CHAPTER XIX_The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Vol. 2 (of 4)

THE REORGANIZATION OF FRANCE[20]

[Footnote 20: The Memoirs of Mollien, Miot de Melito,

Chaptal, Lucien Bonaparte, Pasquier, and Consalvi; the works

of Thibaudeau and Roederer; Sagnac: Legislation Civile de la

Revolution Francaise; Life of Sir Samuel Romilly;

Haussonville: L'Eglise romaine et le premier Empire;

Leouzon-le-Duc: Correspondance diplomatique du baron de

Stael-Holstein et de son successeur le baron Brinkman.]

The Uses of Peace -- General Zeal for Reform -- The First

Consul's Diligence -- State Control of the Church -- Bonaparte

and the Pope -- The Organic Articles -- Establishment of the

Prefectures -- The Bank of France -- Its Successes -- Funding of

the Public Debt.

With this general pacification there was widespread contentment.

Addington thought the peace would be no ordinary one, but a true

reconciliation of the first two nations of the world. The continental

dynasties believed that at last the expansion of liberal France had

been curbed. The French themselves could not restrain their joy at the

prospect of a new social and political structure sufficiently

commodious for the exercise of their awakened energies, sufficiently

strong to command respect from enemies at home and abroad. The

builders were already at work before the ground was fairly cleared;

the regeneration of French institutions which has indissolubly linked

the name of Napoleon with the life of modern Europe was under way

before the peace negotiations were concluded.

[Sidenote: 1800--01]

The master workman found at his disposal two most important

conditions: a clean tablet so far as the monarchical and

revolutionary systems were concerned, and a great body of able and

educated men anxious to cooeperate with him. Their aim, like his, was

to make the nation strong and illustrious. But for them the

Revolution, confined in their minds to France, was over; while for

him, viewing it as a European movement, it was in full operation.

Whether they were royalists like Dufresne, or Girondists like

Defermon, or radicals like Fourcroy, or moderates like Regnault and

Roederer, or pardoned anti-Fructidorians like Portalis and

Barbe-Marbois, they were all alike animated with zeal for a strong

national life. But Bonaparte and a few of his intimates looked on

renovated French nationality as only the means to a further end. In a

pamphlet review of the situation, written in 1801, Hauterive declared

that the rotten European structure resting on the balance of power had

been overthrown by the wars of France, which was now, by her military

and financial strength, and by the principles of her government, ready

and able to make the beginning in a peaceful and prosperous federation

of nations. This was the revolutionary program in another form: under

the new conditions of French organization it eventually developed into

a scheme of European empire, in which a modernized and glorified

reproduction of Charles the Great, a French Charlemagne, was the

central figure.

Careful students of the life and labors of Bonaparte can scarcely

believe that human power could accomplish what he had already done.

His activity as strategist and general, as statesman and

administrator, had hitherto been fabulous: in the first years of the

Consulate it was simply doubled. To the minutest detail, every

department of the rising state received his attention, more or less

complete as occasion required. During the year 1801 the ablest

observers in the country, having been assigned one to each of the

military divisions into which the land was divided, were occupied in

compiling comprehensive reports to serve as a basis for legislation.

These papers took into consideration finance, the army, the

administration, public instruction, the alms-houses, the roads and

canals, commerce and industry, the public temper--in short, everything

which concerned the well-being of the people. They were the material

of Bonaparte's studies, and for the most part he mastered them. In

this work he utterly discarded the theory and ideals of the

revolutionists; the romance was ended, history must begin, he said. To

govern France as it is, to forget France as it had just been; to

discard the type unit of humanity, to deal with the real man in every

station; to scorn generalities, to assemble details; to abandon

possibilities, to secure actualities,--this was the trend of his mind;

the practical, the useful, the working machine were his goal. At this

task he often toiled fourteen hours a day, never less than ten, and in

his secretary Maret he had a minister as indefatigable as himself,

able to catch every thought and suggestion, to amplify and execute

every order, to cooerdinate the activity of his chief with all the

subordinate branches of the government. As a consequence, there is not

one of the great structures which combine in the logical unity of

French life as it exists to-day that did not receive the impress of

the First Consul's colossal mind.

For example, the Roman Church, which he had brought again to life,

comprised in equal numbers prelates who had accepted and those who had

refused the "civil constitution" of the republic. To impress the

imagination of the people, a service in honor of the Concordat was

celebrated at Notre Dame. Augereau and a number of his friends asked

to be excused from attendance, but were compelled to be present. The

First Consul went, with all the style--coaches, harness, lackeys, and

the like--which had been used by the Bourbon kings. But, after all, it

was a Napoleon Bonaparte and not a Louis Capet who was the personage,

and the remark attributed to an old general, whether correctly or not,

is utterly inapt--that everything had been restored except the two

million Frenchmen who had died for liberty. The difference was great.

For instance, a priest who had refused the rites of burial to a dancer

was removed from office for three months, in order that he might

reflect how Jesus Christ "prayed even for his enemies." Could anything

have been more antipodal to the state of things as it had been in 1762

and 1766, when the cases of Calas, Sirven, and Labarre, innocent men,

done to cruel, unmerited death by the connivance of church and state,

enabled Voltaire to launch his first thunderbolt on the devoted system

of the ancient monarchy so abhorrent to all intelligence and so

opposed to righteousness?

