CHAPTER XXXVIII.

_View of the Internal Government of Napoleon at the period of the

Peace of Tilsit--The Tribunate abolished--Council of

State--Prefectures--Their nature and objects described--The Code

Napoleon--Its Provisions--Its merits and Defects--Comparison

betwixt that Code and the Jurisprudence of England--Laudable

efforts of Napoleon to carry it into effect._

[Sidenote: INTERNAL GOVERNMENT.]

At this period of Buonaparte's elevation, when his power seemed best

established, and most permanent, it seems proper to take a hasty view,

not indeed of the details of his internal government, which is a subject

that would exhaust volumes; but at least of its general character, of

the means by which his empire was maintained, and the nature of the

relations which it established betwixt the sovereign and his subjects.

The ruling, almost the sole principle on which the government of

Buonaparte rested, was the simple proposition upon which despotism of

every kind has founded itself in every species of society; namely, that

the individual who is to exercise the authority and power of the state,

shall, on the one hand, dedicate himself and his talents exclusively to

the public service of the empire, while, on the other, the nation

subjected to his rule shall requite this self-devotion on his part by

the most implicit obedience to his will. Some despots have rested this

claim to universal submission upon family descent, and upon their right,

according to Filmer's doctrine, of representing the original father of

the tribe, and becoming the legitimate inheritors of a patriarchal

power. Others have strained scripture and abused common sense, to

establish in their own favour a right through the especial decree of

Providence. To the hereditary title Buonaparte could of course assert no

claim; but he founded not a little on the second principle, often

holding himself out to others, and no doubt occasionally considering

himself, in his own mind, as an individual destined by Heaven to the

high station which he held, and one who could not therefore be opposed

in his career, without an express struggle being maintained against

Destiny, who, leading him by the hand, and at the same time protecting

him with her shield, had guided him by paths as strange as perilous, to

the post of eminence which he now occupied. No one had been his tutor in

the lessons which led the way to his preferment--no one had been his

guide in the dangerous ascent to power--scarce any one had been of so

much consequence to his promotion, as to claim even the merit of an

ally, however humble. It seemed as if Napoleon had been wafted on to

this stupendous pitch of grandeur by a power more effectual than that of

any human assistance, nay, which surpassed what could have been expected

from his own great talents, unassisted by the especial interposition of

Destiny in his favour. Yet it was not to this principle alone that the

general acquiescence in the unlimited power which he asserted is to be

imputed. Buonaparte understood the character of the French nation so

well, that he could offer them an acceptable indemnification for

servitude; first, in the height to which he proposed to raise their

national pre-eminence; secondly, in the municipal establishments, by

means of which he administered their government, and which, though

miserably defective in all which would have been demanded by a nation

accustomed to the administration of equal and just laws, afforded a

protection to life and property that was naturally most welcome to those

who had been so long, under the republican system, made the victims of

cruelty, rapacity, and the most extravagant and unlimited tyranny,

rendered yet more odious as exercised under the pretext of liberty.

To the first of these arts of government we have often adverted; and it

must be always recalled to mind whenever the sources of Buonaparte's

power over the public mind in France come to be treated of. He himself

gave the solution in a few words, when censuring the imbecility of the

Directors, to whose power he succeeded. "These men," he said, "know not

how to work upon the imagination of the French nation." This idea,

which, in phraseology, is rather Italian than French, expresses the

chief secret of Napoleon's authority. He held himself out as the

individual upon whom the fate of France depended--of whose hundred

decisive victories France enjoyed the glory. It was he whose sword,

hewing down obstacles which her bravest monarchs had accounted

insurmountable, had cut the way to her now undeniable supremacy over

Europe. He alone could justly claim to be Absolute Monarch of France,

who, raising that nation from a perilous condition, had healed her

discords, reconciled her factions, turned her defeats into victory, and,

from a disunited people, about to become the prey to civil and external

war, had elevated her to the situation of Queen of Europe. This had been

all accomplished upon one condition; and, as we have stated elsewhere,

it was that which the Tempter offered in the wilderness, after his

ostentatious display of the kingdoms of the earth--"All these will I

give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me."

Napoleon had completed the boastful promise, and it flattered a people

more desirous of glory than of liberty; and so much more pleased with

hearing of national conquests in foreign countries, than of enjoying the

freedom of their own individual thoughts and actions, that they

unreluctantly surrendered the latter in order that their vanity might be

flattered by the former.

Thus did Napoleon avail himself of, or, to translate his phrase more

literally, play upon the imagination of the French people. He gave them

public festivals, victories, and extended dominion; and in return,

claimed the right of carrying their children in successive swarms to yet

more distant and yet more extended conquests, and of governing,

according to his own pleasure, the bulk of the nation which remained

behind.

To attain this purpose, one species of idolatry was gradually and

ingeniously substituted for another, and the object of the public

devotion was changed, while the worship was continued. France had been

formerly governed by political maxims--she was now ruled by the name of

an individual. Formerly the Republic was every thing--Fayette,

Dumouriez, or Pichegru, were nothing. Now, the name of a successful

general was of more influence than the whole code of the Rights of Man.

France had submitted to murder, spoliation, revolutionary tribunals, and

every species of cruelty and oppression, while they were gilded by the

then talismanic expressions--"Liberty and Equality--Fraternization--the

public welfare, and the happiness of the people." She was now found

equally compliant, when the watchword was, "The honour of his Imperial

and Royal Majesty--the interests of the Great Empire--the splendours of

the Imperial Throne." It must be owned, that the sacrifices under the

last form were less enormous; they were limited to taxes at the Imperial

pleasure, and a perpetual anticipation of the conscription. The

Republican tyrants claimed both life and property, the Emperor was

satisfied with a tithe of the latter, and the unlimited disposal of that

portion of the family who could best support the burden of arms, for

augmenting the conquests of France. Such were the terms on which this

long-distracted country attained once more, after its Revolution, the

advantage of a steady and effective government.

The character of that government, its means and principles of action,

must now be briefly traced.

It cannot be forgotten that Buonaparte, the heir of the Revolution,

appropriated to himself the forms and modifications of the Directorial

government, altered, in some degree, by the ingenuity of Siêyes; but

they subsisted as forms only, and were carefully divested of all

effectual impulse on the government. The Senate and Legislative Bodies

became merely passive and pensioned creatures of the Emperor's will,

whom he used as a medium for promulgating the laws which he was

determined to establish. The Tribunate had been instituted for the

protection of the people against all acts of arbitrary power, whether by

imprisonment, exile, assaults on the liberty of the press, or otherwise;

but after having gradually undermined the rights and authority of this

body, after having rendered its meetings partial and secret, and having

deprived it of its boldest members, Buonaparte suppressed it entirely,

on account, as he alleged, of the expense which it occasioned to the

government. It had, indeed, become totally useless;[307] but this was

because its character had been altered, and because, originating from

the Senate, and not from popular election, the Tribunate never consisted

of that class of persons, who are willing to encounter the frown of

power when called upon to impeach its aggressions. Yet, as the very name

of this body, while it subsisted, recalled some ideas of Republican

freedom, the Emperor thought fit altogether to abolish it.

[Sidenote: THE COUNCIL OF STATE.]

The deliberative Council of the Emperor existed in his own personal

Council of State, of whose consultations, in which he himself presided,

he made frequent use during the course of his reign. Its functions were

of an anomalous character, comprehending political legislation, or

judicial business, according to the order of the day. It was, in short,

Buonaparte's resource, when he wanted the advice, or opinion, or

information, of others in aid of his own; and he often took the

assistance of the Council of State, in order to form those resolutions

which he afterwards executed by means of his ministers. Monsieur de Las

Cases, himself a member of it, has dwelt with complaisance upon the

freedom which Buonaparte permitted to their debates, and the good-humour

with which he submitted to contradiction, even when expressed with

obstinacy or vivacity;[308] and would have us consider the Council as an

important barrier afforded to the citizens against the arbitrary will of

the Sovereign. What he has said, however, only amounts to this,--that

Buonaparte, desirous to have the advice of his counsellors, tolerated

their freedom of speech, and even of remonstrance. Mahmoud, or Amurath,

seated in their divan, must have done the same, and yet would not have

remained the less absolutely masters of the lives of those who stood

around them. We have no doubt that Buonaparte, on certain occasions,

permitted his counsellors to take considerable freedoms, and that he

sometimes yielded up his opinion to theirs without being convinced; in

such cases, at least, where his own passions or interest were no way

concerned.[309] But we further read of the Emperor's using, to

extremely stubborn persons, such language as plainly intimated, that he

would not suffer contradiction beyond a certain point, "You are very

obstinate," he said to such a disputant; "what if I were to be as much

so as you? You are wrong to push the powerful to extremity--you should

consider the weakness of humanity." To another he said, after a scene of

argumentative violence, "Pray, pay some attention to accommodate

yourself a little more to my humour. Yesterday, you carried it so far as

to oblige me to scratch my temple. That is a great sign with me--take

care in future not to drive me to such an extremity."[310]

