BRUMAIRE
Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer
of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national
life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a
standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British
fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of
the Second Coalition.
The formation of this league between Russia, Austria, England, Naples,
Portugal, and Turkey was in the main the outcome of the alarm and
indignation aroused by the reckless conduct of the Directory, which
overthrew the Bourbons at Naples, erected the Parthenopæan Republic,
and compelled the King of Sardinia to abdicate at Turin and retire to
his island. Russia and Austria took a leading part in forming the
Coalition. Great Britain, ever hampered by her inept army
organization, offered to supply money in place of the troops which she
could not properly equip.
But under the cloak of legitimacy the monarchical Powers harboured
their own selfish designs. This Nessus' cloak of the First Coalition
soon galled the limbs of the allies and rendered them incapable of
sustained and vigorous action. Yet they gained signal successes over
the raw conscripts of France. In July, 1799, the Austro-Russian army
captured Mantua and Alessandria; and in the following month Suvoroff
gained the decisive victory of Novi and drove the remains of the
French forces towards Genoa. The next months were far more favourable
to the tricolour flag, for, owing to Austro-Russian jealousies,
Masséna was able to gain an important victory at Zurich over a Russian
army. In the north the republicans were also in the end successful.
Ten days after Bonaparte's arrival at Fréjus, they compelled an
Anglo-Russian force campaigning in Holland to the capitulation of
Alkmaar, whereby the Duke of York agreed to withdraw all his troops
from that coast. Disgusted by the conduct of his allies, the Czar Paul
withdrew his troops from any active share in the operations by land,
thenceforth concentrating his efforts on the acquisition of Corsica,
Malta, and posts of vantage in the Adriatic. These designs, which were
well known to the British Government, served to hamper our naval
strength in those seas, and to fetter the action of the Austrian arms
in Northern Italy.[123]
Yet, though the schisms of the allies finally yielded a victory to the
French in the campaigns of 1799, the position of the Republic was
precarious. The danger was rather internal than external. It arose
from embarrassed finances, from the civil war that burst out with new
violence in the north-west, and, above all, from a sense of the
supreme difficulty of attaining political stability and of reconciling
liberty with order. The struggle between the executive and legislative
powers which had been rudely settled by the _coup d'état_ of
Fructidor, had been postponed, not solved. Public opinion was speedily
ruffled by the Jacobinical violence which ensued. The stifling of
liberty of the press and the curtailment of the right of public
meeting served only to instill new energy into the party of resistance
in the elective Councils, and to undermine a republican government
that relied on Venetian methods of rule. Reviewing the events of those
days, Madame de Staël finely remarked that only the free consent of
the people could breathe life into political institutions; and that
the monstrous system of guaranteeing freedom by despotic means served
only to manufacture governments that had to be wound up at intervals
lest they should stop dead.[124] Such a sarcasm, coming from the
gifted lady who had aided and abetted the stroke of Fructidor, shows
how far that event had falsified the hopes of the sincerest friends of
the Revolution. Events were therefore now favourable to a return from
the methods of Rousseau to those of Richelieu; and the genius who was
skilfully to adapt republicanism to autocracy was now at hand. Though
Bonaparte desired at once to attack the Austrians in Northern Italy,
yet a sure instinct impelled him to remain at Paris, for, as he said
to Marmont: "When the house is crumbling, is it the time to busy
oneself with the garden? A change here is indispensable."
The sudden rise of Bonaparte to supreme power cannot be understood
without some reference to the state of French politics in the months
preceding his return to France. The position of parties had been
strangely complicated by the unpopularity of the Directors. Despite
their illegal devices, the elections of 1798 and 1799 for the renewal
of a third part of the legislative Councils had signally strengthened
the anti-directorial ranks. Among the Opposition were some royalists,
a large number of constitutionals, whether of the Feuillant or
Girondin type, and many deputies, who either vaunted the name of
Jacobins or veiled their advanced opinions under the convenient
appellation of "patriots." Many of the deputies were young,
impressionable, and likely to follow any able leader who promised to
heal the schisms of the country. In fact, the old party lines were
being effaced. The champions of the constitution of 1795 (Year III.)
saw no better means of defending it than by violating electoral
liberties--always in the sacred name of Liberty; and the Directory,
while professing to hold the balance between the extreme parties,
repressed them by turns with a vigour which rendered them popular and
official moderation odious.
In this general confusion and apathy the dearth of statesmen was
painfully conspicuous. Only true grandeur of character can defy the
withering influences of an age of disillusionment; and France had for
a time to rely upon Sieyès. Perhaps no man has built up a reputation
for political capacity on performances so slight as the Abbé Sieyès.
In the States General of 1789 he speedily acquired renown for oracular
wisdom, owing to the brevity and wit of his remarks in an assembly
where such virtues were rare. But the course of the Revolution soon
showed the barrenness of his mind and the timidity of his character.
