Paris in particular felt his renovating hand. With the abrupt, determined tones which he assumed more and more on reaching absolute power, he one day said to Chaptal at Malmaison:
"I intend to make Paris the most beautiful capital of the world: I wish that in ten years it should number two millions of inhabitants." "But," replied his Minister of the Interior, "one cannot improvise population; ... as it is, Paris would scarcely support one million"; and he instanced the want of good drinking water. "What are your plans for giving water to Paris?" Chaptal gave two alternatives—artesian wells or the bringing of water from the River Ourcq to Paris. "I adopt the latter plan: go home and order five hundred men to set to work to-morrow at La Villette to dig the canal."
Such was the inception of a great public work which cost more than half a million sterling. The provisioning of Paris also received careful attention, a large reserve [pg.317] of wheat being always kept on hand for the satisfaction of "a populace which is only dangerous when it is hungry." Bonaparte therefore insisted on corn being stored and sold in large quantities and at a very low price, even when considerable loss was thereby entailed.[[176]] But besides supplying panem he also provided circenses to an extent never known even in the days of Louis XV. State aid was largely granted to the chief theatres, where Bonaparte himself was a frequent attendant, and a willing captive to the charms of the actress Mlle. Georges.
The beautifying of Paris was, however, the chief means employed by Bonaparte for weaning its populace from politics; and his efforts to this end were soon crowned with complete success. Here again the events of the Revolution had left the field clear for vast works of reconstruction such as would have been impossible but for the abolition of the many monastic institutions of old Paris. On or near the sites of the famous Feuillants and Jacobins he now laid down splendid thoroughfares; and where the constitutionals or reds a decade previously had perorated and fought, the fashionable world of Paris now rolled in gilded cabriolets along streets whose names recalled the Italian and Egyptian triumphs of the First Consul. Art and culture bowed down to the ruler who ordered the renovation of the Louvre, which now became the treasure-house of painting and sculpture, enriched by masterpieces taken from many an Italian gallery. No enterprise has more conspicuously helped to assure the position of Paris as the capital of the world's culture than Bonaparte's grouping of the nation's art treasures in a central and magnificent building. In the first year of his Empire Napoleon gave orders for the construction of vast galleries which were to connect the northern pavilion of the Tuileries with the Louvre and form a splendid façade to the new Rue de Rivoli. Despite the expense, the work was pushed on until it was suddenly arrested by the downfall of the Empire, and was left to the great man's nephew to complete. Though it is[pg.318] possible, as Chaptal avers, that the original design aimed at the formation of a central fortress, yet to all lovers of art, above all to the hero-worshipping Heine, the new Louvre was a sure pledge of Napoleon's immortality.
Other works which combined beauty with utility were the prolongation of the quays along the left bank of the Seine, the building of three bridges over that river, the improvement of the Jardin des Plantes, together with that of other parks and open spaces, and the completion of the Conservatoire of Arts and Trades. At a later date, the military spirit of the Empire received signal illustration in the erection of the Vendôme column, the Arc de Triomphe, and the consecration, or desecration, of the Madeleine as a temple of glory.
Many of these works were subsequent to the period which we are considering; but the enterprises of the Emperor represent the designs of the First Consul; and the plans for the improvement of Paris formed during the Consulate were sufficient to inspire the Parisians with lively gratitude and to turn them from political speculations to scenes of splendour and gaiety that recalled the days of Louis XIV. If we may believe the testimony of Romilly, who visited Paris in 1802, the new policy had even then attained its end.
"The quiet despotism, which leaves everybody who does not wish to meddle with politics (and few at present have any such wish) in the full and secure enjoyment of their property and of their pleasures, is a sort of paradise, compared with the agitation, the perpetual alarms, the scenes of infamy, of bloodshed, which accompanied the pretended liberties of France."
But while acknowledging the material benefits of Bonaparte's rule, the same friend of liberty notes with concern:
"That he [Bonaparte] meditates the gaining fresh laurels in war can hardly be doubted, if the accounts which one hears of his restless and impatient disposition be true."
However much the populace delighted in this new [pg.319] régime, the many ardent souls who had dared and achieved so much in the sacred quest of liberty could not refrain from protesting against the innovations which were restoring personal rule. Though the Press was gagged, though as many as thirty-two Departments were subjected to the scrutiny of special tribunals, which, under the guise of stamping out brigandage, frequently punished opponents of the Government, yet the voice of criticism was not wholly silenced. The project of the Concordat was sharply opposed in the Tribunate, which also ventured to declare that the first sections of the Civil Codes were not conformable to the principles of 1789 and to the first draft of a code presented to the Convention. The Government thereupon refused to send to the Tribunate any important measures, but merely flung them a mass of petty details to discuss, as "bones to gnaw" until the time for the renewal by lot of a fifth of its members should come round. During a discussion at the Council of State, the First Consul hinted with much frankness at the methods which ought to be adopted to quell the factious opposition of the Tribunate: