question of the change of the constitution. The more popular chamber
distrusted Siéyès and passed upon him an indirect vote of censure of
a severe character, by threatening with death anyone who proposed to
alter the existing form of government. Apparently Napoleon’s share in
Siéyès’s scheme was not suspected, for the Five Hundred named as their
speaker Lucien Bonaparte, who had taken an oath to stab to death anyone
aiming to make himself dictator. The complicity of various generals
being assured by Bonaparte, Siéyès, who could count on the inactivity
or sympathy of his fellow-Directors, proceeded to set the machinery in
motion by which the government was to be overthrown. When the Ancients
met, they listened to a vague harangue by one of Siéyès’s adherents,
who spoke of a conspiracy, by which the country was threatened, the
intimation being conveyed that it was instigated by some foreign power.
To escape from impending danger a resolution was offered that both
houses should meet outside Paris on the 19th of Brumaire at St. Cloud,
and that the command of the troops in Paris should be turned over to
Bonaparte.
As soon as this was done, there was a great display of military
activity. The city was placed in a state of siege, and care was
taken that the minority of the Directors should be kept as virtual
prisoners in the Luxembourg. The opponents of the change in the Five
Hundred had time enough to prepare for resistance, and they did
not propose to annul the existing constitution on the basis of a
rumor. Napoleon appeared first before the Ancients, where he made an
incoherent speech, and showed himself unable to name the conspirators
he charged with disloyalty against the country. When he was ushered
into the Hall where the Five Hundred were in session, the whole body
had just sworn allegiance to the Directorial Constitution. Walking
between four grenadiers, his diminutive figure added no gravity to the
scene; he was pale, disturbed, and undecided. The members refused to
listen to him, and cried “outlaw” or “down with the traitor.” It is
alleged that in the tumult daggers were drawn, and that Napoleon was
in personal danger, as his adversaries closed round him. But all that
happened, according to the most reliable witnesses, was that Napoleon
and his escort were jostled and finally ejected from the hall. One
grenadier, it is known, had the sleeve of his coat torn. Lucien, who
rose to defend his brother, was hissed, and finally gave up his place
as presiding officer. Another conspirator, when he refused to pass
a motion depriving Napoleon of his command, was replaced by Lucien
Bonaparte, who, on his part, collapsed from the nervous strain when
he was bidden to put the motion declaring Napoleon an outlaw. He was
allowed to go out and find his brother, so that the whole matter might
be peaceably settled without extreme measures being taken.
In the meantime the leading conspirator, Napoleon, was suffering
from a nervous crisis. When he was outside the hall, he appeared to
observers as if he were walking in his sleep; upon trying to address
his troops from horseback, he fell to the ground. Lucien just then
came on the scene and conveyed him to a room in the palace, where
Siéyès said to him: “They wish to put you outside the law; we’ll
put them outside the hall.” The story of the display of daggers was
now concocted, and Napoleon’s troops were told of the danger their
commander had been in. Lucien directed the soldiers to go into the hall
and clear out the legislature. This order was executed by two companies
of armed grenadiers, who, despite the protests of the deputies, pushed
them good-humoredly out of the building, taking some of the members who
resisted, in their arms.
The Ancients set forward their part of the revolution by voting the
suppression of the Directory, by appointing an executive commission
of three members, and by demanding the adjournment of the whole
legislative body. But to give the transaction a specious form of
legality, Lucien called some of the members of the Five Hundred
together, and they, under his direction, proceeded to behave as if
they were a majority. An executive consular commission was appointed,
composed of Siéyès, Ducas, and Bonaparte, to be called the Consuls
of the French Republic. During the adjournment of the legislature,
the powers of that body were to be exercised by a commission composed
of twenty-five members of each branch. These two commissions were
to decide on the measures initiated by the Consuls in matters of
administration and finance and also on the changes in the constitution
required to free it from its imperfections. This proposal was accepted
by the Ancients, and the three Consuls swore to be faithful to the
republic, one and undivided, to liberty, to equality, and to the
representative system.
The news of the suppression of the Directorial régime caused suspense,
but little excitement. People were puzzled rather than alarmed; there
had been so many transformations since 1789 that one more seemed
hardly irregular. Besides, the Directory had often violated their own
constitution; hence the illegality in their suppression was regarded
as nothing strange. The Paris workmen stayed quietly in their quarters;
there was no Jacobin Club to champion the cause of the radicals or to
act as a center of protest. Financial circles were reassured, when
government securities rose; there was a difference of seven francs
between the quotations on the 17th Brumaire and 24th of the same month.
The royalists were happy, for they were naïve enough to believe that
Napoleon would play the rôle of General Monk in a Bourbon restoration.
