Under the Directory the material well-being of the country, internally, had been so neglected that even the waterways fell into disuse. Under the consular government the French system of internal improvements soon began to excite the admiration of Europe. Englishmen, coming over after the peace, and expecting to see what their editors and politicians had described as a country ruined by revolution, were amazed to see that in many directions French progress could give England useful lessons. Agriculture had doubled its produce, for the idle lands of former grandees had been put into cultivation. The farmer was more prosperous, for the lord was not on the lookout to seize the crop with feudal dues as soon as made. Nor was the priest seen standing at the gate, grabbing a tenth of everything. Nor were state taxes levied with an eye single to making the burden as heavy as peasant shoulders could bear.
Wonder of wonders! the man in control had said, and kept saying, “Better to let the peasant keep what he makes than to lock it up in the public treasury!” The same man said, “Beautify the markets, render them clean, attractive, healthy—they are the Louvres of the common people.” It was such a man who would talk with the poor whenever he could, to learn the facts of their condition. In his stroll he would stop, chat with the farmer, and, taking the plough in his own white hands, trace a wobbly furrow.
Commerce was inspired to new efforts, for the First Consul put himself forward as champion of liberty of the seas, combatting England’s harsh policy of searching neutral vessels and seizing goods covered by the neutral flag.
Manufactures he encouraged to the utmost of his power, by shutting off foreign competition, by setting the example of using home-made goods, and by direct subsidies. He even went so far as to experiment with the government warehouse plan, advancing money out of the treasury to the manufactures on the deposit of products of the mills.
No drone, be he the haughtiest Montmorency, whose ancestor had been in remote ages a murderer and a thief, could hold office under Napoleon. Unless he were willing to work, he could not enter into the hive. For the first time in the political life of the modern French, men became prouder of the fact that they were workers, doers of notable deeds, than that they were the fifteenth cousin of some spindle-shanked duke whose great-great-grandfather had held the stirrup when Louis XIII. had straddled his horse.
Having founded the Bank of France, January, 1800, Napoleon jealously scrutinized its management, controlled its operations, and made it useful to the State as well as to the bankers. He watched the quotations of government securities, took pride in seeing them command high prices, and considered it a point of honor that they should not fall below eighty. When they dropped considerably below that figure, some years later, the Emperor went into the market, made “a campaign against the Bears,” and forced the price up again—many a crippled bear limping painfully off the lost field.
The First Consul also elaborated a system of state education. Here he was no Columbus, no creator, no original inventor. His glory is that he accomplished what others had suggested, had attempted, but had not done. He took hold, gave the scheme the benefit of his tremendous driving force, and pushed it through. It will be his glory forever that in all things pertaining to civil life he was the highest type of democrat. Distinctions of character, merit, conduct, talent, he could understand; distinctions of mere birth he abhorred. The very soul of his system was the rewarding of worth. In the army, the civil service, the schools, in art and science and literature, his great object was to discover the real men,—the men of positive ability,—and to open to these the doors of preferment.
Remembering the sufferings he and his sister had endured at the Bourbon schools where the poor scholars were cruelly humiliated, he founded his training-schools, military and civil, upon the plan which as a boy he had sketched. The young men at his military academies kept no troops of servants, and indulged in no hurtful luxury. They not only attended to their own personal needs, but fed, curried, and saddled their own horses.
It was such a man as Napoleon who would turn from state business to examine in person an ambitious boy who had been studying at home for admission into one of the state schools, and who had been refused because he had not studied under a professor. “This boy is competent; let him enter the school,” wrote Napoleon after the examination: and the young man’s career was safe.
It was such a man who would invite the grenadiers to the grand banquets at the palace, and who would direct that special courtesies should be shown these humblest of the guests.