World's Best Histories — Volume 7: France

by François Guizot; Madame de Witt

It was from Malmaison, the pretty country-house dear to Madame Bonaparte, that the First Consul replied to the message of the Senate. "Senators," said he, "the honorable proof of esteem embodied in your deliberation of the 18th will be always graven upon my heart. In the three years that have just passed away, fortune has smiled upon the Republic; but fortune is inconstant, and how many men whom she has loaded with her favors have lived more than a few years!

"The interest of my glory and that of my happiness would seem to assign as the term of my public life the moment when the peace of the world is proclaimed.

"But you judge that I ought to make a new sacrifice for the people; I will do it if the wish of the people commands what your suffrage authorizes." In all times, and under all forms of arbitrary government, the appeal to the people has offered to power an easy resource; Cambacérès had cleverly suggested it to the First Consul. In explaining to the Council of State the reasons which rendered the vote of the Senate unacceptable, he formulated immediately the proposal which ought to be put before the nation: "Napoleon Bonaparte, shall he be consul for life?" To this first question Roederer proposed to add a second, immediately rejected by the explicit wish of the First Consul himself: "Shall he have the right of appointing his successor?" For three weeks, in all the cities and in all the villages, the registries of votes remained open. The Tribunate and the Corps Législatif presented themselves in a body at the Tuileries, in order to vote into the hands of the First Consul. The Senate had the honor of casting up the votes. It remained mute and powerless in consequence of its awkward proposal. "Come to the help of people who have made a mistake in trying to divine your purposes too deeply," said Cambacérès to the First Consul. 3,577,259 "Yeas" had agreed to the Consulate for life. Rather more than 800 "Noes" alone represented the opposition. La Fayette refused his assent; he wrote upon the registry of votes, "I should not know how to vote for such a magistracy, inasmuch as political liberty will not be guaranteed."

The feeble and insufficient guarantees of political liberty were about to undergo fresh restrictions. In receiving from the Senate the return of the votes, the First Consul said, "The life of a citizen is for his country. The French people wish mine to be entirely consecrated to it; I obey its will. In giving me a new pledge—a permanent pledge of its confidence, it imposes upon me the duty of basing the legal system on far-seeing institutions." A Senatus Consultum, reforming the Constitution of the year VIII., substituted for the lists of notables, the formation of Cantonal Colleges, Colleges of Arrondissements, and Colleges of Departments, the members of which, few in number, and appointed for life by the cantonal assemblies, were to nominate candidates for selection by the executive authority. The Tribunate was limited to fifty members; the Council of State saw its importance diminished by the formation of a Privy Council. The number of senators was fixed at eighty, but the First Consul was left at liberty to add forty members at his pleasure. This assurance of the docility of the Assembly was not sufficient. The Senate was invested with the right of interpreting the constitution, of suspending it when necessary, or of dissolving the Tribunate and the Corps Législatif; but it might not adopt any measure without the initiative of the government. The First Consul reserved for himself the right of pardon and the duty of naming his successor. This last clause was forced on him by reasons of State policy, but he deferred it for a long time. His mind could only be satisfied with the principle of hereditary succession, and he had no children. Madame Bonaparte feared a divorce, the principle of which had been maintained by the First Consul in the Council of State with remarkable earnestness. The choice of a successor remained an open question, which encouraged many hopes. The brothers of the First Consul were loaded with honors; the family of the master took rank by themselves from the moment when the name they bore in common appeared with a freshness which was in part to eclipse its glory. In imitation of the Italian Consulate, the Senate proclaimed Napoleon Bonaparte Consul for life.

A few prudent friends of liberty in France began to feel uneasy at this unheard-of aggrandizement of power without a curb. To the fear which France in anarchy had caused in Europe already succeeded the disquietude inspired by an absolute master, little careful of rights or engagements, led by the arbitrary instincts of his own mind, susceptible by nature or by policy, and always disposed to use his advantages imperiously. Peace was already beginning to be irksome to him; he cherished hopes of new conquests; his temper became every day more exacting, and the feebleness of the English minister furnished him with occasions of quarrel. A stranger to the liberal spirit of the English constitution, a systematic enemy to the freedom of the press, Bonaparte required from Addington and Lord Hawkesbury that they should expel from England the revolutionary libellers, whose daily insults in the journals irritated him, and the emigrant Chouans, whose criminal enterprises he dreaded. To the demands of the French minister at London was added the official violence of the Moniteur, edited and inspired by Barère. "What result," said the journal of the First Consul, "what result can the English Government expect by fomenting the troubles of the Church, by harboring, and re-vomiting on our territory, the scoundrels of the Côtes-du-Nord and Morbihan, covered with the blood of the most important and richest proprietors of those unfortunate departments? Does it not know that the French Government is now more firmly established than the English Government? Does it imagine that for the French Government reciprocity will be difficult? What might be the effect of an exchange of such insults—of this protection and this encouragement accorded to assassins?"

