The transport of the artillery and ammunition was the most difficult point; and to this, accordingly, the Chief Consul gave his personal superintendence. The guns were dismounted, grooved into the trunks of trees hollowed out so as to suit each calibre, and then dragged on by sheer strength of muscle—not less than an hundred soldiers being sometimes harnessed to a single cannon. The carriages and wheels, being taken to pieces, were slung on poles, and borne on men's shoulders. The powder and shot, packed into boxes of fir-wood, formed the lading of all the mules that could be collected over a wide range of the Alpine country. These preparations had been made during the week that elapsed between Buonaparte's arrival at Geneva and the commencement of Lannes's march. He himself travelled sometimes on a mule, but mostly on foot, cheering on the soldiers who had the burden of the great guns. The fatigue undergone is not to be described. The men in front durst not halt to breathe, because the least stoppage there might have thrown the column behind into confusion, on the brink of deadly precipices; and those in the rear had to flounder knee deep, through snow and ice trampled into sludge by the feet and hoofs of the preceding divisions. Happily the march of Napoleon was not harassed, like that of Hannibal, by the assaults of living enemies. The mountaineers, on the contrary, flocked in to reap the liberal rewards which he offered to all who were willing to lighten the drudgery of his troops.
On the 16th of May Napoleon slept at the convent of St. Maurice; and, in the course of the four following days, the whole army passed the Great St. Bernard. It was on the 20th that Buonaparte himself halted an hour at the convent of the Hospitallers, which stands on the summit of this mighty mountain. The good fathers of the monastery had been warned beforehand of the march, and they had furnished every soldier as he passed with a luncheon of bread and cheese and a glass of wine; for which seasonable kindness, they now received the warm acknowledgments of the chief.[35] It was here that he took his leave of a peasant youth, who had walked by him, as his guide, all the way from the convent of St. Maurice. Napoleon conversed freely with the young man, and was much interested with his simplicity. At parting, he asked the guide some particulars about his personal situation; and, having heard his reply, gave him money and a billet to the head of the monastery of St. Maurice. The peasant delivered it accordingly, and was surprised to find that, in consequence of a scrap of writing which he could not read, his worldly comforts were to be permanently increased. The object of his generosity remembered, nevertheless, but little of his conversation with the Consul. He described Napoleon as being "a very dark man" (this was the effect of the Syrian sun), and having an eye that, notwithstanding his affability, he could not encounter without a sense of fear. The only saying of the hero which he treasured in his memory was, "I have spoiled a hat among your mountains: well, I shall find a new one on the other side."—Thus spoke Napoleon, wringing the rain from his covering as he approached the hospice of St. Bernard.—The guide described, however, very strikingly, the effects of Buonaparte's appearance and voice, when any obstacle checked the advance of his soldiery along that fearful wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again. But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty, the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill did he wield them!
On the 16th the vanguard, under Lannes, reached the beautiful vale of Aosta, and the other divisions descended rapidly on their footsteps. This part of the progress was not less difficult than the ascent before. The horses, mules, and guns, were to be led down one slippery steep after another—and we may judge with what anxious care, since Napoleon himself was once contented to slide nearly a hundred yards together, seated.
On the 17th Lannes arrived at Chatillon, where he attacked and defeated a corps of 5000 Austrians—who received the onset of a French division in that quarter, with about as much surprise as if an enemy had dropped on them from the clouds. Every difficulty now seemed to be surmounted, and corps after corps came down into the plentiful and verdant valley, full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St. Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through the heart of which lies the only passage. Lannes having vainly attempted to force the place by a coup de main, a panic arose, and this spreading to the rear, orders were given for stopping the descent of the artillery. The Consul had come as far as the town of Aosta when this intelligence reached him. He immediately hastened to St. Bard, where he found the troops in much confusion.
On occasions like this Napoleon rarely failed to vindicate the prestige of his reputation. After hastily surveying the localities, he climbed the height of the Albaredo, which rises on the one side above the fort, and satisfied himself that, though the path had hitherto been trodden only by solitary huntsmen, the army who had crossed the St. Bernard might, by similar efforts, find or make their way here also. A single cannon being, with the last difficulty, hoisted to the summit, he planted it so as to play full on the chief bastion of St. Bard. The moment this was arranged the troops began their painful march; and they accomplished it without considerable loss; for the Consul's gun was so excellently placed that the main battery of the subjacent castle, was, ere long, silenced. The men crept along the brow of the Albaredo in single file, each pausing (says an eye-witness) to gaze for a moment on Napoleon, who, overcome with his exertions, had lain down and fallen fast asleep upon the summit of the rock. Thus passed the main body, slowly, but surely. Meantime Colonel Dufour had been ordered to scale the wall of the town at nightfall; and his regiment (the 58th) performed this service so impetuously, that the Austrian troops took refuge in the castle, and the French made good their lodgment in the houses below. For some hours the garrison poured down grape-shot at half-musket distance upon the French, but at last out of compassion for the inhabitants, the fire slackened, and ere day broke Buonaparte had effected his main purpose. The streets of the town having been strewn with litter to deafen sound, the guns, covered with straw and branches of trees, were dragged through it under the very guns of St. Bard, and without exciting the least suspicion in its garrison. Next morning the Austrian sent on a messenger to Melas, with tidings that a large division of the French had indeed passed by the goat-tracks of Albaredo, but that most certainly not one great gun was with them. Buonaparte, meantime, was hurrying forwards with horse, foot, and artillery too, upon Ivrea.
The march of the Consul received no new check until he reached the town of Ivrea, where, after two days' hard fighting, Lannes at length forced an entrance, and the garrison, with severe loss, withdrew. Buonaparte then took the road to Turin, and the vanguard had another severe piece of service at the bridge of Chiusilla, where 10,000 Austrians had been very strongly posted. Lannes broke them, and pursuing as far as Orca, cut them off from their magazines at Chevagno, and seized a vast quantity of stores which had been embarked on the Po. The advance was now within one march of Turin, while Murat occupied Vercelli, and the other divisions (those of Moncey, Chabran, and Thureau), having accomplished their several Alpine journeys, were pouring down upon the low country, and gradually converging towards the appointed rendezvous on the Ticino. Buonaparte had thus overcome the great difficulties of his preparation, and was ready with his whole army to open the campaign in good earnest against Melas.
The blockade of Genoa had been kept up all this time; while Suchet resolutely maintained the last line of defence on the old frontier of France. On the 22nd of May Melas made a desperate effort to force the passage of the Var, but failed; and immediately afterwards received his first intelligence of the movements of Buonaparte, and the defeat of his own detachment at the bridge of Chiusilla. He perceived that it was high time to leave Suchet to inferior hands, and set off to oppose in person "the army of reserve." Suchet, on his part, was not slow to profit by the departure of the Austrian Commander-in-chief: he, being informed of Buonaparte's descent, forthwith resumed the offensive, re-crossed the Var, and carried Vintimiglia at the point of the bayonet. Pursuing his advantage, Suchet obtained the mastery, first of the defile of Braus, and then of that of Tende, and at length re-occupied his old position at Melagno, whence his advanced guard pushed on as far as Savona.
