NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS
War, said St. Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a
higher state of peace. The saying is certainly true for those wars
that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause.
It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the
French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against
the threatened intervention of monarchical States. But the danger of
vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more
glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age. When
democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war
was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of
neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte,
their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military
methods of rule. The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young
warrior speedily became the greatest danger of republican France; and
as the extraordinary energy developed in her people by recent events
cast her feeble neighbours to the ground, Europe cowered away before
the ever-increasing bulk of France. In their struggles after democracy
the French finally reverted to the military type of Government, which
accords with many of the cherished instincts of their race: and the
military-democratic compromise embodied in Napoleon endowed that
people with the twofold force of national pride and of conscious
strength springing from their new institutions.
With this was mingled contempt for neighbouring peoples who either
could not or would not gain a similar independence and prestige.
Everything helped to feed this self-confidence and contempt for
others. The venerable fabric of the Holy Roman Empire was rocking to
and fro amidst the spoliations of its ecclesiastical lands by lay
princes, in which its former champions, the Houses of Hapsburg and
Hohenzollern, were the most exacting of the claimants. The Czar, in
October, 1801, had come to a profitable understanding with France
concerning these "secularizations." A little later France and Russia
began to draw together on the Eastern Question in a way threatening to
Turkey and to British influence in the Levant.[217] In fact, French
diplomacy used the partition of the German ecclesiastical lands and
the threatened collapse of the Ottoman power as a potent means of
busying the Continental States and leaving Great Britain isolated.
Moreover, the great island State was passing through ministerial and
financial difficulties which robbed her of all the fruits of her naval
triumphs and made her diplomacy at Amiens the laughing-stock of the
world. When monarchical ideas were thus discredited, it was idle to
expect peace. The struggling upwards towards a higher plane had indeed
begun; democracy had effected a lodgment in Western Europe; but the
old order in its bewildered gropings after some sure basis had not yet
touched bottom on that rock of nationality which was to yield a new
foundation for monarchy amidst the strifes of the nineteenth century.
Only when the monarchs received the support of their French-hating
subjects could an equilibrium of force and of enthusiasms yield the
long-sought opportunity for a durable peace.[218]
The negotiations at Amiens had amply shown the great difficulty of the
readjustment of European affairs. If our Ministers had manifested
their real feelings about Napoleon's presidency of the Italian
Republic, war would certainly have broken forth. But, as has been
seen, they preferred to assume the attitude of the ostrich, the worst
possible device both for the welfare of Europe and the interests of
Great Britain; for it convinced Napoleon that he could safely venture
on other interventions; and this he proceeded to do in the affairs of
Italy, Holland, and Switzerland.
On September 21st, 1802, appeared a _senatus consultum_ ordering the
incorporation of Piedmont in France. This important territory,
lessened by the annexation of its eastern parts to the Italian
Republic, had for five months been provisionally administered by a
French general as a military district of France. Its definite
incorporation in the great Republic now put an end to all hopes of
restoration of the House of Savoy. For the King of Sardinia, now an
exile in his island, the British Ministry had made some efforts at
Amiens; but, as it knew that the Czar and the First Consul had agreed
on offering him some suitable indemnity, the hope was cherished that
the new sovereign, Victor Emmanuel I., would be restored to his
mainland possessions. That hope was now at an end. In vain did Lord
Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to
gain a fit indemnity. Sienna and its lands were named, as if in
derision; and though George III. and the Czar ceased not to press the
claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from
Paris, except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found
for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty
Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands
which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a
United Italy.[219] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the
annexation of Parma. The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the
King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and
in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV. bartered away
to France the whole of Louisiana. Nevertheless, the First Consul kept
his troops in Parma, and on the death of the old duke in October,
1802, Parma and its dependencies were incorporated in the French
Republic.
