THE PEACE OF AMIENS
The previous chapter dealt in the main with the internal affairs of
France and the completion of Napoleon's power: it touched on foreign
affairs only so far as to exhibit the close connection between the
First Consul's diplomatic victory over England and his triumph over
the republican constitution in his adopted country. But it is time now
to review the course of the negotiations which led up to the Treaty of
Amiens.
In order to realize the advantages which France then had over England,
it will be well briefly to review the condition of our land at that
time. Our population was far smaller than that of the French Republic.
France, with her recent acquisitions in Belgium, the Rhineland, Savoy,
Nice, and Piedmont, numbered nearly 40,000,000 inhabitants: but the
census returns of Great Britain for 1801 showed only a total of
10,942,000 souls, while the numbers for Ireland, arguing from the
rather untrustworthy return of 1813, may be reckoned at about six and
a half millions. The prodigious growth of the English-speaking people
had not as yet fully commenced either in the motherland, the United
States, or in the small and struggling settlements of Canada and
Australia. Its future expansion was to be assured by industrial and
social causes, and by the events considered in this and in subsequent
chapters. It was a small people that had for several months faced with
undaunted front the gigantic power of Bonaparte and that of the Armed
Neutrals.
This population of less than 18,000,000 souls, of which nearly
one-third openly resented the Act of Union recently imposed on
Ireland, was burdened by a National Debt which amounted to
£537,000,000, and entailed a yearly charge of more than £20,000,000
sterling. In the years of war with revolutionary France the annual
expenditure had risen from £19,859,000 (for 1792) to the total of
£61,329,000, which necessitated an income tax of 10 per cent. on all
incomes of £200 and upwards. Yet, despite party feuds, the nation was
never stronger, and its fleets had never won more brilliant and solid
triumphs. The chief naval historian of France admits that we had
captured no fewer than 50 ships of the line, and had lost to our
enemies only five, thereby raising the strength of our fighting line
to 189, while that of France had sunk to 47.[181] The prowess of Sir
Arthur Wellesley was also beginning to revive in India the ancient
lustre of the British arms; but the events of 1802-3 were to show that
our industrial enterprise, and the exploits of our sailors and
soldiers, were by themselves of little avail when matched in a
diplomatic contest against the vast resources of France and the
embodied might of a Napoleon.
Men and institutions were everywhere receiving the imprint of his
will. France was as wax under his genius. The sovereigns of Spain,
Italy, and Germany obeyed his _fiat_. Even the stubborn Dutch bent
before him. On the plea of defeating Orange intrigues, he imposed a
new constitution on the Batavian Republic whose independence he had
agreed to respect. Its Directory was now replaced by a Regency which
relieved the deputies of the people of all responsibility. A
_plébiscite_ showed 52,000 votes against, and 16,000 for, the new
_régime_; but, as 350,000 had not voted, their silence was taken for
consent, and Bonaparte's will became law (September, 1801).
We are now in a position to appreciate the position of France and
Great Britain. Before the signature of the preliminaries of peace at
London on October 1st, 1801, our Government had given up its claims to
the Cape, Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice, and
Curaçoa, retaining of its conquests only Trinidad and Ceylon.
A belated attempt had, indeed, been made to retain Tobago. The Premier
and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, were led by the French
political agent in London, M. Otto, to believe that, in the ensuing
negotiations at Amiens, every facility would be given by the French
Government towards its retrocession to us, and that this act would be
regarded as the means of indemnifying Great Britain for the heavy
expense of supporting many thousands of French and Dutch prisoners.
The Cabinet, relying on this promise as binding between honourable
men, thereupon endeavoured to obtain the assent of George III. to the
preliminaries in their ultimate form, and only the prospect of
regaining Tobago by this compromise induced the King to give it. When
it was too late, King and Ministers realized their mistake in relying
on verbal promises and in failing to procure a written statement.[182]
The abandonment by Ministers of their former claim to Malta is equally
strange. Nelson, though he held Malta to be useless as a base for the
British fleet watching Toulon, made the memorable statement: "I
consider Malta as a most important outwork to India." But a despatch
from St. Petersburg, stating that the new Czar had concluded a formal
treaty of alliance with the Order of St. John settled in Russia, may
have convinced Addington and his colleagues that it would be better to
forego all claim to Malta in order to cement the newly won friendship
of Russia. Whatever may have been their motive, British Ministers
consented to cede the island to the Knights of St. John under the
protection of some third Power.
