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Title: The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 1 of 2)
Author: Rose, John Holland, 1855-1942
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Life of Napoleon I (Volume 1 of 2)" ***
LONDON: G. BELL & SONS, LIMITED,
PORTUGAL STREET, KINGSWAY, W.C.
CAMBRIDGE: DEIGHTON, BELL & CO.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
BOMBAY: A.H. WHEELER & CO
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
INCLUDING NEW MATERIALS FROM THE BRITISH OFFICIAL RECORDS
BY JOHN HOLLAND ROSE, LITT.D.
LATE SCHOLAR OF CHRIST'S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE
"Let my son often read and reflect on history: this is the only
true philosophy."--_Napoleon's last Instructions for the King of
Rome_.
VOL, I
LONDON G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
1910
POST 8VO EDITION, ILLUSTRATED
First Published, December 1901.
Second Edition, revised, March 1902.
Third Edition, revised, January 1903.
Fourth Edition, revised, September 1907.
Reprinted, January 1910.
CROWN 8VO EDITION
First Published, September 1904.
Reprinted, October 1907; July 1910.
DEDICATED TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE LORD ACTON,
K.C.V.O., D.C.L., LL.D. REGIUS PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN ADMIRATION OF HIS PROFOUND HISTORICAL
LEARNING, AND IN GRATITUDE FOR ADVICE AND HELP GENEROUSLY GIVEN.
PREFACE
An apology seems to be called for from anyone who gives to the world a
new Life of Napoleon I. My excuse must be that for many years I have
sought to revise the traditional story of his career in the light of
facts gleaned from the British Archives and of the many valuable
materials that have recently been published by continental historians.
To explain my manner of dealing with these sources would require an
elaborate critical Introduction; but, as the limits of my space
absolutely preclude any such attempt, I can only briefly refer to the
most important topics.
To deal with the published sources first, I would name as of chief
importance the works of MM. Aulard, Chuquet, Houssaye, Sorel, and
Vandal in France; of Herren Beer, Delbrück, Fournier, Lehmann, Oncken,
and Wertheimer in Germany and Austria; and of Baron Lumbroso in Italy.
I have also profited largely by the scholarly monographs or
collections of documents due to the labours of the "Société d'Histoire
Contemporaine," the General Staff of the French Army, of MM. Bouvier,
Caudrillier, Capitaine "J.G.," Lévy, Madelin, Sagnac, Sciout, Zivy,
and others in France; and of Herren Bailleu, Demelitsch, Hansing,
Klinkowstrom, Luckwaldt, Ulmann, and others in Germany. Some of the
recently published French Memoirs dealing with those times are not
devoid of value, though this class of literature is to be used with
caution. The new letters of Napoleon published by M. Léon Lecestre and
M. Léonce de Brotonne have also opened up fresh vistas into the life
of the great man; and the time seems to have come when we may safely
revise our judgments on many of its episodes.
But I should not have ventured on this great undertaking, had I not
been able to contribute something new to Napoleonic literature. During
a study of this period for an earlier work published in the "Cambridge
Historical Series," I ascertained the great value of the British
records for the years 1795-1815. It is surely discreditable to our
historical research that, apart from the fruitful labours of the Navy
Records Society, of Messrs. Oscar Browning and Hereford George, and of
Mr. Bowman of Toronto, scarcely any English work has appeared that is
based on the official records of this period. Yet they are of great
interest and value. Our diplomatic agents then had the knack of
getting at State secrets in most foreign capitals, even when we were
at war with their Governments; and our War Office and Admiralty
Records have also yielded me some interesting "finds." M. Lévy, in the
preface to his "Napoléon intime" (1893), has well remarked that "the
documentary history of the wars of the Empire has not yet been
written. To write it accurately, it will be more important thoroughly
to know foreign archives than those of France." Those of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia have now for the most part been examined; and I
think that I may claim to have searched all the important parts of our
Foreign Office Archives for the years in question, as well as for part
of the St. Helena period. I have striven to embody the results of this
search in the present volumes as far as was compatible with limits of
space and with the narrative form at which, in my judgment, history
ought always to aim.
On the whole, British policy comes out the better the more fully it is
known. Though often feeble and vacillating, it finally attained to
firmness and dignity; and Ministers closed the cycle of war with acts
of magnanimity towards the French people which are studiously ignored
by those who bid us shed tears over the martyrdom of St. Helena.
Nevertheless, the splendour of the finale must not blind us to the
flaccid eccentricities that made British statesmanship the laughing
stock of Europe in 1801-3, 1806-7, and 1809. Indeed, it is
questionable whether the renewal of war between England and Napoleon
in 1803 was due more to his innate forcefulness or to the contempt
which he felt for the Addington Cabinet. When one also remembers our
extraordinary blunders in the war of the Third Coalition, it seems a
miracle that the British Empire survived that life and death struggle
against a man of superhuman genius who was determined to effect its
overthrow. I have called special attention to the extent and
pertinacity of Napoleon's schemes for the foundation of a French
Colonial Empire in India, Egypt, South Africa, and Australia; and
there can be no doubt that the events of the years 1803-13 determined,
not only the destinies of Europe and Napoleon, but the general trend
of the world's colonization.
As it has been necessary to condense the story of Napoleon's life in
some parts, I have chosen to treat with special brevity the years
1809-11, which may be called the _constans aetas_ of his career, in
order to have more space for the decisive events that followed; but
even in these less eventful years I have striven to show how his
Continental System was setting at work mighty economic forces that
made for his overthrow, so that after the _débâcle_ of 1812 it came to
be a struggle of Napoleon and France _contra mundum_.
While not neglecting the personal details of the great man's life, I
have dwelt mainly on his public career. Apart from his brilliant
conversations, his private life has few features of abiding interest,
perhaps because he early tired of the shallowness of Josephine and the
Corsican angularity of his brothers and sisters. But the cause also
lay in his own disposition. He once said to M. Gallois: "Je n'aime pas
beaucoup les femmes, ni le jeu--enfin rien: _je suis tout à fait un
être politique_." In dealing with him as a warrior and statesman, and
in sparing my readers details as to his bolting his food, sleeping at
concerts, and indulging in amours where for him there was no glamour
of romance, I am laying stress on what interested him most--in a word,
I am taking him at his best.
I could not have accomplished this task, even in the present
inadequate way, but for the help generously accorded from many
quarters. My heartfelt thanks are due to Lord Acton, Regius Professor
of Modern History in the University of Cambridge, for advice of the
highest importance; to Mr. Hubert Hall of the Public Record Office,
for guidance in my researches there; to Baron Lumbroso of Rome,
editor of the "Bibliografia ragionata dell' Epoca Napoleonica," for
hints on Italian and other affairs; to Dr. Luckwaldt, Privat Docent of
the University of Bonn, and author of "Oesterreich und die Anfänge des
Befreiungs-Krieges," for his very scholarly revision of the chapters
on German affairs; to Mr. F.H.E. Cunliffe, M.A., Fellow of All Souls'
College, Oxford, for valuable advice on the campaigns of 1800, 1805,
and 1806; to Professor Caudrillier of Grenoble, author of "Pichegru,"
for information respecting the royalist plot; and to Messrs. J.E.
Morris, M.A., and E.L.S. Horsburgh, B.A., for detailed communications
concerning Waterloo, The nieces of the late Professor Westwood of
Oxford most kindly allowed the facsimile of the new Napoleon letter,
printed opposite p. 156 of vol. i., to be made from the original in
their possession; and Miss Lowe courteously placed at my disposal the
papers of her father relating to the years 1813-15, as well as to the
St. Helena period. I wish here to record my grateful obligations for
all these friendly courtesies, which have given value to the book,
besides saving me from many of the pitfalls with which the subject
abounds. That I have escaped them altogether is not to be imagined;
but I can honestly say, in the words of the late Bishop of London,
that "I have tried to write true history."
J.H.R.
[NOTE.--The references to Napoleon's "Correspondence" in the notes are
to the official French edition, published under the auspices of
Napoleon III. The "New Letters of Napoleon" are those edited by Léon
Lecestre, and translated into English by Lady Mary Loyd, except in a
very few cases where M. Léonce de Brotonne's still more recent edition
is cited under his name. By "F.O.," France, No.----, and "F.O.,"
Prussia, No.----, are meant the volumes of _our_ Foreign Office
despatches relating to France and Prussia. For the sake of brevity I
have called Napoleon's Marshals and high officials by their names, not
by their titles: but a list of these is given at the close of vol.
ii.]
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION
The demand for this work so far exceeded my expectations that I was
unable to make any considerable changes in the second edition, issued
in March, 1902; and circumstances again make it impossible for me to
give the work that thorough recension which I should desire. I have,
however, carefully considered the suggestions offered by critics, and
have adopted them in some cases. Professor Fournier of Vienna has most
kindly furnished me with details which seem to relegate to the domain
of legend the famous ice catastrophe at Austerlitz; and I have added a
note to this effect on p. 50 of vol. ii. On the other hand, I may
justly claim that the publication of Count Balmain's reports relating
to St. Helena has served to corroborate, in all important details, my
account of Napoleon's captivity.
It only remains to add that I much regret the omission of Mr. Oman's
name from II. 12-13 of page viii of the Preface, an omission rendered
all the more conspicuous by the appearance of the first volume of his
"History of the Peninsular War" in the spring of this year.
J.H.R.
_October, 1902._
Notes have been added at the end of ch. v., vol. i.; chs. xxii.,
xxiii., xxviii., xxix., xxxv., vol. ii.; and an Appendix on the Battle
of Waterloo has been added on p. 577, vol. ii.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR
I. PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
II. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA
III. TOULON
IV. VENDÉMIAIRE
V. THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN (1796)
VI. THE FIGHTS FOR MANTUA
VII. LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO
VIII. EGYPT
IX. SYRIA
X. BRUMAIRE
XI. MARENGO: LUNÉVILLE
XII. THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE
XIII. THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE
XIV. THE PEACE OF AMIENS
XV. A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE: ST.
DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA
XVI. NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS
XVII. THE RENEWAL OF WAR
XVIII. EUROPE AND THE BONAPARTES
XIX. THE ROYALIST PLOT
XX. THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE
XXI. THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA
APPENDIX: REPORTS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED
ON
(_a_) THE SALE OF LOUISIANA;
(_b_) THE IRISH DIVISION IN NAPOLEON'S SERVICE
ILLUSTRATIONS, MAPS, AND PLANS
THE SIEGE OF TOULON, 1793
MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY
PLAN TO ILLUSTRATE THE VICTORY OF ARCOLA
THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIVOLI
FACSIMILE OF A LETTER OF NAPOLEON TO "LA CITOYENNE
TALLIEN," 1797
CENTRAL EUROPE, after the Peace of Campo Formio, 1797
PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE, from a contemporary sketch
THE BATTLE OF MARENGO, to illustrate Kellermann's charge
FRENCH MAP OF THE SOUTH OF AUSTRALIA, 1807
NOTE ON THE REPUBLICAN CALENDAR
The republican calendar consisted of twelve months of thirty days
each, each month being divided into three "decades" of ten days. Five
days (in leap years six) were added at the end of the year to bring it
into coincidence with the solar year.
An I began Sept. 22, 1792.
" II " " 1793.
" III " " 1794.
" IV (leap year) 1795.
* * * * *
" VIII began Sept. 22, 1799.
" IX " Sept. 23, 1800.
" X " " 1801.
* * * * *
" XIV " " 1805.
The new computation, though reckoned from Sept. 22, 1792, was not
introduced until Nov. 26, 1793 (An II). It ceased after Dec. 31, 1805.
The months are as follows:
Vendémiaire Sept. 22 to Oct. 21.
Brumaire Oct. 22 " Nov. 20.
Frimaire Nov. 21 " Dec. 20.
Nivôse Dec. 21 " Jan. 19.
Pluviôse Jan. 20 " Feb. 18.
Ventôse Feb. 19 " Mar. 20.
Germinal Mar. 21 " April 19.
Floréal April 20 " May 19.
Prairial May 20 " June 18.
Messidor June 19 " July 18.
Thermidor July 19 " Aug. 17.
Fructidor Aug. 18 " Sept. 16.
Add five (in leap years six) "Sansculottides" or "Jours
complémentaires."
In 1796 (leap year) the numbers in the table of months, so far as
concerns all dates between Feb. 28 and Sept. 22, will have to be
_reduced by one_, owing to the intercalation of Feb. 29, which is not
compensated for until the end of the republican year.
The matter is further complicated by the fact that the republicans
reckoned An VIII as a leap year, though it is not one in the Gregorian
Calendar. Hence that year ended on Sept. 22, and An IX and succeeding
years began on Sept. 23. Consequently in the above table of months the
numbers of all days from Vendémiaire 1, An IX (Sept. 23, 1800), to
Nivôse 10, An XIV (Dec. 31, 1805), inclusive, will have to be
_increased by one_, except only in the next leap year between Ventôse
9, An XII, and Vendémiaire 1, An XIII (Feb. 28-Sept, 23, 1804), when
the two Revolutionary aberrations happen to neutralize each other.
* * * * *
THE LIFE OF NAPOLEON I
CHAPTER I
PARENTAGE AND EARLY YEARS
"I was born when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand French
vomited upon our coasts, drowning the throne of Liberty in waves of
blood, such was the sight which struck my eyes." This passionate
utterance, penned by Napoleon Buonaparte at the beginning of the
French Revolution, describes the state of Corsica in his natal year.
The words are instinct with the vehemence of the youth and the
extravagant sentiment of the age: they strike the keynote of his
career. His life was one of strain and stress from his cradle to his
grave.
In his temperament as in the circumstances of his time the young
Buonaparte was destined for an extraordinary career. Into a tottering
civilization he burst with all the masterful force of an Alaric. But
he was an Alaric of the south, uniting the untamed strength of his
island kindred with the mental powers of his Italian ancestry. In his
personality there is a complex blending of force and grace, of animal
passion and mental clearness, of northern common sense with the
promptings of an oriental imagination; and this union in his nature of
seeming opposites explains many of the mysteries of his life.
Fortunately for lovers of romance, genius cannot be wholly analyzed,
even by the most adroit historical philosophizer or the most exacting
champion of heredity. But in so far as the sources of Napoleon's power
can be measured, they may be traced to the unexampled needs of mankind
in the revolutionary epoch and to his own exceptional endowments.
Evidently, then, the characteristics of his family claim some
attention from all who would understand the man and the influence
which he was to wield over modern Europe.
It has been the fortune of his House to be the subject of dispute from
first to last. Some writers have endeavoured to trace its descent back
to the Cæsars of Rome, others to the Byzantine Emperors; one
genealogical explorer has tracked the family to Majorca, and, altering
its name to Bonpart, has discovered its progenitor in the Man of the
Iron Mask; while the Duchesse d'Abrantès, voyaging eastwards in quest
of its ancestors, has confidently claimed for the family a Greek
origin. Painstaking research has dispelled these romancings of
historical _trouveurs_, and has connected this enigmatic stock with a
Florentine named "William, who in the year 1261 took the surname of
_Bonaparte_ or _Buonaparte_. The name seems to have been assumed when,
amidst the unceasing strifes between Guelfs and Ghibellines that rent
the civic life of Florence, William's party, the Ghibellines, for a
brief space gained the ascendancy. But perpetuity was not to be found
in Florentine politics; and in a short time he was a fugitive at a
Tuscan village, Sarzana, beyond the reach of the victorious Guelfs.
Here the family seems to have lived for wellnigh three centuries,
maintaining its Ghibelline and aristocratic principles with surprising
tenacity. The age was not remarkable for the virtue of constancy, or
any other virtue. Politics and private life were alike demoralized by
unceasing intrigues; and amidst strifes of Pope and Emperor, duchies
and republics, cities and autocrats, there was formed that type of
Italian character which is delineated in the pages of Macchiavelli.
From the depths of debasement of that cynical age the Buonapartes
were saved by their poverty, and by the isolation of their life at
Sarzana. Yet the embassies discharged at intervals by the more
talented members of the family showed that the gifts for intrigue were
only dormant; and they were certainly transmitted in their intensity
to the greatest scion of the race.
In the year 1529 Francis Buonaparte, whether pressed by poverty or
distracted by despair at the misfortunes which then overwhelmed Italy,
migrated to Corsica. There the family was grafted upon a tougher
branch of the Italian race. To the vulpine characteristics developed
under the shadow of the Medici there were now added qualities of a
more virile stamp. Though dominated in turn by the masters of the
Mediterranean, by Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, by the men of Pisa,
and finally by the Genoese Republic, the islanders retained a striking
individuality. The rock-bound coast and mountainous interior helped to
preserve the essential features of primitive life. Foreign Powers
might affect the towns on the sea-board, but they left the clans of
the interior comparatively untouched. Their life centred around the
family. The Government counted for little or nothing; for was it not
the symbol of the detested foreign rule? Its laws were therefore as
naught when they conflicted with the unwritten but omnipotent code of
family honour. A slight inflicted on a neighbour would call forth the
warning words--"Guard thyself: I am on my guard." Forthwith there
began a blood feud, a vendetta, which frequently dragged on its dreary
course through generations of conspiracy and murder, until, the
principals having vanished, the collateral branches of the families
were involved. No Corsican was so loathed as the laggard who shrank
from avenging the family honour, even on a distant relative of the
first offender. The murder of the Duc d'Enghien by Napoleon in 1804
sent a thrill of horror through the Continent. To the Corsicans it
seemed little more than an autocratic version of the _vendetta
traversale_.[1]
The vendetta was the chief law of Corsican society up to comparatively
recent times; and its effects are still visible in the life of the
stern islanders. In his charming romance, "Colomba," M. Prosper
Mérimée has depicted the typical Corsican, even of the towns, as
preoccupied, gloomy, suspicious, ever on the alert, hovering about his
dwelling, like a falcon over his nest, seemingly in preparation for
attack or defence. Laughter, the song, the dance, were rarely heard in
the streets; for the women, after acting as the drudges of the
household, were kept jealously at home, while their lords smoked and
watched. If a game at hazard were ventured upon, it ran its course in
silence, which not seldom was broken by the shot or the stab--first
warning that there had been underhand play. The deed always preceded
the word.
In such a life, where commerce and agriculture were despised, where
woman was mainly a drudge and man a conspirator, there grew up the
typical Corsican temperament, moody and exacting, but withal keen,
brave, and constant, which looked on the world as a fencing-school for
the glorification of the family and the clan[2]. Of this type Napoleon
was to be the supreme exemplar; and the fates granted him as an arena
a chaotic France and a distracted Europe.
Amidst that grim Corsican existence the Buonapartes passed their lives
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Occupied as advocates
and lawyers with such details of the law as were of any practical
importance, they must have been involved in family feuds and the
oft-recurring disputes between Corsica and the suzerain Power, Genoa.
As became dignitaries in the municipality of Ajaccio, several of the
Buonapartes espoused the Genoese side; and the Genoese Senate in a
document of the year 1652 styled one of them, Jérome, "Egregius
Hieronimus di Buonaparte, procurator Nobilium." These distinctions
they seem to have little coveted. Very few families belonged to the
Corsican _noblesse_, and their fiefs were unimportant. In Corsica, as
in the Forest Cantons of Switzerland and the Highlands of Scotland,
class distinctions were by no means so coveted as in lands that had
been thoroughly feudalized; and the Buonapartes, content with their
civic dignities at Ajaccio and the attachment of their partisans on
their country estates, seem rarely to have used the prefix which
implied nobility. Their life was not unlike that of many an old
Scottish laird, who, though possibly _bourgeois_ in origin, yet by
courtesy ranked as chieftain among his tenants, and was ennobled by
the parlance of the countryside, perhaps all the more readily because
he refused to wear the honours that came from over the Border.
But a new influence was now to call forth all the powers of this tough
stock. In the middle of the eighteenth century we find the head of the
family, Charles Marie Buonaparte, aglow with the flame of Corsican
patriotism then being kindled by the noble career of Paoli. This
gifted patriot, the champion of the islanders, first against the
Genoese and later against the French, desired to cement by education
the framework of the Corsican Commonwealth and founded a university.
It was here that the father of the future French Emperor received a
training in law, and a mental stimulus which was to lift his family
above the level of the _caporali_ and attorneys with whom its lot had
for centuries been cast. His ambition is seen in the endeavour,
successfully carried out by his uncle, Lucien, Archdeacon of Ajaccio,
to obtain recognition of kinship with the Buonapartes of Tuscany who
had been ennobled by the Grand Duke. His patriotism is evinced in his
ardent support of Paoli, by whose valour and energy the Genoese were
finally driven from the island. Amidst these patriotic triumphs
Charles confronted his destiny in the person of Letizia Ramolino, a
beautiful girl, descended from an honourable Florentine family which
had for centuries been settled in Corsica. The wedding took place in
1764, the bridegroom being then eighteen, and the bride fifteen years
of age. The union, if rashly undertaken in the midst of civil strifes,
was yet well assorted. Both parties to it were of patrician, if not
definitely noble descent, and came of families which combined the
intellectual gifts of Tuscany with the vigour of their later island
home[3]. From her mother's race, the Pietra Santa family, Letizia
imbibed the habits of the most backward and savage part of Corsica,
where vendettas were rife and education was almost unknown. Left in
ignorance in her early days, she yet was accustomed to hardships, and
often showed the fertility of resource which such a life always
develops. Hence, at the time of her marriage, she possessed a firmness
of will far beyond her years; and her strength and fortitude enabled
her to survive the terrible adversities of her early days, as also to
meet with quiet matronly dignity the extraordinary honours showered on
her as the mother of the French Emperor. She was inured to habits of
frugality, which reappeared in the personal tastes of her son. In
fact, she so far retained her old parsimonious habits, even amidst the
splendours of the French Imperial Court, as to expose herself to the
charge of avarice. But there is a touching side to all this. She seems
ever to have felt that after the splendour there would come again the
old days of adversity, and her instincts were in one sense correct.
She lived on to the advanced age of eighty-six, and died twenty-one
years after the break-up of her son's empire--a striking proof of the
vitality and tenacity of her powers.
A kindly Providence veiled the future from the young couple. Troubles
fell swiftly upon them both in private and in public life. Their first
two children died in infancy. The third, Joseph, was born in 1768,
when the Corsican patriots were making their last successful efforts
against their new French oppressors: the fourth, the famous Napoleon,
saw the light on August 15th, 1769, when the liberties of Corsica were
being finally extinguished. Nine other children were born before the
outbreak of the French Revolution reawakened civil strifes, amidst
which the then fatherless family was tossed to and fro and finally
whirled away to France.
Destiny had already linked the fortunes of the young Napoleon
Buonaparte with those of France. After the downfall of Genoese rule in
Corsica, France had taken over, for empty promises, the claims of the
hard-pressed Italian republic to its troublesome island possession. It
was a cheap and practical way of restoring, at least in the
Mediterranean the shattered prestige of the French Bourbons. They had
previously intervened in Corsican affairs on the side of the Genoese.
Yet in 1764 Paoli appealed to Louis XV. for protection. It was
granted, in the form of troops that proceeded quietly to occupy the
coast towns of the island under cover of friendly assurances. In 1768,
before the expiration of an informal truce, Marbeuf, the French
commander, commenced hostilities against the patriots[4]. In vain did
Rousseau and many other champions of popular liberty protest against
this bartering away of insular freedom: in vain did Paoli rouse his
compatriots to another and more unequal struggle, and seek to hold the
mountainous interior. Poor, badly equipped, rent by family feuds and
clan schisms, his followers were no match for the French troops; and
after the utter break-up of his forces Paoli fled to England, taking
with him three hundred and forty of the most determined patriots. With
these irreconcilables Charles Buonaparte did not cast in his lot, but
accepted the pardon offered to those who should recognize the French
sway. With his wife and their little child Joseph he returned to
Ajaccio; and there, shortly afterwards, Napoleon was born. As the
patriotic historian, Jacobi, has finely said, "The Corsican people,
when exhausted by producing martyrs to the cause of liberty, produced
Napoleon Buonaparte[5]."
Seeing that Charles Buonaparte had been an ardent adherent of Paoli,
his sudden change of front has exposed him to keen censure. He
certainly had not the grit of which heroes are made. His seems to have
been an ill-balanced nature, soon buoyed up by enthusiasms, and as
speedily depressed by their evaporation; endowed with enough of
learning and culture to be a Voltairean and write second-rate
verses; and with a talent for intrigue which sufficed to embarrass
his never very affluent fortunes. Napoleon certainly derived no
world-compelling qualities from his father: for these he was indebted
to the wilder strain which ran in his mother's blood. The father
doubtless saw in the French connection a chance of worldly advancement
and of liberation from pecuniary difficulties; for the new rulers now
sought to gain over the patrician families of the island. Many of them
had resented the dictatorship of Paoli; and they now gladly accepted
the connection with France, which promised to enrich their country and
to open up a brilliant career in the French army, where commissions
were limited to the scions of nobility.
Much may be said in excuse of Charles Buonaparte's decision, and no
one can deny that Corsica has ultimately gained much by her connection
with France. But his change of front was open to the charge that it
was prompted by self-interest rather than by philosophic foresight. At
any rate, his second son throughout his boyhood nursed a deep
resentment against his father for his desertion of the patriots'
cause. The youth's sympathies were with the peasants, whose allegiance
was not to be bought by baubles, whose constancy and bravery long held
out against the French in a hopeless guerilla warfare. His hot
Corsican blood boiled at the stories of oppression and insult which he
heard from his humbler compatriots. When, at eleven years of age, he
saw in the military college at Brienne the portrait of Choiseul, the
French Minister who had urged on the conquest of Corsica, his passion
burst forth in a torrent of imprecations against the traitor; and,
even after the death of his father in 1785, he exclaimed that he could
never forgive him for not following Paoli into exile.
What trifles seem, at times, to alter the current of human affairs!
Had his father acted thus, the young Napoleon would in all probability
have entered the military or naval service of Great Britain; he might
have shared Paoli's enthusiasm for the land of his adoption, and have
followed the Corsican hero in his enterprises against the French
Revolution, thenceforth figuring in history merely as a greater
Marlborough, crushing the military efforts of democratic France, and
luring England into a career of Continental conquest. Monarchy and
aristocracy would have gone unchallenged, except within the "natural
limits" of France; and the other nations, never shaken to their
inmost depths, would have dragged on their old inert fragmentary
existence.
The decision of Charles Buonaparte altered the destiny of Europe. He
determined that his eldest boy, Joseph, should enter the Church, and
that Napoleon should be a soldier. His perception of the characters of
his boys was correct. An anecdote, for which the elder brother is
responsible, throws a flood of light on their temperaments. The master
of their school arranged a mimic combat for his pupils--Romans against
Carthaginians. Joseph, as the elder was ranged under the banner of
Rome, while Napoleon was told off among the Carthaginians; but, piqued
at being chosen for the losing side, the child fretted, begged, and
stormed until the less bellicose Joseph agreed to change places with
his exacting junior. The incident is prophetic of much in the later
history of the family.
Its imperial future was opened up by the deft complaisance now shown
by Charles Buonaparte. The reward for his speedy submission to France
was soon forthcoming. The French commander in Corsica used his
influence to secure the admission of the young Napoleon to the
military school of Brienne in Champagne; and as the father was able to
satisfy the authorities not only that he was without fortune, but also
that his family had been noble for four generations, Napoleon was
admitted to this school to be educated at the charges of the King of
France (April, 1779). He was now, at the tender age of nine, a
stranger in a strange land, among a people whom he detested as the
oppressors of his countrymen. Worst of all, he had to endure the taunt
of belonging to a subject race. What a position for a proud and
exacting child! Little wonder that the official report represented him
as silent and obstinate; but, strange to say, it added the word
"imperious." It was a tough character which could defy repression
amidst such surroundings. As to his studies, little need be said. In
his French history he read of the glories of the distant past (when
"Germany was part of the French Empire"), the splendours of the reign
of Louis XIV., the disasters of France in the Seven Years' War, and
the "prodigious conquests of the English in India." But his
imagination was kindled from other sources. Boys of pronounced
character have always owed far more to their private reading than to
their set studies; and the young Buonaparte, while grudgingly learning
Latin and French grammar, was feeding his mind on Plutarch's
"Lives"--in a French translation. The artful intermingling of the
actual and the romantic, the historic and the personal, in those vivid
sketches of ancient worthies and heroes, has endeared them to many
minds. Rousseau derived unceasing profit from their perusal; and
Madame Roland found in them "the pasture of great souls." It was so
with the lonely Corsican youth. Holding aloof from his comrades in
gloomy isolation, he caught in the exploits of Greeks and Romans a
distant echo of the tragic romance of his beloved island home. The
librarian of the school asserted that even then the young soldier had
modelled his future career on that of the heroes of antiquity; and we
may well believe that, in reading of the exploits of Leonidas,
Curtius, and Cincinnatus, he saw the figure of his own antique
republican hero, Paoli. To fight side by side with Paoli against the
French was his constant dream. "Paoli will return," he once exclaimed,
"and as soon as I have strength, I will go to help him: and perhaps
together we shall be able to shake the odious yoke from off the neck
of Corsica."
But there was another work which exercised a great influence on his
young mind--the "Gallic War" of Cæsar. To the young Italian the
conquest of Gaul by a man of his own race must have been a congenial
topic, and in Cæsar himself the future conqueror may dimly have
recognized a kindred spirit. The masterful energy and all-conquering
will of the old Roman, his keen insight into the heart of a problem,
the wide sweep of his mental vision, ranging over the intrigues of the
Roman Senate, the shifting politics of a score of tribes, and the
myriad administrative details of a great army and a mighty
province--these were the qualities that furnished the chief mental
training to the young cadet. Indeed, the career of Cæsar was destined
to exert a singular fascination over the Napoleonic dynasty, not only
on its founder, but also on Napoleon III.; and the change in the
character and career of Napoleon the Great may be registered mentally
in the effacement of the portraits of Leonidas and Paoli by those of
Cæsar and Alexander. Later on, during his sojourn at Ajaccio in 1790,
when the first shadows were flitting across his hitherto unclouded
love for Paoli, we hear that he spent whole nights poring over Cæsar's
history, committing many passages to memory in his passionate
admiration of those wondrous exploits. Eagerly he took Cæsar's side as
against Pompey, and no less warmly defended him from the charge of
plotting against the liberties of the commonwealth[6]. It was a
perilous study for a republican youth in whom the military instincts
were as ingrained as the genius for rule.
Concerning the young Buonaparte's life at Brienne there exist few
authentic records and many questionable anecdotes. Of these last, that
which is the most credible and suggestive relates his proposal to his
schoolfellows to construct ramparts of snow during the sharp winter of
1783-4. According to his schoolfellow, Bourrienne, these mimic
fortifications were planned by Buonaparte, who also directed the
methods of attack and defence: or, as others say, he reconstructed
the walls according to the needs of modern war. In either case, the
incident bespeaks for him great power of organization and control. But
there were in general few outlets for his originality and vigour. He
seems to have disliked all his comrades, except Bourrienne, as much as
they detested him for his moody humours and fierce outbreaks of
temper. He is even reported to have vowed that he would do as much
harm as possible to the French people; but the remark smacks of the
story-book. Equally doubtful are the two letters in which he prays to
be removed from the indignities to which he was subjected at
Brienne[7]. In other letters which are undoubtedly genuine, he refers
to his future career with ardour, and writes not a word as to the
bullying to which his Corsican zeal subjected him. Particularly
noteworthy is the letter to his uncle begging him to intervene so as
to prevent Joseph Buonaparte from taking up a military career. Joseph,
writes the younger brother, would make a good garrison officer, as he
was well formed and clever at frivolous compliments--"good therefore
for society, but for a fight--?"
Napoleon's determination had been noticed by his teachers. They had
failed to bend his will, at least on important points. In lesser
details his Italian adroitness seems to have been of service; for the
officer who inspected the school reported of him: "Constitution,
health excellent: character submissive, sweet, honest, grateful:
conduct very regular: has always distinguished himself by his
application to mathematics: knows history and geography passably: very
weak in accomplishments. He will be an excellent seaman: is worthy to
enter the School at Paris." To the military school at Paris he was
accordingly sent in due course, entering there in October, 1784. The
change from the semi-monastic life at Brienne to the splendid edifice
which fronts the Champ de Mars had less effect than might have
been expected in a youth of fifteen years. Not yet did he become
French in sympathy. His love of Corsica and hatred of the French
monarchy steeled him against the luxuries of his new surroundings.
Perhaps it was an added sting that he was educated at the expense of
the monarchy which had conquered his kith and kin. He nevertheless
applied himself with energy to his favourite studies, especially
mathematics. Defective in languages he still was, and ever remained;
for his critical acumen in literature ever fastened on the matter
rather than on style. To the end of his days he could never write
Italian, much less French, with accuracy; and his tutor at Paris not
inaptly described his boyish composition as resembling molten granite.
The same qualities of directness and impetuosity were also fatal to
his efforts at mastering the movements of the dance. In spite of
lessons at Paris and private lessons which he afterwards took at
Valence, he was never a dancer: his bent was obviously for the exact
sciences rather than the arts, for the geometrical rather than the
rhythmical: he thought, as he moved, in straight lines, never in
curves.
The death of his father during the year which the youth spent at Paris
sharpened his sense of responsibility towards his seven younger
brothers and sisters. His own poverty must have inspired him with
disgust at the luxury which he saw around him; but there are good
reasons for doubting the genuineness of the memorial which he is
alleged to have sent from Paris to the second master at Brienne on
this subject. The letters of the scholars at Paris were subject to
strict surveillance; and, if he had taken the trouble to draw up a
list of criticisms on his present training, most assuredly it would
have been destroyed. Undoubtedly, however, he would have sympathized
with the unknown critic in his complaint of the unsuitableness of
sumptuous meals to youths who were destined for the hardships of the
camp. At Brienne he had been dubbed "the Spartan," an instance of that
almost uncanny faculty of schoolboys to dash off in a nickname the
salient features of character. The phrase was correct, almost for
Napoleon's whole life. At any rate, the pomp of Paris served but to
root his youthful affections more tenaciously in the rocks of Corsica.
In September, 1785, that is, at the age of sixteen, Buonaparte was
nominated for a commision as junior lieutenant in La Fère regiment of
artillery quartered at Valence on the Rhone. This was his first close
contact with real life. The rules of the service required him to
spend three months of rigorous drill before he was admitted to his
commission. The work was exacting: the pay was small, viz., 1,120
francs, or less than £45, a year; but all reports agree as to his keen
zest for his profession and the recognition of his transcendent
abilities by his superior officers.[8] There it was that he mastered
the rudiments of war, for lack of which many generals of noble birth
have quickly closed in disaster careers that began with promise:
there, too, he learnt that hardest and best of all lessons, prompt
obedience. "To learn obeying is the fundamental art of governing,"
says Carlyle. It was so with Napoleon: at Valence he served his
apprenticeship in the art of conquering and the art of governing.
This spring-time of his life is of interest and importance in many
ways: it reveals many amiable qualities, which had hitherto been
blighted by the real or fancied scorn of the wealthy cadets. At
Valence, while shrinking from his brother officers, he sought society
more congenial to his simple tastes and restrained demeanour. In a few
of the best bourgeois families of Valence he found happiness. There,
too, blossomed the tenderest, purest idyll of his life. At the country
house of a cultured lady who had befriended him in his solitude, he
saw his first love, Caroline de Colombier. It was a passing fancy;
but to her all the passion of his southern nature welled forth. She
seems to have returned his love; for in the stormy sunset of his life
at St. Helena he recalled some delicious walks at dawn when Caroline
and he had--eaten cherries together. One lingers fondly over these
scenes of his otherwise stern career, for they reveal his capacity for
social joys and for deep and tender affection, had his lot been
otherwise cast. How different might have been his life, had France
never conquered Corsica, and had the Revolution never burst forth! But
Corsica was still his dominant passion. When he was called away from
Valence to repress a riot at Lyons, his feelings, distracted for a
time by Caroline, swerved back towards his island home; and in
September, 1786, he had the joy of revisiting the scenes of his
childhood. Warmly though he greeted his mother, brothers and sisters,
after an absence of nearly eight years, his chief delight was in the
rocky shores, the verdant dales and mountain heights of Corsica. The
odour of the forests, the setting of the sun in the sea "as in the
bosom of the infinite," the quiet proud independence of the
mountaineers themselves, all enchanted him. His delight reveals almost
Wertherian powers of "sensibility." Even the family troubles could not
damp his ardour. His father had embarked on questionable speculations,
which now threatened the Buonapartes with bankruptcy, unless the
French Government proved to be complacent and generous. With the hope
of pressing one of the family claims on the royal exchequer, the
second son procured an extension of furlough and sped to Paris. There
at the close of 1787 he spent several weeks, hopefully endeavouring to
extract money from the bankrupt Government. It was a season of
disillusionment in more senses than one; for there he saw for himself
the seamy side of Parisian life, and drifted for a brief space about
the giddy vortex of the Palais Royal. What a contrast to the limpid
life of Corsica was that turbid frothy existence--already swirling
towards its mighty plunge!
After a furlough of twenty-one months he rejoined his regiment, now at
Auxonne. There his health suffered considerably, not only from the
miasma of the marshes of the river Saône, but also from family
anxieties and arduous literary toils. To these last it is now needful
to refer. Indeed, the external events of his early life are of value
only as they reveal the many-sidedness of his nature and the growth of
his mental powers.
How came he to outgrow the insular patriotism of his early years? The
foregoing recital of facts must have already suggested one obvious
explanation. Nature had dowered him so prodigally with diverse gifts,
mainly of an imperious order, that he could scarcely have limited his
sphere of action to Corsica. Profoundly as he loved his island, it
offered no sphere commensurate with his varied powers and masterful
will. It was no empty vaunt which his father had uttered on his
deathbed that his Napoleon would one day overthrow the old monarchies
and conquer Europe.[9] Neither did the great commander himself
overstate the peculiarity of his temperament, when he confessed that
his instincts had ever prompted him that his will must prevail, and
that what pleased him must of necessity belong to him. Most spoilt
children harbour the same illusion, for a brief space. But all the
buffetings of fortune failed to drive it from the young Buonaparte;
and when despair as to his future might have impaired the vigour of
his domineering instincts, his mind and will acquired a fresh rigidity
by coming under the spell of that philosophizing doctrinaire,
Rousseau.
There was every reason why he should early be attracted by this
fantastic thinker. In that notable work, "Le Contrat Social" (1762),
Rousseau called attention to the antique energy shown by the Corsicans
in defence of their liberties, and in a startlingly prophetic phrase
he exclaimed that the little island would one day astonish Europe. The
source of this predilection of Rousseau for Corsica is patent. Born
and reared at Geneva, he felt a Switzer's love for a people which was<
"neither rich nor poor but self-sufficing "; and in the simple life
and fierce love of liberty of the hardy islanders he saw traces of
that social contract which he postulated as the basis of society.
According to him, the beginnings of all social and political
institutions are to be found in some agreement or contract between
men. Thus arise the clan, the tribe, the nation. The nation may
delegate many of its powers to a ruler; but if he abuse such powers,
the contract between him and his people is at an end, and they may
return to the primitive state, which is founded on an agreement of
equals with equals. Herein lay the attractiveness of Rousseau for all
who were discontented with their surroundings. He seemed infallibly
to demonstrate the absurdity of tyranny and the need of returning to
the primitive bliss of the social contract. It mattered not that the
said contract was utterly unhistorical and that his argument teemed
with fallacies. He inspired a whole generation with detestation of the
present and with longings for the golden age. Poets had sung of it,
but Rousseau seemed to bring it within the grasp of long-suffering
mortals.
The first extant manuscript of Napoleon, written at Valence in April,
1786, shows that he sought in Rousseau's armoury the logical weapons
for demonstrating the "right" of the Corsicans to rebel against the
French. The young hero-worshipper begins by noting that it is the
birthday of Paoli. He plunges into a panegyric on the Corsican
patriots, when he is arrested by the thought that many censure them
for rebelling at all. "The divine laws forbid revolt. But what have
divine laws to do with a purely human affair? Just think of the
absurdity--divine laws universally forbidding the casting off of a
usurping yoke! ... As for human laws, there cannot be any after the
prince violates them." He then postulates two origins for government
as alone possible. Either the people has established laws and
submitted itself to the prince, or the prince has established laws. In
the first case, the prince is engaged by the very nature of his office
to execute the covenants. In the second case, the laws tend, or do not
tend, to the welfare of the people, which is the aim of all
government: if they do not, the contract with the prince dissolves of
itself, for the people then enters again into its primitive state.
Having thus proved the sovereignty of the people, Buonaparte uses his
doctrine to justify Corsican revolt against France, and thus concludes
his curious medley: "The Corsicans, following all the laws of justice,
have been able to shake off the yoke of the Genoese, and may do the
same with that of the French. Amen."
Five days later he again gives the reins to his melancholy. "Always
alone, though in the midst of men," he faces the thought of suicide.
With an innate power of summarizing and balancing thoughts and
sensations, he draws up arguments for and against this act. He is in
the dawn of his days and in four months' time he will see "la patrie,"
which he has not seen since childhood. What joy! And yet--how men have
fallen away from nature: how cringing are his compatriots to their
conquerors: they are no longer the enemies of tyrants, of luxury, of
vile courtiers: the French have corrupted their morals, and when "la
patrie" no longer survives, a good patriot ought to die. Life among
the French is odious: their modes of life differ from his as much as
the light of the moon differs from that of the sun.--A strange
effusion this for a youth of seventeen living amidst the full glories
of the spring in Dauphiné. It was only a few weeks before the ripening
of cherries. Did that cherry-idyll with Mdlle. de Colombier lure him
back to life? Or did the hope of striking a blow for Corsica stay his
suicidal hand? Probably the latter; for we find him shortly afterwards
tilting against a Protestant minister of Geneva who had ventured to
criticise one of the dogmas of Rousseau's evangel.
The Genevan philosopher had asserted that Christianity, by enthroning
in the hearts of Christians the idea of a Kingdom not of this world,
broke the unity of civil society, because it detached the hearts of
its converts from the State, as from all earthly things. To this the
Genevan minister had successfully replied by quoting Christian
teachings on the subject at issue. But Buonaparte fiercely accuses
the pastor of neither having understood, nor even read, "Le Contrat
Social": he hurls at his opponent texts of Scripture which enjoin
obedience to the laws: he accuses Christianity of rendering men slaves
to an anti-social tyranny, because its priests set up an authority in
opposition to civil laws; and as for Protestantism, it propagated
discords between its followers, and thereby violated civic unity.
Christianity, he argues, is a foe to civil government, for it aims at
making men happy in this life by inspiring them with hope of a future
life; while the aim of civil government is "to lend assistance to the
feeble against the strong, and by this means to allow everyone to
enjoy a sweet tranquillity, the road of happiness." He therefore
concludes that Christianity and civil government are diametrically
opposed.
In this tirade we see the youth's spirit of revolt flinging him not
only against French law, but against the religion which sanctions it.
He sees none of the beauty of the Gospels which Rousseau had
admitted. His views are more rigid than those of his teacher.
Scarcely can he conceive of two influences, the spiritual and the
governmental, working on parallel lines, on different parts of man's
nature. His conception of human society is that of an indivisible,
indistinguishable whole, wherein materialism, tinged now and again by
religious sentiment and personal honour, is the sole noteworthy
influence. He finds no worth in a religion which seeks to work from
within to without, which aims at transforming character, and thus
transforming the world. In its headlong quest of tangible results his
eager spirit scorns so tardy a method: he will "compel men to be
happy," and for this result there is but one practicable means, the
Social Contract, the State. Everything which mars the unity of the
Social Contract shall be shattered, so that the State may have a clear
field for the exercise of its beneficent despotism. Such is
Buonaparte's political and religious creed at the age of seventeen,
and such it remained (with many reservations suggested by maturer
thought and self-interest) to the end of his days. It reappears in his
policy anent the Concordat of 1802, by which religion was reduced to
the level of handmaid to the State, as also in his frequent assertions
that he would never have quite the same power as the Czar and the
Sultan, because he had not undivided sway over the consciences of his
people.[10] In this boyish essay we may perhaps discern the
fundamental reason of his later failures. He never completely
understood religion, or the enthusiasm which it can evoke; neither did
he ever fully realize the complexity of human nature, the
many-sidedness of social life, and the limitations that beset the
action even of the most intelligent law-maker.[11]
His reading of Rousseau having equipped him for the study of human
society and government, he now, during his first sojourn at Auxonne
(June, 1788--September, 1789), proceeds to ransack the records of the
ancient and modern world. Despite ill-health, family troubles, and the
outbreak of the French Revolution, he grapples with this portentous
task. The history, geography, religion, and social customs of the
ancient Persians, Scythians, Thracians, Athenians, Spartans,
Egyptians, and Carthaginians--all furnished materials for his
encyclopædic note-books. Nothing came amiss to his summarizing genius.
Here it was that he gained that knowledge of the past which was to
astonish his contemporaries. Side by side with suggestions on
regimental discipline and improvements in artillery, we find notes on
the opening episodes of Plato's "Republic," and a systematic summary
of English history from the earliest times down to the Revolution of
1688. This last event inspired him with special interest, because the
Whigs and their philosophic champion, Locke, maintained that James II.
had violated the original contract between prince and people.
Everywhere in his notes Napoleon emphasizes the incidents which led to
conflicts between dynasties or between rival principles. In fact,
through all these voracious studies there appear signs of his
determination to write a history of Corsica; and, while inspiriting
his kinsmen by recalling the glorious past, he sought to weaken the
French monarchy by inditing a "Dissertation sur l'Autorité Royale."
His first sketch of this work runs as follows:
"23 October, 1788. Auxonne.
"This work will begin with general ideas as to the origin and the
enhanced prestige of the name of king. Military rule is favourable
to it: this work will afterwards enter into the details of the
usurped authority enjoyed by the Kings of the twelve Kingdoms of
Europe.
"There are very few Kings who have not deserved dethronement[12]."
This curt pronouncement is all that remains of the projected work. It
sufficiently indicates, however, the aim of Napoleon's studies. One
and all they were designed to equip him for the great task of
re-awakening the spirit of the Corsicans and of sapping the base of
the French monarchy.
But these reams of manuscript notes and crude literary efforts have an
even wider source of interest. They show how narrow was his outlook on
life. It all turned on the regeneration of Corsica by methods which he
himself prescribed. We are therefore able to understand why, when his
own methods of salvation for Corsica were rejected, he tore himself
away and threw his undivided energies into the Revolution.
Yet the records of his early life show that in his character there was
a strain of true sentiment and affection. In him Nature carved out a
character of rock-like firmness, but she adorned it with flowers of
human sympathy and tendrils of family love. At his first parting from
his brother Joseph at Autun, when the elder brother was weeping
passionately, the little Napoleon dropped a tear: but that, said the
tutor, meant as much as the flood of tears from Joseph. Love of his
relatives was a potent factor of his policy in later life; and slander
has never been able wholly to blacken the character of a man who loved
and honoured his mother, who asserted that her advice had often been
of the highest service to him, and that her justice and firmness of
spirit marked her out as a natural ruler of men. But when these
admissions are freely granted, it still remains true that his
character was naturally hard; that his sense of personal superiority
made him, even as a child, exacting and domineering; and the sequel
was to show that even the strongest passion of his youth, his
determination to free Corsica from France, could be abjured if
occasion demanded, all the force of his nature being thenceforth
concentrated on vaster adventures.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND CORSICA
"They seek to destroy the Revolution by attacking my person: I will
defend it, for I am the Revolution." Such were the words uttered by
Buonaparte after the failure of the royalist plot of 1804. They are a
daring transcript of Louis XIV.'s "L'état, c'est moi." That was a bold
claim, even for an age attuned to the whims of autocrats: but this of
the young Corsican is even more daring, for he thereby equated himself
with a movement which claimed to be wide as humanity and infinite as
truth. And yet when he spoke these words, they were not scouted as
presumptuous folly: to most Frenchmen they seemed sober truth and
practical good sense. How came it, one asks in wonder, that after the
short space of fifteen years a world-wide movement depended on a
single life, that the infinitudes of 1789 lived on only in the form,
and by the pleasure, of the First Consul? Here surely is a political
incarnation unparalleled in the whole course of human history. The
riddle cannot be solved by history alone. It belongs in part to the
domain of psychology, when that science shall undertake the study, not
merely of man as a unit, but of the aspirations, moods, and whims of
communities and nations. Meanwhile it will be our far humbler task to
strive to point out the relation of Buonaparte to the Revolution, and
to show how the mighty force of his will dragged it to earth.
The first questions that confront us are obviously these. Were the
lofty aims and aspirations of the Revolution attainable? And, if so,
did the men of 1789 follow them by practical methods? To the former of
these questions the present chapter will, in part at least, serve as
an answer. On the latter part of the problem the events described in
later chapters will throw some light: in them we shall see that the
great popular upheaval let loose mighty forces that bore Buonaparte on
to fortune.
Here we may notice that the Revolution was not a simple and therefore
solid movement. It was complex and contained the seeds of discord
which lurk in many-sided and militant creeds. The theories of its
intellectual champions were as diverse as the motives which spurred on
their followers to the attack on the outworn abuses of the age.
Discontent and faith were the ultimate motive powers of the
Revolution. Faith prepared the Revolution and discontent accomplished
it. Idealists who, in varied planes of thought, preached the doctrine
of human perfectibility, succeeded in slowly permeating the dull
toiling masses of France with hope. Omitting here any notice of
philosophic speculation as such, we may briefly notice the teachings
of three writers whose influence on revolutionary politics was to be
definite and practical. These were Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Rousseau. The first was by no means a revolutionist, for he decided in
favour of a mixed form of government, like that of England, which
guaranteed the State against the dangers of autocracy, oligarchy, and
mob-rule. Only by a ricochet did he assail the French monarchy. But he
re-awakened critical inquiry; and any inquiry was certain to sap the
base of the _ancien régime_ in France. Montesquieu's teaching inspired
the group of moderate reformers who in 1789 desired to re-fashion the
institutions of France on the model of those of England. But popular
sentiment speedily swept past these Anglophils towards the more
attractive aims set forth by Voltaire.
This keen thinker subjected the privileged classes, especially the
titled clergy, to a searching fire of philosophic bombs and barbed
witticisms. Never was there a more dazzling succession of literary
triumphs over a tottering system. The satirized classes winced and
laughed, and the intellect of France was conquered, for the
Revolution. Thenceforth it was impossible that peasants who were
nominally free should toil to satisfy the exacting needs of the
State, and to support the brilliant bevy of nobles who flitted gaily
round the monarch at Versailles. The young King Louis XVI., it is
true, carried through several reforms, but he had not enough strength
of will to abolish the absurd immunities from taxation which freed the
nobles and titled clergy from the burdens of the State. Thus, down to
1789, the middle classes and peasants bore nearly all the weight of
taxation, while the peasants were also encumbered by feudal dues and
tolls. These were the crying grievances which united in a solid
phalanx both thinkers and practical men, and thereby gave an immense
impetus to the levelling doctrines of Rousseau.
Two only of his political teachings concern us here, namely, social
equality and the unquestioned supremacy of the State; for to these
dogmas, when they seemed doomed to political bankruptcy, Napoleon
Buonaparte was to act as residuary legatee. According to Rousseau,
society and government originated in a social contract, whereby all
members of the community have equal rights. It matters not that the
spirit of the contract may have evaporated amidst the miasma of
luxury. That is a violation of civil society; and members are
justified in reverting at once to the primitive ideal. If the
existence of the body politic be endangered, force may be used:
"Whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to do
so by the whole body; which means nothing else than that he shall be
forced to be free." Equally plausible and dangerous was his teaching
as to the indivisibility of the general will. Deriving every public
power from his social contract, he finds it easy to prove that the
sovereign power, vested in all the citizens, must be incorruptible,
inalienable, unrepresentable, indivisible, and indestructible.
Englishmen may now find it difficult to understand the enthusiasm
called forth by this quintessence of negations; but to Frenchman
recently escaped from the age of privilege and warring against the
coalition of kings, the cry of the Republic one and indivisible was a
trumpet call to death or victory. Any shifts, even that of a
dictatorship, were to be borne, provided that social equality could be
saved. As republican Rome had saved her early liberties by intrusting
unlimited powers to a temporary dictator, so, claimed Rousseau, a
young commonwealth must by a similar device consult Nature's first law
of self-preservation. The dictator saves liberty by temporarily
abrogating it: by momentary gagging of the legislative power he
renders it truly vocal.
The events of the French Revolution form a tragic commentary on these
theories. In the first stage of that great movement we see the
followers of Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau marching in an
undivided host against the ramparts of privilege. The walls of the
Bastille fall down even at the blast of their trumpets. Odious feudal
privileges disappear in a single sitting of the National Assembly; and
the _Parlements_, or supreme law courts of the provinces, are swept
away. The old provinces themselves are abolished, and at the beginning
of 1790 France gains social and political unity by her new system of
Departments, which grants full freedom of action in local affairs,
though in all national concerns it binds France closely to the new
popular government at Paris. But discords soon begin to divide the
reformers: hatred of clerical privilege and the desire to fill the
empty coffers of the State dictate the first acts of spoliation.
Tithes are abolished: the lands of the Church are confiscated to the
service of the State; monastic orders are suppressed; and the
Government undertakes to pay the stipends of bishops and priests.
Furthermore, their subjection to the State is definitely secured by
the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July, 1790) which invalidates
their allegiance to the Pope. Most of the clergy refuse: these are
termed non-jurors or orthodox priests, while their more complaisant
colleagues are known as constitutional priests. Hence arises a serious
schism in the Church, which distracts the religious life of the land,
and separates the friends of liberty from the champions of the
rigorous equality preached by Rousseau.
The new constitution of 1791 was also a source of discord. In its
jealousy of the royal authority, the National Assembly seized very
many of the executive functions of government. The results were
disastrous. Laws remained without force, taxes went uncollected, the
army was distracted by mutinies, and the monarchy sank slowly into the
gulf of bankruptcy and anarchy. Thus, in the course of three years,
the revolutionists goaded the clergy to desperation, they were about
to overthrow the monarchy, every month was proving their local
self-government to be unworkable, and they themselves split into
factions that plunged France into war and drenched her soil by
organized massacres.
* * * * *
We know very little about the impression made on the young Buonaparte
by the first events of the Revolution. His note-book seems even to
show that he regarded them as an inconvenient interference with his
plans for Corsica. But gradually the Revolution excites his interest.
In September, 1789, we find him on furlough in Corsica sharing the
hopes of the islanders that their representatives in the French
National Assembly will obtain the boon of independence. He exhorts
his compatriots to favour the democratic cause, which promises a
speedy deliverance from official abuses. He urges them to don the new
tricolour cockade, symbol of Parisian triumph over the old monarchy;
to form a club; above all, to organize a National Guard. The young
officer knew that military power was passing from the royal army, now
honeycombed with discontent, to the National Guard. Here surely was
Corsica's means of salvation. But the French governor of Corsica
intervenes. The club is closed, and the National Guard is dispersed.
Thereupon Buonaparte launches a vigorous protest against the tyranny
of the governor and appeals to the National Assembly of France for
some guarantee of civil liberty. His name is at the head of this
petition, a sufficiently daring step for a junior lieutenant on
furlough. But his patriotism and audacity carry him still further. He
journeys to Bastia, the official capital of his island, and is
concerned in an affray between the populace and the royal troops
(November 5th, 1789). The French authorities, fortunately for him, are
nearly powerless: he is merely requested to return to Ajaccio; and
there he organizes anew the civic force, and sets the dissident
islanders an example of good discipline by mounting guard outside the
house of a personal opponent.
Other events now transpired which began to assuage his opposition to
France. Thanks to the eloquent efforts of Mirabeau, the Corsican
patriots who had remained in exile since 1768 were allowed to return
and enjoy the full rights of citizenship. Little could the friends of
liberty at Paris, or even the statesman himself, have foreseen all the
consequences of this action: it softened the feelings of many
Corsicans towards their conquerors; above all, it caused the heart of
Napoleon Buonaparte for the first time to throb in accord with that of
the French nation. His feelings towards Paoli also began to cool. The
conduct of this illustrious exile exposed him to the charge of
ingratitude towards France. The decree of the French National
Assembly, which restored him to Corsican citizenship, was graced by
acts of courtesy such as the generous French nature can so winningly
dispense. Louis XVI. and the National Assembly warmly greeted him, and
recognized him as head of the National Guard of the island. Yet,
amidst all the congratulations, Paoli saw the approach of anarchy, and
behaved with some reserve. Outwardly, however, concord seemed to be
assured, when on July 14th, 1790, he landed in Corsica; but the hatred
long nursed by the mountaineers and fisherfolk against France was not
to be exorcised by a few demonstrations. In truth, the island was
deeply agitated. The priests were rousing the people against the newly
decreed Civil Constitution of the Clergy; and one of these
disturbances endangered the life of Napoleon himself. He and his
brother Joseph chanced to pass by when one of the processions of
priests and devotees was exciting the pity and indignation of the
townsfolk. The two brothers, who were now well known as partisans of
the Revolution, were threatened with violence, and were saved only by
their own firm demeanour and the intervention of peacemakers.
Then again, the concession of local self-government to the island, as
one of the Departments of France, revealed unexpected difficulties.
Bastia and Ajaccio struggled hard for the honour of being the official
capital. Paoli favoured the claims of Bastia, thereby annoying the
champions of Ajaccio, among whom the Buonapartes were prominent. The
schism was widened by the dictatorial tone of Paoli, a demeanour which
ill became the chief of a civic force. In fact, it soon became
apparent that Corsica was too small a sphere for natures so able and
masterful as those of Paoli and Napoleon Buonaparte.
The first meeting of these two men must have been a scene of deep
interest. It was on the fatal field of Ponte Nuovo. Napoleon doubtless
came there in the spirit of true hero-worship. But hero-worship which
can stand the strain of actual converse is rare indeed, especially
when the expectant devotee is endowed with keen insight and habits of
trenchant expression. One phrase has come down to us as a result of
the interview; but this phrase contains a volume of meaning. After
Paoli had explained the disposition of his troops against the French
at Ponte Nuovo, Buonaparte drily remarked to his brother Joseph, "The
result of these dispositions was what was inevitable." [13]
For the present, Buonaparte and other Corsican democrats were closely
concerned with the delinquencies of the Comte de Buttafuoco, the
deputy for the twelve nobles of the island to the National Assembly of
France. In a letter written on January 23rd, 1791, Buonaparte
overwhelms this man with a torrent of invective.--He it was who had
betrayed his country to France in 1768. Self-interest and that alone
prompted his action then, and always. French rule was a cloak for his
design of subjecting Corsica to "the absurd feudal _régime_" of the
barons. In his selfish royalism he had protested against the new
French constitution as being unsuited to Corsica, "though it was
exactly the same as that which brought us so much good and was wrested
from us only amidst streams of blood."--The letter is remarkable for
the southern intensity of its passion, and for a certain hardening of
tone towards Paoli. Buonaparte writes of Paoli as having been ever
"surrounded by enthusiasts, and as failing to understand in a man any
other passion than fanaticism for liberty and independence," and as
duped by Buttafuoco in 1768.[14] The phrase has an obvious reference
to the Paoli of 1791, surrounded by men who had shared his long exile
and regarded the English constitution as their model. Buonaparte, on
the contrary, is the accredited champion of French democracy, his
furious epistle being printed by the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio.
After firing off this tirade Buonaparte returned to his regiment at
Auxonne (February, 1791). It was high time; for his furlough, though
prolonged on the plea of ill-health, had expired in the preceding
October, and he was therefore liable to six months' imprisonment. But
the young officer rightly gauged the weakness of the moribund
monarchy; and the officers of his almost mutinous regiment were glad
to get him back on any terms. Everywhere in his journey through
Provence and Dauphiné, Buonaparte saw the triumph of revolutionary
principles. He notes that the peasants are to a man for the
Revolution; so are the rank and file of the regiment. The officers
are aristocrats, along with three-fourths of those who belong to "good
society": so are all the women, for "Liberty is fairer than they, and
eclipses them." The Revolution was evidently gaining completer hold
over his mind and was somewhat blurring his insular sentiments, when a
rebuff from Paoli further weakened his ties to Corsica. Buonaparte had
dedicated to him his work on Corsica, and had sent him the manuscript
for his approval. After keeping it an unconscionable time, the old man
now coldly replied that he did not desire the honour of Buonaparte's
panegyric, though he thanked him heartily for it; that the
consciousness of having done his duty sufficed for him in his old age;
and, for the rest, history should not be written in youth. A further
request from Joseph Buonaparte for the return of the slighted
manuscript brought the answer that he, Paoli, had no time to search
his papers. After this, how could hero-worship subsist?
The four months spent by Buonaparte at Auxonne were, indeed, a time of
disappointment and hardship. Out of his slender funds he paid for the
education of his younger brother, Louis, who shared his otherwise
desolate lodging. A room almost bare but for a curtainless bed, a
table heaped with books and papers, and two chairs--such were the
surroundings of the lieutenant in the spring of 1791. He lived on
bread that he might rear his brother for the army, and that he might
buy books, overjoyed when his savings mounted to the price of some
coveted volume.
Perhaps the depressing conditions of his life at Auxonne may account
for the acrid tone of an essay which he there wrote in competition for
a prize offered by the Academy of Lyons on the subject--"What truths
and sentiments ought to be inculcated to men for their happiness." It
was unsuccessful; and modern readers will agree with the verdict of
one of the judges that it was incongruous in arrangement and of a bad
and ragged style. The thoughts are set forth in jerky, vehement
clauses; and, in place of the _sensibilité_ of some of his earlier
effusions, we feel here the icy breath of materialism. He regards an
ideal human society as a geometrical structure based on certain
well-defined postulates. All men ought to be able to satisfy certain
elementary needs of their nature; but all that is beyond is
questionable or harmful. The ideal legislator will curtail wealth so
as to restore the wealthy to their true nature--and so forth. Of any
generous outlook on the wider possibilities of human life there is
scarcely a trace. His essay is the apotheosis of social mediocrity. By
Procrustean methods he would have forced mankind back to the dull
levels of Sparta: the opalescent glow of Athenian life was beyond his
ken. But perhaps the most curious passage is that in which he preaches
against the sin and folly of ambition. He pictures Ambition as a
figure with pallid cheeks, wild eyes, hasty step, jerky movements and
sardonic smile, for whom crimes are a sport, while lies and calumnies
are merely arguments and figures of speech. Then, in words that recall
Juvenal's satire on Hannibal's career, he continues: "What is
Alexander doing when he rushes from Thebes into Persia and thence into
India? He is ever restless, he loses his wits, he believes himself
God. What is the end of Cromwell? He governs England. But is he not
tormented by all the daggers of the furies?"--The words ring false,
even for this period of Buonaparte's life; and one can readily
understand his keen wish in later years to burn every copy of these
youthful essays. But they have nearly all survived; and the diatribe
against ambition itself supplies the feather wherewith history may
wing her shaft at the towering flight of the imperial eagle.[15]
At midsummer he is transferred, as first lieutenant, to another
regiment which happened to be quartered at Valence; but his second
sojourn there is remarkable only for signs of increasing devotion to
the revolutionary cause. In the autumn of 1791 he is again in Corsica
on furlough, and remains there until the month of May following. He
finds the island rent by strifes which it would be tedious to
describe. Suffice it to say that the breach between Paoli and the
Buonapartes gradually widened owing to the dictator's suspicion of all
who favoured the French Revolution. The young officer certainly did
nothing to close the breach. Determined to secure his own election as
lieutenant-colonel in the new Corsican National Guard, he spent much
time in gaining recruits who would vote for him. He further assured
his success by having one of the commissioners, who was acting in
Paoli's interest, carried off from his friends and detained at the
Buonapartes' house in Ajaccio--his first _coup_[16] Stranger events
were to follow. At Easter, when the people were excited by the
persecuting edicts against the clergy and the closing of a monastery,
there was sharp fighting between the populace and Buonaparte's
companies of National Guards. Originating in a petty quarrel, which
was taken up by eager partisans, it embroiled the whole of the town
and gave the ardent young Jacobin the chance of overthrowing his
enemies. His plans even extended to the seizure of the citadel, where
he tried to seduce the French regiment from its duty to officers
whom he dubbed aristocrats. The attempt was a failure. The whole
truth can, perhaps, scarcely be discerned amidst the tissue of
lies which speedily enveloped the affair; but there can be no
doubt that on the second day of strife Buonaparte's National
Guards began the fight and subsequently menaced the regular troops in
the citadel. The conflict was finally stopped by commissioners sent by
Paoli; and the volunteers were sent away from the town.
Buonaparte's position now seemed desperate. His conduct exposed him to
the hatred of most of his fellow-citizens and to the rebukes of the
French War Department. In fact, he had doubly sinned: he had actually
exceeded his furlough by four months: he was technically guilty, first
of desertion, and secondly of treason. In ordinary times he would have
been shot, but the times were extraordinary, and he rightly judged
that when a Continental war was brewing, the most daring course was
also the most prudent, namely, to go to Paris. Thither Paoli allowed
him to proceed, doubtless on the principle of giving the young madcap
a rope wherewith to hang himself.
On his arrival at Marseilles, he hears that war has been declared by
France against Austria; for the republican Ministry, which Louis XVI.
had recently been compelled to accept, believed that war against an
absolute monarch would intensify revolutionary fervour in France and
hasten the advent of the Republic. Their surmises were correct.
Buonaparte, on his arrival at Paris, witnessed the closing scenes of
the reign of Louis XVI. On June 20th he saw the crowd burst into the
Tuileries, when for some hours it insulted the king and queen. Warmly
though he had espoused the principles of the Revolution, his patrician
blood boiled at the sight of these vulgar outrages, and he exclaimed:
"Why don't they sweep off four or five hundred of that _canaille_ with
cannon? The rest would then run away fast enough." The remark is
significant. If his brain approved the Jacobin creed, his instincts
were always with monarchy. His career was to reconcile his reason with
his instincts, and to impose on weary France the curious compromise of
a revolutionary Imperialism.
On August 10th, from the window of a shop near the Tuileries, he
looked down on the strange events which dealt the _coup de grâce_ to
the dying monarchy. Again the chieftain within him sided against the
vulture rabble and with the well-meaning monarch who kept his troops
to a tame defensive. "If Louis XVI." (so wrote Buonaparte to his
brother Joseph) "had mounted his horse, the victory would have been
his--so I judge from the spirit which prevailed in the morning."
When all was over, when Louis sheathed his sword and went for
shelter to the National Assembly, when the fierce Marseillais were
slaughtering the Swiss Guards and bodyguards of the king, Buonaparte
dashed forward to save one of these unfortunates from a southern
sabre. "Southern comrade, let us save this poor wretch.--Are you
of the south?--Yes.--Well, we will save him."
Altogether, what a time of disillusionment this was to the young
officer. What depths of cruelty and obscenity it revealed in the
Parisian rabble. What folly to treat them with the Christian
forbearance shown by Louis XVI. How much more suitable was grapeshot
than the beatitudes. The lesson was stored up for future use at a
somewhat similar crisis on this very spot.
During the few days when victorious Paris left Louis with the sham
title of king, Buonaparte received his captain's commission, which was
signed for the king by Servan, the War Minister. Thus did the
revolutionary Government pass over his double breach of military
discipline at Ajaccio. The revolutionary motto, "La carrière ouverte
aux talents," was never more conspicuously illustrated than in the
facile condoning of his offences and in this rapid promotion. It was
indeed a time fraught with vast possibilities for all republican or
Jacobinical officers. Their monarchist colleagues were streaming over
the frontiers to join the Austrian and Prussian invaders. But National
Guards were enrolling by tens of thousands to drive out the Prussian
and Austrian invaders; and when Europe looked to see France fall for
ever, it saw with wonder her strength renewed as by enchantment. Later
on it learnt that that strength was the strength of Antæus, of a
peasantry that stood firmly rooted in their native soil. Organization
and good leadership alone were needed to transform these ardent masses
into the most formidable soldiery; and the brilliant military
prospects now opened up certainly knit Buonaparte's feelings more
closely with the cause of France. Thus, on September 21st, when the
new National Assembly, known as the Convention, proclaimed the
Republic, we may well believe that sincere convictions no less than
astute calculations moved him to do and dare all things for the sake
of the new democratic commonwealth.[17]
For the present, however, a family duty urges him to return to
Corsica. He obtains permission to escort home his sister Elise, and
for the third time we find him on furlough in Corsica. This laxity of
military discipline at such a crisis is explicable only on the
supposition that the revolutionary chiefs knew of his devotion to
their cause and believed that his influence in the island would render
his informal services there more valuable than his regimental duties
in the army then invading Savoy. For the word Republic, which fired
his imagination, was an offence to Paoli and to most of the
islanders; and the phrase "Republic one and indivisible," ever on the
lips of the French, seemed to promise that the island must become a
petty replica of France--France that was now dominated by the authors
of the vile September massacres. The French party in the island was
therefore rapidly declining, and Paoli was preparing to sever the
union with France. For this he has been bitterly assailed as a
traitor. But, from Paoli's point of view, the acquisition of the
island by France was a piece of rank treachery; and his allegiance to
France was technically at an end when the king was forcibly dethroned
and the Republic was proclaimed. The use of the appellation "traitor"
in such a case is merely a piece of childish abuse. It can be
justified neither by reference to law, equity, nor to the popular
sentiment of the time. Facts were soon to show that the islanders were
bitterly opposed to the party then dominant in France. This hostility
of a clannish, religious, and conservative populace against the
bloodthirsty and atheistical innovators who then lorded it over France
was not diminished by the action of some six thousand French
volunteers, the off-scourings of the southern ports, who were landed
at Ajaccio for an expedition against Sardinia. In their zeal for
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, these _bonnets rouges_ came to
blows with the men of Ajaccio, three of whom they hanged. So fierce
was the resentment caused by this outrage that the plan of a joint
expedition for the liberation of Sardinia from monarchical tyranny had
to be modified; and Buonaparte, who was again in command of a
battalion of Corsican guards, proposed that the islanders alone should
proceed to attack the Madalena Isles.
These islands, situated between Corsica and Sardinia, have a double
interest to the historical student. One of them, Caprera, was destined
to shelter another Italian hero at the close of his career, the noble
self-denying Garibaldi: the chief island of the group was the
objective of Buonaparte's first essay in regular warfare. After some
delays the little force set sail under the command of Cesari-Colonna,
the nephew of Paoli. According to Buonaparte's own official statement
at the close of the affair, he had successfully landed his men near
the town to be assailed, and had thrown the Sardinian defences into
confusion, when a treacherous order from his chief bade him to cease
firing and return to the vessels. It has also been stated that this
retreat was the outcome of a secret understanding between Paoli and
Cesari-Colonna that the expedition should miscarry. This seems highly
probable. A mutiny on board the chief ship of the flotilla was
assigned by Cesari-Colonna as the cause of his order for a retreat;
but there are mutinies and mutinies, and this one may have been a
trick of the Paolists for thwarting Buonaparte's plan and leaving him
a prisoner. In any case, the young officer only saved himself and his
men by a hasty retreat to the boats, tumbling into the sea a mortar
and four cannon. Such was the ending to the great captain's first
military enterprise.
On his return to Ajaccio (March 3rd, 1793), Buonaparte found affairs
in utter confusion. News had recently arrived of the declaration of
war by the French Republic against England and Holland. Moreover,
Napoleon's young brother, Lucien, had secretly denounced Paoli to the
French authorities at Toulon; and three commissioners were now sent
from Paris charged with orders to disband the Corsican National
Guards, and to place the Corsican dictator under the orders of the
French general commanding the army of Italy.[18]
A game of truly Macchiavellian skill is now played. The French
commissioners, among whom the Corsican deputy, Salicetti, is by far
the most able, invite Paoli to repair to Toulon, there to concert
measures for the defence of Corsica. Paoli, seeing through the ruse
and discerning a guillotine, pleads that his age makes the journey
impossible; but with his friends he quietly prepares for resistance
and holds the citadel of Ajaccio. Meanwhile the commissioners make
friendly overtures to the old chief; in these Napoleon participates,
being ignorant of Lucien's action at Toulon. The sincerity of these
overtures may well be called in question, though Buonaparte still used
the language of affection to his former idol. However this may be, all
hope of compromise is dashed by the zealots who are in power at Paris.
On April 2nd they order the French commissioners to secure Paoli's
person, by whatever means, and bring him to the French capital. At
once a cry of indignation goes up from all parts of Corsica; and
Buonaparte draws up a declaration, vindicating Paoli's conduct and
begging the French Convention to revoke its decree.[19] Again, one
cannot but suspect that this declaration was intended mainly, if not
solely, for local consumption. In any case, it failed to cool the
resentment of the populace; and the partisans of France soon came to
blows with the Paolists.
Salicetti and Buonaparte now plan by various artifices to gain the
citadel of Ajaccio from the Paolists, but guile is three times foiled
by guile equally astute. Failing here, the young captain seeks to
communicate with the French commissioners at Bastia. He sets out
secretly, with a trusty shepherd as companion, to cross the island:
but at the village of Bocognano he is recognized and imprisoned by the
partisans of Paoli. Some of the villagers, however, retain their old
affection to the Buonaparte family, which here has an ancestral
estate, and secretly set him free. He returns to Ajaccio, only to find
an order for his arrest issued by the Corsican patriots. This time he
escapes by timely concealment in the grotto of a friend's garden; and
from the grounds of another family connection he finally glides away
in a vessel to a point of safety, whence he reaches Bastia.
Still, though a fugitive, he persists in believing that Ajaccio is
French at heart, and urges the sending of a liberating force. The
French commissioners agree, and the expedition sails--only to meet
with utter failure. Ajaccio, as one man, repels the partisans of
France; and, a gale of wind springing up, Buonaparte and his men
regain their boats with the utmost difficulty. At a place hard by, he
finds his mother, uncle, brothers and sisters. Madame Buonaparte, with
the extraordinary tenacity of will that characterized her famous son,
had wished to defend her house at Ajaccio against the hostile
populace; but, yielding to the urgent warnings of friends, finally
fled to the nearest place of safety, and left the house to the fury of
the populace, by whom it was nearly wrecked.
For a brief space Buonaparte clung to the hope of regaining Corsica
for the Republic, but now only by the aid of French troops. For the
islanders, stung by the demand of the French Convention that Paoli
should go to Paris, had rallied to the dictator's side; and the aged
chief made overtures to England for alliance. The partisans of France,
now menaced by England's naval power, were in an utterly untenable
position. Even the steel-like will of Buonaparte was bent. His career
in Corsica was at an end for the present; and with his kith and kin he
set sail for France.
The interest of the events above described lies, not in their
intrinsic importance, but in the signal proof which they afford of
Buonaparte's wondrous endowments of mind and will. In a losing cause
and in a petty sphere he displays all the qualities which, when the
omens were favourable, impelled him to the domination of a Continent.
He fights every inch of ground tenaciously; at each emergency he
evinces a truly Italian fertility of resource, gliding round obstacles
or striving to shatter them by sheer audacity, seeing through men,
cajoling them by his insinuations or overawing them by his mental
superiority, ever determined to try the fickle jade Fortune to the
very utmost, and retreating only before the inevitable. The sole
weakness discoverable in this nature, otherwise compact of strength,
is an excess of will-power over all the faculties that make for
prudence. His vivid imagination only serves to fire him with the full
assurance that he must prevail over all obstacles.
And yet, if he had now stopped to weigh well the lessons of the past,
hitherto fertile only in failures and contradictions, he must have
seen the powerlessness of his own will when in conflict with the
forces of the age; for he had now severed his connection with the
Corsican patriots, of whose cause he had only two years before been
the most passionate champion. It is evident that the schism which
finally separated Buonaparte and Paoli originated in their divergence
of views regarding the French Revolution. Paoli accepted revolutionary
principles only in so far as they promised to base freedom on a due
balance of class interests. He was a follower of Montesquieu. He
longed to see in Corsica a constitution similar to that of England or
to that of 1791 in France. That hope vanished alike for France and
Corsica after the fall of the monarchy; and towards the Jacobinical
Republic, which banished orthodox priests and guillotined the amiable
Louis, Paoli thenceforth felt naught but loathing: "We have been the
enemies of kings," he said to Joseph Buonaparte; "let us never be
their executioners." Thenceforth he drifted inevitably into alliance
with England.
Buonaparte, on the other hand, was a follower of Rousseau, whose ideas
leaped to power at the downfall of the monarchy. Despite the excesses
which he ever deplored, this second Revolution appeared to him to be
the dawn of a new and intelligent age. The clear-cut definitions of
the new political creed dovetailed in with his own rigid views of
life. Mankind was to be saved by law, society being levelled down and
levelled up until the ideals of Lycurgus were attained. Consequently
he regarded the Republic as a mighty agency for the social
regeneration not only of France, but of all peoples. His insular
sentiments were gradually merged in these vaster schemes.
Self-interest and the differentiating effects of party strifes
undoubtedly assisted the mental transformation; but it is clear that
the study of the "Social Contract" was the touchstone of his early
intellectual growth. He had gone to Rousseau's work to deepen his
Corsican patriotism: he there imbibed doctrines which drew him
irresistibly into the vortex of the French Revolution, and of its wars
of propaganda and conquest.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III
TOULON
When Buonaparte left Corsica for the coast of Provence, his career had
been remarkable only for the strange contrast between the brilliance
of his gifts and the utter failure of all his enterprises. His French
partisanship had, as it seemed, been the ruin of his own and his
family's fortunes. At the age of twenty-four he was known only as the
unlucky leader of forlorn hopes and an outcast from the island around
which his fondest longings had been entwined. His land-fall on the
French coast seemed no more promising; for at that time Provence was
on the verge of revolt against the revolutionary Government. Even
towns like Marseilles and Toulon, which a year earlier had been noted
for their republican fervour, were now disgusted with the course of
events at Paris. In the third climax of revolutionary fury, that of
June 2nd, 1793, the more enlightened of the two republican factions,
the Girondins, had been overthrown by their opponents, the men of the
Mountain, who, aided by the Parisian rabble, seized on power. Most of
the Departments of France resented this violence and took up arms. But
the men of the Mountain acted with extraordinary energy: they
proclaimed the Girondins to be in league with the invaders, and
blasted their opponents with the charge of conspiring to divide France
into federal republics. The Committee of Public Safety, now installed
in power at Paris, decreed a _levée en masse_ of able-bodied patriots
to defend the sacred soil of the Republic, and the "organizer of
victory," Carnot, soon drilled into a terrible efficiency the hosts
that sprang from the soil. On their side the Girondins had no
organization whatever, and were embarrassed by the adhesion of very
many royalists. Consequently their wavering groups speedily gave way
before the impact of the new, solid, central power.
A movement so wanting in definiteness as that of the Girondins was
destined to slide into absolute opposition to the men of the Mountain:
it was doomed to become royalist. Certainly it did not command the
adhesion of Napoleon. His inclinations are seen in his pamphlet, "Le
Souper de Beaucaire," which he published in August, 1793. He wrote it
in the intervals of some regimental work which had come to hand: and
his passage through the little town of Beaucaire seems to have
suggested the scenic setting of this little dialogue. It purports to
record a discussion between an officer--Buonaparte himself--two
merchants of Marseilles, and citizens of Nîmes and Montpellier. It
urges the need of united action under the lead of the Jacobins. The
officer reminds the Marseillais of the great services which their city
has rendered to the cause of liberty. Let Marseilles never disgrace
herself by calling in the Spanish fleet as a protection against
Frenchmen. Let her remember that this civil strife was part of a fight
to the death between French patriots and the despots of Europe. That
was, indeed, the practical point at issue; the stern logic of facts
ranged on the Jacobin side all clear-sighted men who were determined
that the Revolution should not be stamped out by the foreign invaders.
On the ground of mere expediency, men must rally to the cause of the
Jacobinical Republic. Every crime might be condoned, provided that the
men now in power at Paris saved the country. Better their tyranny than
the vengeance of the emigrant _noblesse_. Such was the instinct of
most Frenchmen, and it saved France.
As an _exposé_ of keen policy and all-dominating opportunism, "Le
Souper de Beaucaire" is admirable. In a national crisis anything that
saves the State is justifiable--that is its argument. The men of the
Mountain are abler and stronger than the Girondins: therefore the
Marseillais are foolish not to bow to the men of the Mountain. The
author feels no sympathy with the generous young Girondins, who, under
the inspiration of Madame Roland, sought to establish a republic of
the virtues even while they converted monarchical Europe by the sword.
Few men can now peruse with undimmed eyes the tragic story of their
fall. But the scenes of 1793 had transformed the Corsican youth into a
dry-eyed opportunist who rejects the Girondins as he would have thrown
aside a defective tool: nay, he blames them as "guilty of the greatest
of crimes."[20]
Nevertheless Buonaparte was alive to the miseries of the situation. He
was weary of civil strifes, in which it seemed that no glory could be
won. He must hew his way to fortune, if only in order to support his
family, which was now drifting about from village to village of
Provence and subsisting on the slender sums doled out by the Republic
to Corsican exiles.
He therefore applied, though without success, for a regimental
exchange to the army of the Rhine. But while toiling through his
administrative drudgery in Provence, his duties brought him near to
Toulon, where the Republic was face to face with triumphant royalism.
The hour had struck: the man now appeared.
In July, 1793, Toulon joined other towns of the south in declaring
against Jacobin tyranny; and the royalists of the town, despairing of
making headway against the troops of the Convention, admitted English
and Spanish squadrons to the harbour to hold the town for Louis XVII,
(August 28th). This event shot an electric thrill through France. It
was the climax of a long series of disasters. Lyons had hoisted the
white flag of the Bourbons, and was making a desperate defence against
the forces of the Convention: the royalist peasants of La Vendée had
several times scattered the National Guards in utter rout: the
Spaniards were crossing the Eastern Pyrenees: the Piedmontese were
before the gates of Grenoble; and in the north and on the Rhine a
doubtful contest was raging.
Such was the condition of France when Buonaparte drew near to the
republican forces encamped near Ollioules, to the north-west of
Toulon. He found them in disorder: their commander, Carteaux, had left
the easel to learn the art of war, and was ignorant of the range of
his few cannon; Dommartin, their artillery commander, had been
disabled by a wound; and the Commissioners of the Convention, who were
charged to put new vigour into the operations, were at their wits' end
for lack of men and munitions. One of them was Salicetti, who hailed
his coming as a godsend, and urged him to take Dommartin's place.
Thus, on September 16th, the thin, sallow, threadbare figure took
command of the artillery.
The republicans menaced the town on two sides. Carteaux with some
8,000 men held the hills between Toulon and Ollioules, while a corps
3,000 strong, under Lapoype, observed the fortress on the side of La
Valette. Badly led though they were, they wrested the valley north of
Mount Faron from the allied outposts, and nearly completed the
besiegers' lines (September 18th). In fact, the garrison, which
comprised only 2,000 British troops, 4,000 Spaniards, 1,500 French
royalists, together with some Neapolitans and Piedmontese, was
insufficient to defend the many positions around the city on which its
safety depended. Indeed, General Grey wrote to Pitt that 50,000 men
were needed to garrison the place; but, as that was double the
strength of the British regular army then, the English Minister could
only hold out hopes of the arrival of an Austrian corps and a few
hundred British.[21]
Before Buonaparte's arrival the Jacobins had no artillery: true, they
had a few field-pieces, four heavier guns and two mortars, which a
sergeant helplessly surveyed; but they had no munitions, no tools,
above all no method and no discipline. Here then was the opportunity
for which he had been pining. At once he assumes the tone of a master.
"You mind your business, and let me look after mine," he exclaims to
officious infantrymen; "it is artillery that takes fortresses:
infantry gives its help." The drudgery of the last weeks now yields
fruitful results: his methodical mind, brooding over the chaos before
him, flashes back to this or that detail in some coast fort or
magazine: his energy hustles on the leisurely Provençaux, and in a few
days he has a respectable park of artillery--fourteen cannon, four
mortars, and the necessary stores. In a brief space the Commissioners
show their approval of his services by promoting him to the rank of
_chef de bataillon_.
By this time the tide was beginning to turn in favour of the Republic.
On October 9th Lyons fell before the Jacobins. The news lends a new
zest to the Jacobins, whose left wing had (October 1st) been severely
handled by the allies on Mount Faron. Above all, Buonaparte's
artillery can be still further strengthened. "I have despatched," he
wrote to the Minister of War, "an intelligent officer to Lyons,
Briançon, and Grenoble, to procure what might be useful to us. I have
requested the Army of Italy to furnish us with the cannon now useless
for the defence of Antibes and Monaco.... I have established at
Ollioules an arsenal with 80 workers. I have requisitioned horses from
Nice right to Valence and Montpellier.... I am having 5,000 gabions
made every day at Marseilles." But he was more than a mere organizer.
He was ever with his men, animating them by his own ardour: "I always
found him at his post," wrote Doppet, who now succeeded Carteaux;
"when he needed rest he lay on the ground wrapped in his cloak: he
never left the batteries." There, amidst the autumn rains, he
contracted the febrile symptoms which for several years deepened the
pallor of his cheeks and furrowed the rings under his eyes, giving him
that uncanny, almost spectral, look which struck a chill to all who
saw him first and knew not the fiery energy that burnt within. There,
too, his zeal, his unfailing resource, his bulldog bravery, and that
indefinable quality which separates genius from talent speedily
conquered the hearts of the French soldiery. One example of this
magnetic power must here suffice. He had ordered a battery to be made
so near to Fort Mulgrave that Salicetti described it as within a
pistol-shot of the English guns. Could it be worked, its effect would
be decisive. But who could work it? The first day saw all its gunners
killed or wounded, and even the reckless Jacobins flinched from facing
the iron hail. "Call it _the battery of the fearless_," ordered the
young captain. The generous French nature was touched at its tenderest
point, personal and national honour, and the battery thereafter never
lacked its full complement of gunners, living and dead.
The position at Fort Mulgrave, or the Little Gibraltar, was, indeed,
all important; for if the republicans seized that commanding position,
the allied squadrons could be overpowered, or at least compelled to
sail away; and with their departure Toulon must fall.
Here we come on to ground that has been fiercely fought over in wordy
war. Did Bonaparte originate the plan of attack? Or did he throw his
weight and influence into a scheme that others beside him had
designed? Or did he merely carry out orders as a subordinate?
According to the Commissioner Barras, the last was the case. But
Barras was with the eastern wing of the besiegers, that is, some miles
away from the side of La Seyne and L'Eguillette, where Buonaparte
fought. Besides, Barras' "Mémoires" are so untruthful where Buonaparte
is concerned, as to be unworthy of serious attention, at least on
these points.[22] The historian M. Jung likewise relegates Buonaparte
to a quite subordinate position.[23] But his narrative omits some of
the official documents which show that Buonaparte played a very
important part in the siege. Other writers claim that Buonaparte's
influence on the whole conduct of operations was paramount and
decisive. Thus, M. Duruy quotes the letter of the Commissioners to the
Convention: "We shall take care not to lay siege to Toulon by ordinary
means, when we have a surer means to reduce it, that is, by burning
the enemy's fleet.... We are only waiting for the siege-guns before
taking up a position whence we may reach the ships with red-hot balls;
and we shall see if we are not masters of Toulon." But this very
letter disproves the Buonapartist claim. It was written on September
13th. Thus, _three days before Buonaparte's arrival_, the
Commissioners had fully decided on attacking the Little Gibraltar; and
the claim that Buonaparte originated the plan can only be sustained by
antedating his arrival at Toulon.[24] In fact, every experienced
officer among besiegers and besieged saw the weak point of the
defence: early in September Hood and Mulgrave began the fortification
of the heights behind L'Eguillette. In face of these facts, the
assertion that Buonaparte was the first to design the movements which
secured the surrender of Toulon must be relegated to the domain of
hero-worship. (See note on p. 56.)
[Illustration: THE SIEGE OF TOULON, 1793, from "L'Histoire de France
depuis la Révolution de 1789," by Emmanuel Toulougeon. Paris, An. XII.
[1803]. A. Fort Mulgrave. A'. Promontory of L'Eguillette. 1 and 2.
Batteries. 3. Battery "Hommes sans Peur." The black and shaded
rectangles are the Republican and Allied positions respectively.]
Carteaux having been superseded by Doppet, more energy was thrown
into the operations. Yet for him Buonaparte had scarcely more respect.
On November 15th an affair of outposts near Fort Mulgrave showed his
weakness. The soldiers on both sides eagerly took up the affray; line
after line of the French rushed up towards that frowning redoubt:
O'Hara, the leader of the allied troops, encouraged the British in a
sortie that drove back the blue-coats; whereupon Buonaparte headed the
rallying rush to the gorge of the redoubt, when Doppet sounded the
retreat. Half blinded by rage and by the blood trickling from a slight
wound in his forehead, the young Corsican rushed back to Doppet and
abused him in the language of the camp: "Our blow at Toulon has
missed, because a---- has beaten the retreat." The soldiery applauded
this revolutionary licence, and bespattered their chief with similar
terms.
A few days later the tall soldierly Dugommier took the command:
reinforcements began to pour in, finally raising the strength of the
besiegers to 37,000 men. Above all, the new commander gave Buonaparte
_carte blanche_ for the direction of the artillery. New batteries
accordingly began to ring the Little Gibraltar on the landward side;
O'Hara, while gallantly heading a sortie, fell into the republicans'
hands, and the defenders began to lose heart. The worst disappointment
was the refusal of the Austrian Court to fulfil its promise, solemnly
given in September, to send 5,000 regular troops for the defence of
Toulon.
The final conflict took place on the night of December 16-17, when
torrents of rain, a raging wind, and flashes of lightning added new
horrors to the strife. Scarcely had the assailants left the sheltering
walls of La Seyne, than Buonaparte's horse fell under him, shot dead:
whole companies went astray in the darkness: yet the first column of
2,000 men led by Victor rush at the palisades of Fort Mulgrave, tear
them down, and sweep into the redoubt, only to fall in heaps before a
second line of defence: supported by the second column, they rally,
only to yield once more before the murderous fire. In despair,
Dugommier hurries on the column of reserve, with which Buonaparte
awaits the crisis of the night. Led by the gallant young Muiron, the
reserve sweeps into the gorge of death; Muiron, Buonaparte, and
Dugommier hack their way through the same embrasure: their men swarm
in on the overmatched red-coats and Spaniards, cut them down at their
guns, and the redoubt is won.
This event was decisive. The Neapolitans, who were charged to hold the
neighbouring forts, flung themselves into the sea; and the ships
themselves began to weigh anchor; for Buonaparte's guns soon poured
their shot on the fleet and into the city itself. But even in that
desperate strait the allies turned fiercely to bay. On the evening of
December 17th a young officer, who was destined once more to thwart
Buonaparte's designs, led a small body of picked men into the dockyard
to snatch from the rescuing clutch of the Jacobins the French warships
that could not be carried off. Then was seen a weird sight. The galley
slaves, now freed from their chains and clustering in angry groups,
menaced the intruders. Yet the British seamen spread the combustibles
and let loose the demon of destruction. Forthwith the flames shot up
the masts, and licked up the stores of hemp, tar, and timber: and the
explosion of two powder-ships by the Spaniards shook the earth for
many miles around. Napoleon ever retained a vivid mental picture of
the scene, which amid the hated calm of St. Helena he thus described:
"The whirlwind of flames and smoke from the arsenal resembled the
eruption of a volcano, and the thirteen vessels blazing in the roads
were like so many displays of fireworks: the masts and forms of the
vessels were distinctly traced out by the flames, which lasted many
hours and formed an unparalleled spectacle." [25] The sight struck
horror to the hearts of the royalists of Toulon, who saw in it the
signal of desertion by the allies; and through the lurid night crowds
of panic-stricken wretches thronged the quays crying aloud to be taken
away from the doomed city. The glare of the flames, the crash of the
enemy's bombs, the explosion of the two powder-ships, frenzied many a
soul; and scores of those who could find no place in the boats flung
themselves into the sea rather than face the pikes and guillotines of
the Jacobins. Their fears were only too well founded; for a fortnight
later Fréron, the Commissioner of the Convention, boasted that two
hundred royalists perished daily.
It remains briefly to consider a question of special interest to
English readers. Did the Pitt Ministry intend to betray the confidence
of the French royalists and keep Toulon for England? The charge has
been brought by certain French writers that the British, after
entering Toulon with promise that they would hold it in pledge for
Louis XVII., nevertheless lorded it over the other allies and revealed
their intention of keeping that stronghold. These writers aver that
Hood, after entering Toulon as an equal with the Spanish admiral,
Langara, laid claim to entire command of the land forces; that English
commissioners were sent for the administration of the town; and that
the English Government refused to allow the coming of the Comte de
Provence, who, as the elder of the two surviving brothers of Louis
XVI., was entitled to act on behalf of Louis XVII.[26] The facts in
the main are correct, but the interpretation put upon them may well be
questioned. Hood certainly acted with much arrogance towards the
Spaniards. But when the more courteous O'Hara arrived to take command
of the British, Neapolitan, and Sardinian troop, the new commander
agreed to lay aside the question of supreme command. It was not till
November 30th that the British Government sent off any despatch on the
question, which meanwhile had been settled at Toulon by the exercise
of that tact in which Hood seems signally to have been lacking. The
whole question was personal, not national.
Still less was the conduct of the British Government towards the Comte
de Provence a proof of its design to keep Toulon. The records of our
Foreign Office show that, before the occupation of that stronghold for
Louis XVII., we had declined to acknowledge the claims of his uncle to
the Regency. He and his brother, the Comte d'Artois, were notoriously
unpopular in France, except with royalists of the old school; and
their presence at Toulon would certainly have raised awkward questions
about the future government. The conduct of Spain had hitherto been
similar.[27] But after the occupation of Toulon, the Court of Madrid
judged the presence of the Comte de Provence in that fortress to be
advisable; whereas the Pitt Ministry adhered to its former belief,
insisted on the difficulty of conducting the defence if the Prince
were present as Regent, instructed Mr. Drake, our Minister at Genoa,
to use every argument to deter him from proceeding to Toulon, and
privately ordered our officers there, in the last resort, to refuse
him permission to land. The instructions of October 18th to the royal
commissioners at Toulon show that George III. and his Ministers
believed they would be compromising the royalist cause by recognizing
a regency; and certainly any effort by the allies to prejudice the
future settlement would at once have shattered any hopes of a general
rally to the royalist side.[28]
Besides, if England meant to keep Toulon, why did she send only 2,200
soldiers? Why did she admit, not only 6,900 Spaniards, but also 4,900
Neapolitans and 1,600 Piedmontese? Why did she accept the armed help
of 1,600 French royalists? Why did she urgently plead with Austria to
send 5,000 white-coats from Milan? Why, finally, is there no word in
the British official despatches as to the eventual keeping of Toulon;
while there are several references to _indemnities_ which George III.
would require for the expenses of the war--such as Corsica or some of
the French West Indies? Those despatches show conclusively that
England did not wish to keep a fortress that required a permanent
garrison equal to half of the British army on its peace footing; but
that she did regard it as a good base of operations for the overthrow
of the Jacobin rule and the restoration of monarchy; whereupon her
services must be requited with some suitable indemnity, either one of
the French West Indies or Corsica. These plans were shattered by
Buonaparte's skill and the valour of Dugommier's soldiery; but no
record has yet leaped to light to convict the Pitt Ministry of the
perfidy which Buonaparte, in common with nearly all Frenchmen, charged
to their account.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IV
VENDÉMIAIRE
The next period of Buonaparte's life presents few features of
interest. He was called upon to supervise the guns and stores for the
Army of Italy, and also to inspect the fortifications and artillery of
the coast. At Marseilles his zeal outstripped his discretion. He
ordered the reconstruction of the fortress which had been destroyed
during the Revolution; but when the townsfolk heard the news, they
protested so vehemently that the work was stopped and an order was
issued for Buonaparte's arrest. From this difficulty the friendship of
the younger Robespierre and of Salicetti, the Commissioners of the
Convention, availed to rescue him; but the incident proves that his
services at Toulon were not so brilliant as to have raised him above
the general level of meritorious officers, who were applauded while
they prospered, but might be sent to the guillotine for any serious
offence.
In February, 1794, he was appointed at Nice general in command of the
artillery of the Army of Italy, which drove the Sardinian troops from
several positions between Ventimiglia and Oneglia. Thence, swinging
round by passes of the Maritime Alps, they outflanked the positions of
the Austro-Sardinian forces at the Col di Tenda, which had defied all
attack in front. Buonaparte's share in this turning operation seems to
have been restricted to the effective handling of artillery, and the
chief credit here rested with Masséna, who won the first of his
laurels in the country of his birth. He was of humble parentage;
yet his erect bearing, proud animated glance, curt penetrating speech,
and keen repartees, proclaimed a nature at once active and wary, an
intellect both calculating and confident. Such was the man who was to
immortalize his name in many a contest, until his glory paled before
the greater genius of Wellington.
Much of the credit of organizing this previously unsuccessful army
belongs to the younger Robespierre, who, as Commissioner of the
Convention, infused his energy into all departments of the service.
For some months his relations to Buonaparte were those of intimacy;
but whether they extended to complete sympathy on political matters
may be doubted. The younger Robespierre held the revolutionary creed
with sufficient ardour, though one of his letters dated from Oneglia
suggests that the fame of the Terror was hurtful to the prospects of
the campaign. It states that the whole of the neighbouring inhabitants
had fled before the French soldiers, in the belief that they were
destroyers of religion and eaters of babies: this was inconvenient, as
it prevented the supply of provisions and the success of forced loans.
The letter suggests that he was a man of action rather than of ideas,
and probably it was this practical quality which bound Buonaparte in
friendship to him. Yet it is difficult to fathom Buonaparte's ideas
about the revolutionary despotism which was then deluging Paris with
blood. Outwardly he appeared to sympathize with it. Such at least is
the testimony of Marie Robespierre, with whom Buonaparte's sisters
were then intimate. "Buonaparte," she said, "was a republican: I will
even say that he took the side of the Mountain: at least, that was the
impression left on my mind by his opinions when I was at Nice.... His
admiration for my elder brother, his friendship for my younger
brother, and perhaps also the interest inspired by my misfortunes,
gained for me, under the Consulate, a pension of 3,600 francs."[29]
Equally noteworthy is the later declaration of Napoleon that
Robespierre was the "scapegoat of the Revolution." [30] It appears
probable, then, that he shared the Jacobinical belief that the Terror
was a necessary though painful stage in the purification of the body
politic. His admiration of the rigour of Lycurgus, and his dislike of
all superfluous luxury, alike favour this supposition; and as he
always had the courage of his convictions, it is impossible to
conceive him clinging to the skirts of the terrorists merely from a
mean hope of prospective favours. That is the alternative explanation
of his intimacy with young Robespierre. Some of his injudicious
admirers, in trying to disprove his complicity with the terrorists,
impale themselves on this horn of the dilemma. In seeking to clear
him from the charge of Terrorism, they stain him with the charge of
truckling to the terrorists. They degrade him from the level of St.
Just to that of Barrère.
A sentence in one of young Robespierre's letters shows that he never
felt completely sure about the young officer. After enumerating to his
brother Buonaparte's merits, he adds: "He is a Corsican, and offers
only the guarantee of a man of that nation who has resisted the
caresses of Paoli and whose property has been ravaged by that
traitor." Evidently, then, Robespierre regarded Buonaparte with some
suspicion as an insular Proteus, lacking those sureties, mental and
pecuniary, which reduced a man to dog-like fidelity.
Yet, however warily Buonaparte picked his steps along the slopes of
the revolutionary volcano, he was destined to feel the scorch of the
central fires. He had recently been intrusted with a mission to the
Genoese Republic, which was in a most difficult position. It was
subject to pressure from three sides; from English men-of-war that had
swooped down on a French frigate, the "Modeste," in Genoese waters;
and from actual invasion by the French on the west and by the
Austrians on the north. Despite the great difficulties of his task, the
young envoy bent the distracted Doge and Senate to his will. He
might, therefore, have expected gratitude from his adopted country;
but shortly after he returned to Nice he was placed under arrest, and
was imprisoned in a fort near Antibes.
The causes of this swift reverse of fortune were curiously complex.
The Robespierres had in the meantime been guillotined at Paris (July
28th, or Thermidor 10th); and this "Thermidorian" reaction alone would
have sufficed to endanger Buonaparte's head. But his position was
further imperilled by his recent strategic suggestions, which had
served to reduce to a secondary _rôle_ the French Army of the Alps.
The operations of that force had of late been strangely thwarted; and
its leaders, searching for the paralyzing influence, discovered it in
the advice of Buonaparte. Their suspicions against him were formulated
in a secret letter to the Committee of Public Safety, which stated
that the Army of the Alps had been kept inactive by the intrigues of
the younger Robespierre and of Ricord. Many a head had fallen for
reasons less serious than these. But Buonaparte had one infallible
safeguard: he could not well be spared. After a careful examination of
his papers, the Commissioners, Salicetti and Albitte, provisionally
restored him to liberty, but not, for some weeks, to his rank of
general (August 20th, 1794). The chief reason assigned for his
liberation was the service which his knowledge and talents might
render to the Republic, a reference to the knowledge of the Italian
coast-line which he had gained during the mission to Genoa.
For a space his daring spirit was doomed to chafe in comparative
inactivity, in supervising the coast artillery. But his faults were
forgotten in the need which was soon felt for his warlike prowess. An
expedition was prepared to free Corsica from "the tyranny of the
English"; and in this Buonaparte sailed, as general commanding the
artillery. With him were two friends, Junot and Marmont, who had clung
to him through his recent troubles; the former was to be helped to
wealth and fame by Buonaparte's friendship, the latter by his own
brilliant gifts.[31] In this expedition their talent was of no avail.
The French were worsted in an engagement with the British fleet, and
fell back in confusion to the coast of France. Once again Buonaparte's
Corsican enterprises were frustrated by the ubiquitous lords of the
sea: against them he now stored up a double portion of hate, for in
the meantime his inspectorship of coast artillery had been given to
his fellow-countryman, Casabianca.
The fortunes of these Corsican exiles drifted hither and thither in
many perplexing currents, as Buonaparte was once more to discover. It
was a prevalent complaint that there were too many of them seeking
employment in the army of the south; and a note respecting the career
of the young officer made by General Schérer, who now commanded the
French Army of Italy, shows that Buonaparte had aroused at least as
much suspicion as admiration. It runs: "This officer is general of
artillery, and in this arm has sound knowledge, but has somewhat too
much ambition and intriguing habits for his advancement." All things
considered, it was deemed advisable to transfer him to the army which
was engaged in crushing the Vendéan revolt, a service which he loathed
and was determined, if possible, to evade. Accompanied by his faithful
friends, Marmont and Junot, as also by his young brother Louis, he set
out for Paris (May, 1795).
In reality Fortune never favoured him more than when she removed him
from the coteries of intriguing Corsicans on the coast of Provence and
brought him to the centre of all influence. An able schemer at Paris
could decide the fate of parties and governments. At the frontiers men
could only accept the decrees of the omnipotent capital. Moreover, the
Revolution, after passing through the molten stage, was now beginning
to solidify, an important opportunity for the political craftsman. The
spring of the year 1795 witnessed a strange blending of the new
fanaticism with the old customs. Society, dammed up for a time by the
Spartan rigour of Robespierre, was now flowing back into its wonted
channels. Gay equipages were seen in the streets; theatres, prosperous
even during the Terror, were now filled to overflowing; gambling,
whether in money or in stocks and _assignats_, was now permeating all
grades of society; and men who had grown rich by amassing the
confiscated State lands now vied with bankers, stock-jobbers, and
forestallers of grain in vulgar ostentation. As for the poor, they
were meeting their match in the gilded youth of Paris, who with
clubbed sticks asserted the right of the rich to be merry. If the
_sansculottes_ attempted to restore the days of the Terror, the
National Guards of Paris were ready to sweep them back into the slums.
Such was their fate on May 20th, shortly after Buonaparte's arrival at
Paris. Any dreams which he may have harboured of restoring the
Jacobins to power were dissipated, for Paris now plunged into the
gaieties of the _ancien régime_. The Terror was remembered only as a
horrible nightmare, which served to add zest to the pleasures of the
present. In some circles no one was received who had not lost a
relative by the guillotine. With a ghastly merriment characteristic of
the time, "victim balls" were given, to which those alone were
admitted who could produce the death warrant of some family
connection: these secured the pleasure of dancing in costumes which
recalled those of the scaffold, and of beckoning ever and anon to
their partners with nods that simulated the fall of the severed head.
It was for this, then, that the amiable Louis, the majestic Marie
Antoinette, the Minerva-like Madame Roland, the Girondins vowed to the
utter quest of liberty, the tyrant-quelling Danton, the incorruptible
Robespierre himself, had felt the fatal axe; in order that the mimicry
of their death agonies might tickle jaded appetites, and help to weave
anew the old Circean spells. So it seemed to the few who cared to
think of the frightful sacrifices of the past, and to measure them
against the seemingly hopeless degradation of the present.
Some such thoughts seem to have flitted across the mind of Buonaparte
in those months of forced inactivity. It was a time of disillusionment.
Rarely do we find thenceforth in his correspondence any gleams of
faith respecting the higher possibilities of the human race. The
golden visions of youth now vanish along with the _bonnet rouge_ and
the jargon of the Terror. His bent had ever been for the material and
practical: and now that faith in the Jacobinical creed was vanishing,
it was more than ever desirable to grapple that errant balloon to
substantial facts. Evidently, the Revolution must now trust to the
clinging of the peasant proprietors to the recently confiscated lands
of the Church and of the emigrant nobles. If all else was vain and
transitory, here surely was a solid basis of material interests to
which the best part of the manhood of France would tenaciously adhere,
defying alike the plots of reactionaries and the forces of monarchical
Europe. Of these interests Buonaparte was to be the determined
guarantor. Amidst much that was visionary in his later policy he never
wavered in his championship of the new peasant proprietors. He was
ever the peasants' General, the peasants' Consul, the peasants'
Emperor.
The transition of the Revolution to an ordinary form of polity was
also being furthered by its unparalleled series of military triumphs.
When Buonaparte's name was as yet unknown, except in Corsica and
Provence, France practically gained her "natural boundaries," the
Rhine and the Alps. In the campaigns of 1793-4, the soldiers of
Pichegru, Kléber, Hoche, and Moreau overran the whole of the Low
Countries and chased the Germans beyond the Rhine; the Piedmontese
were thrust behind the Alps; the Spaniards behind the Pyrenees. In
quick succession State after State sued for peace: Tuscany in
February, 1795; Prussia in April; Hanover, Westphalia, and Saxony in
May; Spain and Hesse-Cassel in July; Switzerland and Denmark in
August.
Such was the state of France when Buonaparte came to seek his
fortunes in the Sphinx-like capital. His artillery command had been
commuted to a corresponding rank in the infantry--a step that deeply
incensed him. He attributed it to malevolent intriguers; but all his
efforts to obtain redress were in vain. Lacking money and patronage,
known only as an able officer and facile intriguer of the bankrupt
Jacobinical party, he might well have despaired. He was now almost
alone. Marmont had gone off to the Army of the Rhine; but Junot was
still with him, allured perhaps by Madame Permon's daughter, whom he
subsequently married. At the house of this amiable hostess, an old
friend of his family, Buonaparte found occasional relief from the
gloom of his existence. The future Madame Junot has described him as
at this time untidy, unkempt, sickly, remarkable for his extreme
thinness and the almost yellow tint of his visage, which was, however,
lit up by "two eyes sparkling with keenness and will-power"--evidently
a Corsican falcon, pining for action, and fretting its soaring spirit
in that vapid town life. Action Buonaparte might have had, but only of
a kind that he loathed. He might have commanded the troops destined to
crush the brave royalist peasants of La Vendée. But, whether from
scorn of such vulture-work, or from an instinct that a nobler quarry
might be started at Paris, he refused to proceed to the Army of the
West, and on the plea of ill-health remained in the capital. There he
spent his time deeply pondering on politics and strategy. He designed
a history of the last two years, and drafted a plan of campaign for
the Army of Italy, which, later on, was to bear him to fortune.
