Part 18 (1/2)
Holland and Switzerland had been sheltered during the preceding campaign.
The first consul a.s.sembled all his force on the Rhine and the Alps. He gave Moreau the command of the army of the Rhine, and he himself marched into Italy. He set out on the 16th Floreal, year VIII. (6th of May, 1800) for that brilliant campaign which lasted only forty days. It was important that he should not be long absent from Paris at the beginning of his power, and especially not to leave the war in a state of indecision.
Field-marshal Melas had a hundred and thirty thousand men under arms; he occupied all Italy. The republican army opposed to him only amounted to forty thousand men. He left the field-marshal lieutenant Ott with thirty thousand men before Genoa; and marched against the corps of general Suchet. He entered Nice, prepared to pa.s.s the Var, and to enter Provence.
It was then that Bonaparte crossed the great Saint Bernard at the head of an army of forty thousand men, descended into Italy in the rear of Melas, entered Milan on the 16th Prairial (2nd of June), and placed the Austrians between Suchet and himself. Melas, whose line of operation was broken, quickly fell back upon Nice, and from thence on to Turin; he established his headquarters at Alessandria, and decided on re-opening his communications by a battle. On the 9th of June, the advance guard of the republicans gained a glorious victory at Monte-Bello, the chief honour of which belonged to general Lannes. But it was the plain of Marengo, on the 14th of June (25th Prairial) that decided the fate of Italy; the Austrians were overwhelmed. Unable to force the pa.s.sage of the Bormida by a victory, they were placed without any opportunity of retreat between the army of Suchet and that of the first consul. On the 15th, they obtained permission to fall behind Mantua, on condition of restoring all the places of Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations; and the victory of Marengo thus secured possession of all Italy.
Eighteen days after, Bonaparte returned to Paris. He was received with all the evidence of admiration that such decided victories and prodigious activity could excite; the enthusiasm was universal. There was a spontaneous illumination, and the crowd hurried to the Tuileries to see him. The hope of speedy peace redoubled the public joy. On the 25th Messidor the first consul was present at the anniversary fete of the 14th of July. When the officers presented him the standards taken from the enemy, he said to them: ”When you return to your camps, tell your soldiers that the French people, on the 1st Vendemiaire, when we shall celebrate the anniversary of the republic, will expect either the proclamation of peace, or, if the enemy raise insuperable obstacles, further standards as the result of new victories.” Peace, however, was delayed for some time.
In the interim between the victory of Marengo and the general pacification, the first consul turned his attention chiefly to settling the people, and to diminis.h.i.+ng the number of malcontents, by employing the displaced factions in the state. He was very conciliatory to those parties who renounced their systems, and very lavish of favours to those chiefs who renounced their parties. As it was a time of selfishness and indifference, he had no difficulty in succeeding. The proscribed of the 18th Fructidor were already recalled, with the exception of a few royalist conspirators, such as Pichegru, Willot, etc. Bonaparte soon even employed those of the banished who, like Portalis, Simeon, Barbe-Marbois, had shown themselves more anti-conventionalists than counter-revolutionists. He had also gained over opponents of another description. The late leaders of La Vendee, the famous Bernier, cure of Saint-Lo, who had a.s.sisted in the whole insurrection, Chatillon, d'Autichamp and Suzannet had come to an arrangement by the treaty of Mont-Lucon (17th January, 1800). He also addressed himself to the leaders of the Breton bands, Georges Cadoudal, Frotte, Laprevelaye, and Bourmont. The two last alone consented to submit.
Frotte was surprised and shot; and Cadoudal defeated at Grand Champ, by General Brune, capitulated. The western war was thus definitively terminated.
But the _Chouans_ who had taken refuge in England, and whose only hope was in the death of him who now concentrated the power of the revolution, projected his a.s.sa.s.sination. A few of them disembarked on the coast of France, and secretly repaired to Paris. As it was not easy to reach the first consul, they decided on a conspiracy truly horrible. On the third Nivose, at eight in the evening, Bonaparte was to go to the Opera by the Rue Saint-Nicaise. The conspirators placed a barrel of powder on a little truck, which obstructed the carriage way, and one of them, named Saint Regent, was to set fire to it as soon as he received a signal of the first consul's approach. At the appointed time, Bonaparte left the Tuileries, and crossed the Rue Nicaise. His coachman was skilful enough to drive rapidly between the truck and the wall; but the match was already alight, and the carriage had scarcely reached the end of the street when _the infernal machine_ exploded, covered the quarter of Saint-Nicaise with ruins, shaking the carriage, and breaking its windows.
The police, taken by surprise, though directed by Fouche, attributed this plot to the democrats, against whom the first consul had a much more decided antipathy than against the _Chouans_. Many of them were imprisoned, and a hundred and thirty were transported by a simple senatus- consultus asked and obtained during the night. At length they discovered the true authors of the conspiracy, some of whom were condemned to death.
