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 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:
"One cannot work with an institution so productive of disorder. The constitution has created a legislative power composed of three bodies. None of these branches has any right to organize itself: that must be done by the law. Therefore we must make a body which shall organize the manner of deliberations of these three branches. The Tribunate ought to be divided into five sections. The discussion of laws will take place secretly in each section: one might even introduce a discussion between these sections and those of the Council of State. Only the reporter will speak publicly. Then things will go on reasonably."
Having delivered this opinion, ex cathedra, he departed (January 7th, 1802) for Lyons, there to be invested with supreme authority in the reconstituted Cisalpine, or as it was now termed, Italian Republic[177]
Returning at the close of the month, radiant with the lustre of this new dignity, he was able to bend the Tribunate and the Corps Législatif to his will. The renewal of their membership by one-fifth served as the opportunity for subjecting them to the more pliable Senate. This august body of highly-paid members holding office for life had the right of nominating the new members; but hitherto the retiring members had been singled out by lot. Roederer, acting on a hint of the time-serving Second Consul, now proposed in the Council of State that the retiring members of those Chambers should thenceforth be appointed by the Senate, and not by lot; for the principle of the lot, he quaintly urged, was hostile to the right of election which belonged to the Senate. Against such conscious sophistry all the bolts of logic were harmless. The question was left undecided, in order that the Senate might forthwith declare in favour of its own right to determine every year not only the elections to, but the exclusions from, the Tribunate and the Corps Législatif. A senatus consultant of March legalized this monstrous innovation, which led to the exclusion from the Tribunate of zealous republicans like Benjamin Constant, Isnard, Ganilh, Daunou, and Chénier. The infusion of the senatorial nominees served to complete the nullity of these bodies; and the Tribunate, the lineal descendant of the terrible Convention, was gagged and bound within eight years of the stilling of Danton's mighty voice.
In days when civic zeal was the strength of the French Republic, the mere suggestion of such a violation of liberty would have cost the speaker his life. But since the rise of Bonaparte, civic sentiments had yielded place to the military spirit and to boundless pride in the nation's glory. Whenever republican feelings were outraged, there were sufficient distractions to dissipate any of the sombre broodings which Bonaparte so heartily disliked; and an event of international importance now came to still the voice of political criticism.
The signature of the definitive treaty of peace with Great Britain (March 25th, 1802) sufficed to drown the muttered discontent of the old republican party under the paeans of a nation's joy. The jubilation was natural. While Londoners were grumbling at the sacrifices which Addington's timidity had entailed, all France rang with praises of the diplomatic skill which could rescue several islands from England's grip and yet assure French supremacy on the Continent. The event seemed to call for some sign of the nation's thankfulness to the restorer of peace and prosperity. The hint having been given by the tactful Cambacérès to some of the members of the Tribunate, this now docile body expressed a wish that there should be a striking token of the national gratitude; and a motion to that effect was made by the Senate to the Corps Législatif and to the Government itself.