Probably the geographical insight which it displayed may have led to
his appointment (August 20th, 1795) to the topographical bureau of the
Committee of Public Safety. His first thought on hearing of this
important advancement was that it opened up an opportunity for
proceeding to Turkey to organize the artillery of the Sultan; and in a
few days he sent in a formal request to that effect--the first
tangible proof of that yearning after the Orient which haunted him all
through life. But, while straining his gaze eastwards, he experienced
a sharp rebuff. The Committee was on the point of granting his
request, when an examination of his recent conduct proved him guilty
of a breach of discipline in not proceeding to his Vendéan command. On
the very day when one department of the Committee empowered him to
proceed to Constantinople, the Central Committee erased his name from
the list of general officers (September 15th).
This time the blow seemed fatal. But Fortune appeared to compass his
falls only in order that he might the more brilliantly tower aloft.
Within three weeks he was hailed as the saviour of the new republican
constitution. The cause of this almost magical change in his prospects
is to be sought in the political unrest of France, to which we must
now briefly advert.
All through this summer of 1795 there were conflicts between Jacobins
and royalists. In the south the latter party had signally avenged
itself for the agonies of the preceding years, and the ardour of the
French temperament seemed about to drive that hapless people from the
"Red Terror" to a veritable "White Terror," when two disasters checked
the course of the reaction. An attempt of a large force of emigrant
French nobles, backed up by British money and ships, to rouse Brittany
against the Convention was utterly crushed by the able young Hoche;
and nearly seven hundred prisoners were afterwards shot down in cold
blood (July). Shortly before this blow, the little prince styled Louis
XVII. succumbed to the brutal treatment of his gaolers at the Temple
in Paris; and the hopes of the royalists now rested on the unpopular
Comte de Provence. Nevertheless, the political outlook in the summer
of 1795 was not reassuring to the republicans; and the Commission of
Eleven, empowered by the Convention to draft new organic laws, drew up
an instrument of government, which, though republican in form, seemed
to offer all the stability of the most firmly rooted oligarchy. Some
such compromise was perhaps necessary; for the Commonwealth was
confronted by three dangers, anarchy resulting from the pressure of
the mob, an excessive centralization of power in the hands of two
committees, and the possibility of a _coup d'état_ by some pretender
or adventurer. Indeed, the student of French history cannot fail to
see that this is the problem which is ever before the people of
France. It has presented itself in acute though diverse phases in
1797,1799,1814, 1830, 1848, 1851, and in 1871. Who can say that the
problem has yet found its complete solution?
In some respects the constitution which the Convention voted in
August, 1795, was skilfully adapted to meet the needs of the time.
Though democratic in spirit, it granted a vote only to those citizens
who had resided for a year in some dwelling and had paid taxes, thus
excluding the rabble who had proved to be dangerous to any settled
government. It also checked the hasty legislation which had brought
ridicule on successive National Assemblies. In order to moderate the
zeal for the manufacture of decrees, which had often exceeded one
hundred a month, a second or revising chamber was now to be formed on
the basis of age; for it had been found that the younger the deputies
the faster came forth the fluttering flocks of decrees, that often
came home to roost in the guise of curses. A senatorial guillotine, it
was now proposed, should thin out the fledglings before they flew
abroad at all. Of the seven hundred and fifty deputies of France, the
two hundred and fifty oldest men were to form the Council of Ancients,
having powers to amend or reject the proposals emanating from the
Council of Five Hundred. In this Council were the younger deputies,
and with them rested the sole initiation of laws. Thus the young
deputies were to make the laws, but the older deputies were to amend
or reject them; and this nice adjustment of the characteristics of
youth and age, a due blending of enthusiasm with caution, promised to
invigorate the body politic and yet guard its vital interests.
Lastly, in order that the two Councils should continuously represent
the feelings of France, one third of their members must retire for
re-election every year, a device which promised to prevent any violent
change in their composition, such as might occur if, at the end of
their three years' membership, all were called upon to resign at once.
But the real crux of constitution builders had hitherto been in the
relations of the Legislature to the Executive. How should the brain of
the body politic, that is, the Legislature, be connected with the
hand, that is, the Executive? Obviously, so argued all French
political thinkers, the two functions were distinct and must be kept
separate. The results of this theory of the separation of powers were
clearly traceable in the course of the Revolution. When the hand had
been left almost powerless, as in 1791-2, owing to democratic jealousy
of the royal Ministry, the result had been anarchy. The supreme needs
of the State in the agonies of 1793 had rendered the hand omnipotent:
the Convention, that is, the brain, was for some time powerless before
its own instrument, the two secret committees. Experience now showed
that the brain must exercise a general control over the hand, without
unduly hampering its actions. Evidently, then, the deputies of France
must intrust the details of administration to responsible Ministers,
though some directing agency seemed needed as a spur to energy and a
check against royalist plots. In brief, the Committee of Public
Safety, purged of its more dangerous powers, was to furnish the model
for a new body of five members, termed the Directory. This
organism, which was to give its name to the whole period 1795-1799,
was not the Ministry. There was no Ministry as we now use the term.
There were Ministers who were responsible individually for their
departments of State: but they never met for deliberation, or
communicated with the Legislature; they were only heads of
departments, who were responsible individually to the Directors. These
five men formed a powerful committee, deliberating in private on the
whole policy of the State and on all the work of the Ministers. The
Directory had not, it is true, the right of initiating laws and of
arbitrary arrest which the two committees had freely exercised during
the Terror. Its dependence on the Legislature seemed also to be
guaranteed by the Directors being appointed by the two legislative
Councils; while one of the five was to vacate his office for
re-election every year. But in other respects the directorial powers
were almost as extensive as those wielded by the two secret
committees, or as those which Bonaparte was to inherit from the
Directory in 1799. They comprised the general control of policy in
peace and war, the right to negotiate treaties (subject to
ratification by the legislative councils), to promulgate laws voted by
the Councils and watch over their execution, and to appoint or dismiss
the Ministers of State.
Such was the constitution which was proclaimed on September 22nd,
1795, or 1st Vendémiaire, Year IV., of the revolutionary calendar. An
important postscript to the original constitution now excited fierce
commotions which enabled the young officer to repair his own shattered
fortunes. The Convention, terrified at the thought of a general
election, which might send up a malcontent or royalist majority,
decided to impose itself on France for at least two years longer. With
an effrontery unparalleled in parliamentary annals, it decreed that
the law of the new constitution, requiring the re-election of
one-third of the deputies every year, should now be applied to itself;
and that the rest of its members should sit in the forthcoming
Councils. At once a cry of disgust and rage arose from all who were
weary of the Convention and all its works. "Down with the
two-thirds!" was the cry that resounded through the streets of Paris.
The movement was not so much definitely royalist as vaguely
malcontent. The many were enraged by the existing dearth and by the
failure of the Revolution to secure even cheap bread. Doubtless the
royalists strove to drive on the discontent to the desired goal, and
in many parts they tinged the movement with an unmistakably Bourbon
tint. But it is fairly certain that in Paris they could not alone have
fomented a discontent so general as that of Vendémiaire. That they
would have profited by the defeat of the Convention is, however,
equally certain. The history of the Revolution proves that those who
at first merely opposed the excesses of the Jacobins gradually drifted
over to the royalists. The Convention now found itself attacked in the
very city which had been the chosen abode of Liberty and Equality.
Some thirty thousand of the Parisian National Guards were determined
to give short shrift to this Assembly that clung so indecently to
life; and as the armies were far away, the Parisian malcontents seemed
masters of the situation. Without doubt they would have been but for
their own precipitation and the energy of Buonaparte.
But how came he to receive the military authority which was so
potently to influence the course of events? We left him in Fructidor
disgraced: we find him in the middle of Vendémiaire leading part of
the forces of the Convention. This bewildering change was due to the
pressing needs of the Republic, to his own signal abilities, and to
the discerning eye of Barras, whose career claims a brief notice.
Paul Barras came of a Provençal family, and had an adventurous life
both on land and in maritime expeditions. Gifted with a robust frame,
consummate self-assurance, and a ready tongue, he was well equipped
for intrigues, both amorous and political, when the outbreak of the
Revolution gave his thoughts a more serious turn. Espousing the
ultra-democratic side, he yet contrived to emerge unscathed from the
schisms which were fatal to less dextrous trimmers. He was present at
the siege of Toulon, and has striven in his "Mémoires" to disparage
Buonaparte's services and exalt his own. At the crisis of Thermidor
the Convention intrusted him with the command of the "army of the
interior," and the energy which he then displayed gained for him the
same position in the equally critical days of Vendémiaire. Though he
subsequently carped at the conduct of Buonaparte, his action proved
his complete confidence in that young officer's capacity: he at once
sent for him, and intrusted him with most important duties. Herein
lies the chief chance of immortality for the name of Barras; not that,
as a terrorist, he slaughtered royalists at Toulon; not that he was
the military chief of the Thermidorians, who, from fear of their own
necks, ended the supremacy of Robespierre; not even that he degraded
the new _régime_ by a cynical display of all the worst vices of the
old; but rather because he was now privileged to hold the stirrup for
the great captain who vaulted lightly into the saddle.
The present crisis certainly called for a man of skill and
determination. The malcontents had been emboldened by the timorous
actions of General Menou, who had previously been intrusted with the
task of suppressing the agitation. Owing to a praiseworthy desire to
avoid bloodshed, that general wasted time in parleying with the most
rebellious of the "sections" of Paris. The Convention now appointed
Barras to the command, while Buonaparte, Brune, Carteaux, Dupont,
Loison, Vachot, and Vézu were charged to serve under him.[32] Such was
the decree of the Convention, which therefore refutes Napoleon's later
claim that he was in command, and that of his admirers that he was
second in command.
Yet, intrusted from the outset by Barras with important duties, he
unquestionably became the animating spirit of the defence. "From the
first," says Thiébault, "his activity was astonishing: he seemed to be
everywhere at once: he surprised people by his laconic, clear, and
prompt orders: everybody was struck by the vigour of his arrangements,
and passed from admiration to confidence, from confidence to
enthusiasm." Everything now depended on skill and enthusiasm. The
defenders of the Convention, comprising some four or five thousand
troops of the line, and between one and two thousand patriots,
gendarmes, and Invalides, were confronted by nearly thirty thousand
National Guards. The odds were therefore wellnigh as heavy as those
which menaced Louis XVI. on the day of his final overthrow. But the
place of the yielding king was now filled by determined men, who saw
the needs of the situation. In the earlier scenes of the Revolution,
Buonaparte had pondered on the efficacy of artillery in
street-fighting--a fit subject for his geometrical genius. With a few
cannon, he knew that he could sweep all the approaches to the palace;
and, on Barras' orders, he despatched a dashing cavalry officer,
Murat--a name destined to become famous from Madrid to Moscow--to
bring the artillery from the neighbouring camp of Sablons. Murat
secured them before the malcontents of Paris could lay hands on them;
and as the "sections" of Paris had yielded up their own cannon after
the affrays of May, they now lacked the most potent force in
street-fighting. Their actions were also paralyzed by divided
counsels: their commander, an old general named Danican, moved his men
hesitatingly; he wasted precious minutes in parleying, and thus gave
time to Barras' small but compact force to fight them in detail.
Buonaparte had skilfully disposed his cannon to bear on the royalist
columns that threatened the streets north of the Tuileries. But for
some time the two parties stood face to face, seeking to cajole or
intimidate one another. As the autumn afternoon waned, shots were
fired from some houses near the church of St. Roch, where the
malcontents had their headquarters.[33] At once the streets became the
scene of a furious fight; furious but unequal; for Buonaparte's cannon
tore away the heads of the malcontent columns. In vain did the
royalists pour in their volleys from behind barricades, or from the
neighbouring houses: finally they retreated on the barricaded church,
or fled down the Rue St. Honoré. Meanwhile their bands from across the
river, 5,000 strong, were filing across the bridges, and menaced the
Tuileries from that side, until here also they melted away before the
grapeshot and musketry poured into their front and flank. By six
o'clock the conflict was over. The fight presents few, if any,
incidents which are authentic. The well-known engraving of Helman,
which shows Buonaparte directing the storming of the church of St.
Roch is unfortunately quite incorrect. He was not engaged there, but
in the streets further east: the church was not stormed: the
malcontents held it all through the night, and quietly surrendered it
next morning.
Such was the great day of Vendémiaire. It cost the lives of about two
hundred on each side; at least, that is the usual estimate, which
seems somewhat incongruous with the stories of fusillading and
cannonading at close quarters, until we remember that it is the custom
of memoir-writers and newspaper editors to trick out the details of a
fight, and in the case of civil warfare to minimise the bloodshed.
Certainly the Convention acted with clemency in the hour of victory:
two only of the rebel leaders were put to death; and it is pleasing to
remember that when Menou was charged with treachery, Buonaparte used
his influence to procure his freedom.
Bourrienne states that in his later days the victor deeply regretted
his action in this day of Vendémiaire. The assertion seems
incredible. The "whiff of grapeshot" crushed a movement which could
have led only to present anarchy, and probably would have brought
France back to royalism of an odious type. It taught a severe lesson
to a fickle populace which, according to Mme. de Staël, was hungering
for the spoils of place as much as for any political object. Of all
the events of his post-Corsican life, Buonaparte need surely never
have felt compunctions for Vendémiaire.[34]
After four signal reverses in his career, he now enters on a path
strewn with glories. The first reward for his signal services to the
Republic was his appointment to be second in command of the army of
the interior; and when Barras resigned the first command, he took that
responsible post. But more brilliant honours were soon to follow, the
first of a social character, the second purely military.
Buonaparte had already appeared timidly and awkwardly at the _salon_
of the voluptuous Barras, where the fair but frail Madame
Tallien--Notre Dame de Thermidor she was styled--dazzled Parisian
society by her classic features and the uncinctured grace of her
attire. There he reappeared, not in the threadbare uniform that had
attracted the giggling notice of that giddy throng, but as the lion of
the society which his talents had saved. His previous attempts to gain
the hand of a lady had been unsuccessful. He had been refused, first
by Mlle. Clary, sister of his brother Joseph's wife, and quite
recently by Madame Permon. Indeed, the scarecrow young officer had not
been a brilliant match. But now he saw at that _salon_ a charming
widow, Josephine de Beauharnais, whose husband had perished in the
Terror. The ardour of his southern temperament, long repressed by his
privations, speedily rekindles in her presence: his stiff, awkward
manners thaw under her smiles: his silence vanishes when she praises
his military gifts: he admires her tact, her sympathy, her beauty: he
determines to marry her. The lady, on her part, seems to have been
somewhat terrified by her uncanny wooer: she comments questioningly on
his "violent tenderness almost amounting to frenzy": she notes
uneasily his "keen inexplicable gaze which imposes even on our
Directors": How would this eager nature, this masterful energy,
consort with her own "Creole nonchalance"? She did well to ask herself
whether the general's almost volcanic passion would not soon exhaust
itself, and turn from her own fading charms to those of women who
were his equals in age. Besides, when she frankly asked her own heart,
she found that she loved him not: she only admired him. Her chief
consolation was that if she married him, her friend Barras would help
to gain for Buonaparte the command of the Army of Italy. The advice of
Barras undoubtedly helped to still the questioning surmises of
Josephine; and the wedding was celebrated, as a civil contract, on
March 9th, 1796. With a pardonable coquetry, the bride entered her age
on the register as four years less than the thirty-four which had
passed over her: while her husband, desiring still further to lessen
the disparity, entered his date of birth as 1768.
A fortnight before the wedding, he had been appointed to command the
Army of Italy: and after a honeymoon of two days at Paris, he left his
bride to take up his new military duties. Clearly, then, there was
some connection between this brilliant fortune and his espousal of
Josephine. But the assertion that this command was the "dowry" offered
by Barras to the somewhat reluctant bride is more piquant than
correct. That the brilliance of Buonaparte's prospects finally
dissipated her scruples may be frankly admitted. But the appointment
to a command of a French army did not rest with Barras. He was only
one of the five Directors who now decided the chief details of
administration. His colleagues were Letourneur, Rewbell, La
Réveillière-Lépeaux, and the great Carnot; and, as a matter of fact,
it was the last-named who chiefly decided the appointment in question.
He had seen and pondered over the plan of campaign which Buonaparte
had designed for the Army of Italy; and the vigour of the conception,
the masterly appreciation of topographical details which it displayed,
and the trenchant energy of its style had struck conviction to his
strategic genius. Buonaparte owed his command, not to a backstairs
intrigue, as was currently believed in the army, but rather to his own
commanding powers. While serving with the Army of Italy in 1794, he
had carefully studied the coast-line and the passes leading inland;
and, according to the well-known savant, Volney, the young officer,
shortly after his release from imprisonment, sketched out to him and
to a Commissioner of the Convention the details of the very plan of
campaign which was to carry him victoriously from the Genoese Riviera
into the heart of Austria.[35] While describing this masterpiece of
strategy, says Volney, Buonaparte spoke as if inspired. We can fancy
the wasted form dilating with a sense of power, the thin sallow cheeks
aglow with enthusiasm, the hawk-like eyes flashing at the sight of the
helpless Imperial quarry, as he pointed out on the map of Piedmont and
Lombardy the features which would favour a dashing invader and carry
him to the very gates of Vienna. The splendours of the Imperial Court
at the Tuileries seem tawdry and insipid when compared with the
intellectual grandeur which lit up that humble lodging at Nice with
the first rays that heralded the dawn of Italian liberation.
With the fuller knowledge which he had recently acquired, he now in
January, 1796, elaborated this plan of campaign, so that it at once
gained Carnot's admiration. The Directors forwarded it to General
Schérer, who was in command of the Army of Italy, but promptly
received the "brutal" reply that the man who had drafted the plan
ought to come and carry it out. Long dissatisfied with Schérer's
inactivity and constant complaints, the Directory now took him at his
word, and replaced him by Buonaparte. Such is the truth about
Buonaparte's appointment to the Army of Italy.
To Nice, then, the young general set out (March 21st) accompanied, or
speedily followed, by his faithful friends, Marmont and Junot, as well
as by other officers of whose energy he was assured, Berthier, Murat,
and Duroc. How much had happened since the early summer of 1795, when
he had barely the means to pay his way to Paris! A sure instinct had
drawn him to that hot-bed of intrigues. He had played a desperate
game, risking his commission in order that he might keep in close
touch with the central authority. His reward for this almost
superhuman confidence in his own powers was correspondingly great; and
now, though he knew nothing of the handling of cavalry and infantry
save from books, he determined to lead the Army of Italy to a series
of conquests that would rival those of Cæsar. In presence of a will so
stubborn and genius so fervid, what wonder that a friend prophesied
that his halting-place would be either the throne or the scaffold?
* * * * *
CHAPTER V
THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN
(1796)
In the personality of Napoleon nothing is more remarkable than the
combination of gifts which in most natures are mutually exclusive; his
instincts were both political and military; his survey of a land took
in not only the geographical environment but also the material welfare
of the people. Facts, which his foes ignored, offered a firm fulcrum
for the leverage of his will: and their political edifice or their
military policy crumbled to ruin under an assault planned with
consummate skill and pressed home with relentless force.
For the exercise of all these gifts what land was so fitted as the
mosaic of States which was dignified with the name of Italy?
That land had long been the battle-ground of the Bourbons and the
Hapsburgs; and their rivalries, aided by civic dissensions, had
reduced the people that once had given laws to Europe into a condition
of miserable weakness. Europe was once the battle-field of the Romans:
Italy was now the battle-field of Europe. The Hapsburgs dominated the
north, where they held the rich Duchy of Milan, along with the great
stronghold of Mantua, and some scattered imperial fiefs. A scion of
the House of Austria reigned at Florence over the prosperous Duchy of
Tuscany. Modena and Lucca were under the general control of the Court
of Vienna. The south of the peninsula, along with Sicily, was swayed
by Ferdinand IV., a descendant of the Spanish Bourbons, who kept his
people in a condition of mediæval ignorance and servitude; and this
dynasty controlled the Duchy of Parma. The Papal States were also sunk
in the torpor of the Middle Ages; but in the northern districts of
Bologna and Ferrara, known as the "Legations," the inhabitants still
remembered the time of their independence, and chafed under the
irritating restraints of Papal rule. This was seen when the leaven of
French revolutionary thought began to ferment in Italian towns. Two
young men of Bologna were so enamoured of the new ideas, as to raise
an Italian tricolour flag, green, white, and red, and summon their
fellow-citizens to revolt against the rule of the Pope's legate
(November, 1794). The revolt was crushed, and the chief offenders were
hanged; but elsewhere the force of democracy made itself felt,
especially among the more virile peoples of Northern Italy. Lombardy
and Piedmont throbbed with suppressed excitement. Even when the King
of Sardinia, Victor Amadeus III., was waging war against the French
Republic, the men of Turin were with difficulty kept from revolt; and,
as we have seen, the Austro-Sardinian alliance was powerless to
recover Savoy and Nice from the soldiers of liberty or to guard the
Italian Riviera from invasion.
In fact, Bonaparte--for he henceforth spelt his name thus--detected
the political weakness of the Hapsburgs' position in Italy. Masters of
eleven distinct peoples north of the Alps, how could they hope
permanently to dominate a wholly alien people south of that great
mountain barrier? The many failures of the old Ghibelline or Imperial
party in face of any popular impulse which moved the Italian nature to
its depths revealed the artificiality of their rule. Might not such an
impulse be imparted by the French Revolution? And would not the hopes
of national freedom and of emancipation from feudal imposts fire these
peoples with zeal for the French cause? Evidently there were vast
possibilities in a democratic propaganda. At the outset Bonaparte's
racial sympathies were warmly aroused for the liberation of
Italy; and though his judgment was to be warped by the promptings of
ambition, he never lost sight of the welfare of the people whence he
was descended. In his "Memoirs written at St. Helena" he summed up his
convictions respecting the Peninsula in this statesmanlike utterance:
"Italy, isolated within its natural limits, separated by the sea and
by very high mountains from the rest of Europe, seems called to be a
great and powerful nation.... Unity in manners, language, literature
ought finally, in a future more or less remote, to unite its
inhabitants under a single government.... Rome is beyond doubt the
capital which the Italians will one day choose." A prophetic saying:
it came from a man who, as conqueror and organizer, awakened that
people from the torpor of centuries and breathed into it something of
his own indomitable energy.
And then again, the Austrian possessions south of the Alps were
difficult to hold for purely military reasons. They were separated
from Vienna by difficult mountain ranges through which armies
struggled with difficulty. True, Mantua was a formidable stronghold,
but no fortress could make the Milanese other than a weak and
straggling territory, the retention of which by the Court of Vienna
was a defiance to the gospel of nature of which Rousseau was the
herald and Bonaparte the militant exponent.
The Austro-Sardinian forces were now occupying the pass which
separates the Apennines from the Maritime Alps north of the town of
Savona. They were accordingly near the headwaters of the Bormida and
the Tanaro, two of the chief affluents of the River Po: and roads
following those river valleys led, the one north-east, in the
direction of Milan, the other north-west towards Turin, the Sardinian
capital. A wedge of mountainous country separated these roads as they
diverged from the neighbourhood of Montenotte. Here obviously was the
vulnerable point of the Austro-Sardinian position. Here therefore
Bonaparte purposed to deliver his first strokes, foreseeing that,
should he sever the allies, he would have in his favour every
advantage both political and topographical.
All this was possible to a commander who could overcome the initial
difficulties. But these difficulties were enormous. The position of
the French Army of Italy in March, 1796, was precarious. Its
detachments, echelonned near the coast from Savona to Loano, and
thence to Nice, or inland to the Col di Tende, comprised in all
42,000 men, as against the Austro-Sardinian forces amounting to
52,000 men.[36] Moreover, the allies occupied strong positions on the
northern slopes of the Maritime Alps and Apennines, and, holding the
inner and therefore shorter curve, they could by a dextrous
concentration have pushed their more widely scattered opponents on to
the shore, where the republicans would have been harassed by the guns
of the British cruisers. Finally, Bonaparte's troops were badly
equipped, worse clad, and were not paid at all. On his arrival at Nice
at the close of March, the young commander had to disband one
battalion for mutinous conduct.[37] For a brief space it seemed
doubtful how the army would receive this slim, delicate-looking youth,
known hitherto only as a skilful artillerist at Toulon and in the
streets of Paris. But he speedily gained the respect and confidence of
the rank and file, not only by stern punishment of the mutineers, but
by raising money from a local banker, so as to make good some of the
long arrears of pay. Other grievances he rectified by prompt
reorganization of the commissariat and kindred departments. But, above
all, by his burning words he thrilled them: "Soldiers, you are half
starved and half naked. The Government owes you much, but can do
nothing for you. Your patience and courage are honourable to you, but
they procure you neither advantage nor glory. I am about to lead you
into the most fertile valleys of the world: there you will find
flourishing cities and teeming provinces: there you will reap honour,
glory, and riches. Soldiers of the Army of Italy, will you lack
courage?" Two years previously so open a bid for the soldiers'
allegiance would have conducted any French commander forthwith to the
guillotine.
[Illustration: MAP TO ILLUSTRATE THE CAMPAIGNS IN NORTH ITALY.]
But much had changed since the days of Robespierre's supremacy;
Spartan austerity had vanished; and the former insane jealousy of
individual pre-eminence was now favouring a startling reaction which
was soon to install the one supremely able man as absolute master of
France.
Bonaparte's conduct produced a deep impression alike on troops and
officers. From Masséna his energy and his trenchant orders extorted
admiration: and the tall swaggering Augereau shrank beneath the
intellectual superiority of his gaze. Moreover, at the beginning of
April the French received reinforcements which raised their total to
49,300 men, and gave them a superiority of force; for though the
allies had 52,000, yet they were so widely scattered as to be inferior
in any one district. Besides, the Austrian commander, Beaulieu, was
seventy-one years of age, had only just been sent into Italy, with
which land he was ill acquainted, and found one-third of his troops
down with sickness.[38]
Bonaparte now began to concentrate his forces near Savona. Fortune
favoured him even before the campaign commenced. The snows of winter,
still lying on the mountains, though thawing on the southern slopes,
helped to screen his movements from the enemy's outposts; and the
French vanguard pushed along the coastline even as far as Voltri. This
movement was designed to coerce the Senate of Genoa into payment of a
fine for its acquiescence in the seizure of a French vessel by a
British cruiser within its neutral roadstead; but it served to alarm
Beaulieu, who, breaking up his cantonments, sent a strong column
towards that city. At the time this circumstance greatly annoyed
Bonaparte, who had hoped to catch the Imperialists dozing in their
winter quarters. Yet it is certain that the hasty move of their left
flank towards Voltri largely contributed to that brilliant opening of
Bonaparte's campaign, which his admirers have generally regarded as
due solely to his genius.[39] For, when Beaulieu had thrust his column
into the broken coast district between Genoa and Voltri, he severed it
dangerously far from his centre, which marched up the valley of the
eastern branch of the Bormida to occupy the passes of the Apennines
north of Savona. This, again, was by no means in close touch with the
Sardinian allies encamped further to the west in and beyond Ceva.
Beaulieu, writing at a later date to Colonel Graham, the English
_attaché_ at his headquarters, ascribed his first disasters to
Argenteau, his lieutenant at Montenotte, who employed only a third of
the forces placed under his command. But division of forces was
characteristic of the Austrians in all their operations, and they now
gave a fine opportunity to any enterprising opponent who should crush
their weak and unsupported centre. In obedience to orders from Vienna,
Beaulieu assumed the offensive; but he brought his chief force to bear
on the French vanguard at Voltri, which he drove in with some loss.
While he was occupying Voltri, the boom of cannon echoing across the
mountains warned his outposts that the real campaign was opening in
the broken country north of Savona.[40] There the weak Austrian centre
had occupied a ridge or plateau above the village of Montenotte,
through which ran the road leading to Alessandria and Milan.
Argenteau's attack partly succeeded: but the stubborn bravery of a
French detachment checked it before the redoubt which commanded the
southern prolongation of the heights named Monte-Legino.[41]
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte hurried up. On the
following day (April 12th), massing the French columns of attack
under cover of an early morning mist, he moved them to their
positions, so that the first struggling rays of sunlight revealed to
the astonished Austrians the presence of an army ready to crush their
front and turn their flanks. For a time the Imperialists struggled
bravely against the superior forces in their front; but when Masséna
pressed round their right wing, they gave way and beat a speedy
retreat to save themselves from entire capture. Bonaparte took no
active share in the battle: he was, very properly, intent on the wider
problem of severing the Austrians from their allies, first by the
turning movement of Masséna, and then by pouring other troops into the
gap thus made. In this he entirely succeeded. The radical defects in
the Austrian dispositions left them utterly unable to withstand the
blows which he now showered upon them. The Sardinians were too far
away on the west to help Argenteau in his hour of need: they were in
and beyond Ceva, intent on covering the road to Turin: whereas, as
Napoleon himself subsequently wrote, they should have been near enough
to their allies to form one powerful army, which, at Dego or
Montenotte, would have defended both Turin and Milan. "United, the two
forces would have been superior to the French army: separated, they
were lost."
The configuration of the ground favoured Bonaparte's plan of driving
the Imperialists down the valley of the Bormida in a north-easterly
direction; and the natural desire of a beaten general to fall back
towards his base of supplies also impelled Beaulieu and Argenteau to
retire towards Milan. But that would sever their connections with the
Sardinians, whose base of supplies, Turin, lay in a north-westerly
direction.
Bonaparte therefore hurled his forces at once against the Austrians
and a Sardinian contingent at Millesimo, and defeated them, Augereau's
division cutting off the retreat of twelve hundred of their men under
Provera. Weakened by this second blow, the allies fell back on the
intrenched village of Dego. Their position was of a strength
proportionate to its strategic importance; for its loss would
completely sever all connection between their two main armies save by
devious routes many miles in their rear. They therefore clung
desperately to the six mamelons and redoubts which barred the valley
and dominated some of the neighbouring heights. Yet such was the
superiority of the French in numbers that these positions were
speedily turned by Masséna, whom Bonaparte again intrusted with the
movement on the enemy's flank and rear. A strange event followed. The
victors, while pillaging the country for the supplies which
Bonaparte's sharpest orders failed to draw from the magazines and
stores on the sea-coast, were attacked in the dead of night by five
Austrian battalions that had been ordered up to support their
countrymen at Dego. These, after straying among the mountains, found
themselves among bands of the marauding French, whom they easily
scattered, seizing Dego itself. Apprised of this mishap, Bonaparte
hurried up more troops from the rear, and on the 15th recovered the
prize which had so nearly been snatched from his grasp. Had Beaulieu
at this time thrown all his forces on the French, he might have
retrieved his first misfortunes: but foresight and energy were not to
be found at the Austrian headquarters: the surprise at Dego was the
work of a colonel; and for many years to come the incompetence of
their aged commanders was to paralyze the fine fighting qualities of
the "white-coats." In three conflicts they had been outmanoeuvred and
outnumbered, and drew in their shattered columns to Acqui.
The French commander now led his columns westward against the
Sardinians, who had fallen back on their fortified camp at Ceva, in
the upper valley of the Tanaro. There they beat off one attack of the
French. A check in front of a strongly intrenched position was
serious. It might have led to a French disaster, had the Austrians
been able to bring aid to their allies. Bonaparte even summoned a
council of war to deliberate on the situation. As a rule, a council of
war gives timid advice. This one strongly advised a second attack on
the camp--a striking proof of the ardour which then nerved the
republican generals. Not yet were they _condottieri_ carving out
fortunes by their swords: not yet were they the pampered minions of an
autocrat, intent primarily on guarding the estates which his favour
had bestowed. Timidity was rather the mark of their opponents. When
the assault on the intrenchments of Ceva was about to be renewed, the
Sardinian forces were discerned filing away westwards. Their general
indulged the fond hope of holding the French at bay at several
strong natural positions on his march. He was bitterly to rue his
error. The French divisions of Sérurier and Dommartin closed in on
him, drove him from Mondovi, and away towards Turin.
Bonaparte had now completely succeeded. Using to the full the
advantage of his central position between the widely scattered
detachments of his foes, he had struck vigorously at their natural
point of junction, Montenotte, and by three subsequent successes--for
the evacuation of Ceva can scarcely be called a French victory--had
forced them further and further apart until Turin was almost within
his power.
It now remained to push these military triumphs to their natural
conclusion, and impose terms of peace on the House of Savoy, which was
secretly desirous of peace. The Directors had ordered Bonaparte that
he should seek to detach Sardinia from the Austrian alliance by
holding out the prospect of a valuable compensation for the loss of
Savoy and Nice in the fertile Milanese.[42] The prospect of this rich
prize would, the Directors surmised, dissolve the Austro-Sardinian
alliance, as soon as the allies had felt the full vigour of the French
arms. Not that Bonaparte himself was to conduct these negotiations. He
was to forward to the Directory all offers of submission. Nay, he was
not empowered to grant on his own responsibility even an armistice. He
was merely to push the foe hard, and feed his needy soldiers on the
conquered territory. He was to be solely a general, never a
negotiator.
The Directors herein showed keen jealousy or striking ignorance of
military affairs. How could he keep the Austrians quiet while envoys
passed between Turin and Paris? All the dictates of common sense
required him to grant an armistice to the Court of Turin before the
Austrians could recover from their recent disasters. But the King of
Sardinia drew him from a perplexing situation by instructing Colli to
make overtures for an armistice as preliminary to a peace. At once the
French commander replied that such powers belonged to the Directory;
but as for an armistice, it would only be possible if the Court of
Turin placed in his hands three fortresses, Coni, Tortona, and
Alessandria, besides guaranteeing the transit of French armies through
Piedmont and the passage of the Po at Valenza. Then, with his
unfailing belief in accomplished facts, Bonaparte pushed on his troops
to Cherasco.
Near that town he received the Piedmontese envoys; and from the pen of
one of them we have an account of the general's behaviour in his first
essay in diplomacy. His demeanour was marked by that grave and frigid
courtesy which was akin to Piedmontese customs. In reply to the
suggestions of the envoys that some of the conditions were of little
value to the French, he answered: "The Republic, in intrusting to me
the command of an army, has credited me with possessing enough
discernment to judge of what that army requires, without having
recourse to the advice of my enemy." Apart, however, from this
sarcasm, which was uttered in a hard and biting voice, his tone was
coldly polite. He reserved his home thrust for the close of the
conference. When it had dragged on till considerably after noon with
no definite result, he looked at his watch and exclaimed: "Gentlemen,
I warn you that a general attack is ordered for two o'clock, and that
if I am not assured that Coni will be put in my hands before
nightfall, the attack will not be postponed for one moment. It may
happen to me to lose battles, but no one shall ever see me lose
minutes either by over-confidence or by sloth." The terms of the
armistice of Cherasco were forthwith signed (April 28th); they were
substantially the same as those first offered by the victor. During
the luncheon which followed, the envoys were still further impressed
by his imperturbable confidence and trenchant phrases; as when he told
them that the campaign was the exact counterpart of what he had
planned in 1794; or described a council of war as a convenient device
for covering cowardice or irresolution in the commander; or asserted
that nothing could now stop him before the walls of Mantua.[43]
As a matter of fact, the French army was at that time so disorganized
by rapine as scarcely to have withstood a combined and vigorous attack
by Beaulieu and Colli. The republicans, long exposed to hunger and
privations, were now revelling in the fertile plains of Piedmont.
Large bands of marauders ranged the neighbouring country, and the
regiments were often reduced to mere companies. From the grave risks
of this situation Bonaparte was rescued by the timidity of the Court
of Turin, which signed the armistice at Cherasco eighteen days after
the commencement of the campaign. A fortnight later the preliminaries
of peace were signed between France and the King of Sardinia, by which
the latter yielded up his provinces of Savoy and Nice, and renounced
the alliance with Austria. Great indignation was felt in the
Imperialist camp at this news; and it was freely stated that the
Piedmontese had let themselves be beaten in order to compass a peace
that had been tacitly agreed upon in the month of January.[44]
Even before this auspicious event, Bonaparte's despatches to the
Directors were couched in almost imperious terms, which showed that he
felt himself the master of the situation. He advised them as to their
policy towards Sardinia, pointing out that, as Victor Amadeus had
yielded up three important fortresses, he was practically in the hands
of the French: "If you do not accept peace with him, if your plan is
to dethrone him, you must amuse him for a few decades[45] and must
warn me: I then seize Valenza and march on Turin." In military
affairs the young general showed that he would brook no interference
from Paris. He requested the Directory to draft 15,000 men from
Kellermann's Army of the Alps to reinforce him: "That will give me an
army of 45,000 men, of which possibly I may send a part to Rome. If
you continue your confidence and approve these plans, I am sure of
success: Italy is yours." Somewhat later, the Directors proposed to
grant the required reinforcements, but stipulated for the retention of
part of the army in the Milanese _under the command of Kellermann_.
Thereupon Bonaparte replied (May 14th) that, as the Austrians had been
reinforced, it was highly impolitic to divide the command. Each
general had his own way of making war. Kellermann, having more
experience, would doubtless do it better: but both together would do
it very badly.
Again the Directors had blundered. In seeking to subject Bonaparte to
the same rules as had been imposed on all French generals since the
treason of Dumouriez in 1793, they were doubtless consulting the vital
interests of the Commonwealth. But, while striving to avert all
possibilities of Cæsarism, they now sinned against that elementary
principle of strategy which requires unity of design in military
operations. Bonaparte's retort was unanswerable, and nothing more was
heard of the luckless proposal.
Meanwhile the peace with the House of Savoy had thrown open the
Milanese to Bonaparte's attack. Holding three Sardinian fortresses, he
had an excellent base of operations; for the lands restored to the
King of Sardinia were to remain subject to requisitions for the French
army until the general peace. The Austrians, on the other hand, were
weakened by the hostility of their Italian subjects, and, worst of
all, they depended ultimately on reinforcements drawn from beyond the
Alps by way of Mantua. In the rich plains of Lombardy they, however,
had one advantage which was denied to them among the rocks of the
Apennines. Their generals could display the tactical skill on which
they prided themselves, and their splendid cavalry had some chance of
emulating the former exploits of the Hungarian and Croatian horse.
They therefore awaited the onset of the French, little dismayed by
recent disasters, and animated by the belief that their antagonist,
unversed in regular warfare, would at once lose in the plains the
bubble reputation gained in ravines. But the country in the second
part of this campaign was not less favourable to Bonaparte's peculiar
gifts than that in which he had won his first laurels as commander.
Amidst the Apennines, where only small bodies of men could be moved, a
general inexperienced in the handling of cavalry and infantry could
make his first essays in tactics with fair chances of success. Speed,
energy, and the prompt seizure of a commanding central position were
the prime requisites; the handling of vast masses of men was
impossible. The plains of Lombardy facilitated larger movements; but
even here the numerous broad swift streams fed by the Alpine snows,
and the network of irrigating dykes, favoured the designs of a young
and daring leader who saw how to use natural obstacles so as to baffle
and ensnare his foes. Bonaparte was now to show that he excelled his
enemies, not only in quickness of eye and vigour of intellect, but
also in the minutiæ of tactics and in those larger strategic
conceptions which decide the fate of nations. In the first place,
having the superiority of force, he was able to attack. This is an
advantage at all times: for the aggressor can generally mislead his
adversary by a series of feints until the real blow can be delivered
with crushing effect. Such has been the aim of all great leaders from
the time of Epaminondas and Alexander, Hannibal and Cæsar, down to the
age of Luxembourg, Marlborough, and Frederick the Great. Aggressive
tactics were particularly suited to the French soldiery, always eager,
active, and intelligent, and now endowed with boundless enthusiasm in
their cause and in their leader.
Then again he was fully aware of the inherent vice of the Austrian
situation. It was as if an unwieldy organism stretched a vulnerable
limb across the huge barrier of the Alps, exposing it to the attack of
a compacter body. It only remained for Bonaparte to turn against his
foes the smaller geographical features on which they too implicitly
relied. Beaulieu had retired beyond the Po and the Ticino, expecting
that the attack on the Milanese would be delivered across the latter
stream by the ordinary route, which crossed it at Pavia. Near that
city the Austrians occupied a strong position with 26,000 men, while
other detachments patrolled the banks of the Ticino further north, and
those of the Po towards Valenza, only 5,000 men being sent towards
Piacenza. Bonaparte, however, was not minded to take the ordinary
route. He determined to march, not as yet on the north of the River
Po, where snow-swollen streams coursed down from the Alps, but rather
on the south side, where the Apennines throw off fewer streams and
also of smaller volume. From the fortress of Tortona he could make a
rush at Piacenza, cross the Po there, and thus gain the Milanese
almost without a blow. To this end he had stipulated in the recent
terms of peace that he might cross the Po at Valenza; and now, amusing
his foes by feints on that side, he vigorously pushed his main columns
along the southern bank of the Po, where they gathered up all the
available boats. The vanguard, led by the impetuous Lannes, seized the
ferry at Piacenza, before the Austrian horse appeared, and scattered a
squadron or two which strove to drive them back into the river (May
7th).
Time was thus gained for a considerable number of French to cross the
river in boats or by the ferry. Working under the eye of their leader,
the French conquered all obstacles: a bridge of boats soon spanned
the stream, and was defended by a _tête de pont_; and with forces
about equal in number to Liptay's Austrians, the republicans advanced
northwards, and, after a tough struggle, dislodged their foes from the
village of Fombio. This success drove a solid wedge between Liptay and
his commander-in-chief, who afterwards bitterly blamed him, first for
retreating, and secondly for not reporting his retreat to
headquarters.
It would appear, however, that Liptay had only 5,000 men (not the
8,000 which Napoleon and French historians have credited to him), that
he was sent by Beaulieu to Piacenza too late to prevent the crossing
by the French, and that at the close of the fight on the following day
he was completely cut off from communicating with his superior.
Beaulieu, with his main force, advanced on Fombio, stumbled on the
French, where he looked to find Liptay, and after a confused fight
succeeded in disengaging himself and withdrawing towards Lodi, where
the high-road leading to Mantua crossed the River Adda. To that stream
he directed his remaining forces to retire. He thereby left Milan
uncovered (except for the garrison which held the citadel), and
abandoned more than the half of Lombardy; but, from the military point
of view, his retreat to the Adda was thoroughly sound. Yet here again
a movement strategically correct was marred by tactical blunders. Had
he concentrated all his forces at the nearest point of the Adda which
the French could cross, namely Pizzighetone, he would have rendered
any flank march of theirs to the northward extremely hazardous; but he
had not yet sufficiently learned from his terrible teacher the need of
concentration; and, having at least three passages to guard, he kept
his forces too spread out to oppose a vigorous move against any one of
them. Indeed, he despaired of holding the line of the Adda, and
retired eastwards with a great part of his army.
Consequently, when Bonaparte, only three days after the seizure of
Piacenza, threw his almost undivided force against the town of Lodi,
his passage was disputed only by the rearguard, whose anxiety to cover
the retreat of a belated detachment far exceeded their determination
to defend the bridge over the Adda. This was a narrow structure, some
eighty fathoms long, standing high above the swift but shallow river.
Resolutely held by well-massed troops and cannon, it might have cost
the French a severe struggle: but the Imperialists were badly
handled: some were posted in and around the town which was between the
river and the advancing French; and the weak walls of Lodi were soon
escaladed by the impetuous republicans. The Austrian commander,
Sebottendorf, now hastily ranged his men along the eastern bank of the
river, so as to defend the bridge and prevent any passage of the river
by boats or by a ford above the town. The Imperialists numbered only
9,627 men; they were discouraged by defeats and by the consciousness
that no serious stand could be attempted before they reached the
neighbourhood of Mantua; and their efforts to break down the bridge
were now frustrated by the French, who, posted behind the walls of
Lodi on the higher bank of the stream, swept their opponents' position
with a searching artillery fire. Having shaken the constancy of his
foes and refreshed his own infantry by a brief rest in Lodi, Bonaparte
at 6 p.m. secretly formed a column of his choicest troops and hurled
it against the bridge. A hot fire of grapeshot and musketry tore its
front, and for a time the column bent before the iron hail. But,
encouraged by the words of their young leader, generals, corporals,
and grenadiers pressed home their charge. This time, aided by
sharp-shooters who waded to islets in the river, the assailants
cleared the bridge, bayoneted the Austrian cannoneers, attacked the
first and second lines of supporting foot, and, when reinforced,
compelled horse and foot to retreat towards Mantua.[46]
Such was the affair of Lodi (May 10th). A legendary
glamour hovers around all the details of this conflict and invests it
with fictitious importance. Beaulieu's main force was far away, and
there was no hope of entrapping anything more than the rear of his
army. Moreover, if this were the object, why was not the flank move of
the French cavalry above Lodi pushed home earlier in the fight? This,
if supported by infantry, could have outflanked the enemy while the
perilous rush was made against the bridge; and such a turning movement
would probably have enveloped the Austrian force while it was being
shattered in front. That is the view in which the strategist,
Clausewitz, regards this encounter. Far different was the impression
which it created among the soldiers and Frenchmen at large. They
valued a commander more for bravery of the bull-dog type than for any
powers of reasoning and subtle combination. These, it is true,
Bonaparte had already shown. He now enchanted the soldiery by dealing
a straight sharp blow. It had a magical effect on their minds. On the
evening of that day the French soldiers, with antique republican
_camaraderie_, saluted their commander as _le petit caporal_ for his
personal bravery in the fray, and this endearing phrase helped to
immortalize the affair of the bridge of Lodi.[47] It shot a thrill of
exultation through France. With pardonable exaggeration, men told how
he charged at the head of the column, and, with Lannes, was the first
to reach the opposite side; and later generations have figured him
charging before his tall grenadiers--a feat that was actually
performed by Lannes, Berthier, Masséna, Cervoni, and Dallemagne. It
was all one. Bonaparte alone was the hero of the day. He reigned
supreme in the hearts of the soldiers, and he saw the importance of
this conquest. At St. Helena he confessed to Montholon that it was the
victory of Lodi which fanned his ambition into a steady flame.
A desire of stimulating popular enthusiasm throughout Italy impelled
the young victor to turn away from his real objective, the fortress of
Mantua, to the political capital of Lombardy. The people of Milan
hailed their French liberators with enthusiasm: they rained flowers on
the bronzed soldiers of liberty, and pointed to their tattered
uniforms and worn-out shoes as proofs of their triumphant energy:
above all, they gazed with admiration, not unmixed with awe, at the
thin pale features of the young commander, whose plain attire bespoke
a Spartan activity, whose ardent gaze and decisive gestures proclaimed
a born leader of men. Forthwith he arranged for the investment of the
citadel where eighteen hundred Austrians held out: he then received
the chief men of the city with easy Italian grace; and in the evening
he gave a sumptuous ball, at which all the dignity, wealth, and beauty
of the old Lombard capital shone resplendent. For a brief space all
went well between the Lombards and their liberators. He received with
flattering distinction the chief artists and men of letters, and also
sought to quicken the activity of the University of Pavia. Political
clubs and newspapers multiplied throughout Lombardy; and actors,
authors, and editors joined in a pæan of courtly or fawning praise, to
the new Scipio, Cæsar, Hannibal, and Jupiter.
There were other reasons why the Lombards should worship the young
victor. Apart from the admiration which a gifted race ever feels for
so fascinating a combination of youthful grace with intellectual power
and martial prowess, they believed that this Italian hero would call
the people to political activity, perchance even to national
independence. For this their most ardent spirits had sighed,
conspired, or fought during the eighty-three years of the Austrian
occupation. Ever since the troublous times of Dante there had been
prophetic souls who caught the vision of a new Italy, healed of her
countless schisms, purified from her social degradations, and uniting
the prowess of her ancient life with the gentler arts of the present
for the perfection of her own powers and for the welfare of mankind.
The gleam of this vision had shone forth even amidst the thunder claps
of the French Revolution; and now that the storm had burst over the
plains of Lombardy, ecstatic youths seemed to see the vision embodied
in the person of Bonaparte himself. At the first news of the success
at Lodi the national colours were donned as cockades, or waved
defiance from balconies and steeples to the Austrian garrisons. All
truly Italian hearts believed that the French victories heralded the
dawn of political freedom not only for Lombardy, but for the whole
peninsula.
Bonaparte's first actions increased these hopes. He abolished the
Austrian machinery of government, excepting the Council of State, and
approved the formation of provisional municipal councils and of a
National Guard. At the same time, he wrote guardedly to the Directors
at Paris, asking whether they proposed to organize Lombardy as a
republic, as it was much more ripe for this form of government than
Piedmont. Further than this he could not go; but at a later date he
did much to redeem his first promises to the people of Northern Italy.
The fair prospect was soon overclouded by the financial measures urged
on the young commander from Paris, measures which were disastrous to
the Lombards and degrading to the liberators themselves. The Directors
had recently bidden him to press hard on the Milanese, and levy large
contributions in money, provisions, and objects of art, seeing that
they did not intend to keep this country.[48] Bonaparte accordingly
issued a proclamation (May 19th), imposing on Lombardy the sum of
twenty million francs, remarking that it was a very light sum for so
fertile a country. Only two days before he had in a letter to the
Directors described it as exhausted by five years of war. As for the
assertion that the army needed this sum, it may be compared with his
private notification to the Directory, three days after his
proclamation, that they might speedily count on six to eight millions
of the Lombard contribution, as lying ready at their disposal, "it
being over and above what the army requires." This is the first
definite suggestion by Bonaparte of that system of bleeding conquered
lands for the benefit of the French Exchequer, which enabled him
speedily to gain power over the Directors. Thenceforth they began to
connive at his diplomatic irregularities, and even to urge on his
expeditions into wealthy districts, provided that the spoils went to
Paris; while the conqueror, on his part, was able tacitly to assume
that tone of authority with which the briber treats the bribed.[49]
The exaction of this large sum, and of various requisites for the
army, as well as the "extraction" of works of art for the benefit of
French museums, at once aroused the bitterest feelings. The loss of
priceless treasures, such as the manuscript of Virgil which had
belonged to Petrarch, and the masterpieces of Raphael and Leonardo da
Vinci, might perhaps have been borne: it concerned only the cultured
few, and their effervescence was soon quelled by patrols of French
cavalry. Far different was it with the peasants between Milan and
Pavia. Drained by the white-coats, they now refused to be bled for the
benefit of the blue-coats of France. They rushed to arms. The city of
Pavia defied the attack of a French column until cannon battered in
its gates. Then the republicans rushed in, massacred all the armed men
for some hours, and glutted their lust and rapacity. By order of
Bonaparte, the members of the municipal council were condemned to
execution; but a delay occurred before this ferocious order was
carried out, and it was subsequently mitigated. Two hundred hostages
were, however, sent away into France as a guarantee for the good
behaviour of the unfortunate city: whereupon the chief announced to
the Directory that this would serve as a useful lesson to the peoples
of Italy.
In one sense this was correct. It gave the Italians a true insight
into French methods; and painful emotions thrilled the peoples of the
peninsula when they realized at what a price their liberation was to
be effected. Yet it is unfair to lay the chief blame on Bonaparte for
the pillage of Lombardy. His actions were only a development of
existing revolutionary customs; but never had these demoralizing
measures been so thoroughly enforced as in the present system of
liberation and blackmail. Lombardy was ransacked with an almost Vandal
rapacity. Bonaparte desired little for himself. His aim ever was power
rather than wealth. Riches he valued only as a means to political
supremacy. But he took care to place the Directors and all his
influential officers deeply in his debt. To the five _soi-disant_
rulers of France he sent one hundred horses, the finest that could be
found in Lombardy, to replace "the poor creatures which now draw your
carriages";[50] to his officers his indulgence was passive, but
usually effective. Marmont states that Bonaparte once reproached him
for his scrupulousness in returning the whole of a certain sum which
he had been commissioned to recover. "At that time," says Marmont, "we
still retained a flower of delicacy on these subjects." This Alpine
gentian was soon to fade in the heats of the plains. Some generals
made large fortunes, eminently so Masséna, first in plunder as in the
fray. And yet the commander, who was so lenient to his generals,
filled his letters to the Directory with complaints about the cloud of
French commissioners, dealers, and other civilian harpies who battened
on the spoil of Lombardy. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion
that this indulgence towards the soldiers and severity towards
civilians was the result of a fixed determination to link indissolubly
to his fortunes the generals and rank and file. The contrast in his
behaviour was often startling. Some of the civilians he imprisoned:
others he desired to shoot; but as the hardiest robbers had generally
made to themselves friends of the military mammon of unrighteousness,
they escaped with a fine ridiculously out of proportion to their
actual gains.[51]
The Dukes of Parma and Modena were also mulcted. The former of these,
owing to his relationship with the Spanish Bourbons, with whom the
Directory desired to remain on friendly terms, was subjected to the
fine of merely two million francs and twenty masterpieces of art,
these last to be selected by French commissioners from the galleries
of the duchy; but the Duke of Modena, who had assisted the Austrian
arms, purchased his pardon by an indemnity of ten million francs, and
by the cession of twenty pictures, the chief artistic treasures of his
States.[52] As Bonaparte naïvely stated to the Directors, the duke had
no fortresses or guns; consequently these could not be demanded from
him.
From this degrading work Bonaparte strove to wean his soldiers by
recalling them to their nobler work of carrying on the enfranchisement
of Italy. In a proclamation (May 20th) which even now stirs the blood
like a trumpet call, he bade his soldiers remember that, though much
had been done, a far greater task yet awaited them. Posterity must not
reproach them for having found their Capua in Lombardy. Rome was to be
freed: the Eternal City was to renew her youth and show again the
virtues of her ancient worthies, Brutus and Scipio. Then France would
give a glorious peace to Europe; then their fellow-citizens would say
of each champion of liberty as he returned to his hearth: "He was of
the Army of Italy." By such stirring words did he entwine with the
love of liberty that passion for military glory which was destined to
strangle the Republic.
Meanwhile the Austrians had retired behind the banks of the Mincio and
the walls of its guardian fortress, Mantua. Their position was one of
great strength. The river, which carries off the surplus waters of
Lake Garda, joins the River Po after a course of some thirty miles.
Along with the tongue-like cavity occupied by its parent lake, the
river forms the chief inner barrier to all invaders of Italy. From
the earliest times down to those of the two Napoleons, the banks of
the Mincio have witnessed many of the contests which have decided the
fortunes of the peninsula. On its lower course, where the river widens
out into a semicircular lagoon flanked by marshes and backwaters, is
the historic town of Mantua. For this position, if we may trust the
picturesque lines of Mantua's noblest son,[53] the three earliest
races of Northern Italy had striven; and when the power of imperial
Rome was waning, the fierce Attila pitched his camp on the banks of
the Mincio, and there received the pontiff Leo, whose prayers and
dignity averted the threatening torrent of the Scythian horse.
It was by this stream, famed in war as in song, that the Imperialists
now halted their shattered forces, awaiting reinforcements from Tyrol.
These would pass down the valley of the Adige, and in the last part of
their march would cross the lands of the Venetian Republic. For this
action there was a long-established right of way, which did not
involve a breach of the neutrality of Venice. But, as some of the
Austrian troops had straggled on to the Venetian territory south of
Brescia, the French commander had no hesitation in openly violating
Venetian neutrality by the occupation of that town (May 26th).
Augereau's division was also ordered to push on towards the west shore
of Lake Garda, and there collect boats as if a crossing were intended.
Seeing this, the Austrians seized the small Venetian fortress of
Peschiera, which commands the exit of the Mincio from the lake, and
Venetian neutrality was thenceforth wholly disregarded.
By adroit moves on the borders of the lake, Bonaparte now sought to
make Beaulieu nervous about his communications with Tyrol through the
river valley of the Adige; he completely succeeded: seeking to guard
the important positions on that river between Rivoli and Roveredo,
Beaulieu so weakened his forces on the Mincio, that at Borghetto and
Valeggio he had only two battalions and ten squadrons of horse, or
about two thousand men. Lannes' grenadiers, therefore, had little
difficulty in forcing a passage on May 30th, whereupon Beaulieu
withdrew to the upper Adige, highly satisfied with himself for having
victualled the fortress of Mantua so that it could withstand a long
siege. This was, practically, his sole achievement in the campaign.
Outnumbered, outgeneralled, bankrupt in health as in reputation, he
soon resigned his command, but not before he had given signs of
"downright dotage."[54] He had, however, achieved immortality: his
incapacity threw into brilliant relief the genius of his young
antagonist, and therefore appreciably affected the fortunes of Italy
and of Europe.
Bonaparte now despatched Masséna's division northwards, to coop up the
Austrians in the narrow valley of the upper Adige, while other
regiments began to close in on Mantua. The peculiarities of the ground
favoured its investment. The semicircular lagoon which guards Mantua
on the north, and the marshes on the south side, render an assault
very difficult; but they also limit the range of ground over which
sorties can be made, thereby lightening the work of the besiegers; and
during part of the blockade Napoleon left fewer than five thousand men
for this purpose. It was clear, however, that the reduction of Mantua
would be a tedious undertaking, such as Bonaparte's daring and
enterprising genius could ill brook, and that his cherished design of
marching northwards to effect a junction with Moreau on the Danube was
impossible. Having only 40,400 men with him at midsummer, he had
barely enough to hold the line of the Adige, to blockade Mantua, and
to keep open his communications with France.
At the command of the Directory he turned southward against feebler
foes. The relations between the Papal States and the French Republic
had been hostile since the assassination of the French envoy,
Basseville, at Rome, in the early days of 1793; but the Pope, Pius
VI., had confined himself to anathemas against the revolutionists and
prayers for the success of the First Coalition.
This conduct now drew upon him a sharp blow. French troops crossed the
Po and seized Bologna, whereupon the terrified cardinals signed an
armistice with the republican commander, agreeing to close all their
States to the English, and to admit a French garrison to the port of
Ancona. The Pope also consented to yield up "one hundred pictures,
busts, vases, or statues, as the French Commissioners shall determine,
among which shall especially be included the bronze bust of Junius
Brutus and the marble bust of Marcus Brutus, together with five
hundred manuscripts." He was also constrained to pay 15,500,000
francs, besides animals and goods such as the French agents should
requisition for their army, exclusive of the money and materials drawn
from the districts of Bologna and Ferrara. The grand total, in money,
and in kind, raised from the Papal States in this profitable raid, was
reckoned by Bonaparte himself as 34,700,000 francs,[55] or about;
£1,400,000--a liberal assessment for the life of a single envoy and
the _bruta fulmina_ of the Vatican.
Equally lucrative was a dash into Tuscany. As the Grand Duke of this
fertile land had allowed English cruisers and merchants certain
privileges at Leghorn, this was taken as a departure from the
neutrality which he ostensibly maintained since the signature of a
treaty of peace with France in 1795. A column of the republicans now
swiftly approached Leghorn and seized much valuable property from
British merchants. Yet the invaders failed to secure the richest of
the hoped-for plunder; for about forty English merchantmen sheered off
from shore as the troops neared the seaport, and an English frigate,
swooping down, carried off two French vessels almost under the eyes of
Bonaparte himself. This last outrage gave, it is true, a slight
excuse for the levying of requisitions in Leghorn and its environs;
yet, according to the memoir-writer, Miot de Melito, this unprincipled
action must be attributed not to Bonaparte, but to the urgent needs of
the French treasury and the personal greed of some of the Directors.
Possibly also the French commissioners and agents, who levied
blackmail or selected pictures, may have had some share in the shaping
of the Directorial policy: at least, it is certain that some of them,
notably Salicetti, amassed a large fortune from the plunder of
Leghorn. In order to calm the resentment of the Grand Duke, Bonaparte
paid a brief visit to Florence. He was received in respectful silence
as he rode through the streets where his ancestors had schemed for the
Ghibelline cause. By a deft mingling of courtesy and firmness the new
conqueror imposed his will on the Government of Florence, and then
sped northward to press on the siege of Mantua.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VI
THE FIGHTS FOR MANTUA
The circumstances which recalled Bonaparte to the banks of the Mincio
were indeed serious. The Emperor Francis was determined at all costs
to retain his hold on Italy by raising the siege of that fortress; and
unless the French commander could speedily compass its fall, he had
the prospect of fighting a greatly superior army while his rear was
threatened by the garrison of Mantua. Austria was making unparalleled
efforts to drive this presumptuous young general from a land which she
regarded as her own political preserve. Military historians have
always been puzzled to account for her persistent efforts in 1796-7 to
re-conquer Lombardy. But, in truth, the reasons are diplomatic, not
military, and need not be detailed here. Suffice it to say that,
though the Hapsburg lands in Swabia were threatened by Moreau's Army
of the Rhine, Francis determined at all costs to recover his Italian
possessions.
To this end the Emperor now replaced the luckless Beaulieu by General
Würmser, who had gained some reputation in the Rhenish campaigns; and,
detaching 25,000 men from his northern armies to strengthen his army
on the Adige, he bade him carry the double-headed eagle of Austria
victoriously into the plains of Italy. Though too late to relieve the
citadel of Milan, he was to strain every nerve to relieve Mantua; and,
since the latest reports represented the French as widely dispersed
for the plunder of Central Italy, the Emperor indulged the highest
hopes of Würmser's success.[56]
Possibly this might have been attained had the Austrian Emperor and
staff understood the absolute need of concentration in attacking a
commander who had already demonstrated its supreme importance in
warfare. Yet the difficulties of marching an army of 47,000 men
through the narrow defile carved by the Adige through the Tyrolese
Alps, and the wide extent of the French covering lines, led to the
adoption of a plan which favoured rapidity at the expense of security.
Würmser was to divide his forces for the difficult march southward
from Tyrol into Italy. In defence of this arrangement much could be
urged. To have cumbered the two roads, which run on either side of the
Adige from Trient towards Mantua, with infantry, cavalry, artillery,
and the countless camp-followers, animals, and wagons that follow an
army, would have been fatal alike to speed of marching and to success
in mountain warfare. Even in the campaign of 1866 the greatest
commander of this generation carried out his maxim, "March in separate
columns: unite for fighting." But Würmser and the Aulic Council[57] at
Vienna neglected to insure that reunion for attack, on which von
Moltke laid such stress in his Bohemian campaign. The Austrian forces
in 1796 were divided by obstacles which could not quickly be crossed,
namely, by Lake Garda and the lofty mountains which tower above the
valley of the Adige. Assuredly the Imperialists were not nearly strong
enough to run any risks. The official Austrian returns show that the
total force assembled in Tyrol for the invasion of Italy amounted to
46,937 men, not to the 60,000 as pictured by the imagination of Thiers
and other French historians. As Bonaparte had in Lombardy-Venetia
fully 45,000 men (including 10,000 now engaged in the siege of
Mantua), scattered along a front of fifty miles from Milan to Brescia
and Legnago, the incursion of Würmser's force, if the French were held
to their separate positions by diversions against their flanks, must
have proved decisive. But the fault was committed of so far dividing
the Austrians that nowhere could they deal a crushing blow.
Quosdanovich with 17,600 men was to take the western side of Lake
Garda, seize the French magazines at Brescia, and cut their
communications with Milan and France: the main body under Würmser,
24,300 strong, was meanwhile to march in two columns on either bank of
the Adige, drive the French from Rivoli and push on towards Mantua:
and yet a third division, led by Davidovich from the district of
Friuli on the east, received orders to march on Vicenza and Legnago,
in order to distract the French from that side, and possibly relieve
Mantua if the other two onsets failed.
Faulty as these dispositions were, they yet seriously disconcerted
Bonaparte. He was at Montechiaro, a village situated on the road
between Brescia and Mantua, when, on July 29th, he heard that the
white-coats had driven in Masséna's vanguard above Rivoli on the
Adige, were menacing other positions near Verona and Legnago, and were
advancing on Brescia. As soon as the full extent of the peril was
manifest, he sent off ten despatches to his generals, ordering a
concentration of troops--these, of course, fighting so as to delay the
pursuit--towards the southern end of Lake Garda. This wise step
probably saved his isolated forces from disaster. It was at that point
that the Austrians proposed to unite their two chief columns and crush
the French detachments. But, by drawing in the divisions of Masséna
and Augereau towards the Mincio, Bonaparte speedily assembled a
formidable array, and held the central position between the eastern
and western divisions of the Imperialists. He gave up the important
defensive line of the Adige, it is true; but by promptly rallying on
the Mincio, he occupied a base that was defended on the north by the
small fortress of Peschiera and the waters of Lake Garda. Holding the
bridges over the Mincio, he could strike at his assailants wherever
they should attack; above all, he still covered the siege of Mantua.
Such were his dispositions on July 29th and 30th. On the latter day he
heard of the loss of Brescia, and the consequent cutting of his
communications with Milan. Thereupon he promptly ordered Sérurier, who
was besieging Mantua, to make a last vigorous effort to take that
fortress, but also to assure his retreat westwards if fortune failed
him. Later in the day he ordered him forthwith to send away his
siege-train, throwing into the lake or burying whatever he could not
save from the advancing Imperialists.
This apparently desperate step, which seemed to forebode the
abandonment not only of the siege of Mantua, but of the whole of
Lombardy, was in reality a masterstroke. Bonaparte had perceived the
truth, which the campaigns of 1813 and 1870 were abundantly to
illustrate--that the possession of fortresses, and consequently their
siege by an invader, is of secondary importance when compared with a
decisive victory gained in the open. When menaced by superior forces
advancing towards the south of Lake Garda, he saw that he must
sacrifice his siege works, even his siege-train, in order to gain for
a few precious days that superiority in the field which the division
of the Imperialist columns still left to him.
The dates of these occurrences deserve close scrutiny; for they
suffice to refute some of the exorbitant claims made at a later time
by General Augereau, that only his immovable firmness forced Bonaparte
to fight and to change his dispositions of retreat into an attack
which re-established everything. This extraordinary assertion,
published by Augereau after he had deserted Napoleon in 1814, is
accompanied by a detailed recital of the events of July 30th-August
5th, in which Bonaparte appears as the dazed and discouraged
commander, surrounded by pusillanimous generals, and urged on to fight
solely by the confidence of Augereau. That the forceful energy of this
general had a great influence in restoring the _morale_ of the French
army in the confused and desperate movements which followed may freely
be granted. But his claims to have been the main spring of the French
movements in those anxious days deserve a brief examination. He
asserts that Bonaparte, "devoured by anxieties," met him at Roverbella
late in the evening of July 30th, and spoke of retiring beyond the
River Po. The official correspondence disproves this assertion.
Bonaparte had already given orders to Sérurier to retire beyond the Po
with his artillery train; but this was obviously an attempt to save it
from the advancing Austrians; and the commander had ordered the
northern part of the French besieging force to join Augereau between
Roverbella and Goito. Augereau further asserts that, after he had
roused Bonaparte to the need of a dash to recover Brescia, the
commander-in-chief remarked to Berthier, "In that case we must raise
the siege of Mantua," which again he (Augereau) vigorously opposed.
This second statement is creditable neither to Augereau's accuracy nor
to his sagacity. The order for the raising of the siege had been
issued, and it was entirely necessary for the concentration of French
troops, on which Bonaparte now relied as his only hope against
superior force. Had Bonaparte listened to Augereau's advice and
persisted still in besieging Mantua, the scattered French forces must
have been crushed in detail. Augereau's words are those of a mere
fighter, not of a strategist; and the timidity which he ungenerously
attributed to Bonaparte was nothing but the caution which a superior
intellect saw to be a necessary prelude to a victorious move.
That the fighting honours of the ensuing days rightly belong to
Augereau may be frankly conceded. With forces augmented by the
northern part of the besiegers of Mantua, he moved rapidly westwards
from the Mincio against Brescia, and rescued it from the vanguard of
Quosdanovich (August 1st). On the previous day other Austrian
detachments had also, after obstinate conflicts, been worsted near
Salo and Lonato. Still, the position was one of great perplexity: for
though Masséna's division from the Adige was now beginning to come
into touch with Bonaparte's chief force, yet the fronts of Würmser's
columns were menacing the French from that side, while the troops of
Quosdanovich, hovering about Lonato and Salo, struggled desperately to
stretch a guiding hand to their comrades on the Mincio.
Würmser was now discovering his error. Lured towards Mantua by false
reports that the French were still covering the siege, he had marched
due south when he ought to have rushed to the rescue of his
hard-pressed lieutenant at Brescia. Entering Mantua, he enjoyed a
brief spell of triumph, and sent to the Emperor Francis the news of
the capture of 40 French cannon in the trenches, and of 139 more on
the banks of the Po. But, while he was indulging the fond hope that
the French were in full retreat from Italy, came the startling news
that they had checked Quosdanovich at Brescia and Salo. Realizing his
errors, and determining to retrieve them before all was lost, he at
once pushed on his vanguard towards Castiglione, and easily gained
that village and its castle from a French detachment commanded by
General Valette.
The feeble defence of so important a position threw Bonaparte into one
of those transports of fury which occasionally dethroned his better
judgment. Meeting Valette at Montechiaro, he promptly degraded him to
the ranks, refusing to listen to his plea of having received a written
order to retire. A report of General Landrieux asserts that the rage
of the commander-in-chief was so extreme as for the time even to
impair his determination. The outlook was gloomy. The French seemed
about to be hemmed in amidst the broken country between Castiglione,
Brescia, and Salo. A sudden attack on the Austrians was obviously the
only safe and honourable course. But no one knew precisely their
numbers or their position. Uncertainty ever preyed on Bonaparte's
ardent imagination. His was a mind that quailed not before visible
dangers; but, with all its powers of decisive action, it retained so
much of Corsican eeriness as to chafe at the unknown,[58] and to lose
for the moment the faculty of forming a vigorous resolution. Like the
python, which grips its native rock by the tail in order to gain its
full constricting power, so Bonaparte ever needed a groundwork of fact
for the due exercise of his mental force.
One of a group of generals, whom he had assembled about him near
Montechiaro, proposed that they should ascend the hill which dominated
the plain. Even from its ridge no Austrians were to be seen. Again the
commander burst forth with petulant reproaches, and even talked of
retiring to the Adda. Whereupon, if we may trust the "Memoirs" of
General Landrieux, Augereau protested against retreat, and promised
success for a vigorous charge. "I wash my hands of it, and I am going
away," replied Bonaparte. "And who will command, if you go?" inquired
Augereau. "You," retorted Bonaparte, as he left the astonished circle.
However this may be, the first attack on Castiglione was certainly
left to this determined fighter; and the mingling of boldness and
guile which he showed on the following day regained for the French not
only the village, but also the castle, perched on a precipitous rock.
Yet the report of Colonel Graham, who was then at Marshal Würmser's
headquarters, somewhat dulls the lustre of Augereau's exploit; for the
British officer asserts that the Austrian position had been taken up
quite by haphazard, and that fewer than 15,000 white-coats were
engaged in this first battle of Castiglione. Furthermore, the
narratives of this _mêlée_ written by Augereau himself and by two
other generals, Landrieux and Verdier, who were disaffected towards
Bonaparte, must naturally be received with much reserve. The effect of
Augereau's indomitable energy in restoring confidence to the soldiers
and victory to the French tricolour was, however, generously admitted
by the Emperor Napoleon; for, at a later time when complaints were
being made about Augereau, he generously exclaimed: "Ah, let us not
forget that he saved us at Castiglione."[59]
While Augereau was recovering this important position, confused
conflicts were raging a few miles further north at Lonato. Masséna at
first was driven back by the onset of the Imperialists; but while they
were endeavouring to envelop the French, Bonaparte arrived, and in
conjunction with Masséna pushed on a central attack such as often
wrested victory from the enemy. The white-coats retired in disorder,
some towards Gavardo, others towards the lake, hotly followed by the
French. In the pursuit towards Gavardo, Bonaparte's old friend,
Junot, distinguished himself by his dashing valour. He wounded a
colonel, slew six troopers, and, covered with wounds, was finally
overthrown into a ditch. Such is Bonaparte's own account. It is
gratifying to know that the wounds neither singly nor collectively
were dangerous, and did not long repress Junot's activity. A tinge of
romance seems, indeed, to have gilded many of these narratives; and a
critical examination of the whole story of Lonato seems to suggest
doubts whether the victory was as decisive as historians have often
represented. If the Austrians were "thrown back on Lake Garda and
Desenzano,"[60] it is difficult to see why the pursuers did not drive
them into the lake. As a matter of fact, nearly all the beaten troops
escaped to Gavardo, while others joined their comrades engaged in the
blockade of Peschiera.
A strange incident serves to illustrate the hazards of war and the
confusion of this part of the campaign. A detachment of the vanquished
Austrian forces some 4,000 strong, unable to join their comrades at
Gavardo or Peschiera, and yet unharmed by the victorious pursuers,
wandered about on the hills, and on the next day chanced near Lonato
to come upon a much smaller detachment of French. Though unaware of
the full extent of their good fortune, the Imperialists boldly sent an
envoy to summon the French commanding officer to surrender. When the
bandage was taken from his eyes, he was abashed to find himself in the
presence of Bonaparte, surrounded by the generals of his staff. The
young commander's eyes flashed fire at the seeming insult, and in
tones vibrating with well-simulated passion he threatened the envoy
with condign punishment for daring to give such a message to the
commander-in-chief at his headquarters in the midst of his army. Let
him and his men forthwith lay down their arms. Dazed by the demand,
and seeing only the victorious chief and not the smallness of his
detachment, 4,000 Austrians surrendered to 1,200 French, or rather to
the address and audacity of one master-mind.
Elated by this augury of further victory, the republicans prepared for
the decisive blow. Würmser, though checked on August 3rd, had been so
far reinforced from Mantua as still to indulge hopes of driving the
French from Castiglione and cutting his way through to rescue
Quosdanovich. He was, indeed, in honour bound to make the attempt; for
the engagement had been made, with the usual futility that dogged the
Austrian councils, to reunite their forces and _fight the French on
the 7th of August_. These cast-iron plans were now adhered to in spite
of their dislocation at the hands of Bonaparte and Augereau. Würmser's
line stretched from near the village of Médole in a north-easterly
direction across the high-road between Brescia and Mantua; while his
right wing was posted in the hilly country around Solferino. In fact,
his extreme right rested on the tower-crowned heights of Solferino,
where the forces of Austria two generations later maintained so
desperate a defence against the onset of Napoleon III. and his
liberating army.
Owing to the non-arrival of Mezaros' corps marching from Legnago,
Würmser mustered scarcely twenty-five thousand men on his long line;
while the very opportune approach of part of Sérurier's division,
under the lead of Fiorella, from the south, gave the French an
advantage even in numbers. Moreover, Fiorella's advance on the south
of Würmser's weaker flank, that near Médole, threatened to turn it and
endanger the Austrian communications with Mantua. The Imperialists
seem to have been unaware of this danger; and their bad scouting here
as elsewhere was largely responsible for the issue of the day.
Würmser's desire to stretch a helping hand to Quosdanovich near Lonato
and his confidence in the strength of his own right wing betrayed him
into a fatal imprudence. Sending out feelers after his hard-pressed
colleague on the north, he dangerously prolonged his line, an error in
which he was deftly encouraged by Bonaparte, who held back his own
left wing. Meanwhile the French were rolling in the other extremity of
the Austrian line. Marmont, dashing forward with the horse artillery,
took the enemy's left wing in flank and silenced many of their pieces.
Under cover of this attack, Fiorella's division was able to creep up
within striking distance; and the French cavalry, swooping round the
rear of this hard-pressed wing, nearly captured Würmser and his staff.
A vigorous counterattack by the Austrian reserves, or an immediate
wheeling round of the whole line, was needed to repulse this brilliant
flank attack; but the Austrian reserves had been expended in the north
of their line; and an attempt to change front, always a difficult
operation, was crushed by a headlong charge of Masséna's and
Augereau's divisions on their centre. Before these attacks the whole
Austrian line gave way; and, according to Colonel Graham, nothing but
this retreat, undertaken "without orders," saved the whole force from
being cut off. The criticisms of our officer sufficiently reveal the
cause of the disaster. The softness and incapacity of Würmser, the
absence of a responsible second in command, the ignorance of the
number and positions of the French, the determination to advance
towards Castiglione and to wait thereabouts for Quosdanovich until a
battle could be fought with combined forces on the 7th, the taking up
a position almost by haphazard on the Castiglione-Médole line, and the
failure to detect Fiorella's approach, present a series of defects and
blunders which might have given away the victory to a third-rate
opponent.[61]
The battle was by no means sanguinary: it was a series of manoeuvres
rather than of prolonged conflicts. Hence its interest to all who by
preference dwell on the intellectual problems of warfare rather than
on the details of fighting. Bonaparte had previously shown that he
could deal blows with telling effect. The ease and grace of his moves
at the second battle of Castiglione now redeemed the reputation which
his uncertain behaviour on the four preceding days had somewhat
compromised.
A complete and authentic account of this week of confused fighting has
never been written. The archives of Vienna have not as yet yielded up
all their secrets; and the reputations of so many French officers were
over-clouded by this prolonged _mêlée_ as to render even the victors'
accounts vague and inconsistent. The aim of historians everywhere to
give a clear and vivid account, and the desire of Napoleonic
enthusiasts to represent their hero as always thinking clearly and
acting decisively, have fused trusty ores and worthless slag into an
alloy which has passed for true metal. But no student of Napoleon's
"Correspondence," of the "Memoirs" of Marmont, and of the recitals of
Augereau, Dumas, Landrieux, Verdier, Despinois and others, can hope
wholly to unravel the complications arising from the almost continuous
conflicts that extended over a dozen leagues of hilly country. War is
not always dramatic, however much the readers of campaigns may yearn
after thrilling narratives. In regard to this third act of the Italian
campaign, all that can safely be said is that Bonaparte's intuition to
raise the siege of Mantua, in order that he might defeat in detail the
relieving armies, bears the imprint of genius: but the execution of
this difficult movement was unequal, even at times halting; and the
French army was rescued from its difficulties only by the grand
fighting qualities of the rank and file, and by the Austrian blunders,
which outnumbered those of the republican generals.
Neither were the results of the Castiglione cycle of battles quite so
brilliant as have been represented. Würmser and Quasdanovich lost in
all 17,000 men, it is true: but the former had re-garrisoned and
re-victualled Mantua, besides capturing all the French siege-train.
Bonaparte's primary aim had been to reduce Mantua, so that he might be
free to sweep through Tyrol, join hands with Moreau, and overpower the
white-coats in Bavaria. The aim of the Aulic Council and Würmser had
been to relieve Mantua and restore the Hapsburg rule over Lombardy.
Neither side had succeeded. But the Austrians could at least point to
some successes; and, above all, Mantua was in a better state of
defence than when the French first approached its walls: and while
Mantua was intact, Bonaparte was held to the valley of the Mincio, and
could not deal those lightning blows on the Inn and the Danube which
he ever regarded as the climax of the campaign. Viewed on its material
side, his position was no better than it was before Würmser's
incursion into the plains of Venetia.[62]
With true Hapsburg tenacity, Francis determined on further efforts for
the relief of Mantua. Apart from the promptings of dynastic pride, his
reasons for thus obstinately struggling against Alpine gorges, Italian
sentiment, and Bonaparte's genius, are wellnigh inscrutable; and
military writers have generally condemned this waste of resources on
the Brenta, which, if hurled against the French on the Rhine, would
have compelled the withdrawal of Bonaparte from Italy for the defence
of Lorraine. But the pride of the Emperor Francis brooked no surrender
of his Italian possessions, and again Würmser was spurred on from
Vienna to another invasion of Venetia. It would be tedious to give an
account of Würmser's second attempt, which belongs rather to the
domain of political fatuity than that of military history. Colonel
Graham states that the Austrian rank and file laughed at their
generals, and bitterly complained that they were being led to the
shambles, while the officers almost openly exclaimed: "We must make
peace, for we don't know how to make war." This was again apparent.
Bonaparte forestalled their attack. Their divided forces fell an easy
prey to Masséna, who at Bassano cut Würmser's force to pieces and sent
the _débris_ flying down the valley of the Brenta. Losing most of
their artillery, and separated in two chief bands, the Imperialists
seemed doomed to surrender: but Würmser, doubling on his pursuers,
made a dash westwards, finally cutting his way to Mantua. There again
he vainly endeavoured to make a stand. He was driven from his
positions in front of St. Georges and La Favorita, and was shut up in
the town itself. This addition to the numbers of the garrison was no
increase to its strength; for the fortress, though well provisioned
for an ordinary garrison, could not support a prolonged blockade, and
the fevers of the early autumn soon began to decimate troops worn out
by forced marches and unable to endure the miasma ascending from the
marshes of the Mincio.
The French also were wearied by their exertions in the fierce heats of
September. Murmurs were heard in the ranks and at the mess tables that
Bonaparte's reports of these exploits were tinged by favouritism
and by undue severity against those whose fortune had been less
conspicuous than their merits. One of these misunderstandings was of
some importance. Masséna, whose services had been brilliant at Bassano
but less felicitous since the crossing of the Adige, reproached
Bonaparte for denying praise to the most deserving and lavishing it on
men who had come in opportunely to reap the labours of others. His
written protest, urged with the old republican frankness, only served
further to cloud over the relations between them, which, since Lonato,
had not been cordial.[63] Even thus early in his career Bonaparte
gained the reputation of desiring brilliant and entire success, and of
visiting with his displeasure men who, from whatever cause, did not
wrest from Fortune her utmost favours. That was his own mental
attitude towards the fickle goddess. After entering Milan he cynically
remarked to Marmont: "Fortune is a woman; and the more she does for
me, the more I will require of her." Suggestive words, which explain
at once the splendour of his rise and the rapidity of his fall.
During the few weeks of comparative inaction which ensued, the affairs
of Italy claimed his attention. The prospect of an Austrian
re-conquest had caused no less concern to the friends of liberty in
the peninsula than joy to the reactionary coteries of the old
sovereigns. At Rome and Naples threats against the French were
whispered or openly vaunted. The signature of the treaties of peace
was delayed, and the fulminations of the Vatican were prepared against
the sacrilegious spoilers. After the Austrian war-cloud had melted
away, the time had come to punish prophets of evil. The Duke of Modena
was charged with allowing a convoy to pass from his State to the
garrison of Mantua, and with neglecting to pay the utterly impossible
fine to which Bonaparte had condemned him. The men of Reggio and
Modena were also encouraged to throw off his yoke and to confide in
the French. Those of Reggio succeeded; but in the city of Modena
itself the ducal troops repressed the rising. Bonaparte accordingly
asked the advice of the Directory; but his resolution was already
formed. Two days after seeking their counsel, he took the decisive
step of declaring Modena and Reggio to be under the protection of
France. This act formed an exceedingly important departure in the
history of France as well as in that of Italy. Hitherto the Directory
had succeeded in keeping Bonaparte from active intervention in affairs
of high policy. In particular, it had enjoined on him the greatest
prudence with regard to the liberated lands of Italy, so as not to
involve France in prolonged intervention in the peninsula, or commit
her to a war _à outrance_ with the Hapsburgs; and its warnings were
now urged with all the greater emphasis because news had recently
reached Paris of a serious disaster to the French arms in Germany. But
while the Directors counselled prudence, Bonaparte forced their hand
by declaring the Duchy of Modena to be under the protection of France;
and when their discreet missive reached him, he expressed to them his
regret that it had come too late. By that time (October 24th) he had
virtually founded a new State, for whose security French honour was
deeply pledged. This implied the continuance of the French occupation
of Northern Italy and therefore a prolongation of Bonaparte's command.
It was not the Duchy of Modena alone which felt the invigorating
influence of democracy and nationality. The Papal cities of Bologna
and Ferrara had broken away from the Papal sway, and now sent deputies
to meet the champions of liberty at Modena and found a free
commonwealth. There amidst great enthusiasm was held the first truly
representative Italian assembly that had met for many generations; and
a levy of 2,800 volunteers, styled the Italian legion, was decreed.
Bonaparte visited these towns, stimulated their energy, and bade the
turbulent beware of his vengeance, which would be like that of "the
exterminating angel." In a brief space these districts were formed
into the Cispadane Republic, destined soon to be merged into a yet
larger creation. A new life breathed from Modena and Bologna into
Central Italy. The young republic forthwith abolished all feudal laws,
decreed civic equality, and ordered the convocation at Bologna of a
popularly elected Assembly for the Christmas following. These events
mark the first stage in the beginning of that grand movement, _Il
Risorgimento,_ which after long delays was finally consummated in
1870.
This period of Bonaparte's career may well be lingered over by those
who value his invigorating influence on Italian life more highly than
his military triumphs. At this epoch he was still the champion of the
best principles of the Revolution; he had overthrown Austrian
domination in the peninsula, and had shaken to their base domestic
tyrannies worse than that of the Hapsburgs. His triumphs were as yet
untarnished. If we except the plundering of the liberated and
conquered lands, an act for which the Directory was primarily
responsible, nothing was at this time lacking to the full orb of his
glory. An envoy bore him the welcome news that the English, wearied by
the intractable Corsicans, had evacuated the island of his birth; and
he forthwith arranged for the return of many of the exiles who had
been faithful to the French Republic. Among these was Salicetti, who
now returned for a time to his old insular sphere; while his former
_protégé_ was winning a world-wide fame. Then, turning to the affairs
of Central Italy, the young commander showed his diplomatic talents to
be not a whit inferior to his genius for war. One instance of this
must here suffice. He besought the Pope, who had broken off the
lingering negotiations with France, not to bring on his people the
horrors of war.[64] The beauty of this appeal, as also of a somewhat
earlier appeal to the Emperor Francis at Vienna, is, however,
considerably marred by other items which now stand revealed in
Bonaparte's instructive correspondence. After hearing of the French
defeats in Germany, he knew that the Directors could spare him very
few of the 25,000 troops whom he demanded as reinforcements.
He was also aware that the Pope, incensed at his recent losses in
money and lands, was seeking to revivify the First Coalition. The
pacific precepts addressed by the young Corsican to the Papacy must
therefore be viewed in the light of merely mundane events and of his
secret advice to the French agent at Rome: "The great thing is to gain
time.... Finally, the game really is for us to throw the ball from one
to the other, so as to deceive this old fox."[65]
From these diplomatic amenities the general was forced to turn to the
hazards of war. Gauging Bonaparte's missive at its true worth, the
Emperor determined to re-conquer Italy, an enterprise that seemed well
within his powers. In the month of October victory had crowned the
efforts of his troops in Germany. At Würzburg the Archduke Charles had
completely beaten Jourdan, and had thrown both his army and that of
Moreau back on the Rhine. Animated by reviving hopes, the Imperialists
now assembled some 60,000 strong. Alvintzy, a veteran of sixty years,
renowned for his bravery, but possessing little strategic ability, was
in command of some 35,000 men in the district of Friuli, north of
Trieste, covering that seaport from a threatened French attack. With
this large force he was to advance due west, towards the River Brenta,
while Davidovich, marching through Tyrol by the valley of the Adige,
was to meet him with the remainder near Verona. As Jomini has
observed, the Austrians gave themselves infinite trouble and
encountered grave risks in order to compass a junction of forces
which they might quietly have effected at the outset. Despite all
Bonaparte's lessons, the Aulic Council still clung to its old plan of
enveloping the foe and seeking to bewilder them by attacks delivered
from different sides. Possibly also they were emboldened by the
comparative smallness of Bonaparte's numbers to repeat this hazardous
manoeuvre.
The French could muster little more than 40,000 men; and of these at
least 8,000 were needed opposite Mantua.
At first the Imperialists gained important successes; for though the
French held their own on the Brenta, yet their forces in the Tyrol
were driven down the valley of the Adige with losses so considerable
that Bonaparte was constrained to order a general retreat on Verona.
He discerned that from this central position he could hold in check
Alvintzy's troops marching westwards from Vicenza and prevent their
junction with the Imperialists under Davidovich, who were striving to
thrust Vaubois' division from the plateau of Rivoli.
But before offering battle to Alvintzy outside Verona, Bonaparte paid
a flying visit to his men posted on that plateau in order to rebuke
the wavering and animate the whole body with his own dauntless spirit.
Forming the troops around him, he addressed two regiments in tones of
grief and anger. He reproached them for abandoning strong positions in
a panic, and ordered his chief staff officer to inscribe on their
colours the ominous words: "They are no longer of the Army of
Italy."[66] Stung by this reproach, the men begged with sobs that the
general would test their valour before disgracing them for ever. The
young commander, who must have counted on such a result to his words,
when uttered to French soldiers, thereupon promised to listen to their
appeals; and their bravery in the ensuing fights wiped every stain of
disgrace from their colours. By such acts as these did he nerve his
men against superior numbers and adverse fortune.
Their fortitude was to be severely tried at all points. Alvintzy
occupied a strong position on a line of hills at Caldiero, a few miles
to the east of Verona. His right wing was protected by the spurs of
the Tyrolese Alps, while his left was flanked by the marshes which
stretch between the rivers Alpon and Adige; and he protected his front
by cannon skilfully ranged along the hills. All the bravery of
Masséna's troops failed to dislodge the right wing of the
Imperialists. The French centre was torn by the Austrian cannon and
musketry. A pitiless storm of rain and sleet hindered the advance of
the French guns and unsteadied the aim of the gunners; and finally
they withdrew into Verona, leaving behind 2,000 killed and wounded,
and 750 prisoners (November 12th). This defeat at Caldiero--for it is
idle to speak of it merely as a check--opened up a gloomy vista of
disasters for the French; and Bonaparte, though he disguised his fears
before his staff and the soldiery, forthwith wrote to the Directors
that the army felt itself abandoned at the further end of Italy, and
that this fair conquest seemed about to be lost. With his usual device
of under-rating his own forces and exaggerating those of his foes, he
stated that the French both at Verona and Rivoli were only 18,000,
while the grand total of the Imperialists was upwards of 50,000. But
he must have known that for the present he had to deal with rather
less than half that number. The greater part of the Tyrolese force
had not as yet descended the Adige below Roveredo; and allowing for
detachments and losses, Alvintzy's array at Caldiero barely exceeded
20,000 effectives.
Bonaparte now determined to hazard one of the most daring turning
movements which history records. It was necessary at all costs to
drive Alvintzy from the heights of Caldiero before the Tyrolese
columns should overpower Vaubois' detachment at Rivoli and debouch in
the plains west of Verona. But, as Caldiero could not be taken by a
front attack, it must be turned by a flanking movement. To any other
general than Bonaparte this would have appeared hopeless; but where
others saw nothing but difficulties, his eye discerned a means of
safety. South and south-east of those hills lies a vast depression
swamped by the flood waters of the Alpon and the Adige. Morasses
stretch for some miles west of the village of Arcola, through which
runs a road up the eastern bank of the Alpon, crossing that stream at
the aforenamed village and leading to the banks of the Adige opposite
the village of Ronco; another causeway, diverging from the former a
little to the north of Ronco, leads in a north-westerly direction
towards Porcil. By advancing from Ronco along these causeways, and by
seizing Arcola, Bonaparte designed to outflank the Austrians and tempt
them into an arena where the personal prowess of the French veterans
would have ample scope, and where numbers would be of secondary
importance. Only heads of columns could come into direct contact; and
the formidable Austrian cavalry could not display its usual prowess.
On these facts Bonaparte counted as a set-off to his slight
inferiority in numbers.
In the dead of night the divisions of Augereau and Masséna retired
through Verona. Officers and soldiers were alike deeply discouraged by
this movement, which seemed to presage a retreat towards the Mincio
and the abandonment of Lombardy. To their surprise, when outside the
gate they received the order to turn to the left down the western bank
of the Adige. At Ronco the mystery was solved. A bridge of boats had
there been thrown across the Adige; and, crossing this without
opposition, Augereau's troops rapidly advanced along the causeway
leading to Arcola and menaced the Austrian rear, while Masséna's
column denied north-west, so as directly to threaten his flank at
Caldiero. The surprise, however, was by no means complete; for
Alvintzy himself purposed to cross the Adige at Zevio, so as to make a
dash on Mantua, and in order to protect his flank he had sent a
detachment of Croats to hold Arcola. These now stoutly disputed
Augereau's progress, pouring in from the loopholed cottages volleys
which tore away the front of every column of attack. In vain did
Augereau, seizing the colours, lead his foremost regiment to the
bridge of Arcola. Riddled by the musketry, his men fell back in
disorder. In vain did Bonaparte himself, dismounting from his charger,
seize a flag, rally these veterans and lead them towards the bridge.
The Croats, constantly reinforced, poured in so deadly a fire as to
check the advance: Muiron, Marmont, and a handful of gallant men still
pressed on, thereby screening the body of their chief; but Muiron fell
dead, and another officer, seizing Bonaparte, sought to drag him back
from certain death. The column wavered under the bullets, fell back to
the further side of the causeway, and in the confusion the commander
fell into the deep dyke at the side. Agonized at the sight, the French
rallied, while Marmont and Louis Bonaparte rescued their beloved chief
from capture or from a miry death, and he retired to Ronco, soon
followed by the wearied troops.[67]
[Illustration: PLAN TO ILLUSTRATE THE VICTORY OF ARCOLA.]
This memorable first day of fighting at Arcola (November 15th) closed
on the strange scene of two armies encamped on dykes, exhausted by an
almost amphibious conflict, like that waged by the Dutch "Beggars" in
their war of liberation against Spain. Though at Arcola the
republicans had been severely checked, yet further west Masséna had
held his own; and the French movement as a whole had compelled
Alvintzy to suspend any advance on Verona or on Mantua, to come down
from the heights of Caldiero, and to fight on ground where his
superior numbers were of little avail. This was seen on the second day
of fighting on the dykes opposite Arcola, which was, on the whole,
favourable to the smaller veteran force. On the third day Bonaparte
employed a skilful ruse to add to the discouragement of his foes. He
posted a small body of horsemen behind a spinney near the Austrian
flank, with orders to sound their trumpets as if for a great cavalry
charge. Alarmed by the noise and by the appearance of French troops
from the side of Legnago and behind Arcola, the demoralized
white-coats suddenly gave way and retreated for Vicenza.
Victory again declared for the troops who could dare the longest, and
whose general was never at a loss in face of any definite danger. Both
armies suffered severely in these desperate conflicts;[68] but, while
the Austrians felt that the cup of victory had been snatched from
their very lips, the French soldiery were dazzled by this transcendent
exploit of their chief. They extolled his bravery, which almost vied
with the fabulous achievement of Horatius Cocles, and adored the
genius which saw safety and victory for his discouraged army amidst
swamps and dykes. Bonaparte himself, with that strange mingling of the
practical and the superstitious which forms the charm of his
character, ever afterwards dated the dawn of his fortune in its full
splendour from those hours of supreme crisis among the morasses of
Arcola. But we may doubt whether this posing as the favourite of
fortune was not the result of his profound knowledge of the credulity
of the vulgar herd, which admires genius and worships bravery, but
grovels before persistent good luck.
Though it is difficult to exaggerate the skill and bravery of the
French leader and his troops, the failure of his opponents is
inexplicable but for the fact that most of their troops were unable to
manoeuvre steadily in the open, that Alvintzy was inexperienced as a
commander-in-chief, and was hampered throughout by a bad plan of
campaign. Meanwhile the other Austrian army, led by Davidovich, had
driven Vaubois from his position at Rivoli; and had the Imperialist
generals kept one another informed of their moves, or had Alvintzy,
disregarding a blare of trumpets and a demonstration on his flank and
rear, clung to Arcola for two days longer--the French would have been
nipped between superior forces. But, as it was, the lack of accord in
the Austrian movements nearly ruined the Tyrolese wing, which pushed
on triumphantly towards Verona, while Alvintzy was retreating
eastwards. Warned just in time, Davidovich hastily retreated to
Roveredo, leaving a whole battalion in the hands of the French. To
crown this chapter of blunders, Würmser, whose sortie after Caldiero
might have been most effective, tardily essayed to break through the
blockaders, when both his colleagues were in retreat. How different
were these ill-assorted moves from those of Bonaparte. His maxims
throughout this campaign, and his whole military career, were: (1)
divide for foraging, concentrate for fighting; (2) unity of command is
essential for success; (3) time is everything. This firm grasp of the
essentials of modern warfare insured his triumph over enemies who
trusted to obsolete methods for the defence of antiquated
polities.[69]
The battle of Arcola had an important influence on the fate of Italy
and Europe. In the peninsula all the elements hostile to the
republicans were preparing for an explosion in their rear which should
reaffirm the old saying that Italy was the tomb of the French. Naples
had signed terms of peace with them, it is true; but the natural
animosity of the Vatican against its despoilers could easily have
leagued the south of Italy with the other States that were working
secretly for their expulsion. While the Austrians were victoriously
advancing, these aims were almost openly avowed, and at the close of
the year 1796 Bonaparte moved south to Bologna in order to guide the
Italian patriots in their deliberations and menace the Pope with an
invasion of the Roman States. From this the Pontiff was for the
present saved by new efforts on the part of Austria. But before
describing the final attempt of the Hapsburgs to wrest Italy from
their able adversary, it will be well to notice his growing ascendancy
in diplomatic affairs.
While Bonaparte was struggling in the marshes of Arcola, the Directory
was on the point of sending to Vienna an envoy, General Clarke, with
proposals for an armistice preliminary to negotiations for peace with
Austria. This step was taken, because France was distracted by open
revolt in the south, by general discontent in the west, and by the
retreat of her Rhenish armies, now flung back on the soil of the
Republic by the Austrian Arch-duke Charles. Unable to support large
forces in the east of France out of its bankrupt exchequer, the
Directory desired to be informed of the state of feeling at Vienna. It
therefore sent Clarke with offers, which might enable him to look into
the political and military situation at the enemy's capital, and see
whether peace could not be gained at the price of some of Bonaparte's
conquests. The envoy was an elegant and ambitious young man, descended
from an Irish family long settled in France, who had recently gained
Carnot's favour, and now desired to show his diplomatic skill by
subjecting Bonaparte to the present aims of the Directory.
The Directors' secret instructions reveal the plans which they then
harboured for the reconstruction of the Continent. Having arranged an
armistice which should last up to the end of the next spring, Clarke
was to set forth arrangements which might suit the House of Hapsburg.
He might discuss the restitution of all their possessions in Italy,
and the acquisition of the Bishopric of Salzburg and other smaller
German and Swabian territories: or, if she did not recover the
Milanese, Austria might gain the northern parts of the Papal States as
compensation; and the Duke of Tuscany--a Hapsburg--might reign at
Rome, yielding up his duchy to the Duke of Parma; while, as this last
potentate was a Spanish Bourbon, France might for her good offices to
this House gain largely from Spain in America.[70] In these and other
proposals two methods of bargaining are everywhere prominent. The
great States are in every case to gain at the expense of their weaker
neighbours; Austria is to be appeased; and France is to reap enormous
gains ultimately at the expense of smaller Germanic or Italian States.
These facts should clearly be noted. Napoleon was afterwards
deservedly blamed for carrying out these unprincipled methods; but, at
the worst, he only developed them from those of the Directors, who,
with the cant of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity on their lips,
battened on the plunder of the liberated lands, and cynically proposed
to share the spoil of weaker States with the potentates against whom
they publicly declaimed as tyrants.
The chief aim of these negotiations, so Clarke was assured, was to
convince the Court of Vienna that it would get better terms by
treating with France directly and alone, rather than by joining in the
negotiations which had recently been opened at Paris by England. But
the Viennese Ministers refused to allow Clarke to proceed to their
capital, and appointed Vicenza as the seat of the deliberations.
They were brief. Through the complex web of civilian intrigue,
Bonaparte forthwith thrust the mailed hand of the warrior. He had
little difficulty in proving to Clarke that the situation was
materially altered by the battle of Arcola. The fall of Mantua was now
only a matter of weeks. To allow its provisions to be replenished for
the term of the armistice was an act that no successful general could
tolerate. For that fortress the whole campaign had been waged, and
three Austrian armies had been hurled back into Tyrol and Friuli. Was
it now to be provisioned, in order that the Directory might barter
away the Cispadane Republic? He speedily convinced Clarke of the
fatuity of the Directors' proposals. He imbued him with his own
contempt for an armistice that would rob the victors of their prize;
and, as the Court of Vienna still indulged hopes of success in Italy,
Clarke's negotiations at Vicenza came to a speedy conclusion.
In another important matter the Directory also completely failed.
Nervous as to Bonaparte's ambition, it had secretly ordered Clarke to
watch his conduct and report privately to Paris. Whether warned by a
friend at Court, or forearmed by his own sagacity, Bonaparte knew of
this, and in his intercourse with Clarke deftly let the fact be seen.
He quickly gauged Clarke's powers, and the aim of his mission. "He is
a spy," he remarked a little later to Miot, "whom the Directory have
set upon me: he is a man of no talent--only conceited." The splendour
of his achievements and the mingled grace and authority of his
demeanour so imposed on the envoy that he speedily fell under the
influence of the very man whom he was to watch, and became his
enthusiastic adherent.
Bonaparte was at Bologna, supervising the affairs of the Cispadane
Republic, when he heard that the Austrians were making a last effort
for the relief of Mantua. Another plan had been drawn up by the Aulic
Council at Vienna. Alvintzy, after recruiting his wearied force at
Bassano, was quickly to join the Tyrolese column at Roveredo, thereby
forming an army of 28,000 men wherewith to force the position of
Rivoli and drive the French in on Mantua: 9,000 Imperialists under
Provera were also to advance from the Brenta upon Legnago, in order to
withdraw the attention of the French from the real attempt made by the
valley of the Adige; while 10,000 others at Bassano and elsewhere were
to assail the French front at different points and hinder their
concentration. It will be observed that the errors of July and
November, 1796, were now yet a third time to be committed: the forces
destined merely to make diversions were so strengthened as not to be
merely light bodies distracting the aim of the French, while
Alvintzy's main force was thereby so weakened as to lack the impact
necessary for victory.
Nevertheless, the Imperialists at first threw back their foes with
some losses; and Bonaparte, hurrying northwards to Verona, was for
some hours in a fever of uncertainty as to the movements and strength
of the assailants. Late at night on January 13th he knew that
Provera's advance was little more than a demonstration, and that the
real blow would fall on the 10,000 men marshalled by Joubert at Monte
Baldo and Rivoli. Forthwith he rode to the latter place, and changed
retreat and discouragement into a vigorous offensive by the news that
13,000 more men were on the march to defend the strong position of
Rivoli.
The great defensive strength of this plateau had from the first
attracted his attention. There the Adige in a sharp bend westward
approaches within six miles of Lake Garda. There, too, the mountains,
which hem in the gorge of the river on its right bank, bend away
towards the lake and leave a vast natural amphitheatre, near the
centre of which rises the irregular plateau that commands the exit
from Tyrol. Over this plateau towers on the north Monte Baldo, which,
near the river gorge, sends out southward a sloping ridge, known as
San Marco, connecting it with the plateau. At the foot of this spur is
the summit of the road which leads the traveller from Trent to Verona;
and, as he halts at the top of the zigzag, near the village of Rivoli,
his eye sweeps over the winding gorge of the river beneath, the
threatening mass of Monte Baldo on the north, and on the west of the
village he gazes down on a natural depression which has been sharply
furrowed by a torrent. The least experienced eye can see that the
position is one of great strength. It is a veritable parade ground
among the mountains, almost cut off from them by the ceaseless action
of water, and destined for the defence of the plains of Italy. A small
force posted at the head of the winding roadway can hold at bay an
army toiling up from the valley; but, as at Thermopylae, the position
is liable to be outflanked by an enterprising foe, who should scale
the footpath leading over the western offshoots of Monte Baldo, and,
fording the stream at its foot, should then advance eastwards against
the village. This, in part, was Alvintzy's plan, and having nearly
28,000 men,[71] he doubted not that his enveloping tactics must
capture Joubert's division of 10,000 men. So daunted was even this
brave general by the superior force of his foes that he had ordered a
retreat southwards when an aide-de-camp arrived at full gallop and
ordered him to hold Rivoli at all costs. Bonaparte's arrival at 4 a.m.
explained the order, and an attack made during the darkness wrested
from the Austrians the chapel on the San Marco ridge which stands on
the ridge above the zigzag track. The reflection of the Austrian
watch-fires in the wintry sky showed him their general position. To an
unskilled observer the wide sweep of the glare portended ruin for the
French. To the eye of Bonaparte the sight brought hope. It proved that
his foes were still bent on their old plan of enveloping him: and from
information which he treacherously received from Alvintzy's staff he
must have known that that commander had far fewer than the 45,000 men
which he ascribed to him in bulletins.
[Illustration: NEIGHBOURHOOD OF RIVOLI.]
Yet the full dawn of that January day saw the Imperialists flushed
with success, as their six separate columns drove in the French
outposts and moved towards Rivoli. Of these, one was on the eastern
side of the Adige and merely cannonaded across the valley: another
column wound painfully with most of the artillery and cavalry along
the western bank, making for the village of Incanale and the foot of
the zigzag leading up to Rivoli: three others denied over Monte Baldo
by difficult paths impassable to cannon: while the sixth and
westernmost column, winding along the ridge near Lake Garda, likewise
lacked the power which field-guns and horsemen would have added to its
important turning movement. Never have natural obstacles told more
potently on the fortunes of war than at Rivoli; for on the side where
the assailants most needed horses and guns they could not be used;
while on the eastern edge of their broken front their cannon and
horse, crowded together in the valley of the Adige, had to climb the
winding road under the plunging fire of the French infantry and
artillery. Nevertheless, such was the ardour of the Austrian attack,
that the tide of battle at first set strongly in their favour. Driving
the French from the San Marco ridge and pressing their centre hard
between Monte Baldo and Rivoli, they made it possible for their troops
in the valley to struggle on towards the foot of the zigzag; and on
the west their distant right wing was already beginning to threaten
the French rear. Despite the arrival of Masséna's troops from Verona
about 9 a.m., the republicans showed signs of unsteadiness. Joubert on
the ground above the Adige, Berthier in the centre, and Masséna on the
left, were gradually forced back. An Austrian column, advancing from
the side of Monte Baldo by the narrow ravine, stole round the flank of
a French regiment in front of Masséna's division, and by a vigorous
charge sent it flying in a panic which promised to spread to another
regiment thus uncovered. This was too much for the veteran, already
dubbed "the spoilt child of victory "; he rushed to its captain,
bitterly upbraided him and the other officers, and finally showered
blows on them with the flat of his sword. Then, riding at full speed
to two tried regiments of his own division, he ordered them to check
the foe; and these invincible heroes promptly drove back the
assailants. Even so, however, the valour of the best French regiments
and the skill of Masséna, Berthier, and Joubert barely sufficed to
hold back the onstreaming tide of white-coats opposite Rivoli.
Yet even at this crisis the commander, confident in his central
position, and knowing his ability to ward off the encircling swoops of
the Austrian eagle, maintained that calm demeanour which moved the
wonder of smaller minds. His confidence in his seasoned troops was not
misplaced. The Imperialists, overburdened by long marches and faint
now for lack of food, could not maintain their first advantage. Some
of their foremost troops, that had won the broken ground in front of
St. Mark's Chapel, were suddenly charged by French horse; they fled in
panic, crying out, "French cavalry!" and the space won was speedily
abandoned to the tricolour. This sudden rebuff was to dash all their
hopes of victory; for at that crisis of the day the chief Austrian
column of nearly 8,000 men was struggling up the zigzag ascent leading
from the valley of the Adige to the plateau, in the fond hope that
their foes were by this time driven from the summit. Despite the
terrible fire that tore their flanks, the Imperialists were clutching
desperately at the plateau, when Bonaparte put forth his full striking
power. He could now assail the crowded ranks of the doomed column in
front and on both flanks. A charge of Leclerc's horse and of Joubert's
infantry crushed its head; volleys of cannon and musketry from the
plateau tore its sides; an ammunition wagon exploded in its midst; and
the great constrictor forthwith writhed its bleeding coils back into
the valley, where it lay crushed and helpless for the rest of the
fight.
Animated by this lightning stroke of their commander, the French
turned fiercely towards Monte Baldo and drove back their opponents
into the depression at its foot. But already at their rear loud shouts
warned them of a new danger. The western detachment of the
Imperialists had meanwhile worked round their rear, and, ignorant of
the fate of their comrades, believed that Bonaparte's army was caught
in a trap. The eyes of all the French staff officers were now turned
anxiously on their commander, who quietly remarked, "We have them
now." He knew, in fact, that other French troops marching up from
Verona would take these new foes in the rear; and though Junot and his
horsemen failed to cut their way through so as to expedite their
approach, yet speedily a French regiment burst through the encircling
line and joined in the final attack which drove these last assailants
from the heights south of Rivoli, and later on compelled them to
surrender.