The irritation was real, and its manifestations sincere; but they cloaked more serious incentives to anger, and pretensions fatal to the repose of Europe. For a long time the First Consul had repelled with scorn any intervention of England in the affairs of the new States he had created, and which the English Government had constantly refused to recognize. The complaints of Lord Hawkesbury on the subject of the French mediation in Switzerland provoked an explosion of anger and threats. "Whatever may be said or not said," wrote Talleyrand to Otto, "the resolution of the First Consul is irrevocable. He will not have Switzerland converted into a new Jersey. You will never speak of war, but you will not suffer any one to speak to you of it. With what war could they threaten us? With a naval war? But our commerce has only just started afresh, and the prey that we should afford the English would be scarcely worth while. Our West Indies are supplied with acclimatized soldiers! St. Domingo alone contains 25,000 of them. They might blockade our ports, it is true; but at the very moment of the declaration of war England would find herself blockaded in turn. The territory of Hanover, of Holland, of Portugal, of Italy, down to Tarento, would be occupied by our troops. The countries we are accused of domineering over too openly—Liguria, Lombardy, Switzerland, Holland— instead of being left in this uncertain situation, from which we sustain a thousand embarrassments, would be converted into French provinces, from which we should draw immense resources; and we should be compelled to realize that empire of the Gauls which is ceaselessly held up as a terror to Europe. And what would happen if the First Consul, quitting Paris for Lille or St. Omer, collecting all the flat-bottomed vessels of Flanders and Holland, and preparing the means of transport for 100,000 men, should plunge England into the agonies of an invasion—always possible, almost certain? Would England stir up a continental war? But where would she find her allies? In any case, if the war on the continent were to be renewed, it would be England who would compel us to conquer Europe. The First Consul is only thirty-three years old; he has as yet only destroyed States of the second rank. Who knows but that he might have time enough yet (if forced to attempt it) to change the face of Europe, and resuscitate the Empire of the West?"

The violence of these words went beyond the thought of the First Consul; he had not yet firmly made up his mind for the recommencement of hostilities. France submissive, Europe silent and resigned, accepting without a murmur the encroachments of his ambition—such were for him the conditions of peace; England could not accept them. With Piedmont and the island of Elba annexed to France, Holland and Switzerland subdued, and the Duchy of Parma occupied, England had eluded the agreements relative to the island of Malta. Profiting by the difficulties which opposed themselves to the reconstitution of the order of things guaranteed by the great powers, she had detained in her hands this pledge of empire in the Mediterranean. It was the object of continual complaints from the First Consul, and the pretext for his outburst of anger. "The whole Treaty of Amiens, and nothing but the Treaty of Amiens," Otto kept constantly repeating to Lord Hawkesbury. The minister of foreign affairs responded by a declaration equally peremptory: "The condition of the continent at the time of the Treaty of Amiens, and nothing but that condition." The mutual understandings and reticences which had enabled a truce to be arranged, little by little disappeared. The truth began to come to light. A mission of General Sébastiani to Egypt resulted in awakening general uneasiness.

The report of the First Consul's envoy was textually published in the Moniteur; it enumerated the forces at the disposal of England and Turkey in the East, and in conclusion expressed its opinion that "6000 Frenchmen would now be sufficient to reconquer Egypt."

This was, perhaps, saying more than Napoleon Bonaparte had resolved upon; and the ambassador's desire to please had responded to the remote and vague desires of the master. England was much disturbed at it, and yet more so at the haughty declarations of the First Consul in a statement of the condition of the republic. "In England," said he, "two parties contend for power. One has concluded peace and appears resolved on its maintenance; the other has sworn implacable hatred to France. Whilst this strife of parties lasts, there are measures which prudence dictates to the government. Five hundred thousand men ought to be, and shall be, ready to defend and to avenge her. Whatever be the success of her intrigues, England will not be able to draw other nations into new leagues, and the government declares with just pride that England alone could not now contend with France." The spirited indignation of the English people prevailed over the moderation and weakness of the government. George III., in a message to his Parliament, said, "In view of the military preparations which are being made in the ports of France and Holland, the king has believed it to be his duty to adopt new measures of precaution for the security of his States. These preparations are, it is true, officially intended for colonial expeditions; however, as there exists important differences of sentiment between his Majesty and the French Government, his Majesty has felt it necessary to address his Parliament, counting on its concurrence in order to assure all the measures which the honor and interests of the English people require." The public voice demanded the return to power of Pitt. "It is an astonishing and sorrowful fact," said his old adversary, Sir Philip Francis, "that in a moment like this all the eminent men of England are excluded from its government and its councils. For calm weather an ordinary amount of ability in the pilot might suffice; the storm which is now brewing calls for men of greater experience. If the vessel founders, we shall all perish with her."

The ambassador from England had just arrived at Paris. Lord Whitworth was a man of resolute and simple character, without either taste or ability for the complicated manoeuvres of diplomacy; he was well received by the First Consul, and conversation soon began. "He reproaches us above all with not having evacuated Egypt and Malta," wrote the ambassador to Lord Hawkesbury. "'Nothing will make me accept that,' he said to me. 'Of the two, I would sooner see you master of the Faubourg St. Antoine than of Malta. My irritation against England is constantly increasing. Every wind that blows from England bears to me the evidence of its hatred and ill- will. If I wanted to take back Egypt by force, I could have had it a month ago, by sending 25,000 men to Aboukir; but I should lose there more than I should gain. Sooner or later Egypt must belong to France, either by the fall of the Ottoman Empire, or by some arrangement concluded with it. What advantage should I derive from making war? I can only attack you by means of a descent upon your coasts. I have resolved upon it, and shall be myself the leader. I know well that there are a hundred chances to one against me; but I shall attempt it if I am forced to it; and I assure you that such is the feeling of the troops, that army after army will be ready to rush forward to the danger. If France and England understand each other, the one, with its army of 480,000 men which is now being got in readings, and the other with the fleet which has rendered it mistress of the seas, and which I should not be able to equal in less than ten years— they might govern the world; by their hostility they will ruin it. Nothing has been able to overcome the enmity of the English Government. Now we have arrived at this point: Do you want peace or war? It is upon Malta that the issue depends.'" Lord Whitworth attempted in vain a few protestations. "I suppose you want to speak about Piedmont and Switzerland? These are bagatelles! That ought to have been foreseen during the negotiations; you have no right to complain at this time of day."