World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

The original idea of Bonaparte had, in fact, been to leave to the Protestants the full liberty of their internal government, as well as the charge of their worship. The principle, admitted by the Constituent Assembly, of compensating the Catholic clergy for the confiscation of their property, was not applicable to the Protestant Church. On a consideration of the administrative advantages of a church paid by the state, Bonaparte decided that the law of the 18th Germinal, year X., should be drawn up, regulating the nomination of pastors and consistories after the manner of the interior government of the Protestant Church. The principle which, in this respect, equalized the Protestant and Catholic modes of worship was hailed with satisfaction by the reformers. The Jews established in France were admitted to enjoy the same privileges.

At the same time that an alliance between religion and the state was being re-established in France, Chateaubriand, still a very young man, published his "Genius of Christianity." The sense of the poetic beauty of Christianity then reawakening in men's minds, the success of the book was deservedly great. It marked in recent history the epoch of literary admiration for the greatness and beauty of the gospel. We have since sadly learnt that it was only a shallow and barren admiration.

Peace seemed again established in the world and the church. In spite of several difficulties and suspicions, the definitive treaty with England was at last to be signed at Amiens. But rest seemed already to weigh heavily on the new master of France, and the increasing ambition of his power could not deceive men of foresight as to the causes of disturbance in Europe which were perpetually reappearing. Scarcely were the preliminaries of peace signed in London, when the Batavian Republic— recently composed, after the example of the French Republic, of a Directory and two Legislative Chambers—found itself again undergoing a revolution, the necessary reaction of what was being done in France. On a new constitution being proposed to the Chambers they rejected it. The Dutch Directory, with the assistance of General Augereau, effected at the Hague, in September, 1800, the coup d'état which took place in Paris on the 18th Brumaire; the representatives were dismissed, and the people were assembled to pronounce upon the new constitution. Only 50,000 voters out of 400,000 electors presented themselves in the Assemblies. A president was chosen for three months. The absolute authority of the First Consul was secured in the Batavian Republic.

In Switzerland, an agitation diligently kept up throughout all the cantons, rendered a government there impossible. The French minister at Berne, "a powerless conciliator of the divided parties," as Bonaparte called him, received secret instructions from him. "Citizen Verninac must, under all the circumstances, say publicly that the present government can only be considered provisional, and give them to understand that, not only does the French Government not rely upon it, but it is even dissatisfied with its composition and procedure. It is a mockery of nations to believe that France will acknowledge as the intention of the Helvetic people the will of the sixteen persons who compose the Legislative Body." The French troops had evacuated Switzerland. The First Consul was scheming to annex the canton of Valais to the two departments of Mont Terrible and Léman, which he had already taken from the Helvetian territory. After several months passed, the seeds of discord began to bear fruit; and Aloys of Reding, formerly Landamman, being overthrown, Dolder, the leader of the radicals, was raised in his place. As a concession to the patriotic wishes of the Swiss, the French troops were suddenly recalled from their territory. When freed from that constant menace, interior dissensions burst forth; the Landamman Dolder, replaced at Berne by Mulinen, took refuge in Lausanne, where he founded a new government. The cantons were already taking sides, when the First Consul launched a proclamation as the natural arbiter of the destinies of Switzerland:—

"People of Helvetia, you have been disputing for three years without understanding each other. If you are left longer to yourselves, you will kill yourselves in three years without understanding each other any better. Your history, moreover, proves that your civil wars have never been finished unless by the efficacious intervention of France. I shall therefore be mediator in your quarrels, but my mediation will be an active one, such as becomes the great nation in whose name I speak. All the powers will be dissolved. The Senate alone, assembled at Berne, will send deputies to Paris; each canton can also send some; and all the former magistrates can come to Paris, to make known the means of restoring union and tranquillity and conciliating all parties. Inhabitants of Helvetia! revive your hopes!" At the same time Bonaparte said to Mulinen, who had already escaped to Paris, "I am now thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of some definitive measure. If in a few days the conditions of my proclamation are not fulfilled, 30,000 men will enter Switzerland under General Ney's orders; and if they thus compel me to use force it is all over with Switzerland. It is time to put an end to that; and I see no middle course between a Swiss government strongly organized, and friendly to France, or no Switzerland at all."