Such limits to the freedom of debate in the Imperial Council of State,

correspond with those laid down in the festive entertainments of Sans

Souci, where the Great Frederick professed to support and encourage

every species of familiar raillery, but, when it attained a point that

was too personal, used to hint to the facetious guests, that he heard

the King's step in the gallery. There were occasions, accordingly, when,

not satisfied with calling their attention to the distant murmurs of the

Imperial thunder, Napoleon launched its bolts in the midst of his

trembling counsellors. Such a scene was that of Portalis. This

statesman, a man of talent and virtue, had been eminently useful, as we

have seen, in bringing about the Concordat, and had been created, in

recompense, minister of religious affairs, and counsellor of state. In

the subsequent disputes betwixt the Pope and Buonaparte, a relation of

the minister had been accused of circulating the bulls, or spiritual

admonitions of the Pope; and Portalis had failed to intimate the

circumstance to the Emperor. On this account, Napoleon, in full council,

attacked him in the severest terms, as guilty of having broken his oath

as a counsellor and minister of state, deprived him of both offices, and

expelled him from the assembly, as one who had betrayed his

sovereign.[311] If any of the members of the Council of State had

ventured, when this sentence rung in their ears, to come betwixt the

dragon and his wrath, for the purpose of stating that a hasty charge

ought not instantly to be followed with immediate censure and

punishment; that it was possible M. Portalis might have been misled by

false information, or by a natural desire to screen the offence of his

cousin; or, finally, that his conduct might have been influenced by

views of religion which, if erroneous, were yet sincere and

conscientious--we should then have believed, that the Council of State

of Buonaparte formed a body, in which the accused citizen might receive

some protection against the despotism of the government. But when, or

in what country, could the freedom of the nation be intrusted to the

keeping of the immediate counsellors of the throne? It can only be

safely lodged in some body, the authority of which emanates directly

from the nation, and whom the nation therefore will protect and support,

in the existence of their right of opposition or remonstrance.

The deliberations of the Council of State, or such resolutions as

Buonaparte chose to adopt without communication with them, (for it may

be easily supposed that they were not admitted to share his more secret

political discussions,) were, as in other countries, adjusted with and

executed by the ostensible ministers.

[Sidenote: PREFECTURES.]

But, that part of the organisation of the Imperial government, upon

which Buonaparte most piqued himself, was the establishment of the

Prefectures, which certainly gave facilities for the most effectual

agency of despotism that was ever exercised. There is no mistaking the

object and tendency of this arrangement, since Buonaparte himself, and

his most bitter opponents, hold up the same picture, one to the

admiration, the other to the censure, of the world. These prefects, it

must be understood, were each the supreme governor of a department,

answering to the old lieutenants and governors of counties, and

representing the Imperial person within the limits of the several

prefectures. The individuals were carefully selected, as persons whose

attachment was either to be secured or rewarded. They received large

and, in some cases, exorbitant salaries, some amounting to fifteen,

twenty, and even thirty thousand francs. This heavy expense Napoleon

stated to be the consequence of the depraved state of moral feeling in

France, which made it necessary to attach men by their interests rather

than their duties; but it was termed by his enemies one of the leading

principles of his government, which treated the public good as a

chimera, and erected private and personal interest into the paramount

motive upon which alone the state was to be served by efficient

functionaries. The prefects were chosen in the general case, as men

whose birth and condition were totally unconnected with that of the

department in which each was to preside; _les dépayser_, to place them

in a country to which they were strangers, being an especial point of

Napoleon's policy. They were entirely dependent on the will of the

Emperor, who removed or cashiered them at pleasure. The administration

of the departments was intrusted to these important officers.

"With the authority and local resources placed at their disposal," said

Buonaparte, "the prefects were themselves emperors on a limited scale;

and as they had no force excepting through the impulse which they

received from the throne, as they owed their whole power to their

immediate commission, and as they had no authority of a personal

character, they were of as much use to the crown as the former high

agents of government, without any of the inconveniences which attached

to their predecessors."[312] It was by means of the prefects that an

impulse, given from the centre of the government, was communicated

without delay to the extremities of the kingdom, and that the influence

of the crown, and the execution of its commands, were transmitted, as if

by magic, through a population of forty millions. It appears that

Napoleon, while describing with self-complacency this terrible engine of

unlimited power, felt that it might not be entirely in unison with the

opinions of those favourers of liberal institutions, whose sympathy at

the close of life he thought worthy of soliciting. "My creating that

power," he said, "was on my part a case of necessity. I was a dictator,

called to that office by force of circumstances. There was a necessity

that the filaments of the government which extended over the state,

should be in complete harmony with the key-note which was to influence

them. The organisation which I had extended over the empire, required to

be maintained at a high degree of tension, and to possess a prodigious

force of elasticity, to enable it to resist the terrible blows directed

against it without cessation."[313] His defence amounts to this--"The

men of my time were extravagantly fond of power, exuberantly attached to

place and wealth. I therefore bribed them to become my agents by force

of places and pensions. But I was educating the succeeding race to be

influenced by better motives. My son would have been surrounded by

youths sensible to the influence of justice, honour, and virtue; and

those who were called to execute public duty, would have considered

their doing so as its own reward."

The freedom of France was therefore postponed till the return of a

Golden Age, when personal aggrandisement and personal wealth should

cease to have any influence upon regenerated humanity. In the meanwhile,

she had the dictatorship and the prefects.

The _impulse_, as Napoleon terms it, by which the crown put in action

these subordinate agents in the departments, was usually given by means

of a circular letter or proclamation, communicating the particular

measure which government desired to be enforced. This was subscribed by

the minister to whose department the affair belonged, and concluded with

an injunction upon the prefect, to be active in forwarding the matter

enjoined, as he valued the favour of the Emperor, or wished to show

himself devoted to the interests of the crown.[314] Thus conjured, the

prefect transmitted the order to the sub-prefect and mayors of the

communities within his department, who, stimulated by the same motives

that had actuated their principal, endeavoured each to distinguish

himself by his active compliance with the will of the Emperor, and thus

merit a favourable report, as the active and unhesitating agent of his

pleasure.

It was the further duty of the prefects, to see that all honour was duly

performed towards the head of the state, upon the days appointed for

public rejoicings, and to remind the municipal authorities of the

necessity of occasional addresses to the government, declaring their

admiration of the talents, and devotion to the person of the Emperor.

These effusions were duly published in the _Moniteur_, and, if examined

closely, would afford some of the most extraordinary specimens of

composition which the annals of flattery can produce. It is sufficient

to say, that a mayor, we believe of Amiens, affirmed, in his ecstasy of

loyal adoration, that the Deity, after making Buonaparte, must have

reposed, as after the creation of the universe. This, and similar

flights of rhetoric, may appear both impious and ridiculous, and it

might have been thought that a person of Napoleon's sense and taste

would have softened or suppressed them. But he well knew the influence

produced on the public mind, by ringing the changes to different time on

the same unvaried subject. The ideas which are often repeated in all

variety of language and expression, will at length produce an effect on

the public mind, especially if no contradiction is permitted to reach

it. A uniform which may look ridiculous on a single individual, has an

imposing effect when worn by a large body of men; and the empiric, whose

extravagant advertisement we ridicule upon the first perusal, often

persuades us, by sheer dint of repeating his own praises, to make trial

of his medicine. Those who practise calumny know, according to the

vulgar expression, that if they do but throw dirt sufficient, some part

of it will adhere; and acting on the same principle, for a contrary

purpose, Buonaparte was well aware, that the repetition of his praises

in these adulatory addresses was calculated finally to make an

impression on the nation at large, and to obtain a degree of credit as

an expression of public opinion.

Faber, an author too impassioned to obtain unlimited credit, has given

several instances of ignorance amongst the prefects; many of whom, being

old generals, were void of the information necessary for the exercise of

a civil office, and all of whom, having been, upon principle, nominated

to a sphere of action with the local circumstances of which they were

previously unacquainted, were sufficiently liable to error. But the same

author may be fully trusted, when he allows that the prefects could not

be accused of depredation or rapine, and that such of them as improved

their fortune during the date of their office, did so by economising

upon their legitimate allowances.[315]

Such was the outline of Napoleon's provincial administration, and of the

agency by which it was carried on, without check or hesitation, in every

province of France at the same moment. The machinery has been in a great

measure retained by the royal government, to whom it appeared

preferable, doubtless, to the violent alterations which an attempt to

restore the old appointments, or create others of a different kind, must

necessarily have occasioned.

[Sidenote: THE CODE NAPOLEON.]

But a far more important change, introduced by the Emperor, though not

originating with him, was the total alteration of the laws of the

kingdom of France, and the introduction of that celebrated code to which

Napoleon assigned his name, and on the execution of which his admirers

have rested his claim to be considered as a great benefactor to the

country which he governed. Bacon has indeed informed us, that when laws

have been heaped upon laws, in such a state of confusion as to render it

necessary to revise them, and collect their spirit into a new and

intelligible system, those who accomplish such an heroic task have a

good right to be named amongst the legislators and benefactors of

mankind. It had been the reproach of France before the Revolution, and

it was one of the great evils which tended to produce that immense and

violent change, that the various provinces, towns, and subordinate

divisions of the kingdom, having been united in different periods to the

general body of the country, had retained in such union the exercise of

their own particular laws and usages; to the astonishment, as well as to

the great annoyance of the traveller, who, in journeying through France,

found that, in many important particulars, the system and character of

the laws to which he was subjected, were altered almost as often as he

changed his post-horses. It followed, from this discrepancy of laws and

subdivision of jurisdiction, that the greatest hardships were sustained

by the subjects, more especially when, the district being of small

extent, those authorities who acted there were likely neither to have

experience, nor character sufficient for exercise of the trust reposed

in them.