The garrison of Genoa, meantime, had been holding out gallantly. Massena for some time kept possession of the semicircular chain of heights on the land side, and was thus enabled to obtain provisions, despite the 40,000 Austrians under General Ott who lay watching him, and the English fleet under Lord Keith which completely blockaded the shore. A great effort made to dislodge him from the heights on the 3rd of April had failed. But by degrees the superiority of numbers proved too much for him, and being shut at last within the walls—where, to increase all his difficulties, a great part of the population was violently hostile to the French cause—his sufferings from want of provisions, and the necessity of constant watchfulness and daily skirmishes, began to be severe. In his sorties, Massena had for the most part the advantage; and never in the whole war was the heroism of the French soldiery more brilliantly displayed than during this siege.[36] The news of the expedition of Napoleon at length penetrated to the beleaguered garrison, and the expectation of relief gave them from day to day new courage to hold out. But day passed after day without any deliverer making his appearance, and the scarcity of food rendered it almost impossible to keep the inhabitants from rising en masse to throw open the gates. The English, meanwhile, anchored closer to the city, and having cut out the vessels which guarded the entrance of the harbour, were bombarding the French quarters at their pleasure. Everything eatable, not excepting the shoes and knapsacks of the soldiers, had been devoured, ere Massena at length listened to the proposal of a conference with General Ott and Lord Keith. If the French general's necessities were urgent, the English admiral's desire to get possession of Genoa, ere Buonaparte could make further progress, was not less vehement. Lord Keith frankly told Massena, that his gallantry had been such that no terms could be too good for him. The word capitulation Was omitted: the French marched out of the town with arms and baggage, and were allowed to proceed to Suchet's headquarters; and, on the 5th of June, Ott occupied Genoa.
General Ott, notwithstanding this success, had been very ill-employed in lingering before Genoa while Napoleon was so rapidly advancing; and Melas, utterly perplexed between Suchet on the one side and the Consul on the other, had in fact lain still, and done nothing. Buonaparte, between the 1st and 4th of June, crossed the Ticino with his whole army. Murat carried Turbigo on the 5th, the very day that Genoa fell; and on the 2nd, the Chief Consul himself once more entered Milan, where he was received with enthusiasm. Lannes, after various conflicts, occupied Pavia. Chapon and Thureau threatened Turin by two different routes; and Melas, at last roused to a sense of his imminent danger, abandoned the open country of Piedmont, took up his headquarters at Alessandria, and began to draw together his widely separated columns, and concentrate them for the inevitable battle which must decide the fate of Italy.
Buonaparte, meanwhile, was ignorant of the fall of Genoa. He supposed, therefore, that the army of Ott was still at a wide distance from that of the Austrian commander-in-chief, and meditated to pass the Po suddenly, and either attack Ott and relieve Genoa, ere Melas knew that he was in that neighbourhood, or, if he should find this more practicable, force Melas himself to accept battle unsupported by Ott. Lannes and the van, accordingly, pushed on as far as Montebello, where, to their surprise, they found the Austrians in strength. Early in the morning of the 9th of June, Lannes was attacked by a force which he had much difficulty in resisting. The Austrians were greatly superior in cavalry, and the ground was favourable for that arm. But at length Victor's division came up, and, after a severe struggle, turned the tide. The battle was a most obstinate one. The fields being covered with very tall crops of rye, the hostile battalions were often almost within bayonet's length ere they were aware of each other's presence; and the same circumstances prevented the generals, on either side, from displaying much science in their manœuvres. It was a conflict of man against man, and determined at a dear cost of blood. The field was strewn with dead, and the retiring Austrians left 5000 prisoners in the hands of Lannes—who, in memory of this day of slaughter, was created afterwards Duke of Montebello. It was from the prisoners taken here that the Consul learned the fate of Genoa. He immediately concluded that Melas had concentrated his army; and, having sent messengers to Suchet, urging him to cross the mountains by the Col di Cadibona, and march on the Scrivia (which would place him in the rear of the enemy), halted his whole line upon the strong position of Stradella.
It was on the evening after Montebello, that General Dessaix, whom Napoleon considered as second only to himself in military genius, arrived at headquarters. Buonaparte had, as we have seen, on leaving Egypt, ordered Kleber to send Dessaix to France in the course of November. He had accordingly landed at Frejus shortly after the establishment of the new government, where he found letters from the Chief Consul, urging him to join him without delay. In these letters there were some melancholy phrases, and Dessaix, who really loved Napoleon, was heard to say, "He has gained all, and yet he is not satisfied." A hundred obstacles rose up to keep Dessaix from joining his friend so speedily as both wished. He was yet in France when the news of St. Bernard came thither, and exclaiming, "He will leave us nothing to do," travelled night and day until he was able to throw himself into his arms. Napoleon immediately gave him the command of a division; and they spent the night together in conversing about the affairs of Egypt.
The First Consul was anxious to tempt Melas to attack him at Stradella, where the ground was unfavourable to cavalry movements; but, after lying there unmolested for three days, he began to fear that the Austrian had resolved, either on moving to the left flank, crossing the Ticino, occupying Milan, and so re-opening his communications with Vienna;—or, on falling back to Genoa, overwhelming Suchet, and taking up a position where the British fleet could supply him with provisions—or even, in case of necessity, embark his army, carry it round to the other side of Italy, and by that means place him once more between his enemy and the German states. Buonaparte, being perplexed with these apprehensions, at last descended into the great plain of Marengo, on which he had, not without reason, feared to abide the onset of Melas and the Austrian horse. He was at Volghera on the 11th, and the next day at St. Juliano, in the very centre of the plain; but still no enemy appeared. On the 13th, he advanced to the village of Marengo itself, and finding nothing even there but a scanty outpost, which retreated before him, concluded certainly that Melas had given him the slip, and marched either to the left on the Ticino, or to the right on Genoa. In great anxiety he detached one division under Dessaix to watch the road to Genoa, and another under Murat towards the Scrivia. Dessaix was already half-a-day's journey from headquarters, when Napoleon received intelligence which made him hastily recall all his detachments. The Austrian general, after a long hesitation, had at length resolved to let a fair field decide once more the fate of Italy. On the evening of the 13th, his whole army mustered in front of Alessandria having only the river Bormida between them and the plain of Marengo; and early in the following morning, they passed the stream at three several points, and advanced towards the French position in as many columns.
The Austrians were full 40,000 strong; while, in the absence of Dessaix and the reserve, Napoleon could, at most, oppose to them 20,000, of whom only 2500 were cavalry. He had, however, no hesitation about accepting the battle. His advance, under Gardanne, occupied the small hamlet of Padre Bona, a little in front of Marengo. At that village, which overlooks a narrow ravine, the channel of a rivulet, Napoleon stationed Victor with the main body of his first line—the extreme right of it resting on Castel Ceriolo, another hamlet almost parallel with Marengo; Kellerman, with a brigade of cavalry, was posted immediately behind Victor for the protection of his flanks. A thousand yards in the rear of Victor was the second line, under Lannes, protected in like fashion by the cavalry of Champeaux. At about an equal distance, again, behind Lannes, was the third line, consisting of the division of St. Cyr, and the consular guard, under Napoleon in person. The Austrian heavy infantry, on reaching the open field, formed into two lines, the first, under General Haddick, considerably in advance before the other, which Melas himself commanded, with General Zach for his second. These moved steadily towards Marengo; while the light infantry and cavalry, under General Elsnitz, made a detour round Castel Ceriolo with the purpose of outflanking the French right.
