NAPOLEON AS STATESMAN AND LAWGIVER—THE FINANCES—THE INDUSTRIES—THE
PUBLIC WORKS
“Now we must rebuild, and, moreover, we must rebuild solidly,” said
Napoleon to his brother Lucien the day after the _coup d’état_ which had
overthrown the Directory and made him the temporary Dictator of France.
The first necessity was a new constitution. In ten years three
constitutions had been framed and adopted, and now the third had, like
its predecessors, been declared worthless. At Napoleon’s side was a man
who had the draft of a constitution ready in his pocket. It had been
promised him that, if he would aid in the 18th Brumaire, this instrument
should be adopted. This man was the Abbé Sieyès. He had been a prominent
member of the Constituent Assembly, but, curiously enough, his fame
there had been founded more on his silence and the air of mystery in
which he enveloped himself than on anything he had done. The
superstitious veneration which he had won, saved him even during the
Terror, and he was accustomed to say laconically, when asked what he did
in that period, “_I lived._”
It was he who, when Napoleon was still in Egypt, had seen the necessity
of a military dictatorship, and had urged the Directory to order
Napoleon home to help him reorganize the government—an order which was
never received.
Soon after the 18th Brumaire, Sieyès presented his constitution. No more
bungling and bizarre instrument for conducting the affairs of a nation
was ever devised. Warned by the experience of the past ten years, he
abandoned the ideas of 1789, and declared that the power must come from
above, the confidence from below. His system of voting took the suffrage
from the people; his legislative body was composed of three sections,
each of which was practically powerless. All the force of the government
was centered in a senate of aged men. The Grand Elector, as the
figurehead which crowned the edifice was called, did nothing but live at
Versailles and draw a princely salary.
Napoleon saw at once the weak points of the structure, but he saw how it
could be re-arranged to serve a dictator. He demanded that the Senate be
stripped of its power, and that the Grand Elector be replaced by a First
Consul, to whom the executive force should be confided. Sieyès
consented, and Napoleon was named First Consul.
The whole machinery of the government was now centered in one man. “The
state, it was I,” said Napoleon at St. Helena. The new constitution was
founded on principles the very opposite of those for which the
Revolution had been made, but it was the only hope there was of dragging
France from the slough of anarchy and despair into which she had fallen.
Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction which awaited him, with
courage, energy, and amazing audacity. He was forced to deal at once
with all departments of the nation’s life—with the finances, the
industries, the _émigrés_, the Church, public education, the
codification of the laws.
The first question was one of money. The country was literally bankrupt
in 1799. The treasury was empty, and the government practised all sorts
of makeshifts to get money to pay those bills which could not be put
off. One day, having to send out a special courier, it was obliged to
give him the receipts of the opera to pay his expenses. And, again, it
was in such a tight pinch that it was on the point of sending the gold
coin in the Cabinet of Medals to the mint to be melted. Loans could not
be negotiated; government paper was worthless; stocks were down to the
lowest. One of the worst features of the situation was the condition of
the taxes. The assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution,
and they were collected with greater difficulty.
To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s
first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the
Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under
his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the
loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a
thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting.
Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said:
“I fully acknowledge all your _protégé_ is worth; but it might easily
happen that, with all his intelligence, he would give me nothing but
fresh water, whilst with my good Gaudin I can always rely on having good
crown pieces.”
The famous Bank of France dates from this time. It was founded under
Napoleon’s personal direction, and he never ceased to watch over it
jealously.
Most important of all the financial measures was the reorganization of
the system of taxation. The First Consul insisted that the taxes must
meet the whole expense of the nation, save war, which must pay for
itself; and he so ordered affairs that never, after his administration
was fairly begun, was a deficit known or a loan made. This was done,
too, without the people feeling the burden of taxation. Indeed, that
burden was so much lighter under his administration that it had been
under the old _régime_, that peasant and workman, in most cases,
probably did not know they were being taxed.
[Illustration:
“BUONAPARTE.”
