_Clemency of the New Consulate--Beneficial change in the
Finances--Law of Hostages repealed--Religious liberty
allowed--Improvements in the War Department--Pacification of La
Vendée--Ascendancy of Napoleon--Disappointment of
Siêyes--Committee formed to consider Siêyes' Plan of a
Constitution--Rejected as to essentials--A new one adopted,
monarchical in every thing but form--Siêyes retires from public
life--General view of the new Government--Despotic Power of the
First Consul._
The victory obtained over the Directory and the democrats, upon the 18th
and 19th Brumaire, was generally acceptable to the French nation. The
feverish desire of liberty, which had been the characteristic of all
descriptions of persons in the year 1792, was quenched by the blood shed
during the Reign of Terror; and even just and liberal ideas of freedom
had so far fallen into disrepute, from their resemblance to those which
had been used as a pretext for the disgusting cruelties perpetrated at
that terrible period, that they excited from association a kind of
loathing as well as dread. The great mass of the nation sought no longer
guarantees for metaphysical rights, but, broken down by suffering,
desired repose, and were willing to submit to any government which
promised to secure to them the ordinary benefits of civilisation.
[Sidenote: THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.]
Buonaparte and Siêyes--for, though only during a brief space, they may
still be regarded as joint authorities--were enabled to profit by this
general acquiescence, in many important particulars. It put it in their
power to dispense with the necessity of pursuing and crushing their
scattered adversaries; and the French saw a revolution effected in their
system, and that by military force, in which not a drop of blood was
spilt. Yet, as had been the termination of most recent revolutions,
lists of proscription were prepared; and without previous trial or legal
sentence, fifty-nine of those who had chiefly opposed the new Consulate
on the 18th and 19th Brumaire were condemned to deportation by the sole
_fiat_ of the consuls. Siêyes is said to have suggested this unjust and
arbitrary measure, which, bearing a colour of revenge and persecution,
was highly unpopular. It was not carried into execution. Exceptions were
at first made in favour of such of the condemned persons as showed
themselves disposed to be tractable; and at length the sentence was
altogether dispensed with, and the more obnoxious partisans of democracy
were only placed under the superintendence of the police.[490] This
conduct showed at once conscious strength, and a spirit of clemency,
than which no attributes can contribute more to the popularity of a new
government; since the spirit of the opposition, deprived of hope of
success, and yet not urged on by despair of personal safety, gradually
becomes disposed to sink into acquiescence. The democrats, or, as they
were now termed, the anarchists, became intimidated, or cooled in their
zeal; and only a few of the more enthusiastic continued yet to avow
those principles, to breathe the least doubt of which had been, within
but a few months, a crime worthy of death.
Other and most important decrees were adopted by the consuls, tending to
lighten the burdens which their predecessors had imposed on the nation,
and which had rendered their government so unpopular. Two of the most
oppressive measures of the directors were repealed without delay.
The first referred to the finances, which were found in a state of
ruinous exhaustion, and were only maintained by a system of compulsory
and progressive loans, according to rates of assessment on the property
of the citizens. The new minister of finance, Gaudin,[491] would not
even go to bed, or sleep a single night, until he had produced a
substitute for this ruinous resource, for which he levied an additional
rise of twenty-five per cent. on all contributions, direct and indirect,
which produced a large sum. He carried order and regularity into all the
departments of finance, improved the collection and income of the funds
of the Republic, and inspired so much confidence by the moderation and
success of his measures, that credit began to revive, and several loans
were attained on easy terms.
The repeal of the law of hostages was a measure equally popular. This
cruel and unreasonable enactment, which rendered the aged and weak,
unprotected females, and helpless children of emigrants, or armed
royalists, responsible for the actions of their relatives, was
immediately mitigated. Couriers were despatched to open the prisons; and
this act of justice and humanity was hailed as a pledge of returning
moderation and liberality.
Important measures were also taken for tranquillizing the religious
discord by which the country had been so long agitated. Buonaparte, who
had lately professed himself more than half persuaded of the truth of
Mahommed's mission, became now--such was the decree of Providence--the
means of restoring to France the free exercise of the Christian faith.
The mummery of Reveillière Lepaux's heathenism was by general consent
abandoned. The churches were restored to public worship; pensions were
allowed to such religious persons as took an oath of fidelity to the
government; and more than twenty thousand clergymen, with whom the
prisons had been filled, in consequence of intolerant laws, were set at
liberty upon taking the same vow. Public and domestic rites of worship
in every form were tolerated and protected; and the law of the decades,
or Theophilanthropic festivals, was abolished. Even the earthly relics
of Pope Pius VI., who had died at Valence, and in exile, were not
neglected, but received, singular to relate, the rites of sepulture with
the solemnity due to his high office, by command of Buonaparte,[492] who
had first shaken the Papal authority; and in doing so, as he boasted in
his Egyptian proclamations, had destroyed the emblem of Christian
worship.