Such was the posture of the two armies when this great battle began. Gardanne was unable to withstand the shock, and abandoning Padre Bona, fell back to strengthen Victor. A furious cannonade along the whole front of that position ensued; the tirailleurs of either army posted themselves along the margins of the ravine, and fired incessantly at each other, their pieces almost touching. Cannon and musketry spread devastation everywhere—for the armies were but a few toises apart. For more than two hours Victor withstood singly the vigorous assaults of a far superior force; Marengo had been taken and retaken several times, ere Lannes received orders to reinforce him. The second line at length advanced, but they found the first in retreat, and the two corps took up a second line of defence considerably to the rear of Marengo. Here they were, again, charged furiously—and again, after obstinate resistance, gave way. General Elsnitz, meantime, having effected his purpose, and fairly marched round Castel Ceriolo, appeared on the right flank, with his splendid cavalry, and began to pour his squadrons upon the retreating columns of Lannes. That gallant chief formed his troops en echelon; and retired in admirable order—but the retreat was now general; and, had Melas pursued the advantage with all his reserve, the battle was won. But that aged general (he was eighty-four years old) doubted not that he had won it already; and at this critical moment, being quite worn out with fatigue, withdrew to the rear, leaving Zach to continue what he considered as now a mere pursuit.
At the moment when the Austrian horse were about to rush on Lannes's retreating corps, the reserve under Dessaix appeared on the outskirts of the field. Dessaix himself, riding up to the First Consul, said, "I think this is a battle lost." "I think it is a battle won," answered Napoleon. "Do you push on, and I will speedily rally the line behind you."—And in effect the timely arrival of this reserve turned the fortune of the day.
Napoleon in person drew up the whole of his army on a third line of battle, and rode along the front, saying, "Soldiers, we have retired far enough. Let us now advance. You know it is my custom to sleep on the field of battle." The enthusiasm of the troops appeared to be revived, and Dessaix prepared to act on the offensive; he led a fresh column of 5000 grenadiers to meet and check the advance of Zach. The brave Dessaix fell dead at the first fire, shot through the head. "Alas! it is not permitted to me to weep," said Napoleon; and the fall of that beloved chief redoubled the fury of his followers. The first line of the Austrian infantry charged, however, with equal resolution. At that moment Kellerman's horse came on them in flank; and being, by that unexpected assault, broken, they were, after a vain struggle, compelled to surrender:—General Zach himself was here made prisoner. The Austrian columns behind, being flushed with victory, were advancing too carelessly, and proved unable to resist the general assault of the whole French line, which now pressed onwards under the immediate command of Napoleon. Post after post was carried. The noble cavalry of Elsnitz, perceiving the infantry broken and retiring, lost heart; and, instead of forming to protect their retreat, turned their horses' heads and galloped over the plain, trampling down every thing in their way. When the routed army reached at length the Bormida, the confusion was indescribable. Hundreds were drowned—the river rolled red amidst the corpses of horse and men. Whole corps, being unable to effect the passage, surrendered: and at ten at night the Austrian commander with difficulty rallied the remnant of that magnificent array on the very ground which they had left the same morning in all the confidence of victory.
It is not to be denied that Napoleon was saved on this occasion by the arrival of the reserve under Dessaix, and the timely charge of Kellerman. On the other hand it is impossible not to condemn the rashness with which the Austrian generals advanced after their first successes.
The discomfiture of the imperialists was so great, that rather than stand the consequences of another battle, while Suchet was coming on their rear, they next day entered into a negotiation. Melas offered to abandon Genoa and all the strong places in Piedmont, Lombardy, and the Legations—provided Buonaparte would allow him to march the remains of his army unmolested to the rear of Mantua. Napoleon accepted this offer. By one battle he had regained nearly all that the French had lost in the unhappy Italian campaign of 1799: at all events he had done enough to crown his own name with unrivalled splendour, and to show that the French troops were once more what they had used to be—when he was in the field to command them. He had another motive for closing with the propositions of General Melas. It was of urgent importance to regain Genoa, ere an English army, which he knew was on its voyage to that port, could reach its destination.
On the 17th of June Napoleon returned in triumph to Milan, where he formally re-established the Cisalpine Republic, and was present at a festival of high state and magnificence. He then gave the command of the army of Italy to Massena; and appointed Jourdan French minister in Piedmont—in other words, governor of that dominion; and set out on his journey to Paris. He halted at Lyons to lay the first stone of the new Place de Bellecour, erected on the ruins of a great square destroyed by the Jacobins during the revolutionary madness; and reached the Tuileries on the 2nd of July. He had set out for Switzerland on the 6th of May. Two months had not elapsed, and in that brief space what wonders had been accomplished! The enthusiasm of the Parisians exceeded all that has been recorded of any triumphal entry. Night after night every house was illuminated; and day following day the people stood in crowds around the palace, contented if they could but catch one glimpse of the preserver of France.
The effusion of joy was the greater—because the tale of victory came on a people prepared for other tidings. About noontide on the 14th of June, when the French had been driven out of Marengo, and were apparently in full and disastrous retreat, a commercial traveller left the field, and arriving, after a rapid journey, in Paris, announced that Buonaparte had been utterly defeated by Melas. It is said that the ill-wishers of the First Consul immediately set on foot an intrigue for removing him from the government, and investing Carnot with the chief authority. It is not doubtful that many schemes of hostility had been agitated during Napoleon's absence; or that, amidst all the clamour and splendour of his triumphant reception in Paris, he wore a gloomy brow; nor has any one disputed that, from this time, he regarded the person of Carnot with jealousy and aversion.
The tidings of the great battle, meanwhile, kindled the emulation of the Rhenish army; and they burned with the earnest desire to do something worthy of being recorded in the same page with Marengo. But the Chief Consul, when he granted the armistice to Melas, had extended it to the armies on the German frontier likewise; and Moreau, consequently, could not at once avail himself of the eagerness of his troops. The negotiations which ensued, however, were unsuccessful. The emperor, subsidised as he had been, must have found it very difficult to resist the remonstrances of England against the ratification of any peace in which she should not be included; and it is natural to suppose, that the proud spirit of the Austrian cabinet revolted from setting the seal to an act of humiliation, not yet, as the English government insisted, absolutely necessary. News, meantime, were received, of the surrender of Malta to an English expedition under Lord Keith and Sir Ralph Abercrombie;[37] and this timely piece of good fortune breathed fresh spirit into the Antigallican league. In fine, insincerity and suspicion protracted, from day to day, a negotiation not destined to be concluded until more blood had been shed.