Fiesinger, engraver, after Guérin. Published “29 Vendémiaire, l’an
VII.” (1799). It is of this portrait that Taine writes: “Look now at
this portrait by Guérin, this lean body, these narrow shoulders in
their uniform creased by his brusque motions, this neck enveloped in
a high wrinkled cravat, these temples concealed by long hair falling
straight over them, nothing to be seen but the face; these hard
features made prominent by strong contrasts of light and shade;
these cheeks as hollow as the interior angle of the eye; these
prominent cheek-bones; this massive protruding chin; these curving,
mobile, attentive lips; these great, clear eyes deeply set under the
overarching eyebrows; this fixed, incomprehensible look, sharp as a
sword; these two straight wrinkles which cross the forehead from the
base of the nose like a furrow of continual anger and inflexible
will.”]
“Before 1789,” says Taine, “out of one hundred francs of net revenue,
the workman gave fourteen to his seignor, fourteen to the clergy,
fifty-three to the state, and kept only eighteen or nineteen for
himself. Since 1800, from one hundred francs income he pays nothing to
the seignor or the Church, and he pays to the state, the department, and
the commune but twenty-one francs, leaving seventy-nine in his pocket.”
And such was the method and care with which this system was
administered, that the state received more than twice as much as it had
before. The enormous sums which the police and tax-collectors had
appropriated now went to the state. Here is but one example of numbers
which show how minutely Napoleon guarded this part of the finances. It
is found in a letter to Fouché, the chief of police:
“What happens at Bordeaux happens at Turin, at Spa, at Marseilles,
etc. The police commissioners derive immense profits from the
gaming-tables. My intention is that the towns shall reap the benefit
of the tables. I shall employ the two hundred thousand francs paid
by the tables of Bordeaux in building a bridge or a canal....”
A great improvement was that the taxes became fixed and regular.
Napoleon wished that each man should know what he had to pay out each
year. “True civil liberty depends on the safety of property,” he told
his Council of State. “There is none in a country where the rate of
taxation is changed every year. A man who has three thousand francs
income does not know how much he will have to live on the next year. His
whole substance may be swallowed up by the taxes.”
Nearly the whole revenue came from indirect taxes applied to a great
number of articles. In case of a war which did not pay its way, Napoleon
proposed to raise each of these a few centimes. The nation would surely
prefer this, to paying it to the Russians or Austrians. When possible
the taxes were reduced. “Better leave the money in the hands of the
citizens than lock it up in a cellar, as they do in Prussia.”
He was cautious that extra taxes should not come on the very poor, if it
could be avoided. A suggestion to charge the vegetable and fish sellers
for their stalls came before him. “The public square, like water, ought
to be free. It is quite enough that we tax salt and wine.... It would
become the city of Paris much more to think of restoring the corn
market.”
An important part of his financial policy was the rigid economy which
was insisted on in all departments. If a thing was bought, it must be
worth what was paid for it. If a man held a position, he must do its
duties. Neither purchases nor positions could be made unless reasonable
and useful. This was in direct opposition to the old _régime_, of which
waste, idleness, and parasites were the chief characteristics. The
saving in expenditure was almost incredible. A trip to Fontainebleau,
which cost Louis XVI. four hundred thousand dollars, Napoleon would
make, in no less state, for thirty thousand dollars.
The expenses of the civil household, which amounted to five million
dollars under the old _régime_, were now cut down to six hundred
thousand dollars, though the elegance was no less.
A master who gave such strict attention to the prosperity of his kingdom
would not, of course, overlook its industries. In fact, they were one of
Napoleon’s chief cares. His policy was one of protection. He would have
France make everything she wanted, and sell to her neighbors, but never
buy from them. To stimulate the manufactories, which in 1799 were as
nearly bankrupt as the public treasury, he visited the factories himself
to learn their needs. He gave liberal orders, and urged, even commanded,
his associates to do the same. At one time, anxious to aid the batiste
factories of Flanders, he tried to force Josephine to give up cotton
goods and to set the fashion in favor of the batistes; but she made such
an outcry that he was obliged to abandon the idea. For the same reason
he wrote to his sister Eliza: “I beg that you will allow your court to
wear nothing but silks and cambrics, and that you will exclude all
cottons and muslins, in order to favor French industry.”
