could open any pigeonhole of his memory and dictate facts, figures, orders, suggestions for hours. Enemies like Rémusat and Talleyrandthought him ill-bred, but they admitted that his judgment was infallible, and his capacity for work beyond compare; that, at least, of four men in one. He was an indefatigable reader, especially in the fields of law, philosophy, administration, and war; and in conversation with great specialists he could draw from their stores by apt question the exact explication of difficult points in such a skilful way as to infatuate and fascinate the great men whose society he sought.
Time was his most precious commodity, and for every stage and state of life he had a routine from which he deviated most unwillingly. In these years his days were spent in the careful husbanding of every hour. He rose at seven, summoned his secretaries, and saw both letters and papers opened before his eyes. He read all the former, and heard full reports of the latter, the periodicals, and journals, English and German, as well as French. Meantime he was thoroughly rubbed from head to foot with a silk brush, sprayed with perfumed alcohol, and dried with a sponge. This was varied by frequent baths, for cleanliness, not for invigoration. He then shaved himself before a glass held in position by his body-servant, the Mameluke Rustan. He then slipped quickly into his clothes, all made of the finest, softest materials procurable; his ordinary uniform being the green coat of his chasseurs with a colonel's epaulettes, white nankin breeches, and varnished boots with spurs. Having taken his handkerchief and snuff-box from an attendant, he passed through the door into his office and worked until ten, when a plain breakfast, some simple dish with a single glass of wine, was set before him on a little mahogany table. Having eaten, he took an easy posture on the sofa, spending a short time in reflection, often in light sleep; then rousing himself swiftly, he resumed his dictation, pacing the floor withknitted brow. The late afternoon was devoted to outdoors and the reception of visitors, his dinner hour was seven, the evening was given to relaxation, and at ten he was asleep. When affairs were urgent, as they very often were, he rose again at midnight, took some light refreshment, chocolate or ices, and wrapped in a gown resumed his work with secretaries at hand for the purpose. His labors terminated, he retired once more and fell at once into a sound sleep. When overwhelmed with anxiety he withdrew from the Tuileries to the quiet of Malmaison.
Visionaries might say in vain and beautiful phrase, as they did then and do now, that, having harvested his laurels and exhausted the glories of conquest, he should turn to ameliorate the race, to guide a great nation with the easy reins of popular law in the brilliant paths illuminated by the light of the century. The ideal nation referred to did not exist. It was because the despotism of monarchy and the madness of revolution had shown the utter absence of self-control in the nation—because the French as a whole were avid not of virtue but of pleasure, not of self-denial but of luxury, not of stern morality but of glory—because Bonaparte was a man after their own heart, that he had some justification in his reply to a demand for liberty of the press: "In a moment," said he, "I should have thirty royalist journals and as many Jacobin ones, and I should have to govern with a minority." Many an earnest, liberty-loving French statesman of to-day has had cause in the bitterness of his heart to recall the language. As the ministries in France topple, and a dozen legislative factions, having each its journal, combine for no other purpose than the sport of overturning the government, it is, alas! too often a minority which neither governs nor rules, but guides the public career by akind of sufferance. This occurs because control of the government, even for a short time, means the autocratic control of power, patronage, and honor, as it was arranged by Bonaparte for his own purposes.
There is no doubt that the First Consul realized what he had done and whither he was going. The conspiracies had seriously affected his nerves; more and more he withdrew from the society of all but a few confidants, and surrounded himself with a more rigid etiquette. Mme. Bonaparte gathered to the Tuileries ever larger numbers of the fortune-hunting nobility, who hoped that Bonaparte's elevation would yet prove a stepping-stone to restore the Bourbons. These elegant persons laughed in their sleeves at what they heard and saw. The dress and state of the monarchy were restored, but neither the chief magistrate himself, nor the late republicans who had made good their position at court, had the manners or the morals of those for whom the social institutions of royalty had been developed. The returning nobles thought it very funny that the great man liked seclusion, and found what amusement he took in ghost-stories, in the sighing of the wind, in brusque sallies of coarse wit, or in the rude familiarities of bluff intimacy with plain people; they considered it very absurd that his vices were commonplace and perhaps even worse; they thought it laughable that the newcomers slipped on the polished floors, and it seemed most entertaining that the gentlewomen of the old régime who, like Mme. de Rémusat, had accepted permanent positions as ladies of the palace, were often subjected to treatment and put into positions not foreseen in the training they had received from courtly tutors.