He therefore failed to exert any lasting influence upon events. In the
time of the Terror his insignificance was his refuge. His witty reply
to an inquiry how he had then fared--"J'ai vécu "--sufficiently
characterizes the man. In the Directorial period he displayed more
activity. He was sent as French ambassador to Berlin, and plumed
himself on having persuaded that Court to a neutrality favourable to
France. But it is clear that the neutrality of Prussia was the outcome
of selfish considerations. While Austria tried the hazards of war, her
northern rival husbanded her resources, strengthened her position as
the protectress of Northern Germany, and dextrously sought to attract
the nebula of middle German States into her own sphere of influence.
From his task of tilting a balance which was already decided, Sieyès
was recalled to Paris in May, 1799, by the news of his election to the
place in the Directory vacated by Rewbell. The other Directors had
striven, but in vain, to prevent his election: they knew well that
this impracticable theorist would speedily paralyze the Government;
for, when previously elected Director in 1795, he had refused to
serve, on the ground that the constitution was thoroughly bad. He now
declared his hostility to the Directory, and looked around for some
complaisant military chief who should act as his tool and then be
cast away. His first choice, Joubert, was killed at the battle of
Novi. Moreau seems then to have been looked on with favour; he was a
republican, able in warfare and singularly devoid of skill or ambition
in political matters. Relying on Moreau, Sieyès continued his
intrigues, and after some preliminary fencing gained over to his side
the Director Barras. But if we may believe the assertions of the
royalist, Hyde de Neuville, Barras was also receiving the advances of
the royalists with a view to a restoration of Louis XVIII., an event
which was then quite within the bounds of probability. For the
present, however, Barras favoured the plans of Sieyès, and helped him
to get rid of the firmly republican Directors, La Réveillière-Lépeaux
and Merlin, who were deposed (30th Prairial).[125]
The new Directors were Gohier, Roger Ducos, and Moulin; the first, an
elderly respectable advocate; the second, a Girondin by early
associations, but a trimmer by instinct, and therefore easily gained
over by Sieyès; while the recommendation of the third, Moulin, seem to
have been his political nullity and some third-rate military services
in the Vendéan war. Yet the Directory of Prairial was not devoid of a
spasmodic energy, which served to throw back the invaders of France.
Bernadotte, the fiery Gascon, remarkable for his ardent gaze, his
encircling masses of coal-black hair, and the dash of Moorish blood
which ever aroused Bonaparte's respectful apprehensions, was Minister
of War, and speedily formed a new army of 100,000 men: Lindet
undertook to re-establish the finances by means of progressive taxes:
the Chouan movement in the northern and western departments was
repressed by a law legalising the seizure of hostages; and there
seemed some hope that France would roll back the tide of invasion,
keep her "natural frontiers," and return to normal methods of
government.
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte's arrival inspired
France with joy and the Directory with ill-concealed dread. As in
1795, so now in 1799, he appeared at Paris when French political life
was in a stage of transition. If ever the Napoleonic star shone
auspiciously, it was in the months when he threaded his path between
Nelson's cruisers and cut athwart the maze of Sieyès' intrigues. To
the philosopher's "J'ai vécu" he could oppose the crushing retort
"J'ai vaincu."
The general, on meeting the thinker at Gohier's house, studiously
ignored him. In truth, he was at first disposed to oust both Sieyès
and Barras from the Directory. The latter of these men was odious to
him for reasons both private and public. In time past he had had good
reasons for suspecting Josephine's relations with the voluptuous
Director, and with the men whom she met at his house. During the
Egyptian campaign his jealousy had been fiercely roused in another
quarter, and, as we have seen, led to an almost open breach with his
wife. But against Barras he still harboured strong suspicions; and the
frequency of his visits to the Director's house after returning from
Egypt was doubtless due to his desire to sound the depths of his
private as well as of his public immorality. If we may credit the
_embarras de mensonges_ which has been dignified by the name of
Barras' "Memoirs," Josephine once fled to his house and flung herself
at his knees, begging to be taken away from her husband; but the story
is exploded by the moral which the relator clumsily tacks on, as to
the good advice which he gave her.[126] While Bonaparte seems to have
found no grounds for suspecting Barras on this score, he yet
discovered his intrigues with various malcontents; and he saw that
Barras, holding the balance of power in the Directory between the
opposing pairs of colleagues, was intriguing to get the highest
possible price for the betrayal of the Directory and of the
constitution of 1795.
For Sieyès the general felt dislike but respect. He soon saw the
advantage of an alliance with so learned a thinker, so skilful an
intriguer, and so weak a man. It was, indeed, necessary; for, after
making vain overtures to Gohier for the alteration of the law which
excluded from the Directory men of less than forty years of age,
the general needed the alliance of Sieyès for the overthrow of the
constitution. In a short space he gathered around him the malcontents
whom the frequent crises had deprived of office, Roederer, Admiral
Bruix, Réal, Cambacérès, and, above all, Talleyrand. The last-named;
already known for his skill in diplomacy, had special reasons for
favouring the alliance of Bonaparte and Sieyès: he had been dismissed
from the Foreign Office in the previous month of July because in his
hands it had proved to be too lucrative to the holder and too
expensive for France. It was an open secret that, when American
commissioners arrived in Paris a short time previously, for the
settlement of various disputes between the two countries, they found
that the negotiations would not progress until 250,000 dollars had
changed hands. The result was that hostilities continued, and that
Talleyrand soon found himself deprived of office, until another turn
of the revolutionary kaleidoscope should restore him to his coveted
place.[127] He discerned in the Bonaparte-Sieyès combination the force
that would give the requisite tilt now that Moreau gave up politics.
