The Provisional Consulate—Reforms in France—Pacification of the Chouans—Constitution of the year VIII.—Buonaparte Chief Consul.
The upper population of Paris had watched the stormy days of the 18th and 19th Brumaire with the most anxious fears, lest the end should be anarchy and the re-establishment of the reign of terror. Such, in all likelihood, must have been the result, had Buonaparte failed, after once attempting to strike his blow. His success held out the prospect of victory abroad, and of a firm and stable government at home, under which life and property might exist in safety; and wearied utterly with so many revolutions and constitutions, each in turn pretending everything, and ending in nothing but confusion, the immense majority of the nation were well prepared to consider any government as a blessing which seemed to rest on a solid basis, and to bid fair for endurance. The revolutionary fever had in most bosoms spent its strength ere now; and Buonaparte found henceforth little opposition to any of his measures, unless in cases where the substantial personal comforts of men—not abstract theories or dogmas—nor even political rights of unquestionable value and importance—were invaded by his administration.
The two chambers, on breaking up, appointed small committees to take counsel during the recess with the new heads of the executive; and, in concert with these, Buonaparte and Sieyes entered vigorously on the great task of restoring confidence and peace at home. The confusion of the finances was the most pressing of many intolerable evils; and the first day was devoted to them. In lieu of forced loans, by which the Directory had systematically scourged the people, all the regular taxes were at once raised 25 per cent.; and the receipt and expenditure of the revenue arranged on a business-like footing. The repeal of the "Law of Hostages"—a tyrannical act, by which the relations of emigrants were made responsible for the behaviour of their exiled kinsmen,—followed immediately, and was received with universal approbation. A third and a bolder measure was the discarding of the heathen ritual, and re-opening of the churches for Christian worship; and of this the credit was wholly Napoleon's, who had to oppose the philosophic prejudices of almost all his colleagues. He, in his conversations with them, made no attempt to represent himself as a believer in Christianity; but stood on the necessity of providing the people with the regular means of worship, wherever it is meant to have a state of tranquillity. The priests who chose to take the oath of fidelity to government were re-admitted to their functions; and this wise measure was followed by the adherence of not less than 20,000 of these ministers of religion, who had hitherto languished in the prisons of France. Cambaceres, an excellent lawyer and judge, was of great service to Napoleon in these salutary reforms.
Many other judicious measures might be mentioned in this place. Some emigrants, cast on the shores by shipwreck, had been imprisoned and destined for trial by the Directory. They were at once set free: and, in like manner, La Fayette and other distinguished revolutionists, who had been exiled for not adhering to all the wild notions of the preceding administrations, were at once recalled. Carnot was one of these: Buonaparte forthwith placed him at the head of the war department; and the reform of the army was prosecuted with the vigour which might have been expected from the joint skill and talent of the provisional head of the government and this practised minister. The confusion which had of late prevailed in that department was extreme. The government did not even know the existence of regiments raised in the provinces: arms, clothing, discipline in every article, had been neglected. The organisation of the army was very speedily mended.
The insurgent Chouans next claimed attention: and here the personal character of Napoleon gave him advantages of the first importance. The leaders of those brave bands were disposed to consider such a soldier as a very different sort of ruler from the Pentarchy of the Luxembourg; and their admiration for his person prepared them to listen to his terms. The first measures of the new government were obviously calculated to soothe their prejudices, and the general display of vigour in every branch of the administration to overawe them. Chatillon, D'Antichamp, Suzannet, and other royalist chiefs, submitted in form. Bernier, a leading clergyman in La Vendée, followed the same course, and was an acquisition of even more value. Others held out; but were soon routed in detail, tried and executed. The appearances of returning tranquillity were general and most welcome.
Some of the party vanquished on the 18th Brumaire, however, still lingered in Paris, and were busy in plotting new convulsions. It was therefore the advice of all the ministers to condemn them to exile; and lists of proscription were drawn up and published. But Buonaparte only meant to overawe these persons: no one was apprehended: they kept quiet for a season; and the edict of exile sank by degrees into oblivion.
