STEPS TOWARD MONARCHY[22]
[Footnote 22: References as before. Further, Vulliemin:
Histoire de la Confederation Suisse; Senfft: Memoires;
Organisation de la politique Suisse; Botta: Storia d'Italia;
Cantu: Corrispondenze di diplomatici, etc. (Archives); Melzi:
Memorie, documenti e lettere inedite di Napoleone I e
Beauharnais; Theiner: Histoire des deux Concordats;
Schoelcher: Vie de Toussaint Louverture; Reichardt: Vertraute
Briefe; Roloff: Die Kolonial Politik Napoleons I.]
The New Era -- Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte -- The Seizure of
Piedmont -- Genoa -- Etruria -- The Valais -- Holland and
Switzerland -- Censorship of the Press -- Manifestations of
Discontent -- The San Domingo Expedition -- Toussaint Louverture.
[Sidenote: 1801--02]
With the return of forty thousand emigrant families under an amnesty
which restored to most of the former owners everything not sold
excepting woods and forests, and which in some few cases permitted the
redemption under easy conditions of entire estates; with the
reorganization of the judiciary, of administration, of legislation, of
public instruction, and of the finances under a new constitution
worked by the strong hand which had made it, every observer saw that a
new epoch had indeed begun. At the same time the trend of affairs
toward some form of government in which the power of a single man
should be dominant was likewise noticeable. This produced but little
effect in the mass of the nation, but there were manifestations of
discontent in two small classes of men at opposite poles of
conviction. The royalists believed that their "pear was ripe," and
again opened negotiations with Bonaparte. The republicans who had
repented the eighteenth of Brumaire even on the morrow of their
participation were now thoroughly alarmed, and manifested their
discontent where alone they had any means of expression--by their
voices in the tribunate, and by their silent votes in the legislative
assembly.
Toward the close of the year VIII, that is, early in 1800, appeared a
pamphlet, evidently inspired, which was entitled "Parallel between
Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte." It was ostensibly intended to allay the
distrust of the latter's ambitions expressed in many quarters, and was
gratuitously distributed everywhere throughout France. It declared that,
Bonaparte being a man superior to either Cromwell or Monk and comparable
only to Caesar, the office of First Consul should be made hereditary in
his family. This was the real purport of the manifesto, that France
should already hail a Bonaparte dynasty; if fate destroyed Napoleon, a
brother ought to succeed him. The tract was written by Fontanes, its
revision and theatrical publication were the work of Lucien. Fouche as
the republican standard-bearer had already avowed himself against the
principle and practice of heredity. Mme. Bonaparte's sterility was the
safeguard of an elective chief-magistracy. To prevent divorce and
remarriage for the sake of direct heirs he had allied himself with
Talleyrand, Clement de Ris, and the Beauharnais influence. It was his
cynical delight that Lucien had been so hasty. This fact the First
Consul first suspected, and then by Fouche's help he assured himself of
it. He was angry, for, though agreed as to the principle, his preference
was Louis, who he thought had all the qualities and none of the faults
pertaining to the clan; and, moreover, the publication was so
unreasonable and hasty as to be an act of sheer folly, endangering all
his plans. So Lucien was forced to resign his portfolio of the interior
and withdraw from the scene. With bitterness in his heart he became
ambassador to Spain, and the elegant luxury of his post scarcely
softened the blow, under which he winced as he saw the dynastic idea
relegated to temporary obscurity by his brother, and himself forever
sundered from any share in it. It was only after Louis had proved a
broken reed that the question of divorce and remarriage to secure an
heir became acute. For the time being a hush fell over the schemers of
every sort: Napoleon's health was good and the temple of Janus was
closed. Worst of all, the people made no sign, and the wily chief
magistrate took no significant step until the preliminaries of peace had
been signed in London. Then he made a cautious advance. In January,
1802, Italian delegates were summoned to Lyons in order to outline a
constitution for the newly reorganized Cisalpine Republic. As a matter
of course, it was determined to reproduce the essentials of that which
had been made for the consular republic of France. One exception was
important: for a consulate of three members was substituted a single
chief magistrate under the title of "president."
At once the question arose, Who should this high official be? Here for
the first time it is well to consider the difficulties encountered by
the First Consul in connection with his family, inasmuch as with his
primitive Corsican devotion to those of his blood, he earnestly
desired on the one hand that his brothers and sisters should share in
his advancement. He would gladly see them rich, influential, and
clothed with a high degree of political power. On the other hand, what
he himself had wrought he was grimly determined he would control. To
the great ship of state there was to be but one helm and one pilot.
