EXPANSION OR THE REVOLUTIONARY SYSTEM[25]
[Footnote 25: Aside from the documentary authorities, printed
and otherwise, which have been already enumerated, the most
valuable memoirs for this period are those of Chaptal,
Czartoryski, Lucien Bonaparte, Joseph de Maistre, Meneval,
Metternich, Miot de Melito, Moriolles, Norvins, and Pasolini.
Further, Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, Cornwallis's
Correspondence, Castlereagh's Letters and Despatches, the
Paget Papers, Malmesbury's Journal, and Carr's Stranger in
France. See likewise Lecestre's New Letters of Napoleon
(Lettres inedites, etc.).]
The Interpretation of a Treaty -- The Document Signed at Amiens
-- Addington's Policy -- English Influence in Germany --
Reconstruction of the German State System -- Its Consequences --
Lord Whitworth at Paris -- Bonaparte's Attitude -- Influence of
the Army -- English Disenchantment -- Recriminations between
England and France -- The Trial of Peltier -- Diplomatic
Hostilities -- Sebastiani's Report.
[Sidenote: 1802--03]
The First Consul might well feel that the constitution of the year
VIII had approved itself. The madness of Jacobinism was not merely
checked, it was utterly crushed out; political liberty had apparently
not been diminished, civil liberty had been formulated and assured as
never before; finally, the renown of France had never been more
brilliant, and the Consulate had used her glory to make the peace with
honor so earnestly desired. Nothing was left but to secure permanency
for the well-ordered life thus begun. Opinions varied widely as to how
far this was possible. The diplomatists of Europe were not hopeful,
knowing as they did what self-control had been exercised on both sides
in negotiating the treaty of Amiens, what knotty questions had been
passed over, and how easily the stipulations might be rendered of no
effect by opposite interpretations of their spirit; on the other hand,
Bonaparte, though aware of the strain which at such an epoch must
exist in the relations between monarchies and republics, and of the
warlike temper of the dynasties, believed that the pressure of public
opinion would insure the observance of the treaty. For him its
essential feature was the restoration of Malta to its former owners,
the Knights of St. John, that is, to the sphere of French influence,
or, in other words, England's surrender of absolute control in the
Mediterranean. He does not appear to have recalled that others might
think a corresponding diminution of French influence on the Continent
equally essential to its correct interpretation.
For the treaty of Amiens contained other stipulations. England's
warfare was not to be in vain. Trinidad and Ceylon were splendid
acquisitions to her colonial empire, and she retained her right to use
the harbors of the Cape of Good Hope. Except the two islands just
mentioned, Spain and the Batavian Republic got all their colonies
back, and the House of Orange was to be indemnified for its loss of
power in Holland. As to the Oriental question, England's pride was not
humbled, Turkey being left as before the war in respect to her
territorial boundaries, and being recognized again as the suzerain
both of the Ionian Isles and of Egypt. In return Great Britain was to
evacuate the latter country, and by the surrender of Malta abandon her
control of the Mediterranean highway. France was to evacuate Rome,
Naples, and Elba. Such was the paper to which on March twenty-seventh,
1802, Joseph Bonaparte, Cornwallis, Azara, and Schimmelpenninck set
their hands for their respective countries--France, Great Britain,
Spain, and the Batavian Republic. No mention was made of Piedmont, or
of the Helvetian Republic, or of the reconstruction of Germany in
accordance with the peace of Luneville, a matter which was to be
settled by agreement between France and Russia according to a treaty
which had been signed on October eighth, 1801. Alexander, the new
Czar, on his accession in the previous March, had promptly abandoned
the armed neutrality and the doctrine of "neutral flag, neutral
goods." Ostensibly he remained friendly to Bonaparte, but he declared
in his instructions to Markoff, his ambassador at Paris, that the
First Consul, "in flattering the deceased Czar, had been mainly
desirous to use him as a weapon against England." To Paul, who had
been ready to fight for the "liberty of the seas," and to check Great
Britain in India, Bonaparte might have yielded control in Italy; but
to Alexander, who, it was clear, was about to desert France, he would
naturally not yield one shred of continental control beyond what was
absolutely essential for peace.
