THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE
"We have done with the romance of the Revolution: we must now commence
its history. We must have eyes only for what is real and practicable
in the application of principles, and not for the speculative and
hypothetical." Such were the memorable words of Bonaparte to his
Council of State at one of its early meetings. They strike the keynote
of the era of the Consulate. It was a period of intensely practical
activity that absorbed all the energies of France and caused the
earlier events of the Revolution to fade away into a seemingly remote
past. The failures of the civilian rulers and the military triumphs of
Bonaparte had exerted a curious influence on the French character,
which was in a mood of expectant receptivity. In 1800 everything was
in the transitional state that favours the efforts of a master
builder; and one was now at hand whose constructive ability in civil
affairs equalled his transcendent genius for war.
I propose here briefly to review the most important works of
reconstruction which render the Consulate and the early part of the
Empire for ever famous. So vast and complex were Bonaparte's efforts
in this field that they will be described, not chronologically, but
subject by subject. The reader will, however, remember that for the
most part they went on side by side, even amidst the distractions
caused by war, diplomacy, colonial enterprises, and the myriad details
of a vast administration. What here appears as a series of canals was
in reality a mighty river of enterprise rolling in undivided volume
and fed by the superhuman vitality of the First Consul. It was his
inexhaustible curiosity which compelled functionaries to reveal the
secrets of their office: it was his intelligence that seized on the
salient points of every problem and saw the solution: it was his
ardour and mental tenacity which kept his Ministers and committees
hard at work, and by toil of sometimes twenty hours a day supervised
the results: it was, in fine, his passion for thoroughness, his
ambition for France, that nerved every official with something of his
own contempt of difficulties, until, as one of them said, "the
gigantic entered into our very habits of thought."[149]
The first question of political reconstruction which urgently claimed
attention was that of local government. On the very day when it was
certain that the nation had accepted the new constitution, the First
Consul presented to the Legislature a draft of a law for regulating
the affairs of the Departments. It must be admitted that local
self-government, as instituted by the men of 1789 in their
Departmental System, had proved a failure. In that time of buoyant
hope, when every difficulty and abuse seemed about to be charmed away
by the magic of universal suffrage, local self-government of a most
advanced type had been intrusted to an inexperienced populace. There
were elections for the commune or parish, elections for the canton,
elections for the district, elections for the Department, and
elections for the National Assembly, until the rustic brain, after
reeling with excitement, speedily fell back into muddled apathy and
left affairs generally to the wire-pullers of the nearest Jacobin
club. A time of great confusion ensued. Law went according to local
opinion, and the national taxes were often left unpaid. In the Reign
of Terror this lax system was replaced by the despotism of the secret
committees, and the way was thus paved for a return to organized
central control, such as was exercised by the Directory.
The First Consul, as successor to the Directory, therefore found
matters ready to his hand for a drastic measure of centralization, and
it is curious to notice that the men of 1789 had unwittingly cleared
the ground for him. To make way for the "supremacy of the general
will," they abolished the _Parlements_, which had maintained the old
laws, customs, and privileges of their several provinces, and had
frequently interfered in purely political matters. The abolition of
these and other privileged corporations in 1789 unified France and
left not a single barrier to withstand either the flood of democracy
or the backwash of reaction. Everything therefore favoured the action
of the First Consul in drawing all local powers under his own control.
France was for the moment weary of elective bodies, that did little
except waste the nation's taxes; and though there was some opposition
to the new proposal, it passed on February 16th, 1800 (28 Pluviose,
an, viii).
It substituted local government by the central power for local
self-government. The local divisions remained the same, except that
the "districts," abolished by the Convention, were now reconstituted
on a somewhat larger scale, and were termed _arrondissements_, while
the smaller communes, which had been merged in the cantons since 1795,
were also revived. It is noteworthy that, of all the areas mapped out
by the Constituent Assembly in 1789-90, only the Department and canton
have had a continuous existence--a fact which seems to show the peril
of tampering with well-established boundaries, and of carving out a
large number of artificial districts, which speedily become the
_corpus vile_ of other experimenters. Indeed, so little was there of
effective self-government that France seems to have sighed with relief
when order was imposed by Bonaparte in the person of a Prefect. This
important official, a miniature First Consul, was to administer the
affairs of the Department, while sub-prefects were similarly placed
over the new _arrondissements_, and mayors over the communes. The
mayors were appointed by the First Consul in communes of more than
5,000 souls: by the prefects in the smaller communes: all were alike
responsible to the central power.
The rebound from the former electoral system, which placed all local
authority ultimately in the hands of the voters, was emphasized by
Article 75 of the constitution, which virtually raised officials
beyond reach of prosecution. It ran thus: "The agents of the
Government, other than the Ministers, cannot be prosecuted for facts
relating to their duties except by a decision of the Council of State:
in that case the prosecution takes place before the ordinary
tribunals." Now, as this decision rested with a body composed almost
entirely of the higher officials, it will be seen that the chance of
a public prosecution of an official became extremely small. France was
therefore in the first months of 1800 handed over to a hierarchy of
officials closely bound together by interest and _esprit de corps_;
and local administration, after ten years of democratic experiments,
practically reverted to what it had been under the old monarchy. In
fact, the powers of the Prefects were, on the whole, much greater than
those of the royal Intendants: for while the latter were hampered by
the provincial _Parlements_, the nominees of the First Consul had to
deal with councils that retained scarce the shadow of power. The real
authority in local matters rested with the Prefects. The old elective
bodies survived, it is true, but their functions were now mainly
advisory; and, lest their advice should be too copious, the sessions
of the first two bodies were limited to a fortnight a year. Except for
a share in the assessment of taxation, their existence was merely a
screen to hide the reality of the new central despotism.[150]
Beneficent it may have been; and the choice of Prefects was certainly
a proof of Bonaparte's discernment of real merit among men of all
shades of opinion; but for all that, it was a despotism, and one that
has inextricably entwined itself with the whole life of France.[151]
It seems strange that this law should not have aroused fierce
opposition; for it practically gagged democracy in its most
appropriate and successful sphere of action, local self-government,
and made popular election a mere shadow, except in the single act of
the choice of the local _juges de paix_. This was foreseen by the
Liberals in the Tribunate: but their power was small since the
regulations passed in January: and though Daunou, as "reporter,"
sharply criticised this measure, yet he lamely concluded with the
advice that it would be dangerous to reject it. The Tribunes therefore
passed the proposal by 71 votes to 25: and the Corps Législatif by 217
to 68.
The results of this new local government have often been considered so
favourable as to prove that the genius of the French people requires
central control rather than self-government. But it should be noted
that the conditions of France from 1790 to 1800 were altogether
hostile to the development of free institutions. The fierce feuds at
home, the greed and the class jealousies awakened by confiscation, the
blasts of war and the blight of bankruptcy, would have severely tested
the firmest of local institutions; they were certain to wither so
delicate an organism as an absolute democracy, which requires peace,
prosperity, and infinite patience for its development. Because France
then came to despair of her local self-government, it did not follow
that she would fail after Bonaparte's return had restored her prestige
and prosperity. But the national _élan_ forbade any postponement or
compromise; and France forthwith accepted the rule of an able official
hierarchy as a welcome alternative to the haphazard acts of local
busybodies. By many able men the change has been hailed as a proof of
Bonaparte's marvellous discernment of the national character, which,
as they aver, longs for brilliance, order, and strong government,
rather than for the steep and thorny paths of liberty. Certainly there
is much in the modern history of France which supports this opinion.
