various clever devices. For example, after the return from Italy, when
the period had come for the retirement by lot of a fixed number of
representatives in the Tribunate and the Legislative Body, the Senate,
which was loyal because filled by nomination of the second and third
Consuls, intervened and designated those of the representative chambers
who should continue to hold office. In this way 320 men, who had made
themselves obnoxious by their criticism or by their opposition, were
got rid of. Yet even after this purification all independence was not
destroyed. It was necessary to employ devious methods to secure for
Bonaparte, after the peace of Amiens, his appointment as Consul for
life. When the matter was proposed by Cambacérès, so often used as
the First Consul’s agent rather than as his colleague, the Tribunate
intimated that the recompenses for the First Consul’s services should
be purely honorary. Even the Senate contented itself with re-electing
Bonaparte for another term as First Consul in advance of the expiration
of his first term of office.
Upon this Bonaparte wrote to the Senate that he preferred to appeal
to the people to know if he should impose upon himself the sacrifice
of prolonging his magistracy. Using the more pliable Council of
State, Cambacérès extracted from them an edict for a plébiscite to
be submitted to the people, who were asked whether the First Consul
should be named for life and whether he should be allowed to designate
his successor. After these illegal preliminaries, for there was no
formal authority for the plébiscite from the representative bodies, the
single question of the consulate for life was voted upon on August 2,
1802, with the result that there were 3,568,885 affirmative votes and
8374 negative. The increase in affirmative votes of 500,000 over the
plébiscite of two years before, shows how many royalists had rallied to
the consular system, in response to the favor shown them by the amnesty
lately given to émigrés and to manifest their appreciation of the
Concordat by which the First Consul had made his peace with the Church.
It is significant that on the registers almost none of the names of
members of the Constituent Assembly or of the Convention appear. The
men of 1789 had accepted the Consulate two years before, but they now
abstained from voting. Of the negative votes most came from the army.
At Ajaccio, Bonaparte’s native city, out of 300 men of the garrison
there were 66 noes. Among others, Lafayette voted against the project,
stating in a letter to Bonaparte that the 19th Brumaire had saved
France, that the dictatorship had healed its ills, but that he did not
wish to accept, as the final result of the revolution, an “arbitrary
government.”
The next step was to secure the right of appointing a successor.
Bonaparte had shown at first an apparent reluctance to accept the
suggestion, when it was made as a proposition to be submitted to the
people. Now, when it was made a part of a measure entitled “Organic
changes in the Constitution of the year VIII” (i.e., 1800), it was
passed without any real debate by the Council of State and accepted
by the Senate without discussion. At the same time it was arranged
that nominations to the Senate were to be made from a list prepared by
the First Consul; this practically meant, as the Senate’s membership
was still far short of its full quota, that the right assigned to it
of accepting or rejecting the successor of the First Consul was only
nominal. This situation of dependence made the Senate a useful body to
Bonaparte; accordingly its constitutional powers were increased, it
being given among other new prerogatives the right of dissolving the
Tribunate and the Legislative Body. The Senate’s omnipotence simply
concealed the figure of the First Consul, who set his puppets there in
motion.
So reconstructed, the whole machine worked marvelously. The Council
of State, after showing signs of independence, was made a purely
decorative body, its real power being handed over to a private council
named by the First Consul. The Tribunate was to be reduced to fifty
members after a short interval. All relics of direct popular election
disappeared, and to the functions of the First Consul were added the
rights of ratifying treaties and remitting judicial sentences.
As a sop to public opinion, the number of electors, who chose the lists
of candidates from which were selected the officials in the local and
central government, was increased, largely by doing away with the
property qualification, a curious feature of the early more radical
republican constitutions. There were, it is true, elections, electors,
and elected candidates, but all were under the direct or indirect
control of the arch manipulator, the First Consul, who crowned the
whole system.
From this period begins the departure from the external signs of
republican simplicity. The First Consul was no longer Citizen
Bonaparte, but Napoleon Bonaparte; the anniversary of his birth was
celebrated by a ministerial decree. Like a sovereign the new ruler
had his civil list, and in his residence, the Tuileries, he began to
display the ostentatious character of court life. Military dress was
abandoned, and it began to be the fashion again to wear one’s hair
in a cue and to use powder, although the First Consul still appeared
with his own hair dressed in the revolutionary manner. Josephine took
much interest in reorganizing her household after the model of the old
régime; in the exercise of her taste she was allowed to go far, but it
was remarked that women had no political influence in the new court.
Judged by contemporary opinion, one of the plainest steps taken by
Bonaparte towards a monarchy was the inauguration of the Legion of
Honor, having at its head the First Consul, assisted by a great
council, subordinate to which there were 1500 posts, each with 27
officers of various degrees, and 350 legionaries. This institution,
which was endowed by national funds, was composed of members
distinguished by their services to the Republic either as soldiers or
as civilians. They pledged themselves among other things to oppose any
enterprise tending to re-establish the feudal system, or proposing to
reproduce the titles and the characteristics by which feudalism was
marked, and to do everything in their power to maintain liberty and
equality.