The naval supremacy of France in the Mediterranean was also secured by
the annexation of the Isle of Elba with its excellent harbour of Porto
Ferrajo. Three deputies from Elba came to Paris to pay their respects
to their new ruler. The Minister of War was thereupon charged to treat
them with every courtesy, to entertain them at dinner, to give them
3,000 francs apiece, and to hint that on their presentation to
Bonaparte they might make a short speech expressing the pleasure of
their people at being united with France. By such deft rehearsals did
this master in the art of scenic displays weld Elba on to France and
France to himself.
Even more important was Bonaparte's intervention in Switzerland. The
condition of that land calls for some explanation. For wellnigh three
centuries the Switzers had been grouped in thirteen cantons, which
differed widely in character and constitution. The Central or Forest
Cantons still retained the old Teutonic custom of regulating their
affairs in their several folk-moots, at which every householder
appeared fully armed. Elsewhere the confederation had developed less
admirable customs, and the richer lowlands especially were under the
hereditary control of rich burgher families. There was no constitution
binding these States in any effective union. Each of the cantons
claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the
deliberations of the Federal Diet. Besides these sovereign States were
others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were
Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Mühlhausen
in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchâtel, and
Valais on the Upper Rhone. Last came the subject-lands, Aargau,
Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various
degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old
Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian
league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so
profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the
masterful genius of Philip. Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a
new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the
greatest statesman of the age.
On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution
exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud
strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the
invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave
resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the
Swiss treasuries. After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers,
who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and
geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons,
allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was
constituted as an indivisible republic--except Valais, which was to be
independent, and Geneva and Mühlhausen, which were absorbed by France.
The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited
considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence;
but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could
only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted
to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the
most elementary needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious
instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.
Of these deep-seated feelings the oligarchs of the plains, no less
than the democrats of the Forest Cantons, were now the champions;
while the partisans of the new-fangled democracy were held up to scorn
as the supporters of a cast-iron centralization. It soon became clear
that the constitution of 1798 could be perpetuated only by the support
of the French troops quartered on that unhappy land; for throughout
the years 1800 and 1801 the political see-saw tilted every few months,
first in favour of the oligarchic or federal party, then again towards
their unionist opponents. After the Peace of Lunéville, which
recognized the right of the Swiss to adopt what form of government
they thought fit, some of their deputies travelled to Paris with the
draft of a constitution lately drawn up by the Chamber at Berne, in
the hope of gaining the assent of the First Consul to its provisions
and the withdrawal of French troops. They had every reason for hope:
the party then in power at Berne was that which favoured a centralized
democracy, and their plenipotentiary in Paris, a thorough republican
named Stapfer, had been led to hope that Switzerland would now be
allowed to carve out its own destiny. What, then, was his surprise to
find the First Consul increasingly enamoured of federalism. The
letters written by Stapfer to the Swiss Government at this time are
highly instructive.[220]
On March 10th, 1801, he wrote:
"What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims
of the French Government. Does it want to federalize us in order to
weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions: or does it
really desire our independence and welfare, and is its delay only
the result of its doubts as to the true wishes of the Helvetic
nation?"
Stapfer soon found that the real cause of delay was the non-completion
of the cession of Valais, which Bonaparte urgently desired for the
construction of a military road across the Simplon Pass; and as the
Swiss refused this demand, matters remained at a standstill. "The
whole of Europe would not make him give up a favourite scheme," wrote
Stapfer on April 10th; "the possession of Valais is one of the matters
closest to his heart."
The protracted pressure of a French army of occupation on that already
impoverished land proved irresistible; and some important
modifications of the Swiss project of a constitution, on which the
First Consul insisted, were inserted in the new federal compact of
May, 1801. Switzerland was now divided into seventeen cantons; and
despite the wish of the official Swiss envoys for a strongly
centralized government, Bonaparte gave large powers to the cantonal
authorities. His motives in this course of action have been variously
judged. In giving greater freedom of movement to the several cantons,
he certainly adopted the only statesmanlike course: but his conduct
during the negotiation, his retention of Valais, and the continued
occupation of Switzerland by his troops, albeit in reduced numbers,
caused many doubts as to the sincerity of his desire for a final
settlement.