The army and most of the generals were also ready for some change,
only Bernadotte and Jourdan refusing to listen to the new proposals;
and the former of these came "with sufficiently bad grace" to join
Bonaparte at the time of action. The police was secured through that
dextrous trimmer, the regicide Fouché, who now turned against the very
men who had recently appointed him to office. Feeling sure of the
soldiery and police, the innovators fixed the 18th of Brumaire as the
date of their enterprise. There were many conferences at the houses of
the conspirators; and one of the few vivid touches which relieve the
dull tones of the Talleyrand "Memoirs" reveals the consciousness of
these men that they were conspirators. Late on a night in the middle
of Brumaire, Bonaparte came to Talleyrand's house to arrange details
of the _coup d'état,_ when the noise of carriages stopping outside
caused them to pale with fear that their plans were discovered. At
once the diplomatist blew out the lights and hurried to the balcony,
when he found that their fright was due merely to an accident to the
carriages of the revellers and gamesters returning from the Palais
Royal, which were guarded by gendarmes. The incident closed with
laughter and jests; but it illustrates the tension of the nerves of
the political gamesters, as also the mental weakness of Bonaparte when
confronted by some unknown danger. It was perhaps the only weak point
in his intellectual armour; but it was to be found out at certain
crises of his career.
Meanwhile in the legislative Councils there was a feeling of vague
disquiet. The Ancients were, on the whole, hostile to the Directory,
but in the Council of Five Hundred the democratic ardour of the
younger deputies foreboded a fierce opposition. Yet there also the
plotters found many adherents, who followed the lead now cautiously
given by Lucien Bonaparte. This young man, whose impassioned speeches
had marked him out as an irreproachable patriot, was now President of
that Council. No event could have been more auspicious for the
conspirators. With Sieyès, Barras, and Ducos, as traitors in the
Directory, with the Ancients favourable, and the junior deputies under
the presidency of Lucien, the plot seemed sure of success.
The first important step was taken by the Council of Ancients, who
decreed the transference of the sessions of the Councils to St. Cloud.
The danger of a Jacobin plot was urged as a plea for this motion,
which was declared carried without the knowledge either of the
Directory as a whole, or of the Five Hundred, whose opposition would
have been vehement. The Ancients then appointed Bonaparte to command
the armed forces in and near Paris. The next step was to insure the
abdication of Gohier and Moulin. Seeking to entrap Gohier, then the
President of the Directory, Josephine invited him to breakfast on the
morning of 18th Brumaire; but Gohier, suspecting a snare, remained at
his official residence, the Luxemburg Palace. None the less the
Directory was doomed; for the two defenders of the institution had not
the necessary quorum for giving effect to their decrees. Moulin
thereupon escaped, and Gohier was kept under guard--by Moreau's
soldiery![128]
Meanwhile, accompanied by a brilliant group of generals, Bonaparte
proceeded to the Tuileries, where the Ancients were sitting; and by
indulging in a wordy declamation he avoided taking the oath to the
constitution required of a general on entering upon a new command. In
the Council of Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte stopped the eager
questions and murmurs, on the pretext that the session was only legal
at St. Cloud.
There, on the next day (19th Brumaire or 10th November), a far more
serious blow was to be struck. The overthrow of the Directory was a
foregone conclusion. But with the Legislature it was far otherwise,
for its life was still whole and vigorous. Yet, while amputating a
moribund limb, the plotters did not scruple to paralyze the brain of
the body politic.
Despite the adhesion of most of the Ancients to his plans, Bonaparte,
on appearing before them, could only utter a succession of short,
jerky phrases which smacked of the barracks rather than of the Senate.