But these republican sentiments did not protect the measure from
criticism. It was opposed both in the Council of State and in the
Tribunate, where there was only a majority of sixteen in its favor when
it was finally passed. Even the Legislative Body made difficulties,
as is seen in their recorded vote of 170 for and 110 against. But it
was not only from such shadows of representative government as were
still permitted to linger on, that opposition came to Bonaparte’s
personal rule. Moreau, the hero of the Hohenlinden campaign, was known
to have sturdy republican sentiments. Moreover, there was Bernadotte,
the commander of the eastern army, who was openly discontented and was
supposed by many to have instigated a plot against the First Consul at
Rennes. There were, indeed, a series of military plots at this time,
but the knowledge of their existence was suppressed by the government,
whose object it was to impress on public opinion at home and abroad the
popularity of the consular system.
The Legislative Body and the Tribunate busied themselves with
subordinate affairs such as laws governing the practice of medicine
and the organization of a notary public system. In the Senate the
hand of the First Consul was seen in the liberal financial provisions
for certain senators, who were allowed a suitable house and 25,000
francs annual income. Of course the selection of the beneficiaries of
these favors was left to the First Consul. There was no reluctance in
voting money and troops for the defense of the state, for by this time
Bonaparte’s personal policy and the national interests were closely
identified.
This feeling of loyalty was all the more intensified when, after war
broke out again with England, the British government took a hand in
encouraging the schemes of various royalist groups. Among these were
some irreconcilable survivors of the Vendéan insurrection, led by
Cadoudal, who planned to remove Bonaparte by assassination, after which
it was assumed that a Bourbon restoration would follow as a matter of
course. Pichegru, an old revolutionary general, was an accomplice, and
the conspirators made an effort to secure the coöperation of Moreau,
but failed. Learning through his spies of this invitation, and glad of
a plea to rid himself of a rival, Bonaparte had Moreau arrested, though
he knew his innocence, and instigated a bitter press campaign against
him. Police agents encouraged the plot, hoping that some of the Bourbon
princes, certain of its success, might cross from England to France, in
expectation of Bonaparte’s death.
In this atmosphere of plots, Bonaparte seems to have lost his head,
and to have descended to the weapons of revenge handed down among the
clansmen of his native island when they settled their domestic feuds.
One member of the Bourbon house was from this point of view as good
as any other, when it was a question of proving the capacity of the
government to deal with its monarchical enemies. The nearest victim
was selected for a stroke worthy of Cæsar Borgia--the Duke d’Enghien,
a distant relative of the direct heirs of the old monarchy, who had
been living quietly for two years at Ettenheim in Baden. A detachment
of dragoons was sent across the frontier, into the territory of a small
state, at peace with France, and arrested the young prince, March 15,
1804. The papers that were found showed clearly that the Duke was not
involved in the plot in any way, but in spite of this evidence of
non-culpability, he was tried by a commission made up of colonels of
the regiments of the Paris garrison.
The prisoner was shot six days after his arrest, the sentence being
executed at the château of Vincennes. Though freed from any complicity
in the Pichegru plot, the Duke d’Enghien had tried to enter the
service of England against France; he had also fought against the
French Republic as an émigré, so whatever may be said in criticism of
the abject subservience of the officers who acted as judges in the
court-martial, it must be remembered that the law of the revolutionary
period, by which the death penalty was inflicted upon any Frenchman
engaged in open warfare against his country, had never been abrogated.
Probably it was to this justification of his act that Napoleon referred
when he refused to listen to Josephine’s entreaties in behalf of the
Bourbon prince. “I am,” he said, “a man of the State. I am the French
Revolution, and I shall uphold it.” These words were spoken in a moment
of typical exaltation. After many years had passed he commented in the
following way on his action: “The deserved death of the Duc d’Enghien
hurt Napoleon in public opinion, and was of no use to him politically.”
There soon followed a report of Pichegru’s suicide in his prison, a way
of accounting for his death which, after the execution of the Bourbon
Duke, it was hard to accept as satisfactory. Many believed that he was
assassinated at Bonaparte’s command because the publicity of an open
trial was dreaded.
