From the same spirit of politic clemency, La Fayette, Latour Maubourg, and others, who, although revolutionists, had been expelled from France for not carrying their principles of freedom sufficiently high and far, were permitted to return to their native country.
IMPROVEMENT IN WAR DEPARTMENT.
It may be easily believed that the military department of the state underwent a complete reform under the authority of Buonaparte. Dubois de Crancé, the minister at war under the directors, was replaced by Berthier; and Napoleon gives a strange picture of the incapacity of the former functionary. He declares he could not furnish a single report of the state of the army—that he had obtained no regular returns of the effective strength of the different regiments—that many corps had been formed in the departments, whose very existence was unknown to the minister at war; and, finally, that when pressed for reports of the pay, of the victualling, and of the clothing of the troops, he had replied, that the war department neither paid, clothed, nor victualled them. This may be exaggerated, for Napoleon disliked Dubois de Crancé[494] as his personal opponent; but the improvident and corrupt character of the directorial government renders the charge very probable. By the exertions of Berthier, accustomed to Buonaparte's mode of arrangements, the war department soon adopted a very different face of activity.[495]
The same department received yet additional vigour when the consuls called to be its head the celebrated Carnot, who had returned from exile, in consequence of the fall of the directors. He remained in office but a short time; for, being a democrat in principle, he disapproved of the personal elevation of Buonaparte; but during the period that he continued in administration, his services in restoring order in the military department and combining the plans of the campaign with Moreau and Buonaparte, were of the highest importance.
Napoleon showed no less talent in closing the wounds of internal war, than in his other arrangements. The Chouans, under various chiefs, had disturbed the western provinces; but the despair of pardon, which drove so many malecontents to their standard, began to subside, and the liberal and accommodating measures adopted by the new Consular government, induced most to make peace with Buonaparte. This they did the more readily, that many of them believed the chief consul intended by degrees, and when the opportunity offered, to accomplish the restoration of the Bourbons. Many of the chiefs of the Chouans submitted to him, and afterwards supported his government. Chatillon, Suzannet, D'Autichamp, nobles and chiefs of the Royalist army, submitted at Montluçon, and their reconciliation with the government, being admitted on liberal terms, was sincerely observed by them. Bernier, rector of St. Lo, who had great influence in La Vendée, also made his peace, and was afterwards made Bishop of Orleans by Buonaparte, and employed in negotiating the Concordat with the Pope.
Count Louis de Frotté, an enterprising and high-spirited young nobleman, refused for a long time to enter into terms with Buonaparte; so did another chief of the Chouans, called George Cadoudal, a peasant of the district of Morbihan, raised to the command of his countrymen, because, with great strength and dauntless courage, he combined the qualities of enterprise and sagacity. Frotté was betrayed and made prisoner in the house of Guidal, commandant at Alençon, who had pretended friendship to him, and had promised to negotiate a favourable treaty on his behalf. He and eight or nine of his officers were tried by a military commission, and condemned to be shot. They marched hand in hand to the place of execution, remained to the last in the same attitude, expressive of their partaking the same sentiments of devotion to the cause in which they suffered, and died with the utmost courage. George Cadoudal, left alone, became unable to support the civil war, and laid down his arms for a time. Buonaparte, whose policy it was to unite in the new order of things as many and as various characters as possible, not regarding what parts they had formerly played, provided they now attached themselves to his person, took great pains to gain over a man so resolute as this daring Breton. He had a personal interview with him, which he says George Cadoudal solicited; yet why he should have done so it is hard to guess, unless it were to learn whether Buonaparte had any ultimate purpose of serving the Bourbon interest. He certainly did not request the favour in order to drive any bargain for himself, since Buonaparte frankly admits, that all his promises and arguments failed to make any impression upon him; and that he parted with George, professing still to entertain opinions for which he had fought so often and so desperately.[496]
In another instance which happened at this period, Buonaparte boasts of having vindicated the insulted rights of nations. The Senate of Hamburgh had delivered up to England Napper Tandy, Blackwell, and other Irishmen, concerned in the rebellion which had lately wasted Ireland. Buonaparte took this up in a threatening tone, and expounded to their trembling envoy the rights of a neutral territory, in language, upon which the subsequent tragedy of the Duke d'Enghein formed a singular commentary.[497]
DISAPPOINTMENT OF SIÊYES.
While Buonaparte was thus busied in adopting measures for composing internal discord, and renewing the wasted resources of the country, those discussions were at the same time privately carrying forward, which were to determine by whom and in what way it should be governed. There is little doubt, that when Siêyes undertook the revolution of Brumaire, he would have desired for his military assistant a very different character from Buonaparte. Some general would have best suited him who possessed no knowledge beyond that of his profession, and whose ambition would have been contented to accept such share of power as corresponded to his limited views and capacity. The wily priest, however, saw that no other coadjutor save Buonaparte could have availed him, after the return of the latter from Egypt, and was not long of experiencing that Napoleon would not be satisfied with any thing short of the lion's share of the spoil.
Nov. 11.