The success of the negotiations at Amiens was largely due to the
personal characters of two men--Lord Cornwallis and Joseph Bonaparte.
The latter was conciliatory; the former, as Napoleon told Lord
Ebrington, in 1814, was from his integrity and goodness an honor to
his country. No sooner was the treaty signed than the opposition
leaders of the English Parliament began to declare that it gave to
France the mastery of the Continent. Addington stoutly denied the
allegation. Addison had always held the view that Great Britain had
been made an island in order that she might be the arbiter of the
Continent. This well-worn doctrine Addington vigorously maintained,
and, stung by the taunts of his opponents, he began the reign of peace
with a stronger emphasis than ever upon the time-honored (p.~264)
policy of meddling in continental affairs. In the Batavian, Helvetian,
Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics the English diplomatic agents
renewed their efforts to discredit the French influence, giving
comfort and support to those who would gladly have overturned all that
Bonaparte had done. The malcontents were, however, comparatively few,
because the people, having so long been the plaything of the old
European dynasties, had been but slightly invigorated by the
revolutionary epoch, and were content if only they might enjoy a
period of uninterrupted repose.
In Germany, however, the English envoys had a better field, for in
that disrupted land the case of the population, though resembling that
of those who dwelt in the countries just enumerated, was not
identical. Ever since France had asserted the doctrine that her
natural frontier was the Rhine, the simplest answer to the question of
how the temporal princes of the Germanic body were to be indemnified
for the territories she was seizing had evidently been found in
recurring to Richelieu's policy at the close of the Thirty Years' War,
namely, the secularization of bishoprics, and their incorporation with
dynastic states. In the Congress of Rastadt, Austria had grudgingly
admitted this as a guiding principle, disastrous as it was to her
supremacy in the empire--a supremacy based on the support of the
ecclesiastical rulers, who, being bound to no dynasty, naturally
rallied about the great Roman Catholic power, in opposition to
Prussia, her Protestant rival. So far, therefore, Roman Catholicism in
Germany had been in the main conservative, and English diplomatists
found ample room for the display of their ingenuity in offsetting
religious factions, as well as political cliques and dynastic
interests, one against the other.
But after the Concordat Bonaparte's position was so utterly changed
that all the liberal Roman Catholics in Germany, and a large
proportion of the rest, had little to choose between France and
Austria. He was therefore able to carry out in Germany the excellent
policy of entire reconstruction which he had pursued in Italy--a
policy which had had the sanction of French royalism and of French
republicanism. As a protector of the Church he could go only so far in
the wholesome process as he was able to make the world believe to be
necessary. Insisting, with this in view, that both the great German
powers should be separated from the Rhine by a line of little states,
he began to carve lands and transfer communities without the slightest
regard to their will. Nothing proves more conclusively how entirely
the balance of power had been destroyed, or how the old conceptions of
international relations were crushed, than the position of the
Germanic body and the disposition Bonaparte made of it. The petty
states fell suppliant at Talleyrand's feet, and the venal minister
spared those which paid the most; the others disappeared from the map
without any protest except from their own deposed princes. Scores of
the corrupt little courts which had disgraced the German name died
without any to mourn their demise, and proud imperial cities were
forced to bow before the semi-feudal dynasties. The process wrought
havoc in the local jealousies which had prevented in Germany that
wholesome national development already advanced among other European
peoples.