Yet perhaps these characteristics are due very largely to the master
craftsman, who fashioned France anew when in a state of receptivity,
and thus was able to subject democracy to that force which alone has
been able to tame it--the mighty force of militarism.
* * * * *
The return to a monarchical policy was nowhere more evident than in
the very important negotiations which regulated the relations of
Church and State and produced the _Concordat_ or treaty of peace with
the Roman Catholic Church. But we must first look back at the events
which had reduced the Roman Catholic Church in France to its pitiable
condition.
The conduct of the revolutionists towards the Church of France was
actuated partly by the urgent needs of the national exchequer, partly
by hatred and fear of so powerful a religious corporation. Idealists
of the new school of thought, and practical men who dreaded
bankruptcy, accordingly joined in the assault on its property and
privileges: its tithes were confiscated, the religious houses and
their property were likewise absorbed, and its lands were declared to
be the lands of the nation. A budget of public worship was, it is
true, designed to support the bishops and priests; but this solemn
obligation was soon renounced by the fiercer revolutionists. Yet
robbery was not their worst offence. In July, 1790, they passed a law
called the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which aimed at subjecting
the Church to the State. It compelled bishops and priests to seek
election by the adult males of their several Departments and parishes,
and forced them to take a stringent oath of obedience to the new order
of things. All the bishops but four refused to take an oath which set
at naught the authority of the Pope: more than 50,000 priests likewise
refused, and were ejected from their livings: the recusants were
termed _orthodox_ or _non-juring_ priests, and by the law of August,
1792, they were exiled from France, while their more pliable or
time-serving brethren who accepted the new decree were known as
_constitutionals_. About 12,000 of the constitutionals married, while
some of them applauded the extreme Jacobinical measures of the Terror.
One of them shocked the faithful by celebrating the mysteries, having
a _bonnet rouge_ on his head, holding a pike in his hand, while his
wife was installed near the altar.[152] Outrages like these were rare:
but they served to discredit the constitutional Church and to throw up
in sharper relief the courage with which the orthodox clergy met exile
and death for conscience' sake. Moreover, the time-serving of the
constitutionals was to avail them little: during the Terror their
stipends were unpaid, and the churches were for the most part closed.
After a partial respite in 1795-6, the _coup d'état_ of Fructidor
(1797) again ushered in two years of petty persecutions; but in the
early summer of 1799 constitutionals were once more allowed to observe
the Christian Sunday, and at the time of Bonaparte's return from
Egypt their services were more frequented than those of the
Theophilanthropists on the _décadis_. It was evident, then, that the
anti-religious _furor_ had burnt itself out, and that France was
turning back to her old faith. Indeed, outside Paris and a few other
large towns, public opinion mocked at the new cults, and in the
country districts the peasantry clung with deep affection to their old
orthodox priests, often following them into the forests to receive
their services and forsaking those of their supplanters.
Such, then, was the religious state of France in 1799: her clergy were
rent by a formidable schism; the orthodox priests clung where possible
to their parishioners, or lived in destitution abroad; the
constitutional priests, though still frowned on by the Directory, were
gaining ground at the expense of the Theophilanthropists, whose
expiring efforts excited ridicule. In fine, a nation weary of
religious experiments and groping about for some firm anchorage in the
midst of the turbid ebb-tide and its numerous backwaters.[153]
Despite the absence of any deep religious belief, Bonaparte felt the
need of religion as the bulwark of morality and the cement of society.
During his youth he had experienced the strength of Romanism in
Corsica, and during his campaigns in Italy he saw with admiration the
zeal of the French orthodox priests who had accepted exile and poverty
for conscience' sake. To these outcasts he extended more protection
than was deemed compatible with correct republicanism; and he received
their grateful thanks. After Brumaire he suppressed the oath
previously exacted from the clergy, and replaced it by a _promise_ of
fidelity to the constitution. Many reasons have been assigned for this
conduct, but doubtless his imagination was touched by the sight of the
majestic hierarchy of Rome, whose spiritual powers still prevailed,
even amidst the ruin of its temporal authority, and were slowly but
surely winning back the ground lost in the Revolution. An influence so
impalpable yet irresistible, that inherited from the Rome of the
Cæsars the gift of organization and the power of maintaining
discipline, in which the Revolution was so signally lacking, might
well be the ally of the man who now dominated the Latin peoples. The
pupil of Cæsar could certainly not neglect the aid of the spiritual
hierarchy, which was all that remained of the old Roman grandeur.
Added to this was his keen instinct for reality, which led him to
scorn such whipped-up creeds as Robespierre's Supreme Being and that
amazing hybrid, Theophilanthropy, offspring of the Goddess of Reason
and La Réveillière-Lépeaux. Having watched their manufacture, rise and
fall, he felt the more regard for the faith of his youth, which
satisfied one of the most imperious needs of his nature, a craving for
certainty. Witness this crushing retort to M. Mathieu: "What is your
Theophilanthropy? Oh, don't talk to me of a religion which only takes
me for this life, without telling me whence I come or whither I go."
Of course, this does not prove the reality of Napoleon's religion; but
it shows that he was not devoid of the religious instinct.
The victory of Marengo enabled Bonaparte to proceed with his plans for
an accommodation with the Vatican; and he informed one of the Lombard
bishops that he desired to open friendly relations with Pope Pius
VII., who was then about to make his entry into Rome. There he
received the protection of the First Consul, and soon recovered his
sovereignty over his States, excepting the Legations.
The negotiations between Paris and the Vatican were transacted chiefly
by a very able priest, Bernier by name, who had gained the First
Consul's confidence during the pacification of Brittany, and now urged
on the envoys of Rome the need of deferring to all that was reasonable
in the French demands. The negotiators for the Vatican were Cardinals
Consalvi and Caprara, and Monseigneur Spina--able ecclesiastics, who
were fitted to maintain clerical claims with that mixture of
suppleness and firmness which had so often baffled the force and craft
of mighty potentates. The first difficulty arose on the question of
the resignation of bishops of the Gallican Church: Bonaparte demanded
that, whether orthodox or constitutionals, they must resign their sees
into the Pope's hands; failing that, they must be deposed by the papal
authority. Sweeping as this proposal seemed, Bonaparte claimed that
bishops of both sides must resign, in order that a satisfactory
selection might be made. Still more imperious was the need that the
Church should renounce all claim to her confiscated domains. All
classes of the community, so urged Bonaparte, had made immense
sacrifices during the Revolution; and now that peasants were settled
on these once clerical lands, the foundations of society would be
broken up by any attempt to dispossess them.
To both of these proposals the Court of Rome offered a tenacious
resistance. The idea of compelling long-persecuted bishops to resign
their sees was no less distasteful than the latter proposal, which
involved acquiescence in sacrilegious robbery. At least, pleaded Mgr.