The part taken by Cambacérès, the minister of justice, in the revolution
of Brumaire, had been agreeable to Buonaparte; and his moderation now
aided him in the lenient measures which he had determined to adopt. He
was a good lawyer, and a man of sense and information, and under his
administration means were taken to relax the oppressive severity of the
laws against the emigrants. Nine of them, noblemen of the most ancient
families in France, had been thrown on the coast near Calais by
shipwreck, and the directors had meditated bringing to trial those whom
the winds and waves had spared, as fallen under the class of emigrants
returned to France without permission, against whom the laws denounced
the penalty of death. Buonaparte more liberally considered their being
found within the prohibited territory, as an act, not of violation, but
of inevitable necessity, and they were dismissed accordingly.[493]
From the same spirit of politic clemency, La Fayette, Latour Maubourg,
and others, who, although revolutionists, had been expelled from France
for not carrying their principles of freedom sufficiently high and far,
were permitted to return to their native country.
[Sidenote: IMPROVEMENT IN WAR DEPARTMENT.]
It may be easily believed that the military department of the state
underwent a complete reform under the authority of Buonaparte. Dubois de
Crancé, the minister at war under the directors, was replaced by
Berthier; and Napoleon gives a strange picture of the incapacity of the
former functionary. He declares he could not furnish a single report of
the state of the army--that he had obtained no regular returns of the
effective strength of the different regiments--that many corps had been
formed in the departments, whose very existence was unknown to the
minister at war; and, finally, that when pressed for reports of the pay,
of the victualling, and of the clothing of the troops, he had replied,
that the war department neither paid, clothed, nor victualled them. This
may be exaggerated, for Napoleon disliked Dubois de Crancé[494] as his
personal opponent; but the improvident and corrupt character of the
directorial government renders the charge very probable. By the
exertions of Berthier, accustomed to Buonaparte's mode of arrangements,
the war department soon adopted a very different face of activity.[495]
The same department received yet additional vigour when the consuls
called to be its head the celebrated Carnot, who had returned from
exile, in consequence of the fall of the directors. He remained in
office but a short time; for, being a democrat in principle, he
disapproved of the personal elevation of Buonaparte; but during the
period that he continued in administration, his services in restoring
order in the military department and combining the plans of the campaign
with Moreau and Buonaparte, were of the highest importance.
Napoleon showed no less talent in closing the wounds of internal war,
than in his other arrangements. The Chouans, under various chiefs, had
disturbed the western provinces; but the despair of pardon, which drove
so many malecontents to their standard, began to subside, and the
liberal and accommodating measures adopted by the new Consular
government, induced most to make peace with Buonaparte. This they did
the more readily, that many of them believed the chief consul intended
by degrees, and when the opportunity offered, to accomplish the
restoration of the Bourbons. Many of the chiefs of the Chouans submitted
to him, and afterwards supported his government. Chatillon, Suzannet,
D'Autichamp, nobles and chiefs of the Royalist army, submitted at
Montluçon, and their reconciliation with the government, being admitted
on liberal terms, was sincerely observed by them. Bernier, rector of St.
Lo, who had great influence in La Vendée, also made his peace, and was
afterwards made Bishop of Orleans by Buonaparte, and employed in
negotiating the Concordat with the Pope.
Count Louis de Frotté, an enterprising and high-spirited young nobleman,
refused for a long time to enter into terms with Buonaparte; so did
another chief of the Chouans, called George Cadoudal, a peasant of the
district of Morbihan, raised to the command of his countrymen, because,
with great strength and dauntless courage, he combined the qualities of
enterprise and sagacity. Frotté was betrayed and made prisoner in the
house of Guidal, commandant at Alençon, who had pretended friendship to
him, and had promised to negotiate a favourable treaty on his behalf. He
and eight or nine of his officers were tried by a military commission,
and condemned to be shot. They marched hand in hand to the place of
execution, remained to the last in the same attitude, expressive of
their partaking the same sentiments of devotion to the cause in which
they suffered, and died with the utmost courage. George Cadoudal, left
alone, became unable to support the civil war, and laid down his arms
for a time. Buonaparte, whose policy it was to unite in the new order of
things as many and as various characters as possible, not regarding what
parts they had formerly played, provided they now attached themselves to
his person, took great pains to gain over a man so resolute as this
daring Breton. He had a personal interview with him, which he says
George Cadoudal solicited; yet why he should have done so it is hard to
guess, unless it were to learn whether Buonaparte had any ultimate
purpose of serving the Bourbon interest. He certainly did not request
the favour in order to drive any bargain for himself, since Buonaparte
frankly admits, that all his promises and arguments failed to make any
impression upon him; and that he parted with George, professing still to
entertain opinions for which he had fought so often and so
desperately.[496]
In another instance which happened at this period, Buonaparte boasts of
having vindicated the insulted rights of nations. The Senate of
Hamburgh had delivered up to England Napper Tandy, Blackwell, and other
Irishmen, concerned in the rebellion which had lately wasted Ireland.
