CHAPTER XVII.
Clemency of the New Consulate—Beneficial change in the Finances—Law of Hostages repealed—Religious liberty allowed—Improvements in the War Department—Pacification of La Vendée—Ascendancy of Napoleon—Disappointment of Siêyes—Committee formed to consider Siêyes' Plan of a Constitution—Rejected as to essentials—A new one adopted, monarchical in every thing but form—Siêyes retires from public life—General view of the new Government—Despotic Power of the First Consul.
The victory obtained over the Directory and the democrats, upon the 18th and 19th Brumaire, was generally acceptable to the French nation. The feverish desire of liberty, which had been the characteristic of all descriptions of persons in the year 1792, was quenched by the blood shed during the Reign of Terror; and even just and liberal ideas of freedom had so far fallen into disrepute, from their resemblance to those which had been used as a pretext for the disgusting cruelties perpetrated at that terrible period, that they excited from association a kind of loathing as well as dread. The great mass of the nation sought no longer guarantees for metaphysical rights, but, broken down by suffering, desired repose, and were willing to submit to any government which promised to secure to them the ordinary benefits of civilisation.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
Buonaparte and Siêyes—for, though only during a brief space, they may still be regarded as joint authorities—were enabled to profit by this general acquiescence, in many important particulars. It put it in their power to dispense with the necessity of pursuing and crushing their scattered adversaries; and the French saw a revolution effected in their system, and that by military force, in which not a drop of blood was spilt. Yet, as had been the termination of most recent revolutions, lists of proscription were prepared; and without previous trial or legal sentence, fifty-nine of those who had chiefly opposed the new Consulate on the 18th and 19th Brumaire were condemned to deportation by the sole fiat of the consuls. Siêyes is said to have suggested this unjust and arbitrary measure, which, bearing a colour of revenge and persecution, was highly unpopular. It was not carried into execution. Exceptions were at first made in favour of such of the condemned persons as showed themselves disposed to be tractable; and at length the sentence was altogether dispensed with, and the more obnoxious partisans of democracy were only placed under the superintendence of the police.[490] This conduct showed at once conscious strength, and a spirit of clemency, than which no attributes can contribute more to the popularity of a new government; since the spirit of the opposition, deprived of hope of success, and yet not urged on by despair of personal safety, gradually becomes disposed to sink into acquiescence. The democrats, or, as they were now termed, the anarchists, became intimidated, or cooled in their zeal; and only a few of the more enthusiastic continued yet to avow those principles, to breathe the least doubt of which had been, within but a few months, a crime worthy of death.
Other and most important decrees were adopted by the consuls, tending to lighten the burdens which their predecessors had imposed on the nation, and which had rendered their government so unpopular. Two of the most oppressive measures of the directors were repealed without delay.
The first referred to the finances, which were found in a state of ruinous exhaustion, and were only maintained by a system of compulsory and progressive loans, according to rates of assessment on the property of the citizens. The new minister of finance, Gaudin,[491] would not even go to bed, or sleep a single night, until he had produced a substitute for this ruinous resource, for which he levied an additional rise of twenty-five per cent. on all contributions, direct and indirect, which produced a large sum. He carried order and regularity into all the departments of finance, improved the collection and income of the funds of the Republic, and inspired so much confidence by the moderation and success of his measures, that credit began to revive, and several loans were attained on easy terms.
The repeal of the law of hostages was a measure equally popular. This cruel and unreasonable enactment, which rendered the aged and weak, unprotected females, and helpless children of emigrants, or armed royalists, responsible for the actions of their relatives, was immediately mitigated. Couriers were despatched to open the prisons; and this act of justice and humanity was hailed as a pledge of returning moderation and liberality.
Important measures were also taken for tranquillizing the religious discord by which the country had been so long agitated. Buonaparte, who had lately professed himself more than half persuaded of the truth of Mahommed's mission, became now—such was the decree of Providence—the means of restoring to France the free exercise of the Christian faith. The mummery of Reveillière Lepaux's heathenism was by general consent abandoned. The churches were restored to public worship; pensions were allowed to such religious persons as took an oath of fidelity to the government; and more than twenty thousand clergymen, with whom the prisons had been filled, in consequence of intolerant laws, were set at liberty upon taking the same vow. Public and domestic rites of worship in every form were tolerated and protected; and the law of the decades, or Theophilanthropic festivals, was abolished. Even the earthly relics of Pope Pius VI., who had died at Valence, and in exile, were not neglected, but received, singular to relate, the rites of sepulture with the solemnity due to his high office, by command of Buonaparte,[492] who had first shaken the Papal authority; and in doing so, as he boasted in his Egyptian proclamations, had destroyed the emblem of Christian worship.
The part taken by Cambacérès, the minister of justice, in the revolution of Brumaire, had been agreeable to Buonaparte; and his moderation now aided him in the lenient measures which he had determined to adopt. He was a good lawyer, and a man of sense and information, and under his administration means were taken to relax the oppressive severity of the laws against the emigrants. Nine of them, noblemen of the most ancient families in France, had been thrown on the coast near Calais by shipwreck, and the directors had meditated bringing to trial those whom the winds and waves had spared, as fallen under the class of emigrants returned to France without permission, against whom the laws denounced the penalty of death. Buonaparte more liberally considered their being found within the prohibited territory, as an act, not of violation, but of inevitable necessity, and they were dismissed accordingly.[493]