Spina, let tithes be re-established. To this request the First Consul
deigned no reply. None, indeed, was possible except a curt refusal.
Few imposts had been so detested as the tithe; and its reimposition
would have wounded the peasant class, on which the First Consul based
his authority. So long as he had their support he could treat with
disdain the scoffs of the philosophers and even the opposition of his
officers; but to have wavered on the subject of tithe and of the
Church lands might have been fatal even to the victor of Marengo.[154]
In fact, the difficulty of effecting any compromise was enormous. In
seeking to reconcile the France of Rousseau and Robespierre to the
unchanging policy of the Vatican, the "heir to the Revolution" was
essaying a harder task than any military enterprise. To slay men has
ever been easier than to mould their thoughts anew; and Bonaparte was
now striving not only to remould French thought but also to fashion
anew the ideas of the Eternal City. He soon perceived that this latter
enterprise was more difficult than the former. The Pope and his
councillors rejoiced at the signs of his repentance, but required to
see the fruits thereof. Instead of first-fruits they received
unheard-of demands--the surrender of the three Legations of Bologna,
Ferrara, and Romagna, the renunciation of all tithes and Church lands
in France, and the acceptance of a compromise with schismatics. What
wonder that the replies from Rome were couched in the _non possumus_
terms which form the last refuge of the Vatican. Finding that
negotiations made no progress, Bonaparte intrusted Berthier and Murat
to pay a visit to Rome and exercise a discreet but burdensome pressure
in the form of requisitions for the French troops in the Papal States.
The ratification of peace with Austria gave greater weight to his
representations at Rome, and he endeavoured to press on the signature
of the Concordat, so as to startle the world by the simultaneous
announcement of the pacification of the Continent and of the healing
of the great religious schism in France. But the clerical machinery
worked too slowly to admit of this projected _coup de théâtre_. In
Bonaparte's proposals of February 25th, 1801, there were several
demands already found to be inadmissible at the Vatican;[155] and
matters came to a deadlock until the Pope invested Spina with larger
powers for negotiating at Paris. Consalvi also proceeded to Paris,
where he was received in state with other ambassadors at the
Tuileries, the sight of a cardinal's robe causing no little sensation.
The First Consul granted him a long interview, speaking at first
somewhat seriously, but gradually becoming more affable and gracious.
Yet as his behaviour softened his demands stiffened; and at the close
of the audience he pressed Consalvi to sign a somewhat unfavourable
version of the compact within five days, otherwise the negotiations
would be at an end and a _national religion would be adopted_--an
enterprise for which the auguries promised complete success. At a
later interview he expressed the same resolution in homely phrase:
when Consalvi pressed him to take a firm stand against the
"constitutional" intruders, he laughingly remarked that he could do no
more until he knew how he stood with Rome; for "you know that when
one cannot arrange matters with God, one comes to terms with the
devil."[156]
This dalliance with the "constitutionals" might have been more than an
astute ruse, and Consalvi knew it. In framing a national Church the
First Consul would have appealed not only to the old Gallican feeling,
still strong among the clerics and laity, but also to the potent force
of French nationality. The experiment might have been managed so as to
offend none but the strictest Catholics, who were less to be feared
than the free-thinkers. Consalvi was not far wrong when, writing of
the official world at Paris, he said that only Bonaparte really
desired a Concordat.
The First Consul's motives in seeking the alliance of Rome have, very
naturally, been subjected to searching criticism; and in forcing the
Concordat on France, and also on Rome, he was certainly undertaking
the most difficult negotiation of his life.[157] But his preference
for the Roman connection was an act of far-reaching statecraft. He saw
that a national Church, unrecognized by Rome, was a mere half-way
house between Romanism and Protestantism; and he disliked the latter
creed because of its tendency to beget sects and to impair the
validity of the general will. He still retained enough of Rousseau's
doctrine to desire that the general will should be uniform, provided
that it could be controlled by his own will. Such uniformity in the
sphere of religion was impossible unless he had the support of the
Papacy. Only by a bargain with Rome could he gain the support of a
solid ecclesiastical phalanx. Finally, by erecting a French national
Church, he would not only have perpetuated schism at home, but would
have disqualified himself for acting the part of Charlemagne over
central and southern Europe. To re-fashion Europe in a cosmopolitan
mould he needed a clerical police that was more than merely French. To
achieve those grander designs the successor of Cæsar would need the
aid of the successor of Peter; and this aid would be granted only to
the restorer of Roman Catholicism in France, never to the perpetuator
of schism.
These would seem to be the chief reasons why he braved public opinion
in Paris and clung to the Roman connection, bringing forward his plan
of a Gallican Church only as a threatening move against the clerical
flank. When the Vatican was obdurate he coquetted with the
"constitutional" bishops, allowing them every facility for free speech
in a council which they held at Paris at the close of June, 1801. He
summoned to the Tuileries their president, the famous Grégoire, and
showed him signal marks of esteem. "Put not your trust in princes"
must soon have been the thought of Grégoire and his colleagues: for a
fortnight later Bonaparte carried through his treaty with Rome and
shelved alike the congress and the church of the "constitutionals."
It would be tedious to detail all the steps in this complex
negotiation, but the final proceedings call for some notice. When the
treaty was assuming its final form, Talleyrand, the polite scoffer,
the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the
baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in
the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its
signature, Maret, Secretary of State, and Hauterive, who afterwards
become the official archivist of France. These men determined to
submit to Consalvi a draft of the treaty differing widely from that
which had been agreed upon; and that, too, when the official
announcement had been made that the treaty was to be signed
immediately. In the last hours the cardinal found himself confronted
with unexpected conditions, many of which he had successfully
repelled. Though staggered by this trickery, which compelled him to
sign a surrender or to accept an open rupture, Consalvi fought the
question over again in a conference that lasted twenty-four hours; he
even appeared at the State dinner given on July 14th by the First
Consul, who informed him before the other guests that it was a
question of "my draft of the treaty or none at all." Nothing baffled
the patience and tenacity of the Cardinal; and finally, by the good
offices of Joseph Bonaparte, the objectionable demands thrust forward
at the eleventh hour were removed or altered.
The question has been discussed whether the First Consul was a party
to this device. Theiner asserts that he knew nothing of it: that it
was an official intrigue got up at the last moment by the
anti-clericals so as to precipitate a rupture. In support of this
view, he cites letters of Maret and Hauterive as inculpating these men
and tending to free Bonaparte from suspicion of complicity. But the
letters cannot be said to dissipate all suspicion. The First Consul
had made this negotiation peculiarly his own: no officials assuredly
would have dared secretly to foist their own version of an important
treaty; or, if they did, this act would have been the last of their
career. But Bonaparte did not disgrace them; on the contrary, he
continued to honour them with his confidence. Moreover, the First
Consul flew into a passion with his brother Joseph when he reported
that Consalvi could not sign the document now offered to him, and tore
in pieces the articles finally arranged with the Cardinal. On the
return of his usually calm intelligence, he at last allowed the
concessions to stand, with the exception of two; but in a scrutiny of
motives we must assign most importance, not to second and more prudent
thoughts, but to the first ebullition of feelings, which seem
unmistakably to prove his knowledge and approval of Hauterive's
device. We must therefore conclude that he allowed the antagonists of
the Concordat to make this treacherous onset, with the intention of
extorting every possible demand from the dazed and bewildered
Cardinal.[158]
After further delays the Concordat was ratified at Eastertide, 1802.
