The first step of the first consul was to offer peace to Great Britain; and he wrote a letter to the king, couched in his peculiar style of mock philanthropy and benevolence, in which he spoke of peace as the first necessity and truest glory of nations! Lord Grenville, minister of foreign affairs, replied in a long letter, in which he laid upon France the blame of the war, in consequence of her revolutionary principles and aggressive spirit, and refused to make peace while the causes of difficulty remained; in other words, until the Bourbon dynasty was restored. The Commons supported the government by a large majority, and all parties prepared for a still more desperate conflict. Napoleon was obliged to fight, and probably desired to fight, feeling that his power and the greatness of his country would depend upon the victories he might gain; that so long as the éclat of his government continued, his government would be strong. Mr. Pitt was probably right in his opinion that no peace could be lasting with a revolutionary power, and that every successive peace would only pave the way for fresh aggressions. Bonaparte could only fulfil what he called his destiny, by continual agitation; and this was well understood by himself and by his enemies. The contest had become one of life and death; and both parties resolved that no peace should be made until one or the other was effectually conquered The land forces of Great Britain, at the commencement of the year 1800, amounted to one hundred and sixty-eight thousand men, exclusive of eighty thousand militia, while one hundred and twenty thousand seamen and marines were voted. The ships in commission were no less than five hundred, including one hundred and twenty-four of the line. The charter of the Bank of England was renewed, and the union with Ireland effected. The various German states made still greater exertions, and agreed to raise a contingent force of three hundred thousand men. They were greatly assisted in this measure by subsidies from Great Britain. Austria, alone, had in the field at this time a force of two hundred thousand men, half of whom belonged to the army of Italy under Melas.
To make head against the united forces of England and Austria, with a defeated army, an exhausted treasury, and a disunited people, was the difficult task of Bonaparte. His first object was to improve the finances; his second, to tranquillize La Vendée; his third, to detach Russia from the allies; his fourth, Immense Military Preparations. to raise armies equal to the crisis; and all these measures he rapidly accomplished. One hundred and twenty thousand men were raised by conscription, without any exemption from either rank or fortune, and two hundred and fifty thousand men were ready to commence hostilities. The first consul suppressed the liberty of the press, fixed his residence in the Tuileries, and established the usages and ceremonial of a court. He revoked the sentence of banishment on illustrious individuals, established a secret police, and constructed the gallery of the Louvre.
Hostilities commenced in Germany, and General Moreau was successful over General Kray at the battles of Engen, Moeskirch, and Biberach. General Massena fought with great courage in the Maritime Alps, but was obliged to retreat before superior forces, and shut himself up in Genoa, which endured a dreadful siege, but was finally compelled to surrender. The victor, Melas, then set out to meet Bonaparte himself, who was invading Italy, and had just effected his wonderful passage over the Alps by the Great St. Bernard, one of the most wonderful feats in the annals of war; for his artillery and baggage had to be transported over one of the highest and most difficult passes of the Alps. The passes of the St. Gothard and Mount Cenis were also effected by the wings of the army. The first action was at Montebello, which ended in favor of the French; and this was soon followed by a decisive and brilliant victory at Marengo, (June 14,) one of the most obstinately contested during the war, and which was attended with greater results than perhaps any battle that had yet occurred in modern warfare. Moreau also gained a great victory over the Austrians at Hohenlinden, and Macdonald performed great exploits amid the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The treaty of Lunéville, (February 9, 1801,) in consequence of the victorious career of Bonaparte, ceded to France the possession of Belgium, and the whole left bank of the Rhine. Lombardy was erected into an independent state, Venice was restored to Austria, and the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics was guaranteed. This peace excited unbounded joy at Paris, and was the first considerable pause in the continental strife.
