Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume II.

by Walter Scott

The spirit of France must have been much broken when this arbitrary system was adopted without debate or contradiction; and, when we remember the earlier period of 1789, it is wonderful to consider how, in the space of ten years, the race of men, whose love of liberty carried them to such extravagances, seems to have become exhausted. Personal safety was now a principal object with most. They saw no alternative between absolute submission to a military chief of talent and power, and the return to anarchy and new revolutionary excesses.

During the sitting of Buonaparte's Legislative Committee, Madame de Staël expressed to a representative of the people, her alarms on the subject of liberty. "Oh, madam," he replied, "we are arrived at an extremity in which we must not trouble ourselves about saving the principles of the Revolution, but only the lives of the men by whom the Revolution was effected."[507]

Yet more than one exertion is said to have been made in the committee, to obtain some modification of the supreme power of the chief consul, or at least some remedy in case of its being abused. Several members of the committee which adjusted the new constitution, made, it is said, an effort to persuade Buonaparte, that, in taking possession of the office of supreme magistrate, without any preliminary election, he would evince an ambition which might prejudice him with the people; and, entreating him to be satisfied with the office of generalissimo of the armies, with full right of treating with foreign powers, invited him to set off to the frontier and resume his train of victories. "I will remain at Paris," said Buonaparte, biting his nails to the quick, as was his custom when agitated—"I will remain at Paris—I am chief consul."

Chenier hinted at adopting the doctrine of absorption, but was instantly interrupted—"I will have no such mummery," said Buonaparte; "blood to the knees rather."[508] These expressions may be exaggerated; but it is certain that, whenever there was an attempt to control his wishes, or restrict his power, such a discontented remark as intimated "that he would meddle no more in the business," was sufficient to overpower the opposition. The committee saw no option betwixt submitting to the authority of this inflexible chief, or encountering the horrors of a bloody civil war. Thus were lost at once the fruits of the virtues, the crimes, the blood, the treasure, the mass of human misery, which, flowing from the Revolution, had agitated France for ten years; and thus, having sacrificed almost all that men hold dear, the rights of humanity themselves included, in order to obtain national liberty, her inhabitants, without having enjoyed rational freedom, or the advantages which it ensures, for a single day, returned to be the vassals of a despotic government, administered by a chief whose right was only in his sword. A few reflections on what might or ought to have been Buonaparte's conduct in this crisis, naturally arise out of the subject.

We are not to expect, in the course of ordinary life, moral any more than physical miracles. There have lived men of a spirit so noble, that, in serving their country, they had no other object beyond the merit of having done so; but such men belong to a less corrupted age than ours, and have been trained in the principles of disinterested patriotism, which did not belong to France, perhaps not to Europe, in the eighteenth century. We may, therefore, take it for granted, that Buonaparte was desirous, in some shape or other, to find his own interest in the service of his country, that his motives were a mixture of patriotism and the desire of self-advancement; and it remains to consider in what manner both objects were to be best obtained.

The first alternative was the re-establishment of the Republic, upon some better and less perishable model than those which had been successively adopted and abandoned by the French, in the several phases of the Revolution. But Buonaparte had already determined against this plan of government, and seemed unalterably convinced, that the various misfortunes and failures which had been sustained in the attempt to convert France into a republic, afforded irrefragable evidence that her natural and proper constitutional government must be monarchical. This important point settled, it remained, 1st, To select the person in whose hand the kingly power was to be intrusted. 2dly, To consider in what degree the monarchical principle should be mingled with, and qualified by, securities for the freedom of the people, and checks against the encroachments of the prince.

Having broken explicitly with the Republicans, Buonaparte had it in his power, doubtless, to have united with those who desired the restoration of the Bourbons, who at this moment formed a large proportion of the better classes in France. The name of the old dynasty must have brought with it great advantages. Their restoration would have at once given peace to Europe, and in a great measure reconciled the strife of parties in France. There was no doubt of the possibility of the counter-revolution; for what was done in 1814 might have been still more easily done in 1799. Old ideas would have returned with ancient names, and at the same time security might have been given, that the restored monarch should be placed within such legal restraints as were necessary for the protection of the freedom of the subject. The principal powers of Europe, if required, would have gladly guaranteed to the French people any class of institutions which might have been thought adequate to this purpose.

But, besides that such a course cut off Buonaparte from any higher reward of his services, than were connected with the rank of a subject, the same objections to the restoration of the Bourbon family still prevailed, which we have before noticed. The extreme confusion likely to be occasioned by the conflicting claims of the restored emigrants, who had left France with all the feelings and prejudices peculiar to their birth and quality, and those of the numerous soldiers and statesmen who had arisen to eminence during the revolution, and whose pretensions to rank and office would be urged with jealous vehemence against those who had shared the fortunes of the exiled monarch, was a powerful objection to the restoration. The question concerning the national domains remained as embarrassing as before; for, while the sales which had been made of that property could scarce be cancelled without a severe shock to national credit, the restored Bourbons could not, on the other hand, fail to insist upon an indemnification to the spirituality, who had been stripped of their property for their adherence to their religious vows, and to the nobles, whose estates had been forfeited for their adherence to the throne. It might also have been found, that, among the army, a prejudice against the Bourbons had survived their predilection for the Republic, and that although the French soldiers might see with pleasure a crown placed on the brow of their favourite general, they might be unwilling to endure the restoration of the ancient race, against whom they had long borne arms.

THE CONSULATE.

All these objections against attempting to recall the ancient dynasty, have weight in themselves, and may readily have appeared insuperable to Buonaparte; especially considering the conclusion to be, that if the Bourbons were found ineligible, the crown of France—with a more extended empire, and more unlimited powers—was in that case to rest with Buonaparte himself. There is no doubt that, in preferring the title of the Bourbons, founded on right, to his own, which rested on force and opportunity alone, Buonaparte would have acted a much more noble, generous, and disinterested part, than in availing himself of circumstances to establish his own power; nay, that, philosophically speaking, such a choice might have been wiser and happier. But in the ordinary mode of viewing and acting in this world, the temptation was immense; and Buonaparte was, in some measure, unfettered by the circumstances which might have withheld some of his contemporaries from snatching at the crown that seemed to await his grasp. Whatever were the rights of the Bourbons, abstractedly considered, they were not of a kind to force themselves immediately upon the conscience of Buonaparte. He had not entered public life, was indeed a mere boy, when the general voice of France, or that which appeared such, drove the ancient race from the throne; he had acted during all his life hitherto in the service of the French government de facto; and it was hard to require of him, now of a sudden, to sacrifice the greatest stake which a man ever played for, to the abstract right of the king de jure. Candour will therefore allow, that though some spirits, of an heroic pitch of character, might, in his place, have acted otherwise, yet the conduct of Buonaparte, in availing himself, for his own advantage, of the height which he had attained by his own talents, was too natural a course of action to be loaded with censure by any one, who, if he takes the trouble to consider the extent of the temptation, must acknowledge in his heart the difficulty of resisting it.