PREPARATIONS FOR WAR WITH ENGLAND—FLOTILLA AT BOULOGNE—SALE OF LOUISIANA
In the spring of 1803 the treaty of Amiens, which a year before had
ended the long war with England, was broken. Both countries had many
reasons for complaint. Napoleon was angry at the failure to evacuate
Malta. The perfect freedom allowed the press in England gave the
pamphleteers and caricaturists of the country an opportunity to
criticize and ridicule him. He complained bitterly to the English
ambassadors of this free press, an institution in his eyes impractical
and idealistic. He complained, too, of the hostile _émigrés_ allowed to
collect in Jersey; of the presence in England of such a notorious enemy
of his as Georges Cadoudal; and of the sympathy and money the Bourbon
princes and many nobles of the old _régime_ received in London society.
Then, too, he regarded the country as his natural and inevitable enemy.
England to Napoleon was only a little island which, like Corsica and
Elba, naturally belonged to France, and he considered it part of his
business to get possession of her.
England, on the other hand, looked with distrust at the extension of
Napoleon’s influence on the Continent. Northern Italy, Switzerland,
Holland, Parma, Elba, were under his protectorate. She had been deeply
offended by a report published in Paris, on the condition of the Orient,
in which the author declared that with six thousand men the French could
reconquer Egypt; she resented the violent articles in the official press
of Paris in answer to those of the free press of England; her
aristocratic spirit was irritated by Napoleon’s success; she despised
this _parvenu_, this “Corsican scoundrel,” as Nelson called him, who had
had the hardihood to rise so high by other than the conventional methods
for getting on in the world which she sanctioned.
Real and fancied aggressions continued throughout the year of the peace;
and when the break finally came, though both nations persisted in
declaring that they did not want war, both were in a thoroughly warlike
mood.
Napoleon’s preparations against England form one of the most picturesque
military movements in his career. Unable to cope with his enemy at sea,
he conceived the audacious notion of invading the island, and laying
siege to London itself. The plan briefly was this—to gather a great army
on the north shore of France, and in some port a flotilla sufficient to
transport it to Great Britain. In order to prevent interference with
this expedition, he would keep the enemy’s fleet occupied in the
Mediterranean, or in the Atlantic, until the critical moment. Then,
leading the English naval commander by stratagem in the wrong direction,
he would call his own fleet to the Channel to protect his passage. He
counted to be in London, and to have compelled the English to peace,
before Nelson could return from the chase he would have led him.
The preparations began at once. The port chosen for the flotilla was
Boulogne; but the whole coast from Antwerp to the mouth of the Seine
bristled with iron and bronze. Between Calais and Boulogne, at Cape Gris
Nez, where the navigation was the most dangerous, the batteries
literally touched one another. Fifty thousand men were put to work at
the stupendous excavations necessary to make the ports large enough to
receive the flotilla. Large numbers of troops were brought rapidly into
the neighborhood: fifty thousand men to Boulogne, under Soult; thirty
thousand to Etaples, under Ney; thirty thousand to Ostend, under
Davoust; reserves to Arras, Amiens, Saint-Omer.
The work of preparing the flat-bottomed boats, or walnut-shells, as the
English called them, which were to carry over the army, went on in all
the ports of Holland and France, as well as in interior towns situated
on rivers leading to the sea. The troops were taught to row, each
soldier being obliged to practise two hours a day so that the rivers of
all the north of France were dotted with land-lubbers handling the oar,
the most of them for the first time.
In the summer of 1803, Napoleon went to the north to look after the
work. His trip was one long ovation. _Le Chemin d’Angleterre_ was the
inscription the people of Amiens put on the triumphal arch erected to
his honor, and town vied with town in showing its joy at the proposed
descent on the old-time enemy.
Such was the interest of the people, that a thousand projects were
suggested to help on the invasion, some of them most amusing. In a
learned and thoroughly serious memorial, one genius proposed that while
the flotilla was preparing, the sailors be employed in catching
dolphins, which should be shut up in the ports, tamed, and taught to
wear a harness, so as to be driven, in the water, as horses are on land.
This novel power was to transport the French to the opposite side of the
Channel.
Napoleon occupied himself not only with the preparations at Boulogne and
with keeping Nelson busy elsewhere. Every project which could possibly
facilitate his undertaking or discomfit his enemies, he considered.
