THE LIFE CONSULATE[23]
[Footnote 23: The references for this chapter are those
already cited; Fievee, Fouche, Roederer, Musnier-Desclozeaux,
Pingaud, Bourrienne. Also, de Martel: Etude sur l'affaire du
3 nivose an IX; Fescourt: Histoire de la double conspiration
de 1800; Madelin: Fouche (publishes many documentary
extracts).]
Conspiracies against Bonaparte -- The Plot of Nivose --
Bonaparte's Ingenuity -- Blunders of the Moderate Republicans --
The Tribunate and Legislature Purged -- Power of the Senate --
Bonaparte's Reticence -- The Life Consulate Proposed --
Complacency of the Chambers -- The Legion of Honor -- Lafayette's
Withdrawal -- Amendments to the Constitution -- The Nation
Content -- Change in the Character of the Army.
The Consulate was scarcely inaugurated before a dastardly attempt was
made to assassinate its head. Early in the year 1800 a remnant of
Jacobins, terrorists, and anarchists had formed a conspiracy for this
purpose. Their doings, however, were betrayed to Fouche, who watched
them in such a way that their organization, though not broken up, was
reduced to impotence. Many persons have since believed that the wily
minister was holding the pack in hand for his own purposes, and that
this notorious Arena-Ceracchi conspiracy, as it was called, had been
his own creation for use in case the First Consul should be killed in
Italy. It is certain that during the long career of Fouche as minister
he never failed to have in readiness some kind of a complot for the
eve of each decisive battle in which Napoleon Bonaparte must expose
his person and risk his life. This, therefore, might well have been
the first of them. The royalists had persistently negotiated with
Bonaparte while he was yet a rising soldier. He seemed now to have
reached the summit of power, and alone could open or bar the way to
the restoration of Louis XVIII. Having toyed with their offers, it is
claimed that he gave the pretender to understand that his own highest
ambition was an Italian principality. Hopes, thus awakened, had
strengthened the royalist party; but as its ranks grew in number
dissension kept equal pace, until, while one faction, the strongest,
standing on the strictest legitimacy, remained true to the so-called
King, who was now living in Mittau, another, under the leadership of
Artois, was scheming in England for that prince, and a third, weary of
the petulant and quarrelsome feebleness of the other two, favored the
young Due d'Enghien, and grew daily stronger in Paris by desertions
from both. The members of the Enghien faction were indefatigable, and
at last from among their Vendean supporters was formed a secret junta
which, on the evening of December twenty-fourth, 1800, placed an
infernal machine in front of the First Consul's carriage as he drove
to the opera through the narrow street of St. Nicaise. His coachman,
catching sight of the strange obstacle in time, swerved, and drove
swiftly past, barely saving his passengers from the effects of a
terrific explosion which occurred the moment after, killing outright
several innocent persons, wounding sixty, and destroying about forty
houses. The First Consul and his wife drove on, and, pale with
excitement, appeared for a few moments in their box before the
expectant audience, which had already heard the news. They then
quietly withdrew. The effect on the public was electrical, and the
measures subsequently taken by the government were heartily applauded.
From this circumstance Bonaparte reaped a rich harvest, his perfidy
being comparable to that of the plotters themselves. The shameful deed
was first charged on the radicals, and by decree of the senate a
hundred and thirty of them were deported to the slow torture of places
like the Seychelles, tropical islands in the Indian Ocean. Fouche,
suspected of lingering Jacobinism, was on a trifling pretext
temporarily deprived of his portfolio, and was not ostensibly restored
to favor until 1804. Appointed senator, however, and enjoying high
consideration, his treatment did not please the brothers of the First
Consul. Their irritation was further increased by their knowledge of
confidential relations between Napoleon and the senator. During the
latter's retirement from his ministry he seems to have been quite as
influential secretly as he was openly and manifestly when he resumed
office. In the interim Ceracchi, Arena, and their fiery-tongued
companions were falsely condemned and executed. It was soon known that
the true culprits were the Vendeans, but Bonaparte declared that the
banished radicals would not be allowed to return because their absence
was a guarantee of the public safety. Only two of the real criminals
were eventually captured and executed. But the most disgraceful
consequences of this conspiracy, known in French history as the Plot
of Nivose, were the fall of Moreau and the murder of the Duc
d'Enghien, the remoter causes of which lie as far back as the First
Consul's determination, formed at this time, that he would diminish
the chance of such murderous attacks by striking terror to the hearts
of all his enemies.
In the rearrangement of powers consequent to the eighteenth of
Brumaire and the adoption of the constitution of the year VIII, the
able men of the republic had been provided for, partly in lucrative
offices connected with administration, partly in the tribunate and
the legislature. The greatest were in the former, and their
acknowledged leader was Benjamin Constant, the friend of Mme. de
Stael. They represented in a measure the courage and the idealism of
the Revolution, but they were in a false position, and showed neither
wisdom nor prudence. Accordingly, they made a serious tactical
blunder, and fixed upon certain doubtful paragraphs introductory to
the civil code in order to manifest their discontent with Bonaparte's
self-assertion. They resisted not only the reintroduction of such
antiquated barbarisms as the confiscation by the state of property
belonging to those who for any reason were deprived of their civil
rights, and of the goods of unnaturalized strangers who died within
its limits, but attacked likewise provisions of the judicial and
financial statutes which were wisely conceived, and were of great
utility to the country, some of them being in part their own work. As
they talked, their friends in the legislature voted.