The evils attending such a state of things had been long felt, and, at

various periods before the Revolution, it had been proposed repeatedly

to institute a uniform system of legislation for the whole kingdom. But

so many different interests were compromised, and such were, besides,

the pressing occupations of the successive administrations of Louis

XVI., and his grandfather, that the project was never seriously adopted

or entered upon. When, however, the whole system of provinces,

districts, and feudal jurisdictions, great and small, had fallen at the

word of the Abbé Siêyes, like an enchanted castle at the dissolution of

a spell, and their various laws, whether written or consuetudinary, were

buried in the ruins, all France, now united into one single and integral

nation, lay open to receive any legislative code which the National

Assembly might dictate. But the revolutionary spirit was more fitted to

destroy than to establish; and was more bent upon the pursuit of

political objects, than upon affording the nation the protection of just

and equal laws. Under the Directory, two or three attempts towards

classification of the laws had been made in the Council of Five Hundred,

but never had gone farther than a preliminary and general report.

Cambacérès, an excellent lawyer and enlightened statesman, was one of

the first to solicit the attention of the state to this great and

indispensable duty. The various successive authorities had been content

with passing such laws as affected popular subjects of the day, and

which (like that which licensed universal divorce) partook of the

extravagance that gave them origin. The project of Cambacérès, on the

contrary, embraced a general classification of jurisprudence through all

its branches, although too much tainted, it is said, with the prevailing

revolutionary opinions of the period, to admit its being taken for a

basis, when Buonaparte, after his elevation, determined to supersede the

Republican by Monarchical forms of government.

After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, Napoleon saw no way more

certain of assuring the popularity of that event, and connecting his own

authority with the public interests of France, than to resume a task

which former rulers of the Republic had thought too heavy to be

undertaken, and thus, at once, show a becoming confidence in the

stability of his own power, and a laudable desire of exercising it for

the permanent advantage of the nation. An order of the Consuls, dated

24th Thermidor, in the year VIII., directed the minister of justice,

with a committee of lawyers of eminence, to examine the several

projects, four in number, which had been made towards compiling the

civil code of national law, to give their opinion on the plan most

desirable for accomplishing its formation, and to discuss the bases upon

which legislation in civil matters ought to be rested.

The preliminary discourse upon the first project of the Civil Code, is

remarkable for the manner in which the reporters consider and confute

the general and illusory views entertained by the uninformed part of the

public, upon the nature of the task to which they had been called. It is

the common and vulgar idea, that the system of legislation may be

reduced and simplified into a few general maxims of equity, sufficient

to lead any judge of understanding and integrity, to a just decision of

all questions which can possibly occur betwixt man and man. It follows,

as a corollary to this proposition, that the various multiplications of

authorities, exceptions, particular cases, and especial provisions,

which have been introduced among civilized nations, by the address of

those of the legal profession, are just so many expedients to embarrass

the simple course of justice with arbitrary modifications and

refinements, in order to procure wealth and consequence to those

educated to the law, whose assistance must be used as its interpreters,

and who became rich by serving litigants as guides through the

labyrinth of obscurity which had been raised by themselves and their

predecessors.

Such were the ideas of the law and its professors, which occurred to the

Parliament of Praise-God-Barebones, when they proposed to Cromwell to

abrogate the whole common law of England, and dismiss the lawyers, as

drones who did but encumber the national hive. Such was also the opinion

of many of the French statesmen, who, as rash in judging of

jurisprudence as in politics, imagined that a system of maxims, modified

on the plan of the Twelve Tables of the ancient Romans, might serve all

the purposes of a civil code in modern France. They who thought in this

manner had entirely forgotten, how soon the laws of these twelve tables

became totally insufficient for Rome herself--how, in the gradual change

of manners, some laws became obsolete, some inapplicable--how it became

necessary to provide for emerging cases, successively by the decrees of

the Senate, the ordinances of the people, the edicts of the Consuls, the

regulations of the Prætors, the answers or opinions of learned

Jurisconsults, and finally, by the rescripts, edicts, and novels of the

Emperors, until such a mass of legislative matter was assembled, as

scarcely the efforts of Theodosius or Justinian were adequate to bring

into order, or reduce to principle. But this, it may be said, was the

very subject complained of. The simplicity of the old laws, it may be

urged, was gradually corrupted; and hence, by the efforts of interested

men, not by the natural progress of society, arose the complicated

system, which is the object of such general complaint.

The answer to this is obvious. So long as society remains in a simple

state, men have occasion for few and simple laws. But when that society

begins to be subdivided into ranks; when duties are incurred, and

obligations contracted, of a kind unknown in a ruder or earlier period,

these new conditions, new duties, and new obligations, must be regulated

by new rules and ordinances, which accordingly are introduced as fast as

they are wanted, either by the course of long custom, or by precise

legislative enactment. There is, no doubt, one species of society in

which legislation may be much simplified; and that is, where the whole

law of the country, with the power of enforcing it, is allowed to reside

in the bosom of the King, or of the judge who is to administer justice.

Such is the system of Turkey, where the Cadi is bound by no laws nor

former precedents, save what his conscience may discover from perusing

the Koran. But so apt are mankind to abuse unlimited power, and indeed

so utterly unfit is human nature to possess it, that in all countries

where the judge is possessed of such arbitrary jurisdiction, he is found

accessible to bribes, or liable to be moved by threats. He has no

distinct course prescribed, no beacon on which to direct his vessel; and

trims, therefore, his sails to the pursuit of his own profit.

[Sidenote: CIVIL CODE.]

The French legislative commissioners, with these views, wisely judged

it their duty to produce their civil code, upon such a system as might

afford, as far as possible, protection to the various kinds of rights

known and acknowledged in the existing state of society. Less than this

they could not do; nor, in our opinion, is their code as yet adequate to

attain that principal object. By the implied social contract, an

individual surrenders to the community his right of protecting and

avenging himself, under the reserved and indispensable condition that

the public law shall defend him, or punish those by whom he has

sustained injury. As revenge has been said, by Bacon, to be a species of

wild justice, so the individual pursuit of justice is often a modified

and legitimate pursuit of revenge, which ought, indeed, to be qualified

by the moral and religious sentiments of the party, but to which law is

bound to give free way, in requital for the bridle which she imposes on

the indulgence of man's natural passions. The course of litigation,

therefore, cannot be stopt; it can only be diminished, by providing

beforehand as many regulations as will embrace the greater number of

cases likely to occur, and trusting to the authority of the judges

acting upon the spirit of the law, for the settlement of such as cannot

be decided according to its letter.

The organisation of this great national work was proceeded in with the

caution and deliberation which the importance of the subject eminently

deserved. Dividing the subjects of legislation according to the usual

distinctions of jurisconsults, the commissioners commenced by the

publication and application of the laws in general; passed from that

preliminary subject to the consideration of personal rights under all

their various relations; then to rights respecting property; and,

lastly, to those legal forms of procedure, by which the rights of

citizens, whether arising out of personal circumstances, or as connected

with property, are to be followed forth, explicated, and ascertained.

Thus adopting the division, and in some degree the forms, of the

Institutes of Justinian, the commission proceeded, according to the same

model, to consider each subdivision of this general arrangement, and

adopt respecting each such maxims or brocards of general law, as were to

form the future basis of French jurisprudence. Their general principles

being carefully connected and fixed, the ingenuity of the commissioners

was exerted in deducing from them such a number of corollaries and

subordinate maxims, as might provide, so far as human ingenuity could,

for the infinite number of questions that were likely to emerge on the

practical application of the general principles to the varied and

intricate transactions of human life. It may be easily supposed, that a

task so difficult gave rise to much discussion among the commissioners;

and as their report, when fully weighed among themselves, was again

subjected to the Council of State, before it was proposed to the

Legislative Body, it must be allowed, that every means which could be

devised were employed in maturely considering and revising the great

body of national law, which, finally, under the name of the Code

Napoleon, was adopted by France, and continues, under the title of the

Civil Code, to be the law by which her subjects still possess and

enforce their civil rights.

It would be doing much injustice to Napoleon, to suppress the great

personal interest which, amid so many calls upon his time, he

nevertheless took in the labours of the commission. He frequently

attended their meetings, or those of the Council of State, in which

their labours underwent revision; and, though he must be supposed

entirely ignorant of the complicated system of jurisprudence as a

science, yet his acute, calculating, and argumentative mind enabled him,

by the broad views of genius and good sense, often to get rid of those

subtleties by which professional persons are occasionally embarrassed,

and to treat as cobwebs, difficulties of a technical or metaphysical

character, which, to the jurisconsults, had the appearance of bonds and

fetters.

There were times, however, on the other hand, when Napoleon was led, by

the obvious and vulgar views of a question, to propose alterations which

would have been fatal to the administration of justice, and the gradual

enlargement and improvement of municipal law. Such was his idea, that

advocates and solicitors ought only to be paid in the event of the cause

being decided in favour of their client,[316]--a regulation which, had

he ever adopted it, would have gone far to close the gates of justice;

since, what practitioner would have forfeited at once one large portion

of the means of his existence, and consented to rest the other upon the

uncertainty of a gambling transaction? A lawyer is no more answerable

for not gaining his cause, than a horse-jockey for not winning the race.

Neither can foretell, with any certainty, the event of the struggle, and

each, in justice, can only be held liable for the utmost exertion of his

skill and abilities. Napoleon was not aware that litigation is not to be

checked by preventing lawsuits from coming into court, but by a

systematic and sage course of trying and deciding points of importance,

which, being once settled betwixt two litigants, cannot, in the same

shape, or under the same circumstances, be again the subject of dispute

among others.