Buonaparte took this up in a threatening tone, and expounded to their
trembling envoy the rights of a neutral territory, in language, upon
which the subsequent tragedy of the Duke d'Enghein formed a singular
commentary.[497]
[Sidenote: DISAPPOINTMENT OF SIÊYES.]
While Buonaparte was thus busied in adopting measures for composing
internal discord, and renewing the wasted resources of the country,
those discussions were at the same time privately carrying forward,
which were to determine by whom and in what way it should be governed.
There is little doubt, that when Siêyes undertook the revolution of
Brumaire, he would have desired for his military assistant a very
different character from Buonaparte. Some general would have best suited
him who possessed no knowledge beyond that of his profession, and whose
ambition would have been contented to accept such share of power as
corresponded to his limited views and capacity. The wily priest,
however, saw that no other coadjutor save Buonaparte could have availed
him, after the return of the latter from Egypt, and was not long of
experiencing that Napoleon would not be satisfied with any thing short
of the lion's share of the spoil.
[Sidenote: Nov. 11.]
At the very first meeting of the consuls, the defection of Roger Ducos
to the side of Buonaparte convinced Siêyes, that he would be unable to
support those pretensions to the first place in the government, to which
his friends had expected to see him elevated. He had reckoned on Ducos's
vote for giving him the situation of first consul; but Ducos saw better
where the force and talent of the Consulate must be considered as
reposed. "General," said he to Napoleon, at the first meeting of the
Consular body, "the presidency belongs to you as a matter of right."
Buonaparte took the chair accordingly as a thing of course. In the
course of the deliberations, Siêyes had hoped to find that the general's
opinions and interference would have been limited to military affairs;
whereas, on the contrary, he heard him express distinctly, and support
firmly, propositions on policy and finance, religion and jurisprudence.
He showed, in short, so little occasion for an independent coadjutor,
that Siêyes appears from this, the very first interview, to have given
up all hopes of establishing a separate interest of his own, and to
have seen that the Revolution was from that moment ended. On his return
home, he said to those statesmen with whom he had consulted and acted
preceding the eighteenth Brumaire, as Talleyrand, Boulay, Rœderer,
Cabanis, &c.--"Gentlemen, you have a Master--give yourself no farther
concern about the affairs of the state--Buonaparte can and will manage
them all at his own pleasure."[498]
This declaration must have announced to those who heard it, that the
direct and immediate advantages proposed by the revolution were lost;
that the government no longer rested on the popular basis, but that, in
a much greater degree than could have been said to have been the case
during the reign of the Bourbons, the whole measures of state must in
future rest upon the arbitrary pleasure of one man.
It was, in the meantime, necessary that some form of government should
be established without delay, were it only to prevent the meeting of the
two Councils, who must have resumed their authority, unless superseded
by a new constitution previous to the 19th February, 1800, to which day
they had been prorogued. As a previous measure, the oath taken by
official persons was altered from a direct acknowledgment of the
constitution of the year Three, so as to express a more general
profession of adherence to the cause of the French nation. How to salve
the wounded consciences of those who had previously taken the oath in
its primitive form, no care was used, nor does any appear to have been
thought necessary.[499]
[Sidenote: DISCUSSION ON THE CONSTITUTION.]
[Sidenote: Dec.]
The three consuls, and the legislative committees, formed themselves
into a General Committee, for the purpose of organizing a
constitution;[500] and Siêyes was invited to submit to them that model,
on the preparation of which he used to pique himself, and had been
accustomed to receive the flattery of his friends. He appears to have
obeyed the call slowly, and to have produced his plan partially, and by
fragments;[501] probably because he was aware, that the offspring of his
talents would never be accepted in its entire form, but must necessarily
undergo such mutilations as might fit it for the purposes and to the
pleasure of the dictator, whose supremacy he had been compelled to
announce to his party.
On being pressed by his colleagues in the committee, the metaphysical
politician at length produced his full plan of the hierarchical
representation, whose authority was to emanate from the choice of the
people and of a Conservative Senate, which was at once to protect the
laws of the commonwealth, and _absorb_, as it was termed, all furious
and over-ambitious spirits, by calling them, when they distinguished
themselves by any irregular exertion of power, to share the comforts and
incapacities of their own body, as they say spirits of old were conjured
down, and obliged to abide in the Red Sea. He then brought forward his
idea of a Legislative Body, which was to vote and decide, but without
debate; and his Tribunate, designed to plead for, or to impeach the
measures of government. These general outlines were approved, as being
judged likely to preserve more stability and permanence than had been
found to appertain to the constitutions, which, since 1792, had, in such
quick succession, been adopted and abandoned.