It may be briefly described as follows: The French Government
recognized that the Catholic apostolic and Roman religion was the
religion of the great majority of the French people, "especially of
the Consuls"; but it refused to declare it to be the religion of
France, as was the case under the _ancien régime_. It was to be freely
and publicly practised in France, subject to the police regulations
that the Government judged necessary for the public tranquillity. In
return for these great advantages, many concessions were expected from
the Church. The present bishops, both orthodox and constitutional,
were, at the Pope's invitation, to resign their sees; or, failing
that, new appointments were to be made, as if the sees were vacant.
The last proviso was necessary; for of the eighty-one surviving
bishops affected by this decision as many as thirteen orthodox and two
"constitutionals" offered persistent but unavailing protests against
the action of the Pope and First Consul.
A new division of archbishoprics and bishoprics was now made, which
gave in all sixty sees to France. The First Consul enjoyed the right
of nomination to them, whereupon the Pope bestowed canonical
investiture. The archbishops and bishops were all to take an oath of
fidelity to the constitution. The bishops nominated the lower clerics
provided that they were acceptable to the Government: all alike bound
themselves to watch over governmental interests. The stability of
France was further assured by a clause granting complete and permanent
security to the holders of the confiscated Church lands--a healing and
salutary compromise which restored peace to every village and soothed
the qualms of many a troubled conscience. On its side, the State
undertook to furnish suitable stipends to the clergy, a promise which
was fulfilled in a rather niggardly spirit. For the rest, the First
Consul enjoyed the same consideration as the Kings of France in all
matters ecclesiastical; and a clause was added, though Bonaparte
declared it needless, that if any succeeding First Consul were not a
Roman Catholic, his prerogatives in religious matters should be
revised by a Convention. A similar Concordat was passed a little later
for the pacification of the Cisalpine Republic.
The Concordat was bitterly assailed by the Jacobins, especially by the
military chiefs, and had not the infidel generals been for the most
part sundered by mutual jealousies they might perhaps have overthrown
Bonaparte. But their obvious incapacity for civil affairs enabled them
to venture on nothing more than a few coarse jests and clumsy
demonstrations. At the Easter celebration at Notre Dame in honour of
the ratification of the Concordat, one of them, Delmas by name,
ventured on the only protest barbed with telling satire: "Yes, a fine
piece of monkery this, indeed. It only lacked the million men who got
killed to destroy what you are striving to bring back." But to all
protests Bonaparte opposed a calm behaviour that veiled a rigid
determination, before which priests and soldiers were alike helpless.
In subsequent articles styled "organic," Bonaparte, without consulting
the Pope, made several laws that galled the orthodox clergy. Under the
plea of legislating for the police of public worship, he reaffirmed
some of the principles which he had been unable to incorporate in the
Concordat itself. The organic articles asserted the old claims of the
Gallican Church, which forbade the application of Papal Bulls, or of
the decrees of "foreign" synods, to France: they further forbade the
French bishops to assemble in council or synod without the permission
of the Government; and this was also required for a bishop to leave
his diocese, even if he were summoned to Rome. Such were the chief of
the organic articles. Passed under the plea of securing public
tranquillity, they proved a fruitful source of discord, which during
the Empire became so acute as to weaken Napoleon's authority. In
matters religious as well as political, he early revealed his chief
moral and mental defect, a determination to carry his point by
whatever means and to require the utmost in every bargain. While
refusing fully to establish Roman Catholicism as the religion of the
State, he compelled the Church to surrender its temporalities, to
accept the regulations of the State, and to protect its interests.
Truly if, in Chateaubriand's famous phrase, he was the "restorer of
the altars," he exacted the uttermost farthing for that restoration.
In one matter his clear intelligence stands forth in marked contrast
to the narrow pedantry of the Roman Cardinals. At a time of
reconciliation between orthodox and "constitutionals," they required
from the latter a complete and public retractation of their recent
errors. At once Bonaparte intervened with telling effect. So condign a
humiliation, he argued, would altogether mar the harmony newly
re-established. "The past is past: and the bishops and prefects ought
to require from the priests only the declaration of adhesion to the
Concordat, and of obedience to the bishop nominated by the First
Consul and instituted by the Pope." This enlightened advice, backed up
by irresistible power, carried the day, and some ten thousand
constitutional priests were quietly received back into the Roman
communion, those who had contracted marriages being compelled to put
away their wives. Bonaparte took a deep interest in the reconstruction
of dioceses, in the naming of churches, and similar details, doubtless
with the full consciousness that the revival of the Roman religious
discipline in France was a more important service than any feat of
arms.
He was right: in healing a great schism in France he was dealing a
deadly blow at the revolutionary feeling of which it was a prominent
manifestation. In the words of one of his Ministers, "The Concordat
was the most brilliant triumph over the genius of Revolution, and all
the following successes have without exception resulted from it."[159]
After this testimony it is needless to ask why Bonaparte did not take
up with Protestantism. At St. Helena, it is true, he asserted that the
choice of Catholicism or Protestantism was entirely open to him in
1801, and that the nation would have followed him in either direction:
but his religious policy, if carefully examined, shows no sign of
wavering on this subject, though he once or twice made a strategic
diversion towards Geneva, when Rome showed too firm a front. Is it
conceivable that a man who, as he informed Joseph, was systematically
working to found a dynasty, should hesitate in the choice of a
governmental creed? Is it possible to think of the great champion of
external control and State discipline as a defender of liberty of
conscience and the right of private judgment?
The regulation of the Protestant cult in France was a far less arduous
task. But as Bonaparte's aim was to attach all cults to the State, he
decided to recognize the two chief Protestant bodies in France,
Calvinists and Lutherans, allowing them to choose their own pastors
and to regulate their affairs in consistories. The pastors were to be
salaried by the State, but in return the Government not only reserved
its approval of every appointment, but required the Protestant bodies
to have no relations whatever with any foreign Power or authority. The
organic articles of 1802, which defined the position of the Protestant
bodies, form a very important landmark in the history of the followers
of Luther and Calvin. Persecuted by Louis XIV. and XV., they were
tolerated by Louis XVI.; they gained complete religious equality
in 1789, and after a few years of anarchy in matters of faith, they
found themselves suddenly and stringently bound to the State by the
organizing genius of Bonaparte.
In the years 1806-1808 the position of the Jews was likewise defined,
at least for all those who recognized France as their country,
performed all civic duties, and recognized all the laws of the State.
In consideration of their paying full taxes and performing military
service, they received official protection and their rabbis
governmental support.
