As proudly as Richelieu, in Bulwer’s play, stands before his king and tells what he has done for France,—a nation found lying in poverty, shame, defeat, deathly decay, and lifted by the magic touch of genius to wealth, pride, victory, and radiant strength,—so the First Consul could have pointed to what France had been and what she had become, and justly claim the love and admiration of his people.
What reward should be given such a magistrate? In 1802 his consulship, which had already been lengthened by ten years, was, by the almost unanimous vote of the people, changed into a life tenure.
Consul for life (August, 1802), with the power to name his own successor, Napoleon was now virtually the king of France.
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In St. Domingo, the Revolution in France had borne bitter fruit. The blacks rose against the whites, and a war of extermination ensued.
The negroes, immensely superior in numbers, overcame the whites, and established their independence. Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the blacks, and a great man, became president of the black republic, which he patterned somewhat after Napoleon’s consulate.
The rich French planters, who had the ear of Napoleon in Paris, urged him to put down the revolt, or to bring the island back under French dominion. Thus these Bourbon nobles led Napoleon into one of his worst mistakes. He aligned himself with those who wished to reëstablish slavery, put himself at enmity with the trend of liberalism everywhere, and plunged himself into a ruinous war.
Mainly from the army of the Rhine, which was republican and unfriendly to himself, he drew out of France twenty thousand of her best troops, put them under command of Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and despatched them to St. Domingo, to reconquer the island.
Here again it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Napoleon had not duly considered what he was doing. There is evidence of haste, want of investigation, lack of foresight and precaution. The whole plan, from inception to end, bears the marks of that rashness which is forever punishing the man who tries to do everything.
The negroes gave way before Leclerc’s overwhelming numbers; and, by treachery, Toussaint was captured and sent to France to die in a dungeon; but the yellow fever soon came to the rescue of the blacks, and the expedition, after causing great loss of life, ended in shameful failure. Leclerc died, the remnants of the French army were brought back to Europe in English ships, and the negroes established their semi-barbarous Republic of Hayti (1804).