The preliminaries of peace were further remarkable for three strange
omissions. They did not provide for the renewal of previous treaties
of peace between the late combatants. War is held to break all
previous treaties; and by failing to require the renewal of the
treaties of 1713, 1763, and 1783, it was now open to Spain and France
to cement, albeit in a new form, that Family Compact which it had long
been the aim of British diplomacy to dissolve: the failure to renew
those earlier treaties rendered it possible for the Court of Madrid to
alienate any of its colonies to France, as at that very time was being
arranged with respect to Louisiana.
The second omission was equally remarkable. No mention was made of any
renewal of commercial intercourse between England and France.
Doubtless a complete settlement of this question would have been
difficult. British merchants would have looked for a renewal of that
enlightened treaty of commerce of 1786-7, which had aroused the bitter
opposition of French manufacturers. But the question might have been
broached at London, and its omission from the preliminaries served as
a reason for shelving it in the definitive treaty--a piece of folly
which at once provoked the severest censure from British
manufacturers, who thereby lost the markets of France, and her subject
States, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Genoa, and Etruria.
And, finally, the terms of peace provided no compensation either for
the French royal House or for the dispossessed House of Orange. Here
again, it would have been very difficult to find a recompense such as
the Bourbons could with dignity have accepted; and the suggestion made
by one of the royalist exiles to Lord Hawkesbury, that Great Britain
should seize Crete and hand it over to them, will show how desperate
was their case.[183] Nevertheless, some effort should have been made
by a Government which had so often proclaimed its championship of the
legitimist cause. Still more glaring was the omission of any
stipulation for an indemnity for the House of Orange, now exiled from
the Batavian Republic. That claim, though urged at the outset, found
no place in the preliminaries; and the mingled surprise and contempt
felt in the _salons_ of Paris at the conduct of the British Government
is shown in a semi-official report sent thence by one of its secret
agents:
"I cannot get it into my head that the British Ministry has acted
in good faith in subscribing to preliminaries of peace, which,
considering the respective position of the parties, would be
harmful to the English people.... People are persuaded in France
that the moderation of England is only a snare put in Bonaparte's
way, and it is mainly in order to dispel it that our journals have
received the order to make much of the advantages which must accrue
to England from the conquests retained by her; but the journalists
have convinced nobody, and it is said openly that if our European
conquests are consolidated by a general peace, France will, within
ten years, subjugate all Europe, Great Britain included, despite
all her vast dominions in India. Only within the last few days have
people here believed in the sincerity of the English preliminaries
of peace, and they say everywhere that, after having gloriously
sailed past the rocks that Bonaparte's cunning had placed in its
track, the British Ministry has completely foundered at the mouth
of the harbour. People blame the whole structure of the peace as
betraying marks of feebleness in all that concerns the dignity and
the interests of the King; ... and we cannot excuse its neglect of
the royalists, whose interests are entirely set aside in the
preliminaries. Men are especially astonished at England's
retrocession of Martinique without a single stipulation for the
colonists there, who are at the mercy of a government as rapacious
as it is fickle. All the owners of colonial property are very
uneasy, and do not hide their annoyance against England on this
score."[184]
This interesting report gives a glimpse into the real thought of Paris
such as is rarely afforded by the tamed or venal Press. As Bonaparte's
spies enabled him to feel every throb of the French pulse, he must at
once have seen how great was the prestige which he gained by these
first diplomatic successes, and how precarious was the foothold of the
English Ministers on the slippery grade of concession to which they
had been lured. Addington surely should have remembered that only the
strong man can with safety recede at the outset, and that an act of
concession which, coming from a master mind, is interpreted as one of
noble magnanimity, will be scornfully snatched from a nerveless hand
as a sign of timorous complaisance. But the public statements and the
secret avowals of our leaders show that they wished "to try the
experiment of peace," now that France had returned to ordinary
political conditions and Jacobinism was curbed by Bonaparte.
"Perhaps," wrote Castlereagh, "France, satisfied with her recent
acquisitions, will find her interest in that system of internal
improvement which is necessarily connected with peace."[185] There is
no reason for doubting the sincerity of this statement. Our policy was
distinctly and continuously complaisant: France regained her colonies:
she was not required to withdraw from Switzerland and Holland. Who
could expect, from what was then known of Bonaparte's character, that
a peace so fraught with glory and profit would not satisfy French
honour and his own ambition?
Peace, then, was an "experiment." The British Government wished to see
whether France would turn from revolution and war to agriculture and
commerce, whether her young ruler be satisfied with a position of
grandeur and solid power such as Louis XIV. had rarely enjoyed. Alas!
the failure of the experiment was patent to all save the blandest
optimists long before the Preliminaries of London took form in the
definitive Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte's aim now was to keep our
Government strictly to the provisional terms of peace which it had
imprudently signed. Even before the negotiations were opened at
Amiens, he ordered Joseph Bonaparte to listen to no proposal
concerning the King of Sardinia and the ex-Stadholder of Holland,
and asserted that the "internal affairs of the Batavian Republic, of
Germany, of Helvetia, and of the Italian Republics" were "absolutely
alien to the discussions with England." This implied that England was
to be shut out from Continental politics, and that France was to
regulate the affairs of central and southern Europe. This observance
of the letter was, however, less rigid where French colonial and
maritime interests were at stake. Dextrous feelers were put forth
seawards, and it was only when these were repulsed that the French
negotiators encased themselves in their preliminaries.