But, for all this, it was not merry at the Tuileries. The chief grew timid and dark before his own achievements,as he sought to master difficulties which ambition does not foresee, but with which it must reckon. No one liked less than Bonaparte to ride abroad surrounded by guards, or to muse in green alleys where, as at Malmaison, every tree was at times the post of a patrol. Yet even he could not alter the necessity, and the system of espionage was extended about him like a cage for his protection. As to friends, they grew fewer and fewer; for one of the First Consul's maxims was the cynical aphorism of Machiavelli, that friends must always be treated as if one day they might be enemies. Even the notion of duty, not to speak of its practice, was foreign to him; generosity, honesty, and sincerity were utopian conceptions of which his world and his experience had never known. The attractive visions and ideals of virtue which mingled with the speculations of Rousseau or Voltaire had become, like the mirage of the desert, empty illusions that heighten the barrenness of self-interest and ambition beneath them. Human greed, passion, vanity—such, Bonaparte declared, are the motive forces by which kings rule; the justice of governors was for him the safeguarding of comfort, of material prosperity, and of the superstitions which under the name of religion create a moral power necessary to the public order.
In the circle immediately surrounding Bonaparte there was much quarreling and jealousy. Josephine having been barren since her second marriage, would the succession go to her children or to her husband's relatives? This was becoming a serious question. Joseph Bonaparte had kept the new order in touch with the republican idea by his skilful diplomacy both in society and in foreign negotiation. He was disposed to yield to his arbitrary brother in any extremity, and his beautiful wife was a tower of strength to the familyinterest. The vigorous and able Lucien had risen to the height of his chances, and, having acquired a handsome fortune while occupying the post of French minister to Madrid, began to assert his old democratic independence. He was now a widower, and refusing to marry the queen regent of Etruria, espoused a wife from among the people, and this step eventually cost him the penalty of exile. Josephine was successful in making a match between her daughter Hortense and her husband's third brother, Louis; but although at a later time the Emperor contemplated bequeathing his power to their son, for the present their quarrels, instead of appeasing, intensified the Bonaparte-Beauharnais feud. It was sometimes said in loud whispers that the only solution of the impending difficulties was the divorce of the First Consul from his wife; but the question was not yet seriously discussed. The consular pair had never been married by ecclesiastical form, and many have since suggested that it was a discontented husband who had spoken in the manifest partiality for easy divorce which Bonaparte displayed in discussing the civil code. Jerome had been among the officers blockaded in the West Indies by the English fleet. Having escaped to the United States, he became desperately enamored of Elizabeth Patterson, a beautiful woman of Baltimore, and in December, 1803, married her. The pre-nuptial contract is couched in language which proves that her father understood the risks he was taking. As might have been and was expected, the First Consul was furious, refusing to recognize the marriage or the child born of it, and forbidding his sister-in-law to live in France. In a short time the unworthy object of his wrath deserted his family, and returned, with few qualms apparently, to his elder brother's fold and a share in the splendors of the Empire.
The Bonaparte women were clever intriguers. Madame Mère lived quietly in her own home, where, to her son's exasperation, she continued to speak the Corsican dialect and to save money; it is said that she always distrusted the permanency of her son's elevation. Elisa, now Mme. Bacciocchi, was a shrewd woman of the world, and with Lucien's aid formed a literary coterie of which Chateaubriand was the illumination. Pauline returned from San Domingo to marry Prince Borghese, and became notorious for her conjugal infidelities. Caroline, the wife of Murat, chafed under her husband's intellectual inferiority, but used her position with skill in behalf of her family. Of all his connections none was more useful to the head of the State than Fesch, who was easily persuaded to reënter the Church, and not long after the Concordat became Archbishop of Lyons and cardinal. The republican calendar still nominally survived, but after the reconciliation of State and Church the celebration of the ten-day festival of Décadi, instituted under the republic, fell into disuse, the Church resumed the observance of Sunday, and among the diligent attendants at mass on that day was the First Consul. His near relationship with an ecclesiastical dignitary did not tend to weaken the bonds which tied his government to the religious sentiment of the common people.
