other hand, sought to recognize and reward merit in all walks of life.
Nevertheless his proposal met with strong opposition in the Corps
Législatif and Tribunate, where members saw that it portended
a revival of the older distinction. This was so: abolished in 1790
by the constituent assembly, titles of nobility were virtually restored
by Napoleon in 1806 and legally in 1808. Side by side with them
there continued to exist the Legion of Honour. It was organized
in fifteen cohorts, each comprising seven grand officers, twenty commanders,
thirty officers and 350 legionaries. A stipend, ranging
from 5000 francs a year to 250 francs, was attached to each grade of
the institution. The benefits attaching to membership and the
number of the members were increased during the Empire, when the
average number somewhat exceeded thirty thousand. Napoleon’s
aim of bidding for the support of all able men is disagreeably prominent
in all details of this institution, which may be looked upon as
the tangible outcome of the conviction which he thus frankly expressed:
“In ambition is to be found the chief motive-force of
humanity; and a man puts forth his best powers in proportion to
his hopes of advancement.”
The success of Bonaparte in reorganizing France may be ascribed to his determined practicality and to his perception of the needs of the average man. Since the death of Mirabeau no one had appeared who could strike the happy mean and enforce his will on the extremes on either side. Bonaparte did so with a forcefulness rarely possessed by that usually mediocre creature, the moderate man.
It is time now to notice the chief events which ensured the ascendancy of Bonaparte. Military, diplomatic and police affairs were skilfully made to conduce to that result. In the first of these spheres the victory of Marengo (14th of June 1800) was of special importance, as it consolidated the reputation of Bonaparte at a time when republican opposition was gathering strength. As Lucien Bonaparte remarked, if Marengo had been lost—and it was saved only by Desaix and Kellermann—the Bonaparte family would have been proscribed. Negotiations for peace now followed; but they led to nothing, until Moreau’s triumph at Hohenlinden (December 2nd, 1800) brought the court of Vienna to a state of despair. By the treaty with Austria, signed by Joseph Bonaparte at Lunéville on the 9th of February 1801, France regained all that she had won at Campo Formio, much of which had been lost for a time in the war of the Second Coalition. True, she now agreed to recognise the independence of the Cisalpine, Ligurian, Helvetic and Batavian (Dutch) republics; but the masterful acquisitiveness of the First Consul and the weak conduct of Austrian and British affairs at that time soon made that clause of the treaty a dead letter. Bonaparte meanwhile, by dexterous behaviour to Paul I. of Russia, had won the friendship of that potentate, whose resentment against his former allies, Austria and England, facilitated a re-grouping of the Powers. The new Franco-Russian entente helped on the formation of the Armed Neutrality League and led to the concoction of schemes for the driving of the British from India. But these undertakings were thwarted in March–April 1801 by the murder of the tsar Paul and by Nelson’s victory at Copenhagen. The advent of the more peaceful and Anglophile tsar, Alexander I. (q.v.), brought about the dissolution of the League, and the abandonment of the oriental schemes which Bonaparte had so closely at heart. Another disappointment befel him in the same quarter, the surrender of the French forces in Egypt to the British expedition commanded first by General Abercromby and afterwards by General John Hely-Hutchinson (30th of August 1801).
These events disposed both Bonaparte and the British cabinet towards peace. He was all powerful on land, they on the sea; and for the present each was powerless to harm the other. Bonaparte in particular discerned the advantages which peace would bring in the consolidation of his position. The beginning of negotiations had been somewhat facilitated by the resignation of Pitt (4th of February 1801) and the advent to office of Henry Addington. Bonaparte, perceiving the weakness of Addington, both as a man and as a minister, pressed him hard; and both the Preliminaries of Peace, concluded at London on the 1st of October 1801, and the terms of the treaty of Amiens (27th of March 1802) were such as to spread through the United Kingdom a feeling of annoyance. In everything which related to the continent of Europe and to the resumption of trade relations between Great Britain and France, Bonaparte had his way; and he abated his demands only in a few questions relating to India and Newfoundland.
The terms of the treaty of Amiens may be thus summarized: Great Britain restored to France the colonial possessions (almost the whole of the French colonial empire) conquered in the late war. Of their many maritime conquests the British retained only the Spanish island of Trinidad and the Dutch settlements in Ceylon. Their other conquests at the expense of these allies of France were restored to them, including the Cape of Good Hope to the Dutch. France recognized the integrity of the Turkish Empire and promised an indemnity to the House of Orange exiled from the Batavian (Dutch) Republic since 1794. She further agreed to evacuate the papal states, Taranto and other towns in the Mediterranean coasts which she had occupied. The independence of the Ionian Isles (now reconstituted as the Republic of the Seven Islands) was guaranteed. As to Malta, the United Kingdom was to restore it to the order of St John (its possessors previous to 1798) when the Great Powers had guaranteed its independence. It was to receive a Neapolitan garrison for a year, and, if necessary, for a longer time.
No event in the life of Bonaparte was more auspicious than the conclusion of this highly advantageous bargain. By retaining nearly all the continental conquests of France, and by recovering every one of those which the British had made at her expense beyond the seas, he achieved a feat which was far beyond the powers even of Louis XIV. The gratitude of the French for this triumph found expression in a proposal, emanating from the Tribunate, that the First Consul should receive a pledge of the gratitude of the nation. When referred to the senate, the matter underwent secret manipulation, largely through the influence of Cambacérès; but the republican instinct even in the senate was sufficiently strong to thwart the intrigues of the second consul; and that body on the 8th of May merely re-elected Bonaparte for a second term of ten years after the expiration of the first decennial term for which he was chosen. This fell far short of his desires, and he now dexterously referred the whole question to the nation at large. The Council of State. acting on a suggestion made by Cambacérès, now intervened with telling effect. It altered the wording of the senatorial proposal in such a way that the nation was asked to vote on the question; “Is Napoleon Bonaparte to be made Consul for Life?” France responded by an overwhelming affirmative, 3,568,885 votes being cast for the proposal and only 8374 against it.
Napoleon (who now used his Christian name instead of the surname Bonaparte) thereupon sent proposals for various changes in the constitution, which were at once registered by the obsequious Council of State and the Senate on the 4th of August (16 Thermidor) 1802. Besides holding his powers for life, he now gained the right of nominating his successor. He alone could ratify treaties of peace and alliance, and on his nomination fifty-four senators were added to the senate, which thereafter numbered one hundred and twenty members appointed by him alone. This body received the right of deciding by senatus consulta all questions not provided for by the constitution; the Corps Législatif and Tribunate might also thenceforth be dissolved at its bidding. In short, the First Consul now became the irresponsible ruler of France, governing the country through the ministry, the Council of State and the Senate. As for the chambers, based avowedly on universal suffrage, their existence thenceforth was ornamental or sepulchral. The constitutional changes of August 1802, initiated solely by Bonaparte, made France an absolute monarchy. The name of Empire was not adopted until nearly two years later; but the change then brought about was scarcely more than titular.
In order to understand the utter inability of the old republican party to withstand these changes, it is needful to retrace our steps and consider the skilful use made by Bonaparte of plots and disturbances as they occurred. As was natural, when he sought to steer a middle course between the Scylla of royalism and the Charybdis of Jacobinism, disturbances were to be expected on both sides of the consular ship of state. The first of these was an unimportant affair, probably nursed by the agents provocateurs of Fouché’s ubiquitous
police. It purported to be an undertaking entered into by a few