The Civil Code of Napoleon is accompanied by a code of procedure in

civil cases, and a code relating to commercial affairs, which may be

regarded as supplemental to the main body of municipal law. There is,

besides, a Penal Code, and a code respecting the procedure against

persons accused under it. The whole forms a grand system of

jurisprudence, drawn up by the most enlightened men of the age, having

access to all the materials which the past and the present times afford;

and it is not surprising that it should have been received as a great

boon by a nation who, in some sense, may be said, previous to its

establishment, to have been without any fixed or certain municipal law

since the date of the Revolution.

But while we admit the full merit of the Civil Code of France, we are

under the necessity of observing, that the very symmetry and theoretical

consistency, which form, at first view, its principal beauty, render it,

when examined closely, less fit for the actual purposes of

jurisprudence, than a system of national law, which, having never

undergone the same operation of compression, and abridgement, and

condensation, to which that of France was necessarily subjected, spreads

through a multiplicity of volumes, embraces an immense collection of

precedents, and, to the eye of inexperience, seems, in comparison of the

compact size and regular form of the French code, a labyrinth to which

no clue is afforded. It is of the greater importance to give this

subject some consideration, because it has of late been fashionable to

draw comparisons between the jurisprudence of England and that of

France, and even to urge the necessity of new-modelling the former upon

such a concise and systematic plan as the latter exhibits.

In arguing this point, we suppose it will be granted, that that code of

institutions is the most perfect, which most effectually provides for

every difficult case as it emerges, and therefore averts, as far as

possible, the occurrence of doubt, and, of course, of litigation, by

giving the most accurate and certain interpretation to the general rule,

when applied to cases as they arise. Now, in this point, which

comprehends the very essence and end of all jurisprudence--the

protection, namely, of the rights of the individual--the English law is

preferable to the French in an incalculable degree; because each

principle of English law has been the subject of illustration for many

ages, by the most learned and wise judges, acting upon pleadings

conducted by the most acute and ingenious men of each successive age.

This current of legal judgments has been flowing for centuries,

deciding, as they occurred, every question of doubt which could arise

upon the application of general principles to particular circumstances;

and each individual case, so decided, fills up some point which was

previously disputable, and, becoming a rule for similar questions, tends

to that extent to diminish the debateable ground of doubt and argument

with which the law must be surrounded, like an unknown territory when it

is first partially discovered.

It is not the fault of the French jurisconsults, that they did not

possess the mass of legal authority arising out of a regular course of

decisions by a long succession of judges competent to the task, and

proceeding, not upon hypothetical cases supposed by themselves, and

subject only to the investigation of their own minds, but upon such as

then actually occurred in practice and had been fully canvassed and

argued in open court. The French lawyers had not the advantage of

referring to such a train of decisions; each settling some new point, or

ascertaining and confirming some one which had been considered as

questionable. By the Revolution, the ancient French courts had been

destroyed, together with their records; their proceedings only served as

matter of history or tradition, but could not be quoted in support or

explanation of a code which had no existence until after their

destruction. The commissioners endeavoured, we have seen, to supply this

defect in their system, by drawing from their general rules such a

number of corollary propositions as might, so far as possible, serve for

their application to special and particular cases. But rules, founded in

imaginary cases, can never have the same weight with precedents emerging

in actual practice, where the previous exertions of the lawyers have put

the case in every possible light, and where the judge comes to the

decision, not as the theorist, whose opinion relates only to an ideal

hypothesis of his own mind, but as the solemn arbiter of justice betwixt

man and man, after having attended to, and profited by, the collision

and conflict of opposite opinions, urged by those best qualified to

state and to illustrate them. The value of such discussion is well known

to all who have experience of courts of justice, where it is never

thought surprising to hear the wisest judge confess, that he came into

court with a view of the case at issue wholly different from that which

he was induced to form after having given the requisite attention to the

debate before him. But this is an advantage which can never be gained,

unless in the discussion of a real case; and therefore the opinion of a

judge, given _tota re cognita_, must always be a more valuable

precedent, than that which the same learned individual could form upon

an abstract and hypothetical question.

It is, besides, to be considered, that the most fertile ingenuity with

which any legislator can be endued, is limited within certain bounds;

and that, when he has racked his brain to provide for all the ideal

cases which his prolific imagination can supply, it will be found that

he has not anticipated or provided for the hundredth part of the

questions which are sure to occur in actual practice. To make a

practical application of what we have stated, to the relative

jurisprudence of France and England, it may be remarked, that the Title

V. of the 1st Book of the Civil Code, upon the subject of Marriage,

contains only one hundred and sixty-one propositions respecting the

rights of parties, arising in different circumstances out of that

contract, the most important known in civilized society. If we deduce

from this gross amount the great number of rules which are not

doctrinal, but have only reference to the forms of procedure, the result

will be greatly diminished. The English law, on the other hand, besides

its legislative enactments, is guarded, as appears from Roper's Index,

by no less than a thousand decided cases, or precedents, each of which

affords ground to rule any other case in similar circumstances. In this

view, the certainty of the law of England compared to that of France,

bears the proportion of ten to one.

It is, therefore, a vulgar, though a natural and pleasing error, to

prefer the simplicity of an ingenious and philosophic code of

jurisprudence, to a system which has grown up with a nation, augmented

with its wants, extended according to its civilisation, and only become

cumbrous and complicated, because the state of society to which it

applies has itself given rise to a complication of relative situations,

to all of which the law is under the necessity of adapting itself. In

this point of view, the Code of France may be compared to a warehouse

built with much attention to architectural uniformity, showy in the

exterior, and pleasing from the simplicity of its plan, but too small to

hold the quantity of goods necessary to supply the public demand; while

the Common Law of England resembles the vaults of some huge Gothic

building--dark, indeed, and ill-arranged, but containing an immense

store of commodities, which those acquainted with its recesses seldom

fail to be able to produce to such as have occasion for them. The

practiques, or adjudged cases, in fact, form a breakwater, as it were,

to protect the more formal bulwark of the statute law; and although they

cannot be regularly jointed or dovetailed together, each independent

decision fills its space on the mound, and offers a degree of resistance

to innovation, and protection to the law, in proportion to its own

weight and importance.

The certainty of the English jurisprudence, (for, in spite of the

ordinary opinion to the contrary, it has acquired a comparative degree

of certainty,) rests upon the multitude of its decisions. The views

which a man is disposed to entertain of his own rights, under the

general provisions of the law, are usually controlled by some previous

decision on the case; and a reference to precedents, furnished by a

person of skill, saves, in most instances, the expense and trouble of a

lawsuit, which is thus stifled in its very birth. If we are rightly

informed, the number of actions at common law, tried in England yearly,

does not exceed betwixt five-and-twenty and thirty on an average, from

each county; an incredibly small number, when the wealth of the kingdom

is considered, as well as the various and complicated transactions

incident to the advanced and artificial state of society in which we

live.

But we regard the multitude of precedents in English law as eminently

favourable, not only to the certainty of the law, but to the liberty of

the subject; and especially as a check upon any judge, who might be

disposed to innovate either upon the rights or liberties of the lieges.

If a general theoretical maxim of law be presented to an unconscientious

or partial judge, he may feel himself at liberty, by exerting his

ingenuity, to warp the right cause the wrong way. But if he is bound

down by the decisions of his wise and learned predecessors, that judge

would be venturous indeed, who should attempt to tread a different and

more devious path than that which is marked by the venerable traces of

their footsteps; especially, as he well knows that the professional

persons around him, who might be blinded by the glare of his ingenuity

in merely theoretical argument, are perfectly capable of observing and

condemning every departure from precedent.[317] In such a case he

becomes sensible, that, fettered as he is by previous decisions, the law

is in his hands, to be administered indeed, but not to be altered or

tampered with; and that if the evidence be read in the court, there are

and must be many present, who know as well as himself, what must,

according to precedent, be the verdict, or the decision. These are

considerations which never can restrain or fetter a judge, who is only

called upon to give his own explanation of the general principle briefly

expressed in a short code, and susceptible therefore of a variety of

interpretations, from which he may at pleasure select that which may be

most favourable to his unconscientious or partial purposes.

It follows, also, from the paucity of laws afforded by a code

constructed not by the growth of time, but suggested by the ingenuity of

theorists suddenly called to the task, and considering its immense

importance, executing it in haste, that many provisions, most important

for the exercise of justice, must, of course, be neglected in the French

Code. For example, the whole law of evidence, the very key and

corner-stone of justice between man and man, has been strangely

overlooked in the French jurisprudence. It is plain, that litigation may

proceed for ever, unless there be some previous adjustment (called

technically an issue) betwixt the parties, at the sight of the judge,

tending to ascertain their averments in point of fact, as also the

relevancy of those averments to the determination of the cause. In

England, chiefly during the course of last century, the Law of Evidence

has grown up to a degree of perfection, which has tended, perhaps more

than any other cause, at once to prevent and to shorten litigation. If

we pass from the civil to the penal mode of procedure in France, the

British lawyer is yet more shocked by a course, which seems in his view

totally to invert and confound every idea which he has received upon the

law of evidence. Our law, it is well known, is in nothing so scrupulous

as in any conduct towards the prisoner, which may have the most indirect

tendency to entrap him into bearing evidence against himself. Law

sympathizes in such a case with the frailties of humanity, and, aware

of the consequence which judicial inquiries must always have on the mind

of the timid and ignorant, never pushes the examination of a suspected

person farther than he himself, in the natural hope of giving such an

account of himself as may procure his liberty, shall choose to reply to

it.