In the great world outside the Tuileries there was for a moment peace. Nothing was left of Jacobinism or revolutionary ferment. Old names were restored to streets and places, just as every one now wore the garments of the ancient régime, except the impoverished aristocrats, who in mild protest continued to wear the trousers of the sansculottes. Even they, however, had got back a small portion of their properties, and the newly rich saw in the confirmation of personal governmentby a consul through a so-called republic the guarantee that restitution of the rest to its former owners would never be required of them. Both alike were therefore satisfied with what was sure. Thus in the same way monarchists and republicans were equally gratified, the latter with a semblance of democratic government, the former with a reality which might end in royalty, the full fruition of their yearnings. In short, public confidence was restored, and showed itself in a respectable, temperate decency of living which had been foreign to Paris under the Directory. Everything appeared as if society were performing its normal functions in commerce, trade, industry, and religion. Even art and literature revived as if upon a solid substructure of permanent organic life. Mme. de Staël had fought gallantly for notoriety and for the attention of the great, so dear to her woman's heart in spite of all its philosophy; but Bonaparte never forgave her persistent self-seeking, nor the insight into his character which she and her friends displayed, and he discovered that the air of Paris disagreed with her. Chateaubriand, a noble of high imaginative power and brilliant literary gifts, after several unsuccessful ventures as a romantic youth, had finally published in 1797 an "Essay on Revolutions," which was intended to be a peacemaker in the struggle of ideas, to mediate between the monarchy and the republic. It was imbued with atheism and the philosophy of Rousseau. Very soon after its appearance the author was the subject of a remarkable conversion, and at once began the composition of his treatise on the "Genius of Christianity," that exquisitely literary and pious work which established his fame. Although he had been hitherto unknown to Bonaparte, his book was so opportune in its far-reaching influence that men could not rid themselves of the feeling thatthe writer was sponsor for the Concordat. Eloquent and poetic in style, the dissertation is nevertheless arid in opinion and scanty in argument. Its life was therefore ephemeral, but its influence while it lasted was supreme; as a reward for its composition, Chateaubriand was made the French representative first in Rome, afterward in the republic of Valais.
The Interpretation of a Treaty — The Document Signed at Amiens — Addington's Policy — English Influence in Germany — Reconstruction of the German State System — Its Consequences — Lord Whitworth at Paris — Bonaparte's Attitude — Influence of the Army — English Disenchantment — Recriminations between England and France — The Trial of Peltier — Diplomatic Hostilities — Sebastiani's Report.
1802—03
The First Consul might well feel that the constitution of the year VIII had approved itself. The madness of Jacobinism was not merely checked, it was utterly crushed out; political liberty had apparently not been diminished, civil liberty had been formulated and assured as never before; finally, the renown of France had never been more brilliant, and the Consulate had used her glory to make the peace with honor so earnestly desired. Nothing was left but to secure permanency for the well-ordered life thus begun. Opinions varied widely as to how far this was possible. The diplomatists of Europe were not hopeful, knowing as they did what self-control had been exercised on both sides in negotiating the treaty of Amiens, what knottyquestions had been passed over, and how easily the stipulations might be rendered of no effect by opposite interpretations of their spirit; on the other hand, Bonaparte, though aware of the strain which at such an epoch must exist in the relations between monarchies and republics, and of the warlike temper of the dynasties, believed that the pressure of public opinion would insure the observance of the treaty. For him its essential feature was the restoration of Malta to its former owners, the Knights of St. John, that is, to the sphere of French influence, or, in other words, England's surrender of absolute control in the Mediterranean. He does not appear to have recalled that others might think a corresponding diminution of French influence on the Continent equally essential to its correct interpretation.
For the treaty of Amiens contained other stipulations. England's warfare was not to be in vain. Trinidad and Ceylon were splendid acquisitions to her colonial empire, and she retained her right to use the harbors of the Cape of Good Hope. Except the two islands just mentioned, Spain and the Batavian Republic got all their colonies back, and the House of Orange was to be indemnified for its loss of power in Holland. As to the Oriental question, England's pride was not humbled, Turkey being left as before the war in respect to her territorial boundaries, and being recognized again as the suzerain both of the Ionian Isles and of Egypt. In return Great Britain was to evacuate the latter country, and by the surrender of Malta abandon her control of the Mediterranean highway. France was to evacuate Rome, Naples, and Elba. Such was the paper to which on March twenty-seventh, 1802, Joseph Bonaparte, Cornwallis, Azara, and Schimmelpenninck set their hands for their respective countries—France,Great Britain, Spain, and the Batavian Republic. No mention was made of Piedmont, or of the Helvetian Republic, or of the reconstruction of Germany in accordance with the peace of Lunéville, a matter which was to be settled by agreement between France and Russia according to a treaty which had been signed on October eighth, 1801. Alexander, the new Czar, on his accession in the previous March, had promptly abandoned the armed neutrality and the doctrine of "neutral flag, neutral goods." Ostensibly he remained friendly to Bonaparte, but he declared in his instructions to Markoff, his ambassador at Paris, that the First Consul, "in flattering the deceased Czar, had been mainly desirous to use him as a weapon against England." To Paul, who had been ready to fight for the "liberty of the seas," and to check Great Britain in India, Bonaparte might have yielded control in Italy; but to Alexander, who, it was clear, was about to desert France, he would naturally not yield one shred of continental control beyond what was absolutely essential for peace.