The task of reducing those articles to a definitive treaty devolved,
on the British side, on the Marquis Cornwallis, a gouty, world-weary
old soldier, chiefly remembered for the surrender which ended the
American War. Nevertheless, he had everywhere won respect for his
personal probity in the administration of Indian affairs, and there
must also have been some convincing qualities in a personality which
drew from Napoleon at St. Helena the remark: "I do not believe that
Cornwallis was a man of first-rate abilities: but he had talent, great
probity, sincerity, and never broke his word.... He was a man of
honour--a true Englishman."
Against Lord Cornwallis, and his far abler secretary, Mr. Merry, were
pitted Joseph Bonaparte and his secretaries. The abilities of the
eldest of the Bonapartes have been much underrated. Though he lacked
the masterful force and wide powers of his second brother, yet at
Lunéville Joseph proved himself to be an able diplomatist, and later
on in his tenure of power at Naples and Madrid he displayed no small
administrative gifts. Moreover, his tact and kindliness kindled in all
who knew him a warmth of friendship such as Napoleon's sterner
qualities rarely inspired. The one was loved as a man: for the other,
even his earlier acquaintances felt admiration and devotion, but
always mingled with a certain fear of the demi-god that would at times
blaze forth. This was the dread personality that urged Talleyrand and
Joseph Bonaparte to their utmost endeavours and steeled them against
any untoward complaisance at Amiens.
The selection of so honourable a man as Cornwallis afforded no slight
guarantee for the sincerity of our Government, and its sincerity will
stand the test of a perusal of its despatches. Having examined all
those that deal with these negotiations, the present writer can affirm
that the official instructions were in no respect modified by the
secret injunctions: these referred merely to such delicate and
personal topics as the evacuation of Hanover by Prussian troops and
the indemnities to be sought for the House of Orange and the House of
Savoy. The circumstances of these two dispossessed dynasties were
explained so as to show that the former Dutch Stadholder had a very
strong claim on us, as well as on France and the Batavian Republic;
while the championship of the House of Savoy by the Czar rendered the
claims of that ancient family on the intervention of George III. less
direct and personal than those of the Prince of Orange. Indeed,
England would have insisted on the insertion of a clause to this
effect in the preliminaries had not other arrangements been on foot at
Berlin which promised to yield due compensation to this unfortunate
prince. Doubtless the motives of the British Ministers were good, but
their failure to insert such a clause fatally prejudiced their case
all through the negotiations at Amiens.
The British official declaration respecting Malta was clear and
practical. The island was to be restored to the Knights of the Order
of St. John and placed under the protection of a third Power other
than France and England. But the reconstitution of the Order was no
less difficult than the choice of a strong and disinterested
protecting Power. Lord Hawkesbury proposed that Russia be the
guaranteeing Power. No proposal could have been more reasonable. The
claims of the Czar to the protectorate of the Order had been so
recently asserted by a treaty with the knights that no other
conclusion seemed feasible. And, in order to assuage the grievances of
the islanders and strengthen the rule of the knights, the British
Ministry desired that the natives of Malta should gain a foothold in
the new constitution. The lack of civil and political rights had
contributed so materially to the overthrow of the Order that no
reconstruction of that shattered body could be deemed intelligent, or
even honest, which did not cement its interests with those of the
native Maltese. The First Consul, however, at once demurred to both
these proposals. In the course of a long interview with Cornwallis at
Paris,[186] he adverted to the danger of bringing Russia's maritime
pressure to bear on Mediterranean questions, especially as her
sovereigns "had of late shown themselves to be such unsteady
politicians." This of course referred to the English proclivities of
Alexander I., and it is clear that Bonaparte's annoyance with
Alexander was the first unsettling influence which prevented the
solution of the Maltese question. The First Consul also admitted to
Cornwallis that the King of Naples, despite his ancient claims of
suzerainty over Malta, could not be considered a satisfactory
guarantor, as between two Great Powers; and he then proposed that the
tangle should be cut by blowing up the fortifications of Valetta.
