CHAPTER XVI
NAPOLEON'S INTERVENTIONS
War, said St. Augustine, is but the transition from a lower to a higher state of peace. The saying is certainly true for those wars that are waged in defence of some great principle or righteous cause. It may perhaps be applied with justice to the early struggles of the French revolutionists to secure their democratic Government against the threatened intervention of monarchical States. But the danger of vindicating the cause of freedom by armed force has never been more glaringly shown than in the struggles of that volcanic age. When democracy had gained a sure foothold in the European system, the war was still pushed on by the triumphant republicans at the expense of neighbouring States, so that, even before the advent of Bonaparte, their polity was being strangely warped by the influence of military methods of rule. The brilliance of the triumphs won by that young warrior speedily became the greatest danger of republican France; and as the extraordinary energy developed in her people by recent events cast her feeble neighbours to the ground, Europe cowered away before the ever-increasing bulk of France. In their struggles after democracy the French finally reverted to the military type of Government, which accords with many of the cherished instincts of their race: and the military-democratic compromise embodied in Napoleon endowed that people with the twofold force of national pride and of conscious strength springing from their new institutions.
With this was mingled contempt for neighbouring [pg.387] peoples who either could not or would not gain a similar independence and prestige. Everything helped to feed this self-confidence and contempt for others. The venerable fabric of the Holy Roman Empire was rocking to and fro amidst the spoliations of its ecclesiastical lands by lay princes, in which its former champions, the Houses of Hapsburg and Hohenzollern, were the most exacting of the claimants. The Czar, in October, 1801, had come to a profitable understanding with France concerning these "secularizations." A little later France and Russia began to draw together on the Eastern Question in a way threatening to Turkey and to British influence in the Levant.[[217]] In fact, French diplomacy used the partition of the German ecclesiastical lands and the threatened collapse of the Ottoman power as a potent means of busying the Continental States and leaving Great Britain isolated. Moreover, the great island State was passing through ministerial and financial difficulties which robbed her of all the fruits of her naval triumphs and made her diplomacy at Amiens the laughing-stock of the world. When monarchical ideas were thus discredited, it was idle to expect peace. The struggling upwards towards a higher plane had indeed begun; democracy had effected a lodgment in Western Europe; but the old order in its bewildered gropings after some sure basis had not yet touched bottom on that rock of nationality which was to yield a new foundation for monarchy amidst the strifes of the nineteenth century. Only when the monarchs received the support of their French-hating subjects could an equilibrium of force and of enthusiasms yield the long-sought opportunity for a durable peace.[[218]]
[pg.388] The negotiations at Amiens had amply shown the great difficulty of the readjustment of European affairs. If our Ministers had manifested their real feelings about Napoleon's presidency of the Italian Republic, war would certainly have broken forth. But, as has been seen, they preferred to assume the attitude of the ostrich, the worst possible device both for the welfare of Europe and the interests of Great Britain; for it convinced Napoleon that he could safely venture on other interventions; and this he proceeded to do in the affairs of Italy, Holland, and Switzerland.
On September 21st, 1802, appeared a senatus consultum ordering the incorporation of Piedmont in France. This important territory, lessened by the annexation of its eastern parts to the Italian Republic, had for five months been provisionally administered by a French general as a military district of France. Its definite incorporation in the great Republic now put an end to all hopes of restoration of the House of Savoy. For the King of Sardinia, now an exile in his island, the British Ministry had made some efforts at Amiens; but, as it knew that the Czar and the First Consul had agreed on offering him some suitable indemnity, the hope was cherished that the new sovereign, Victor Emmanuel I., would be restored to his mainland possessions. That hope was now at an end. In vain did Lord Whitworth, our ambassador at Paris, seek to help the Russian envoy to gain a fit indemnity. Sienna and its lands were named, as if in derision; and though George III. and the Czar ceased not to press the claims of the House of Savoy, yet no more tempting offer came from Paris,[pg.389] except a hint that some part of European Turkey might be found for him; and the young ruler nobly refused to barter for the petty Siennese, or for some Turkish pachalic, his birthright to the lands which, under a happier Victor Emmanuel, were to form the nucleus of a United Italy.[[219]] A month after the absorption of Piedmont came the annexation of Parma. The heir to that duchy, who was son-in-law to the King of Spain, had been raised to the dignity of King of Etruria; and in return for this aggrandizement in Europe, Charles IV. bartered away to France the whole of Louisiana. Nevertheless, the First Consul kept his troops in Parma, and on the death of the old duke in October, 1802, Parma and its dependencies were incorporated in the French Republic.
The naval supremacy of France in the Mediterranean was also secured by the annexation of the Isle of Elba with its excellent harbour of Porto Ferrajo. Three deputies from Elba came to Paris to pay their respects to their new ruler. The Minister of War was thereupon charged to treat them with every courtesy, to entertain them at dinner, to give them 3,000 francs apiece, and to hint that on their presentation to Bonaparte they might make a short speech expressing the pleasure of their people at being united with France. By such deft rehearsals did this master in the art of scenic displays weld Elba on to France and France to himself.
Even more important was Bonaparte's intervention in Switzerland. The condition of that land calls for some explanation. For wellnigh three centuries the Switzers had been grouped in thirteen cantons, which differed widely in character and constitution. The Central or Forest Cantons still retained the old Teutonic custom of regulating their affairs in their several folk-moots, at which every householder appeared fully armed. Elsewhere the confederation had developed less admirable customs, and the richer lowlands especially were under the hereditary control of rich burgher families. There[pg.390] was no constitution binding these States in any effective union. Each of the cantons claimed a governmental sovereignty that was scarcely impaired by the deliberations of the Federal Diet. Besides these sovereign States were others that held an ill-defined position as allies; among these were Geneva, Basel, Bienne, Saint Gall, the old imperial city of Mühlhausen in Alsace, the three Grisons, the principality of Neufchâtel, and Valais on the Upper Rhone. Last came the subject-lands, Aargau, Thurgau, Ticino, Vaud, and others, which were governed in various degrees of strictness by their cantonal overlords. Such was the old Swiss Confederacy: it somewhat resembled that chaotic Macedonian league of mountain clans, plain-dwellers, and cities, which was so profoundly influenced by the infiltration of Greek ideas and by the masterful genius of Philip. Switzerland was likewise to be shaken by a new political influence, and thereafter to be controlled by the greatest statesman of the age.
On this motley group of cantons and districts the French Revolution exerted a powerful influence; and when, in 1798, the people of Vaud strove to throw off the yoke of Berne, French troops, on the invitation of the insurgents, invaded Switzerland, quelled the brave resistance of the central cantons, and ransacked the chief of the Swiss treasuries. After the plunderers came the constitution-mongers, who forthwith forced on Switzerland democracy of the most French and geometrical type: all differences between the sovereign cantons, allies, and subject-lands were swept away, and Helvetia was constituted as an indivisible republic—except Valais, which was to be independent, and Geneva and Mühlhausen, which were absorbed by France. The subject districts and non-privileged classes benefited considerably by the social reforms introduced under French influence; but a constitution recklessly transferred from Paris to Berne could only provoke loathing among a people that never before had submitted to foreign dictation. Moreover, the new order of things violated the most elementary [pg.391] needs of the Swiss, whose racial and religious instincts claimed freedom of action for each district or canton.