Retiring in some confusion, he regains his presence of mind among the
soldiers outside, and enters the hall of the Five Hundred, intending
to intimidate them not only by threats, but by armed force. At the
sight of the uniforms at the door, the republican enthusiasm of the
younger deputies catches fire. They fiercely assail him with cries of
"Down with the tyrant! down with the Dictator! outlaw him!" In vain
Lucien Bonaparte commands order. Several deputies rush at the general,
and fiercely shake him by the collar. He turns faint with excitement
and chagrin; but Lefebvre and a few grenadiers rushing up drag him
from the hall. He comes forth like a somnambulist (says an onlooker),
pursued by the terrible cry, "Hors la loi!" Had the cries at once
taken form in a decree, the history of the world might have been
different. One of the deputies, General Augereau, fiercely demands
that the motion of outlawry be put to the vote. Lucien Bonaparte
refuses, protests, weeps, finally throws off his official robes, and
is rescued from the enraged deputies by grenadiers whom the
conspirators send in for this purpose. Meanwhile Bonaparte and his
friends were hastily deliberating, when one of their number brought
the news that the deputies had declared the general an outlaw. The
news chased the blood from his cheek, until Sieyès, whose _sang froid_
did not desert him in these civilian broils, exclaims, "Since they
outlaw you, they are outlaws." This revolutionary logic recalls
Bonaparte to himself. He shouts, "To arms!" Lucien, too, mounting a
horse, appeals to the soldiers to free the Council from the menaces
of some deputies armed with daggers, and in the pay of England, who
are terrorising the majority. The shouts of command, clinched by the
adroit reference to daggers and English gold, cause the troops to
waver in their duty; and Lucien, pressing his advantage to the utmost,
draws a sword, and, holding it towards his brother, exclaims that he
will stab him if ever he attempts anything against liberty. Murat,
Leclerc, and other generals enforce this melodramatic appeal by shouts
for Bonaparte, which the troops excitedly take up. The drums sound for
an advance, and the troops forthwith enter the hall. In vain the
deputies raise the shout, "Vive la République," and invoke the
constitution. Appeals to the law are overpowered by the drum and by
shouts for Bonaparte; and the legislators of France fly pell-mell from
the hall through doors and windows.[129]
Thus was fulfilled the prophecy which eight years previously Burke had
made in his immortal work on the French Revolution. That great thinker
had predicted that French liberty would fall a victim to the first
great general who drew the eyes of all men upon himself. "The moment
in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the
army is your master, the master of your king, the master of your
Assembly, the master of your whole republic."
Discussions about the _coup d'état_ of Brumaire generally confuse the
issue at stake by ignoring the difference between the overthrow of the
Directory and that of the Legislature. The collapse of the Directory
was certain to take place; but few expected that the Legislature of
France would likewise vanish. For vanish it did: not for nearly half
a century had France another free and truly democratic representative
assembly. This result of Brumaire was unexpected by several of the men
who plotted the overthrow of unpopular Directors, and hoped for the
nipping of Jacobinical or royalist designs. Indeed, no event in French
history is more astonishing than the dispersal of the republican
deputies, most of whom desired a change of _personnel_ but not a
revolution in methods of government. Until a few days previously the
Councils had the allegiance of the populace and of the soldiers; the
troops at St. Cloud were loyal to the constitution, and respected the
persons of the deputies until they were deluded by Lucien. For a few
minutes the fate of France trembled in the balance; and the
conspirators knew it.[130] Bonaparte confessed it by his incoherent
gaspings; Sieyès had his carriage ready, with six horses, for flight;
the terrible cry, "Hors la loi!" if raised against Bonaparte in the
heart of Paris, would certainly have roused the populace to fury in
the cause of liberty and have swept the conspirators to the
guillotine. But, as it was, the affair was decided in the solitudes of
St. Cloud by Lucien and a battalion of soldiers.
Efforts have frequently been made to represent the events of Brumaire
as inevitable and to dovetail them in with a pretended philosophy of
history. But it is impossible to study them closely without observing
how narrow was the margin between the success and failure of the plot,
and how jagged was the edge of an affair which philosophizers seek to
fit in with their symmetrical explanations. In truth, no event of
world-wide importance was ever decided by circumstances so trifling.
"There is but one step from triumph to a fall. I have seen that in the
greatest affairs a little thing has always decided important
events"--so wrote Bonaparte three years before his triumph at St.
Cloud: he might have written it of that event. It is equally
questionable whether it can be regarded as saving France from anarchy.
His admirers, it is true, have striven to depict France as trodden
down by invaders, dissolved by anarchy, and saved only by the stroke
of Brumaire. But she was already triumphant: it was quite possible
that she would peacefully adjust her governmental difficulties: they
were certainly no greater than they had been in and since the year
1797: Fouché had closed the club of the Jacobins: the Councils had
recovered their rightful influence, and, but for the plotters of
Brumaire, might have effected a return to ordinary government of the
type of 1795-7. This was the real blow; that the vigorous trunk, the
Legislature, was struck down along with the withering Directorial
branch.
The friends of liberty might well be dismayed when they saw how tamely
France accepted this astounding stroke. Some allowance was naturally
to be made, at first, for the popular apathy: the Jacobins, already
discouraged by past repression, were partly dazed by the suddenness of
the blow, and were also ignorant of the aims of the men who dealt it;
and while they were waiting to see the import of events, power passed
rapidly into the hands of Bonaparte and his coadjutors. Such is an
explanation, in part at least, of the strange docility now shown by a
populace which still vaunted its loyalty to the democratic republic.