But the idea which Siêyes entertained of lodging the executive
government in a Grand Elector, who was to be the very model of a King of
Lubberland, was the ruin of his plan. It was in vain, that in hopes of
luring Buonaparte to accept of this office, he had, while depriving it
of all real power, attached to it a large revenue, guards, honours, and
rank. The heaping with such distinctions an official person, who had no
other duty than to name two consuls, who were to carry on the civil and
military business of the state without his concurrence or authority, was
introducing into a modern state the evils of a worn-out Asiatic empire,
where the Sultan, or Mogul, or whatever he is called, lies in his Haram
in obscure luxury, while the state affairs are conducted exclusively by
his viziers, or lieutenants.
Buonaparte exclaimed against the whole concoction.--"Who," said he,
"would accept an office, of which the only duties were to fatten like a
pig upon so many millions yearly?[502]--Or what man of spirit would
consent to name ministers, over whom, being named, he was not to
exercise the slightest authority?--And your two consuls for war and
peace, the one surrounded with judges, churchmen, and civilians,--the
other with military men and diplomatists,--on what footing of
intercourse can they be said to stand respecting each other?--the one
demanding money and recruits, the other refusing the supplies? A
government involving such a total separation of offices necessarily
connected, would be heterogeneous,--the shadow of a state, but without
the efficient authority which should belong to one."
Siêyes did not possess powers of persuasion or promptness of speech in
addition to his other talents. He was silenced and intimidated, and saw
his favourite Elector-General, with his two Consuls, or rather viziers,
rejected, without making much effort in their defence.
Still the system which was actually adopted, bore, in point of form,
some faint resemblance to the model of Siêyes. Three Consuls were
appointed; the first to hold the sole power of nominating to public
offices, and right of determining on public measures; the other two were
to be his indispensable counsellors. The first of these offices was
designed to bring back the constitution of France to a monarchical
system, while the second and third were added merely to conciliate the
Republicans, who were not yet prepared for a retrograde movement.
The office of one of these supplementary consuls was offered to Siêyes,
but he declined to accept of it, and expressed his wish to retire from
public life. His disappointment was probably considerable, at finding
himself acting but a second-rate part, after the success of the
conspiracy which he had himself schemed; but his pride was not so great
as to decline a pecuniary compensation. Buonaparte bestowed on him by
far the greater part of the private treasure amassed by the
ex-directors. It was said to amount to six hundred thousand francs,
which Siêyes called _une poire pour la soif_; in English, a morsel to
stay the stomach.[503] He was endowed also with the fine domain and
estate of Crosne;[504] and to render the gift more acceptable, and save
his delicacy, a decree was issued, compelling him to accept of this
manifestation of national gratitude. The office of a senator gave him
dignity; and the yearly appointment of twenty-five thousand francs
annexed to it, added to the ease of his situation.[505] In short, this
celebrated metaphysician disappeared as a political person, and became,
to use his own expression, _absorbed_ in the pursuit of epicurean
indulgences, which he covered with a veil of mystery. There is no doubt
that by thus showing the greedy and mercenary turn of his nature,
Siêyes, notwithstanding his abilities, lost in a great measure the
esteem and reverence of his countrymen; and this was a consequence not
probably unforeseen by Buonaparte, when he loaded him with wealth.
[Sidenote: CONSULAR GOVERNMENT.]
To return to the new constitution. Every species of power and faculty
was heaped upon the chief consul, with a liberality which looked as if
France, to atone for her long jealousy of those who had been the
administrators of her executive power, was now determined to remove at
once every obstacle which might stand in the way of Buonaparte to
arbitrary power. He possessed the sole right of nominating counsellors
of state, ministers, ambassadors, officers, civil and military, and
almost all functionaries whatsoever. He was to propose all new laws, and
take all measures for internal and external defence of the state. He
commanded all the forces, of whatever description, superintended all the
national relations at home and abroad, and coined the public money. In
these high duties he had the advice of his brother consuls, and also of
a Council of State. But he was recognised to be independent of them all.
The consuls were to be elected for the space of ten years, and to be
re-eligible.
The Abbé Siêyes's plan of dividing the people into three classes, which
should each of them declare a certain number of persons eligible to
certain gradations of the state, was ostensibly adopted. The lists of
these eligible individuals were to be addressed by the various electoral
classes to the Conservative Senate, which also was borrowed from the
abbé's model. This body, the highest and most august in the state, were
to hold their places for life, and had a considerable pension attached
to them. Their number was not to exceed eighty, and they were to have
the power of supplying vacancies in their own body, by choosing the
future senator from a list of three persons; one of them proposed by the
chief consul, one by the Legislative Body, and one by the Tribunate.