On the 15th October, 1802, General Ney received orders to enter Switzerland, and publish "a short proclamation in simple terms, announcing that the small cantons and the Senate had asked for the mediation of the First Consul, who had granted it; but a handful of men, friends of disorder, and indifferent to the evils of their country, having deceived and led astray a portion of the people, the First Consul was obliged to take measures to disperse these senseless persons, and punish them if they persisted in their rebellion." At the same time, after an imperious summons, the chiefs of the Swiss aristocracy, Mulinen, Affry, and Watteville, joined the radical deputies in Paris. There could be no long discussion, as the plan of the Helvetic Constitution was decided upon in the mind of the First Consul. He had recognized the inconveniences arising from the "unitary government:" he next abolished the old independent institutions of the cantons, and systematically weakened the central power, as the Diet, composed of twenty-five deputies, was to sit by rotation in the six principal cantons; he at the same time nominated Affry as President of the Helvetian Confederation, after carefully securing his services. Henceforward the Swiss cantons, free in their internal government, fell as a state under the rule of France. "I shall never permit in Switzerland any other influence than my own, though it should cost me 100,000 men," Bonaparte had said to the assembled deputies. "It is acknowledged by Europe that Italy, Holland, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France." At the same time (11th September, 1802), and as if to justify this haughty declaration, the territory of Piedmont was divided into six French departments, the Isle of Elba was united to France, and the Duchy of Parma was definitively occupied by our troops.

For a long time the north of Italy was subjected to the laws of its conqueror, and he arrogantly made it bear the whole burden. When the Congress of Vienna had begun its sittings, Talleyrand absolutely forbade Joseph Bonaparte to allow the usurpations of France in Europe to be discussed. "You will consider it a fixed point that the French Government can listen to nothing regarding the King of Sardinia, the Stadtholder, or the internal affairs of Batavia, Germany, Helvetia, or the Italian republics. All these subjects are absolutely unknown to our discussions with England."

England admitted the truce of which she stood in need. She tacitly accepted the reticences of the negotiators; and without any protest on her part the First Consul set out for Lyons, where he had summoned the 500 members of the Italian Consulte. Overwhelmed with the gifts of her conqueror, the Cisalpine Republic was now to receive from his hands a definitive constitution. Lombardy as far as the Adige, the Legations, the Duchy of Modena, had sent their deputies to France, prepared to vote by acclamation for the constitution, which had been carefully prepared by several leading Italians under the eyes of the First Consul. The Consulte of Milan had accepted it. Bonaparte reserved to himself the direction of the choice of functionaries, and the important nomination of the President of the Republic. Lyons was in grand holiday, crowded by the Italians and numerous bodies of troops. The old army of Italy, on arriving from Egypt, had been ordered to Lyons; and the populace hailed with delight the arrival of the First Consul, who was always popular personally. The Consulte opened its sittings with distinction; and soon the Italian deputies understood who was the president designed for them by the solicitude of General Bonaparte. They accepted without repugnance his proclamation:—"The Consulte has appointed a committee of thirty persons," wrote the First Consul to his colleagues; "they have reported that, considering the internal and external circumstances of the Cisalpine, it was indispensable to allow me to conduct the first magistracy, till such time as the situation may permit, and I may judge it suitable, to name a successor." To the request of the Consulte, in humble terms, the general replied, "I find no one among you who has sufficient claims upon public opinion—who would be sufficiently independent of local influences—who, in short, has rendered to his country sufficiently great services, for me to trust him with the first magistracy." The Count Melzi accepted the vice-presidentship of the Republic. On the 28th January, after reviewing the army of Egypt, the First Consul, president of the Italian Republic, started again for Paris.

He was now waiting for news of the expedition which he had recently sent to St. Domingo. The horrors which signalized the violent emancipation of our negroes and their possession of the territory, was succeeded by a state somewhat regular, largely due to the unexpected authority of a black, recently a slave, who displayed faculties which are very unusual in his race. In his difficult government, Toussaint Louverture had given proofs of a generalship, foresight, courage, and gentleness which gave him the right to address Bonaparte, the object of his passionate admiration, in the following terms: "The first of the blacks to the first of the whites." Toussaint Louverture loved France, and rendered homage to it by driving from the island the Spanish and English troops. He claimed the ratification of his Constitution, and sent his sons to France to be properly educated.

The instructions given by the First Consul to his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, are still secret. He had placed under his command 20,000 men, excellent troops, borrowed from the old army of the Rhine, the generals and officers of which were unwilling to resign during the peace. The squadron, in charge of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, was a large one. The English had been informed of the expedition, by a note signed by Talleyrand but drawn up by Bonaparte himself. "Let England know," said he, "that in undertaking to destroy the government of the negroes at St. Domingo, I have been less guided by commercial and financial considerations than by the necessity of smothering in all parts of the world every kind of inquietude and disturbance—that one of the chief benefits of peace for England at the present moment was that it was concluded at a time when the French Government had not yet recognized the organization of St. Domingo, and afterwards the power of the negroes. The liberty of the blacks acknowledged at St. Domingo, and legitimized by the French Government, would be for all time a fulcrum for the Republic in the New World. In that case the sceptre of the New World must sooner or later have fallen into the hands of the negroes; the shock resulting for England is incalculable, whereas the shock of the empire of the negroes would, with reference to France, reckon as part of the Revolution."