But there is another explanation, which goes far deeper. The
revolutionary strifes had wearied the brain of France and had
predisposed it to accept accomplished facts. Distracted by the talk
about royalist plots and Jacobin plots, cowering away from the white
ogre and the red spectre, the more credulous part of the populace was
fain to take shelter under the cloak of a great soldier, who at least
promised order. Everything favoured the drill-sergeant theory of
government. The instincts developed by a thousand years of monarchy
had not been rooted out in the last decade. They now prompted France
to rally round her able man; and, abandoning political liberty as a
hopeless quest, she obeyed the imperious call which promised to
revivify the order and brilliance of her old existence with the
throbbing blood of her new life.
The French constitution was now to be reconstructed by a
self-appointed commission which sat with closed doors. This strange
ending to all the constitution-building of a decade was due to the
adroitness of Lucien Bonaparte. At the close of that eventful day, the
19th of Brumaire, he gathered about him in the deserted hall at St.
Cloud some score or so of the dispersed deputies known to be
favourable to his brother, declaimed against the Jacobins, whose
spectral plot had proved so useful to the real plotters, and proposed
to this "Rump" of the Council the formation of a commission who should
report on measures that were deemed necessary for the public safety.
The measures were found to be the deposition of the Directory, the
expulsion of sixty-one members from the Councils, the nomination of
Sieyès, Roger Ducos, and Bonaparte as provisional Consuls and the
adjournment of the Councils for four months. The Consuls accordingly
took up their residence in the Luxemburg Palace, just vacated by the
Directors, and the drafting of a constitution was confided to them and
to an _interim_ commission of fifty members chosen equally from the
two Councils.
The illegality of these devices was hidden beneath a cloak of politic
clemency. To this commission the Consuls, or rather Bonaparte--for
his will soon dominated that of Sieyès--proposed two most salutary
changes. He desired to put an end to the seizure of hostages from
villages suspected of royalism; and also to the exaction of taxes
levied on a progressive scale, which harassed the wealthy without
proportionately benefiting the exchequer. These two expedients,
adopted by the Directory in the summer of 1799, were temporary
measures adopted to stem the tide of invasion and to crush revolts;
but they were regarded as signs of a permanently terrorist policy, and
their removal greatly strengthened the new consular rule. The blunder
of nearly all the revolutionary governments had been in continuing
severe laws after the need for them had ceased to be pressing.
Bonaparte, with infinite tact, discerned this truth, and, as will
shortly appear, set himself to found his government on the support of
that vast neutral mass which was neither royalist nor Jacobin, which
hated the severities of the reds no less than the abuses of the
_ancien régime_.
While Bonaparte was conciliating the many, Sieyès was striving to body
forth the constitution which for many years had been nebulously
floating in his brain. The function of the Socratic [Greek: maieutaes]
was discharged by Boulay de la Meurthe, who with difficulty reduced
those ideas to definite shape. The new constitution was based on the
principle: "Confidence comes from below, power from above." This meant
that the people, that is, all adult males, were admitted only to the
preliminary stages of election of deputies, while the final act of
selection was to be made by higher grades or powers. The "confidence"
required of the people was to be shown not only towards their
nominees, but towards those who were charged with the final and most
important act of selection. The winnowing processes in the election of
representatives were to be carried out on a decimal system. The adult
voters meeting in their several districts were to choose one-tenth of
their number, this tenth being named the Notabilities of the Commune.
These, some five or six hundred thousand in number, meeting in their
several Departments, were thereupon to choose one-tenth of their
number; and the resulting fifty or sixty thousand men, termed
Notabilities of the Departments, were again to name one-tenth of their
number, who were styled Notabilities of the Nation. But the most
important act of selection was still to come--from above. From this
last-named list the governing powers were to select the members of the
legislative bodies and the chief officials and servants of the
Government.
The executive now claims a brief notice. The well-worn theory of the
distinction of powers, that is, the legislative and executive powers,
was maintained in Sieyès' plan. At the head of the Government the
philosopher desired to enthrone an august personage, the Grand
Elector, who was to be selected by the Senate. This Grand Elector was
to nominate two Consuls, one for peace, the other for war; they were
to nominate the Ministers of State, who in their turn selected the
agents of power from the list of Notabilities of the Nation. The two
Consuls and their Ministers administered the executive affairs. The
Senate, sitting in dignified ease, was merely to safeguard the
constitution, to elect the Grand Elector, and to select the members of
the _Corps Législatif_ (proper) and the Tribunate.
Distrust of the former almost superhuman activity in law-making now
appeared in divisions, checks, and balances quite ingenious in their
complexity. The Legislature was divided into three councils: the
_Corps Législatif_, properly so called, which listened in silence to
proposals of laws offered by the Council of State and criticised or
orally approved by the Tribunate.[131] These three bodies were not
only divided, but were placed in opposition, especially the two
talking bodies, which resembled plaintiff and defendant pleading
before a gagged judge. But even so the constitution was not
sufficiently guarded against Jacobins or royalists. If by any chance a
dangerous proposal were forced through these mutually distrustful
bodies, the Senate was charged with the task of vetoing it, and if the
Grand Elector, or any other high official, strove to gain a perpetual
dictatorship, the Senate was at once to _absorb_ him into its ranks.