Thus closed the desperate battle of Rivoli (January 14th). Defects in
the Austrian position and the opportune arrival of French
reinforcements served to turn an Austrian success into a complete
rout. Circumstances which to a civilian may seem singly to be of small
account sufficed to tilt the trembling scales of warfare, and
Alvintzy's army now reeled helplessly back into Tyrol with a total
loss of 15,000 men and of nearly all its artillery and stores. Leaving
Joubert to pursue it towards Trent, Bonaparte now flew southwards
towards Mantua, whither Provera had cut his way. Again his untiring
energy, his insatiable care for all probable contingencies, reaped a
success which the ignorant may charge to the account of his fortune.
Strengthening Augereau's division by light troops, he captured the
whole of Provera's army at La Favorita, near the walls of Mantua
(January 16th). The natural result of these two dazzling triumphs was
the fall of the fortress for which the Emperor Francis had risked and
lost five armies. Würmser surrendered Mantua on February 2nd with
18,000 men and immense supplies of arms and stores. The close of this
wondrous campaign was graced by an act of clemency. Generous terms
were accorded to the veteran marshal, whose fidelity to blundering
councillors at Vienna had thrown up in brilliant relief the prudence,
audacity, and resourcefulness of the young war-god.
It was now time to chastise the Pope for his support of the enemies of
France. The Papalini proved to be contemptible as soldiers. They fled
before the republicans, and a military promenade brought the invaders
to Ancona, and then inland to Tolentino, where Pius VI. sued for
peace. The resulting treaty signed at that place (February 19th)
condemned the Holy See to close its ports to the allies, especially to
the English; to acknowledge the acquisition of Avignon by France, and
the establishment of the Cispadane Republic at Bologna, Ferrara, and
the surrounding districts; to pay 30,000,000 francs to the French
Government; and to surrender 100 works of art to the victorious
republicans.
It is needless to describe the remaining stages in Bonaparte's
campaign against Austria. Hitherto he had contended against fairly
good, though discontented and discouraged troops, badly led, and
hampered by the mountain barrier which separated them from their real
base of operations. In the last part of the war he fought against
troops demoralized by an almost unbroken chain of disasters. The
Austrians were now led by a brave and intelligent general, the
Archduke Charles; but he was hampered by rigorous instructions from
Vienna, by senile and indolent generals, by the indignation or despair
of the younger officers at the official favouritism which left them in
obscurity, and by the apathy of soldiers who had lost heart. Neither
his skill nor the natural strength of their positions in Friuli and
Carinthia could avail against veterans flushed with victory and
marshalled with unerring sagacity. The rest of the war only served to
emphasize the truth of Napoleon's later statement, that the moral
element constitutes three-fourths of an army's strength. The barriers
offered by the River Tagliamento and the many commanding heights of
the Carnic and the Noric Alps were as nothing to the triumphant
republicans; and from the heights that guard the province of Styria,
the genius of Napoleon flashed as a terrifying portent to the Court of
Vienna and the potentates of Central Europe. When the tricolour
standards were nearing the town of Leoben, the Emperor Francis sent
envoys to sue for peace;[72] and the preliminaries signed there,
within one hundred miles of the Austrian capital, closed the campaign
which a year previously had opened with so little promise for the
French on the narrow strip of land between the Maritime Alps and the
petty township of Savona.
These brilliant results were due primarily to the consummate
leadership of Bonaparte. His geographical instincts discerned the
means of profiting by natural obstacles and of turning them when they
seemed to screen his opponents. Prompt to divine their plans, he
bewildered them by the audacity of his combinations, which overbore
their columns with superior force at the very time when he seemed
doomed to succumb. Genius so commanding had not been displayed even by
Frederick or Marlborough. And yet these brilliant results could not
have been achieved by an army which rarely exceeded 45,000 men without
the strenuous bravery and tactical skill of the best generals of
division, Augereau, Masséna, and Joubert, as well as of officers who
had shown their worth in many a doubtful fight; Lannes, the hero of
Lodi and Arcola; Marmont, noted for his daring advance of the guns at
Castiglione; Victor, who justified his name by hard fighting at La
Favorita; Murat, the _beau sabreur_, and Junot, both dashing cavalry
generals; and many more whose daring earned them a soldier's death in
order to gain glory for France and liberty for Italy. Still less ought
the soldiery to be forgotten; those troops, whose tattered uniforms
bespoke their ceaseless toils, who grumbled at the frequent lack of
bread, but, as Masséna observed, never _before_ a battle, who even in
retreat never doubted the genius of their chief, and fiercely rallied
at the longed-for sign of fighting. The source of this marvellous
energy is not hard to discover. Their bravery was fed by that
wellspring of hope which had made of France a nation of free men
determined to free the millions beyond their frontiers. The French
columns were "equality on the march"; and the soldiery, animated by
this grand enthusiasm, found its militant embodiment in the great
captain who seemed about to liberate Italy and Central Europe.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VII
LEOBEN TO CAMPO FORMIO
In signing the preliminaries of peace at Leoben, which formed in part
the basis for the Treaty of Campo Formio, Bonaparte appears as a
diplomatist of the first rank. He had already signed similar articles
with the Court of Turin and with the Vatican. But such a transaction
with the Emperor was infinitely more important than with the
third-rate powers of the peninsula. He now essays his first flight to
the highest levels of international diplomacy. In truth, his mental
endowments, like those of many of the greatest generals, were no less
adapted to success in the council-chamber than on the field of battle;
for, indeed, the processes of thought and the methods of action are
not dissimilar in the spheres of diplomacy and war. To evade obstacles
on which an opponent relies, to multiply them in his path, to bewilder
him by feints before overwhelming him by a crushing onset, these are
the arts which yield success either to the negotiator or to the
commander.
In imposing terms of peace on the Emperor at Leoben (April 18th,
1797), Bonaparte reduced the Directory, and its envoy, Clarke, who was
absent in Italy, to a subordinate _rôle_. As commander-in-chief, he
had power only to conclude a brief armistice, but now he signed the
preliminaries of peace. His excuse to the Directory was ingenious.
While admitting the irregularity of his conduct, he pleaded the
isolated position of his army, and the absence of Clarke, and that,
under the circumstances, his act had been merely "a military
operation." He could also urge that he had in his rear a disaffected
Venetia, and that he believed the French armies on the Rhine to be
stationary and unable to cross that river. But the very tardy advent
of Clarke on the scene strengthens the supposition that Bonaparte was
at the time by no means loth to figure as the pacifier of the
Continent. Had he known the whole truth, namely, that the French were
gaining a battle on the east bank of the Rhine while the terms of
peace were being signed at Leoben, he would most certainly have broken
off the negotiations and have dictated harsher terms at the gates of
Vienna. That was the vision which shone before his eyes three years
previously, when he sketched to his friends at Nice the plan of
campaign, beginning at Savona and ending before the Austrian capital;
and great was his chagrin at hearing the tidings of Moreau's success
on April 20th. The news reached him on his return from Leoben to
Italy, when he was detained for a few hours by a sudden flood of the
River Tagliamento. At once he determined to ride back and make some
excuse for a rupture with Austria; and only the persistent
remonstrances of Berthier turned him from this mad resolve, which
would forthwith have exhibited him to the world as estimating more
highly the youthful promptings of destiny than the honour of a French
negotiator.
The terms which he had granted to the Emperor were lenient enough. The
only definitive gain to France was the acquisition of the Austrian
Netherlands (Belgium), for which troublesome possession the Emperor
was to have compensation elsewhere. Nothing absolutely binding was
said about the left, or west, bank of the Rhine, except that Austria
recognized the "constitutional limits" of France, but reaffirmed the
integrity of "The Empire."[73] These were contradictory statements;
for France had declared the Rhine to be her natural boundary, and the
old "Empire" included Belgium, Trèves, and Luxemburg. But, for the
interpretation of these vague formularies, the following secret and
all-important articles were appended. While the Emperor renounced that
part of his Italian possessions which lay to the west of the Oglio, he
was to receive all the mainland territories of Venice east of that
river, including Dalmatia and Istria, Venice was also to cede her
lands west of the Oglio to the French Government; and in return for
these sacrifices she was to gain the three legations of Romagna,
Ferrara, and Bologna--the very lands which Bonaparte had recently
formed into the Cispadane Republic! For the rest, the Emperor would
have to recognize the proposed Republic at Milan, as also that already
existing at Modena, "compensation" being somewhere found for the
deposed duke.
From the correspondence of Thugut, the Austrian Minister, it appears
certain that Austria herself had looked forward to the partition of
the Venetian mainland territories, and this was the scheme which
Bonaparte _actually proposed to her at Leoben_. Still more
extraordinary was his proposal to sacrifice, ostensibly to Venice but
ultimately to Austria, the greater part of the Cispadane Republic. It
is, indeed, inexplicable, except on the ground that his military
position at Leoben was more brilliant than secure. His uneasiness
about this article of the preliminaries is seen in his letter of April
22nd to the Directors, which explains that the preliminaries need not
count for much. But most extraordinary of all was his procedure
concerning the young Lombard Republic. He seems quite calmly to have
discussed its retrocession to the Austrians, and that, too, after he
had encouraged the Milanese to found a republic, and had declared that
every French victory was "a line of the constitutional charter."[74]
The most reasonable explanation is that Bonaparte over-estimated the
military strength of Austria, and undervalued the energy of the men of
Milan, Modena, and Bologna, of whose levies he spoke most
contemptuously. Certain it is that he desired to disengage himself
from their affairs so as to be free for the grander visions of
oriental conquest that now haunted his imagination. Whatever were his
motives in signing the preliminaries at Leoben, he speedily found
means for their modification in the ever-enlarging area of negotiable
lands.
It is now time to return to the affairs of Venice. For seven months
the towns and villages of that republic had been a prey to pitiless
warfare and systematic rapacity, a fate which the weak ruling
oligarchy could neither avert nor avenge. In the western cities,
Bergamo and Brescia, whose interests and feelings linked them with
Milan rather than Venice, the populace desired an alliance with the
nascent republic on the west and a severance from the gloomy
despotism of the Queen of the Adriatic. Though glorious in her prime,
she now governed with obscurantist methods inspired by fear of her
weakness becoming manifest; and Bonaparte, tearing off the mask which
hitherto had screened her dotage, left her despised by the more
progressive of her own subjects. Even before he first entered the
Venetian territory, he set forth to the Directory the facilities for
plunder and partition which it offered. Referring to its reception of
the Comte de Provence (the future Louis XVIII.) and the occupation of
Peschiera by the Austrians, he wrote (June 6th, 1796):
"If your plan is to extract five or six million francs from Venice,
I have expressly prepared for you this sort of rupture with her....
If you have intentions more pronounced, I think that you ought to
continue this subject of contention, instruct me as to your
desires, and wait for the favourable opportunity, which I will
seize according to circumstances, for we must not have everybody on
our hands at the same time."
The events which now transpired in Venetia gave him excuses for the
projected partition. The weariness felt by the Brescians and
Bergamesques for Venetian rule had been artfully played on by the
Jacobins of Milan and by the French Generals Kilmaine and Landrieux;
and an effort made by the Venetian officials to repress the growing
discontent brought about disturbances in which some men of the
"Lombard legion" were killed. The complicity of the French in the
revolt is clearly established by the Milanese journals and by the fact
that Landrieux forthwith accepted the command of the rebels at Bergamo
and Brescia.[75] But while these cities espoused the Jacobin cause,
most of the Venetian towns and all the peasantry remained faithful to
the old Government. It was clear that a conflict must ensue, even if
Bonaparte and some of his generals had not secretly worked to bring it
about. That he and they did so work cannot now be disputed. The circle
of proof is complete. The events at Brescia and Bergamo were part of
a scheme for precipitating a rupture with Venice; and their success
was so far assured that Bonaparte at Leoben secretly bargained away
nearly the whole of the Venetian lands. Furthermore, a fortnight
before the signing of these preliminaries, he had suborned a vile
wretch, Salvatori by name, to issue a proclamation purporting to come
from the Venetian authorities, which urged the people everywhere to
rise and massacre the French. It was issued on April 5th, though it
bore the date of March 20th. At once the Doge warned his people that
it was a base fabrication, But the mischief had been done. On Easter
Monday (April 17th) a chance affray in Verona let loose the passions
which had been rising for months past: the populace rose in fury
against the French detachment quartered on them: and all the soldiers
who could not find shelter in the citadel, even the sick in the
hospitals, fell victims to the craving for revenge for the
humiliations and exactions of the last seven months.[76] Such was
Easter-tide at Verona--_les Pâques véronaises_--an event that recalls
the Sicilian Vespers of Palermo in its blind southern fury.
The finale somewhat exceeded Bonaparte's expectations, but he must
have hailed it with a secret satisfaction. It gave him a good excuse
for wholly extinguishing Venice as an independent power. According to
the secret articles signed at Leoben, the city of Venice was to have
retained her independence and gained the Legations. But her contumacy
could now be chastised by annihilation. Venice could, in fact,
indemnify the Hapsburgs for the further cessions which France exacted
from them elsewhere; and in the process Bonaparte would free himself
from the blame which attached to his hasty signature of the
preliminaries at Leoben.[77] He was now determined to secure the Rhine
frontier for France, to gain independence, under French tutelage, not
only for the Lombard Republic, but also for Modena and the Legations.
These were his aims during the negotiations to which he gave the full
force of his intellect during the spring and summer of 1797.
The first thing was to pour French troops into Italy so as to extort
better terms: the next was to declare war on Venice. For this there
was now ample justification; for, apart from the massacre at Verona,
another outrage had been perpetrated. A French corsair, which had
persisted in anchoring in a forbidden part of the harbour of Venice,
had been riddled by the batteries and captured. For this act, and for
the outbreak at Verona, the Doge and Senate offered ample reparation:
but Bonaparte refused to listen to these envoys, "dripping with French
blood," and haughtily bade Venice evacuate her mainland
territories.[78] For various reasons he decided to use guile rather
than force. He found in Venice a secretary of the French legation,
Villetard by name, who could be trusted dextrously to undermine the
crumbling fabric of the oligarchy.[79] This man persuaded the
terrified populace that nothing would appease the fury of the
French general but the deposition of the existing oligarchy and the
formation of a democratic municipality. The people and the patricians
alike swallowed the bait; and the once haughty Senate tamely
pronounced its own doom. Disorders naturally occurred on the downfall
of the ancient oligarchy, especially when the new municipality ordered
the removal of Venetian men-of-war into the hands of the French and
the introduction of French troops by help of Venetian vessels. A
mournful silence oppressed even the democrats when 5,000 French troops
entered Venice on board the flotilla. The famous State, which for
centuries had ruled the waters of the Levant, and had held the fierce
Turks at bay, a people numbering 3,000,000 souls and boasting a
revenue of 9,000,000 ducats, now struck not one blow against
conquerors who came in the guise of liberators.
On the same day Bonaparte signed at Milan a treaty of alliance with
the envoys of the new Venetian Government. His friendship was to be
dearly bought. In secret articles, which were of more import than the
vague professions of amity which filled the public document, it was
stipulated that the French and Venetian Republics should come to an
understanding as to the _exchange_ of certain territories, that Venice
should pay a contribution in money and in materials of war, should aid
the French navy by furnishing three battleships and two frigates, and
should enrich the museums of her benefactress by 20 paintings and 500
manuscripts. While he was signing these conditions of peace, the
Directors were despatching from Paris a declaration of war against
Venice. Their decision was already obsolete: it was founded on
Bonaparte's despatch of April 30th; but in the interval their
proconsul had wholly changed the situation by overthrowing the rule of
the Doge and Senate, and by setting up a democracy, through which he
could extract the wealth of that land. The Directors' declaration of
war was accordingly stopped at Milan, and no more was heard of it.
They were thus forcibly reminded of the truth of his previous warning
that things would certainly go wrong unless they consulted him on all
important details.[80]
This treaty of Milan was the fourth important convention concluded by
the general, who, at the beginning of the campaign of 1796, had been
forbidden even to sign an armistice without consulting Salicetti!
It was speedily followed by another, which in many respects redounds
to the credit of the young conqueror. If his conduct towards Venice
inspires loathing, his treatment of Genoa must excite surprise and
admiration. Apart from one very natural outburst of spleen, it shows
little of that harshness which might have been expected from the man
who had looked on Genoa as the embodiment of mean despotism. Up to the
summer of 1796 Bonaparte seems to have retained something of his old
detestation of that republic; for at midsummer, when he was in the
full career of his Italian conquests, he wrote to Faypoult, the French
envoy at Genoa, urging him to keep open certain cases that were in
dispute, and three weeks later he again wrote that the time for Genoa
had not yet come. Any definite action against this wealthy city was,
indeed, most undesirable during the campaign; for the bankers of
Genoa supplied the French army with the sinews of war by means of
secret loans, and their merchants were equally complaisant in regard
to provisions. These services were appreciated by Bonaparte as much as
they were resented by Nelson; and possibly the succour which Genoese
money and shipping covertly rendered to the French expeditions for
the recovery of Corsica may have helped to efface from Bonaparte's
memory the associations clustering around the once-revered name of
Paoli. From ill-concealed hostility he drifted into a position of
tolerance and finally of friendship towards Genoa, provided that she
became democratic. If her institutions could be assimilated to those
of France, she might prove a valuable intermediary or ally.
The destruction of the Genoese oligarchy presented no great
difficulties. Both Venice and Genoa had long outlived their power, and
the persistent violation of their neutrality had robbed them of that
last support of the weak, self-respect. The intrigues of Faypoult and
Salicetti were undermining the influence of the Doge and Senate, when
the news of the fall of the Venetian oligarchy spurred on the French
party to action, But the Doge and Senate armed bands of mountaineers
and fishermen who were hostile to change; and in a long and desperate
conflict in the narrow streets of Genoa the democrats were completely
worsted (May 23rd). The victors thereupon ransacked the houses of the
opposing faction and found lists of names of those who were to have
been proscribed, besides documents which revealed the complicity of
the French agents in the rising. Bonaparte was enraged at the folly of
the Genoese democrats, which deranged his plans. As he wrote to the
Directory, if they had only remained quiet for a fortnight, the
oligarchy would have collapsed from sheer weakness. The murder of a
few Frenchmen and Milanese now gave him an excuse for intervention. He
sent an aide-de-camp, Lavalette, charged with a vehement diatribe
against the Doge and Senate, which lost nothing in its recital before
that august body. At the close a few senators called out, "Let us
fight": but the spirit of the Dorias flickered away with these
protests; and the degenerate scions of mighty sires submitted to the
insults of an aide-de-camp and the dictation of his master.
The fate of this ancient republic was decided by Bonaparte at the
Castle of Montebello, near Milan, where he had already drawn up her
future constitution. After brief conferences with the Genoese envoys,
he signed with them the secret convention which placed their
republic--soon to be renamed the Ligurian Republic--under the
protection of France and substituted for the close patrician rule a
moderate democracy. The fact is significant. His military instincts
had now weaned him from the stiff Jacobinism of his youth; and, in
conjunction with Faypoult and the envoys, he arranged that the
legislative powers should be intrusted to two popularly elected
chambers of 300 and 150 members, while the executive functions were to
be discharged by twelve senators, presided over by a Doge; these
officers were to be appointed by the chambers: for the rest, the
principles of religious liberty and civic equality were recognized,
and local self-government was amply provided for. Cynics may, of
course, object that this excellent constitution was but a means of
insuring French supremacy and of peacefully installing Bonaparte's
regiments in a very important city; but the close of his intervention
may be pronounced as creditable to his judgment as its results were
salutary to Genoa. He even upbraided the demagogic party of that city
for shivering in pieces the statue of Andrea Doria and suspending the
fragments on some of the innumerable trees of liberty recently
planted.
"Andrea Doria," he wrote, "was a great sailor and a great
statesman. Aristocracy was liberty in his time. The whole of Europe
envies your city the honour of having produced that celebrated man.
You will, I doubt not, take pains to rear his statue again: I pray
you to let me bear a part of the expense which that will entail,
which I desire to share with those who are most zealous for the
glory and welfare of your country."
In contrasting this wise and dignified conduct with the hatred which
most Corsicans still cherished against Genoa, Bonaparte's greatness of
soul becomes apparent and inspires the wish: _Utinam semper sic
fuisses!_
Few periods of his life have been more crowded with momentous events
than his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello in May-July, 1797.
Besides completing the downfall of Venice and reinvigorating the life
of Genoa, he was deeply concerned with the affairs of the Lombard or
Cisalpine Republic, with his family concerns, with the consolidation
of his own power in French politics, and with the Austrian
negotiations. We will consider these affairs in the order here
indicated.
The future of Lombardy had long been a matter of concern to Bonaparte.
He knew that its people were the _fittest_ in all Italy to benefit by
_constitutional rule_, but it must be dependent on France. He felt
little confidence in the Lombards if left to themselves, as is seen in
his conversation with Melzi and Miot de Melito at the Castle of
Montebello. He was in one of those humours, frequent at this time of
dawning splendour, when confidence in his own genius betrayed him into
quite piquant indiscretions. After referring to the Directory, he
turned abruptly to Melzi, a Lombard nobleman:
"As for your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it possesses still fewer
elements of republicanism than France, and can be managed more
easily than any other. You know better than anyone that we shall do
what we like with Italy. But the time has not yet come. We must
give way to the fever of the moment. We are going to have one or
two republics here of our own sort. Monge will arrange that for
us."
He had some reason for distrusting the strength of the democrats in
Italy. At the close of 1796 he had written that there were three
parties in Lombardy, one which accepted French guidance, another which
desired liberty even with some impatience, and a third faction,
friendly to the Austrians: he encouraged the first, checked the
second, and repressed the last. He now complained that the Cispadanes
and Cisalpines had behaved very badly in their first elections, which
had been conducted in his absence; for they had allowed clerical
influence to override all French predilections. And, a little later,
he wrote to Talleyrand that the genuine love of liberty was feeble in
Italy, and that, as soon as French influences were withdrawn, the
Italian Jacobins would be murdered by the populace. The sequel was to
justify his misgivings, and therefore to refute the charges of those
who see in his conduct respecting the Cisalpine Republic nothing but
calculating egotism. The difficulty of freeing a populace that had
learnt to hug its chains was so great that the temporary and partial
success which his new creation achieved may be regarded as a proof of
his political sagacity.
After long preparations by four committees, which Bonaparte kept at
Milan closely engaged in the drafting of laws, the constitution of the
Cisalpine Republic was completed. It was a miniature of that of
France, and lest there should be any further mistakes in the
elections, Bonaparte himself appointed, not only the five Directors
and the Ministers whom they were to control, but even the 180
legislators, both Ancients and Juniors. In this strange fashion did
democracy descend on Italy, not mainly as the work of the people, but
at the behest of a great organizing genius. It is only fair to add
that he summoned to the work of civic reconstruction many of the best
intellects of Italy. He appointed a noble, Serbelloni, to be the first
President of the Cisalpine Republic, and a scion of the august House
of the Visconti was sent as its ambassador to Paris. Many able men
that had left Lombardy during the Austrian occupation or the recent
wars were attracted back by Bonaparte's politic clemency; and the
festival of July 9th at Milan, which graced the inauguration of the
new Government, presented a scene of civic joy to which that unhappy
province had long been a stranger. A vast space was thronged with an
enormous crowd which took up the words of the civic oath uttered by
the President. The Archbishop of Milan celebrated Mass and blessed the
banners of the National Guards; and the day closed with games, dances,
and invocations to the memory of the Italians who had fought and died
for their nascent liberties. Amidst all the vivas and the clash of
bells Bonaparte took care to sound a sterner note. On that very day
he ordered the suppression of a Milanese club which had indulged in
Jacobinical extravagances, and he called on the people "to show to the
world by their wisdom, energy, and by the good organization of their
army, that modern Italy has not degenerated and is still worthy of
liberty."
The contagion of Milanese enthusiasm spread rapidly. Some of the
Venetian towns on the mainland now petitioned for union with the
Cisalpine Republic; and the deputies of the Cispadane, who were
present at the festival, urgently begged that their little State might
enjoy the same privilege. Hitherto Bonaparte had refused these
requests, lest he should hamper the negotiations with Austria, which
were still tardily proceeding; but within a month their wish was
gratified, and the Cispadane State was united to the larger and more
vigorous republic north of the River Po, along with the important
districts of Como, Bergamo, Brescia, Crema, and Peschiera.
Disturbances in the Swiss district of the Valteline soon enabled
Bonaparte to intervene on behalf of the oppressed peasants, and to
merge this territory also in the Cisalpine Republic, which
consequently stretched from the high Alps southward to Rimini, and
from the Ticino on the west to the Mincio on the east.[81]
Already, during his sojourn at the Castle of Montebello, Bonaparte
figured as the all-powerful proconsul of the French Republic. Indeed,
all his surroundings--his retinue of complaisant generals, and the
numerous envoys and agents who thronged his ante-chambers to beg an
audience--befitted a Sulla or a Wallenstein, rather than a general of
the regicide Republic. Three hundred Polish soldiers guarded the
approaches to the castle; and semi-regal state was also observed in
its spacious corridors and saloons. There were to be seen Italian
nobles, literati, and artists, counting it the highest honour to visit
the liberator of their land; and to them Bonaparte behaved with that
mixture of affability and inner reserve, of seductive charm
alternating with incisive cross-examination which proclaimed at once
the versatility of his gifts, the keenness of his intellect, and his
determination to gain social, as well as military and political,
supremacy. And yet the occasional abruptness of his movements, and the
strident tones of command lurking beneath his silkiest speech, now and
again reminded beholders that he was of the camp rather than of the
court. To his generals he was distant; for any fault even his
favourite officers felt the full force of his anger; and aides-de-camp
were not often invited to dine at his table. Indeed, he frequently
dined before his retinue, almost in the custom of the old Kings of
France.
With him was his mother, also his brothers, Joseph and Louis, whom he
was rapidly advancing to fortune. There, too, were his sisters; Elise,
proud and self-contained, who at this period married a noble but
somewhat boorish Corsican, Bacciocchi; and Pauline, a charming girl of
sixteen, whose hand the all-powerful brother offered to Marmont, to be
by him unaccountably refused, owing, it would seem, to a prior
attachment. This lively and luxurious young creature was not long to
remain unwedded. The adjutant-general, Leclerc, became her suitor;
and, despite his obscure birth and meagre talents, speedily gained her
as his bride. Bonaparte granted her 40,000 francs as her dowry;
and--significant fact--the nuptials were privately blessed by a priest
in the chapel of the Palace of Montebello.
There, too, at Montebello was Josephine.
Certainly the Bonapartes were not happy in their loves: the one dark
side to the young conqueror's life, all through this brilliant
campaign, was the cruelty of his bride. From her side he had in March,
1796, torn himself away, distracted between his almost insane love for
her and his determination to crush the chief enemy of France: to her
he had written long and tender letters even amidst the superhuman
activities of his campaign. Ten long despatches a day had not
prevented him covering as many sheets of paper with protestations of
devotion to her and with entreaties that she would likewise pour out
her heart to him. Then came complaints, some tenderly pleading, others
passionately bitter, of her cruelly rare and meagre replies. The sad
truth, that Josephine cares much for his fame and little for him
himself, that she delays coming to Italy, these and other afflicting
details rend his heart. At last she comes to Milan, after a
passionate outburst of weeping--at leaving her beloved Paris. In Italy
she shows herself scarcely more than affectionate to her doting
spouse. Marlborough's letters to his peevish duchess during the
Blenheim campaign are not more crowded with maudlin curiosities than
those of the fierce scourge of the Austrians to his heartless fair. He
writes to her agonizingly, begging her to be less lovely, less
gracious, less good--apparently in order that he may love her less
madly: but she is never to be jealous, and, above all, never to weep:
for her tears burn his blood: and he concludes by sending millions of
kisses, and also to her dog! And this mad effusion came from the man
whom the outside world took to be of steel-like coldness: yet his
nature had this fevered, passionate side, just as the moon, where she
faces the outer void, is compact of ice, but turns a front of molten
granite to her blinding, all-compelling luminary.
Undoubtedly this blazing passion helped to spur on the lover to that
terrific energy which makes the Italian campaign unique even amidst
the Napoleonic wars. Beaulieu, Würmser, and Alvintzy were not rivals
in war; they were tiresome hindrances to his unsated love. On the eve
of one of his greatest triumphs he penned to her the following
rhapsody:
"I am far from you, I seem to be surrounded by the blackest night:
I need the lurid light of the thunder-bolts which we are about to
hurl on our enemies to dispel the darkness into which your absence
has plunged me. Josephine, you wept when we parted: you wept! At
that thought all my being trembles. But be consoled! Würmser shall
pay dearly for the tears which I have seen you shed."
What infatuation! to appease a woman's fancied grief, he will pile
high the plains of Mincio with corpses, recking not of the thousand
homes where bitter tears will flow. It is the apotheosis of
sentimental egotism and social callousness. And yet this brain, with
its moral vision hopelessly blurred, judged unerringly in its own
peculiar plane. What power it must have possessed, that, unexhausted
by the flames of love, it grasped infallibly the myriad problems of
war, scanning them the more clearly, perchance, in the white heat of
its own passion.
At last there came the time of fruition at Montebello: of fruition,
but not of ease or full contentment; for not only did an average of
eight despatches a day claim several hours, during which he jealously
guarded his solitude; but Josephine's behaviour served to damp his
ardour. As, during the time of absence, she had slighted his urgent
entreaties for a daily letter, so too, during the sojourn at
Montebello, she revealed the shallowness and frivolity of her being.
Fêtes, balls, and receptions, provided they were enlivened by a light
crackle of compliments from an admiring circle, pleased her more than
the devotion of a genius. She had admitted, before marriage, that her
"Creole _nonchalance_" shrank wearily away from his keen and ardent
nature; and now, when torn away from the _salons_ of Paris, she seems
to have taken refuge in entertainments and lap-dogs.[82] Doubtless
even at this period Josephine evinced something of that warm feeling
which deepened with ripening years and lit up her later sorrows with a
mild radiance; but her recent association with Madame Tallien and that
giddy _cohue_ had accentuated her habits of feline complaisance to all
and sundry. Her facile fondnesses certainly welled forth far too
widely to carve out a single channel of love and mingle with the deep
torrent of Bonaparte's early passion. In time, therefore, his
affections strayed into many other courses; and it would seen that
even in the later part of this Italian epoch his conduct was
irregular. For this Josephine had herself mainly to thank. At last she
awakened to the real value and greatness of the love which her neglect
had served to dull and tarnish, but then it was too late for complete
reunion of souls: the Corsican eagle had by that time soared far
beyond reach of her highest flutterings.[83]
At Montebello, as also at Passeriano, whither the Austrian
negotiations were soon transferred, Bonaparte, though strictly
maintaining the ceremonies of his proconsular court, yet showed the
warmth of his social instincts. After the receptions of the day and
the semi-public dinner, he loved to unbend in the evening. Sometimes,
when Josephine formed a party of ladies for _vingt-et-un_, he would
withdraw to a corner and indulge in the game of _goose_; and
bystanders noted with amusement that his love of success led him to
play tricks and cheat in order not to "fall into the pit." At other
times, if the conversation languished, he proposed that each person
should tell a story; and when no Boccaccio-like facility inspired the
company, he sometimes launched out into one of those eerie and
thrilling recitals, such as he must often have heard from the
_improvisatori_ of his native island. Bourrienne states that
Bonaparte's realism required darkness and daggers for the full display
of his gifts, and that the climax of his dramatic monologue was not
seldom enhanced by the screams of the ladies, a consummation which
gratified rather than perturbed the accomplished actor.
A survey of Bonaparte's multifarious activity in Italy enables the
reader to realize something of the wonder and awe excited by his
achievements. Like an Athena he leaped forth from the Revolution,
fully armed for every kind of contest. His mental superiority
impressed diplomats as his strategy baffled the Imperialist generals;
and now he was to give further proofs of his astuteness by
intervening in the internal affairs of France.
In order to understand Bonaparte's share in the _coup d'état_ of
Fructidor, we must briefly review the course of political events at
Paris. At the time of the installation of the Directory the hope was
widely cherished that the Revolution was now entirely a thing of the
past. But the unrest of the time was seen in the renewal of the
royalist revolts in the west, and in the communistic plot of Babeuf
for the overthrow of the whole existing system of private property.
The aims of these desperadoes were revealed by an accomplice; the
ringleaders were arrested, and after a long trial Babeuf was
guillotined and his confederates were transported (May, 1797). The
disclosure of these ultra-revolutionary aims shocked not only the
bourgeois, but even the peasants who were settled on the confiscated
lands of the nobles and clergy. The very class which had given to the
events of 1789 their irresistible momentum was now inclined to rest
and be thankful; and in this swift revulsion of popular feeling the
royalists began to gain ground. The elections for the renewal of a
third part of the Councils resulted in large gains for them, and they
could therefore somewhat influence the composition of the Directory by
electing Barthélemy, a constitutional royalist. Still, he could not
overbear the other four regicide Directors, even though one of these,
Carnot, also favoured moderate opinions more and more. A crisis
therefore rapidly developed between the still Jacobinical Directory
and the two legislative Councils, in each of which the royalists, or
moderates, had the upper hand. The aim of this majority was to
strengthen the royalist elements in France by the repeal of many
revolutionary laws. Their man of action was Pichegru, the conqueror of
Holland, who, abjuring Jacobinism, now schemed with a club of
royalists, which met at Clichy, on the outskirts of Paris. That their
intrigues aimed at the restoration of the Bourbons had recently been
proved. The French agents in Venice seized the Comte d'Entraigues, the
confidante of the _soi-disant_ Louis XVIII.; and his papers, when
opened by Bonaparte, Clarke, and Berthier at Montebello, proved that
there was a conspiracy in France for the recall of the Bourbons. With
characteristic skill, Bonaparte held back these papers from the
Directory until he had mastered the difficulties of the situation. As
for the count, he released him; and in return for this signal act of
clemency, then very unusual towards an _émigré_, he soon became the
object of his misrepresentation and slander.
The political crisis became acute in July, when the majority
of the Councils sought to force on the Directory Ministers who
would favour moderate or royalist aims. Three Directors, Barras, La
Réveillière-Lépeaux, and Rewbell, refused to listen to these behests,
and insisted on the appointment of Jacobinical Ministers even in the
teeth of a majority of the Councils. This defiance of the deputies of
France was received with execration by most civilians, but with
jubilant acclaim by the armies; for the soldiery, far removed from the
partisan strifes of the capital, still retained their strongly
republican opinions. The news that their conduct towards Venice was
being sharply criticised by the moderates in Paris aroused their
strongest feelings, military pride and democratic ardour.
Nevertheless, Bonaparte's conduct was eminently cautious and reserved.
In the month of May he sent to Paris his most trusted aide-de-camp,
Lavalette, instructing him to sound all parties, to hold aloof from
all engagements, and to report to him dispassionately on the state of
public opinion.[84] Lavalette judged the position of the Directory, or
rather of the Triumvirate which swayed it, to be so precarious that he
cautioned his chief against any definite espousal of its cause; and in
June-July, 1797, Bonaparte almost ceased to correspond with the
Directors except on Italian affairs, probably because he looked
forward to their overthrow as an important step towards his own
supremacy. There was, however, the possibility of a royalist reaction
sweeping all before it in France and ranging the armies against the
civil power. He therefore waited and watched, fully aware of the
enhanced importance which an uncertain situation gives to the outsider
who refuses to show his hand.
Duller eyes than his had discerned that the constitutional conflict
between the Directory and the Councils could not be peaceably
adjusted. The framers of the constitution had designed the slowly
changing Directory as a check on the Councils, which were renewed to
the extent of one-third every year; but, while seeking to put a
regicide drag on the parliamentary coach, they had omitted to provide
against a complete overturn. The Councils could not legally override
the Directory; neither could the Directory veto the decrees of the
Councils, nor, by dissolving them, compel an appeal to the country.
This defect in the constitution had been clearly pointed out by
Necker, and it now drew from Barras the lament:
"Ah, if the constitution of the Year III., which offers so many
sage precautions, had not neglected one of the most important; if
it had foreseen that the two great powers of the State, engaged in
heated debates, must end with open conflicts, when there is no high
court of appeal to arrange them; if it had sufficiently armed the
Directory with the right of dissolving the Chamber!"[85]
As it was, the knot had to be severed by the sword: not, as yet, by
Bonaparte's trenchant blade: he carefully drew back; but where as yet
he feared to tread, Hoche rushed in. This ardently republican general
was inspired by a self-denying patriotism, that flinched not before
odious duties. While Bonaparte was culling laurels in Northern Italy,
Hoche was undertaking the most necessary task of quelling the Vendéan
risings, and later on braved the fogs and storms of the Atlantic in
the hope of rousing all Ireland in revolt. His expedition to Bantry
Bay in December, 1796, having miscarried, he was sent into the
Rhineland. The conclusion of peace by Bonaparte at Leoben again dashed
his hopes, and he therefore received with joy the orders of the
Directory that he should march a large part of his army to Brest for a
second expedition to Ireland. The Directory, however, intended to use
those troops nearer home, and appointed him Minister of War (July
16th). The choice was a good one; Hoche was active, able, and popular
with the soldiery; but he had not yet reached the thirtieth year of
his age, the limit required by the constitution. On this technical
defect the majority of the Councils at once fastened; and their
complaints were redoubled when a large detachment of his troops came
within the distance of the capital forbidden to the army. The
moderates could therefore accuse the triumvirs and Hoche of conspiracy
against the laws; he speedily resigned the Ministry (July 22nd), and
withdrew his troops into Champagne, and finally to the Rhineland.
Now was the opportunity for Bonaparte to take up the _rôle_ of
Cromwell which Hoche had so awkwardly played. And how skilfully the
conqueror of Italy plays it--through subordinates. He was too well
versed in statecraft to let his sword flash before the public gaze. By
this time he had decided to act, and doubtless the fervid Jacobinism
of the soldiery was the chief cause determining his action. At the
national celebration on July 14th he allowed it to have free vent, and
thereupon wrote to the Directory, bitterly reproaching them for their
weakness in face of the royalist plot: "I see that the Clichy Club
means to march over my corpse to the destruction of the Republic." He
ended the diatribe by his usual device, when he desired to remind the
Government of his necessity to them, of offering his resignation, in
case they refused to take vigorous measures against the malcontents.
Yet even now his action was secret and indirect. On July 27th he sent
to the Directors a brief note stating that Augereau had requested
leave to go to Paris, "where his affairs call him"; and that he sent
by this general the originals of the addresses of the army, avowing
its devotion to the constitution. No one would suspect from this that
Augereau was in Bonaparte's confidence and came to carry out the
_coup d'état_. The secret was well preserved. Lavalette was
Bonaparte's official representative; and his neutrality was now
maintained in accordance with a note received from his chief:
"Augereau is coming to Paris: do not put yourself in his power: he has
sown disorder in the army: he is a factious man."
But, while Lavalette was left to trim his sails as best he might,
Augereau was certain to act with energy. Bonaparte knew well that his
Jacobinical lieutenant, famed as the first swordsman of the day, and
the leader of the fighting division of the army, would do his work
thoroughly, always vaunting his own prowess and decrying that of his
commander. It was so. Augereau rushed to Paris, breathing threats of
slaughter against the royalists. Checked for a time by the calculating
_finesse_ of the triumvirs, he prepared to end matters by a single
blow; and, when the time had come, he occupied the strategic points of
the capital, drew a cordon of troops round the Tuileries, where the
Councils sat, invaded the chambers of deputies and consigned to the
Temple the royalists and moderates there present, with their leader,
Pichegru. Barthélemy was also seized; but Carnot, warned by a friend,
fled during the early hours of this eventful day--September 4th (or 18
Fructidor). The mutilated Councils forthwith annulled the late
elections in forty-nine Departments, and passed severe laws against
orthodox priests and the unpardoned _émigrés_ who had ventured to
return to France. The Directory was also intrusted with complete power
to suppress newspapers, to close political clubs, and to declare any
commune in a state of siege. Its functions were now wellnigh as
extensive and absolute as those of the Committee of Public Safety, its
powers being limited only by the incompetence of the individual
Directors and by their paralyzing consciousness that they ruled only
by favour of the army. They had taken the sword to solve a political
problem: two years later they were to fall by that sword.[86]
Augereau fully expected that he would be one of the two Directors who
were elected in place of Carnot and Barthélemy; but the Councils had
no higher opinion of his civic capacity than Bonaparte had formed;
and, to his great disgust, Merlin of Douai and François of Neufchâtel
were chosen. The last scenes of the _coup d'état_ centred around the
transportation of the condemned deputies. One of the early memories of
the future Duc de Broglie recalled the sight of the "_députés
fructidorisés_ travelling in closed carriages, railed up like cages,"
to the seaport whence they were to sail to the lingering agonies of a
tropical prison in French Guiana.
It was a painful spectacle: "the indignation was great, but the
consternation was greater still. Everybody foresaw the renewal of the
Reign of Terror and resignedly prepared for it."
Such were the feelings, even of those who, like Madame de Staël and
her friend Benjamin Constant, had declared before the _coup d'état_
that it was necessary to the salvation of the Republic. That
accomplished woman was endowed with nearly every attribute of genius
except political foresight and self-restraint. No sooner had the blow
been dealt than she fell to deploring its results, which any
fourth-rate intelligence might have foreseen. "Liberty was the only
power really conquered"--such was her later judgment on Fructidor. Now
that Liberty fled affrighted, the errant enthusiasms of the gifted
authoress clung for a brief space to Bonaparte. Her eulogies on his
exploits, says Lavalette, who listened to her through a dinner in
Talleyrand's rooms, possessed all the mad disorder and exaggeration of
inspiration; and, after the repast was over, the votaress refused to
pass out before an aide-de-camp of Bonaparte! The incident is
characteristic both of Madame de Staël's moods and of the whims of the
populace. Amidst the disenchantments of that time, when the pursuit of
liberty seemed but an idle quest, when royalists were the champions of
parliamentary rule and republicans relied on military force, all eyes
turned wearily away from the civic broils at Paris to the visions of
splendour revealed by the conqueror of Italy. Few persons knew how
largely their new favourite was responsible for the events of
Fructidor; all of them had by heart the names of his victories; and
his popularity flamed to the skies when he recrossed the Alps,
bringing with him a lucrative peace with Austria.
The negotiations with that Power had dragged on slowly through the
whole summer and far into the autumn, mainly owing to the hopes of the
Emperor Francis that the disorder in France would filch from her the
meed of victory. Doubtless that would have been the case, had not
Bonaparte, while striking down the royalists at Paris through his
lieutenant, remained at the head of his victorious legions in Venetia
ready again to invade Austria, if occasion should arise.
In some respects, the _coup d'état_ of Fructidor helped on the
progress of the negotiations. That event postponed, if it did not
render impossible, the advent of civil war in France; and, like
Pride's Purge in our civil strifes, it installed in power a Government
which represented the feelings of the army and of its chief. Moreover,
it rid him of the presence of Clarke, his former colleague in the
negotiations, whose relations with Carnot aroused the suspicions of
Barras and led to his recall. Bonaparte was now the sole
plenipotentiary of France. The final negotiations with Austria and the
resulting treaty of Campo Formio may therefore be considered as almost
entirely his handiwork.
And yet, at this very time, the head of the Foreign Office at Paris
was a man destined to achieve the greatest diplomatic reputation of
the age. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand seemed destined for the task of
uniting the society of the old _régime_ with the France of the
Revolution. To review his life would be to review the Revolution. With
a reforming zeal begotten of his own intellectual acuteness and of
resentment against his family, which had disinherited him for the
crime of lameness, he had led the first assaults of 1789 against the
privileges of the nobles and of the clerics among whom his lot had
perforce been cast. He acted as the head of the new "constitutional"
clergy, and bestowed his episcopal blessing at the Feast of Pikes in
1790; but, owing to his moderation, he soon fell into disfavour with
the extreme men who seized on power. After a sojourn in England and
the United States, he came back to France, and on the suggestion of
Madame de Staël was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs (July,
1797). To this post he brought the highest gifts: his early clerical
training gave a keen edge to an intellect naturally subtle and
penetrating: his intercourse with Mirabeau gave him a grip on the
essentials of sound policy and diplomacy: his sojourn abroad widened
his vision, and imbued him with an admiration for English institutions
and English moderation. Yet he loved France with a deep and fervent
love. For her he schemed; for her he threw over friends or foes with a
Macchiavellian facility. Amidst all the glamour of the Napoleonic
Empire he discerned the dangers that threatened France; and he warned
his master--as uselessly as he warned reckless nobles, priestly
bigots, and fanatical Jacobins in the past, or the unteachable zealots
of the restored monarchy. His life, when viewed, not in regard to its
many sordid details, but to its chief guiding principle, was one long
campaign against French _élan_ and partisan obstinacy; and he sealed
it with the quaint declaration in his will that, on reviewing his
career, he found he had never abandoned a party before it had
abandoned itself. Talleyrand was equipped with a diversity of gifts:
his gaze, intellectual yet composed, blenched not when he uttered a
scathing criticism or a diplomatic lie: his deep and penetrating voice
gave force to all his words, and the curl of his lip or the scornful
lifting of his eyebrows sometimes disconcerted an opponent more than
his biting sarcasm. In brief, this disinherited noble, this unfrocked
priest, this disenchanted Liberal, was the complete expression of the
inimitable society of the old _régime_, when quickened intellectually
by Voltaire and dulled by the Terror. After doing much to destroy the
old society, he was now to take a prominent share in its
reconstruction on a modern basis.[87]
Such was the man who now commenced his chief life-work, the task of
guiding Napoleon. "The mere name of Bonaparte is an aid which ought to
smooth away all my difficulties"--these were the obsequious terms in
which he began his correspondence with the great general. In reality,
he distrusted him; but whether from diffidence, or from the weakness
of his own position, which as yet was little more than that of
the head clerk of his department, he did nothing to assert the
predominance of civil over military influence in the negotiations now
proceeding.
Two months before Talleyrand accepted office, Bonaparte had enlarged
his original demands on Austria, and claimed for France the whole of
the lands on the left or west bank of the Rhine, and for the Cisalpine
Republic all the territory up to the River Adige. To these demands the
Court of Vienna offered a tenacious resistance which greatly irritated
him. "These people are so slow," he exclaimed, "they think that a
peace like this ought to be meditated upon for three years first."
Concurrently with the Franco-Austrian negotiations, overtures for a
peace between France and England were being discussed at Lille. Into
these it is impossible to enter farther than to notice that in these
efforts Pitt and the other British Ministers (except Grenville) were
sincerely desirous of peace, and that negotiations broke down owing to
the masterful tone adopted by the Directory. It was perhaps
unfortunate that Lord Malmesbury was selected as the English
negotiator, for his behaviour in the previous year had been construed
by the French as dilatory and insincere. But the Directors may on
better evidence be charged with postponing a settlement until they
had struck down their foes within France. Bonaparte's letters at this
time show that he hoped for the conclusion of a peace with England,
doubtless in order that his own pressure on Austria might be
redoubled. In this he was to be disappointed. After Fructidor the
Directory assumed overweening airs. Talleyrand was bidden to enjoin on
the French plenipotentiaries the adoption of a loftier tone. Maret,
the French envoy at Lille, whose counsels had ever been on the side of
moderation, was abruptly replaced by a "Fructidorian"; and a decisive
refusal was given to the English demand for the retention of Trinidad
and the Cape, at the expense of Spain and the Batavian Republic
respectively. Indeed, the Directory intended to press for the cession
of the Channel Islands to France and of Gibraltar to Spain, and that,
too, at the end of a maritime war fruitful in victories for the Union
Jack.[88]
Towards the King of Sardinia the new Directory was equally imperious.
The throne of Turin was now occupied by Charles Emmanuel IV. He
succeeded to a troublous heritage. Threatened by democratic republics
at Milan and Genoa, and still more by the effervescence of his own
subjects, he strove to gain an offensive and defensive alliance with
France, as the sole safeguard against revolution. To this end he
offered 10,000 Piedmontese for service with Bonaparte, and even
secretly covenanted to cede the island of Sardinia to France. But
these offers could not divert Barras and his colleagues from their
revolutionary policy. They spurned the alliance with the House of
Savoy, and, despite the remonstrances of Bonaparte, they fomented
civil discords in Piedmont such as endangered his communications with
France. Indeed, the Directory after Fructidor was deeply imbued with
fear of their commander in Italy. To increase his difficulties was
now their paramount desire; and under the pretext of extending liberty
in Italy, they instructed Talleyrand to insist on the inclusion of
Venice and Friuli in the Cisalpine Republic. Austria must be content
with Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia, must renounce all interest in the
fate of the Ionian Isles, and find in Germany all compensation for her
losses in Italy. Such was the ultimatum of the Directory (September
16th). But a loophole of escape was left to Bonaparte; the conduct of
these negotiations was confided solely to him, and he had already
decided their general tenor by giving his provisional assent to the
acquisition by Austria of the east bank of the Adige and the city of
Venice. From these terms he was disinclined to diverge. He was weary
of "this old Europe": his gaze was directed towards Corfu, Malta, and
Egypt; and when he received the official ultimatum, he saw that the
Directory desired a renewal of the war under conditions highly
embarrassing for him. "Yes: I see clearly that they are preparing
defeats for me," he exclaimed to his aide-de-camp Lavalette. They
angered him still more when, on the death of Hoche, they intrusted
their Rhenish forces, numbering 120,000 men, to the command of
Augereau, and sent to the Army of Italy an officer bearing a manifesto
written by Augereau concerning Fructidor, which set forth the anxiety
felt by the Directors concerning Bonaparte's political views. At this
Bonaparte fired up and again offered his resignation (September 25th):
"No power on earth shall, after this horrible and most unexpected
act of ingratitude by the Government, make me continue to serve it.
My health imperiously demands calm and repose.... My recompense is
in my conscience and in the opinion of posterity. Believe me, that
at any time of danger, I shall be the first to defend the
Constitution of the Year III."
The resignation was of course declined, in terms most flattering to
Bonaparte; and the Directors prepared to ratify the treaty with
Sardinia.
Indeed, the fit of passion once passed, the determination to dominate
events again possessed him, and he decided to make peace, despite the
recent instructions of the Directory that no peace would be honourable
which sacrificed Venice to Austria. There is reason to believe that he
now regretted this sacrifice. His passionate outbursts against Venice
after the _Pâques véronaises_, his denunciations of "that fierce and
bloodstained rule," had now given place to some feelings of pity for
the people whose ruin he had so artfully compassed; and the social
intercourse with Venetians which he enjoyed at Passeriano, the castle
of the Doge Manin, may well have inspired some regard for the proud
city which he was now about to barter away to Austria. Only so,
however, could he peacefully terminate the wearisome negotiations with
the Emperor. The Austrian envoy, Count Cobenzl, struggled hard to gain
the whole of Venetia, and the Legations, along with the half of
Lombardy.[89] From these exorbitant demands he was driven by the
persistent vigour of Bonaparte's assaults. The little Corsican proved
himself an expert in diplomatic wiles, now enticing the Imperialist on
to slippery ground, and occasionally shocking him by calculated
outbursts of indignation or bravado. After many days spent in
intellectual fencing, the discussions were narrowed down to Mainz,
Mantua, Venice, and the Ionian Isles. On the fate of these islands a
stormy discussion arose, Cobenzl stipulating for their complete
independence, while Bonaparte passionately claimed them for France. In
one of these sallies his vehement gestures overturned a cabinet with a
costly vase; but the story that he smashed the vase, as a sign of his
power to crush the House of Austria, is a later refinement on the
incident, about which Cobenzl merely reported to Vienna--"He behaved
like a fool." Probably his dextrous disclosure of the severe terms
which the Directory ordered him to extort was far more effective than
this boisterous _gasconnade_. Finally, after threatening an immediate
attack on the Austrian positions, he succeeded on three of the
questions above named, but at the sacrifice of Venice to Austria.
The treaty was signed on October 17th at the village of Campo Formio.
The published articles may be thus summarized: Austria ceded to the
French Republic her Belgic provinces. Of the once extensive Venetian
possessions France gained the Ionian Isles, while Austria acquired
Istria, Dalmatia, the districts at the mouth of the Cattaro, the city
of Venice, and the mainland of Venetia as far west as Lake Garda, the
Adige, and the lower part of the River Po. The Hapsburgs recognized
the independence of the now enlarged Cisalpine Republic. France and
Austria agreed to frame a treaty of commerce on the basis of "the most
favoured nation." The Emperor ceded to the dispossessed Duke of Modena
the territory of Breisgau on the east of the Rhine. A congress was to
be held at Rastadt, at which the plenipotentiaries of France and of
the Germanic Empire were to regulate affairs between these two Powers.
Secret articles bound the Emperor to use his influence in the Empire
to secure for France the left bank of the Rhine; while France was to
use her good offices to procure for the Emperor the Archbishopric of
Salzburg and the Bavarian land between that State and the River Inn.
Other secret articles referred to the indemnities which were to be
found in Germany for some of the potentates who suffered by the
changes announced in the public treaty.
The bartering away of Venice awakened profound indignation. After more
than a thousand years of independence, that city was abandoned to the
Emperor by the very general who had promised to free Italy. It was in
vain that Bonaparte strove to soothe the provisional government of
that city through the influence of a Venetian Jew, who, after his
conversion, had taken the famous name of Dandolo. Summoning him to
Passeriano, he explained to him the hard necessity which now dictated
the transfer of Venice to Austria. France could not now shed any more
of her best blood for what was, after all, only "a moral cause": the
Venetians therefore must cultivate resignation for the present and
hope for the future.
[Illustration: CENTRAL EUROPE AFTER THE PEACE OF CAMPO FORMIO, 1797
The boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire are indicated by thick dots.
The Austrian Dominions are indicated by vertical lines. The Prussian
Dominions are indicated by horizontal lines. The Ecclesiastical
States are indicated by dotted areas.]
The advice was useless. The Venetian democrats determined on a last
desperate venture. They secretly sent three deputies, among them
Dandolo, with a large sum of money wherewith to bribe the Directors to
reject the treaty of Campo Formio. This would have been quite
practicable, had not their errand become known to Bonaparte. Alarmed
and enraged at this device, which, if successful, would have consigned
him to infamy, he sent Duroc in chase; and the envoys, caught before
they crossed the Maritime Alps, were brought before the general at
Milan. To his vehement reproaches and threats they opposed a dignified
silence, until Dandolo, appealing to his generosity, awakened those
nobler feelings which were never long dormant. Then he quietly
dismissed them--to witness the downfall of their beloved city.
_Acribus initiis, ut ferme talia, incuriosa fine_; these cynical
words, with which the historian of the Roman Empire blasted the
movements of his age, may almost serve as the epitaph to Bonaparte's
early enthusiasms. Proclaiming at the beginning of his Italian
campaigns that he came to free Italy, he yet finished his course of
almost unbroken triumphs by a surrender which his panegyrists have
scarcely attempted to condone. But the fate of Venice was almost
forgotten amidst the jubilant acclaim which greeted the conqueror of
Italy on his arrival at Paris. All France rang with the praises of the
hero who had spread liberty throughout Northern and Central Italy,
had enriched the museums of Paris with priceless masterpieces of art,
whose army had captured 150,000 prisoners, and had triumphed in 18
pitched battles--for Caldiero was now reckoned as a French
victory--and 47 smaller engagements. The Directors, shrouding their
hatred and fear of the masterful proconsul under their Roman togas,
greeted him with uneasy effusiveness. The climax of the official
comedy was reached when, at the reception of the conqueror, Barras,
pointing northwards, exclaimed: "Go there and capture the giant
corsair that infests the seas: go punish in London outrages that have
too long been unpunished": whereupon, as if overcome by his emotions,
he embraced the general. Amidst similar attentions bestowed by the
other Directors, the curtain falls on the first, or Italian, act of
the young hero's career, soon to rise on oriental adventures that were
to recall the exploits of Alexander.
* * * * *
CHAPTER VIII
EGYPT
Among the many misconceptions of the French revolutionists none was
more insidious than the notion that the wealth and power of the
British people rested on an artificial basis. This mistaken belief in
England's weakness arose out of the doctrine taught by the
_Economistes_ or _Physiocrates_ in the latter half of last century,
that commerce was not of itself productive of wealth, since it only
promoted the distribution of the products of the earth; but that
agriculture was the sole source of true wealth and prosperity. They
therefore exalted agriculture at the expense of commerce and
manufactures, and the course of the Revolution, which turned largely
on agrarian questions, tended in the same direction. Robespierre and
St. Just were never weary of contrasting the virtues of a simple
pastoral life with the corruptions and weakness engendered by foreign
commerce; and when, early in 1793, Jacobinical zeal embroiled the
young Republic with England, the orators of the Convention confidently
prophesied the downfall of the modern Carthage. Kersaint declared that
"the credit of England rests upon fictitious wealth: ... bounded in
territory, the public future of England is found almost wholly in its
bank, and this edifice is entirely supported by naval commerce. It is
easy to cripple this commerce, and especially so for a power like
France, which stands alone on her own riches."[90]
Commercial interests played a foremost part all through the struggle.
The official correspondence of Talleyrand in 1797 proves that the
Directory intended to claim the Channel Islands, the north of
Newfoundland, and all our conquests in the East Indies made since
1754, besides the restitution of Gibraltar to Spain.[91] Nor did these
hopes seem extravagant. The financial crisis in London and the mutiny
at the Nore seemed to betoken the exhaustion of England, while the
victories of Bonaparte raised the power of France to heights never
known before. Before the victory of Duncan over the Dutch at
Camperdown (October 11th, 1797), Britain seemed to have lost her naval
supremacy.
The recent admission of State bankruptcy at Paris, when two-thirds of
the existing liabilities were practically expunged, sharpened the
desire of the Directory to compass England's ruin, an enterprise which
might serve to restore French credit and would certainly engage those
vehement activities of Bonaparte that could otherwise work mischief in
Paris. On his side he gladly accepted the command of the _Army of
England_.
"The people of Paris do not remember anything," he said to
Bourrienne. "Were I to remain here long, doing nothing, I should be
lost. In this great Babylon everything wears out: my glory has
already disappeared. This little Europe does not supply enough of
it for me. I must seek it in the East: all great fame comes from
that quarter. However, I wish first to make a tour along the
[northern] coast to see for myself what may be attempted. If the
success of a descent upon England appear doubtful, as I suspect it
will, the Army of England shall become the Army of the East, and I
go to Egypt."[92]
In February, 1798, he paid a brief visit to Dunkirk and the Flemish
coast, and concluded that the invasion of England was altogether too
complicated to be hazarded except as a last desperate venture. In a
report to the Government (February 23rd) he thus sums up the whole
situation:
"Whatever efforts we make, we shall not for some years gain the
naval supremacy. To invade England without that supremacy is the
most daring and difficult task ever undertaken.... If, having
regard to the present organization of our navy, it seems impossible
to gain the necessary promptness of execution, then we must really
give up the expedition against England, _be satisfied with keeping
up the pretence of it_, and concentrate all our attention and
resources on the Rhine, in order to try to deprive England of
Hanover and Hamburg:[93] ... or else undertake an eastern
expedition which would menace her trade with the Indies. And if
none of these three operations is practicable, I see nothing else
for it but to conclude peace with England."
The greater part of his career serves as a commentary on these
designs. To one or other of them he was constantly turning as
alternative schemes for the subjugation of his most redoubtable foe.
The first plan he now judged to be impracticable; the second, which
appears later in its fully matured form as his Continental System, was
not for the present feasible, because France was about to settle
German affairs at the Congress of Rastadt; to the third he therefore
turned the whole force of his genius.
The conquest of Egypt and the restoration to France of her supremacy
in India appealed to both sides of Bonaparte's nature. The vision of
the tricolour floating above the minarets of Cairo and the palace of
the Great Mogul at Delhi fascinated a mind in which the mysticism of
the south was curiously blent with the practicality and passion for
details that characterize the northern races. To very few men in the
world's history has it been granted to dream grandiose dreams and all
but realize them, to use by turns the telescope and the microscope of
political survey, to plan vast combinations of force, and yet to
supervise with infinite care the adjustment of every adjunct. Cæsar,
in the old world, was possibly the mental peer of Bonaparte in this
majestic equipoise of the imaginative and practical qualities; but of
Cæsar we know comparatively little; whereas the complex workings of
the greatest mind of the modern world stand revealed in that
storehouse of facts and fancies, the "Correspondance de Napoléon." The
motives which led to the Eastern Expedition are there unfolded. In the
letter which he wrote to Talleyrand shortly before the signature of
the peace of Campo Formio occurs this suggestive passage:
"The character of our nation is to be far too vivacious amidst
prosperity. If we take for the basis of all our operations true
policy, which is nothing else than the calculation of combinations
and chances, we shall long be _la grande nation_ and the arbiter of
Europe. I say more: we hold the balance of Europe: we will make
that balance incline as we wish; and, if such is the order of fate,
I think it by no means impossible that we may in a few years attain
those grand results of which the heated and enthusiastic
imagination catches a glimpse, and which the extremely cool,
persistent, and calculating man will alone attain."
This letter was written when Bonaparte was bartering away Venice to
the Emperor in consideration of the acquisition by France of the
Ionian Isles. Its reference to the vivacity of the French was
doubtless evoked by the orders which he then received to
"revolutionize Italy." To do that, while the Directory further
extorted from England Gibraltar, the Channel Islands, and her eastern
conquests, was a programme dictated by excessive vivacity. The
Directory lacked the practical qualities that selected one great
enterprise at a time and brought to bear on it the needful
concentration of effort. In brief, he selected the war against
England's eastern commerce as his next sphere of action; for it
offered "an arena vaster, more necessary and resplendent" than war
with Austria; "if we compel the [British] Government to a peace, the
advantages we shall gain for our commerce in both hemispheres will be
a great step towards the consolidation of liberty and the public
welfare."[94]
For this eastern expedition he had already prepared. In May, 1797, he
had suggested the seizure of Malta from the Knights of St. John; and
when, on September 27th, the Directory gave its assent, he sent
thither a French commissioner, Poussielgue, on a "commercial mission,"
to inspect those ports, and also, doubtless, to undermine the
discipline of the Knights. Now that the British had retired from
Corsica, and France disposed of the maritime resources of Northern
Italy, Spain, and Holland, it seemed quite practicable to close the
Mediterranean to those "intriguing and enterprising islanders," to
hold them at bay in their dull northern seas, to exhaust them by
ruinous preparations against expected descents on their southern
coasts, on Ireland, and even on Scotland, while Bonaparte's eastern
conquests dried up the sources of their wealth in the Orient: "Let us
concentrate all our activity on our navy and destroy England. That
done, Europe is at our feet."[95]
But he encountered opposition from the Directory. They still clung to
their plan of revolutionizing Italy; and only by playing on their fear
of the army could he bring these civilians to assent to the
expatriation of 35,000 troops and their best generals. On La
Réveillière-Lépeaux the young commander worked with a skill that
veiled the choicest irony. This Director was the high-priest of a
newly-invented cult, termed _Théo-philanthropie_, into the dull embers
of which he was still earnestly blowing. To this would-be prophet
Bonaparte now suggested that the eastern conquests would furnish a
splendid field for the spread of the new faith; and La Réveillière was
forthwith converted from his scheme of revolutionizing Europe to the
grander sphere of moral proselytism opened out to him in the East by
the very chief who, on landing in Egypt, forthwith professed the
Moslem creed.
After gaining the doubtful assent of the Directory, Bonaparte had to
face urgent financial difficulties. The dearth of money was, however,
met by two opportune interventions. The first of these was in the
affairs of Rome. The disorders of the preceding year in that city had
culminated at Christmas in a riot in which General Duphot had been
assassinated; this outrage furnished the pretext desired by the
Directory for revolutionizing Central Italy. Berthier was at once
ordered to lead French troops against the Eternal City. He entered
without resistance (February 15th, 1798), declared the civil authority
of the Pope at an end, and proclaimed the _restoration_ of the Roman
Republic. The practical side of the liberating policy was soon
revealed. A second time the treasures of Rome, both artistic and
financial, were rifled; and, as Lucien Bonaparte caustically remarked
in his "Memoirs," the chief duty of the newly-appointed consuls and
quæstors was to superintend the packing up of pictures and statues
designed for Paris. Berthier not only laid the basis of a large
private fortune, but showed his sense of the object of the expedition
by sending large sums for the equipment of the armada at Toulon. "In
sending me to Rome," wrote Berthier to Bonaparte, "you appoint me
treasurer to the expedition against England. I will try to fill the
exchequer."
The intervention of the Directory in the affairs of Switzerland was
equally lucrative. The inhabitants of the district of Vaud, in their
struggles against the oppressive rule of the Bernese oligarchy, had
offered to the French Government the excuse for interference: and a
force invading that land, overpowered the levies of the central
cantons.[96] The imposition of a centralized form of government
modelled on that of France, the wresting of Geneva from this ancient
confederation, and its incorporation with France, were not the only
evils suffered by Switzerland. Despite the proclamation of General
Brune that the French came as friends to the descendants of William
Tell, and would respect their independence and their property, French
commissioners proceeded to rifle the treasuries of Berne, Zürich,
Solothurn, Fribourg, and Lucerne of sums which amounted in all to
eight and a half million francs; fifteen millions were extorted in
forced contributions and plunder, besides 130 cannon and 60,000
muskets which also became the spoils of the liberators.[97] The
destination of part of the treasure was already fixed; on April 13th
Bonaparte wrote an urgent letter to General Lannes, directing him to
expedite the transit of the booty to Toulon, where three million
francs were forthwith expended on the completion of the armada.
This letter, and also the testimony of Madame de Staël, Barras,
Bourrienne, and Mallet du Pan, show that he must have been a party to
this interference in Swiss affairs, which marks a debasement, not only
of Bonaparte's character, but of that of the French army and people.
It drew from Coleridge, who previously had seen in the Revolution the
dawn of a nobler era, an indignant protest against the prostitution of
the ideas of 1789:
"Oh France that mockest Heaven, adulterous, blind,
Are these thy boasts, champion of human kind?
To mix with Kings in the low lust of sway,
Yell in the hunt and join the murderous prey? ...
The sensual and the dark rebel in vain
Slaves by their own compulsion. In mad game
They burst their manacles: but wear the name
Of Freedom, graven on a heavier chain."
The occupation by French troops of the great central bastion of the
European system seemed a challenge, not only to idealists, but to
German potentates. It nearly precipitated a rupture with Vienna, where
the French tricolour had recently been torn down by an angry crowd.
But Bonaparte did his utmost to prevent a renewal of war that would
blight his eastern prospects; and he succeeded. One last trouble
remained. At his final visit to the Directory, when crossed about some
detail, he passionately threw up his command. Thereupon Rewbell, noted
for his incisive speech, drew up the form of resignation, and
presenting it to Bonaparte, firmly said, "Sign, citizen general." The
general did not sign, but retired from the meeting apparently
crestfallen, but really meditating a _coup d'état_. This last
statement rests on the evidence of Mathieu Dumas, who heard it
through General Desaix, a close friend of Bonaparte; and it is clear
from the narratives of Bourrienne, Barras, and Madame Junot that,
during his last days in Paris, the general was moody, preoccupied, and
fearful of being poisoned.
At last the time of preparation and suspense was at an end. The aims
of the expedition as officially defined by a secret decree on April
12th included the capture of Egypt and the exclusion of the English
from "all their possessions in the East to which the general can
come"; Bonaparte was also to have the isthmus of Suez cut through; to
"assure the _free and exclusive_ possession of the Red Sea to the
French Republic"; to improve the condition of the natives of Egypt,
and to cultivate good relations with the Grand Signior. Another secret
decree empowered Bonaparte to seize Malta. To these schemes he added
another of truly colossal dimensions. After conquering the East, he
would rouse the Greeks and other Christians of the East, overthrow the
Turks, seize Constantinople, and "take Europe in the rear."
Generous support was accorded to the _savants_ who were desirous of
exploring the artistic and literary treasures of Egypt and
Mesopotamia. It has been affirmed by the biographer of Monge that the
enthusiasm of this celebrated physicist first awakened Bonaparte's
desire for the eastern expedition; but this seems to have been
aroused earlier by Volney, who saw a good deal of Bonaparte in 1791.
In truth, the desire to wrest the secrets of learning from the
mysterious East seems always to have spurred on his keenly inquisitive
nature. During the winter months of 1797-8 he attended the chemical
lectures of the renowned Berthollet; and it was no perfunctory choice
which selected him for the place in the famous institute left vacant
by the exile of Carnot. The manner in which he now signed his orders
and proclamations--Member of the Institute, General in Chief of the
Army of the East--showed his determination to banish from the life of
France that affectation of boorish ignorance by which the Terrorists
had rendered themselves uniquely odious.
After long delays, caused by contrary winds, the armada set sail from
Toulon. Along with the convoys from Marseilles, Genoa, and Civita
Vecchia, it finally reached the grand total of 13 ships of the line, 7
frigates, several gunboats, and nearly 300 transports of various
sizes, conveying 35,000 troops. Admiral Brueys was the admiral, but
acting under Bonaparte. Of the generals whom the commander-in-chief
took with him, the highest in command were the divisional generals
Kléber, Desaix, Bon, Menou, Reynier, for the infantry: under them
served 14 generals, a few of whom, as Marmont, were to achieve a wider
fame. The cavalry was commanded by the stalwart mulatto, General
Alexandre Dumas, under whom served Leclerc, the husband of Pauline
Bonaparte, along with two men destined to world-wide renown, Murat and
Davoust. The artillery was commanded by Dommartin, the engineers by
Caffarelli: and the heroic Lannes was quarter-master general.
The armada appeared off Malta without meeting with any incident. This
island was held by the Knights of St. John, the last of those
companies of Christian warriors who had once waged war on the infidels
in Palestine. Their courage had evaporated in luxurious ease, and
their discipline was a prey to intestine schisms and to the intrigues
carried on with the French Knights of the Order. A French fleet had
appeared off Valetta in the month of March in the hope of effecting a
surprise; but the admiral, Brueys, judging the effort too hazardous,
sent an awkward explanation, which only served to throw the knights
into the arms of Russia. One of the chivalrous dreams of the Czar Paul
was that of spreading his influence in the Mediterranean by a treaty
with this Order. It gratified his crusading ardour and promised to
Russia a naval base for the partition of Turkey which was then being
discussed with Austria: to secure the control of the island, Russia
was about to expend 400,000 roubles, when Bonaparte anticipated
Muscovite designs by a prompt seizure.[98] An excuse was easily found
for a rupture with the Order: some companies of troops were
disembarked, and hostilities commenced.
Secure within their mighty walls, the knights might have held the
intruders at bay, had they not been divided by internal disputes: the
French knights refused to fight against their countrymen; and a revolt
of the native Maltese, long restless under the yoke of the Order, now
helped to bring the Grand Master to a surrender. The evidence of the
English consul, Mr. Williams, seems to show that the discontent of the
natives was even more potent than the influence of French gold in
bringing about this result.[99] At any rate, one of the strongest
places in Europe admitted a French garrison, after so tame a defence
that General Caffarelli, on viewing the fortifications, remarked to
Bonaparte: "Upon my word, general, it is lucky there was some one in
the town to open the gates to us."
During his stay of seven days at Malta, Bonaparte revealed the vigour
of those organizing powers for which the half of Europe was soon to
present all too small an arena. He abolished the Order, pensioning off
those French knights who had been serviceable: he abolished the
religious houses and confiscated their domains to the service of the
new government: he established a governmental commission acting under
a military governor: he continued provisionally the existing taxes,
and provided for the imposition of customs, excise, and octroi dues:
he prepared the way for the improvement of the streets, the erection
of fountains, the reorganization of the hospitals and the post
office. To the university he gave special attention, rearranging the
curriculum on the model of the more advanced _écoles centrales_ of
France, but inclining the studies severely to the exact sciences and
the useful arts. On all sides he left the imprint of his practical
mind, that viewed life as a game at chess, whence bishops and knights
were carefully banished, and wherein nothing was left but the heavy
pieces and subservient pawns.
After dragging Malta out of its mediaeval calm and plunging it into
the full swirl of modern progress, Bonaparte set sail for Egypt. His
exchequer was the richer by all the gold and silver, whether in
bullion or in vessels, discoverable in the treasury of Malta or in the
Church of St. John. Fortunately, the silver gates of this church had
been coloured over, and thus escaped the fate of the other
treasures.[100] On the voyage to Alexandria he studied the library of
books which he had requested Bourrienne to purchase for him. The
composition of this library is of interest as showing the strong trend
of his thoughts towards history, though at a later date he was careful
to limit its study in the university and schools which he founded. He
had with him 125 volumes of historical works, among which the
translations of Thucydides, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Livy represented
the life of the ancient world, while in modern life he concentrated
his attention chiefly on the manners and institutions of peoples and
the memoirs of great generals--as Turenne, Condé, Luxembourg, Saxe,
Marlborough, Eugène, and Charles XII. Of the poets he selected the
so-called Ossian, Tasso, Ariosto, Homer, Virgil, and the masterpieces
of the French theatre; but he especially affected the turgid and
declamatory style of Ossian. In romance, English literature was
strongly represented by forty volumes of novels, of course in
translations. Besides a few works on arts and sciences, he also had
with him twelve volumes of "Barclay's Geography," and three volumes of
"Cook's Voyages," which show that his thoughts extended to the
antipodes; and under the heading of Politics he included the Bible,
the Koran, the Vedas, a Mythology, and Montesquieu's "Esprit des
Lois"! The composition and classification of this library are equally
suggestive. Bonaparte carefully searched out the weak places of the
organism which he was about to attack--in the present campaign, Egypt
and the British Empire. The climate and natural products, the genius
of its writers and the spirit of its religion--nothing came amiss to
his voracious intellect, which assimilated the most diverse materials
and pressed them all into his service. Greek mythology provided
allusions for the adornment of his proclamations, the Koran would
dictate his behaviour towards the Moslems, and the Bible was to be his
guide-book concerning the Druses and Armenians. All three were
therefore grouped together under the head of Politics.
And this, on the whole, fairly well represents his mental attitude
towards religion: at least, it was his work-a-day attitude. There were
moments, it is true, when an overpowering sense of the majesty of the
universe lifted his whole being far above this petty opportunism: and
in those moments, which, in regard to the declaration of character,
may surely be held to counterbalance whole months spent in tactical
shifts and diplomatic wiles, he was capable of soaring to heights of
imaginative reverence. Such an episode, lighting up for us the
recesses of his mind, occurred during his voyage to Egypt. The
_savants_ on board his ship, "L'Orient," were discussing one of those
questions which Bonaparte often propounded, in order that, as arbiter
in this contest of wits, he might gauge their mental powers. Mental
dexterity, rather than the Socratic pursuit after truth, was the aim
of their dialectic; but on one occasion, when religion was being
discussed, Bonaparte sounded a deeper note: looking up into the
midnight vault of sky, he said to the philosophizing atheists: "Very
ingenious, sirs, but who made all that?" As a retort to the
tongue-fencers, what could be better? The appeal away from words to
the star-studded canopy was irresistible: it affords a signal proof of
what Carlyle has finely called his "instinct for nature" and his
"ineradicable feeling for reality." This probably was the true man,
lying deep under his Moslem shifts and Concordat bargainings.
That there was a tinge of superstition in Bonaparte's nature, such as
usually appears in gifted scions of a coast-dwelling family, cannot be
denied;[101] but his usual attitude towards religion was that of the
political mechanician, not of the devotee, and even while professing
the forms of fatalistic belief, he really subordinated them to his own
designs. To this profound calculation of the credulity of mankind we
may probably refer his allusions to his star. The present writer
regards it as almost certain that his star was invoked in order to
dazzle the vulgar herd. Indeed, if we may trust Miot de Melito, the
First Consul once confessed as much to a circle of friends. "Cæsar,"
he said, "was right to cite his good fortune and to appear to believe
in it. That is a means of acting on the imagination of others without
offending anyone's self-love." A strange admission this; what
boundless self-confidence it implies that he should have admitted the
trickery. The mere acknowledgment of it is a proof that he felt
himself so far above the plane of ordinary mortals that, despite the
disclosure, he himself would continue to be his own star. For the
rest, is it credible that this analyzing genius could ever have
seriously adopted the astrologer's creed? Is there anything in his
early note-books or later correspondence which warrants such a belief?
Do not all his references to his star occur in proclamations and
addresses intended for popular consumption?
Certainly Bonaparte's good fortune was conspicuous all through these
eastern adventures, and never more so than when he escaped the pursuit
of Nelson. The English admiral had divined his aim. Setting all sail,
he came almost within sight of the French force near Crete, and he
reached Alexandria barely two days before his foes hove in sight.
Finding no hostile force there, he doubled back on his course and
scoured the seas between Crete, Sicily, and the Morca, until news
received from a Turkish official again sent him eastwards. On such
trifles does the fate of empires sometimes depend.
Meanwhile events were crowding thick and fast upon Bonaparte. To free
himself from the terrible risks which had menaced his force off the
Egyptian coast, he landed his troops, 35,000 strong, with all possible
expedition at Marabout near Alexandria, and, directing his columns of
attack on the walls of that city, captured it by a rush (July 2nd).
For this seizure of neutral territory he offered no excuse other than
that the Beys, who were the real rulers of Egypt, had favoured English
commerce and were guilty of some outrages on French merchants. He
strove, however, to induce the Sultan of Turkey to believe that the
French invasion of Egypt was a friendly act, as it would overthrow the
power of the Mamelukes, who had reduced Turkish authority to a mere
shadow. This was the argument which he addressed to the Turkish
officials, but it proved to be too subtle even for the oriental mind
fully to appreciate. Bonaparte's chief concern was to win over the
subject population, which consisted of diverse races. At the surface
were the Mamelukes, a powerful military order, possessing a
magnificent cavalry, governed by two Beys, and scarcely recognizing
the vague suzerainty claimed by the Porte. The rivalries of the Beys,
Murad and Ibrahim, produced a fertile crop of discords in this
governing caste, and their feuds exposed the subject races, both Arabs
and Copts, to constant forays and exactions. It seemed possible,
therefore, to arouse them against the dominant caste, provided that
the Mohammedan scruples of the whole population were carefully
respected. To this end, the commander cautioned his troops to act
towards the Moslems as towards "Jews and Italians," and to respect
their muftis and imams as much as "rabbis and bishops." He also
proclaimed to the Egyptians his determination, while overthrowing
Mameluke tyranny, to respect the Moslem faith: "Have we not destroyed
the Pope, who bade men wage war on Moslems? Have we not destroyed the
Knights of Malta, because those fools believed it to be God's will to
war against Moslems?" The French soldiers were vastly amused by the
humour of these proceedings, and the liberated people fully
appreciated the menaces with which Bonaparte's proclamation closed,
backed up as these were by irresistible force.[102]
After arranging affairs at Alexandria, where the gallant Kléber was
left in command, Bonaparte ordered an advance into the interior.
Never, perhaps, did he show the value of swift offensive action more
decisively than in this prompt march on Damanhour across the desert.
The other route by way of Rosetta would have been easier; but, as it
was longer, he rejected it, and told off General Menou to capture that
city and support a flotilla of boats which was to ascend the Nile and
meet the army on its march to Cairo. On July 4th the first division of
the main force set forth by night into the desert south of Alexandria.
All was new and terrible; and, when the rays of the sun smote on their
weary backs, the murmurings of the troops grew loud. This, then, was
the land "more fertile than Lombardy," which was the goal of their
wanderings. "See, there are the six acres of land which you are
promised," exclaimed a waggish soldier to his comrade as they first
gazed from ship-board on the desert east of Alexandria; and all the
sense of discipline failed to keep this and other gibes from the ears
of staff officers even before they reached that city. Far worse was
their position now in the shifting sand of the desert, beset by
hovering Bedouins, stung by scorpions, and afflicted by intolerable
thirst. The Arabs had filled the scanty wells with stones, and only
after long toil could the sappers reach the precious fluid beneath.
Then the troops rushed and fought for the privilege of drinking a few
drops of muddy liquor. Thus they struggled on, the succeeding
divisions faring worst of all. Berthier, chief of the staff, relates
that a glass of water sold for its weight in gold. Even brave officers
abandoned themselves to transports of rage and despair which left them
completely prostrate.[103]
But Bonaparte flinched not. His stern composure offered the best
rebuke to such childish sallies; and when out of a murmuring group
there came the bold remark, "Well, General, are you going to take us
to India thus," he abashed the speaker and his comrades by the quick
retort, "No, I would not undertake that with such soldiers as you."
French honour, touched to the quick, reasserted itself even above the
torments of thirst; and the troops themselves, when they tardily
reached the Nile and slaked their thirst in its waters, recognized the
pre-eminence of his will and his profound confidence in their
endurance. French gaiety had not been wholly eclipsed even by the
miseries of the desert march. To cheer their drooping spirits the
commander had sent some of the staunchest generals along the line of
march. Among them was the gifted Caffarelli, who had lost a leg in the
Rhenish campaign: his reassuring words called forth the inimitable
retort from the ranks: "Ah! he don't care, not he: he has one leg in
France." Scarcely less witty was the soldier's description of the
prowling Bedouins, who cut off stragglers and plunderers, as "The
mounted highway police."
After brushing aside a charge of 800 Mamelukes at Chebreiss, the army
made its way up the banks of the Nile to Embabeh, opposite Cairo.
There the Mamelukes, led by the fighting Bey, Murad, had their
fortified camp; and there that superb cavalry prepared to overwhelm
the invaders in a whirlwind rush of horse (July 21st, 1798). The
occasion and the surroundings were such as to inspire both sides with
deperate resolution. It was the first fierce shock on land of eastern
chivalry and western enterprise since the days of St. Louis; and the
ardour of the republicans was scarcely less than that which had
kindled the soldiers of the cross. Beside the two armies rolled the
mysterious Nile; beyond glittered the slender minarets of Cairo; and
on the south there loomed the massy Pyramids. To the forty centuries
that had rolled over them, Bonaparte now appealed, in one of those
imaginative touches which ever brace the French nature to the utmost
tension of daring and endurance. Thus they advanced in close formation
towards the intrenched camp of the Mamelukes. The divisions on the
left at once rushed at its earthworks, silenced its feeble artillery,
and slaughtered the fellahin inside.
But the other divisions, now ranged in squares, while gazing at this
exploit, were assailed by the Mamelukes. From out the haze of the
mirage, or from behind the ridges of sand and the scrub of the
water-melon plants that dotted the plain, some 10,000 of these superb
horsemen suddenly appeared and rushed at the squares commanded by
Desaix and Reynier. Their richly caparisoned chargers, their waving
plumes, their wild battle-cries, and their marvellous skill with
carbine and sword, lent picturesqueness and terror to the charge.
Musketry and grapeshot mowed down their front coursers in ghastly
swathes; but the living mass swept on, wellnigh overwhelming the
fronts of the squares, and then, swerving aside, poured through the
deadly funnel between. Decimated here also by the steady fire of the
French files, and by the discharges of the rear face, they fell away
exhausted, leaving heaps of dead and dying on the fronts of the
squares, and in their very midst a score of their choicest cavaliers,
whose bravery and horsemanship had carried them to certain death
amidst the bayonets. The French now assumed the offensive, and
Desaix's division, threatening to cut off the retreat of Murad's
horsemen, led that wary chief to draw off his shattered squadrons;
others sought, though with terrible losses, to escape across the Nile
to Ibrahim's following. That chief had taken no share in the fight,
and now made off towards Syria. Such was the battle of the Pyramids,
which gained a colony at the cost of some thirty killed and about ten
times as many wounded: of the killed about twenty fell victims to the
cross fire of the two squares.[104]
After halting for a fortnight at Cairo to recruit his weary troops and
to arrange the affairs of his conquest, Bonaparte marched eastwards in
pursuit of Ibrahim and drove him into Syria, while Desaix waged an
arduous but successful campaign against Murad in Upper Egypt. But the
victors were soon to learn the uselessness of
merely military triumphs in Egypt. As Bonaparte returned to complete
the organization of the new colony, he heard that Nelson had destroyed
his fleet.
On July 3rd, before setting out from Alexandria, the French commander
gave an order to his admiral, though it must be added that its
authenticity is doubtful:
"The admiral will to-morrow acquaint the commander-in-chief by a
report whether the squadron can enter the port of Alexandria, or
whether, in Aboukir Roads, bringing its broadside to bear, it can
defend itself against the enemy's superior force; and in case both
these plans should be impracticable, he must sail for Corfu ...
leaving the light ships and the flotilla at Alexandria."
Brueys speedily discovered that the first plan was beset by grave
dangers: the entrance to the harbour of Alexandria, when sounded,
proved to be most difficult for large ships--such was his judgment and
that of Villeneuve and Casabianca--and the exit could be blocked by a
single English battleship. As regards the alternatives of Aboukir or
Corfu, Brueys went on to state: "My firm desire is to be useful to you
in every possible way: and, as I have already said, every post will
suit me well, provided that you placed me there in an active way." By
this rather ambiguous phrase it would seem that he scouted the
alternative of Corfu as consigning him to a degrading inactivity;
while at Aboukir he held that he could be actively useful in
protecting the rear of the army. In that bay he therefore anchored his
largest ships, trusting that the dangers of the approach would screen
him from any sudden attack, but making also special preparations in
case he should be compelled to fight at anchor.[105] His decision was
probably less sound than that of Bonaparte, who, while marching to
Cairo, and again during his sojourn there, ordered him to make for
Corfu or Toulon; for the general saw clearly that the French fleet,
riding in safety in those well-protected roadsteads, would really
dominate the Mediterranean better than in the open expanse of Aboukir.
But these orders did not reach the admiral before the blow fell; and
it is, after all, somewhat ungenerous to censure Brueys for his
decision to remain at Aboukir and risk a fight rather than comply with
the dictates of a prudent but inglorious strategy.
The British admiral, after sweeping the eastern Mediterranean, at last
found the French fleet in Aboukir Bay, about ten miles from the
Rosetta mouth of the Nile. It was anchored under the lee of a shoal
which would have prevented any ordinary admiral from attacking,
especially at sundown. But Nelson, knowing that the head ship of the
French was free to swing at anchor, rightly concluded that there must
be room for British ships to sail between Brueys' stationary line and
the shallows. The British captains thrust five ships between the
French and the shoal, while the others, passing down the enemy's line
on the seaward side, crushed it in detail; and, after a night of
carnage, the light of August 2nd dawned on a scene of destruction
unsurpassed in naval warfare. Two French ships of the line and two
frigates alone escaped: one, the gigantic "Orient," had blown up with
the spoils of Malta on board: the rest, eleven in number, were
captured or burnt.
To Bonaparte this disaster came as a bolt from the blue. Only two days
before, he had written from Cairo to Brueys that all the conduct of
the English made him believe them to be inferior in numbers and fully
satisfied with blockading Malta. Yet, in order to restore the _morale_
of his army, utterly depressed by this disaster, he affected a
confidence which he could no longer feel, and said: "Well! here we
must remain or achieve a grandeur like that of the ancients."[106] He
had recently assured his intimates that after routing the Beys' forces
he would return to France and strike a blow direct at England.
Whatever he may have designed, he was now a prisoner in his conquest.
His men, even some of his highest officers, as Berthier, Bessières,
Lannes, Murat, Dumas, and others, bitterly complained of their
miserable position. But the commander, whose spirits rose with
adversity, took effective means for repressing such discontent. To the
last-named, a powerful mulatto, he exclaimed: "You have held seditious
parleys: take care that I do not perform my duty: your six feet of
stature shall not save you from being shot": and he offered passports
for France to a few of the most discontented and useless officers,
well knowing that after Nelson's victory they could scarcely be used.
Others, again, out-Heroding Herod, suggested that the frigates and
transports at Alexandria should be taken to pieces and conveyed on
camels' backs to Suez, there to be used for the invasion of
India.[107]
The versatility of Bonaparte's genius was never more marked than at
this time of discouragement. While his enemies figured him and his
exhausted troops as vainly seeking to escape from those arid wastes;
while Nelson was landing the French prisoners in order to increase his
embarrassment about food, Bonaparte and his _savants_ were developing
constructive powers of the highest order, which made the army
independent of Europe. It was a vast undertaking. Deprived of most of
their treasure and many of their mechanical appliances by the loss of
the fleet, the _savants_ and engineers had, as it were, to start from
the beginning. Some strove to meet the difficulties of food-supply by
extending the cultivation of corn and rice, or by the construction of
large ovens and bakeries, or of windmills for grinding corn. Others
planted vineyards for the future, or sought to appease the ceaseless
thirst of the soldiery by the manufacture of a kind of native beer.
Foundries and workshops began, though slowly, to supply tools and
machines; the earth was rifled of her treasures, natron was wrought,
saltpetre works were established, and gunpowder was thereby procured
for the army with an energy which recalled the prodigies of activity
of 1793.
With his usual ardour in the cause of learning, Bonaparte several
times a week appeared in the chemical laboratory, or witnessed the
experiments performed by Berthollet and Monge. Desirous of giving
cohesion to the efforts of his _savants_, and of honouring not only
the useful arts but abstruse research, he united these pioneers of
science in a society termed the Institute of Egypt. On August 23rd,
1798, it was installed with much ceremony in the palace of one of the
Beys, Monge being president and Bonaparte vice-president. The general
also enrolled himself in the mathematical section of the institute.
Indeed, he sought by all possible means to aid the labours of the
_savants_, whose dissertations were now heard in the large hall of the
harem that formerly resounded only to the twanging of lutes, weary
jests, and idle laughter. The labours of the _savants_ were not
confined to Cairo and the Delta. As soon as the victories of Desaix
in Upper Egypt opened the middle reaches of the Nile to peaceful
research, the treasures of Memphis were revealed to the astonished
gaze of western learning. Many of the more portable relics were
transferred to Cairo, and thence to Rosetta or Alexandria, in order to
grace the museums of Paris. The _savants_ proposed, but sea-power
disposed, of these treasures. They are now, with few exceptions, in
the British Museum.
Apart from archæology, much was done to extend the bounds of learning.
Astronomy gained much by the observations of General Caffarelli. A
series of measurements was begun for an exact survey of Egypt: the
geologists and engineers examined the course of the Nile, recorded the
progress of alluvial deposits at its mouth or on its banks, and
therefrom calculated the antiquity of divers parts of the Delta. No
part of the great conqueror's career so aptly illustrates the truth of
his noble words to the magistrates of the Ligurian Republic: "The true
conquests, the only conquests which cost no regrets, are those
achieved over ignorance."
Such, in brief outline, is the story of the renascence in Egypt. The
mother-land of science and learning, after a wellnigh barren interval
of 1,100 years since the Arab conquest, was now developed and
illumined by the application of the arts with which in the dim past
she had enriched the life of barbarous Europe. The repayment of this
incalculable debt was due primarily to the enterprise of Bonaparte. It
is one of his many titles to fame and to the homage of posterity. How
poor by the side of this encyclopaedic genius are the gifts even of
his most brilliant foes! At that same time the Archduke Charles of
Austria was vegetating in inglorious ease on his estates. As for
Beaulieu and Würmser, they had subsided into their native obscurity.
Nelson, after his recent triumph, persuading himself that "Bonaparte
had gone to the devil," was bending before the whims of a professional
beauty and the odious despotism of the worst Court in Europe. While
the admiral tarnished his fame on the Syren coast of Naples, his great
opponent bent all the resources of a fertile intellect to retrieve his
position, and even under the gloom of disaster threw a gleam of light
into the dark continent. While his adversaries were merely generals or
admirals, hampered by a stupid education and a narrow nationality,
Bonaparte had eagerly imbibed the new learning of his age and saw its
possible influence on the reorganization of society. He is not merely
a general. Even when he is scattering to the winds the proud chivalry
of the East, and is prescribing to Brueys his safest course of action,
he finds time vastly to expand the horizon of human knowledge.
Nor did he neglect Egyptian politics. He used a native council for
consultation and for the promulgation of his own ideas. Immediately
after his entry into Cairo he appointed nine sheikhs to form a divan,
or council, consulting daily on public order and the food-supplies of
the city. He next assembled a general divan for Egypt, and a smaller
council for each province, and asked their advice concerning the
administration of justice and the collection of taxes.[108] In its use
of oriental terminology, this scheme was undeniably clever; but
neither French, Arabs, nor Turks were deceived as to the real
government, which resided entirely in Bonaparte; and his skill in
reapportioning the imposts had some effect on the prosperity of the
land, enabling it to bear the drain of his constant requisitions. The
welfare of the new colony was also promoted by the foundation of a
mint and of an Egyptian Commercial Company.
His inventive genius was by no means exhausted by these varied toils.
On his journey to Suez he met a camel caravan in the desert, and
noticing the speed of the animals, he determined to form a camel
corps; and in the first month of 1799 the experiment was made with
such success that admission into the ranks of the camelry came to be
viewed as a favour. Each animal carried two men with their arms and
baggage: the uniform was sky-blue with a white turban; and the speed
and precision of their movements enabled them to deal terrible blows,
even at distant tribes of Bedouins, who bent before a genius that
could outwit them even in their own deserts.
The pleasures of his officers and men were also met by the opening of
the Tivoli Gardens; and there, in sight of the Pyramids, the life of
the Palais Royal took root: the glasses clinked, the dice rattled, and
heads reeled to the lascivious movements of the eastern dance; and
Bonaparte himself indulged a passing passion for the wife of one of
his officers, with an openness that brought on him a rebuke from his
stepson, Eugène Beauharnais. But already he had been rendered
desperate by reports of the unfaithfulness of Josephine at Paris; the
news wrung from him this pathetic letter to his brother Joseph--the
death-cry of his long drooping idealism:
"I have much to worry me privately, for the veil is entirely torn
aside. You alone remain to me; your affection is very dear to me:
nothing more remains to make me a misanthrope than to lose her and
see you betray me.... Buy a country seat against my return, either
near Paris or in Burgundy. I need solitude and isolation: grandeur
wearies me: the fount of feeling is dried up: glory itself is
insipid. At twenty-nine years of age I have exhausted everything.
It only remains to me to become a thorough egoist."[109]
Many rumours were circulated as to Bonaparte's public appearance in
oriental costume and his presence at a religious service in a mosque.
It is even stated by Thiers that at one of the chief festivals he
repaired to the great mosque, repeated the prayers like a true Moslem,
crossing his legs and swaying his body to and fro, so that he "edified
the believers by his orthodox piety." But the whole incident, however
attractive scenically and in point of humour, seems to be no better
authenticated than the religious results about which the historian
cherished so hopeful a belief. The truth seems to be that the general
went to the celebration of the birth of the Prophet as an interested
spectator, at the house of the sheik, El Bekri. Some hundred sheikhs
were there present: they swayed their bodies to and fro while the
story of Mahomet's life was recited; and Bonaparte afterwards partook
of an oriental repast. But he never forgot his dignity so far as
publicly to appear in a turban and loose trousers, which he donned
only once for the amusement of his staff.[110] That he endeavoured to
pose as a Moslem is beyond doubt. Witness his endeavour to convince
the imams at Cairo of his desire to conform to their faith. If we may
believe that dubious compilation, "A Voice from St. Helena," he bade
them consult together as to the possibility of admission of men, who
were not circumcised and did not abstain from wine, into the true
fold. As to the latter disability, he stated that the French were poor
cold people, inhabitants of the north, who could not exist without
wine. For a long time the imams demurred to this plea, which involved
greater difficulties than the question of circumcision: but after long
consultations they decided that both objections might be waived in
consideration of a superabundance of good works. The reply was
prompted by an irony no less subtle than that which accompanied the
claim, and neither side was deceived in this contest of wits.
A rude awakening soon came. For some few days there had been rumours
that the division under Desaix which was fighting the Mamelukes in
Upper Egypt had been engulfed in those sandy wastes; and this report
fanned to a flame the latent hostility against the unbelievers. From
many minarets of Cairo a summons to arms took the place of the
customary call to prayer: and on October 21st the French garrison was
so fiercely and suddenly attacked as to leave the issue doubtful.
Discipline and grapeshot finally prevailed, whereupon a repression of
oriental ferocity cowed the spirits of the townsfolk and of the
neighbouring country. Forts were constructed in Cairo and at all the
strategic points along the lower Nile, and Egypt seemed to be
conquered.
Feeling sure now of his hold on the populace, Bonaparte, at the close
of the year, undertook a journey to Suez and the Sinaitic peninsula.
It offered that combination of utility and romance which ever appealed
to him. At Suez he sought to revivify commerce by lightening the
customs' dues, by founding a branch of his Egyptian commercial
company, and by graciously receiving a deputation of the Arabs of Tor
who came to sue for his friendship.[111] Then, journeying on, he
visited the fountains of Moses; but it is not true that (as stated by
Lanfrey) he proceeded to Mount Sinai and signed his name in the
register of the monastery side by side with that of Mahomet. On his
return to the isthmus he is said to have narrowly escaped from the
rising tide of the Red Sea. If we may credit Savary, who was not of
the party, its safety was due to the address of the commander, who, as
darkness fell on the bewildered band, arranged his horsemen in files,
until the higher causeway of the path was again discovered. North of
Suez the traces of the canal dug by Sesostris revealed themselves to
the trained eye of the commander. The observations of his engineers
confirmed his conjecture, but the vast labour of reconstruction
forbade any attempt to construct a maritime canal. On his return to
Cairo he wrote to the Imam of Muscat, assuring him of his friendship
and begging him to forward to Tippoo Sahib a letter offering alliance
and deliverance from "the iron yoke of England," and stating that the
French had arrived on the shores of the Red Sea "with a numerous and
invincible army." The letter was intercepted by a British cruiser; and
the alarm caused by these vast designs only served to spur on our
forces to efforts which cost Tippoo his life and the French most of
their Indian settlements.
* * * * *
CHAPTER IX
SYRIA
Meanwhile Turkey had declared war on France, and was sending an army
through Syria for the recovery of Egypt, while another expedition was
assembling at Rhodes. Like all great captains, Bonaparte was never
content with the defensive: his convictions and his pugnacious
instincts alike urged him to give rather than to receive the blow; and
he argued that he could attack and destroy the Syrian force before the
cessation of the winter's gales would allow the other Turkish
expedition to attempt a disembarkation at Aboukir. If he waited in
Egypt, he might have to meet the two attacks at once, whereas, if he
struck at Jaffa and Acre, he would rid himself of the chief mass of
his foes. Besides, as he explained in his letter of February 10th,
1799, to the Directors, his seizure of those towns would rob the
English fleet of its base of supplies and thereby cripple its
activities off the coast of Egypt. So far, his reasons for the Syrian
campaign are intelligible and sound. But he also gave out that,
leaving Desaix and his Ethiopian supernumeraries to defend Egypt, he
himself would accomplish the conquest of Syria and the East: he would
raise in revolt the Christians of the Lebanon and Armenia, overthrow
the Turkish power in Asia, and then march either on Constantinople or
Delhi.
It is difficult to take this quite seriously, considering that he had
only 12,000 men available for these adventures; and with anyone but
Bonaparte they might be dismissed as utterly Quixotic. But in his case
we must seek for some practical purpose; for he never divorced fancy
from fact, and in his best days imagination was the hand-maid of
politics and strategy rather than the mistress. Probably these
gorgeous visions were bodied forth so as to inspirit the soldiery and
enthrall the imagination of France. He had already proved the immense
power of imagination over that susceptible people. In one sense, his
whole expedition was but a picturesque drama; and an imposing climax
could now be found in the plan of an Eastern Empire, that opened up
dazzling vistas of glory and veiled his figure in a grandiose mirage,
beside which the civilian Directors were dwarfed into ridiculous
puppets.
If these vast schemes are to be taken seriously, another explanation
of them is possible, namely, that he relied on the example set by
Alexander the Great, who with a small but highly-trained army had
shattered the stately dominions of the East. If Bonaparte trusted to
this precedent, he erred. True, Alexander began his enterprise with a
comparatively small force: but at least he had a sure base of
operations, and his army in Thessaly was strong enough to prevent
Athens from exchanging her sullen but passive hostility for an
offensive that would endanger his communications by sea. The Athenian
fleet was therefore never the danger to the Macedonians that Nelson
and Sir Sidney Smith were to Bonaparte. Since the French armada
weighed anchor at Toulon, Britain's position had became vastly
stronger. Nelson was lord of the Mediterranean: the revolt in Ireland
had completely failed: a coalition against France was being formed;
and it was therefore certain that the force in Egypt could not be
materially strengthened. Bonaparte did not as yet know the full extent
of his country's danger; but the mere fact that he would have to bear
the pressure of England's naval supremacy along the Syrian coast
should have dispelled any notion that he could rival the exploits of
Alexander and become Emperor of the East.[112]
From conjectures about motives we turn to facts. Setting forth early
in February, the French captured most of the Turkish advanced guard at
the fort of El Arisch, but sent their captives away on condition of
not bearing arms against France for at least one year. The victors
then marched on Jaffa, and, in spite of a spirited defence, took it
by storm (March 7th). Flushed with their triumph over a cruel and
detested foe, the soldiers were giving up the city to pillage and
massacre, when two aides-de-camp promised quarter to a large body of
the defenders, who had sought refuge in a large caravanserai; and
their lives were grudgingly spared by the victors. Bonaparte
vehemently reproached his aides-de-camp for their ill-timed clemency.
What could he now do with these 2,500 or 3,000 prisoners? They could
not be trusted to serve with the French; besides, the provisions
scarcely sufficed for Bonaparte's own men, who began to complain
loudly at sharing any with Turks and Albanians. They could not be sent
away to Egypt, there to spread discontent: and only 300 Egyptians were
so sent away.[113] Finally, on the demand of his generals and troops,
the remaining prisoners were shot down on the seashore. There is,
however, no warrant for the malicious assertion that Bonaparte readily
gave the fatal order. On the contrary, he delayed it for three days,
until the growing difficulties and the loud complaints of his soldiers
wrung it from him as a last resort.
Moreover, several of the victims had already fought against him at El
Arisch, and had violated their promise that they would fight no more
against the French in that campaign. M. Lanfrey's assertion that there
is no evidence for the identification is untenable, in view of a
document which I have discovered in the Records of the British
Admiralty. Inclosed with Sir Sidney Smith's despatches is one from the
secretary of Gezzar, dated Acre, March 1st, 1799, in which the Pacha
urgently entreats the British commodore to come to his help, because
his (Gezzar's) troops had failed to hold El Arisch, and the _same
troops_ had also abandoned Gaza and were in great dread of the French
at Jaffa. Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at
Jaffa is perhaps defensible; and Bonaparte's reluctant assent
contrasts favourably with the conduct of many commanders in similar
cases. Perhaps an episode like that at Jaffa is not without its uses
in opening the eyes of mankind to the ghastly shifts by which military
glory may have to be won. The alternative to the massacre was the
detaching of a French battalion to conduct their prisoners to Egypt.
As that would seriously have weakened the little army, the prisoners
were shot.
A deadlier foe was now to be faced. Already at El Arisch a few cases
of the plague had appeared in Kléber's division, which had come from
Rosetta and Damietta; and the relics of the retreating Mameluke and
Turkish forces seem also to have bequeathed that disease as a fatal
legacy to their pursuers. After Jaffa the malady attacked most
battalions of the army; and it may have quickened Bonaparte's march
towards Acre. Certain it is that he rejected Kléber's advice to
advance inland towards Nablus, the ancient Shechem, and from that
commanding centre to dominate Palestine and defy the power of
Gezzar.[114]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE FROM A CONTEMPORARY SKETCH]
Always prompt to strike at the heart, the commander-in-chief
determined to march straight on Acre, where that notorious Turkish
pacha sat intrenched behind weak walls and the ramparts of terror
which his calculating ferocity had reared around him. Ever since the
age of the Crusades that seaport had been the chief place of arms of
Palestine; but the harbour was now nearly silted up, and even the
neighbouring roadstead of Hayfa was desolate. The fortress was
formidable only to orientals. In his work, "Les Ruines," Volney had
remarked about Acre: "Through all this part of Asia bastions, lines of
defence, covered ways, ramparts, and in short everything relating to
modern fortification are utterly unknown; and a single thirty-gun
frigate would easily bombard and lay in ruins the whole coast." This
judgment of his former friend undoubtedly lulled Bonaparte into
illusory confidence, and the rank and file after their success at
Jaffa expected an easy triumph at Acre.
This would doubtless have happened but for British help. Captain
Miller, of H.M.S. "Theseus," thus reported on the condition of Acre
before Sir Sidney Smith's arrival:
"I found almost every embrasure empty except those towards the sea.
Many years' collection of the dirt of the town thrown in such a
situation as completely covered the approach to the gate from the
only guns that could flank it and from the sea ... none of their
batteries have casemates, traverses, or splinter-proofs: they have
many guns, but generally small and defective--the carriages in
general so." [115]
Captain Miller's energy made good some of these defects; but the place
was still lamentably weak when, on March 15th, Sir Sidney Smith
arrived. The English squadron in the east of the Mediterranean had,
to Nelson's chagrin, been confided to the command of this ardent young
officer, who now had the good fortune to capture off the promontory of
Mount Carmel seven French vessels containing Bonaparte's siege-train.
This event had a decisive influence on the fortunes of the siege and
of the whole campaign. The French cannon were now hastily mounted on
the very walls that they had been intended to breach; while the gun
vessels reinforced the two English frigates, and were ready to pour a
searching fire on the assailants in their trenches or as they rushed
against the walls. These had also been hastily strengthened under the
direction of a French royalist officer named Phélippeaux, an old
schoolfellow of Bonaparte, and later on a comrade of Sidney Smith,
alike in his imprisonment and in his escape from the clutches of the
revolutionists. Sharing the lot of the adventurous young seaman,
Phélippeaux sailed to the Levant, and now brought to the defence of
Acre the science of a skilled engineer. Bravely seconded by British
officers and seamen, he sought to repair the breach effected by the
French field-pieces, and constructed at the most exposed points inner
defences, before which the most obstinate efforts of the storming
parties melted away. Nine times did the assailants advance against the
breaches with the confidence born of unfailing success and redoubled
by the gaze of their great commander; but as often were they beaten
back by the obstinate bravery of the British seamen and Turks.
The monotony was once relieved by a quaint incident. In the course of
a correspondence with Bonaparte, Sir Sidney Smith is said to have
shown his annoyance by sending him a challenge to a duel. It met with
the very proper reply that he would fight, if the English would send
out _a Marlborough_.
During these desperate conflicts Bonaparte detached a considerable
number of troops inland to beat off a large Turkish and Mameluke force
destined for the relief of Acre and the invasion of Egypt. The first
encounter was near Nazareth, where Junot displayed the dash and
resource which had brought him fame in Italy; but the decisive battle
was fought in the Plain of Esdraëlon, not far from the base of Mount
Tabor. There Kléber's division of 2,000 men was for some hours hard
pressed by a motley array of horse and foot drawn from diverse parts
of the Sultan's dominions. The heroism of the burly Alsacian and the
toughness of his men barely kept off the fierce rushes of the Moslem
horse and foot. At last Bonaparte's cannon were heard. The chief,
marching swiftly on with his troops drawn up in three squares,
speedily brushed aside the enveloping clouds of orientals; finally, by
well-combined efforts the French hurled back the enemy on passes, some
of which had been seized by the commander's prescience. At the close
of this memorable day (April 15th) an army of nearly 30,000 men was
completely routed and dispersed by the valour and skilful dispositions
of two divisions which together amounted to less than a seventh of
that number. No battle of modern times more closely resembles the
exploits of Alexander than this masterly concentration of force; and
possibly some memory of this may have prompted the words of
Kléber--"General, how great you are!"--as he met and embraced his
commander on the field of battle. Bonaparte and his staff spent the
night at the Convent of Nazareth; and when his officers burst out
laughing at the story told by the Prior of the breaking of a pillar by
the angel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, their untimely
levity was promptly checked by the frown of the commander.