On the whole, at Paris and in the country, the masses of the people
were apathetic; some clubs here and there protested and called upon the
citizens to arm themselves in defense of the dead government, while
some departmental officials were dismissed, because they questioned the
legality of the changes at Paris. But nowhere was there anything like
an uprising in behalf of the Directory, which too forcibly recalled the
terrible years of revolutionary experience.
IV THE FIRST CONSUL
The provisional consuls remained in control from November 11 to
December 24, 1799. Napoleon presided at the first meeting because
his name began with “B,” it having been arranged that the consular
power should be exercised in alphabetical order. The Consuls seemed
to have no more authority than the Directors they had superseded.
Governmental policy was still anonymous. Napoleon never appeared in
public life except with his two colleagues, and his influence was
exerted altogether in military affairs, in which he exercised the
functions that Carnot had held under the Committee of Public Safety.
He dressed as a civilian, not as a general. Moreover, the Consuls
showed themselves most conciliatory; they published no magniloquent
program and behaved as if the lawlessness which had ushered in their
rule was something foreign to their own desires. No one talked of a
military dictatorship; there was, indeed, a studied moderation in the
new government. It is true a few Jacobins were placed under police
supervision, but some of the members of the revolutionary convention
were used as agents to reassure the good republicans throughout the
country. Among the deputies who had been expelled on the famous 19th
Brumaire, several made their peace with the government, while the
irreconcilables carefully avoided any overt acts in opposing it. The
republican tradition was maintained by manifestoes against superstition
and the émigrés. An era of good feeling was now ushered in most
auspiciously.
Napoleon seemed to be content with the rôle of a Washington, but
the moment he saw there was no fear of resistance he took steps to
secure the adoption of a constitution fitted to make him the master
of France. The machinery for this purpose was near at hand in the two
legislative commissions mentioned above. Siéyès was working hard on
a model constitution which was to be a marvelous harmony of various
democratic principles. According to this scheme the people were to draw
up a list of candidates, while an elector chose from the list those who
should carry on the administration. The government was placed in the
hands of a Council of State, there were additional bodies to act as
representatives or as checks to keep the proper balance and to repress
personal ambition and demagoguery. There was, besides this, a scheme to
revive the Directory with the names of its constituent parts changed.
Bonaparte, who saw no chance for personal rule in either of these
proposals, organized a small sub-committee to which he presented
a scheme of his own, that never really went before either of the
committees in a regular session, but was signed individually by the
members under pressure from him. It was carefully planned, but the
project that had such an irregular origin was nothing more than a
sham constitution. It contained no declaration of rights and had no
reference to liberty of the press. But the most shrewdly planned
scheme for centralizing the power in the hands of one man was revealed
in the so-called electoral provisions, by which the citizens of each
district prepared, by voting for one-tenth of their number, a communal
list from which all officials were to be selected. This system was
carried through several gradations, until a national list was reached,
from which all the higher popular representatives were to be chosen.
The right of nomination from these various lists was conferred, in
vague and ambiguous language, upon the First Consul. After the lists
were once drawn up no further change could be made in these provisions.
Bonaparte transferred to himself the right of appointing all the
local officials, the members of municipal and departmental councils,
and so by a stroke of his pen deprived France of all trace of
local government. His plan brought into existence an intensified
centralization such as the country had not known, even under the
ancient monarchy. All laws had to be proposed by the executive
government; among the various representative bodies, the Senate,
Council of State, Tribunate, and Legislative bodies, power was so
divided that no single one had an effective initiative.
All the real power was placed by the constitution under the control of
the First Consul. According to Article 41, the First Consul promulgated
the laws; he nominated and recalled at will the members of the Council
of State, ministers, ambassadors and chief foreign agents, the officers
of the army and navy, the members of the local administration, and the
legal solicitors of the government. He named all the civil and communal
judges of the Court of Appeal. As to the second and third Consuls, they
had only a consultative share in the executive power; to the Senate was
given the function of selecting the three Consuls, but the constitution
itself designated those who were to be invested with the authority for
the first period of ten years. They were Bonaparte, Cambacérès, and Le
Brun.
The constitution was presented to the people for a “plébiscite;” that
is each citizen was to inscribe opposite his name on a register “yes”
or “no.” But this was not done everywhere on the same day; in fact,
it lasted several weeks, and so there was time to put pressure on
different localities, and also an arrangement was made by which the
new government was installed before the plébiscite was completed. Most
Frenchmen wanted peace at home and abroad, and as the government was
adopting a general policy of reconciliation, they were glad to give it
their support, all the more because they had no real constitutional
traditions and were sick of emotionalism and rhetoric. The result of
the voting was 3,011,007 ayes and only 1562 noes. Among those on the
affirmative side were a number of sturdy Jacobins.