In France, on the contrary, the whole trial sometimes resolves into a

continued examination and cross-examination of the prisoner, who is not

only under the necessity of giving his original statement of the

circumstances on which he founds his defence, but is confronted

repeatedly with the witnesses, and repeatedly required to reconcile his

own statement of the case with that which these have averred. With

respect to the character of evidence, the same looseness of practice

exists. No distinction seems to be made between that which is hearsay

and that which is direct--that which is spontaneously given, and that

which is extracted, or perhaps suggested, by leading questions. All this

is contrary to what we are taught to consider as the essence of justice

towards the accused. The use of the rack is, indeed, no longer admitted

to extort the confession, but the mode of judicial examination seems to

us a species of moral torture, under which a timid and ignorant, though

innocent man, is very likely to be involved in such contradictions and

inextricable confusion, that he may be under the necessity of throwing

away his life by not knowing how to frame his defence.

We shall not protract these remarks on the Code Napoleon; the rather

that we must frankly confess, that the manners and customs of a country

make the greatest difference with respect to its laws, and that a system

may work well in France, and answer all the purposes of jurisprudence,

which in England would be thought very inadequate to the purpose. The

humane institution which allows the accused the benefit of counsel, is a

privilege which the English law does not permit to the accused, and may

have its own weight in counterbalancing some of the inconveniences to

which he is subjected in France. It seems also probable, that the

deficiencies in the Code, arising from its recent origin and compressed

form, must be gradually remedied, as in England, by the course of

decisions pronounced by intelligent and learned judges; and that what we

now state as an objection to the system, will gradually disappear under

the influence of time.

Considered as a production of human science, and a manual of legislative

sagacity, the Code may challenge general admiration for the clear and

wise manner in which the axioms are drawn up and expressed. There are

but few peculiarities making a difference betwixt its principles and

those of the Roman law, which has in most contracts claimed to be

considered as the mother of judicial regulation. The most remarkable

occurs, perhaps, in the articles regulating what is called the Family

Council--a subject which does not seem of importance sufficient to claim

much attention.

The Civil Code being thus ascertained, provision was made for its

regular administration by suitable courts; the judges of which did not,

as before the Revolution, depend for their emoluments upon fees payable

by the litigants, but were compensated by suitable salaries at the

expense of the public. As France does not supply that class of persons

who form what is called in England the unpaid magistracy, the French

justices of peace received a small salary of from 800 to 1800 francs.

Above them in rank came judges in the first instance, whose salaries

amounted to 3000 francs at the utmost. The judges of the supreme

tribunals enjoyed about four or five thousand francs; and those of the

High Court of Cassation had not more than ten thousand francs, which

scarcely enabled them to live and keep some rank in the metropolis. But,

though thus underpaid, the situation of the French judges was honourable

in the eyes of the country, and they maintained its character by

activity and impartiality in their judicial functions.

The system of juries had been introduced in criminal cases, by the

acclamation of the Assembly. Buonaparte found them, however,

scrupulously restive and troublesome. There may be some truth in the

charge, that they were averse from conviction, where a loop-hole

remained for acquitting the criminal; and that many audacious crimes

remained unpunished, from the punctilious view which the juries took of

their duty. But it was from other motives than those of the public weal

that Napoleon made an early use of his power, for the purpose of forming

special tribunals, invested with a half-military character, to try all

such crimes as assumed a political complexion, with power to condemn

without the suffrage of a jury.[318] We have already alluded to this

infringement of the most valuable political rights of the subject, in

giving some account of the trials of Georges, Pichegru, and Moreau. No

jury would ever have brought in a verdict against the latter, whose sole

crime was his communication with Pichegru; a point of suspicion

certainly, but no proof whatever of positive guilt. Political causes

being out of the field, the trial by jury was retained in the French

Code, so far as regarded criminal questions; and the general

administration of justice seems to have been very well calculated for

protecting the right, and punishing that which is wrong.

[Sidenote: TAXATION--FOREIGN TRADE.]

The fiscal operations of Buonaparte were those of which the subjects

complained the most, as indeed these are generally the grievances to

which the people in every country are the most sensible. High taxes were

imposed on the French people, rendered necessary by the expenses of the

government, which, with all its accompaniments, were very considerable;

and although Buonaparte did all in his power to throw the charge of the

eternal wars which he waged upon the countries he overran or subdued,

yet so far does the waste of war exceed any emolument which the armed

hand can wrest from the sufferers, so imperfect a proportion do the

gains of the victor bear to the losses of the vanquished, that after all

the revenue which was derived from foreign countries, the continual

campaigns of the Emperor proved a constant and severe drain upon the

produce of French industry. So rich, however, is the soil of France,

such are the extent of her resources, such the patience and activity of

her inhabitants, that she is qualified, if not to produce at once the

large capitals which England can raise upon her national credit, yet to

support the payment of a train of heavy annual imposts for a much longer

period, and with less practical inconvenience. The agriculture of France

had been extremely improved since the breaking up of the great estates

into smaller portions, and the abrogation of those feudal burdens which

had pressed upon the cultivators; and it might be considered as

flourishing, in spite of war taxes, and, what was worse, the

conscription itself.[319] Under a fixed and secure, though a severe and

despotic government, property was protected, and agriculture received

the best encouragement, namely, the certainty conferred on the

cultivator of reaping the crop which he sowed.

It was far otherwise with commerce, which the maritime war, carried on

so long and with such unmitigated severity, had very much injured, and

the utter destruction of which was in a manner perfected by Buonaparte's

adherence to the continental system. This, indeed, was the instrument by

which, in the long run, he hoped to ruin the commerce of his rival, but

the whole weight of which fell in the first instance on that of France,

whose seaports showed no other shipping save coasters and fishing

vessels; while the trade of Marseilles, Bourdeaux, Nantes, and other

great commercial towns, had, in a great measure, ceased to exist. The

government of the Emperor was proportionally unpopular in those cities;

and although men kept silence, because surrounded by the spies of a

jealous and watchful despotism, their dislike to the existing state of

things could not entirely be concealed.[320]

[Sidenote: CAPITALISTS--MANUFACTURES.]

On the other hand, capitalists, who had sums invested in the public

funds, or who were concerned with the extensive and beneficial contracts

for the equipment and supply of Napoleon's large armies, with all the

numerous and influential persons upon whom any part of the gathering in

or expenditure of the public money devolved, were necessarily devoted to

a government, under which, in spite of the Emperor's vigilance, immense

profits were often derived, even after those by whom they were made had

rendered to the ministers, or perhaps the generals, by whom they were

protected, a due portion of the spoil. Economist and calculator as he

was, to a most superior degree of excellence, Napoleon seems to have

been utterly unable, if he really sincerely desired, to put an end to

the peculations of those whom he trusted with power. He frequently,

during his conversations at St. Helena, alludes to the venality and

corruption of such as he employed in the highest offices, but whose

sordid practices seem never to have occurred to him in the way of

objection to his making use of their talents. Fouché, Talleyrand, and

others, are thus stigmatized; and as we well know how long, and upon how

many different occasions, he employed those statesmen, we cannot but

suppose that, whatever may have been his sentiments as to the _men_, he

was perfectly willing to compound with their peculation, in order to

have the advantage of their abilities. Even when practices of this kind

were too gross to be passed over, Napoleon's mode of censuring and

repressing them was not adapted to show a pure sense of morality on his

own part, or any desire to use extraordinary rigour in preventing them

in future. This conclusion we form from the following anecdote which he

communicated to Las Cases:--

Speaking of generals, and praising the disinterestedness of some, he

adds, Massena, Augereau, Brune, and others, were undaunted depredators.

Upon one occasion, the rapacity of the first of these generals had

exceeded the patience of the Emperor. His mode of punishing him was

peculiar. He did not dispossess him of the command, of which he had

rendered himself unworthy by such an unsoldier-like vice--he did not

strip the depredator by judicial sentence of his ill-won gains, and

restore them to those from whom they were plundered--but, in order to

make the General sensible that he had proceeded too far, Buonaparte drew

a bill upon the banker of the delinquent, for the sum of two or three

millions of francs, to be placed to Massena's debit, and the credit of

the drawer. Great was the embarrassment of the banker, who dared not

refuse the Imperial order, while he humbly hesitated, that he could not

safely honour it without the authority of his principal. "Pay the

money," was the Emperor's reply, "and let Massena refuse to give you

credit at his peril." The money was paid accordingly, and placed to that

General's debit, without his venturing to start any objections.[321]

This was not punishing peculation, but partaking in its gains; and the

spirit of the transaction approached nearly to that described by Le

Sage, where the Spanish minister of state insists on sharing the bribes

given to his secretary.

Junot, in like manner; who, upon his return from Portugal, gave general

scandal by the display of diamonds, and other wealth, which he had

acquired in that oppressed country, received from Buonaparte a friendly

hint to be more cautious in such exhibitions. But his acknowledged

rapacity was never thought of as a reason disqualifying him for being

presently afterwards sent to the government of Illyria.