On this occasion, the consul caused the creation of special military tribunals. The const.i.tutional party separated still further from him, and began its energetic but useless opposition. Lanjuinais, Gregoire, who had courageously resisted the extreme party in the convention, Garat, Lambrechts, Lenoir-Laroche, Cabanis, etc., opposed, in the senate, the illegal proscription of a hundred and thirty democrats; and the tribunes, Isnard, Daunou, Chenier, Benjamin Constant, Bailleul, Chazal, etc., opposed the special courts. But a glorious peace threw into the shade this new encroachment of power.
The Austrians, conquered at Marengo, and defeated in Germany by Moreau, determined on laying down arms; On the 8th of January, 1801, the republic, the cabinet of Vienna, and the empire, concluded the treaty of Luneville.
Austria ratified all the conditions of the treaty of Campo-Formio, and also ceded Tuscany to the young duke of Parma. The empire recognised the independence of the Batavian, Helvetian, Ligurian, and Cisalpine republics. The pacification soon became general, by the treaty of Florence (18th of February 1801,) with the king of Naples, who ceded the isle of Elba and the princ.i.p.ality of Piombino, by the treaty of Madrid (29th of September, 1801) with Portugal; by the treaty of Paris (8th of October, 1801) with the emperor of Russia; and, lastly, by the preliminaries (9th of October, 1801) with the Ottoman Porte. The continent, by ceasing hostilities, compelled England to a momentary peace. Pitt, Dundas, and Lord Grenville, who had maintained these sanguinary struggles with France, went out of office when their system ceased to be followed. The opposition replaced them; and, on the 25th of March, 1802, the treaty of Amiens completed the pacification of the world. England consented to all the continental acquisitions of the French republic, recognised the existence of the secondary republics, and restored our colonies.
During the maritime war with England, the French navy had been almost entirely ruined. Three hundred and forty s.h.i.+ps had been taken or destroyed, and the greater part of the colonies had fallen into the hands of the English. San Domingo, the most important of them all, after throwing off the yoke of the whites, had continued the American revolution, which having commenced in the English colonies, was to end in those of Spain, and change the colonies of the new world into independent states. The blacks of San Domingo wished to maintain, with respect to the mother country, the freedom which they had acquired from the colonists, and to defend themselves against the English. They were led by a man of colour, the famous Toussaint-L'Ouverture. France should have consented to this revolution which had been very costly for humanity. The metropolitan government could no longer be restored at San Domingo; and it became necessary to obtain the only real advantages which Europe can now derive from America, by strengthening the commercial ties with our old colony.
Instead of this prudent policy, Bonaparte attempted an expedition to reduce the island to subjection. Forty thousand men embarked for this disastrous enterprise. It was impossible for the blacks to resist such an army at first; but after the first victories, it was attacked by the climate, and new insurrections secured the independence of the colony.
France experienced the twofold loss of an army and of advantageous commercial connexions.
Bonaparte, whose princ.i.p.al object hitherto had been to promote the fusion of parties, now turned all his attention to the internal prosperity of the republic, and the organization of power. The old privileged cla.s.ses of the n.o.bility and the clergy had returned into the state without forming particular cla.s.ses. Dissentient priests, on taking an oath of obedience, might conduct their modes of wors.h.i.+p and receive their pensions from government. An act of pardon had been pa.s.sed in favour of those accused of emigration; there only remained a list of about a thousand names of those who remained faithful to the family and the claims of the pretender. The work of pacification was at an end. Bonaparte, knowing that the surest way of commanding a nation is to promote its happiness, encouraged the development of industry, and favoured external commerce, which had so long been suspended. He united higher views with his political policy, and connected his own glory with the prosperity of France; he travelled through the departments, caused ca.n.a.ls and harbours to be dug, bridges to be built, roads to be repaired, monuments to be erected, and means of communication to be multiplied. He especially strove to become the protector and legislator of private interests. The civil, penal, and commercial codes, which he formed, whether at this period, or at a later period, completed, in this respect, the work of the revolution, and regulated the internal existence of the nation, in a manner somewhat more conformable to its real condition. Notwithstanding political despotism, France, during the domination of Bonaparte, had a private legislation superior to that of any European society; for with absolute government, most of them still preserved the civil condition of the middle-ages.
General peace, universal toleration, the return of order, the restoration, and the creation of an administrative system, soon changed the appearance of the republic. Attention was turned to the construction of roads and ca.n.a.ls. Civilization became developed in an extraordinary manner; and the consulate was, in this respect, the perfected period of the directory, from its commencement to the 18th Fructidor.
It was more especially after the peace Amiens that Bonaparte raised the foundation of his future power. He himself says, in the Memoirs published under his name, [Footnote: _Memoires pour servir a l'Histoire de France sous Napoleon, ecrits a Sainte Helene_, vol. i. p. 248.] ”The ideas of Napoleon were fixed, but to realise them he required the a.s.sistance of time and circ.u.mstances. The organization of the consulate had nothing in contradiction with these; it accustomed the nation to unity, and that was a first step. This step taken, Napoleon was indifferent to the forms and denominations of the different const.i.tuted bodies. He was a stranger to the revolution. It was his wisdom to advance from day to day, without deviating from the fixed point, the polar star, which directed Napoleon how to guide the revolution to the port whither he wished to conduct it.”