V THE INAUGURATION OF THE EMPIRE
From the excitement caused by these conspiracies came the movement
which led to the inauguration of the empire. Petitions were drawn up
asking that the consulate should be made hereditary in the Bonaparte
family; there was considerable reluctance in using explicitly the
word “empire,” and there was much wavering and intrigue before a
member of the Tribunate, Curie, offered a resolution on the 23rd of
April, 1804, according to the terms of which Napoleon Bonaparte, the
then First Consul, should be declared Emperor of the French, and the
imperial dignity should remain hereditary in his family. Carnot was
the only member who argued against the change, but his plea in behalf
of a régime of liberty found no supporters, though he pointed out in
frank language that the movement in favor of hereditary monarchy was
fictitious, because freedom of the press no longer existed. The Senate
acted quickly on the motion from the one popular body that now was in
session, for the Legislative Body was adjourned. A decree establishing
the imperial constitution was passed on May 18, 1804. The measure was
to be submitted to popular approval, but from the date of its passage
Bonaparte received the title of Emperor of the French, and the empire
actually came into existence. The international situation played a
considerable part in forcing the abandonment of the few remaining
vestiges of a republican system. Bonaparte had no desire to maintain
for any length of time the pose of an apostle of peace, which for the
sake of popularity he had assumed, while the negotiations at Amiens
were in progress. England, too, had no wish to fulfil the engagements
of that treaty, by which her power would be diminished. She was
interested in keeping both Malta and Alexandria, and her promise of
non-intervention on the Continent was very liberally interpreted by her
government.
In the light of Bonaparte’s own policy a strict interpretation of
engagements would have been indeed a counsel of perfection, for his
plans for the expansion of France were not modeled on the traditions of
the eighteenth-century system of balance of power. He had schemes for
controlling the Mississippi valley, and he also elaborated a revival
of French colonial policy in which the possession of San Domingo was
the chief factor. When the revolted slaves of that island made it
impossible for the French troops to keep French administration intact,
Bonaparte gave up the enterprise, and sold Louisiana to the United
States for 80,000,000 francs. French agents and officers were sent to
the east of the Mediterranean and to India, with instructions obviously
intended to work for the downfall of British power and influence.
Only a month after the treaty of Amiens was signed, General Decaen,
notorious for his Anglophobia, was despatched to India, with secret
instructions to get into touch with the Indian princes who were hostile
to England’s rule, with the object of forming an alliance among them.
Moreover, the official government paper, the _Moniteur_, took no pains
to disguise the intention of the First Consul to organize, on the first
opportunity, a second expedition for the conquest of Egypt.
On the continent of Europe, too, French aggression proceeded without
any disguise. Holland had virtually become a French dependency; and
it was now endowed with a consular régime. In Italy, Victor Emmanuel,
the King of Sardinia, was deposed, and his territories were annexed to
France. Not contented with being president of the Cisalpine Republic,
Bonaparte treated the rest of the peninsula as a subject territory
and sent garrisons to the south to important points in the Kingdom of
Naples. Just as plain was his attitude towards Switzerland, where he
made use of the internal dissensions in the cantons to increase French
influence. He told the Swiss delegates, when he had selected himself
to act as mediator in their disputes, that Europe recognized Italy,
Holland, and Switzerland as being under French control. “I will never
tolerate,” he added, “any other influence in Switzerland but mine, if
it is to cost me 100,000 men.”
As to Germany, the rôle of protector and disposer of the smaller German
states was ostentatiously assumed. Russia, which had been given by the
treaty of Lunéville conjoint power with France in the rearrangement of
the petty German principalities, was treated with small consideration.
The work was done by Bonaparte, and its drastic character can be
measured by the statistics of the changes carried out under French
direction. In the eighteenth century there were from eighteen to
nineteen hundred autonomous sovereignties in Germany; only thirty-nine
survived in Bonaparte’s “New Model,” among them being six free cities
and one ecclesiastical domain. By these changes Prussia profited
considerably, but even more so Bavaria, because of its well-known
friendship for France.
Under the cover of the Peace of Amiens, Bonaparte had become dictator
of a large part of Europe. Accordingly, when Lord Whitworth, the
English ambassador, protested in the name of the existing treaties,
Bonaparte replied, “I suppose you refer to Piedmont and Switzerland;
they are trifles; this could have been foreseen during the
negotiations.” The German publicist, Gentz, summarized the situation,
without exaggerating it. “France,” he said, “has no longer any
frontiers, since all that surrounds it is in fact, if not yet in name,
its property and domain, or will become so at the first opportunity.”
On its side, England was far from scrupulous in observing the terms of
the Amiens convention, and showed notorious unfriendliness to France
in encouraging the various royalist plots against Bonaparte’s life.
Besides, the terms of the treaty were not carried out as regards the
evacuation of Malta or as to the conditions made for restoring to the
French certain towns in India. What was especially irritating to the
British government and people was Bonaparte’s plan to develop French
industry by adopting a protective system. He not only refused to sign
any treaty of commerce with England, but took active measures to close
the ports of France and of the states dependent on her to the products
of English industry. A violent press campaign was inaugurated in London
against the policy of the Consulate, couched in unsparing language
against Bonaparte’s character and ambitions. He, on his side, took up
a truculent attitude, saying in so many words that England’s effort to
secure new allies would force him to conquer Europe and to revive the
Empire of the West.