We are informed, in another of the Emperor's communications, that his

Council of State was of admirable use to him in the severe inquisition

which he was desirous of making into the public accounts. The

proceedings of this Star Chamber, and the fear of being transmitted to

the cognition of the Grand Judge, usually brought the culprits to

composition; and when they had disgorged one, two, or three millions,

the government was enriched, or, according to Buonaparte's ideas, the

laws were satisfied.[322] The truth seems to be, that Buonaparte, though

he contemned wealth in his own person, was aware that avarice, which,

after all, is but a secondary and sordid species of ambition, is the

most powerful motive to mean and vulgar minds; and he willingly advanced

gold to those who chose to prey upon it, so long as their efforts

facilitated his possessing and retaining the unlimited authority to

which he had reached. In a country where distress and disaster of every

kind, public and private, had enabled many to raise large fortunes by

brokerage and agiotage, a monied interest of a peculiar character was

soon formed, whose hopes were of course rested on the wonderful ruler,

by whose gigantic ambition new schemes of speculation were opened in

constant succession, and whose unrivalled talents seemed to have found

the art of crowning the most difficult undertakings with success.

It might be thought that the manufacturing interest must have perished

in France, from the same reasons which so strongly and unfavourably

afflicted the commerce of that country. In ceasing to import, there must

indeed have been a corresponding diminution of the demand for goods to

be exported, whether these were the growth of the soil, or the

productions of French labour. Accordingly, this result had, in a great

degree, taken place, and there was a decrease to a large amount in those

goods which the French were accustomed to export in exchange for the

various commodities supplied to them by British trade. But, though the

real and legitimate stimulus to manufactures had thus ceased, Napoleon

had substituted an artificial one, which had, to a certain extent,

supplied the place of the natural trade. We must remark, that Napoleon,

practically and personally frugal, was totally a stranger to the

science of Political Economy. He never received or acted upon the idea,

that a liberal system of commerce operates most widely in diffusing the

productions which are usually the subjects of exchange, and in affording

to every country the greatest share of the bounties of nature, or the

produce of industry at the easiest rates. On the contrary, he had

proceeded to act against the commerce of England, as, in a military

capacity, he would have done in regard to the water which supplied a

besieged city. He strove to cut it off, and altogether to destroy it,

and to supply the absence of its productions, by such substitutes as

France could furnish.[323] Hence, the factitious encouragement given to

the French manufactures, not by the natural demand of the country, but

by the bounties and prohibitions by which they were guarded. Hence, the

desperate efforts made to produce a species of sugar from various

substances, especially from the beet-root. To this unnatural and

unthrifty experiment, Buonaparte used to attach so much consequence,

that a piece of the new composition, which, with much time and trouble,

had been made to approximate the quality of ordinary loaf-sugar, was

preserved in a glass-case over the Imperial mantel-piece; and a pound or

two of beet-sugar, highly-refined, was sent to foreign courts, to

illustrate the means by which Napoleon consoled his subjects for the

evils incumbent on the continental system. No way of flattering or

gratifying the Emperor was so certain, as to appear eager in supporting

these views; and it is said that one of his generals, when tottering in

the Imperial good graces, regained the favour of his master, by planting

the whole of a considerable estate with beet-root. In these, and on

similar occasions, Napoleon, in his eager desire to produce the

commodity desiderated, became regardless of those considerations which a

manufacturer first ascertains when about to commence his operations,

namely, the expense at which the article can be produced, the price at

which it can be disposed of, and its fitness for the market which it is

intended to supply. The various encouragements given to the cotton

manufacturers, and others, in France, by which it was designed to supply

the want of British goods, proceeded upon a system equally illiberal and

impolitic. Still, however, the expensive bounties, and forced sales,

which the influence of government afforded, enabled these manufacturers

to proceed, and furnished employment to a certain number of men, who

were naturally grateful for the protection which they received from the

Emperor. In the same manner, although no artificial jet-d'eau, upon the

grandest scale of expense, can so much refresh the face of nature, as

the gentle and general influence of a natural shower, the former will

nevertheless have the effect of feeding and nourishing such vegetable

productions as are within the reach of its limited influence. It was

thus, that the efforts of Napoleon at encouraging arts and manufactures,

though proceeding on mistaken principles, produced, in the first

instance, results apparently beneficial.[324]

[Sidenote: PUBLIC WORKS.]

We have already had occasion to observe the immense public works which

were undertaken at the expense of Buonaparte's government. Temples,

bridges, and aqueducts, are, indeed, the coin with which arbitrary

princes, in all ages, have endeavoured to compensate for the liberty of

which the people are deprived. Such monuments are popular with the

citizens, because the enjoyment of them is common to all, and the

monarch is partial to a style of expenditure promising more plausibly

than any other, to extend the memory of his present greatness far into

the bosom of futurity. Buonaparte was not, and could not be insensible

to either of these motives. His mind was too much enlarged to seek

enjoyment in any of the ordinary objects of exclusive gratification; and

undoubtedly, he who had done so much to distinguish himself during his

life above ordinary mortals, must have naturally desired that his public

works should preserve his fame to future ages. Accordingly, he undertook

and executed some of the most splendid labours of modern times. The road

over the Simplon, and the basins at Antwerp, may be always appealed to

as gigantic specimens of his public spirit.

On the other hand, as we have before hinted, Napoleon sometimes aimed at

producing immediate effect, by proposals and plans hastily adopted, as

hastily decreed, and given in full form to the government journal; but

which were either abandoned immediately after having been commenced, or

perhaps, never advanced farther than the plan announced in the

_Moniteur_. Buonaparte's habits of activity, his powers of deciding with

a single glance upon most points of either military or civil

engineering, were liberally drawn upon to strike his subjects with

wonder and admiration. During the few peaceful intervals of his reign,

his impatience of inaction found amusement in traversing, with great

rapidity, and often on the shortest notice, the various departments in

France. Travelling with incredible celerity, though usually accompanied

by the Empress Josephine, he had no sooner visited any town of

consequence, than he threw himself on horseback, and, followed only by

his aide-de-camp and his Mameluke Rustan, who with difficulty kept him

in view, he took a flying survey of the place, its capacities of

improvement, or the inconveniences which attached to it. With this local

knowledge, thus rapidly acquired, he gave audience to the municipal

authorities, and overwhelmed them very often with liberal and long

details concerning the place round which he had galloped for the first

time, but in which they had spent their days. Amazement at the extent

and facility of the Emperor's powers of observation, was thus

universally excited, and his hints were recorded in the _Moniteur_, for

the admiration of France. Some public work, solicited by the

municipality, or suggested by the enlightened benevolence of the Emperor

himself, was then projected, but which, in many, if not most cases,

remained unexecuted; the imperial funds not being in all circumstances

adequate to the splendour of Napoleon's undertakings, or, which was the

more frequent case, some new absorbing war, or project of ambition,

occasioning every other object of expenditure to be postponed.

Even if some of Buonaparte's most magnificent works of public splendour

had been completed, there is room to doubt whether they would have been

attended with real advantage to his power, bearing the least proportion

to the influence which their grandeur necessarily produces upon the

imagination. We look with admiration, and indeed with astonishment, on

the splendid dock-yards of the Scheldt; but, had they been accomplished,

what availed the building of first-rates, which France could hardly find

sailors to man; which being manned, dared not venture out of the river;

or, hazarding themselves upon the ocean, were sure to become the prizes

of the first British men-of-war with whom they chanced to encounter?

Almost all this profuse expense went to the mere purposes of vain glory;

for more mischief would have been done to British commerce, which

Buonaparte knew well was the assailable point, by six privateers from

Dunkirk, than by all the ships of the line which he could build at the

new and most expensive dock-yard of Antwerp, with Brest and Toulon to

boot.

In such cases as these, Napoleon did, in a most efficient manner, that

which he ridiculed the Directory for being unable to do--he wrought on

the imagination of the French nation, which indeed had been already so

dazzled by the extraordinary things he had accomplished, that, had he

promised them still greater prodigies than were implied in the

magnificent works which he directed to be founded, they might still have

been justified in expecting the performance of his predictions. And it

must be admitted, looking around the city of Paris, and travelling

through the provinces of France, that Buonaparte has, in the works of

peaceful grandeur, left a stamp of magnificence, not unworthy of the

soaring and at the same time profound spirit, which accomplished so many

wonders in warfare.

[Sidenote: PERSONAL AND FAMILY LIFE.]

The personal and family life of Napoleon was skilfully adapted to his

pre-eminent station. If he had foibles connected with pleasure and

passion, they were so carefully veiled to remain unknown to the

world--at least, they were not manifested by any of those weaknesses

which might serve to lower the Emperor to the stamp of common men. His

conduct towards the Empress Josephine was regular and exemplary. From

their accession to grandeur till the fatal divorce, as Napoleon once

termed it, they shared the privacy of the same apartment, and for many

years partook the same bed. Josephine is said, indeed, to have given her

husband, upon whom she had many claims, some annoyance by her jealousy,

to which he patiently submitted, and escaped the reproach thrown on so

many heroes and men of genius, that, proof to every thing else, they are

not so against the allurements of female seduction. What amours he had

were of a passing character. No woman, excepting Josephine and her

successor, who exercised their lawful and rightful influence, was ever

known to possess any power over him.[325]

The dignity of his throne was splendidly and magnificently maintained,

but the expense was still limited by that love of order which arose out

of Buonaparte's powers of arithmetical calculation, habitually and

constantly employed, and the trusting to which, contributed, it may be,

to that external regularity and decorum which he always supported. In

speaking of his own peculiar taste, Buonaparte said that his favourite

work was a book of logarithms, and his choicest amusement was working

out the problems. The individual to whom the Emperor made this singular

avowal mentioned it with surprise to an officer near his person, who

assured him, that not only did Napoleon amuse himself with arithmetical

ciphers, and the theory of computation, but that he frequently brought

it to bear on his domestic expenses, and diverted himself with comparing

the price at which particular articles were charged to him, with the

rate which they ought to have cost at the fair market price, but which,

for reasons unnecessary to state, was in general greatly exceeded. Las

Cases mentions his detecting such an overcharge in the gold fringe which

adorned one of his state apartments. A still more curious anecdote

respects a watch, which the most eminent artist of Paris had orders to

finish with his utmost skill, in a style which might become a gift from

the Emperor of France to his brother the King of Spain. Before the watch

was out of the artist's hands, Napoleon received news of the battle of

Vittoria. "All is now over with Joseph," were almost his first words

after receiving the intelligence. "Send to countermand the order for the

watch."[326]

Properly considered, this anecdote indicates no indifference as to his

brother's fate, nor anxiety about saving a petty sum; it was the rigid

calculation of a professed accountant, whose habits of accuracy induce

him to bring every loss to a distinct balance, however trivial the

off-set may be. But although the Emperor's economy descended to minute

trifles, we are not to suppose that among such was its natural sphere.