The triumph seemed to decide the Christians of the Lebanon to ally
themselves with Bonaparte, and they secretly covenanted to furnish
12,000 troops at his cost; but this question ultimately depended on
the siege of Acre. On rejoining their comrades before Acre, the
victors found that the siege had made little progress: for a time the
besiegers relied on mining operations, but with little success; though
Phélippeaux succumbed to a sunstroke (May 1st), his place was filled
by Colonel Douglas, who foiled the efforts of the French engineers
and enabled the place to hold out till the advent of the long-expected
Turkish succours. On May 7th their sails were visible far out on an
almost windless sea. At once Bonaparte made desperate efforts to carry
the "mud-hole" by storm. Led with reckless gallantry by the heroic
Lannes, his troops gained part of the wall and planted the tricolour
on the north-east tower; but all further progress was checked by
English blue-jackets, whom the commodore poured into the town; and the
Turkish reinforcements, wafted landwards by a favouring breeze, were
landed in time to wrest the ramparts from the assailants' grip. On the
following day an assault was again attempted: from the English ships
Bonaparte could be clearly seen on Richard Coeur de Lion's mound
urging on the French; but though, under Lannes' leadership, they
penetrated to the garden of Gezzar's seraglio, they fell in heaps
under the bullets, pikes, and scimitars of the defenders, and few
returned alive to the camp. Lannes himself was dangerously wounded,
and saved only by the devotion of an officer.
Both sides were now worn out by this extraordinary siege. "This town
is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art;
but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended"--so
wrote Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson on May 9th. But a fell influence was
working against the besiegers; as the season advanced, they succumbed
more and more to the ravages of the plague; and, after failing again
on May 10th, many of their battalions refused to advance to the breach
over the putrid remains of their comrades. Finally, Bonaparte, after
clinging to his enterprise with desperate tenacity, on the night of
May 20th gave orders to retreat.
This siege of nine weeks' duration had cost him severe losses, among
them being Generals Caffarelli and Bon: but worst of all was the loss
of that reputation for invincibility which he had hitherto enjoyed.
His defeat at Caldiero, near Verona, in 1796 had been officially
converted into a victory: but Acre could not be termed anything but a
reverse. In vain did the commander and his staff proclaim that, after
dispersing the Turks at Mount Tabor, the capture of Acre was
superfluous; his desperate efforts in the early part of May revealed
the hollowness of his words. There were, it is true, solid reasons for
his retreat. He had just heard of the breaking out of the war of the
Second Coalition against France; and revolts in Egypt also demanded
his presence.[116] But these last events furnished a damning
commentary on his whole Syrian enterprise, which had led to a
dangerous diffusion of the French forces. And for what? For the
conquest of Constantinople or of India? That dream seems to have
haunted Bonaparte's brain even down to the close of the siege of Acre.
During the siege, and later, he was heard to inveigh against "the
miserable little hole" which had come between him and his destiny--the
Empire of the East; and it is possible that ideas which he may at
first have set forth in order to dazzle his comrades came finally to
master his whole being. Certainly the words just quoted betoken a
quite abnormal wilfulness as well as a peculiarly subjective notion of
fatalism. His "destiny" was to be mapped out by his own prescience,
decided by his own will, gripped by his own powers. Such fatalism had
nothing in common with the sombre creed of the East: it was merely an
excess of individualism: it was the matured expression of that feature
of his character, curiously dominant even in childhood, that _what he
wanted he must of necessity have_. How strange that this imperious
obstinacy, this sublimation of western willpower, should not have been
tamed even by the overmastering might of Nature in the Orient!
As for the Empire of the East, the declared hostility of the tribes
around Nablus had shown how futile were Bonaparte's efforts to win
over Moslems: and his earlier Moslem proclamations were skilfully
distributed by Sir Sidney Smith among the Christians of Syria, and
served partly to neutralize the efforts which Bonaparte made to win
them over.[117] Vain indeed was the effort to conciliate the Moslems
in Egypt, and yet in Syria to arouse the Christians against the
Commander of the Faithful. Such religious opportunism smacked of the
Parisian boulevards: it utterly ignored the tenacity of belief of the
East, where the creed is the very life. The outcome of all that
_finesse_ was seen in the closing days of the siege and during the
retreat towards Jaffa, when the tribes of the Lebanon and of the
Nablus district watched like vultures on the hills and swooped down on
the retreating columns. The pain of disillusionment, added to his
sympathy with the sick and wounded, once broke down Bonaparte's
nerves. Having ordered all horsemen to dismount so that there might be
sufficient transport for the sick and maimed, the commander was asked
by an equerry which horse he reserved for his own use. "Did you not
hear the order," he retorted, striking the man with his whip,
"everyone on foot." Rarely did this great man mar a noble action by
harsh treatment: the incident sufficiently reveals the tension of
feelings, always keen, and now overwrought by physical suffering and
mental disappointment.
There was indeed much to exasperate him. At Acre he had lost nearly
5,000 men in killed, wounded, and plague-stricken, though he falsely
reported to the Directory that his losses during the whole expedition
did not exceed 1,500 men: and during the terrible retreat to Jaffa he
was shocked, not only by occasional suicides of soldiers in his
presence, but by the utter callousness of officers and men to the
claims of the sick and wounded. It was as a rebuke to this inhumanity
that he ordered all to march on foot, and his authority seems even to
have been exerted to prevent some attempts at poisoning the
plague-stricken. The narrative of J. Miot, commissary of the army,
shows that these suggestions originated among the soldiery at Acre
when threatened with the toil of transporting those unfortunates back
to Egypt; and, as his testimony is generally adverse to Bonaparte, and
he mentions the same horrible device, when speaking of the hospitals
at Jaffa, as a camp rumour, it may be regarded as scarcely worthy of
credence.[118]
Undoubtedly the scenes were heartrending at Jaffa; and it has been
generally believed that the victims of the plague were then and there
put out of their miseries by large doses of opium. Certainly the
hospitals were crowded with wounded and victims of the plague; but
during the seven days' halt at that town adequate measures were taken
by the chief medical officers, Desgenettes and Larrey, for their
transport to Egypt. More than a thousand were sent away on ships,
seven of which were fortunately present; and 800 were conveyed to
Egypt in carts or litters across the desert.[119] Another fact
suffices to refute the slander mentioned above. From the despatch of
Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson of May 30th, 1799, it appears that, when
the English commodore touched at Jaffa, he found some of the abandoned
ones _still alive_: "We have found seven poor fellows in the hospital
and will take care of them." He also supplied the French ships
conveying the wounded with water, provisions, and stores, of which
they were much in need, and allowed them to proceed to their
destination. It is true that the evidence of Las Cases at St. Helena,
eagerly cited by Lanfrey, seems to show that some of the worst cases
in the Jaffa hospitals were got rid of by opium; but the admission by
Napoleon that the administering of opium was justifiable occurred in
one of those casuistical discussions which turn, not on facts, but on
motives. Conclusions drawn from such conversations, sixteen years or
more after the supposed occurrence, must in any case give ground
before the evidence of contemporaries, which proves that every care
was taken of the sick and wounded, that the proposals of poisoning
first came from the soldiery, that Napoleon both before and after
Jaffa set the noble example of marching on foot so that there might be
sufficiency of transport, that nearly all the unfortunates arrived in
Egypt and in fair condition, and that seven survivors were found alive
at Jaffa by English officers.[120]
The remaining episodes of the Eastern Expedition may be briefly
dismissed. After a painful desert march the army returned to Egypt in
June; and, on July 25th, under the lead of Murat and Lannes, drove
into the sea a large force of Turks which had effected a landing in
Aboukir Bay. Bonaparte was now weary of gaining triumphs over foes
whom he and his soldiers despised. While in this state of mind, he
received from Sir Sidney Smith a packet of English and German
newspapers giving news up to June 6th, which brought him quickly to a
decision. The formation of a powerful coalition, the loss of Italy,
defeats on the Rhine, and the schisms, disgust, and despair prevalent
in France--all drew his imagination westwards away from the illusory
Orient; and he determined to leave his army to the care of Kléber and
sail to France.
The morality of this step has been keenly discussed. The rank and
file of the army seem to have regarded it as little less than
desertion,[121] and the predominance of personal motives in this
important decision can scarcely be denied. His private aim in
undertaking the Eastern Expedition, that of dazzling the imagination
of the French people and of exhibiting the incapacity of the
Directory, had been abundantly realized. His eastern enterprise had
now shrunk to practical and prosaic dimensions, namely, the
consolidation of French power in Egypt. Yet, as will appear in later
chapters, he did not give up his oriental schemes; though at St.
Helena he once oddly spoke of the Egyptian expedition as an "exhausted
enterprise," it is clear that he worked hard to keep his colony. The
career of Alexander had for him a charm that even the conquests of
Cæsar could not rival; and at the height of his European triumphs, the
hero of Austerlitz was heard to murmur: "J'ai manqué à ma fortune à
Saint-Jean d'Acre."[122]
In defence of his sudden return it may be urged that he had more than
once promised the Directory that his stay in Egypt would not exceed
five months; and there can be no doubt that now, as always, he had an
alternative plan before him in case of failure or incomplete success
in the East. To this alternative he now turned with that swiftness and
fertility of resource which astonished both friends and foes in
countless battles and at many political crises.
It has been stated by Lanfrey that his appointment of Kléber to
succeed him was dictated by political and personal hostility; but it
may more naturally be considered a tribute to his abilities as a
general and to his influence over the soldiery, which was only second
to that of Bonaparte and Desaix. He also promised to send him speedy
succour; and as there seemed to be a probability of France regaining
her naval supremacy in the Mediterranean by the union of the fleet of
Bruix with that of Spain, he might well hope to send ample
reinforcements. He probably did not know the actual facts of the case,
that in July Bruix tamely followed the Spanish squadron to Cadiz, and
that the Directory had ordered Bruix to withdraw the French army from
Egypt. But, arguing from the facts as known to him, Bonaparte might
well believe that the difficulties of France would be fully met by his
own return, and that Egypt could be held with ease. The duty of a
great commander is to be at the post of greatest danger, and that was
now on the banks of the Rhine or Mincio.
The advent of a south-east wind, a rare event there at that season of
the year, led him hastily to embark at Alexandria in the night of
August 22nd-23rd. His two frigates bore with him some of the greatest
sons of France; his chief of the staff, Berthier, whose ardent love
for Madame Visconti had been repressed by his reluctant determination
to share the fortunes of his chief; Lannes and Murat, both recently
wounded, but covered with glory by their exploits in Syria and at
Aboukir; his friend Marmont, as well as Duroc, Andréossi, Bessières,
Lavalette, Admiral Gantheaume, Monge, and Berthollet, his secretary
Bourrienne, and the traveller Denon. He also left orders that Desaix,
who had been in charge of Upper Egypt, should soon return to France,
so that the rivalry between him and Kléber might not distract French
councils in Egypt. There seems little ground for the assertion that he
selected for return his favourites and men likely to be politically
serviceable to him. If he left behind the ardently republican Kléber,
he also left his old friend Junot: if he brought back Berthier and
Marmont, he also ordered the return of the almost Jacobinical Desaix.
Sir Sidney Smith having gone to Cyprus for repairs, Bonaparte slipped
out unmolested. By great good fortune his frigates eluded the English
ships cruising between Malta and Cape Bon, and after a brief stay at
Ajaccio, he and his comrades landed at Fréjus (October 9th). So great
was the enthusiasm of the people that, despite all the quarantine
regulations, they escorted the party to shore. "We prefer the plague
to the Austrians," they exclaimed; and this feeling but feebly
expressed the emotion of France at the return of the Conqueror of the
East.
And yet he found no domestic happiness. Josephine's _liaison_ with a
young officer, M. Charles, had become notorious owing to his prolonged
visits to her country house, La Malmaison. Alarmed at her husband's
return, she now hurried to meet him, but missed him on the way; while
he, finding his home at Paris empty, raged at her infidelity, refused
to see her on her return, and declared he would divorce her. From this
he was turned by the prayers of Eugène and Hortense Beauharnais, and
the tears of Josephine herself. A reconciliation took place; but there
was no reunion of hearts, and Mme. Reinhard echoed the feeling of
respectable society when she wrote that he should have divorced her
outright. Thenceforth he lived for Glory alone.
* * * * *
CHAPTER X
BRUMAIRE
Rarely has France been in a more distracted state than in the summer
of 1799. Royalist revolts in the west and south rent the national
life. The religious schism was unhealed; education was at a
standstill; commerce had been swept from the seas by the British
fleets; and trade with Italy and Germany was cut off by the war of
the Second Coalition.
The formation of this league between Russia, Austria, England, Naples,
Portugal, and Turkey was in the main the outcome of the alarm and
indignation aroused by the reckless conduct of the Directory, which
overthrew the Bourbons at Naples, erected the Parthenopæan Republic,
and compelled the King of Sardinia to abdicate at Turin and retire to
his island. Russia and Austria took a leading part in forming the
Coalition. Great Britain, ever hampered by her inept army
organization, offered to supply money in place of the troops which she
could not properly equip.
But under the cloak of legitimacy the monarchical Powers harboured
their own selfish designs. This Nessus' cloak of the First Coalition
soon galled the limbs of the allies and rendered them incapable of
sustained and vigorous action. Yet they gained signal successes over
the raw conscripts of France. In July, 1799, the Austro-Russian army
captured Mantua and Alessandria; and in the following month Suvoroff
gained the decisive victory of Novi and drove the remains of the
French forces towards Genoa. The next months were far more favourable
to the tricolour flag, for, owing to Austro-Russian jealousies,
Masséna was able to gain an important victory at Zurich over a Russian
army. In the north the republicans were also in the end successful.
Ten days after Bonaparte's arrival at Fréjus, they compelled an
Anglo-Russian force campaigning in Holland to the capitulation of
Alkmaar, whereby the Duke of York agreed to withdraw all his troops
from that coast. Disgusted by the conduct of his allies, the Czar Paul
withdrew his troops from any active share in the operations by land,
thenceforth concentrating his efforts on the acquisition of Corsica,
Malta, and posts of vantage in the Adriatic. These designs, which were
well known to the British Government, served to hamper our naval
strength in those seas, and to fetter the action of the Austrian arms
in Northern Italy.[123]
Yet, though the schisms of the allies finally yielded a victory to the
French in the campaigns of 1799, the position of the Republic was
precarious. The danger was rather internal than external. It arose
from embarrassed finances, from the civil war that burst out with new
violence in the north-west, and, above all, from a sense of the
supreme difficulty of attaining political stability and of reconciling
liberty with order. The struggle between the executive and legislative
powers which had been rudely settled by the _coup d'état_ of
Fructidor, had been postponed, not solved. Public opinion was speedily
ruffled by the Jacobinical violence which ensued. The stifling of
liberty of the press and the curtailment of the right of public
meeting served only to instill new energy into the party of resistance
in the elective Councils, and to undermine a republican government
that relied on Venetian methods of rule. Reviewing the events of those
days, Madame de Staël finely remarked that only the free consent of
the people could breathe life into political institutions; and that
the monstrous system of guaranteeing freedom by despotic means served
only to manufacture governments that had to be wound up at intervals
lest they should stop dead.[124] Such a sarcasm, coming from the
gifted lady who had aided and abetted the stroke of Fructidor, shows
how far that event had falsified the hopes of the sincerest friends of
the Revolution. Events were therefore now favourable to a return from
the methods of Rousseau to those of Richelieu; and the genius who was
skilfully to adapt republicanism to autocracy was now at hand. Though
Bonaparte desired at once to attack the Austrians in Northern Italy,
yet a sure instinct impelled him to remain at Paris, for, as he said
to Marmont: "When the house is crumbling, is it the time to busy
oneself with the garden? A change here is indispensable."
The sudden rise of Bonaparte to supreme power cannot be understood
without some reference to the state of French politics in the months
preceding his return to France. The position of parties had been
strangely complicated by the unpopularity of the Directors. Despite
their illegal devices, the elections of 1798 and 1799 for the renewal
of a third part of the legislative Councils had signally strengthened
the anti-directorial ranks. Among the Opposition were some royalists,
a large number of constitutionals, whether of the Feuillant or
Girondin type, and many deputies, who either vaunted the name of
Jacobins or veiled their advanced opinions under the convenient
appellation of "patriots." Many of the deputies were young,
impressionable, and likely to follow any able leader who promised to
heal the schisms of the country. In fact, the old party lines were
being effaced. The champions of the constitution of 1795 (Year III.)
saw no better means of defending it than by violating electoral
liberties--always in the sacred name of Liberty; and the Directory,
while professing to hold the balance between the extreme parties,
repressed them by turns with a vigour which rendered them popular and
official moderation odious.
In this general confusion and apathy the dearth of statesmen was
painfully conspicuous. Only true grandeur of character can defy the
withering influences of an age of disillusionment; and France had for
a time to rely upon Sieyès. Perhaps no man has built up a reputation
for political capacity on performances so slight as the Abbé Sieyès.
In the States General of 1789 he speedily acquired renown for oracular
wisdom, owing to the brevity and wit of his remarks in an assembly
where such virtues were rare. But the course of the Revolution soon
showed the barrenness of his mind and the timidity of his character.
He therefore failed to exert any lasting influence upon events. In the
time of the Terror his insignificance was his refuge. His witty reply
to an inquiry how he had then fared--"J'ai vécu "--sufficiently
characterizes the man. In the Directorial period he displayed more
activity. He was sent as French ambassador to Berlin, and plumed
himself on having persuaded that Court to a neutrality favourable to
France. But it is clear that the neutrality of Prussia was the outcome
of selfish considerations. While Austria tried the hazards of war, her
northern rival husbanded her resources, strengthened her position as
the protectress of Northern Germany, and dextrously sought to attract
the nebula of middle German States into her own sphere of influence.
From his task of tilting a balance which was already decided, Sieyès
was recalled to Paris in May, 1799, by the news of his election to the
place in the Directory vacated by Rewbell. The other Directors had
striven, but in vain, to prevent his election: they knew well that
this impracticable theorist would speedily paralyze the Government;
for, when previously elected Director in 1795, he had refused to
serve, on the ground that the constitution was thoroughly bad. He now
declared his hostility to the Directory, and looked around for some
complaisant military chief who should act as his tool and then be
cast away. His first choice, Joubert, was killed at the battle of
Novi. Moreau seems then to have been looked on with favour; he was a
republican, able in warfare and singularly devoid of skill or ambition
in political matters. Relying on Moreau, Sieyès continued his
intrigues, and after some preliminary fencing gained over to his side
the Director Barras. But if we may believe the assertions of the
royalist, Hyde de Neuville, Barras was also receiving the advances of
the royalists with a view to a restoration of Louis XVIII., an event
which was then quite within the bounds of probability. For the
present, however, Barras favoured the plans of Sieyès, and helped him
to get rid of the firmly republican Directors, La Réveillière-Lépeaux
and Merlin, who were deposed (30th Prairial).[125]
The new Directors were Gohier, Roger Ducos, and Moulin; the first, an
elderly respectable advocate; the second, a Girondin by early
associations, but a trimmer by instinct, and therefore easily gained
over by Sieyès; while the recommendation of the third, Moulin, seem to
have been his political nullity and some third-rate military services
in the Vendéan war. Yet the Directory of Prairial was not devoid of a
spasmodic energy, which served to throw back the invaders of France.
Bernadotte, the fiery Gascon, remarkable for his ardent gaze, his
encircling masses of coal-black hair, and the dash of Moorish blood
which ever aroused Bonaparte's respectful apprehensions, was Minister
of War, and speedily formed a new army of 100,000 men: Lindet
undertook to re-establish the finances by means of progressive taxes:
the Chouan movement in the northern and western departments was
repressed by a law legalising the seizure of hostages; and there
seemed some hope that France would roll back the tide of invasion,
keep her "natural frontiers," and return to normal methods of
government.
Such was the position of affairs when Bonaparte's arrival inspired
France with joy and the Directory with ill-concealed dread. As in
1795, so now in 1799, he appeared at Paris when French political life
was in a stage of transition. If ever the Napoleonic star shone
auspiciously, it was in the months when he threaded his path between
Nelson's cruisers and cut athwart the maze of Sieyès' intrigues. To
the philosopher's "J'ai vécu" he could oppose the crushing retort
"J'ai vaincu."
The general, on meeting the thinker at Gohier's house, studiously
ignored him. In truth, he was at first disposed to oust both Sieyès
and Barras from the Directory. The latter of these men was odious to
him for reasons both private and public. In time past he had had good
reasons for suspecting Josephine's relations with the voluptuous
Director, and with the men whom she met at his house. During the
Egyptian campaign his jealousy had been fiercely roused in another
quarter, and, as we have seen, led to an almost open breach with his
wife. But against Barras he still harboured strong suspicions; and the
frequency of his visits to the Director's house after returning from
Egypt was doubtless due to his desire to sound the depths of his
private as well as of his public immorality. If we may credit the
_embarras de mensonges_ which has been dignified by the name of
Barras' "Memoirs," Josephine once fled to his house and flung herself
at his knees, begging to be taken away from her husband; but the story
is exploded by the moral which the relator clumsily tacks on, as to
the good advice which he gave her.[126] While Bonaparte seems to have
found no grounds for suspecting Barras on this score, he yet
discovered his intrigues with various malcontents; and he saw that
Barras, holding the balance of power in the Directory between the
opposing pairs of colleagues, was intriguing to get the highest
possible price for the betrayal of the Directory and of the
constitution of 1795.
For Sieyès the general felt dislike but respect. He soon saw the
advantage of an alliance with so learned a thinker, so skilful an
intriguer, and so weak a man. It was, indeed, necessary; for, after
making vain overtures to Gohier for the alteration of the law which
excluded from the Directory men of less than forty years of age,
the general needed the alliance of Sieyès for the overthrow of the
constitution. In a short space he gathered around him the malcontents
whom the frequent crises had deprived of office, Roederer, Admiral
Bruix, Réal, Cambacérès, and, above all, Talleyrand. The last-named;
already known for his skill in diplomacy, had special reasons for
favouring the alliance of Bonaparte and Sieyès: he had been dismissed
from the Foreign Office in the previous month of July because in his
hands it had proved to be too lucrative to the holder and too
expensive for France. It was an open secret that, when American
commissioners arrived in Paris a short time previously, for the
settlement of various disputes between the two countries, they found
that the negotiations would not progress until 250,000 dollars had
changed hands. The result was that hostilities continued, and that
Talleyrand soon found himself deprived of office, until another turn
of the revolutionary kaleidoscope should restore him to his coveted
place.[127] He discerned in the Bonaparte-Sieyès combination the force
that would give the requisite tilt now that Moreau gave up politics.
The army and most of the generals were also ready for some change,
only Bernadotte and Jourdan refusing to listen to the new proposals;
and the former of these came "with sufficiently bad grace" to join
Bonaparte at the time of action. The police was secured through that
dextrous trimmer, the regicide Fouché, who now turned against the very
men who had recently appointed him to office. Feeling sure of the
soldiery and police, the innovators fixed the 18th of Brumaire as the
date of their enterprise. There were many conferences at the houses of
the conspirators; and one of the few vivid touches which relieve the
dull tones of the Talleyrand "Memoirs" reveals the consciousness of
these men that they were conspirators. Late on a night in the middle
of Brumaire, Bonaparte came to Talleyrand's house to arrange details
of the _coup d'état,_ when the noise of carriages stopping outside
caused them to pale with fear that their plans were discovered. At
once the diplomatist blew out the lights and hurried to the balcony,
when he found that their fright was due merely to an accident to the
carriages of the revellers and gamesters returning from the Palais
Royal, which were guarded by gendarmes. The incident closed with
laughter and jests; but it illustrates the tension of the nerves of
the political gamesters, as also the mental weakness of Bonaparte when
confronted by some unknown danger. It was perhaps the only weak point
in his intellectual armour; but it was to be found out at certain
crises of his career.
Meanwhile in the legislative Councils there was a feeling of vague
disquiet. The Ancients were, on the whole, hostile to the Directory,
but in the Council of Five Hundred the democratic ardour of the
younger deputies foreboded a fierce opposition. Yet there also the
plotters found many adherents, who followed the lead now cautiously
given by Lucien Bonaparte. This young man, whose impassioned speeches
had marked him out as an irreproachable patriot, was now President of
that Council. No event could have been more auspicious for the
conspirators. With Sieyès, Barras, and Ducos, as traitors in the
Directory, with the Ancients favourable, and the junior deputies under
the presidency of Lucien, the plot seemed sure of success.
The first important step was taken by the Council of Ancients, who
decreed the transference of the sessions of the Councils to St. Cloud.
The danger of a Jacobin plot was urged as a plea for this motion,
which was declared carried without the knowledge either of the
Directory as a whole, or of the Five Hundred, whose opposition would
have been vehement. The Ancients then appointed Bonaparte to command
the armed forces in and near Paris. The next step was to insure the
abdication of Gohier and Moulin. Seeking to entrap Gohier, then the
President of the Directory, Josephine invited him to breakfast on the
morning of 18th Brumaire; but Gohier, suspecting a snare, remained at
his official residence, the Luxemburg Palace. None the less the
Directory was doomed; for the two defenders of the institution had not
the necessary quorum for giving effect to their decrees. Moulin
thereupon escaped, and Gohier was kept under guard--by Moreau's
soldiery![128]
Meanwhile, accompanied by a brilliant group of generals, Bonaparte
proceeded to the Tuileries, where the Ancients were sitting; and by
indulging in a wordy declamation he avoided taking the oath to the
constitution required of a general on entering upon a new command. In
the Council of Five Hundred, Lucien Bonaparte stopped the eager
questions and murmurs, on the pretext that the session was only legal
at St. Cloud.
There, on the next day (19th Brumaire or 10th November), a far more
serious blow was to be struck. The overthrow of the Directory was a
foregone conclusion. But with the Legislature it was far otherwise,
for its life was still whole and vigorous. Yet, while amputating a
moribund limb, the plotters did not scruple to paralyze the brain of
the body politic.
Despite the adhesion of most of the Ancients to his plans, Bonaparte,
on appearing before them, could only utter a succession of short,
jerky phrases which smacked of the barracks rather than of the Senate.
Retiring in some confusion, he regains his presence of mind among the
soldiers outside, and enters the hall of the Five Hundred, intending
to intimidate them not only by threats, but by armed force. At the
sight of the uniforms at the door, the republican enthusiasm of the
younger deputies catches fire. They fiercely assail him with cries of
"Down with the tyrant! down with the Dictator! outlaw him!" In vain
Lucien Bonaparte commands order. Several deputies rush at the general,
and fiercely shake him by the collar. He turns faint with excitement
and chagrin; but Lefebvre and a few grenadiers rushing up drag him
from the hall. He comes forth like a somnambulist (says an onlooker),
pursued by the terrible cry, "Hors la loi!" Had the cries at once
taken form in a decree, the history of the world might have been
different. One of the deputies, General Augereau, fiercely demands
that the motion of outlawry be put to the vote. Lucien Bonaparte
refuses, protests, weeps, finally throws off his official robes, and
is rescued from the enraged deputies by grenadiers whom the
conspirators send in for this purpose. Meanwhile Bonaparte and his
friends were hastily deliberating, when one of their number brought
the news that the deputies had declared the general an outlaw. The
news chased the blood from his cheek, until Sieyès, whose _sang froid_
did not desert him in these civilian broils, exclaims, "Since they
outlaw you, they are outlaws." This revolutionary logic recalls
Bonaparte to himself. He shouts, "To arms!" Lucien, too, mounting a
horse, appeals to the soldiers to free the Council from the menaces
of some deputies armed with daggers, and in the pay of England, who
are terrorising the majority. The shouts of command, clinched by the
adroit reference to daggers and English gold, cause the troops to
waver in their duty; and Lucien, pressing his advantage to the utmost,
draws a sword, and, holding it towards his brother, exclaims that he
will stab him if ever he attempts anything against liberty. Murat,
Leclerc, and other generals enforce this melodramatic appeal by shouts
for Bonaparte, which the troops excitedly take up. The drums sound for
an advance, and the troops forthwith enter the hall. In vain the
deputies raise the shout, "Vive la République," and invoke the
constitution. Appeals to the law are overpowered by the drum and by
shouts for Bonaparte; and the legislators of France fly pell-mell from
the hall through doors and windows.[129]
Thus was fulfilled the prophecy which eight years previously Burke had
made in his immortal work on the French Revolution. That great thinker
had predicted that French liberty would fall a victim to the first
great general who drew the eyes of all men upon himself. "The moment
in which that event shall happen, the person who really commands the
army is your master, the master of your king, the master of your
Assembly, the master of your whole republic."
Discussions about the _coup d'état_ of Brumaire generally confuse the
issue at stake by ignoring the difference between the overthrow of the
Directory and that of the Legislature. The collapse of the Directory
was certain to take place; but few expected that the Legislature of
France would likewise vanish. For vanish it did: not for nearly half
a century had France another free and truly democratic representative
assembly. This result of Brumaire was unexpected by several of the men
who plotted the overthrow of unpopular Directors, and hoped for the
nipping of Jacobinical or royalist designs. Indeed, no event in French
history is more astonishing than the dispersal of the republican
deputies, most of whom desired a change of _personnel_ but not a
revolution in methods of government. Until a few days previously the
Councils had the allegiance of the populace and of the soldiers; the
troops at St. Cloud were loyal to the constitution, and respected the
persons of the deputies until they were deluded by Lucien. For a few
minutes the fate of France trembled in the balance; and the
conspirators knew it.[130] Bonaparte confessed it by his incoherent
gaspings; Sieyès had his carriage ready, with six horses, for flight;
the terrible cry, "Hors la loi!" if raised against Bonaparte in the
heart of Paris, would certainly have roused the populace to fury in
the cause of liberty and have swept the conspirators to the
guillotine. But, as it was, the affair was decided in the solitudes of
St. Cloud by Lucien and a battalion of soldiers.
Efforts have frequently been made to represent the events of Brumaire
as inevitable and to dovetail them in with a pretended philosophy of
history. But it is impossible to study them closely without observing
how narrow was the margin between the success and failure of the plot,
and how jagged was the edge of an affair which philosophizers seek to
fit in with their symmetrical explanations. In truth, no event of
world-wide importance was ever decided by circumstances so trifling.
"There is but one step from triumph to a fall. I have seen that in the
greatest affairs a little thing has always decided important
events"--so wrote Bonaparte three years before his triumph at St.
Cloud: he might have written it of that event. It is equally
questionable whether it can be regarded as saving France from anarchy.
His admirers, it is true, have striven to depict France as trodden
down by invaders, dissolved by anarchy, and saved only by the stroke
of Brumaire. But she was already triumphant: it was quite possible
that she would peacefully adjust her governmental difficulties: they
were certainly no greater than they had been in and since the year
1797: Fouché had closed the club of the Jacobins: the Councils had
recovered their rightful influence, and, but for the plotters of
Brumaire, might have effected a return to ordinary government of the
type of 1795-7. This was the real blow; that the vigorous trunk, the
Legislature, was struck down along with the withering Directorial
branch.
The friends of liberty might well be dismayed when they saw how tamely
France accepted this astounding stroke. Some allowance was naturally
to be made, at first, for the popular apathy: the Jacobins, already
discouraged by past repression, were partly dazed by the suddenness of
the blow, and were also ignorant of the aims of the men who dealt it;
and while they were waiting to see the import of events, power passed
rapidly into the hands of Bonaparte and his coadjutors. Such is an
explanation, in part at least, of the strange docility now shown by a
populace which still vaunted its loyalty to the democratic republic.
But there is another explanation, which goes far deeper. The
revolutionary strifes had wearied the brain of France and had
predisposed it to accept accomplished facts. Distracted by the talk
about royalist plots and Jacobin plots, cowering away from the white
ogre and the red spectre, the more credulous part of the populace was
fain to take shelter under the cloak of a great soldier, who at least
promised order. Everything favoured the drill-sergeant theory of
government. The instincts developed by a thousand years of monarchy
had not been rooted out in the last decade. They now prompted France
to rally round her able man; and, abandoning political liberty as a
hopeless quest, she obeyed the imperious call which promised to
revivify the order and brilliance of her old existence with the
throbbing blood of her new life.
The French constitution was now to be reconstructed by a
self-appointed commission which sat with closed doors. This strange
ending to all the constitution-building of a decade was due to the
adroitness of Lucien Bonaparte. At the close of that eventful day, the
19th of Brumaire, he gathered about him in the deserted hall at St.
Cloud some score or so of the dispersed deputies known to be
favourable to his brother, declaimed against the Jacobins, whose
spectral plot had proved so useful to the real plotters, and proposed
to this "Rump" of the Council the formation of a commission who should
report on measures that were deemed necessary for the public safety.
The measures were found to be the deposition of the Directory, the
expulsion of sixty-one members from the Councils, the nomination of
Sieyès, Roger Ducos, and Bonaparte as provisional Consuls and the
adjournment of the Councils for four months. The Consuls accordingly
took up their residence in the Luxemburg Palace, just vacated by the
Directors, and the drafting of a constitution was confided to them and
to an _interim_ commission of fifty members chosen equally from the
two Councils.
The illegality of these devices was hidden beneath a cloak of politic
clemency. To this commission the Consuls, or rather Bonaparte--for
his will soon dominated that of Sieyès--proposed two most salutary
changes. He desired to put an end to the seizure of hostages from
villages suspected of royalism; and also to the exaction of taxes
levied on a progressive scale, which harassed the wealthy without
proportionately benefiting the exchequer. These two expedients,
adopted by the Directory in the summer of 1799, were temporary
measures adopted to stem the tide of invasion and to crush revolts;
but they were regarded as signs of a permanently terrorist policy, and
their removal greatly strengthened the new consular rule. The blunder
of nearly all the revolutionary governments had been in continuing
severe laws after the need for them had ceased to be pressing.
Bonaparte, with infinite tact, discerned this truth, and, as will
shortly appear, set himself to found his government on the support of
that vast neutral mass which was neither royalist nor Jacobin, which
hated the severities of the reds no less than the abuses of the
_ancien régime_.
While Bonaparte was conciliating the many, Sieyès was striving to body
forth the constitution which for many years had been nebulously
floating in his brain. The function of the Socratic [Greek: maieutaes]
was discharged by Boulay de la Meurthe, who with difficulty reduced
those ideas to definite shape. The new constitution was based on the
principle: "Confidence comes from below, power from above." This meant
that the people, that is, all adult males, were admitted only to the
preliminary stages of election of deputies, while the final act of
selection was to be made by higher grades or powers. The "confidence"
required of the people was to be shown not only towards their
nominees, but towards those who were charged with the final and most
important act of selection. The winnowing processes in the election of
representatives were to be carried out on a decimal system. The adult
voters meeting in their several districts were to choose one-tenth of
their number, this tenth being named the Notabilities of the Commune.
These, some five or six hundred thousand in number, meeting in their
several Departments, were thereupon to choose one-tenth of their
number; and the resulting fifty or sixty thousand men, termed
Notabilities of the Departments, were again to name one-tenth of their
number, who were styled Notabilities of the Nation. But the most
important act of selection was still to come--from above. From this
last-named list the governing powers were to select the members of the
legislative bodies and the chief officials and servants of the
Government.
The executive now claims a brief notice. The well-worn theory of the
distinction of powers, that is, the legislative and executive powers,
was maintained in Sieyès' plan. At the head of the Government the
philosopher desired to enthrone an august personage, the Grand
Elector, who was to be selected by the Senate. This Grand Elector was
to nominate two Consuls, one for peace, the other for war; they were
to nominate the Ministers of State, who in their turn selected the
agents of power from the list of Notabilities of the Nation. The two
Consuls and their Ministers administered the executive affairs. The
Senate, sitting in dignified ease, was merely to safeguard the
constitution, to elect the Grand Elector, and to select the members of
the _Corps Législatif_ (proper) and the Tribunate.
Distrust of the former almost superhuman activity in law-making now
appeared in divisions, checks, and balances quite ingenious in their
complexity. The Legislature was divided into three councils: the
_Corps Législatif_, properly so called, which listened in silence to
proposals of laws offered by the Council of State and criticised or
orally approved by the Tribunate.[131] These three bodies were not
only divided, but were placed in opposition, especially the two
talking bodies, which resembled plaintiff and defendant pleading
before a gagged judge. But even so the constitution was not
sufficiently guarded against Jacobins or royalists. If by any chance a
dangerous proposal were forced through these mutually distrustful
bodies, the Senate was charged with the task of vetoing it, and if the
Grand Elector, or any other high official, strove to gain a perpetual
dictatorship, the Senate was at once to _absorb_ him into its ranks.
Moreover, lest the voters should send up too large a proportion of
Jacobins or royalists, the first selection of members of the great
Councils and the chief functionaries for local affairs was to be made
by the Consuls, who thus primarily exercised not only the "power from
above," but also the "confidence" which ought to have come from below.
Perhaps this device was necessary to set in motion Sieyès' system of
wheels within wheels; for the Senate, which was to elect the Grand
Elector, by whom the executive officers were indirectly to be chosen,
was in part self-sufficient: the Consuls named the first members, who
then co-opted, that is, chose the new members. Some impulse from
without was also needed to give the constitution life; and this
impulse was now to come. Where Sieyès had only contrived wheels,
checks, regulator, break, and safety-valve, there now rushed in an
imperious will which not only simplified the parts but supplied an
irresistible motive power.
The complexity of much of the mechanism, especially that relating to
popular election and the legislature, entirely suited Bonaparte. But,
while approving the triple winnowing, to which Sieyès subjected the
results of manhood suffrage, and the subordination of the legislative
to the executive authority,[132] the general expressed his entire
disapproval of the limitations of the Grand Elector's powers. The name
was anti-republican: let it be changed to First Consul. And whereas
Sieyès condemned his grand functionary to the repose of a _roi
fainéant_, Bonaparte secured to him practically all the powers
assigned by Sieyès to the Consuls for Peace and for War. Lastly,
Bonaparte protested against the right of absorbing him being given to
the Senate. Here also he was successful; and thus a delicately poised
bureaucracy was turned into an almost unlimited dictatorship.
This metamorphosis may well excite wonder. But, in truth, Sieyès and
his colleagues were too weary and sceptical to oppose the one
"intensely practical man." To Bonaparte's trenchant reasons and
incisive tones the theorist could only reply by a scornful silence
broken by a few bitter retorts. To the irresistible power of the
general he could only oppose the subtlety of a student. And, indeed,
who can picture Bonaparte, the greatest warrior of the age, delegating
the control of all warlike operations to a Consul for War while
Austrian cannon were thundering in the county of Nice and British
cruisers were insulting the French coasts? It was inevitable that the
reposeful Grand Elector should be transformed into the omnipotent
First Consul, and that these powers should be wielded by Bonaparte
himself.[133]
The extent of the First Consul's powers, as finally settled by the
joint commission, was as follows. He had the direct and sole
nomination of the members of the general administration, of those of
the departmental and municipal councils, and of the administrators,
afterwards called prefects and sub-prefects. He also appointed all
military and naval officers, ambassadors and agents sent to foreign
Powers, and the judges in civil and criminal suits, except the _juges
de paix_ and, later on, the members of the _Cour de Cassation_. He
therefore controlled the army, navy, and diplomatic service, as well
as the general administration. He also signed treaties, though these
might be discussed, and must be ratified, by the legislative bodies.
The three Consuls were to reside in the Tuileries palace; but, apart
from the enjoyment of 150,000 francs a year, and occasional
consultation by the First Consul, the position of these officials was
so awkward that Bonaparte frankly remarked to Roederer that it would
have been better to call them Grand Councillors. They were, in truth,
supernumeraries added to the chief of the State, as a concession to
the spirit of equality and as a blind to hide the reality of the new
despotism. All three were to be chosen for ten years, and were
re-eligible.
Such is an outline of the constitution of 1799 (Year VIII.). It was
promulgated on December 15th, 1799, and was offered to the people for
acceptance, in a proclamation which closed with the words: "Citizens,
the Revolution is confined to the principles which commenced it. It is
finished." The news of this last fact decided the enthusiastic
acceptance of the constitution. In a _plébiscite_, or mass vote of the
people, held in the early days of 1800, it was accepted by an
overwhelming majority, viz., by 3,011,007 as against only 1,562
negatives. No fact so forcibly proves the failure of absolute
democracy in France; and, whatever may be said of the methods of
securing this national acclaim, it was, and must ever remain, the
soundest of Bonaparte's titles to power. To a pedant who once
inquired about his genealogy he significantly replied: "It dates from
Brumaire."
Shortly before the _plébiscite_, Sieyès and Ducos resigned their
temporary commissions as Consuls: they were rewarded with seats in the
Senate; and Sieyès, in consideration of his constitutional work,
received the estate of Crosne from the nation.
"Sieyès à Bonaparte a fait present du trône,
Sous un pompeux débris croyant l'ensevelir.
Bonaparte à Sieyès a fait present de Crosne
Pour le payer et l'avilir."
The sting in the tail of Lebrun's epigram struck home. Sieyès'
acceptance of Crosne was, in fact, his acceptance of notice to quit
public affairs, in which he had always moved with philosophic disdain.
He lived on to the year 1836 in dignified ease, surveying with
Olympian calm the storms of French and Continental politics.
The two new Consuls were Cambacérès and Lebrun. The former was known
as a learned jurist and a tactful man. He had voted for the death of
Louis XVI., but his subsequent action had been that of a moderate, and
his knowledge of legal affairs was likely to be of the highest service
to Bonaparte, who intrusted him with a general oversight of
legislation. His tact was seen in his refusal to take up his abode in
the Tuileries, lest, as he remarked to Lebrun, he might have to move
out again soon. The third Consul, Lebrun, was a moderate with leanings
towards constitutional royalty. He was to prove another useful
satellite to Bonaparte, who intrusted him with the general oversight
of finance and regarded him as a connecting link with the moderate
royalists. The chief secretary to the Consuls was Maret, a trusty
political agent, who had striven for peace with England both in 1793
and in 1797.
As for the Ministers, they were now reinforced by Talleyrand, who took
up that of Foreign Affairs, and by Berthier, who brought his powers of
hard work to that of War, until he was succeeded for a time by Carnot.
Lucien Bonaparte, and later Chaptal, became Minister of the Interior,
Gaudin controlled Finance, Forfait the Navy, and Fouché the Police.
The Council of State was organized in the following sections; that of
_War_, which was presided over by General Brune: _Marine_, by Admiral
Gantheaume: _Finance_, by Defermon: _Legislation_, by Boulay de la
Meurthe: the _Interior_, by Roederer.
The First Consul soon showed that he intended to adopt a non-partisan
and thoroughly national policy. That had been, it is true, the aim of
the Directors in their policy of balance and repression of extreme
parties on both sides. For the reasons above indicated, they had
failed: but now a stronger and more tactful grasp was to succeed in a
feat which naturally became easier every year that removed the
passions of the revolutionary epoch further into the distance. Men
cannot for ever perorate, and agitate and plot. A time infallibly
comes when an able leader can successfully appeal to their saner
instincts: and that hour had now struck. Bonaparte's appeal was made
to the many, who cared not for politics, provided that they themselves
were left in security and comfort: it was urged quietly, persistently,
and with the reserve power of a mighty prestige and of overwhelming
military force. Throughout the whole of the Consulate, a policy of
moderation, which is too often taken for weakness, was strenuously
carried through by the strongest man and the greatest warrior of the
age.
The truly national character of his rule was seen in many ways. He
excluded from high office men who were notorious regicides, excepting
a few who, like Fouché, were too clever to be dispensed with. The
constitutionals of 1791 and even declared royalists were welcomed back
to France, and many of the Fructidorian exiles also returned.[134] The
list of _émigrés_ was closed, so that neither political hatred nor
private greed could misrepresent a journey as an act of political
emigration. Equally generous and prudent was the treatment of Roman
Catholics. Toleration was now extended to orthodox or non-juring
priests, who were required merely to _promise_ allegiance to the new
constitution. By this act of timely clemency, orthodox priests were
allowed to return to France, and they were even suffered to officiate
in places where no opposition was thereby aroused.
While thus removing one of the chief grievances of the Norman, Breton
and Vendéan peasants, who had risen as much for their religion as for
their king, he determined to crush their revolts. The north-west, and
indeed parts of the south of France, were still simmering with
rebellions and brigandage. In Normandy a daring and able leader named
Frotté headed a considerable band of malcontents, and still more
formidable were the Breton "Chouans" that followed the peasant leader
Georges Cadoudal. This man was a born leader. Though but thirty years
of age, his fierce courage had long marked him out as the first
fighter of his race and creed. His features bespoke a bold, hearty
spirit, and his massive frame defied fatigue and hardship. He
struggled on; and in the autumn of 1799 fortune seemed about to favour
the "whites": the revolt was spreading; and had a Bourbon prince
landed in Brittany before Bonaparte returned from Egypt, the royalists
might quite possibly have overthrown the Directory. But Bonaparte's
daring changed the whole aspect of affairs. The news of the stroke of
Brumaire gave the royalists pause. At first they believed that the
First Consul would soon call back the king, and Bonaparte skilfully
favoured this notion: he offered a pacification, of which some of the
harassed peasants availed themselves. Georges himself for a time
advised a reconciliation, and a meeting of the royalist leaders voted
to a man that they desired "to have the king and you" (Bonaparte). One
of them, Hyde de Neuville, had an interview with the First Consul at
Paris, and has left on record his surprise at seeing the slight form
of the man whose name was ringing through France. At the first glance
he took him for a rather poorly dressed lackey; but when the general
raised his eyes and searched him through and through with their eager
fire, the royalist saw his error and fell under the spell of a gaze
which few could endure unmoved. The interview brought no definite
result.
Other overtures made by Bonaparte were more effective. True to his
plan of dividing his enemies, he appealed to the clergy to end the
civil strife. The appeal struck home to the heart or the ambitions of
a cleric named Bernier. This man was but a village priest of La
Vendée: yet his natural abilities gained him an ascendancy in the
councils of the insurgents, which the First Consul was now
victoriously to exploit. Whatever may have been Bernier's motives, he
certainly acted with some duplicity. Without forewarning Cadoudal,
Bourmont, Frotté, and other royalist leaders, he secretly persuaded
the less combative leaders to accept the First Consul's terms; and a
pacification was arranged (January 18th), In vain did Cadoudal rage
against this treachery: in vain did he strive to break the armistice.
Frotté in Normandy was the last to capitulate and the first to feel
Bonaparte's vengeance: on a trumped-up charge of treachery he was
hurried before a court-martial and shot. An order was sent from Paris
for his pardon; but a letter which Bonaparte wrote to Brune on the day
of the execution contains the ominous phrase: _By this time Frotté
ought to be shot_; and a recently published letter to Hédouville
expresses the belief that _the punishment of that desperate leader
will doubtless contribute to the complete pacification of the
West_.[135]
In the hope of gaining over the Chouans, Bonaparte required their
chiefs to come to Paris, where they received the greatest
consideration. In Bernier the priest, Bonaparte discerned diplomatic
gifts of a high order, which were soon to be tested in a far more
important negotiation. The nobles, too, received flattering
attentions which touched their pride and assured their future
insignificance. Among them was Count Bourmont, the Judas of the
Waterloo campaign.
In contrast with the priest and the nobles, Georges Cadoudal stood
firm as a rock. That suave tongue spoke to him of glory, honour, and
the fatherland: he heeded it not, for he knew it had ordered the death
of Frotté. There stood these fighters alone, face to face, types of
the north and south, of past and present, fiercest and toughest of
living men, their stern wills racked in wrestle for two hours. But
southern craft was foiled by Breton steadfastness, and Georges went
his way unshamed. Once outside the palace, his only words to his
friend, Hyde de Neuville, were: "What a mind I had to strangle him in
these arms!" Shadowed by Bonaparte's spies, and hearing that he was
to be arrested, he fled to England; and Normandy and Brittany enjoyed
the semblance of peace.[136]
Thus ended the civil war which for nearly seven years had rent France
in twain. Whatever may be said about the details of Bonaparte's
action, few will deny its beneficent results on French life. Harsh and
remorseless as Nature herself towards individuals, he certainly, at
this part of his career, promoted the peace and prosperity of the
masses. And what more can be said on behalf of a ruler at the end of a
bloody revolution?
Meanwhile the First Consul had continued to develop Sieyès'
constitution in the direction of autocracy. The Council of State,
which was little more than an enlarged Ministry, had been charged with
the vague and dangerous function of "developing the sense of laws" on
the demand of the Consuls; and it was soon seen that this Council was
merely a convenient screen to hide the operations of Bonaparte's will.
On the other hand, a blow was struck at the Tribunate, the only public
body which had the right of debate and criticism. It was now proposed
(January, 1800) that the time allowed for debate should be strictly
limited. This restriction to the right of free discussion met with
little opposition. One of the most gifted of the new tribunes,
Benjamin Constant, the friend of Madame de Staël, eloquently pleaded
against this policy of distrust which would reduce the Tribunate to a
silence that would be _heard by Europe_. It was in vain. The rabid
rhetoric of the past had infected France with a foolish fear of all
free debate. The Tribunate signed its own death warrant; and the sole
result of its feeble attempt at opposition was that Madame de Staël's
_salon_ was forthwith deserted by the Liberals who had there found
inspiration; while the gifted authoress herself was officially
requested to retire into the country.
The next act of the central power struck at freedom of the press. As a
few journals ventured on witticisms at the expense of the new
Government, the Consuls ordered the suppression of all the political
journals of Paris except thirteen; and three even of these favoured
papers were suppressed on April 7th. The reason given for this
despotic action was the need of guiding public opinion wisely during
the war, and of preventing any articles "contrary to the respect due
to the social compact, to the sovereignty of the people, and to the
glory of the armies." By a finely ironical touch Rousseau's doctrine
of the popular sovereignty was thus invoked to sanction its violation.
The incident is characteristic of the whole tendency of events, which
showed that the dawn of personal rule was at hand. In fact, Bonaparte
had already taken the bold step of removing to the Tuileries, and that
too, on the very day when he ordered public mourning for the death of
Washington (February 7th). No one but the great Corsican would have
dared to brave the comments which this coincidence provoked. But he
was necessary to France, and all men knew it. At the first sitting of
the provisional Consuls, Ducos had said to him: "It is useless to vote
about the presidence; it belongs to you of right"; and, despite the
wry face pulled by Sieyès, the general at once took the chair.
Scarcely less remarkable than the lack of energy in statesmen was the
confusion of thought in the populace. Mme. Reinhard tells us that
after the _coup d'état_ people _believed they had returned to the
first days of liberty_. What wonder, then, that the one able and
strong-willed man led the helpless many and re-moulded Sieyès'
constitution in a fashion that was thus happily parodied:
"J'ai, pour les fous, d'un Tribunat
Conservé la figure;
Pour les sots je laisse un Sénat,
Mais ce n'est qu'en peinture;
A ce stupide magistrat
Ma volonté préside;
Et tout le Conseil d'État
Dans mon sabre réside."
* * * * *
CHAPTER XI
MARENGO: LUNÉVILLE
Reserving for the next chapter a description of the new civil
institutions of France, it will be convenient now to turn to foreign
affairs. Having arranged the most urgent of domestic questions, the
First Consul was ready to encounter the forces of the Second
Coalition. He had already won golden opinions in France by
endeavouring peacefully to dissolve it. On the 25th of December, 1799,
he sent two courteous letters, one to George III., the other to the
Emperor Francis, proposing an immediate end to the war. The close of
the letter to George III. has been deservedly admired: "France and
England by the abuse of their strength may, for the misfortune of all
nations, be long in exhausting it: but I venture to declare that the
fate of all civilized nations is concerned in the termination of a war
which kindles a conflagration over the whole world." This noble
sentiment touched the imagination of France and of friends of peace
everywhere.
And yet, if the circumstances of the time be considered, the first
agreeable impressions aroused by the perusal of this letter must be
clouded over by doubts. The First Consul had just seized on power by
illegal and forcible means, and there was as yet little to convince
foreign States that he would hold it longer than the men whom he had
displaced. Moreover, France was in a difficult position. Her treasury
was empty; her army in Italy was being edged into the narrow
coast-line near Genoa; and her oriental forces were shut up in their
new conquest. Were not the appeals to Austria and England merely a
skillful device to gain time? Did his past power in Italy and Egypt
warrant the belief that he would abandon the peninsula and the new
colony? Could the man who had bartered away Venetia and seized Malta
and Egypt be fitly looked upon as the sacred'r peacemaker? In
diplomacy men's words are interpreted by their past conduct and
present circumstances, neither of which tended to produce confidence
in Bonaparte's pacific overtures; and neither Francis nor George III.
looked on the present attempt as anything but a skilful means of
weakening the Coalition.
Indeed, that league was, for various reasons, all but dissolved by
internal dissensions. Austria was resolved to keep all the eastern
part of Piedmont and the greater part of the Genoese Republic. While
welcoming the latter half of this demand, George III.'s Ministers
protested against the absorption of so great a part of Piedmont as an
act of cruel injustice to the King of Sardinia. Austria was annoyed at
the British remonstrances and was indignant at the designs of the Czar
on Corsica. Accordingly no time could have been better chosen by
Bonaparte for seeking to dissolve the Coalition, as he certainly hoped
to do by these two letters. Only the staunch support of legitimist
claims by England then prevented the Coalition from degenerating into
a scramble for Italian territories.[137] And, if we may trust the
verdict of contemporaries and his own confession at St. Helena,
Bonaparte never expected any other result from these letters than an
increase of his popularity in France. This was enhanced by the British
reply, which declared that His Majesty could not place his reliance on
"general professions of pacific dispositions": France had waged
aggressive war, levied exactions, and overthrown institutions in
neighbouring States; and the British Government could not as yet
discern any abandonment of this system: something more was required
for a durable peace: "The best and most natural pledge of its reality
and permanence would be the restoration of that line of princes which
for so many centuries maintained the French nation in prosperity at
home and in consideration and respect abroad." This answer has been
sharply criticised, and justly so, if its influence on public opinion
be alone considered. But a perusal of the British Foreign Office
Records reveals the reason for the use of these stiffly legitimist
claims. Legitimacy alone promised to stop the endless shiftings of the
political kaleidoscope, whether by France, Austria, or Russia. Our
ambassador at Vienna was requested to inform the Government of Vienna
of the exact wording of the British reply:
"As a proof of the zeal and steadiness with which His Majesty
adheres to the principles of the Confederacy, and as a testimony of
the confidence with which he anticipates a similar answer from His
Imperial Majesty, to whom an overture of a similar nature has
without doubt been made."
But this correct conduct, while admirably adapted to prop up the
tottering Coalition, was equally favourable to the consolidation of
Bonaparte's power. It helped to band together the French people to
resist the imposition of their exiled royal house by external force.
Even George III. thought it "much too strong," though he suggested no
alteration. At once Bonaparte retorted in a masterly note; he
ironically presumed that His Britannic Majesty admitted the right of
nations to choose their form of government, since only by that right
did he wear the British crown; and he invited him not to apply to
other peoples a principle which would recall the Stuarts to the throne
of Great Britain.
Bonaparte's diplomatic game was completely won during the debates on
the King's speech at Westminster at the close of January, 1800. Lord
Grenville laboriously proved that peace was impossible with a nation
whose war was against all order, religion, and morality; and he cited
examples of French lawlessness from Holland and Switzerland to Malta
and Egypt. Pitt declared that the French Revolution was the severest
trial which Providence had ever yet inflicted on the nations of the
earth; and, claiming that there was no security in negotiating with
France, owing to her instability, he summed up his case in the
Ciceronian phrase: _Pacem nolo quia infida_. Ministers carried the day
by 260 votes to 64; but they ranged nearly the whole of France on the
side of the First Consul. No triumph in the field was worth more to
him than these Philippics, which seemed to challenge France to build
up a strong Government in order that the Court of St. James might find
some firm foundation for future negotiations.
Far more dextrous was the conduct of the Austrian diplomatists.
Affecting to believe in the sincerity of the First Consul's proposal
for peace, they so worded their note as to draw from him a reply that
he was prepared to discuss terms of peace on the basis of the Treaty
of Campo Formio.[138] As Austria had since then conquered the greater
part of Italy, Bonaparte's reply immediately revealed his
determination to reassert French supremacy in Italy and the Rhineland.
The action of the Courts of Vienna and London was not unlike that of
the sun and the wind in the proverbial saw. Viennese suavity induced
Bonaparte to take off his coat and show himself as he really was:
while the conscientious bluster of Grenville and Pitt made the First
Consul button up his coat, and pose as the buffeted peacemaker.
The allies had good grounds for confidence. Though Russia had
withdrawn from the Second Coalition yet the Austrians continued their
victorious advance in Italy. In April, 1800, they severed the French
forces near Savona, driving back Suchet's corps towards Nice, while
the other was gradually hemmed in behind the redoubts of Genoa. There
the Imperialist advance was stoutly stayed. Masséna, ably seconded by
Oudinot and Soult, who now gained their first laurels as generals,
maintained a most obstinate resistance, defying alike the assaults of
the white-coats, the bombs hurled by the English squadron, and the
deadlier inroads of famine and sickness. The garrison dwindled by
degrees to less than 10,000 effectives, but they kept double the
number of Austrians there, while Bonaparte was about to strike a
terrible blow against their rear and that of Melas further west. It
was for this that the First Consul urged Masséna to hold out at Genoa
to the last extremity, and nobly was the order obeyed.
Suchet meanwhile defended the line of the River Var against Melas. In
Germany, Moreau with his larger forces slowly edged back the chief
Austrian army, that of General Kray, from the defiles of the Black
Forest, compelling it to fall back on the intrenched camp at Ulm.
On their side, the Austrians strove to compel Masséna to a speedy
surrender, and then with a large force to press on into Nice,
Provence, and possibly Savoy, surrounding Suchet's force, and rousing
the French royalists of the south to a general insurrection. They also
had the promise of the help of a British force, which was to be landed
at some point on the coast and take Suchet in the flank or rear.[139]
Such was the plan, daring in outline and promising great things,
provided that everything went well. If Masséna surrendered, if the
British War Office and Admiralty worked up to time, if the winds were
favourable, and if the French royalists again ventured on a revolt,
then France would be crippled, perhaps conquered. As for the French
occupation of Switzerland and Moreau's advance into Swabia, that was
not to prevent the prosecution of the original Austrian plan of
advancing against Provence and wresting Nice and Savoy from the French
grasp. This scheme has been criticised as if it were based solely on
military considerations; but it was rather dictated by schemes of
political aggrandizement. The conquest of Nice and Savoy was necessary
to complete the ambitious schemes of the Hapsburgs, who sought to gain
a large part of Piedmont at the expense of the King of Sardinia, and
after conquering Savoy and Nice, to thrust that unfortunate king to
the utmost verge of the peninsula, which the prowess of his
descendants has ultimately united under the Italian tricolour.
The allied plan sinned against one of the elementary rules of
strategy; it exposed a large force to a blow from the rear, namely,
from Switzerland. The importance of this immensely strong central
position early attracted Bonaparte's attention. On the 17th of March
he called his secretary, Bourrienne (so the latter states), and lay
down with him on a map of Piedmont: then, placing pins tipped, some
with red, others with black wax, so as to denote the positions of the
troops, he asked him to guess where the French would beat their foes:
"How the devil should I know?" said Bourrienne. "Why, look here,
you fool," said the First Consul: "Melas is at Alessandria with his
headquarters. There he will remain until Genoa surrenders. He has
at Alessandria his magazines, his hospitals, his artillery, his
reserves. Crossing the Alps here (at the Great St. Bernard), I
shall fall upon Melas, cut off his communications with Austria, and
meet him here in the plains of the River Scrivia at San Giuliano."
I quote this passage as showing how readily such stories of ready-made
plans gain credence, until they come to be tested by Napoleon's
correspondence. There we find no strategic soothsaying, but only a
close watching of events as they develop day by day. In March and
April he kept urging on Moreau the need of an early advance, while he
considered the advantages offered by the St. Gotthard, Simplon, and
Great St. Bernard passes for his own army. On April 27th he decided
against the first (except for a detachment), because Moreau's advance
was too slow to safeguard his rear on that route. He now preferred the
Great St. Bernard, but still doubted whether, after crossing, he
should make for Milan, or strike at Masséna's besiegers, in case that
general should be very hard pressed. Like all great commanders, he
started with a general plan, but he arranged the details as the
situation required. In his letter of May 19th, he poured scorn on
Parisian editors who said he prophesied that in a month he would be at
Milan. "That is not in my character. Very often I do _not_ say what I
know: but never do I say what will be."
The better to hide his purpose, he chose as his first base of
operations the city of Dijon, whence he seemed to threaten either the
Swabian or the Italian army of his foes. But this was not enough. At
the old Burgundian capital he assembled his staff and a few regiments
of conscripts in order to mislead the English and Austrian spies;
while the fighting battalions were drafted by diverse routes to Geneva
or Lausanne. So skilful were these preparations that, in the early
days of May, the greater part of his men and stores were near the lake
of Geneva, whence they were easily transferred to the upper valley of
the Rhone. In order that he might have a methodical, hard-working
coadjutor he sent Berthier from the office of the Ministry of War,
where he had displayed less ability than Bernadotte, to be
commander-in-chief of the "army of reserve." In reality Berthier was,
as before in Italy and Egypt, chief of the staff; but he had the
titular dignity of commander which the constitution of 1800 forbade
the First Consul to assume.
On May 6th Bonaparte left Paris for Geneva, where he felt the pulse of
every movement in both campaigns. At that city, on hearing the report
of his general of engineers, he decided to take the Great St. Bernard
route into Italy, as against the Simplon. With redoubled energy, he
now supervised the thousands of details that were needed to insure
success: for, while prone to indulging in grandiose schemes, he
revelled in the work which alone could bring them within his grasp:
or, as Wellington once remarked, "Nothing was too great or too small
for his proboscis." The difficulties of sending a large army over the
Great St. Bernard were indeed immense. That pass was chosen because it
presented only five leagues of ground impracticable for carriages. But
those five leagues tested the utmost powers of the army and of its
chiefs. Marmont, who commanded the artillery, had devised the
ingenious plan of taking the cannon from their carriages and placing
them in the hollowed-out trunks of pine, so that the trunnions fitting
into large notches kept them steady during the ascent over the snow
and the still more difficult descent.[140] The labour of dragging the
guns wore out the peasants; then the troops were invited--a hundred at
a time--to take a turn at the ropes, and were exhilarated by martial
airs played by the bands, or by bugles and drums sounding the charge
at the worst places of the ascent.
The track sometimes ran along narrow ledges where a false step meant
death, or where avalanches were to be feared. The elements, however,
were propitious, and the losses insignificant. This was due to many
causes: the ardour of the troops in an enterprise which appealed to
French imagination and roused all their activities; the friendliness
of the mountaineers; and the organizing powers of Bonaparte and of his
staff; all these may be cited as elements of success. They present a
striking contrast to the march of Hannibal's army over one of the
western passes of the Alps. His motley host struggled over a long
stretch of mountains in the short days of October over unknown paths,
in one part swept away by a fall of the cliff, and ever and anon beset
by clouds of treacherous Gauls. Seeing that the great Carthaginian's
difficulties began long before he reached the Alps, that he was
encumbered by elephants, and that his army was composed of diverse
races held together only by trust in the prowess of their chief, his
exploit was far more wonderful than that of Bonaparte, which, indeed,
more nearly resembles the crossing of the St. Bernard by Francis I. in
1515. The difference between the conditions of Hannibal's and
Bonaparte's enterprises may partly be measured by the time which they
occupied. Whereas Hannibal's march across the Alps lasted fifteen
days, three of which were spent in the miseries of a forced halt
amidst the snow, the First Consul's forces took but seven days.
Whereas the Carthaginian army was weakened by hunger, the French
carried their full rations of biscuit; and at the head of the pass the
monks of the Hospice of St. Bernard served out the rations of bread,
cheese, and wine which the First Consul had forwarded, and which their
own generosity now doubled. The hospitable fathers themselves served
at the tables set up in front of the Hospice.
After insuring the regular succession of troops and stores, Bonaparte
himself began the ascent on May 20th. He wore the gray overcoat which
had already become famous; and his features were fixed in that
expression of calm self-possession which he ever maintained in face of
difficulty. The melodramatic attitudes of horse and rider, which David
has immortalized in his great painting, are, of course, merely
symbolical of the genius of militant democracy prancing over natural
obstacles and wafted onwards and upwards by the breath of victory. The
living figure was remarkable only for stern self-restraint and
suppressed excitement; instead of the prancing war-horse limned by
David, his beast of burden was a mule, led by a peasant; and, in place
of victory, he had heard that Lannes with the vanguard had found an
unexpected obstacle to his descent into Italy. The narrow valley of
the Dora Baltea, by which alone they could advance, was wellnigh
blocked by the fort of Bard, which was firmly held by a small Austrian
garrison and defied all the efforts of Lannes and Berthier. This was
the news that met the First Consul during his ascent, and again at the
Hospice. After accepting the hospitality of the monks, and spending a
short time in the library and chapel, he resumed his journey; and on
the southern slopes he and his staff now and again amused themselves
by sliding down the tracks which the passage of thousands of men had
rendered slippery. After halting at Aosta, he proceeded down the
valley to the fort of Bard.
Meanwhile some of his foot-soldiers had worked their way round this
obstacle by a goat-track among the hills and had already reached Ivrea
lower down the valley. Still the fort held out against the cannonade
of the French. Its commanding position seemed to preclude all hope of
getting the artillery past it; and without artillery the First Consul
could not hope for success in the plains of Piedmont. Unable to
capture the fort, he bethought him of hurrying by night the now
remounted guns under the cover of the houses of the village. For this
purpose he caused the main street to be strewn with straw and dung,
while the wheels of the cannon were covered over so as to make little
noise. They were then dragged quietly through the village almost
within pistol shot of the garrison: nevertheless, the defenders took
alarm, and, firing with musketry and grenades, exploded some
ammunition wagons and inflicted other losses; yet 40 guns and 100
wagons were got past the fort.
How this unfailing resource contrasts with the heedless behaviour of
the enemy! Had they speedily reinforced their detachment at Bard,
there can be little doubt that Bonaparte's movements could have been
seriously hampered. But, up to May 21st, Melas was ignorant that his
distant rear was being assailed, and the 3,000 Austrians who guarded
the vale of the Dora Baltea were divided, part being at Bard and
others at Ivrea. The latter place was taken by a rush of Lannes'
troops on May 22nd, and Bard was blockaded by part of the French
rearguard.
Bonaparte's army, if the rearguard be included, numbered 41,000 men.
Meanwhile, farther east, a French force of 15,000 men, drawn partly
from Moreau's army and led by Moncey, was crossing the St. Gotthard
pass and began to drive back the Austrian outposts in the upper valley
of the Ticino; and 5,000 men, marching over the Mont Cenis pass,
threatened Turin from the west. The First Consul's aim now was to
unite the two chief forces, seize the enemy's magazines, and compel
him to a complete surrender. This daring resolve took shape at Aosta
on the 24th, when he heard that Melas was, on the 19th, still at Nice,
unconscious of his doom. The chance of ending the war at one blow was
not to be missed, even if Masséna had to shift for himself.
But already Melas' dream of triumph had vanished. On the 21st, hearing
the astonishing news that a large force had crossed the St. Bernard,
he left 18,000 men to oppose Suchet on the Var, and hurried back with
the remainder to Turin. At the Piedmontese capital he heard that he
had to deal with the First Consul; but not until the last day of May
did he know that Moncey was forcing the St. Gotthard and threatening
Milan. Then, realizing the full extent of his danger, he hastily
called in all the available troops in order to fight his way through
to Mantua. He even sent an express to the besiegers of Genoa to retire
on Alessandria; but negotiations had been opened with Masséna for the
surrender of that stronghold, and the opinion of Lord Keith, the
English admiral, decided the Austrian commander there to press the
siege to the very end. The city was in the direst straits. Horses,
dogs, cats, and rats were at last eagerly sought as food: and at
every sortie crowds of the starving inhabitants followed the French in
order to cut down grass, nettles, and leaves, which they then boiled
with salt.[141] A revolt threatened by the wretched townsfolk was
averted by Masséna ordering his troops to fire on every gathering of
more than four men. At last, on June 4th, with 8,000 half-starved
soldiers he marched through the Austrian posts with the honours of
war. The stern warrior would not hear of the word surrender or
capitulation. He merely stated to the allied commanders that on June
4th his troops would evacuate Genoa or clear their path by the
bayonet.
Bonaparte has been reproached for not marching at once to succour
Masséna: the charge of desertion was brought by Masséna and Thiébault,
and has been driven home by Lanfrey with his usual skill. It will,
however, scarcely bear a close examination. The Austrians, at the
first trustworthy news of the French inroads into Piedmont and
Lombardy, were certain to concentrate either at Turin or Alessandria.
Indeed, Melas was already near Turin, and would have fallen on the
First Consul's flank had the latter marched due south towards
Genoa.[142] Such a march, with only 40,000 men, would have been
perilous: and it could at most only have rescued a now reduced and
almost famishing garrison. Besides, he very naturally expected the
besiegers of Genoa to retreat now that their rear was threatened.
Sound policy and a desire to deal a dramatic stroke spurred on the
First Consul to a more daring and effective plan; to clear Lombardy of
the Imperialists and seize their stores; then, after uniting with
Moncey's 15,000 troops, to cut off the retreat of all the Austrian
forces west of Milan.
On entering Milan he was greeted with wild acclaim by the partisans of
France (June 2nd); they extolled the energy and foresight that brought
two armies, as it were down from the clouds, to confound their
oppressors. Numbers of men connected with the Cisalpine Republic had
been proscribed, banished, or imprisoned by the Austrians; and their
friends now hailed him as the restorer of their republic. The First
Consul spent seven days in selecting the men who were to rebuild the
Cisalpine State, in beating back the eastern forces of Austria beyond
the River Adda, and in organizing his troops and those of Moncey for
the final blow. The military problems, indeed, demanded great care and
judgment. His position was curiously the reverse of that which he had
occupied in 1796. Then the French held Tortona, Alessandria, and
Valenza, and sought to drive back the Austrians to the walls of
Mantua. Now the Imperialists, holding nearly the same positions, were
striving to break through the French lines which cut them off from
that city of refuge; and Bonaparte, having forces slightly inferior to
his opponents, felt the difficulty of frustrating their escape.
Three routes were open to Melas. The most direct was by way of Tortona
and Piacenza along the southern bank of the Po, through the difficult
defile of Stradella: or he might retire towards Genoa, across the
Apennines, and regain Mantua by a dash across the Modenese: or he
might cross the Po at Valenza and the Ticino near Pavia. All these
roads had to be watched by the French as they cautiously drew towards
their quarry. Bonaparte's first move was to send Murat with a
considerable body of troops to seize Piacenza and to occupy the defile
of Stradella. These important posts were wrested from the Austrian
vanguard; and this success was crowned on June 9th by General Lannes'
brilliant victory at Montebello over a superior Austrian force
marching from Genoa towards Piacenza, which he drove back towards
Alessandria. Smaller bodies of French were meanwhile watching the
course of the Ticino, and others seized the magazines of the enemy at
Cremona.
After gaining precious news as to Melas' movements from an intercepted
despatch, Bonaparte left Milan on June 9th, and proceeded to
Stradella. There he waited for news of Suchet and Masséna from the
side of Savona and Ceva; for their forces, if united, might
complete the circle which he was drawing around the Imperialists.[143]
He hoped that Masséna would have joined Suchet near Savona; but owing
to various circumstances, for which Masséna was in no wise to blame,
their junction was delayed; and Suchet, though pressing on towards
Acqui, was unable to cut off the Austrian retreat on Genoa. Yet he so
harassed the corps opposed to him in its retreat from Nice that only
about 8,000 Austrians joined Melas from that quarter.[144]
Doubtless, Melas' best course would still have been to make a dash for
Genoa and trust to the English ships. But this plan galled the pride
of the general, who had culled plenteous laurels in Italy until the
approach of Bonaparte threatened to snatch the whole chaplet from his
brow. He and his staff sought to restore their drooping fortunes by a
bold rush against the ring of foes that were closing around. Never has
an effort of this kind so nearly succeeded and yet so wholly failed.
The First Consul, believing that the Austrians were bent solely on
flight, advanced from Stradella, where success would have been
certain, into the plains of Tortona, whence he could check any move of
theirs southwards on Genoa. But now the space which he occupied was so
great as to weaken his line at any one point; while his foes had the
advantage of the central position.
Bonaparte was also forced to those enveloping tactics which had so
often proved fatal to the Austrians four years previously; and this
curious reversal of his usual tactics may account for the anxiety
which he betrayed as he moved towards Marengo. He had, however,
recently been encouraged by the arrival of Desaix from Paris after his
return from Egypt. This dashing officer and noble man inspired him
with a sincere affection, as was seen by the three hours of eager
converse which he held with him on his arrival, as also by his words
to Bourrienne: "He is quite an antique character." Desaix with 5,300
troops was now despatched on the night of June 13th towards Genoa to
stop the escape of the Austrians in that direction. This eccentric
move has been severely criticised: but the facts, as then known by
Bonaparte, seemed to show that Melas was about to march on Genoa. The
French vanguard under Gardane had in the afternoon easily driven the
enemy's front from the village of Marengo; and Gardane had even
reported that there was no bridge over the River Bormida by which the
enemy could debouch into the plain of Marengo. Marmont, pushing on
later in the evening, had discovered that there was at least one
well-defended bridge; and when early next morning Gardane's error was
known, the First Consul, with a blaze of passion against the offender,
sent a courier in hot haste to recall Desaix. Long before he could
arrive, the battle of Marengo had begun: and for the greater part of
that eventful day, June the 14th, the French had only 18000 men
wherewith to oppose the onset of 31,000 Austrians.[145]
As will be seen by the accompanying map, the village of Marengo lies
in the plain that stretches eastwards from the banks of the River
Bormida towards the hilly country of Stradella. The village lies on
the high-road leading eastwards from the fortress of Alessandria, the
chief stronghold of north-western Italy.
[Illustration: BATTLE OF MARENGO TO ILLUSTRATE KELLERMAN'S CHARGE]
The plain is cut up by numerous obstacles. Through Marengo runs a
stream called the Fontanone. The deep curves of the Bormida, the steep
banks of the Fontanone, along with the villages, farmsteads, and
vineyards scattered over the plain, all helped to render an advance
exceedingly difficult in face of a determined enemy; and these natural
features had no small share in deciding the fortunes of the day.
Shortly after dawn Melas began to pour his troops across the Bormida,
and drove in the French outposts on Marengo: but there they met with a
tough resistance from the soldiers of Victor's division, while
Kellermann, the son of the hero of Valmy, performed his first great
exploit by hurling back some venturesome Austrian horsemen into the
deep bed of the Fontanone. This gave time to Lannes to bring up his
division, 5,000 strong, into line between Marengo and Castel Ceriolo.
But when the full force of the Austrian attack was developed about 10
a.m., the Imperialists not only gained Marengo, but threw a heavy
column, led by General Ott, against Lannes, who was constrained to
retire, contesting every inch of the ground. Thus, when, an hour
later, Bonaparte rode up from the distant rear, hurrying along his
Consular Guard, his eye fell upon his battalions overpowered in front
and outflanked on both wings. At once he launched his Consular Guard,
1,000 strong, against Ott's triumphant ranks. Drawn up in square near
Castel Ceriolo, it checked them for a brief space, until, plied by
cannon and charged by the enemy's horse, these chosen troops also
began to give ground. But at this crisis Monnier's division of 3,600
men arrived, threw itself into the fight, held up the flood of
white-coats around the hamlet of Li Poggi, while Carra St. Cyr
fastened his grip on Castel Ceriolo. Under cover of this welcome
screen, Victor and Lannes restored some order to their divisions and
checked for a time the onsets of the enemy. Slowly but surely,
however, the impact of the Austrian main column, advancing along the
highroad, made them draw back on San Giuliano.
By 2 p.m. the battle seemed to be lost for the French; except on the
north of their line they were in full retreat, and all but five of
their cannon were silenced. Melas, oppressed by his weight of years,
by the terrific heat, and by two slight wounds, retired to
Alessandria, leaving his chief of the staff, Zach, to direct the
pursuit. But, unfortunately, Melas had sent back 2,200 horsemen to
watch the district between Alessandria and Acqui, to which latter
place Suchet's force was advancing. To guard against this remoter
danger, he weakened his attacking force at the critical time and
place; and now, when the Austrians approached the hill of San Giuliano
with bands playing and colours flying, their horse was not strong
enough to complete the French defeat. Still, such was the strength of
their onset that all resistance seemed unavailing, until about 5 p.m.
the approach of Desaix breathed new life and hope into the defence. At
once he rode up to the First Consul; and if vague rumours may be
credited, he was met by the eager question: "Well, what do you think
of it?" To which he replied: "The battle is lost, but there is time to
gain another." Marmont, who heard the conversation, denies that these
words were uttered; and they presume a boldness of which even Desaix
would scarcely have been guilty to his chief. What he unquestionably
did urge was the immediate use of artillery to check the Austrian
advance: and Marmont, hastily reinforcing his own five guns with
thirteen others, took a strong position and riddled the serried ranks
of the enemy as, swathed in clouds of smoke and dust, they pressed
blindly forward. The First Consul disposed the troops of Desaix behind
the village and a neighbouring hill; while at a little distance on the
French left, Kellermann was ready to charge with his heavy cavalry as
opportunity offered.
It came quickly. Marmont's guns unsteadied Zach's grenadiers: Desaix's
men plied them with musketry; and while they were preparing for a last
effort, Kellermann's heavy cavalry charged full on their flank. Never
was surprise more complete. The column was cut in twain by this onset;
and veterans, who but now seemed about to overbear all obstacles, were
lying mangled by grapeshot, hacked by sabres, flying helplessly amidst
the vineyards, or surrendering by hundreds. A panic spread to their
comrades; and they gave way on all sides before the fiercely rallying
French. The retreat became a rout as the recoiling columns neared the
bridges of the Bormida: and night closed over a scene of wild
confusion, as the defeated army, thrust out from the shelter of
Marengo, flung itself over the river into the stronghold of
Alessandria.
Such was the victory of Marengo. It was dearly bought; for, apart from
the heavy losses, amounting on either side to about one-third of the
number engaged, the victors sustained an irreparable loss in the death
of Desaix, who fell in the moment when his skill and vigour snatched
victory from defeat. The victory was immediately due to Kellermann's
brilliant charge; and there can be no doubt, in spite of Savary's
statements, that this young officer made the charge on his own
initiative. Yet his onset could have had little effect, had not Desaix
shaken the enemy and left him liable to a panic like that which
brought disaster to the Imperialists at Rivoli. Bonaparte's
dispositions at the crisis were undoubtedly skilful; but in the first
part of the fight his conduct was below his reputation. We do not hear
of him electrifying his disordered troops by any deed comparable with
that of Cæsar, when, shield in hand, he flung himself among the
legionaries to stem the torrent of the Nervii. At the climax of the
fight he uttered the words "Soldiers, remember it is my custom to
bivouac on the field of battle"--tame and egotistical words
considering the gravity of the crisis.
On the evening of the great day, while paying an exaggerated
compliment to Bessières and the cavalry of the Consular Guard, he
merely remarked to Kellermann: "You made a very good charge"; to which
that officer is said to have replied: "I am glad you are satisfied,
general: for it has placed the crown on your head." Such pettiness was
unworthy of the great captain who could design and carry through the
memorable campaign of Marengo. If the climax was not worthy of the
inception, yet the campaign as a whole must be pronounced a
masterpiece. Since the days of Hannibal no design so daring and
original had startled the world. A great Austrian army was stopped in
its victorious career, was compelled to turn on its shattered
communications, and to fight for its existence some 120 miles to the
rear of the territory which it seemed to have conquered. In fact, the
allied victories of the past year were effaced by this march of
Bonaparte's army, which, in less than a month after the ascent of the
Alps, regained Nice, Piedmont, and Lombardy, and reduced the
Imperialists to the direst straits.
Staggered by this terrific blow, Melas and his staff were ready to
accept any terms that were not deeply humiliating; and Bonaparte on
his side was not loth to end the campaign in a blaze of glory. He
consented that the Imperial troops should retire to the east of the
Mincio, except at Peschiera and Mantua, which they were still to
occupy. These terms have been variously criticised: Melas has been
blamed for cowardice in surrendering the many strongholds, including
Genoa, which his men firmly held. Yet it must be remembered that he
now had at Alessandria less than 20,000 effectives, and that 30,000
Austrians in isolated bodies were practically at the mercy of the
French between Savona and Brescia. One and all they could now retire
to the Mincio and there resume the defence of the Imperial
territories. The political designs of the Court of Vienna on Piedmont
were of course shattered; but it now recovered the army which it had
heedlessly sacrificed to territorial greed. Bonaparte has also been
blamed for the lenience of his terms. Severer conditions could
doubtless have been extorted; but he now merged the soldier in the
statesman. He desired peace for the sake of France and for his own
sake. After this brilliant stroke peace would be doubly grateful to a
people that longed for glory but also yearned to heal the wounds of
eight years' warfare. His own position as First Consul was as yet
ill-established; and he desired to be back at Paris so as to curb the
restive Tribunate, overawe Jacobins and royalists, and rebuild the
institutions of France.
Impelled by these motives, he penned to the Emperor Francis an
eloquent appeal for peace, renewing his offer of treating with Austria
on the basis of the treaty of Campo Formio.[146] But Austria was not
as yet so far humbled as to accept such terms; and it needed the
master-stroke of Moreau at the great battle of Hohenlinden (December
2nd, 1800), and the turning of her fortresses on the Mincio by the
brilliant passage of the Splügen in the depths of winter by
Macdonald--a feat far transcending that of Bonaparte at the St.
Bernard--to compel her to a peace. A description of these events would
be beyond the scope of this work; and we now return to consider the
career of Bonaparte as a statesman.
After a brief stay at Milan and Turin, where he was received as the
liberator of Italy, the First Consul crossed the Alps by the Mont
Cenis pass and was received with rapturous acclaim at Lyons and Paris.
He had been absent from the capital less than two calendar months.
He now sent a letter to the Czar Paul, offering that, if the French
garrison of Malta were compelled by famine to evacuate that island, he
would place it in the hands of the Czar, as Grand Master of the
Knights of St. John. Rarely has a "Greek gift" been more skilfully
tendered. In the first place, Valetta was so closely blockaded by
Nelson's cruisers and invested by the native Maltese that its
surrender might be expected in a few weeks; and the First Consul was
well aware how anxiously the Czar had been seeking to gain a foothold
at Malta, whence he could menace Turkey from the south-east. In his
wish completely to gain over Russia, Bonaparte also sent back,
well-clad and well-armed, the prisoners taken from the Russian armies
in 1799, a step which was doubly appreciated at Petersburg because the
Russian troops which had campaigned with the Duke of York in Holland
were somewhat shabbily treated by the British Government in the
Channel Islands, where they took up their winter quarters. Accordingly
the Czar now sent Kalicheff to Paris, for the formation of a
Franco-Russian alliance. He was warmly received. Bonaparte promised in
general terms to restore the King of Sardinia to his former realm and
the Pope to his States. On his side, the Czar sent the alluring advice
to Bonaparte to found a dynasty and thereby put an end to the
revolutionary principles which had armed Europe against France. He
also offered to recognize the natural frontiers of France, the Rhine
and the Maritime Alps, and claimed that German affairs should be
regulated under his own mediation. When both parties were so
complaisant, a bargain was easily arranged. France and Russia
accordingly joined hands in order to secure predominance in the
affairs of Central and Southern Europe, and to counterbalance
England's supremacy at sea.
For it was not enough to break up the Second Coalition and recover
Northern Italy. Bonaparte's policy was more than European; it was
oceanic. England must be beaten on her own element: then and then only
could the young warrior secure his grasp on Egypt and return to his
oriental schemes. His correspondence before and after the Marengo
campaign reveals his eagerness for a peace with Austria and an
alliance with Russia. His thoughts constantly turn to Egypt. He
bargains with Britain that his army there may be revictualled, and so
words his claim that troops can easily be sent also. Lord Grenville
refuses (September 10th); whereupon Bonaparte throws himself eagerly
into further plans for the destruction of the islanders. He seeks to
inflame the Czar's wrath against the English maritime code. His
success for the time is complete. At the close of 1800 the Russian
Emperor marshals the Baltic Powers for the overthrow of England's
navy, and outstrips Bonaparte's wildest hopes by proposing a
Franco-Russian invasion of India with a view to "dealing his enemy a
mortal blow." This plan, as drawn up at the close of 1800, arranged
for the mustering of 35,000 Russians at Astrakan; while as many French
were to fight their way to the mouth of the Danube, set sail on
Russian ships for the Sea of Azov, join their allies on the Caspian
Sea, sail to its southern extremity, and, rousing the Persians and
Afghans by the hope of plunder, sweep the British from India. The
scheme received from Bonaparte a courteous perusal; but he subjected
it to several criticisms, which led to less patient rejoinders from
the irascible potentate. Nevertheless, Paul began to march his troops
towards the lower Volga, and several polks of Cossacks had crossed
that river on the ice, when the news of his assassination cut short
the scheme.[147]
The grandiose schemes of Paul vanished with their fantastic contriver;
but the _rapprochement_ of Russia to revolutionary France was
ultimately to prove an event of far-reaching importance; for the
eastern power thereby began to exert on the democracy of western
Europe that subtle, semi-Asiatic influence which has so powerfully
warped its original character.
The dawn of the nineteenth century witnessed some startling
rearrangements on the political chess-board.
While Bonaparte brought Russia and France to sudden amity, the
unbending maritime policy of Great Britain leagued the Baltic Powers
against the mistress of the seas. In the autumn of 1800 the Czar Paul,
after hearing of our capture of Malta, forthwith revived the Armed
Neutrality League of 1780 and opposed the forces of Russia, Prussia,
Sweden, and Denmark to the might of England's navy. But Nelson's
brilliant success at Copenhagen and the murder of the Czar by a palace
conspiracy shattered this league only four months after its formation,
and the new Czar, Alexander, reverted for a time to friendship with
England.[148] This sudden ending to the first Franco-Russia alliance
so enraged Bonaparte that he caused a paragraph to be inserted in the
official "Moniteur," charging the British Government with procuring
the assassination of Paul, an insinuation that only proclaimed his
rage at this sudden rebuff to his hitherto successful diplomacy.
Though foiled for a time, he never lost sight of the hoped-for
alliance, which, with a deft commixture of force and persuasion, he
gained seven years later after the crushing blow of Friedland.
Dread of a Franco-Russian alliance undoubtedly helped to compel
Austria to a peace. Humbled by Moreau at the great battle of
Hohenlinden, the Emperor Francis opened negotiations at Lunéville in
Lorraine. The subtle obstinacy of Cobenzl there found its match in the
firm yet suave diplomacy of Joseph Bonaparte, who wearied out Cobenzl
himself, until the march of Moreau towards Vienna compelled Francis to
accept the River Adige as his boundary in Italy. The other terms of
the treaty (February 9th, 1801) were practically the same as those of
the treaty of Campo Formio, save that the Hapsburg Grand Duke of
Tuscany was compelled to surrender his State to a son of the Bourbon
Duke of Parma. He himself was to receive "compensation" in Germany,
where also the unfortunate Duke of Modena was to find consolation in
the district of the Breisgau on the Upper Rhine. The helplessness of
the old Holy Roman Empire was, indeed, glaringly displayed; for
Francis now admitted the right of the French to interfere in the
rearrangement of that medley of States. He also recognized the
Cisalpine, Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics, as at present
constituted; but their independence, and the liberty of their peoples
to choose what form of government they thought fit, were expressly
stipulated.
The Court of Naples also made peace with France by the treaty of
Florence (March, 1801), whereby it withdrew its troops from the States
of the Church, and closed its ports to British and Turkish ships; it
also renounced in favour of the French Republic all its claims over a
maritime district of Tuscany known as the Présidii, the little
principality of Piombino, and a port in the Isle of Elba. These
cessions fitted in well with Napoleon's schemes for the proposed
elevation of the heir of the Duchy of Parma to the rank of King of
Tuscany or Etruria. The King of Naples also pledged himself to admit
and support a French corps in his dominions. Soult with 10,000 troops
thereupon occupied Otranto, Taranto, and Brindisi, in order to hold
the Neapolitan Government to its engagements, and to facilitate French
intercourse with Egypt.
In his relations with the New World Bonaparte had also prospered.
Certain disputes between France and the United States had led to
hostilities in the year 1798. Negotiations for peace were opened in
March, 1800, and led to the treaty of Morfontaine, which enabled
Bonaparte to press on the Court of Madrid the scheme of the
Parma-Louisiana exchange, that promised him a magnificent empire on
the banks of the Mississippi.
These and other grandiose designs were confided only to Talleyrand and
other intimate counsellors. But, even to the mass of mankind, the
transformation scene ushered in by the nineteenth century was one of
bewildering brilliance. Italy from the Alps to her heel controlled by
the French; Austria compelled to forego all her Italian plans;
Switzerland and Holland dominated by the First Consul's influence;
Spain following submissively his imperious lead; England, despite all
her naval triumphs, helpless on land; and France rapidly regaining
more than all her old prestige and stability under the new
institutions which form the most enduring tribute to the First
Consul's glory.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XII
THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE
"We have done with the romance of the Revolution: we must now commence
its history. We must have eyes only for what is real and practicable
in the application of principles, and not for the speculative and
hypothetical." Such were the memorable words of Bonaparte to his
Council of State at one of its early meetings. They strike the keynote
of the era of the Consulate. It was a period of intensely practical
activity that absorbed all the energies of France and caused the
earlier events of the Revolution to fade away into a seemingly remote
past. The failures of the civilian rulers and the military triumphs of
Bonaparte had exerted a curious influence on the French character,
which was in a mood of expectant receptivity. In 1800 everything was
in the transitional state that favours the efforts of a master
builder; and one was now at hand whose constructive ability in civil
affairs equalled his transcendent genius for war.
I propose here briefly to review the most important works of
reconstruction which render the Consulate and the early part of the
Empire for ever famous. So vast and complex were Bonaparte's efforts
in this field that they will be described, not chronologically, but
subject by subject. The reader will, however, remember that for the
most part they went on side by side, even amidst the distractions
caused by war, diplomacy, colonial enterprises, and the myriad details
of a vast administration. What here appears as a series of canals was
in reality a mighty river of enterprise rolling in undivided volume
and fed by the superhuman vitality of the First Consul. It was his
inexhaustible curiosity which compelled functionaries to reveal the
secrets of their office: it was his intelligence that seized on the
salient points of every problem and saw the solution: it was his
ardour and mental tenacity which kept his Ministers and committees
hard at work, and by toil of sometimes twenty hours a day supervised
the results: it was, in fine, his passion for thoroughness, his
ambition for France, that nerved every official with something of his
own contempt of difficulties, until, as one of them said, "the
gigantic entered into our very habits of thought."[149]
The first question of political reconstruction which urgently claimed
attention was that of local government. On the very day when it was
certain that the nation had accepted the new constitution, the First
Consul presented to the Legislature a draft of a law for regulating
the affairs of the Departments. It must be admitted that local
self-government, as instituted by the men of 1789 in their
Departmental System, had proved a failure. In that time of buoyant
hope, when every difficulty and abuse seemed about to be charmed away
by the magic of universal suffrage, local self-government of a most
advanced type had been intrusted to an inexperienced populace. There
were elections for the commune or parish, elections for the canton,
elections for the district, elections for the Department, and
elections for the National Assembly, until the rustic brain, after
reeling with excitement, speedily fell back into muddled apathy and
left affairs generally to the wire-pullers of the nearest Jacobin
club. A time of great confusion ensued. Law went according to local
opinion, and the national taxes were often left unpaid. In the Reign
of Terror this lax system was replaced by the despotism of the secret
committees, and the way was thus paved for a return to organized
central control, such as was exercised by the Directory.
The First Consul, as successor to the Directory, therefore found
matters ready to his hand for a drastic measure of centralization, and
it is curious to notice that the men of 1789 had unwittingly cleared
the ground for him. To make way for the "supremacy of the general
will," they abolished the _Parlements_, which had maintained the old
laws, customs, and privileges of their several provinces, and had
frequently interfered in purely political matters. The abolition of
these and other privileged corporations in 1789 unified France and
left not a single barrier to withstand either the flood of democracy
or the backwash of reaction. Everything therefore favoured the action
of the First Consul in drawing all local powers under his own control.
France was for the moment weary of elective bodies, that did little
except waste the nation's taxes; and though there was some opposition
to the new proposal, it passed on February 16th, 1800 (28 Pluviose,
an, viii).
It substituted local government by the central power for local
self-government. The local divisions remained the same, except that
the "districts," abolished by the Convention, were now reconstituted
on a somewhat larger scale, and were termed _arrondissements_, while
the smaller communes, which had been merged in the cantons since 1795,
were also revived. It is noteworthy that, of all the areas mapped out
by the Constituent Assembly in 1789-90, only the Department and canton
have had a continuous existence--a fact which seems to show the peril
of tampering with well-established boundaries, and of carving out a
large number of artificial districts, which speedily become the
_corpus vile_ of other experimenters. Indeed, so little was there of
effective self-government that France seems to have sighed with relief
when order was imposed by Bonaparte in the person of a Prefect. This
important official, a miniature First Consul, was to administer the
affairs of the Department, while sub-prefects were similarly placed
over the new _arrondissements_, and mayors over the communes. The
mayors were appointed by the First Consul in communes of more than
5,000 souls: by the prefects in the smaller communes: all were alike
responsible to the central power.
The rebound from the former electoral system, which placed all local
authority ultimately in the hands of the voters, was emphasized by
Article 75 of the constitution, which virtually raised officials
beyond reach of prosecution. It ran thus: "The agents of the
Government, other than the Ministers, cannot be prosecuted for facts
relating to their duties except by a decision of the Council of State:
in that case the prosecution takes place before the ordinary
tribunals." Now, as this decision rested with a body composed almost
entirely of the higher officials, it will be seen that the chance of
a public prosecution of an official became extremely small. France was
therefore in the first months of 1800 handed over to a hierarchy of
officials closely bound together by interest and _esprit de corps_;
and local administration, after ten years of democratic experiments,
practically reverted to what it had been under the old monarchy. In
fact, the powers of the Prefects were, on the whole, much greater than
those of the royal Intendants: for while the latter were hampered by
the provincial _Parlements_, the nominees of the First Consul had to
deal with councils that retained scarce the shadow of power. The real
authority in local matters rested with the Prefects. The old elective
bodies survived, it is true, but their functions were now mainly
advisory; and, lest their advice should be too copious, the sessions
of the first two bodies were limited to a fortnight a year. Except for
a share in the assessment of taxation, their existence was merely a
screen to hide the reality of the new central despotism.[150]
Beneficent it may have been; and the choice of Prefects was certainly
a proof of Bonaparte's discernment of real merit among men of all
shades of opinion; but for all that, it was a despotism, and one that
has inextricably entwined itself with the whole life of France.[151]
It seems strange that this law should not have aroused fierce
opposition; for it practically gagged democracy in its most
appropriate and successful sphere of action, local self-government,
and made popular election a mere shadow, except in the single act of
the choice of the local _juges de paix_. This was foreseen by the
Liberals in the Tribunate: but their power was small since the
regulations passed in January: and though Daunou, as "reporter,"
sharply criticised this measure, yet he lamely concluded with the
advice that it would be dangerous to reject it. The Tribunes therefore
passed the proposal by 71 votes to 25: and the Corps Législatif by 217
to 68.
The results of this new local government have often been considered so
favourable as to prove that the genius of the French people requires
central control rather than self-government. But it should be noted
that the conditions of France from 1790 to 1800 were altogether
hostile to the development of free institutions. The fierce feuds at
home, the greed and the class jealousies awakened by confiscation, the
blasts of war and the blight of bankruptcy, would have severely tested
the firmest of local institutions; they were certain to wither so
delicate an organism as an absolute democracy, which requires peace,
prosperity, and infinite patience for its development. Because France
then came to despair of her local self-government, it did not follow
that she would fail after Bonaparte's return had restored her prestige
and prosperity. But the national _élan_ forbade any postponement or
compromise; and France forthwith accepted the rule of an able official
hierarchy as a welcome alternative to the haphazard acts of local
busybodies. By many able men the change has been hailed as a proof of
Bonaparte's marvellous discernment of the national character, which,
as they aver, longs for brilliance, order, and strong government,
rather than for the steep and thorny paths of liberty. Certainly there
is much in the modern history of France which supports this opinion.
Yet perhaps these characteristics are due very largely to the master
craftsman, who fashioned France anew when in a state of receptivity,
and thus was able to subject democracy to that force which alone has
been able to tame it--the mighty force of militarism.
* * * * *
The return to a monarchical policy was nowhere more evident than in
the very important negotiations which regulated the relations of
Church and State and produced the _Concordat_ or treaty of peace with
the Roman Catholic Church. But we must first look back at the events
which had reduced the Roman Catholic Church in France to its pitiable
condition.
The conduct of the revolutionists towards the Church of France was
actuated partly by the urgent needs of the national exchequer, partly
by hatred and fear of so powerful a religious corporation. Idealists
of the new school of thought, and practical men who dreaded
bankruptcy, accordingly joined in the assault on its property and
privileges: its tithes were confiscated, the religious houses and
their property were likewise absorbed, and its lands were declared to
be the lands of the nation. A budget of public worship was, it is
true, designed to support the bishops and priests; but this solemn
obligation was soon renounced by the fiercer revolutionists. Yet
robbery was not their worst offence. In July, 1790, they passed a law
called the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which aimed at subjecting
the Church to the State. It compelled bishops and priests to seek
election by the adult males of their several Departments and parishes,
and forced them to take a stringent oath of obedience to the new order
of things. All the bishops but four refused to take an oath which set
at naught the authority of the Pope: more than 50,000 priests likewise
refused, and were ejected from their livings: the recusants were
termed _orthodox_ or _non-juring_ priests, and by the law of August,
1792, they were exiled from France, while their more pliable or
time-serving brethren who accepted the new decree were known as
_constitutionals_. About 12,000 of the constitutionals married, while
some of them applauded the extreme Jacobinical measures of the Terror.
One of them shocked the faithful by celebrating the mysteries, having
a _bonnet rouge_ on his head, holding a pike in his hand, while his
wife was installed near the altar.[152] Outrages like these were rare:
but they served to discredit the constitutional Church and to throw up
in sharper relief the courage with which the orthodox clergy met exile
and death for conscience' sake. Moreover, the time-serving of the
constitutionals was to avail them little: during the Terror their
stipends were unpaid, and the churches were for the most part closed.
After a partial respite in 1795-6, the _coup d'état_ of Fructidor
(1797) again ushered in two years of petty persecutions; but in the
early summer of 1799 constitutionals were once more allowed to observe
the Christian Sunday, and at the time of Bonaparte's return from
Egypt their services were more frequented than those of the
Theophilanthropists on the _décadis_. It was evident, then, that the
anti-religious _furor_ had burnt itself out, and that France was
turning back to her old faith. Indeed, outside Paris and a few other
large towns, public opinion mocked at the new cults, and in the
country districts the peasantry clung with deep affection to their old
orthodox priests, often following them into the forests to receive
their services and forsaking those of their supplanters.
Such, then, was the religious state of France in 1799: her clergy were
rent by a formidable schism; the orthodox priests clung where possible
to their parishioners, or lived in destitution abroad; the
constitutional priests, though still frowned on by the Directory, were
gaining ground at the expense of the Theophilanthropists, whose
expiring efforts excited ridicule. In fine, a nation weary of
religious experiments and groping about for some firm anchorage in the
midst of the turbid ebb-tide and its numerous backwaters.[153]
Despite the absence of any deep religious belief, Bonaparte felt the
need of religion as the bulwark of morality and the cement of society.
During his youth he had experienced the strength of Romanism in
Corsica, and during his campaigns in Italy he saw with admiration the
zeal of the French orthodox priests who had accepted exile and poverty
for conscience' sake. To these outcasts he extended more protection
than was deemed compatible with correct republicanism; and he received
their grateful thanks. After Brumaire he suppressed the oath
previously exacted from the clergy, and replaced it by a _promise_ of
fidelity to the constitution. Many reasons have been assigned for this
conduct, but doubtless his imagination was touched by the sight of the
majestic hierarchy of Rome, whose spiritual powers still prevailed,
even amidst the ruin of its temporal authority, and were slowly but
surely winning back the ground lost in the Revolution. An influence so
impalpable yet irresistible, that inherited from the Rome of the
Cæsars the gift of organization and the power of maintaining
discipline, in which the Revolution was so signally lacking, might
well be the ally of the man who now dominated the Latin peoples. The
pupil of Cæsar could certainly not neglect the aid of the spiritual
hierarchy, which was all that remained of the old Roman grandeur.
Added to this was his keen instinct for reality, which led him to
scorn such whipped-up creeds as Robespierre's Supreme Being and that
amazing hybrid, Theophilanthropy, offspring of the Goddess of Reason
and La Réveillière-Lépeaux. Having watched their manufacture, rise and
fall, he felt the more regard for the faith of his youth, which
satisfied one of the most imperious needs of his nature, a craving for
certainty. Witness this crushing retort to M. Mathieu: "What is your
Theophilanthropy? Oh, don't talk to me of a religion which only takes
me for this life, without telling me whence I come or whither I go."
Of course, this does not prove the reality of Napoleon's religion; but
it shows that he was not devoid of the religious instinct.
The victory of Marengo enabled Bonaparte to proceed with his plans for
an accommodation with the Vatican; and he informed one of the Lombard
bishops that he desired to open friendly relations with Pope Pius
VII., who was then about to make his entry into Rome. There he
received the protection of the First Consul, and soon recovered his
sovereignty over his States, excepting the Legations.
The negotiations between Paris and the Vatican were transacted chiefly
by a very able priest, Bernier by name, who had gained the First
Consul's confidence during the pacification of Brittany, and now urged
on the envoys of Rome the need of deferring to all that was reasonable
in the French demands. The negotiators for the Vatican were Cardinals
Consalvi and Caprara, and Monseigneur Spina--able ecclesiastics, who
were fitted to maintain clerical claims with that mixture of
suppleness and firmness which had so often baffled the force and craft
of mighty potentates. The first difficulty arose on the question of
the resignation of bishops of the Gallican Church: Bonaparte demanded
that, whether orthodox or constitutionals, they must resign their sees
into the Pope's hands; failing that, they must be deposed by the papal
authority. Sweeping as this proposal seemed, Bonaparte claimed that
bishops of both sides must resign, in order that a satisfactory
selection might be made. Still more imperious was the need that the
Church should renounce all claim to her confiscated domains. All
classes of the community, so urged Bonaparte, had made immense
sacrifices during the Revolution; and now that peasants were settled
on these once clerical lands, the foundations of society would be
broken up by any attempt to dispossess them.
To both of these proposals the Court of Rome offered a tenacious
resistance. The idea of compelling long-persecuted bishops to resign
their sees was no less distasteful than the latter proposal, which
involved acquiescence in sacrilegious robbery. At least, pleaded Mgr.
Spina, let tithes be re-established. To this request the First Consul
deigned no reply. None, indeed, was possible except a curt refusal.
Few imposts had been so detested as the tithe; and its reimposition
would have wounded the peasant class, on which the First Consul based
his authority. So long as he had their support he could treat with
disdain the scoffs of the philosophers and even the opposition of his
officers; but to have wavered on the subject of tithe and of the
Church lands might have been fatal even to the victor of Marengo.[154]
In fact, the difficulty of effecting any compromise was enormous. In
seeking to reconcile the France of Rousseau and Robespierre to the
unchanging policy of the Vatican, the "heir to the Revolution" was
essaying a harder task than any military enterprise. To slay men has
ever been easier than to mould their thoughts anew; and Bonaparte was
now striving not only to remould French thought but also to fashion
anew the ideas of the Eternal City. He soon perceived that this latter
enterprise was more difficult than the former. The Pope and his
councillors rejoiced at the signs of his repentance, but required to
see the fruits thereof. Instead of first-fruits they received
unheard-of demands--the surrender of the three Legations of Bologna,
Ferrara, and Romagna, the renunciation of all tithes and Church lands
in France, and the acceptance of a compromise with schismatics. What
wonder that the replies from Rome were couched in the _non possumus_
terms which form the last refuge of the Vatican. Finding that
negotiations made no progress, Bonaparte intrusted Berthier and Murat
to pay a visit to Rome and exercise a discreet but burdensome pressure
in the form of requisitions for the French troops in the Papal States.
The ratification of peace with Austria gave greater weight to his
representations at Rome, and he endeavoured to press on the signature
of the Concordat, so as to startle the world by the simultaneous
announcement of the pacification of the Continent and of the healing
of the great religious schism in France. But the clerical machinery
worked too slowly to admit of this projected _coup de théâtre_. In
Bonaparte's proposals of February 25th, 1801, there were several
demands already found to be inadmissible at the Vatican;[155] and
matters came to a deadlock until the Pope invested Spina with larger
powers for negotiating at Paris. Consalvi also proceeded to Paris,
where he was received in state with other ambassadors at the
Tuileries, the sight of a cardinal's robe causing no little sensation.
The First Consul granted him a long interview, speaking at first
somewhat seriously, but gradually becoming more affable and gracious.
Yet as his behaviour softened his demands stiffened; and at the close
of the audience he pressed Consalvi to sign a somewhat unfavourable
version of the compact within five days, otherwise the negotiations
would be at an end and a _national religion would be adopted_--an
enterprise for which the auguries promised complete success. At a
later interview he expressed the same resolution in homely phrase:
when Consalvi pressed him to take a firm stand against the
"constitutional" intruders, he laughingly remarked that he could do no
more until he knew how he stood with Rome; for "you know that when
one cannot arrange matters with God, one comes to terms with the
devil."[156]
This dalliance with the "constitutionals" might have been more than an
astute ruse, and Consalvi knew it. In framing a national Church the
First Consul would have appealed not only to the old Gallican feeling,
still strong among the clerics and laity, but also to the potent force
of French nationality. The experiment might have been managed so as to
offend none but the strictest Catholics, who were less to be feared
than the free-thinkers. Consalvi was not far wrong when, writing of
the official world at Paris, he said that only Bonaparte really
desired a Concordat.
The First Consul's motives in seeking the alliance of Rome have, very
naturally, been subjected to searching criticism; and in forcing the
Concordat on France, and also on Rome, he was certainly undertaking
the most difficult negotiation of his life.[157] But his preference
for the Roman connection was an act of far-reaching statecraft. He saw
that a national Church, unrecognized by Rome, was a mere half-way
house between Romanism and Protestantism; and he disliked the latter
creed because of its tendency to beget sects and to impair the
validity of the general will. He still retained enough of Rousseau's
doctrine to desire that the general will should be uniform, provided
that it could be controlled by his own will. Such uniformity in the
sphere of religion was impossible unless he had the support of the
Papacy. Only by a bargain with Rome could he gain the support of a
solid ecclesiastical phalanx. Finally, by erecting a French national
Church, he would not only have perpetuated schism at home, but would
have disqualified himself for acting the part of Charlemagne over
central and southern Europe. To re-fashion Europe in a cosmopolitan
mould he needed a clerical police that was more than merely French. To
achieve those grander designs the successor of Cæsar would need the
aid of the successor of Peter; and this aid would be granted only to
the restorer of Roman Catholicism in France, never to the perpetuator
of schism.
These would seem to be the chief reasons why he braved public opinion
in Paris and clung to the Roman connection, bringing forward his plan
of a Gallican Church only as a threatening move against the clerical
flank. When the Vatican was obdurate he coquetted with the
"constitutional" bishops, allowing them every facility for free speech
in a council which they held at Paris at the close of June, 1801. He
summoned to the Tuileries their president, the famous Grégoire, and
showed him signal marks of esteem. "Put not your trust in princes"
must soon have been the thought of Grégoire and his colleagues: for a
fortnight later Bonaparte carried through his treaty with Rome and
shelved alike the congress and the church of the "constitutionals."