In a succession of treaties the work went steadily on. The Czar was
pacified by liberal grants to his relatives of the reigning house of
Wuertemberg. Prussia got an exchange for Cleves and the price of her
neutrality in such fine domains as Hildesheim, Paderborn, Quedlinburg,
and many others; Austria suffered for her defeats in accepting the
Italian arrangements, and a smaller share than seemed her right in
Germany; but the Grand Duke of Tuscany got Salzburg, Berchtesgaden,
Brixen, Trent, and part of Eichstaedt. Bavaria received Passau in
fulfilment of Bonaparte's promises. Baden and Darmstadt were, as
border states, made slightly stronger than they had been. The
substance of the arrangement between France and Russia was the
humiliation of Austria, the strengthening of Prussia, the
dismemberment of the Holy Roman Empire, and the dislocation of the
hitherto existing scheme of European politics. The ruling houses of
Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden, and Darmstadt were all related to the
Czar. It seemed a gain for him that their strength was increased; on
the other hand, they discerned in Bonaparte the power which rewarded
them for their fidelity to France, and became his firm supporters. It
is needless to say that English statesmen looked on aghast at this
reconstruction of Europe, and began to ask if their country's
traditional enemy could thus work its will without hindrance, and to
the hurt, not only of England's glory, but of England's prosperity,
perhaps to the menace even of her independence.
These changes were in steady progress throughout the autumn of 1802
and the first month of 1803, being completed in February of this year.
They were not announced as the "enactment of the imperial delegates,"
so called by courtesy, until then, and whatever might have been
suspected, they were not definitely known before then. But as early as
September, 1802, Addington took a step which proves that at that early
date his government was determined to put its own interpretation on
the treaty of Amiens, or rather to consider any interpretation of the
treaty of Luneville not in England's favor as a breach of the treaty
of Amiens. This step was the appointment as British ambassador at
Paris of Lord Whitworth, a stately, unbending, self-restrained
aristocrat. He would have been an admirable representative of Great
Britain at a Bourbon court; his presence at the quasi-republican
consular levees of Bonaparte was in itself a standing rebuke to the
new order. The character of his instructions was in consonance with
his appointment. They expressed suspicion that France was secretly
planning to harm English interests, and required him to pay special
attention to the lands "under the dominion of the republic." The
annexation of Piedmont was cited as a grievance, as was also the
attitude of France to the three new republics. He was to refuse any
satisfaction concerning Malta, and not to commit "his Majesty as to
what may be eventually his intentions with respect to the island." In
particular, he was to watch the French policy in regard to the Indies,
both East and West. Such a man with such instructions could in no wise
be considered or felt to be a minister of peace. He began in December
to assert that the French nation despised its government, and that
Bonaparte's finances were in serious disorder. Thenceforward carping
and faultfinding were intermingled in his correspondence with
statements outwardly calm but suppressedly indignant about the course
of France. He said, moreover, that every year of peace was better for
Great Britain than a year of war, because it would give strength and
courage to those of the French whose interest lay in overthrowing the
Consulate, which, on the other hand, would be weakened by inactivity.
The First Consul was equally astute. It is said that during the winter
a member of the council of state expressed his satisfaction with the
peace. "Do the signatures of the great powers make them any less our
foes?" was the rejoinder of Bonaparte. The response was of course in
the negative. "Well, then," he continued, "draw the necessary
conclusion. If these states are always keeping war _in petto_ in order
to renew it, the sooner it comes the better; for with every day fades
the memory of their defeats, while the prestige of our victories is
forgotten in equal measure. Every advantage, then, is on their side.
Remember that a first consul is in no respect like these kings by the
grace of God, who look on their kingdoms as heirlooms. This is for
them an advantage, for us a hindrance. Hated by its neighbors,
compelled to hold in restraint various classes of internal malcontents
and at the same time to inspire respect in so many external foes, the
French state needs glory, and therefore war. It must either surpass
all others or fall. I shall put up with peace as long as my neighbors
are able to keep it, but I shall think it an advantage if they compel
me to take up my arms before they are rusty.... From our point of view
I regard the peace as a short armistice, and consider myself doomed to
fight almost without intermission throughout my term of office." This
language, though credibly reported, was set down at a much later time,
as also was a statement of Lucien's in his memoirs that it was
ambition, not patriotism, which after the peace of Amiens made war a
necessity to his brother. The notices of the time which have come to
us from those not in the thick of plot and intrigue--men like Rapp and
others of his kind--create a different impression: that Bonaparte was
heartily sick of war, and really desired peace, not of course a peace
of recession, but one of further penetration for French prestige and
influence, an invading peace as it has been aptly styled.