On the contrary, in the first year of the Consulate, he discovered and

rectified an error in the statement of the revenue, to the amount of no

less than two millions of francs, to the prejudice of the state. In

another instance, with the skill which only a natural taste for

calculation brought to excellence by constant practice could have

attained, he discovered an enormous overcharge of more than sixty

thousand francs in the pay-accounts of the garrison of Paris. Two such

discoveries, by the head-magistrate, must have gone far to secure

regularity in the departments in which they were made, in future.

Attending to this remarkable peculiarity throws much light on the

character of Buonaparte. It was by dint of his rapid and powerful

combinations that he succeeded as a general; and the same laws of

calculation can be traced through much of his public and private life.

The palace charges, and ordinary expenses of the Emperor, were

completely and accurately regulated by his Imperial Majesty's own

calculation. He boasted to have so simplified the expenditure of the

ancient kings of France, that his hunting establishment, though

maintained in the utmost splendour, cost a considerable sum less than

that of the Bourbons. But it must be recollected, first, that Napoleon

was free from the obligation which subjected the Bourbons to the

extravagant expenses which attended the high appointments of their

household; secondly, that under the Imperial government, the whole

establishment of falconry was abolished; a sport which is, in the

opinion of many, more strikingly picturesque and interesting than any

other variety of the chase, and which, as it infers a royal expense,

belongs properly to sovereign princes.

[Sidenote: THE IMPERIAL COURT.]

The Imperial court was distinguished not only by a severe etiquette, but

the grandees, by whom its principal duties were discharged, were given

to understand, that the utmost magnificence of dress and equipage was

required from them upon public occasions. It was, indeed, a subject of

complaint amongst the servants of the Crown, that though Buonaparte was

in many respects attentive to their interests, gave them opportunities

of acquiring wealth, invested them with large dotations and endowments,

and frequently assisted them with an influence not easily withstood in

the accomplishment of advantageous marriages; yet still the great

expenditure at which they were required to support their appearance at

the Imperial court, prevented their realizing any fortune which could

provide effectually for their family. This expense Buonaparte loved to

represent, as a tax which he made his courtiers pay to support the

manufactures of France; but it was extended so far as to show plainly,

that, determined as he was to establish his nobility on such a scale as

to grace his court, it was far from being his purpose to permit them to

assume any real power, or to form an existing and influential barrier

between the crown and the people. The same inference is to be drawn

from the law of France concerning succession in landed property, which

is in ordinary cases equally divided amongst the children of the

deceased; a circumstance which must effectually prevent the rise of

great hereditary influence. And although, for the support of dignities

granted by the Crown, and in some other cases; an entail of a portion of

the favoured person's estate, called a _Majorat_, is permitted to follow

the title, yet the proportion is so small as to give no considerable

weight to those upon whom it devolves.

The composition of Buonaparte's court was singular. Amid his military

dukes and mareschals were mingled many descendants of the old noblesse,

who had been struck out of the lists of emigration. On these Buonaparte

spread the cruel reproach, "I offered them rank in my army--they

declined the service;--I opened my antechambers to them--they rushed in

and filled them." In this the Emperor did not do justice to the ancient

noblesse of France. A great many resumed their natural situation in the

military ranks of their country, and a still greater number declined, in

any capacity, to bend the knee to him, whom they could only consider as

a successful usurper.

The ceremonial of the Tuileries was upon the most splendid scale, the

public festivals were held with the utmost magnificence, and the

etiquette was of the most strict and indefeasible character. To all this

Buonaparte himself attached consequence, as ceremonies characterising

the spirit and dignity of his government; and he had drilled even his

own mind into a veneration for all those outward forms connected with

royalty, as accurately as if they had been during his whole life the

special subject of his attention. There is a curious example given by

Monsieur Las Cases. Buonaparte, in good-humoured trifling, had given his

follower the titles of your highness, your lordship, and so forth,

amidst which it occurred to him, in a fit of abstraction, to use the

phrase, "Your Majesty." The instant that the word, sacred to his own

ears, had escaped him, the humour of frolic was ended, and he resumed a

serious tone, with the air of one who feels that he has let his

pleasantry trespass upon an unbecoming and almost hallowed subject.

There were many of Buonaparte's friends and followers, bred, like

himself, under the influence of the Revolution, who doubted the policy

of his entering into such a strain of imitation of the ancient courts of

Europe, and of his appearing anxious to emulate them in the only points

in which he must necessarily fail, antiquity and long observance giving

to ancient usages an effect upon the imagination, which could not

possibly attach to the same ceremonial introduced into a court of

yesterday. These would willingly have seen the dignity of their master's

court rested upon its real and pre-eminent importance, and would have

desired, that though republican principles were abandoned, something of

the severe and manly simplicity of Republican manners should have

continued to characterise a throne whose site rested upon the

Revolution. The courtiers who held such opinions were at liberty to draw

consolation from the personal appearance and habits of Napoleon. Amid

the gleam of embroidery, of orders, decorations, and all that the

etiquette of a court demands to render ceremonial at once accurate and

splendid, the person of the Emperor was to be distinguished by his

extreme simplicity of dress and deportment. A plain uniform, with a hat

having no other ornament than a small three-coloured cockade, was the

dress of him who bestowed all these gorgeous decorations, and in honour

of whom these costly robes of ceremonial had been exhibited. Perhaps

Napoleon might be of opinion, that a person under the common size, and

in his latter days somewhat corpulent, was unfit for the display of rich

dresses; or it is more likely he desired to intimate, that although he

exacted from others the strict observance of etiquette, he held that the

Imperial dignity placed him above any reciprocal obligation towards

them.

Perhaps, also, in limiting his personal expenses, and avoiding that of a

splendid royal wardrobe, Buonaparte might indulge that love of

calculation and order, which we have noticed as a leading point of his

character. But his utmost efforts could not carry a similar spirit of

economy among the female part of his Imperial family; and it may be a

consolation to persons of less consequence to know, that in this respect

the Emperor of half the world was nearly as powerless as they may feel

themselves to be. Josephine, with all her amiable qualities, was

profuse, after the general custom of Creoles, and Pauline de Borghese

was no less so. The efforts of Napoleon to limit their expenses,

sometimes gave rise to singular scenes. Upon one occasion, the Emperor

found in company of Josephine a certain milliner of high reputation and

equal expense, with whom he had discharged his wife to have any

dealings. Incensed at this breach of his orders, he directed the

_marchande des modes_ to be conducted to the Bicètre; but the number of

carriages which brought the wives of his principal courtiers to consult

her in captivity, convinced him that the popularity of the milliner was

too powerful even for his Imperial authority; so he wisely dropped a

contention which must have appeared ludicrous to the public, and the

artist was set at liberty, to charm and pillage the gay world of Paris

at her own pleasure.[327]

On another occasion, the irregularity of Josephine in the article of

expense, led to an incident which reminds us of an anecdote in the

history of some Oriental Sultan. A creditor of the Empress, become

desperate from delay, stopped the Imperial _calèche_, in which the

Emperor was leaving St. Cloud, with Josephine by his side, and presented

his account, with a request of payment. Buonaparte did as Saladin would

have done in similar circumstances--he forgave the man's boldness in

consideration of the justice of his claim, and caused the debt to be

immediately settled. In fact, while blaming the expense and irregularity

which occasioned such demands, his sense of justice, and his family

affection, equally inclined him to satisfy the creditor.

The same love of order, as a ruling principle of his government, must

have rendered Buonaparte a severe censor of all public breaches of the

decencies of society. Public morals are in themselves the accomplishment

and fulfilment of all laws; they alone constitute a national code.

Accordingly, the manners of the Imperial court were under such

regulation as to escape public scandal, if they were not beyond secret

suspicion.[328] In the same manner, gambling, the natural and favourite

vice of a court, was not practised in that of Buonaparte, who

discountenanced high play by every means in his power. But he suffered

it to be licensed to an immense and frightful extent, by the minister of

police; nor can we give him the least credit when he affirms, that the

gambling-houses which paid such immense rents to Fouché, existed without

his knowledge. Napoleon's own assertion cannot make us believe that he

was ignorant of the principal source of revenue which supported his

police. He compounded, on this as on other occasions, with a good-will,

in consideration of the personal advantage which he derived from it.

