It is no doubt true, that, to raise these sums, Buonaparte had pillaged the old states, thus selling to the newly formed commonwealths their liberty and equality at a very handsome rate, and probably leaving them in very little danger of corruption from that wealth which is said to be the bane of republican virtue. But on the other hand, it must be acknowledged, that if the French general plundered the Italians as Cortez did the Mexicans, he did not reserve any considerable share of the spoil for his own use, though the opportunity was often in his power.
The commissary Salicetti, his countryman, recommended a less scrupulous line of conduct. Soon after the first successes in Italy, he acquainted Napoleon that the Chevalier d'Este, the Duke of Modena's brother and envoy, had four millions of francs, in gold, contained in four chests, prepared for his acceptance. "The Directory and the Legislative Bodies will never," he said, "acknowledge your services—your circumstances require the money, and the duke will gain a protector."
"I thank you," said Buonaparte; "but I will not for four millions place myself in the power of the Duke of Modena."
The Venetians, in the last agony of their terrors, offered the French general a present of seven millions, which was refused in the same manner. Austria also had made her proffers; and they were nothing less than a principality in the empire, to be established in Napoleon's favour, consisting of two hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants at least, a provision which would have put him out of danger of suffering by the proverbial ingratitude of a republic. The general transmitted his thanks to the Emperor for this proof of the interest which he took in his fortune, but added, he could accept of no wealth or preferment which did not proceed from the French people, and that he should be always satisfied with the amount of revenue which they might be disposed to afford him.[334]
But however free from the wish to obtain wealth by any indirect means, Napoleon appears to have expected, that in return for public services of such an unusual magnitude, some provision ought to have been made for him. An attempt was made to procure a public grant of the domain of Chambord, and a large hotel in Paris, as an acknowledgment of the national gratitude for his brilliant successes; but the Directory thwarted the proposal.
Nov. 5.
The proposition respecting Chambord was not the only one of the kind. Malibran, a member of the Council of Five Hundred, made a motion that Buonaparte should be endowed with a revenue at the public charge, of fifty thousand livres annually, with a reversion to his wife of one half of that sum.[335] It may be supposed that this motion had not been sufficiently considered and preconcerted, since it was very indifferently received, and was evaded by the swaggering declaration of a member,[336] that such glorious deeds could not be rewarded by gold. So that the Assembly adopted the reasonable principle, that because the debt of gratitude was too great to be paid in money, therefore he to whom it was due was to be suffered to remain in comparative indigence—an economical mode of calculation, and not unlike that high-sounding doctrine of the civil law, which states, that a free man being seized on, and forcibly sold for a slave, shall obtain no damages on that account, because the liberty of a citizen is too transcendently valuable to be put to estimation.
Whatever might be the motives of the Directory; whether they hoped that poverty might depress Buonaparte's ambition, render him more dependent on the government, and oblige him to remain in a private condition for want of means to put himself at the head of a party; or whether they acted with the indistinct and confused motives of little minds, who wish to injure those whom they fear, their conduct was alike ungracious and impolitic. They ought to have calculated, that a generous mind would have been attached by benefits, and that a selfish one might have been deterred from more doubtful and ambitious projects, by a prospect of sure and direct advantage; but that marked ill-will and distrust must in every case render him dangerous, who has the power to be so.
Their plan, instead of resting on an attempt to conciliate the ambitious conqueror, and soothe him to the repose of a tranquil indulgence of independence and ease, seems to have been that of devising for him new labours, like the wife of Eurystheus for the juvenile Hercules. If he succeeded, they may have privately counted upon securing the advantages for themselves; if he failed, they were rid of a troublesome rival in the race of power and popularity. It was with these views that they proposed to Napoleon to crown his military glories, by assuming the command of the preparations made for the conquest of England.