During this armistice, which lasted from the 15th of June to the 10th of November, the exiled princes of the House of Bourbon made some more ineffectual endeavours to induce the Chief Consul to be the Monk of France. The Abbé de Montesquiou, secret agent for the Count de Lille (afterwards Louis XVIII.), prevailed on the Third Consul, Le Brun, to lay before Buonaparte a letter addressed to him by that prince—in these terms: "You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me: it is to be feared that you may let the favourable moment slip. You cannot establish the happiness of France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, and point out, yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you and your friends." The First Consul answered thus: "I have received your Royal Highness's letter. I have always taken a lively interest in your misfortunes and those of your family. You must not think of appearing in France—you could not do so without marching over five hundred thousand corpses. For the rest, I shall always be zealous to do whatever lies within my power towards softening your Royal Highness's destinies, and making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes." The Comte D'Artois (Charles X. of France) took a more delicate method of negotiating. He sent a very beautiful and charming lady, the Duchesse de Guiche, to Paris; she without difficulty gained access to Josephine, and shone, for a time, the most brilliant ornament of the consular court. But the moment Napoleon discovered the fair lady's errand, she was ordered to quit the capital within a few hours. These intrigues, however, could not fail to transpire; and there is no doubt that, at this epoch, the hopes of the royalists were in a high state of excitement.
Meantime, among the meaner orders of both the great parties, who regarded with aversion the sovereign authority of the Chief Consul, there wanted not hearts wicked enough, nor hands sufficiently desperate, for attempts far different from these. The lawfulness, nay, the merit and the glory of tyrranicide, were ideas familiar to the Jacobins of every degree; and, during the years of miserable convulsion which followed the imprisonment and murder of Louis XVI., the royalist bands had often been joined, and sometimes guided, by persons in whom a naturally fanatical spirit, goaded by the sense of intolerable wrongs, dared to think of revenge—no matter how accomplished—as the last and noblest of duties: nor is it wonderful that amidst a long protracted civil war, when scenes of battle and slaughter were relieved only by the hardships of skulking in woods and the fears of famine, the character of others, originally both pure and gentle, had come to be degraded into a callous indifference of dark sullenness of temper, fit preparatives for deeds, the thought of which, in earlier and better days, would have been horror and loathing.
It was among the Jacobins, who had formerly worshipped Buonaparte as the "child and champion" of their creed, that the first schemes of assassination were agitated. An Italian sculptor, by name Ceracchi, who had modelled the bust of Napoleon while he held his court at Montebello, arrived in Paris, and, under pretence of retouching his work, solicited admission to the presence of the new Cæsar, whose Brutus he had resolved to be. The occupations of the Consul did not permit of this, and the Italian, having opened his purpose to Topineau, Lebrun, a painter, the adjutant-general Arena, Damerville, and others of kindred sentiments, arranged a plan by which Buonaparte was to have been surrounded and stabbed in the lobby of the opera house. But one of the accomplices betrayed the conspiracy; and Ceracchi and his associates were arrested in the theatre, at the moment when they were expecting their victim.
This occurred towards the middle of August; and it has been said that the Jacobin conspirators, being thrown into the same prison with some desperadoes of the Chouan faction, gave to these last the outline of another scheme of assassination, which had more nearly proved successful. This was the plot of the infernal machine. A cart was prepared to contain a barrel of gunpowder, strongly fastened in the midst of a quantity of grape-shot, which, being set on fire by a slow match, was to explode at the moment when Buonaparte was passing through some narrow street, and scatter destruction in every direction around it. The night selected was that of the 10th of October, when the Chief Consul was expected to visit the opera, and the machine was planted in the Rue St. Nicaise, through which he must pass in his way thither from the Tuileries. Napoleon told his friends at St. Helena, that having laboured hard all day, he felt himself overpowered with sleep after dinner, and that Josephine, who was anxious to be at the opera, had much difficulty in at last rousing and persuading him to go. "I fell fast asleep again" (he said), "after I was in my carriage; and at the moment when the explosion took place, I was dreaming of the danger I had undergone some years before in crossing the Tagliamento at midnight, by the light of torches, during a flood." He awoke, and exclaimed to Lannes and Bessieres, who were with him in the coach, "We are blown up." The attendants would have stopped the carriage, but, with great presence of mind, he bade them drive as fast as they could to the theatre, which he alone of all the party entered with an unruffled countenance. He had escaped most narrowly. The coachman, happening to be intoxicated, drove more rapidly than was his custom.[38] The engine exploded half a minute after the carriage had passed it—killing twenty persons, wounding fifty-three (among whom was St. Regent, the assassin who fired the train), and shattering the windows of several houses on both sides of the street.
The audience in the opera-house, when the news was divulged, testified their feelings with enthusiasm. The atrocity of the conspiracy roused universal horror and indignation, and invested the person of the Chief Consul with a new species of interest. The assassins were tried fairly, and executed, glorying in their crime: and, in the momentary exaltation of all men's minds, an edict of the senate, condemning to perpetual exile 130 of the most notorious leaders of the Terrorists, was received with applause. But Napoleon himself despised utterly the relics of that odious party; and the arbitrary decree in question was never put into execution.
The Chief Consul, nevertheless, was not slow to avail himself of the state of the public mind, in a manner more consistent with his prudence and farsightedness. It was at this moment that the erection of a new tribunal, called the Special Commission, consisting of eight judges, without jury, and without revision or appeal, was proposed to the legislative bodies. To their honour the proposal was carried by very narrow majorities; for after that judicature was established, the Chief Consul had, in effect, the means of disposing of all who were suspected of political offences, according to his own pleasure. Another law which soon succeeded, and which authorised the chief magistrate to banish disaffected persons, as "enemies of the state," from Paris or from France, whenever such steps should seem proper, without the intervention of any tribunal whatever, completed (if it was yet incomplete) the despotic range of his power: and the police, managed as that fearful engine was by Fouché, presented him with the most perfect means of carrying his purposes into execution.
A singular anecdote belongs to this time—(December, 1800). During the effervescence of public opinion consequent on the affair of the infernal machine, there appeared a pamphlet, entitled, "Parallel between Cæsar, Cromwell, Monk, and Bonaparte"[39]—a production evidently designed to favour the assumption of regal dignity by the Consul. Appearing at such a moment, it could not fail to excite a vivid sensation; the confidential friends of Napoleon assured him, in one voice, that the publication was likely to injure him. He sent for Fouché, and reproached him violently for suffering such a pamphlet to appear. The minister of police heard him with perfect coolness, and replied that he had not chosen to interfere, because he had traced the manuscript to the hotel of his brother Lucien. "And why not denounce Lucien?" cried Napoleon; "he ought to have been arrested instantly, and confined in the Temple." The Consul having spoken thus, quitted the apartment, shutting the door with violence. Fouché smiled, and whispered to De Bourienne—"Confine the author in the Temple! Lucien showed me the manuscript; I found it full of corrections in the handwriting of—the First Consul!" Lucien, informed of his brother's wrath, came forthwith to the Tuileries, and complained that "he had been made a puppet and abandoned." "The fault is your own," answered Napoleon; "it was your business not to be detected. Fouché has shown himself more dexterous—so much the worse for you." Lucien resigned forthwith the office which he held in the ministry, and proceeded as ambassador to Spain.