The unionist majority at Berne soon proceeded to modify his proposals,
which they condemned as full of defects and contradictions; while the
federals strove to keep matters as they were. In the month of October
their efforts succeeded, thanks to the support of the French
ambassador and soldiery; they dissolved the Assembly, annulled its
recent amendments; and their influence procured for Reding, the head
of the oligarchic party, the office of Landamman, or supreme
magistrate. So reactionary, however, were their proceedings, that the
First Consul recalled the French general as a sign of his displeasure
at his help recently offered to the federals. Their triumph was brief:
while their chiefs were away at Easter, 1802, the democratic unionists
effected another _coup d'état_--it was the fourth--and promulgated one
more constitution. This change seems also to have been brought about
with the connivance of the French authorities:[221] their refusal to
listen to Stapfer's claims for a definite settlement, as well as their
persistent hints that the Swiss could not by themselves arrange their
own affairs, argued a desire to continue the epoch of quarterly _coups
d'état_.
The victory of the so-called democrats at Berne now brought the whole
matter to the touch. They appealed to the people in the first Swiss
_plébiscite_, the precursor of the famous _referendum_. It could now
be decided without the interference of French troops; for the First
Consul had privately declared to the new Landamman, Dolder, that he
left it to his Government to decide whether the foreign soldiery
should remain as a support or should evacuate Switzerland.[222] After
many searchings of heart, the new authorities decided to try their
fortunes alone--a response which must have been expected at Paris,
where Stapfer had for months been urging the removal of the French
forces. For the first time since the year 1798 Switzerland was
therefore free to declare her will. The result of the _plébiscite_ was
decisive enough, 72,453 votes being cast in favour of the latest
constitution, and 92,423 against it. Nothing daunted by this rebuff,
and, adopting a device which the First Consul had invented for the
benefit of Dutch liberty, the Bernese leaders declared that the
167,172 adult voters who had not voted at all must reckon as approving
the new order of things. The flimsiness of this pretext was soon
disclosed. The Swiss had had enough of electioneering tricks,
hole-and-corner revolutions, and paper compacts. They rushed to arms;
and if ever Carlyle's appeal away from ballot-boxes and parliamentary
tongue-fencers to the primæval _mights of man_ can be justified, it
was in the sharp and decisive conflicts of the early autumn of 1802 in
Switzerland. The troops of the central authorities, marching forth
from Berne to quell the rising ferment, sustained a repulse at the
foot of Mont Pilatus, as also before the walls of Zürich; and, the
revolt of the federals ever gathering force, the Helvetic authorities
were driven from Berne to Lausanne. There they were planning flight
across the Lake of Geneva to Savoy, when, on October 15th, the arrival
of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, General Rapp, with an imperious
proclamation dismayed the federals and promised to the discomfited
unionists the mediation of the First Consul for which they had humbly
pleaded.[223]
Napoleon had apparently viewed the late proceedings in Switzerland
with mingled feelings of irritation and amused contempt. "Well, there
you are once more in a Revolution" was his hasty comment to Stapfer at
a diplomatic reception shortly after Easter; "try and get tired of all
that." It is difficult, however, to believe that so keen-sighted a
statesman could look forward to anything but commotions for a land
that was being saddled with an impracticable constitution, and whence
the controlling French forces were withdrawn at that very crisis. He
was certainly prepared for the events of September: many times he had
quizzingly asked Stapfer how the constitution was faring, and he must
have received with quiet amusement the solemn reply that there could
be no doubt as to its brilliant success. When the truth flashed
on Stapfer he was dumbfoundered, especially as Talleyrand at first
mockingly repulsed any suggestion of the need of French mediation, and
went on to assure him that his master had neither counselled nor
approved the last constitution, the unfitness of which was now shown
by the widespread insurrection. Two days later, however, Napoleon
altered his tone and directed Talleyrand vigorously to protest against
the acts and proclamations of the victorious federals as "the most
violent outrage to French honour." On the last day of September he
issued a proclamation to the Swiss declaring that he now revoked his
decision not to mingle in Swiss politics, and ordered the federal
authorities and troops to disperse, and the cantons to send deputies
to Paris for the regulation of their affairs under his mediation.