In the spring of 1803, the final rupture came with a message from
George III that the security of England was menaced by France. The
outbreak of hostilities was marked by the seizure on England’s side,
without any declaration of war, of 1200 French and Dutch merchant
ships. Bonaparte replied to this act of piracy by another in kind,
though a more original violation of international justice; he arrested
all the subjects of England who were to be found on French territory,
and prohibited the purchase of any article of British manufacture. The
next step was to prepare for an invasion of England from the Channel
ports and for the military occupation of Hanover, an appanage of the
British crown. On the Continent, Pitt formed an alliance against the
aggressions of France, known as the Third Coalition. Austria, Prussia,
Sweden, and Naples prepared to act together, the chief military
contingents being supplied by Austria with three armies amounting in
all to 130,000 men, and by Russia, which promised four armies.
As England controlled the sea power, Bonaparte’s preparations to invade
it were futile, though 2343 transports were collected, and for many
months an army of 120,000 were kept in training for the passage over
the Channel. But there was no adequate protecting fleet, and the French
officers showed no ability in using the vessels under their command.
The entrance to the Channel was guarded by English ships; all the
French ports were blockaded, and Villeneuve, the French admiral, in
an engagement off Trafalgar, was decisively beaten by Nelson, with a
loss of twenty men-of-war, out of a combined French and Spanish fleet
of thirty-five. Villeneuve was made the scapegoat for the failure of
the plan to invade England, but the scheme was a chimerical one from
the start, viewed in the light of the experiences of French armies in
San Domingo and in Egypt, where they were cut off from their base.
Many critics are, therefore, willing to believe that Napoleon was not
sorry to have been relieved by the loss of his fleet from undertaking a
spectacular but most hazardous adventure.
Before the battle of Trafalgar, October 20, 1805, while Napoleon
was at Boulogne, he dictated a plan evidently the result of long
consideration, containing the most exact details for the march of
his army to the Danube. In the meantime, the Austrians had invaded
Bavaria, had taken possession of Ulm, and were awaiting the French in
the defiles of the Black Forest. With wonderful speed, precision, and
secrecy enveloping operations were carried out, by which Mack, the
Austrian general, who supposed the French army was near Strassburg,
when it had already cut his communications far to the east of his
forces, was surrounded and forced to capitulate. In this short campaign
of three weeks, 100,000 Austrians had been dispersed by remarkable
strategical movements, extending over a stretch of country several
hundred miles wide. Not an error had been committed, not a combination
had failed. The soldiers truly said, “The Emperor has beaten the enemy
by our legs.”
Now that the Austrians were destroyed as a military entity, the
Russian armies in Austria remained to be attacked. By a series of
forced marches Vienna was reached by the middle of November without
any general engagement. The plan of the Austrian and Russian generals
was to cut off Napoleon, when he advanced farther into the heart of
the empire, in much the same way as he had treated Mack. They had the
advantage in numbers, for the French army now was only 68,000, while
the allies had 90,000. The co-operation of Prussia was expected by the
allies, if the Russians could win a victory, and with this additional
strength it was hoped that the whole French army would ultimately be
forced to capitulate.
But Napoleon moved from Vienna with great rapidity and brought on a
decisive engagement at Austerlitz. Everything was done to increase the
confidence of the allies. They knew that the French were reduced, by
the detaching of thousands of men, needed to occupy Vienna and to keep
in check various divisions of the Austrian forces. In some skirmishes
the Austro-Russians were allowed to win small advantages, to put them
off their guard, and to induce them to offer battle on unfavorable
terms. Their two wings were adroitly separated from the center by
the French troops giving way at an opportune moment. Napoleon took
advantage of this weakness of the enemy’s center, while his commanders
were preventing the detached portion of the enemy’s forces from
returning to the main body, to drive the Russians, opposite him, on
the frozen surfaces of various ponds in the battlefield. He then used
his artillery to break the surface of the ice and so drowned several
thousand of the enemy.
This brilliant engagement, fought on December 2, 1805, cost the allies
15,000 men in killed and wounded, 20,000 prisoners, 45 standards, and
140 cannon. Napoleon, delighted that the allies had walked into the
trap prepared for them, commended in the order of the day following the
battle, the conduct of his men. “I am contented with you,” he said.
“You have, on the great day of Austerlitz, justified what I expected
from your valor. When I lead you back to France, my people will see
you again with joy. It will only be necessary for you to say ‘I was at
the battle of Austerlitz’ for the reply to be made, ‘There is a brave
man.’” The Emperor might well be satisfied, for the renewal of warfare
had not been popular in France, where the defeat at Trafalgar had
caused depression and anxiety. Now all was forgotten in the glorious
victory which again placed the Austrian Empire at the mercy of the
conqueror.