The mere suggestion of such an act affords eloquent proof of the
difficulties besetting the whole question. To destroy works of vast
extent, which were the bulwark of Christendom against the Barbary
pirates, would practically have involved the handing over of Valetta
to those pests of the Mediterranean; and from Malta as a new base of
operations they could have spread devastation along the coasts of
Sicily and Italy. This was the objection which Cornwallis at once
offered to an other-wise specious proposal: he had recently received
papers from Major-General Pigot at Malta, in which the same solution
of the question was examined in detail. The British officer pointed
out that the complete dismantling of the fortifications would expose
the island, and therefore the coasts of Italy, to the rovers; yet he
suggested a partial demolition, which seems to prove that the British
officers in command at Malta did not contemplate the retention of the
island and the infraction of the peace.
Our Government, however, disapproved of the destruction of the
fortifications of Valetta as wounding the susceptibilities of the
Czar, and as in no wise rendering impossible the seizure of the island
and the reconstruction of those works by some future invader. In fact,
as the British Ministry now aimed above all at maintaining good
relations with the Czar, Bonaparte's proposal could only be regarded
as an ingenious device for sundering the Anglo-Russian understanding.
The French Minister at St. Petersburg was doing his utmost to prevent
the _rapprochement_ of the Czar to the Court of St James, and was
striving to revive the moribund league of the Armed Neutrals. That
last offer had "been rejected in the most peremptory manner and in
terms almost bordering upon derision." Still there was reason to
believe that the former Anglo-Russian disputes about Malta might be so
far renewed as to bring Bonaparte and Alexander to an understanding.
The sentimental Liberalism of the young Czar predisposed him towards a
French alliance, and his whole disposition inclined him towards the
brilliant opportunism of Paris rather than the frigid legitimacy of
the Court of St. James. The Maltese affair and the possibility of
reopening the Eastern Question were the two sources of hope to the
promoters of a Franco-Russian alliance; for both these questions
appealed to the chivalrous love of adventure and to the calculating
ambition so curiously blent in Alexander's nature. Such, then, was the
motive which doubtless prompted Bonaparte's proposal concerning
Valetta; such also were the reasons which certainly dictated its
rejection by Great Britain.
In his interview with the First Consul at Paris, and in the subsequent
negotiations at Amiens with Joseph Bonaparte, the question of Tobago
and England's money claim for the support of French prisoners was
found to be no less thorny than that of Malta. The Bonapartes firmly
rejected the proposal for the retention of Tobago by England in lieu
of her pecuniary demand. A Government which neglected to procure the
insertion of its claim to Tobago among the Preliminaries of London
could certainly not hope to regain that island in exchange for a
concession to France that was in any degree disputable. But the two
Bonapartes and Talleyrand now took their stand solely on the
preliminaries, and politely waved on one side the earlier promises of
M. Otto as unauthorized and invalid, They also closely scrutinized the
British claim to an indemnity for the support of French prisoners.
Though theoretically correct, it was open to an objection, which was
urged by Bonaparte and Talleyrand with suave yet incisive irony.
They suggested that the claim must be considered in relation to a
counter-claim, soon to be sent from Paris, for the maintenance of all
prisoners taken by the French from the various forces subsidized by
Great Britain, a charge which "would probably not leave a balance so
much in favour of His [Britannic] Majesty as His Government may have
looked forward to." This retort was not so terrible as it appeared;
for most of the papers necessary for the making up of the French
counterclaim had been lost or destroyed during the Revolution. Yet the
threat told with full effect on Cornwallis, who thereafter referred to
the British claim as a "hopeless debt."[187] The officials of Downing
Street drew a distinction between prisoners from armies merely
subsidized by us and those taken from foreign forces actually under
our control; but it is clear that Cornwallis ceased to press the
claim. In fact, the British case was mismanaged from beginning to end:
the accounts for the maintenance of French and Dutch prisoners were,
in the first instance, wrongly drawn up; and there seems to have been
little or no notion of the seriousness of the counter-claim, which
came with all the effect of a volley from a masked battery,
destructive alike to our diplomatic reputation and to our hope of
retaining Tobago.
It is impossible to refer here to all the topics discussed at Amiens.
The determination of the French Government to adopt a forward colonial
and oceanic policy is clearly seen in its proposals made at the close
of the year 1801. They were: (1) the abolition of salutes to the
British flag on the high seas; (2) an _absolute_ ownership of the
eastern and western coasts of Newfoundland in return for a proposed
cession of the isles of St. Pierre and Miquelon to us--which would
have practically ceded to France _in full sovereignty_ all the best
fishing coasts of that land, with every prospect of settling the
interior, in exchange for two islets devastated by war and then in
British hands; (3) the right of the French to a share in the whale
fishery in those seas; (4) the establishment of a French fishing
station in the Falkland Isles; and (5) the extension of the French
districts around the towns of Yanaon and Mahé in India.[188] To all
these demands Lord Cornwallis opposed an unbending opposition. Weak as
our policy had been on other affairs, it was firm as a rock on all
maritime and Indian questions. In fact, the events to be described in
the next chapter, which led to the consolidation of British power in
Hindostan, would in all probability never have occurred but for the
apprehensions excited by these French demands; and our masterful
proconsul in Bengal, the Marquis Wellesley, could not have pursued his
daring and expensive schemes of conquest, annexation, and forced
alliances, had not the schemes of the First Consul played into the
hands of the soldiers at Calcutta and weakened the protests of the
dividend-hunters of Leadenhall Street.
