As one reads paragraphs like these, the words of John Ruskin come to mind, “Though England is deafened with spinning-wheels, her people have no clothes; though she is black with digging coal, her people have no fuel, and they die of cold; and though she has sold her soul for gain, they die of hunger!”
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How the government which was overthrown by Napoleon could have gone on much longer even Mr. Lanfrey does not explain. It had neither money nor credit; the very cash box of the opera had been seized to obtain funds to forward couriers to the armies. It had neither honesty nor capacity. Talleyrand, treating with the American envoys, declined to do business till his hands had been crossed, according to custom; brigands robbed mail coaches in the vicinity of Paris; the public roads and canals were almost impassable; rebellion defied the government in La Vendée. The Directory did not even have the simple virtue of patriotism; Barras was sold to the Bourbons, and held in his possession letters-patent issued to him by the Count of Provence, appointing him royal commissioner to proclaim and reëstablish the monarchy. “Had I known of the letters-patent on the 18th of Brumaire,” exclaimed Napoleon afterward, “I would have pinned them upon his breast and had him shot.”
CHAPTER XXII
All honor to the ruler who commences his reign by words and deeds which suggest that he has somewhere heard and heeded the golden text, “Blessed are the peacemakers!”
There had been riots in France and the clash of faction; there had been massacre of Catholic by Protestant and of Protestant by Catholic; there had been civil war in La Vendée. Napoleon had no sooner become master than his orders went forth for peace, and a year had not passed before quiet reigned from Paris to all the frontiers. Royally he pardoned all who would accept his clemency, giving life and power to many a secret foe who was to help pull him down in the years to come. France tranquillized within, the First Consul turned to the enemies without,—to the foreign powers which had combined against her.
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1799, Napoleon wrote to the King of England and to the Emperor of Austria nobly worded letters praying that the war might cease. Written with his own hand, and addressed personally to these monarchs, the question of etiquette is raised by royalist writers. They contend that letters, so addressed, were improper. Think of the coldness of nature which would make the lives of thousands of men turn on a pitiful point like that! These letters were not sincere, according to Napoleon’s detractors. How they come to know this, they cannot explain; but they know it. The average reader, not gifted with the acumen of the professional detractor, can only be certain of the plain facts of the case, and those are, that Napoleon made the first overtures for peace; that his words have the ring of sincerity, and the virtue of being positive; and that his conciliatory advances were repelled, mildly by Austria, insolently by Great Britain.
So arrogant was the letter of reply which Grenville, the English minister, sent to the French foreign office that even George III. disapproved of it. With incredible superciliousness the French were told by the English aristocrat that they had better restore the Bourbons under whose rule France had enjoyed so much prosperity at home and consideration abroad. Inasmuch as England had but recently despoiled Bourbon France of nearly every scrap of territory she had in the world,—Canada, India, etc.,—Grenville’s letter was as stupidly scornful of fact as it was of good manners. The Bourbon “glory” which had sunk so low that France had not even been invited to the feast when Poland was devoured; so low that the French flag had been covered with shameful defeat on land and sea, was a subject which might have made even a British cabinet officer hesitate before he took the wrong side of it.
The honors of the correspondence remained with Napoleon; and by way of retort to Grenville’s plea, that the Bourbons were the legitimate rulers of France, whom the people had no right to displace, the surly Englishman was reminded that the logic of his argument would bring the Stuarts back to the throne of England, from which a revolting people had driven them. The truth is that Pitt’s ministry believed France exhausted. Malta and Egypt were both coveted by Great Britain, and it was believed that each would soon be lost by France. It was for reasons like these that Napoleon’s overtures were rejected.