How far these disturbances in the French capital might have contributed to the indecision of the Austrian cabinet during this autumn, we know not. Five months had now elapsed since the armistice after Marengo; and the First Consul, utterly disgusted with the delay, determined to resume arms, and to be first in the field. Between the 17th and the 27th of November his generals received orders to set all their troops once more in motion. Everywhere the French arms had splendid success. Brune defeated the Austrians on the Mincio, and advanced within a few miles of Venice. Macdonald occupied the mountains of the Tyrol, and was prepared to reinforce either the army of Italy or that of the Rhine, as might be desired. Moreau, finally, advanced into the heart of Germany, and was met by the Archduke John of Austria, who obtained considerable advantages in an affair at Haag. The Archduke, elated by this success, determined on a general engagement, and appeared in front of the French on the evening of the 2nd December, at Hohenlinden, between the Inn and the Iser.[40] At seven, on the morning of the 3rd, the conflict began. The deep snow had obliterated the tracks of roads; several Austrian columns were bewildered; and either came not at all into their positions, or came too late. Yet the battle was obstinate and severe: 10,000 Imperialists were left dead on the field: and Moreau, improving his success, marched on immediately, and occupied Salzburg.
The Austrian capital now lay exposed to the march of three victorious armies; and the Emperor was at last compelled to release himself from his English obligations, and negotiate in sincerity for a separate peace. Mr. Pitt himself considered the prosecution of the continental war as for the time hopeless. On reading the bulletin of Marengo, he said, "Fold up that map" (the map of Europe); "it will not be wanted for these twenty years."
A definitive treaty was signed at Luneville on the 9th February, 1801; by which the Emperor, not only as the head of the Austrian monarchy, but also in his quality of Chief of the German empire, guaranteed to France the boundary to the Rhine; thereby sacrificing certain possessions of Prussia and other subordinate princes of the empire, as well as his own. Another article, extremely distasteful to Austria, yielded Tuscany; which Napoleon resolved to transfer to a prince of the House of Parma, in requital of the good offices of Spain during the war. The Emperor recognised the union of the Batavian Republic with the French;—and acknowledged the Cisalpine and Ligurian Commonwealths; both virtually provinces of the great empire, over which the authority of the First Consul seemed now to be permanently established.
England alone remained steadfast in her hostility; and, as we shall presently see, the Chief Consul was even able to secure for himself the alliance against her of some of the principal powers in Europe; but before we proceed to the eventful year of 1801, there are some incidents of a minor order which must be briefly mentioned.
It has been already said that the half-crazy Emperor of Russia had taken up a violent personal admiration for Buonaparte, and, under the influence of that feeling, virtually abandoned Austria before the campaign of Marengo. Napoleon took every means to flatter the Autocrat and secure him in his interests. Paul had been pleased to appoint himself Grand Master of the ruined Order of the Knights of St. John. It was his not idle ambition to obtain, in this character, possession of the Island of Malta; and Buonaparte represented the refusal of the English government to give up that stronghold as a personal insult to Paul. Some 10,000 Russian prisoners of war were not only sent back in safety, but new clothed and equipped at the expense of France; and the Autocrat was led to contrast this favourably with some alleged neglect of these troops on the part of Austria, when arranging the treaty of Luneville. Lastly, the Queen of Naples, sister to the German Emperor, being satisfied that, after the battle of Marengo, nothing could save her husband's Italian dominions from falling back into the hands of France (out of which they had been rescued, during Napoleon's Egyptian campaign, by the English, under Lord Nelson), took up the resolution of travelling in person to St. Petersburg in the heart of the winter, and soliciting the intercession of Paul. The Czar, egregiously flattered with being invoked in this fashion, did not hesitate to apply in the Queen's behalf to Buonaparte; and the Chief Consul, well calculating the gain and the loss, consented to spare Naples for the present, thereby completing the blind attachment of that weak-minded despot.
At the same time when Nelson delivered Naples from the French, a party of English seamen, under Commodore Trowbridge, had landed at the mouth of the Tiber, marched to Rome, and restored the Pope. The French army, after the great victory which gave them back Lombardy and Piedmont, doubted not that the re-establishment of "the Roman Republic" would be one of its next consequences. But Buonaparte, who had in the interim re-opened the churches of France, was now disposed to consider the affairs of the Pope with very different eyes. In a word, he had already resolved to make use of the Holy Father in the consolidation of his own power as a monarch; and, as the first step to this object, the government of the Pope was now suffered to continue—not a little to the astonishment of the French soldiery, and to the confusion, it may be added, and regret, of various powers of Europe.
The First Consul, meanwhile, proceeded to turn the friendship of the Russian Emperor to solid account. It has never, in truth, been difficult to excite angry and jealous feelings, among the minor maritime powers, with regard to the naval sovereignty of England. The claim of the right of searching neutral ships, and her doctrine on the subject of blockades, had indeed been recognised in many treaties by Russia, and by every maritime government in Europe. Nevertheless, the old grudge remained; and Buonaparte now artfully employed every engine of diplomacy to awaken a spirit of hostility against England, first, in the well-prepared mind of the Czar, and then in the cabinets of Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden. The result was, in effect, a coalition of these powers against the mistress of the seas; and, at the opening of the nineteenth century, England had to contemplate the necessity of encountering single-handed the colossal military force of France, and the combined fleets of Europe. To deepen the shadows of her prospects at that great crisis of her history, the people suffered severely under a scarcity of food, in consequence of bad harvests; and the efforts which England made, under such an accumulation of adverse circumstances, must ever be treasured among the proudest of her national recollections.
In January, 1801, the first imperial parliament of Great Britain and Ireland assembled; and, shortly afterwards, in consequence of a difference of opinion, touching the Roman Catholic Question, between George III. and Mr. Pitt, that great minister resigned his office, and a new cabinet was formed, with Mr. Addington (afterwards Viscount Sidmouth) at its head. These changes were a new source of embarrassment; yet the prosecution of the war was urged with undiminished vigour.