Such was Bonaparte's policy on religious subjects. There can be little
doubt that its motive was, in the main, political. This methodizing
genius, who looked on the beliefs and passions, the desires and
ambitions of mankind, as so many forces which were to aid him in his
ascent, had already satisfied the desires for military glory and
material prosperity; and in his bargain with Rome he now won the
support of an organized priesthood, besides that of the smaller
Protestant and Jewish communions. That he gained also peace and
quietness for France may be granted, though it was at the expense
of that mental alertness and independence which had been her chief
intellectual glory; but none of his intimate acquaintances ever
doubted that his religion was only a vague sentiment, and his
attendance at mass merely a compliment to his "sacred
gendarmerie."[l60]
Having dared and achieved the exploit of organizing religion in a
half-infidel society, the First Consul was ready to undertake the
almost equally hazardous task of establishing an order of social
distinction, and that too in the very land where less than eight years
previously every title qualified its holder for the guillotine. For
his new experiment, the Legion of Honour, he could adduce only one
precedent in the acts of the last twelve years.
The whole tendency had been towards levelling all inequalities. In
1790 all titles of nobility were swept away; and though the Convention
decreed "arms of honour" to brave soldiers, yet its generosity to the
deserving proved to be less remarkable than its activity in
guillotining the unsuccessful. Bonaparte, however, adduced its custom
of granting occasional modest rewards as a precedent for his own
design, which was to be far more extended and ambitious.
In May, 1802, he proposed the formation of a Legion of Honour,
organized in fifteen cohorts, with grand officers, commanders,
officers, and legionaries. Its affairs were to be regulated by a
council presided over by Bonaparte himself. Each cohort received
"national domains" with 200,000 francs annual rental, and these funds
were disbursed to the members on a scale proportionate to their rank.
The men who had received "arms of honour" were, _ipso facto_ to be
legionaries; soldiers "who had rendered considerable services to the
State in the war of liberty," and civilians "who by their learning,
talents, and virtues contributed to establish or to defend the
principles of the Republic," might hope for the honour and reward now
held out. The idea of rewarding merit in a civilian, as well as among
the military caste which had hitherto almost entirely absorbed such
honours, was certainly enlightened; and the names of the famous
_savants_ Laplace, Monge, Berthollet, Lagrange, Chaptal, and of
jurists such as Treilhard and Tronchet, imparted lustre to what would
otherwise have been a very commonplace institution. Bonaparte desired
to call out all the faculties of the nation; and when Dumas proposed
that the order should be limited to soldiers, the First Consul
replied in a brilliant and convincing harangue:
"To do great things nowadays it is not enough to be a man of five
feet ten inches. If strength and bravery made the general, every
soldier might claim the command. The general who does great things
is he who also possesses civil qualities. The soldier knows no law
but force, sees nothing but it, and measures everything by it. The
civilian, on the other hand, only looks to the general welfare. The
characteristic of the soldier is to wish to do everything
despotically: that of the civilian is to submit everything to
discussion, truth, and reason. The superiority thus unquestionably
belongs to the civilian."
In these noble words we can discern the secret of Bonaparte's
supremacy both in politics and in warfare. Uniting in his own person
the ablest qualities of the statesman and the warrior, he naturally
desired that his new order of merit should quicken the vitality of
France in every direction, knowing full well that the results would
speedily be felt in the army itself. When admitted to its ranks, the
new member swore:
"To devote himself to the service of the Republic, to the
maintenance of the integrity of its territory, the defence of its
government, laws, and of the property which they have consecrated;
to fight by all methods authorized by justice, reason, and law,
against every attempt to re-establish the feudal _régime_ or to
reproduce the titles and qualities thereto belonging; and finally
to strive to the uttermost to maintain liberty and equality."
It is not surprising that the Tribunate, despite the recent purging of
its most independent members, judged liberty and equality to be
endangered by the method of defence now proposed. The members bitterly
criticised the scheme as a device of the counter-revolution; but, with
the timid inconsequence which was already sapping their virility, they
proceeded to pass by fifty-six votes to thirty-eight a measure of
which they had so accurately gauged the results. The new institution
was, indeed, admirably suited to consolidate Bonaparte's power.
Resting on the financial basis of the confiscated lands, it offered
some guarantee against the restoration of the old monarchy and feudal
nobility; while, by stimulating that love of distinction and
brilliance which is inherent in every gifted people, it quietly began
to graduate society and to group it around the Paladins of a new
Gaulish chivalry. The people had recently cast off the overlordship of
the old Frankish nobles, but admiration of merit (the ultimate source
of all titles of distinction) was only dormant even in the days of
Robespierre; and its insane repression during the Terror now begat a
corresponding enthusiasm for all commanding gifts. Of this inevitable
reaction Bonaparte now made skillful use. When Berlier, one of the
leading jurists of France, objected to the new order as leading France
back to aristocracy, and contemptuously said that crosses and ribbons
were the toys of monarchy, Bonaparte replied:
"Well: men are led by toys. I would not say that in a rostrum, but
in a council of wise men and statesmen one ought to speak one's
mind. I don't think that the French love liberty and equality: the
French are not at all changed by ten years of revolution: they are
what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They have one
feeling--honour. We must nourish that feeling: they must have
distinctions. See how they bow down before the stars of
strangers."[161]
After so frank an exposition of motives to his own Council of State,
little more need be said. We need not credit Bonaparte or the orators
of the Tribunate with any superhuman sagacity when he and they foresaw
that such an order would prepare the way for more resplendent titles.
The Legion of Honour, at least in its highest grades, was the
chrysalis stage of the Imperial _noblesse_. After all, the new
Charlemagne might plead that his new creation satisfied an innate
craving of the race, and that its durability was the best answer to
hostile critics. Even when, in 1814, his Senators were offering the
crown of France to the heir of the Bourbons, they expressly stipulated
that the Legion of Honour should not be abolished: it has survived all
the shocks of French history, even the vulgarizing associations of
the Second Empire.
* * * * *
The same quality of almost pyramidal solidity characterizes another
great enterprise of the Napoleonic period, the codification of French
law.
The difficulties of this undertaking consisted mainly in the enormous
mass of decrees emanating from the National Assemblies, relative to
political, civil, and criminal affairs. Many of those decrees, the
offspring of a momentary enthusiasm, had found a place in the codes of
laws which were then compiled; and yet sagacious observers knew that
several of them warred against the instincts of the Gallic race. This
conviction was summed up in the trenchant statement of the compilers
of the new code, in which they appealed from the ideas of Rousseau to
the customs of the past: "New theories are but the maxims of certain
individuals: the old maxims represent the sense of centuries." There
was much force in this dictum. The overthrow of Feudalism and the old
monarchy had not permanently altered the French nature. They were
still the same joyous, artistic, clan-loving people whom the Latin
historians described: and pride in the nation or the family was as
closely linked with respect for a doughty champion of national and
family interests as in the days of Cæsar. Of this Roman or
quasi-Gallic reaction Napoleon was to be the regulator; and no sphere
of his activities bespeaks his unerring political sagacity more than
his sifting of the old and the new in the great code which was
afterwards to bear his name.