Meanwhile he bade the Swiss live once more in hope: their land was on
the brink of a precipice, but it would soon be saved! Rapp carried
analogous orders to Lausanne and Berne, while Ney marched in with a
large force of French troops that had been assembled near the Swiss
frontiers.
So glaring a violation of Swiss independence and of the guaranteeing
Treaty of Lunéville aroused indignation throughout Europe. But Austria
was too alarmed at Prussian aggrandizement in Germany to offer any
protest; and, indeed, procured some trifling gains by giving France a
free hand in Switzerland.[224] The Court of Berlin, then content to
play the jackal to the French lion, revealed to the First Consul the
appeals for help privately made to Prussia by the Swiss federals:[225]
the Czar, influenced doubtless by his compact with France concerning
German affairs, and by the advice of his former tutor, the Swiss
Laharpe, offered no encouragement; and it was left to Great Britain to
make the sole effort then attempted for the cause of Swiss
independence. For some time past the cantons had made appeals to
the British Government, which now, in response, sent an English agent,
Moore, to confer with their chiefs, and to advance money and promise
active support if he judged that a successful resistance could be
attempted.[226] The British Ministry undoubtedly prepared for an open
rupture with France on this question. Orders were immediately sent
from London that no more French or Dutch colonies were to be handed
back; and, as we have seen, the Cape of Good Hope and the French
settlements in India were refused to the Dutch and French officers who
claimed their surrender.
Hostilities, however, were for the present avoided. In face of the
overwhelming force which Ney had close at hand, the chiefs of the
central cantons shrank from any active opposition; and Moore, finding
on his arrival at Constance that they had decided to submit, speedily
returned to England. Ministers beheld with anger and dismay the
perpetuation of French supremacy in that land; but they lacked the
courage openly to oppose the First Consul's action, and gave orders
that the stipulated cessions of French and Dutch colonies should take
effect.
The submission of the Swiss and the weakness of all the Powers
encouraged the First Consul to impose his will on the deputies from
the cantons, who assembled at Paris at the close of the year 1802. He
first caused their aims and the capacity of their leaders to be
sounded in a Franco-Swiss Commission, and thereafter assembled them at
St. Cloud on Sunday, December 12th. He harangued them at great length,
hinting very clearly that the Swiss must now take a far lower place in
the scale of peoples than in the days when France was divided into
sixty fiefs, and that union with her could alone enable them to play a
great part in the world's affairs: nevertheless, as they clung to
independence he would undertake in his quality of mediator to end
their troubles, and yet leave them free. That they could attain unity
was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the
cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian
districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central
or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood
of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the
privileged families to include four times their number. For the rest,
the Continental Powers could not help them, and England had "no right
to meddle in Swiss affairs." The same menace was repeated in more
strident tones on January 29th:
"I tell you that I would sacrifice 100,000 men rather than allow
England to meddle in your affairs: if the Cabinet of St. James
uttered a single word for you, it would be all up with you, I would
unite you to France: if that Court made the least insinuation of
its fears that I would be your Landamman, I would make myself your
Landamman."
There spake forth the inner mind of the man who, whether as child,
youth, lieutenant, general, Consul, or Emperor, loved to bear down
opposition.[227]
In those days of superhuman activity, when he was carving out one
colonial Empire in the New World and preparing to found another in
India, when he was outwitting the Cardinals, rearranging the map of
Germany, breathing new life into French commerce and striving to
shackle that of Britain, he yet found time to utter some of the sagest
maxims as to the widely different needs of the Swiss cantons. He
assured the deputies that he spoke as a Corsican and a mountaineer,
who knew and loved the clan system. His words proved it. With sure
touch he sketched the characteristics of the French and Swiss people.