It would be tedious to detail all the steps in this complex
negotiation, but the final proceedings call for some notice. When the
treaty was assuming its final form, Talleyrand, the polite scoffer,
the bitter foe of all clerical claims, found it desirable to take the
baths at a distant place, and left the threads of the negotiation in
the hands of two men who were equally determined to prevent its
signature, Maret, Secretary of State, and Hauterive, who afterwards
become the official archivist of France. These men determined to
submit to Consalvi a draft of the treaty differing widely from that
which had been agreed upon; and that, too, when the official
announcement had been made that the treaty was to be signed
immediately. In the last hours the cardinal found himself confronted
with unexpected conditions, many of which he had successfully
repelled. Though staggered by this trickery, which compelled him to
sign a surrender or to accept an open rupture, Consalvi fought the
question over again in a conference that lasted twenty-four hours; he
even appeared at the State dinner given on July 14th by the First
Consul, who informed him before the other guests that it was a
question of "my draft of the treaty or none at all." Nothing baffled
the patience and tenacity of the Cardinal; and finally, by the good
offices of Joseph Bonaparte, the objectionable demands thrust forward
at the eleventh hour were removed or altered.
The question has been discussed whether the First Consul was a party
to this device. Theiner asserts that he knew nothing of it: that it
was an official intrigue got up at the last moment by the
anti-clericals so as to precipitate a rupture. In support of this
view, he cites letters of Maret and Hauterive as inculpating these men
and tending to free Bonaparte from suspicion of complicity. But the
letters cannot be said to dissipate all suspicion. The First Consul
had made this negotiation peculiarly his own: no officials assuredly
would have dared secretly to foist their own version of an important
treaty; or, if they did, this act would have been the last of their
career. But Bonaparte did not disgrace them; on the contrary, he
continued to honour them with his confidence. Moreover, the First
Consul flew into a passion with his brother Joseph when he reported
that Consalvi could not sign the document now offered to him, and tore
in pieces the articles finally arranged with the Cardinal. On the
return of his usually calm intelligence, he at last allowed the
concessions to stand, with the exception of two; but in a scrutiny of
motives we must assign most importance, not to second and more prudent
thoughts, but to the first ebullition of feelings, which seem
unmistakably to prove his knowledge and approval of Hauterive's
device. We must therefore conclude that he allowed the antagonists of
the Concordat to make this treacherous onset, with the intention of
extorting every possible demand from the dazed and bewildered
Cardinal.[158]
After further delays the Concordat was ratified at Eastertide, 1802.
It may be briefly described as follows: The French Government
recognized that the Catholic apostolic and Roman religion was the
religion of the great majority of the French people, "especially of
the Consuls"; but it refused to declare it to be the religion of
France, as was the case under the _ancien régime_. It was to be freely
and publicly practised in France, subject to the police regulations
that the Government judged necessary for the public tranquillity. In
return for these great advantages, many concessions were expected from
the Church. The present bishops, both orthodox and constitutional,
were, at the Pope's invitation, to resign their sees; or, failing
that, new appointments were to be made, as if the sees were vacant.
The last proviso was necessary; for of the eighty-one surviving
bishops affected by this decision as many as thirteen orthodox and two
"constitutionals" offered persistent but unavailing protests against
the action of the Pope and First Consul.
A new division of archbishoprics and bishoprics was now made, which
gave in all sixty sees to France. The First Consul enjoyed the right
of nomination to them, whereupon the Pope bestowed canonical
investiture. The archbishops and bishops were all to take an oath of
fidelity to the constitution. The bishops nominated the lower clerics
provided that they were acceptable to the Government: all alike bound
themselves to watch over governmental interests. The stability of
France was further assured by a clause granting complete and permanent
security to the holders of the confiscated Church lands--a healing and
salutary compromise which restored peace to every village and soothed
the qualms of many a troubled conscience. On its side, the State
undertook to furnish suitable stipends to the clergy, a promise which
was fulfilled in a rather niggardly spirit. For the rest, the First
Consul enjoyed the same consideration as the Kings of France in all
matters ecclesiastical; and a clause was added, though Bonaparte
declared it needless, that if any succeeding First Consul were not a
Roman Catholic, his prerogatives in religious matters should be
revised by a Convention. A similar Concordat was passed a little later
for the pacification of the Cisalpine Republic.
The Concordat was bitterly assailed by the Jacobins, especially by the
military chiefs, and had not the infidel generals been for the most
part sundered by mutual jealousies they might perhaps have overthrown
Bonaparte. But their obvious incapacity for civil affairs enabled them
to venture on nothing more than a few coarse jests and clumsy
demonstrations. At the Easter celebration at Notre Dame in honour of
the ratification of the Concordat, one of them, Delmas by name,
ventured on the only protest barbed with telling satire: "Yes, a fine
piece of monkery this, indeed. It only lacked the million men who got
killed to destroy what you are striving to bring back." But to all
protests Bonaparte opposed a calm behaviour that veiled a rigid
determination, before which priests and soldiers were alike helpless.
In subsequent articles styled "organic," Bonaparte, without consulting
the Pope, made several laws that galled the orthodox clergy. Under the
plea of legislating for the police of public worship, he reaffirmed
some of the principles which he had been unable to incorporate in the
Concordat itself. The organic articles asserted the old claims of the
Gallican Church, which forbade the application of Papal Bulls, or of
the decrees of "foreign" synods, to France: they further forbade the
French bishops to assemble in council or synod without the permission
of the Government; and this was also required for a bishop to leave
his diocese, even if he were summoned to Rome. Such were the chief of
the organic articles. Passed under the plea of securing public
tranquillity, they proved a fruitful source of discord, which during
the Empire became so acute as to weaken Napoleon's authority. In
matters religious as well as political, he early revealed his chief
moral and mental defect, a determination to carry his point by
whatever means and to require the utmost in every bargain. While
refusing fully to establish Roman Catholicism as the religion of the
State, he compelled the Church to surrender its temporalities, to
accept the regulations of the State, and to protect its interests.
Truly if, in Chateaubriand's famous phrase, he was the "restorer of
the altars," he exacted the uttermost farthing for that restoration.
In one matter his clear intelligence stands forth in marked contrast
to the narrow pedantry of the Roman Cardinals. At a time of
reconciliation between orthodox and "constitutionals," they required
from the latter a complete and public retractation of their recent
errors. At once Bonaparte intervened with telling effect. So condign a
humiliation, he argued, would altogether mar the harmony newly
re-established. "The past is past: and the bishops and prefects ought
to require from the priests only the declaration of adhesion to the
Concordat, and of obedience to the bishop nominated by the First
Consul and instituted by the Pope." This enlightened advice, backed up
by irresistible power, carried the day, and some ten thousand
constitutional priests were quietly received back into the Roman
communion, those who had contracted marriages being compelled to put
away their wives. Bonaparte took a deep interest in the reconstruction
of dioceses, in the naming of churches, and similar details, doubtless
with the full consciousness that the revival of the Roman religious
discipline in France was a more important service than any feat of
arms.
He was right: in healing a great schism in France he was dealing a
deadly blow at the revolutionary feeling of which it was a prominent
manifestation. In the words of one of his Ministers, "The Concordat
was the most brilliant triumph over the genius of Revolution, and all
the following successes have without exception resulted from it."[159]
After this testimony it is needless to ask why Bonaparte did not take
up with Protestantism. At St. Helena, it is true, he asserted that the
choice of Catholicism or Protestantism was entirely open to him in
1801, and that the nation would have followed him in either direction:
but his religious policy, if carefully examined, shows no sign of
wavering on this subject, though he once or twice made a strategic
diversion towards Geneva, when Rome showed too firm a front. Is it
conceivable that a man who, as he informed Joseph, was systematically
working to found a dynasty, should hesitate in the choice of a
governmental creed? Is it possible to think of the great champion of
external control and State discipline as a defender of liberty of
conscience and the right of private judgment?
The regulation of the Protestant cult in France was a far less arduous
task. But as Bonaparte's aim was to attach all cults to the State, he
decided to recognize the two chief Protestant bodies in France,
Calvinists and Lutherans, allowing them to choose their own pastors
and to regulate their affairs in consistories. The pastors were to be
salaried by the State, but in return the Government not only reserved
its approval of every appointment, but required the Protestant bodies
to have no relations whatever with any foreign Power or authority. The
organic articles of 1802, which defined the position of the Protestant
bodies, form a very important landmark in the history of the followers
of Luther and Calvin. Persecuted by Louis XIV. and XV., they were
tolerated by Louis XVI.; they gained complete religious equality
in 1789, and after a few years of anarchy in matters of faith, they
found themselves suddenly and stringently bound to the State by the
organizing genius of Bonaparte.
In the years 1806-1808 the position of the Jews was likewise defined,
at least for all those who recognized France as their country,
performed all civic duties, and recognized all the laws of the State.
In consideration of their paying full taxes and performing military
service, they received official protection and their rabbis
governmental support.
Such was Bonaparte's policy on religious subjects. There can be little
doubt that its motive was, in the main, political. This methodizing
genius, who looked on the beliefs and passions, the desires and
ambitions of mankind, as so many forces which were to aid him in his
ascent, had already satisfied the desires for military glory and
material prosperity; and in his bargain with Rome he now won the
support of an organized priesthood, besides that of the smaller
Protestant and Jewish communions. That he gained also peace and
quietness for France may be granted, though it was at the expense
of that mental alertness and independence which had been her chief
intellectual glory; but none of his intimate acquaintances ever
doubted that his religion was only a vague sentiment, and his
attendance at mass merely a compliment to his "sacred
gendarmerie."[l60]
Having dared and achieved the exploit of organizing religion in a
half-infidel society, the First Consul was ready to undertake the
almost equally hazardous task of establishing an order of social
distinction, and that too in the very land where less than eight years
previously every title qualified its holder for the guillotine. For
his new experiment, the Legion of Honour, he could adduce only one
precedent in the acts of the last twelve years.
The whole tendency had been towards levelling all inequalities. In
1790 all titles of nobility were swept away; and though the Convention
decreed "arms of honour" to brave soldiers, yet its generosity to the
deserving proved to be less remarkable than its activity in
guillotining the unsuccessful. Bonaparte, however, adduced its custom
of granting occasional modest rewards as a precedent for his own
design, which was to be far more extended and ambitious.
In May, 1802, he proposed the formation of a Legion of Honour,
organized in fifteen cohorts, with grand officers, commanders,
officers, and legionaries. Its affairs were to be regulated by a
council presided over by Bonaparte himself. Each cohort received
"national domains" with 200,000 francs annual rental, and these funds
were disbursed to the members on a scale proportionate to their rank.
The men who had received "arms of honour" were, _ipso facto_ to be
legionaries; soldiers "who had rendered considerable services to the
State in the war of liberty," and civilians "who by their learning,
talents, and virtues contributed to establish or to defend the
principles of the Republic," might hope for the honour and reward now
held out. The idea of rewarding merit in a civilian, as well as among
the military caste which had hitherto almost entirely absorbed such
honours, was certainly enlightened; and the names of the famous
_savants_ Laplace, Monge, Berthollet, Lagrange, Chaptal, and of
jurists such as Treilhard and Tronchet, imparted lustre to what would
otherwise have been a very commonplace institution. Bonaparte desired
to call out all the faculties of the nation; and when Dumas proposed
that the order should be limited to soldiers, the First Consul
replied in a brilliant and convincing harangue:
"To do great things nowadays it is not enough to be a man of five
feet ten inches. If strength and bravery made the general, every
soldier might claim the command. The general who does great things
is he who also possesses civil qualities. The soldier knows no law
but force, sees nothing but it, and measures everything by it. The
civilian, on the other hand, only looks to the general welfare. The
characteristic of the soldier is to wish to do everything
despotically: that of the civilian is to submit everything to
discussion, truth, and reason. The superiority thus unquestionably
belongs to the civilian."
In these noble words we can discern the secret of Bonaparte's
supremacy both in politics and in warfare. Uniting in his own person
the ablest qualities of the statesman and the warrior, he naturally
desired that his new order of merit should quicken the vitality of
France in every direction, knowing full well that the results would
speedily be felt in the army itself. When admitted to its ranks, the
new member swore:
"To devote himself to the service of the Republic, to the
maintenance of the integrity of its territory, the defence of its
government, laws, and of the property which they have consecrated;
to fight by all methods authorized by justice, reason, and law,
against every attempt to re-establish the feudal _régime_ or to
reproduce the titles and qualities thereto belonging; and finally
to strive to the uttermost to maintain liberty and equality."
It is not surprising that the Tribunate, despite the recent purging of
its most independent members, judged liberty and equality to be
endangered by the method of defence now proposed. The members bitterly
criticised the scheme as a device of the counter-revolution; but, with
the timid inconsequence which was already sapping their virility, they
proceeded to pass by fifty-six votes to thirty-eight a measure of
which they had so accurately gauged the results. The new institution
was, indeed, admirably suited to consolidate Bonaparte's power.
Resting on the financial basis of the confiscated lands, it offered
some guarantee against the restoration of the old monarchy and feudal
nobility; while, by stimulating that love of distinction and
brilliance which is inherent in every gifted people, it quietly began
to graduate society and to group it around the Paladins of a new
Gaulish chivalry. The people had recently cast off the overlordship of
the old Frankish nobles, but admiration of merit (the ultimate source
of all titles of distinction) was only dormant even in the days of
Robespierre; and its insane repression during the Terror now begat a
corresponding enthusiasm for all commanding gifts. Of this inevitable
reaction Bonaparte now made skillful use. When Berlier, one of the
leading jurists of France, objected to the new order as leading France
back to aristocracy, and contemptuously said that crosses and ribbons
were the toys of monarchy, Bonaparte replied:
"Well: men are led by toys. I would not say that in a rostrum, but
in a council of wise men and statesmen one ought to speak one's
mind. I don't think that the French love liberty and equality: the
French are not at all changed by ten years of revolution: they are
what the Gauls were, fierce and fickle. They have one
feeling--honour. We must nourish that feeling: they must have
distinctions. See how they bow down before the stars of
strangers."[161]
After so frank an exposition of motives to his own Council of State,
little more need be said. We need not credit Bonaparte or the orators
of the Tribunate with any superhuman sagacity when he and they foresaw
that such an order would prepare the way for more resplendent titles.
The Legion of Honour, at least in its highest grades, was the
chrysalis stage of the Imperial _noblesse_. After all, the new
Charlemagne might plead that his new creation satisfied an innate
craving of the race, and that its durability was the best answer to
hostile critics. Even when, in 1814, his Senators were offering the
crown of France to the heir of the Bourbons, they expressly stipulated
that the Legion of Honour should not be abolished: it has survived all
the shocks of French history, even the vulgarizing associations of
the Second Empire.
* * * * *
The same quality of almost pyramidal solidity characterizes another
great enterprise of the Napoleonic period, the codification of French
law.
The difficulties of this undertaking consisted mainly in the enormous
mass of decrees emanating from the National Assemblies, relative to
political, civil, and criminal affairs. Many of those decrees, the
offspring of a momentary enthusiasm, had found a place in the codes of
laws which were then compiled; and yet sagacious observers knew that
several of them warred against the instincts of the Gallic race. This
conviction was summed up in the trenchant statement of the compilers
of the new code, in which they appealed from the ideas of Rousseau to
the customs of the past: "New theories are but the maxims of certain
individuals: the old maxims represent the sense of centuries." There
was much force in this dictum. The overthrow of Feudalism and the old
monarchy had not permanently altered the French nature. They were
still the same joyous, artistic, clan-loving people whom the Latin
historians described: and pride in the nation or the family was as
closely linked with respect for a doughty champion of national and
family interests as in the days of Cæsar. Of this Roman or
quasi-Gallic reaction Napoleon was to be the regulator; and no sphere
of his activities bespeaks his unerring political sagacity more than
his sifting of the old and the new in the great code which was
afterwards to bear his name.
Old French law had been an inextricable labyrinth of laws and customs,
mainly Roman and Frankish in origin, hopelessly tangled by feudal
customs, provincial privileges, ecclesiastical rights, and the later
undergrowth of royal decrees; and no part of the legislation of the
revolutionists met with so little resistance as their root and branch
destruction of this exasperating jungle. Their difficulties only began
when they endeavoured to apply the principles of the Rights of Man to
political, civil, and criminal affairs. The chief of these principles
relating to criminal law were that law can only forbid actions that
are harmful to society, and must only impose penalties that are
strictly necessary. To these epoch-making pronouncements the Assembly
added, in 1790, that crimes should be visited only on the guilty
individual, not on the family; and that penalties must be proportioned
to the offences. The last two of these principles had of late been
flagrantly violated; but the general pacification of France now
permitted a calm consideration of the whole question of criminal law,
and of its application to normal conditions.
Civil law was to be greatly influenced by the Rights of Man; but those
famous declarations were to a large extent contravened in the ensuing
civil strifes, and their application to real life was rendered
infinitely more difficult by that predominance of the critical over
the constructive faculties which marred the efforts of the
revolutionary Babel-builders. Indeed, such was the ardour of those
enthusiasts that they could scarcely see any difficulties. Thus, the
Convention in 1793 allowed its legislative committee just one month
for the preparation of a code of civil law. At the close of six weeks
Cambacérès, the reporter of the committee, was actually able to
announce that it was ready. It was found to be too complex. Another
commission was ordered to reconstruct it: this time the Convention
discovered that the revised edition was too concise. Two other drafts
were drawn up at the orders of the Directory, but neither gave
satisfaction. And thus it was reserved for the First Consul to achieve
what the revolutionists had only begun, building on the foundations
and with the very materials which their ten years' toil had prepared.
He had many other advantages. The Second Consul, Cambacérès, was at
his side, with stores of legal experience and habits of complaisance
that were of the highest value. Then, too, the principles of personal
liberty and social equality were yielding ground before the more
autocratic maxims of Roman law. The view of life now dominant was that
of the warrior not of the philosopher. Bonaparte named Tronchet, Bigot
de Préameneu, and the eloquent and learned Portalis for the redaction
of the code. By ceaseless toil they completed their first draft in
four months. Then, after receiving the criticisms of the Court of
Cassation and the Tribunals of Appeal, it came before the Council of
State for the decision of its special committee on legislation. There
it was subjected to the scrutiny of several experts, but, above all,
to Bonaparte himself. He presided at more than half of the 102
sittings devoted to this criticism; and sittings of eight or nine
hours were scarcely long enough to satisfy his eager curiosity, his
relentless activity, and his determined practicality.
From the notes of Thibaudeau one of the members of this revising
committee, we catch a glimpse of the part there played by the First
Consul. We see him listening intently to the discussions of the
jurists, taking up and sorting the threads of thought when a tangle
seemed imminent, and presenting the result in some striking pattern.
We watch his methodizing spirit at work on the cumbrous legal
phraseology, hammering it out into clear, ductile French. We feel the
unerring sagacity, which acted as a political and social touchstone,
testing, approving, or rejecting multifarious details drawn from old
French law or from the customs of the Revolution; and finally we
wonder at the architectural skill which worked the 2,281 articles of
the Code into an almost unassailable pile. To the skill and patience
of the three chief redactors that result is, of course, very largely
due: yet, in its mingling of strength, simplicity, and symmetry, we
may discern the projection of Napoleon's genius over what had hitherto
been a legal chaos.
Some blocks of the pyramid were almost entirely his own. He widened
the area of French citizenship; above all, he strengthened the
structure of the family by enhancing the father's authority. Herein
his Corsican instincts and the requirements of statecraft led him to
undo much of the legislation of the revolutionists. Their ideal was
individual liberty: his aim was to establish public order by
autocratic methods. They had sought to make of the family a little
republic, founded on the principles of liberty and equality; but in
the new code the paternal authority reappeared no less strict, albeit
less severe in some details than that of the _ancien régime._ The
family was thenceforth modelled on the idea dominant in the State,
that authority and responsible action pertained to a single
individual. The father controlled the conduct of his children: his
consent was necessary for the marriage of sons up to their
twenty-fifth year, for that of daughters up to their twenty-first
year; and other regulations were framed in the same spirit.[162] Thus
there was rebuilt in France the institution of the family on an almost
Roman basis; and these customs, contrasting sharply with the domestic
anarchy of the Anglo-Saxon race, have had a mighty influence in
fashioning the character of the French, as of the other Latin peoples,
to a ductility that yields a ready obedience to local officials,
drill-sergeants, and the central Government.
In other respects Bonaparte's influence on the code was equally
potent. He raised the age at which marriage could be legally
contracted to that of eighteen for men, and fifteen for women, and he
prescribed a formula of obedience to be repeated by the bride to her
husband; while the latter was bound to protect and support the
wife.[163]
And yet, on the question of divorce, Bonaparte's action was
sufficiently ambiguous to reawaken Josephine's fears; and the
detractors of the great man have some ground for declaring that his
action herein was dictated by personal considerations. Others again
may point to the declarations of the French National Assemblies that
the law regarded marriage merely as a civil contract, and that divorce
was to be a logical sequel of individual liberty, "which an
indissoluble tie would annul." It is indisputable that extremely lax
customs had been the result of the law of 1792, divorce being allowed
on a mere declaration of incompatibility of temper.[164] Against these
scandals Bonaparte firmly set his face. But he disagreed with the
framers of the new Code when they proposed altogether to prohibit
divorce, though such a proposition might well have seemed consonant
with his zeal for Roman Catholicism. After long debates it was decided
to reduce the causes which could render divorce possible from nine to
four--adultery, cruelty, condemnation to a degrading penalty, and
mutual consent--provided that this last demand should be persistently
urged after not less than two years of marriage, and in no case was it
to be valid after twenty years of marriage.[165]
We may also notice here that Bonaparte sought to surround the act of
adoption with much solemnity, declaring it to be one of the grandest
acts imaginable. Yet, lest marriage should thereby be discouraged,
celibates were expressly debarred from the privileges of adopting
heirs. The precaution shows how keenly this able ruler peered into
the future. Doubtless, he surmised that in the future the population
of France would cease to expand at the normal rate, owing to the
working of the law compelling the equal division of property among all
the children of a family. To this law he was certainly opposed.
Equality in regard to the bequest of property was one of the sacred
maxims of revolutionary jurists, who had limited the right of free
disposal by bequest to one-tenth of each estate: nine-tenths being of
necessity divided equally among the direct heirs. Yet so strong was
the reaction in favour of the Roman principle of paternal authority,
that Bonaparte and a majority of the drafters of the new Code scrupled
not to assail that maxim, and to claim for the father larger
discretionary powers over the disposal of his property. They demanded
that the disposable share should vary according to the wealth of the
testator--a remarkable proposal, which proves him to be anything but
the unflinching champion of revolutionary legal ideas which popular
French histories have generally depicted him.
This proposal would have re-established liberty of bequest in its most
pernicious form, granting almost limitless discretionary power to the
wealthy, while restricting or denying it to the poor.[166] Fortunately
for his reputation in France, the suggestion was rejected; and the
law, as finally adopted, fixed the disposable share as one-half of the
property, if there was but one heir; one-third, if there were two
heirs; one-fourth, if there were three; and so on, diminishing as the
size of the family increased. This sliding scale, varying inversely
with the size of the family, is open to an obvious objection: it
granted liberty of bequest only in cases where the family was small,
but practically lapsed when the family attained to patriarchal
dimensions. The natural result has been that the birth-rate has
suffered a serious and prolonged check in France. It seems certain
that the First Consul foresaw this result. His experience of peasant
life must have warned him that the law, even as now amended, would
stunt the population of France and ultimately bring about that [Greek:
oliganthrôpia] which saps all great military enterprises. The great
captain did all in his power to prevent the French settling down in a
self-contained national life; he strove to stir them up to world-wide
undertakings, and for the success of his future imperial schemes a
redundant population was an absolute necessity.
The Civil Code became law in 1804: after undergoing some slight
modifications and additions, it was, in 1807 renamed the Code
Napoléon. Its provisions had already, in 1806, been adopted in Italy.
In 1810 Holland, and the newly-annexed coast-line of the North Sea as
far as Hamburg, and even Lübeck on the Baltic, received it as the
basis of their laws, as did the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1811.
Indirectly it has also exerted an immense influence on the legislation
of Central and Southern Germany, Prussia, Switzerland, and Spain:
while many of the Central and South American States have also
borrowed its salient features.
A Code of Civil Procedure was promulgated in France in 1806, one of
Commerce in 1807, of "Criminal Instruction" in 1808, and a Penal Code
in 1810. Except that they were more reactionary in spirit than the
Civil Code, there is little that calls for notice here, the Penal Code
especially showing little advance in intelligence or clemency on the
older laws of France. Even in 1802, officials favoured severity after
the disorders of the preceding years. When Fox and Romilly paid a
visit to Talleyrand at Paris, they were informed by his secretary
that:
"In his opinion nothing could restore good morals and order in the
country but 'la roue et la religion de nos ancêtres.' He knew, he
said, that the English did not think so, but we knew nothing of the
people. Fox was deeply shocked at the idea of restoring the wheel
as a punishment in France."[167]
This horrible punishment was not actually restored: but this extract
from Romilly's diary shows what was the state of feeling in official
circles at Paris, and how strong was the reaction towards older ideas.
The reaction was unquestionably emphasized by Bonaparte's influence,
and it is noteworthy that the Penal and other Codes, passed during the
Empire, were more reactionary than the laws of the Consulate. Yet,
even as First Consul, he exerted an influence that began to banish the
customs and traditions of the Revolution, except in the single sphere
of material interests; and he satisfied the peasants' love of land and
money in order that he might the more securely triumph over
revolutionary ideals and draw France insensibly back to the age of
Louis XIV.
While the legislator must always keep in reserve punishment as the
_ultima ratio_ for the lawless, he will turn by preference to
education as a more potent moralizing agency; and certainly education
urgently needed Bonaparte's attention. The work of carrying into
practice the grand educational aims of Condorcet and his coadjutors in
the French Convention was enough to tax the energies of a Hercules.
Those ardent reformers did little more than clear the ground for
future action: they abolished the old monastic and clerical training,
and declared for a generous system of national education in primary,
secondary, and advanced schools. But amid strifes and bankruptcy their
aims remained unfulfilled. In 1799 there were only twenty-four
elementary schools open in Paris, with a total attendance of less than
1,000 pupils; and in rural districts matters were equally bad. Indeed,
Lucien Bonaparte asserted that scarcely any education was to be found
in France. Exaggerated though this statement was, in relation to
secondary and advanced education, it was proximately true of the
elementary schools. The revolutionists had merely traced the outlines
of a scheme: it remained for the First Consul to fill in the details,
or to leave it blank.
The result can scarcely be cited as a proof of his educational zeal.
Elementary schools were left to the control and supervision of the
communes and of the _sous-préfets_, and naturally made little advance
amidst an apathetic population and under officials who cared not to
press on an expensive enterprise. The law of April 30th, 1802,
however, aimed at improving the secondary education, which the
Convention had attempted to give in its _écoles centrales_. These were
now reconstituted either as _écoles secondaires_ or as _lycées_. The
former were local or even private institutions intended for the most
promising pupils of the commune or group of communes; while the
_lycées_, far fewer in number, were controlled directly by the
Government. In both of these schools great prominence was given to the
exact and applied sciences. The aim of the instruction was not to
awaken thought and develop the faculties, but rather to fashion able
breadwinners, obedient citizens, and enthusiastic soldiers. The
training was of an almost military type, the pupils being regularly
drilled, while the lessons began and ended with the roll of drums. The
numbers of the _lycées_ and of their pupils rapidly increased; but the
progress of the secondary and primary schools, which could boast no
such attractions, was very slow. In 1806 only 25,000 children were
attending the public primary schools. But two years later elementary
and advanced instruction received a notable impetus from the
establishment of the University of France.
There is no institution which better reveals the character of the
French Emperor, with its singular combination of greatness and
littleness, of wide-sweeping aims with official pedantry. The
University, as it existed during the First Empire, offers a striking
example of that mania for the control of the general will which
philosophers had so attractively taught and Napoleon so profitably
practised. It is the first definite outcome of a desire to subject
education and learning to wholesale regimental methods, and to break
up the old-world bowers of culture by State-worked steam-ploughs. His
aims were thus set forth:
"I want a teaching body, because such a body never dies, but
transmits its organization and spirit. I want a body whose teaching
is far above the fads of the moment, goes straight on even when the
government is asleep, and whose administration and statutes become
so national that one can never lightly resolve to meddle with
them.... There will never be fixity in politics if there is not a
teaching body with fixed principles. As long as people do not from
their infancy learn whether they ought to be republicans or
monarchists, Catholics or sceptics, the State will never form a
nation: it will rest on unsafe and shifting foundations, always
exposed to changes and disorders."
Such being Napoleon's designs, the new University of France was
admirably suited to his purpose. It was not a local university: it was
the sum total of all the public teaching bodies of the French Empire,
arranged and drilled in one vast instructional array. Elementary
schools, secondary schools, _lycées_, as well as the more advanced
colleges, all were absorbed in and controlled by this great teaching
corporation, which was to inculcate the precepts of the Catholic
religion, fidelity to the Emperor and to his Government, as guarantees
for the welfare of the people and the unity of France. For educational
purposes, France was now divided into seventeen Academies, which
formed the local centres of the new institution. Thus, from Paris and
sixteen provincial Academies, instruction was strictly organized and
controlled; and within a short time of its institution (March, 1808),
instruction of all kinds, including that of the elementary schools,
showed some advance. But to all those who look on the unfolding of the
mental and moral faculties as the chief aim of true _education_, the
homely experiments of Pestalozzi offer a far more suggestive and
important field for observation than the barrack-like methods of the
French Emperor. The Swiss reformer sought to train the mind to
observe, reflect, and think; to assist the faculties in attaining
their fullest and freest expression; and thus to add to the richness
and variety of human thought. The French imperial system sought to
prune away all mental independence, and to train the young generation
in neat and serviceable _espalier_ methods: all aspiring shoots,
especially in the sphere of moral and political science, were sharply
cut down. Consequently French thought, which had been the most
ardently speculative in Europe, speedily became vapid and mechanical.
The same remark is proximately true of the literary life of the First
Empire. It soon began to feel the rigorous methods of the Emperor.
Poetry and all other modes of expression of lofty thought and rapt
feeling require not only a free outlet but natural and unrestrained
surroundings. The true poet is at home in the forest or on the
mountain rather than in prim _parterres_. The philosopher sees most
clearly and reasons most suggestively, when his faculties are not
cramped by the need of observing political rules and police
regulations. And the historian, when he is tied down to a mere
investigation and recital of facts, without reference to their
meaning, is but a sorry fowl flapping helplessly with unequal wings.
Yet such were the conditions under which the literature of France
struggled and pined. Her poets, a band sadly thinned already by the
guillotine, sang in forced and hollow strains until the return of
royalism begat an imperialist fervour in the soul-stirring lyrics of
Béranger: her philosophy was dumb; and Napoleonic history limped along
on official crutches, until Thiers, a generation later, essayed his
monumental work. In the realm of exact and applied science, as might
be expected, splendid discoveries adorned the Emperor's reign; but if
we are to find any vitality in the literature of that period, we must
go to the ranks, not of the panegyrists, but of the opposition. There,
in the pages of Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand, we feel the throb
of life. Genius will out, of its own native force: but it cannot be
pressed out, even at a Napoleon's bidding. In vain did he endeavour to
stimulate literature by the reorganization of the Institute, and by
granting decennial prizes for the chief works and discoveries of the
decade. While science prospered, literature languished: and one of his
own remarks, as to the desirability of a public and semi-official
criticism of some great literary work, seems to suggest a reason for
this intellectual malaise:
"The public will take interest in this criticism; perhaps it will
even take sides: it matters not, as its attention will be fixed on
these interesting debates: it will talk about grammar and poetry:
taste will be improved, and our aim will be fulfilled: _out of that
will come poets and grammarians_."
And so it came to pass that, while he was rescuing a nation from chaos
and his eagles winged their flight to Naples, Lisbon, and Moscow, he
found no original thinker worthily to hymn his praises; and the chief
literary triumphs of his reign came from Chateaubriand, whom he
impoverished, and Madame de Staël, whom he drove into exile.
* * * * *
Such are the chief laws and customs which are imperishably associated
with the name of Napoleon Bonaparte. In some respects they may be
described as making for progress. Their establishment gave to the
Revolution that solidity which it had previously lacked. Among so
"inflammable" a people as the French--the epithet is Ste. Beuve's--it
was quite possible that some of the chief civil conquests of the last
decade might have been lost, had not the First Consul, to use his own
expressive phrase, "thrown in some blocks of granite." We may
intensify his metaphor and assert that out of the shifting shingle of
French life he constructed a concrete breakwater, in which his own
will acted as the binding cement, defying the storms of revolutionary
or royalist passion which had swept the incoherent atoms to and fro,
and had carried desolation far inland. Thenceforth France was able to
work out her future under the shelter of institutions which
unquestionably possess one supreme merit, that of durability. But
while the chief civic and material gains of the Revolution were thus
perpetuated, the very spirit and life of that great movement were
benumbed by the personality and action of Napoleon. The burning
enthusiasm for the Rights of Man was quenched, the passion for civic
equality survived only as the gibbering ghost of what it had been in
1790, and the consolidation of revolutionary France was effected by a
process nearly akin to petrifaction.
And yet this time of political and intellectual reaction in France was
marked by the rise of the greatest of her modern institutions. There
is the chief paradox of that age. While barren of literary activity
and of truly civic developments, yet it was unequalled in the growth
of institutions. This is generally the characteristic of epochs when
the human faculties, long congealed by untoward restraints, suddenly
burst their barriers and run riot in a spring-tide of hope. The time
of disillusionment or despair which usually supervenes may, as a rule,
be compared with the numbing torpor of winter, necessary doubtless in
our human economy, but lacking the charm and vitality of the expansive
phase. Often, indeed, it is disgraced by the characteristics of a
slavish populace, a mean selfishness, a mad frivolity, and fawning
adulation on the ruler who dispenses _panem et circenses_. Such has
been the course of many a political reaction, from the time of
degenerate Athens and imperial Rome down to the decay of Medicean
Florence and the orgies of the restored Stuarts.
The fruitfulness of the time of monarchical reaction in France may be
chiefly attributed to two causes, the one general, the other personal;
the one connected with the French Revolution, the other with the
exceptional gifts of Bonaparte. In their efforts to create durable
institutions the revolutionists had failed: they had attempted too
much: they had overthrown the old order, had undertaken crusades
against monarchical Europe, and striven to manufacture constitutions
and remodel a deeply agitated society. They did scarcely more than
trace the outlines of the future social structure. The edifice, which
should have been reared by the Directory, was scarcely advanced at
all, owing to the singular dullness of the new rulers of France. But
the genius was at hand. He restored order, he rallied various classes
to his side, he methodized local government, he restored finance and
credit, he restored religious peace and yet secured the peasants in
their tenure of the confiscated lands, he rewarded merit with social
honours, and finally he solidified his polity by a comprehensive code
of laws which made him the keystone of the now rounded arch of French
life.
His methods in this immense work deserve attention: they were very
different from those of the revolutionary parties after the best days
of 1789 were past. The followers of Rousseau worked on rigorous _a
priori_ methods. If institutions and sentiments did not square with
the principles of their master, they were swept away or were forced
into conformity with the new evangel. A correct knowledge of the
"Contrat Social" and keen critical powers were the prime requisites of
Jacobinical statesmanship. Knowledge of the history of France, the
faculty of gauging the real strength of popular feelings, tact in
conciliating important interests, all were alike despised.
Institutions and class interests were as nothing in comparison with
that imposing abstraction, the general will. For this alone could
philosophers legislate and factions conspire.
From these lofty aims and exasperating methods Bonaparte was speedily
weaned. If victorious analysis led to this; if it could only pull
down, not reconstruct; if, while legislating for the general will,
Jacobins harassed one class after another and produced civil war, then
away with their pedantries in favour of the practical statecraft which
attempted one task at a time and aimed at winning back in turn the
alienated classes. Then, and then alone, after civic peace had been
re-established, would he attempt the reconstruction of the civil order
in the same tentative manner, taking up only this or that frayed end
at once, trusting to time, skill, and patience to transform the tangle
into a symmetrical pattern. And thus, where Feuillants, Girondins, and
Jacobins had produced chaos, the practical man and his able helpers
succeeded in weaving ineffaceable outlines. As to the time when the
change took place in Bonaparte's brain from Jacobinism to aims and
methods that may be called conservative, we are strangely ignorant.
But the results of this mental change will stand forth clear and
solid for many a generation in the customs, laws, and institutions of
his adopted country. If the Revolution, intellectually considered,
began and ended with analysis, Napoleon's faculties supplied the
needed synthesis. Together they made modern France.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIII
THE CONSULATE FOR LIFE
With the view of presenting in clear outlines the chief institutions
of Napoleonic France, they have been described in the preceding
chapter, detached from their political setting. We now return to
consider the events which favoured the consolidation of Bonaparte's
power.
No politician inured to the tricks of statecraft could more firmly
have handled public affairs than the man who practically began his
political apprenticeship at Brumaire. Without apparent effort he rose
to the height whence the five Directors had so ignominiously fallen;
and instinctively he chose at once the policy which alone could have
insured rest for France, that of balancing interests and parties. His
own political views being as yet unknown, dark with the excessive
brightness of his encircling glory, he could pose as the conciliator
of contending factions. The Jacobins were content when they saw the
regicide Cambacérès become Second Consul; and friends of
constitutional monarchy remembered that the Third Consul, Lebrun, had
leanings towards the Feuillants of 1791. Fouché at the inquisitorial
Ministry of Police, and Merlin, Berlier, Real, and Boulay de la
Meurthe in the Council of State seemed a barrier to all monarchical
schemes; and the Jacobins therefore remained quiet, even while
Catholic worship was again publicly celebrated, while Vendean rebels
were pardoned, and plotting _émigrés_ were entering the public
service.
Many, indeed, of the prominent terrorists had settled profitably on
the offices which Bonaparte had multiplied throughout France, and were
therefore dumb: but some of the less favoured ones, angered by the
stealthy advance of autocracy, wove a plot for the overthrow of the
First Consul. Chief among them were a braggart named Demerville, a
painter, Topino Lebrun, a sculptor, Ceracchi, and Aréna, brother of
the Corsican deputy who had shaken Bonaparte by the collar at the
crisis of Brumaire. These men hit upon the notion that, with the aid
of one man of action, they could make away with the new despot. They
opened their hearts to a penniless officer named Harel, who had been
dismissed from the army; and he straightway took the news to
Bonaparte's private secretary, Bourrienne. The First Consul, on
hearing of the matter, at once charged Bourrienne to supply Harel with
money to buy firearms, but not to tell the secret to Fouché, of whose
double dealings with the Jacobins he was already aware. It became
needful, however, to inform him of the plot, which was now carefully
nursed by the authorities. The arrests were planned to take place at
the opera on October 10th. About half an hour after the play had
begun, Bonaparte bade his secretary go into the lobby to hear the
news. Bourrienne at once heard the noise caused by a number of
arrests: he came back, reported the matter to his master, who
forthwith returned to the Tuileries. The plot was over.[168]
A more serious attempt was to follow. On the 3rd day of Nivôse
(December 24th, 1800), as the First Consul was driving to the opera to
hear Haydn's oratorio, "The Creation," his carriage was shaken by a
terrific explosion. A bomb had burst between his carriage and that of
Josephine, which was following. Neither was injured, though many
spectators were killed or wounded. "Josephine," he calmly said, as she
entered the box, "those rascals wanted to blow me up: send for a copy
of the music." But under this cool demeanour he nursed a determination
of vengeance against his political foes, the Jacobins. On the next day
he appeared at a session of the Council of State along with the
Ministers of Police and of the Interior, Fouché and Chaptal. The Aréna
plot and other recent events seemed to point to wild Jacobins and
anarchists as the authors of this outrage: but Fouché ventured to
impute it to the royalists and to England.
"There are in it," Bonaparte at once remarked, "neither nobles, nor
Chouans, nor priests. They are men of September (_Septembriseurs_),
wretches stained with blood, ever conspiring in solid phalanx
against every successive government. We must find a means of prompt
redress."
The Councillors at once adopted this opinion, Roederer hotly declaring
his open hostility to Fouché for his reputed complicity with the
terrorists; and, if we may credit the _on dit_ of Pasquier, Talleyrand
urged the execution of Fouché within twenty-four hours. Bonaparte,
however, preferred to keep the two cleverest and most questionable
schemers of the age, so as mutually to check each other's movements. A
day later, when the Council was about to institute special
proceedings, Bonaparte again intervened with the remark that the
action of the tribunal would be too slow, too restricted: a signal
revenge was needed for so foul a crime, rapid as lightning:
"Blood must be shed: as many guilty must be shot as the innocent
who had perished--some fifteen or twenty--and two hundred banished,
so that the Republic might profit by that event to purge itself."
This was the policy now openly followed. In vain did some members of
the usually obsequious Council object to this summary procedure.
Roederer, Boulay, even the Second Consul himself, now perceived how
trifling was their influence when they attempted to modify Bonaparte's
plans, and two sections of the Council speedily decided that there
should be a military commission to judge suspects and "deport"
dangerous persons, and that the Government should announce this to
the Senate, Corps Législatif, and Tribunate. Public opinion,
meanwhile, was carefully trained by the official "Moniteur," which
described in detail various so-called anarchist attempts; but an
increasing number in official circles veered round to Fouché's belief
that the outrage was the work of the royalists abetted by England. The
First Consul himself, six days after the event, inclined to this
version. Nevertheless, at a full meeting of the Council of State, on
the first day of the year 1801, he brought up a list of "130 villains
who were troubling the public peace," with a view to inflicting
summary punishment on them. Thibaudeau, Boulay, and Roederer haltingly
expressed their fears that all the 130 might not be guilty of the
recent outrage, and that the Council had no powers to decide on the
proscription of individuals. Bonaparte at once assured them that he
was not consulting them about the fate of individuals, but merely to
know whether they thought an exceptional measure necessary. The
Government had only
"Strong presumptions, not proofs, that the terrorists were the
authors of this attempt. _Chouannerie_ and emigration are surface
ills, terrorism is an internal disease. The measure ought to be
taken independently of the event. It is only the occasion of it. We
banish them (the terrorists) for the massacres of September 2nd,
May 31st, the Babeuf plot, and every subsequent attempt."[169]
The Council thereupon unanimously affirmed the need of an exceptional
measure, and adopted a suggestion of Talleyrand (probably emanating
from Bonaparte) that the Senate should be invited to declare by a
special decision, called a _senatus consultum_, whether such an act
were "preservative of the constitution." This device, which avoided
the necessity of passing a law through two less subservient bodies,
the Tribunate and Corps Législatif, was forthwith approved by the
guardians of the constitution. It had far-reaching results. The
complaisant Senate was brought down from its constitutional watchtower
to become the tool of the Consuls; and an easy way for further
innovations was thus dextrously opened up through the very portals
which were designed to bar them out.
The immediate results of the device were startling. By an act of
January 4th, 1801, as many as 130 prominent Jacobins were "placed
under special surveillance outside the European territory of the
Republic"--a specious phrase for denoting a living death amidst the
wastes of French Guiana or the Seychelles. Some of the threatened
persons escaped, perhaps owing to the connivance of Fouché; some were
sent to the Isle of Oléron; but the others were forthwith despatched
to the miseries of captivity in the tropics. Among these were
personages so diverse as Rossignol, once the scourge of France with
his force of Parisian cut-throats, and Destrem, whose crime was his
vehement upbraiding of Bonaparte at St. Cloud. After this measure had
taken effect, it was discovered by judicial inquiry that the Jacobins
had no connection with the outrage, which was the work of royalists
named Saint-Réjant and Carbon. These were captured, and on January
31st, 1801, were executed; but their fate had no influence whatever on
the sentence of the transported Jacobins. Of those who were sent to
Guiana and the Seychelles, scarce twenty saw France again.[170]
Bonaparte's conduct with respect to plots deserves close attention.
Never since the age of the Borgias have conspiracies been so skilfully
exploited, so cunningly countermined. Moreover, his conduct with
respect to the Aréna and Nivôse affairs had a wider significance; for
he now quietly but firmly exchanged the policy of balancing parties
for one which crushed the extreme republicans, and enhanced the
importance of all who were likely to approve or condone the
establishment of personal rule.
It is now time to consider the effect which Bonaparte's foreign policy
had on his position in France. Reserving for a later chapter an
examination of the Treaty of Amiens, we may here notice the close
connection between Bonaparte's diplomatic successes and the
perpetuation of his Consulate. All thoughtful students of history must
have observed the warping influence which war and diplomacy have
exerted on democratic institutions. The age of Alcibiades, the doom of
the Roman Republic, and many other examples might be cited to show
that free institutions can with difficulty survive the strain of a
vast military organization or the insidious results of an exacting
diplomacy. But never has the gulf between democracy and personal rule
been so quickly spanned as by the commanding genius of Bonaparte.
The events which disgusted both England and France with war have been
described above. Each antagonist had parried the attacks of the other.
The blow which Bonaparte had aimed at Britain's commerce by his
eastern expedition had been foiled; and a considerable French force
was shut up in Egypt. His plan of relieving his starving garrison in
Malta, by concluding a maritime truce, had been seen through by us;
and after a blockade of two years, Valetta fell (September, 1800). But
while Great Britain regained more than all her old power in the
Mediterranean, she failed to make any impression on the land-power of
France. The First Consul in the year 1801 compelled Naples and
Portugal to give up the English alliance and to exclude our vessels
and goods. In the north the results of the war had been in favour of
the islanders. The Union Jack again waved triumphant on the Baltic,
and all attempts of the French to rouse and support an Irish revolt
had signally failed. Yet the French preparations for an invasion of
England strained the resources of our exchequer and the patience of
our people. The weary struggle was evidently about to close in a
stalemate.
For political and financial reasons the two Powers needed repose.
Bonaparte's authority was not as yet so firmly founded that he could
afford to neglect the silent longings of France for peace; his
institutions had not as yet taken root; and he needed money for public
works and colonial enterprises. That he looked on peace as far more
desirable for France than for England at the present time is clear
from a confidential talk which he had with Roederer at the close of
1800. This bright thinker, to whom he often unbosomed himself, took
exception to his remark that England could not wish for peace;
whereupon the First Consul uttered these memorable words:
"My dear fellow, England ought not to wish for peace, because we
are masters of the world. Spain is ours. We have a foothold in
Italy. In Egypt we have the reversion to their tenure. Switzerland,
Holland, Belgium--that is a matter irrevocably settled, on which we
have declared to Prussia, Russia, and the Emperor that _we alone_,
if it were necessary, would make war on all, namely, that there
shall be no Stadholder in Holland, and that we will keep Belgium
and the left bank of the Rhine. A stadholder in Holland would be as
bad as a Bourbon in the St. Antoine suburb."[171]
The passage is remarkable, not only for its frank statement of the
terms on which England and the Continent might have peace, but also
because it discloses the rank undergrowth of pride and ambition that
is beginning to overtop his reasoning faculties. Even before he has
heard the news of Moreau's great victory of Hohenlinden, he equates
the military strength of France with that of the rest of Europe: nay,
he claims without a shadow of doubt the mastery of the world: he will
wage, if necessary, a double war, against England for a colonial
empire, and against Europe for domination in Holland and the
Rhineland. It is naught to him that that double effort has exhausted
France in the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. Holland, Switzerland,
Italy, shall be French provinces, Egypt and the Indies shall be her
satrapies, and _la grande nation_ may then rest on her glories.
Had these aims been known at Westminster, Ministers would have counted
peace far more harmful than war. But, while ambition reigned at Paris,
dull common sense dictated the policy of Britain. In truth, our people
needed rest: we were in the first stages of an industrial revolution:
our cotton and woollen industries were passing from the cottage to the
factory; and a large part of our folk were beginning to cluster in
grimy, ill-organized townships. Population and wealth advanced by
leaps and bounds; but with them came the nineteenth-century problems
of widening class distinctions and uncertainty of employment. The
food-supply was often inadequate, and in 1801 the price of wheat in
the London market ranged from £6 to £8 the quarter; the quartern loaf
selling at times for as much as 1s. 10-1/2d.[172]
The state of the sister island was even worse. The discontent of
Ireland had been crushed by the severe repression which followed the
rising of 1798; and the bonds connecting the two countries were
forcibly tightened by the Act of Union of 1800. But rest and reform
were urgently needed if this political welding was to acquire solid
strength, and rest and reform were alike denied. The position of the
Ministry at Westminster was also precarious. The opposition of George
III. to the proposals for Catholic Emancipation, to which Pitt
believed himself in honour bound, led to the resignation in February,
1801, of that able Minister. In the following month Addington, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, with the complacence born of bland
obtuseness, undertook to fill his place. At first, the Ministry was
treated with the tolerance due to the new Premier's urbanity, but it
gradually faded away into contempt for his pitiful weakness in face of
the dangers that threatened the realm.
Certain unofficial efforts in the cause of peace had been made during
the year 1800, by a Frenchman, M. Otto, who had been charged to
proceed to London to treat with the British Government for the
exchange of prisoners. For various reasons his tentative proposals as
to an accommodation between the belligerents had had no issue: but he
continued to reside in London, and quietly sought to bring about a
good understanding. The accession of the Addington Ministry favoured
the opening of negotiations, the new Secretary for Foreign Affairs,
Lord Hawkesbury, announcing His Majesty's desire for peace. Indeed,
the one hope of the new Ministry, and of the king who supported it as
the only alternative to Catholic Emancipation, was bound up with the
cause of peace. In the next chapter it will appear how disastrous were
the results of that strange political situation, when a morbidly
conscientious king clung to the weak Addington, and jeopardised the
interests of Britain, rather than accept a strong Minister and a
measure of religious equality.
Napoleon received Hawkesbury's first overtures, those of March 21st,
1801, with thinly veiled scorn; but the news of Nelson's victory at
Copenhagen and of the assassination of the Czar Paul, the latter of
which wrung from him a cry of rage, ended his hopes of crushing us;
and negotiations were now formally begun. On the 14th of April, Great
Britain demanded that the French should evacuate Egypt, while she
herself would give up Minorca, but retain the following conquests:
Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice,
Ceylon, and (a little later) Curaçoa; while, if the Cape of Good Hope
were restored to the Dutch, it was to be a free port: an indemnity was
also to be found for the Prince of Orange for the loss of his
Netherlands. These claims were declared by Bonaparte to be
inadmissible. He on his side urged the far more impracticable demand
of the _status quo ante bellum_ in the East and West Indies and in the
Mediterranean; which would imply the surrender, not only of our many
naval conquests, but also of our gains in Hindostan at the expense of
the late Tippoo Sahib's dominions. In the ensuing five months the
British Government gained some noteworthy successes in diplomacy and
war. It settled the disputes arising out of the Armed Neutrality
League; there was every prospect of our troops defeating those of
France in Egypt; and our navy captured St. Eustace and Saba in the
West Indies.
As a set-off to our efforts by sea, Bonaparte instigated a war between
Spain and Portugal, in order that the latter Power might be held as a
"guarantee for the general peace." Spain, however, merely waged a "war
of oranges," and came to terms with her neighbour in the Treaty of
Badajoz, June 6th, 1801, whereby she gained the small frontier
district of Olivenza. This fell far short of the First Consul's
intentions. Indeed, such was his annoyance at the conduct of the Court
of Madrid and the complaisance of his brother Lucien Bonaparte, who
was ambassador there, that he determined to make Spain bear a heavy
share of the English demands. On June 22nd, 1801, he wrote to his
brother at Madrid:
"I have already caused the English to be informed that I will never
depart, as regards Portugal, from the _ultimatum_ addressed to M.
d'Araujo, and that the _status quo ante bellum_ for Portugal must
amount, for Spain, to the restitution of Trinidad; for France, to
the restitution of Martinique and Tobago; and for Batavia [Holland],
to that of Curaçoa and some other small American isles."[173]
In other words, if Portugal at the close of this whipped-up war
retained her present possessions, then England must renounce her
claims to Trinidad, Martinique, Tobago, Curaçoa, etc.: and he summed
up his contention in the statement that "in signing this treaty
Charles IV. has consented to the loss of Trinidad." Further pressure
on Portugal compelled her to cede part of Northern Brazil to France
and to pay her 20,000,000 francs.
A still more striking light is thrown on Bonaparte's diplomatic
methods by the following question, addressed to Lord Hawkesbury on
June 15th:
"If, supposing that the French Government should accede to the
arrangements proposed for the East Indies by England, and should
adopt the _status quo ante bellum_ for Portugal, the King of
England would consent to the re-establishment of the _status quo_
in the Mediterranean and in America."
The British Minister in his reply of June 25th explained what the
phrase _status quo ante bellum_ in regard to the Mediterranean would
really imply. It would necessitate, not merely the evacuation of Egypt
by the French, but also that of the Kingdom of Sardinia (including
Nice), the Duchy of Tuscany, and the independence of the rest of the
peninsula. He had already offered that we should evacuate Minorca; but
he now stated that, if France retained her influence over Italy,
England would claim Malta as a set-off to the vast extension of French
territorial influence, and in order to protect English commerce in
those seas: for the rest, the British Government could not regard the
maintenance of the integrity of Portugal as an equivalent to the
surrender by Great Britain of her West Indian conquests, especially as
France had acquired further portions of Saint Domingo. Nevertheless he
offered to restore Trinidad to Spain, if she would reinstate Portugal
in the frontier strip of Olivenza; and, on August 5th, he told Otto
that we would give up Malta if it became independent.
Meanwhile events were, on the whole, favourable to Great Britain. She
made peace with Russia on favourable terms; and in the Mediterranean,
despite a first success gained by the French Admiral Linois at
Algesiras, a second battle brought back victory to the Union Jack. An
attack made by Nelson on the flotilla at Boulogne was a failure
(August 15th). But at the close of August the French commander in
Egypt, General Menou, was constrained to agree to the evacuation of
Egypt by his troops, which were to be sent back to France on English
vessels. This event had been expected by Bonaparte, and the secret
instruction which he forwarded to Otto at London shows the nicety of
his calculation as to the advantages to be reaped by France owing to
her receiving the news while it was still unknown in England. He
ordered Otto to fix October the 2nd for the close of the negotiations:
"You will understand the importance of this when you reflect that
Menou may possibly not be able to hold out in Alexandria beyond the
first of Vendémiaire (September 22nd); that, at this season, the
winds are fair to come from Egypt, and ships reach Italy and
Trieste in very few days. Thus it is necessary to push them [the
negotiations] to a conclusion before Vendémiaire 10."
The advantages of an irresponsible autocrat in negotiating with a
Ministry dependent on Parliament have rarely been more signally shown.
Anxious to gain popularity, and unable to stem the popular movement
for peace, Addington and Hawkesbury yielded to this request for a
fixed limit of time; and the preliminaries of peace were signed at
London on October 1st, 1801, the very day before the news arrived
there that one of our demands was rendered useless by the actual
surrender of the French in Egypt.[174]
The chief conditions of the preliminaries were as follows: Great
Britain restored to France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic all their
possessions and colonies recently conquered by her except Trinidad and
Ceylon. The Cape of Good Hope was given back to the Dutch, but
remained open to British and French commerce. Malta was to be restored
to the Order of St. John, and placed under the guarantee and
protection of a third Power to be agreed on in the definitive treaty.
Egypt returned to the control of the Sublime Porte. The existing
possessions of Portugal (that is, exclusive of Olivenza) were
preserved intact. The French agreed to loose their hold on the Kingdom
of Naples and the Roman territory; while the British were also to
evacuate Porto Ferrajo (Elba) and the other ports and islands which
they held in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. The young Republic of the
Seven Islands (Ionian Islands) was recognized by France: and the
fisheries on the coasts of Newfoundland and the adjacent isles were
placed on their former footing, subject to "such arrangements as shall
appear just and reciprocally useful."
It was remarked as significant of the new docility of George III.,
that the empty title of "King of France," which he and his
predecessors had affected, was now formally resigned, and the _fleurs
de lys_ ceased to appear on the royal arms.
Thus, with three exceptions, Great Britain had given way on every
point of importance since the first declaration of her claims; the
three exceptions were Trinidad and Ceylon, which she gained from the
allies of France; and Egypt, the recovery of which from the French was
already achieved, though it was unknown at London. On every detail but
these Bonaparte had gained a signal diplomatic success. His skill and
tenacity bade fair to recover for France, Martinique, Tobago, and
Santa Lucia, then in British hands, as well as the French stations in
India. The only British gains, after nine years of warfare, fruitful
in naval triumphs, but entailing an addition of £290,000,000 to the
National Debt, were the islands of Trinidad and the Dutch possessions
in Ceylon. And yet in the six months spent in negotiations the general
course of events had been favourable to the northern Power. What then
had been lacking? Certainly not valour to her warriors, nor good
fortune to her flag; but merely brain power to her rulers. They had
little of that foresight, skill, and intellectual courage, without
which even the exploits of a Nelson are of little permanent effect.
Reserving for treatment in the next chapter the questions arising from
these preliminaries and the resulting Peace of Amiens, we turn now to
consider their bearing on Bonaparte's position as First Consul. The
return of peace after an exhausting war is always welcome; yet the
patriotic Briton who saw the National Debt more than doubled, with no
adequate gain in land or influence, could not but contrast the
difference in the fortunes of France. That Power had now gained the
Rhine boundary; her troops garrisoned the fortresses of Holland and
Northern Italy; her chief dictated his will to German princelings and
to the once free Switzers; while the Court of Madrid, nay, the
Eternal City herself, obeyed his behests. And all this prodigious
expansion had been accomplished at little apparent cost to France
herself; for the victors' bill had been very largely met out of the
resources of the conquered territories. It is true that her nobles and
clergy had suffered fearful losses in lands and treasure, while her
trading classes had cruelly felt the headlong fall in value of her
paper notes: but in a land endowed with a bounteous soil and climate
such losses are soon repaired, and the signature of the peace with
England left France comparatively prosperous. In October the First
Consul also concluded peace with Russia, and came to a friendly
understanding with the Czar on Italian affairs and the question of
indemnities for the dispossessed German Princes.[175]
Bonaparte now strove to extend the colonies and commerce of France, a
topic to which we shall return later on, and to develop her internal
resources. The chief roads were repaired, and ceased to be in the
miserable condition in which the abolition of the _corvées_ in 1789
had left them: canals were dug to connect the chief river systems of
France, or were greatly improved; and Paris soon benefited from the
construction of the Scheldt and Oise canal, which brought the
resources of Belgium within easy reach of the centre of France. Ports
were deepened and extended; and Marseilles entered on golden vistas of
prosperity soon to be closed by the renewal of war with England.
Communications with Italy were facilitated by the improvement of the
road between Marseilles and Genoa, as also of the tracks leading over
the Simplon, Mont Cenis, and Mont Genèvre passes: the roads leading to
the Rhine and along its left bank also attested the First Consul's
desire, not only to extend commerce, but to protect his natural
boundary on the east. The results of this road-making were to be seen
in the campaign of Ulm, when the French forces marched from Boulogne
to the Black Forest at an unparalleled speed.
Paris in particular felt his renovating hand. With the abrupt,
determined tones which he assumed more and more on reaching absolute
power, he one day said to Chaptal at Malmaison:
"I intend to make Paris the most beautiful capital of the world: I
wish that in ten years it should number two millions of
inhabitants." "But," replied his Minister of the Interior, "one
cannot improvise population; ... as it is, Paris would scarcely
support one million"; and he instanced the want of good drinking
water. "What are your plans for giving water to Paris?" Chaptal
gave two alternatives--artesian wells or the bringing of water from
the River Ourcq to Paris. "I adopt the latter plan: go home and
order five hundred men to set to work to-morrow at La Villette to
dig the canal."
Such was the inception of a great public work which cost more than
half a million sterling. The provisioning of Paris also received
careful attention, a large reserve of wheat being always kept on hand
for the satisfaction of "a populace which is only dangerous when it is
hungry." Bonaparte therefore insisted on corn being stored and sold in
large quantities and at a very low price, even when considerable loss
was thereby entailed.[176] But besides supplying _panem_ he also
provided _circenses_ to an extent never known even in the days of
Louis XV. State aid was largely granted to the chief theatres, where
Bonaparte himself was a frequent attendant, and a willing captive to
the charms of the actress Mlle. Georges.
The beautifying of Paris was, however, the chief means employed by
Bonaparte for weaning its populace from politics; and his efforts to
this end were soon crowned with complete success. Here again the
events of the Revolution had left the field clear for vast works of
reconstruction such as would have been impossible but for the
abolition of the many monastic institutions of old Paris. On or near
the sites of the famous Feuillants and Jacobins he now laid down
splendid thoroughfares; and where the constitutionals or reds a decade
previously had perorated and fought, the fashionable world of Paris
now rolled in gilded cabriolets along streets whose names recalled the
Italian and Egyptian triumphs of the First Consul. Art and culture
bowed down to the ruler who ordered the renovation of the Louvre,
which now became the treasure-house of painting and sculpture,
enriched by masterpieces taken from many an Italian gallery. No
enterprise has more conspicuously helped to assure the position of
Paris as the capital of the world's culture than Bonaparte's grouping
of the nation's art treasures in a central and magnificent building.
In the first year of his Empire Napoleon gave orders for the
construction of vast galleries which were to connect the northern
pavilion of the Tuileries with the Louvre and form a splendid façade
to the new Rue de Rivoli. Despite the expense, the work was pushed
on until it was suddenly arrested by the downfall of the Empire,
and was left to the great man's nephew to complete. Though it is
possible, as Chaptal avers, that the original design aimed at the
formation of a central fortress, yet to all lovers of art, above
all to the hero-worshipping Heine, the new Louvre was a sure pledge
of Napoleon's immortality.
Other works which combined beauty with utility were the prolongation
of the quays along the left bank of the Seine, the building of three
bridges over that river, the improvement of the Jardin des Plantes,
together with that of other parks and open spaces, and the completion
of the Conservatoire of Arts and Trades. At a later date, the military
spirit of the Empire received signal illustration in the erection of
the Vendôme column, the Arc de Triomphe, and the consecration, or
desecration, of the Madeleine as a temple of glory.
Many of these works were subsequent to the period which we are
considering; but the enterprises of the Emperor represent the designs
of the First Consul; and the plans for the improvement of Paris formed
during the Consulate were sufficient to inspire the Parisians with
lively gratitude and to turn them from political speculations to
scenes of splendour and gaiety that recalled the days of Louis XIV. If
we may believe the testimony of Romilly, who visited Paris in 1802,
the new policy had even then attained its end.
"The quiet despotism, which leaves everybody who does not wish to
meddle with politics (and few at present have any such wish) in the
full and secure enjoyment of their property and of their pleasures,
is a sort of paradise, compared with the agitation, the perpetual
alarms, the scenes of infamy, of bloodshed, which accompanied the
pretended liberties of France."
But while acknowledging the material benefits of Bonaparte's rule, the
same friend of liberty notes with concern:
"That he [Bonaparte] meditates the gaining fresh laurels in war can
hardly be doubted, if the accounts which one hears of his restless
and impatient disposition be true."
However much the populace delighted in this new _régime_, the many
ardent souls who had dared and achieved so much in the sacred quest of
liberty could not refrain from protesting against the innovations
which were restoring personal rule. Though the Press was gagged,
though as many as thirty-two Departments were subjected to the
scrutiny of special tribunals, which, under the guise of stamping out
brigandage, frequently punished opponents of the Government, yet the
voice of criticism was not wholly silenced. The project of the
Concordat was sharply opposed in the Tribunate, which also ventured to
declare that the first sections of the Civil Codes were not
conformable to the principles of 1789 and to the first draft of a code
presented to the Convention. The Government thereupon refused to send
to the Tribunate any important measures, but merely flung them a mass
of petty details to discuss, as "_bones to gnaw_" until the time for
the renewal by lot of a fifth of its members should come round. During
a discussion at the Council of State, the First Consul hinted with
much frankness at the methods which ought to be adopted to quell the
factious opposition of the Tribunate:
"One cannot work with an institution so productive of disorder. The
constitution has created a legislative power composed of three
bodies. None of these branches has any right to organize itself:
that must be done by the law. Therefore we must make a body which
shall organize the manner of deliberations of these three branches.
The Tribunate ought to be divided into five sections. The
discussion of laws will take place secretly in each section: one
might even introduce a discussion between these sections and those
of the Council of State. Only the reporter will speak publicly.
Then things will go on reasonably."
Having delivered this opinion, _ex cathedra_, he departed (January
7th, 1802) for Lyons, there to be invested with supreme authority in
the reconstituted Cisalpine, or as it was now termed, Italian
Republic[177]
Returning at the close of the month, radiant with the lustre of this
new dignity, he was able to bend the Tribunate and the _Corps
Législatif_ to his will. The renewal of their membership by one-fifth
served as the opportunity for subjecting them to the more pliable
Senate. This august body of highly-paid members holding office for
life had the right of nominating the new members; but hitherto the
retiring members had been singled out by lot. Roederer, acting on a
hint of the time-serving Second Consul, now proposed in the Council
of State that the retiring members of those Chambers should
thenceforth be appointed by the Senate, and not by lot; for the
principle of the lot, he quaintly urged, was hostile to the right of
election which belonged to the Senate. Against such conscious
sophistry all the bolts of logic were harmless. The question was left
undecided, in order that the Senate might forthwith declare in favour
of its own right to determine every year not only the elections to,
but the exclusions from, the Tribunate and the _Corps Législatif_. A
_senatus consultant_ of March legalized this monstrous innovation,
which led to the exclusion from the Tribunate of zealous republicans
like Benjamin Constant, Isnard, Ganilh, Daunou, and Chénier. The
infusion of the senatorial nominees served to complete the nullity of
these bodies; and the Tribunate, the lineal descendant of the terrible
Convention, was gagged and bound within eight years of the stilling of
Danton's mighty voice.
In days when civic zeal was the strength of the French Republic, the
mere suggestion of such a violation of liberty would have cost the
speaker his life. But since the rise of Bonaparte, civic sentiments
had yielded place to the military spirit and to boundless pride in the
nation's glory. Whenever republican feelings were outraged, there were
sufficient distractions to dissipate any of the sombre broodings which
Bonaparte so heartily disliked; and an event of international
importance now came to still the voice of political criticism.
The signature of the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain
(March 25th, 1802) sufficed to drown the muttered discontent of the
old republican party under the paeans of a nation's joy. The
jubilation was natural. While Londoners were grumbling at the
sacrifices which Addington's timidity had entailed, all France rang
with praises of the diplomatic skill which could rescue several
islands from England's grip and yet assure French supremacy on the
Continent. The event seemed to call for some sign of the nation's
thankfulness to the restorer of peace and prosperity. The hint having
been given by the tactful Cambacérès to some of the members of the
Tribunate, this now docile body expressed a wish that there should be
a striking token of the national gratitude; and a motion to that
effect was made by the Senate to the _Corps Législatif_ and to the
Government itself.
The form which the national memorial should take was left entirely
vague. Under ordinary circumstances the outcome would have been a
column or a statue: to a Napoleon it was monarchy.
The Senate was in much doubt as to the fit course of action. The
majority desired to extend the Consulate for a second term of ten
years, and a formal motion to that effect was made on May 7th. It was
opposed by a few, some of whom demanded the prolongation for life. The
president, Tronchet, prompted by Fouché and other republicans, held
that only the question of prolonging the Consulate for another term of
ten years was before the Senate: and the motion was carried by sixty
votes against one: the dissentient voice was that of the Girondin
Lanjuinais. The report of this vote disconcerted the First Consul, but
he replied with some constraint that as the people had invested him
with the supreme magistrature, he would not feel assured of its
confidence unless the present proposal were also sanctioned by its
vote: "You judge that I owe the people another sacrifice: I will give
it if the people's voice orders what your vote now authorizes." But
before the mass vote of the people was taken, an important change had
been made in the proposal itself. It was well known that Bonaparte was
dissatisfied with the senatorial offer: and at a special session of
the Council of State, at which Ministers were present, the Second
Consul urged that they must now decide how, when, and _on what
question_ the people were to be consulted. The whole question recently
settled by the Senate was thus reopened in a way that illustrated the
advantage of multiplying councils and of keeping them under official
tutelage. The Ministers present asserted that the people disapproved
of the limitations of time imposed by the Senate; and after some
discussion Cambacérès procured the decision that the consultation of
the people should be on the questions whether the First Consul should
hold his power for life, and whether he should nominate his successor.
To the latter part of this proposal the First Consul offered a
well-judged refusal. To consult the people on the restoration of
monarchy would, as yet, have been as inopportune as it was
superfluous. After gaining complete power, Bonaparte could be well
assured as to the establishment of an hereditary claim. The former and
less offensive part of the proposal was therefore submitted to the
people; and to it there could be only one issue amidst the prosperity
brought by the peace, and the surveillance exercised by the prefects
and the grateful clergy now brought back by the Concordat. The
Consulate for Life was voted by the enormous majority of more than
3,500,000 affirmative votes against 8,374 negatives. But among these
dissentients were many honoured names: among military men Carnot,
Drouot, Mouton, and Bernard opposed the innovation; and Lafayette made
the public statement that he could not vote for such a magistracy
unless political liberty were guaranteed. A _senatus consultum_ of
August 1st forthwith proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte Consul for Life and
ordered the erection of a Statue of Peace, holding in one hand the
victor's laurel and in the other the senatorial decree.
On the following day Napoleon--for henceforth he generally used his
Christian name like other monarchs--presented to the Council of State
a project of an organic law, which virtually amounted to a new
constitution. The mere fact of its presentation at so early a date
suffices to prove how completely he had prepared for the recent change
and how thoroughly assured he was of success. This important measure
was hurried through the Senate, and, without being submitted to the
Tribunate or _Corps Législatif_, still less to the people, for whose
sanction he had recently affected so much concern--was declared to be
the fundamental law of the State.
The fifth constitution of revolutionary France may be thus described.
It began by altering the methods of election. In place of Sieyès'
lists of notabilities, Bonaparte proposed a simpler plan. The
adult citizens of each canton were thenceforth to meet, for
electoral purposes, in primary assemblies, to name two candidates
for the office of _juge de paix_ (i.e., magistrate) and town
councillor, and to choose the members of the "electoral colleges"
for the _arrondissement_ and for the Department. In the latter case
only the 600 most wealthy men of the Department were eligible. An
official or aristocratic tinge was to be imparted to these electoral
colleges by the infusion of members selected by the First Consul from
the members of the Legion of Honour. Fixity of opinion was also
assured by members holding office for life; and, as they were elected
in the midst of the enthusiasm aroused by the Peace of Amiens, they
were decidedly Bonapartist.
The electoral colleges had the following powers: they nominated two
candidates for each place vacant in the merely consultative councils
of their respective areas, and had the equally barren honour of
presenting two candidates for the Tribunate--the final act of
_selection_ being decided by the executive, that is, by the First
Consul. Corresponding privileges were accorded to the electoral
colleges of the Department, save that these plutocratic bodies had the
right of presenting candidates for admission to the Senate. The lists
of candidates for the _Corps_ _Législatif_ were to be formed by the
joint action of the electoral colleges, namely, those of the
Departments and those of the _arrondissements_. But as the resulting
councils and parliamentary bodies had only the shadow of power, the
whole apparatus was but an imposing machine for winnowing the air and
threshing chaff.
The First Consul secured few additional rights or attributes, except
the exercise of the royal prerogative of granting pardon. But, in
truth, his own powers were already so large that they were scarcely
susceptible of extension. The three Consuls held office for life, and
were _ex officio_ members of the Senate. The second and third Consuls
were nominated by the Senate on the presentation of the First Consul:
the Senate might reject two names proposed by him for either office,
but they must accept his third nominee. The First Consul might deposit
in the State archives his proposal as to his successor: if the Senate
rejected this proposal, the second and third Consuls made a
suggestion; and if it were rejected, one of the two whom they
thereupon named must be elected by the Senate. The three legislative
bodies lost practically all their powers, those of the _Corps
Législatif_ going to the Senate, those of the Council of State to an
official Cabal formed out of it; while the Tribunate was forced to
_debate secretly in five sections_, where, as Bonaparte observed,
_they might jabber as they liked_.
On the other hand, the attributes of the Senate were signally
enhanced. It was thenceforth charged, not only with the preservation
of the republican constitution, but with its interpretation in
disputed points, and its completion wherever it should be found
wanting. Furthermore, by means of organic _senatus consulta_ it was
empowered to make constitutions for the French colonies, or to suspend
trial by jury for five years in any Department, or even to declare it
outside the limits of the constitution. It now gained the right of
being consulted in regard to the ratification of treaties, previously
enjoyed by the _Corps Législatif._ Finally, it could dissolve the
_Corps Législatif_ and the Tribunate. But this formidable machinery
was kept under the strict control of the chief engineer: all these
powers were set in motion on the initiative of the Government; and the
proposals for its laws, or _senatus consulta,_ were discussed in the
Cabal of the Council of State named by the First Consul. This
precaution might have been deemed superfluous by a ruler less careful
about details than Napoleon; the composition of the Senate was such as
to assure its pliability; for though it continued to renew its ranks
by co-optation, yet that privilege was restricted in the following
way: from the lists of candidates for the Senate sent up by the
electoral colleges of the Departments, Napoleon selected three for
each seat vacant; one of those three must be chosen by the Senate.
Moreover, the First Consul was to be allowed directly to nominate
forty members in addition to the eighty prescribed by the constitution
of 1799. Thus, by direct or indirect means, the Senate soon became a
strict Napoleonic preserve, to which only the most devoted adherents
could aspire. And yet, such is the vanity of human efforts, it was
this very body which twelve years later was to vote his
deposition.[178]
The victory of action over talk, of the executive over the
legislature, of the one supremely able man over the discordant and
helpless many, was now complete. The process was startlingly swift;
yet its chief stages are not difficult to trace. The orators of the
first two National Assemblies of France, after wrecking the old royal
authority, were constrained by the pressure of events to intrust the
supervision of the executive powers to important committees, whose
functions grew with the intensity of the national danger. Amidst the
agonies of 1793, when France was menaced by the First Coalition, the
Committee of Public Safety leaped forth as the ensanguined champion of
democracy; and, as the crisis, developed in intensity, this terrible
body and the Committee of General Security virtually governed France.
After the repulse of the invaders and the fall of Robespierre, the
return to ordinary methods was marked by the institution of the
Directory, when five men, chosen by the legislature, controlled the
executive powers and the general policy of the Republic: that
compromise was forcibly ended by the stroke of Brumaire. Three Consuls
then seized the reins, and two years later a single charioteer gripped
the destinies of France. His powers were, in fact, ultimately derived
from those of the secret committees of the terrorists. But, unlike the
supremacy of Robespierre, that of Napoleon could not be disputed; for
the general, while guarding all the material boons which the
Revolution had conferred, conciliated the interests and classes
whereon the civilian had so brutally trampled. The new autocracy
therefore possessed a solid strength which that of the terrorists
could never possess. Indeed, it was more absolute than the dictatorial
power that Rousseau had outlined. The philosopher had asserted that,
while silencing the legislative power, the dictator really made it
vocal, and that he could do everything but make laws. But Napoleon,
after 1802, did far more: he suppressed debates and yet drew laws from
his subservient legislature. Whether, then, we regard its practical
importance for France and Europe, or limit our view to the mental
sagacity and indomitable will-power required for its accomplishment,
the triumph of Napoleon in the three years subsequent to his return
from Egypt is the most stupendous recorded in the history of civilized
peoples.
The populace consoled itself for the loss of political liberty by the
splendour of the fête which heralded the title of First Consul for
Life, proclaimed on August 15th: that day was also memorable as being
the First Consul's thirty-third birthday, the festival of the
Assumption, and the anniversary of the ratification of the Concordat.
The decorations and fireworks were worthy of so remarkable a
confluence of solemnities. High on one of the towers of Notre Dame
glittered an enormous star, and at its centre there shone the sign of
the Zodiac which had shed its influence over his first hours of life.
The myriads of spectators who gazed at that natal emblem might well
have thought that his life's star was now at its zenith. Few could
have dared to think that it was to mount far higher into unknown
depths of space, blazing as a baleful portent to kings and peoples;
still less was there any Cassandra shriek of doom as to its final
headlong fall into the wastes of ocean. All was joy and jubilation
over a career that had even now surpassed the records of antique
heroism, that blended the romance of oriental prowess with the
beneficent toils of the legislator, and prospered alike in war and
peace.
And yet black care cast one shadow over that jubilant festival. There
was a void in the First Consul's life such as saddened but few of the
millions of peasants who looked up to him as their saviour. His wife
had borne him no heir: and there seemed no prospect that a child of
his own would ever succeed to his glorious heritage. Family joys, it
seemed, were not for him. Suspicions and bickerings were his lot. His
brothers, in their feverish desire for the establishment of a
Bonapartist dynasty, ceaselessly urged that he should take means to
provide himself with a legitimate heir, in the last resort by
divorcing Josephine. With a consideration for her feelings which does
him credit, Napoleon refused to countenance such proceedings. Yet it
is certain that from this time onwards he kept in view the
desirability, on political grounds, of divorcing her, and made this
the excuse for indulgence in amours against which Josephine's tears
and reproaches were all in vain.
The consolidation of personal rule, the institution of the Legion of
Honour, and the return of very many of the emigrant nobles under the
terms of the recent amnesty, favoured the growth of luxury in the
capital and of Court etiquette at the Tuileries and St. Cloud. At
these palaces the pomp of the _ancien régime_ was laboriously copied.
General Duroc, stiff republican though he was, received the
appointment of Governor of the Palace; under him were chamberlains and
prefects of the palace, who enforced a ceremonial that struggled to be
monarchical. The gorgeous liveries and sumptuous garments of the reign
of Louis XV. speedily replaced the military dress which even civilians
had worn under the warlike Republic. High boots, sabres, and
regimental headgear gave way to buckled shoes, silk stockings, Court
rapiers, and light hats, the last generally held under the arm.
Tricolour cockades were discarded, along with the revolutionary jargon
which _thou'd_ and _citizen'd_ everyone; and men began to purge their
speech of some of the obscene terms which had haunted clubs and camps.
It was remarked, however, that the First Consul still clung to the use
of the term _citizen_, and that amidst the surprising combinations of
colours that flecked his Court, he generally wore only the uniform of
a colonel of grenadiers or of the light infantry of the consular
guard. This conduct resulted partly from his early dislike of luxury,
but partly, doubtless, from a conviction that republicans will forgive
much in a man who, like Vespasian, discards the grandeur which his
prowess has won, and shines by his very plainness. To trifling matters
such as these Napoleon always attached great importance; for, as he
said to Admiral Malcolm at St. Helena: "In France trifles are great
things: reason is nothing."[179] Besides, genius so commanding as his
little needed the external trappings wherewith ordinary mortals hide
their nullity. If his attire was simple, it but set off the better the
play of his mobile features, and the rich, unfailing flow of his
conversation. Perhaps no clearer and more pleasing account of his
appearance and his conduct at a reception has ever been given to the
world than this sketch of the great man in one of his gentler moods by
John Leslie Foster, who visited Paris shortly after the Peace of
Amiens:
"He is about five feet seven inches high, delicately and gracefully
made; his hair a dark brown crop, thin and lank; his complexion
smooth, pale, and sallow; his eyes gray, but very animated; his
eye-brows light brown, thin and projecting. All his features,
particularly his mouth and nose, fine, sharp, defined, and
expressive beyond description; expressive of what? Not of
anything_percé_ as the prints expressed him, still less of anything
_méchant_; nor has he anything of that eye whose bend doth awe the
world. The true expression of his countenance is a pleasing
melancholy, which, whenever he speaks, relaxes into the most
agreeable and gracious smile you can conceive. To this you must add
the appearance of deep and intense thought, but above all the
predominating expression a look of calm and tranquil resolution and
intrepidity which nothing human could discompose. His address is
the finest I have ever seen, and said by those who have travelled
to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but
even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more
unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the
gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded
by the greatest fund of levée conversation that I suppose any
person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently,
with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of voice. While
he speaks, his features are still more expressive than his
words."[180]
In contrast with this intellectual power and becoming simplicity of
attire, how stupid and tawdry were the bevies of soulless women and
the dumb groups of half-tamed soldiers! How vapid also the rules of
etiquette and precedence which starched the men and agitated the minds
of their consorts! Yet, while soaring above these rules with easy
grace, the First Consul imposed them rigidly on the crowd of eager
courtiers. On these burning questions he generally took the advice of
M. de Rémusat, whose tact and acquaintance with Court customs were now
of much service; while the sprightly wit of his young wife attracted
Josephine, as it has all readers of her piquant but rather spiteful
memoirs. In her pages we catch a glimpse of the life of that singular
Court; the attempts at aping the inimitable manners of the _ancien
régime_; the pompous nullity of the second and third Consuls; the
tawdry magnificence of the costumes; the studied avoidance of any word
that implied even a modicum of learning or a distant acquaintance with
politics; the nervous preoccupation about Napoleon's moods and whims;
the graceful manners of Josephine that rarely failed to charm away his
humours, except when she herself had been outrageously slighted for
some passing favourite; above all, the leaden dullness of
conversation, which drew from Chaptal the confession that life there
was the life of a galley slave. And if we seek for the hidden reason
why a ruler eminently endowed with mental force and freshness should
have endured so laboured a masquerade, we find it in his strikingly
frank confession to Madame de Rémusat: _It is fortunate that the
French are to be ruled through their vanity._ <
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIV
THE PEACE OF AMIENS
The previous chapter dealt in the main with the internal affairs of
France and the completion of Napoleon's power: it touched on foreign
affairs only so far as to exhibit the close connection between the
First Consul's diplomatic victory over England and his triumph over
the republican constitution in his adopted country. But it is time now
to review the course of the negotiations which led up to the Treaty of
Amiens.
In order to realize the advantages which France then had over England,
it will be well briefly to review the condition of our land at that
time. Our population was far smaller than that of the French Republic.
France, with her recent acquisitions in Belgium, the Rhineland, Savoy,
Nice, and Piedmont, numbered nearly 40,000,000 inhabitants: but the
census returns of Great Britain for 1801 showed only a total of
10,942,000 souls, while the numbers for Ireland, arguing from the
rather untrustworthy return of 1813, may be reckoned at about six and
a half millions. The prodigious growth of the English-speaking people
had not as yet fully commenced either in the motherland, the United
States, or in the small and struggling settlements of Canada and
Australia. Its future expansion was to be assured by industrial and
social causes, and by the events considered in this and in subsequent
chapters. It was a small people that had for several months faced with
undaunted front the gigantic power of Bonaparte and that of the Armed
Neutrals.
This population of less than 18,000,000 souls, of which nearly
one-third openly resented the Act of Union recently imposed on
Ireland, was burdened by a National Debt which amounted to
£537,000,000, and entailed a yearly charge of more than £20,000,000
sterling. In the years of war with revolutionary France the annual
expenditure had risen from £19,859,000 (for 1792) to the total of
£61,329,000, which necessitated an income tax of 10 per cent. on all
incomes of £200 and upwards. Yet, despite party feuds, the nation was
never stronger, and its fleets had never won more brilliant and solid
triumphs. The chief naval historian of France admits that we had
captured no fewer than 50 ships of the line, and had lost to our
enemies only five, thereby raising the strength of our fighting line
to 189, while that of France had sunk to 47.[181] The prowess of Sir
Arthur Wellesley was also beginning to revive in India the ancient
lustre of the British arms; but the events of 1802-3 were to show that
our industrial enterprise, and the exploits of our sailors and
soldiers, were by themselves of little avail when matched in a
diplomatic contest against the vast resources of France and the
embodied might of a Napoleon.
Men and institutions were everywhere receiving the imprint of his
will. France was as wax under his genius. The sovereigns of Spain,
Italy, and Germany obeyed his _fiat_. Even the stubborn Dutch bent
before him. On the plea of defeating Orange intrigues, he imposed a
new constitution on the Batavian Republic whose independence he had
agreed to respect. Its Directory was now replaced by a Regency which
relieved the deputies of the people of all responsibility. A
_plébiscite_ showed 52,000 votes against, and 16,000 for, the new
_régime_; but, as 350,000 had not voted, their silence was taken for
consent, and Bonaparte's will became law (September, 1801).
We are now in a position to appreciate the position of France and
Great Britain. Before the signature of the preliminaries of peace at
London on October 1st, 1801, our Government had given up its claims to
the Cape, Malta, Tobago, Martinique, Essequibo, Demerara, Berbice, and
Curaçoa, retaining of its conquests only Trinidad and Ceylon.
A belated attempt had, indeed, been made to retain Tobago. The Premier
and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Hawkesbury, were led by the French
political agent in London, M. Otto, to believe that, in the ensuing
negotiations at Amiens, every facility would be given by the French
Government towards its retrocession to us, and that this act would be
regarded as the means of indemnifying Great Britain for the heavy
expense of supporting many thousands of French and Dutch prisoners.
The Cabinet, relying on this promise as binding between honourable
men, thereupon endeavoured to obtain the assent of George III. to the
preliminaries in their ultimate form, and only the prospect of
regaining Tobago by this compromise induced the King to give it. When
it was too late, King and Ministers realized their mistake in relying
on verbal promises and in failing to procure a written statement.[182]
The abandonment by Ministers of their former claim to Malta is equally
strange. Nelson, though he held Malta to be useless as a base for the
British fleet watching Toulon, made the memorable statement: "I
consider Malta as a most important outwork to India." But a despatch
from St. Petersburg, stating that the new Czar had concluded a formal
treaty of alliance with the Order of St. John settled in Russia, may
have convinced Addington and his colleagues that it would be better to
forego all claim to Malta in order to cement the newly won friendship
of Russia. Whatever may have been their motive, British Ministers
consented to cede the island to the Knights of St. John under the
protection of some third Power.
The preliminaries of peace were further remarkable for three strange
omissions. They did not provide for the renewal of previous treaties
of peace between the late combatants. War is held to break all
previous treaties; and by failing to require the renewal of the
treaties of 1713, 1763, and 1783, it was now open to Spain and France
to cement, albeit in a new form, that Family Compact which it had long
been the aim of British diplomacy to dissolve: the failure to renew
those earlier treaties rendered it possible for the Court of Madrid to
alienate any of its colonies to France, as at that very time was being
arranged with respect to Louisiana.
The second omission was equally remarkable. No mention was made of any
renewal of commercial intercourse between England and France.
Doubtless a complete settlement of this question would have been
difficult. British merchants would have looked for a renewal of that
enlightened treaty of commerce of 1786-7, which had aroused the bitter
opposition of French manufacturers. But the question might have been
broached at London, and its omission from the preliminaries served as
a reason for shelving it in the definitive treaty--a piece of folly
which at once provoked the severest censure from British
manufacturers, who thereby lost the markets of France, and her subject
States, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Genoa, and Etruria.
And, finally, the terms of peace provided no compensation either for
the French royal House or for the dispossessed House of Orange. Here
again, it would have been very difficult to find a recompense such as
the Bourbons could with dignity have accepted; and the suggestion made
by one of the royalist exiles to Lord Hawkesbury, that Great Britain
should seize Crete and hand it over to them, will show how desperate
was their case.[183] Nevertheless, some effort should have been made
by a Government which had so often proclaimed its championship of the
legitimist cause. Still more glaring was the omission of any
stipulation for an indemnity for the House of Orange, now exiled from
the Batavian Republic. That claim, though urged at the outset, found
no place in the preliminaries; and the mingled surprise and contempt
felt in the _salons_ of Paris at the conduct of the British Government
is shown in a semiofficial report sent thence by one of its secret
agents:
"I cannot get it into my head that the British Ministry has acted
in good faith in subscribing to preliminaries of peace, which,
considering the respective position of the parties, would be
harmful to the English people.... People are persuaded in France
that the moderation of England is only a snare put in Bonaparte's
way, and it is mainly in order to dispel it that our journals have
received the order to make much of the advantages which must accrue
to England from the conquests retained by her; but the journalists
have convinced nobody, and it is said openly that if our European
conquests are consolidated by a general peace, France will, within
ten years, subjugate all Europe, Great Britain included, despite
all her vast dominions in India. Only within the last few days have
people here believed in the sincerity of the English preliminaries
of peace, and they say everywhere that, after having gloriously
sailed past the rocks that Bonaparte's cunning had placed in its
track, the British Ministry has completely foundered at the mouth
of the harbour. People blame the whole structure of the peace as
betraying marks of feebleness in all that concerns the dignity and
the interests of the King; ... and we cannot excuse its neglect of
the royalists, whose interests are entirely set aside in the
preliminaries. Men are especially astonished at England's
retrocession of Martinique without a single stipulation for the
colonists there, who are at the mercy of a government as rapacious
as it is fickle. All the owners of colonial property are very
uneasy, and do not hide their annoyance against England on this
score."[184]
This interesting report gives a glimpse into the real thought of Paris
such as is rarely afforded by the tamed or venal Press. As Bonaparte's
spies enabled him to feel every throb of the French pulse, he must at
once have seen how great was the prestige which he gained by these
first diplomatic successes, and how precarious was the foothold of the
English Ministers on the slippery grade of concession to which they
had been lured. Addington surely should have remembered that only the
strong man can with safety recede at the outset, and that an act of
concession which, coming from a master mind, is interpreted as one of
noble magnanimity, will be scornfully snatched from a nerveless hand
as a sign of timorous complaisance. But the public statements and the
secret avowals of our leaders show that they wished "to try the
experiment of peace," now that France had returned to ordinary
political conditions and Jacobinism was curbed by Bonaparte.
"Perhaps," wrote Castlereagh, "France, satisfied with her recent
acquisitions, will find her interest in that system of internal
improvement which is necessarily connected with peace."[185] There is
no reason for doubting the sincerity of this statement. Our policy was
distinctly and continuously complaisant: France regained her colonies:
she was not required to withdraw from Switzerland and Holland. Who
could expect, from what was then known of Bonaparte's character, that
a peace so fraught with glory and profit would not satisfy French
honour and his own ambition?
Peace, then, was an "experiment." The British Government wished to see
whether France would turn from revolution and war to agriculture and
commerce, whether her young ruler be satisfied with a position of
grandeur and solid power such as Louis XIV. had rarely enjoyed. Alas!
the failure of the experiment was patent to all save the blandest
optimists long before the Preliminaries of London took form in the
definitive Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte's aim now was to keep our
Government strictly to the provisional terms of peace which it had
imprudently signed. Even before the negotiations were opened at
Amiens, he ordered Joseph Bonaparte to listen to no proposal
concerning the King of Sardinia and the ex-Stadholder of Holland,
and asserted that the "internal affairs of the Batavian Republic, of
Germany, of Helvetia, and of the Italian Republics" were "absolutely
alien to the discussions with England." This implied that England was
to be shut out from Continental politics, and that France was to
regulate the affairs of central and southern Europe. This observance
of the letter was, however, less rigid where French colonial and
maritime interests were at stake. Dextrous feelers were put forth
seawards, and it was only when these were repulsed that the French
negotiators encased themselves in their preliminaries.
The task of reducing those articles to a definitive treaty devolved,
on the British side, on the Marquis Cornwallis, a gouty, world-weary
old soldier, chiefly remembered for the surrender which ended the
American War. Nevertheless, he had everywhere won respect for his
personal probity in the administration of Indian affairs, and there
must also have been some convincing qualities in a personality which
drew from Napoleon at St. Helena the remark: "I do not believe that
Cornwallis was a man of first-rate abilities: but he had talent, great
probity, sincerity, and never broke his word.... He was a man of
honour--a true Englishman."
Against Lord Cornwallis, and his far abler secretary, Mr. Merry, were
pitted Joseph Bonaparte and his secretaries. The abilities of the
eldest of the Bonapartes have been much underrated. Though he lacked
the masterful force and wide powers of his second brother, yet at
Lunéville Joseph proved himself to be an able diplomatist, and later
on in his tenure of power at Naples and Madrid he displayed no small
administrative gifts. Moreover, his tact and kindliness kindled in all
who knew him a warmth of friendship such as Napoleon's sterner
qualities rarely inspired. The one was loved as a man: for the other,
even his earlier acquaintances felt admiration and devotion, but
always mingled with a certain fear of the demi-god that would at times
blaze forth. This was the dread personality that urged Talleyrand and
Joseph Bonaparte to their utmost endeavours and steeled them against
any untoward complaisance at Amiens.
The selection of so honourable a man as Cornwallis afforded no slight
guarantee for the sincerity of our Government, and its sincerity will
stand the test of a perusal of its despatches. Having examined all
those that deal with these negotiations, the present writer can affirm
that the official instructions were in no respect modified by the
secret injunctions: these referred merely to such delicate and
personal topics as the evacuation of Hanover by Prussian troops and
the indemnities to be sought for the House of Orange and the House of
Savoy. The circumstances of these two dispossessed dynasties were
explained so as to show that the former Dutch Stadholder had a very
strong claim on us, as well as on France and the Batavian Republic;
while the championship of the House of Savoy by the Czar rendered the
claims of that ancient family on the intervention of George III. less
direct and personal than those of the Prince of Orange. Indeed,
England would have insisted on the insertion of a clause to this
effect in the preliminaries had not other arrangements been on foot at
Berlin which promised to yield due compensation to this unfortunate
prince. Doubtless the motives of the British Ministers were good, but
their failure to insert such a clause fatally prejudiced their case
all through the negotiations at Amiens.
The British official declaration respecting Malta was clear and
practical. The island was to be restored to the Knights of the Order
of St. John and placed under the protection of a third Power other
than France and England. But the reconstitution of the Order was no
less difficult than the choice of a strong and disinterested
protecting Power. Lord Hawkesbury proposed that Russia be the
guaranteeing Power. No proposal could have been more reasonable. The
claims of the Czar to the protectorate of the Order had been so
recently asserted by a treaty with the knights that no other
conclusion seemed feasible. And, in order to assuage the grievances of
the islanders and strengthen the rule of the knights, the British
Ministry desired that the natives of Malta should gain a foothold in
the new constitution. The lack of civil and political rights had
contributed so materially to the overthrow of the Order that no
reconstruction of that shattered body could be deemed intelligent, or
even honest, which did not cement its interests with those of the
native Maltese. The First Consul, however, at once demurred to both
these proposals. In the course of a long interview with Cornwallis at
Paris,[186] he adverted to the danger of bringing Russia's maritime
pressure to bear on Mediterranean questions, especially as her
sovereigns "had of late shown themselves to be such unsteady
politicians." This of course referred to the English proclivities of
Alexander I., and it is clear that Bonaparte's annoyance with
Alexander was the first unsettling influence which prevented the
solution of the Maltese question. The First Consul also admitted to
Cornwallis that the King of Naples, despite his ancient claims of
suzerainty over Malta, could not be considered a satisfactory
guarantor, as between two Great Powers; and he then proposed that the
tangle should be cut by blowing up the fortifications of Valetta.
The mere suggestion of such an act affords eloquent proof of the
difficulties besetting the whole question. To destroy works of vast
extent, which were the bulwark of Christendom against the Barbary
pirates, would practically have involved the handing over of Valetta
to those pests of the Mediterranean; and from Malta as a new base of
operations they could have spread devastation along the coasts of
Sicily and Italy. This was the objection which Cornwallis at once
offered to an other-wise specious proposal: he had recently received
papers from Major-General Pigot at Malta, in which the same solution
of the question was examined in detail. The British officer pointed
out that the complete dismantling of the fortifications would expose
the island, and therefore the coasts of Italy, to the rovers; yet he
suggested a partial demolition, which seems to prove that the British
officers in command at Malta did not contemplate the retention of the
island and the infraction of the peace.
Our Government, however, disapproved of the destruction of the
fortifications of Valetta as wounding the susceptibilities of the
Czar, and as in no wise rendering impossible the seizure of the island
and the reconstruction of those works by some future invader. In fact,
as the British Ministry now aimed above all at maintaining good
relations with the Czar, Bonaparte's proposal could only be regarded
as an ingenious device for sundering the Anglo-Russian understanding.
The French Minister at St. Petersburg was doing his utmost to prevent
the _rapprochement_ of the Czar to the Court of St James, and was
striving to revive the moribund league of the Armed Neutrals. That
last offer had "been rejected in the most peremptory manner and in
terms almost bordering upon derision." Still there was reason to
believe that the former Anglo-Russian disputes about Malta might be so
far renewed as to bring Bonaparte and Alexander to an understanding.
The sentimental Liberalism of the young Czar predisposed him towards a
French alliance, and his whole disposition inclined him towards the
brilliant opportunism of Paris rather than the frigid legitimacy of
the Court of St. James. The Maltese affair and the possibility of
reopening the Eastern Question were the two sources of hope to the
promoters of a Franco-Russian alliance; for both these questions
appealed to the chivalrous love of adventure and to the calculating
ambition so curiously blent in Alexander's nature. Such, then, was the
motive which doubtless prompted Bonaparte's proposal concerning
Valetta; such also were the reasons which certainly dictated its
rejection by Great Britain.
In his interview with the First Consul at Paris, and in the subsequent
negotiations at Amiens with Joseph Bonaparte, the question of Tobago
and England's money claim for the support of French prisoners was
found to be no less thorny than that of Malta. The Bonapartes firmly
rejected the proposal for the retention of Tobago by England in lieu
of her pecuniary demand. A Government which neglected to procure the
insertion of its claim to Tobago among the Preliminaries of London
could certainly not hope to regain that island in exchange for a
concession to France that was in any degree disputable. But the two
Bonapartes and Talleyrand now took their stand solely on the
preliminaries, and politely waved on one side the earlier promises of
M. Otto as unauthorized and invalid, They also closely scrutinized the
British claim to an indemnity for the support of French prisoners.
Though theoretically correct, it was open to an objection, which was
urged by Bonaparte and Talleyrand with suave yet incisive irony.
They suggested that the claim must be considered in relation to a
counter-claim, soon to be sent from Paris, for the maintenance of all
prisoners taken by the French from the various forces subsidized by
Great Britain, a charge which "would probably not leave a balance so
much in favour of His [Britannic] Majesty as His Government may have
looked forward to." This retort was not so terrible as it appeared;
for most of the papers necessary for the making up of the French
counterclaim had been lost or destroyed during the Revolution. Yet the
threat told with full effect on Cornwallis, who thereafter referred to
the British claim as a "hopeless debt."[187] The officials of Downing
Street drew a distinction between prisoners from armies merely
subsidized by us and those taken from foreign forces actually under
our control; but it is clear that Cornwallis ceased to press the
claim. In fact, the British case was mismanaged from beginning to end:
the accounts for the maintenance of French and Dutch prisoners were,
in the first instance, wrongly drawn up; and there seems to have been
little or no notion of the seriousness of the counter-claim, which
came with all the effect of a volley from a masked battery,
destructive alike to our diplomatic reputation and to our hope of
retaining Tobago.
It is impossible to refer here to all the topics discussed at Amiens.
The determination of the French Government to adopt a forward colonial
and oceanic policy is clearly seen in its proposals made at the close
of the year 1801. They were: (1) the abolition of salutes to the
British flag on the high seas; (2) an _absolute_ ownership of the
eastern and western coasts of Newfoundland in return for a proposed
cession of the isles of St. Pierre and Miquelon to us--which would
have practically ceded to France _in full sovereignty_ all the best
fishing coasts of that land, with every prospect of settling the
interior, in exchange for two islets devastated by war and then in
British hands; (3) the right of the French to a share in the whale
fishery in those seas; (4) the establishment of a French fishing
station in the Falkland Isles; and (5) the extension of the French
districts around the towns of Yanaon and Mahé in India.[188] To all
these demands Lord Cornwallis opposed an unbending opposition. Weak as
our policy had been on other affairs, it was firm as a rock on all
maritime and Indian questions. In fact, the events to be described in
the next chapter, which led to the consolidation of British power in
Hindostan, would in all probability never have occurred but for the
apprehensions excited by these French demands; and our masterful
proconsul in Bengal, the Marquis Wellesley, could not have pursued his
daring and expensive schemes of conquest, annexation, and forced
alliances, had not the schemes of the First Consul played into the
hands of the soldiers at Calcutta and weakened the protests of the
dividend-hunters of Leadenhall Street.
The persistence of French demands for an increase of influence in
Newfoundland and the West and East Indies, the vastness of her
expedition to Saint Domingo and the thinly-veiled designs of her
Australian expedition (which we shall notice in the next chapter), all
served to awaken the suspicions of the British Government. The
negotiations consequently progressed but slowly. From the outset they
were clogged by the suspicion of bad faith. Spain and Holland, smarting
under the conditions of a peace which gave to France all the glory and
to her allies all the loss, delayed sending their respective envoys to
the conferences at Amiens, and finally avowed their determination to
resist the surrender of Trinidad and Ceylon. In fact, pressure had to
be exerted from Paris and London before they yielded to the inevitable.
This difficulty was only one of several: there then remained the
questions whether Portugal and Turkey should be admitted to share in the
treaty, as England demanded; or whether they should sign a separate
peace with France. The First Consul strenuously insisted on the
exclusion of those States, though their interests were vitally affected
by the present negotiations, He saw that a separate treaty with the
Sublime Porte would enable him, not only to extract valuable trading
concessions in the Black Sea trade, but also to cement a good
understanding with Russia on the Eastern Question, which was now being
adroitly reopened by French diplomacy. Against the exclusion of Turkey
from the negotiations at Amiens, Great Britain firmly but vainly
protested. In fact, Talleyrand had bound the Porte to a separate
agreement which promised everything for France and nothing for Turkey,
and seemed to doom the Sublime Porte to certain humiliation and probable
partition.[189]
Then there were the vexed questions of the indemnities claimed by
George III. for the Houses of Orange and of Savoy. In his interview
with Cornwallis, Bonaparte had effusively promised to do his utmost
for the ex-Stadholder, though he refused to consider the case of the
King of Sardinia, who, he averred, had offended him by appealing to
the Czar. The territorial interests of France in Italy doubtless
offered a more potent argument to the First Consul: after practically
annexing Piedmont and dominating the peninsula, he could ill brook
the presence on the mainland of a king whom he had already sacrificed
to his astute and masterful policy. The case of the Prince of Orange
was different. He was a victim to the triumph of French and democratic
influence in the Dutch Netherlands. George III. felt a deep interest
in this unfortunate prince and made a strong appeal to the better
instincts of Bonaparte on his behalf. Indeed, it is probable that
England had acquiesced in the consolidation of French influence at the
Hague, in the hope that her complaisance would lead the First Consul
to assure him some position worthy of so ancient a House. But though
Cornwallis pressed the Batavian Republic on behalf of its exiled
chief, yet the question was finally adjourned by the XVIIIth clause of
the definitive Treaty of Amiens; and the scion of that famous House
had to take his share in the forthcoming scramble for the clerical
domains of Germany.[190]
For the still more difficult cause of the House of Savoy the British
Government made honest but unavailing efforts, firmly refusing to
recognize the newest creations of Bonaparte in Italy, namely, the
Kingdom of Etruria and the Ligurian Republic, until he indemnified the
House of Savoy. Our recognition was withheld for the reasons that
prompt every bargainer to refuse satisfaction to his antagonist until
an equal concession is accorded. This game was played by both Powers
at Amiens, and with little other result than mutual exasperation. Yet
here, too, the balance of gain naturally accrued to Bonaparte; for he
required the British Ministry to recognize existing facts in Etruria
and Liguria, while Cornwallis had to champion the cause of exiles and
of an order that seemed for ever to have vanished. To pit the
non-existent against the actual was a task far above the powers of
British statesmanship; yet that was to be its task for the next
decade, while the forces of the living present were to be wielded by
its mighty antagonist. Herein lay the secret of British failures and
of Napoleon's extraordinary triumphs.
Leaving, for a space, the negotiations at Amiens, we turn to consider
the events which transpired at Lyons in the early weeks of 1802,
events which influenced not only the future of Italy, but the fortunes
of Bonaparte.
It will be remembered that, after the French victories of Marengo and
Hohenlinden, Austria agreed to terms of peace whereby the Cisalpine,
Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics were formally recognized by
her, though a clause expressly stipulated that they were to be
independent of France. A vain hope! They continued to be under French
tutelage, and their strongholds in the possession of French troops.
It now remained to legalize French supremacy in the Cisalpine
Republic, which comprised the land between the Ticino and the Adige,
and the Alps and the Rubicon. The new State received a provisional
form of government after Marengo, a small council being appointed to
supervise civil affairs at the capital, Milan. With it and with
Marescalchi, the Cisalpine envoy at Paris, Bonaparte had concerted a
constitution, or rather he had used these men as a convenient screen
to hide its purely personal origin. Having, for form's sake, consulted
the men whom he had himself appointed, he now suggested that the chief
citizens of that republic should confer with him respecting their new
institutions. His Minister at Milan thereupon proposed that they
should cross the Alps for that purpose, assembling, not at Paris,
where their dependence on the First Consul's will might provoke too
much comment, but at Lyons. To that city, accordingly, there repaired
some 450 of the chief men of Northern Italy, who braved the snows of a
most rigorous December, in the hope of consolidating the liberties of
their long-distracted country. And thus was seen the strange spectacle
of the organization of Lombardy, Modena, and the Legations being
effected in one provincial centre of France, while at another of her
cities the peace of Europe and the fortunes of two colonial empires
were likewise at stake. Such a conjunction of events might well
impress the imagination of men, bending the stubborn will of the
northern islanders, and moulding the Italian notables to complete
complaisance. And yet, such power was there in the nascent idea of
Italian nationality, that Bonaparte's proposals, which, in his
absence, were skilfully set forth by Talleyrand, met with more than
one rebuff from the Consulta at Lyons.
Bitterly it opposed the declaration that the Roman Catholic religion
was the religion of the Cisalpine Republic and must be maintained by a
State budget. Only the first part of this proposal could be carried:
so keen was the opposition to the second part that, as a preferable
plan, property was set apart for the support of the clergy; and
clerical discipline was subjected to the State, on terms somewhat
similar to those of the French Concordat.[191]
Secular affairs gave less trouble. The apparent success of the French
constitution furnished a strong motive for adopting one of a similar
character for the Italian State; and as the proposed institutions had
been approved at Milan, their acceptance by a large and miscellaneous
body was a foregone conclusion. Talleyrand also took the most
unscrupulous care that the affair of the Presidency should be
judiciously settled. On December 31st, 1801, he writes to Bonaparte
from Lyons:
"The opinion of the Cisalpines seems not at all decided as to the
choice to be made: they will gladly receive the man whom you
nominate: a President in France and a Vice-President at Milan would
suit a large number of them."
Four days later he confidently assures the First Consul:
"They will do what you want without your needing even to show your
desire. What they think you desire will immediately become
law."[192]
The ground having been thus thoroughly worked, Bonaparte and
Josephine, accompanied by a brilliant suite, arrived at Lyons on
January 11th, and met with an enthusiastic reception. Despite the
intense cold, followed by a sudden thaw, a brilliant series of fêtes,
parades, and receptions took place; and several battalions of the
French Army of Egypt, which had recently been conveyed home on English
ships, now passed in review before their chief. The impressionable
Italians could not mistake the aim of these demonstrations; and, after
general matters had been arranged by the notables, the final measures
were relegated to a committee of thirty. The desirability of this step
was obvious, for urgent protests had already been raised in the
Consulta against the appointment of a foreigner as President of the
new State. When a hubbub arose on this burning topic:
"Some officers of the regiments in garrison at Lyons appeared in
the hall and imposed silence upon all parties. Notwithstanding
this, Count Melzi was actually chosen President by the majority of
the Committee of Thirty; but he declined the honour, and suggested
in significant terms that, to enable him to render any service to
the country, the committee had better fix upon General Bonaparte as
their Chief Magistrate. This being done, Bonaparte immediately
appointed Count Melzi Vice-President."[193]
Bonaparte's determination to fill this important position is clearly
seen in his correspondence. On the 2nd and 4th of Pluviôse (January
22nd and 24th), he writes from Lyons:
"All the principal affairs of the Consulta are settled. I count on
being back at Paris in the course of the decade."
"To-morrow I shall review the troops from Egypt. On the 6th [of
Pluviôse] all the business of the Consulta will be finished, and I
shall probably set out on my journey on the 7th."
The next day, 5th Pluviôse, sees the accomplishment of his desires:
"To-day I have reviewed the troops on the Place Bellecour; the sun
shone as it does in Floréal. The Consulta has named a committee of
thirty individuals, which has reported to it that, considering the
domestic and foreign affairs of the Cisalpine, it was indispensable
to let me discharge the first magistracy, until circumstances
permit and I judge it suitable to appoint a successor."