In the public amusements of a more general kind, Buonaparte took a deep

interest. He often attended the theatre, though commonly in private, and

without eclat. His own taste, as well as political circumstances, led

him to encourage the amusements of the stage; and the celebrated Talma,

whose decided talents placed him at the head of the French performers,

received, as well in personal notice from the Emperor, as through the

more substantial medium of a pension, an assurance, that the kindness

which he had shown in early youth to the little Corsican student had not

been forgotten. The strictest care was taken that nothing should be

admitted on the stage which could awaken feelings or recollections

unfavourable to the Imperial Government. When the acute wit of the

Parisian audience seized on some expression or incident which had any

analogy to public affairs, the greatest pains were taken, not only to

prevent the circumstance from recurring, but even to hinder it from

getting into general circulation. This secrecy respecting what occurred

in public, could not be attained in a free country, but was easily

accomplished in one where the public papers, the general organs of

intelligence, were under the strict and unremitted vigilance of the

government.

There were periods when Buonaparte, in order to gain the approbation and

sympathy of those who claim the exclusive title of lovers of liberty,

was not unwilling to be thought the friend of liberal opinions, and was

heard to express himself in favour of the liberty of the press, and

other checks upon the executive authority. To reconcile his opinions (or

rather what he threw out as his opinions) with a practice diametrically

opposite, was no easy matter, yet he sometimes attempted it. On

observing one or two persons, who had been his silent and surprised

auditors on such an occasion, unable to suppress some appearance of

incredulity, he immediately entered upon his defence. "I am," he said,

"at bottom, and naturally, for a fixed and limited government. You seem

not to believe me, perhaps because you conceive my opinions and practice

are at variance. But you do not consider the necessity arising out of

persons and circumstances. Were I to relax the reins for an instant, you

would see a general confusion. Neither you nor I, probably, would spend

another night in the Tuileries."

Such declarations have often been found in the mouths of those, who have

seized upon an unlawful degree of authority over their species. Cromwell

was forced to dissolve the Parliament, though he besought the Lord

rather to slay him. State necessity is the usual plea of tyrants, by

which they seek to impose on themselves and others; and, by resorting to

such an apology, they pay that tribute to truth in their language, to

which their practice is in the most decided opposition. But if there are

any to whom such an excuse may appear valid, what can be, or must be,

their sentiments of the French Revolution, which, instead of leading to

national liberty, equality, and general happiness, brought the country

into such a condition, that a victorious soldier was obliged, contrary

to the conviction of his own conscience, to assume the despotic power,

and subject the whole empire to the same arbitrary rules which directed

the followers of his camp?

The press, at no time, and in no civilized country, was ever so

completely enchained and fettered as at this period it was in France.

The public journals were prohibited from inserting any article of public

news which had not first appeared in the _Moniteur_, the organ of

Government; and this, on all momentous occasions, was personally

examined by Buonaparte himself. Nor were the inferior papers permitted

to publish a word, whether in the way of explanation, criticism, or

otherwise, which did not accurately correspond with the tone observed in

the leading journal. They might, with the best graces of their

eloquence, enhance the praise, or deepen the censure, which

characterised the leading paragraph; but seizure of their paper,

confiscation, imprisonment, and sometimes exile, were the unfailing

reward of any attempt to correct what was erroneous in point of fact, or

sophistical in point of reasoning. The _Moniteur_, therefore, was the

sole guide of public opinion; and by his constant attention to its

contents, it is plain that Napoleon relied as much on its influence to

direct the general mind of the people of France, as he did upon the

power of his arms, military reputation, and extensive resources, to

overawe the other nations of Europe.

FOOTNOTES:

[307] "It is certain that the Tribunate was absolutely useless, while it

cost nearly half a million; I therefore suppressed it. I was well aware

that an outcry would be raised against the violation of the law; but I

was strong; I possessed the full confidence of the people, and I

considered myself a reformer."--NAPOLEON, _Las Cases_, tom. i., p. 289.

[308] "So little was the Council of State understood by the people in

general, that it was believed no one dared utter a word in that assembly

in opposition to the Emperor's opinion. Thus I very much surprised many

persons, when I related the fact, that one day, during a very animated

debate, the Emperor, having been interrupted three times in giving his

opinion, turned towards the individual who had rather rudely cut him

short, and said in a sharp tone: 'I have not yet done, I beg you will

allow me to continue; I believe every one here has a right to deliver

his opinion.' The smartness of his reply, notwithstanding the solemnity

of the occasion, excited a general laugh, in which the Emperor himself

joined."--LAS CASES, tom. i., p. 280.

[309] Ségur gives example of a case in which Buonaparte deferred his own

opinion to that of the Council. A female of Amsterdam, tried for a

capital crime, had been twice acquitted by the Imperial Courts, and the

Court of Appeal claimed the right to try her a third time. Buonaparte

alone contended against the whole Council of State, and claimed for the

poor woman the immunity which, in justice, she ought to have obtained,

considering the prejudices that must have been excited against her. He

yielded, at length, to the majority, but protesting he was silenced, and

not convinced. To account for his complaisance, it may be remarked

first, that Buonaparte was no way personally interested in the decision

of the question; and, secondly, if it concerned him at all, the fate of

the female was in his hands, since he had only to grant her a pardon if

she was condemned by the Court of Appeal.--S.--See also Las Cases, tom.

i., p. 278.

[310] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 281.

[311] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 282. At St. Helena, Napoleon reproached

himself for the expulsion of M. Portalis. "I was," he said, "perhaps too

severe; I should have checked myself before I ordered him to be gone. He

attempted no justification, and therefore the scene should have ended,

merely by my saying, _it is well_. His punishment should have awaited

him at home. Anger is always unbecoming in a sovereign. But, perhaps, I

was excusable in my council, where I might consider myself in the bosom

of my own family; or perhaps, after all, I may be justly condemned for

this act. Every one has his fault; nature will exert her sway over us

all."--LAS CASES, tom. iv., p. 320.

[312] Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 105.

[313] Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 105.

[314] "Your Emperor," is the usual conclusion, "relies upon the zeal

which you will display on this business, in order to prove your devotion

to his person, and your attachment to the interests of the throne." Each

of the prefects amplifies the circular. The warmest expressions and the

strongest colours are employed; no figure of rhetoric is forgotten, and

the circular is transmitted to the sub-prefects of the department. The

sub-prefects in their turn season it with still stronger language, and

the mayors improve upon that of the sub-prefects.--FABER, _Notices sur

l'Intérieur de la France_, p. 13.

[315] Faber, _Notices_, p. 31.

[316] "What litigations would thus have been prevented! On the first

examination of a cause, a lawyer would have rejected it, had it been at

all doubtful. There would have been little fear that a man, living by

his labour, would have undertaken to conduct a lawsuit, from mere

motives of vanity; and if he had, he would himself have been the only

sufferer in case of failure. But my idea was opposed by a multitude of

objections, and as I had no time to lose, I postponed the further

consideration of the subject. Yet I am still convinced that the scheme

might, with certain modifications, have been turned to the best

account."--NAPOLEON, _Las Cases_, tom. vii., p. 199.

[317] The intelligent reader will easily be aware, that we mean not to

say that every decision of their predecessors is necessarily binding on

the judges of the day. Laws themselves become obsolete, and so do the

decisions which have maintained and enforced them.--S.

[318] "In the Code Napoleon, and even in the Criminal Code, some good

principles remain, derived from the Constituent Assembly; the

institution of juries, for instance, the anchor of French hope: but of

what value were legal institutions, when extraordinary tribunals, named

by the Emperor, special courts, and military commissions, judged all

political offences--the very offences on which the unchangeable ægis of

the law is most required."--MAD. DE STAËL, tom. ii., p. 364.

[319] "Agriculture was continually improving during the whole course of

the Revolution. Foreigners thought it ruined in France. In 1814,

however, the English were compelled to admit, that we had little or

nothing to learn from them."--NAPOLEON, _Las Cases_, tom. iv., p. 280.

[320] "Foreign trade, which in its results is infinitely inferior to

agriculture, was an object of subordinate importance in my mind. Foreign

trade is made for agriculture and home industry, and not the two latter

for the former. The interests of these three fundamental cases are

diverging, and frequently conflicting. I always promoted them in their

natural gradation; but I could not and ought not to have ranked them all

on an equality. The difficulties, and even the total stagnation of

foreign trade during my reign, arose out of the force of circumstances,

and the accidents of the time. One brief interval of peace would

immediately have restored it to its natural level."--NAPOLEON, _Las

Cases_, tom. iv., p. 280.

[321] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 230.

[322] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 256.

[323] "The system of commercial licenses was no doubt mischievous.

Heaven forbid that I should have laid it down as a principle. It was the

invention of the English; with me it was only a momentary resource. Even

the continental system, in its extent and rigour, was by me regarded as

a measure occasioned by the war and temporary circumstances."--NAPOLEON,

_Las Cases_, tom. iv., pp. 280, 283.

[324] "Industry or manufactures, and internal trade, made immense

progress during my reign. The application of chemistry to the

manufactures, caused them to advance with giant strides. I gave an

impulse, the effects of which extended throughout Europe."--NAPOLEON,

_Las Cases_, tom. iv., p. 280.

[325] Las Cases, tom. iii., p. 297.

[326] The watch, half completed, remained in the hands of the artist,

and is now the property of the Duke of Wellington.--S.

[327] Las Cases, tom. vii., p. 120.

[328] We again repeat, that we totally disbelieve the gross infamies

imputed to Napoleon within his own family, although sanctioned by the

evidence of the Memoirs of Fouché. Neither Buonaparte's propensities nor

his faults were those of a voluptuary.--S.