The Dawn of the Empire
(1803-1804)
While neither party kept strictly to the terms of the Peace of Amiens,
Napoleon’s aggressive policy was such as to disturb other Powers as
well as Great Britain. There was no knowing who might be the object of
his unwelcome attentions. Frontiers seemed suddenly to have lost their
significance and usefulness, treaties became of less value than the
parchment on which they were written. Great Britain complained that
whereas the Treaty of Lunéville had guaranteed the independence of the
Batavian Republic, French troops were stationed within her borders, as
well as in those of Switzerland. Napoleon retorted by saying that Great
Britain still kept Malta. Eventually England declared war on the 18th
May 1803, and it was to be a duel to the death.
Napoleon, usually so wide awake, was taken by surprise. He did
not anticipate so quick a decision on the part of Addington’s
administration. He retaliated in an utterly senseless and cruel way
by ordering that every British subject on French territory should be
arrested and imprisoned. Small wonder that English newspapers vilified
the First Consul as the Corsican Ogre, that the pens of Gillray,
Cruikshank, Woodward, and a host of lesser artists caricatured him
almost out of recognition; that poets poured forth vituperation in
minor verse, and that Scott and Wordsworth wrote battle cries. Few
people in England entertained the sympathy and admiration for the ruler
of France shown by Dr Parr. “Sir,” he once remarked, “I should not
think I had done my duty if I went to bed any night without praying for
the success of Napoleon Bonaparte.”
To strike a mortal blow at the very heart of the British Empire and
to ruin her commerce on the Continent now became the consuming object
of Napoleon’s ambition. He would cross the Channel, march on London,
subjugate the United Kingdom, and while preparations for this bold move
were being made, close the ports of Europe against her. “They want to
make us jump the ditch, and we’ll jump it,” to quote an expression
he used at an audience of ambassadors on the 1st May 1803. Frenchmen
joyfully anticipated the triumph of the man with so bold an ambition;
Englishmen armed themselves as eagerly to defend hearth and home. A
Territorial Army of which posterity may well be proud quickly came into
being. In March 1805 no fewer than 810,000 troops--Militia, Volunteers,
and Fencibles--were prepared to defy Napoleon. The politician and the
publican, the ploughboy and the squire, joined hands in the mutual
cause as though no difference of class existed. George III. announced
his intention of leading the troops in person if necessary. Pitt was
acting-colonel of a regiment, and Charles James Fox became a humble
private.
[Illustration: On the Sands at Boulogne
By A. C. Gow, R.A.
By permission of the Berlin Photographic Co., London, W.]
Fortunately Great Britain had a navy, while Napoleon had practically
to create one. Many of his finest ships were far away in the West
Indies, and the Dutch fleet was small and of little consequence.
England lost no time in maritime preparations: she was ready;
Napoleon wished to gain every minute he could. While the sound of
the shipwright’s hammer rang through the coasts of France, the white
sails of Old England kept watch to prevent all entry or exit from her
harbours. The most important command, that of the Mediterranean, was
given to Nelson. Cornwallis was stationed off Brest, the great western
arsenal of France, while Keith patrolled the North Sea and the Straits
of Dover. In addition, there were various smaller squadrons cruising
about ready for instant action.
Three-deckers were laid down in many of the most important French
seaports, cities and towns vying with each other in offering money
to the Government for men-of-war. Smaller centres contributed in
proportion to their means; naval stores, artillery, and ammunition were
also supplied at the public expense. At Boulogne a flotilla of small
vessels of various kinds was collected, some fitted with artillery,
others for the conveyance of horses. Rowing boats were built on the
river banks for the transportation of the troops. Fishing smacks
were purchased and converted into miniature warships; the doings of
smugglers were winked at, provided they brought information about
the English coast likely to be of use. If ever a man was in earnest,
Napoleon certainly was during the time of the Great Terror. He formed a
vast camp at Boulogne, detailed battalions of soldiers to construct a
mammoth basin to hold part of the flotilla, and others to build forts
and learn to row. He showed himself frequently, inspiring the men by
his terse phrases of encouragement, and consulting Admiral Bruix and
others who had charge of the preparations on the most insignificant
detail. He tested cannon, made short voyages in the different types of
vessel, and lived for days at a stretch in a little château at the top
of a cliff.
In the early stages of the war Napoleon had thought it would be
possible to convey his troops in the small craft without making use of
the navy proper. He hoped that on a dark or foggy night it might be
possible to elude the vigilance of the British cruisers and land on the
south coast of England before the enemy was aware of his intention.
Later, he recognised that a successful crossing was impossible without
the protection of the men-of-war, and the necessity for this added
immensely to his many difficulties.