Old French law had been an inextricable labyrinth of laws and customs,
mainly Roman and Frankish in origin, hopelessly tangled by feudal
customs, provincial privileges, ecclesiastical rights, and the later
undergrowth of royal decrees; and no part of the legislation of the
revolutionists met with so little resistance as their root and branch
destruction of this exasperating jungle. Their difficulties only began
when they endeavoured to apply the principles of the Rights of Man to
political, civil, and criminal affairs. The chief of these principles
relating to criminal law were that law can only forbid actions that
are harmful to society, and must only impose penalties that are
strictly necessary. To these epoch-making pronouncements the Assembly
added, in 1790, that crimes should be visited only on the guilty
individual, not on the family; and that penalties must be proportioned
to the offences. The last two of these principles had of late been
flagrantly violated; but the general pacification of France now
permitted a calm consideration of the whole question of criminal law,
and of its application to normal conditions.
Civil law was to be greatly influenced by the Rights of Man; but those
famous declarations were to a large extent contravened in the ensuing
civil strifes, and their application to real life was rendered
infinitely more difficult by that predominance of the critical over
the constructive faculties which marred the efforts of the
revolutionary Babel-builders. Indeed, such was the ardour of those
enthusiasts that they could scarcely see any difficulties. Thus, the
Convention in 1793 allowed its legislative committee just one month
for the preparation of a code of civil law. At the close of six weeks
Cambacérès, the reporter of the committee, was actually able to
announce that it was ready. It was found to be too complex. Another
commission was ordered to reconstruct it: this time the Convention
discovered that the revised edition was too concise. Two other drafts
were drawn up at the orders of the Directory, but neither gave
satisfaction. And thus it was reserved for the First Consul to achieve
what the revolutionists had only begun, building on the foundations
and with the very materials which their ten years' toil had prepared.
He had many other advantages. The Second Consul, Cambacérès, was at
his side, with stores of legal experience and habits of complaisance
that were of the highest value. Then, too, the principles of personal
liberty and social equality were yielding ground before the more
autocratic maxims of Roman law. The view of life now dominant was that
of the warrior not of the philosopher. Bonaparte named Tronchet, Bigot
de Préameneu, and the eloquent and learned Portalis for the redaction
of the code. By ceaseless toil they completed their first draft in
four months. Then, after receiving the criticisms of the Court of
Cassation and the Tribunals of Appeal, it came before the Council of
State for the decision of its special committee on legislation. There
it was subjected to the scrutiny of several experts, but, above all,
to Bonaparte himself. He presided at more than half of the 102
sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine
hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his
relentless activity, and his determined practicality.
From the notes of Thibaudeau one of the members of this revising
committee, we catch a glimpse of the part there played by the First
Consul. We see him listening intently to the discussions of the
jurists, taking up and sorting the threads of thought when a tangle
seemed imminent, and presenting the result in some striking pattern.
We watch his methodizing spirit at work on the cumbrous legal
phraseology, hammering it out into clear, ductile French. We feel the
unerring sagacity, which acted as a political and social touchstone,
testing, approving, or rejecting multifarious details drawn from old
French law or from the customs of the Revolution; and finally we
wonder at the architectural skill which worked the 2,281 articles of
the Code into an almost unassailable pile. To the skill and patience
of the three chief redactors that result is, of course, very largely
due: yet, in its mingling of strength, simplicity, and symmetry, we
may discern the projection of Napoleon's genius over what had hitherto
been a legal chaos.
Some blocks of the pyramid were almost entirely his own. He widened
the area of French citizenship; above all, he strengthened the
structure of the family by enhancing the father's authority. Herein
his Corsican instincts and the requirements of statecraft led him to
undo much of the legislation of the revolutionists. Their ideal was
individual liberty: his aim was to establish public order by
autocratic methods. They had sought to make of the family a little
republic, founded on the principles of liberty and equality; but in
the new code the paternal authority reappeared no less strict, albeit
less severe in some details than that of the _ancien régime._ The
family was thenceforth modelled on the idea dominant in the State,
that authority and responsible action pertained to a single
individual. The father controlled the conduct of his children: his
consent was necessary for the marriage of sons up to their
twenty-fifth year, for that of daughters up to their twenty-first
year; and other regulations were framed in the same spirit.[162] Thus
there was rebuilt in France the institution of the family on an almost
Roman basis; and these customs, contrasting sharply with the domestic
anarchy of the Anglo-Saxon race, have had a mighty influence in
fashioning the character of the French, as of the other Latin peoples,
to a ductility that yields a ready obedience to local officials,
drill-sergeants, and the central Government.
In other respects Bonaparte's influence on the code was equally
potent. He raised the age at which marriage could be legally
contracted to that of eighteen for men, and fifteen for women, and he
prescribed a formula of obedience to be repeated by the bride to her
husband; while the latter was bound to protect and support the
wife.[163]
And yet, on the question of divorce, Bonaparte's action was
sufficiently ambiguous to reawaken Josephine's fears; and the
detractors of the great man have some ground for declaring that his
action herein was dictated by personal considerations. Others again
may point to the declarations of the French National Assemblies that
the law regarded marriage merely as a civil contract, and that divorce
was to be a logical sequel of individual liberty, "which an
indissoluble tie would annul." It is indisputable that extremely lax
customs had been the result of the law of 1792, divorce being allowed
on a mere declaration of incompatibility of temper.[164] Against these
scandals Bonaparte firmly set his face. But he disagreed with the
framers of the new Code when they proposed altogether to prohibit
divorce, though such a proposition might well have seemed consonant
with his zeal for Roman Catholicism. After long debates it was decided
to reduce the causes which could render divorce possible from nine to
four--adultery, cruelty, condemnation to a degrading penalty, and
mutual consent--provided that this last demand should be persistently
urged after not less than two years of marriage, and in no case was it
to be valid after twenty years of marriage.[165]
We may also notice here that Bonaparte sought to surround the act of
adoption with much solemnity, declaring it to be one of the grandest
acts imaginable. Yet, lest marriage should thereby be discouraged,
celibates were expressly debarred from the privileges of adopting
heirs. The precaution shows how keenly this able ruler peered into
the future. Doubtless, he surmised that in the future the population
of France would cease to expand at the normal rate, owing to the
working of the law compelling the equal division of property among all
the children of a family. To this law he was certainly opposed.
Equality in regard to the bequest of property was one of the sacred
maxims of revolutionary jurists, who had limited the right of free
disposal by bequest to one-tenth of each estate: nine-tenths being of
necessity divided equally among the direct heirs. Yet so strong was
the reaction in favour of the Roman principle of paternal authority,
that Bonaparte and a majority of the drafters of the new Code scrupled
not to assail that maxim, and to claim for the father larger
discretionary powers over the disposal of his property. They demanded
that the disposable share should vary according to the wealth of the
testator--a remarkable proposal, which proves him to be anything but
the unflinching champion of revolutionary legal ideas which popular
French histories have generally depicted him.