The success of the negotiations at Amiens was largely due to the personal characters of two men—Lord Cornwallis and Joseph Bonaparte. The latter was conciliatory; the former, as Napoleon told Lord Ebrington, in 1814, was from his integrity and goodness an honor to his country. No sooner was the treaty signed than the opposition leaders of the English Parliament began to declare that it gave to France the mastery of the Continent. Addington stoutly denied the allegation. Addison had always held the view that Great Britain had been made an island in order that she might be the arbiter of the Continent. This well-worn doctrine Addington vigorously maintained, and, stung by the taunts of his opponents, he began the reign of peace with a stronger emphasis than ever upon the time-honoredpolicy of meddling in continental affairs. In the Batavian, Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics the English diplomatic agents renewed their efforts to discredit the French influence, giving comfort and support to those who would gladly have overturned all that Bonaparte had done. The malcontents were, however, comparatively few, because the people, having so long been the plaything of the old European dynasties, had been but slightly invigorated by the revolutionary epoch, and were content if only they might enjoy a period of uninterrupted repose.
In Germany, however, the English envoys had a better field, for in that disrupted land the case of the population, though resembling that of those who dwelt in the countries just enumerated, was not identical. Ever since France had asserted the doctrine that her natural frontier was the Rhine, the simplest answer to the question of how the temporal princes of the Germanic body were to be indemnified for the territories she was seizing had evidently been found in recurring to Richelieu's policy at the close of the Thirty Years' War, namely, the secularization of bishoprics, and their incorporation with dynastic states. In the Congress of Rastadt, Austria had grudgingly admitted this as a guiding principle, disastrous as it was to her supremacy in the empire—a supremacy based on the support of the ecclesiastical rulers, who, being bound to no dynasty, naturally rallied about the great Roman Catholic power, in opposition to Prussia, her Protestant rival. So far, therefore, Roman Catholicism in Germany had been in the main conservative, and English diplomatists found ample room for the display of their ingenuity in offsetting religious factions, as well as political cliques and dynastic interests, one against the other.
But after the Concordat Bonaparte's position was soutterly changed that all the liberal Roman Catholics in Germany, and a large proportion of the rest, had little to choose between France and Austria. He was therefore able to carry out in Germany the excellent policy of entire reconstruction which he had pursued in Italy—a policy which had had the sanction of French royalism and of French republicanism. As a protector of the Church he could go only so far in the wholesome process as he was able to make the world believe to be necessary. Insisting, with this in view, that both the great German powers should be separated from the Rhine by a line of little states, he began to carve lands and transfer communities without the slightest regard to their will. Nothing proves more conclusively how entirely the balance of power had been destroyed, or how the old conceptions of international relations were crushed, than the position of the Germanic body and the disposition Bonaparte made of it. The petty states fell suppliant at Talleyrand's feet, and the venal minister spared those which paid the most; the others disappeared from the map without any protest except from their own deposed princes. Scores of the corrupt little courts which had disgraced the German name died without any to mourn their demise, and proud imperial cities were forced to bow before the semi-feudal dynasties. The process wrought havoc in the local jealousies which had prevented in Germany that wholesome national development already advanced among other European peoples.