By a provision of the constitution both these assemblies were to be
continuous, one fifth of the old members retiring every year; but a
method of designating the class to be retired first, and of choosing
their successors, was not presented. When the appointed time for this
change arrived, the First Consul was so determined to be rid of the
troublesome republicans in the tribunate that he even contemplated
expelling them by force, or abolishing the body as a whole. "There are
twelve or fifteen metaphysicians there," he had said on one occasion,
"fit only to be drowned. It is a kind of vermin which I have in my
clothes, but I shall not allow myself to be attacked like Louis XVI.
No, I shall not endure it." However, a less violent method was found
by Cambaceres, and adopted. The senate had been so constituted as to
represent the political indifference which made possible Bonaparte's
political career, and from the beginning it was a subservient tool. On
several occasions--as, for instance, when about to admit Daunou to
their number--the members had been made to feel the terrors of its
creator's wrath. The constitution and its interpretation being their
special charge, they were now ordered as a constitutional measure to
select not merely the names of both the tribunes and legislators who
should leave, but also those of their successors. Needless to say that
all the ardent and outspoken men like Daunou, Constant, and Chenier
went out. The only man of importance among those chosen to the
tribunate was Carnot. Fifteen generals or superior officers and
twenty-five officials took seats in the legislature.
It requires no astuteness to see that with the establishment of an
obedient senate as the guardian of the constitution, and superior to
its provisions, nothing was thereafter impossible under the cloak of
regular procedure. Any measure which was "conservative of the
constitution" could be legalized. The time seemed ripe to introduce
the hereditary element into the Consulate, a step which had lately
been desired by Bonaparte with an eagerness but poorly concealed from
his friends.
When the treaty of Amiens was to be formally ratified the opportunity
was at last found. This act marked the pacification of the world, a
consummation long and ardently desired in France. The popularity of
him who was the author of the peace could reach no higher limits. To
show the gratitude of the state, and to guarantee the perpetuity of so
great a work, his power must be prolonged. As to the extent, no one
could learn Bonaparte's wishes: whatever recompense the great powers
of the state chose to bestow he would accept. In vain were all
attempts to sound the depths of his desires; the crowning honor must
be forced upon him. But his friends failed to apprehend what would be
considered worthy, and the program laid down was consequently of petty
dimensions. When the treaty was laid before the tribunes their
president proposed that some striking mark of national gratitude
should be bestowed on General Bonaparte, First Consul, and a
resolution to that effect was adopted. There had already been
considerable discussion about presenting to him St. Cloud, the royal
residence nearest to Paris; but he had privately declared that he
would accept nothing from the people during his term of office, and
the proposition had been dropped. With something of this kind in view,
a committee of conference at once signified the action of the
tribunate to the senate in order that "the first assembly of the
nation should interpret a general sentiment" which the tribunes could
only express.
With a dexterity acquired by habit, the complaisant senate made ready
to formulate a decree. Both the prolongation for life of the Consulate
and making the office hereditary were proposed as fitting
testimonials. Pretending to believe that the First Consul's public
virtue would repulse anything so radical, the majority rejected these
suggestions, and prolonged the term of his office for ten years. When
he saw himself thus overreached the reticent chief magistrate
displayed a dangerous passion. But he soon mastered himself, and
replied to the senators with formal thanks, declaring that his respect
for the sovereignty of the people would not permit him to accept the
prolongation of his magistracy without the authorization of the
nation; that he was ready, if called upon, to make a new sacrifice. A
meeting between the family and many confidential friends was (p.~245)
at once held, in which either Lucien or the "wise Cambaceres"
suggested an appeal to the nation. The council of state then took up
the matter and proposed to ask for a plebiscite on the question, Shall
Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life? Roederer wished to add, "and
have the right to name his successor," but the First Consul declared
that that would be an encroachment on popular rights, and struck out
the words. On May eleventh, 1802, it was publicly announced that the
voting would begin immediately. Three months elapsed before the
returns were complete. In the interval both tribunate and senate
hastened to vote in favor of the measure. Congratulations as to the
foregone conclusion soon began to reach the Tuileries from all
quarters.
It was in this interval, moreover, that the two servile bodies finally
stamped with their approval the measures which reestablished the
slave-trade, even though nothing decisive had as yet occurred at San
Domingo. It is not difficult, considering the circumstances, to
understand the popularity of a measure, passed at about the same time,
for establishing the now well-known Legion of Honor. The passion for
pins, badges, ribbons, and personal decorations of every sort is
well-nigh universal. They gratify the sense of achievement among men
who are able, and flatter the vanity of those who are not. To this
passion, in itself not necessarily ignoble, the First Consul
determined to appeal for further support.
