“The 18 Brumaire,” to again quote the Duke de Broglie, “was the salvation of France, and the four years that followed it were a series of triumphs, alike over our external enemies, and over the principles of disaster and anarchy at home. These four years are, with the ten years of the reign of Henry IV., the noblest period of French history.”
“The little Corporal” had won the day. Henceforth until his fall he was to dominate France.
CHAPTER XIII
The Passage of the Alps (1799–1801)
It must be conceded that Napoleon signalised this phase of his career by measures which promised exceedingly well for the future. He showed the velvet glove, but it was obvious that he, and he alone, was the controlling power in France. The Republic was in chaotic disorder; his first task was to unravel the tangled skein. Under the careful nursing of Gaudin, subsequently Duke of Gaëta, aided by the energy of Napoleon, some kind of business stability was ensured. The claims of religion were recognised and re-established; the horrible law of hostages, which visited the presumed sins of the fathers upon the heads of their children, and made the latter responsible for the actions of the former, was revoked; such eminent exiles as Lafayette and Latour-Maubourg were allowed to return. Civil war was almost, if not entirely, stamped out by the introduction of strong measures, and several of the more untractable leaders were shot.
Under Berthier, who became Minister of War, the army was speedily rejuvenated. Sieyès produced a new constitution, a not too practicable one be it said. It was obviously designed to limit the power of Napoleon as much as possible, the actual reins of government being in the hands of his two colleagues. Sieyès reckoned without his host, who was not prepared to play second fiddle to anyone, and Napoleon soon had everything in his grip. Eventually the Government, according to the Constitution of the year VIII. of the Republican Calendar, was established as follows: After the Consuls and Ministers came the Council of State, consisting of not more than forty Members, all of whom were appointed by the First Consul. They were divided into five sections—Legislation, the Interior, War, Marine and Colonies, Finance. The Consuls or their seven Ministers of State placed all proposed Bills before the section to which they belonged, who reported upon them to the Council as a whole. If they were deemed worthy they were passed on to the Tribunat, who debated on them, and the Corps Législatif, who adopted or rejected them, the Council carrying out those which were accepted. Then there was the Conservative Senate, the members of which held office for life. They discussed and decided whether acts or laws submitted to them by the Government or the Tribunat were constitutional or otherwise. A list of National Notability was to be formed from which the Conservative Senate was to select the Consuls, members of the Tribunat and Corps Législatif, and various other officials.
The Sovereignty of the People was doomed; their power was strictly limited. As to Napoleon’s own aim at the time perhaps Sir Walter Scott is not far wrong when he suggests that “his motives were a mixture of patriotism and the desire of self-advancement.”
Before long Sieyès and Ducos resigned. Their places were filled by Cambacérès, a lawyer who had been a member of the Convention, and Lebrun, who had royalist sympathies—men eminently fitted for the positions of Second and Third Consuls respectively. Neither was too clever nor too dull to exercise the strictly limited power they enjoyed, both were moderate in their views, and possessed a fair stock of common sense. Of other persons whom Napoleon attached to himself and his now rapidly-increasing prospects we need only mention Talleyrand, who combined the wisdom of the serpent with its cunning, and who was reinstated Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Fouché, of even more easy conscience, who became Minister of Police, a department with which he likewise had made acquaintance previously.
Napoleon, now officially styled First Consul and having a salary of half a million francs a year, speedily removed to the magnificent palace of the Tuileries, where he had a Court worthy of a reigning monarch. The levelling process of the Revolution gave place to the observance of formal rules and the stateliest ceremonies. Napoleon was monarch in all but name, which was to come.