World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

At the same time, and in contradiction to the intentions which he announced to England, Bonaparte wrote to Toussaint Louverture: "We have conceived esteem for you, and we are pleased to recognize and proclaim the services which you have rendered to the French people. If their flag still floats over St. Domingo, it is to you and the brave blacks it is due. Called by your talents and the force of circumstances to the first command, you have overthrown the civil war, curbed the persecution of several fierce men, restored honor to religion and the worship to God, to whom everything is due. The Constitution which you have made contains many good things: the circumstances in which you are placed, surrounded on every side by enemies, without the power of being assisted or provisioned by the capital (mother country), have rendered legitimate the articles of the Constitution which otherwise are not so. We have informed your children and their tutor of our sentiments towards you. We shall send them back to you. Assist the general by your advice, your influence, and your talents. What can you desire? The liberty of the negroes? You know that in every country in which we have been, we have given it to the peoples who had it not. Hence consideration, honors, fortune! After the services which you have rendered, which you can render in this matter, with the personal feelings which we entertain for you, you ought not to be doubtful as to the position before you. Consider, general, that if you are the first of your color who has arrived at so great power, and is distinguished by his valor and military talents, you are also before God and before us the most responsible for their conduct. Count without reserve upon our esteem, and let your behavior be that which becomes one of the principal citizens of the greatest nation of the world."

One of the incurable evils of a long state of slavery is the distrust begot in those who have undergone it, though it is also the defence and instinctive protection of weakness. Along with his admiration for the First Consul and his traditional attachment to France, Toussaint Louverture remained uneasy and suspicious as a slave. Already, under the orders of General Richepanse, the expedition was being prepared which was to re-establish slavery in Guadeloupe, in spite of the decrees of the Constituent Assembly and the formal declaration of the First Consul in a statement of the State of the Republic (November 30th, 1801). When the French squadron was signalled at St. Domingo, and the negro dictator ascertained the crushing force brought to impose upon him the will of the mother country, he made preparations for defence, entrusted his lieutenant, Christophe, with the guard of the shore and the town of Le Cap, ordering him to oppose the landing by threatening the white population with fire and sword should they offer to assist the French troops. Toussaint, counting upon the effect of threats, had not estimated the savage horror of slavery which animated his companions, nor the ferocity which could be displayed by men of his race when let loose upon their former masters. On entering the roads the French squadron began to fire; the negroes set the town on fire, put chains on some of the principal white men, and withdrew to the mountains or hills. Toussaint having preceded them, the army of negroes was again formed round him. The coast, however, being already taken by General Leclerc, the white population joined them; and a large number of the negroes, becoming alarmed, accepted the conditions offered by the general. Then, after offering some defence, several of Toussaint's lieutenants, one after another, surrendered. The most ferocious of them, Dessalines, had just been driven from St. Marc, where he committed great atrocities. Toussaint was pursued to his retreat, and after his entrenchments were forced he accepted a capitulation, and withdrew to his plantation at Ennery. The climate of St. Domingo caused frightful ravages to the French army, and the consequent weakness of his troops greatly increased General Leclerc's alarm. He had, moreover received peremptory orders, the severity of which he frequently modified. "Follow exactly my instructions," General Bonaparte wrote to him on the 16th of March, 1802, "and as soon as ever you have got rid of Toussaint, Christophe, Dessalines, and the leading brigands, and the masses of the blacks are disarmed, send away all the blacks and men of color who shall have played any part in the civil troubles." A certain agitation continued to reign among the blacks, and Leclerc seized upon this pretext to summon Toussaint to a conference. The vanity of the former dictator was flattered, and triumphed over his mistrust. "These white gentlemen who know everything still have need of the old negro," said he, and he set out for the French camp (June 10, 1802). Immediately arrested and cast into a frigate, he was taken to the town of Le Cap; his family had been captured as well as himself, and he found them on board the vessel that carried him to France. He was alone when he was imprisoned in the Temple, and afterwards transferred to the fortress of Joux, in the icy casemates under the canopy of the mountains. The only question asked him was where he had hidden his treasures. The dictator of the blacks gave no answer; he had fallen into a deep lethargy. On the 27th April, 1803, he at last expired, the victim of cold, imprisonment, and solitude. A few months later (November, 1803) the mournful remains of our army evacuated St. Domingo, for ever lost to the power of France. General Leclerc was dead of fever, as well as the greater part of his officers, like Richepanse at Guadeloupe. The climate of his country had avenged Toussaint Louverture; the instruments of Bonaparte had perished, the enterprise had failed. The sister of General Bonaparte returned to France, ready for higher destinies; the wife and children of the dictator of St. Domingo pined away slowly in exile.