Frequently he would take goods on consignment, to help a struggling
factory. Rather than allow a manufactory to be idle, he would advance a
large sum of money, and a quantity of its products would be put under
government control. After the battle of Eylau, Napoleon sent one million
six hundred thousand francs to Paris, to be used in this way.
To introduce cotton-making into the country was one of his chief
industrial ambitions. At the beginning of the century it was printed in
all the factories of France, but nothing more. He proposed to the
Council of State to prohibit the importation of cotton thread and the
woven goods. There was a strong opposition, but he carried his point.
“As a result,” said Napoleon to Las Cases complacently, “we possess the
three branches, to the immense advantage of our population and to the
detriment and sorrow of the English; which proves that, in
administration as in war, one must exercise character.... I occupied
myself no less in encouraging silks. As Emperor, and King of Italy, I
counted one hundred and twenty millions of income from the silk
harvest.”
In a similar way he encouraged agriculture; especially was he anxious
that France should raise all her own articles of diet. He had Berthollet
look into maple and turnip sugar, and he did at last succeed in
persuading the people to use beet sugar; though he never convinced them
that Swiss tea equalled Chinese, or that chicory was as good as coffee.
[Illustration:
BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL.
One of the best portraits of the First Consul—the _truest_ of all,
perhaps. Unlike Bouillon, Van Brée, Géhotte, Isabey, Boilly painted
him in his real aspect, without any striving after the ideal. This
is really the determined little Corsican, tormented by ambition and
a thirst for conquest. This fine portrait has been admirably etched
by Duplessis-Bertaux.—A. D.]
The works he insisted should be carried on in regard to roads and public
buildings were of great importance. There was need that something be
done.
“It is impossible to conceive, if one had not been a witness of it
before and after the 18th Brumaire [said the chancellor Pasquier],
of the widespread ruin wrought by the Revolution.... There were
hardly two or three main roads [in France] in a fit condition for
traffic; not a single one was there, perhaps, wherein was not found
some obstacle that could not be surmounted without peril. With
regard to the ways of internal communication, they had been
indefinitely suspended. The navigation of rivers and canals was no
longer feasible.
“In all directions, public buildings, and those monuments which
represent the splendor of the state, were falling into decay. It
must fain be admitted that if the work of destruction had been
prodigious, that of restoration was no less so. Everything was taken
hold of at one and the same time, and everything progressed with a
like rapidity. Not only was it resolved to restore all that required
restoring in various parts of the country, in all parts of the
public service, but new, grand, beautiful and useful works were
decided upon, and many were brought to a happy termination. This
certainly constitutes one of the most brilliant sides of the
consular and imperial _régime_.”
In Paris alone vast improvements were made. Napoleon began the Rue de
Rivoli, built the wing connecting the Tuileries and the Louvre, erected
the triumphal arch of the Carrousel, the Arc de Triomphe at the head of
the Champs Elysées, the Column Vendôme, the Madeleine, began the Bourse,
built the Pont d’Austerlitz, and ordered, commenced, or finished, a
number of minor works of great importance to the city. The markets
interested him particularly. “Give all possible care to the construction
of the markets and to their healthfulness, and to the beauty of the
Halle-aux-blés and of the Halle-aux-vins. The people, too, must have
their Louvre.”