These extracts prove that the acts of the Consulta could be planned
beforehand no less precisely than the movements of the soldiery, and
that even so complex a matter as the voting of a constitution and the
choice of its chief had to fall in with the arrangements of this
methodizing genius. Certainly civilization had progressed since the
weary years when the French people groped through mists and waded in
blood in order to gain a perfect polity: that precious boon was now
conferred on a neighbouring people in so sure a way that the plans of
their benefactor could be infallibly fixed and his return to Paris
calculated to the hour.
The final address uttered by Bonaparte to the Italian notables is
remarkable for the short, sharp sentences, which recall the tones of
the parade ground. Passing recent events in rapid review, he said,
speaking in his mother tongue:
"...Every effort had been made to dismember you: the protection of
France won the day: you have been recognized at Lunéville.
One-fifth larger than before, you are now more powerful, more
consolidated, and have wider hopes. Composed of six different
nations, you will be now united under a constitution the best
possible for your social and material condition. ... The selections
I have made for your chief offices have been made independently of
all idea of party or feeling of locality. As for that of President,
I have found no one among you with sufficient claims on public
opinion, sufficiently free from local feelings, and who had
rendered great enough services to his country, to intrust it to
him.... Your people has only local feelings: it must now rise to
national feelings."
In accordance with this last grand and prophetic remark, the name
Italian was substituted for that of Cisalpine: and thus, for the first
time since the Middle Ages, there reappeared on the map of Europe that
name, which was to evoke the sneers of diplomatists and the most
exalted patriotism of the century. If Bonaparte had done naught else,
he would deserve immortal glory for training the divided peoples of
the peninsula for a life of united activity.
The new constitution was modelled on that of France; but the pretence
of a democratic suffrage was abandoned. The right of voting was
accorded to three classes, the great proprietors, the clerics and
learned men, and the merchants. These, meeting in their several
"Electoral Colleges," voted for the members of the legislative bodies;
a Tribunal was also charged with the maintenance of the constitution.
By these means Bonaparte endeavoured to fetter the power of the
reactionaries no less than the anti-clerical fervour of the Italian
Jacobins. The blending of the new and the old which then began shows
the hand of the master builder, who neither sweeps away materials
merely because they are old, nor rejects the strength that comes from
improved methods of construction: and, however much we may question
the disinterestedness of his motives in this great enterprise, there
can be but one opinion as to the skill of the methods and the
beneficence of the results in Italy.[194]
The first step in the process of Italian unification had now been
taken at Lyons. A second soon followed. The affairs of the Ligurian
Republic were in some confusion; and an address came from Genoa
begging that their differences might be composed by the First Consul.
The spontaneity of this offer may well be questioned, seeing that
Bonaparte found it desirable, in his letter of February 18th, 1802, to
assure the Ligurian authorities that they need feel no disquietude as
to the independence of their republic. Bonaparte undertook to alter
their constitution and nominate their Doge.
That the news of the events at Lyons excited the liveliest indignation
in London is evident from Hawkesbury's despatch of February 12th,
1802, to Cornwallis:
"The proceedings at Lyons have created the greatest alarm in this
country, and there are many persons who were pacifically disposed,
who since this event are desirous of renewing the war. It is
impossible to be surprised at this feeling when we consider the
inordinate ambition, the gross breach of faith, and the inclination
to insult Europe manifested by the First Consul on this occasion.
The Government here are desirous of avoiding to take notice of
these proceedings, and are sincerely desirous to conclude the
peace, if it can be obtained on terms consistent with our honour."
Why the Government should have lagged behind the far surer instincts
of English public opinion it is difficult to say. Hawkesbury's
despatch of four days later supplies an excuse for his contemptible
device of pretending not to see this glaring violation of the Treaty
of Lunéville. Referring to the events at Lyons, he writes:
"Extravagant and unjustifiable as they are in themselves, [they]
must have led us to believe that the First Consul would have been
more anxious than ever to have closed his account with this
country."
Doubtless that was the case, but only on condition that England
remained passive while French domination was extended over all
neighbouring lands. If our Ministers believed that Bonaparte feared
the displeasure of Austria, they were completely in error. Thanks to
the utter weakness of the European system, and the rivalry of Austria
and Prussia, he was now able to concentrate his ever-increasing power
and prestige on the negotiations at Amiens, which once more claim our
attention.
Far from being sated by the prestige gained at Lyons, he seemed to
grow more exacting with victory. Moreover, he had been cut to the
quick by some foolish articles of a French _émigré_ named Peltier, in
a paper published at London: instead of treating them with the
contempt they deserved, he magnified these ravings of a disappointed
exile into an event of high policy, and fulminated against the
Government which allowed them. In vain did Cornwallis object that the
Addington Cabinet could not venture on the unpopular act of curbing
freedom of the Press in Great Britain. The First Consul, who had
experienced no such difficulty in France, persisted now, as a year
later, in considering every uncomplimentary reference to himself as an
indirect and semiofficial attack.
To these causes we may attribute the French demands of February 4th:
contradicting his earlier proposal for a temporary Neapolitan garrison
of Malta, Bonaparte now absolutely refused either to grant that
necessary protection to the weak Order of St. John, or to join Great
Britain in an equal share of the expenses--£20,000 a year--which such
a garrison would entail. The astonishment and indignation aroused at
Downing Street nearly led to an immediate rupture of the negotiations;
and it needed all the patience of Cornwallis and the suavity of Joseph
Bonaparte to smooth away the asperities caused by Napoleon's direct
intervention. It needs only a slight acquaintance with the First
Consul's methods of thought and expression to recognize in the
Protocol of February 4th the incisive speech of an autocrat confident
in his newly-consolidated powers and irritated by the gibes of
Peltier.[195]
The good sense of the two plenipotentiaries at Amiens before long
effected a reconciliation. Hawkesbury, writing from Downing Street,
warned Cornwallis that if a rupture were to take place it must not be
owing to "any impatience on our part": and he, in his turn, affably
inquired from Joseph Bonaparte whether he had any more practicable
plan than that of a Neapolitan garrison, which he had himself
proposed. No plan was forthcoming other than that of a garrison of
1,000 Swiss mercenaries; and as this was open to grave objections, the
original proposal was finally restored. On its side, the Court of St.
James still refused to blow up the fortifications at Valetta; and
rather than destroy those works, England had already offered that the
independence of Malta should be guaranteed by the Great Powers--Great
Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Spain, and Prussia: to this
arrangement France soon assented. Later on we demanded that the
Neapolitan garrison should remain in Malta for three years after the
evacuation of the island by the British troops; whereas France desired
to limit the period to one year. To this Cornwallis finally assented,
with the proviso that, "if the Order of St. John shall not have raised
a sufficient number of men, the Neapolitan troops shall remain until
they shall be relieved by an adequate force, to be agreed upon by the
guaranteeing Powers." The question of the garrison having been
arranged, other details gave less trouble, and the Maltese question
was settled in the thirteen conditions added to Clause X. of the
definitive treaty.
Though this complex question was thus adjusted by March 17th, other
matters delayed a settlement.
Hawkesbury still demanded a definite indemnity for the Prince of
Orange, but Cornwallis finally assented to Article XVIII. of the
treaty, which vaguely promised "an adequate compensation." Cornwallis
also persuaded his chief to waive his claims for the direct
participation of Turkey in the treaty. The British demand for an
indemnity for the expense of supporting French prisoners was to be
relegated to commissioners--who never met. Indeed, this was the only
polite way of escaping from the untenable position which our
Government had heedlessly taken upon this topic.
It is clear from the concluding despatches of Cornwallis that he was
wheedled by Joseph Bonaparte into conceding more than the British
Government had empowered him to do; and, though the "secret and most
confidential" despatch of March 22nd cautioned him against narrowing
too much the ground of a rupture, if a rupture should still occur, yet
three days later, and _after the receipt of this despatch_, he signed
the terms of peace with Joseph Bonaparte, and two days later with the
other signatory Powers.[196] It may well be doubted whether peace
would ever have been signed but for the skill of Joseph Bonaparte in
polite cajolery and the determination of Cornwallis to arrive at an
understanding. In any case the final act of signature was distinctly
the act, not of the British Government, but of its plenipotentiary.
That fact is confirmed by his admission, on March 28th, that he had
yielded where he was ordered to remain inflexible. At St. Helena,
Napoleon also averred that after Cornwallis had definitely pledged
himself to sign the treaty as it stood on the night of March 24th, he
received instructions in a contrary sense from Downing Street; that
nevertheless he held himself bound by his promise and signed the
treaty on the following day, observing that his Government, if
dissatisfied, might refuse to ratify it, but that, having pledged his
word, he felt bound to abide by it. This story seems consonant with
the whole behaviour of Cornwallis, so creditable to him as a man, so
damaging to him as a diplomatist. The later events of the negotiation
aroused much annoyance at Downing Street, and the conduct of
Cornwallis met with chilling disapproval.
The First Consul, on the other hand, showed his appreciation of his
brother's skill with unusual warmth; for when they appeared together
at the opera in Paris, he affectionately thrust his elder brother to
the front of the State box to receive the plaudits of the audience at
the advent of a definite peace. That was surely the purest and noblest
joy which the brothers ever tasted.
With what feelings of pride, not unmixed with awe, must the brothers
have surveyed their career. Less than nine years had elapsed since
their family fled from Corsica, and landed on the coast of Provence,
apparently as bankrupt in their political hopes as in their material
fortunes. Thrice did the fickle goddess cast Napoleon to the ground in
the first two years of his new life, only that his wondrous gifts and
sublime self-confidence might tower aloft the more conspicuously,
bewildering alike the malcontents of Paris, the generals of the old
Empire, the peoples of the Levant, and the statesmen of Britain. Of
all these triumphs assuredly the last was not the least. The Peace of
Amiens left France the arbitress of Europe, and, by restoring to her
all her lost colonies, it promised to place her in the van of the
oceanic and colonizing peoples.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XV
A FRENCH COLONIAL EMPIRE
ST. DOMINGO--LOUISIANA--INDIA--AUSTRALIA
"Il n'y a rien dans l'histoire du monde de comparable aux forces
navales de l'Angleterre, à l'étendue et à la richesse de son
commerce, à la masse de ses dettes, de ses défenses, de ses moyens,
et à la fragilité des bases sur lesquelles repose l'édifice immense
de sa fortune."--BARON MALOUET, _Considérations historiques sur
l'Empire de la Mer_.
There are abundant reasons for thinking that Napoleon valued the Peace
of Amiens as a necessary preliminary to the restoration of the French
Colonial Empire. A comparison of the dates at which he set on foot his
oceanic schemes will show that they nearly all had their inception in
the closing months of 1801 and in the course of the following year.
The sole important exceptions were the politico-scientific expedition
to Australia, the ostensible purpose of which insured immunity from
the attacks of English cruisers even in the year 1800, and the plans
for securing French supremacy in Egypt, which had been frustrated in
1801 and were, to all appearance, abandoned by the First Consul
according to the provisions of the Treaty of Amiens. The question
whether he really relinquished his designs on Egypt is so intimately
connected with the rupture of the Peace of Amiens that it will be more
fitly considered in the following chapter. It may not, however, be out
of place to offer some proofs as to the value which Bonaparte set on
the valley of the Nile and the Isthmus of Suez. A letter from a spy at
Paris, preserved in the archives of our Foreign Office, and dated
July 10th, 1801, contains the following significant statement with
reference to Bonaparte: "Egypt, which is considered here as lost to
France, is the only object which interests his personal ambition and
excites his revenge." Even at the end of his days, he thought
longingly of the land of the Pharaohs. In his first interview with the
governor of St. Helena, the illustrious exile said emphatically:
"Egypt is the most important country in the world." The words reveal a
keen perception of all the influences conducive to commercial
prosperity and imperial greatness. Egypt, in fact, with the Suez
Canal, which his imagination always pictured as a necessary adjunct,
was to be the keystone of that arch of empire which was to span the
oceans and link the prairies of the far west to the teeming plains of
India and the far Austral Isles.
The motives which impelled Napoleon to the enterprises now to be
considered were as many-sided as the maritime ventures themselves.
Ultimately, doubtless, they arose out of a love of vast undertakings
that ministered at once to an expanding ambition and to that need of
arduous administrative toils for which his mind ever craved in the
heyday of its activity. And, while satiating the grinding powers of
his otherwise morbidly restless spirit, these enterprises also fed and
soothed those imperious, if unconscious, instincts which prompt every
able man of inquiring mind to reclaim all possible domains from the
unknown or the chaotic. As Egypt had, for the present at least, been
reft from his grasp, he turned naturally to all other lands that could
be forced to yield their secrets to the inquirer, or their comforts to
the benefactors of mankind. Only a dull cynicism can deny this motive
to the man who first unlocked the doors of Egyptian civilization; and
it would be equally futile to deny to him the same beneficent aims
with regard to the settlement of the plains of the Mississippi, and
the coasts of New Holland.
The peculiarities of the condition of France furnished another
powerful impulse towards colonization. In the last decade her people
had suffered from an excess of mental activity and nervous excitement.
From philosophical and political speculation they must be brought back
to the practical and prosaic; and what influence could be so healthy
as the turning up of new soil and other processes that satisfy the
primitive instincts? Some of these, it was true, were being met by the
increasing peasant proprietary in France herself. But this internal
development, salutary as it was, could not appease the restless
spirits of the towns or the ambition of the soldiery. Foreign
adventures and oceanic commerce alone could satisfy the Parisians and
open up new careers for the Prætorian chiefs, whom the First Consul
alone really feared.
Nor were these sentiments felt by him alone. In a paper which
Talleyrand read to the Institute of France in July, 1797, that
far-seeing statesman had dwelt upon the pacifying influences exerted
by foreign commerce and colonial settlements on a too introspective
nation. His words bear witness to the keenness of his insight into the
maladies of his own people and the sources of social and political
strength enjoyed by the United States, where he had recently
sojourned. Referring to their speedy recovery from the tumults of
their revolution, he said: "The true Lethe after passing through a
revolution is to be found in the opening out to men of every avenue of
hope.--Revolutions leave behind them a general restlessness of mind, a
need of movement." That need was met in America by man's warfare
against the forest, the flood, and the prairie. France must therefore
possess colonies as intellectual and political safety-valves; and in
his graceful, airy style he touched on the advantages offered by
Egypt, Louisiana, and West Africa, both for their intrinsic value and
as opening the door of work and of hope to a brain-sick generation.
Following up this clue, Bonaparte, at a somewhat later date, remarked
the tendency of the French people, now that the revolutionary strifes
were past, to settle down contentedly on their own little plots; and
he emphasized the need of a colonial policy such as would widen the
national life. The remark has been largely justified by events; and
doubtless he discerned in the agrarian reforms of the Revolution an
influence unfavourable to that racial dispersion which, under wise
guidance, builds up an oceanic empire. The grievances of the _ancien
régime_ had helped to scatter on the shores of the St. Lawrence the
seeds of a possible New France. Primogeniture was ever driving from
England her younger sons to found New Englands and expand the commerce
of the motherland. Let not France now rest at home, content with her
perfect laws and with the conquest of her "natural frontiers." Let her
rather strive to regain the first place in colonial activity which the
follies of Louis XV. and the secular jealousy of Albion had filched
from her. In the effort she would extend the bounds of civilization,
lay the ghost of Jacobinism, satisfy military and naval adventures,
and unconsciously revert to the ideas and governmental methods of the
age of _le grand monarque_.
The French possessions beyond the seas had never shrunk to a smaller
area than in the closing years of the late war with England. The fact
was confessed by the First Consul in his letter of October 7th, 1801,
to Decrès, the Minister for the Navy and the Colonies: "Our
possessions beyond the sea, which are now in our power, are limited to
Saint Domingo, Guadeloupe, the Isle of France (Mauritius), the Isle of
Bourbon, Senegal, and Guiana." After rendering this involuntary homage
to the prowess of the British navy, Bonaparte proceeded to describe
the first measures for the organization of these colonies: for not
until March 25th, 1802, when the definitive treaty of peace was
signed, could the others be regained by France.
* * * * *
First in importance came the re-establishment of French authority in
the large and fertile island of Hayti, or St. Domingo. It needs an
effort of the imagination for the modern reader to realize the immense
importance of the West Indian islands at the beginning of the
century, whose close found them depressed and half bankrupt. At the
earlier date, when the name Australia was unknown, and the
half-starved settlement in and around Sydney represented the sole
wealth of that isle of continent; when the Cape of Good Hope was
looked on only as a port of call; when the United States numbered less
than five and a half million souls, and the waters of the Mississippi
rolled in unsullied majesty past a few petty Spanish stations--the
plantations of the West Indies seemed the unfailing mine of colonial
industry and commerce. Under the _ancien régime_, the trade of the
French portion of San Domingo is reported to have represented more
than half of her oceanic commerce. But during the Revolution the
prosperity of that colony reeled under a terrible blow.
The hasty proclamation of equality between whites and blacks by the
French revolutionists, and the refusal of the planters to recognize
that decree as binding, led to a terrible servile revolt, which
desolated the whole of the colony. Those merciless strifes had,
however, somewhat abated under the organizing power of a man, in whom
the black race seemed to have vindicated its claims to political
capacity. Toussaint l'Ouverture had come to the front by sheer
sagacity and force of character. By a deft mixture of force and
clemency, he imposed order on the vapouring crowds of negroes: he
restored the French part of the island to comparative order and
prosperity; and with an army of 20,000 men he occupied the Spanish
portion. In this, as in other matters, he appeared to act as the
mandatory of France; but he looked to the time when France, beset by
European wars, would tacitly acknowledge his independence. In May,
1801, he made a constitution for the island, and declared himself
governor for life, with power to appoint his successor. This mimicry
of the consular office, and the open vaunt that he was the "Bonaparte
of the Antilles," incensed Bonaparte; and the haste with which, on
the day after the Preliminaries of London, he prepared to overthrow
this contemptible rival, tells its own tale.
Yet Corsican hatred was tempered with Corsican guile. Toussaint had
requested that the Haytians should be under the protection of their
former mistress. Protection was the last thing that Bonaparte desired;
but he deemed it politic to flatter the black chieftain with
assurances of his personal esteem and gratitude for the "great
services which you have rendered to the French people. If its flag
floats over St. Domingo it is due to you and your brave blacks"--a
reference to Toussaint's successful resistance to English attempts at
landing. There were, it is true, some points in the new Haytian
constitution which contravened the sovereign rights of France, but
these were pardonable in the difficult circumstances which had pressed
on Toussaint: he was now, however, invited to amend them so as to
recognize the complete sovereignty of the motherland and the authority
of General Leclerc, whom Bonaparte sent out as captain-general of the
island. To this officer, the husband of Pauline Bonaparte, the First
Consul wrote on the same day that there was reported to be much
ferment in the island against Toussaint, that the obstacles to be
overcome would therefore be much less formidable than had been feared,
provided that activity and firmness were used. In his references to
the burning topic of slavery, the First Consul showed a similar
reserve. The French Republic having abolished it, he could not, as
yet, openly restore an institution flagrantly opposed to the Rights of
Man. Ostensibly therefore he figured as the champion of emancipation,
assuring the Haytians in his proclamation of November 8th, 1801, that
they were all free and all equal in the sight of God and of the
French Republic: "If you are told, 'These forces are destined to
snatch your liberty from you,' reply, 'The Republic has given us our
liberty: it will not allow it to be taken from us.'" Of a similar
tenor was his public declaration a fortnight later, that at St.
Domingo and Guadeloupe everybody was free and would remain free. Very
different were his private instructions. On the last day of October he
ordered Talleyrand to write to the British Government, asking for
their help in supplying provisions from Jamaica to this expedition
destined to "destroy the new Algiers being organized in American
waters"; and a fortnight later he charged him to state his resolve to
destroy the government of the blacks at St. Domingo; that if he had to
postpone the expedition for a year, he would be "obliged to constitute
the blacks as French"; and that "the liberty of the blacks, if
recognized by the Government, would always be a support for the
Republic in the New World." As he was striving to cajole our
Government into supporting his expedition, it is clear that in the
last enigmatic phrase he was bidding for that support by the hint of a
prospective restoration of slavery at St. Domingo. A comparison of his
public and private statements must have produced a curious effect on
the British Ministers, and many of the difficulties during the
negotiations at Amiens doubtless sprang out of their knowledge of his
double-dealing in the West Indies.
The means at the First Consul's disposal might have been considered
sufficient to dispense with these paltry devices; for when the
squadrons of Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Toulon had joined their
forces, they mustered thirty-two ships of the line and thirty-one
frigates, with more than 20,000 troops on board. So great, indeed, was
the force as to occasion strong remonstrances from the British
Government, and a warning that a proportionately strong fleet would be
sent to watch over the safety of our West Indies.[197] The size of the
French armada and the warnings which Toussaint received from Europe
induced that wily dictator to adopt stringent precautionary measures.
He persuaded the blacks that the French were about to enslave them
once more, and, raising the spectre of bondage, he quelled sedition,
ravaged the maritime towns, and awaited the French in the interior, in
confident expectation that yellow fever would winnow their ranks and
reduce them to a level with his own strength.
His hopes were ultimately realized, but not until he himself succumbed
to the hardihood of the French attack. Leclerc's army swept across the
desolated belt with an ardour that was redoubled by the sight of the
mangled remains of white people strewn amidst the negro encampments,
and stormed Toussaint's chief stronghold at Crête-à-Pierrot. The
dictator and his factious lieutenants thereupon surrendered (May 8th,
1802), on condition of their official rank being respected--a
stipulation which both sides must have regarded as unreal and
impossible. The French then pressed on to secure the subjection of the
whole island before the advent of the unhealthy season, which
Toussaint eagerly awaited. It now set in with unusual virulence; and
in a few days the conquerors found their force reduced to 12,000
effectives. Suspecting Toussaint's designs, Leclerc seized him. He was
empowered to do so by Bonaparte's orders of March 16th, 1802:
"Follow your instructions exactly, and as soon as you have done
with Toussaint, Christopher, Dessalines, and the chief brigands,
and the masses of the blacks are disarmed, send to the continent
all the blacks and the half-castes who have taken part in the civil
troubles."
Toussaint was hurried off to France, where he died a year later from
the hardships to which he was exposed at the fort of Joux among the
Juras.
Long before the cold of a French winter claimed the life of Toussaint,
his antagonist fell a victim to the sweltering heats of the tropics.
On November 2nd, 1802, Leclerc succumbed to the unhealthy climate and
to his ceaseless anxieties. In the Notes dictated at St. Helena,
Napoleon submitted Leclerc's memory to some strictures for his
indiscretion in regard to the proposed restoration of slavery. The
official letters of that officer expose the injustice of the charge.
The facts are these. After the seeming submission of St. Domingo, the
First Consul caused a decree to be secretly passed at Paris (May 20th,
1802), which prepared to re-establish slavery in the West Indies; but
Decrès warned Leclerc that it was not for the present to be applied to
St. Domingo unless it seemed to be opportune. Knowing how fatal any
such proclamation would be, Leclerc suppressed the decree; but General
Richepanse, who was now governor of the island of Guadeloupe, not only
issued the decree, but proceeded to enforce it with rigour. It was
this which caused the last and most desperate revolts of the blacks,
fatal alike to French domination and to Leclerc's life. His successor,
Rochambeau, in spite of strong reinforcements of troops from France
and a policy of the utmost rigour, succeeded no better. In the island
of Guadeloupe the rebels openly defied the authority of France; and,
on the renewal of war between England and France, the remains of the
expedition were for the most part constrained to surrender to the
British flag or to the insurgent blacks. The island recovered its
so-called independence; and the sole result of Napoleon's efforts in
this sphere was the loss of more than twenty generals and some 30,000
troops.
The assertion has been repeatedly made that the First Consul told off
for this service the troops of the Army of the Rhine, with the aim of
exposing to the risks of tropical life the most republican part of the
French forces. That these furnished a large part of the expeditionary
force cannot be denied; but if his design was to rid himself of
political foes, it is difficult to see why he should not have selected
Moreau, Masséna, or Augereau, rather than Leclerc. The fact that his
brother-in-law was accompanied by his wife, Pauline Bonaparte, for
whom venomous tongues asserted that Napoleon cherished a more than
brotherly affection, will suffice to refute the slander. Finally, it
may be remarked that Bonaparte had not hesitated to subject the
choicest part of his Army of Italy and his own special friends to
similiar risks in Egypt and Syria. He never hesitated to sacrifice
thousands of lives when a great object was at stake; and the
restoration of the French West Indian Colonies might well seem worth
an army, especially as St. Domingo was not only of immense instrinsic
value to France in days when beetroot sugar was unknown, but was of
strategic importance as a base of operations for the vast colonial
empire which the First Consul proposed to rebuild in the basin of the
Mississippi.
* * * * *
The history of the French possessions on the North American continent
could scarcely be recalled by ardent patriots without pangs of
remorse. The name Louisiana, applied to a vast territory stretching up
the banks of the Mississippi and the Missouri, recalled the glorious
days of Louis XIV., when the French flag was borne by stout
_voyageurs_ up the foaming rivers of Canada and the placid reaches of
the father of rivers. It had been the ambition of Montcalm to connect
the French stations on Lake Erie with the forts of Louisiana; but that
warrior-statesman in the West, as his kindred spirit, Dupleix, in the
East, had fallen on the evil days of Louis XV., when valour and merit
in the French colonies were sacrificed to the pleasures and parasites
of Versailles. The natural result followed. Louisiana was yielded up
to Spain in 1763, in order to reconcile the Court of Madrid to
cessions required by that same Peace of Paris. Twenty years later
Spain recovered from England the provinces of eastern and western
Florida; and thus, at the dawn of the nineteenth century, the red and
yellow flag waved over all the lands between California, New Orleans,
and the southern tip of Florida.[198]
Many efforts were made by France to regain her old Mississippi
province; and in 1795, at the break up of the First Coalition, the
victorious Republic pressed Spain to yield up this territory, where
the settlers were still French at heart. Doubtless the weak King of
Spain would have yielded; but his chief Minister, Godoy, clung
tenaciously to Louisiana, and consented to cede only the Spanish part
of St. Domingo--a diplomatic success which helped to earn him the
title of the Prince of the Peace. So matters remained until
Talleyrand, as Foreign Minister, sought to gain Louisiana from Spain
before it slipped into the horny fists of the Anglo-Saxons.
That there was every prospect of this last event was the conviction
not only of the politicians at Washington, but also of every
iron-worker on the Ohio and of every planter on the Tennessee. Those
young but growing settlements chafed against the restraints imposed by
Spain on the river trade of the lower Mississippi--the sole means
available for their exports in times when the Alleghanies were crossed
by only two tracks worthy the name of roads. In 1795 they gained free
egress to the Gulf of Mexico and the right of bonding their
merchandise in a special warehouse at New Orleans. Thereafter the
United States calmly awaited the time when racial vigour and the
exigencies of commerce should yield to them the possession of the
western prairies and the little townships of Arkansas and New Orleans.
They reckoned without taking count of the eager longing of the French
for their former colony and the determination of Napoleon to give
effect to this honourable sentiment.
In July, 1800, when his negotiations with the United
States were in good train, the First Consul sent to Madrid
instructions empowering the French Minister there to arrange a treaty
whereby France should receive Louisiana in return for the cession of
Tuscany to the heir of the Duke of Parma. This young man had married
the daughter of Charles IV. of Spain; and, for the aggrandizement of
his son-in-law, that _roi fainéant_, was ready, nay eager, to bargain
away a quarter of a continent; and he did so by a secret convention
signed at St. Ildefonso on October 7th, 1800.
But though Charles rejoiced over this exchange, Godoy, who was gifted
with some insight into the future, was determined to frustrate it.
Various events occurred which enabled this wily Minister, first to
delay, and then almost to prevent, the odious surrender. Chief among
these was the certainty that the transfer from weak hands to strong
hands would be passionately resented by the United States; and until
peace with England was fully assured, and the power of Toussaint
broken, it would be folly for the First Consul to risk a conflict with
the United States. That they would fight rather than see the western
prairies pass into the First Consul's hands was abundantly manifest.
It is proved by many patriotic pamphlets. The most important of
these--"An Address to the Government of the United States on the
Cession of Louisiana to the French," published at Philadelphia in
1802--quoted largely from a French _brochure_ by a French Councillor
of State. The French writer had stated that along the Mississippi his
countrymen would find boundless fertile prairies, and as for the
opposition of the United States--"a nation of pedlars and
shopkeepers"--that could be crushed by a French alliance with the
Indian tribes. The American writer thereupon passionately called on
his fellow-citizens to prevent this transfer: "France is to be dreaded
only, or chiefly, on the Mississippi. The Government must take
Louisiana before it passes into her hands. The iron is now hot:
command us to rise as one man and strike." These and other like
protests at last stirred the placid Government at Washington; and it
bade the American Minister at Paris to make urgent remonstrances, the
sole effect of which was to draw from Talleyrand the bland assurance
that the transfer had not been seriously contemplated.[199]
By the month of June, 1802, all circumstances seemed to smile on
Napoleon's enterprise: England had ratified the Peace of Amiens,
Toussaint had delivered himself up to Leclerc: France had her troops
strongly posted in Tuscany and Parma, and could, if necessary,
forcibly end the remaining scruples felt at Madrid; while the United
States, with a feeble army and a rotting navy, were controlled by the
most peaceable and Franco-phil of their presidents, Thomas Jefferson.
The First Consul accordingly ordered an expedition to be prepared, as
if for the reinforcement of Leclerc in St. Domingo, though it was
really destined for New Orleans; and he instructed Talleyrand to
soothe or coerce the Court of Madrid into the final act of transfer.
The offer was therefore made by the latter (June 19th) in the name of
the First Consul that _in no case would Louisiana ever be alienated to
a Third Power_. When further delays supervened, Bonaparte, true to his
policy of continually raising his demands, required that Eastern and
Western Florida should also be ceded to him by Spain, on condition
that the young King of Etruria (for so Tuscany was now to be styled)
should regain his father's duchy of Parma.[200]
A word of explanation must here find place as to this singular
proposal. Parma had long been under French control; and, in March,
1801, by the secret Treaty of Madrid, the ruler of that duchy, whose
death seemed imminent, was to resign his claims thereto, provided that
his son should gain Etruria--as had been already provided for at St.
Ildefonso and Lunéville. The duke was, however, allowed to keep his
duchy until his death, which occurred on October 9th, 1802; and it is
stated by our envoy in Paris to have been hastened by news of that
odious bargain.[201] His death now furnished Bonaparte with a good
occasion for seeking to win an immense area in the New World at the
expense of a small Italian duchy, which his troops could at any time
easily overrun. This consideration seems to have occurred even to
Charles IV.; he refused to barter the Floridas against Parma. The
re-establishment of his son-in-law in his paternal domains was
doubtless desirable, but not at the cost of so exacting a heriot as
East and West Florida.
From out this maze of sordid intrigues two or three facts challenge
our attention. Both Bonaparte and Charles IV. regarded the most
fertile waste lands then calling for the plough as fairly exchanged
against half a million of Tuscans; but the former feared the
resentment of the United States, and sought to postpone a rupture
until he could coerce them by overwhelming force. It is equally clear
that, had he succeeded in this enterprise, France might have gained a
great colonial empire in North America protected from St. Domingo as a
naval and military base, while that island would have doubly prospered
from the vast supplies poured down the Mississippi; but this success
he would have bought at the expense of a _rapprochement_ between the
United States and their motherland, such as a bitter destiny was to
postpone to the end of the century.
The prospect of an Anglo-American alliance might well give pause even
to Napoleon. Nevertheless, he resolved to complete this vast
enterprise, which, if successful, would have profoundly affected the
New World and the relative importance of the French and English
peoples. The Spanish officials at New Orleans, in pursuance of orders
from Madrid, now closed the lower Mississippi to vessels of the United
States (October, 1802). At once a furious outcry arose in the States
against an act which not only violated their treaty rights, but
foreshadowed the coming grip of the First Consul. For this outburst he
was prepared: General Victor was at Dunkirk, with five battalions and
sixteen field-pieces, ready to cross the Atlantic, ostensibly for the
relief of Leclerc, but really in order to take possession of New
Orleans.[202] But his plan was foiled by the sure instincts of the
American people, by the disasters of the St. Domingo expedition, and
by the restlessness of England under his various provocations.
Jefferson, despite his predilections for France, was compelled to
forbid the occupation of Louisiana: he accordingly sent Monroe to
Paris with instructions to effect a compromise, or even to buy
outright the French claims on that land. Various circumstances
favoured this mission. In the first week of the year 1803 Napoleon
received the news of Leclerc's death and the miserable state of the
French in St. Domingo; and as the tidings that he now received from
Egypt, Syria, Corfu, and the East generally, were of the most alluring
kind, he tacitly abandoned his Mississippi enterprise in favour of the
oriental schemes which were closer to his heart. In that month of
January he seems to have turned his gaze from the western hemisphere
towards Turkey, Egypt, and India. True, he still seemed to be doing
his utmost for the occupation of Louisiana, but only as a device for
sustaining the selling price of the western prairies.
When the news of this change of policy reached the ears of Joseph and
Lucien Bonaparte, it aroused their bitterest opposition. Lucien plumed
himself on having struck the bargain with Spain which had secured that
vast province at the expense of an Austrian archduke's crown; and
Joseph knew only too well that Napoleon was freeing himself in the
West in order to be free to strike hard in Europe and the East. The
imminent rupture of the Peace of Amiens touched him keenly: for that
peace was his proudest achievement. If colonial adventures must be
sought, let them be sought in the New World, where Spain and the
United States could offer only a feeble resistance, rather than in
Europe and Asia, where unending war must be the result of an
aggressive policy.
At once the brothers sought an interview with Napoleon. He chanced to
be in his bath, a warm bath perfumed with scents, where he believed
that tired nature most readily found recovery. He ordered them to be
admitted, and an interesting family discussion was the result. On his
mentioning the proposed sale, Lucien at once retorted that the
Legislature would never consent to this sacrifice. He there touched
the wrong chord in Napoleon's nature: had he appealed to the memories
of _le grand monarque_ and of Montcalm, possibly he might have bent
that iron will; but the mention of the consent of the French deputies
roused the spleen of the autocrat, who, from amidst the scented water,
mockingly bade his brother go into mourning for the affair, which he,
and he alone, intended to carry out. This gibe led Joseph to threaten
that he would mount the tribune in the Chambers and head the
opposition to this unpatriotic surrender. Defiance flashed forth once
more from the bath; and the First Consul finally ended their bitter
retorts by spasmodically rising as suddenly falling backwards, and
drenching Joseph to the skin. His peals of scornful laughter, and the
swooning of the valet, who was not yet fully inured to these family
scenes, interrupted the argument of the piece; but, when resumed a
little later, _à sec_, Lucien wound up by declaring that, if he were
not his brother, he would be his enemy. "My enemy! That is rather
strong," exclaimed Napoleon. "You my enemy! I would break you, see,
like this box"--and he dashed his snuff-box on the carpet. It did not
break: but the portrait of Josephine was detached and broken.
Whereupon Lucien picked up the pieces and handed them to his brother,
remarking: "It is a pity: meanwhile, until you can break me, it is
your wife's portrait that you have broken."[203]
To Talleyrand, Napoleon was equally unbending: summoning him on April
11th, he said:
"Irresolution and deliberation are no longer in season. I renounce
Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I cede: it is the whole
colony, without reserve; I know the price of what I abandon. I have
proved the importance I attach to this province, since my first
diplomatic act with Spain had the object of recovering it. I
renounce it with the greatest regret: to attempt obstinately to
retain it would be folly. I direct you to negotiate the
affair."[204]
After some haggling with Monroe, the price agreed on for this
territory was 60,000,000 francs, the United States also covenanting to
satisfy the claims which many of their citizens had on the French
treasury. For this paltry sum the United States gained a peaceful
title to the debatable lands west of Lake Erie and to the vast tracts
west of the Mississippi. The First Consul carried out his threat of
denying to the deputies of France any voice in this barter. The war
with England sufficed to distract their attention; and France turned
sadly away from the western prairies, which her hardy sons had first
opened up, to fix her gaze, first on the Orient, and thereafter on
European conquests. No more was heard of Louisiana, and few references
were permitted to the disasters in St. Domingo; for Napoleon abhorred
any mention of a _coup manqué_, and strove to banish from the
imagination of France those dreams of a trans-Atlantic Empire which
had drawn him, as they were destined sixty years later to draw his
nephew, to the verge of war with the rising republic of the New World.
In one respect, the uncle was more fortunate than the nephew. In
signing the treaty with the United States, the First Consul could
represent his conduct, not as a dexterous retreat from an impossible
situation, but as an act of grace to the Americans and a blow to
England. "This accession of territory," he said, "strengthens for ever
the power of the United States, and I have just given to England a
maritime rival that sooner or later will humble her pride."[205]
* * * * *
In the East there seemed to be scarcely the same field for expansion
as in the western hemisphere. Yet, as the Orient had ever fired the
imagination of Napoleon, he was eager to expand the possessions of
France in the Indian Ocean. In October, 1801, these amounted to the
Isle of Bourbon and the Isle of France; for the former French
possessions in India, namely, Pondicherry, Mahé, Karikal,
Chandernagore, along with their factories at Yanaon, Surat, and two
smaller places, had been seized by the British, and were not to be
given back to France until six months after the definitive treaty of
peace was signed. From these scanty relics it seemed impossible to
rear a stable fabric: yet the First Consul grappled with the task.
After the cessation of hostilities, he ordered Admiral Gantheaume with
four ships of war to show the French flag in those seas, and to be
ready in due course to take over the French settlements in India.
Meanwhile he used his utmost endeavours in the negotiations at Amiens
to gain an accession of land for Pondicherry, such as would make it a
possible base for military enterprise. Even before those negotiations
began he expressed to Lord Cornwallis his desire for such an
extension; and when the British plenipotentiary urged the cession of
Tobago to Great Britain, he offered to exchange it for an
establishment or territory in India.[206] Herein the First Consul
committed a serious tactical blunder; for his insistence on this topic
and his avowed desire to negotiate direct with the Nabob undoubtedly
aroused the suspicions of our Government.
Still greater must have been their concern when they learnt that
General Decaen was commissioned to receive back the French possessions
in India; for that general in 1800 had expressed to Bonaparte his
hatred of the English, and had begged, even if he had to wait ten
years, that he might be sent where he could fight them, especially in
India. As was his wont, Bonaparte said little at the time; but after
testing Decaen's military capacity, he called him to his side at
midsummer, 1802, and suddenly asked him if he still thought about
India. On receiving an eager affirmative, he said, "Well, you will
go." "In what capacity?" "As captain-general: go to the Minister of
Marine and of the Colonies and ask him to communicate to you the
documents relating to this expedition." By such means did Bonaparte
secure devoted servants. It is scarcely needful to add that the choice
of such a man only three months after the signature of the Treaty of
Amiens proves that the First Consul only intended to keep that peace
as long as his forward colonial policy rendered it desirable.[207]
Meanwhile our Governor-General, Marquis Wellesley, was displaying an
activity which might seem to be dictated by knowledge of Bonaparte's
designs. There was, indeed, every need of vigour. Nowhere had French
and British interests been so constantly in collision as in India. In
1798 France had intrigued with Tippoo Sahib at Seringapatam, and
arranged a treaty for the purpose of expelling the British nation from
India. When in 1799 French hopes were dashed by Arthur Wellesley's
capture of that city and the death of Tippoo, there still remained
some prospect of overthrowing British supremacy by uniting the
restless Mahratta rulers of the north and centre, especially Scindiah
and Holkar, in a powerful confederacy. For some years their armies,
numbering some 60,000 men, had been drilled and equipped by French
adventurers, the ablest and most powerful of whom was M. Perron.
Doubtless it was with the hope of gaining their support that the Czar
Paul and Bonaparte had in 1800 formed the project of invading India by
way of Persia. And after the dissipation of that dream, there still
remained the chance of strengthening the Mahratta princes so as to
contest British claims with every hope of success. Forewarned by the
home Government of Bonaparte's eastern designs, our able and ambitious
Governor-General now prepared to isolate the Mahratta chieftains, to
cut them off from all contact with France, and, if necessary, to
shatter Scindiah's army, the only formidable native force drilled by
European methods.
Such was the position of affairs when General Decaen undertook the
enterprise of revivifying French influences in India.
The secret instructions which he received from the First Consul, dated
January 15th, 1803, were the following:
"To communicate with the peoples or princes who are most impatient
under the yoke of the English Company.... To send home a report six
months after his arrival in India, concerning all information that
he shall have collected, on the strength, the position, and the
feeling of the different peoples of India, as well as on the
strength and position of the different English establishments; ...
his views, and hopes that he might have of finding support, in case
of war, so as to be able to maintain himself in the Peninsula....
Finally, as one must reason on the hypothesis that we should not be
masters of the sea and could hope for slight succour,"
Decaen is to seek among the French possessions or elsewhere a place
serving as a _point d'appui_, where in the last resort he could
capitulate and thus gain the means of being transported to France with
arms and baggage. Of this _point d'appui_ he will
"strive to take possession after the first months ... whatever be
the nation to which it belongs, Portuguese, Dutch, or English....
If war should break out between England and France before the 1st
of Vendémiaire, Year XIII. (September 22nd, 1804), and the captain
general is warned of it before receiving the orders of the
Government, he has _carte blanche_ to fall back on the Ile de
France and the Cape, or to remain in India.... It is now considered
impossible that we should have war with England without dragging in
Holland. One of the first cares of the captain-general will be to
gain control over the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish
establishments, and of their resources. The captain-general's
mission is at first one of observation, on political and military
topics, with the small forces that he takes out, and an occupation
of _comptoirs_ for our commerce: but the First Consul, if well
informed by him, will perhaps be able some day to put him in a
position to acquire that great glory which hands down the memory of
men beyond the lapse of centuries."[208]
Had these instructions been known to English statesmen, they would
certainly have ended the peace which was being thus perfidiously used
by the First Consul for the destruction of our Indian Empire. But
though their suspicions were aroused by the departure of Decaen's
expedition and by the activity of French agents in India, yet the
truth remained half hidden, until, at a later date, the publication of
General Decaen's papers shed a flood of light on Napoleon's policy.
Owing to various causes, the expedition did not set sail from Brest
until the beginning of March, 1803. The date should be noticed. It
proves that at this time Napoleon judged that a rupture of peace was
not imminent; and when he saw his miscalculation, he sought to delay
the war with England as long as possible in order to allow time for
Decaen's force at least to reach the Cape, then in the hands of the
Dutch. The French squadron was too weak to risk a fight with an
English fleet; it comprised only four ships of war, two transports,
and a few smaller vessels, carrying about 1,800 troops.[209] The ships
were under the command of Admiral Linois, who was destined to be the
terror of our merchantmen in eastern seas. Decaen's first halt was at
the Cape, which had been given back by us to the Dutch East India
Company on February 21st, 1803. The French general found the Dutch
officials in their usual state of lethargy: the fortifications had not
been repaired, and many of the inhabitants, and even of the officials
themselves, says Decaen, were devoted to the English. After surveying
the place, doubtless with a view to its occupation as the _point
d'appui_ hinted at in his instructions, he set sail on the 27th of
May, and arrived before Pondicherry on the 11th of July.[210]
In the meantime important events had transpired which served to wreck
not only Decaen's enterprise, but the French influence in India. In
Europe the flames of war had burst forth, a fact of which both Decaen
and the British officials were ignorant; but the Governor of Fort St.
George (Madras), having, before the 15th of June, "received
intelligence which appeared to indicate the certainty of an early
renewal of hostilities between His Majesty and France," announced that
he must postpone the restitution of Pondicherry to the French, until
he should have the authority of the Governor-General for such
action.[211]
The Marquis Wellesley was still less disposed to any such restitution.
French intervention in the affairs of Switzerland, which will be
described later on, had so embittered Anglo-French relations that on
October the 17th, 1802, Lord Hobart, our Minister of War and for the
Colonies, despatched a "most secret" despatch, stating that recent
events rendered it necessary to postpone this retrocession. At a later
period Wellesley received contrary orders, instructing him to restore
French and Dutch territories; but he judged that step to be
inopportune considering the gravity of events in the north of India.
So active was the French propaganda at the Mahratta Courts, and so
threatening were their armed preparations, that he redoubled his
efforts for the consolidation of British supremacy. He resolved to
strike at Scindiah, unless he withdrew his southern army into his own
territories; and, on receiving an evasive answer from that prince, who
hoped by temporizing to gain armed succours from France, he launched
the British forces against him. Now was the opportunity for Arthur
Wellesley to display his prowess against the finest forces of the
East; and brilliantly did the young warrior display it. The victories
of Assaye in September, and of Argaum in November, scattered the
southern Mahratta force, but only after desperate conflicts that
suggested how easily a couple of Decaen's battalions might have turned
the scales of war.
Meanwhile, in the north, General Lake stormed Aligarh, and drove
Scindiah's troops back to Delhi. Disgusted at the incapacity and
perfidy that surrounded him, Perron threw up his command; and another
conflict near Delhi yielded that ancient seat of Empire to our trading
Company. In three months the results of the toil of Scindiah, the
restless ambition of Holkar, the training of European officers, and the
secret intrigues of Napoleon, were all swept to the winds. Wellesley now
annexed the land around Delhi and Agra, besides certain coast districts
which cut off the Mahrattas from the sea, also stipulating for the
complete exclusion of French agents from their States. Perron was
allowed to return to France; and the brusque reception accorded him from
Bonaparte may serve to measure the height of the First Consul's hopes,
the depth of his disappointment, and his resentment against a man who
was daunted by a single disaster.[212]
Meanwhile it was the lot of Decaen to witness, in inglorious
inactivity, the overthrow of all his hopes. Indeed, he barely escaped
the capture which Wellesley designed for his whole force, as soon as
he should hear of the outbreak of war in Europe; but by secret and
skilful measures all the French ships, except one transport, escaped
to their appointed rendezvous, the Ile de France. Enraged by these
events, Decaen and Linois determined to inflict every possible injury
on their foes. The latter soon swept from the eastern seas British
merchantmen valued at a million sterling, while the general ceased not
to send emissaries into India to encourage the millions of natives to
shake off the yoke of "a few thousand English."
These officers effected little, and some of them were handed over to
the English authorities by the now obsequious potentates. Decaen also
endeavoured to carry out the First Consul's design of occupying
strategic points in the Indian Ocean. In the autumn of 1803 he sent a
fine cruiser to the Imaum of Muscat, to induce him to cede a station
for commercial purposes at that port. But Wellesley, forewarned by our
agent at Bagdad, had made a firm alliance with the Imaum, who
accordingly refused the request of the French captain. The incident,
however, supplies another link in the chain of evidence as to the
completeness of Napoleon's oriental policy, and yields another proof
of the vigour of our great proconsul at Calcutta, by whose foresight
our Indian Empire was preserved and strengthened.[213]
Bonaparte's enterprises were by no means limited to well-known lands.
The unknown continent of the Southern Seas appealed to his
imagination, which pictured its solitudes transformed by French energy
into a second fatherland. Australia, or New Holland, as it was then
called, had long attracted the notice of French explorers, but the
English penal settlements at and near Sydney formed the only European
establishment on the great southern island at the dawn of the
nineteenth century.
Bonaparte early turned his eyes towards that land. On his voyage to
Egypt he took with him the volumes in which Captain Cook described his
famous discoveries; and no sooner was he firmly installed as First
Consul than he planned with the Institute of France a great French
expedition to New Holland. The full text of the plan has never been
published: probably it was suppressed or destroyed; and the sole
public record relating to it is contained in the official account of
the expedition published at the French Imperial Press in 1807.[214]
According to this description, the aim was solely geographical and
scientific. The First Consul and the Institute of France desired that
the ships should proceed to Van Diemen's Land, explore its rivers, and
then complete the survey of the south coast of the continent, so as to
see whether behind the islands of the Nuyts Archipelago there might be
a channel connecting with the Gulf of Carpentaria, and so cutting New
Holland in half. They were then to sail west to "Terre Leeuwin,"
ascend the Swan River, complete the exploration of Shark's Bay and the
north-western coasts, and winter in Timor or Amboyne. Finally, they
were to coast along New Guinea and the Gulf of Carpentaria, and return
to France in 1803.
In September, 1800, the ships, having on board twenty-three scientific
men, set sail from Havre under the command of Commodore Baudin. They
received no molestation from English cruisers, it being a rule of
honour to give Admiralty permits to all members of genuinely
scientific and geographical parties. Nevertheless, even on its
scientific side, this splendidly-equipped expedition produced no
results comparable with those achieved by Lieutenant Bass or by
Captain Flinders. The French ships touched at the Ile de France, and
sailed thence for Van Diemen's Land. After spending a long time in the
exploration of its coasts and in collecting scientific information,
they made for Sydney in order to repair their ships and gain relief
for their many invalids. Thence, after incidents which will be noticed
presently, they set sail in November, 1802, for Bass Strait and the
coast beyond. They seem to have overlooked the entrance to Port
Phillip--a discovery effected by Murray in 1801, but not made public
till three years later--and failed to notice the outlet of the chief
Australian river, which is obscured by a shallow lake.
There they were met by Captain Flinders, who, on H.M.S.
"Investigator," had been exploring the coast between Cape Leeuwin and
the great gulfs which he named after Lords St. Vincent and Spencer.
Flinders was returning towards Sydney, when, in the long desolate
curve of the bay which he named from the incident Encounter Bay, he
saw the French ships. After brief and guarded intercourse the
explorers separated, the French proceeding to survey the gulfs whence
the "Investigator" had just sailed; while Flinders, after a short stay
at Sydney and the exploration of the northern coast and Torres Strait,
set out for Europe.[215]
Apart from the compilation of the most accurate map of Australia which
had then appeared, and the naming of several features on its
coasts--_e.g._, Capes Berrouilli and Gantheaume, the Bays of Rivoli
and of Lacépède, and the Freycinet Peninsula, which are still
retained--the French expedition achieved no geographical results of
the first importance.
Its political aims now claim attention. A glance at the accompanying
map will show that, under the guise of being an emissary of
civilization, Commodore Baudin was prepared to claim half the
continent for France. Indeed, his final inquiry at Sydney about the
extent of the British claims on the Pacific coast was so significant
as to elicit from Governor King the reply that the whole of Van
Diemen's Land and of the coast from Cape Howe on the south of the
mainland to Cape York on the north was British territory. King also
notified the suspicious action of the French Commander to the Home
Government; and when the French sailed away to explore the coast of
southern and central Australia he sent a ship to watch their
proceedings. When, therefore, Commodore Baudin effected a landing on
King Island, the Union Jack was speedily hoisted and saluted by the
blue-jackets of the British vessel; for it was rumoured that French
officers had said that King Island would afford a good station for the
command of Bass Strait and the seizure of British ships. This was
probably mere gossip. Baudin in his interviews with Governor King at
Sydney disclaimed any intention of seizing Van Diemen's Land; but he
afterwards stated that _he did not know what were the plans of the
French Government with regard to that island_.[216]
Long before this dark saying could be known at Westminster, the
suspicions of our Government had been aroused; and, on February 13th,
1803, Lord Hobart penned a despatch to Governor King bidding him to
take every precaution against French annexations, and to form
settlements in Van Diemen's Land and at Port Phillip. The station of
Risden was accordingly planted on the estuary of the Derwent, a little
above the present town of Hobart; while on the shores of Port Phillip
another expedition sent out from the mother country sought, but for
the present in vain, to find a suitable site. The French cruise
therefore exerted on the fortunes of the English and French peoples an
influence such as has frequently accrued from their colonial rivalry:
it spurred on the island Power to more vigorous efforts than she would
otherwise have put forth, and led to the discomfiture of her
continental rival. The plans of Napoleon for the acquisition of Van
Diemen's Land and the middle of Australia had an effect like that
which the ambition of Montcalm, Dupleix, Lally, and Perron has exerted
on the ultimate destiny of many a vast and fertile territory.
Still, in spite of the destruction of his fleet at Trafalgar, Napoleon
held to his Australian plans. No fact, perhaps, is more suggestive of
the dogged tenacity of his will than his order to Péron and Freycinet
to publish through the Imperial Press at Paris an exhaustive account
of their Australian voyage, accompanied by maps which claimed half of
that continent for the tricolour flag. It appeared in 1807, the year
of Tilsit and of the plans for the partition of Portugal and her
colonies between France and Spain. The hour seemed at last to have
struck for the assertion of French supremacy in other continents, now
that the Franco-Russian alliance had durably consolidated it in
Europe. And who shall say that, but for the Spanish Rising and the
genius of Wellington, a vast colonial empire might not have been won
for France, had Napoleon been free to divert his energies away from
this "old Europe" of which he professed to be utterly weary?
His whole attitude towards European and colonial politics revealed a
statesmanlike appreciation of the forces that were to mould the
fortunes of nations in the nineteenth century. He saw that no
rearrangement of the European peoples could be permanent. They were
too stubborn, too solidly nationalized, to bear the yoke of the new
Charlemagne. "I am come too late," he once exclaimed to Marmont; "men
are too enlightened, there is nothing great left to be done." These
words reveal his sense of the artificiality of his European conquests.
His imperial instincts could find complete satisfaction only among the
docile fate-ridden peoples of Asia, where he might unite the functions
of an Alexander and a Mahomet: or, failing that, he would carve out an
empire from the vast southern lands, organizing them by his unresting
powers and ruling them as kist and as despot. This task would possess
a permanence such as man's conquests over Nature may always enjoy, and
his triumphs over his fellows seldom or never. The political
reconstruction of Europe was at best one of an infinite number of such
changes, always progressing and never completed; while the peopling of
new lands and the founding of States belonged to that highest plane of
political achievement wherein schemes of social beneficence and the
dictates of a boundless ambition could maintain an eager and unending
rivalry. While a strictly European policy could effect little more
than a raking over of long-cultivated parterres, the foundation of a
new colonial empire would be the turning up of the virgin soil of the
limitless prairie.
If we inquire by the light of history why these grand designs failed,
the answer must be that they were too vast fitly to consort with an
ambitious European policy. His ablest adviser noted this fundamental
defect as rapidly developing after the Peace of Amiens, when "he began
to sow the seeds of new wars which, after overwhelming Europe and
France, were to lead him to his ruin." This criticism of Talleyrand on
a man far greater than himself, but who lacked that saving grace of
moderation in which the diplomatist excelled, is consonant with all
the teachings of history. The fortunes of the colonial empires of
Athens and Carthage in the ancient world, of the Italian maritime
republics, of Portugal and Spain, and, above all, the failure of the
projects of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. serve to prove that only as the
motherland enjoys a sufficiency of peace at home and on her borders
can she send forth in ceaseless flow those supplies of men and
treasure which are the very life-blood of a new organism. That
beneficent stream might have poured into Napoleon's Colonial Empire,
had not other claims diverted it into the barren channels of European
warfare. The same result followed as at the time of the Seven Years'
War, when the double effort to wage great campaigns in Germany and
across the oceans sapped the strength of France, and the additions won
by Dupleix and Montcalm fell away from her flaccid frame.
Did Napoleon foresee a similar result? His conduct in regard to
Louisiana and in reference to Decaen's expedition proves that he did,
but only when it was too late. As soon as he saw that his policy was
about to provoke another war with Britain long before he was ready for
it, he decided to forego his oceanic schemes and to concentrate his
forces on his European frontiers. The decision was dictated by a true
sense of imperial strategy. But what shall we say of his sense of
imperial diplomacy? The foregoing narrative and the events to be
described in the next chapters prove that his mistake lay in that
overweening belief in his own powers and in the pliability of his
enemies which was the cause of his grandest triumphs and of his
unexampled overthrow.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVI
NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS
War, said St. Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a
higher state of peace. The saying is certainly true for those wars
that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause.
It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the
French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against
the threatened intervention of monarchical States. But the danger of
vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more
glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age. When
democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war
was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of
neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte,
their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military
methods of rule. The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young
warrior speedily became the greatest danger of republican France; and
as the extraordinary energy developed in her people by recent events
cast her feeble neighbours to the ground, Europe cowered away before
the ever-increasing bulk of France. In their struggles after democracy
the French finally reverted to the military type of Government, which
accords with many of the cherished instincts of their race: and the
military-democratic compromise embodied in Napoleon endowed that
people with the twofold force of national pride and of conscious
strength springing from their new institutions.
With this was mingled contempt for neighbouring peoples who either
could not or would not gain a similar independence and prestige.
Everything helped to feed this self-confidence and contempt for
others. The venerable fabric of the Holy Roman Empire was rocking to
and fro amidst the spoliations of its ecclesiastical lands by lay
princes, in which its former champions, the Houses of Hapsburg and
Hohenzollern, were the most exacting of the claimants. The Czar, in
October, 1801, had come to a profitable understanding with France
concerning these "secularizations." A little later France and Russia
began to draw together on the Eastern Question in a way threatening to
Turkey and to British influence in the Levant.[217] In fact, French
diplomacy used the partition of the German ecclesiastical lands and
the threatened collapse of the Ottoman power as a potent means of
busying the Continental States and leaving Great Britain isolated.
Moreover, the great island State was passing through ministerial and
financial difficulties which robbed her of all the fruits of her naval
triumphs and made her diplomacy at Amiens the laughing-stock of the
world. When monarchical ideas were thus discredited, it was idle to
expect peace. The struggling upwards towards a higher plane had indeed
begun; democracy had effected a lodgment in Western Europe; but the
old order in its bewildered gropings after some sure basis had not yet
touched bottom on that rock of nationality which was to yield a new
foundation for monarchy amidst the strifes of the nineteenth century.
Only when the monarchs received the support of their French-hating
subjects could an equilibrium of force and of enthusiasms yield the
long-sought opportunity for a durable peace.[218]
The negotiations at Amiens had amply shown the great difficulty of the
readjustment of European affairs. If our Ministers had manifested
their real feelings about Napoleon's presidency of the Italian
Republic, war would certainly have broken forth. But, as has been
seen, they preferred to assume the attitude of the ostrich, the worst
possible device both for the welfare of Europe and the interests of
Great Britain; for it convinced Napoleon that he could safely venture
on other interventions; and this he proceeded to do in the affairs of
Italy, Holland, and Switzerland.
On September 21st, 1802, appeared a _senatus consultum_ ordering the
incorporation of Piedmont in France. This important territory,
lessened by the annexation of its eastern parts to the Italian
Republic, had for five months been provisionally administered by a
French general as a military district of France. Its definite
incorporation in the great Republic now put an end to all hopes of
restoration of the House of Savoy. For the King of Sardinia, now an
exile in his island, the British Ministry had made some efforts at
Amiens; but, as it knew that the Czar and the First Consul had agreed
on offering him some suitable indemnity, the hope was cherished that
the new sovereign, Victor Emmanuel I., would be restored to his
mainland possessions. That hope was now at an end. In vain did Lord
Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to
gain a fit indemnity. Sienna and its lands were named, as if in
derision; and though George III. and the Czar ceased not to press the
claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from
Paris, except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found
for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty
Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands
which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a
United Italy.[219] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the
annexation of Parma. The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the
King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and
in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV. bartered away
to France the whole of Louisiana. Nevertheless, the First Consul kept
his troops in Parma, and on the death of the old duke in October,
1802, Parma and its dependencies were incorporated in the French
Republic.
The naval supremacy of France in the Mediterranean was also secured by
the annexation of the Isle of Elba with its excellent harbour of Porto
Ferrajo. Three deputies from Elba came to Paris to pay their respects
to their new ruler. The Minister of War was thereupon charged to treat
them with every courtesy, to entertain them at dinner, to give them
3,000 francs apiece, and to hint that on their presentation to
Bonaparte they might make a short speech expressing the pleasure of
their people at being united with France. By such deft rehearsals did
this master in the art of scenic displays weld Elba on to France and
France to himself.
Even more important was Bonaparte's intervention in Switzerland. The
condition of that land calls for some explanation. For wellnigh three
centuries the Switzers had been grouped in thirteen cantons, which
differed widely in character and constitution. The Central or Forest
Cantons still retained the old Teutonic custom of regulating their
affairs in their several folk-moots, at which every householder
appeared fully armed. Elsewhere the confederation had developed less
admirable customs, and the richer lowlands especially were under the
hereditary control of rich burgher families. There was no constitution
binding these States in any effective union. Each of the cantons
claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the
deliberations of the Federal Diet. Besides these sovereign States were
others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were
Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Mühlhausen
in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchâtel, and
Valais on the Upper Rhone. Last came the subject-lands, Aargau,
Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various
degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old
Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian
league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so
profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the
masterful genius of Philip. Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a
new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the
greatest statesman of the age.
On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution
exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud
strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the
invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave
resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the
Swiss treasuries. After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers,
who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and
geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons,
allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was
constituted as an indivisible republic--except Valais, which was to be
independent, and Geneva and Mühlhausen, which were absorbed by France.
The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited
considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence;
but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could
only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted
to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the
most elementary needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious
instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.
Of these deep-seated feelings the oligarchs of the plains, no less
than the democrats of the Forest Cantons, were now the champions;
while the partisans of the new-fangled democracy were held up to scorn
as the supporters of a cast-iron centralization. It soon became clear
that the constitution of 1798 could be perpetuated only by the support
of the French troops quartered on that unhappy land; for throughout
the years 1800 and 1801 the political see-saw tilted every few months,
first in favour of the oligarchic or federal party, then again towards
their unionist opponents. After the Peace of Lunéville, which
recognized the right of the Swiss to adopt what form of government
they thought fit, some of their deputies travelled to Paris with the
draft of a constitution lately drawn up by the Chamber at Berne, in
the hope of gaining the assent of the First Consul to its provisions
and the withdrawal of French troops. They had every reason for hope:
the party then in power at Berne was that which favoured a centralized
democracy, and their plenipotentiary in Paris, a thorough republican
named Stapfer, had been led to hope that Switzerland would now be
allowed to carve out its own destiny. What, then, was his surprise to
find the First Consul increasingly enamoured of federalism. The
letters written by Stapfer to the Swiss Government at this time are
highly instructive.[220]
On March 10th, 1801, he wrote:
"What torments us most is the cruel uncertainty as to the real aims
of the French Government. Does it want to federalize us in order to
weaken us and to rule more surely by our divisions: or does it
really desire our independence and welfare, and is its delay only
the result of its doubts as to the true wishes of the Helvetic
nation?"
Stapfer soon found that the real cause of delay was the non-completion
of the cession of Valais, which Bonaparte urgently desired for the
construction of a military road across the Simplon Pass; and as the
Swiss refused this demand, matters remained at a standstill. "The
whole of Europe would not make him give up a favourite scheme," wrote
Stapfer on April 10th; "the possession of Valais is one of the matters
closest to his heart."
The protracted pressure of a French army of occupation on that already
impoverished land proved irresistible; and some important
modifications of the Swiss project of a constitution, on which the
First Consul insisted, were inserted in the new federal compact of
May, 1801. Switzerland was now divided into seventeen cantons; and
despite the wish of the official Swiss envoys for a strongly
centralized government, Bonaparte gave large powers to the cantonal
authorities. His motives in this course of action have been variously
judged. In giving greater freedom of movement to the several cantons,
he certainly adopted the only statesmanlike course: but his conduct
during the negotiation, his retention of Valais, and the continued
occupation of Switzerland by his troops, albeit in reduced numbers,
caused many doubts as to the sincerity of his desire for a final
settlement.
The unionist majority at Berne soon proceeded to modify his proposals,
which they condemned as full of defects and contradictions; while the
federals strove to keep matters as they were. In the month of October
their efforts succeeded, thanks to the support of the French
ambassador and soldiery; they dissolved the Assembly, annulled its
recent amendments; and their influence procured for Reding, the head
of the oligarchic party, the office of Landamman, or supreme
magistrate. So reactionary, however, were their proceedings, that the
First Consul recalled the French general as a sign of his displeasure
at his help recently offered to the federals. Their triumph was brief:
while their chiefs were away at Easter, 1802, the democratic unionists
effected another _coup d'état_--it was the fourth--and promulgated one
more constitution. This change seems also to have been brought about
with the connivance of the French authorities:[221] their refusal to
listen to Stapfer's claims for a definite settlement, as well as their
persistent hints that the Swiss could not by themselves arrange their
own affairs, argued a desire to continue the epoch of quarterly _coups
d'état_.
The victory of the so-called democrats at Berne now brought the whole
matter to the touch. They appealed to the people in the first Swiss
_plébiscite_, the precursor of the famous _referendum_. It could now
be decided without the interference of French troops; for the First
Consul had privately declared to the new Landamman, Dolder, that he
left it to his Government to decide whether the foreign soldiery
should remain as a support or should evacuate Switzerland.[222] After
many searchings of heart, the new authorities decided to try their
fortunes alone--a response which must have been expected at Paris,
where Stapfer had for months been urging the removal of the French
forces. For the first time since the year 1798 Switzerland was
therefore free to declare her will. The result of the _plébiscite_ was
decisive enough, 72,453 votes being cast in favour of the latest
constitution, and 92,423 against it. Nothing daunted by this rebuff,
and, adopting a device which the First Consul had invented for the
benefit of Dutch liberty, the Bernese leaders declared that the
167,172 adult voters who had not voted at all must reckon as approving
the new order of things. The flimsiness of this pretext was soon
disclosed. The Swiss had had enough of electioneering tricks,
hole-and-corner revolutions, and paper compacts. They rushed to arms;
and if ever Carlyle's appeal away from ballot-boxes and parliamentary
tongue-fencers to the primæval _mights of man_ can be justified, it
was in the sharp and decisive conflicts of the early autumn of 1802 in
Switzerland. The troops of the central authorities, marching forth
from Berne to quell the rising ferment, sustained a repulse at the
foot of Mont Pilatus, as also before the walls of Zürich; and, the
revolt of the federals ever gathering force, the Helvetic authorities
were driven from Berne to Lausanne. There they were planning flight
across the Lake of Geneva to Savoy, when, on October 15th, the arrival
of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, General Rapp, with an imperious
proclamation dismayed the federals and promised to the discomfited
unionists the mediation of the First Consul for which they had humbly
pleaded.[223]
Napoleon had apparently viewed the late proceedings in Switzerland
with mingled feelings of irritation and amused contempt. "Well, there
you are once more in a Revolution" was his hasty comment to Stapfer at
a diplomatic reception shortly after Easter; "try and get tired of all
that." It is difficult, however, to believe that so keen-sighted a
statesman could look forward to anything but commotions for a land
that was being saddled with an impracticable constitution, and whence
the controlling French forces were withdrawn at that very crisis. He
was certainly prepared for the events of September: many times he had
quizzingly asked Stapfer how the constitution was faring, and he must
have received with quiet amusement the solemn reply that there could
be no doubt as to its brilliant success. When the truth flashed
on Stapfer he was dumbfoundered, especially as Talleyrand at first
mockingly repulsed any suggestion of the need of French mediation, and
went on to assure him that his master had neither counselled nor
approved the last constitution, the unfitness of which was now shown
by the widespread insurrection. Two days later, however, Napoleon
altered his tone and directed Talleyrand vigorously to protest against
the acts and proclamations of the victorious federals as "the most
violent outrage to French honour." On the last day of September he
issued a proclamation to the Swiss declaring that he now revoked his
decision not to mingle in Swiss politics, and ordered the federal
authorities and troops to disperse, and the cantons to send deputies
to Paris for the regulation of their affairs under his mediation.
Meanwhile he bade the Swiss live once more in hope: their land was on
the brink of a precipice, but it would soon be saved! Rapp carried
analogous orders to Lausanne and Berne, while Ney marched in with a
large force of French troops that had been assembled near the Swiss
frontiers.
So glaring a violation of Swiss independence and of the guaranteeing
Treaty of Lunéville aroused indignation throughout Europe. But Austria
was too alarmed at Prussian aggrandizement in Germany to offer any
protest; and, indeed, procured some trifling gains by giving France a
free hand in Switzerland.[224] The Court of Berlin, then content to
play the jackal to the French lion, revealed to the First Consul the
appeals for help privately made to Prussia by the Swiss federals:[225]
the Czar, influenced doubtless by his compact with France concerning
German affairs, and by the advice of his former tutor, the Swiss
Laharpe, offered no encouragement; and it was left to Great Britain to
make the sole effort then attempted for the cause of Swiss
independence. For some time past the cantons had made appeals to
the British Government, which now, in response, sent an English agent,
Moore, to confer with their chiefs, and to advance money and promise
active support if he judged that a successful resistance could be
attempted.[226] The British Ministry undoubtedly prepared for an open
rupture with France on this question. Orders were immediately sent
from London that no more French or Dutch colonies were to be handed
back; and, as we have seen, the Cape of Good Hope and the French
settlements in India were refused to the Dutch and French officers who
claimed their surrender.
Hostilities, however, were for the present avoided. In face of the
overwhelming force which Ney had close at hand, the chiefs of the
central cantons shrank from any active opposition; and Moore, finding
on his arrival at Constance that they had decided to submit, speedily
returned to England. Ministers beheld with anger and dismay the
perpetuation of French supremacy in that land; but they lacked the
courage openly to oppose the First Consul's action, and gave orders
that the stipulated cessions of French and Dutch colonies should take
effect.
The submission of the Swiss and the weakness of all the Powers
encouraged the First Consul to impose his will on the deputies from
the cantons, who assembled at Paris at the close of the year 1802. He
first caused their aims and the capacity of their leaders to be
sounded in a Franco-Swiss Commission, and thereafter assembled them at
St. Cloud on Sunday, December 12th. He harangued them at great length,
hinting very clearly that the Swiss must now take a far lower place in
the scale of peoples than in the days when France was divided into
sixty fiefs, and that union with her could alone enable them to play a
great part in the world's affairs: nevertheless, as they clung to
independence he would undertake in his quality of mediator to end
their troubles, and yet leave them free. That they could attain unity
was a mere dream of their metaphysicians: they must rely on the
cantonal organization, always provided that the French and Italian
districts of Vaud and the upper Ticino were not subject to the central
or German cantons: to prevent such a dishonour he would shed the blood
of 50,000 Frenchmen: Berne must also open its golden book of the
privileged families to include four times their number. For the rest,
the Continental Powers could not help them, and England had "no right
to meddle in Swiss affairs." The same menace was repeated in more
strident tones on January 29th:
"I tell you that I would sacrifice 100,000 men rather than allow
England to meddle in your affairs: if the Cabinet of St. James
uttered a single word for you, it would be all up with you, I would
unite you to France: if that Court made the least insinuation of
its fears that I would be your Landamman, I would make myself your
Landamman."
There spake forth the inner mind of the man who, whether as child,
youth, lieutenant, general, Consul, or Emperor, loved to bear down
opposition.[227]
In those days of superhuman activity, when he was carving out one
colonial Empire in the New World and preparing to found another in
India, when he was outwitting the Cardinals, rearranging the map of
Germany, breathing new life into French commerce and striving to
shackle that of Britain, he yet found time to utter some of the sagest
maxims as to the widely different needs of the Swiss cantons. He
assured the deputies that he spoke as a Corsican and a mountaineer,
who knew and loved the clan system. His words proved it. With sure
touch he sketched the characteristics of the French and Swiss people.
Switzerland needed the local freedom imparted by her cantons: while
France required unity, Switzerland needed federalism: the French
rejected this last as damaging their power and glory; but the Swiss
did not ask for glory; they needed "political tranquillity and
obscurity": moreover, a simple pastoral people must have extensive
local rights, which formed their chief distraction from the monotony
of life: democracy was a necessity for the forest cantons; but let not
the aristocrats of the towns fear that a wider franchise would end
their influence, for a people dependent on pastoral pursuits would
always cling to great families rather than to electoral assemblies:
let these be elected on a fairly wide basis. Then again, what ready
wit flashed forth in his retort to a deputy who objected to the
Bernese Oberland forming part of the Canton of Berne: "Where do you
take your cattle and your cheese?"--"To Berne."--"Whence do you get
your grain, cloth, and iron?"--"From Berne."--"Very well: 'To Berne,
from Berne'--you consequently belong to Berne." The reply is a good
instance of that canny materialism which he so victoriously opposed to
feudal chaos and monarchical ineptitude.
Indeed, in matters great as well as small his genius pierced to the
heart of a problem: he saw that the democratic unionists had failed
from the rigidity of their centralization, while the federals had
given offence by insufficiently recognizing the new passion for social
equality.[228] He now prepared to federalize Switzerland on a
moderately democratic basis; for a policy of balance, he himself being
at the middle of the see-saw, was obviously required by good sense as
well as by self-interest. Witness his words to Roederer on this
subject:
"While satisfying the generality, I cause the patricians to tremble.
In giving to these last the appearance of power, I oblige them to take
refuge at my side in order to find protection. I let the people
threaten the aristocrats, so that these may have need of me. I will
give them places and distinctions, but they will hold them from me.
This system of mine has succeeded in France. See the clergy. Every day
they will become, in spite of themselves, more devoted to my
government than they had foreseen."
How simple and yet how subtle is this statecraft; simplicity of aim,
with subtlety in the choice of means: this is the secret of his
success.
After much preliminary work done by French commissioners and the Swiss
deputies in committee, the First Consul summed up the results of their
labours in the Act of Mediation of February 19th, 1803, which
constituted the Confederation in nineteen cantons, the formerly
subject districts now attaining cantonal dignity and privileges. The
forest cantons kept their ancient folk-moots, while the town cantons
such as Berne, Zürich, and Basel were suffered to blend their old
institutions with democratic customs, greatly to the chagrin of the
unionists, at whose invitation Bonaparte had taken up the work of
mediation.
The federal compact was also a compromise between the old and the new.
The nineteen cantons were to enjoy sovereign powers under the shelter
of the old federal pact. Bonaparte saw that the fussy imposition of
French governmental forms in 1798 had wrought infinite harm, and he
now granted to the federal authorities merely the powers necessary for
self-defence: the federal forces were to consist of 15,200 men--a
number less than that which by old treaty Switzerland had to furnish
to France. The central power was vested in a Landamman and other
officers appointed yearly by one of the six chief cantons taken in
rotation; and a Federal Diet, consisting of twenty-five deputies--one
from each of the small cantons, and two from each of the six larger
cantons--met to discuss matters of general import, but the balance of
power rested with the cantons: further articles regulated the Helvetic
debt and declared the independence of Switzerland--as if a land could
be independent which furnished more troops to the foreigner than it
was allowed to maintain for its own defence. Furthermore, the Act
breathed not a word about religious liberty, freedom of the Press, or
the right of petition: and, viewing it as a whole, the friends of
freedom had cause to echo the complaint of Stapfer that "the First
Consul's aim was to annul Switzerland politically, but to assure to
the Swiss the greatest possible domestic happiness."
I have judged it advisable to give an account of Franco-Swiss
relations on a scale proportionate to their interest and importance;
they exhibit, not only the meanness and folly of the French Directory,
but the genius of the great Corsican in skilfully blending the new and
the old, and in his rejection of the fussy pedantry of French
theorists and the worst prejudices of the Swiss oligarchs. Had not his
sage designs been intertwined with subtle intrigues which assured his
own unquestioned supremacy in that land, the Act of Mediation might be
reckoned among the grandest and most beneficent achievements. As it
is, it must be regarded as a masterpiece of able but selfish
statecraft, which contrasts unfavourably with the disinterested
arrangements sanctioned by the allies for Switzerland in 1815.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVII
THE RENEWAL OF WAR
The re-occupation of Switzerland by the French in October, 1802, was
soon followed by other serious events, which convinced the British
Ministry that war was hardly to be avoided. Indeed, before the treaty
was ratified, ominous complaints had begun to pass between Paris and
London.
Some of these were trivial, others were highly important. Among the
latter was the question of commercial intercourse. The British
Ministry had neglected to obtain any written assurance that trade
relations should be resumed between the two countries; and the First
Consul, either prompted by the protectionist theories of the Jacobins,
or because he wished to exert pressure upon England in order to extort
further concessions, determined to restrict trade with us to the
smallest possible dimensions. This treatment of England was wholly
exceptional, for in his treaties concluded with Russia, Portugal, and
the Porte, Napoleon had procured the insertion of clauses which
directly fostered French trade with those lands. Remonstrances soon
came from the British Government that "strict prohibitions were being
enforced to the admission of British commodities and manufactures into
France, and very vigorous restrictions were imposed on British vessels
entering French ports"; but, in spite of all representations, we had
the mortification of seeing the hardware of Birmingham, and the
ever-increasing stores of cotton and woollen goods, shut out from
France and her subject-lands, as well as from the French colonies
which we had just handed back.
In this policy of commercial prohibition Napoleon was confirmed by our
refusal to expel the Bourbon princes. He declined to accept our
explanation that they were not officially recognized, and could not be
expelled from England without a violation of the rights of
hospitality; and he bitterly complained of the personal attacks made
upon him in journals published in London by the French _émigrés_. Of
these the most acrid, namely, those of Peltier's paper, "L'Ambigu,"
had already received the reprobation of the British Ministry; but, as
had been previously explained at Amiens, the Addington Cabinet decided
that it could not venture to curtail the liberty of the Press, least
of all at the dictation of the very man who was answering the pop-guns
of our unofficial journals by double-shotted retorts in the official
"Moniteur." Of these last His Majesty did not deign to make any
formal complaint; but he suggested that their insertion in the organ
of the French Government should have prevented Napoleon from
preferring the present protests.
This wordy war proceeded with unabated vigour on both sides of the
Channel, the British journals complaining of the Napoleonic
dictatorship in Continental affairs, while the "Moniteur" bristled
with articles whose short, sharp sentences could come only from the
First Consul. The official Press hitherto had been characterized by
dull decorum, and great was the surprise of the older Courts when the
French official journals compared the policy of the Court of St. James
with the methods of the Barbary rovers and the designs of the Miltonic
Satan.[229] Nevertheless, our Ministry prosecuted and convicted
Peltier for libel, an act which, at the time, produced an excellent
impression at Paris.[230]
But more serious matters were now at hand. Newspaper articles and
commercial restrictions were not the cause of war, however much they
irritated the two peoples.
The general position of Anglo-French affairs in the autumn of 1802 is
well described in the official instructions given to Lord Whitworth
when he was about to proceed as ambassador to Paris. For this
difficult duty he had several good qualifications. During his embassy
at St. Petersburg he had shown a combination of tact and firmness
which imposed respect, and doubtless his composure under the violent
outbreaks of the Czar Paul furnished a recommendation for the equally
trying post at Paris, which he filled with a _sang froid_ that has
become historic. Possibly a more genial personality might have
smoothed over some difficulties at the Tuileries: but the Addington
Ministry, having tried geniality in the person of Cornwallis,
naturally selected a man who was remarkable for his powers of quiet
yet firm resistance.
His first instructions of September 10th, 1802, are such as might be
drawn up between any two Powers entering on a long term of peace. But
the series of untoward events noticed above overclouded the political
horizon; and the change finds significant expression in the secret
instructions of November 14th. He is now charged to state George
III.'s determination "never to forego his right of interfering in the
affairs of the Continent on any occasion in which the interests of his
own dominions or those of Europe in general may appear to him to
require it." A French despatch is then quoted, as admitting that, for
every considerable gain of France on the Continent, Great Britain had
some claim to compensation: and such a claim, it was hinted, might now
be proffered after the annexation of Piedmont and Parma. Against the
continued occupation of Holland by French troops and their invasion of
Switzerland, Whitworth was to make moderate but firm remonstrances,
but in such a way as not to commit us finally. He was to employ an
equal discretion with regard to Malta. As Russia and Prussia had as
yet declined to guarantee the arrangements for that island's
independence, it was evident that the British troops could not yet be
withdrawn.
"His Majesty would certainly be justified in claiming the
possession of Malta, as some counterpoise to the acquisitions of
France, since the conclusion of the definitive treaty: but it is
not necessary to decide now whether His Majesty will be disposed to
avail himself of his pretensions in this respect."
Thus between September 10th and November 14th we passed from a
distinctly pacific to a bellicose attitude, and all but formed the
decision to demand Malta as a compensation for the recent
aggrandizements of France. To have declared war at once on these
grounds would certainly have been more dignified. But, as our Ministry
had already given way on many topics, a sudden declaration of war on
Swiss and Italian affairs would have stultified its complaisant
conduct on weightier subjects. Moreover, the whole drift of
eighteenth-century diplomacy, no less than Bonaparte's own admission,
warranted the hope of securing Malta by way of "compensation." The
adroit bargainer, who was putting up German Church lands for sale, who
had gained Louisiana by the Parma-Tuscany exchange, and still
professed to the Czar his good intentions as to an "indemnity" for the
King of Sardinia, might well be expected to admit the principle of
compensation in Anglo-French relations when these were being
jeopardized by French aggrandizement; and, as will shortly appear, the
First Consul, while professing to champion international law against
perfidious Albion, privately admitted her right to compensation, and
only demurred to its practical application when his oriental designs
were thereby compromised.
Before Whitworth proceeded to Paris, sharp remonstrances had been
exchanged between the French and British Governments. To our protests
against Napoleon's interventions in neighbouring States, he retorted
by demanding "the whole Treaty of Amiens and nothing but that treaty."
Whereupon Hawkesbury answered: "The state of the Continent at the
period of the Treaty of Amiens, and nothing but that state." In reply
Napoleon sent off a counterblast, alleging that French troops had
evacuated Taranto, that Switzerland had requested his mediation, that
German affairs possessed no novelty, and that England, having six
months previously waived her interest in continental affairs, could
not resume it at will. The retort, which has called forth the
admiration of M. Thiers, is more specious than convincing.
Hawkesbury's appeal was, not to the sword, but to law; not to French
influence gained by military occupations that contravened the Treaty
of Lunéville, but to international equity.
Certainly, the Addington Cabinet committed a grievous blunder in not
inserting in the Treaty of Amiens a clause stipulating the
independence of the Batavian and Helvetic Republics. Doubtless it
relied on the Treaty of Lunéville, and on a Franco-Dutch convention of
August, 1801, which specified that French troops were to remain in the
Batavian Republic only up to the time of the general peace. But it is
one thing to rely on international law, and quite another thing, in an
age of violence and chicanery, to hazard the gravest material
interests on its observance. Yet this was what the Addington Ministry
had done: "His Majesty consented to make numerous and most important
restitutions to the Batavian Government on the consideration of that
Government being independent and not being subject to any foreign
control."[231] Truly, the restoration of the Cape of Good Hope and of
other colonies to the Dutch, solely in reliance on the observance of
international law by Napoleon and Talleyrand, was, as the event
proved, an act of singular credulity. But, looking at this matter
fairly and squarely, it must be allowed that Napoleon's reply evaded
the essence of the British complaint; it was merely an _argumentum ad
hominem_; it convicted the Addington Cabinet of weakness and
improvidence; but in equity it was null and void, and in practical
politics it betokened war.
As Napoleon refused to withdraw his troops from Holland, and continued
to dominate that unhappy realm, it was clear that the Cape of Good
Hope would speedily be closed to our ships--a prospect which immensely
enhanced the value of the overland route to India, and of those
portals of the Orient, Malta and Egypt. To the Maltese Question we now
turn, as also, later on, to the Eastern Question, with which it was
then closely connected.
Many causes excited the uneasiness of the British Government
about the fate of Malta. In spite of our effort not to wound the
susceptibilities of the Czar, who was protector of the Order of St.
John, that sensitive young ruler had taken umbrage at the article
relating to that island. He now appeared merely as one of the six
Powers guaranteeing its independence, not as the sole patron and
guarantor, and he was piqued at his name appearing after that of the
Emperor Francis![232] For the present arrangement the First Consul was
chiefly to blame; but the Czar vented his displeasure on England. On
April 28th, 1802, our envoy at Paris, Mr. Merry, reported as follows:
"Either the Russian Government itself, or Count Markoff alone
personally, is so completely out of humour with us for not having
acted in strict concert with them, or him, or in conformity to
their ideas in negotiating the definitive treaty (of Amiens), that
I find he takes pains to turn it into ridicule, and particularly to
represent the arrangement we have made for Malta as impracticable
and consequently as completely null."
The despatches of our ambassador at St. Petersburg, Lord St. Helens,
and of his successor, Admiral Warren, are of the same tenor. They
report the Czar's annoyance with England over the Maltese affair, and
his refusal to listen even to the joint Anglo-French request,
of November 18th, 1802, for his guarantee of the Amiens
arrangements.[233] A week later Alexander announced that he would
guarantee the independence of Malta, provided that the complete
sovereignty of the Knights of St. John was recognized--that is,
without any participation of the native Maltese in the affairs of that
Order--and that the island should be garrisoned by Neapolitan troops,
paid by France and England, until the Knights should be able to
maintain their independence. This reopening of the question discussed,
_ad nauseam_, at Amiens proved that the Maltese Question would long
continue to perplex the world. The matter was still further
complicated by the abolition of the Priories, Commanderies, and
property of the Order of St. John by the French Government in the
spring of 1802--an example which was imitated by the Court of Madrid
in the following autumn; and as the property of the Knights in the
French part of Italy had also lapsed, it was difficult to see how the
scattered and impoverished Knights could form a stable government,
especially if the native Maltese were not to be admitted to a share in
public affairs. This action of France, Spain, and Russia fully
warranted the British Government in not admitting into the fortress
the 2,000 Neapolitan troops that arrived in the autumn of 1802. Our
evacuation of Malta was conditioned by several stipulations, five of
which had not been fulfilled.[234] But the difficulties arising out of
the reconstruction of this moribund Order were as nothing when
compared with those resulting from the reopening of a far vaster and
more complex question--the "eternal" Eastern Question.
Rarely has the mouldering away of the Turkish Empire gone on so
rapidly as at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Corruption and
favouritism paralyzed the Government at Constantinople; masterful
pachas, aping the tactics of Ali Pacha, the virtual ruler of Albania,
were beginning to carve out satrapies in Syria, Asia Minor, Wallachia,
and even in Roumelia itself. Such was the state of Turkey when the
Sultan and his advisers heard with deep concern, in October, 1801,
that the only Power on whose friendship they could firmly rely was
about to relinquish Malta. At once he sent an earnest appeal to George
III. begging him not to evacuate the island. This despatch is not in
the archives of our Foreign Office; but the letter written from Malta
by Lord Elgin, our ambassador at Constantinople, on his return home,
sufficiently shows that the Sultan was conscious of his own weakness
and of the schemes of partition which were being concocted at Paris.
Bonaparte had already begun to sound both Austria and Russia on this
subject, deftly hinting that the Power which did not early join in the
enterprise would come poorly off. For the present both the rulers
rejected his overtures; but he ceased not to hope that the anarchy in
Turkey, and the jealousy which partition schemes always arouse among
neighbours, would draw first one and then the other into his
enterprise.[235]
The young Czar's disposition was at that period restless and unstable,
free from the passionate caprices of his ill-fated father, and attuned
by the fond efforts of the Swiss democrat Laharpe, to the loftiest
aspirations of the France of 1789. Yet the son of Paul I. could hardly
free himself from the instincts of a line of conquering Czars; his
frank blue eyes, his graceful yet commanding figure, his high broad
forehead and close shut mouth gave promise of mental energy; and his
splendid physique and love of martial display seemed to invite him to
complete the campaigns of Catherine II. against the Turks, and to wash
out in the waves of the Danube the remorse which he still felt at his
unwitting complicity in a parricidal plot. Between his love of liberty
and of foreign conquest he for the present wavered, with a strange
constitutional indecision that marred a noble character and that
yielded him a prey more than once to a masterful will or to seductive
projects. He is the Janus of Russian history. On the one side he faces
the enormous problems of social and political reform, and yet he
steals many a longing glance towards the dome of St. Sofia. This
instability in his nature has been thus pointedly criticised by his
friend Prince Czartoryski:[236]
"Grand ideas of the general good, generous sentiments, and the
desire to sacrifice to them a part of the imperial authority, had
really occupied the Emperor's mind, but they were rather a young
man's fancies than a grown man's decided will. The Emperor liked
forms of liberty, as he liked the theatre: it gave him pleasure and
flattered his vanity to see the appearances of free government in
his Empire: but all he wanted in this respect was forms and
appearances: he did not expect them to become realities. He would
willingly have agreed that every man should be free, on the
condition that he should voluntarily do only what the Emperor
wished."
This later judgment of the well-known Polish nationalist is probably
embittered by the disappointments which he experienced at the Czar's
hands; but it expresses the feeling of most observers of Alexander's
early career, and it corresponds with the conclusion arrived at by
Napoleon's favourite aide-de-camp, Duroc, who went to congratulate the
young Czar on his accession and to entice him into oriental
schemes--that there was nothing to hope and nothing to fear from the
Czar. The _mot_ was deeply true.[237]
From these oriental schemes the young Czar was, for the time, drawn
aside towards the nobler path of social reform. The saving influence
on this occasion was exerted by his old tutor, Laharpe. The
ex-Director of Switzerland readily persuaded the Czar that Russia
sorely needed political and social reform. His influence was
powerfully aided by a brilliant group of young men, the Vorontzoffs,
the Strogonoffs, Novossiltzoff, and Czartoryski, whose admiration for
western ideas and institutions, especially those of Britain, helped to
impel Alexander on the path of progress. Thus, when Napoleon was
plying the Czar with notes respecting Turkey, that young ruler was
commencing to bestow system on his administration, privileges on the
serfs, and the feeble beginnings of education on the people.
While immersed in these beneficent designs, Alexander heard with deep
chagrin of the annexation of Piedmont and Parma, and that Napoleon
refused to the King of Sardinia any larger territory than the
Siennese. This breach of good faith cut the Czar to the quick. It was
in vain that Napoleon now sought to lure him into Turkish adventures
by representing that France should secure the Morea for herself, that
other parts of European Turkey might be apportioned to Victor Emmanuel
I. and the French Bourbons. This cold-blooded proposal, that ancient
dynasties should be thrust from the homes of their birth into alien
Greek or Moslem lands, wounded the Czar's monarchical sentiments. He
would none of it; nor did he relish the prospect of seeing the French
in the Morea, whence they could complete the disorder of Turkey and
seize on Constantinople. He saw whither Napoleon was leading him. He
drew back abruptly, and even notified to our ambassador, Admiral
Warren, that _England had better keep Malta._[238]
Alexander also, on January 19th, 1803 (O.S.), charged his ambassador
at Paris to declare that the existing system of Europe must not be
further disturbed, that each Government should strive for peace and
the welfare of its own people; that the frequent references of
Napoleon to the approaching dissolution of Turkey were ill-received at
St. Petersburg, where they were considered the chief cause of
England's anxiety and refusal to disarm. He also suggested that the
First Consul by some public utterance should dispel the fears of
England as to a partition of the Ottoman Empire, and thus assure the
peace of the world.[239]
Before this excellent advice was received, Napoleon astonished the
world by a daring stroke. On the 30th of January the "Moniteur"
printed in full the bellicose report of Colonel Sebastiani on his
mission to Algiers, Egypt, Syria, and the Ionian Isles. As that
mission was afterwards to be passed off as merely of a commercial
character, it will be well to quote typical passages from the secret
instructions which the First Consul gave to his envoy on September
5th, 1802:
"He will proceed to Alexandria: he will take note of what is in the
harbour, the ships, the forces which the British as well as the
Turks have there, the state of the fortifications, the state of the
towers, the account of all that has passed since our departure both
at Alexandria and in the whole of Egypt: finally, the present state
of the Egyptians.... He will proceed to St. Jean d'Acre, will
recommend the convent of Nazareth to Djezzar: will inform him that
the agent of the [French] Republic is to appear at Acre: will find
out about the fortifications he has had made: will walk along them
himself, if there be no danger."
Fortifications, troops, ships of war, the feelings of the natives, and
the protection of the Christians--these subjects were to be
Sebastiani's sole care. Commerce was not once named. The departure of
this officer had already alarmed our Government. Mr. Merry, our
_chargé d'affaires_ in Paris, had warned it as to the real aims in
view, in the following "secret despatch:
"PARIS, _September 25th,_ 1802.
"... I have learnt from good authority that he [Sebastiani] was
accompanied by a person of the name of Jaubert (who was General
Bonaparte's interpreter and confidential agent with the natives
during the time he commanded in Egypt), who has carried with him
regular powers and instructions, prepared by M. Talleyrand, to
treat with Ibrahim-Bey for the purpose of creating a fresh and
successful revolt in Egypt against the power of the Porte, and of
placing that country again under the direct or indirect dependence
of France, to which end he has been authorized to offer assistance
from hence in men and money. The person who has confided to me this
information understands that the mission to Ibrahim-Bey is confided
solely to M. Jaubert, and that his being sent with Colonel
Sebastiani has been in order to conceal the real object of it, and
to afford him a safe conveyance to Egypt, as well as for the
purpose of assisting the Colonel in his transactions with the
Regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli."[240]
Merry's information was correct: it tallied with the secret
instructions given by Napoleon to Sebastiani: and our Government, thus
forewarned, at once adopted a stiffer tone on all Mediterranean and
oriental questions. Sebastiani was very coldly received by our officer
commanding in Egypt, General Stuart, who informed him that no orders
had as yet come from London for our evacuation of that land.
Proceeding to Cairo, the commercial emissary proposed to mediate
between the Turkish Pacha and the rebellious Mamelukes, an offer which
was firmly declined.[241] In vain did Sebastiani bluster and cajole by
turns. The Pacha refused to allow him to go on to Assouan, the
headquarters of the insurgent Bey, and the discomfited envoy made his
way back to the coast and took ship for Acre. Thence he set sail for
Corfu, where he assured the people of Napoleon's wish that there
should be an end to their civil discords. Returning to Genoa, and
posting with all speed to Paris, he arrived there on January 25th,
1803. Five days later that gay capital was startled by the report of
his mission, which was printed in full in the "Moniteur." It described
the wretched state of the Turks in Egypt--the Pacha of Cairo
practically powerless, and on bad terms with General Stuart, the
fortifications everywhere in a ruinous state, the 4,430 British troops
cantoned in and near Alexandria, the Turkish forces beneath contempt.
"Six thousand French would at present be enough to conquer Egypt." And
as to the Ionian islands, "I do not stray from the truth in assuring
you that these islands will declare themselves French as soon as an
opportunity shall offer itself."[242]
Such were the chief items of this report. Various motives have been
assigned for its publication. Some writers have seen in it a crushing
retort to English newspaper articles. Others there are, as M. Thiers,
who waver between the opinion that the publication of this report was
either a "sudden unfortunate incident," or a protest against the
"latitude" which England allowed herself in the execution of the
Treaty of Amiens.
A consideration of the actual state of affairs at the end of January,
1803, will perhaps guide us to an explanation which is more consonant
with the grandeur of Napoleon's designs. At that time he was
all-powerful in the Old World. As First Consul for Life he was master
of forty millions of men: he was President of the Italian Republic: to
the Switzers, as to the Dutch, his word was law. Against the
infractions of the Treaty of Lunéville, Austria dared make no protest.
The Czar was occupied with domestic affairs, and his rebuff to
Napoleon's oriental schemes had not yet reached Paris. As for the
British Ministry, it was trembling from the attacks of the Grenvilles
and Windhams on the one side, and from the equally vigorous onslaughts
of Fox, who, when the Government proposed an addition to the armed
forces, brought forward the stale platitude that a large standing army
"was a dangerous instrument of influence in the hands of the Crown."
When England's greatest orator thus impaired the unity of national
feeling, and her only statesman, Pitt, remained in studied seclusion,
the First Consul might well feel assured of the impotence of the
Island Power, and view the bickering of her politicians with the same
quiet contempt that Philip felt for the Athens of Demosthenes.
But while his prospects in Europe and the East were roseate, the
western horizon bulked threateningly with clouds. The news of the
disasters in St. Domingo reached Paris in the first week of the year
1803, and shortly afterwards came tidings of the ferment in the United
States and the determination of their people to resist the acquisition
of Louisiana by France. If he persevered with this last scheme, he
would provoke war with that republic and drive it into the arms of
England. From that blunder his statecraft instinctively saved him, and
he determined to sell Louisiana to the United States.
So unheroic a retreat from the prairies of the New World must be
covered by a demonstration towards the banks of the Nile and of the
Indus. It was ever his plan to cover retreat in one direction by
brilliant diversions in another: only so could he enthrall the
imagination of France, and keep his hold on her restless capital. And
the publication of Sebastiani's report, with its glowing description
of the fondness cherished for France alike by Moslems, Syrian
Christians, and the Greeks of Corfu; its declamation against the
perfidy of General Stuart; and its incitation to the conquest of the
Levant, furnished him with the motive power for effecting a telling
transformation scene and banishing all thoughts of losses in the
West.[243]
The official publication of this report created a sensation even in
France, and was not the _bagatelle_ which M. Thiers has endeavoured to
represent it.[244] But far greater was the astonishment at Downing
Street, not at the facts disclosed by the report--for Merry's note
had prepared our Ministers for them--but rather at the official avowal
of hostile designs. At once our Government warned Whitworth that he
must insist on our retaining Malta. He was also to protest against the
publication of such a document, and to declare that George III. could
not "enter into any further discussion relative to Malta until he
received a satisfactory explanation." Far from offering it, Napoleon
at once complained of our non-evacuation of Alexandria and Malta.
"Instead of that garrison [of Alexandria] being a means of
protecting Egypt, it was only furnishing him with a pretence
for invading it. This he should not do, whatever might be his
desire to have it as a colony, because he did not think it worth
the risk of a war, in which he might perhaps be considered the
aggressor, and by which he should lose more than he could gain,
since sooner or later Egypt would belong to France, either by the
falling to pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrangement
with the Porte.... Finally," he asked, "why should not the mistress
of the seas and the mistress of the land come to an arrangement and
govern the world?"
A subtler diplomatist than Whitworth would probably have taken the
hint for a Franco-British partition of the world: but the Englishman,
unable at that moment to utter a word amidst the torrent of argument
and invective, used the first opportunity merely to assure Napoleon of
the alarm caused in England by Sebastiani's utterance concerning
Egypt. This touched the First Consul at the wrong point, and he
insisted that on the evacuation of Malta the question of peace or war
must depend. In vain did the English ambassador refer to the extension
of French power on the Continent. Napoleon cut him short: "I suppose
you mean Piedmont and Switzerland: ce sont des----: vous n'avez pas le
droit d'en parler à cette heure." Seeing that he was losing his
temper, Lord Whitworth then diverted the conversation.[245]
This long tirade shows clearly what were the aims of the First Consul.
He desired peace until his eastern plans were fully matured. And what
ruler would not desire to maintain a peace so fruitful in
conquests--that perpetuated French influence in Italy, Switzerland,
and Holland, that enabled France to prepare for the dissolution of the
Turkish Empire and to intrigue with the Mahrattas? Those were the
conditions on which England could enjoy peace: she must recognize the
arbitrament of France in the affairs of all neighbouring States, she
must make no claim for compensation in the Mediterranean, and she must
endure to be officially informed that she alone could not maintain a
struggle against France.[246]
But George III. was not minded to sink to the level of a Charles II.
Whatever were the failings of our "farmer king," he was keenly alive
to national honour and interests. These had been deeply wounded, even
in the United Kingdom itself. Napoleon had been active in sending
"commercial commissioners" into our land. Many of them were proved to
be soldiers: and the secret instructions sent by Talleyrand to one of
them at Dublin, which chanced to fall into the hands of our
Government, showed that they were charged to make plans of the
harbours, and of the soundings and moorings.[247]
Then again, the French were almost certainly helping Irish
conspirators. One of these, Emmett, already suspected of complicity in
the Despard conspiracy which aimed at the King's life, had, after its
failure, sought shelter in France. At the close of 1802 he returned to
his native land and began to store arms in a house near Rathfarnham.
It is doubtful whether the authorities were aware of his plans, or, as
is more probable, let the plot come to a head. The outbreak did not
take place till the following July (after the renewal of war), when
Emmett and some of his accomplices, along with Russell, who stirred up
sedition in Ulster, paid for their folly with their lives. They
disavowed any connection with France, but they must have based their
hope of success on a promised French invasion of our coasts.[248]
The dealings of the French commercial commissioners and the beginnings
of the Emmett plot increased the tension caused by Napoleon's
masterful foreign policy; and the result was seen in the King's
message to Parliament on March 8th, 1803. In view of the military
preparations and of the wanton defiance of the First Consul's recent
message to the Corps Législatif, Ministers asked for the embodiment of
the militia and the addition of 10,000 seamen to the navy. After
Napoleon's declaration to our ambassador that France was bringing her
forces on active service up to 480,000 men, the above-named increase
of the British forces might well seem a reasonable measure of defence.
Yet it so aroused the spleen of the First Consul that, at a public
reception of ambassadors on March 13th, he thus accosted Lord
Whitworth:
"'So you are determined to go to war.' 'No, First Consul,' I
replied, 'we are too sensible of the advantage of peace.' 'Why,
then, these armaments? Against whom these measures of precaution? I
have not a single ship of the line in the French ports, but if you
wish to arm I will arm also: if you wish to fight, I will fight
also. You may perhaps kill France, but will never intimidate her.'
'We wish,' said I, 'neither the one nor the other. We wish to live
on good terms with her.' 'You must respect treaties then,' replied
he; 'woe to those who do not respect treaties. They shall answer
for it to all Europe.' He was too agitated to make it advisable to
prolong the conversation: I therefore made no answer, and he
retired to his apartment, repeating the last phrase."[249]
This curious scene shows Napoleon in one of his weaker petulant moods:
it left on the embarrassed spectators no impression of outraged
dignity, but rather of the over-weening self-assertion of an autocrat
who could push on hostile preparations, and yet flout the ambassador
of the Power that took reasonable precautions in return. The slight
offered to our ambassador, though hotly resented in Britain, had no
direct effect on the negotiations, as the First Consul soon took the
opportunity of tacitly apologizing for the occurrence; but indirectly
the matter was infinitely important. By that utterance he nailed his
colours to the mast with respect to the British evacuation of Malta.
With his keen insight into the French nature, he knew that "honour" was
its mainspring, and that his political fortunes rested on the
satisfaction of that instinct. He could not now draw back without
affronting the prestige of France and undermining his own position. In
vain did our Government remind him of his admission that "His Majesty
should keep a compensation out of his conquests for the important
acquisitions of territory made by France upon the Continent."[250] That
promise, although official, was secret. Its violation would, at the
worst, only offend the officials of Whitehall. Whereas, if he now
acceded to their demand that Malta should be the compensation, he at
once committed that worst of all crimes in a French statesman, of
rendering himself ludicrous. In this respect, then, the scene of March
13th at the Tuileries was indirectly the cause of the bloodiest war that
has desolated Europe.
Napoleon now regarded the outbreak of hostilities as probable, if not
certain. Facts are often more eloquent than diplomatic assurances, and
such facts are not wanting. On March 6th Decaen's expedition had set
sail from Brest for the East Indies with no anticipation of immediate
war. On March 16th a fast brig was sent after him with orders that he
should return with all speed from Pondicherry to the Mauritius.
Napoleon's correspondence also shows that, as early as March 11th,
that is, after hearing of George III.'s message to Parliament, he
expected the outbreak of hostilities: on that day he ordered the
formation of flotillas at Dunkirk and Cherbourg, and sent urgent
messages to the sovereigns of Russia, Prussia, and Spain, inveighing
against England's perfidy. The envoy despatched to St. Petersburg was
specially charged to talk to the Czar on philosophic questions, and to
urge him to free the seas from England's tyranny.
Much as Addington and his colleagues loved peace, they were now
convinced that it was more hazardous than open war. Malta was the only
effectual bar to a French seizure of Egypt or an invasion of Turkey from
the side of Corfu. With Turkey partitioned and Egypt in French hands,
there would be no security against Napoleon's designs on India. The
British forces evacuated the Cape of Good Hope on February 21st, 1803;
they set sail from Alexandria on the 17th of the following month. By the
former act we yielded up to France the sea route to India--for the Dutch
at the Cape were but the tools of the First Consul: by the latter we
left Malta as the sole barrier against a renewed land attack on our
Eastern possessions. The safety of our East Indian possessions was
really at stake, and yet Europe was asked to believe that the question
was whether England would or would not evacuate Malta. This was the
French statement of the case: it was met by the British plea that
France, having declared her acceptance of the principle of compensation
for us, had no cause for objecting to the retention of an island so
vital to our interests.
Yet, while convinced of the immense importance of Malta, the Addington
Cabinet did not insist on retaining it, if the French Government would
"suggest some other _equivalent security_ by which His Majesty's
object in claiming the permanent possession of Malta may be
accomplished and the independence of the island secured conformably to
the spirit of the 10th Article of the Treaty of Amiens."[251] To the
First Consul was therefore left the initiative in proposing some other
plan which would safeguard British interests in the Levant; and, with
this qualifying explanation, the British ambassador was charged to
present to him the following proposals for a new treaty: Malta to
remain in British hands, the Knights to be indemnified for any losses
of property which they may thereby sustain: Holland and Switzerland to
be evacuated by French troops: the island of Elba to be confirmed to
France, and the King of Etruria to be acknowledged by Great Britain:
the Italian and Ligurian Republics also to be acknowledged, if "an
arrangement is made in Italy for the King of Sardinia, which shall be
satisfactory to him."
Lord Whitworth judged it better not to present these demands point
blank, but gradually to reveal their substance. This course, he
judged, would be less damaging to the friends of peace at the
Tuileries, and less likely to affront Napoleon. But it was all one and
the same. The First Consul, in his present state of highly wrought
tension, practically ignored the suggestion of an _equivalent
security,_ and declaimed against the perfidy of England for daring to
infringe the treaty, though he had offered no opposition to the Czar's
proposals respecting Malta, which weakened the stability of the Order
and sensibly modified that same treaty.
Talleyrand was more conciliatory; and there is little doubt that, had
the First Consul allowed his brother Joseph and his Foreign Minister
wider powers, the crisis might have been peaceably passed. Joseph
Bonaparte urgently pressed Whitworth to be satisfied with Corfu or
Crete in place of Malta; but he confessed that the suggestion was
quite unauthorized, and that the First Consul was so enraged on the
Maltese Question that he dared not broach it to him.[252] Indeed, all
through these critical weeks Napoleon's relations to his brothers were
very strained, they desiring peace in Europe so that Louisiana might
even now be saved to France, while the First Consul persisted in his
oriental schemes. He seems now to have concentrated his energies on
the task of postponing the rupture to a convenient date and of casting
on his foes the odium of the approaching war. He made no proposal that
could reassure Britain as to the security of the overland routes; and
he named no other island which could be considered as an equivalent to
Malta.
To many persons his position has seemed logically unassailable; but it
is difficult to see how this view can be held. The Treaty of Amiens
had twice over been rendered, in a technical sense, null and void by the
action of Continental Powers. Russia and Prussia had not guaranteed the
state of things arranged for Malta by that treaty; and the action of
France and Spain in confiscating the property of the Knights in their
respective lands had so far sapped the strength of the Order that it
could never again support the expense of the large garrison which the
lines around Valetta required.
In a military sense, this was the crux of the problem; for no one
affected to believe that Malta was rendered secure by the presence at
Valetta of 2,000 troops of the King of Naples, whose realm could
within a week be overrun by Murat's division. This obvious difficulty
led Lord Hawkesbury to urge, in his notes of April 13th and later,
that British troops should garrison the chief fortifications of
Valetta and leave the civil power to the Knights: or, if that were
found objectionable, that we should retain complete possession of the
island for ten years, provided that we were left free to negotiate
with the King of Naples for the cession of Lampedusa, an islet to the
west of Malta. To this last proposal the First Consul offered no
objection; but he still inflexibly opposed any retention of Malta,
even for ten years, and sought to make the barren islet of Lampedusa
appear an equivalent to Malta. This absurd contention had, however,
been exploded by Talleyrand's indiscreet confession "that the
re-establishment of the Order of St. John was not so much the point to
be discussed as that of suffering Great Britain to acquire a
_possession in the Mediterranean_."[253]
This, indeed, was the pith and marrow of the whole question, whether
Great Britain was to be excluded from that great sea--save at
Gibraltar and Lampedusa--looking on idly at its transformation into a
French lake by the seizure of Corfu, the Morea, Egypt, and Malta
itself; or whether she should retain some hold on the overland route
to the East. The difficulty was frankly pointed out by Lord Whitworth;
it was as frankly admitted by Joseph Bonaparte; it was recognized by
Talleyrand; and Napoleon's desire for a durable peace must have been
slight when he refused to admit England's claim effectively to
safeguard her interests in the Levant, and ever fell back on the
literal fulfilment of a treaty which had been invalidated by his own
deliberate actions.