This check was insignificant in the midst of so much success for his armies, and so many easy triumphs over the subdued nations; but the jealous susceptibility of the First Consul kept increasing. He had punished Toussaint Louverture for the resistance he had encountered in St. Domingo; he was irritated against the remnants of isolated opposition which he encountered at times among a few members of the Tribunate. The treaties of peace, so brilliantly concluded after the signature of the preliminaries of London, had been ratified without difficulty by the Corps Législatif. A single article of the treaty with Russia raised strong objections; it was obscure, and assured the Czar of the repression of Polish plots in France. The republican pride was irritated at the word subjects which, was found in the clause. "Our armies have fought for ten years because we were citizens," cried Chenier, "and we have become subjects! Thus has been accomplished the desire of the double coalition!" The treaty was, nevertheless, ratified by an immense majority. But the anger of the master had been roused; "The tribunes are dogs that I encounter everywhere," he often exclaimed. The Tribunate and the Corps Législatif soon incurred his displeasure afresh—the one by discussing, the other by rejecting, a few preliminary articles of the new civil code. The First Consul was present at the discussions of the Council of State, often taking part in them with singular spirit and penetration, sometimes warped by personal or political prejudices. He had adopted as his own the work of the learned lawyers who had drawn up and compiled for the honor and utility of France the wisest and the simplest doctrines of civil and commercial law. "We can still risk two battles," said Bonaparte, after the rejection of the first head of the code. "If we gain them we will continue the march we have commenced. If we lose them we will enter into our winter quarters, and will advise as to the course to be taken."

The second head of the code was voted; the third, relative to the deprivation of civil rights, was excessive in its rigor; it was rejected. At the same time, and as if to give proof of its independence, the Corps Législatif, which had just chosen as its president Dupuis, author of a philosophical work, then famous, upon the "Origin of all Religions," sent up as candidates for the Senate the Abbé Grégoire and Daunou. The former had been dismissed from his charge as constitutional bishop at the time of the Concordat, the second was honored of all men, moderate in a very firm opposition. The Abbé Grégoire was elected. The First Consul had presented Generals Jourdan, Lamartillière, and Berruyer, accompanying their candidature with a message. He broke out violently during a sitting of the Senate. "I declare to you," he said, "that if you appoint Daunou senator, I shall take it as a personal injury, and you know that I never suffer that!" General Lamartillière was appointed, but the slight notion of independence in the constituent bodies had troubled and displeased Bonaparte; he recoiled before the risks that awaited the Concordat and the great project of public instruction presented for the acceptance of the Corps Législatif. On the 8th of January, 1802, a message was brought in during the sitting. "Legislators," said the First Consul, "the government has resolved to withdraw the projects of law of the civil code. It is with pain that it finds itself obliged to defer to another period laws in which the interests of the nation are so much involved, but it is convinced that the time has not yet come when these great discussions can be carried on with that calm and unity of intention which they require."

This was not enough to assure the repose of General Bonaparte and the docile acceptance of his wishes; Consul Cambacérès, clever at veiling absolute power with an appearance of legality, proposed to confide to the Senate the task of eliminating from the Tribunate and the Corps Législatif the fifth who ought regularly to be designated by lot. The legislative labors were suspended; the First Consul had set out for Lyons, in order to guide the destinies of the Italian Republic. He wrote thence to his colleagues: "I think that I shall be in Paris at the end of the decade, and that I shall myself be able to make the Senate understand the situation in which we find ourselves. I do not think it will be possible to continue to march forward when the constituted authorities are composed of enemies; the system has none greater than Daunou; and since, in fine, all these affairs of the Corps Législatif and the Tribunate have resulted in scandal, the least thing that the Senate can do is to remove the twenty and the sixty bad members, and replace them by well-disposed persons. The will of the nation is that the government may not be hindered from doing well, and that the head of Medusa may no longer be displayed in our Tribunes and in our Assemblies. The conduct of Sieyès in this circumstance proves perfectly that, after having concurred in the destruction of all the constitutions since 1791, he still wishes to try his hand against this one. It is very extraordinary that he does not see the folly of it. He ought to go and burn a wax taper at Notre Dame for having been delivered so happily and in a manner so unhoped for. But the older I grow the more I perceive that every one has to fulfil his destiny."

When the First Consul returned to Paris, the opposition, more brilliant than effective, of a few eloquent members, had ceased in the Tribunate; the Corps Législatif had undergone the same purification. Faithful servants had been carefully chosen by the Senate—some capable of ill- temper and anger, like Lucien Bonaparte and Carnot; others distinguished by their administrative merit, like Daru—all fit to vote the great projects which the First Consul meditated. He did not, however, condescend to submit to them the general amnesty in favor of all the emigrants whose names had not yet been erased from the fatal list. Perhaps he still dreaded some remains of revolutionary passion. This act of justice and clemency was the object of a Senatus Consultum. The First Consul kept in his own hands the unsold confiscated property of emigrants—a powerful means of action, which he often exercised in order to attach to himself men and families of consideration by direct or personal restitution.