This proposal would have re-established liberty of bequest in its most
pernicious form, granting almost limitless discretionary power to the
wealthy, while restricting or denying it to the poor.[166] Fortunately
for his reputation in France, the suggestion was rejected; and the
law, as finally adopted, fixed the disposable share as one-half of the
property, if there was but one heir; one-third, if there were two
heirs; one-fourth, if there were three; and so on, diminishing as the
size of the family increased. This sliding scale, varying inversely
with the size of the family, is open to an obvious objection: it
granted liberty of bequest only in cases where the family was small,
but practically lapsed when the family attained to patriarchal
dimensions. The natural result has been that the birth-rate has
suffered a serious and prolonged check in France. It seems certain
that the First Consul foresaw this result. His experience of peasant
life must have warned him that the law, even as now amended, would
stunt the population of France and ultimately bring about that [Greek:
oliganthrôpia] which saps all great military enterprises. The great
captain did all in his power to prevent the French settling down in a
self-contained national life; he strove to stir them up to world-wide
undertakings, and for the success of his future imperial schemes a
redundant population was an absolute necessity.
The Civil Code became law in 1804: after undergoing some slight
modifications and additions, it was, in 1807 renamed the Code
Napoléon. Its provisions had already, in 1806, been adopted in Italy.
In 1810 Holland, and the newly-annexed coast-line of the North Sea as
far as Hamburg, and even Lübeck on the Baltic, received it as the
basis of their laws, as did the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1811.
Indirectly it has also exerted an immense influence on the legislation
of Central and Southern Germany, Prussia, Switzerland, and Spain:
while many of the Central and South American States have also
borrowed its salient features.
A Code of Civil Procedure was promulgated in France in 1806, one of
Commerce in 1807, of "Criminal Instruction" in 1808, and a Penal Code
in 1810. Except that they were more reactionary in spirit than the
Civil Code, there is little that calls for notice here, the Penal Code
especially showing little advance in intelligence or clemency on the
older laws of France. Even in 1802, officials favoured severity after
the disorders of the preceding years. When Fox and Romilly paid a
visit to Talleyrand at Paris, they were informed by his secretary
that:
"In his opinion nothing could restore good morals and order in the
country but 'la roue et la religion de nos ancêtres.' He knew, he
said, that the English did not think so, but we knew nothing of the
people. Fox was deeply shocked at the idea of restoring the wheel
as a punishment in France."[167]
This horrible punishment was not actually restored: but this extract
from Romilly's diary shows what was the state of feeling in official
circles at Paris, and how strong was the reaction towards older ideas.
The reaction was unquestionably emphasized by Bonaparte's influence,
and it is noteworthy that the Penal and other Codes, passed during the
Empire, were more reactionary than the laws of the Consulate. Yet,
even as First Consul, he exerted an influence that began to banish the
customs and traditions of the Revolution, except in the single sphere
of material interests; and he satisfied the peasants' love of land and
money in order that he might the more securely triumph over
revolutionary ideals and draw France insensibly back to the age of
Louis XIV.
While the legislator must always keep in reserve punishment as the
_ultima ratio_ for the lawless, he will turn by preference to
education as a more potent moralizing agency; and certainly education
urgently needed Bonaparte's attention. The work of carrying into
practice the grand educational aims of Condorcet and his coadjutors in
the French Convention was enough to tax the energies of a Hercules.
Those ardent reformers did little more than clear the ground for
future action: they abolished the old monastic and clerical training,
and declared for a generous system of national education in primary,
secondary, and advanced schools. But amid strifes and bankruptcy their
aims remained unfulfilled. In 1799 there were only twenty-four
elementary schools open in Paris, with a total attendance of less than
1,000 pupils; and in rural districts matters were equally bad. Indeed,
Lucien Bonaparte asserted that scarcely any education was to be found
in France. Exaggerated though this statement was, in relation to
secondary and advanced education, it was proximately true of the
elementary schools. The revolutionists had merely traced the outlines
of a scheme: it remained for the First Consul to fill in the details,
or to leave it blank.
The result can scarcely be cited as a proof of his educational zeal.
Elementary schools were left to the control and supervision of the
communes and of the _sous-préfets_, and naturally made little advance
amidst an apathetic population and under officials who cared not to
press on an expensive enterprise. The law of April 30th, 1802,
however, aimed at improving the secondary education, which the
Convention had attempted to give in its _écoles centrales_. These were
now reconstituted either as _écoles secondaires_ or as _lycées_. The
former were local or even private institutions intended for the most
promising pupils of the commune or group of communes; while the
_lycées_, far fewer in number, were controlled directly by the
Government. In both of these schools great prominence was given to the
exact and applied sciences. The aim of the instruction was not to
awaken thought and develop the faculties, but rather to fashion able
breadwinners, obedient citizens, and enthusiastic soldiers. The
training was of an almost military type, the pupils being regularly
drilled, while the lessons began and ended with the roll of drums. The
numbers of the _lycées_ and of their pupils rapidly increased; but the
progress of the secondary and primary schools, which could boast no
such attractions, was very slow. In 1806 only 25,000 children were
attending the public primary schools. But two years later elementary
and advanced instruction received a notable impetus from the
establishment of the University of France.
There is no institution which better reveals the character of the
French Emperor, with its singular combination of greatness and
littleness, of wide-sweeping aims with official pedantry. The
University, as it existed during the First Empire, offers a striking
example of that mania for the control of the general will which
philosophers had so attractively taught and Napoleon so profitably
practised. It is the first definite outcome of a desire to subject
education and learning to wholesale regimental methods, and to break
up the old-world bowers of culture by State-worked steam-ploughs. His
aims were thus set forth:
"I want a teaching body, because such a body never dies, but
transmits its organization and spirit. I want a body whose teaching
is far above the fads of the moment, goes straight on even when the
government is asleep, and whose administration and statutes become
so national that one can never lightly resolve to meddle with
them.... There will never be fixity in politics if there is not a
teaching body with fixed principles. As long as people do not from
their infancy learn whether they ought to be republicans or
monarchists, Catholics or sceptics, the State will never form a
nation: it will rest on unsafe and shifting foundations, always
exposed to changes and disorders."
Such being Napoleon's designs, the new University of France was
admirably suited to his purpose. It was not a local university: it was
the sum total of all the public teaching bodies of the French Empire,
arranged and drilled in one vast instructional array. Elementary
schools, secondary schools, _lycées_, as well as the more advanced
colleges, all were absorbed in and controlled by this great teaching
corporation, which was to inculcate the precepts of the Catholic
religion, fidelity to the Emperor and to his Government, as guarantees
for the welfare of the people and the unity of France. For educational
purposes, France was now divided into seventeen Academies, which
formed the local centres of the new institution. Thus, from Paris and
sixteen provincial Academies, instruction was strictly organized and
controlled; and within a short time of its institution (March, 1808),
instruction of all kinds, including that of the elementary schools,
showed some advance. But to all those who look on the unfolding of the
mental and moral faculties as the chief aim of true _education_, the
homely experiments of Pestalozzi offer a far more suggestive and
important field for observation than the barrack-like methods of the
French Emperor. The Swiss reformer sought to train the mind to
observe, reflect, and think; to assist the faculties in attaining
their fullest and freest expression; and thus to add to the richness
and variety of human thought. The French imperial system sought to
prune away all mental independence, and to train the young generation
in neat and serviceable _espalier_ methods: all aspiring shoots,
especially in the sphere of moral and political science, were sharply
cut down. Consequently French thought, which had been the most
ardently speculative in Europe, speedily became vapid and mechanical.
