The populace consoled itself for the loss of political liberty by the splendour of the fête which heralded the title of First Consul for Life, proclaimed on August 15th: that day was also memorable as being the First Consul's thirty-third birthday, the festival of the Assumption, and the anniversary of the ratification of the Concordat. The decorations and fireworks were worthy of so remarkable a confluence of solemnities. High on one of the towers of Notre Dame glittered an enormous star, and at its centre there shone the sign of the Zodiac which had shed its influence over his first hours of life. The myriads of spectators who gazed at that natal emblem might well have thought that his life's star was now at its zenith. Few could have dared to think that it was to mount far higher into unknown depths of space, blazing as a baleful portent to kings and peoples; still less was there any Cassandra shriek of doom as to its final headlong fall into the wastes of ocean. All was joy and jubilation over a career that had even now surpassed the records of antique heroism, that blended the romance of oriental prowess with the beneficent toils of the legislator, and prospered alike in war and peace.
And yet black care cast one shadow over that jubilant festival. There was a void in the First Consul's life such as saddened but few of the millions of peasants who looked up to him as their saviour. His wife had borne him no heir: and there seemed no prospect that a child of his own would ever succeed to his glorious heritage. Family joys, it seemed, were not for him. Suspicions and bickerings were his lot. His brothers, in their feverish desire for the establishment of a Bonapartist dynasty, ceaselessly urged that he should take means to provide himself with a legitimate heir, in the last resort by divorcing Josephine. With a consideration for her feelings which does him credit, Napoleon refused to countenance such proceedings. Yet it is certain that from this time onwards he kept in view the desirability, on political grounds, of divorcing her, and made this the excuse for indulgence in amours against which Josephine's tears and reproaches were all in vain.
The consolidation of personal rule, the institution of the Legion of Honour, and the return of very many of the emigrant nobles under the terms of the recent amnesty, favoured the growth of luxury in the capital and of Court etiquette at the Tuileries and St. Cloud. At these palaces the pomp of the ancien régime was laboriously copied. General Duroc, stiff republican though he was, received the appointment of Governor of the Palace; under him were chamberlains and prefects of the palace, who enforced a ceremonial that struggled to be monarchical. The gorgeous liveries and sumptuous garments of the reign of Louis XV. speedily replaced the military dress which even civilians had worn under the warlike Republic. High boots, sabres, and regimental headgear gave way to buckled shoes, silk stockings, Court rapiers, and light hats, the last generally held under the arm. Tricolour cockades were discarded, along with the revolutionary jargon which thou'd and citizen'd everyone; and men began to purge their speech of some of the obscene terms which had haunted clubs and camps.
It was remarked, however, that the First Consul still clung to the use of the term citizen, and that amidst the surprising combinations of colours that flecked his Court, he generally wore only the uniform of a colonel of grenadiers or of the light infantry of the consular guard. This conduct resulted partly from his early dislike of luxury, but partly, doubtless, from a conviction that republicans will forgive much in a man who, like Vespasian, discards the grandeur which his prowess has won, and shines by his very plainness. To trifling matters such as these Napoleon always attached great importance; for, as he said to Admiral Malcolm at St. Helena: "In France trifles are great things: reason is nothing."[179] Besides, genius so commanding as his little needed the external trappings wherewith ordinary mortals hide their nullity. If his attire was simple, it but set off the better the play of his mobile features, and the rich, unfailing flow of his conversation. Perhaps no clearer and more pleasing account of his appearance and his conduct at a reception has ever been given to the world than this sketch of the great man in one of his gentler moods by John Leslie Foster, who visited Paris shortly after the Peace of Amiens:
"He is about five feet seven inches high, delicately and gracefully made; his hair a dark brown crop, thin and lank; his complexion smooth, pale, and sallow; his eyes gray, but very animated; his eye-brows light brown, thin and projecting. All his features, particularly his mouth and nose, fine, sharp, defined, and expressive beyond description; expressive of what? Not of anything_percé_ as the prints expressed him, still less of anything méchant; nor has he anything of that eye whose bend doth awe the world. The true expression of his countenance is a pleasing melancholy, which, whenever he speaks, relaxes into the most agreeable and gracious smile you can conceive. To this you must add the appearance of deep and intense thought, but above all the predominating expression a look of calm and tranquil resolution and intrepidity which nothing human could discompose. His address is the finest I have ever seen, and said by those who have travelled to exceed not only every Prince and Potentate now in being, but even all those whose memory has come down to us. He has more unaffected dignity than I could conceive in man. His address is the gentlest and most prepossessing you can conceive, which is seconded by the greatest fund of levée conversation that I suppose any person ever possessed. He speaks deliberately, but very fluently, with particular emphasis, and in a rather low tone of voice. While he speaks, his features are still more expressive than his words."[180]
In contrast with this intellectual power and becoming simplicity of attire, how stupid and tawdry were the bevies of soulless women and the dumb groups of half-tamed soldiers! How vapid also the rules of etiquette and precedence which starched the men and agitated the minds of their consorts! Yet, while soaring above these rules with easy grace, the First Consul imposed them rigidly on the crowd of eager courtiers. On these burning questions he generally took the advice of M. de Rémusat, whose tact and acquaintance with Court customs were now of much service; while the sprightly wit of his young wife attracted Josephine, as it has all readers of her piquant but rather spiteful memoirs. In her pages we catch a glimpse of the life of that singular Court; the attempts at aping the inimitable manners of the ancien régime; the pompous nullity of the second and third Consuls; the tawdry magnificence of the costumes; the studied avoidance of any word that implied even a modicum of learning or a distant acquaintance with politics; the nervous preoccupation about Napoleon's moods and whims; the graceful manners of Josephine that rarely failed to charm away his humours, except when she herself had been outrageously slighted for some passing favourite; above all, the leaden dullness of conversation, which drew from Chaptal the confession that life there was the life of a galley slave. And if we seek for the hidden reason why a ruler eminently endowed with mental force and freshness should have endured so laboured a masquerade, we find it in his strikingly frank confession to Madame de Rémusat: It is fortunate that the French are to be ruled through their vanity. <
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CHAPTER XIV
THE PEACE OF AMIENS
The previous chapter dealt in the main with the internal affairs of France and the completion of Napoleon's power: it touched on foreign affairs only so far as to exhibit the close connection between the First Consul's diplomatic victory over England and his triumph over the republican constitution in his adopted country. But it is time now to review the course of the negotiations which led up to the Treaty of Amiens.