In a succession of treaties the work went steadily on. The Czar was pacified by liberal grants to his relatives of the reigning house of Würtemberg. Prussia got an exchange for Cleves and the price of her neutrality in such fine domains as Hildesheim, Paderborn, Quedlinburg, and many others; Austria suffered for her defeats in accepting the Italian arrangements, and a smallershare than seemed her right in Germany; but the Grand Duke of Tuscany got Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Brixen, Trent, and part of Eichstädt. Bavaria received Passau in fulfilment of Bonaparte's promises. Baden and Darmstadt were, as border states, made slightly stronger than they had been. The substance of the arrangement between France and Russia was the humiliation of Austria, the strengthening of Prussia, the dismemberment of the Holy Roman Empire, and the dislocation of the hitherto existing scheme of European politics. The ruling houses of Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and Darmstadt were all related to the Czar. It seemed a gain for him that their strength was increased; on the other hand, they discerned in Bonaparte the power which rewarded them for their fidelity to France, and became his firm supporters. It is needless to say that English statesmen looked on aghast at this reconstruction of Europe, and began to ask if their country's traditional enemy could thus work its will without hindrance, and to the hurt, not only of England's glory, but of England's prosperity, perhaps to the menace even of her independence.
These changes were in steady progress throughout the autumn of 1802 and the first month of 1803, being completed in February of this year. They were not announced as the "enactment of the imperial delegates," so called by courtesy, until then, and whatever might have been suspected, they were not definitely known before then. But as early as September, 1802, Addington took a step which proves that at that early date his government was determined to put its own interpretation on the treaty of Amiens, or rather to consider any interpretation of the treaty of Lunéville not in England's favor as a breach of the treaty of Amiens. This step was the appointment as British ambassador at Parisof Lord Whitworth, a stately, unbending, self-restrained aristocrat. He would have been an admirable representative of Great Britain at a Bourbon court; his presence at the quasi-republican consular levees of Bonaparte was in itself a standing rebuke to the new order. The character of his instructions was in consonance with his appointment. They expressed suspicion that France was secretly planning to harm English interests, and required him to pay special attention to the lands "under the dominion of the republic." The annexation of Piedmont was cited as a grievance, as was also the attitude of France to the three new republics. He was to refuse any satisfaction concerning Malta, and not to commit "his Majesty as to what may be eventually his intentions with respect to the island." In particular, he was to watch the French policy in regard to the Indies, both East and West. Such a man with such instructions could in no wise be considered or felt to be a minister of peace. He began in December to assert that the French nation despised its government, and that Bonaparte's finances were in serious disorder. Thenceforward carping and faultfinding were intermingled in his correspondence with statements outwardly calm but suppressedly indignant about the course of France. He said, moreover, that every year of peace was better for Great Britain than a year of war, because it would give strength and courage to those of the French whose interest lay in overthrowing the Consulate, which, on the other hand, would be weakened by inactivity.
The First Consul was equally astute. It is said that during the winter a member of the council of state expressed his satisfaction with the peace. "Do the signatures of the great powers make them any less our foes?" was the rejoinder of Bonaparte. The responsewas of course in the negative. "Well, then," he continued, "draw the necessary conclusion. If these states are always keeping warin pettoin order to renew it, the sooner it comes the better; for with every day fades the memory of their defeats, while the prestige of our victories is forgotten in equal measure. Every advantage, then, is on their side. Remember that a first consul is in no respect like these kings by the grace of God, who look on their kingdoms as heirlooms. This is for them an advantage, for us a hindrance. Hated by its neighbors, compelled to hold in restraint various classes of internal malcontents and at the same time to inspire respect in so many external foes, the French state needs glory, and therefore war. It must either surpass all others or fall. I shall put up with peace as long as my neighbors are able to keep it, but I shall think it an advantage if they compel me to take up my arms before they are rusty.... From our point of view I regard the peace as a short armistice, and consider myself doomed to fight almost without intermission throughout my term of office." This language, though credibly reported, was set down at a much later time, as also was a statement of Lucien's in his memoirs that it was ambition, not patriotism, which after the peace of Amiens made war a necessity to his brother. The notices of the time which have come to us from those not in the thick of plot and intrigue—men like Rapp and others of his kind—create a different impression: that Bonaparte was heartily sick of war, and really desired peace, not of course a peace of recession, but one of further penetration for French prestige and influence, an invading peace as it has been aptly styled.
Yet it is impossible to feel sure of the First Consul's innermost desire, in view of the great army at his back eager for war and still posted at the most advantageousstrategic points of Europe. Where such an army exists there must be a powerful military party, and such a party must influence a great general. As late as 1875 the great military leaders of the German Empire nearly thwarted the statecraft of Bismarck, and almost succeeded in renewing the Franco-Prussian war for the purpose of reducing France to vassalage. Similar influences may have weighed at times with Bonaparte; but the charge that already in 1802 France was the destined victim of Bonaparte's ambition, and all Europe but its tool, remains unproved. He was not yet convinced that war was essential for the extension of his influence, and there is no proof until two years later that his dreams of Western empire had taken definite form. Then, when France was fighting for her life with an England governed by a narrow-minded and unwholesome king, and when dynastic Europe was all allied against him, he appears to have become convinced that the time had finally arrived when, to defeat England and destroy dynastic rule in Europe, he must by all means at his command unite the Western world under his sway.