In his administration, Bonaparte relied chiefly on the Council of
State; he was in close relations with them, because all laws had to
be drawn up in this body. He often presided at their meetings and
in his remarks to them explained his ideas and his program. He did
not hesitate to treat their projects as actual laws, although the
constitution provided for a submission to other representative bodies.
One of the first acts of the new régime was the passing of severe press
laws. Thirteen papers were allowed in Paris, but they were threatened
with suppression if they published articles contrary to the respect
due to the social compact, the sovereignty of the people, and the
glory of the armies; or if they published attacks on the government
or on nations friendly or allied with the Republic, even if the
articles in question were taken from the foreign press. This enactment
of 27 Nivose, year VIII, may be justly said to have inaugurated the
Napoleonic despotism.
Another law presented and accepted was a measure which destroyed all
communal and local rights, and turned over the whole administration
in town and country to prefects and sub-prefects, appointed by, and
responsible to, the central government. Mayors, acting mayors, and town
and county councilmen were all appointed by either the First Consul or
his appointees, the prefects.
The body known as the Tribunate, which discussed the laws and gave
its opinion upon them, and the Legislative Chamber, which voted upon
them without discussion, adopted this measure, the first with a strong
minority against it, who voiced, by vigorous speeches, their protests
against the suppression of all liberty. But the press was muzzled,
and there was general satisfaction because of the admirable selection
made by Napoleon for the subordinate officials. The new administration
was simple and effective, and had not yet shown the possibilities of
tyranny it contained.
As to the First Consul, though he took up his residence in the
Tuileries, there was no consular court; republican etiquette was
observed, and the title of citizen was still retained. When the news
of Washington’s death reached Paris, mourning was ordered in the name
of the principles of liberty and equality. But the new tendencies
were shown in the favor extended by the First Consul to men of strong
monarchical sympathies. Napoleon, however, was soon occupied with more
momentous questions than the discovery of fresh means to paralyze
republican institutions in France.
After the withdrawal of Russia from the anti-French coalition,--a step
which was due to the victories of Masséna,--Austria, England, and
some of the lesser states of Italy and Germany, kept up the conflict.
Bonaparte had no desire to see the war terminated, but he so far bowed
to public sentiment as to write letters to the King of England and
to Francis II, the Emperor, suggesting a cessation of hostilities.
England refused to make peace except on the condition that the Bourbons
should be restored, and Austria declined to take any action without the
consent of her ally. The publication of the correspondence appealed to
French patriotism, and the answer of the nation was a vote of 200,000
conscripts to carry on the war.
For the purpose of invading France, Austria had two armies in the
field, each of 120,000 men. The French forces under Moreau and Masséna
were told off to keep the Austrians in check in Germany and along the
Italian Riviera; Bonaparte himself planned with a third army to drive
them out of Italy, in a second campaign which was to be the replica of
his first in Italy. Both Moreau and Masséna showed great capacity in
carrying out the strategical plans assigned to them. Bonaparte gathered
together an army of 60,000 and suddenly crossed the St. Bernard pass
by a march in which the French engineers showed remarkable skill in
overcoming the natural difficulties of the way. The commander-in-chief
made the passage on the back of a mule, as many tourists still do, led
by a peasant-guide of the neighborhood. On the top, the soldiers were
hospitably received at the famous monastery. The chief problem was to
get the artillery over, and this was done by dismounting the guns and
fastening them within hollowed-out trunks of trees. They were then
dragged along the precipitous path by relays of 100 men.
While the Austrian general, Melas, was looking for the French along the
Riviera road, Bonaparte was making his entrance into Milan, where the
stupid excesses of recent Austrian rule had made the population forget
the more intelligent or subtle tyranny of the French conqueror. Instead
of rescuing Masséna, who was suffering the extremities of a siege at
Genoa, he preferred to leave him to his fate and to risk deciding the
campaign by a pitched battle with an enemy much stronger in numbers
than himself. These hazards were plainly seen in the engagement that
followed at Marengo on June 14, 1800. Three times the French were
forced to withdraw, and Melas was sending off couriers to announce
his victory, when Desaix, who had been sent, the day before, to Novi
to prevent a turning movement on the part of the Austrians, heard the
cannonading and came to the aid of his leader. A fresh charge was made,
and the ground that had been lost was regained. The first to fall was
Desaix, the man who had saved the day. The effect of the victory was
instantaneous, for the day afterward, Melas signed an armistice, by
which warfare was to be stopped for five months, in which time the
Austrians were to evacuate the whole of Italy as far as the Mincio.