Affairs now rapidly came to a climax. On April 23rd the British
Government notified its ambassador that, if the present terms were not
granted within seven days of his receiving them, he was to leave
Paris. Napoleon was no less angered than surprised by the recent turn
of events. In place of timid complaisance which he had expected from
Addington, he was met with open defiance; but he now proposed that the
Czar should offer his intervention between the disputants. The
suggestion was infinitely skilful. It flattered the pride of the young
autocrat and promised to yield gains as substantial as those which
Russian mediation had a year before procured for France from the
intimidated Sultan; it would help to check the plans for an
Anglo-Russian alliance then being mooted at St. Petersburg, and, above
all, it served to gain time.
All these advantages were to a large extent realized. Though the Czar
had been the first to suggest our retention of Malta, he now began to
waver. The clearness and precision of Talleyrand's notes, and the
telling charge of perfidy against England, made an impression which
the cumbrous retorts of Lord Hawkesbury and the sailor-like diplomacy
of Admiral Warren failed to efface.[254] And the Russian Chancellor,
Vorontzoff, though friendly to England, and desirous of seeing her
firmly established at Malta, now began to complain of the want of
clearness in her policy. The Czar emphasized this complaint, and
suggested that, as Malta could not be the real cause of dispute, the
British Government should formulate distinctly its grievances and so set
the matter in train for a settlement. The suggestion was not complied
with. To draw up a long list of complaints, some drawn from secret
sources and exposing the First Consul's schemes, would have exasperated
his already ruffled temper; and the proposal can only be regarded as an
adroit means of justifying Alexander's sudden change of front.
Meanwhile events had proceeded apace at Paris. On April 26th Joseph
Bonaparte made a last effort to bend his brother's will, but only
gained the grudging concession that Napoleon would never consent to
the British retention of Malta for a longer time than three or four
years. As this would have enabled him to postpone the rupture long
enough to mature his oriental plans, it was rejected by Lord
Whitworth, who insisted on ten years as the minimum. The evident
determination of the British Government speedily to terminate the
affair, one way or the other, threw Napoleon into a paroxysm of
passion; and at the diplomatic reception of May 1st, from which Lord
Whitworth discreetly absented himself, he vehemently inveighed against
its conduct. Fretted by the absence of our ambassador, for whom this
sally had been intended, he returned to St. Cloud, and there dictated
this curious epistle to Talleyrand:
"I desire that your conference [with Lord Whitworth] shall not
degenerate into a conversation. Show yourself cold, reserved, and
even somewhat proud. If the [British] note contains the word
_ultimatum_ make him feel that this word implies war; if it does
not contain this word, make him insert it, remarking to him that we
must know where we are, that we are tired of this state of
anxiety.... Soften down a little at the end of the conference, and
invite him to return before writing to his Court."
But this careful rehearsal was to avail nothing; our stolid ambassador
was not to be cajoled, and on May 2nd, that is, seven days after his
presenting our ultimatum, he sent for his passports. He did not,
however, set out immediately. Yielding to an urgent request, he
delayed his departure in order to hear the French reply to the British
ultimatum.[255] It notified sarcastically that Lampedusa was not in
the First Consul's power to bestow, that any change with reference to
Malta must be referred by Great Britain to the Great Powers for their
concurrence, and that Holland would be evacuated as soon as the terms
of the Treaty of Amiens were complied with. Another proposal was that
Malta should be transferred to Russia--the very step which was
proposed at Amiens and was rejected by the Czar: on that account Lord
Whitworth now refused it as being merely a device to gain time. The
sending of his passports having been delayed, he received one more
despatch from Downing Street, which allowed that our retention of
Malta for ten years should form a secret article--a device which would
spare the First Consul's susceptibilities on the point of honour. Even
so, however, Napoleon refused to consider a longer tenure than two or
three years. And in this he was undoubtedly encouraged by the recent
despatch from St. Petersburg, wherein the Czar promised his mediation
in a sense favourable to France. This unfortunate occurrence completed
the discomfiture of the peace party at the Consular Court, and in a
long and heated discussion in a council held at St. Cloud on May 11th
all but Joseph Bonaparte and Talleyrand voted for the rejection of
the British demands.
On the next day Lord Whitworth left Paris. During his journey to
Calais he received one more proposal, that France should hold the
peninsula of Otranto for ten years if Great Britain retained Malta for
that period; but if this suggestion was made in good faith, which is
doubtful, its effect was destroyed by a rambling diatribe which
Talleyrand, at his master's orders, sent shortly afterwards.[256] In
any case it was looked upon by our ambassador as a last attempt to gain
time for the concentration of the French naval forces. He crossed the
Straits of Dover on May 17th, the day before the British declaration of
war was issued.
On May 22nd, 1803, appeared at Paris the startling order that, as
British frigates had captured two French merchantmen on the Breton
coast, all Englishmen between eighteen and sixty years of age who were
in France should be detained as prisoners of war. The pretext for this
unheard-of action, which condemned some 10,000 Britons to prolonged
detention, was that the two French ships were seized prior to the
declaration of war. This is false: they were seized on May 18th, that
is, on the day on which the British Government declared war, three
days after an embargo had been laid on British vessels in French
ports, and seven days after the First Consul had directed his envoy at
Florence to lay an embargo on English ships in the ports of
Tuscany.[257] It is therefore obvious that Napoleon's barbarous decree
merely marked his disappointment at the failure of his efforts to gain
time and to deal the first stroke. How sorely his temper was tried by
the late events is clear from the recital of the Duchesse d'Abrantès,
who relates that her husband, when ordered to seize English residents,
found the First Consul in a fury, his eyes flashing fire; and when
Junot expressed his reluctance to carry out this decree, Napoleon
passionately exclaimed: "Do not trust too far to my friendship: as
soon as I conceive doubt as to yours, mine is gone."
Few persons in England now cherished any doubts as to the First
Consul's hatred of the nation which stood between him and his oriental
designs. Ministers alone knew the extent of those plans: but every
ploughboy could feel the malice of an act which cooped up innocent
travellers on the flimsiest of pretexts. National ardour, and, alas,
national hatred were deeply stirred.[258] The Whigs, who had paraded the
clemency of Napoleon, were at once helpless, and found themselves
reduced to impotence for wellnigh a generation; and the Tories, who
seemed the exponents of a national policy, were left in power until the
stream of democracy, dammed up by war in 1793 and again in 1803,
asserted its full force in the later movement for reform.
Yet the opinion often expressed by pamphleteers, that the war of 1803
was undertaken to compel France to abandon her republican principles,
is devoid of a shred of evidence in its favour. After 1802 there were
no French republican principles to be combated; they had already been
jettisoned; and, since Bonaparte had crushed the Jacobins, his
personal claims were favourably regarded at Whitehall, Addington even
assuring the French envoy that he would welcome the establishment of
hereditary succession in the First Consul's family.[259] But while
Bonaparte's own conduct served to refute the notion that the war of
1803 was a war of principles, his masterful policy in Europe and the
Levant convinced every well-informed man that peace was impossible;
and the rupture was accompanied by acts and insults to the "nation of
shopkeepers" that could be avenged only by torrents of blood.
Diatribes against perfidious Albion filled the French Press and
overflowed into splenetic pamphlets, one of which bade odious England
tremble under the consciousness of her bad faith and the expectation
of swift and condign chastisement. Such was the spirit in which these
nations rushed to arms; and the conflict was scarcely to cease until
Napoleon was flung out into the solitudes of the southern Atlantic.
The importance of the rupture of the Peace of Amiens will be realized if
we briefly survey Bonaparte's position after that treaty was signed. He
had regained for his adopted country a colonial empire and had given
away not a single French island. France was raised to a position of
assured strength far preferable to the perilous heights attained later
on at Tilsit. In Australia there was a prospect that the tricolour would
wave over areas as great and settlements as prosperous as those of New
South Wales and the infant town of Sydney. From the Ile de France and
the Cape of Good Hope as convenient bases of operations, British India
could easily be assailed; and a Franco-Mahratta alliance promised to
yield a victory over the troops of the East India Company. In Europe the
imminent collapse of the Turkish Empire invited a partition, whence
France might hope to gain Egypt and the Morea. The Ionian Isles were
ready to accept French annexation; and, if England withdrew her troops
from Malta, the fate of the weak Order of St. John could scarcely be a
matter of doubt.
For the fulfilment of these bright hopes one thing alone was needed, a
policy of peace and naval preparation. As yet Napoleon's navy was
comparatively weak. In March, 1803, he had only forty-three
line-of-battle ships, ten of which were on distant stations; but he
had ordered twenty-three more to be built--ten of them in Holland;
and, with the harbours of France, Holland, Flanders, and Northern
Italy at his disposal, he might hope, at the close of 1804, to
confront the flag of St. George with a superiority of force. That was
the time which his secret instructions to Decaen marked out for the
outbreak of the war that would yield to the tricolour a world-wide
supremacy.
These schemes miscarried owing to the impetuosity of their contriver.
Hustled out of the arena of European politics, and threatened with
French supremacy in the other Continents, England forthwith drew the
sword; and her action, cutting athwart the far-reaching web of the
Napoleonic intrigues, forced France to forego her oceanic plans, to
muster her forces on the Straits of Dover, and thereby to yield to the
English race the supremacy in Louisiana, India, and Australia, leaving
also the destinies of Egypt to be decided in a later age. Viewed from
the standpoint of racial expansion, the renewal of war in 1803 is the
greatest event of the century.
[Since this chapter was printed, articles on the same subject have
appeared in the "Revue Historique" (March-June, 1901) by M.
Philippson, which take almost the same view as that here presented. I
cannot, however, agree with the learned writer that Napoleon wanted
war. I think he did not, _until his navy was ready_; but it was not in
him to give way.]
NOTE TO THE FIFTH EDITION
M. Coquelle, in a work which has been translated into English by
Mr. Gordon D. Knox (G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.), has shown clearly that
the non-evacuation of Holland by Napoleon's troops and the
subjection of that Republic to French influence formed the chief
causes of war. I refer my readers to that work for details of the
negotiations in their final stages.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XVIII
EUROPE AND THE BONAPARTES
The disappointment felt by Napoleon at England's interruption of his
designs may be measured, first by his efforts to postpone the rupture,
and thereafter by the fierce energy which he threw into the war. As
has been previously noted, the Czar had responded to the First
Consul's appeal for mediation in notes which seemed to the British
Cabinet unjustly favourable to the French case. Napoleon now offered
to recognize the arbitration of the Czar on the questions in dispute,
and suggested that meanwhile Malta should be handed over to Russia to
be held in pledge: he on his part offered to evacuate Hanover,
Switzerland, and Holland, if the British would suspend hostilities, to
grant an indemnity to the King of Sardinia, to allow Britain to occupy
Lampedusa, and fully to assure "the independence of Europe," if France
retained her present frontiers. But when the Russian envoy, Markoff,
urged him to crown these proposals by allowing Britain to hold Malta
for a certain time, thereafter to be agreed upon, he firmly refused to
do so on his own initiative, for that would soil his honour: but he
would view with resignation its cession to Britain if that proved to
be the award of Alexander. Accordingly Markoff wrote to his colleague
at London, assuring him that the peace of the world was now once again
assured by the noble action of the First Consul.[260]
Were these proposals prompted by a sincere desire to assure a lasting
peace, or were they put forward as a device to gain time for the
completion of the French naval preparations? Evidently they were
completely distrusted by the British Government, and with some reason.
They were nearly identical with the terms formulated in the British
ultimatum, which Napoleon had rejected. Moreover, our Foreign Office
had by this time come to suspect Alexander. On June 23rd Lord
Hawkesbury wrote that it might be most damaging to British interests
to place Malta "at the hazard of the Czar's arbitration"; and he
informed the Russian ambassador, Count Vorontzoff, that the aim of the
French had obviously been merely to gain time, that their explanations
were loose and unsatisfactory, and their demands inadmissible, and
that Great Britain could not acknowledge the present territories of
the French Republic as permanent while Malta was placed in
arbitration. In fact, our Government feared that, when Malta had been
placed in Alexander's hands, Napoleon would lure him into oriental
adventures and renew the plans of an advance on India. Their fears
were well founded.
Napoleon's preoccupation was always for the East: on February 21st,
1803, he had charged his Minister of Marine to send arms and
ammunition to the Suliotes and Maniotes then revolting against the
Sultan; and at midsummer French agents were at Ragusa to prepare for a
landing at the mouth of the River Cattaro.[261] With Turkey rent by
revolt, Malta placed as a pledge in Russian keeping, and Alexander
drawn into the current of Napoleon's designs, what might not be
accomplished? Evidently the First Consul could expect more from this
course of events than from barren strifes with Nelson's ships in the
Straits of Dover. For _us_, such a peace was far more risky than war.
And yet, if the Czar's offer were too stiffly repelled, public opinion
would everywhere be alienated, and in that has always lain half the
strength of England's policy.[262] Ministers therefore declared that,
while they could not accept Russia's arbitration without appeal, they
would accede to her mediation if it concerned all the causes of the
present war. This reasonable proposal was accepted by the Czar, but
received from Napoleon a firm refusal. He at once wrote to Talleyrand,
August 23rd, 1803, directing that the Russian proposals should be made
known to Haugwitz, the Prussian Foreign Minister:
"Make him see all the absurdity of it: tell him that England will
never get from me any other treaty than that of Amiens: that _I
will never suffer her to have anything in the Mediterranean_; that
I will not treat with her about the Continent; that I am resolved
to evacuate Holland and Switzerland; but that I will never
stipulate this in an article."
As for Russia, he continued, she talked much about the integrity of
Turkey, but was violating it by the occupation of the Ionian Isles and
her constant intrigues in Wallachia. These facts were correct: but the
manner in which he stated them clearly revealed his annoyance that the
Czar would not wholly espouse the French cause. Talleyrand's views on
this question may be seen in his letter to Bonaparte, when he assures
his chief that he has now reaped from his noble advance to the Russian
Emperor the sole possible advantage--"that of proving to Europe by a
grand act of frankness your love of peace and to throw upon England
the whole blame for the war." It is not often that a diplomatist so
clearly reveals the secrets of his chief's policy.[263]
The motives of Alexander were less questionable. His chief desire at
that time was to improve the lot of his people. War would disarrange
these noble designs: France would inevitably overrun the weaker
Continental States: England would retaliate by enforcing her severe
maritime code; and the whole world would be rent in twain by this
strife of the elements.
These gloomy forebodings were soon to be realized. Holland was the
first to suffer. And yet one effort was made to spare her the horrors
of war. Filled with commiseration for her past sufferings, the British
Government at once offered to respect her neutrality, provided that
the French troops would evacuate her fortresses and exact no succour
either in ships, men, or money.[264] But such forbearance was scarcely
to be expected from Napoleon, who not only had a French division in
that land, supported at its expense, but also relied on its maritime
resources.[265] The proposal was at once set aside at Paris.
Napoleon's decision to drag the Batavian Republic into the war arose,
however, from no spasm of the war fever; it was calmly stated in the
secret instructions issued to General Decaen in the preceding January.
"It is now considered impossible that we could have war with England,
without dragging Holland into it." Holland was accordingly once more
ground between the upper and the nether millstone, between the Sea
Power and the Land Power, pouring out for Napoleon its resources in
men and money, and losing to the masters of the sea its ships, foreign
commerce, and colonies.
Equally hard was the treatment of Naples. In spite of the Czar's plea
that its neutrality might be respected, this kingdom was at once
occupied by St. Cyr with troops that held the chief positions on the
"heel" of Italy. This infraction of the Treaty of Florence was to be
justified by a proclamation asserting that, as England had retained
Malta, the balance of power required that France should hold these
positions as long as England held Malta.[266] This action punished the
King and Queen of Naples for their supposed subservience to English
policy; and, while lightening the burdens of the French exchequer, it
compelled England to keep a large fleet in the Mediterranean for the
protection of Egypt, and thereby weakened her defensive powers in the
Straits of Dover. To distract his foes, and compel them to extend
their lines, was ever Napoleon's aim both in military and naval
strategy; and the occupation of Taranto, together with the naval
activity at Toulon and Genoa, left it doubtful whether the great
captain determined to strike at London or to resume his eastern
adventures. His previous moves all seemed to point towards Egypt and
India; and the Admiralty instructions of May 18th, 1803, to Nelson,
reveal the expectation of our Government that the real blow would fall
on the Morea and Egypt. Six weeks later our admiral reported the
activity of French intrigues in the Morea, which was doubtless
intended to be their halfway house to Egypt--"when sooner or later,
farewell India."[267] Proofs of Napoleon's designs on the Morea were
found by Captain Keats of H.M.S. "Superb" on a French vessel that he
captured, a French corporal having on him a secret letter from an
agent at Corfu, dated May 23rd, 1803. It ended thus:
"I have every reason to believe that we shall soon have a
revolution in the Morea, as we desire. I have close relations with
Crepacchi, and we are in daily correspondence with all the chiefs
of the Morea: we have even provided them with munitions of
war."[268]
On the whole, however, it seems probable that Napoleon's chief aim now
was London and not Egypt; but his demonstrations eastwards were so
skilfully maintained as to convince both the English Government and
Nelson that his real aim was Egypt or Malta. For this project the
French _corps d'armée_ in the "heel" of Italy held a commanding
position. Ships alone were wanting; and these he sought to compel the
King of Naples to furnish. As early as April 20th, 1803, our _charge
d'affaires_ at Naples, Mr. à Court, reported that Napoleon was pressing
on that Government a French alliance, on the ground that:
"The interests of the two countries are the same: it is the
intention of France to shut every port to the English, from Holland
to the Turkish dominions, to prevent the exportation of her
merchandise, and to give a mortal blow to her commerce, for there
she is most vulnerable. Our joint forces may wrest from her hands
the island of Malta. The Sicilian navy may convoy and protect the
French troops in the prosecution of such a plan, and the most happy
result may be augured to their united exertions."
Possibly the King and his spirited but whimsical consort, Queen
Charlotte, might have bent before the threats which accompanied this
alluring offer; but at the head of the Neapolitan administration was
an Englishman, General Acton, whose talents and force of will
commanded their respect and confidence. To the threats of the French
ambassador he answered that France was strong and Naples was weak;
force might overthrow the dynasty; but nothing would induce it to
violate its neutrality towards England. So unwonted a defiance aroused
Napoleon to a characteristic revenge. When his troops were quartered
on Southern Italy, and were draining the Neapolitan resources, the
Queen wrote appealing to his clemency on behalf of her much burdened
people. In reply he assured her of his desire to be agreeable to her:
but how could he look on Naples as a neutral State, when its chief
Minister was an Englishman? This was "the real reason that justified
all the measures taken towards Naples."[269] The brutality and
falseness of this reply had no other effect than to embitter Queen
Charlotte's hatred against the arbiter of the world's destinies,
before whom she and her consort refused to bow, even when, three years
later, they were forced to seek shelter behind the girdle of the
inviolate sea.
Hanover also fell into Napoleon's hands. Mortier with 25,000 French
troops speedily overran that land and compelled the Duke of Cambridge
to a capitulation. The occupation of the Electorate not only relieved
the French exchequer of the support of a considerable corps; it also
served to hold in check the Prussian Court, always preoccupied about
Hanover; and it barred the entrance of the Elbe and Weser to British
ships, an aim long cherished by Napoleon. To this we retorted by
blockading the mouths of those rivers, an act which must have been
expected by Napoleon, and which enabled him to declaim against British
maritime tyranny. In truth, the beginnings of the Continental System
were now clearly discernible. The shores of the Continent from the
south of Italy to the mouth of the Elbe were practically closed to
English ships, while by a decree of July 15th _any vessel whatsoever_
that had cleared from a British port was to be excluded from all
harbours of the French Republic. Thus all commercial nations were
compelled, slowly but inevitably, to side with the master of the land
or the mistress of the seas.
In vain did the King of Prussia represent to Napoleon that Hanover was
not British territory, and that the neutrality of Germany was
infringed and its interests damaged by the French occupation of
Hanover and Cuxhaven. His protest was met by an offer from Napoleon to
evacuate Hanover, Taranto and Otranto, only at the time when England
should "evacuate Malta and the Mediterranean"; and though the special
Prussian envoy, Lombard, reported to his master that Napoleon was
"truth, loyalty, and friendship personified," yet he received not a
word that betokened real regard for the susceptibilities of Frederick
William III. or the commerce of his people.[270] For the present,
neither King nor Czar ventured on further remonstrances; but the First
Consul had sown seeds of discord which were to bear fruit in the Third
Coalition.
Having quartered 60,000 French troops on Naples and Hanover, Napoleon
could face with equanimity the costs of the war. Gigantic as they were,
they could be met from the purchase money of Louisiana, the taxation and
voluntary gifts of the French dominions, the subsidies of the Italian
and Ligurian Republics, and a contribution which he now exacted from
Spain.
Even before the outbreak of hostilities he had significantly reminded
Charles IV. that the Spanish marine was deteriorating, and her
arsenals and dockyards were idle: "But England is not asleep; she is
ever on the watch and will never rest until she has seized on the
colonies and commerce of the world."[271] For the present, however,
the loss of Trinidad and the sale of Louisiana rankled too deeply to
admit of Spain entering into another conflict, whence, as before,
Napoleon would doubtless gain the glory and leave to her the burden of
territorial sacrifices. In spite of his shameless relations to the
Queen of Spain, Godoy, the Spanish Minister, was not devoid of
patriotism; and he strove to evade the obligations which the treaty of
1796 imposed on Spain in case of an Anglo-French conflict. He embodied
the militia of the north of Spain and doubtless would have defied
Bonaparte's demands, had Russia and Prussia shown any disposition to
resist French aggressions. But those Powers were as yet wholly devoted
to private interests; and when Napoleon threatened Charles IV. and
Godoy with an inroad of 80,000 French troops unless the Spanish
militia were dissolved and 72,000,000 francs were paid every year into
the French exchequer, the Court of Madrid speedily gave way. Its
surrender was further assured by the thinly veiled threat that further
resistance would lead to the exposure of the _liaison_ between Godoy
and the Queen. Spain therefore engaged to pay the required sum--more
than double the amount stipulated in 1796--to further the interests of
French commerce and to bring pressure to bear on Portugal. At
the close of the year the Court of Lisbon, yielding to the threats
of France and Spain, consented to purchase its neutrality by
the payment of a million francs a month to the master of the
Continent.[272]
Meanwhile the First Consul was throwing his untiring energies into the
enterprise of crushing his redoubtable foe. He pushed on the naval
preparations at all the dockyards of France, Holland, and North Italy;
the great mole that was to shelter the roadstead at Cherbourg was
hurried forward, and the coast from the Seine to the Rhine became "a
coast of iron and bronze"--to use Marmont's picturesque phrase--while
every harbour swarmed with small craft destined for an invasion.
Troops were withdrawn from the Rhenish frontiers and encamped along
the shores of Picardy; others were stationed in reserve at St. Omer,
Montreuil, Bruges, and Utrecht; while smaller camps were formed at
Ghent, Compiègne, and St. Malo. The banks of the Elbe, Weser, Scheldt,
Somme, and Seine--even as far up as Paris itself--rang with the blows
of shipwrights labouring to strengthen the flotilla of flat-bottomed
vessels designed for the invasion of England. Troops, to the number of
50,000 at Boulogne under Soult, 30,000 at Etaples, and as many at
Bruges, commanded by Ney and Davoust respectively, were organized
anew, and by constant drill and exposure to the elements formed the
tough nucleus of the future Grand Army, before which the choicest
troops of Czar and Kaiser were to be scattered in headlong rout. To
all these many-sided exertions of organization and drill, of improving
harbours and coast fortifications, of ship-building, testing,
embarking, and disembarking, the First Consul now and again applied
the spur of his personal supervision; for while the warlike enthusiasm
which he had aroused against perfidious Albion of itself achieved
wonders, yet work was never so strenuous and exploits so daring as
under the eyes of the great captain himself. He therefore paid
frequent visits to the north coast, surveying with critical eyes the
works at Boulogne, Calais, Dunkirk,
Ostend, and Antwerp. The last-named port engaged his special
attention. Its position at the head of the navigable estuary of the
Scheldt, exactly opposite the Thames, marked it out as the natural
rival of London; he now encouraged its commerce and ordered the
construction of a dockyard fitted to contain twenty-five battleships
and a proportionate number of frigates and sloops. Antwerp was to
become the great commercial and naval emporium of the North Sea. The
time seemed to favour the design; Hamburg and Bremen were blockaded,
and London for a space was menaced by the growing power of the First
Consul, who seemed destined to restore to the Flemish port the
prosperity which the savagery of Alva had swept away with such profit
to Elizabethan London. But grand as were Napoleon's enterprises at
Antwerp, they fell far short of his ulterior designs. He told Las
Cases at St. Helena that the dockyard and magazines were to have been
protected by a gigantic fortress built on the opposite side of the
River Scheldt, and that Antwerp was to have been "a loaded pistol held
at the head of England."
In both lands warlike ardour rose to the highest pitch. French towns
and Departments freely offered gifts of gunboats and battleships. And
in England public men vied with one another in their eagerness to
equip and maintain volunteer regiments. Wordsworth, who had formerly
sung the praises of the French Revolution, thus voiced the national
defiance:
"No parleying now! In Britain is one breath;
We all are with you now from shore to shore;
Ye men of Kent, 'tis victory or death."
In one respect England enjoyed a notable advantage. Having declared
war before Napoleon's plans were matured, she held the command of the
seas, even against the naval resources of France, Holland, and North
Italy. The first months of the war witnessed the surrender of St.
Lucia and Tobago to our fleets; and before the close of the year
Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo, together with < nearly the whole of the
French St. Domingo force, had capitulated to the Union Jack. Our naval
supremacy in the Channel now told with full effect. Frigates were ever
on the watch in the Straits to chase any French vessels that left
port. But our chief efforts were to blockade the enemy's ships.
Despite constant ill-health and frequent gales, Nelson clung to
Toulon. Admiral Cornwallis cruised off Brest with a fleet generally
exceeding fifteen sail of the line and several smaller vessels: six
frigates and smaller craft protected the coast of Ireland; six
line-of-battle ships and twenty-three lesser vessels were kept in the
Downs under Lord Keith as a central reserve force, to which the news
of all events transpiring on the enemy's coast was speedily conveyed
by despatch boats; the newly invented semaphore telegraphs were also
systematically used between the Isle of Wight and Deal to convey news
along the coast and to London. Martello towers were erected along the
coast from Harwich to Pevensey Bay, at the points where a landing was
easy. Numerous inventors also came forward with plans for destroying
the French flotilla, but none was found to be serviceable except the
rockets of Colonel Congreve, which inflicted some damage at Boulogne
and elsewhere. Such were the dispositions of our chief naval forces:
they comprised 469 ships of war, and over 700 armed boats, of all
sizes.[273]
Our regular troops and militia mustered 180,000 strong; while the
volunteers, including 120,000 men armed with pikes or similar weapons,
numbered 410,000. Of course little could be hoped from these last in a
conflict with French veterans; and even the regulars, in the absence
of any great generals--for Wellesley was then in India--might have
offered but a poor resistance to Napoleon's military machine.
Preparations were, however, made for a desperate resistance. Plans
were quietly framed for the transfer of the Queen and the royal family
to Worcester, along with the public treasure, which was to be lodged
in the cathedral; while the artillery and stores from Woolwich arsenal
were to be conveyed into the Midlands by the Grand Junction
Canal.[274]
The scheme of coast-defence which General Dundas had drawn up in 1796
was now again set in action. It included, not only the disposition of
the armed forces, but plans for the systematic removal of all
provisions, stores, animals, and fodder from the districts threatened
by the invader; and it is clear that the country was far better
prepared than French writers have been willing to admit. Indeed, so
great was the expense of these defensive preparations that, when
Nelson's return from the West Indies disconcerted the enemy's plans,
Fox merged the statesman in the partisan by the curious assertion that
the invasion scare had been got up by the Pitt Ministry for party
purposes.[275] Few persons shared that opinion. The nation was
animated by a patriotism such as had never yet stirred the sluggish
veins of Georgian England. The Jacobinism, which Dundas in 1796 had
lamented as paralyzing the nation's energy, had wholly vanished; and
the fatality which dogged the steps of Napoleon was already
discernible. The mingled hatred and fear which he inspired outside
France was beginning to solidify the national resistance: after
uniting rich and poor, English and Scots in a firm phalanx in the
United Kingdom, the national principle was in turn to vivify Spain,
Russia, and Germany, and thus to assure his overthrow.
Reserving for consideration in another chapter the later developments
of the naval war, it will be convenient now to turn to important
events in the history of the Bonaparte family.
The loves and intrigues of the Bonapartes have furnished material enough
to fill several volumes devoted to light gossip, and naturally so. Given
an ambitious family, styled _parvenus_ by the ungenerous, shooting aloft
swiftly as the flames of Vesuvius, ardent as its inner fires, and
stubborn as its hardened lava--given also an imperious brother
determined to marry his younger brothers and sisters, not as they
willed, but as he willed--and it is clear that materials are at hand
sufficient to make the fortunes of a dozen comediettas.
To the marriage of Pauline Bonaparte only the briefest reference need
here be made. The wild humour of her blood showed itself before her
first marriage; and after the death of her husband, General Leclerc,
in San Domingo, she privately espoused Prince Borghese before the
legal time of mourning had expired, an indiscretion which much annoyed
Napoleon (August, 1803). Ultimately this brilliant, frivolous creature
resided in the splendid mansion which now forms the British embassy in
Paris. The case of Louis Bonaparte was somewhat different. Nurtured as
he had been in his early years by Napoleon, he had rewarded him by
contracting a dutiful match with Hortense Beauharnais (January, 1802);
but that union was to be marred by a grotesquely horrible jealousy
which the young husband soon conceived for his powerful brother.
For the present, however, the chief trouble was caused by Lucien,
whose address had saved matters at the few critical minutes of
Brumaire. Gifted with a strong vein of literary feeling and oratorical
fire he united in his person the obstinacy of a Bonaparte, the
headstrong feelings of a poet, and the dogmatism of a Corsican
republican. His presumptuous conduct had already embroiled him with
the First Consul, who deprived him of his Ministry and sent him as
ambassador to Madrid.[276] He further sinned, first by hurrying on
peace with Portugal--it is said for a handsome present from
Lisbon--and later by refusing to marry the widow of the King of
Etruria. In this he persisted, despite the urgent representations of
Napoleon and Joseph: "You know very well that I am a republican, and
that a queen is not what suits me, an ugly queen too!"--" What a pity
your answer was not cut short, it would have been quite Roman," sneered
Joseph at his younger brother, once the Brutus of the Jacobin clubs. But
Lucien was proof against all the splendours of the royal match; he was
madly in love with a Madame Jouberthon, the deserted wife of a Paris
stockbroker; and in order to checkmate all Napoleon's attempts to force
on a hated union, he had secretly married the lady of his choice at the
village of Plessis-Chamant, hard by his country house (October 26th,
1803).
The letter which divulged the news of this affair reached the First
Consul at St. Cloud on an interesting occasion.[277] It was during a
so-called family concert, to which only the choicest spirits had been
invited, whence also, to Josephine's chagrin, Napoleon had excluded
Madame Tallien and several other old friends, whose reputation would
have tainted the air of religion and morality now pervading the
Consular Court. While this select company was enjoying the strains of
the chamber music, and Napoleon alone was dozing, Lucien's missive was
handed in by the faithful if indiscreet Duroc. A change came over the
scene. At once Napoleon started up, called out "Stop the music: stop,"
and began with nervous strides and agitated gestures to pace the hall,
exclaiming "Treason! it is treason!" Round-eyed, open-mouthed
wonder seized on the disconcerted musicians, the company rose in
confusion, and Josephine, following her spouse, besought him to say
what had happened. "What has happened--why--Lucien has married
his--mistress."[278]
The secret cause for this climax of fashionable comedy is to be sought
in reasons of state. The establishment of hereditary power was then
being secretly and anxiously discussed. Napoleon had no heirs: Joseph's
children were girls: Lucien's first marriage also had naught but female
issue: the succession must therefore devolve on Lucien's children by a
second marriage. But a natural son had already been born to him by
Madame Jouberthon; and his marriage now promised to make this bastard
the heir to the future French imperial throne. That was the reason why
Napoleon paced the hall at St. Cloud, "waving his arms like a
semaphore," and exclaiming "treason!" Failing the birth of sons to the
two elder brothers, Lucien's marriage seriously endangered the
foundation of a Napoleonic dynasty; besides, the whole affair would
yield excellent sport to the royalists of the Boulevard St. Germain, the
snarling Jacobins of the back streets, and the newspaper writers of
hated Albion.
In vain were negotiations set on foot to make Lucien divorce his
wife. The attempt only produced exasperation, Joseph himself finally
accusing Napoleon of bad faith in the course of this affair. In the
following springtime Lucien shook off the dust of France from his
feet, and declared in a last letter to Joseph that he departed, hating
Napoleon. The moral to this curious story was well pointed by Joseph
Bonaparte: "Destiny seems to blind us, and intends, by means of our
own faults, to restore France some day to her former rulers." [279]
At the very time of the scene at St. Cloud, fortune was preparing for
the First Consul another matrimonial trouble. His youngest brother,
Jerome, then aged nineteen years, had shown much aptitude for the
French navy, and was serving on the American station, when a quarrel
with the admiral sent him flying in disgust to the shore. There, at
Baltimore, he fell in love with Miss Paterson, the daughter of a
well-to-do merchant, and sought her hand in marriage. In vain did the
French consul remind him that, were he five years older, he would
still need the consent of his mother. The headstrong nature of his
race brooked no opposition, and he secretly espoused the young lady at
her father's residence.
Napoleon's ire fell like a blasting wind on the young couple; but
after waiting some time, in hopes that the storm would blow over, they
ventured to come to Europe. Thereupon Napoleon wrote to Madame Mère in
these terms:
"Jerome has arrived at Lisbon with the woman with whom he lives....
I have given orders that Miss Paterson is to be sent back to
America.... If he shows no inclination to wash away the dishonour
with which he has stained my name, by forsaking his country's flag
on land and sea for the sake of a wretched woman, I will cast him
off for ever."[280]
The sequel will show that Jerome was made of softer stuff than Lucien;
and, strange to say, his compliance with Napoleon's dynastic designs
provided that family with the only legitimate male heirs that were
destined to sustain its wavering hopes to the end of the century.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XIX
THE ROYALIST PLOT
From domestic comedy, France turned rapidly in the early months of
1804 to a sombre tragedy--the tragedy of the Georges Cadoudal plot and
the execution of the Duc d'Enghien.
There were varied reasons why the exiled French Bourbons should
compass the overthrow of Napoleon. Every month that they delayed
action lessened their chances of success. They had long clung to the
hope that his Concordat with the Pope and other anti-revolutionary
measures betokened his intention to recall their dynasty. But in
February, 1803, the Comte de Provence received overtures which showed
that Bonaparte had never thought of playing the part of General Monk.
The exiled prince, then residing at Warsaw, was courteously but most
firmly urged by the First Consul to renounce both for himself and for
the other members of his House all claims to the throne of France, in
return for which he would receive a pension of two million francs a
year. The notion of sinking to the level of a pensionary of the French
Republic touched Bourbon pride to the quick and provoked this spirited
reply:
"As a descendant of St. Louis, I shall endeavour to imitate his
example by respecting myself even in captivity. As successor to
Francis I., I shall at least aspire to say with him: 'We have lost
everything but our honour."'
To this declaration the Comte d'Artois, his son, the Duc de Berri,
Louis Philippe of Orleans, his two sons, and the two Condés gave their
ardent assent; and the same loyal response came from the young Condé,
the Duc d'Enghien, dated Ettenheim, March 22nd, 1803. Little did men
think when they read this last defiance to Napoleon that within a year
its author would be flung into a grave in the moat of the Castle of
Vincennes.
Scarcely had the echoes of the Bourbon retorts died away than the
outbreak of war between England and France raised the hopes of the
French royalist exiles in London; and their nimble fancy pictured the
French army and nation as ready to fling themselves at the feet of
Louis XVIII. The future monarch did not share these illusions. In the
chilly solitudes of Warsaw he discerned matters in their true light,
and prepared to wait until the vaulting ambition of Napoleon should
league Europe against him. Indeed, when the plans of the forward wing
in London were explained to him, with a view of enlisting his support,
he deftly waved aside the embarrassing overtures by quoting the lines:
"Et pour être approuvés
De semblables projets veulent être achevés,"
a cautious reply which led his brother, then at Edinburgh, scornfully
to contemn his _feebleness_ as unworthy of any further confidences.[281]
In truth, the Comte d'Artois, destined one day to be Charles X. of
France, was not fashioned by nature for a Fabian policy of delay: not
even the misfortunes of exile could instill into the watertight
compartments of his brain the most elementary notions of prudence.
Daring, however, attracts daring; and this prince had gathered around
him in our land the most desperate of the French royalists, whose hopes,
hatreds, schemes, and unending requests for British money may be scanned
by the curious in some thirty large volumes of letters bequeathed by
their factotum the Comte de Puisaye, to the British Museum.
Unfortunately this correspondence throws little light on the details of
the plot which is fitly called by the name of Georges Cadoudal.
This daring Breton was, in fact, the only man of action on whom the
Bourbon princes could firmly rely for an enterprise that demanded a
cool head, cunning in the choice of means, and a remorseless hand.
Pichegru it is true, lived near London, but saw little of the
_émigrés_, except the venerable Condé. Dumouriez also was in the great
city, but his name was too generally scorned in France for his
treachery in 1793 to warrant his being used. But there were plenty of
swashbucklers who could prepare the ground in France, or, if fortune
favoured, might strike the blow themselves; and a small committee of
French royalists, which had the support of that furious royalist, Mr.
Windham, M.P., began even before the close of 1802 to discuss plans
for the "removal" of Bonaparte. Two of their tools, Picot and Le
Bourgeois by name, plunged blindly into a plot, and were arrested soon
after they set foot in France. Their boyish credulity seems to have
suggested to the French authorities the sending of an agent so as to
entrap not only French _émigrés_, but also English officials and
Jacobinical generals.
The _agent provocateur_ has at all times been a favourite tool of
continental Governments: but rarely has a more finished specimen of
the class been seen than Méhée de la Touche. After plying the trade of
an assassin in the September massacres of 1792, and of a Jacobin spy
during the Terror, he had been included by Bonaparte among the Jacobin
scapegoats who expiated the Chouan outrage of Nivôse. Pining in the
weariness of exile, he heard from his wife that he might be pardoned
if he would perform some service for the Consular Government. At once
he consented, and it was agreed that he should feign royalism, should
worm himself into the secrets of the _émigrés_ at London, and act as
intermediary between them and the discontented republicans of Paris.
The man who seems to have planned this scheme was the ex-Minister of
Police. Fouché had lately been deprived by Bonaparte of the
inquisitorial powers which he so unscrupulously used. His duties were
divided between Régnier, the Grand Judge and Minister of Justice, and
Réal, a Councillor of State, who watched over the internal security of
France. These men had none of the ability of Fouché, nor did they know
at the outset what Méhée was doing in London. It may, therefore, be
assumed that Méhée was one of Fouché's creatures, whom he used to
discredit his successor, and that Bonaparte welcomed this means of
quickening the zeal of the official police, while he also wove his
meshes round plotting _émigrés_, English officials, and French
generals.[282]
Among these last there was almost chronic discontent, and Bonaparte
claimed to have found out a plot whereby twelve of them should divide
France into as many portions, leaving to him only Paris and its
environs. If so, he never made any use of his discovery. In fact, out
of this group of malcontents, Moreau, Bernadotte, Augereau, Macdonald,
and others, he feared only the hostility of the first. The victor of
Hohenlinden lived in sullen privacy near to Paris, refusing to present
himself at the Consular Court, and showing his contempt for those who
donned a courtier's uniform. He openly mocked at the Concordat; and
when the Legion of Honour was instituted, he bestowed a collar of
honour upon his dog. So keen was Napoleon's resentment at this
raillery that he even proposed to send him a challenge to a duel in
the Bois de Boulogne.[283] The challenge, of course, was not sent; a
show of reconciliation was assumed between the two warriors; but
Napoleon retained a covert dislike of the man whose brusque
republicanism was applauded by a large portion of the army and by the
_frondeurs_ of Paris.
The ruin of Moreau, and the confusion alike of French royalists and
of the British Ministry, could now be assured by the encouragement of
a Jacobin-Royalist conspiracy, in which English officials should be
implicated. Moreau was notoriously incapable in the sphere of
political intrigue: the royalist coteries in London presented just the
material on which the _agent provocateur_ delights to work; and some
British officials could, doubtless, with equal ease be drawn into the
toils. Méhée de la Touche has left a highly spiced account of his
adventures; but it must, of course, be received with distrust.[284]
Proceeding first to Guernsey, he gained the confidence of the
Governor, General Doyle; and, fortified by recommendations from him,
he presented himself to the _émigrés_ at London, and had an interview
with Lord Hawkesbury and the Under-Secretaries of State, Messrs.
Hammond and Yorke. He found it easy to inflame the imagination of the
French exiles, who clutched at the proposed union between the
irreconcilables, the extreme royalists, and the extreme republicans;
and it was forthwith arranged that Napoleon's power, which rested on
the support of the peasants, in fact of the body of France, should be
crushed by an enveloping move of the tips of the wings.
Méhée's narrative contains few details and dates, such as enable one
to test his assertions. But I have examined the Puisaye Papers,[285]
and also the Foreign and Home Office archives, and have found proofs
of the complicity of our Government, which it will be well to present
here connectedly. Taken singly they are inconclusive, but collectively
their importance is considerable. In our Foreign Office Records
(France, No 70) there is a letter, dated London, August 30th, 1803,
from the Baron de Roll, the factotum of the exiled Bourbons, to Mr.
Hammond, our Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, asking
him to call on the Comte d'Artois at his residence, No. 46, Baker
Street. That the deliberations at that house were not wholly peaceful
appears from a long secret memorandum of October 24th, 1803, in which
the Comte d'Artois reviews the career of "that _miserable adventurer_"
(Bonaparte), so as to prove that his present position is precarious
and tottering. He concludes by naming those who desired his
overthrow--Moreau, Reynier, Bernadotte, Simon, Masséna, Lannes, and
Férino: Sieyès, Carnot, Chénier, Fouché, Barras, Tallien, Rewbel,
Lamarque, and Jean de Bry. Others would not attack him "corps à
corps," but disliked his supremacy. These two papers prove that our
Government was aware of the Bourbon plot. Another document, dated
London, November 18th, 1803, proves its active complicity. It is a
list of the French royalist officers "who had set out or were ready to
set out." All were in our pay, two at six shillings, five at four
shillings, and nine at two shillings a day. It would be indelicate to
reveal the names, but among them occurs that of Joachim P.J. Cadoudal.
The list is drawn up and signed by Frieding--a name that was
frequently used by Pichegru as an _alias_. In his handwriting also is
a list of "royalist officers for whom I demand a year's pay in
advance"--five generals, thirteen _chefs de légion_, seventeen _chefs
de bataillon_, and nineteen captains. The pay claimed amounts to
£3,110 15_s._[286] That some, at least, of our Admiralty officials
also aided Cadoudal is proved by a "most secret" letter, dated
Admiralty Office, July 31st, 1803, from E. N[epean] to Admiral Montagu
in the Downs, charging him to help the bearer, Captain Wright, in the
execution of "a very important service," and to provide for him "one
of the best of the hired cutters or luggers under your orders."
Another "most secret" Admiralty letter, of January 9th, 1804, orders a
frigate or large sloop to be got ready to convey secretly "an officer
of rank and consideration" (probably Pichegru) to the French coast.
Wright carried over the conspirators in several parties, until chance
threw him into Napoleon's power and consigned him to an ignominious
death, probably suicide.
Finally, there is the letter of Mr. Arbuthnot, Parliamentary Secretary
at the Foreign Office (dated March 12th, 1804), to Sir Arthur Paget,
in which he refers to the "sad result of all our fine projects for the
re-establishment of the Bourbons: ... we are, of course, greatly
apprehensive for poor Moreau's safety."[287]
In face of this damning evidence the ministerial denials of complicity
must be swept aside.[288] It is possible, however, that the plot was
connived at, not by the more respectable chiefs, but by young and
hot-headed officials. Even in the summer of 1803 that Cabinet was
already tottering under the attacks of the Whigs and the followers of
Pitt. The blandly respectable Addington and Hawkesbury with his
"vacant grin"[289] were evidently no match for Napoleon; and
Arbuthnot himself dubs Addington "a poor wretch universally despised
and laught at," and pronounces the Cabinet "the most inefficient that
ever curst a country." I judge, therefore, that our official aid to
the conspirators was limited to the Under-Secretaries of the Foreign,
War, and Admiralty Offices. Moreover, the royalist plans, _as revealed
to our officials_, mainly concerned a rising in Normandy and Brittany.
Our Government would not have paid the salaries of fifty-four royalist
officers--many of them of good old French families--if it had been
only a question of stabbing Napoleon. The lists of those officers were
drawn up here in November, 1803, that is, three months after Georges
Cadoudal had set out for Normandy and Paris to collect his
desperadoes; and it seems most probable that the officers of the
"royal army" were expected merely to clinch Cadoudal's enterprise by
rekindling the flame of revolt in the north and west. French agents
were trying to do the same in Ireland, and a plot for the murder of
George III. was thought to have been connived at by the French
authorities. But, when all is said, the British Government must stand
accused of one of the most heinous of crimes. The whole truth was not
known at Paris; but it was surmised; and the surmise was sufficient to
envenom the whole course of the struggle between England and Napoleon.
Having now established the responsibility of British officials in
this, the most famous plot of the century, we return to describe the
progress of the conspiracy and the arts employed by Napoleon to defeat
it. His tool, Méhée de la Touche, after entrapping French royalists
and some of our own officials in London, proceeded to the Continent in
order to inveigle some of our envoys. He achieved a brilliant success.
He called at Munich, in order, as he speciously alleged, to arrange
with our ambassador there the preparations for the royalist plot. The
British envoy, who bore the honoured name of Francis Drake, was a
zealous intriguer closely in touch with the _émigrés_: he was
completely won over by the arts of Méhée: he gave the spy money,
supplied him with a code of false names, and even intrusted him with a
recipe for sympathetic ink. Thus furnished, Méhée proceeded to Paris,
sent his briber a few harmless bulletins, took his information to the
police, and, _at Napoleon's dictation_, gave him news that seriously
misled our Government and Nelson.[290]
The same trick was tried on Stuart, our ambassador at Vienna, who had
a tempting offer from a French agent to furnish news from every French
despatch to or from Vienna. Stuart had closed with the offer, when
suddenly the man was seized at the instance of the French ambassador,
and his papers were searched.[291] In this case there were none that
compromised Stuart, and his career was not cut short in the
ignominious manner that befell Drake, over whom there may be inscribed
as epitaph the warning which Talleyrand gave to young aspirants--"et
surtout pas trop de zèle."
Thus, while the royalists were conspiring the overthrow of Napoleon,
he through his agents was countermining their clumsy approach to his
citadel, and prepared to blow them sky high when their mines were
crowded for the final rush. The royalist plans matured slowly owing to
changes which need not be noticed. Georges Cadoudal quitted London,
and landed at Biville, a smuggler's haunt not far from Dieppe, on
August 23rd, 1803. Thence he made his way to Paris, and spent some
months in striving to enlist trusty recruits. It has been stated that
the plot never aimed at assassination, but at the overpowering of the
First Consul's escort, and the seizure of his person, during one of
his journeys. Then he was to be forcibly transferred to the northern
coast on relays of horses, and hurried over to England.[292] But,
though the plotters threw the veil of decency over their enterprise by
calling it kidnapping, they undoubtedly meant murder. Among Drake's
papers there is a hint that the royalist emissaries were _at first_ to
speak only of the seizure and deportation of the First Consul.
Whatever may have been their precise aims, they were certainly known
to Napoleon and his police. On November 1st, 1803, he wrote to
Régnier:
"You must not be in a hurry about the arrests: when the author
[Méhée] has given in all the information, we will draw up a plan
with him, and will see what is to be done. I wish him to write to
Drake, and, in order to make him trustful, inform him that, before
the great blow can be dealt, he believes he [Méhée] can promise to
have seized on the table of the First Consul, in his secret room,
notes written in his own hand relating to his great expedition,
and every other important document."
Napoleon revelled in the details of his plan for hoisting the
engineers with their own petards.[293] But he knew full well that the
plot, when fully ripe, would yield far more than the capture of a few
Chouans. He must wait until Moreau was implicated. The man selected by
the _émigrés_ to sound Moreau was Pichegru, and this choice was the
sole instance of common sense displayed by them. It was Pichegru who
had marked out the future fortune of Moreau in the campaign of 1793,
and yet he had seemed to be the victim of that general's gross
ingratitude at Fructidor. Who then so fitted as he to approach the
victor of Hohenlinden? Through a priest named David and General
Lajolais, an interview was arranged; and shortly after Pichegru's
arrival in France, these warriors furtively clasped hands in the
capital which had so often resounded with their praises (January,
1804). They met three or four times, and cleared away some of the
misunderstandings of the past. But he would have nothing to do with
Georges, and when Pichegru mooted the overthrow of Bonaparte and the
restoration of the Bourbons, he firmly warned him: "Do with Bonaparte
what you will, but do not ask me to put a Bourbon in his place."
From this resolve Moreau never receded. But his calculating reserve did
not save him. Already several suspects had been imprisoned in Normandy.
At Napoleon's suggestion five of them were condemned to death, in the
hope of extorting a confession; and the last a man named Querelle,
gratified his gaolers by revealing (February 14th) not only the lodging
of Georges in Paris, but the intention of other conspirators, among whom
was a French prince, to land at Biville. The plot was now coming to a
head, and so was the counter-plot. On the next day Moreau was arrested
by order of Napoleon, who feigned the utmost grief and surprise at
seeing the victor of Hohenlinden mixed up with royalist assassins in the
pay of England.[294]
Elated by this success, and hoping to catch the Comte d'Artois
himself, Napoleon forthwith despatched to that cliff one of his most
crafty and devoted servants, Savary, who commanded the _gendarmerie
d'élite._ Tricked out in suitable disguises, and informed by a
smuggler as to the royalist signals, Savary eagerly awaited the royal
quarry, and when Captain Wright's vessel hove in sight, he used his
utmost arts to imitate the signals that invited a landing. But the
crew were not to be lured to shore; and after fruitless endeavours he
returned to Paris--in time to take part in the murder of the Duc
d'Enghien.
Meanwhile the police were on the tracks of Pichegru and Georges. On
the last day of February the general was seized in bed in the house of
a treacherous friend: but not until the gates of Paris had been
closed, and domiciliary visits made, was Georges taken, and then only
after a desperate affray (March 9th). The arrest of the two Polignacs
and the Marquis de Rivière speedily followed.
Hitherto Napoleon had completely outwitted his foes. He knew well
enough that he was in no danger.
"I have run no real risks," he wrote to Melzi, "for the police had
its eyes on all these machinations, and I have the consolation of
not finding reason to complain of a single man among all those I
have placed in this huge administration, Moreau stands alone."
[295]
But now, at the moment of victory, when France was swelling with rage
against royalist assassins, English gold, and Moreau's treachery, the
First Consul was hurried into an enterprise which gained him an
imperial crown and flecked the purple with innocent blood.
There was living at Ettenheim, in Baden, not far from the Rhine, a
young prince of the House of Condé, the Duc d'Enghien. Since the
disbanding of the corps of Condé he had been tranquilly enjoying the
society of the Princess Charlotte de Rohan, to whom he had been
secretly married. Her charms, the attractions of the chase, the
society of a small circle of French _émigrés_, and an occasional
secret visit to the theatre at Strassburg, formed the chief diversions
to an otherwise monotonous life, until he was fired with the hope of a
speedy declaration of war by Austria and Russia against Napoleon.
Report accused him of having indiscreetly ventured in disguise far
into France; but he indignantly denied it. His other letters also
prove that he was not an accomplice of the Cadoudal-Pichegru
conspiracy. But Napoleon's spies gave information which seemed to
implicate him in that enterprise. Chief among them was Méhée, who, at
the close of February, hovered about Ettenheim and heard that the duke
was often absent for many days at a time.
Napoleon received this news on March 1st, and ordered the closest
investigation to be made. One of his spies reported that the young
duke associated with General Dumouriez. In reality the general was in
London, and the spy had substituted the name of a harmless old
gentleman called Thumery. When Napoleon saw the name of Dumouriez with
that of the young duke his rage knew no bounds. "Am I a dog to be
beaten to death in the street? Why was I not warned that they were
assembling at Ettenheim? Are my murderers sacred beings? They attack my
very person. I'll give them war for war." And he overwhelmed with
reproaches both Réal and Talleyrand for neglecting to warn him of these
traitors and assassins clustering on the banks of the Rhine. The seizure
of Georges Cadoudal and the examination of one of his servants helped to
confirm Napoleon's surmise that he was the victim of a plot of which the
duke and Dumouriez were the real contrivers, while Georges was their
tool. Cadoudal's servant stated that there often came to his master's
house a mysterious man, at whose entry not only Georges but also the
Polignacs and Rivière always arose. This convinced Napoleon that the Duc
d'Enghien was directing the plot, and he determined to have the duke and
Dumouriez seized. That they were on German soil was naught to him.
Talleyrand promised that he could soon prevail on the Elector to
overlook this violation of his territory, and the question was then
discussed in an informal council. Talleyrand, Réal, and Fouché advised
the severest measures. Lebrun spoke of the outcry which such a violation
of neutral territory would arouse, but bent before the determination of
the First Consul; and the regicide Cambacérès alone offered a firm
opposition to an outrage which must embroil France with Germany and
Russia. Despite this protest, Napoleon issued his orders and then
repaired to the pleasing solitudes of La Malmaison, where he remained in
almost complete seclusion. The execution of the orders was now left to
Generals Ordener and Caulaincourt, who arranged the raid into Baden; to
Murat, who was now Governor of Paris; and to the devoted and
unquestioning Savary and Réal.
The seizure of the duke was craftily effected. Troops and gendarmes
were quietly mustered at Strassburg: spies were sent forward to survey
the ground; and as the dawn of the 15th of March was lighting up the
eastern sky, thirty Frenchmen encircled Enghien's abode. His hot blood
prompted him to fight, but on the advice of a friend he quietly
surrendered, was haled away to Strassburg, and thence to the castle of
Vincennes on the south-east of Paris. There everything was ready for
his reception on the evening of March 20th. The pall of secrecy was
spread over the preparations. The name of Plessis was assigned to the
victim, and Harel, the governor of the castle, was left ignorant of
his rank.[296]
Above all, he was to be tried by a court-martial of officers, a form
of judgment which was summary and without appeal; whereas the ordinary
courts of justice must be slow and open to the public gaze. It was
true that the Senate had just suspended trial by jury in the case of
attempts against the First Consul's life--a device adopted in view of
the Moreau prosecution. But the certainty of a conviction was not
enough: Napoleon determined to strike terror into his enemies, such as
a swift and secret blow always inspires. He had resolved on a trial by
court-martial when he still believed Enghien to be an accomplice of
Dumouriez; and when, late on Saturday, March 17th, that mistake was
explained, his purpose remained unshaken--unshaken too by the high
mass of Easter Sunday, March 18th, which he heard in state at the
Chapel of the Tuileries. On the return journey to Malmaison Josephine
confessed to Madame de Rémusat her fears that Bonaparte's will was
unalterably fixed: "I have done what I could, but I fear his mind is
made up." She and Joseph approached him once more in the park while
Talleyrand was at his side. "I fear that cripple," she said, as they
came near, and Joseph drew the Minister aside. All was in vain. "Go
away; you are a child; you don't understand public duties." This was
Josephine's final repulse.
On March 20th Napoleon drew up the form of questions to be put to the
prisoner. He now shifted the ground of accusation. Out of eleven
questions only the last three referred to the duke's connection with
the Cadoudal plot.[297] For in the meantime he had found in the
duke's papers proofs of his having offered his services to the
British Government for the present war,[298] his hopes of
participation in a future Continental war, but nothing that could
implicate him in the Cadoudal plot. The papers were certainly
disappointing; and that is doubtless the reason why, after examining
them on March 19th, he charged Réal "to take secret cognizance of
these papers, along with Desmarest. One must prevent any talk on the
more or less of charges contained in these papers." The same fact
doubtless led to their abstraction along with the _dossier_ of the
proceedings of the court-martial.[299]
The task of summoning the officers who were to form the court-martial
was imposed on Murat. But when this bluff, hearty soldier received
this order, he exclaimed: "What! are they trying to soil my uniform! I
will not allow it! Let him appoint them himself if he wants to." But a
second and more imperious mandate compelled him to perform this
hateful duty. The seven senior officers of the garrison of Paris now
summoned were ordered not to separate until judgment was passed.[300]
At their head was General Hulin, who had shown such daring in the
assault on the Bastille; and thus one of the early heroes of the
Revolution had the evening of his days shrouded over with the horrors
of a midnight murder. Finally, the First Consul charged Savary, who
had just returned to Paris from Biville, furious at being baulked of
his prey, to proceed to Vincennes with a band of his gendarmes for the
carrying out of the sentence.
The seven officers as yet knew nothing of the nature of their mission,
or of martial law. "We had not," wrote Hulin long afterwards, "the least
idea about trials; and, worst of all, the reporter and clerk had
scarcely any more experience."[301] The examination of the prisoner was
curt in the extreme. He was asked his name, date and place of birth,
whether he had borne arms against France and was in the pay of England.
To the last questions he answered decisively in the affirmative, adding
that he wished to take part in the new war against France.
His replies were the same as he made in his preliminary examination,
which he closed with the written and urgent request for a personal
interview with Napoleon. To this request the court proposed to accede;
but Savary, who had posted himself behind Hulin's chair, at once
declared this step to be _inopportune_. The judges had only one chance
of escape from their predicament, namely, to induce the duke to
invalidate his evidence: this he firmly refused to do, and when Hulin
warned him of the danger of his position, he replied that he knew it,
and wished to have an interview with the First Consul.
The court then passed sentence, and, "in accordance with article
(blank) of the law (blank) to the following effect (blank) condemned
him to suffer death." Ashamed, as it would seem, of this clumsy
condemnation, Hulin was writing to Bonaparte to request for the
condemned man the personal interview which he craved, when Savary took
the pen from his hands, with the words: "Your work is done: the rest
is my business."[302] The duke was forthwith led out into the moat of
the castle, where a few torches shed their light on the final scene of
this sombre tragedy: he asked for a priest, but this was denied him:
he then bowed his head in prayer, lifted those noble features towards
the soldiers, begged them not to miss their aim, and fell, shot
through the heart. Hard by was a grave, which, in accordance with
orders received on the previous day, the governor had caused to be
made ready; into this the body was thrown pell-mell, and the earth
closed over the remains of the last scion of the warlike House of
Condé.
Twelve years later loving hands disinterred the bones and placed them
in the chapel of the castle. But even then the world knew not all the
enormity of the crime. It was reserved for clumsy apologists like
Savary to provoke replies and further investigations. The various
excuses which throw the blame on Talleyrand, and on everyone but the
chief actor, are sufficiently disposed of by the ex-Emperor's will. In
that document Napoleon brushed away the excuses which had previously
been offered to the credulity or malice of his courtiers, and took on
himself the responsibility for the execution:
"I caused the Duc d'Enghien to be arrested and judged, because it
was necessary for the safety, the interest, and the honour of the
French people when the Comte d'Artois, by his own confession, was
supporting sixty assassins at Paris. In similar circumstances I
would act in the same way again."[303]
The execution of the Duc d'Enghien is one of the most important
incidents of this period, so crowded with momentous events. The
sensation of horror which it caused can be gauged by the mental agony
of Madame de Rémusat and of others who had hitherto looked on
Bonaparte as the hero of the age and the saviour of the country. His
mother hotly upbraided him, saying it was an atrocious act, the stain
of which could never be wiped out, and that he had yielded to the
advice of enemies' eager to tarnish his fame.[304] Napoleon said
nothing, but shut himself up in his cabinet, revolving these terrible
words, which doubtless bore fruit in the bitter reproaches later to be
heaped upon Talleyrand for his share in the tragedy. Many royalists
who had begun to rally to his side now showed their indignation at the
deed. Chateaubriand, who was about to proceed as the envoy of France
to the Republic of Valais, at once offered his resignation and assumed
an attitude of covert defiance. And that was the conduct of all
royalists who were not dazzled by the glamour of success or cajoled by
Napoleon's favours. Many of his friends ventured to show their horror
of this Corsican vendetta; and a _mot_ which was plausibly, but it
seems wrongly, attributed to Fouché, well sums up the general opinion
of that callous society: "It was worse than a crime--it was a
blunder."
Scarcely had Paris recovered from this sensation when, on April 6th,
Pichegru was found strangled in prison; and men silently but almost
unanimously hailed it as the work of Napoleon's Mamelukes. This
judgment, however natural after the Enghien affair, seems to be
incorrect. It is true the corpse bore marks which scarcely tallied with
suicide: but Georges Cadoudal, whose cell was hard by, heard no sound of
a scuffle; and it is unlikely that so strong a man as Pichegru would
easily have succumbed to assailants. It is therefore more probable that
the conqueror of Holland, shattered by his misfortunes and too proud to
undergo a public trial, cut short a life which already was doomed. Never
have plotters failed more ignominiously and played more completely into
the hands of their enemy. A _mot_ of the Boulevards wittily sums up the
results of their puny efforts: "They came to France to give her a king,
and they gave her an Emperor."
* * * * *
CHAPTER XX
THE DAWN OF THE EMPIRE
For some time the question of a Napoleonic dynasty had been freely
discussed; and the First Consul himself had latterly confessed his
intentions to Joseph in words that reveal his super-human confidence
and his caution: "I always intended to end the Revolution by the
establishment of heredity: but I thought that such a step could not be
taken before the lapse of five or six years." Events, however, bore
him along on a favouring tide. Hatred of England, fear of Jacobin
excesses, indignation at the royalist schemes against his life, and
finally even the execution of Enghien, helped on the establishment of
the Empire. Though moderate men of all parties condemned the murder,
the remnants of the Jacobin party hailed it with joy. Up to this time
they had a lingering fear that the First Consul was about to play the
part of Monk. The pomp of the Tuileries and the hated Concordat seemed
to their crooked minds but the prelude to a recall of the Bourbons,
whereupon priestcraft, tithes, and feudalism would be the order of the
day. Now at last the tragedy of Vincennes threw a lurid light into the
recesses of Napoleon's ambition; and they exclaimed, "He is one of
us." It must thenceforth be war to the knife between the Bourbons and
Bonaparte; and his rule would therefore be the best guarantee for the
perpetual ownership of the lands confiscated during the
Revolution.[305]
To a materialized society that great event had come to be little more
than a big land investment syndicate, of which Bonaparte was now to be
the sole and perpetual director. This is the inner meaning of the
references to the Social Contract which figure so oddly among the
petitions for hereditary rule. The Jacobins, except a few conscientious
stalwarts, were especially alert in the feat of making extremes meet.
Fouché, who now wriggled back into favour and office, appealed to the
Senate, only seven days after the execution, to establish hereditary
power as the only means of ending the plots against Napoleon's life;
for, as the opportunist Jacobins argued, if the hereditary system were
adopted, conspiracies to murder would be meaningless, when, even if they
struck down one man, they must fail to shatter the system that
guaranteed the Revolution.
The cue having been thus dextrously given, appeals and petitions for
hereditary rule began to pour in from all parts of France. The grand
work of the reorganization of France certainly furnished a solid claim
on the nation's gratitude. The recent promulgation of the Civil Code
and the revival of material prosperity redounded to Napoleon's glory;
and with equal truth and wit he could claim the diadem as a fit reward
_for having revived many interests while none had been displaced._
Such a remark and such an exploit proclaim the born ruler of men. But
the Senate overstepped all bounds of decency when it thus addressed
him: "You are founding a new era: but you ought to make it last for
ever: splendour is nothing without duration." The Greeks who fawned on
Persian satraps did not more unman themselves than these pensioned
sycophants, who had lived through the days of 1789 but knew them not.
This fulsome adulation would be unworthy of notice did it not convey
the most signal proof of the danger which republics incur when men
lose sight of the higher aims of life and wallow among its sordid
interests.[306]
After the severe drilling of the last four years, the Chambers voted
nearly unanimously in favour of a Napoleonic dynasty. The Corps
Législatif was not in session, and it was not convoked. The Senate,
after hearing Fouché's unmistakable hints, named a commission of its
members to report on hereditary rule, and then waited on events. These
were decided mainly in private meetings of the Council of State, where
the proposal met with some opposition from Cambacérès, Merlin, and
Thibaudeau. But of what avail are private remonstrances when in open
session opponents are dumb and supporters vie in adulation? In the
Tribunate, on April 23rd, an obscure member named Curée proposed the
adoption of the hereditary principle. One man alone dared openly to
combat the proposal, the great Carnot; and the opposition of Curée to
Carnot might have recalled to the minds of those abject champions of
popular liberty the verse that glitters amidst the literary rubbish of
the Roman Empire:
"Victrix causa deis placuit, sed victa Catoni."
The Tribunate named a commission to report; it was favourable to the
Bonapartes. The Senate voted in the same sense, three Senators alone,
among them Grégoire, Bishop of Blois, voting against it. Sieyès and
Lanjuinais were absent; but the well-salaried lord of the manor of
Crosne must have read with amused contempt the resolution of this
body, which he had designed to be the _guardian of the republican
constitution_:
"The French have conquered liberty: they wish to preserve their
conquest: they wish for repose after victory. They will owe this
glorious repose to the hereditary rule of a single man, who, raised
above all, is to defend public liberty, maintain equality, and
lower his fasces before the sovereignty of the people that
proclaims him."
In this way did France reduce to practice the dogma of Rousseau with
regard to the occasional and temporary need of a dictator.[307]
When the commonalty are so obsequious, any title can be taken by the
one necessary man. Napoleon at first affected to doubt whether the
title of Stadtholder would not be more seemly than that of Emperor;
and in one of the many conferences held on this topic, Miot de Melito
advocated the retention of the term Consul for its grand republican
simplicity. But it was soon seen that the term Emperor was the only
one which satisfied Napoleon's ambition and French love of splendour.
Accordingly a _senatus consultum_ of May 18th, 1804, formally decreed
to him the title of Emperor of the French. As for his former
colleagues, Cambacérès and Lebrun, they were stultified with the
titles of Arch-chancellor and Arch-treasurer of the Empire: his
brother Joseph received the title of Grand Elector, borrowed from the
Holy Roman Empire, and oddly applied to an hereditary empire where the
chief _had_ been appointed: Louis was dubbed Constable: two other
grand dignities, those of Arch-chancellor of State and High Admiral,
were not as yet filled, but were reserved for Napoleon's relatives by
marriage, Eugène Beauharnais and Murat. These six grand dignitaries of
the new Empire were to be irresponsible and irremovable, and, along
with the Emperor, they formed the Grand Council of the Empire.
On lesser individuals the rays of the imperial diadem cast a fainter
glow. Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch, became Grand Almoner;
Berthier, Grand Master of the Hounds; Talleyrand, Grand Chamberlain;
Duroc, Grand Marshal of the Palace; and Caulaincourt, Master of the
Horse, the acceptance of which title seemed to the world to convict
him of full complicity in the schemes for the murder of the Duc
d'Enghien. For the rest, the Emperor's mother was to be styled _Madame
Mère_; his sisters became Imperial Highnesses, with their several
establishments of ladies-in-waiting; and Paris fluttered with excitement
at each successive step upwards of expectant nobles, regicides,
generals, and stockjobbers towards the central galaxy of the Corsican
family, which, ten years before, had subsisted on the alms of the
Republic one and indivisible.
It remained to gain over the army. The means used were profuse, in
proportion as the task was arduous. The following generals were
distinguished as Marshals of the Empire (May 19th): Berthier, Murat,
Masséna, Augereau, Lannes, Jourdan, Ney, Soult, Brune, Davoust,
Bessières, Moncey, Mortier, and Bernadotte; two marshal's bâtons were
held in reserve as a reward for future service, and four aged
generals, Lefebvre, Serrurier, Pérignon, and Kellerman (the hero of
Valmy), received the title of honorary marshals. In one of his
conversations with Roederer, the Emperor frankly avowed his reasons
for showering these honours on his military chiefs; it was in order to
assure the imperial dignity to himself; for how could they object to
this, when they themselves received honours so lofty?[308] The
confession affords a curious instance of Napoleon's unbounded trust
in the most elementary, not to say the meanest, motives of human
conduct. Suitable rewards were bestowed on officers of the second
rank. But it was at once remarked that determined and outspoken
republicans like Suchet, Gouvion St. Cyr, and Macdonald, whose talents
and exploits far outstripped those of many of the marshals, were
excluded from their ranks. St. Cyr was at Taranto, and Macdonald,
after an enforced diplomatic mission to Copenhagen, was received on
his recall with much coolness.[309] Other generals who had given
umbrage at the Tuileries were more effectively broken in by a term of
diplomatic banishment. Lannes at Lisbon and Brune at Constantinople
learnt a little diplomacy and some complaisance to the head of the
State, and were taken back to Napoleon's favour. Bernadotte, though ever
suspected of Jacobinism and feared for the forceful ambition that sprang
from the blending of Gascon and Moorish blood in his veins, was now also
treated with the consideration due to one who had married Joseph
Bonaparte's sister-in-law: he received at Napoleon's hands the house in
Paris which had formerly belonged to Moreau: the exile's estate of
Grosbois, near Paris, went to reward the ever faithful Berthier.
Augereau, half cured of his Jacobinism by the disfavour of the
Directory, was now drilling a small French force and Irish volunteers at
Brest. But the Grand Army, which comprised the pick of the French
forces, was intrusted to the command of men on whom Napoleon could
absolutely rely, Davoust, Soult, and Ney; and, in that splendid force,
hatred of England and pride in Napoleon's prowess now overwhelmed all
political considerations.
These arrangements attest the marvellous foresight and care which
Napoleon brought to bear on all affairs: even if the discontented
generals and troops had protested against the adoption of the Empire
and the prosecution of Moreau, they must have been easily overpowered.
In some places, as at Metz, the troops and populace fretted against
the Empire and its pretentious pomp; but the action of the commanders
soon restored order. And thus it came to pass that even the soldiery
that still cherished the Republic raised not a musket while the Empire
was founded, and Moreau was accused of high treason.
The record of the French revolutionary generals is in the main a
gloomy one. If in 1795 it had been prophesied that all those generals
who bore the tricolour to victory would vanish or bow their heads
before a Corsican, the prophet would speedily have closed his
croakings for ever. Yet the reality was even worse. Marceau and Hoche
died in the Rhineland: Kléber and Desaix fell on the same day, by
assassination and in battle: Richepanse, Leclerc, and many other brave
officers rotted away in San Domingo: Pichegru died a violent death in
prison: Carnot was retiring into voluntary exile: Masséna and
Macdonald were vegetating in inglorious ease: others were fast
descending to the rank of flunkeys; and Moreau was on his trial for
high treason.
Even the populace, dazzled with glitter and drunk with sensations,
suffered some qualms at seeing the victor of Hohenlinden placed in the
dock; and the grief of the scanty survivors of the Army of the Rhine
portended trouble if the forms of justice were too much strained.
Trial by jury had been recently dispensed with in cases that concerned
the life of Napoleon. Consequently the prisoner, along with Georges
and his confederates, could be safely arraigned before judges in open
court; and in that respect the trial contrasted with the midnight
court-martial of Vincennes. Yet in no State trial have judges been
subjected to more official pressure for the purpose of assuring a
conviction.[310] The cross examination of numerous witnesses proved
that Moreau had persistently refused his help to the plot; and the
utmost that could be urged against him was that he desired Napoleon's
overthrow, had three interviews with Pichegru, and did not reveal the
plot to the authorities. That is to say, he was guilty of passively
conniving at the success of a plot which a "good citizen" ought to
have denounced.
For these reasons the judges sentenced him to two years'
imprisonment. This judgment excessively annoyed Napoleon, who desired
to use his imperial prerogative of pardon on Moreau's life, not on a
mere term of imprisonment; and with a show of clemency that veiled a
hidden irritation, he now released him provided that he retired to the
United States.[311] To that land of free men the victor of Hohenlinden
retired with a dignity which almost threw a veil over his past
incapacity and folly; and, for the present at least, men could say that
the end of his political career was nobler than Pompey's, while
Napoleon's conduct towards his rival lacked the clemency which graced
the triumph of Cæsar.
As for the actual conspirators, twenty of them were sentenced to death
on June 10th, among them being the elder of the two Polignacs, the
Marquis de Rivière, and Georges Cadoudal. Urgent efforts were made on
behalf of the nobles by Josephine and "Madame Mère"; and Napoleon
grudgingly commuted their sentence to imprisonment. But the plebeian,
Georges Cadoudal, suffered death for the cause that had enlisted all
the fierce energies of his youth and manhood. With him perished the
bravest of Bretons and the last man of action of the royalists.
Thenceforth Napoleon was not troubled by Bourbon plotters; and
doubtless the skill with which his agents had nursed this silly plot
and sought to entangle all waverers did far more than the strokes of
the guillotine to procure his future immunity. Men trembled before a
union of immeasurable power with unfathomable craft such as recalled
the days of the Emperor Tiberius.
Indeed, Napoleon might now almost say that his chief foes were the
members of his own household. The question of hereditary succession
had already reawakened and intensified all the fierce passions of the
Emperor's relatives. Josephine saw in it the fatal eclipse of a
divorce sweeping towards the dazzling field of her new life, and
Napoleon is known to have thrice almost decided on this step. She no
longer had any hopes of bearing a child; and she is reported by the
compiler of the Fouché "Memoirs" to have clutched at that absurd
device, a supposititious child, which Fouché had taken care to
ridicule in advance. Whatever be the truth of this rumour, she
certainly used all her powers over Napoleon and over her daughter
Hortense, the spouse of Louis Bonaparte, to have their son
recognized as first in the line of direct succession. But this
proposal, which shelved both Joseph and Louis, was not only hotly
resented by the eldest brother, who claimed to be successor designate,
it also aroused the flames of jealousy in Louis himself. It was
notorious that he suspected Napoleon of an incestuous passion for
Hortense, of which his fondness for the little Charles Napoleon was
maliciously urged as proof; and the proposal, when made with trembling
eagerness by Josephine, was hurled back by Louis with brutal violence.
To the clamour of Louis and Joseph the Emperor and Josephine seemed
reluctantly to yield.
New arrangements were accordingly proposed. Lucien and Jerome having,
for the present at least, put themselves out of court by their
unsatisfactory marriages, Napoleon appeared to accept a reconciliation
with Joseph and Louis, and to place them in the order of succession,
as the Senate recommended. But he still reserved the right of adopting
the son of Louis and of thus favouring his chances of priority.
Indeed, it must be admitted that the Emperor at this difficult crisis
showed conjugal tact and affection, for which he has received scant
justice at the hands of Josephine's champions. "How could I divorce
this good wife," he said to Roederer, "because I am becoming great?"
But fate seemed to decree the divorce, which, despite the reasonings
of his brothers, he resolutely thrust aside; for the little boy on
whose life the Empress built so many fond hopes was to be cut off by
an early death in the year 1807.
Then there were frequent disputes between Napoleon and Joseph. Both of
them had the Corsican's instinct in favour of primogeniture; and
hitherto Napoleon had in many ways deferred to his elder brother. Now,
however, he showed clearly that he would brook not the slightest
interference in affairs of State. And truly, if we except Joseph's
diplomatic services, he showed no commanding gifts such as could raise
him aloft along with the bewildering rush of Napoleon's fortunes. The
one was an irrepressible genius, the other was a man of culture and
talent, whose chief bent was towards literature, amours, and the art
of _dolce far niente_, except when his pride was touched: then he was
capable of bursts of passion which seemed to impose even on his
masterful second brother. Lucien, Louis, and even the youthful Jerome,
had the same intractable pride which rose defiant even against
Napoleon. He was determined that his brothers should now take a
subordinate rank, while they regarded the dynasty as largely due to
their exertions at or after Brumaire, and claimed a proportionate
reward. Napoleon, however, saw that a dynasty could not thus be
founded. As he frankly said to Roederer, a dynasty could only take
firm root in France among heirs brought up in a palace: "I have never
looked on my brothers as the natural heirs to power: I only consider
them as men fit to ward off the evils of a minority."
Joseph deeply resented this conduct. He was a Prince of the Empire,
and a Grand Elector; but he speedily found out that this meant nothing
more than occasionally presiding at the Senate, and accordingly
indulged in little acts of opposition that enraged the autocrat. In
his desire to get his brother away from Paris, the Emperor had already
recommended him to take up the profession of arms; for he could not
include him in the succession, and place famous marshals under him if
he knew nothing of an army. Joseph perforce accepted the command of a
regiment, and at thirty-six years of age began to learn drill near
Boulogne.[312] This piece of burlesque was one day to prove infinitely
regrettable. After the disaster of Vittoria, Napoleon doubtless wished
that Joseph had for ever had free play in the tribune of the Senate
rather than have dabbled in military affairs. But in the spring and
summer of 1804 the Emperor noted his every word; so that, when he
ventured to suggest that Josephine should not be crowned at the coming
coronation, Napoleon's wrath blazed forth. Why should Joseph speak of
_his_ rights and _his_ interests? Who had won power? Who deserved to
enjoy power? Power was his (Napoleon's) mistress, and he dared Joseph
to touch her. The Senate or Council of State might oppose him for ten
years, without his becoming a tyrant: "To make me a tyrant one thing
alone is necessary--a movement of my family."[313]
The family, however, did not move. As happened with all the brothers
except Lucien, Joseph gave way at the critical moment. After
threatening at the Council of State to resign his Grand Electorate and
retire to Germany if his wife were compelled to bear Josephine's train
at the coronation, he was informed by the Emperor that either he must
conduct himself dutifully as the first subject of the realm, or retire
into private life, or oppose--and be crushed. The argument was
unanswerable, and Joseph yielded. To save his own and his wife's
feelings, the wording of the official programme was altered: she was
_to support Josephine's mantle_, not _to bear her train_.
In things great and small Napoleon carried his point. Although
Roederer pleaded long and earnestly that Joseph and Louis should come
next to the Emperor in the succession, and inserted a clause in the
report which he was intrusted to draw up, yet by some skilful artifice
this clause was withdrawn from the constitutional act on which the
nation was invited to express its opinion: and France assented to a
_plébiscite_ for the establishment of the Empire in Napoleon's family,
which passed over Joseph and Louis, as well as Lucien and Jerome, and
vested the succession in the natural or adopted son of Napoleon, and
in the heirs male of Joseph or Louis. Consequently these princes had
no place in the succession, except by virtue of the _senatus
consultant_ of May 18th, which gave them a legal right, it is true,
but without the added sanction of the popular vote. More than three
and a half million votes were cast for the new arrangement, a number
which exceeded those given for the Consulate and the Consulate for
Life. As usual, France accepted accomplished facts.
Matters legal and ceremonial were now approaching completion for the
coronation. Negotiations had been proceeding between the Tuileries and
the Vatican, Napoleon begging and indeed requiring the presence of the
Pope on that occasion. Pius VII. was troubled at the thought of
crowning the murderer of the Duc d'Enghien; but he was scarcely his
own master, and the dextrous hints of Napoleon that religion would
benefit if he were present at Notre Dame seem to have overcome his
first scruples, besides quickening the hope of recovering the north of
his States. He was to be disappointed in more ways than one. Religion
was to benefit only from the enhanced prestige given to her rites in
the coming ceremony, not in the practical way that the Pope desired.
And yet it was of the first importance for Napoleon to receive the
holy oil and the papal blessing, for only so could he hope to wean the
affections of royalists from their uncrowned and exiled king.
Doubtless this was one of the chief reasons for the restoration of
religion by the Concordat, as was shrewdly seen at the time by
Lafayette, who laughingly exclaimed: "Confess, general, that your
chief wish is for the little phial."[314] The sally drew from the
First Consul an obscene disclaimer worthy of a drunken ostler.
Nevertheless, the little phial was now on its way.
In order to divest the meeting of Pope and Emperor of any awkward
ceremony, Napoleon arranged that it should take place on the road
between Fontainebleau and Nemours, as a chance incident in the middle
of a day's hunting. The benevolent old pontiff was reclining in his
carriage, weary with the long journey through the cold of an early
winter, when he was startled to see the retinue of his host. The
contrast in every way was striking. The figure of the Emperor had now
attained the fullness which betokens abounding health and strength: his
face was slightly flushed with the hunt and the consciousness that he
was master of the situation, and his form on horseback gained a dignity
from which the shortness of his legs somewhat detracted when on foot. As
he rode up attired in full hunting costume, he might have seemed the
embodiment of triumphant strength. The Pope, on the other hand, clad in
white garments and with white silk shoes, gave an impression of peaceful
benevolence, had not his intellectual features borne signs of the
protracted anxieties of his pontificate. The Emperor threw himself from
his horse and advanced to meet his guest, who on his side alighted,
rather unwillingly, in the mud to give and receive the embrace of
welcome. Meanwhile Napoleon's carriage had been driven up: footmen were
holding open both doors, and an officer of the Court politely handed
Pius VII. to the left door, while the Emperor, entering by the right,
took the seat of honour, and thus settled once for all the vexed
question of social precedence.[315]
During the Pope's sojourn at Fontainebleau, Josephine breathed to him
her anxiety as to her marriage; it having been only a civil contract,
she feared its dissolution, and saw in the Pope's intervention a
chance of a firmer union with her consort. The pontiff comforted her
and required from Napoleon the due solemnization of his marriage; it
was therefore secretly performed by Napoleon's uncle, Cardinal Fesch,
two days before the coronation.[316]
It was not enough, however, that the successor of St. Peter should
grace the coronation with his presence: the Emperor sought to touch
the imagination of men by figuring as the successor of Charlemagne. We
here approach one of the most interesting experiments of the modern
world, which, if successful, would profoundly have altered the face of
Europe and the character of its States. Even in its failure it attests
Napoleon's vivid imagination and boundless mental resources. He
aspired to be more than Emperor of the French: he wished to make his
Empire a cosmopolitan realm, whose confines might rival those of the
Holy Roman Empire of one thousand years before, and embrace scores of
peoples in a grand, well-ordered European polity.
Already his dominions included a million of Germans in the Rhineland,
Italians of Piedmont, Genoa, and Nice, besides Savoyards, Genevese,
and Belgians. How potent would be his influence on the weltering chaos
of German and Italian States, if these much-divided peoples learnt to
look on him as the successor to the glories of Charlemagne! And this
honour he was now to claim. However delusive was the parallel between
the old semi-tribal polity and modern States where the peoples were
awakening to a sense of their nationality, Napoleon was now in a
position to clear the way for his great experiment. He had two charms
wherewith to work, material prosperity and his gift of touching the
popular imagination. The former of these was already silently working
in his favour: the latter was first essayed at the coronation.
Already, after a sojourn at Boulogne, he had visited Aix-la-Chapelle,
the city where Charlemagne's relics are entombed, and where Victor
Hugo in some of his sublimest verse has pictured Charles V. kneeling
in prayer to catch the spirit of the mediæval hero. Thither went
Napoleon, but in no suppliant mood; for when Josephine was offered the
arm-bones of the great dead, she also proudly replied that she would
not deprive the city of that precious relic, especially as she had the
support of an arm as great as that of Charlemagne.[317] The insignia
and the sword of that monarch were now brought to Paris, and shed on
the ceremony of coronation that historic gleam which was needed to
redeem it from tawdry commonplace.
All that money and art could do to invest the affair with pomp and
circumstance had already been done. The advice of the new Master of
the Ceremonies, M. de Ségur, and the hints of the other nobles who had
rallied to the new Empire, had been carefully collated by the untiring
brain that now watched over France. The sum of 1,123,000 francs had
been expended on the coronation robes of Emperor and Empress, and far
more on crowns and tiaras. The result was seen in costumes of
matchless splendour; the Emperor wore a French coat of red velvet
embroidered in gold, a short cloak adorned with bees and the collar of
the Legion of Honour in diamonds; and at the archbishop's palace he
assumed the long purple robe of velvet profusely ornamented with
ermine, while his brow was encircled by a wreath of laurel, meed of
mighty conquerors. In the pommel of his sword flashed the famous Pitt
diamond, which, after swelling the family fortune of the British
statesman, fell to the Regent of France, and now graced the coronation
of her Dictator. The Empress, radiant with joy at her now indissoluble
union, bore her splendours with an easy grace that charmed all
beholders and gave her an almost girlish air. She wore a robe of white
satin, trimmed with silver and gold and besprinkled with golden bees:
her waist and shoulders glittered with diamonds, while on her brows
rested a diadem of the finest diamonds and pearls valued at more than
a million francs.[318] The curious might remember that for a necklace
of less than twice that value the fair fame of Marie Antoinette had
been clouded over and the House of Bourbon shaken to its base.
The stately procession began with an odd incident: Napoleon and
Josephine, misled apparently by the all-pervading splendour of the new
state carriage, seated themselves on the wrong side, that is, in the
seats destined for Joseph and Louis: the mistake was at once made good,
with some merriment; but the superstitious saw in it an omen of
evil.[319] And now, amidst much enthusiasm and far greater curiosity,
the procession wound along through the Rue Nicaise and the Rue St.
Honoré--streets where Bonaparte had won his spurs on the day of
Vendémiaire--over the Pont-Neuf, and so to the venerable cathedral,
where the Pope, chilled by long waiting, was ready to grace the
ceremony. First he anointed Emperor and Empress with the holy oil; then,
at the suitable place in the Mass he blessed their crowns, rings, and
mantles, uttering the traditional prayers for the possession of the
virtues and powers which each might seem to typify. But when he was
about to crown the Emperor, he was gently waved aside, and Napoleon with
his own hands crowned himself. A thrill ran through the august assembly,
either of pity for the feelings of the aged pontiff or of admiration at
the "noble and legitimate pride" of the great captain who claimed as
wholly his own the crown which his own right arm had won. Then the
_cortège_ slowly returned to the middle of the nave, where a lofty
throne had been reared.
Another omen now startled those who laid store by trifles. It was
noticed that the sovereigns in ascending the steps nearly fell
backwards under the weight of their robes and trains, though in the
case of Josephine the anxious moment may have been due to the
carelessness, whether accidental or studied, of her "mantle-bearers."
But to those who looked beneath the surface of things was not this an
all-absorbing portent, that all this religious pomp should be removed
by scarcely eleven years from the time when this same nave echoed to
the shouts and gleamed with the torches of the worshippers of the
newly enthroned Goddess of Reason?
Revolutionary feelings were not wholly dead, but they now vented
themselves merely in gibes. On the night before the coronation the walls
of Paris were adorned with posters announcing: _The last Representation
of the French Revolution--for the Benefit of a poor Corsican Family._
And after the event there were inquiries why the new throne had no
_glands d'or;_ the answer suggested because it was _sanglant_.[320]
Beyond these quips and jests the Jacobins and royalists did not go. When
the phrase _your subjects_ was publicly assigned to the Corps Législatif
by its courtier-like president, Fontanes, there was a flutter of wrath
among those who had hoped that the new Empire was to be republican. But
it quickly passed away; and no Frenchman, except perhaps Carnot, made so
manly a protest as the man of genius at Vienna, who had composed the
"Sinfonia Eroïca," and with grand republican simplicity inscribed it,
"Beethoven à Bonaparte." When the master heard that his former hero had
taken the imperial crown, he tore off the dedication with a volley of
curses on the renegade and tyrant; and in later years he dedicated the
immortal work to the _memory_ of a great man.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXI
THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA
The establishment of the Empire, as has been seen, provoked few signs
of opposition from the French armies, once renowned for their
Jacobinism; and by one or two instances of well-timed clemency, the
Emperor gained over even staunch republicans. Notably was this the
case with a brave and stalwart colonel, who, enraged at the first
volley of cheers for the Empire, boldly ordered "Silence in the
ranks." At once Napoleon made him general and appointed him one of his
aides-de-camp; and this brave officer, Mouton by name, was later to
gain glory and the title of Comte de Lobau in the Wagram campaign.
These were the results of a timely act of generosity, such as touches
the hearts of any soldiery and leads them to shed their blood like
water. And so when Napoleon, after the coronation, distributed to the
garrison of Paris their standards, topped now by the imperial eagles,
the great Champ de Mars was a scene of wild enthusiasm. The thunderous
shouts that acclaimed the prowess of the new Frankish leader were as
warlike as those which ever greeted the hoisting of a Carolingian King
on the shields of his lieges. Distant nations heard the threatening
din and hastened to muster their forces for the fray.
As yet only England was at war with the Emperor. Against her Napoleon
now prepared to embattle the might of his vast Empire. The
preparations on the northern coast were now wellnigh complete, and
there was only one question to be solved--how to "leap the ditch." It
seems strange to us now that no attempt was made to utilize the great
motive force of the nineteenth century--steam power. And the French
memoir-writers, Marmont, Bourrienne, Pasquier, and Bausset, have
expressed their surprise that so able a chief as Napoleon should have
neglected this potent ally.
Their criticisms seem to be prompted by later reflections rather
than based on an accurate statement of facts. In truth, the
nineteenth-century Hercules was still in his cradle. Henry Bell had in
1800 experimented with a steamer on the Clyde; but it aroused the same
trembling curiosity as Trevithick's first locomotive, or as Fulton's
first paddle-boat built on the Seine in 1803. In fact, this boat of
the great American inventor was so weak that, when at anchor, it broke
in half during a gale, thus ridding itself of the weight of its
cumbrous engine. With his usual energy, Fulton built a larger and
stronger craft, which not only carried the machinery, but, in August,
1803, astonished the members of the French Institute by moving, though
with much circumspection.
Fulton, however, was disappointed, and if we may judge from the scanty
records of his life, he never offered this invention to Napoleon.[321]
He felt the need of better machinery, and as this could only be
procured in England, he gave the order to a Birmingham firm, which
engined his first successful boat, the "Clermont," launched on the
Hudson in 1807. But for the war, perhaps, Fulton would have continued
to live in Paris and made his third attempt there. He certainly never
offered his imperfect steamship to the First Consul. Probably the fact
that his first boat foundered when at anchor in the Seine would have
procured him a rough reception, if he had offered to equip the whole
of the Boulogne flotilla with an invention which had sunk its first
receptacle and propelled the second boat at a snail's pace.
Besides, he had already met with one repulse from Napoleon. He had
offered, first to the Directory and later to the First Consul, a boat
which he claimed would "deliver France and the world from British
oppression."
This was a sailing vessel, which could sink under water and then
discharge under a hostile ship a "carcass" of gunpowder or
_torpedo_--another invention of his fertile brain. The Directory at
once repulsed him. Bonaparte instructed Monge, Laplace, and Volney to
report on this submarine or "plunging" boat, which had a partial
success. It succeeded in blowing up a small vessel in the harbour at
Brest in July, 1801; but the Commission seems to have reported
unfavourably on its utility for offensive purposes. In truth, as
Fulton had not then applied motive power to this invention, the name
"plunging boat" conveyed an exaggerated notion of its functions, which
were more suited to a life of ascetic contemplation than of
destructive activity.
It appears that the memoir-writers named above have confused the two
distinct inventions of Fulton just referred to. In the latter half of
1803 he repaired to England, and later on to the United States, and
after the year 1803 he seems to have had neither the will nor the
opportunity to serve Napoleon. In England he offered his torpedo
patent to the English Admiralty, expressing his hatred of the French
Emperor as a "wild beast who ought to be hunted down." Little was done
with the torpedo in England, except to blow up a vessel off Walmer as
a proof of what it could do. It is curious also that when Bell offered
his paddle-boat to the Admiralty it was refused, though Nelson is said
to have spoken in its favour. The official mind is everywhere hostile
to new inventions; and Marmont suggestively remarks that Bonaparte's
training as an artillerist, and his experience of the inconvenience
and expense resulting from the adoption of changes in that arm, had no
slight influence in setting him against all innovations.
But, to resume our description of the Boulogne flotilla, it may be of
interest to give some hitherto unpublished details about the
flat-bottomed boats, and then to pass in brief review Napoleon's plans
for assuring a temporary command of the Channel.
It is clear that he at first relied almost solely on the flotilla.
After one of his visits to Boulogne, he wrote on November 23rd, 1803,
to Admiral Gantheaume that he would soon have on the northern coast
1,300 flat-bottomed boats able to carry 100,000 men, while the Dutch
flotilla would transport 60,000. "Do you think it will take us to the
English coast? Eight hours of darkness which favour us would decide
the fate of the universe." There is no mention of any convoying fleet:
the First Consul evidently believed that the flotilla could beat off
any attack at sea. This letter offers a signal proof of his inability,
at least at that time, to understand the risks of naval warfare. But
though his precise and logical mind seems then to have been incapable
of fully realizing the conditions of war on the fickle, troublous, and
tide-swept Channel, his admirals urgently warned him against trusting
to shallow, flat-bottomed boats to beat the enemy out at sea; for
though these _praams_ in their coasting trips repelled the attacks of
British cruisers, which dared not come into shallow waters, it did not
follow that they would have the same success in mid-Channel, far away
from coast defences and amidst choppy waves that must render the guns
of keelless boats wellnigh useless.[320]
The present writer, after going through the reports of our admiral
stationed in the Downs, is convinced that our seamen felt a supreme
contempt for the flat-bottomed boats when at sea. After the capture of
one of them, by an English gun-brig, Admiral Montagu reported,
November 23rd, 1803:
"It is impossible to suppose for an instant that anything
effective can be produced by such miserable tools, equally
ill-calculated for the grand essentials in a maritime formation,
battle and speed: that floored as this wretched vessel is, she
cannot hug the wind, but must drift bodily to leeward, which
indeed was the cause of her capture; for, having got a little to
leeward of Boulogne Bay, it was impossible to get back and she was
necessitated to steer large for Calais. On the score of battle,
she has one long 18-pounder, without breeching or tackle,
traversing on a slide, which can only be fired stem on. The
8-pounder is mounted aft, but is a fixture: so that literally, if
one of our small boats was to lay alongside there would be nothing
but musketry to resist, and those [_sic_] placed in the hands of
poor wretches weakened by the effect of seasickness, exemplified
when this gun-boat was captured--the soldiers having retreated to
the hold, incapable of any energy or manly exertion.... In short,
Sir, these vessels in my mind are completely contemptible and
ridiculous, and I therefore conclude that the numbers collected at
Boulogne are to keep our attention on the _qui vive_, and to gloss
over the real attack meditated from other points."
The vessel which provoked the contempt of our admiral was not one of
the smallest class: she was 58-1/3 ft. long, 14-1/2 ft. wide, drew 3
ft. forward and 4 ft. aft: her sides rose 3 ft. above the water, and
her capacity was 35 tons. The secret intelligence of the Admiralty for
the years 1804 and 1805 also shows that Dutch sailors were equally
convinced of the unseaworthiness of these craft: Admiral Verhuell
plainly told the French Emperor that, however flatterers might try to
persuade him of the feasibility of the expedition, "nothing but
disgrace could be expected." The same volume (No. 426) contains a
report of the capture of two of the larger class of French _chaloupes_
off Cape La Hogue. Among the prisoners was a young French royalist
named La Bourdonnais: when forced by the conscription to enter
Napoleon's service, he chose to serve with the _chaloupes_ "because
of his conviction that all these flotillas were nothing but bugbears
and would never attempt the invasion so much talked of and in which so
few persons really believe." The same was the opinion of the veteran
General Dumouriez, who, now an exile in England, drew up for our
Government a long report on the proposed invasion and the means of
thwarting it. The reports of our spies also prove that all experienced
seamen on the Continent declared Napoleon's project to be either a
ruse or a foolhardy venture.
The compiler of the Ney "Memoirs," who was certainly well acquainted
with the opinions of that Marshal, then commanding the troops at
Boulogne, also believed that the flotilla was only able to serve as a
gigantic ferry.[322] The French admirals were still better aware of
the terrible risks to their crowded craft in a fight out at sea. They
also pointed out that the difference in the size, draught, and speed
of the boats must cause the dispersion of the flotilla, when its parts
might fall a prey to the more seaworthy vessels of the enemy. Indeed,
the only chance of crossing without much loss seemed to be offered by
a protracted calm, when the British cruisers would be helpless against
a combined attack of a cloud of row-boats. The risks would be greater
during a fog, when the crowd of boats must be liable to collision,
stranding on shoals, and losing their way. Even the departure of this
quaint armada presented grave difficulties: it was found that the
whole force could not clear the harbour in a single tide; and a part
of the flotilla must therefore remain exposed to the British fire
before the whole mass could get under way. For all these reasons
Bruix, the commander of the flotilla, and Decrès, Minister of Marine,
dissuaded Napoleon from attempting the descent without the support of
a powerful covering fleet.
Napoleon's correspondence shows that, by the close of the year 1803,
he had abandoned that first fatuous scheme which gained him from the
wits of Paris the soubriquet of "Don Quixote de la Manche."[323] On
the 7th of December he wrote to Gantheaume, maritime prefect at
Toulon, urging him to press on the completion of his nine ships of the
line and five frigates, and sketching plans of a naval combination that
promised to insure the temporary command of the Channel. Of these only
two need be cited here:
1. "The Toulon squadron will set out on 20th _nivôse_ (January 10th,
1804), will arrive before Cadiz (or Lisbon), will find there the
Rochefort squadron, will sail on without making land, between Brest
and the Sorlingues, will touch at Cape La Hogue, and will pass in
forty-eight hours before Boulogne: thence it will continue to the
mouth of the Scheldt (there procuring masts, cordage, and all needful
things)--or perhaps to Cherbourg.
2. "The Rochefort squadron will set out on 20th _nivôse_, will reach
Toulon the 20th _pluviôse:_ the united squadrons will set sail in
_ventôse_, and arrive in _germinal_ before Boulogne--that is rather
late. In any case the Egyptian Expedition will cover the departure of
the Toulon squadron: everything will be managed _so that Nelson will
first sail for Alexandria_."
These schemes reveal the strong and also the weak qualities of
Napoleon. He perceived the strength of the central position which
France enjoyed on her four coasts; and he now contrived all his
dispositions, both naval and political, so as to tempt Nelson away
eastwards from Toulon during the concentration of the French fleet in
the Channel; and for this purpose he informed the military officers at
Toulon that their destination was Taranto and the Morea. It was to
these points that he wished to decoy Nelson; for this end had he sent
his troops to Taranto, and kept up French intrigues in Corfu, the
Morea, and Egypt; it was for this purpose that he charged that wily
spy Méhée to inform Drake that the Toulon fleet was to take 40,000
French troops to the Morea, and that the Brest fleet, with 200 highly
trained Irish officers, was intended solely for Ireland. But, while
displaying consummate guile, he failed to allow for the uncertainties
of operations conducted by sea. Ignoring the patent fact that the
Toulon fleet was blockaded by Nelson, and that of Rochefort by
Collingwood, he fixed the dates of their departure and junction as
though he were ordering the movements of a _corps d'armée_ in
Provence; and this craving for certainty was to mar his naval plans
and dog his footsteps with the shadow of disaster.[324]
The plan of using the Toulon fleet to cover an invasion of England was
not entirely new. As far back as the days of De Tourville, a somewhat
similar plan had been devised: the French Channel and Atlantic fleets
under that admiral were closely to engage Russell off the Isle of
Wight, while the Toulon squadron, sailing northwards, was to collect
the French transports on the coasts of Normandy for the invasion of
England. Had Napoleon carefully studied French naval history, he would
have seen that the disaster of La Hogue was largely caused by the
severe weather which prevented the rendezvous, and brought about a
hasty and ill-advised alteration in the original scheme. But of all
subjects on which he spoke as an authority, there was perhaps not one
that he had so inadequately studied as naval strategy: yet there was
none wherein the lessons of experience needed so carefully to be laid
to heart.
Fortune seemed to frown on Napoleon's naval schemes: yet she was
perhaps not unkind in thwarting them in their first stages. Events
occurred which early suggested a deviation from the combinations
noticed above. In the last days of 1803, hearing that the English
were about to attack Martinique, he at once wrote to Gantheaume,
urging him to despatch the Toulon squadron under Admiral
Latouche-Tréville for the rescue of this important island. The
commander of the troops, Cervoni, was to be told that the expedition
aimed at the Morea, so that spies might report this news to Nelson,
and it is clear from our admiral's despatches that the ruse half
succeeded. Distracted, however, by the thought that the French might,
after all, aim at Ireland, Nelson clung to the vicinity of Toulon, and
his untiring zeal kept in harbour the most daring admiral in the French
navy, who, despite his advanced age, excited an enthusiasm that none
other could arouse.
To him, in spite of his present ill-fortune, Napoleon intrusted the
execution of a scheme bearing date July 2nd, 1804. Latouche was
ordered speedily to put to sea with his ten ships of the line and four
frigates, to rally a French warship then at Cadiz, release the five
ships of the line and four frigates blockaded at Rochefort by
Collingwood, and then sweep the Channel and convoy the flotilla across
the straits. This has been pronounced by Jurien de la Gravière the
best of all Napoleon's plans: it exposed ships that had long been in
harbour only to a short ocean voyage, and it was free from the
complexity of the later and more grandiose schemes.
But fate interposed and carried off the intrepid commander by that
worst of all deaths for a brave seaman, death by disease in harbour,
where he was shut up by his country's foes (August 20th).
Villeneuve was thereupon appointed to succeed him, while Missiessy
held command at Rochefort. The choice of Villeneuve has always been
considered strange; and the riddle is not solved by the declaration of
Napoleon that he considered that Villeneuve at the Nile showed his
_good fortune_ in escaping with the only French ships which survived
that disaster. A strange reason this: to appoint an admiral commander
of an expedition that was to change the face of the world because his
good fortune consisted in escaping from Nelson![325]
Napoleon now began to widen his plans. According to the scheme of
September 29th, three expeditions were now to set out; the first was
to assure the safety of the French West Indies; the second was to
recover the Dutch colonies in those seas and reinforce the French troops
still holding out in part of St. Domingo; while the third had as its
objective West Africa and St. Helena. The Emperor evidently hoped to
daze us by simultaneous attacks in Africa, America, and also in Asiatic
waters. After these fleets had set sail in October and November, 1804,
Ireland was to be attacked by the Brest fleet now commanded by
Gantheaume. Slipping away from the grip of Cornwallis, he was to pass
out of sight of land and disembark his troops in Lough Swilly. These
troops, 18,000 strong, were under that redoubtable fighter, Augereau;
and had they been landed, the history of the world might have been
different. Leaving them to revolutionize Ireland, Gantheaume was to make
for the English Channel, touch at Cherbourg for further orders, and
proceed to Boulogne to convoy the flotilla across: or, if the weather
prevented this, as was probable in January, he was to pass on to the
Texel, rally the seven Dutch battleships and the transports with their
25,000 troops, beat back down the English Channel and return to Ireland.
Napoleon counted on the complete success of one or other of Gantheaume's
moves: "Whether I have 30,000 or 40,000 men in Ireland, or whether I am
both in England and Ireland, the war is ours."[326]
The objections to the September combination are fairly obvious. It was
exceedingly improbable that the three fleets could escape at the time
and in the order which Napoleon desired, or that crews enervated by
long captivity in port would succeed in difficult operations when
thrust out into the wintry gales of the Atlantic and the Channel.
Besides, success could only be won after a serious dispersion of
French naval resources; and the West Indian expeditions must be
regarded as prompted quite as much by a colonial policy as by a
determination to overrun England or Ireland.[327]
At any rate, if the Emperor's aim was merely to distract us by widely
diverging attacks, that could surely have been accomplished without
sending twenty-six sail of the line into American and African waters,
and leaving to Gantheaume so disproportionate an amount of work and
danger. This September combination may therefore be judged distinctly
inferior to that of July, which, with no scattering of the French
forces, promised to decoy Nelson away to the Morea and Egypt, while
the Toulon and Rochefort squadrons proceeded to Boulogne.
The September schemes hopelessly miscarried. Gantheaume did not elude
Cornwallis, and remained shut up in Brest. Missiessy escaped from
Rochefort, sailed to the West Indies, where he did some damage and
then sailed home again. "He had taken a pawn and returned to his own
square."[328] Villeneuve slipped out from Toulon (January 19th, 1805),
while Nelson was sheltering from westerly gales under the lee of
Sardinia; but the storm which promised to renew his reputation for
good luck speedily revealed the weakness of his ships and crews.
"My fleet looked well at Toulon," he wrote to Decrès, Minister of
Marine, "but when the storm came on, things changed at once. The
sailors were not used to storms: they were lost among the mass of
soldiers: these from sea-sickness lay in heaps about the decks: it was
impossible to work the ships: hence yard-arms were broken and sails
were carried away: our losses resulted as much from clumsiness and
inexperience as from defects in the materials delivered by the
arsenals."[329]
Inexperience and sea-sickness were factors that found no place in
Napoleon's calculations; but they compelled Villeneuve to return to
Toulon to refit; and there Nelson closed on him once more.
Meanwhile events were transpiring which seemed to add to Napoleon's
naval strength and to the difficulties of his foes. On January 4th,
1805, he concluded with Spain a treaty which added her naval resources
to those of France, Holland, and Northern Italy. The causes that led
to an open rupture between England and Spain were these. Spain had
been called upon by Napoleon secretly to pay him the stipulated sum of
72,000,000 francs a year (see p. 437), and she reluctantly consented.
This was, of course, a covert act of hostility against England; and
the Spanish Government was warned at the close of 1803 that, if this
subsidy continued to be paid to France, it would constitute "at any
future period, when circumstances may render it necessary, a just
cause of war" between England and Spain. Far from complying with this
reasonable remonstrance, the Spanish Court yielded to Napoleon's
imperious order to repair five French warships that had taken refuge
in Ferrol from our cruisers, and in July, 1804, allowed French seamen
to travel thither overland to complete the crews of these vessels.
Thus for some months our warships had to observe Ferrol, as if it were
a hostile port.
Clearly, this state of things could not continue; and when the
protests of our ambassador at Madrid were persistently evaded or
ignored, he was ordered, in the month of September, to leave that
capital unless he received satisfactory assurances. He did not leave
until November 10th, and before that time a sinister event had taken
place. The British Ministry determined that Spanish treasure-ships from
South America should not be allowed to land at Cadiz the sinews of war
for France, and sent orders to our squadrons to stop those ships. Four
frigates were told off for that purpose. On the 5th of October they
sighted the four rather smaller Spanish frigates that bore the ingots of
Peru, and summoned them to surrender, thereafter to be held in pledge.
The Spaniards, nobly resolving to yield only to overwhelming force,
refused; and in the ensuing fight one of their ships blew up, whereupon
the others hauled down their flags and were taken to England. Resenting
this action, Spain declared war on December 12th, 1804.
Stripped of all the rodomontade with which French historians have
enveloped this incident, the essential facts are as follows. Napoleon
compelled Spain by the threat of invasion to pay him a large subsidy:
England declared this payment, and accompanying acts, to be acts of
war; Spain shuffled uneasily between the two belligerents but
continued to supply funds to Napoleon and to shelter and repair his
warships; thereupon England resolved to cut off her American
subsidies, but sent a force too small to preclude the possibility of a
sea-fight; the fight took place, with a lamentable result, which
changed the covert hostility of Spain into active hostility.
Public opinion and popular narratives are, however, fashioned by
sentiment rather than founded on evidence; accordingly, Britain's
prestige suffered from this event. The facts, as currently reported,
seemed to convict her of an act of piracy; and few persons on the
Continent or among the Whig coteries of Westminster troubled to find
out whether Spain had not been guilty of acts of hostility and whether
the French Emperor was not the author of the new war. Undoubtedly it
was his threatening pressure on Spain that had compelled her to her
recent action: but that pressure had been for the most part veiled by
diplomacy, while Britain's retort was patent and notorious.
