CHAPTER XXI.
Internal Government of France—General Attachment to the Chief Consul—Plot to remove him by Assassination—Defeated—Vain hopes of the Royalists, that Napoleon would restore the Bourbons—Infernal Machine—It fails—Suspicion first falls on the Republicans—The actual Conspirators executed—Use made by Buonaparte of the Conspiracy to consolidate Despotism—System of Police—Fouché—His Skill, Influence, and Power—Apprehension entertained by the Chief Consul of the effects of Literature—Persecution of Madame de Staël—The Concordat—Plan for a general System of Jurisprudence—Amnesty granted to the Emigrants—Plans of Public Education—Hopes of a General Peace.
INTERNAL GOVERNMENT OF FRANCE.
We return to the internal government of France under the chief consul.
The events subsequent to the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, seemed to work a miraculous change on the French nation. The superior talents of Napoleon, with the policy exercised by Talleyrand and Fouché, and the other statesmen of ability whom he had called into administration, and who desired at all events to put an end to further revolutionary movements—but, above all, the victory of Marengo, had at once created and attached to the person of the chief consul an immense party, which might be said to comprehend all those, who, being neither decided Royalists nor determined Republicans, were indifferent about the form of the government, so they found ease and protection while living under it.[590]
But, on the other hand, the heads of the two factions continued to exist; and, as the power of the first consul became at once more absolute and more consolidated, it grew doubly hateful and formidable to them. His political existence was a total obstruction to the systems of both parties, and yet one which it was impossible to remove. There was no national council left, in which the authority of the first consul could be disputed, or his measures impeached. The strength of his military power bid defiance alike to popular commotions, if the Democrats had yet possessed the means of exerting them, and to the scattered bands of the Royalist insurgents. What chance remained for ridding themselves of the autocrat, in whom the Republicans saw a dictator, the Royalists an usurper? None, save that, being mortal, Napoleon was subject to be taken off by assassination.
PLOT TO ASSASSINATE THE FIRST CONSUL.
The Democrats were naturally the first to meditate an enterprise of this nature. The right of taking off a tyrant was, according to their creed, as proper to any private citizen as to those who opposed him armed in the field. The act of Harmodius and Aristogiton—the noble deed of Brutus and his associates—were consecrated in history, and esteemed so congenial to the nature of a free constitution, that the Convention, on the motion of Jean de Brie,[591] had at one time determined to raise a legion of assassins, armed with poniards, who should devote themselves to the pious task of exterminating all foreign princes, statesmen, and ministers—in short, all who were accounted the foes of freedom, without pity or distinction. In a party entertaining such principles, there could be no scruple on the score of morality; and where they had been so lately professed by thousands, it seemed natural that, amid the multitude, they must have made a deep impression on some enthusiastic and gloomy disposition, which might be easily provoked to act upon them.
Oct. 10.