Moreover, lest the voters should send up too large a proportion of
Jacobins or royalists, the first selection of members of the great
Councils and the chief functionaries for local affairs was to be made
by the Consuls, who thus primarily exercised not only the "power from
above," but also the "confidence" which ought to have come from below.
Perhaps this device was necessary to set in motion Sieyès' system of
wheels within wheels; for the Senate, which was to elect the Grand
Elector, by whom the executive officers were indirectly to be chosen,
was in part self-sufficient: the Consuls named the first members, who
then co-opted, that is, chose the new members. Some impulse from
without was also needed to give the constitution life; and this
impulse was now to come. Where Sieyès had only contrived wheels,
checks, regulator, break, and safety-valve, there now rushed in an
imperious will which not only simplified the parts but supplied an
irresistible motive power.
The complexity of much of the mechanism, especially that relating to
popular election and the legislature, entirely suited Bonaparte. But,
while approving the triple winnowing, to which Sieyès subjected the
results of manhood suffrage, and the subordination of the legislative
to the executive authority,[132] the general expressed his entire
disapproval of the limitations of the Grand Elector's powers. The name
was anti-republican: let it be changed to First Consul. And whereas
Sieyès condemned his grand functionary to the repose of a _roi
fainéant_, Bonaparte secured to him practically all the powers
assigned by Sieyès to the Consuls for Peace and for War. Lastly,
Bonaparte protested against the right of absorbing him being given to
the Senate. Here also he was successful; and thus a delicately poised
bureaucracy was turned into an almost unlimited dictatorship.
This metamorphosis may well excite wonder. But, in truth, Sieyès and
his colleagues were too weary and sceptical to oppose the one
"intensely practical man." To Bonaparte's trenchant reasons and
incisive tones the theorist could only reply by a scornful silence
broken by a few bitter retorts. To the irresistible power of the
general he could only oppose the subtlety of a student. And, indeed,
who can picture Bonaparte, the greatest warrior of the age, delegating
the control of all warlike operations to a Consul for War while
Austrian cannon were thundering in the county of Nice and British
cruisers were insulting the French coasts? It was inevitable that the
reposeful Grand Elector should be transformed into the omnipotent
First Consul, and that these powers should be wielded by Bonaparte
himself.[133]
The extent of the First Consul's powers, as finally settled by the
joint commission, was as follows. He had the direct and sole
nomination of the members of the general administration, of those of
the departmental and municipal councils, and of the administrators,
afterwards called prefects and sub-prefects. He also appointed all
military and naval officers, ambassadors and agents sent to foreign
Powers, and the judges in civil and criminal suits, except the _juges
de paix_ and, later on, the members of the _Cour de Cassation_. He
therefore controlled the army, navy, and diplomatic service, as well
as the general administration. He also signed treaties, though these
might be discussed, and must be ratified, by the legislative bodies.
The three Consuls were to reside in the Tuileries palace; but, apart
from the enjoyment of 150,000 francs a year, and occasional
consultation by the First Consul, the position of these officials was
so awkward that Bonaparte frankly remarked to Roederer that it would
have been better to call them Grand Councillors. They were, in truth,
supernumeraries added to the chief of the State, as a concession to
the spirit of equality and as a blind to hide the reality of the new
despotism. All three were to be chosen for ten years, and were
re-eligible.
Such is an outline of the constitution of 1799 (Year VIII.). It was
promulgated on December 15th, 1799, and was offered to the people for
acceptance, in a proclamation which closed with the words: "Citizens,
the Revolution is confined to the principles which commenced it. It is
finished." The news of this last fact decided the enthusiastic
acceptance of the constitution. In a _plébiscite_, or mass vote of the
people, held in the early days of 1800, it was accepted by an
overwhelming majority, viz., by 3,011,007 as against only 1,562
negatives. No fact so forcibly proves the failure of absolute
democracy in France; and, whatever may be said of the methods of
securing this national acclaim, it was, and must ever remain, the
soundest of Bonaparte's titles to power. To a pedant who once
inquired about his genealogy he significantly replied: "It dates from
Brumaire."
Shortly before the _plébiscite_, Sieyès and Ducos resigned their
temporary commissions as Consuls: they were rewarded with seats in the
Senate; and Sieyès, in consideration of his constitutional work,
received the estate of Crosne from the nation.
"Sieyès à Bonaparte a fait present du trône,
Sous un pompeux débris croyant l'ensevelir.
Bonaparte à Sieyès a fait present de Crosne
Pour le payer et l'avilir."
The sting in the tail of Lebrun's epigram struck home. Sieyès'
acceptance of Crosne was, in fact, his acceptance of notice to quit
public affairs, in which he had always moved with philosophic disdain.
He lived on to the year 1836 in dignified ease, surveying with
Olympian calm the storms of French and Continental politics.