Early in March, Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson conducted a fleet into the Baltic, with the view of attacking the northern powers in their own harbours, ere they could effect their meditated junction with the fleets of France and Holland. The English passed the Sound on the 13th of March, and reconnoitred the road of Copenhagen, where the Crown-Prince, Regent of Denmark, had made formidable preparations to receive them. It was on the 2nd of April that Nelson, who had volunteered to lead the assault, having at length obtained a favourable wind, advanced with twelve ships of the line, besides frigates and fire-ships, upon the Danish armament, which consisted of six sail of the line, eleven floating batteries, and an enormous array of small craft, all chained to each other and to the ground, and protected by the Crown-batteries, mounting eighty-eight guns, and the fortifications of the isle of Amack. The battle lasted for four hours, and ended in a signal victory. Some few schooners and bomb-vessels fled early, and escaped: the whole Danish fleet besides were sunk, burnt, or taken. The Prince Regent, to save the capital from destruction, was compelled to enter into a negotiation, which ended in the abandonment of the French alliance by Denmark. Lord Nelson then reconnoitred Stockholm; but, being unwilling to inflict unnecessary suffering, did not injure the city, on discovering that the Swedish fleet had already put to sea. Meantime, news arrived that Paul had been assassinated in his palace at St. Petersburg; and that the policy which he had adopted, to the displeasure of the Russian nobility, was likely to find no favour with his successor. The moving spirit of the northern confederacy was, in effect, no more, and a brief negotiation ended in its total disrupture.[41]
In the same month of March the British arms were crowned with a more pleasing triumph in a more distant region. From the time when Buonaparte landed in Egypt, the occupation of that country by a French army, and its possible consequences to our empire in the East, had formed a subject of anxious solicitude in the cabinet of St. James's; and the means for attacking the army which Napoleon had entrusted to Kleber, had, at length, been combined and set in motion, in opposition to the sentiments both of the King and Mr. Pitt, by the bold spirit of Lord Melville, then at the head of the Indian Board of Control. The fleet of Lord Keith, carrying Sir Ralph Abercrombie and his army, were already in possession of Malta; another army of 7000, composed partly of English troops and partly of sepoys, had been dispatched from India, and approached Egypt by the way of the Red Sea; and, lastly, the Ottoman Porte was prepared to co-operate with General Abercrombie, whenever he should effect a landing in the neighbourhood of Alexandria. That event occurred on the 13th of March, the British troops disembarking in the face of the French, who were very strongly posted; and, at length, driving them from the shore. On the 21st a general engagement took place in front of Alexandria; and Sir Ralph Abercrombie fell, mortally wounded, in the moment of victory. General Hutchinson (afterwards Earl of Donoughmore), on whom the command devolved, pursued the advantage. Kleber, who by his excellent administration had earned the title of the Just Sultan, had been assassinated by an obscure fanatic on the same day when Dessaix died gloriously at Marengo; and Menou, who succeeded to the command of the French army in Egypt, was found wholly incapable of conducting either the civil or the military business of the colony to advantage. He shut himself up in Alexandria with the relics of the army defeated on the 21st. The English, forthwith, let the sea into the lake Maréotis: the capital was thus made an island, and all communication with the country cut off. Hutchinson was now joined by the Turkish Capitan-pasha and 6000 men; and intelligence reached him that the Indian reinforcement, under General Baird, had landed at Cossire. Rosetta was soon captured; and, after various skirmishes, Cairo was invested. On the 28th of June General Belliard and a garrison of 13,000 surrendered, on condition that they should be transported in safety to France: and Menou, perceiving that defence was hopeless and famine at hand, followed, ere long, the same example. Thus, in one brief campaign, was Egypt entirely rescued from the arms of France. But even that great advantage was a trifle, when compared with the stimulus afforded to national confidence at home, by this timely re-assertion of the character of the English army. At sea we had never feared an enemy; but the victories of Abercrombie destroyed a fatal prejudice which had, of recent days, gained ground,—that the military of Great Britain were unfit to cope with those of revolutionary France. Nor should it be forgotten, that if Abercrombie had the glory of first leading English soldiers to victory over the self-styled Invincibles of Buonaparte, he owed the means of his success to the admirable exertions of the Duke of York, in reforming the discipline of the service as commander-in-chief.
On learning the fate of Egypt, Buonaparte exclaimed, "Well, there remains only the descent on Britain;" and, in the course of a few weeks, not less than 100,000 troops were assembled on the coasts of France. An immense flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was prepared to carry them across the Channel, whenever, by any favourable accident, it should be clear of the English fleets; and both the soldiery and the seamen of the invading armament were trained and practised incessantly, in every exercise and manœuvre likely to be of avail when that long-looked-for day should arrive. These preparations were met, as might have been expected, on the part of the English government and nation. Nelson was placed in command of the Channel fleet; and the regular army was reinforced on shore by a multitude of new and enthusiastic volunteers; men of all parties and ranks joining heart and hand in the great and sacred cause. Lord Nelson, more than once, reconnoitred the flotilla assembled at Boulogne, and, at length, attempted the daring movement of cutting out the vessels, in the teeth of all the batteries. The boats being chained to the shore, crowded with soldiery, and placed immediately under the fortifications, the attempt was unsuccessful; but the gallantry with which it was conducted struck new terror into the hearts of the French marine, and, Nelson continuing to watch the Channel with unsleeping vigilance, the hopes of the First Consul, ere long, sunk.
The successes of the English in the Baltic and in Egypt were well calculated to dispose Napoleon for negotiation: and the retirement of Mr. Pitt, who was considered throughout Europe as the author and very soul of the anti-revolutionary war, was not without its influence. On the other hand, Napoleon's mighty successes against the German emperor had been followed up this same year by the march of a French and Spanish army into Portugal, in consequence of which that last ally of England had been compelled to submit to the general fate of the continent. On both sides there existed the strongest motives for accommodation; and, in effect, after a tedious negotiation, the preliminaries of peace were signed, on the 10th of October, at Amiens. By this treaty England surrendered all the conquests which she had made during the war, except Ceylon and Trinidad. France, on the other hand, restored what she had taken from Portugal, and guaranteed the independence of the Ionian Islands. Malta was to be restored to the Knights of St. John, and declared a free port: neither England nor France was to have any representatives in the order; and the garrison was to consist of the troops of a neutral power. This article was that which cost the greatest difficulty—and Malta was destined to form the pretext, at least, for the re-opening of the war at no distant date.
Meantime, except by a small party, who thought that England should never make peace unless the Bourbon family were restored to the throne of France, this news was received with universal satisfaction throughout Great Britain. "It was," as Mr. Sheridan summed up the matter, "a peace which all men were glad of, and of which no man could be proud." The definitive treaty was signed on the 25th of March, 1802: and nothing could surpass the demonstrations of joy on this occasion, both in London and in Paris—or the enthusiastic display of good-will with which the populace of either capital welcomed the plenipotentiaries.
The peace of Amiens, like that of Campo-Formio, turned out a mere armistice. It was signed in the midst of mutual suspicion; and the audacious ambition of the French government, from the very day of its ratification, accumulated the elements of an inevitable rupture. The continent, however, had been virtually shut against the English for ten years; and now, in the first eagerness of curiosity, travellers of all ranks, ages, and sexes poured across the Channel, to contemplate, with their own eyes, the scenes and effects of the many wonderful deeds and changes which had been wrought since the outbreaking of the French Revolution. The chief object of curiosity was Napoleon himself; and English statesmen, of the highest class, were among those who now thronged the levees of the Tuileries. Mr. Fox, in particular, seems to have been courted and caressed by the Chief Consul; and these two great men parted with feelings of mutual admiration. Our countrymen, in general, were received in Paris with extraordinary attentions and civilities; and for a brief space, the establishment of friendly feelings between the two nations was confidently expected.
The English were agreeably disappointed with the condition of Paris. To their great surprise they found the consular court already arranged, in many particulars, upon the old model of the monarchy, and daily approximating to that example, step by step. Josephine had restored, titles alone excepted, the old language of polite intercourse: Citoyenne had been replaced by Madame; and Citoyen was preparing to make way for Monsieur. The emigrant nobility had flocked back in great numbers; and Buonaparte, dispensing with the awkward services of his aides-de-camp in the interior of the palace, was now attended by chamberlains and other officers of state—chosen for the most part, from the highest families of the monarchy; and who studiously conducted themselves towards the Chief Consul exactly as if the crown of Louis XVI. had descended to him by the ordinary laws of inheritance. Napoleon himself, if we may believe Madame de Staël, had the weakness to affect, in many trivial matters, a close imitation of what his new attendants reported to have been the personal demeanour of the Bourbon princes. His behaviour as the holder of a court was never graceful. He could not, or would not, control the natural vehemence of his temper, and ever and anon confounded the old race of courtiers, by ebullitions which were better suited to the camp than the saloons of the Tuileries. But whenever he thought fit to converse with a man capable of understanding him, the Consul failed not to create a very lively feeling in his own favour; and, meantime, Josephine was admirably adapted to supply his deficiencies in the management of circles and festivals.