Senators became for ever incapable of any other public duty. Their duty
was to receive the national lists of persons eligible for official
situations, and to annul such laws or measures as should be denounced to
their body, as unconstitutional or impolitic, either by the Government
or the Tribunate. The sittings of the Senate were not public.
The new constitution of France also adopted the Legislative Body and the
Tribunate proposed by the Abbé Siêyes. The duty of the Legislative Body
was to take into consideration such laws as should be approved by the
Tribunate, and pass or refuse them by vote, but without any debate, or
even an expression of their opinion.
The Tribunate, on the contrary, was a deliberative body, to whom the
chief consul, and his Council of State, with whom alone lay the
initiative privilege, were to propose such laws as appeared to them
desirable. These, when discussed by the Tribunate, and approved of by
the silent assent of the Legislative Body, passed into decrees, and
became binding upon the community. The Legislative Body heard the report
of the Tribunate, as expressed by a deputation from that body; and by
their votes alone, but without any debate or delivery of opinion,
refused or confirmed the proposal. Some of the more important acts of
government, such as the proclamation of peace or war, could only take
place on the motion of the chief consul to the Tribunate, upon their
recommending the measure to the Legislative Body; and, finally, upon the
legislative commissions affirming the proposal. But the power of the
chief consul was not much checked by this restriction, for the
discussion on such subjects was only to take place on his own
requisition, and always in secret committee; so that the greatest
hinderance of despotism, the weight of public opinion formed upon public
debate, was totally wanting.
A very slight glance at this Consular form of government is sufficient
to show, that Buonaparte selected exactly as much of the ingenious
constitution of Siêyes as was applicable to his own object of acquiring
supreme and despotic authority, while he got rid of all, the Tribunate
alone excepted, which contained, directly or indirectly, any check or
balance affecting the executive power. The substitution of lists of
eligible persons or candidates, to be made up by the people, instead of
the popular election of actual representatives, converted into a
metaphysical and abstract idea the real safeguard of liberty. It may be
true, that the authority of an official person, selected from the
national lists, might be said originally to emanate from the people;
because, unless his name had received their sanction, he could not have
been eligible. But the difference is inexpressibly great, between the
power of naming a single direct representative, and that of naming a
thousand persons, any of whom may be capable of being created a
representative; and the popular interference in the state, which had
hitherto comprehended the former privilege, was now restrained to the
latter and more insignificant one. This was the main error in Siêyes's
system, and the most fatal blow to liberty, whose constitutional safety
can hardly exist, excepting in union with a direct and unfettered
national representation, chosen by the people themselves.
All the other balances and checks which the Abbé had designed to
substitute instead of that which arises from popular election, had been
broken and cast away; while the fragments of the scheme that remained
were carefully adjusted, so as to form the steps by which Buonaparte was
to ascend to an unlimited and despotic throne. Siêyes had proposed that
his elector-general should be merely a graceful termination to his
edifice, like a gilded vane on the top of a steeple--a sovereign without
power--a _roi fainéant_,[506] with two consuls to act as joint _Maires
des palais_. Buonaparte, on the contrary, gave the whole executive power
in the state, together with the exclusive right of proposing all new
laws, to the chief consul, and made the others mere appendages, to be
thrown aside at pleasure.
Neither were the other constitutional authorities calculated to offer
effectual resistance to the engrossing authority of this all-powerful
officer. All these bodies were, in fact, mere pensioners. The Senate,
which met in secret, and the Legislative Body, whose lips were
padlocked, were alike removed from influencing public opinion, and being
influenced by it. The Tribunate, indeed, consisting of a hundred
persons, retained in some sort the right of debate, and of being
publicly heard. But the members of the Tribunate were selected by the
Senate, not by the people, whom except in metaphysical mockery, it could
not be said to represent any more than a bottle of distilled liquor can
be said to represent the sheaf of grain which it was originally drawn
from. What chance was there that, in a hundred men so chosen, there
should be courage and independence enough found to oppose that primary
power, by which, like a steam-engine, the whole constitution was put in
motion? Such tribunes were also in danger of recollecting, that they
only held their offices for four years, and that the senators had their
offices for life; while a transition from the one state to the other was
in general thought desirable, and could only be gained by implicit
obedience during the candidate's probation in the Tribunate. Yet,
slender as was the power of this tribunate body, Buonaparte showed some
jealousy even of this slight appearance of freedom; although, justly
considered, the Senate, the Conservative Body, and the Tribunate, were
but three different pipes, which, separately or altogether, uttered
sound at the pleasure of him who presided at the instrument.
The spirit of France must have been much broken when this arbitrary
system was adopted without debate or contradiction; and, when we
remember the earlier period of 1789, it is wonderful to consider how, in
the space of ten years, the race of men, whose love of liberty carried
them to such extravagances, seems to have become exhausted. Personal
safety was now a principal object with most. They saw no alternative
between absolute submission to a military chief of talent and power, and
the return to anarchy and new revolutionary excesses.