In the beginning of 1802, he was at one and the same time forming three great projects, tending to the same end. He sought to organize religion and to establish the clergy, which as yet had only a religious existence; to create, by means of the Legation of Honour, a permanent military order in the army; and to secure his own power, first for his life, and then to render it hereditary. Bonaparte was installed at the Tuileries, where he gradually resumed the customs and ceremonies of the old monarchy. He.
already thought of placing intermediate bodies between himself and the people. For some time past he had opened a negotiation with Pope Pius VII., on matters of religious wors.h.i.+p. The famous concordat, which created nine archbishoprics, forty-one bishoprics, with the inst.i.tution of chapters, which established the clergy in the state, and again placed it under the external monarchy of the pope, was signed at Paris on the 16th of July, 1801, and ratified at Rome on the 15th of August, 1801.
Bonaparte, who had destroyed the liberty of the press, created exceptional tribunals, and who had departed more and more from the principles of the revolution, felt that before he went further it was necessary to break entirely with the liberal party of the 18th Brumaire. In Ventose, year X.
(March, 1802), the most energetic of the tribunes were dismissed by a simple operation of the senate. The tribunate was reduced to eighty members, and the legislative body underwent a similar purgation. About a month after, the 15th Germinal (6th of April, 1802), Bonaparte, no longer apprehensive of opposition, submitted the concordat to these a.s.semblies, whose obedience he had thus secured, for their acceptance. They adopted it by a great majority. The Sunday and four great religious festivals were re-established, and from that time the government ceased to observe the system of decades. This was the first attempt at renouncing the republican calendar. Bonaparte hoped to gain the sacerdotal party, always most disposed to pa.s.sive obedience, and thus deprive the royalist of the clergy, and the coalition of the pope.
The concordat was inaugurated with great pomp in the cathedral of Notre- Dame. The senate, the legislative body, the tribunate, and the leading functionaries were present at this new ceremony. The first consul repaired thither in the carriages of the old court, with the etiquette and attendants of the old monarchy; salvos of artillery announced this return of privilege, and this essay at royalty. A pontifical ma.s.s was performed by Caprara, the cardinal-legate, and the people were addressed by proclamation in a language to which they had long been unaccustomed.
”Reason and the example of ages,” ran the proclamation, ”command us to have recourse to the sovereign pontiff to effect unison of opinion and reconciliation of hearts. The head of the church has weighed in his wisdom and for the interest of the church, propositions dictated by the interest of the state.”
In the evening there was an illumination, and a concert in the gardens of the Tuileries. The soldiery reluctantly attended at the inauguration ceremony, and expressed their dissatisfaction aloud. On returning to the palace, Bonaparte questioned general Delmas on the subject. ”_What did you think of the ceremony? _” said he. ”_A fine mummery_” was the reply.
”_Nothing was wanting but a million of men slain, in destroying what you re-establish. _”
A month after, on the 25th Floreal, year X. (15th of May, 1802), he presented the project of a law respecting _the creation of a legion of honour_. This legion was to be composed of fifteen cohorts, dignitaries for life, disposed in hierarchical order, having a centre, an organization, and revenues. The first consul was the chief of the legion.
Each cohort was composed of seven grand officers, twenty commanders, thirty officers, and three hundred and fifty legionaries. Bonaparte's object was to originate a new n.o.bility. He thus appealed to the ill- suppressed sentiment of inequality. While discussing this projected law in the council of state, he did not scruple to announce his aristocratic design. Berlier, counsellor of state, having disapproved an inst.i.tution so opposed to the spirit of the republic, said that: ”Distinctions were the playthings of a monarchy.” ”I defy you,” replied the first consul, ”to show me a republic, ancient or modern, in which distinctions did not exist; you call them toys; well, it is by toys that men are led. I would not say as much to a tribune; but in a council of wise men and statesmen we may speak plainly. I do not believe that the French love _liberty and equality_. The French have not been changed by ten years of revolution; they have but one sentiment--_honour_. That sentiment, then, must be nourished; they must have distinctions. See how the people prostrate themselves before the ribbons and stars of foreigners; they have been surprised by them; and they do not fail to wear them. All has been destroyed; the question is, how to restore all. There is a government, there are authorities; but the rest of the nation, what is it? Grains of sand. Among us we have the old privileged cla.s.ses, organized in principles and interests, and knowing well what they want. I can count our enemies.
But we, ourselves, are dispersed, without system, union, or contact. As long as I am here, I will answer for the republic; but we must provide for the future. Do you think the republic is definitively established? If so, you are greatly deceived. It is in our power to make it so; but we have not done it; and we shall not do it if we do not hurl some ma.s.ses of granite on the soil of France.” [Footnote: This pa.s.sage is extracted from M. Thibaudeau's _Memoires_ of the Consulate. There are in these _Memoires_, which are extremely curious, some political conversations of Bonaparte, details concerning his internal government and the princ.i.p.al sittings of the council of state, which throw much light upon this epoch.]
By these words Bonaparte announced a system of government opposed to that which the revolution sought to establish, and which the change in society demanded.