The persistence of French demands for an increase of influence in
Newfoundland and the West and East Indies, the vastness of her
expedition to Saint Domingo and the thinly-veiled designs of her
Australian expedition (which we shall notice in the next chapter), all
served to awaken the suspicions of the British Government. The
negotiations consequently progressed but slowly. From the outset they
were clogged by the suspicion of bad faith. Spain and Holland, smarting
under the conditions of a peace which gave to France all the glory and
to her allies all the loss, delayed sending their respective envoys to
the conferences at Amiens, and finally avowed their determination to
resist the surrender of Trinidad and Ceylon. In fact, pressure had to
be exerted from Paris and London before they yielded to the inevitable.
This difficulty was only one of several: there then remained the
questions whether Portugal and Turkey should be admitted to share in the
treaty, as England demanded; or whether they should sign a separate
peace with France. The First Consul strenuously insisted on the
exclusion of those States, though their interests were vitally affected
by the present negotiations, He saw that a separate treaty with the
Sublime Porte would enable him, not only to extract valuable trading
concessions in the Black Sea trade, but also to cement a good
understanding with Russia on the Eastern Question, which was now being
adroitly reopened by French diplomacy. Against the exclusion of Turkey
from the negotiations at Amiens, Great Britain firmly but vainly
protested. In fact, Talleyrand had bound the Porte to a separate
agreement which promised everything for France and nothing for Turkey,
and seemed to doom the Sublime Porte to certain humiliation and probable
partition.[189]
Then there were the vexed questions of the indemnities claimed by
George III. for the Houses of Orange and of Savoy. In his interview
with Cornwallis, Bonaparte had effusively promised to do his utmost
for the ex-Stadholder, though he refused to consider the case of the
King of Sardinia, who, he averred, had offended him by appealing to
the Czar. The territorial interests of France in Italy doubtless
offered a more potent argument to the First Consul: after practically
annexing Piedmont and dominating the peninsula, he could ill brook
the presence on the mainland of a king whom he had already sacrificed
to his astute and masterful policy. The case of the Prince of Orange
was different. He was a victim to the triumph of French and democratic
influence in the Dutch Netherlands. George III. felt a deep interest
in this unfortunate prince and made a strong appeal to the better
instincts of Bonaparte on his behalf. Indeed, it is probable that
England had acquiesced in the consolidation of French influence at the
Hague, in the hope that her complaisance would lead the First Consul
to assure him some position worthy of so ancient a House. But though
Cornwallis pressed the Batavian Republic on behalf of its exiled
chief, yet the question was finally adjourned by the XVIIIth clause of
the definitive Treaty of Amiens; and the scion of that famous House
had to take his share in the forthcoming scramble for the clerical
domains of Germany.[190]
For the still more difficult cause of the House of Savoy the British
Government made honest but unavailing efforts, firmly refusing to
recognize the newest creations of Bonaparte in Italy, namely, the
Kingdom of Etruria and the Ligurian Republic, until he indemnified the
House of Savoy. Our recognition was withheld for the reasons that
prompt every bargainer to refuse satisfaction to his antagonist until
an equal concession is accorded. This game was played by both Powers
at Amiens, and with little other result than mutual exasperation. Yet
here, too, the balance of gain naturally accrued to Bonaparte; for he
required the British Ministry to recognize existing facts in Etruria
and Liguria, while Cornwallis had to champion the cause of exiles and
of an order that seemed for ever to have vanished. To pit the
non-existent against the actual was a task far above the powers of
British statesmanship; yet that was to be its task for the next
decade, while the forces of the living present were to be wielded by
its mighty antagonist. Herein lay the secret of British failures and
of Napoleon's extraordinary triumphs.
Leaving, for a space, the negotiations at Amiens, we turn to consider
the events which transpired at Lyons in the early weeks of 1802,
events which influenced not only the future of Italy, but the fortunes
of Bonaparte.
It will be remembered that, after the French victories of Marengo and
Hohenlinden, Austria agreed to terms of peace whereby the Cisalpine,
Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics were formally recognized by
her, though a clause expressly stipulated that they were to be
independent of France. A vain hope! They continued to be under French
tutelage, and their strongholds in the possession of French troops.
