In his personal capacity, the first consul possessed all the power which he desired, and a great deal more than, whether his own or the country's welfare was regarded, he ought to have wished for. His victories over the foes of France had, by their mere fame, enabled him to make himself master of her freedom. It remained to show—not whether Napoleon was a patriot, for to that honourable name he had forfeited all title when he first usurped unlimited power—but whether he was to use the power which he had wrongfully acquired, like Trajan or like Domitian. His strangely-mingled character showed traits of both these historical portraits, strongly opposed as they are to each other. Or rather, he might seem to be like Socrates in the allegory, alternately influenced by a good and a malevolent demon; the former marking his course with actions of splendour and dignity; while the latter, mastering human frailty by means of its prevailing foible, the love of self, debased the history of a hero, by actions and sentiments worthy only of a vulgar tyrant.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Different Views entertained by the English Ministers and the Chief Consul of the effects of the Treaty of Amiens—Napoleon, misled by the Shouts of a London Mob, misunderstands the Feelings of the People of Great Britain—His continued encroachments on the Independence of Europe—His conduct to Switzerland—Interferes in their Politics, and sets himself up, uninvited, as Mediator in their concerns—Ney enters Switzerland at the head of 40,000 men—The patriot, Reding, disbands his Forces, and is imprisoned—Switzerland is compelled to furnish France with a Subsidiary Army of 16,000 Troops—The Chief Consul adopts the title of Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Republic.
The eyes of Europe were now fixed on Buonaparte, as master of the destinies of the civilized world, which his will could either maintain in a state of general peace, or replunge into all the miseries of renewed and more inveterate war. Many hopes were entertained, from his eminent personal qualities, that the course in which he would direct them might prove as honourable to himself as happy for the nations over whom he now possessed such unbounded influence. The shades of his character were either lost amid the lustre of his victories, or excused from the necessity of his situation. The massacre of Jaffa was little known, was acted afar off, and might present itself to memory as an act of military severity, which circumstances might palliate, if not excuse.
Napoleon, supposing him fully satiated with martial glory, in which he had never been surpassed, was expected to apply himself to the arts of peace, by which he might derive fame of a more calm, yet not less honourable character. Peace was all around him, and to preserve it, he had only to will that it should continue; and the season seemed eminently propitious for taking the advice of Cineas to the King of Epirus, and reposing himself after his labours. But he was now beginning to show, that, from the times of Pyrrhus to his own, ambition has taken more pleasure in the hazards and exertions of the chase than in its successful issue. All the power which Buonaparte already possessed seemed only valuable in his eyes, as it afforded him the means of getting as much more; and, like a sanguine and eager gamester, he went on doubling his stakes at every throw, till the tide of fortune, which had so long run in his favour, at length turned against him, and his ruin was total. His ruling and predominating vice was ambition—we would have called it his only one, did not ambition, when of a character intensely selfish, include so many others.
It seems the most natural course, in continuing our history, first to trace those events which disappointed the general expectations of Europe, and after a jealous and feverish armistice of little more than a year, again renewed the horrors of war. We shall then resume the internal history of France and her ruler.
TREATY OF AMIENS.
Although the two contracting powers had been able to agree upon the special articles of the peace of Amiens, they possessed extremely different ideas concerning the nature of a state of pacification in general, and the relations which it establishes between two independent states. The English minister, a man of the highest personal worth and probity, entertained no doubt that peace was to have its usual effect, of restoring all the ordinary amicable intercourse betwixt France and England; and that, in matters concerning their mutual allies, and the state of the European republic in general, the latter country, on sheathing the sword, had retained the right of friendly counsel and remonstrance. Mr. Addington could not hope to restore the balance of Europe, for which so much blood had been spilled in the eighteenth century. The scales and beams of that balance were broken into fragments, and lay under the feet of Buonaparte. But Britain did not lie prostrate. She still grasped in her hand the trident of the ocean, and had by no event, in the late contest, been reduced to surrender the right of remonstrating against violence and injustice, and of protecting the feeble, as far as circumstances would still permit.
But Buonaparte's idea of the effects of the treaty of Amiens was very different. It was, according to his estimation, a treaty, containing every thing that Britain was entitled to expect on the part of herself and her allies, and the accepting of which excluded her from all farther right of interference in the affairs of Europe. It was like a bounding charter, which restricts the right of the person to whom it is granted to the precise limits therein described, and precludes the possibility of his making either claim or acquisition beyond them. All Europe, then, was to be at the disposal of France, and states created, dissolved, changed and rechanged at her pleasure, unless England could lay her finger on the line in the treaty of Amiens, which prohibited the proposed measure. "England," said the Moniteur, in an official tone, "shall have the treaty of Amiens, the whole treaty of Amiens, and nothing but the treaty of Amiens!" In this manner the treaty was, so far as England was concerned, understood to decide, and that in favour of France, all questions which could possibly arise in the course of future time between the two countries; while, in ordinary candour, and in common sense, it could be only considered as settling the causes of animosity between the parties, as they existed at the date of the pacification.