Every new institution of importance so far created by Bonaparte might,
with no great ingenuity, be turned into a prop of autocratic
government. The Legion of Honor was a measure easily manageable in the
interest of any government which might control it. Priests and
emigrants were now his natural allies, the constitution had been
virtually superseded, the troublesome senators, tribunes, and
legislators had been either dismissed or else called to order, and
the surrounding nations, one of them a kingdom, were, in relation to
France, like the sheaves bowing to Joseph's sheaf. Roederer declared
that the great deeds of the nation made it essential to revive the
sentiment of honor. Though the Convention abolished all titles it
nevertheless provided that "arms of honor" might be granted to
soldiers who had won distinction. An article of the new constitution
guaranteed, in the name of the French people, a recompense to its
armies. This simple phrase was the sanction chosen for the erection of
a corporation which, like the orders of absolutism, might intermediate
between the people and their magistrate in order to lend him the same
mystery which ever surrounds any monarch who is the "fountain of
honor." In well-considered and weighty words the First Consul declared
that truly great generals must possess a high degree of civil virtue.
That men in civil life were concerned in the main, not with force as
were mere soldiers, however brave, but with reason and truth, with the
general welfare and the discussion of principles: this was the
conclusive evidence to him of their right to drink at this fountain, a
right more imperative than that of military men. They could not
therefore be excluded. The republicans saw the trap, and resisted
sturdily, but to no purpose. The law having passed on May nineteenth,
1802, the ranks were at once constituted, and the decorative badges
determined. Every member swore devotion to the service of the republic
and resistance to any effort toward the restoration of feudalism in
all its attributes: consciences were thus quieted. Right and left the
men of science, of art, and of literature appeared with their ribbons
and rosettes; the nation applauded, and Bonaparte's opinion was
justified. "You call these toys! Well, you manage men with toys," he
had declared. The event justified him.
In August the result of the plebiscite was announced: among three and
a half millions of votes only a few thousand were in the negative. One
of them was Lafayette's. His gratitude to Bonaparte for release from
his Austrian prison had so far expressed itself in abstaining from
open opposition to his liberator's will, although in reality he was
the strongest exponent of what little enlightened liberalism was left
in France. Determined not to approve even negatively of what was
passing, but to withdraw from public life, he wrote to the First
Consul remonstrating against the latter's course. "Surely," he said,
"you, who are the first in that order of men who lay tribute on all
the ages in order to find a compeer and a place, would wish that such
a revolution, such conquest and bloodshed, such sufferings and
marvelous deeds, should have for you some other end than arbitrary
power." The protest was of course unheeded.
Thus, then, to use Bonaparte's language, "liberty and equality were put
beyond the caprice of chance and the uncertainty of the future." A few
finishing touches were given to the work after the announcement of the
vote. The lists of notables were abolished, and small cantonal
assemblies designated the candidates for lower offices. Electoral
colleges of manageable size sent up from the districts the names of
candidates for the tribunate; similar colleges sent up from the
departments the names of candidates for the legislature and the senate;
while all the electors of these primary assemblies were appointed for
life. The functions of the tribunate were limited, and it deliberated
thenceforward behind closed doors. The council of state was stripped of
its supremacy by the creation of a small privy council which did most of
its work. The powers of the senate were so enlarged as to make it nearly
sovereign. It could suspend or interpret the constitution, reverse the
decisions of the courts, and dissolve the tribunate and legislature,
always provided the proposition came from the government. And the
government retained only three prerogatives--the pardoning power, the
right to designate a successor in the office of chief magistrate, and
the right to nominate forty senators. In reality, the clever
manipulation of these provisions made the First Consul supreme for life,
and his office hereditary, without recourse to a further plebiscite.
A few wise men understood how the nation had been fettered, and one of
them proposed in a pamphlet that Bonaparte should be made king if only
he would restore constitutional government. It was easy to dismiss
with scornful disdain a proposition so subversive of "liberty." The
nation was content. The Revolution had at last culminated through the
fulfilment of its ideals in the person of a warrior strong to realize
them at home and defend them abroad. The boundaries of France were
enlarged, order prevailed within her borders, peace had been made with
honor, the "empire" of liberal ideas was established in the "empire"
of France, a favorite phrase of the Convention; and in it the
existence of beneficent institutions permeated by a liberal spirit was
guaranteed by the assured control of one who could turn experiments
into national habits.
Behind the Consul for life stood a now purged and unified army,
recruited by a system which insured its perpetuity and efficiency. The
child of the Revolution, the army, was a national institution; but the
influence of Bonaparte, combined with the conscription laws of the
Directory and the Consulate, had gradually and completely changed its
character and its spirit. Fathers no longer gave their sons for a
principle; families no longer saw conscripts march forth with the
sense that they were making a sacrifice to patriotism. Long
experience had made this a matter of course; young men went out to
fight for glory and, alas! too often for booty. Since the first
Italian campaign under him who was now chief magistrate for life, the
latter motive was always present and often avowed. The leader who
could be relied on to gratify the French passion for distinction, and
at the same time put money in the purse of his soldiers, might be
confident of their devotion.