Meanwhile it was necessary that the government itself should assume some permanent form, ere the time arrived for the re-assembly of the legislative bodies. Their two committees met in one chamber with the consuls, and the outline of a new constitution was laid before them by Sieyes; who enjoyed the reputation of being the greatest of scientific politicians. The Abbé, however, had soon perceived that Napoleon was to be the real creator of whatever should be adopted; and, in the progress of the ensuing consultations, submitted, step by step, to the laconic Dictator, who accepted or discarded propositions, exactly as they happened to coincide, or be at variance with, his own notions of his own personal interest. He cared little in what manner the structure of the future representative assemblies might be arranged; but there must be no weakening of the executive power, which he was determined to vest virtually in himself alone, and by means of which, he doubted not, it would be easy to neutralise all other influences.
The metaphysical Abbé proposed a scheme by far too delicately complicated for the tear and wear of human business and human passions. The absurdity, even of the parts which Napoleon consented to adopt, became apparent to all when the machine was set in motion. The two most prominent and peculiar devices—namely, that of placing at the head of the state a sort of mock sovereign, destitute of any effective power, and capable at any time of being degraded by the vote of a single legislative body, under the title of GRAND ELECTOR; and secondly, that of committing the real executive power to two separate consuls, one for war and one for peace, nominally the inferiors of the Elector, but in influence necessarily quite above him, and almost as necessarily the rivals and enemies of each other; these ingenious twins were strangled in the birth by Napoleon's shrewd practical sense. "Who," said he, "would accept an office, the only duties of which were to fatten like a pig, on so many millions a year? And your two consuls—the one surrounded with churchmen, lawyers, and civilians—the other with soldiers and diplomatists—on what footing would be their intercourse? the one demanding money and recruits, the other refusing the supplies? A government, made up of such heterogeneous and discordant materials, would be the shadow of a state." He added two words, which at once decided the main question; "I, for one, would never be your Grand Elector."
The constitution actually announced by proclamation on the 14th of December, 1799, presents the following principal features. I. The male citizens who are of age, and who pay taxes, in every commune shall choose a tenth of their number to be the notables of the commune; and out of those notables the officers of the commune shall be appointed. II. The notables of the communes constituting a department, shall choose, in like manner, the tenth of their number to be the notables of the department; and out of these the officers of the department shall be appointed. III. The notables of all the departments shall, in the same way, choose the tenth of their number to be notables of France; and out of these the public functionaries of The State shall be chosen. IV. Three assemblies shall be composed of persons chosen from the notables of France, viz.—1. The Conservative Senate, consisting (at first) of twenty-four men, of forty years of age, to hold their places for life, and to receive, each, a salary equal to 1-20th of that of the chief consul: 2. The Tribunate, to be composed of 100 men, of twenty-five years of age and upwards, of whom 1-5th go out every year, but re-eligible indefinitely; the salary of each 15,000 francs (£625); and thirdly, The Legislative Senate, composed of 300 members, of thirty years of age, renewable by fifths every year, and having salaries of 10,000 francs (£416). V. The executive power shall be vested in three consuls, chosen individually, as chief consul, second and third; the two former for ten years, the last for five. VI. In order that the administration of affairs may have time to settle itself, the tribunate and legislative senate shall remain as first constituted for ten years, without any re-elections. VII. With the same view, of avoiding discussions during the unsettled state of opinion, a majority of the members of the conservative senate are for the present appointed by the consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, going out of office, and the consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, about to come into office; they shall be held to be duly elected, if the public acquiesce; and proceed to fill up their own number, and to nominate the members of the tribunate and legislative senate. VIII. The acts of legislation shall be proposed by the consuls: the tribunate shall discuss and propound them to the legislative senate, but not vote: the legislative senate shall hear the tribunate, and vote, but not debate themselves; and the act thus discussed and voted, shall become law on being promulgated by the chief consul. IX. Buonaparte is nominated chief consul, Cambaceres (minister of justice) second, and Lebrun third consul.
It would be rash to say that this could never have turned out in practice a free constitution. Circumstances might have modified its arrangements, and given the spirit of freedom to institutions not ex-facie favourable to it. But for the present it was universally admitted that, under these new forms, the power of the state must be virtually lodged in Buonaparte. He, in fact, named himself chief consul. His creatures chose the conservative senate, and the conservative senate were to choose the members of the other two assemblies. The machinery, thus set in motion, could hardly fail to remain under his control; and, looking at things more largely, the contrivances of making the electoral bodies in the departments choose, not their actual representatives, but only the persons from among whom these were to be chosen by the conservative senate, and of preventing the legislative senate from debating for themselves on the measures destined to pass into law, appear to have been devised for the purpose of reducing to a mere nullity the forms of a representative government.[32] However, the consuls announced their manufacture to the people in these terms:—"Citizens, the Constitution is grounded on the true principles of a representative government, on the sacred rights of property, of equality, and of liberty. The powers which it institutes will be vigorous and permanent: such they should be to secure the rights of the citizens and the interests of the state. Citizens! the Revolution is fixed on the principles from which it originated: IT IS ENDED." And in effect, books being opened throughout France, the names of the citizens who inscribed their acceptance of this new constitution amounted to four millions, while but a few votes to the contrary were registered—an irrefragable proof that the national mind was disposed to think no sacrifice too dear, so tranquillity could be obtained.