It now remained to legalize French supremacy in the Cisalpine
Republic, which comprised the land between the Ticino and the Adige,
and the Alps and the Rubicon. The new State received a provisional
form of government after Marengo, a small council being appointed to
supervise civil affairs at the capital, Milan. With it and with
Marescalchi, the Cisalpine envoy at Paris, Bonaparte had concerted a
constitution, or rather he had used these men as a convenient screen
to hide its purely personal origin. Having, for form's sake, consulted
the men whom he had himself appointed, he now suggested that the chief
citizens of that republic should confer with him respecting their new
institutions. His Minister at Milan thereupon proposed that they
should cross the Alps for that purpose, assembling, not at Paris,
where their dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too
much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired
some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a
most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating the liberties of
their long-distracted country. And thus was seen the strange spectacle
of the organization of Lombardy, Modena, and the Legations being
effected in one provincial centre of France, while at another of her
cities the peace of Europe and the fortunes of two colonial empires
were likewise at stake. Such a conjunction of events might well
impress the imagination of men, bending the stubborn will of the
northern islanders, and moulding the Italian notables to complete
complaisance. And yet, such power was there in the nascent idea of
Italian nationality, that Bonaparte's proposals, which, in his
absence, were skilfully set forth by Talleyrand, met with more than
one rebuff from the Consulta at Lyons.
Bitterly it opposed the declaration that the Roman Catholic religion
was the religion of the Cisalpine Republic and must be maintained by a
State budget. Only the first part of this proposal could be carried:
so keen was the opposition to the second part that, as a preferable
plan, property was set apart for the support of the clergy; and
clerical discipline was subjected to the State, on terms somewhat
similar to those of the French Concordat.[191]
Secular affairs gave less trouble. The apparent success of the French
constitution furnished a strong motive for adopting one of a similar
character for the Italian State; and as the proposed institutions had
been approved at Milan, their acceptance by a large and miscellaneous
body was a foregone conclusion. Talleyrand also took the most
unscrupulous care that the affair of the Presidency should be
judiciously settled. On December 31st, 1801, he writes to Bonaparte
from Lyons:
"The opinion of the Cisalpines seems not at all decided as to the
choice to be made: they will gladly receive the man whom you
nominate: a President in France and a Vice-President at Milan would
suit a large number of them."
Four days later he confidently assures the First Consul:
"They will do what you want without your needing even to show your
desire. What they think you desire will immediately become
law."[192]
The ground having been thus thoroughly worked, Bonaparte and
Josephine, accompanied by a brilliant suite, arrived at Lyons on
January 11th, and met with an enthusiastic reception. Despite the
intense cold, followed by a sudden thaw, a brilliant series of fêtes,
parades, and receptions took place; and several battalions of the
French Army of Egypt, which had recently been conveyed home on English
ships, now passed in review before their chief. The impressionable
Italians could not mistake the aim of these demonstrations; and, after
general matters had been arranged by the notables, the final measures
were relegated to a committee of thirty. The desirability of this step
was obvious, for urgent protests had already been raised in the
Consulta against the appointment of a foreigner as President of the
new State. When a hubbub arose on this burning topic:
"Some officers of the regiments in garrison at Lyons appeared in
the hall and imposed silence upon all parties. Notwithstanding
this, Count Melzi was actually chosen President by the majority of
the Committee of Thirty; but he declined the honour, and suggested
in significant terms that, to enable him to render any service to
the country, the committee had better fix upon General Bonaparte as
their Chief Magistrate. This being done, Bonaparte immediately
appointed Count Melzi Vice-President."[193]
Bonaparte's determination to fill this important position is clearly
seen in his correspondence. On the 2nd and 4th of Pluviôse (January
22nd and 24th), he writes from Lyons:
"All the principal affairs of the Consulta are settled. I count on
being back at Paris in the course of the decade."
"To-morrow I shall review the troops from Egypt. On the 6th [of
Pluviôse] all the business of the Consulta will be finished, and I
shall probably set out on my journey on the 7th."
The next day, 5th Pluviôse, sees the accomplishment of his desires:
"To-day I have reviewed the troops on the Place Bellecour; the sun
shone as it does in Floréal. The Consulta has named a committee of
thirty individuals, which has reported to it that, considering the
domestic and foreign affairs of the Cisalpine, it was indispensable
to let me discharge the first magistracy, until circumstances
permit and I judge it suitable to appoint a successor."