The two new Consuls were Cambacérès and Lebrun. The former was known
as a learned jurist and a tactful man. He had voted for the death of
Louis XVI., but his subsequent action had been that of a moderate, and
his knowledge of legal affairs was likely to be of the highest service
to Bonaparte, who intrusted him with a general oversight of
legislation. His tact was seen in his refusal to take up his abode in
the Tuileries, lest, as he remarked to Lebrun, he might have to move
out again soon. The third Consul, Lebrun, was a moderate with leanings
towards constitutional royalty. He was to prove another useful
satellite to Bonaparte, who intrusted him with the general oversight
of finance and regarded him as a connecting link with the moderate
royalists. The chief secretary to the Consuls was Maret, a trusty
political agent, who had striven for peace with England both in 1793
and in 1797.
As for the Ministers, they were now reinforced by Talleyrand, who took
up that of Foreign Affairs, and by Berthier, who brought his powers of
hard work to that of War, until he was succeeded for a time by Carnot.
Lucien Bonaparte, and later Chaptal, became Minister of the Interior,
Gaudin controlled Finance, Forfait the Navy, and Fouché the Police.
The Council of State was organized in the following sections; that of
_War_, which was presided over by General Brune: _Marine_, by Admiral
Gantheaume: _Finance_, by Defermon: _Legislation_, by Boulay de la
Meurthe: the _Interior_, by Roederer.
The First Consul soon showed that he intended to adopt a non-partisan
and thoroughly national policy. That had been, it is true, the aim of
the Directors in their policy of balance and repression of extreme
parties on both sides. For the reasons above indicated, they had
failed: but now a stronger and more tactful grasp was to succeed in a
feat which naturally became easier every year that removed the
passions of the revolutionary epoch further into the distance. Men
cannot for ever perorate, and agitate and plot. A time infallibly
comes when an able leader can successfully appeal to their saner
instincts: and that hour had now struck. Bonaparte's appeal was made
to the many, who cared not for politics, provided that they themselves
were left in security and comfort: it was urged quietly, persistently,
and with the reserve power of a mighty prestige and of overwhelming
military force. Throughout the whole of the Consulate, a policy of
moderation, which is too often taken for weakness, was strenuously
carried through by the strongest man and the greatest warrior of the
age.
The truly national character of his rule was seen in many ways. He
excluded from high office men who were notorious regicides, excepting
a few who, like Fouché, were too clever to be dispensed with. The
constitutionals of 1791 and even declared royalists were welcomed back
to France, and many of the Fructidorian exiles also returned.[134] The
list of _émigrés_ was closed, so that neither political hatred nor
private greed could misrepresent a journey as an act of political
emigration. Equally generous and prudent was the treatment of Roman
Catholics. Toleration was now extended to orthodox or non-juring
priests, who were required merely to _promise_ allegiance to the new
constitution. By this act of timely clemency, orthodox priests were
allowed to return to France, and they were even suffered to officiate
in places where no opposition was thereby aroused.
While thus removing one of the chief grievances of the Norman, Breton
and Vendéan peasants, who had risen as much for their religion as for
their king, he determined to crush their revolts. The north-west, and
indeed parts of the south of France, were still simmering with
rebellions and brigandage. In Normandy a daring and able leader named
Frotté headed a considerable band of malcontents, and still more
formidable were the Breton "Chouans" that followed the peasant leader
Georges Cadoudal. This man was a born leader. Though but thirty years
of age, his fierce courage had long marked him out as the first
fighter of his race and creed. His features bespoke a bold, hearty
spirit, and his massive frame defied fatigue and hardship. He
struggled on; and in the autumn of 1799 fortune seemed about to favour
the "whites": the revolt was spreading; and had a Bourbon prince
landed in Brittany before Bonaparte returned from Egypt, the royalists
might quite possibly have overthrown the Directory. But Bonaparte's
daring changed the whole aspect of affairs. The news of the stroke of
Brumaire gave the royalists pause. At first they believed that the
First Consul would soon call back the king, and Bonaparte skilfully
favoured this notion: he offered a pacification, of which some of the
harassed peasants availed themselves. Georges himself for a time
advised a reconciliation, and a meeting of the royalist leaders voted
to a man that they desired "to have the king and you" (Bonaparte). One
of them, Hyde de Neuville, had an interview with the First Consul at
Paris, and has left on record his surprise at seeing the slight form
of the man whose name was ringing through France. At the first glance
he took him for a rather poorly dressed lackey; but when the general
raised his eyes and searched him through and through with their eager
fire, the royalist saw his error and fell under the spell of a gaze
which few could endure unmoved. The interview brought no definite
result.
Other overtures made by Bonaparte were more effective. True to his
plan of dividing his enemies, he appealed to the clergy to end the
civil strife. The appeal struck home to the heart or the ambitions of
a cleric named Bernier. This man was but a village priest of La
Vendée: yet his natural abilities gained him an ascendancy in the
councils of the insurgents, which the First Consul was now
victoriously to exploit. Whatever may have been Bernier's motives, he
certainly acted with some duplicity. Without forewarning Cadoudal,
Bourmont, Frotté, and other royalist leaders, he secretly persuaded
the less combative leaders to accept the First Consul's terms; and a
pacification was arranged (January 18th), In vain did Cadoudal rage
against this treachery: in vain did he strive to break the armistice.