The circumstance, perhaps, which occasioned most surprise on the promulgation of the new constitution, was the non-appearance of the name of Sieyes in the list of permanent consuls. It is probable that the Abbé made up his mind to retire, so soon as he found that Buonaparte was capable not only of mutilating his ideal republican scheme, but of fulfiling in his own person all the functions of a civil ruler of France. Howbeit the ingenious metaphysician did not disdain to accept of a large estate (part of the royal domain of Versailles!) and a large pension besides, by way of "public recompense"—when he withdrew to a situation of comparative obscurity, as President of the Conservative Senate.
One of Buonaparte's first acts was to remove the seat of government from the Luxembourg to the old Palace of the Tuileries, "which," he significantly said to his colleagues, "is a good military position." It was on the 19th of February, 1800, that the Chief Consul took possession of the usual residence of the French kings. Those splendid halls were re-opened with much ceremony, and immediately afterwards Napoleon held a great review in the Place du Carousel. This was the first public act of the Chief Consul. Shortly after, he appeared in his new official costume, a dress of red silk and a black stock. Someone observed to him that this last article was out of keeping with the rest: "No matter," answered he, smiling, "a small remnant of the military character will do us no harm." It was about the same time that Buonaparte heard of the death of Washington. He forthwith issued a general order, commanding the French army to wrap their banners in crape during ten days in honour of "a great man who fought against tyranny and consolidated the liberties of his country."
Talleyrand, appointed minister of foreign affairs by Buonaparte, was now the chief partner of his counsels. The second Consul, Cambaceres, soon learned to confine himself to the department of justice, and Lebrun to that of finance. The effective branches of government were, almost from the first, engrossed by Napoleon. Yet, while with equal audacity and craft he was rapidly consolidating the elements of a new monarchy in his own person—the Bourbonists, at home and abroad, had still nourished the hope that this ultimate purpose was the restoration of the rightful king of France. Very shortly after the 18th Brumaire, one of the foreign ambassadors resident at Paris had even succeeded in obtaining a private audience for Messieurs Hyde de Neuville and Dandigné, two agents of the exiled princes. Buonaparte received them at night in a small closet of the Tuileries, and requested them to speak with frankness. "You, sir," they said, "have now in your hands the power of re-establishing the throne, and restoring to it its legitimate master. Tell us what are your intentions; and, if they accord with ours, we, and all the Vendeans, are ready to take your commands." He replied that the return of the Bourbons could not be accomplished without enormous slaughter; that his wish was to forget the past, and to accept the services of all who were willing henceforth to follow the general will of the nation; but that he would treat with none who were not disposed to renounce all correspondence with the Bourbons and the foreign enemies of the country. The conference lasted half-an-hour; and the agents withdrew with a fixed sense that Buonaparte would never come over to their side. Nevertheless, as it will appear hereafter, the Bourbons themselves did not as yet altogether despair; and it must be admitted, that various measures of the provisional government were not unlikely to keep up their delusive hopse. We may notice in particular a change in the national oath of allegiance, by which one most important clause was entirely erased: namely, that expressive of hatred to royalty: and an edict, by which the celebration of the day on which Louis XVI. died, was formally abolished. Sieyes, in opposing this last measure, happened to speak of Louis as "the tyrant":—"Nay, nay," said Napoleon, "he was no tyrant: had he been one, I should this day have been a captain of engineers—and you saying mass." The Bourbons were very right in considering these as monarchical symptoms; but shrewd observers perceived clearly in whose favour such changes were designed to operate. It appears that some of Napoleon's colleagues made a last effort to circumscribe his power, by urging on him the necessity of his immediately placing himself at the head of the armies in the field; expecting, no doubt, great advantages, could they remove him from the seat of government, at the time when the new machinery was getting into a regular course of motion. He sternly resisted all such suggestions. "I am Chief Consul," said he, biting his nails to the quick, "I will remain in Paris."