The labour which Napoleon underwent at this period, when he was consolidating the administration throughout France (in every department of which intolerable confusion had arisen during the wars and tumults of the preceding years), excited the astonishment of all who had access to his privacy. He exhausted the energies of secretary after secretary; seemed hardly to feel the want of sleep; and yet sustained the unparalleled fatigue without having recourse to any stimulus stronger than lemonade. Of the many great measures adopted and perfected during this short-lived peace we may notice in particular the following:—
A decree of the senate, dated 26th April, 1802, allowed all emigrants to return to France, provided they chose to do so within a certain space of time, and to pledge allegiance to the consular government; and offered to restore to such persons whatever property of theirs, having been confiscated during the Revolution, still remained at the disposal of the state. From this amnesty about 5000 persons, however, were excepted; these were arranged under five heads, viz.: those who had headed bodies of royalist insurgents; who had served in the armies of the allies; who had belonged to the household of the Bourbons during their exile; who had been agents in stirring up foreign or domestic war; and lastly, generals, admirals, Representatives of the People, who had been banished for treason to the Republic; together with bishops who were obstinate in refusing to accept of the conditions on which the exercise of ecclesiastical functions had been sanctioned by the consuls. The event, in a great measure, justified the prudence of this merciful edict. The far greater part of the emigrants returned, and became peaceful subjects of Napoleon—even although the restoration of forfeited property never took place to anything like the promised extent. He, having yielded back a few princely estates to their rightful lords, was, it is said, made aware, by sufficiently significant behaviour on their parts, that they had now obtained all they wished, and would not in future trouble themselves to merit his favour. Some instances of haughty ingratitude may, very probably, have occurred; but the Consul, in breaking his word with the despoiled emigrants as a body, was preparing for himself dangers greater than those he removed by permitting their return to France.
A still more important measure was that by which the Romish religion was finally re-established as the national faith. The sparing of the Papal dominion after Marengo, and the re-opening of the churches in France, were the preliminaries of the peace, which was, at length, signed on the 18th of September, 1802, between the Pope and the revolutionary government. This famous concordat was the work of Napoleon himself, who seems to have met with more opposition, whenever he touched the matter of religion, than the men of the Revolution, with whom he consulted, thought fit to exhibit on any other occasions whatever. The question was argued one evening, at great length, on the terrace of the garden, at Buonaparte's favourite villa of Malmaison. The Chief Consul avowed himself to be no believer in Christianity; "But religion," said he, "is a principle which cannot be eradicated from the heart of man." "Who made all that?" he continued, looking up to the heaven, which was clear and starry. "But last Sunday evening I was walking here alone when the church bells of the village of Ruel rung at sunset. I was strongly moved, so vividly did the image of early days come back with that sound. If it be thus with me, what must it be with others? In re-establishing the church, I consult the wishes of the great majority of my people."
Volney, the celebrated traveller, was present. "You speak of the majority of the people," said he: "if that is to be the rule, recall the Bourbons to-morrow." Napoleon never conversed with this bold infidel afterwards.
The concordat gave no satisfaction to the high Catholic party, who considered it as comprehending arrangements wholly unworthy of the dignity of the Pope, and destructive of the authority of the church. The great majority of the nation, however, were wise enough to be contented with conditions which the Vatican had found it necessary to admit. The chief articles were these: I. The Roman Catholic religion is recognised as the national faith. II. The Pope, in concert with the French government, shall make a new division of dioceses, requiring, if necessary, the resignation of any existing prelate. III. Vacant sees now and henceforth shall be filled by the Pope on nominations by the government. IV. No bishops shall hold their sees unless they swear allegiance to the government, and adopt a ritual in which prayers are offered up for the Consuls. V. The church livings shall be, like the dioceses, rearranged; and the curés be appointed by the bishop, but not without the approbation of the government. VI. The French government shall make provision for the prelates and clergy, and the Pope renounces for ever all right to challenge the distribution of church property consequent on the events of the revolutionary period.
The Pope, in acceding to these terms, submitted to "the exigence of the time—which," said his Holiness in the deed itself, "lays its violence even upon us." The most bitter point of execution was that which regarded the bishops—the great majority of whom were yet in exile. These prelates were summoned to send in, each separately, and within fifteen days, his acceptance of the terms of the concordat, or his resignation of his see. Thus taken by surprise, having no means of consultation, and considering the concordat as fatal to the rights of the church, and the Pope's assent as extorted by mere necessity, almost all of them, to their honour be it said, declined complying with either of these demands. That these bishops should prefer poverty and exile to submission, was not likely to increase the popularity of the concordat with the more devout part of the nation. Meantime, the self-called philosophers looked on with scorn; and the republicans, of every sect, regarded with anger and indignation a course of policy which, as they justly apprehended, provided for the re-establishment of the church, solely because that was considered as the likeliest means of re-establishing the monarchy—in a new dynasty indeed, but with all, or more than all, the old powers.
In moments of spleen Napoleon is known to have sometimes expressed his regret that he should ever have had recourse to this concordat: but at St. Helena, when looking back calmly, he said that it was so needful a measure that had there been no Pope, one ought to have been created for the occasion.
The name of the First Consul was now introduced into the church service at least as often as that of the king had used to be. The cathedral of Notre Dame was prepared for the solemn reception of the concordat. Napoleon appeared there with the state and retinue of a monarch; and in every part of the ceremonial the ancient rules were studiously attended to. The prelate who presided was the same Archbishop of Aix who had preached the coronation sermon of Louis XVI.
It was not easy, however, to procure the attendance of some of the revolutionary generals of the true republican race. Berthier had invited a large party of them long beforehand to breakfast: he carried them from thence to the levee of the Chief Consul, and they found it impossible not to join in the procession. Buonaparte asked one of these persons, after the ceremony was over, what he thought of it? "It was a true Capucinade" was the answer. To another of these, whom he thought less sincere, he said with a smile, "Things, you see, are returning to the old order." "Yes," the veteran replied, "all returns—all but the two millions of Frenchmen who have died for the sake of destroying the very system which you are now rebuilding." These officers are said to have paid dearly for their uncourtly language. Moreau was not to be tampered with by Berthier. The Chief Consul personally invited him to be present at the Te Deum in Notre Dame, to attend afterwards at the consecration of some colours, and, lastly, to dine at the Tuileries. Moreau answered, "I accept the last part of your invitation."
A third great measure, adopted about the same period, was received with unqualified applause. This was the establishment of a national system of education, the necessity of which had been much felt, since the old universities and schools under the management of the clergy had been broken up amidst the first violence of the Revolution. The Polytechnic School, established under the direction of Monge, dates from this epoch; and furnished France, in the sequel, with a long train of eminent men for every department of the public service.