During the sitting of Buonaparte's Legislative Committee, Madame de
Staël expressed to a representative of the people, her alarms on the
subject of liberty. "Oh, madam," he replied, "we are arrived at an
extremity in which we must not trouble ourselves about saving the
principles of the Revolution, but only the lives of the men by whom the
Revolution was effected."[507]
Yet more than one exertion is said to have been made in the committee,
to obtain some modification of the supreme power of the chief consul, or
at least some remedy in case of its being abused. Several members of the
committee which adjusted the new constitution, made, it is said, an
effort to persuade Buonaparte, that, in taking possession of the office
of supreme magistrate, without any preliminary election, he would evince
an ambition which might prejudice him with the people; and, entreating
him to be satisfied with the office of generalissimo of the armies, with
full right of treating with foreign powers, invited him to set off to
the frontier and resume his train of victories. "I will remain at
Paris," said Buonaparte, biting his nails to the quick, as was his
custom when agitated--"I will remain at Paris--I am chief consul."
Chenier hinted at adopting the doctrine of absorption, but was instantly
interrupted--"I will have no such mummery," said Buonaparte; "blood to
the knees rather."[508] These expressions may be exaggerated; but it is
certain that, whenever there was an attempt to control his wishes, or
restrict his power, such a discontented remark as intimated "that he
would meddle no more in the business," was sufficient to overpower the
opposition. The committee saw no option betwixt submitting to the
authority of this inflexible chief, or encountering the horrors of a
bloody civil war. Thus were lost at once the fruits of the virtues, the
crimes, the blood, the treasure, the mass of human misery, which,
flowing from the Revolution, had agitated France for ten years; and
thus, having sacrificed almost all that men hold dear, the rights of
humanity themselves included, in order to obtain national liberty, her
inhabitants, without having enjoyed rational freedom, or the advantages
which it ensures, for a single day, returned to be the vassals of a
despotic government, administered by a chief whose right was only in his
sword. A few reflections on what might or ought to have been
Buonaparte's conduct in this crisis, naturally arise out of the subject.
We are not to expect, in the course of ordinary life, moral any more
than physical miracles. There have lived men of a spirit so noble, that,
in serving their country, they had no other object beyond the merit of
having done so; but such men belong to a less corrupted age than ours,
and have been trained in the principles of disinterested patriotism,
which did not belong to France, perhaps not to Europe, in the eighteenth
century. We may, therefore, take it for granted, that Buonaparte was
desirous, in some shape or other, to find his own interest in the
service of his country, that his motives were a mixture of patriotism
and the desire of self-advancement; and it remains to consider in what
manner both objects were to be best obtained.
The first alternative was the re-establishment of the Republic, upon
some better and less perishable model than those which had been
successively adopted and abandoned by the French, in the several phases
of the Revolution. But Buonaparte had already determined against this
plan of government, and seemed unalterably convinced, that the various
misfortunes and failures which had been sustained in the attempt to
convert France into a republic, afforded irrefragable evidence that her
natural and proper constitutional government must be monarchical. This
important point settled, it remained, 1st, To select the person in
whose hand the kingly power was to be intrusted. 2dly, To consider in
what degree the monarchical principle should be mingled with, and
qualified by, securities for the freedom of the people, and checks
against the encroachments of the prince.
Having broken explicitly with the Republicans, Buonaparte had it in his
power, doubtless, to have united with those who desired the restoration
of the Bourbons, who at this moment formed a large proportion of the
better classes in France. The name of the old dynasty must have brought
with it great advantages. Their restoration would have at once given
peace to Europe, and in a great measure reconciled the strife of parties
in France. There was no doubt of the possibility of the
counter-revolution; for what was done in 1814 might have been still more
easily done in 1799. Old ideas would have returned with ancient names,
and at the same time security might have been given, that the restored
monarch should be placed within such legal restraints as were necessary
for the protection of the freedom of the subject. The principal powers
of Europe, if required, would have gladly guaranteed to the French
people any class of institutions which might have been thought adequate
to this purpose.
But, besides that such a course cut off Buonaparte from any higher
reward of his services, than were connected with the rank of a subject,
the same objections to the restoration of the Bourbon family still
prevailed, which we have before noticed. The extreme confusion likely to
be occasioned by the conflicting claims of the restored emigrants, who
had left France with all the feelings and prejudices peculiar to their
birth and quality, and those of the numerous soldiers and statesmen who
had arisen to eminence during the revolution, and whose pretensions to
rank and office would be urged with jealous vehemence against those who
had shared the fortunes of the exiled monarch, was a powerful objection
to the restoration. The question concerning the national domains
remained as embarrassing as before; for, while the sales which had been
made of that property could scarce be cancelled without a severe shock
to national credit, the restored Bourbons could not, on the other hand,
fail to insist upon an indemnification to the spirituality, who had been
stripped of their property for their adherence to their religious vows,
and to the nobles, whose estates had been forfeited for their adherence
to the throne. It might also have been found, that, among the army, a
prejudice against the Bourbons had survived their predilection for the
Republic, and that although the French soldiers might see with pleasure
a crown placed on the brow of their favourite general, they might be
unwilling to endure the restoration of the ancient race, against whom
they had long borne arms.