Consequently, every version of this incident that was based merely on
newspaper reports condemned her conduct as brutally piratical; and
only those who have delved into archives have discovered the real
facts of the case.[330] Napoleon's letter to the King of Spain quoted
on p. 437 shows that even before the war he was seeking to drag him
into hostilities with England, and he continued to exert a remorseless
pressure on the Court of Madrid; it left two alternatives open to
England, either to see Napoleon close his grip on Spain and wield her
naval resources when she was fully prepared for war, or to precipitate
the rupture. It was the alternative, _mutatis mutandis_, presented to
George III. and the elder Pitt in 1761, when the King was for delay
and his Minister was for war at once. That instance had proved the
father's foresight; and now at the close of 1804 the younger Pitt
might flatter himself that open war was better than a treacherous
peace.
In lieu of a subsidy Spain now promised to provide from twenty-five to
twenty-nine sail of the line, and to have them ready by the close of
March. On his side, Napoleon agreed to guarantee the integrity of the
Spanish dominions, and to regain Trinidad for her. The sequel will
show how his word was kept.
The conclusion of this alliance placed the hostile navies almost on an
equality, at least on paper. But, as the equipment of the Spanish
fleet was very slow, Napoleon for the present adhered to his plan of
September, 1804, with the result already detailed. Not until March
2nd, 1805, do we find the influence of the Spanish alliance observable
in his naval schemes. On that date he issued orders to Villeneuve and
Gantheaume, which assigned to the latter most of the initiative, as also
the chief command after their assumed junction. Gantheaume, with the
Brest fleet, after eluding the blockaders, was to proceed first to
Ferrol, capture the British ships off that port and, reinforced by the
French and Spanish ships there at anchor, proceed across the Atlantic to
the appointed rendezvous at Martinique. The Toulon squadron under
Villeneuve was at the same time to make for Cadiz, and, after collecting
the Spanish ships, set sail for the West Indies. Then the armada was to
return with all speed to Boulogne, where Napoleon expected it to arrive
between June 10th and July 10th.[331]
Diverse judgments have been passed on this, the last and grandest of
Napoleon's naval combinations. On the one hand, it is urged that, as
the French fleets had seen no active service, a long voyage was
necessary to impart experience and efficiency before matters were
brought to the touch in the Straits of Dover; and as Britain and
France both regarded their West Indian islands as their most valued
possessions, a voyage thither would be certain to draw British sails
in eager pursuit. Finally, those islands dotted over a thousand miles
of sea presented a labyrinth wherein it would be easy for the French
to elude Nelson's cruisers.
On the other hand, it may be urged that the success of the plan
depended on too many _ifs_. Assuming that the Toulon and Brest
squadrons escaped the blockaders, their subsequent movements would
most probably be reported by some swift frigate off Gibraltar or
Ferrol. The chance of our divining the French plans was surely as
great as that Gantheaume and Villeneuve would unite in the West
Indies, ravage the British possessions, and return in undiminished
force. The English fleets, after weary months of blockade, were adepts
at scouting; their wings covered with ease a vast space, their
frigates rapidly signalled news to the flagship, and their
concentration was swift and decisive. Prompt to note every varying
puff of wind, they bade fair to overhaul their enemies when the chase
began in earnest, and when once the battle was joined, numbers counted
for little: the English crews, inured to fights on the ocean, might be
trusted to overwhelm the foe by their superior experience and
discipline, hampered as the French now were by the lumbering and
defective warships of Spain.
Napoleon, indeed, amply discounted the chances of failure of his
ultimate design, the command of the Channel. The ostensible aims of
the expedition were colonial. The French fleets were to take on board
11,908 soldiers, of whom three-fourths were destined for the West
Indies; and, in case Gantheaume did not join Villeneuve at Martinique,
the latter was ordered, after waiting forty days, to set sail for the
Canaries, there to intercept the English convoys bound for Brazil and
the East Indies.
In the spring and summer of 1805 Napoleon's correspondence supplies
copious proof of the ideas and plans that passed through his brain.
After firmly founding the new Empire, he journeyed into Piedmont,
thence to Milan for his coronation as King of Italy, and finally to
Genoa. In this absence of three months from Paris (April-July) many
lengthy letters to Decrès attest the alternations of his hopes and
fears. He now keeps the possibility of failure always before him: his
letters no longer breathe the crude confidence of 1803: and while
facing the chances of failure in the West Indies, his thoughts swing
back to the Orient:
"According to all the news that I receive, five or six thousand men
in the [East] Indies would ruin the English Company. Supposing that
our [West] Indian expedition is not fully successful, and I cannot
reach the grand end which will demolish all the rest, I think we
must arrange the [East] Indian expedition for September. We have
now greater resources for it than some time ago."[332]
How tenacious is his will! He here recurs to the plan laid down before
Decaen sailed to the East Indies in March, 1803. Even the prospects of
a continental coalition fail to dispel that gorgeous dream. But amid
much that is visionary we may discern this element of practicality: in
case the blow against England misses the mark, Napoleon has provided
himself with a splendid alternative that will banish all thought of
failure.
It is needless to recount here the well-known details of Villeneuve's
voyage and Nelson's pursuit. The Toulon and Cadiz fleets got clear
away to the West Indies, and after a last glance towards the Orient,
Nelson set out in pursuit. On the 4th of June the hostile fleets were
separated by only a hundred miles of sea; and Villeneuve, when off
Antigua, hearing that Nelson was so close, decided forthwith to return
to Europe. After disembarking most of his troops and capturing a fleet
of fourteen British merchantmen, he sailed for Ferrol, in pursuance of
orders just received from Napoleon, which bade him rally fifteen
allied ships at that port, and push on to Brest, where he must release
Gantheaume.
In this gigantic war game, where the Atlantic was the chess-board, and
the prize a world-empire, the chances were at this time curiously
even. Fortune had favoured Villeneuve but checked Gantheaume.
Villeneuve successfully dodged Nelson in the West Indies, but
ultimately the pursuer divined the enemy's scheme of returning to
Europe, and sent a swift brig to warn the Admiralty, which was thereby
informed of the exact position of affairs on July 8th, that is, twelve
days before Napoleon himself knew of the state of affairs. On July
20th, the French Emperor heard, _through English newspapers_, that his
fleet was on its return voyage: and his heart beat high with hope that
Villeneuve would now gather up his squadrons in the Bay of Biscay and
appear before Boulogne in overwhelming force; for he argued that, even
if Villeneuve should keep right away from Brest, and leave blockaders
and blockaded face to face, he would still be at least sixteen ships
stronger than any force that could be brought against him.
But Napoleon was now committing the blunder which he so often censured
in his inferiors. He was "making pictures" to himself, pictures in
which the gleams of fortune were reserved for the tricolour flag, and
gloom and disaster shrouded the Union Jack; he conceived that Nelson
had made for Jamaica, and that the British squadrons were engaged in
chasing phantom French fleets around Ireland or to the East Indies.
"We have not to do," he said, "with a far-seeing, but with a very
proud, Government."
In reality, Nelson was nearing the coast of Portugal, Cornwallis had
been so speedily reinforced as to marshal twenty-eight ships of the
line off Brest, while Calder was waiting for Villeneuve off Cape
Finisterre with a fleet of fifteen battleships. Thus, when Villeneuve
neared the north-west of Spain, his twenty ships of the line were
confronted by a force which he could neither overwhelm nor shake off.
The combat of July 22nd, fought amidst a dense haze, was unfavourable
to the allies, two Spanish ships of the line striking their colours to
Calder before the gathering fog and gloom of night separated the
combatants: on the next two days Villeneuve strove to come to close
quarters, but Calder sheered off; thereupon the French, unable then to
make Ferrol, put into Vigo, while Calder, ignorant of their position,
joined Cornwallis off Brest. This retreat of the British admiral
subjected him to a court-martial, and consternation reigned in London
when Villeneuve was known to be on the Spanish coast unguarded; but
the fear was needless; though the French admiral succeeded in rallying
the Ferrol squadron, yet, as he was ordered to avoid Ferrol, he put
into Corunna, and on August 15th he decided to sail for Cadiz.
To realize the immense importance of this decision we must picture to
ourselves the state of affairs just before this time.
Nelson, delayed by contrary winds and dogged by temporary ill-luck,
had made for Gibraltar, whence, finding that no French ships had
passed the straits, he doubled back in hot haste northwards, and there
is clear proof that his speedy return to the coast of Spain spread
dismay in official circles at Paris. "This unexpected union of forces
undoubtedly renders every scheme of invasion impracticable for the
present," wrote Talleyrand to Napoleon on August 2nd, 1805.[333]
Missing Villeneuve off Ferrol, Nelson joined Cornwallis off Ushant on
the very day when the French admiral decided to make for Cadiz.
Passing on to Portsmouth, the hero now enjoyed a few days of
well-earned repose, until the nation called on him for his final
effort.
Meanwhile Napoleon had arrived on August 3rd at Boulogne, where he
reviewed a line of soldiery nine miles long. The sight might well
arouse his hopes of assured victory. He had ground for hoping that
Villeneuve would soon be in the Channel. Not until August 8th did he
receive news of the fight with Calder, and he took pains to parade it
as an English defeat. He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his
orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to
Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol
and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line:
"I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the
fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty
generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and
perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the
small Powers: 150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are
embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English
cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape
Grisnez. Your voyage, and it alone, makes us without any doubt
masters of England."
Austria and Russia were already marshalling their forces for the war
of the Third Coalition. Yet, though menaced by those Powers, to whom
he had recently offered the most flagrant provocations, this
astonishing man was intent only on the ruin of England, and secretly
derided their preparations. "You need not" (so he wrote to Eugène,
Viceroy of Italy) "contradict the newspaper rumours of war, but make
fun of them.... Austria's actions are probably the result of
fear."--Thus, even when the eastern horizon lowered threateningly with
clouds, he continued to pace the cliffs of Boulogne, or gallop
restlessly along the strand, straining his gaze westward to catch the
first glimpse of his armada. That horizon was never to be flecked with
Villeneuve's sails: they were at this time furled in the harbour of
Cadiz.
Unmeasured abuse has been showered upon Villeneuve for his retreat to
that harbour. But it must be remembered that in both of Napoleon's
last orders to him, those of July 16th and 26th, he was required to
sail to Cadiz under certain conditions. In the first order prescribing
alternative ways of gaining the mastery of the Channel, that step was
recommended solely as a last alternative in case of misfortune: he was
directed not to enter the long and difficult inlet of Ferrol, but,
after collecting the squadron there, to cast anchor at Cadiz. In the
order of July 26th he was charged positively to repair to Cadiz: "My
intention is that you rally at Cadiz the Spanish ships there,
disembark your sick, and, without stopping there more than four days
at most, again set sail, return to Ferrol, etc." Villeneuve seems not
to have received these last orders, but he alludes to those of July
16th.[334]
These, then, were probably the last instructions he received from
Napoleon before setting sail from the roads of Corunna on August 13th.
The censures passed on his retreat to Cadiz are therefore based on the
supposition that he received instructions which he did not
receive.[335] He expressly based his move to Cadiz on Napoleon's
orders of July 16th. The mishaps which the Emperor then contemplated
as necessitating such a step had, in Villeneuve's eyes, actually
happened. The admiral considered the fight of July 22nd _la malheureuse
affaire;_ his ships were encumbered with sick; they worked badly; on
August 15th a north-east gale carried away the top-mast of a Spanish
ship; and having heard from a Danish merchantman the news--false news,
as it afterwards appeared--that Cornwallis with twenty-five ships was to
the north, he turned and scudded before the wind. He could not divine
the disastrous influence of his conduct on the plan of invasion. He did
not know that his master was even then beginning to hesitate between a
dash on London or a campaign on the Danube, and that the events of the
next few days were destined to tilt the fortunes of the world. Doubtless
he ought to have disregarded the Emperor's words about Cadiz and to have
struggled on to Brest, as his earlier and wider orders enjoined. But the
Emperor's instructions pointed to Cadiz as the rendezvous in case of
misfortune or great difficulty. As a matter of fact, Napoleon on July
26th ordered the Rochefort squadron to _meet Villeneuve at Cadiz;_ and
it is clear that by that date Napoleon had decided on that rendezvous,
apparently because it could be more easily entered and cleared than
Ferrol, and was safer from attack. But, as it happened, the Rochefort
squadron had already set sail and failed to sight an enemy or friend for
several weeks.
Such are the risks of naval warfare, in which even the greatest
geniuses at times groped but blindly. Nelson was not afraid to confess
the truth. The French Emperor, however, seems never to have made an
admission which would mar his claim to strategic infallibility. Even
now, when the Spanish ships were proved to clog the enterprise, he
persisted in merely counting numbers, and in asserting that Villeneuve
might still neutralize the force of Calder and Cornwallis. These hopes
he cherished up to August 23rd, when, as the next chapter will show,
he faced right about to confront Austria. His Minister of Marine, who
had more truly gauged the difficulties of all parts of the naval
enterprise, continued earnestly to warn him of the terrible risk of
burdening Villeneuve's ships with the unseaworthy craft of Spain and
of trusting to this ill-assorted armada to cover the invasion now that
their foes had divined its secret. The Emperor bitterly upbraided his
Minister for his timidity, and in the presence of Daru, Intendant
General of the army, indulged in a dramatic soliloquy against
Villeneuve for his violation of orders: "What a navy! What an admiral!
What sacrifices for nothing! My hopes are frustrated--- Daru, sit down
and write"--whereupon it is said that he traced out the plans of the
campaign which was to culminate at Ulm and Austerlitz.[336]
The question has often been asked whether Napoleon seriously intended
the invasion of England. Certainly the experienced seamen of England,
France, and Holland, with few exceptions, declared that the
flat-bottomed boats were unseaworthy, and that a frightful disaster
must ensue if they were met out at sea by our ships. When it is
further remembered that our coasts were defended by batteries and
martello towers, that several hundreds of pinnaces and row-boats were
ready to attack the flotilla before it could attempt the
disembarkation of horses, artillery, and stores, and that 180,000
regulars and militia, aided by 400,000 volunteers, were ready to
defend our land, the difficulties even of capturing London will be
obvious. And the capture of the capital would not have decided the
contest. Napoleon seems to have thought it would. In his voyage to St.
Helena he said: "I put all to the hazard; I entered into no
calculations as to the manner in which I was to return; I trusted all
to the impression the occupation of the capital would have
occasioned."[337]--But, as has been shown above (p. 441), plans had been
secretly drawn up for the removal of the Court and the national treasure
to Worcester; the cannon of Woolwich were to be despatched into the
Midlands by canal; and our military authorities reckoned that the
systematic removal of provisions and stores from all the districts
threatened by the enemy would exhaust him long before he overran the
home counties. Besides, the invasion was planned when Britain's naval
power had been merely evaded, not conquered. Nelson and Cornwallis and
Calder would not for ever be chasing phantom fleets; they would
certainly return, and cut Napoleon from his base, the sea.
Again, if Napoleon was bent solely on the invasion of England, why
should he in June, 1805, have offered to Russia and Austria so
gratuitous an affront as the annexation of the Ligurian Republic? He
must have known that this act would hurry them into war. Thiers
considers the annexation of Genoa a "grave fault" in the Emperor's
policy--but many have doubted whether Napoleon did not intend Genoa to
be the gate leading to a new avenue of glory, now that the success of
his naval dispositions was doubtful. Marbot gives the general opinion
of military circles when he says that the Emperor wanted to provoke a
continental war in order to escape the ridicule which the failure of
his Boulogne plans would otherwise have aroused. "The new coalition
came just at the right moment to get him out of an annoying
situation." The compiler of the Fouché "Memoirs," which, though not
genuine, may be accepted as generally correct, took the same view. He
attributes to Napoleon the noteworthy words: "I may fail by sea, but
not by land; besides, I shall be able to strike the blow before the
old coalition machines are ready: the kings have neither activity nor
decision of character: I do not fear old Europe." The Emperor also
remarked to the Council of State that the expense of all the
preparations at Boulogne was fully justified by the fact that they
gave him "fully twenty days' start over all enemies.... A pretext had
to be found for raising the troops and bringing them together without
alarming the Continental Powers: and that pretext was afforded me by
the projected descent upon England."[338]
It is also quite possible that his aim was Ireland as much as England.
It certainly was in the plan of September, 1804: and doubtless it
still held a prominent place in his mind, except during the few days
when he pictured Calder vanquished and Nelson scouring the West
Indies. Then he doubtless fixed his gaze solely upon London. But there
is much indirect evidence which points to Ireland as forming at least
a very important part of his scheme. Both Nelson and Collingwood
believed him to be aiming at Ireland.[339]
But indeed Napoleon is often unfathomable. Herein lies much of the
charm of Napoleonic studies. He is at once the Achilles, the Mercury,
and the Proteus of the modern world. The ease with which his mind
grasped all problems and suddenly concentrated its force on some new
plan may well perplex posterity as it dazed his contemporaries. If we
were dealing with any other man than Napoleon, we might safely say
that an invasion of England, before the command of the sea had been
secured, was infinitely less likely than a descent on Ireland. The
landing of a _corps d'armée_ there would have provoked a revolution;
and British ascendancy would have vanished in a week. Even had Nelson
returned and swept the seas, Ireland would have been lost to the
United Kingdom; and Britain, exhausted also by the expenses which the
Boulogne preparations had compelled her to make for the defence of
London, must have succumbed.
If ever Napoleon intended risking all his fortunes on the conquest of
England, it can be proved that his mind was gradually cleared of
illusions. He trusted that a popular rising would overthrow the British
Government: people and rulers showed an accord that had never been known
since the reign of Queen Anne. He believed, for a short space, that the
flotilla could fight sea-going ships out at sea: the converse was proved
up to the hilt. Finally, he trusted that Villeneuve, when burdened with
Spanish ships, would outwit and outmanoeuvre Nelson!
What then remained after these and many other disappointments? Surely
that scheme alone was practicable, in which the command of the sea
formed only an unimportant factor. For the conquest of England it was
an essential factor. In Ireland alone could Napoleon find the
conditions on which he counted for success--a discontented populace
that would throng to the French eagles, and a field of warfare where
the mere landing of 20,000 veterans would decide the campaign.[340]
And yet it is, on the whole, certain that his expedition for Ireland
was meant merely to distract and paralyze the defenders of Great
Britain, while he dealt the chief blow at London. Instinct and
conviction alike prompted him to make imposing feints that should lead
his enemy to lay bare his heart, and that heart was our great capital.
His indomitable will scorned the word _impossible_--"a word found only
in the dictionary of fools"; he felt England to be the sole barrier to
his ambitions; and to crush her power he was ready to brave, not only
her stoutest seamen, but also her guardian angels, the winds and
storms. Both the man and the occasion were unique in the world's
history and must not be judged according to tame probabilities. For
his honour was at stake. He was so deeply pledged to make use of the
vast preparations at his northern ports that, had all his complex
dispositions worked smoothly, he would certainly have attempted a dash
at London; and only after some adequate excuse could he consent to give
up that adventure.
The excuse was now furnished by Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz; and
public opinion, ignorant of Napoleon's latest instructions on that
subject, and knowing only the salient facts of the case, laid on that
luckless admiral the whole burden of blame for the failure of the
scheme of invasion. With front unabashed and a mind presaging certain
triumphs, Napoleon accordingly wheeled his legions eastward to
prosecute that alluring alternative, the conquest of England through
the Continent.
APPENDIX
[_The two following State Papers have never before been published_]
No. I. is a despatch from Mr. Thornton, our _chargé d'affaires_ at
Washington, relative to the expected transfer of the vast region of
Louisiana from Spain to France (see ch. xv. of this vol.).
[In "F O.," America, No. 35.]
"WASHINGTON,
"26 _Jany._, 1802.
"MY LORD,
"... About four years ago, when the rumour of the transfer of
Louisiana to France was first circulated, I put into Mr.
Pickering's hands for his perusal a despatch written by Mr. Fauchet
about the year 1794, which with many others was intercepted by one
of H.M. ships. In that paper the French Minister urged to his
Government the absolute necessity of acquiring Louisiana or some
territory in the vicinity of the United States in order to obtain a
permanent influence in the country, and he alluded to a memorial
written some years before by the Count du Moutier to the same
effect, when he was employed as His Most Christian Majesty's
Minister to the United States. The project seems therefore to have
been long in the contemplation of the French Government, and
perhaps no period is more favourable than the present for carrying
it into execution.
"When I paid my respects to the Vice-President, Mr. Burr, on his
arrival at this place, he, of his own accord, directed conversation
to this topic. He owned that he had made some exertion indirectly
to discover the truth of the report, and thought he had reason to
believe it. He appeared to think that the great armament destined
by France to St. Domingo, had this ulterior object in view, and
expressed much apprehension that the transfer and colonization of
Louisiana were meditated by her with the concurrence or
acquiescence of His Maj'^{s} Gov^{t}. It was impossible for me to
give any opinion on this part of the measure, which, whatever may
be its ultimate tendency, presents at first view nothing but danger
to His Maj'^{s} Trans-Atlantic possessions.
"Regarding alone the aim of France to acquire a preponderating
influence in the councils of the United States, it may be very well
doubted whether the possession of Louisiana, and the means which
she would chose to employ are calculated to secure that end.
Experience seems now to have sanctioned the opinion that if the
provinces of Canada had been restored to France at the Peace of
Paris, and if from that quarter she had been left to press upon the
American frontier, to harass the exterior settlements and to mingle
in the feuds of the Indian Tribes, the colonies might still have
preserved their allegiance to the parent country and have retained
their just jealousy of that system of encroachment adopted by
France from the beginning of the last century. The present project
is but a continuance of the same system; and neither her power nor
her present temper leave room for expectation that she will pursue
it with less eagerness or greater moderation than before. Whether,
therefore, she attempt to restrain the navigation of the
Mississippi or limit the freedom of the port of New Orleans;
whether she press upon the Western States with any view to
conquest, or seduce them by her principles of fraternity (for which
indeed they are well prepared) she must infallibly alienate the
Atlantic States and force them into a straiter connection with
Great Britain.
"I have scarcely met with a person under whatever party he may rank
himself, who does not dread this event, and who would not prefer
almost any neighbours to the French: and it seems perfect
infatuation in the Administration of this country that they chose
the present moment for leaving that frontier almost defenceless by
the reduction of its military establishment.
"I have, etc.,
"[Signed] EDW'D THORNTON."
* * * * *
No. II. is a report in "F.O.," France, No. 71, by one of our spies in
Paris on the doings of the Irish exiles there, especially O'Connor,
whom Napoleon had appointed General of Division in Marshal Augereau's
army, then assembling at Brest for the expedition to Ireland. After
stating O'Connor's appointment, the report continues:
"About eighty Irishmen were sent to Morlaix to be formed into a
company of officers and taught how they were to discipline and
instruct their countrymen when they landed in Ireland. McShee,
Général de Brigade, commands them. He and Blackwell are, I
believe, the only persons among them of any consequence, who have
seen actual service. Emmett's brother and McDonald, who were
jealous of the attention paid to O'Connor, would not go to
Morlaix. They were prevailed on to go to Brest towards the end of
May, and there to join General Humbert. Commandant Dalton, a young
man of Irish extraction, and lately appointed to a situation in
the Army at Boulogne, translated everything between O'Connor and
the War Department at Paris. There is no Irish Committee at Paris
as is reported. O'Connor and General Hartry, an old Irishman who
has been long in the French service, are the only persons applied
to by the French Government, O'Connor for the expedition, and
Hartry for the Police, etc., of the Irish in France.
"O'Connor, though he had long tried to have an audience of
Bonaparte, never saw him till the 20th of May [1805], when he was
presented to him at the levee by Marshal Augereau. The Emperor and
the Empress complimented him on his dress and military appearance,
and Bonaparte said to him _Venez me voir en particulier demain
matin._ O'Connor went and was alone with him near two hours. On
that day Bonaparte did not say a word to him respecting his
intention on England; all their conversation regarded Ireland.
O'Connor was with him again on the Thursday and Friday following.
Those three audiences are all that O'Connor ever had in private
with Bonaparte.
"He told me on the Saturday evening that he should go to Court the
next morning to take public leave of the Emperor and leave Paris
as soon as he had received 10,000 livres which Maret was to give
him for his travelling expenses, etc., and which he was to have in
a day or two. His horses and all his servants but one had set off
for Brest some time before.
"Bonaparte told O'Connor, when speaking of the prospect of a
continental War, 'la Russie peut-être pourroit envoyer cette année
100,000 hommes contre la France, mais j'ai pour cela assez de
monde à ma disposition: je ferois même marcher, s'il le faut, une
armée contre la Russie, et si l'Empereur d'Allemagne refusoit un
passage à cette armée dans son pays, je la ferois passer malgré
lui.' He afterwards said--'il y a plusieurs moyens de détruire
l'Angleterre, mais celui de lui ôter Irlande est bon. Je vous
donnerai 25,000 bonnes troupes et s'il en arrive seulement 15,000,
ce sera assez. Vous aurez aussi 150,000 fusils pour armer vos
compatriotes, et un parc d'artillerie légère, des pièces de 4 et
de 6 livres, et toutes les provisions de guerre nécessaires.'
"O'Connor endeavoured to persuade Bonaparte that the best way to
conquer England was first to go to Ireland, and thence to England
with 200,000 Irishmen. Bonaparte said he did not think that would
do; _d'ailleurs,_ he added, _ce seroit trop long_. They agreed
that all the English in Ireland should be exterminated as the
whites had been in St. Domingo. Bonaparte assured him that, as
soon as he had formed an Irish army, he should be Commander in
Chief of the French and Irish forces. Bonaparte directed O'Connor
to try to gain over to his interest Laharpe, the Emperor of
Russia's tutor. Laharpe had applied for a passport to go to St.
Pétersbourg. He says he will do everything in his power to engage
the Emperor to go to war with Bonaparte. Laharpe breathes nothing
but vengeance against Bonaparte, who, besides other injuries,
turned his back on him in public and would not speak to him.
Laharpe was warned of O'Connor's intended visit, and went to the
country to avoid seeing him: The Senator Garat is to go to Brest
with O'Connor to write a constitution for Ireland. O'Connor is
getting out of favor with the Irish in France; they begin to
suspect his ambitious and selfish views. There was a coolness
between Admiral Truguet and him for some time previous to
Truguet's return to Brest. Augereau had given a dinner to all the
principal officers of his army then at Paris. Truguet invited all
of them to dine with him, two or three days after, except
O'Connor. O'Connor told me he would never forgive him for it."
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: From a French work, "Moeurs et Coutumes des Corses"
(Paris, 1802), I take the following incident. A priest, charged with
the duty of avenging a relative for some fourteen years, met his enemy
at the gate of Ajaccio and forthwith shot him, under the eyes of an
official--who did nothing. A relative of the murdered man, happening
to be near, shot the priest. Both victims were quickly buried, the
priest being interred under the altar of the church, "because of his
sacred character." See too Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," vol. i., ch.
xiii., as to the utter collapse of the jury system in 1800-1, because
no Corsican would "deny his party or desert his blood."]
[Footnote 2: As to the tenacity of Corsican devotion, I may cite a
curious proof from the unpublished portion of the "Memoirs of Sir
Hudson Lowe." He was colonel in command of the Royal Corsican Rangers,
enrolled during the British occupation of Corsica, and gained the
affections of his men during several years of fighting in Egypt and
elsewhere. When stationed at Capri in 1808 he relied on his Corsican
levies to defend that island against Murat's attacks; and he did not
rely in vain. Though confronted by a French Corsican regiment, they
remained true to their salt, even during a truce, when they could
recognize their compatriots. The partisan instinct was proof against
the promises of Murat's envoys and the shouts even of kith and kin.]
[Footnote 3: The facts as to the family of Napoleon's mother are given
in full detail by M. Masson in his "Napoléon Inconnu," ch. i. They
correct the statement often made as to her "lowly," "peasant" origin.
Masson also proves that the house at Ajaccio, which is shown as
Napoleon's birthplace, is of later construction, though on the same
site.]
[Footnote 4: See Jacobi, "Hist. de la Corse," vol. ii., ch. viii. The
whole story is told with prudent brevity by French historians, even by
Masson and Chuquet. The few words in which Thiers dismisses this
subject are altogether misleading.]
[Footnote 5: Much has been written to prove that Napoleon was born in
1768, and was really the eldest surviving son. The reasons, stated
briefly, are: (1) that the first baptismal name of Joseph Buonaparte
was merely _Nabulione_ (Italian for _Napoleon_), and that _Joseph_ was
a later addition to his name on the baptismal register of January 7th,
1768, at Corte; (2) certain statements that Joseph was born at
Ajaccio; (3) Napoleon's own statement at his marriage that he was born
in 1768. To this it maybe replied that: (_a_) other letters and
statements, still more decisive, prove that Joseph was born at Corte
in 1768 and Napoleon at Ajaccio in 1769; (_b_) Napoleon's entry in the
marriage register was obviously designed to lessen the disparity of
years of his bride, who, on her side, subtracted four years from her
age. See Chuquet, "La Jeunesse de Napoléon," p. 65.]
[Footnote 6: Nasica, "Mémoires," p. 192.]
[Footnote 7: Both letters are accepted as authentic by Jung,
"Bonaparte et son Temps," vol. i., pp. 84, 92; but Masson, "Napoléon
Inconnu," vol. i., p. 55, tracking them to their source, discredits
them, as also from internal evidence.]
[Footnote 8: Chaptal, "Mes Souvenirs sur Napoléon," p. 177.]
[Footnote 9: Joseph Buonaparte, "Mems.," vol. i., p. 29. So too Miot
de Melito, "Mems.," vol. i., ch. x.]
[Footnote 10: Chaptal, "Souvenirs sur Napoléon," p. 237. See too
Masson, "Napoléon Inconnu," vol. i., p. 158, note.]
[Footnote 11: In an after-dinner conversation on January 11th, 1803,
with Roederer, Buonaparte exalted Voltaire at the expense of Rousseau
in these significant words: "The more I read Voltaire, the more I like
him: he is always reasonable, never a charlatan, never a fanatic: he
is made for mature minds. Up to sixteen years of age I would have
fought for Rousseau against all the friends of Voltaire. Now it is the
contrary. _I have been especially disgusted with Rousseau since I
have seen the East. Savage man is a dog._" ("Oeuvres de Roederer,"
vol. iii., p. 461.)
In 1804 he even denied his indebtedness to Rousseau. During a family
discussion, wherein he also belittled Corsica, he called Rousseau "a
babbler, or, if you prefer it, an eloquent enough _idéalogue_. I never
liked him, nor indeed well understood him: truly I had not the courage
to read him all, because I thought him for the most part tedious."
(Lucien Buonaparte, "Mémoires," vol. ii., ch. xi.)
His later views on Rousseau are strikingly set forth by Stanislas
Girardin, who, in his "Memoirs," relates that Buonaparte, on his visit
to the tomb of Rousseau, said: "'It would have been better for the
repose of France that this man had never been born.' 'Why, First
Consul?' said I. 'He prepared the French Revolution.' 'I thought it
was not for you to complain of the Revolution.' 'Well,' he replied,
'the future will show whether it would not have been better for the
repose of the world that neither I nor Rousseau had existed.'" Méneval
confirms this remarkable statement.]
[Footnote 12: Masson, "Napoléon Inconnu," vol. ii., p. 53.]
[Footnote 13: Joseph Buonaparte, "Mémoires," vol. i, p. 44.]
[Footnote 14: M. Chuquet, in his work "La Jeunesse de Napoléon"
(Paris, 1898), gives a different opinion: but I think this passage
shows a veiled hostility to Paoli. Probably we may refer to this time
an incident stated by Napoleon at St. Helena to Lady Malcolm ("Diary,"
p. 88), namely, that Paoli urged on him the acceptance of a commission
in the British army: "But I preferred the French, because I spoke the
language, was of their religion, understood and liked their manners,
and I thought the Revolution a fine time for an enterprising young
man. Paoli was angry--we did not speak afterwards." It is hard to
reconcile all these statements.
Lucien Buonaparte states that his brother seriously thought for a time
of taking a commission in the forces of the British East India
Company; but I am assured by our officials that no record of any
application now exists.]
[Footnote 15: The whole essay is evidently influenced by the works of
the democrat Raynal, to whom Buonaparte dedicated his "Lettres sur la
Corse." To the "Discours de Lyons" he prefixed as motto the words
"Morality will exist when governments are free," which he modelled on
a similar phrase of Raynal. The following sentences are also
noteworthy: "Notre organisation animale a des besoins indispensables:
manger, dormir, engendrer. Une nourriture, une cabane, des vêtements,
une femme, sont donc une stricte nécessité pour le bonheur. Notre
organisation intellectuelle a des appétits non moins impérieux et dont
la satisfaction est beaucoup plus précieuse. C'est dans leur entier
développement que consiste vraiment le bonheur. Sentir et raisonner,
voilà proprement le fait de l'homme."]
[Footnote 16: Nasica; Chuquet, p. 248.]
[Footnote 17: His recantation of Jacobinism was so complete that some
persons have doubted whether he ever sincerely held it. The doubt
argues a singular _naïveté_ it is laid to rest by Buonaparte's own
writings, by his eagerness to disown or destroy them, by the testimony
of everyone who knew his early career, and by his own confession:
"There have been good Jacobins. At one time every man of spirit was
bound to be one. I was one myself." (Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le
Consulat," p. 59.)]
[Footnote 18: I use the term _commissioner_ as equivalent to the
French _représentant en mission,_ whose powers were almost limitless.]
[Footnote 19: See this curious document in Jung, "Bonaparte et son
Temps," vol. ii., p. 249. Masson ignores it, but admits that the
Paolists and partisans of France were only seeking to dupe one
another.]
[Footnote 20: Buonaparte, when First Consul, was dunned for payment by
the widow of the Avignon bookseller who published the "Souper de
Beaucaire." He paid her well for having all the remaining copies
destroyed. Yet Panckoucke in 1818 procured one copy, which preserved
the memory of Buonaparte's early Jacobinism.]
[Footnote 21: I have chiefly followed the careful account of the siege
given by Cottin in his "Toulon et les Anglais en 1793" (Paris, 1898).
The following official figures show the weakness of the British army.
In December, 1792, the parliamentary vote was for 17,344 men as
"guards and garrisons," besides a few at Gibraltar and Sydney. In
February, 1793, 9,945 additional men were voted and 100 "independent
companies": Hanoverians were also embodied. In February, 1794, the
number of British regulars was raised to 60,244. For the navy the
figures were: December, 1792, 20,000 sailors and 5,000 marines;
February, 1793, 20,000 _additional_ seamen; for 1794, 73,000 seamen
and 12,000 marines. ("Ann. Reg.")]
[Footnote 22: Barras' "Mémoires" are not by any means wholly his. They
are a compilation by Rousselin de Saint-Albin from the Barras papers.]
[Footnote 23: Jung, "Bonaparte et son Temps," vol. ii.]
[Footnote 24: M.G. Duruy's elaborate plea (Barras, "Mems.,"
Introduction, pp. 69-79) rests on the supposition that his hero
arrived at Toulon on September 7th. But M. Chuquet has shown
("Cosmopolis," January, 1897) that he arrived there not earlier than
September 16th. So too Cottin, ch, xi.]
[Footnote 25: As the burning of the French ships and stores has been
said to be solely due to the English, we may note that, _as early as
October 3rd_, the Spanish Foreign Minister, the Duc d'Alcuida,
suggested it to our ambassador, Lord St. Helens: "If it becomes
necessary to abandon the harbour, these vessels shall be sunk or set
on fire in order that the enemy may not make use of them; for which
purpose preparations shall be made beforehand."]
[Footnote 26: Thiers, ch. xxx.; Cottin, "L'Angleterre et les
Princes."]
[Footnote 27: See Lord Grenville's despatch of August 9th, 1793, to
Lord St. Helens ("F.O. Records, Spain," No. 28), printed by M. Cottin,
p. 428. He does not print the more important despatch of October 22nd,
where Grenville asserts that the admission of the French princes would
tend to invalidate the constitution of 1791, for which the allies were
working.]
[Footnote 28: A letter of Lord Mulgrave to Mr. Trevor, at Turin ("F.
O. Records, Sardinia," No. 13), states that he had the greatest
difficulty in getting on with the French royalists: "You must not send
us one _émigré_ of any sort--they would be a nuisance: they are all so
various and so violent, whether for despotism, constitution, or
republic, that we should be distracted with their quarrels; and they
are so assuming, forward, dictatorial, and full of complaints, that
no business could go on with them. Lord Hood is averse to receiving
any of them."
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION.--From the information which Mr. Spenser
Wilkinson has recently supplied in his article in "The Owens College
Hist. Essays" (1902), it would seem that Buonaparte's share in
deciding the fate of Toulon was somewhat larger than has here been
stated; for though the Commissioners saw the supreme need of attacking
the fleet, they do not seem, as far as we know, to have perceived that
the hill behind Fort L'Eguillette was the key of the position.
Buonaparte's skill and tenacity certainly led to the capture of this
height.]
[Footnote 29: Jung, "Bonaparte et son Temps," vol. ii., p. 430.]
[Footnote 30: "Mémorial," ch. ii., November, 1815. See also
Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," vol. i., p. 59.]
[Footnote 31: Marmont (1774-1852) became sub-lieutenant in 1789,
served with Buonaparte in Italy, Egypt, etc., received the title Duc
de Ragusa in 1808, Marshal in 1809; was defeated by Wellington at
Salamanca in 1812, deserted to the allies in 1814. Junot (1771-1813)
entered the army in 1791; was famed as a cavalry general in the wars
1796-1807; conquered Portugal in 1808, and received the title Duc
d'Abrantès; died mad.]
[Footnote 32: M. Zivy, "Le treize Vendémiaire," pp.60-62, quotes the
decree assigning the different commands. A MS. written by Buonaparte,
now in the French War Office Archives, proves also that it was Barras
who gave the order to fetch the cannon from the Sablons camp.]
[Footnote 33: Buonaparte afterwards asserted that it was he who had
given the order to fire, and certainly delay was all in favour of his
opponents.]
[Footnote 34: I caution readers against accepting the statement of
Carlyle ("French Revolution," vol. iii. _ad fin_.) that "the thing we
specifically call French Revolution is blown into space by the whiff
of grapeshot." On the contrary, it was perpetuated, though in a more
organic and more orderly governmental form.]
[Footnote 35: Chaptal, "Mes Souvenirs sur Napoléon," p. 198.]
[Footntoe 36: Koch, "Mémoires de Masséna," vol. ii., p. 13, credits
the French with only 37,775 men present with the colours, the
Austrians with 32,000, and the Sardinians with 20,000. All these
figures omit the troops in garrison or guarding communications.]
[Footnote 37: Napoleon's "Correspondence," March 28th, 1796.]
[Footnote 38: See my articles on Colonel Graham's despatches from
Italy in the "Eng. Hist. Review" of January and April, 1899.]
[Footnote 39: Thus Mr. Sargent ("Bonaparte's First Campaign") says
that Bonaparte was expecting Beaulieu to move on Genoa, and saw herein
a chance of crushing the Austrian centre. But Bonaparte, in his
despatch of April 6th to the Directory, referring to the French
advance towards Genoa, writes: "J'ai été très fâché et extrêmement
mécontent de ce mouvement sur Gênes, d'autant plus déplacé qu'il a
obligé cette république à prendre une attitude hostile, et a réveillé
l'ennemi que j'aurais pris tranquille: ce sont des hommes de plus
qu'il nous en coûtera." For the question how far Napoleon was indebted
to Marshal Maillebois' campaign of 1745 for his general design, see
the brochure of M. Pierron. His indebtedness has been proved by M.
Bouvier ("Bonaparte en Italie," p. 197) and by Mr. Wilkinson ("Owens
Coll. Hist. Essays").]
[Footnote 40: Nelson was then endeavouring to cut off the vessels
conveying stores from Toulon to the French forces. The following
extracts from his despatches are noteworthy. January 6th, 1796: "If
the French mean to carry on the war, they must penetrate into Italy.
Holland and Flanders, with their own country, they have entirely
stripped: Italy is the gold mine, and if once entered, is without the
means of resistance." Then on April 28th, after Piedmont was
overpowered by the French: "We English have to regret that we cannot
always decide the fate of Empires on the Sea." Again, on May 16th: "I
very much believe that England, who commenced the war with all Europe
for her allies, will finish it by having nearly all Europe for her
enemies."]
[Footnote 41: The picturesque story of the commander (who was not
Rampon, but Fornésy) summoning the defenders of the central redoubt to
swear on their colours and on the cannon that they would defend it to
the death has been endlessly repeated by historians. But the documents
which furnish the only authentic details show that there was in the
redoubt no cannon and no flag. Fornésy's words simply were: "C'est
ici, mes amis, qu'il faut vaincre ou mourir"--surely much grander than
the histrionic oath. (See "Mémoires de Masséna," Yol. ii.;" Pièces
Just.," No. 3; also Bouvier, _op. cit._)]
[Footnote 42: Jomini, vol. viii., p. 340; "Pièces Justifs."]
[Footnote 43: "Un Homme d'autrefois," par Costa de Beauregard.]
[Footnote 44: These were General Beaulieu's words to Colonel Graham on
May 22nd.]
[Footnote 45: Periods of ten days, which, in the revolutionary
calendar, superseded the week.]
[Footnote 46: I have followed the accounts given by Jomini, vol.
viii., pp. 120-130; that by Schels in the "Oest. Milit. Zeitschrift"
for 1825, vol. ii.; also Bouvier "Bonaparte en Italie," ch. xiii.; and
J.G.'s "Etudes sur la Campagne de 1796-97." Most French accounts,
being based on Napoleon's "Mémoires," vol. iii., p. 212 _et seq_., are
a tissue of inaccuracies. Bonaparte affected to believe that at Lodi
he defeated an army of sixteen thousand men. Thiers states that the
French cavalry, after fording the river at Montanasso, influenced the
result: but the official report of May 11th, 1796, expressly states
that the French horse could not cross the river at that place till the
fight was over. See too Desvernois, "Mems.," ch, vii.]
[Footnote 47: Bouvier (p. 533) traces this story to Las Cases and
discredits it.]
[Footnote: 48 Directorial despatch of May 7th, 1796. The date rebuts
the statement of M. Aulard, in M. Lavisse's recent volume, "La
Révolution Française," p. 435, that Bonaparte suggested to the
Directory the pillage of Lombardy.]
[Footnote 49: "Corresp.," June 6th, 1797.]
[Footnote 50: "Corresp.," June 1st, 1796.]
[Footnote 51: Gaffarel, "Bonaparte et les Républiques Italiennes," p.
22.]
[Footnote 52: "Corresp.," May 17th, 1796.]
[Footnote 53: Virgil, Aeneid, x. 200.]
[Footnote 54: Colonel Graham's despatches.]
[Footnote 55: "Corresp.," June 26th, 1796.]
[Footnote 56: Despatch of Francis to Würmser, July 14th, 1796.]
[Footnote 57: Jomini (vol. viii., p. 305) blames Weyrother, the chief
of Würmser's staff, for the plan. Jomini gives the precise figures of
the French on July 25th: Masséna had 15,000 men on the upper Adige;
Augereau, 5,000 near Legnago; Sauret, 4,000 at Salo; Sérurier, 10,500
near Mantua; and with others at and near Peschiera the total fighting
strength was 45,000. So "J.G.," p. 103.]
[Footnote 58: See Thiébault's amusing account ("Memoirs," vol. i., ch.
xvi.) of Bonaparte's contempt for any officer who could not give him
definite information, and of the devices by which his orderlies played
on this foible. See too Bourrienne for Bonaparte's dislike of new
faces.]
[Footnote 59: Marbot, "Mémoires," ch. xvi. J.G., in his recent work,
"Etudes sur la Campagne de 1796-97," p. 115, also defends Augereau.]
[Footnote 60: Jomini, vol. viii., p. 321.]
[Footnote 61: "English Hist. Review," January, 1899]
[Footnote 62: Such is the judgment of Clausewitz ("Werke," vol. iv.),
and it is partly endorsed by J.G. in his "Etudes sur la Campagne de
1796-97." St. Cyr, in his "Memoirs" on the Rhenish campaigns, also
blames Bonaparte for not having _earlier_ sent away his siege-train to
a place of safety. Its loss made the resumed siege of Mantua little
more than a blockade.]
[Footnote 63: Koch, "Mémoires de Masséna," vol. i., p. 199.]
[Footnote 64: "Corresp.," October 21st, 1796.]
[Footnote 65: "Corresp.," October 24th, 1796. The same policy was
employed towards Genoa. This republic was to be lulled into security
until it could easily be overthrown or absorbed.]
[Footnote 66: "Ordre du Jour," November 7th, 1796.]
[Footnote 67: Marmont, "Mémoires," vol. i., p. 237. I have followed
Marmont's narrative, as that of the chief actor in this strange scene.
It is less dramatic than the usual account, as found in Thiers, and
therefore is more probable. The incident illustrates the folly of a
commander doing the work of a sergeant. Marmont points out that the
best tactics would have been to send one division to cross the Adige
at Albaredo, and so take Arcola in the rear. Thiers' criticism, that
this would have involved too great a diffusion of the French line, is
refuted by the fact that on the third day a move on that side induced
the Austrians to evacuate Arcola.]
[Footnote 68: Koch, "Mémoires de Masséna," vol. i., p. 255, in his
very complete account of the battle, gives the enemy's losses as
upwards of 2,000 killed or wounded, and 4,000 prisoners with 11
cannon. Thiers gives 40,000 as Alvintzy's force before the battle--an
impossible number. See _ante_.]
[Footnote 69: The Austrian official figures for the loss in the three
days at Arcola give 2,046 killed and wounded, 4,090 prisoners, and 11
cannon. Napoleon put it down as 13,000 in all! See Schels in "Oest.
Milit. Zeitschrift" for 1829.]
[Footnote 70: A forecast of the plan realized in 1801-2, whereby
Bonaparte gained Louisiana for a time.]
[Footnote 71: Estimates of the Austrian force differ widely. Bonaparte
guessed it at 45,000, which is accepted by Thiers; Alison says 40,000;
Thiébault opines that it was 75,000; Marmont gives the total as
26,217. The Austrian official figures are 28,022 _before_ the fighting
north of Monte Baldo. See my article in the "Eng. Hist. Review" for
April, 1899. I have largely followed the despatches of Colonel Graham,
who was present at this battle. As "J.G." points out (_op.cit. _, p.
237), the French had 1,500 horse and some forty cannon, which gave
them a great advantage over foes who could make no effective use of
these arms.]
[Footnote 72: This was doubtless facilitated by the death of the
Czarina, Catherine II., in November, 1796. She had been on the point
of entering the Coalition against France. The new Czar Paul was at
that time for peace. The Austrian Minister Thugut, on hearing of her
death, exclaimed, "This is the climax of our disasters."]
[Footnote 73: Hüffer, "Oesterreich und Preussen," p. 263.]
[Footnote 74: "Moniteur," 20 Floreal, Year V.; Sciout, "Le
Directoire," vol. ii., ch. vii.]
[Footnote 75: See Landrieux's letter on the subject in Koch's
"Mémoires de Masséna," vol. ii.; "Pièces Justif.," _ad fin._; and
Bonaparte's "Corresp.," letter of March 24th, 1797. The evidence of
this letter, as also of those of April 9th and 19th, is ignored by
Thiers, whose account of Venetian affairs is misleading. It is clear
that Bonaparte contemplated partition long before the revolt of
Brescia.]
[Footnote 76: Botta, "Storia d'Italia," vol. ii., chs. x., etc.; Daru,
"Hist. de Venise," vol. v.; Gaffarel, "Bonaparte et les Républiques
Italiennes," pp. 137-139; and Sciout, "Le Directoire," vol ii., chs.
v. and vii.]
[Footnote 77: Sorel, "Bonaparte et Hoche en 1797," p. 65.]
[Footnote 78: Letter of April 30th, 1797.]
[Footnote 79: Letter of May 13th, 1797.]
[Footnote 80: It would even seem, from Bonaparte's letter of July
12th, 1797, that not till then did he deign to send on to Paris the
terms of the treaty with Venice. He accompanied it with the cynical
suggestion that they could do what they liked with the treaty, and
even annul it!]
[Footnote 81: The name _Italian_ was rejected by Bonaparte as too
aggressively nationalist; but the prefix _Cis_--applied to a State
which stretched southward to the Rubicon--was a concession to Italian
nationality. It implied that Florence or Rome was the natural capital
of the new State.]
[Footnote 82: See Arnault's "Souvenirs d'un sexagénaire" (vol. iii.,
p. 31) and Levy's "Napoléon intime," p. 131.]
[Footnote 83: For the subjoined version of the accompanying new letter
of Bonaparte (referred to in my Preface) I am indebted to Mr. H.A.L.
Fisher, in the "Eng. Hist. Rev.," July, 1900:
"Milan, 29 Thermidor [l'an IV.]
"À LA CITOYENNE TALLIEN
"Je vous dois des remerciements, belle citoyenne, pour le souvenir
que vous me conservez et pour les choses aimables contenues dans
votre apostille. Je sais bien qu'en vous disant que je regrette les
moments heureux que j'ai passé dans votre société je ne vous répète
que ce que tout le monde vous dit. Vous connaître c'est ne plus
pouvoir vous oublier: être loin de votre aimable personne lorsque
l'on a goûté les charmes de votre société c'est désirer vivement de
s'en rapprocher; mais l'on dit que vous allez en Espagne. Fi! c'est
très vilain à moins que vous ne soyez de retour avant trois mois,
enfin que cet hiver nous ayons le bonheur de vous voir à Paris.
Allez donc en Espagne visiter la caverne de Gil Blas. Moi je crois
aussi visiter toutes les antiquités possibles, enfin que dans le
cours de novembre jusqu'à février nous puissions raconter sans
cesse. Croyez-moi avec toute la considération, je voulais dire le
respect, mais je sais qu'en général les jolies femmes n'aiment pas
ce mot-là.
"BONAPARTE.
"Mille et mille chose à Tallien."]
[Footnote 84: Lavalette, "Méms.," ch. xiii.; Barras, "Méms.," vol.
ii., pp. 511-512; and Duchesse d'Abrantès, "Méms.," vol. i., ch.
xxviii.]
[Footnote 85: Barras, "Méms.," vol. ii., ch, xxxi.; Madame de Staël,
"Directoire," ch. viii.]
[Footnote 86: "Mémoires de Gohier"; Roederer, "Oeuvres," tome iii., p.
294.]
[Footnote 87: Brougham, "Sketches of Statesmen"; Ste. Beuve,
"Talleyrand"; Lady Blennerhasset, "Talleyrand."]
[Footnote 88: Instructions of Talleyrand to the French envoys
(September 11th); also Ernouf's "Maret, Duc de Bassano," chs. xxvii.
and xxviii., for the _bona fides_ of Pitt in these negotiations.
It seems strange that Baron du Casse, in his generally fair treatment
of the English case, in his "Négociations relatives aux Traités de
Lunéville et d'Amiens," should have prejudiced his readers at the
outset by referring to a letter which he attributes to Lord
Malmesbury. It bears no date, no name, and purports to be "Une Lettre
de Lord Malmesbury, oubliée à Lille." How could the following
sentences have been penned by Malmesbury, and written to Lord
Grenville?--"Mais enfin, outre les regrets sincères de Méot et des
danseuses de l'Opéra, j'eus la consolation de voir en quittant Paris,
que des Français et une multitude de nouveaux convertis à la religion
catholique m'accompagnaient de leurs voeux, de leurs prières, et
presque de leurs larmes.... L'évènement de Fructidor porta la
désolation dans le coeur de tous les bons ennemis de la France. Pour
ma part, j'en fut consterné: _je ne l'avais point prévu_." It is
obviously the clumsy fabrication of a Fructidorian, designed for
Parisian consumption: it was translated by a Whig pamphleteer under
the title "The Voice of Truth!"--a fit sample of that partisan
malevolence which distorted a great part of our political literature
in that age.]
[Footnote 89: Bonaparte's letters of September 28th and October 7th to
Talleyrand.]
[Footnote 90: See too Marsh's "Politicks of Great Britain and France,"
ch. xiii.; "Correspondence of W.A. Miles on the French Revolution,"
letters of January 7th and January 18th, 1793; also Sybel's "Europe
during the French Revolution," vol. ii.]
[Footnote 91: Pallain, "Le Ministère de Talleyrand sous le
Directoire," p. 42.]
[Footnote 92: Bourrienne, "Memoirs," vol. i., ch. xii. See too the
despatch of Sandoz-Rollin to Berlin of February 28th, 1798, in
Bailleu's "Preussen und Frankreich," vol. i., No. 150.]
[Footnote 93: The italics are my own. I wish to call attention to the
statement in view of the much-debated question whether in 1804-5
Napoleon intended to invade our land, _unless he gained maritime
supremacy_. See Desbrière's "Projets de Débarquement aux Iles
Britanniques," vol. i., _ad fin_.]
[Footnote 94: Letter of October 10th, 1797; see too those of August
16th and September 13th.]
[Footnote 95: The plan of menacing diverse parts of our coasts was kept
up by Bonaparte as late as April 13th, 1798. In his letter of this
date he still speaks of the invasion of England and Scotland, and
promises to return from Egypt in three or four months, so as to
proceed with the invasion of the United Kingdom. Boulay de la Meurthe,
in his work, "Le Directoire et l'Expédition d'Egypte," ch. i., seems
to take this promise seriously. In any case the Directors' hopes for
the invasion of Ireland were dashed by the premature rising of the
Irish malcontents in May, 1798. For Poussielgue's mission to Malta,
see Lavalette's "Mems.," ch. xiv.]
[Footnote 96: Mallet du Pan states that three thousand Vaudois came to
Berne to join in the national defence: "Les cantons démocratiques sont
les plus fanatisés contre les Français"--a suggestive remark.]
[Footnote 97: Dändliker, "Geschichte der Schweiz," vol. iii., p. 350
(edition of 1895); also Lavisse, "La Rév. Franç.," p. 821.]
[Footnote 98: "Correspondance," No. 2676.]
[Footnote 99: "Foreign Office Records," Malta (No. 1). Mr. Williams
states in his despatch of June 30th, 1798, that Bonaparte knew there
were four thousand Maltese in his favour, and that most of the French
knights were publicly known to be so; but he adds: "I do believe the
Maltees [_sic_] have given the island to the French in order to get
rid of the knighthood."]
[Footnote 100: I am indebted for this fact to the Librarian of the
Priory of the Knights of St. John, Clerkenwell.]
[Footnote 101: See, for a curious instance, Chaptal, "Mes Souvenirs,"
p. 243.]
[Footnote 102: The Arab accounts of these events, drawn up by Nakoula
and Abdurrahman, are of much interest. They have been well used by M.
Dufourcq, editor of Desvernois' "Memoirs," for many suggestive
footnotes.]
[Footnote 103: Desgenettes, "Histoire médicale de l'Armée d'Orient"
(Paris, 1802); Belliard, "Mémoires," vol. i.]
[Footnote 104: I have followed chiefly the account of Savary, Duc de
Rovigo, "Mems.," ch. iv. See too Desvernois, "Mems.," ch. iv.]
[Footnote 105: See his orders published in the "Correspondance
officielle et confid. de Nap. Bonaparte, Egypte," vol. i. (Paris,
1819, p. 270). They rebut Captain Mahan's statement ("Influence of Sea
Power upon the Fr. Rev. and Emp.," vol. i., p. 263) as to Brueys'
"delusion and lethargy" at Aboukir. On the contrary, though enfeebled
by dysentery and worried by lack of provisions and the insubordination
of his marines, he certainly did what he could under the
circumstances. See his letters in the Appendix of Jurien de la
Graviere, "Guerres Maritimes," vol. i.]
[Footnote 106: Desvernois, "Mems.," ch. v.]
[Footnote 107: _Ib._, ch. vi.]
[Footnote 108: Order of July 27th, 1798.]
[Footnote 109: Ducasse, "Les Rois, Frères de Napoléon," p. 8.]
[Footnote 110: "Mémoires de Napoléon," vol. ii.; Bourrienne, "Mems.,"
vol. i., ch. xvii.]
[Footnote 111: "Méms. de Berthier."]
[Footnote 112: On November 4th, 1798, the French Government forwarded
to Bonaparte, in triplicate copies, a despatch which, after setting
forth the failure of their designs on Ireland, urged him either (1) to
remain in Egypt, of which they evidently disapproved, or (2) to march
towards India and co-operate with Tippoo Sahib, or (3) to advance on
Constantinople in order that France might have a share in the
partition of Turkey, which was then being discussed between the Courts
of Petersburg and Vienna. No copy of this despatch seems to have
reached Bonaparte before he set out for Syria (February 10th). This
curious and perhaps guileful despatch is given in full by Boulay de la
Meurthe, "Le Directoire et l'Expédition d'Égypte," Appendix, No. 5.
On the whole, I am compelled to dissent from Captain Mahan ("Influence
of Sea Power," vol. i., pp. 324-326), and to regard the larger schemes
of Bonaparte in this Syrian enterprise as visionary.]
[Footnote 113: Berthier, "Mémoires"; Belliard, "Bourrienne et ses
Erreurs," also corrects Bourrienne. As to the dearth of food, denied
by Lanfrey, see Captain Krettly, "Souvenirs historiques."]
[Footnote 114: Emouf, "Le General Kléber," p. 201.]
[Footnote 115: "Admiralty Records," Mediterranean, No. 19.]
[Footnote 116: "Corresp.," No. 4124; Lavalette, "Mems.," ch. xxi.]
[Footnote 117: Sidney Smith's "Despatch to Nelson" of May 30th, 1799.]
[Footnote 118: J. Miot's words are: "Mais s'il en faut croire cette
voix publique, trop souvent organe de la vérité tardive, qu'en vain
les grands espèrent enchaîner, c'est un fait trop avéré que quelques
blessés du Mont Carmel et une grande partie des malades à l'hôpital de
Jaffa ont péri par les médicaments qui leur ont été administrés." Can
this be called evidence?]
[Footnote 119: Larrey, "Relation historique"; Lavalette, "Mems.," ch.
xxi.]
[Footnote 120: See Belliard, "Bourrienne et ses Erreurs"; also a
letter of d'Aure, formerly Intendant General of this army, to the
"Journal des Débats" of April 16th, 1829, in reply to Bourrienne.]
[Footnote 121: "On disait tout haut qu'il se sauvait lâchement," Merme
in Guitry's "L'Armée en Égypte." But Bonaparte had prepared for this
discouragement and worse eventualities by warning Kléber in the letter
of August 22nd, 1799, that if he lost 1,500 men by the plague he was
free to treat for the evacuation of Egypt.]
[Footnote 122: Lucien Bonaparte, "Mémoires," vol. ii., ch. xiv.]
[Footnote 123: In our "Admiralty Records" (Mediterranean, No. 21) are
documents which prove the reality of Russian designs on Corsica.]
[Footnote 124: "Consid. sur la Rév. Française," bk. iii., ch. xiii.
See too Sciout, "Le Directoire," vol. iv., chs. xiii.-xiv.]
[Footnote 125: La Réveillière-Lépeaux, "Mems.," vol. ii., ch. xliv.;
Hyde de Neuville, vol. i., chs. vi.-vii.; Lavisse, "Rév. Française,"
p. 394.]
[Footnote 126: Barras, "Mems.," vol. iv., ch. ii.]
[Footnote 127: "Hist. of the United States" (1801-1813), by H. Adams,
vol. i., ch. xiv., and Ste. Beuve's "Talleyrand."]
[Footnote 128: Gohier, "Mems.," vol. i.; Lavalette's "Mems.," ch.
xxii.; Roederer, "OEuvres," vol. iii., p. 301; Madelin's "Fouché," p.
267.]
[Footnote 129: For the story about Aréna's dagger, raised against
Bonaparte see Sciout, vol. iv., p. 652. It seems due to Lucien
Bonaparte. I take the curious details about Bonaparte's sudden pallor
from Roederer ("Oeuvres," vol. iii., p. 302), who heard it from
Montrond, Talleyrand's secretary. So Aulard, "Hist, de la Rév. Fr.,"
p. 699.]
[Footnote 130: Napoleon explained to Metternich in 1812 why he wished
to silence the _Corps Législatif_; "In France everyone runs after
applause: they want to be noticed and applauded.... Silence an
Assembly, which, if it is anything, must be deliberative, and you
discredit it."--Metternich's "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 151.]
[Footnote 131: This was still further assured by the first elections
under the new system being postponed till 1801; the functionaries
chosen by the Consuls were then placed on the lists of notabilities of
the nation without vote. The constitution was put in force Dec. 25th,
1799.]
[Footnote 132: Roederer, "Oeuvres," vol. iii., p. 303. He was the
go-between for Bonaparte and Sieyès.]
[Footnote 133: See the "Souvenirs" of Mathieu Dumas for the skilful
manner in which Bonaparte gained over the services of this
constitutional royalist and employed him to raise a body of volunteer
horse.]
[Footnote 134: "Lettres inédites de Napoléon," February 21st, 1800;
"Mémoires du Général d'Andigné," ch. xv.; Madelin's "Fouché," p. 306.]
[Footnote 135: "Georges Cadoudal," par son neveu, G. de Cadoudal; Hyde
de Neuville, vol. i., p. 305.]
[Footnote 136: Talleyrand, "Mems.," vol. i., part ii.; Marmont, bk.
v.]
[Footnote 137: "F.O.," Austria, No. 58; "Castlereagh's Despatches," v.
_ad init._ Bowman, in his excellent monograph, "Preliminary Stages of
the Peace of Amiens" (Toronto, 1899), has not noted this.]
[Footnote 138: "Nap. Correspond.," February 27th 1800; Thugut,
"Briefe" vol. ii., pp. 444-446; Oncken, "Zeitalter," vol. ii. p. 45.]
[Footnote 139: A Foreign Office despatch, dated Downing Street,
February 8th, 1800, to Vienna, promised a loan and that 15,000 or
20,000 British troops should be employed in the Mediterranean to act
in concert with the Austrians there, and to give "support to the
royalist insurrections in the southern provinces of France." No
differences of opinion respecting Piedmont can be held a sufficient
excuse for the failure of the British Government to fulfil this
promise--a failure which contributed to the disaster at Marengo.]
[Footnote 140: Thiers attributes this device to Bonaparte; but the
First Consul's bulletin of May 24th ascribes it to Marmont and
Gassendi.]
[Footnote 141: Marbot, "Mems.," ch. ix.; Allardyce, "Memoir of Lord
Keith," ch. xiii.; Thiébault's "Journal of the Blockade of Genoa."]
[Footnote 142: That Melas expected such a march is clear from a letter
of his of May 23rd, dated from Savillan, to Lord Keith, which I have
found in the "Brit. Admiralty Records" (Mediterranean, No. 22), where
he says: "L'ennemi a cerné le fort de Bard et s'est avancé jusque sous
le château d'Ivrée. Il est clair que son but est de délivrer
Masséna."]
[Footnote 143: Bonaparte did not leave Milan till June 9th: see
"Correspondance" and the bulletin of June 10th. Jomini places his
departure for the 7th, and thereby confuses his description for these
two days. Thiers dates it on June 8th.]
[Footnote 144: Lord W. Bentinck reported to the Brit. Admiralty
("Records," Meditn., No. 22), from Alessandria, on June 15th: "I am
sorry to say that General Elsnitz's corps, which was composed of the
grenadiers of the finest regiments in the (Austrian) army, arrived
here in the most deplorable condition. His men had already suffered
much from want of provisions and other hardships. He was pursued in
his retreat by Genl. Suchet, who had with him about 7,000 men. There
was an action at Ponte di Nava, in which the French failed; and it
will appear scarcely credible, when I tell your Lordship, that the
Austrians lost in this retreat, from fatigue only, near 5,000 men; and
I have no doubt that Genl. Suchet will notify this to the world as a
great victory."]
[Footnote 145: The inaccuracy of Marbot's "Mémoires" is nowhere more
glaring than in his statement that Marengo must have gone against the
French if Ott's 25,000 Austrians from Genoa had joined their comrades.
As a matter of fact, Ott, with 16,000 men, had _already_ fought with
Lannes at Montebello; and played a great part in the battle of
Marengo.]
[Footnote 146: "Corresp.," vol. vi., p. 365. Fournier, "Hist. Studien
und Skizzen," p. 189, argues that the letter was written from Milan,
and dated from Marengo for effect.]
[Footnote 147: See Czartoryski's "Memoirs," ch. xi., and Driault's "La
Question d'Orient," ch. iii. The British Foreign Office was informed
of the plan. In its records (No. 614) is a memoir (pencilled on the
back January 31st, 1801) from a M. Leclerc to Mr. Flint, referring the
present proposal back to that offered by M. de St. Génie to Catherine
II., and proposing that the first French step should be the seizure of
Socotra and Perim.]
[Footnote 148: Garden, "Traités," vol. vi., ch. xxx.; Captain Mahan's
"Life of Nelson," vol. ii., ch. xvi.; Thiers, "Consulate," bk. ix. For
the assassination of the Czar Paul see "Kaiser Paul's Ende," von R.R.
(Stuttgart, 1897); also Czartoryski's "Memoirs," chs. xiii.-xiv. For
Bonaparte's offer of a naval truce to us and his overture of December,
1800, see Bowman, _op. cit_.]
[Footnote 149: Pasquier, " Mems.," vol. i., ch. ii., p. 299. So too
Mollien, "Mems.": "With an insatiable activity in details, a
restlessness of mind always eager for new cares, he not only reigned
and governed, he continued to administer not only as Prime Minister,
but more minutely than each Minister."]
[Footnote 150: Lack of space prevents any account of French finances
and the establishment of the Bank of France. But we may note here that
the collection of the national taxes was now carried out by a
State-appointed director and his subordinates in every Department--a
plan which yielded better results than former slipshod methods. The
_conseil général_ of the Department assessed the direct taxes among
the smaller areas. "Méms." de Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte.]
[Footnote 151: Edmond Blanc, "Napoléon I; ses Institutions," p. 27.]
[Footnote 152: Theiner, "Hist. des deux Concordats," vol. i., p. 21.]
[Footnote 153: Thibaudeau estimated that of the population of
35,000,000 the following assortment might be made: Protestants, Jews,
and Theophilanthropists, 3,000,000; Catholics, 15,000,000, equally
divided between orthodox and constitutionals; and as many as
17,000,000 professing no belief whatever.]
[Footnote 154: See Roederer, "Oeuvres," vol. iii., p. 475. On the
discontent of the officers, see Pasquier's "Mems.," vol. i., ch. vii.;
also Marmont's "Mems.," bk. vi.]
[Footnote 155: See the drafts in Count Boulay de la Meurthe's
"Négociation du Concordat," vol. ii., pp. 58 and 268.]
[Footnote 156: Theiner, vol. i., pp. 193 and 196.]
[Footnote 157: Méneval, "Mems.," vol. i., p. 81.]
[Footnote 158: Thiers omits any notice of this strange transaction.
Lanfrey describes it, but unfortunately relies on the melodramatic
version given in Consalvi's "Memoirs," which were written many years
later and are far less trustworthy than the Cardinal's letters written
at the time. In his careful review of all the documentary evidence,
Count Boulay de la Meurthe (vol. iii., p. 201, note) concludes that
the new project of the Concordat (No. VIII.) was drawn up by
Hauterive, was "submitted immediately to the approbation of the
First Consul," and thereupon formed the basis of the long and
heated discussion of July 14th between the Papal and French
plenipotentiaries. A facsimile of this interesting document, with all
the erasures, is appended at the end of his volume.]
[Footnote 159: Pasquier, "Mems.," vol. i., ch. vii. Two of the organic
articles portended the abolition of the revolutionary calendar. The
first restored the old names of the days of the week; the second
ordered that Sunday should be the day of rest for all public
functionaries. The observance of _décadis_ thenceforth ceased; but the
months of the revolutionary calendar were observed until the close of
the year 1805. Theophilanthropy was similarly treated: when its
votaries applied for a building, their request was refused on the
ground that their cult came within the domain of philosophy, not of
any actual religion! A small number of priests and of their
parishioners refused to recognize the Concordat; and even to-day there
are a few of these _anti-concordataires_.]
[Footnote 160: Chaptal, "Souvenirs," pp. 237-239. Lucien Bonaparte,
"Mems.," vol. ii., p. 201, quotes his brother Joseph's opinion of the
Concordat: "Un pas rétrograde et irréfléchi de la nation qui s'y
soumettait."]
[Footnote 161: Thibaudeau, "Consulat," ch. xxvi.]
[Footnote 162: "Code Napoléon," art. 148.]
[Footnote 163: In other respects also Bonaparte's influence was used
to depress the legal status of woman, which the men of 1789 had done
so much to raise. In his curious letter of May 15th, 1807, on the
Institution at Ecouen, we have his ideas on a sound, useful education
for girls: "... We must begin with religion in all its severity. Do
not admit any modification of this. Religion is very important in a
girls' public school: it is the surest guarantee for mothers and
husbands. We must train up believers, not reasoners. The weakness of
women's brains, the unsteadiness of their ideas, their function in the
social order, their need of constant resignation and of a kind of
indulgent and easy charity--all can only be attained by religion."
They were to learn a little geography and history, but no foreign
language; above all, to do plenty of needlework.]
[Footnote 164: Sagnac, "Législation civile de la Rév. Fr.," p. 293.]
[Footnote 165: Divorce was suppressed in 1816, but was re-established
in 1884.]
[Footnote 166: Sagnac, _op. cit._, p. 352.]
[Footnote 167: "The Life of Sir S. Romilly," vol. i., p. 408.]
[Footnote 168: Madelin in his "Fouché," ch. xi., shows how Bonaparte's
private police managed the affair. Harel was afterwards promoted to
the governorship of the Castle of Vincennes: the four talkers, whom he
and the police had lured on, were executed after the affair of Nivôse.
That dextrous literary flatterer, the poet Fontanes, celebrated the
"discovery" of the Aréna plot by publishing anonymously a pamphlet ("A
Parallel between Caesar, Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte") in which he
decided that no one but Caesar deserved the honour of a comparison
with Bonaparte, and that certain destinies were summoning him to a yet
higher title. The pamphlet appeared under the patronage of Lucien
Bonaparte, and so annoyed his brother that he soon despatched him on a
diplomatic mission to Madrid as a punishment for his ill-timed
suggestions.]
[Footnote 169: Thibaudeau, _op. cit_., vol. ii., p. 55. Miot de
Melito, ch. xii.]
[Footnote 170: It seems clear, from the evidence so frankly given by
Cadoudal in his trial in 1804, as well as from his expressions when he
heard of the affair of Nivôse, that the hero of the Chouans had no
part in the bomb affair. He had returned to France, had empowered St.
Réjant to buy arms and horses, "dont je me servirai plus tard"; and it
seems certain that he intended to form a band of desperate men who
were to waylay, kidnap, or kill the First Consul in open fight. This
plan was deferred by the bomb explosion for three years. As soon as he
heard of this event, he exclaimed: "I'll bet that it was that---- St.
Réjant. He has upset all my plans." (See "Georges Cadoudal," par G. de
Cadoudal.)]
[Footnote 171: Roederer, "Oeuvres," vol. iii., p. 352. For these
negotiations see Bowman's "Preliminary Stages of the Peace of Amiens"
(Toronto, 1899).]
[Footnote 172: Porter, "Progress of the Nation," ch. xiv.]
[Footnote 173: "New Letters of Napoleon I." See too his letter of June
17th.]
[Footnote 174: "Cornwallis Correspondence," vol. iii., pp. 380-382.
Few records exist of the negotiations between Lord Hawkesbury and M.
Otto at London. I have found none in the Foreign Office archives. The
general facts are given by Garden, "Traités," vol. vii., ch. xxxi.;
only a few of the discussions were reduced to writing. This seriously
prejudiced our interests at Amiens.]
[Footnote 175: Lefebvre, "Cabinets de l'Europe," ch. iv]
[Footnote 176: Chaptal. "Mes Souvenirs," pp. 287, 291, and 359.]
[Footnote 177: See Chapter XIV. of this work.]
[Footnote 178: Thibaudeau, _op. cit_., ch. xxvi.; Lavisse, "Napoléon,"
ch. i.]
[Footnote 179: "A Diary of St. Helena," by Lady Malcolm, p. 97.]
[Footnote 180: "The Two Duchesses," edited by Vere Foster, p. 172.
Lord Malmesbury ("Diaries," vol. iv., p. 257) is less favourable:
"When B. is out of his ceremonious habits, his language is often
coarse and vulgar."]
[Footnote 181: Jurien de la Graviere, "Guerres Maritimes," vol. ii.,
chap. vii.]
[Footnote 182: These facts were fully acknowledged later by Otto: see
his despatch of January 6th, 1802, to Talleyrand, published by Du
Casse in his "Négociations relatives au Traité d'Amiens," vol. iii.]
[Footnote 183: "F.O.," France, No. 59. The memoir is dated October
19th, 1801.]
[Footnote 184: "F.O.," France, No. 59.]
[Footnote 185: Castlereagh, "Letters and Despatches," Second Series,
vol. i., p. 62, and the speeches of Ministers on November 3rd, 1801.]
[Footnote 186: Cornwallis, "Correspondence," vol. iii., despatch of
December 3rd, 1801. The feelings of the native Maltese were strongly
for annexation to Britain, and against the return of the Order at all.
They sent a deputation to London (February, 1802), which was shabbily
treated by our Government so as to avoid offending Bonaparte. (See
"Correspondence of W.A. Miles," vol. ii., pp. 323-329, who drew up
their memorial.)]
[Footnote 187: Cornwallis's despatches of January 10th and 23rd,
1802.]
[Footnote 188: Project of a treaty forwarded by Cornwallis to London
on December 27th, 1801, in the Public Record Office, No. 615.]
[Footnote 189: See the "Paget Papers," vol. ii. France gained the
right of admission to the Black Sea: the despatches of Mr. Merry from
Paris in May, 1802, show that France and Russia were planning schemes
of partition of Turkey. ("F.O.," France, No. 62.)]
[Footnote 190: The despatches of March 14th and 22nd, 1802, show how
strong was the repugnance of our Government to this shabby treatment
of the Prince of Orange; and it is clear that Cornwallis exceeded his
instructions in signing peace on those terms. (See Garden, vol. vii.,
p. 142.) By a secret treaty with Prussia (May, 1802), France procured
Fulda for the House of Orange.]
[Footnote 191: Pasolini, "Memorie," _ad init_.]
[Footnote 192: "Lettres inédites de Talleyrand à Napoléon" (Paris,
1889).]
[Footnote 193: Mr. Jackson's despatch of February 17th, 1802, from
Paris. According to Miot de Melito ("Mems.," ch. xiv.), Bonaparte had
offered the post of President to his brother Joseph, but fettered it
by so many restrictions that Joseph declined the honour.]
[Footnote 194: Roederer tells us ("OEuvres," vol. iii., p. 428) that
he had drawn up two plans of a constitution for the Cisalpine; the one
very short and leaving much to the President, the other precise and
detailed. He told Talleyrand to advise Bonaparte to adopt the former
as it was "_short and_"--he was about to add "_clear_" when the
diplomatist cut him short with the words, "_Yes: short and obscure!_"]
[Footnote 195: Napoleon's letter of February 2nd, 1802, to Joseph
Bonaparte; see too Cornwallis's memorandum of February 18th.]
[Footnote 196: It is only fair to Cornwallis to quote the letter,
marked "Private," which he received from Hawkesbury at the same time
that he was bidden to stand firm:
"DOWNING STREET, _March 22nd_, 1802.
"I think it right to inform you that I have had a confidential
communication with Otto, who will use his utmost endeavours to induce
his Government to agree to the articles respecting the Prince of
Orange and the prisoners in the shape in which they are now proposed.
I have very little doubt of his success, and I should hope therefore
that you will soon be released. I need not remind you of the
importance of sending your most expeditious messenger the moment our
fate is determined. The Treasury is almost exhausted, and Mr.
Addington cannot well make his loan in the present state of
uncertainty."]
[Footnote 197: See the British notes of November 6th-16th, 1801, in
the "Cornwallis Correspondence," vol. iii. In his speech in the House
of Lords, May 13th, 1802, Lord Grenville complained that we had had to
send to the West Indies in time of peace a fleet double as large as
that kept there during the late war.]
[Footnote 198: For these and the following negotiations see Lucien
Bonaparte's "Mémoires," vol. ii., and Garden's "Traités de Paix," vol.
iii., ch. xxxiv. The Hon. H. Taylor, in "The North American Review" of
November, 1898, has computed that the New World was thus divided in
1801:
Spain 7,028,000 square miles.
Great Britain 3,719,000 " "
Portugal 3,209,000 " "
United States 827,000 " "
Russia 577,000 " "
France 29,000 " "
[Footnote 199: "History of the United States, 1801-1813," by H. Adams,
vol. i, p. 409.]
[Footnote 200: Napoleon's letter of November 2nd, 1802.]
[Footnote 201: Merry's despatch of October 21st, 1802.]
[Footnote 202: The instructions which he sent to Victor supply an
interesting commentary on French colonial policy: "The system of this,
as of all our other colonies, should be to concentrate its commerce in
the national commerce: it should especially aim at establishing its
relations with our Antilles, so as to take the place in those colonies
of the American commerce.... The captain-general should abstain from
every innovation favourable to strangers, who should be restricted to
such communications as are absolutely indispensable to the prosperity
of Louisiana."]
[Footnote 203: Lucien Bonaparte, "Mémoires," vol. ii., ch. ix. He
describes Josephine's alarm at this ill omen at a time when rumours of
a divorce were rife.]
[Footnote 204: Harbé-Marbois, "Hist. de Louisiana," quoted by H.
Adams, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 27; Roloff, "Napoleon's Colonial
Politik."]
[Footnote 205: Garden, "Traités," vol. viii., ch. xxxiv. See too
Roederer, "Oeuvres," vol. iii., p. 461, for Napoleon's expressions
after dinner on January 11th, 1803: "Maudit sucre, maudit café,
maudites colonies."]
[Footnote 206: Cornwallis, "Correspondence," vol. iii., despatch of
December 3rd, 1801.]
[Footnote 207: See the valuable articles on General Decaen's papers in
the "Revue historique" of 1879 and of 1881.]
[Footnote 208: Dumas' "Précis des Événements Militaires," vol. xi., p.
189. The version of these instructions presented by Thiers, book xvi.,
is utterly misleading.]
[Footnote 209: Lord Whitworth, our ambassador in Paris, stated
(despatch of March 24th, 1803) that Decaen was to be quietly
reinforced by troops in French pay sent out by every French, Spanish,
or Dutch ship going to India, so as to avoid attracting notice.
("England and Napoleon," edited by Oscar Browning, p. 137.)]
[Footnote 210: See my article, "The French East India Expedition at
the Cape," and unpublished documents in the "Eng. Hist. Rev." of
January, 1900. French designs on the Cape strengthened our resolve to
acquire it, as we prepared to do in the summer of 1805.]
[Footnote 211: Wellesley, "Despatches," vol. iii., Appendix, despatch
of August 1st, 1803. See too Castlereagh's "Letters and Despatches,"
Second Series, vol. i., pp. 166-176, for Lord Elgin's papers and
others, all of 1802, describing the utter weakness of Turkey, the
probability of Egypt falling to any invader, of Caucasia and Persia
being menaced by Russia, and the need of occupying Aden as a check to
any French designs on India from Suez.]
[Footnote 212: Wellesley's despatch of July 13th, 1804: with it he
inclosed an intercepted despatch, dated Pondicherry, August 6th, 1803,
a "Mémoire sur l'Importance actuelle de l'Inde et les moyens les plus
efficaces d'y rétablir la Nation Française dans son ancienne
splendeur." The writer, Lieutenant Lefebvre, set forth the
unpopularity of the British in India and the immense wealth which
France could gain from its conquest.]
[Footnote 213: The report of the Imaum is given in Castlereagh's
"Letters," Second Series, vol. i., p. 203.]
[Footnote 214: "Voyage de Découverte aux Terres Australes sur les
Corvettes, le Géographe et le Naturaliste," rédigé par M.F. Péron
(Paris, 1807-15). From the Atlas the accompanying map has been
copied.]
[Footnote 215: His later mishaps may here be briefly recounted. Being
compelled to touch at the Ile de France for repairs to his ship, he
was there seized and detained as a spy by General Decaen, until the
chivalrous intercession of the French explorer, Bougainville, finally
availed to procure his release in the year 1810. The conduct of Decaen
was the more odious, as the French crews during their stay at Sydney
in the autumn of 1802, when the news of the Peace of Amiens was as yet
unknown, had received not only much help in the repair of their ships,
but most generous personal attentions, officials and private persons
at Sydney agreeing to put themselves on short rations in that season
of dearth in order that the explorers might have food. Though this
fact was brought to Decaen's knowledge by the brother of Commodore
Baudin, he none the less refused to acknowledge the validity of the
passport which Flinders, as a geographical explorer, had received from
the French authorities, but detained him in captivity for seven years.
For the details see "A Voyage of Discovery to the Australian Isles,"
by Captain Flinders (London, 1814), vol. ii., chs. vii.-ix. The names
given by Flinders on the coasts of Western and South Australia have
been retained owing to the priority of his investigation: but the
French names have been kept on the coast between the mouth of the
Murray and Bass Strait for the same reason.]
[Footnote 216: See Baudin's letter to King of December 23rd, 1803, in
vol. v. (Appendix) of "Historical Records of New South Wales," and the
other important letters and despatches contained there, as also
_ibid_., pp. 133 and 376.]
[Footnote 217: Mr. Merry's ciphered despatch from Paris, May 7th,
1802.]
[Footnote 218: It is impossible to enter into the complicated question
of the reconstruction of Germany effected in 1802-3. A general
agreement had been made at Rastadt that, as an indemnity for the
losses of German States in the conquest of the Rhineland by France,
they should receive the ecclesiastical lands of the old Empire. The
Imperial Diet appointed a delegation to consider the whole question;
but before this body assembled (on August 24th, 1802), a number of
treaties had been secretly made at Paris, with the approval of Russia,
which favoured Prussia and depressed Austria. Austria received the
archbishoprics of Trent and Brixen: while her Archdukes (formerly of
Tuscany and Modena) were installed in Salzburg and Breisgau. Prussia,
as the _protégé_ of France, gained Hildesheim, Paderborn, Erfurt, the
city of Münster, etc. Bavaria received Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg,
Passau, etc. See Garden, "Traités," vol. vii., ch. xxxii.; "Annual
Register" of 1802, pp. 648-665; Oncken, "Consulat und Kaiserthum,"
vol. ii.; and Beer's "Zehn Jahre Oesterreichischer Politik."]
[Footnote 219: The British notes of April 28th and May 8th, 1803,
again demanded a suitable indemnity for the King of Sardinia.]
[Footnote 220: See his letters of January 28th, 1801, February 27th,
March 10th, March 25th, April 10th, and May 16th, published in a work,
"Bonaparte, Talleyrand et Stapfer" (Zürich, 1869).]
[Footnote 221: Daendliker, "Geschichte der Schweiz," vol. iii., p.
418; Muralt's "Reinhard," p. 55; and Stapfer's letter of April 28th:
"Malgré cette apparente neutralité que le gouvernement français
déclare vouloir observer pour le moment, différentes circonstances me
persuadent qu'il a vu avec plaisir passer la direction des affaires
des mains de la majorité du Sénat [helvétique] dans celles de la
minorité du Petit Conseil."]
[Footnote 222: Garden, "Traités," vol. viii., p. 10. Mr. Merry, our
_chargé d'affaires_ at Paris, reported July 21st; "M. Stapfer makes a
boast of having obtained the First Consul's consent to withdraw the
French troops entirely from Switzerland. I learn from some
well-disposed Swiss who are here that such a consent has been given;
but they consider it only as a measure calculated to increase the
disturbances in their country and to furnish a pretext for the French
to enter it again."]
[Footnote 223: Reding, in a pamphlet published shortly after this
time, gave full particulars of his interviews with Bonaparte at Paris,
and stated that he had fully approved of his (Reding's) federal plans.
Neither Bonaparte nor Talleyrand ever denied this.]
[Footnote 224: See "Paget Papers," vol. ii., despatches of October
29th, 1802, and January 28th, 1803.]
[Footnote 225: Napoleon avowed this in his speech to the Swiss
deputies at St. Cloud, December 12th, 1802.]
[Footnote 226: Lord Hawkesbury's note of October 10th, 1802, the
appeal of the Swiss, and the reply of Mr. Moore from Constance, are
printed in full in the papers presented to Parliament, May 18th, 1803.
The Duke of Orleans wrote from Twickenham a remarkable letter to Pitt,
dated October 18th, 1802, offering to go as leader to the Swiss in the
cause of Swiss and of European independence: "I am a natural enemy to
Bonaparte and to all similar Governments....England and Austria can
find in me all the advantages of my being a French prince. Dispose of
me, Sir, and show me the way. I will follow it." See Stanhope's "Life
of Pitt," vol. iii., ch. xxxiii.]
[Footnote 227: See Roederer, "uvres," vol. iii., p. 454, for the
curious changes which Napoleon prescribed in the published reports of
these speeches; also Stapfer's despatch of February 3rd, 1803, which
is more trustworthy than the official version in Napoleon's
"Correspondance." This, however, contains the menacing sentence: "It
is recognized by Europe that Italy and Holland, as well as
Switzerland, are at the disposition of France."]
[Footnote 228: It is only fair to say that they had recognized their
mistake and had recently promised equality of rights to the formerly
subject districts and to all classes. See Muralt's "Reinhard," p.
113.]
[Footnote 229: See, _inter alia_, the "Moniteur" of August 8th,
October 9th, November 6th, 1802; of January 1st and 9th, February
19th, 1803.]
[Footnote 230: Lord Whitworth's despatches of February 28th and March
3rd, 1803, in Browning's "England and Napoleon."]
[Footnote 231: Secret instructions to Lord Whitworth, November 14th,
1802.]
[Footnote 232: "Foreign Office Records," Russia, No. 50.]
[Footnote 233: In his usually accurate "Manuel historique de Politique
Etrangère" (vol. ii., p. 238), M. Bourgeois states that in May, 1802,
Lord St. Helens succeeded in persuading the Czar _not_ to give his
guarantee to the clause respecting Malta. Every despatch that I have
read runs exactly counter to this statement: the fact is that the Czar
took umbrage at the treaty and refused to listen to our repeated
requests for his guarantee. Thiers rightly states that the British
Ministry pressed the Czar to give his guarantee, but that France long
neglected to send her application. Why this neglect if she wished to
settle matters?]
[Footnote 234: Castlereagh's "Letters and Despatches," Second Series,
vol. i., pp. 56 and 69; Dumas' "Evénements," ix. 91.]
[Footnote 235: Mémoire of Francis II. to Cobenzl (March 31st, 1801),
in Beer, "Die Orientalische Politik Oesterreichs," Appendix.]
[Footnote 236: "Memoirs," vol. i., ch. xiii.]
[Footnote 237: Ulmann's "Russisch-Preussische Politik, 1801-1806," pp.
10-12.]
[Footnote 238: Warren reported (December 10th, 1802) that Vorontzoff
warned him to be very careful as to the giving up of Malta; and, on
January 19th, Czartoryski told him that "the Emperor wished the
English to keep Malta." Bonaparte had put in a claim for the Morea to
indemnify the Bourbons and the House of Savoy. ("F.O.," Russia, No.
51.)]
[Footnote 239: Browning's "England and Napoleon," pp. 88-91.]
[Footnote 240: "F.O.," France, No. 72.]
[Footnote 241: We were undertaking that mediation. Lord Elgin's
despatch from Constantinople, January 15th, 1803, states that he had
induced the Porte to allow the Mamelukes to hold the province of
Assouan. (Turkey, No. 38.)]
[Footnote 242: Papers presented to Parliament on May 18th, 1803. I
pass over the insults to General Stuart, as Sebastiani on February 2nd
recanted to Lord Whitworth everything he had said, or had been made to
say, on that topic, and mentioned Stuart "in terms of great esteem."
According to Méneval ("Mems.," vol i., ch. iii.), Jaubert, who had
been with Sebastiani, saw a proof of the report, as printed for the
"Moniteur," and advised the omission of the most irritating passages;
but Maret dared not take the responsibility for making such omissions.
Lucien Bonaparte ("Mems.," vol. ii., ch. ix.) has another
version--less credible, I think--that Napoleon himself dictated the
final draft of the report to Sebastiani; and when the latter showed
some hesitation, the First Consul muttered, as the most irritating
passages were read out: "Parbleu, nous verrons si ceci--si cela--ne
décidera pas John Bull à guerroyer." Joseph was much distressed about
it, and exclaimed: "Ah, mon pauvre traité d'Amiens! Il ne tient plus
qu'à un fil."]
[Footnote 243: So Adams's "Hist, of the U.S.," vol. ii., pp. 12-21.]
[Footnote 244: Miot de Melito, "Mems.," vol. i, ch. xv., quotes the
words of Joseph Bonaparte to him: "Let him [Napoleon] once more drench
Europe with blood in a war that he could have avoided, and which, but
for the outrageous mission on which he sent his Sebastiani, would
never have occurred."
Talleyrand laboured hard to persuade Lord Whitworth that Sebastiani's
mission was "solely commercial": Napoleon, in his long conversation
with our ambassador, "did not affect to attribute it to commercial
motives only," but represented it as necessitated by our infraction of
the Treaty of Amiens. This excuse is as insincere as the former. The
instructions to Sebastiani were drawn up on September 5th, 1802, when
the British Ministry was about to fulfil the terms of the treaty
relative to Malta and was vainly pressing Russia and Prussia for the
guarantee of its independence]
[Footnote 245: Despatch of February 21st.]
[Footnote 246: "View of the State of the Republic," read to the Corps
Législatif on February 21st, 1803.]
[Footnote 247: Papers presented to Parliament May 18th, 1803. See too
Pitt's speech, May 23rd, 1803.]
[Footnote 248: See Russell's proclamation of July 22nd to the men of
Antrim that "he doubted not but the French were then fighting in
Scotland." ("Ann. Reg.," 1803, p. 246.) This document is ignored by
Plowden ("Hist. of Ireland, 1801-1810").]
[Footnote249: Despatch of March 14th, 1803. Compare it with the very
mild version in Napoleon's "Corresp.," No. 6636.]
[Footnote 250: Lord Hawkesbury to General Andreossy, March 10th.]
[Footnote 251: Lord Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, April 4th, 1803.]
[Footnote 252: Despatches of April 11th and 18th, 1803.]
[Footnote 253: Whitworth to Hawkesbury, April 23rd.]
[Footnote 254: Czartoryski ("Mems.," vol. i., ch. xiii.) calls him "an
excellent admiral but an indifferent diplomatist--a perfect
representative of the nullity and incapacity of the Addington Ministry
which had appointed him. The English Government was seldom happy in
its ambassadors." So Earl Minto's "Letters," vol. iii., p. 279.]
[Footnote 255: See Lord Malmesbury's "Diaries" (vol. iv., p. 253) as
to the bad results of Whitworth's delay.]
[Footnote 256: Note of May 12th, 1803: see "England and Napoleon," p.
249.]
[Footnote 257: "Corresp.," vol. viii., No. 6743.]
[Footnote 258: See Romilly's letter to Dumont, May 31st, 1803
("Memoirs," vol. i.).]
[Footnote 259: "Lettres inédites de Talleyrand," November 3rd, 1802.
In his letter of May 3rd, 1803, to Lord Whitworth, M. Huber reports
Fouché's outspoken warning in the Senate to Bonaparte: "Vous êtes
vous-même, ainsi que nous, un résultat de la révolution, et la guerre
remet tout en problème. On vous flatte en vous faisant compter sur les
principes révolutionnaires des autres nations: _le résultat de notre
révolution les a anéantis partout._"]
[Footnote 260: A copy of this letter, with the detailed proposals, is
in our Foreign Office archives (Russia, No. 52).]
[Footnote 261: Bourgeois, "Manuel de Politique Etrangère," vol. ii.,
p. 243.]
[Footnote 262: See Castlereagh's "Letters and Despatches," Second
Series, vol. i., pp. 75-82, as to the need of conciliating public
opinion, even by accepting Corfu as a set-off for Malta, provided a
durable peace could thus be secured.]
[Footnote 263: "Lettres inédites de Talleyrand," August 21st, 1803.]
[Footnote 264: Garden, "Traités," vol. viii., p. 191.]
[Footnote 265: Holland was required to furnish 16,000 troops and
maintain 18,000 French, to provide 10 ships of war and 350 gunboats.]
[Footnote 266: "Corresp.," May 23rd, 1803.]
[Footnote 267: Nelson's letters of July 2nd. See too Mahan's "Life of
Nelson," vol. ii., pp. 180-188, and Napoleon's letters of November
24th, 1803, encouraging the Mamelukes to look to France.]
[Footnote 268: "Foreign Office Records," Sicily and Naples, No. 55,
July 25th.]
[Footnote 269: Letter of July 28th, 1803.]
[Footnote 270: "Nap. Corresp.," August 23rd, 1803, and Oncken, ch. v.]
[Footnote 271: "Corresp.," vol. viii., No. 6627.]
[Footnote 272: Lefebvre, "Cabinets de l'Europe," ch. viii.; "Nap.
Corresp.," vol. viii., Nos. 6979, 6985, 7007, 7098, 7113.]
[Footnote 273: The French and Dutch ships in commission were: ships of
the line, 48; frigates, 37; corvettes, 22; gun-brigs, etc., 124;
flotilla, 2,115. (See "Mems. of the Earl of St. Vincent," vol. ii., p.
218.)]
[Footnote 274: Pellew's "Life of Lord Sidmouth," vol. ii., p. 239.]
[Footnote 275: Stanhope's "Life of Pitt," vol. iv., p. 213.]
[Footnote 276: Roederer, " OEuvres," vol. iii., p. 348; Méneval, vol.
i., ch. iv.]
[Footnote 277: Lucien ("Mems.," vol. iii., pp. 315-320) says at
Malmaison; but Napoleon's "Correspondance" shows that it was at St.
Cloud. Masson (" Nap. et sa Famille," ch. xii.) throws doubt on the
story.]
[Footnote 278:_Ibid_., p. 318. The scene was described by Murat: the
real phrase was _coquine_, but it was softened down by Murat to
_maîtresse_.]
[Footnote 279: Miot de Melito, "Mems.," vol. 1., ch. xv. Lucien
settled in the Papal States, where he, the quondam Jacobin and proven
libertine, later on received from the Pope the title of Prince de
Canino.]
[Footnote 280: "Lettres inédites de Napoléon," April 22nd, 1805.]
[Footnote 281: Pasquier, "Mems.," vol. i., p. 167, and Boulay de la
Meurthe, "Les dernières Années du duc d'Enghien," p. 299. An
intriguing royalist of Neufchâtel, Fauche-Borel, had been to England
in 1802 to get the help of the Addington Ministry, but failed. See
Caudrillier's articles in the "Revue Historique," Nov., 1900--March,
1901.]
[Footnote 282: Madelin's "Fouché," vol. i., p. 368, minimizes Fouché's
_rôle_ here.]
[Footnote 283: Desmarest, "Témoignages historiques," pp. 78-82.]
[Footnote 284: "Alliance des Jacobins de France avec le Ministère
Anglais."]
[Footnote 285: Brit. Mus., "Add. MSS.," Nos. 7976 _et seq_.]
[Footnote 286: In our Records (France, No. 71) is a letter of Count
Descars, dated London, March 25th, 1805, to Lord Mulgrave, Minister
for War, rendering an account for various sums advanced by our
Government for the royalist "army."]
[Footnote 287: "Paget Papers," vol. ii., p. 96.]
[Footnote 288: "Parl. Debates," April, 1804 (esp. April 16th). The
official denial is, of course, accepted by Alison, ch. xxxviii.]
[Footnote 289: The expression is that of George III., who further
remarked that all the ambassadors despised Hawkesbury. (Rose,
"Diaries," vol. ii., p. 157.) Windham's letter, dated Beaconsfield,
August 16th, 1803, in the Puisaye Papers, warned the French _émigrés_
that they must not count on any aid from Ministers, who had "at all
times shown such feebleness of spirit, that they can scarcely dare to
lift their eyes to such aims as you indicate. ("Add. MSS.," No.
7976.)]
[Footnote 290: See in chapter xxi., p. 488. Our envoy, Spencer Smith,
at Stuttgart, was also taken in by a French spy, Captain Rosey, whose
actions were directed by Napoleon. See his letter (No. 7669).]
[Footnote 291: "F.O.," Austria, No. 68 (October 31st, 1803).]
[Footnote 292: Lavalette, "Mems.," ch. xxiii.; "Georges Cadoudal," by
Georges de Cadoudal (Paris, 1887).]
[Footnote 293: See his letter of January 24th, 1804, to Réal,
instructing him to tell Méhée what falsehoods are to find a place in
Méhée's next bulletin to Drake! "Keep on continually with the affair
of my portfolio."]
[Footnote 294: Miot de Melito, vol. i., ch. xvi.; Pasquier, vol. i.,
ch. vii. See also Desmarest, "Quinze ans de la haute police": his
claim that the police previously knew nothing of the plot is refuted
by Napoleon's letters (e.g., that of November 1st, 1803); as also by
Guilhermy, "Papiers d'un Emigré," p. 122.]
[Footnote 295: Ségur, "Mems.," ch. x. Bonaparte to Murat and Harel,
March 20th.]
[Footnote 296: Letter to Réal, "Corresp.," No. 7639.]
[Footnote 297: The original is in "F.O." (Austria, No. 68).]
[Footnote 298: Pasquier, "Mémoires," vol. i., p. 187.]
[Footnote 299: The Comte de Mosbourg's notes in Count Murat's "Murat"
(Paris, 1897), pp. 437-445, prove that Savary did not draw his
instructions for the execution of the duke merely from Murat, but from
Bonaparte himself, who must therefore be held solely responsible for
the composition and conduct of that court. Masson's attempt ("Nap. et
sa Famille," ch. xiv.) to inculpate Murat is very weak.]
[Footnote 300: Hulin in "Catastrophe du duc d'Enghien," p. 118.]
[Footnote 301: Dupin in "Catastrophe du duc d'Enghien," pp. 101, 123.]
[Footnote 302: The only excuse which calls for notice here is that
Napoleon at the last moment, when urged by Joseph to be merciful, gave
way, and despatched orders late at night to Réal to repair to
Vincennes. Réal received some order, the exact purport of which is
unknown: it was late at night and he postponed going till the morrow.
On his way he met Savary, who came towards Paris bringing the news of
the duke's execution. Réal's first words, on hearing this unexpected
news, were: "How is that possible? I had so many questions to put to
the duke: his examination might disclose so much. Another thing gone
wrong; the First Consul will be furious." These words were afterwards
repeated to Pasquier both by Savary and by Real: and, unless Pasquier
lied, the belated order sent to Réal was not a pardon (and Napoleon on
his last voyage said to Cockburn it was not), but merely an order to
extract such information from the duke as would compromise other
Frenchmen. Besides, if Napoleon had despatched an order for the duke's
_pardon_, why was not that order produced as a sign of his innocence
and Réal's blundering? Why did he shut himself up in his private room
on March 20th, so that even Josephine had difficulty in gaining
entrance? And if he really desired to pardon the duke, how came it
that when, at noon of March 21st, Réal explained that he arrived at
Vincennes too late, the only words that escaped Napoleon's lips were
"C'est bien"? (See Méneval, vol. i, p. 296.) Why also was his
countenance the only one that afterwards showed no remorse or grief?
Caulaincourt, when he heard the results of his raid into Baden,
fainted with horror, and when brought to by Bonaparte, overwhelmed him
with reproaches. Why also had the grave been dug beforehand? Why,
finally, were Savary and Réal not disgraced? No satisfactory answer to
these questions has ever been given. The "Catastrophe du duc
d'Enghien" and Count Boulay de la Meurthe's "Les dernières Années du
duc d'Enghien" and Napoleon's "Correspondance" give all the documents
needed for forming a judgment on this case. The evidence is examined
by Mr. Fay in "The American Hist. Rev.," July and Oct., 1898. For the
rewards to the murderers see Masson, "Nap. et sa Famille," chap.
xiii.]
[Footnote 303: Ducasse, "Les Rois Frères de Nap.," p. 9.]
[Footnote 304: Miot de Melito; vol. ii., ch. i.; Pasquier, vol. i.,
ch. ix.]
[Footnote 305: I cannot agree with M. Lanfrey, vol. ii., ch. xi., that
the Empire was not desired by the nation. It seems to me that this
writer here attributes to the apathetic masses his own unrivalled
acuteness of vision and enthusiasm for democracy. Lafayette well sums
up the situation in the remark that he was more shocked at the
submission of all than at the usurpation of one man ("Mems.," vol. v.,
p. 239).]
[Footnote 306: See Aulard, "Rév. Française," p. 772, for the
opposition.]
[Footnote 307: Roederer, "uvres," vol. iii., p. 513.]
[Footnote 308: Macdonald, "Souvenirs," ch. xii.; Ségur, "Mems.," ch.
vii. When Thiébault congratulated Masséna on his new title, the
veteran scoffingly replied: "Oh, there are fourteen of us."
(Thiébault, "Mems.," ch. vii., Eng. edit.) See too Marmont ("Mems.,"
vol. ii., p. 227) on his own exclusion and the inclusion of
Bessières.]
[Footnote 309: Chaptal, "Souvenirs," p. 262. For Moreau's popularity
see Madelin's "Fouché," vol. i., p. 422.]
[Footnote 310: At the next public audience Napoleon upbraided one of
the judges, Lecourbe, who had maintained that Moreau was innocent, and
thereafter deprived him of his judgeship. He also disgraced his
brother, General Lecourbe, and forbade his coming within forty leagues
of Paris. ("Lettres inédites de Napoléon," August 22nd and 29th,
1805.)]
[Footnote 311: Miot de Melito, vol ii., ch. i.]
[Footnote 312: Napoleon to Roederer, "uvres," vol. iii., p. 514.]
[Footnote 313: Lafayette, "Mems.," vol. v., p. 182.]
[Footnote 314: "Mémoires de Savary, Duc de Rovigo." So Bourrienne, who
was informed by Rapp, who was present (vol. ii., ch. xxxiii.). The
"Moniteur" (4th Frimaire, Year XIII.) asserted that the Pope took the
right-hand seat; but I distrust its version.]
[Footnote 315: Mme. de Rémusat, vol. i., ch. x. As the _curé_ of the
parish was not present, even as witness, this new contract was held by
the Bonapartes to lack full validity. It is certain, however, that
Fesch always maintained that the marriage could only be annulled by an
act of arbitrary authority. For Napoleon's refusal to receive the
communion on the morning of the coronation, lest he, being what he
was, should be guilty of sacrilege and hypocrisy, see Ségur.]
[Footnote 316: Ségur, ch. xi.]
[Footnote 317: F. Masson's "Joséphine, Impératrice et Reine," p. 229.
For the Pitt diamond, see Yule's pamphlet and Sir M. Grant Duff's
"Diary," June 30, 1888.]
[Footnote 318: De Bausset, "Court de Napoléon," ch. ii.]
[Footnote 319: "Foreign Office Records," Intelligences, No. 426.]
[Footnote 320: "Life of Fulton," by Colden(1817); also one by Reigart
(1856).]
[Footnote 321: Jurien de la Gravière, "Guerres Maritimes," vol. ii.,
p. 75; Chevalier, "Hist. de la Marine Française," p. 105; Capt.
Desbrière's "Projets de Débarquement aux Iles Britanniques," vol. i.
The accompanying engraving shows how fantastic were some of the
earlier French schemes of invasion.]
[Footnote 322: "Mémoires du Maréchal Ney," bk. vii., ch. i.; so too
Marmont, vol. ii., p. 213; Mahan, "Sea Power," ch. xv.]
[Footnote 323: Roederer, "OEuvres," vol. iii., p. 494.]
[Footnote 324: Colonel Campbell, our Commissioner at Elba, noted in
his diary (December 5th, 1814): "As I have perceived in many
conversations, Napoleon has no idea of the difficulties occasioned by
winds and tides, but judges of changes of position in the case of
ships as he would with regard to troops on land."]
[Footnote 325: Jurien de la Gravière, vol. ii., p. 88, who says: "His
mild and melancholy disposition, his sad and modest behaviour, ill
suited the Emperor's ambitious plans."]
[Footnote 326: "Corresp.," No. 8063. See too No. 7996 for Napoleon's
plan of carrying a howitzer in the bows of his gun vessels so that his
projectiles might _burst in the wood_. Already at Boulogne he had
uttered the prophetic words: "We must have shells that will shiver the
wooden sides of ships."]
[Footnote 327: James, "Naval History," vol. iii., p. 213, and
Chevalier, p. 115, imply that Villeneuve's fleet from Toulon, after
scouring the West Indies, was to rally the Rochefort force and cover
the Boulogne flotilla: but this finds no place in Napoleon's September
plan, which required Gantheaume first to land troops in Ireland and
then convoy the flotilla across if the weather were favourable, or if
it were stormy to beat down the Channel with the troops from Holland.
See O'Connor Morris, "Campaigns of Nelson," p. 121.]
[Footnote 328: Colomb, "Naval Warfare," p. 18.]
[Footnote 329: Jurien de la Gravière, vol. ii., p. 100. Nelson was
aware of the fallacies that crowded Napoleon's brain: "Bonaparte has
often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the
sea, and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port;
but he now finds, I fancy, if emperors hear truth, that his fleet
suffers more in a night than ours in one year."--Nelson to
Collingwood, March 13th, 1805.]
[Footnote 330: Garden, "Traités," vol. viii., pp. 276-290; also Capt.
Mahan, "Influence of Sea Power, etc.," vol. ii., ch. xv. _ad fin_. He
quotes the opinion of a Spanish historian, Don José de Couto: "If all
the circumstances are properly weighed ... we shall see that all the
charges made against England for the seizure of the frigates may be
reduced to want of proper foresight in the strength of the force
detailed to effect it."--In the Admiralty secret letters (1804-16) I
have found the instructions to Sir J. Orde, with the Swiftsure,
Polyphemus, Agamemnon, Ruby, Defence, Lively, and two sloops, to seize
the treasure-ships. No fight seems to have been expected.]
[Footnote 331: "Corresp.," No. 8379; Mahan, _ibid_., vol. ii., p.
149.]
[Footnote 332: Letter of April 29th, 1805. I cannot agree with Mahan
(p. 155) that this was intended only to distract us.]
[Footnote 333: "Lettres inédites de Talleyrand," p. 121.]
[Footnote 334: Jurien de la Gravière, vol. ii., p. 367.]
[Footnote 335: Thiers writes, most disingenuously, as though
Napoleon's letters of August 13th and 22nd could have influenced
Villeneuve.]
[Footnote 336: Dupin, "Voyages dans la Grande Bretagne" (tome i., p.
244), who had the facts from Daru. But, as Méneval sensibly says
("Mems.," vol. i., ch. v.), it was not Napoleon's habit dramatically
to dictate his plans so far in advance. Certainly, _in military
matters,_ he always kept his imagination subservient to facts. Not
until September 22nd, did he make any written official notes on the
final moves of his chief corps; besides, the Austrians did not cross
the Inn till September 8th.]
[Footnote 337: Diary of General Bingham, in "Blackwood's Magazine,"
October, 1896. The accompanying medal, on the reverse of which are the
words "frappée à Londres, en 1804," affords another proof of his
intentions.]
[Footnote 338: Marbot, "Mems.," ch. xix; Fouché, "Mems.," part 1; Miot
de Melito, "Mems.," vol. ii., ch. i.]
[Footnote 339: See Nelson's letters of August 25th, 1803, and May 1st,
1804; also Collingwood's of July 21st, 1805.]
[Footnote 340: In "F.O.," France, No. 71, is a report of a spy on the
interview of Napoleon with O'Connor, whom he made General of Division.
See Appendix, p. 510.]
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