Joseph was the eldest, could he be considered as a possible president
in Italy? To this his reply was flat. If called to surrender his
modest life, his consideration as a temperate and simple private man,
he must have in return the substance and reality of rule. For
instance, to the Italian republic must be added, if Joseph were to be
president, all of Piedmont; Murat and the French army of occupation
must be withdrawn, and all the fortresses of the frontier toward
France must be rebuilt! Joseph could not be a political marionette.
But it was exactly a political puppet that Napoleon professed to
desire, and Talleyrand had found one. So Joseph was left to ruminate
on the charms of a simple life. For him as well as for Lucien these
consisted of intrigues and plots: both succeeded in collecting a
substantial following, for their brother was childless, and he was a
soldier, and there might be almost anything in the womb of the future.
Accordingly, after much apparent intriguing among the delegates at
Lyons, their choice fell unanimously upon Melzi, a Milanese nobleman.
The First Consul's agents promptly explained that the safety of the
"Italian Republic"--the significant name by which it was henceforth to
be called, Alfieri's "Italia virtuosa, magnanima, libera, et
una"--depended on its being ruled by him. The Italians at once drew up
a formal invitation to that effect, Bonaparte accepted, and the
servile newspapers of Paris declared that there was no menace to the
peace of France in the act; their First Consul could not have refused
such a call without a lack of courtesy, even of prudence. Melzi
accepted the vice-presidency, the proconsulate. To make a bridge
between his two domains, the Consul-President prepared to incorporate
Piedmont, not with his Italian republic, but with France. The Czar who
had taken up arms in behalf of the house of Savoy was dead. General
Jourdan informed the Piedmontese that their land was a French
military division, comprising six prefectures. Bonaparte said that
thereby was accomplished a natural reunion of French territory. This
idea was a reminiscence of Charles the Great's empire. As soon as the
treaty of Amiens was signed a decree of the senate informed the world
that Piedmont was a French department.
Valais could not well be given to Piedmont, on account of Swiss
jealousy. It was equally impossible to restore it to the Helvetian
Republic; for through it lay the splendid military road of the
Simplon, which France had been building across the Alps. Accordingly
the little land was declared an independent commonwealth. As to Genoa,
her still existing directorial constitution would now be as
impracticable to work as those of Cisalpina and Batavia. Salicetti
therefore offered to her government a new one prepared in Paris on the
consular model, and it was gratefully adopted. When the young King of
Etruria died on May twenty-seventh, 1803, Murat and Clarke were
appointed guardians of his widow, who was made regent for her infant
son.
With skilful allowances for national pride, a stroke similar to these
was also made in Holland. By the treaty of Amiens, the Batavian
Republic was to get back not only a nominal independence, but the
major portion of her colonies, including the Cape of Good Hope and her
chief East Indian possessions. In return for this a new constitution
was imposed upon her, which again was merely that of France under
another mask. The chief magistrate was called the "Grand Pensionary,"
and the place was filled by Schimmelpenninck, the devoted admirer of
Bonaparte. A French army continued to occupy the country at the public
charge. In Switzerland, also, changes were effected, but of a
different nature; for the First Consul thoroughly understood the
different character of her people. They had been unhappy under the
last constitution, and two embittered parties, the unitary and the
federalist, were struggling for mastery. Upon the withdrawal of the
French troops in compliance with the treaty of Amiens, it soon became
clear that there was danger of serious strife. Ney was sent to occupy
the country with thirty thousand men, and the chief Swiss statesmen
were summoned to Paris. In February, 1803, they adopted what was
called an Act of Mediation prepared by Bonaparte and to be guaranteed
by him. Its provisions were most wise, but it made the new state, then
called for the first time Switzerland, dependent for its very
existence upon him. In token of the new relation the confederation was
to furnish a subsidiary army of sixteen thousand men, and the chief
magistrate of France formally adopted the title of Grand Mediator of
the Helvetian Republic. Although many chafed under the relationship,
yet the ten years of Swiss neutrality which Bonaparte guaranteed were
probably the most prosperous in the country's history; consequently
the influence of Switzerland, so far as it was exerted, was all on the
side of Bonaparte.
The rigid censorship of the press established by the First Consul at
the beginning of his supremacy worked well for him. Out of a total of
seventy-three corrupt and quarrelsome journals published under the
Directory, only thirteen political newspapers had been left in
existence. These quickly became the most subservient mouthpieces of
the executive, iterating the sentiments which the public was to learn,
giving such news as they were allowed to give, and edited most
skilfully both to entertain and instruct their readers in all matters
foreign to politics. The nation rejoiced in the calm (p.~235)
produced by contemplating indifferent things. "Why did not Tacitus
explain how the Roman people put up with the wicked emperors who ruled
them?" This was a stock question of Napoleon's, his implication being
that there must have been a correspondence between the social state of
Rome and the character of her rulers which the historian dared not
openly explain. The parallel in the case of the French was manifest.