Yet it is impossible to feel sure of the First Consul's innermost
desire, in view of the great army at his back eager for war and still
posted at the most advantageous strategic points of Europe. Where
such an army exists there must be a powerful military party, and such
a party must influence a great general. As late as 1875 the great
military leaders of the German Empire nearly thwarted the statecraft
of Bismarck, and almost succeeded in renewing the Franco-Prussian war
for the purpose of reducing France to vassalage. Similar influences
may have weighed at times with Bonaparte; but the charge that already
in 1802 France was the destined victim of Bonaparte's ambition, and
all Europe but its tool, remains unproved. He was not yet convinced
that war was essential for the extension of his influence, and there
is no proof until two years later that his dreams of Western empire
had taken definite form. Then, when France was fighting for her life
with an England governed by a narrow-minded and unwholesome king, and
when dynastic Europe was all allied against him, he appears to have
become convinced that the time had finally arrived when, to defeat
England and destroy dynastic rule in Europe, he must by all means at
his command unite the Western world under his sway.
Both the preliminaries of London and the peace of Amiens had been
hailed with joy by the industrial and mercantile classes of England.
It is true the Christian sentiment of the country was shocked by the
official restoration of the slave-trade on the part of France; but
that feeling was momentarily stilled in view of the untold benefits to
commerce which might justly be expected as the result of peace. In
this expectation, however, the merchants were disappointed, for the
Consulate immediately put in force certain arbitrary and annoying
shipping regulations intended to limit any encroachments on its rigid
protective policy. The pious philanthropy of England has ever seen
missionary zeal go hand in hand with British commerce as the best
means of simultaneously fulfilling England's destiny and ameliorating
the world. Accordingly, public opinion again took up the cry against
the slave-trade, and soon was so changed that the cheers of the
multitude were turned into renewed execrations of Bonaparte.
Thenceforward the influences which combined to create a warlike temper
in England were cumulative. It was found by private citizens that the
clause of the treaty which removed all sequestrations from their
property in France was not easily enforced. Statesmen began to say
that by a further extension of the system of federated states under
French hegemony their maritime empire would insure nothing but the
insignificant carrying-trade with the colonies, while the European
commerce, which was far more important, would be delivered into other
hands. The King feared lest, with the guarantee of territorial
sanctity, which was its mainstay, absolutism itself would go.
The bitter discontent of the British was expressed in the public press
almost before the ink was dry on the treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte,
demanding the right to establish consuls in the chief ports of England
and Ireland, designated the officials and sent them to their posts.
Under the pretext that these men were spies, charged to make and
forward to Paris plans of the harbors, they were seized, and forbidden
to enter on their duties. Moreover, one Peltier, an emigrant, began
without hindrance from the authorities to publish in London a French
royalist journal, "L'Ambigu," which lampooned and abused the First
Consul in a shameful but brilliant way. Two months after the date of
the treaty Bonaparte began to remonstrate against such license. The
English administration pleaded the freedom of the press under
constitutional guarantees, and asserted the truth of the allegations
brought against the consuls. Soon the tide of recrimination was in
full flood, and the columns of the "Moniteur" were filled with matter
similar to the offensive contents of the English press. The journals
of Paris began to declare that "Carthage must be destroyed." It was
the irony of fate that while in England the government could deny its
responsibility for the utterances of the newspapers, Bonaparte, who
had utterly destroyed the freedom of the press in France, could be
held to strict account for every word printed.
