Chap. IV.—The French people establish the Imperial throne, to
consolidate the new interests of the nation. The fourth dynasty did not immediately succeed the third; it succeeded the Republic. Napoleon is crowned by the Pope, and acknowledged by the Powers of Europe. He creates kings, and the armies of all the Continental Powers march under his command.
The five members of the Directory were divided. Enemies to the Republic crept into the councils; and thus men, hostile to the rights of the people, became connected with the government. This state of things kept the country in a ferment; and the great interests which the French people had acquired by the Revolution were incessantly compromised. One unanimous voice, issuing from the plains of France and from her cities and her camps, demanded the preservation of all the principles of the Republic, or the establishment of an hereditary system of government, which would place the principles and interests of the Revolution beyond the reach of factions and the influence of foreigners. By the constitution of the year VIII. the First Consul of the Republic became Consul for ten years, and the nation afterwards prolonged his magistracy for life: the people subsequently raised him to the throne, which it rendered hereditary in his family. The principles of the sovereignty of the people, of liberty and equality, of the destruction of the feudal system, of the irrevocability of the sale of national domains, and the freedom of religious worship, were now established. The government of France, under the fourth dynasty, was founded on the same principles as the Republic. It was a moderate and constitutional monarchy. There was as much difference between the government of France under the fourth dynasty and the third, as between the latter and the Republic. The fourth dynasty succeeded the Republic, or, more properly speaking, it was merely a modification of it.
No Prince ever ascended a throne with rights more legitimate than those of Napoleon. The crown was not presented to him by a few Bishops and Nobles; but he was raised to the Imperial throne by the unanimous consent of the citizens, three times solemnly confirmed. Pope Pius VII. the head of the Catholic religion, the religion of the majority of the French people, crossed the Alps to anoint the Emperor with his own hands, in the presence of the Bishops of France, the Cardinals of the Romish Church, and the Deputies from all the districts of the Empire. The sovereigns of Europe eagerly acknowledged Napoleon: all beheld with pleasure the modification of the Republic, which placed France on a footing of harmony with the rest of Europe, and which at once confirmed the constitution and the happiness of that great nation. Ambassadors from Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, and America, in fine, from all the powers of Europe, came to congratulate the Emperor. England alone sent no ambassador: she had violated the treaty of Amiens, and had consequently again declared war against France; but even England approved the change. Lord Whitworth, in the secret negotiations which took place through the medium of Count Malouet, and which preceded the rupture of the peace of Amiens, proposed, on the part of the English government, to acknowledge Napoleon as King of France, on condition of his agreeing to the cession of Malta. The First Consul replied that, if ever the welfare of France required that he should ascend the throne, it would only be by the free and spontaneous will of the French people. In 1806, when Lord Lauderdale came to Paris to negotiate peace between the King of England and the Emperor, he exchanged his powers, as is proved by the protocol of the negotiations, and he treated with the Emperor’s plenipotentiary. The death of Fox broke up the negotiations of Lord Lauderdale. The English Minister had it in his power to obviate the Prussian campaign,[[22]] to prevent the battle of Jena. When, in 1814, the Allies presented an ultimatum at Chaumont, Lord Castlereagh, in signing this ultimatum, again acknowledged the existence of the Empire in the person and the family of Napoleon. If the latter did not accept the propositions of the Congress of Chatillon, it was because he did not conceive himself at liberty to cede a portion of the Empire, the integrity of which he had, at his coronation, sworn to maintain.
The Electors of Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Saxony, were created Kings by Napoleon.
The armies of Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, and Hesse, fought in conjunction with the French armies; and the Russian and French troops fought together in 1809, in the war against Austria. In 1812, the Emperor of Austria concluded at Paris an alliance with Napoleon, and Prince Schwartzenburg commanded, under his orders, the Austrian contingent in the Russian campaign, in which he attained the rank of Field Marshal, on the application of the French Emperor. A similar treaty of alliance was concluded at Berlin, and the Prussian army also fought with the French in the campaign in Russia.
The Emperor healed the wounds which the Revolution had inflicted: the emigrants returned, and the list of proscription was obliterated. Napoleon enjoyed the glory most gratifying to a monarch, by recalling and re-establishing in their homes upwards of 20,000 families: their unsold property was restored to them; and, the veil of oblivion being thrown over the past, persons of every class, whatever line of conduct they might previously have pursued, were admitted to all public employments. Families who had distinguished themselves by the services they had rendered to the Bourbons, those who had shewn themselves most devoted to the Royal Family, filled places about the Court, and in the ministry, and held commissions in the army. All party denominations were forgotten: aristocrats and Jacobins were no longer spoken of; and the institution of the Legion of Honour, which was at once the reward of military, civil, and judicial services, placed on a footing of unity the soldier, the man of science, the artist, the prelate, and the magistrate; it became the badge of concord among all classes and all parties.