Both the preliminaries of London and the peace of Amiens had been hailed with joy by the industrial and mercantile classes of England. It is true the Christian sentiment of the country was shocked by the official restoration of the slave-trade on the part of France; but that feeling was momentarily stilled in view of the untold benefits to commerce which might justly be expected as the result of peace. In this expectation, however, the merchants were disappointed, for the Consulate immediately put in force certain arbitrary and annoying shipping regulations intended to limit any encroachments on its rigid protective policy. The pious philanthropy of England has ever seen missionary zeal go handin hand with British commerce as the best means of simultaneously fulfilling England's destiny and ameliorating the world. Accordingly, public opinion again took up the cry against the slave-trade, and soon was so changed that the cheers of the multitude were turned into renewed execrations of Bonaparte. Thenceforward the influences which combined to create a warlike temper in England were cumulative. It was found by private citizens that the clause of the treaty which removed all sequestrations from their property in France was not easily enforced. Statesmen began to say that by a further extension of the system of federated states under French hegemony their maritime empire would insure nothing but the insignificant carrying-trade with the colonies, while the European commerce, which was far more important, would be delivered into other hands. The King feared lest, with the guarantee of territorial sanctity, which was its mainstay, absolutism itself would go.
The bitter discontent of the British was expressed in the public press almost before the ink was dry on the treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte, demanding the right to establish consuls in the chief ports of England and Ireland, designated the officials and sent them to their posts. Under the pretext that these men were spies, charged to make and forward to Paris plans of the harbors, they were seized, and forbidden to enter on their duties. Moreover, one Peltier, an emigrant, began without hindrance from the authorities to publish in London a French royalist journal, "L'Ambigu," which lampooned and abused the First Consul in a shameful but brilliant way. Two months after the date of the treaty Bonaparte began to remonstrate against such license. The English administration pleaded the freedom of the press under constitutional guarantees, andasserted the truth of the allegations brought against the consuls. Soon the tide of recrimination was in full flood, and the columns of the "Moniteur" were filled with matter similar to the offensive contents of the English press. The journals of Paris began to declare that "Carthage must be destroyed." It was the irony of fate that while in England the government could deny its responsibility for the utterances of the newspapers, Bonaparte, who had utterly destroyed the freedom of the press in France, could be held to strict account for every word printed.
As early as July, the First Consul made his grievances a subject of diplomatic remonstrance. Receiving a mild reply, he then enumerated as matters of complaint, in addition to the license of the English papers, the residence of emigrants in Great Britain, her harboring conspirators like Georges Cadoudal, and her protection of the Bourbon princes. Although the Alien Act would have made it possible for the government of England to banish political refugees, it was contrary to a wise policy to do so, and this was explained to the French ambassador. In order, however, temporarily to appease the French government, Peltier was prosecuted for libel of the First Consul. By the skill of the defendant's counsel the trial was turned into a jubilation over the liberty of the press; and though the culprit was technically condemned, he was never brought to punishment. Thereafter, by the aid of a subvention from Bonaparte, the Irish radicals began to publish in London a fiery paper, the contents of which were supplied from Paris, and were intended to counteract the influence of the English journals.