Switzerland needed the local freedom imparted by her cantons: while
France required unity, Switzerland needed federalism: the French
rejected this last as damaging their power and glory; but the Swiss
did not ask for glory; they needed "political tranquillity and
obscurity": moreover, a simple pastoral people must have extensive
local rights, which formed their chief distraction from the monotony
of life: democracy was a necessity for the forest cantons; but let not
the aristocrats of the towns fear that a wider franchise would end
their influence, for a people dependent on pastoral pursuits would
always cling to great families rather than to electoral assemblies:
let these be elected on a fairly wide basis. Then again, what ready
wit flashed forth in his retort to a deputy who objected to the
Bernese Oberland forming part of the Canton of Berne: "Where do you
take your cattle and your cheese?"--"To Berne."--"Whence do you get
your grain, cloth, and iron?"--"From Berne."--"Very well: 'To Berne,
from Berne'--you consequently belong to Berne." The reply is a good
instance of that canny materialism which he so victoriously opposed to
feudal chaos and monarchical ineptitude.
Indeed, in matters great as well as small his genius pierced to the
heart of a problem: he saw that the democratic unionists had failed
from the rigidity of their centralization, while the federals had
given offence by insufficiently recognizing the new passion for social
equality.[228] He now prepared to federalize Switzerland on a
moderately democratic basis; for a policy of balance, he himself being
at the middle of the see-saw, was obviously required by good sense as
well as by self-interest. Witness his words to Roederer on this
subject:
"While satisfying the generality, I cause the patricians to tremble.
In giving to these last the appearance of power, I oblige them to take
refuge at my side in order to find protection. I let the people
threaten the aristocrats, so that these may have need of me. I will
give them places and distinctions, but they will hold them from me.
This system of mine has succeeded in France. See the clergy. Every day
they will become, in spite of themselves, more devoted to my
government than they had foreseen."
How simple and yet how subtle is this statecraft; simplicity of aim,
with subtlety in the choice of means: this is the secret of his
success.
After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss
deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their
labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which
constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly
subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges. The
forest cantons kept their ancient folk-moots, while the town cantons
such as Berne, Zürich, and Basel were suffered to blend their old
institutions with democratic customs, greatly to the chagrin of the
unionists, at whose invitation Bonaparte had taken up the work of
mediation.
The federal compact was also a compromise between the old and the new.
The nineteen cantons were to enjoy sovereign powers under the shelter
of the old federal pact. Bonaparte saw that the fussy imposition of
French governmental forms in 1798 had wrought infinite harm, and he
now granted to the federal authorities merely the powers necessary for
self-defence: the federal forces were to consist of 15,200 men--a
number less than that which by old treaty Switzerland had to furnish
to France. The central power was vested in a Landamman and other
officers appointed yearly by one of the six chief cantons taken in
rotation; and a Federal Diet, consisting of twenty-five deputies--one
from each of the small cantons, and two from each of the six larger
cantons--met to discuss matters of general import, but the balance of
power rested with the cantons: further articles regulated the Helvetic
debt and declared the independence of Switzerland--as if a land could
be independent which furnished more troops to the foreigner than it
was allowed to maintain for its own defence. Furthermore, the Act
breathed not a word about religious liberty, freedom of the Press, or
the right of petition: and, viewing it as a whole, the friends of
freedom had cause to echo the complaint of Stapfer that "the First
Consul's aim was to annul Switzerland politically, but to assure to
the Swiss the greatest possible domestic happiness."
I have judged it advisable to give an account of Franco-Swiss
relations on a scale proportionate to their interest and importance;
they exhibit, not only the meanness and folly of the French Directory,
but the genius of the great Corsican in skilfully blending the new and
the old, and in his rejection of the fussy pedantry of French
theorists and the worst prejudices of the Swiss oligarchs. Had not his
sage designs been intertwined with subtle intrigues which assured his
own unquestioned supremacy in that land, the Act of Mediation might be
reckoned among the grandest and most beneficent achievements. As it
is, it must be regarded as a masterpiece of able but selfish
statecraft, which contrasts unfavourably with the disinterested
arrangements sanctioned by the allies for Switzerland in 1815.
* * * * *