VARIOUS CHANGES.
We have noticed that one of the first acts of the Provisional Government had been to new-modify the national oath, and generalize its terms, so that they should be no longer confined to the constitution of the year Three, but should apply to that which was about to be framed, or to any other which might be produced by the same authority.[520] Two subsequent alterations in the constitution, which passed without much notice, so much was the revolutionary or republican spirit abated, tended to show that farther changes were impending, and that the Consular Republic was speedily to adopt the name, as it already had the essence, of a monarchy. It was scarcely three months since the President of the Directory had said to the people, on the anniversary of the taking of the Bastile,—"Royalty shall never raise its head again. We shall no more behold individuals boasting a title from Heaven, to oppress the earth with more ease and security, and who considered France as their private patrimony, Frenchmen as their subjects, and the laws as the expression of their good-will and pleasure." Yet now, in contradiction to this sounding declamation, the national oath, expressing hatred to royalty, was annulled, under the pretext that the Republic, being universally acknowledged, had no occasion for the guard of such disclamations.
In like manner, the public observance of the day on which Louis XVI. had suffered decapitation, was formally abolished. Buonaparte, declining to pass a judgment on the action as just, politic, or useful, pronounced that, in any event, it could only be regarded as a national calamity, and was therefore in a moral, as well as a political sense, an unfit epoch for festive celebration. An expression of the first consul to Siêyes was also current at the same time, which, although Buonaparte may not have used it, has been generally supposed to express his sentiments. Siêyes had spoken of Louis under the established phrase of the Tyrant. "He was no tyrant," Buonaparte replied; "had he been such, I should have been a subaltern officer of artillery, and you, Monsieur l'Abbé, would have been still saying mass."[521]
A third sign of approaching change, or rather of the approaching return to the ancient system of government under a different chief, was the removal of the first consul from the apartments in the Luxembourg palace, occupied by the directors, to the royal residence of the Tuileries. Madame de Staël beheld the entrance of this fortunate soldier into the princely residence of the Bourbons. He was already surrounded by a vassal crowd, eager to pay him the homage which the inhabitants of those splendid halls had so long claimed as their due, that it seemed to be consistent with the place, and to become the right of this new inhabitant. The doors were thrown open with a bustle and violence, expressive of the importance of the occasion. But the hero of the scene, in ascending the magnificent staircase, up which a throng of courtiers followed him, seemed totally indifferent to all around, his features bearing only a general expression of indifference to events, and contempt for mankind.[522]
The first measures of Buonaparte's new government, and the expectation attached to his name, had already gone some length in restoring domestic quiet; but he was well aware that much more must be done to render that quiet permanent; that the external relations of France with Europe must be attended to without delay; and that the French expected from him either the conclusion of an honourable peace, or the restoration of victory to their national banners. It was necessary, too, that advances towards peace should in the first place be made, in order, if they were unsuccessful, that a national spirit should be excited, which might reconcile the French to the renewal of the war with fresh energy.
LETTER TO THE KING OF ENGLAND.
Hitherto, in diplomacy, it had been usual to sound the way for opening treaties of peace by obscure and almost unaccredited agents, in order that the party willing to make propositions might not subject themselves to a haughty and insulting answer, or have their desire of peace interpreted as a confession of weakness. Buonaparte went into the opposite extreme, and addressed the King of England in a personal epistle. This Letter,[523] like that to the Archduke Charles, during the campaign of 1797, intimates Buonaparte's affectation of superiority to the usual forms of diplomacy, and his pretence to a character determined to emancipate itself from rules only designed for mere ordinary men. But the manner of the address was in bad taste, and ill calculated to obtain credit for his being sincere in the proposal of peace. He was bound to know so much of the constitutional authority of the monarch whom he addressed, as to be aware that George III. would not, and could not, contract any treaty personally, but must act by the advice of those ministers whose responsibility was his guarantee to the nation at large. The terms of the letter set forth, as usual, the blessings of peace, and urged the propriety of its being restored; propositions which could not admit of dispute in the abstract, but which admit much discussion when coupled with unreasonable or inadmissible conditions.
The answer transmitted by Lord Grenville, in the forms of diplomacy, to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, dwelt on the aggressions of France, declared that the restoration of the Bourbons would have been the best security for their sincerity, but disavowed all right to dictate to France in her internal concerns. Some advances were made to a pacific treaty; and it is probable that England might at that period have obtained the same or better terms than she afterwards got by the treaty of Amiens. It may be added, that the moderate principles expressed by the consular government, might, in the infancy of his power, and in a moment of considerable doubt, have induced Buonaparte to make sacrifices, to which, triumphant and established, he would not condescend. But the possession of Egypt, which Buonaparte must have insisted on, were it only for his own reputation, was likely to be an insuperable difficulty. The conjuncture also appeared to the English ministers propitious for carrying on the war. Italy had been recovered, and the Austrian army, to the number of 140,000, were menacing Savoy, and mustering on the Rhine. Buonaparte, in the check received before Acre, had been found not absolutely invincible. The exploits of Suwarrow over the French were recent, and had been decisive. The state of the interior of France was well known; and it was conceived, that though this successful general had climbed into the seat of supreme power which he found unoccupied, yet that two strong parties, of which the Royalists objected to his person, the Republicans to his form of government, could not fail, the one or other, to deprive him of his influence.
The treaty was finally broken off, on the score that there was great reason to doubt Buonaparte's sincerity; and supposing that were granted, there was at least equal room to doubt the stability of a power so hastily acknowledged, and seeming to contain in itself the principles of decay. There may be a difference of opinion in regard to Buonaparte's sincerity in the negotiation, but there can be none as to the reality of his joy at its being defeated. The voice which summoned him to war was that which sounded sweetest in his ears, since it was always followed by exertion and by victory. He had been personally offended, too, by the allusion to the legitimate rights of the Bourbons, and indulged his resentment by pasquinades in the Moniteur. A supposed letter from the last descendant of the Stuart family appeared there, congratulating the King of Britain on his acceding to the doctrine of legitimacy, and summoning him to make good his principles, by an abdication of his crown in favour of the lineal heir.[524]
EXTERNAL SITUATION OF FRANCE.