It was now also that the Chief Consul commenced the great task of providing France with an uniform code of laws. He himself took constantly an earnest share in the deliberations of the jurists, who were employed in this gigantic undertaking; and astonished them by the admirable observations which his native sagacity suggested, in relation to matters commonly considered as wholly out of the reach of unprofessional persons. But of the new code we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.
Buonaparte at this period devised, and began to put into execution, innumerable public works of the highest utility. The inland navigation of Languedoc was to be made complete: a great canal between the Yonne and the Saonne was begun, for the purpose of creating a perfect water communication quite across the republican dominion—from Marseilles to Amsterdam. Numberless bridges, roads, museums, were planned; and the vain were flattered with rising monuments of magnificence, while the wise recognised in every such display the depths and forecast of a genius made for empire.
Thus far the measures of the Consulate may be said to have carried with them the approbation of all but a few individuals. They were accompanied or followed by proceedings, some of which roused, or strengthened and confirmed, sentiments of a very different description among various important classes of the French community; while others were well calculated to revive the suspicion of all the neighbouring nations.
It is said that the first idea of the Legion of Honour arose in the breast of Napoleon on witnessing one day, from a window at the Tuileries, the admiration with which the crowd before the palace regarded the stars and crosses worn by the Marquis Lucchesini, ambassador of Prussia, as he descended from his carriage. The republican members of the senate could not be persuaded that the institution of an order, with insignia, was anything but the first step to the creation of a new body of nobility; and they resisted the proposed measure with considerable pertinacity. On this head, as on that of the concordat with the Pope, the Consul condescended to enter personally into discussion with the chief persons who differed from his opinion, or suspected his intentions; and if any, who heard his language on this occasion, doubted that both nobility and monarchy were designed to follow hard behind the Legion of Honour, they must have been singularly slow of understanding. Berthier had called ribbons and crosses "the playthings of monarchy," and cited the Romans of old as "having no system of honorary rewards." "They are always talking to us of the Romans," said Buonaparte. "The Romans had patricians, knights, citizens, and slaves:—for each class different dresses and different manners—honorary recompenses for every species of merit—mural crowns—civic crowns—ovations—triumphs—titles. When the noble band of patricians lost its influence, Rome fell to pieces—the people were vile rabble. It was then that you saw the fury of Marius, the proscriptions of Sylla, and afterwards of the emperors. In like manner Brutus is talked of as the enemy of tyrants: he was an aristocrat, who stabbed Cæsar, because Cæsar wished to lower the authority of the noble senate. You talk of child's rattles—be it so: it is with such rattles that men are led. I would not say that to the multitude; but in a council of statesmen one may speak the truth. I do not believe that the French people love liberty and equality. Their character has not been changed in ten years: they are still what their ancestors, the Gauls, were—vain and light. They are susceptible but of one sentiment—honour. It is right to afford nourishment to this sentiment: and to allow of distinctions. Observe how the people bow before the decorations of foreigners. Voltaire calls the common soldiers Alexanders at five sous a day. He was right: it is just so. Do you imagine that you can make men fight by reasoning? Never. You must bribe them with glory, distinctions, rewards. To come to the point: during ten years there has been a talk of institutions. Where are they? All has been overturned: our business is to build up. There is a government with certain powers: as to all the rest of the nation what is it but grains of sand? Before the Republic can be definitely established, we must, as a foundation, cast some blocks of granite on the soil of France. In fine, it is agreed that we have need of some kind of institutions. If this Legion of Honour is not approved, let some other be suggested. I do not pretend that it alone will save the state; but it will do its part." Such were the words of Napoleon when the scheme was in preparation. Many years afterwards, in his exile at St. Helena, he thus spoke of his Order. "It was the reversion of every one who was an honour to his country, stood at the head of his profession, and contributed to the national prosperity and glory. Some were dissatisfied because the decoration was alike for officers and soldiers; others because it was given to civil and military merit indiscriminately. But if ever it cease to be the recompense of the brave private, or be confined to soldiers alone, it will cease to be the Legion of Honour."
On the 15th of May, 1802, the Legion of Honour was formally instituted; large national domains were set apart for its maintenance; and crosses (each of which entitled the bearer to certain precedence and a pension) widely distributed among the soldiery, and among citizens of almost all professions.
The personal authority of the future emperor, meantime, was daily widening and strengthening. After the Consulate was established in France, some corresponding change in the government of the Cisalpine Republic was judged necessary, and Napoleon took care that it should be so conducted as to give himself not only permanent, but wholly independent, power beyond the Alps. A convention of 450 Italian deputies was summoned to meet at Lyons; and there Talleyrand was ready to dictate the terms of a new constitution, by which the executive functions were to be lodged in a president and vice-president, the legislative in a council chosen from three electoral colleges. It was next proposed that Buonaparte should be invited to take on him the office of president—Buonaparte, it was studiously explained, not as Chief Consul of France, but in his own individual capacity. He repaired to Lyons in person, and having harangued the convention in the Italian tongue, assumed the dignity thus conferred on him on the 2nd of January, 1802.
The next step was to prolong the period of his French Consulate. Chabot de L'Allier, his creature, moved in the Tribunate that the Conservative Senate should be requested to mark the national feelings of gratitude by conferring some new honour on Napoleon. The Senate proposed accordingly that he should be declared Consul for a second period of ten years, to commence on the expiration of his present magistracy. He thanked them; but said he could not accept of any such prolongation of his power except from the suffrages of the people. To the people the matter was to be referred; but the Second and Third Consuls, in preparing the edict of the Senate for public inspection and ratification, were instructed by their master-colleague to introduce an important change in its terms. The question which they sent down was, "Shall Buonaparte be Chief Consul for life?" No mention was made of ten years. Books were opened as on a former occasion: the officers of government in the departments well knew in what method to conduct the business, and the voice of the nation was declared to be in favour of the decree. Some few hundreds of sturdy republicans alone recorded their opposition; and Carnot, who headed them, said he well knew he was signing his own sentence of exile. But Napoleon was strong enough to dispense with any such severities; Carnot remained in safety, but out of office, until, many years afterwards, his services were tendered and accepted on the entrance of foreign invaders into France. Buonaparte was proclaimed Consul for life on the 2nd of August.
Shortly afterwards, in the committee occupied with the Code, Napoleon entered upon a long disquisition in favour of the Roman law of adoption; urging with intrepid logic, that an heir so chosen ought to be even dearer than a son. The object of this harangue was not difficult of detection. Napoleon had no longer any hope of having children by Josephine; and meditated the adoption of one of his brother's sons as his heir. In the course of the autumn a simple edict of the Conservative Senate authorised him to appoint his successor in the consulate by a testamentary deed. By this act (Aug. 4, 1802) a new dynasty was called to the throne of France. The farce of opening books in the departments was dispensed with. Henceforth the words "Liberty, Equality, Sovereignty of the People," disappeared from the state papers and official documents of the government—nor did the change attract much notice. The nation had a master, and sate by, indifferent spectators; while he, under whose sway life and property were considered safe, disposed of political rights and privileges according to his pleasure.[42]