Meantime the First Consul gave every evidence that his only warfare was to be a diplomatic one; his chief interest was clearly the improvement of French industries,the extension of beneficent public works, and the consolidation of his colonial empire. Louisiana had been ceded to France by Spain in exchange for the kingdom of Etruria, and an expedition was being fitted out to go and take possession of it. Efforts were directed also to the eastward, Sebastiani, a skilful diplomat, being despatched in September, under the guise of a commercial agent, carefully to examine Persian affairs and report on the situation in the Levant. As a countercheck to the outcry which Bonaparte believed would be raised over the annexation of Piedmont, he filled Ireland with secret agents whose duty it was to foment and organize the spirit of insurrection, while carefully studying the country. Ostensibly they too were commercial agents, and even when some of their instructions were seized by English officials, nothing to the contrary could be proved. In their case, as in that of Sebastiani, it does not appear that Bonaparte was aiming at anything but to secure an alternative in case of extremity. That he had eventually to take the alternative in Ireland is no proof to the contrary. Similarly there was no overt hostility in the fact, considered from any point of view, that Ney's fine army of thirty thousand men, sent to Switzerland ostensibly in the interest of good order, served likewise to check both Prussia and Austria, should they prove restive under the new reorganization of Europe. When England remonstrated, Bonaparte declared in a note of October twenty-third, 1802, to his ambassador in England, that his resolution was taken. If war was threatened, it must needs be a continental war, the consequence of which could only be to force him to conquer Europe. He was about thirty-three years old. Hitherto he had destroyed only second-class states. "Who knew how long he would take to change the face of Europe again, and resuscitatethe empire of the West?" This paper Otto, the ambassador, virtually suppressed, knowing how far the threat would jeopardize the peace.
During the summer of 1802, Fox journeyed to Paris, where he was presented to Bonaparte early in September. The English statesman was fascinated, and departed with the conviction that his host desired nothing but peace with a liberal policy both domestic and foreign as far as was consistent with safety. But the English press became none the less virulent in consequence of Fox's favorable report, or of a brilliant defense of France, which he made from his place in Parliament. Toward the close of January, 1803, Talleyrand remonstrated with Whitworth, plumply demanding what England intended to do about Malta. Whitworth made an evasive answer, hinting that the King's opinion of the changes which had taken place in Europe since the treaty might be of importance in determining him as to the disposal of the island. This was the first official intimation that England did not intend to keep her promise. A few days later Sebastiani returned from the East, and on January thirtieth, 1803, the "Moniteur" published his thorough and careful report. It was a long document, fully explaining every source of English weakness in the Orient, and setting forth the possibilities of re-establishing French colonies in Egypt and the Levant. There was only one menacing phrase, but it expressed an unpalatable truth, that "six thousand French troops could now conquer Egypt." The publication in England of this paper raised a tremendous popular storm, and it has pleased many historians to regard Bonaparte's course as a virtual declaration of war. In reality it was merely a French Roland for the English Oliver. If England intended to keep Malta, let her beware of her prestige in the East. Had Bonaparte proposed to acton Sebastiani's report, he certainly would not have published it. Of course, the English populace utterly failed to grasp so nice a point, and the incident so strained the relations of France and England that all Europe saw the impending crisis—one or the other, or both, must consent to a modification of the treaty in respect to Malta, or there would be war.
Reciprocal Impressions — Imminence of War — State of England — Bonaparte as a French Burgher — The Democracy of the Tuileries — Private Interview of Bonaparte and Whitworth — The English Militia Mobilized — Hot Words at Bonaparte's Reception — Explanation of the Scene — France Still Pacific — England Immovable — Declaration of War.
1803
A trustworthy estimate has fixed the number of strangers who flocked to France during 1802 at twenty thousand, of whom four fifths were Britons—Fox and Lord Holland among the number. The impressions of the sympathetic English were not merely favorable, their senses were stunned. Like Great Britain herself, France seemed rejuvenated by her successive revolutions, the national life getting new vigor from movement and change. It was clear to them that the new France would be a foe vastly more redoubtable than either the recent or the former one. Pleasure-seekers found nothing of what they desired, neither reckless vicenor flippant gaiety. Paris was serious, settled, almost reserved. The country was busy and peaceful, agriculture prosperous, the church restored, life and goods safe, the highways improved, social and mercantile relations regular and dignified. The person of Bonaparte impressed them as that of a sagacious statesman; a commingling, they thought and feared, of Cromwell and Washington. Of anything like their own industrial revival they saw nothing; the ruler, they could see, was not a great financier, not even a fair economist. But he was equally great as a warrior and a civilian, so they returned to report to deaf ears that peace must be maintained even at great sacrifice. Liberal and sympathetic Germans made similar observations, and they marked with interest the simple life and plain ways which prevailed in the Tuileries as the example given to the men of power who had risen to replace the theorists of the Revolution. The France that would offer itself in expiation of monarchical crimes, the regenerator of peoples, the expounder of Utopias, was no more. Firm and erect as her ruler, she appeared no longer as an enchantress, but as a Bellona; herself regenerate, she was defiant of the unregenerate dynasties, which retained but a single high quality: they were the only outward expression of continental nationality.