He created at the same time a new instrument of government the fruit of a powerful mind and profound acquaintance with human nature. Formerly the honorary orders successively founded by kings of France had been reserved for a small number of privileged persons; in this limited circle they had been the object of great ambition and of long intrigues. By the institution of the Legion of Honor, Bonaparte resolved to extend to the entire nation, in the camp and in civil life, that rivalry of hopes and that ardent thirst for honors which formerly animated the courtiers. He had proved the importance which the military attached to arms of honor, and he was impatient of the objections which the Council of State brought before him on this subject. "People call this kind of thing a bauble," said he. "Well! it is with baubles that men are managed. I would not say it to a Tribune, but I do not believe that Frenchmen love liberty and equality; they have not been changed by ten years of Revolution; like the Gauls, they must have distinctions. It is one means more of managing men." The experience of the rulers who have succeeded him has justified the far- seeing and cynical conception of Bonaparte. It has proved once more what abuses can be brought about, and what weaknesses can be created, by an institution originally intended to appeal to noble sentiments. The passion for equality was much stronger than the First Consul thought; the institution of the Legion of Honor encountered great opposition in the purified Tribunate and Corps Législatif, and was only voted by a small majority.

A great law on public instruction prepared the way for the foundation of the University, from that time one of the favorite ideas of the First Consul. Primary instruction remained neglected, as it had been practically by the Convention. The communes were entrusted with the direction and construction of schools; no salary was assured to the instructor beyond the school fees. The central schools were suppressed; their method of mixed instruction had succeeded badly. The project of the First Consul instituted thirty-two Lycées, intended for instruction in the classical languages and in the sciences. He had little taste for the free exercise of reflection and human thought; instruction in history and philosophy found no place in his programme. "We have ceased to make of history a particular study," said M. Roederer, "because history properly so called only needs to be read to be understood." The great revival of historic studies in France was soon to protest eloquently against a theory which separated the present from the past, and which left in consequence a most grievous blank in education. Military exercises were everywhere carefully organized. Six thousand four hundred scholarships, created by the State, were to draw the young into the new establishments, or into the schools already founded to which the State extended its grants and its patronage. Without being officially abolished, the freedom of secondary instruction was thus subjected to a destructive rivalry, and the action of the government penetrated into the bosom of all families. "What more sweet," said M. Roederer, "than to see one's children in a manner adopted by the State, at the moment when it becomes a question of providing for their establishment?" "This is only a commencement," said the First Consul to Fourcroy, the principal author of the project, and its clever defender before the Corps Législatif; "by and by we shall do better."

The Treaty of Amiens had already been signed several months (25th March, 1802), but it had not yet been presented for the ratification of the Corps Législatif; this was the supreme satisfaction reserved for it, and the brilliant consummation of its labors. It was at the same time the price paid in advance for a manifestation long prepared for, but which, however, still remained obscure even among those most trusted by the all-powerful master of France. The destinies of the nation rested in his hands, but the power had been confided to him for ten years only; it was necessary to insure the prolongation of this dictatorship, which all judged useful at the present moment, and of which few people had foreseen the danger. Bonaparte persisted in hiding his thought; he waited for the spontaneous homage of the constituent bodies in the name of the grateful nation. Cambacérès was acquainted with this desire, and he exerted himself to prepare the votes in the Senate. A certain mistrust reigned in some minds. The Tribunate, alone permitted to speak, at length took the initiative. Its President, Chabot de l'Allier, the friend of Cambacérès made this proposal:—"The Senate is invited to give the consuls a testimony of the national gratitude." This wish, transmitted to the Senate, was at the same time carried to the Tuileries; Siméon was entrusted with presenting it to the First Consul. "I desire no other glory than that of having entirely completed the task which was imposed on me," replied Bonaparte; "I am ambitious of no other recompense than the affection of my fellow-citizens; life is only dear to me for the services I can render to my country; death itself will have for me no bitterness, if I can only see the happiness of the Republic as well assured as its glory."

So many protestations of disinterestedness deceived nobody; the thirst for power betrayed itself even in the most modest words. Through ignorance, or uneasiness as to the future, the Senate made a mistake as to the measure of an ambition that knew no limit. It voted for General Bonaparte a prolongation of his powers during ten years; Lanjuinais alone protested against the dictatorship, as he had formerly protested against demagogy. The officials, badly informed, ran with eagerness to the Tuileries; they were received with evident ill-temper. The first impulse of Bonaparte was to refuse the proposal of the Senate; prudent counsels opened to him another way.