[Sidenote: THE CONSULATE.]
All these objections against attempting to recall the ancient dynasty,
have weight in themselves, and may readily have appeared insuperable to
Buonaparte; especially considering the conclusion to be, that if the
Bourbons were found ineligible, the crown of France--with a more
extended empire, and more unlimited powers--was in that case to rest
with Buonaparte himself. There is no doubt that, in preferring the title
of the Bourbons, founded on right, to his own, which rested on force and
opportunity alone, Buonaparte would have acted a much more noble,
generous, and disinterested part, than in availing himself of
circumstances to establish his own power; nay, that, philosophically
speaking, such a choice might have been wiser and happier. But in the
ordinary mode of viewing and acting in this world, the temptation was
immense; and Buonaparte was, in some measure, unfettered by the
circumstances which might have withheld some of his contemporaries from
snatching at the crown that seemed to await his grasp. Whatever were the
rights of the Bourbons, abstractedly considered, they were not of a kind
to force themselves immediately upon the conscience of Buonaparte. He
had not entered public life, was indeed a mere boy, when the general
voice of France, or that which appeared such, drove the ancient race
from the throne; he had acted during all his life hitherto in the
service of the French government _de facto_; and it was hard to require
of him, now of a sudden, to sacrifice the greatest stake which a man
ever played for, to the abstract right of the king _de jure_. Candour
will therefore allow, that though some spirits, of an heroic pitch of
character, might, in his place, have acted otherwise, yet the conduct of
Buonaparte, in availing himself, for his own advantage, of the height
which he had attained by his own talents, was too natural a course of
action to be loaded with censure by any one, who, if he takes the
trouble to consider the extent of the temptation, must acknowledge in
his heart the difficulty of resisting it.
But, though we may acknowledge many excuses for the ambition which
induced Buonaparte to assume the principal share of the new government,
and although we were even to allow to his admirers that he became First
Consul purely because his doing so was necessary to the welfare of
France, our candour can carry us no farther. We cannot for an instant
sanction the monstrous accumulation of authority which engrossed into
his own hands all the powers of the State, and deprived the French
people, from that period, of the least pretence to liberty, or power of
protecting themselves from tyranny. It is in vain to urge, that they had
not yet learned to make a proper use of the invaluable privileges of
which he deprived them--equally in vain to say, that they consented to
resign what it was not in their power to defend. It is a poor apology
for theft, that the person plundered knew not the value of the gem taken
from him; a worse excuse for robbery, that the party robbed was disarmed
and prostrate, and submitted without resistance, where to resist would
have been to die. In choosing to be the head of a well-regulated and
limited monarchy, Buonaparte would have consulted even his own interest
better, than by preferring, as he did, to become the sole animating
spirit of a monstrous despotism. The communication of common privileges,
while they united discordant factions, would have fixed the attention of
all on the head of the government, as their mutual benefactor. The
constitutional rights which he had reserved for the Crown would have
been respected, when it was remembered that the freedom of the people
had been put in a rational form, and its privileges rendered available
by his liberality.
Such checks upon his power would have been as beneficial to himself as
to his subjects. If, in the course of his reign, he had met
constitutional opposition to the then immense projects of conquest,
which cost so much blood and devastation, to that opposition he would
have been as much indebted, as a person subject to fits of lunacy is to
the bonds by which, when under the influence of his malady, he is
restrained from doing mischief. Buonaparte's active spirit, withheld
from warlike pursuits, would have been exercised by the internal
improvement of his kingdom. The mode in which he used his power would
have gilded over, as in many other cases, the imperfect nature of his
title, and if he was not, in every sense, the legitimate heir of the
monarchy, he might have been one of the most meritorious princes that
ever ascended the throne. Had he permitted the existence of a power
expressive of the national opinion to exist, co-equal with and
restrictive of his own, there would have been no occupation of Spain, no
war with Russia, no imperial decrees against British commerce. The
people who first felt the pressure of these violent and ruinous
measures, would have declined to submit to them in the outset. The
ultimate consequence--the overthrow, namely, of Napoleon himself, would
not have taken place, and he might, for aught we can see, have died on
the throne of France, and bequeathed it to his posterity, leaving a
reputation which could only be surpassed in lustre by that of an
individual who should render similar advantages to his country, yet
decline the gratification, in any degree, of his personal ambition.
