BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL.
One of the best portraits of the First Consul—the truest of all, perhaps. Unlike Bouillon, Van Brée, Géhotte, Isabey, Boilly painted him in his real aspect, without any striving after the ideal. This is really the determined little Corsican, tormented by ambition and a thirst for conquest. This fine portrait has been admirably etched by Duplessis-Bertaux.—A. D.
The works he insisted should be carried on in regard to roads and public buildings were of great importance. There was need that something be done.
“It is impossible to conceive, if one had not been a witness of it before and after the 18th Brumaire [said the chancellor Pasquier], of the widespread ruin wrought by the Revolution.... There were hardly two or three main roads [in France] in a fit condition for traffic; not a single one was there, perhaps, wherein was not found some obstacle that could not be surmounted without peril. With regard to the ways of internal communication, they had been indefinitely suspended. The navigation of rivers and canals was no longer feasible.
“In all directions, public buildings, and those monuments which represent the splendor of the state, were falling into decay. It must fain be admitted that if the work of destruction had been prodigious, that of restoration was no less so. Everything was taken hold of at one and the same time, and everything progressed with a like rapidity. Not only was it resolved to restore all that required restoring in various parts of the country, in all parts of the public service, but new, grand, beautiful and useful works were decided upon, and many were brought to a happy termination. This certainly constitutes one of the most brilliant sides of the consular and imperial régime.”
In Paris alone vast improvements were made. Napoleon began the Rue de Rivoli, built the wing connecting the Tuileries and the Louvre, erected the triumphal arch of the Carrousel, the Arc de Triomphe at the head of the Champs Elysées, the Column Vendôme, the Madeleine, began the Bourse, built the Pont d’Austerlitz, and ordered, commenced, or finished, a number of minor works of great importance to the city. The markets interested him particularly. “Give all possible care to the construction of the markets and to their healthfulness, and to the beauty of the Halle-aux-blés and of the Halle-aux-vins. The people, too, must have their Louvre.”
The works undertaken outside of Paris in France, and in the countries under her rule in the time that Napoleon was in power were of a variety and extent which would be incredible, if every traveller in Europe did not have the evidence of them still before his eyes. The mere enumeration of these works and of the industrial achievements of Napoleon, made by Las Cases, reads like a fairy story. “You wish to know the treasures of Napoleon? They are immense, it is true, but they are all exposed to light. They are the noble harbors of Antwerp and Flushing, which are capable of containing the largest fleets, and of protecting them against the ice from the sea; the hydraulic works at Dunkirk, Havre, and Nice; the immense harbor of Cherbourg; the maritime works at Venice; the beautiful roads from Antwerp to Amsterdam, from Mayence to Metz, from Bordeaux to Bayonne; the passes of the Simplon, of Mont Cenis, of Mount Genèvre, of the Corniche, which open a communication through the Alps in four different directions, and which exceed in grandeur, in boldness, and in skill of execution, all the works of the Romans (in that alone you will find eight hundred millions); the roads from the Pyrenees to the Alps, from Parma to Spezia, from Savona to Piedmont; the bridges of Jena, Austerlitz, Des Arts, Sèvres, Tours, Roanne, Lyons, Turin; of the Isère, of the Durance, of Bordeaux, of Rouen, etc.; the canal which connects the Rhine with the Rhone by the Doubs, and thus unites the North Sea with the Mediterranean; the canal which joins the Scheldt with the Somme, and thus joins Paris and Amsterdam; the canal which unites the Rance to the Vilaine; the canal of Arles; that of Pavia, and the canal of the Rhine; the draining of the marshes of Bourgoin, of the Cotentin, of Rochefort; the rebuilding of the greater part of the churches destroyed by the Revolution; the building of others: the institution of numerous establishments of industry for the suppression of mendicity; the gallery at the Louvre; the construction of public warehouses, of the Bank, of the canal of the Ourcq; the distribution of water in the city of Paris; the numerous drains, the quays, the embellishments, and the monuments of that large capital; the works for the embellishment of Rome; the reëstablishment of the manufactures of Lyons; the creation of many hundreds of manufactories of cotton, for spinning and for weaving, which employ several millions of workmen; funds accumulated to establish upwards of four hundred manufactories of sugar from beet-root, for the consumption of part of France, and which would have furnished sugar at the same price as the West Indies, if they had continued to receive encouragement for only four years longer; the substitution of woad for indigo, which would have been at last brought to a state of perfection in France, and obtained as good and as cheap as the indigo from the colonies; numerous manufactories for all kinds of objects of art, etc.; fifty millions expended in repairing and beautifying the palaces belonging to the Crown; sixty millions in furniture for the palaces belonging to the Crown in France, in Holland, at Turin, and at Rome; sixty millions of diamonds for the Crown, all purchased with Napoleon’s money; the Regent (the only diamond that was left belonging to the former diamonds of the Crown) withdrawn from the hands of the Jews at Berlin, in whose hands it had been left as a pledge for three millions. The Napoleon Museum, valued at upwards of four hundred millions, filled with objects legitimately acquired, either by moneys or by treaties of peace known to the whole world, by virtue of which the chefs-d’oeuvres, it contains were given in lieu of territory or of contributions. Several millions amassed to be applied to the encouragement of agriculture, which is the paramount consideration for the interest of France; the introduction into France of merino sheep, etc. These form a treasure of several thousand millions which will endure for ages.”
MEDALLION OF BONAPARTE
The following inscription, written in French, by Dutertre, the official painter of the principal personages in the Egyptian expedition, appears on the reverse side of this medallion, which frames one of the most precious gems of Napoleonic iconography. “I, Dutertre, made this drawing of the general-in-chief from nature, on board the vessel ‘L’Orient,’ during the crossing of the expedition to Egypt in the year VII. (sic) of the Republic.” A short time ago the drawing came into the possession of the Versailles Museum.