These extracts prove that the acts of the Consulta could be planned
beforehand no less precisely than the movements of the soldiery, and
that even so complex a matter as the voting of a constitution and the
choice of its chief had to fall in with the arrangements of this
methodizing genius. Certainly civilization had progressed since the
weary years when the French people groped through mists and waded in
blood in order to gain a perfect polity: that precious boon was now
conferred on a neighbouring people in so sure a way that the plans of
their benefactor could be infallibly fixed and his return to Paris
calculated to the hour.
The final address uttered by Bonaparte to the Italian notables is
remarkable for the short, sharp sentences, which recall the tones of
the parade ground. Passing recent events in rapid review, he said,
speaking in his mother tongue:
"...Every effort had been made to dismember you: the protection of
France won the day: you have been recognized at Lunéville.
One-fifth larger than before, you are now more powerful, more
consolidated, and have wider hopes. Composed of six different
nations, you will be now united under a constitution the best
possible for your social and material condition. ... The selections
I have made for your chief offices have been made independently of
all idea of party or feeling of locality. As for that of President,
I have found no one among you with sufficient claims on public
opinion, sufficiently free from local feelings, and who had
rendered great enough services to his country, to intrust it to
him.... Your people has only local feelings: it must now rise to
national feelings."
In accordance with this last grand and prophetic remark, the name
Italian was substituted for that of Cisalpine: and thus, for the first
time since the Middle Ages, there reappeared on the map of Europe that
name, which was to evoke the sneers of diplomatists and the most
exalted patriotism of the century. If Bonaparte had done naught else,
he would deserve immortal glory for training the divided peoples of
the peninsula for a life of united activity.
The new constitution was modelled on that of France; but the pretence
of a democratic suffrage was abandoned. The right of voting was
accorded to three classes, the great proprietors, the clerics and
learned men, and the merchants. These, meeting in their several
"Electoral Colleges," voted for the members of the legislative bodies;
a Tribunal was also charged with the maintenance of the constitution.
By these means Bonaparte endeavoured to fetter the power of the
reactionaries no less than the anti-clerical fervour of the Italian
Jacobins. The blending of the new and the old which then began shows
the hand of the master builder, who neither sweeps away materials
merely because they are old, nor rejects the strength that comes from
improved methods of construction: and, however much we may question
the disinterestedness of his motives in this great enterprise, there
can be but one opinion as to the skill of the methods and the
beneficence of the results in Italy.[194]
The first step in the process of Italian unification had now been
taken at Lyons. A second soon followed. The affairs of the Ligurian
Republic were in some confusion; and an address came from Genoa
begging that their differences might be composed by the First Consul.
The spontaneity of this offer may well be questioned, seeing that
Bonaparte found it desirable, in his letter of February 18th, 1802, to
assure the Ligurian authorities that they need feel no disquietude as
to the independence of their republic. Bonaparte undertook to alter
their constitution and nominate their Doge.
That the news of the events at Lyons excited the liveliest indignation
in London is evident from Hawkesbury's despatch of February 12th,
1802, to Cornwallis:
"The proceedings at Lyons have created the greatest alarm in this
country, and there are many persons who were pacifically disposed,
who since this event are desirous of renewing the war. It is
impossible to be surprised at this feeling when we consider the
inordinate ambition, the gross breach of faith, and the inclination
to insult Europe manifested by the First Consul on this occasion.
The Government here are desirous of avoiding to take notice of
these proceedings, and are sincerely desirous to conclude the
peace, if it can be obtained on terms consistent with our honour."
Why the Government should have lagged behind the far surer instincts
of English public opinion it is difficult to say. Hawkesbury's
despatch of four days later supplies an excuse for his contemptible
device of pretending not to see this glaring violation of the Treaty
of Lunéville. Referring to the events at Lyons, he writes:
"Extravagant and unjustifiable as they are in themselves, [they]
must have led us to believe that the First Consul would have been
more anxious than ever to have closed his account with this
country."
Doubtless that was the case, but only on condition that England
remained passive while French domination was extended over all
neighbouring lands. If our Ministers believed that Bonaparte feared
the displeasure of Austria, they were completely in error. Thanks to
the utter weakness of the European system, and the rivalry of Austria
and Prussia, he was now able to concentrate his ever-increasing power
and prestige on the negotiations at Amiens, which once more claim our
attention.
Far from being sated by the prestige gained at Lyons, he seemed to
grow more exacting with victory. Moreover, he had been cut to the
quick by some foolish articles of a French _émigré_ named Peltier, in
a paper published at London: instead of treating them with the
contempt they deserved, he magnified these ravings of a disappointed
exile into an event of high policy, and fulminated against the
Government which allowed them. In vain did Cornwallis object that the
Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing
freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had
experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year
later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an
indirect and semiofficial attack.