The Pope, moreover, was compelled to prohibit those who offended the

First Consul from residing at Rome, and when he suggested that

compensation should be made for the loss of Avignon, and that the

legations Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna should be restored,--not, of

course, in return for the Concordat, which would savor of simony, but

as the proof of a heart magnanimous, wise, and just,--the First Consul

gravely forwarded to Rome the mortal remains of Pius VI, which had so

far rested in the common cemetery at Valence. Bonaparte is credibly

reported to have said ironically that the Concordat was the vaccine of

religion: in fifty years there would be no more in France. The army

openly expressed its contempt for the arrangement, the council of

state tittered when announcement was made that the Pope's ban was

withdrawn from Talleyrand, and for a long time the public

ministrations of a clergy which was called "a consecrated

constabulary" were not taken seriously by the multitude. A century has

failed to restore in France the consideration which even scoffers felt

for the hierarchy antecedent to the Concordat; nay, more, the First

Consul's augury has been largely fulfilled; but on the other hand, the

former bitterness has never since been equaled.

Bonaparte's innermost thoughts were not at the time revealed; if

indeed he had a clear and definite idea of his policy. Later

explanations are, however, probable interpretations. Protestantism is

at once sectarian and individualistic in its tendencies, Romanism

makes for central unified control, secular as well as religious. The

restorer of Romanism in France found consideration throughout Roman

Europe for his later plans of imperial expansion. The clerical or

white police of France was a model for the like institution elsewhere,

as the military or black police of France became the basis of armed

force everywhere. But the degree of spiritual mission yielded to the

Pope was measured with a hand as sparing as that which doled scanty

stipends to archbishops and bishops, now a prelacy of public

functionaries which had once been princely in its incomes.

Furthermore, the organic articles, which were nothing more nor less

than consular decrees, were unsparing in their use of the police power

for the control of public worship. No bull nor ecumenical ordinance

was valid in France, no council nor synod could assemble within its

borders unless authorized by government, nor could a prelate leave his

diocese without its assent, even though summoned to Rome by the Pope.

The temporalities of the church were in the hands of the state. Galled

by such pitiless restrictions, the hierarchy winced and cried out, but

France has remained inexorable. Later the cults of both the

Protestants and the Jews were similarly organized.

On February seventh, 1800, were promulgated the measures which still

control departmental administration in France, the law which virtually

revived the Bourbon system of intendants, imposing on the country that

rigorous hierarchical-political centralization which no succeeding

government--royalist, imperial, or republican--has been willing to

dispense with. Working in cooeperation with the wonderful social system

of private life, it minimizes the consequences of political

revolutions, and preserves the identity of France. Each local

administration was a consulate in miniature. Every department had its

prefect, every arrondissement its subprefect, every commune its mayor.

These officials were all appointed by the executive, and were

subordinate to the minister of the interior. Each had an advising

associate appointed from the electoral lists; and the various

councils, some likewise appointed, some, however, elected, were in

ordinary times only the registers of the decrees sent down from above.

Before these measures were put into operation, neither country roads

nor city streets were safe, and brigandage was rife to the very gates

of Paris. The courts of law were disorganized, the police

undisciplined, and local government for the most part was a farce.

Within two years the whole machine was working smoothly throughout the

length and breadth of the land. Public order was restored, life and

property were safe, industry was guaranteed in its rewards, and the

productive energy of the people was unhampered by the fear of

injustice or by the uncertainty of possession. This transformation

made the institution tolerable to the Frenchmen of Napoleon's time,

but thoughtful men understand to-day that it annihilated liberty under

the Consulate and Empire, and that it still has undiminished

possibilities as an instrument of oppression.

It is significant that the great measure which went hand in hand with

this one was a true reform of the most vital nature. On January

eighteenth, 1800, was founded the Bank of France. The monarchy in its

straits had issued bills with no security; the Convention and the

Directory also flooded the country with worthless paper, although they

assumed to find an adequate collateral in the domains of the crown and

of the emigrants, which were seized and held as national property. But

war and internal strife destroyed the value of these lands, and in

1795 a gold livre was worth seventy-five in paper, while a year later

the price had risen to three hundred and forty. The Directory had

recourse to forced loans and the statutory regulation of values, but

to no avail: at the close of their career the public lands, except a

small part estimated to be worth four hundred million francs, had all

passed into private hands at a price about one hundredth of their

estimated value. The greediest usury, the most disgraceful

speculation, had been universal, and of all those who had owned

property in any shape in 1785 there was scarcely one who was not

reduced to beggary, while, with numerous exceptions of course,

adventurous men of doubtful character were now the landed proprietors

and controlling capitalists. The public creditors had seen their

obligations legally scaled to a nominal value of one third the face,

payable in paper, and these bonds were almost worthless. Under such

conditions it was not remarkable that the collection of taxes even by

the use of force had become well-nigh impossible. The amount of

arrears on the eighteenth of Brumaire was eleven hundred million

francs. The Directory and, for a time, the Consulate subsisted on

contributions levied on conquered states.

[Sidenote: 1801]

The avowed object of the Bank of France was the support of trade and

industry. To its capital of thirty million francs the government

subscribed five millions, which it took from the guarantee bonds given

by its employees on their assuming positions of trust. The operations

of brokers and money-lenders were then subjected to the strictest

control, and the enterprises of agriculture and manufactures were

regulated and encouraged by the reestablishment of chambers of

commerce and by public rewards for excellence. In the first year of

his financial administration Gaudin inaugurated the success which

continued for the rest of his term. In every department a new and

equitable system of tax-collecting was instituted, and the assessments

were so fixed for a definite period at moderate rates as to awaken

public confidence. In a single year the returns from the public

forests were doubled, and the reorganization of the customs produced