Fulton’s diving boat, the “Nautilus,” and his submarine torpedoes, were
at that time attracting the attention of the war departments of
civilized countries. Already Napoleon had granted ten thousand francs to
help the inventor. From the camp at Boulogne he again ordered the matter
to be looked into. Fulton promised him a machine which “would deliver
France and the whole world from British oppression.”
[Illustration:
GRAY REDINGOTE AND PETIT CHAPEAU WORN BY NAPOLEON.]
“I have just read the project of Citizen Fulton, engineer, which you
have sent me much too late,” he wrote, “since it is one that may
change the face of the world. Be that as it may, I desire that you
immediately confide its examination to a commission of members
chosen by you among the different classes of the Institute. There it
is that learned Europe would seek for judges to resolve the question
under consideration. A great truth, a physical, palpable truth, is
before my eyes. It will be for these gentlemen to try and seize it
and see it. As soon as their report is made, it will be sent to you,
and you will forward it to me. Try and let the whole be determined
within eight days, as I am impatient.”
He had his eye on every point of the earth where he might be weak, or
where he might weaken his enemy. He took possession of Hanover. The
Irish were promised aid in their efforts for freedom. “Provided that
twenty thousand united Irishmen join the French army on its landing,”
France is to give them in return twenty-five thousand men, forty
thousand muskets, with artillery and ammunition, and a promise that the
French government will not make peace with England until the
independence of Ireland has been proclaimed.
An attack on India was planned, his hope being that the princes of India
would welcome an invader who would aid them in throwing off the English
yoke. To strengthen himself in the Orient, he sought by letters and
envoys to win the confidence, as well as to inspire the awe, of the
rulers of Turkey and Persia.
The sale of Louisiana to the United States dates from this time. This
transfer, of such tremendous importance to us, was made by Napoleon
purely for the sake of hurting England. France had been in possession of
Louisiana but three years. She had obtained it from Spain only on the
condition that it should “at no time, under no pretext, and in no
manner, be alienated or ceded to any other power.” The formal
stipulation of the treaties forbade its sale. But Napoleon was not of a
nature to regard a treaty, if the interest of the moment demanded it to
be broken. To sell Louisiana now would remove a weak spot from France,
upon which England would surely fall in the war. More, it would put a
great territory, which he could not control, into the hands of a country
which, he believed, would some day be a serious hindrance to English
ambition. He sold the colony for the same reason that former French
governments had helped the United States in her struggles for
independence—to cripple England. It would help the United States, but it
would hurt England. That was enough; and with characteristic eagerness
he hurried through the negotiations.
“I have just given England a maritime rival which, sooner or later, will
humble her pride,” he said exultingly, when the convention was signed.
The sale brought him twelve million dollars, and the United States
assumed the French spoliation claims.
This sale of Louisiana caused one of the first violent quarrels between
Lucien Bonaparte and Napoleon. Lucien had negotiated the return of the
American territory to France in 1800. He had made a princely fortune out
of the treaty, and he was very proud of the transaction; and when his
brother Joseph came to him one evening in hot haste, with the
information that the General wanted to sell Louisiana, he hurried around
to the Tuileries in the morning to remonstrate.
Napoleon was in his bath, but, in the mode of the time, he received his
brothers. He broached the subject himself, and asked Lucien what he
thought.
“I flatter myself that the Chambers will not give their consent.”
“You flatter yourself?” said Napoleon. “That’s good, I declare.”
“I have already said the same to the First Consul,” cried Joseph.
“And what did I answer?” said Napoleon, splashing around indignantly in
the opaque water.
“That you would do it in spite of the Chambers.”
“Precisely. I shall do it without the consent of anyone whomsoever. Do
you understand?”
Joseph, beside himself, rushed to the bathtub, and declared that if
Napoleon dared do such a thing he would put himself at the head of an
opposition and crush him in spite of their fraternal relations. So hot
did the debate grow that the First Consul sprang up shouting: “You are
insolent! I ought——” but at that moment he slipped and fell back
violently. A great mass of perfumed water drenched Joseph to the skin,
and the conference broke up.
An hour later, Lucien met his brother in his library, and the discussion
was resumed, only to end in another scene, Napoleon hurling a beautiful
snuff-box upon the floor and shattering it, while he told Lucien that if
he did not cease his opposition he would crush him in the same way.
These violent scenes were repeated, but to no purpose. Louisiana was
sold.
[Illustration:
NAPOLEON THE GREAT (“NAPOLEON LE GRAND”) IN CORONATION ROBES. 1805.
Painted and engraved by order of the Emperor. Engraved by Desnoyers,
after portrait painted by Gérard in 1805.]