To these causes we may attribute the French demands of February 4th:
contradicting his earlier proposal for a temporary Neapolitan garrison
of Malta, Bonaparte now absolutely refused either to grant that
necessary protection to the weak Order of St. John, or to join Great
Britain in an equal share of the expenses--£20,000 a year--which such
a garrison would entail. The astonishment and indignation aroused at
Downing Street nearly led to an immediate rupture of the negotiations;
and it needed all the patience of Cornwallis and the suavity of Joseph
Bonaparte to smooth away the asperities caused by Napoleon's direct
intervention. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the First
Consul's methods of thought and expression to recognize in the
Protocol of February 4th the incisive speech of an autocrat confident
in his newly-consolidated powers and irritated by the gibes of
Peltier.[195]
The good sense of the two plenipotentiaries at Amiens before long
effected a reconciliation. Hawkesbury, writing from Downing Street,
warned Cornwallis that if a rupture were to take place it must not be
owing to "any impatience on our part": and he, in his turn, affably
inquired from Joseph Bonaparte whether he had any more practicable
plan than that of a Neapolitan garrison, which he had himself
proposed. No plan was forthcoming other than that of a garrison of
1,000 Swiss mercenaries; and as this was open to grave objections, the
original proposal was finally restored. On its side, the Court of St.
James still refused to blow up the fortifications at Valetta; and
rather than destroy those works, England had already offered that the
independence of Malta should be guaranteed by the Great Powers--Great
Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Spain, and Prussia: to this
arrangement France soon assented. Later on we demanded that the
Neapolitan garrison should remain in Malta for three years after the
evacuation of the island by the British troops; whereas France desired
to limit the period to one year. To this Cornwallis finally assented,
with the proviso that, "if the Order of St. John shall not have raised
a sufficient number of men, the Neapolitan troops shall remain until
they shall be relieved by an adequate force, to be agreed upon by the
guaranteeing Powers." The question of the garrison having been
arranged, other details gave less trouble, and the Maltese question
was settled in the thirteen conditions added to Clause X. of the
definitive treaty.
Though this complex question was thus adjusted by March 17th, other
matters delayed a settlement.
Hawkesbury still demanded a definite indemnity for the Prince of
Orange, but Cornwallis finally assented to Article XVIII. of the
treaty, which vaguely promised "an adequate compensation." Cornwallis
also persuaded his chief to waive his claims for the direct
participation of Turkey in the treaty. The British demand for an
indemnity for the expense of supporting French prisoners was to be
relegated to commissioners--who never met. Indeed, this was the only
polite way of escaping from the untenable position which our
Government had heedlessly taken upon this topic.
It is clear from the concluding despatches of Cornwallis that he was
wheedled by Joseph Bonaparte into conceding more than the British
Government had empowered him to do; and, though the "secret and most
confidential" despatch of March 22nd cautioned him against narrowing
too much the ground of a rupture, if a rupture should still occur, yet
three days later, and _after the receipt of this despatch_, he signed
the terms of peace with Joseph Bonaparte, and two days later with the
other signatory Powers.[196] It may well be doubted whether peace
would ever have been signed but for the skill of Joseph Bonaparte in
polite cajolery and the determination of Cornwallis to arrive at an
understanding. In any case the final act of signature was distinctly
the act, not of the British Government, but of its plenipotentiary.
That fact is confirmed by his admission, on March 28th, that he had
yielded where he was ordered to remain inflexible. At St. Helena,
Napoleon also averred that after Cornwallis had definitely pledged
himself to sign the treaty as it stood on the night of March 24th, he
received instructions in a contrary sense from Downing Street; that
nevertheless he held himself bound by his promise and signed the
treaty on the following day, observing that his Government, if
dissatisfied, might refuse to ratify it, but that, having pledged his
word, he felt bound to abide by it. This story seems consonant with
the whole behaviour of Cornwallis, so creditable to him as a man, so
damaging to him as a diplomatist. The later events of the negotiation
aroused much annoyance at Downing Street, and the conduct of
Cornwallis met with chilling disapproval.
The First Consul, on the other hand, showed his appreciation of his
brother's skill with unusual warmth; for when they appeared together
at the opera in Paris, he affectionately thrust his elder brother to
the front of the State box to receive the plaudits of the audience at
the advent of a definite peace. That was surely the purest and noblest
joy which the brothers ever tasted.
With what feelings of pride, not unmixed with awe, must the brothers
have surveyed their career. Less than nine years had elapsed since
their family fled from Corsica, and landed on the coast of Provence,
apparently as bankrupt in their political hopes as in their material
fortunes. Thrice did the fickle goddess cast Napoleon to the ground in
the first two years of his new life, only that his wondrous gifts and
sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously,
bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old
Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of
all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of
Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her
all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the
oceanic and colonizing peoples.
* * * * *