When the war was resumed later, French successes continued, until
finally the whole of the Italian peninsula was brought once more under
French control. After Marengo, the decisive battle of the campaign,
which brought Austria to sue for peace, was Moreau’s victory at
Hohenlinden, the 2d of December, 1800, on which occasion the Austrians
lost in killed and wounded 20,000 men. The victory brought forth from
Bonaparte the public acknowledgment, made before the legislative body,
that Hohenlinden was one of the finest achievements in history, and
he also wrote to Moreau saying that he, Bonaparte himself, had been
outdone. He afterwards criticised Moreau, and ascribed his victory to
mere chance, saying that his opponent, the archduke, had shown greater
strategical ability than the commander of the French army.
As the result of these various operations, came the peace of Lunéville,
February, 1801, which marked the complete humiliation of Austria.
In its main lines it followed the stipulations of Campo Formio, but
it added the demand that the Dutch and Swiss republics should be
recognized as states under French protection. Moreover, the Pope was
allowed to retain some of his territory, and the King of Naples also
benefited by Napoleon’s moderation towards monarchical governments.
England, now left alone as the sole enemy of France, had been enabled,
by her control of the sea, to make a clean sweep of the French
colonies. She acquired Malta, and forced the French to abandon Egypt.
But English supremacy at sea was resented on the Continent, a league
of neutrals was formed, and the Russian government showed distinct
signs of drawing towards France, after the refusal of England to
restore Malta to its ancient owners, the Knights of St. John. Portugal
was detached from England, and Spain was brought into such friendly
relations that she ceded to France the territory of Louisiana, which
had been in her possession since 1763.
England’s isolation was unpopular at home because the enormous
accumulation of war debts was dreaded, and the threats of Napoleon
to invade the country were taken seriously, after he had established
an armed camp at Boulogne. William Pitt, the soul of resistance to
France, had left the government on account of differences over the
Irish question. His successor, Addington, was not averse to coming
to an agreement. After the signing of certain preliminaries in London
the terms of peace, as the result of a five months’ discussion between
Lord Cornwallis and Joseph Bonaparte at Amiens, took the form of a
treaty named from that place on March 25, 1802, between France, Spain,
and the Dutch republic on one side, and England on the other. Most of
the colonial conquests made by England were restored to their owners.
Egypt was returned to Turkey, and England agreed to return Malta to the
Knights of St. John and at the same time undertook not to interfere in
the internal affairs of Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and the Italian
republics.
Bonaparte became the hero of peace as he had been already of war.
His popularity, due to his splendid achievements on the battlefield,
was now enhanced by the victories of French diplomacy. His rule was
firmly established; a new era of harmony and happiness seemed to
be opening up under his auspices. His unconstitutional methods of
government were forgotten in the brilliancy of his successes. But
there were many things that showed his anti-republican animus, and
his mania for autocratic rule. Before he set out for the Austrian
campaign three Paris papers were suppressed, and censorship for the
theaters was reintroduced. His taking command of the army was a step
not contemplated by the constitution of which he was the author. While
he was absent, it is true that the executive power was placed in the
hands of Cambacérès, who proved so efficient that Bonaparte hurried
back to Paris, immediately after Marengo, in order to resume the reins
of government.
The members of the Tribunate showed their feelings by eulogizing
the heroism of Desaix and relegating the First Consul to a second
place. But Bonaparte’s return from Italy called forth a great wave of
enthusiasm throughout the masses of the nation, that showed him he
could go far in repressing the opposition of the republican party,
which was strongly intrenched in the Tribunate. On December 24, 1800,
the life of the chief executive had been endangered by a plot, and
while Bonaparte was driving to the opera there was an explosion by
which four people were killed and sixty wounded near his carriage.
Though it was clear that the authors of the outrage were royalist
sympathizers, Bonaparte insisted that the Jacobins were its
instigators, and took this opportunity of diminishing the ranks of
the opposition by an edict of the Council of State, executed without
the sanction of the Tribunate and Legislative Body, that deported 130
republicans to distant colonial possessions. Towards other less known
opponents harsh measures were used, some of them being executed on
charges of conspiracy, trumped up by the police. Even the wives and
widows of former revolutionary leaders were imprisoned without trial,
and fifty-two citizens notorious for their democratic sentiments were
forbidden to reside in Paris or its neighborhood.
In certain parts of the country royalist brigands were at work,
wreaking vengeance on individuals who had taken an active part in the
revolution or pillaging the houses of those who had bought confiscated
property. Taking advantage of the demand for increased security against
such outrages, Bonaparte created special tribunals, in which the
judges were partly army officers, authorized to deal with all crimes
of a nature calculated to disturb the government. With such elastic
provisions, it was easy to turn the machinery of these courts against
obnoxious republicans. There was no appeal against the decision made by
this body except on the ground of jurisdiction. In this way a sort of
revolutionary tribunal was erected, which Bonaparte could use for the
purpose of wreaking his own personal vengeance.