The works undertaken outside of Paris in France, and in the countries
under her rule in the time that Napoleon was in power were of a
variety and extent which would be incredible, if every traveller in
Europe did not have the evidence of them still before his eyes. The
mere enumeration of these works and of the industrial achievements of
Napoleon, made by Las Cases, reads like a fairy story. “You wish to
know the treasures of Napoleon? They are immense, it is true, but they
are all exposed to light. They are the noble harbors of Antwerp and
Flushing, which are capable of containing the largest fleets, and of
protecting them against the ice from the sea; the hydraulic works at
Dunkirk, Havre, and Nice; the immense harbor of Cherbourg; the
maritime works at Venice; the beautiful roads from Antwerp to
Amsterdam, from Mayence to Metz, from Bordeaux to Bayonne; the passes
of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, of Mount Genèvre, of the Corniche,
which open a communication through the Alps in four different
directions, and which exceed in grandeur, in boldness, and in skill of
execution, all the works of the Romans (in that alone you will find
eight hundred millions); the roads from the Pyrenees to the Alps, from
Parma to Spezia, from Savona to Piedmont; the bridges of Jena,
Austerlitz, Des Arts, Sèvres, Tours, Roanne, Lyons, Turin; of the
Isère, of the Durance, of Bordeaux, of Rouen, etc.; the canal which
connects the Rhine with the Rhone by the Doubs, and thus unites the
North Sea with the Mediterranean; the canal which joins the Scheldt
with the Somme, and thus joins Paris and Amsterdam; the canal which
unites the Rance to the Vilaine; the canal of Arles; that of Pavia,
and the canal of the Rhine; the draining of the marshes of Bourgoin,
of the Cotentin, of Rochefort; the rebuilding of the greater part of
the churches destroyed by the Revolution; the building of others: the
institution of numerous establishments of industry for the suppression
of mendicity; the gallery at the Louvre; the construction of public
warehouses, of the Bank, of the canal of the Ourcq; the distribution
of water in the city of Paris; the numerous drains, the quays, the
embellishments, and the monuments of that large capital; the works for
the embellishment of Rome; the reëstablishment of the manufactures of
Lyons; the creation of many hundreds of manufactories of cotton, for
spinning and for weaving, which employ several millions of workmen;
funds accumulated to establish upwards of four hundred manufactories
of sugar from beet-root, for the consumption of part of France, and
which would have furnished sugar at the same price as the West Indies,
if they had continued to receive encouragement for only four years
longer; the substitution of woad for indigo, which would have been at
last brought to a state of perfection in France, and obtained as good
and as cheap as the indigo from the colonies; numerous manufactories
for all kinds of objects of art, etc.; fifty millions expended in
repairing and beautifying the palaces belonging to the Crown; sixty
millions in furniture for the palaces belonging to the Crown in
France, in Holland, at Turin, and at Rome; sixty millions of diamonds
for the Crown, all purchased with Napoleon’s money; the _Regent_ (the
only diamond that was left belonging to the former diamonds of the
Crown) withdrawn from the hands of the Jews at Berlin, in whose hands
it had been left as a pledge for three millions. The Napoleon Museum,
valued at upwards of four hundred millions, filled with objects
legitimately acquired, either by moneys or by treaties of peace known
to the whole world, by virtue of which the _chefs-d’oeuvres_, it
contains were given in lieu of territory or of contributions. Several
millions amassed to be applied to the encouragement of agriculture,
which is the paramount consideration for the interest of France; the
introduction into France of merino sheep, etc. These form a treasure
of several thousand millions which will endure for ages.”
[Illustration:
MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE
The following inscription, written in French, by Dutertre, the
official painter of the principal personages in the Egyptian
expedition, appears on the reverse side of this medallion, which
frames one of the most precious gems of Napoleonic iconography. “I,
Dutertre, made this drawing of the general-in-chief from nature, on
board the vessel ‘L’Orient,’ during the crossing of the expedition
to Egypt in the year VII. (_sic_) of the Republic.” A short time ago
the drawing came into the possession of the Versailles Museum.]
Napoleon himself looked on these achievements as his most enduring
monument. “The allied powers cannot take from me hereafter,” he told
O’Meara, “the great public works I have executed, the roads which I made
over the Alps, and the seas which I have united. They cannot place their
feet to improve where mine have not been before. They cannot take from
me the code of laws which I formed, and which will go down to
posterity.”
[Illustration:
MOREAU, ABOUT 1801.
Engraved by Elizabeth G. Berhan, after Guérin.]