And it was, indeed, most necessary for his success that he should remain there at this critical epoch; for, in the arrangement of every branch of the new government, he had systematically sought for his own security in balancing against each other the lovers of opposite sets of principles -men, who, by cordially coalescing together, might still have undone him; or by carrying their animosities to extremity, overturned the whole fabric of his manufacture. It was thus that he had chosen one consul from the Republican party, and another from the Royalist; either of whom might, in his absence, have been tempted to undermine his sway; whereas both Cambaceres and Lebrun, overawed by his presence, proved eminently serviceable in drawing over to the interests of the Chief Consul innumerable persons, of their own ways of thinking originally, but no longer such zealous theorists as to resist the arguments of self-interest—those strong springs of hope and fear, of both of which Napoleon, while at the Tuileries, held the master-key. It was thus, also, that, in forming his ministry, he grouped together men, each of whom detested or despised the others; but each unquestionably fitted, in the highest degree, for the particular office assigned to him; and each, therefore, likely to labour in his own department, communicating little with his colleagues, and looking continually to the one hand that had invested him with his share of power. It was in vain that one party objected to the weathercock politics of Talleyrand. "Be it so," answered the Chief Consul: "but he is the ablest minister for foreign affairs in our choice, and it shall be my care that he exerts his abilities." Carnot, in like manner, was objected to as a firm republican. "Republican or not," answered Napoleon, "he is one of the last Frenchmen that would wish to see France dismembered. Let us avail ourselves of his unrivalled talents in the war department, while he is willing to place them at our command." All parties equally cried out against the falsehood, duplicity, and, in fact, avowed profligacy of Fouché. "Fouché," said Buonaparte, "and Fouché alone, is able to conduct the ministry of the police: he alone has a perfect knowledge of all the factions and intrigues which have been spreading misery through France. We cannot create men: we must take such as we find; and it is easier to modify by circumstances the feelings and conduct of an able servant, than to supply his place." Thus did he systematically make use of whatever was willing to be useful—counting on the ambition of one man, the integrity of a second, and the avarice of a third, with equal confidence; and justified, for the present time (which was all he was anxious about) by the results of each of the experiments in question.
It is impossible to refuse the praise of consummate prudence and skill to these, and indeed, to all the arrangements of Buonaparte, at this great crisis of his history. The secret of his whole scheme is unfolded in his own memorable words to Sieyes: "We are creating a new era,—of the past we must forget the bad, and remember only the good." From the day when the consular government was formed, a new epoch was to date. Submit to that government, and no man need fear that his former acts, far less opinions, should prove any obstacle to his security—nay, to his advancement. Henceforth the regicide might dismiss all dread of Bourbon revenge; the purchaser of forfeited property of being sacrificed to the returning nobles; provided only they chose to sink their theories and submit. To the royalist, on the other hand, Buonaparte held out the prospect, not indeed of Bourbon restoration, but of the re-establishment of a monarchical form of government, and all the concomitants of a court; for the churchman the temples were at once opened; and the rebuilding of the hierarchical fabric, in all its wealth, splendour and power, was offered in prospective. Meanwhile, the great and crying evil, from which the revolution had really sprung, was for ever abolished. The odious distinction of castes was at an end. Political liberty existed, perhaps, no longer; but civil liberty—the equality of all Frenchmen in the eye of the law—was, or seemed to be, established. All men henceforth must contribute to the state in the proportion of their means: all men appeal to the same tribunals; and no man, however meanly born, had it to say, that there was one post of power or dignity in France to which talent and labour never could elevate him. Shortly after Napoleon took possession of the Tuileries, Murat, who had long been the lover of his sister Caroline, demanded her hand in marriage. The gallantry and military talents of this handsome officer had already raised him to a distinguished rank in the army, and Josephine warmly espoused his interests: but Buonaparte was with difficulty persuaded to give his consent to the match. "Murat is the son of an innkeeper," said he,—"in the station to which events have elevated me, I must not mix my blood with his." These objections, however, were overcome by the address of Josephine, who considered Napoleon's own brothers as her enemies, and was anxious, not without reason, to have some additional support in the family. Her influence, from this time, appears to have remained unshaken; though her extravagance and incurable habit of contracting debts gave rise to many unpleasing scenes between her and the most methodical of mankind.