As early as July, the First Consul made his grievances a subject of
diplomatic remonstrance. Receiving a mild reply, he then enumerated as
matters of complaint, in addition to the license of the English
papers, the residence of emigrants in Great Britain, her harboring
conspirators like Georges Cadoudal, and her protection of the Bourbon
princes. Although the Alien Act would have made it possible for the
government of England to banish political refugees, it was contrary to
a wise policy to do so, and this was explained to the French
ambassador. In order, however, temporarily to appease the French
government, Peltier was prosecuted for libel of the First Consul. By
the skill of the defendant's counsel the trial was turned into a
jubilation over the liberty of the press; and though the culprit was
technically condemned, he was never brought to punishment. Thereafter,
by the aid of a subvention from Bonaparte, the Irish radicals began to
publish in London a fiery paper, the contents of which were supplied
from Paris, and were intended to counteract the influence of the
English journals.
Meantime the First Consul gave every evidence that his only warfare
was to be a diplomatic one; his chief interest was clearly the
improvement of French industries, the extension of beneficent public
works, and the consolidation of his colonial empire. Louisiana had
been ceded to France by Spain in exchange for the kingdom of Etruria,
and an expedition was being fitted out to go and take possession of
it. Efforts were directed also to the eastward, Sebastiani, a skilful
diplomat, being despatched in September, under the guise of a
commercial agent, carefully to examine Persian affairs and report on
the situation in the Levant. As a countercheck to the outcry which
Bonaparte believed would be raised over the annexation of Piedmont, he
filled Ireland with secret agents whose duty it was to foment and
organize the spirit of insurrection, while carefully studying the
country. Ostensibly they too were commercial agents, and even when
some of their instructions were seized by English officials, nothing
to the contrary could be proved. In their case, as in that of
Sebastiani, it does not appear that Bonaparte was aiming at anything
but to secure an alternative in case of extremity. That he had
eventually to take the alternative in Ireland is no proof to the
contrary. Similarly there was no overt hostility in the fact,
considered from any point of view, that Ney's fine army of thirty
thousand men, sent to Switzerland ostensibly in the interest of good
order, served likewise to check both Prussia and Austria, should they
prove restive under the new reorganization of Europe. When England
remonstrated, Bonaparte declared in a note of October twenty-third,
1802, to his ambassador in England, that his resolution was taken. If
war was threatened, it must needs be a continental war, the
consequence of which could only be to force him to conquer Europe. He
was about thirty-three years old. Hitherto he had destroyed only
second-class states. "Who knew how long he would take to change the
face of Europe again, and resuscitate the empire of the West?" This
paper Otto, the ambassador, virtually suppressed, knowing how far the
threat would jeopardize the peace.
During the summer of 1802, Fox journeyed to Paris, where he was
presented to Bonaparte early in September. The English statesman was
fascinated, and departed with the conviction that his host desired
nothing but peace with a liberal policy both domestic and foreign as
far as was consistent with safety. But the English press became none
the less virulent in consequence of Fox's favorable report, or of a
brilliant defense of France, which he made from his place in
Parliament. Toward the close of January, 1803, Talleyrand remonstrated
with Whitworth, plumply demanding what England intended to do about
Malta. Whitworth made an evasive answer, hinting that the King's
opinion of the changes which had taken place in Europe since the
treaty might be of importance in determining him as to the disposal of
the island. This was the first official intimation that England did
not intend to keep her promise. A few days later Sebastiani returned
from the East, and on January thirtieth, 1803, the "Moniteur"
published his thorough and careful report. It was a long document,
fully explaining every source of English weakness in the Orient, and
setting forth the possibilities of re-establishing French colonies in
Egypt and the Levant. There was only one menacing phrase, but it
expressed an unpalatable truth, that "six thousand French troops could
now conquer Egypt." The publication in England of this paper raised a
tremendous popular storm, and it has pleased many historians to regard
Bonaparte's course as a virtual declaration of war. In reality it was
merely a French Roland for the English Oliver. If England intended to
keep Malta, let her beware of her prestige in the East. Had Bonaparte
proposed to act on Sebastiani's report, he certainly would not have
published it. Of course, the English populace utterly failed to grasp
so nice a point, and the incident so strained the relations of France
and England that all Europe saw the impending crisis--one or the
other, or both, must consent to a modification of the treaty in
respect to Malta, or there would be war.