Frotté in Normandy was the last to capitulate and the first to feel
Bonaparte's vengeance: on a trumped-up charge of treachery he was
hurried before a court-martial and shot. An order was sent from Paris
for his pardon; but a letter which Bonaparte wrote to Brune on the day
of the execution contains the ominous phrase: _By this time Frotté
ought to be shot_; and a recently published letter to Hédouville
expresses the belief that _the punishment of that desperate leader
will doubtless contribute to the complete pacification of the
West_.[135]
In the hope of gaining over the Chouans, Bonaparte required their
chiefs to come to Paris, where they received the greatest
consideration. In Bernier the priest, Bonaparte discerned diplomatic
gifts of a high order, which were soon to be tested in a far more
important negotiation. The nobles, too, received flattering
attentions which touched their pride and assured their future
insignificance. Among them was Count Bourmont, the Judas of the
Waterloo campaign.
In contrast with the priest and the nobles, Georges Cadoudal stood
firm as a rock. That suave tongue spoke to him of glory, honour, and
the fatherland: he heeded it not, for he knew it had ordered the death
of Frotté. There stood these fighters alone, face to face, types of
the north and south, of past and present, fiercest and toughest of
living men, their stern wills racked in wrestle for two hours. But
southern craft was foiled by Breton steadfastness, and Georges went
his way unshamed. Once outside the palace, his only words to his
friend, Hyde de Neuville, were: "What a mind I had to strangle him in
these arms!" Shadowed by Bonaparte's spies, and hearing that he was
to be arrested, he fled to England; and Normandy and Brittany enjoyed
the semblance of peace.[136]
Thus ended the civil war which for nearly seven years had rent France
in twain. Whatever may be said about the details of Bonaparte's
action, few will deny its beneficent results on French life. Harsh and
remorseless as Nature herself towards individuals, he certainly, at
this part of his career, promoted the peace and prosperity of the
masses. And what more can be said on behalf of a ruler at the end of a
bloody revolution?
Meanwhile the First Consul had continued to develop Sieyès'
constitution in the direction of autocracy. The Council of State,
which was little more than an enlarged Ministry, had been charged with
the vague and dangerous function of "developing the sense of laws" on
the demand of the Consuls; and it was soon seen that this Council was
merely a convenient screen to hide the operations of Bonaparte's will.
On the other hand, a blow was struck at the Tribunate, the only public
body which had the right of debate and criticism. It was now proposed
(January, 1800) that the time allowed for debate should be strictly
limited. This restriction to the right of free discussion met with
little opposition. One of the most gifted of the new tribunes,
Benjamin Constant, the friend of Madame de Staël, eloquently pleaded
against this policy of distrust which would reduce the Tribunate to a
silence that would be _heard by Europe_. It was in vain. The rabid
rhetoric of the past had infected France with a foolish fear of all
free debate. The Tribunate signed its own death warrant; and the sole
result of its feeble attempt at opposition was that Madame de Staël's
_salon_ was forthwith deserted by the Liberals who had there found
inspiration; while the gifted authoress herself was officially
requested to retire into the country.
The next act of the central power struck at freedom of the press. As a
few journals ventured on witticisms at the expense of the new
Government, the Consuls ordered the suppression of all the political
journals of Paris except thirteen; and three even of these favoured
papers were suppressed on April 7th. The reason given for this
despotic action was the need of guiding public opinion wisely during
the war, and of preventing any articles "contrary to the respect due
to the social compact, to the sovereignty of the people, and to the
glory of the armies." By a finely ironical touch Rousseau's doctrine
of the popular sovereignty was thus invoked to sanction its violation.
The incident is characteristic of the whole tendency of events, which
showed that the dawn of personal rule was at hand. In fact, Bonaparte
had already taken the bold step of removing to the Tuileries, and that
too, on the very day when he ordered public mourning for the death of
Washington (February 7th). No one but the great Corsican would have
dared to brave the comments which this coincidence provoked. But he
was necessary to France, and all men knew it. At the first sitting of
the provisional Consuls, Ducos had said to him: "It is useless to vote
about the presidence; it belongs to you of right"; and, despite the
wry face pulled by Sieyès, the general at once took the chair.
Scarcely less remarkable than the lack of energy in statesmen was the
confusion of thought in the populace. Mme. Reinhard tells us that
after the _coup d'état_ people _believed they had returned to the
first days of liberty_. What wonder, then, that the one able and
strong-willed man led the helpless many and re-moulded Sieyès'
constitution in a fashion that was thus happily parodied:
"J'ai, pour les fous, d'un Tribunat
Conservé la figure;
Pour les sots je laisse un Sénat,
Mais ce n'est qu'en peinture;
A ce stupide magistrat
Ma volonté préside;
Et tout le Conseil d'État
Dans mon sabre réside."
* * * * *