They had reveled in Jacobinism until suddenly the thing and the name
alike became intolerable; they had then swung to the opposite vicious
extreme of an indifference which courted a paternal hand in the
government. No act, however arbitrary or violent, could disturb a
people so accustomed to revolutionary shifts. When, three years later,
the shameful edict was issued which forbade the printing or sale of
books or plays that had not been authorized by a committee of
revision, there was scarcely a protest anywhere to be heard.
But from the beginning there were, nevertheless, emphatic protests of
more or less importance against the changes which were transforming
the vestiges of the republic into shadowy indications of a coming
monarchy. There was a single voice, that of Barnabe, lifted up at the
very first from the bench to declare that Brumaire was illegal; and
many foolish persons indulged to such an extent in loud seditious talk
that a charge of conspiracy was with some show of reason brought
against Ceracchi and Arena, two Corsicans, who were particularly
violent in denouncing their compatriot. The superserviceable police
pretended early in the year to discover details, but the alleged
complot was a pure figment. The army, in particular that portion which
had fought under Moreau, still cherished much of the republican
tradition. The soldiers of the Rhine had shown an angry contempt for
the Concordat, and their friends sympathized with them in the
instinctive feeling that a courtly religious hierarchy, when legally
restored, would lean toward a restoration of monarchy.
The First Consul, understanding that reactions must be checked in
their initial stages, determined to find occupation abroad for the
republican soldiers, as he had previously done for republican
politicians. Among other measures for the revival of commerce made
possible by the peace of Amiens, which secured the long-desired
"liberty of the seas," the government had determined to revive the
slave-trade, so as to populate the Antilles more densely, and create a
larger market. Admiral Bruix recalled that among the ancients slavery
had been consistent with the love of liberty; and argued that as
negroes, when left to themselves, preferred manioc to wheat, and
sweetened water to wine, they must be enslaved in order to give them
civilized tastes and make them consume the surplus of the French
harvests and vintage! Being natives of a burning clime, there was no
cruelty in carrying them to the West Indies! In pursuance of this
barbarous policy, Leclerc, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, was
commissioned to conquer San Domingo, which, taking advantage of the
disorders incident to the Revolution, had asserted its independence.
Bonaparte may not altogether have understood the dangers of such an
expedition. If he did, he must have been willing to sacrifice his
sister; for he compelled Mme. Leclerc to accompany her husband. The
troops selected were mainly taken from the Army of the Rhine.
Thirty-four first-rate vessels, twenty frigates, and numerous
transports, with more than twenty thousand soldiers on board, sailed
on December fourteenth, 1801, and arrived safely about the end of
January, 1802.
But Bonaparte's plans were doomed to encounter an obstacle in the
most remarkable man of negro blood known to modern history. Toussaint
Louverture was the descendant, as he claimed, of an African chieftain.
Highly endowed by nature, he had obtained an excellent education, and
had gradually, though born a slave, cultivated his innate power of
leadership until all the blacks in San Domingo regarded him with
affection and awe. Asserting their liberties as men, he and his
fellow-slaves then rose against their masters, and a servile war
ensued. It was temporarily checked by British interference; but the
unacclimatized white soldiers died in such numbers that the English
were compelled to leave the fertile colony in full control of the
negroes. Louverture, in imitation of Bonaparte, thereupon organized a
consular government, and with consummate wisdom inaugurated a
civilized rule. When summoned by Leclerc to surrender, he refused. For
a time his resistance was successful, but in the end he was compelled
by superior force to withdraw to the mountains. Thence he was enticed
by guile, captured, and sent to France. Kept a close prisoner in the
castle of Joux in Franche-Comte, the rigors of the climate speedily
destroyed his health, and he died on April twenty-seventh, 1803. But
the heat and mephitic vapors of his native isle revenged him. As the
French soldiers sickened and died of yellow fever, the natives
inaugurated a struggle for liberation, which was marked on both sides
by horrible barbarity. In less than two years the task of subjugation
became hopeless, and on December first, 1803, Rochambeau, having
succeeded Leclerc, who had retired the year previous to die in the
Tortugas, surrendered eight thousand men, the remnants of the
expedition, to an English fleet. The island has since been left to its
unhappy fate, and under native rule has relapsed into semi-barbarism.
The magnificent French plan of American colonization, having lost the
supports of both San Domingo and Louisiana, collapsed, leaving no
trace. Its mere existence, however, was the strongest proof of
Bonaparte's confidence in a lasting peace. Whatever his
disappointment, he was at least rid of a republican general and a
republican army. It was not much in comparison with his hopes, but it
was something.