In short, it must always be written down, as Buonaparte's error as well
as guilt, that, misusing the power which the 18th Brumaire threw into
his hands, he totally destroyed the liberty of France, or, we would say,
more properly, the chance which that country had of attaining a free,
and, at the same time, a settled government. He might have been a
patriot prince, he chose to be a usurping despot--he might have played
the part of Washington, he preferred that of Cromwell.[509]
FOOTNOTES:
[490] Gourgaud, tom. i., p 120.
[491] Subsequently Duke of Gaëta, who had long occupied the place of
chief clerk of finance. "He was a man of mild manners, and of inflexible
probity; proceeding slowly, but surely. He never had to withdraw any of
his measures, because his knowledge was practical and the fruit of long
experience."--NAPOLEON, _Gourgaud_, tom. i., p. 109.
[492] "In returning from Egypt, Napoleon had conversed a few minutes at
Valence with Spina, the Pope's almoner: he then learnt that no funeral
honours had been paid to the Pope, and that his corpse was laid in the
sacristy of the cathedral. A decree of the consuls ordered that the
customary honours should be rendered to his remains, and that a monument
of marble should be raised upon his tomb."--GOURGAUD, tom. i., p. 124.
[493] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 125.
[494] After the 18th Brumaire, Dubois de Crancé withdrew into Champagne.
He died in June 1814.
[495] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 108.
[496] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 137.
[497] The Senate of Hamburgh lost no time in addressing a long letter to
Napoleon, to testify their repentance. He replied to them thus:--"I have
received your letter, gentlemen; it does not justify you. Courage and
virtue are the preservers of states; cowardice and crime are their ruin.
You have violated the laws of hospitality, a thing which never happened
among the most savage hordes of the Desert. Your fellow-citizens will
for ever reproach you with it. The two unfortunate men whom you have
given up, die with glory; but their blood will bring more evil upon
their persecutors than it would be in the power of an army to do." A
solemn deputation from the Senate arrived at the Tuileries to make
public apologies to Napoleon. He again testified his indignation, and
when the envoys urged their weakness, he said to them, "Well! and had
you not the resource of weak states? was it not in your power to let
them escape?"--GOURGAUD, tom. i., p. 128; Thibaudeau, tom. i., p. 169.
[498] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 107; Fouché, tom. i., p. 128.
[499] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 140.
[500] The committee met in Napoleon's apartment, from nine in the
evening until three in the morning.--GOURGAUD, tom. i., p. 141.
[501] "Siêyes affected silence. I was commissioned to penetrate his
mystery. I employed Réal, who, using much address with an appearance of
great good-nature, discovered the basis of Siêyes's project, by getting
Chenier, one of his confidants, to chatter, upon rising from dinner, at
which wines and other intoxicating liquors had not been spared. Upon
this information, a secret council was held, at which the conduct to be
pursued by Buonaparte in the general conferences was discussed."--FOUCHÉ,
tom. i., p. 138.
[502] "Napoleon now began, he said, to laugh in Siêyes's face, and to
cut up all his metaphysical nonsense without mercy. 'You take,' he
said, 'the abuse for the principle, the shadow for the body. And how can
you imagine, M. Siêyes, that a man of any talent, or the least honour,
will resign himself to act the part of a pig fattening on a few
millions.' After this sally, which made those who were present laugh
immoderately, Siêyes remained overwhelmed."--NAPOLEON, _Las Cases_, tom,
iv., p. 335.
[503] Las Cases, tom. iv., p. 333.
[504] "Upon the occasion of this gift, the following sorry rhymes were
in every one's mouth:--
"Buonaparte à Siêyes a fait présent de Crôsne,
Siêyes à Buonaparte a fait présent du Trône."
--MONTGAILLARD, tom. v., p. 318.
[505] "Siêyes was the most unfit man in the world for power, but his
perceptions were often luminous, and of the highest importance. He was
fond of money; but of strict integrity."--NAPOLEON, _Gourgaud_, tom.
iv., p. 152.
[506] "The grand elector, if he confine himself entirely to the
functions you assign him, will be the shadow, but the mere fleshless
shadow, of a _roi fainéant_. Can you point out a man base enough to
humble himself to such mockery? Such a government would be a monstrous
creation, composed of heterogeneous parts, presenting nothing rational.
It is a great mistake to suppose that the shadow of a thing can be of
the same use as the thing itself."--NAPOLEON, _Gourgaud_, tom. i., p.
148.
[507] Consid. sur la Rév. Française, tom. ii., p. 248.
[508] Mémoires de Fouché, tom. i., p. 104.--S.
[509] The constitution of the year VIII, so impatiently expected by all
ranks of citizens, was published and submitted to the sanction of the
people on the 13th of December, and proclaimed on the 24th of the same;
the provisional government having lasted forty-three days. The
Legislative Body and the Tribunate entered on their functions the 1st
day of January, 1800.