The same remark is proximately true of the literary life of the First
Empire. It soon began to feel the rigorous methods of the Emperor.
Poetry and all other modes of expression of lofty thought and rapt
feeling require not only a free outlet but natural and unrestrained
surroundings. The true poet is at home in the forest or on the
mountain rather than in prim _parterres_. The philosopher sees most
clearly and reasons most suggestively, when his faculties are not
cramped by the need of observing political rules and police
regulations. And the historian, when he is tied down to a mere
investigation and recital of facts, without reference to their
meaning, is but a sorry fowl flapping helplessly with unequal wings.
Yet such were the conditions under which the literature of France
struggled and pined. Her poets, a band sadly thinned already by the
guillotine, sang in forced and hollow strains until the return of
royalism begat an imperialist fervour in the soul-stirring lyrics of
Béranger: her philosophy was dumb; and Napoleonic history limped along
on official crutches, until Thiers, a generation later, essayed his
monumental work. In the realm of exact and applied science, as might
be expected, splendid discoveries adorned the Emperor's reign; but if
we are to find any vitality in the literature of that period, we must
go to the ranks, not of the panegyrists, but of the opposition. There,
in the pages of Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand, we feel the throb
of life. Genius will out, of its own native force: but it cannot be
pressed out, even at a Napoleon's bidding. In vain did he endeavour to
stimulate literature by the reorganization of the Institute, and by
granting decennial prizes for the chief works and discoveries of the
decade. While science prospered, literature languished: and one of his
own remarks, as to the desirability of a public and semi-official
criticism of some great literary work, seems to suggest a reason for
this intellectual malaise:
"The public will take interest in this criticism; perhaps it will
even take sides: it matters not, as its attention will be fixed on
these interesting debates: it will talk about grammar and poetry:
taste will be improved, and our aim will be fulfilled: _out of that
will come poets and grammarians_."
And so it came to pass that, while he was rescuing a nation from chaos
and his eagles winged their flight to Naples, Lisbon, and Moscow, he
found no original thinker worthily to hymn his praises; and the chief
literary triumphs of his reign came from Chateaubriand, whom he
impoverished, and Madame de Staël, whom he drove into exile.
* * * * *
Such are the chief laws and customs which are imperishably associated
with the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. In some respects they may be
described as making for progress. Their establishment gave to the
Revolution that solidity which it had previously lacked. Among so
"inflammable" a people as the French--the epithet is Ste. Beuve's--it
was quite possible that some of the chief civil conquests of the last
decade might have been lost, had not the First Consul, to use his own
expressive phrase, "thrown in some blocks of granite." We may
intensify his metaphor and assert that out of the shifting shingle of
French life he constructed a concrete breakwater, in which his own
will acted as the binding cement, defying the storms of revolutionary
or royalist passion which had swept the incoherent atoms to and fro,
and had carried desolation far inland. Thenceforth France was able to
work out her future under the shelter of institutions which
unquestionably possess one supreme merit, that of durability. But
while the chief civic and material gains of the Revolution were thus
perpetuated, the very spirit and life of that great movement were
benumbed by the personality and action of Napoleon. The burning
enthusiasm for the Rights of Man was quenched, the passion for civic
equality survived only as the gibbering ghost of what it had been in
1790, and the consolidation of revolutionary France was effected by a
process nearly akin to petrifaction.
And yet this time of political and intellectual reaction in France was
marked by the rise of the greatest of her modern institutions. There
is the chief paradox of that age. While barren of literary activity
and of truly civic developments, yet it was unequalled in the growth
of institutions. This is generally the characteristic of epochs when
the human faculties, long congealed by untoward restraints, suddenly
burst their barriers and run riot in a spring-tide of hope. The time
of disillusionment or despair which usually supervenes may, as a rule,
be compared with the numbing torpor of winter, necessary doubtless in
our human economy, but lacking the charm and vitality of the expansive
phase. Often, indeed, it is disgraced by the characteristics of a
slavish populace, a mean selfishness, a mad frivolity, and fawning
adulation on the ruler who dispenses _panem et circenses_. Such has
been the course of many a political reaction, from the time of
degenerate Athens and imperial Rome down to the decay of Medicean
Florence and the orgies of the restored Stuarts.
The fruitfulness of the time of monarchical reaction in France may be
chiefly attributed to two causes, the one general, the other personal;
the one connected with the French Revolution, the other with the
exceptional gifts of Bonaparte. In their efforts to create durable
institutions the revolutionists had failed: they had attempted too
much: they had overthrown the old order, had undertaken crusades
against monarchical Europe, and striven to manufacture constitutions
and remodel a deeply agitated society. They did scarcely more than
trace the outlines of the future social structure. The edifice, which
should have been reared by the Directory, was scarcely advanced at
all, owing to the singular dullness of the new rulers of France. But
the genius was at hand. He restored order, he rallied various classes
to his side, he methodized local government, he restored finance and
credit, he restored religious peace and yet secured the peasants in
their tenure of the confiscated lands, he rewarded merit with social
honours, and finally he solidified his polity by a comprehensive code
of laws which made him the keystone of the now rounded arch of French
life.
His methods in this immense work deserve attention: they were very
different from those of the revolutionary parties after the best days
of 1789 were past. The followers of Rousseau worked on rigorous _a
priori_ methods. If institutions and sentiments did not square with
the principles of their master, they were swept away or were forced
into conformity with the new evangel. A correct knowledge of the
"Contrat Social" and keen critical powers were the prime requisites of
Jacobinical statesmanship. Knowledge of the history of France, the
faculty of gauging the real strength of popular feelings, tact in
conciliating important interests, all were alike despised.
Institutions and class interests were as nothing in comparison with
that imposing abstraction, the general will. For this alone could
philosophers legislate and factions conspire.
From these lofty aims and exasperating methods Bonaparte was speedily
weaned. If victorious analysis led to this; if it could only pull
down, not reconstruct; if, while legislating for the general will,
Jacobins harassed one class after another and produced civil war, then
away with their pedantries in favour of the practical statecraft which
attempted one task at a time and aimed at winning back in turn the
alienated classes. Then, and then alone, after civic peace had been
re-established, would he attempt the reconstruction of the civil order
in the same tentative manner, taking up only this or that frayed end
at once, trusting to time, skill, and patience to transform the tangle
into a symmetrical pattern. And thus, where Feuillants, Girondins, and
Jacobins had produced chaos, the practical man and his able helpers
succeeded in weaving ineffaceable outlines. As to the time when the
change took place in Bonaparte's brain from Jacobinism to aims and
methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
But the results of this mental change will stand forth clear and
solid for many a generation in the customs, laws, and institutions of
his adopted country. If the Revolution, intellectually considered,
began and ended with analysis, Napoleon's faculties supplied the
needed synthesis. Together they made modern France.
* * * * *