Napoleon did not content himself solely with preparations for the
campaign in England. He sent Mortier to overrun Hanover, the hereditary
territory of George III., seized the important commercial cities of
Bremen and Hamburg, and closed the rivers Elbe and Weser against
British commerce. In Italy the ports of Tarentum and Leghorn, with
which British merchants did a considerable amount of trade, were also
occupied. Not content with these drastic measures, Napoleon decreed
that any ship which had so much as called at a British port was liable
to be captured. With great good fortune the majority of the vessels
from San Domingo eventually reached home ports, but several put in
at the harbours of Coruña and Cadiz. Spain, unluckily for herself as
it afterwards appeared, allowed supplies to be sent to the blockaded
ships. Spain, indeed, helped France in other ways, including the
payment of an annual subsidy. Portugal also agreed to disburse £640,000
a year.
Beloved though he was by the majority of the nation, Napoleon had
enemies. Several attempts were made to take his life. In one of these,
he narrowly escaped being blown to pieces by an infernal machine
in the Rue St Nicaise, the plot being promoted by the Royalists of
La Vendée. Napoleon showed his vindictive nature by seizing the
opportunity to teach a lesson to the Jacobins, who had no hand
whatever in the affair, and a hundred and thirty innocent persons were
sentenced to transportation for life. Another Royalist conspiracy was
that of Georges Cadoudal and Pichegru. These men tried to implicate
Moreau, but without success. The famous Republican general, however,
was arrested, with the ringleaders; Pichegru was found strangled in
prison, Georges Cadoudal was guillotined, and Moreau was banished to
America. The last was entirely innocent, but he had the misfortune to
be Napoleon’s rival, and that was sufficient condemnation. He had won
his spurs in the early days of the Revolution by placing himself at
the head of a battalion of Breton volunteers, and he was popular with
the army. An instance of his sterling integrity, one of many which
redound to his credit, may be given. When the landed property of the
aristocracy was sold as belonging to the nation, an estate owned by M.
d’Orsay, adjoining that of Moreau, was sold to the Republican general
at an absurdly low figure. Not only did the new owner inform his former
neighbour of the transaction, but he insisted on paying him what he
considered was a legitimate price.
The Duc d’Enghien, son of the Duc de Bourbon, was even more unfortunate
than Moreau. He also was charged with complicity in the Royalist plot,
and although no evidence was produced against him, he was shot and
buried in a grave dug before his trial, by a so-called special military
commission, in the fortress of Vincennes. The story of the way in which
the young duke’s father heard the news is pathetic. He was an exile in
London, living at the time in a small suite of rooms with one valet.
As breakfast did not appear at the prescribed hour one morning, and
no notice being taken of his repeated ringing of the bell, he entered
the kitchen and found his servant bowed down with sorrow. On the
table was a newspaper containing particulars of the grim tragedy. For
two hours the sorely stricken parent was overcome by agonising grief
in the humble little room. The Comtesse de Boigne, one of the many
French emigrants who sought a refuge in England, relates the above,
in her entertaining “Memoirs,” adding that this excessive grief was
“accompanied by fits of rage and cries for vengeance.”
“This was the only means I had of leaving no doubt as to my intentions,
and of annihilating the hopes of the partisans of the Bourbons,”
Napoleon wrote callously to his brother Joseph. “If what I have done
were still to be done,” he continues, “I would do it again, and if I
had a favourable opportunity I would get rid of the rest.” Fouché’s
caustic comment, “it was worse than a crime, it was a blunder,” has
passed into a proverb.
The conspiracy of Cadoudal and Pichegru was made a pretext on the
part of the Senate for sending a deputation to the First Consul, who
was told that, as he was founding a new era, he ought to perpetuate
it. “We do not doubt but this great idea has had a share of your
attention,” said the President during the course of his short and
flattering address, “for your creative genius embraces all and forgets
nothing. But do not delay: you are urged on by the times, by events,
by conspirators, and by ambitious men; and in another direction, by
the anxiety which agitates the French people. It is in your power to
enchain time, master events, disdain the ambitious, and tranquillise
the whole of France by giving it institutions which will cement your
edifice, and prolong for our children what you have done for their
fathers. Citizen First Consul, be assured that the Senate here speaks
to you in the name of all citizens.”
The question was duly debated in the Tribunate, Carnot alone voting
against the proposal, and by a decree of the Senate Napoleon was
declared Emperor of the French on the 18th May 1804. That a conspiracy
and a “judicial murder” should herald so important an event was looked
upon by some as of evil omen. A few of the more sober members of the
nation began to whisper among themselves that France was being more and
more absorbed in Napoleon. Perhaps the remark made by the Duc de Raguse
to the Comtesse de Boigne in 1814 would not have been inapplicable
if uttered ten years before. The duke was explaining his connection
with the Emperor. “When he said: ‘_All for France_,’ I served with
enthusiasm; when he said: ‘_France and I_,’ I served with zeal; when he
said: ‘_I and France_,’ I served with obedience; but when he said: ‘_I
without France_,’ I felt the necessity of separating from him.”