Napoleon returned to his capital to reconstruct society, which was entirely The Reforms of Napoleon. disorganized. It was his object to restore the institutions of religion, law, commerce, and education. He did not attempt to give constitutional freedom. This was impracticable; but he did desire to bring order out of confusion. One night, going to the theatre, he narrowly escaped death by the explosion of an "infernal machine." He attributed the design of assassination to the Jacobins, and forthwith transported one hundred and thirty of them, more as a statesman than as a judge. He was determined to break up that obnoxious party, and the design against his life furnished the pretence. Shortly after, he instituted the Legion of Honor, an order of merit which was designed to restore gradually the gradation in the ranks of society. He was violently opposed, but he carried his measures through the Council of State; and this institution, which at length numbered two thousand persons, civil and military, became both popular and useful. He then restored the external institution of religion, and ten archbishops and fifty bishops administered the affairs of the Gallican Church. The restoration of the Sunday, with its customary observances, was hailed by the peasantry with undisguised delight, and was a pleasing sight to the nations of Europe. He then contemplated the complete restoration of all the unalienated national property to the original proprietors, but was forced to abandon the design. A general amnesty, was also proclaimed to emigrants, by which one hundred thousand people returned, not to enjoy their possessions, but to recover a part of them, and breathe the air of their native land. At last, he resolved to make himself first consul for life, and seat his family on a monarchical throne. He was opposed by the Council of State; but he appealed to the people, and three million three hundred and sixty-eight thousand two hundred and nine, out of three million five hundred and fifty-seven thousand eight hundred and eighty-five electors, voted for his elevation.
The The Code Napoléon. "Code Napoléon" then occupied his attention, indisputably the greatest monument of his reign, and the most beneficial event of his age. All classes and parties have praised the wisdom of this great compilation, which produced more salutary changes than had been effected by all the early revolutionists. Amid these great undertakings of the consul, the internal prosperity of France was constantly increasing, and education, art, and science received an immense impulse. Every thing seemed to smile upon Bonaparte, and all appeared reconciled to the great power which he exercised.
But there were some of his generals who were attached to republican principles, and viewed with ill-suppressed jealousy the rapid strides he was making to imperial power. Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden, was at the head of these, and, in conjunction with Fouché, who had been turned out of his office on account of the immense power which it gave him, formed a conspiracy of republicans and royalists to overturn the consular throne. But Fouché revealed the plot to Bonaparte, who restored him to power, and Generals Moreau and Pichegru, the Duke d'Enghien, and other illustrious persons were arrested. The duke himself was innocent of the conspiracy, but was sacrificed to the jealousy of Bonaparte, who wished to remove from the eyes of the people this illustrious scion of the Bourbon family, the only member of it he feared. This act was one of the most cruel and unjustifiable, and therefore, impolitic, which Bonaparte ever committed. "It was worse than a crime," said Talleyrand; "it was a blunder." His murder again lighted the flames of continental war, and from it may be dated the commencement of that train of events which ultimately hurled Napoleon from the imperial throne.
That possession was what his heart now coveted, and he therefore seized what he desired, and what he had power to retain. On the 18th of May, 1804, Napoleon was declared Emperor of the French, and an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes of France confirmed him in his usurpation of the throne of Hugh Capet.
His first step, as emperor, was the creation of eighteen marshals, all memorable in the annals of military glory—Berthier, Murat, Moncey, Jourdan, Massena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney, Davoust, Bessières, Kellermann, Lefebvre, Pérignon, and Serrurier. The individual lives of these military heroes cannot here be alluded to.
Early in the year 1805, the great powers of England, Austria, and Russia entered into a coalition to reduce France to its ancient limits, and humble the despot who had usurped the throne. Enormous preparations were made by all the belligerent states, and four hundred thousand men were furnished by the allies for active service; a force not, however, much larger than Napoleon raised to prosecute his scheme of universal dominion.
Among other designs, he Meditated Invasion of England. meditated the invasion of England itself, and assembled for that purpose one of the most splendid armies which had been collected since the days of the Roman legions. It amounted to one hundred and fourteen thousand men, four hundred and thirty-two pieces of cannon, and fourteen thousand six hundred and fifty-four horses. Ample transports were provided to convey this immense army to the shores of England. But the English government took corresponding means of defence, having fathomed the designs of the enemy, who had succeeded in securing the coöperation of Spain. This great design of Napoleon was defeated by the vigilance of the English, and the number of British ships which defended the coasts—the "wooden walls" which preserved England from a most imminent and dreaded danger.