The Uses of Peace — General Zeal for Reform — The First Consul's Diligence — State Control of the Church — Bonaparte and the Pope — The Organic Articles — Establishment of the Prefectures — The Bank of France — Its Successes — Funding of the Public Debt.

With this general pacification there was widespread contentment. Addington thought the peace would be no ordinary one, but a true reconciliation of the first two nations of the world. The continental dynasties believed that at last the expansion of liberal France had been curbed. The French themselves could not restrain their joy at the prospect of a new social and political structure sufficiently commodious for the exercise of their awakened energies, sufficiently strong to command respect from enemies at home and abroad. The builders were already at work before the ground was fairly cleared; the regeneration of French institutions which has indissolubly linked the name of Napoleon with the life of modern Europe was under way before the peace negotiations were concluded.

1800—01

The master workman found at his disposal two most important conditions: a clean tablet so far as the monarchical and revolutionary systems were concerned, and a great body of able and educated men anxious to coöperate with him. Their aim, like his, was to make the nation strong and illustrious. But for them the Revolution, confined in their minds to France, was over; while for him, viewing it as a European movement, it was in full operation. Whether they were royalists like Dufresne, or Girondists like Defermon, or radicals like Fourcroy, or moderates like Regnault and Roederer, or pardoned anti-Fructidorians like Portalis and Barbé-Marbois, they were all alike animated with zeal for a strong national life. But Bonaparte and a few of his intimates looked on renovated French nationality as only the means to a further end. In a pamphlet review of the situation, written in 1801, Hauterive declared that the rotten European structure resting on the balance of power had been overthrown by the wars of France, which was now, by her military and financial strength, and by the principles of her government, ready and able to make the beginning in a peaceful and prosperous federation of nations. This was the revolutionary program in another form: under the new conditions of French organization it eventually developed into a scheme of European empire, in which a modernized and glorified reproduction of Charles the Great, a French Charlemagne, was the central figure.

Careful students of the life and labors of Bonaparte can scarcely believe that human power could accomplish what he had already done. His activity as strategist and general, as statesman and administrator, had hitherto been fabulous: in the first years of the Consulate it was simply doubled. To the minutest detail, every department of the rising state received his attention, more or less complete as occasion required. During the year 1801 the ablest observers in the country, having been assigned one to each of the military divisions into which the land was divided, were occupied in compiling comprehensive reports to serve as a basis for legislation. These papers took into consideration finance, the army, the administration, public instruction, the alms-houses, the roads and canals, commerce and industry, the public temper—in short, everything which concerned the well-being of the people. They were the material of Bonaparte's studies, and for the most part he mastered them. In this work he utterly discarded the theory and ideals of the revolutionists; the romance was ended, history must begin, he said. To govern France as it is, to forget France as it had just been; to discard the type unit of humanity, to deal with the real man in every station; to scorn generalities, to assemble details; to abandon possibilities, to secure actualities,—this was the trend of his mind; the practical, the useful, the working machine were his goal. At this task he often toiled fourteen hours a day, never less than ten, and in his secretary Maret he had a minister as indefatigable as himself, able to catch every thought and suggestion, to amplify and execute every order, to coördinate the activity of his chief with all the subordinate branches of the government. As a consequence, there is not one of the great structures which combine in the logical unity of French life as it exists to-day that did not receive the impress of the First Consul's colossal mind.

For example, the Roman Church, which he had brought again to life, comprised in equal numbers prelates who had accepted and those who had refused the "civil constitution" of the republic. To impress the imagination of the people, a service in honor of the Concordat was celebrated at Notre Dame. Augereau and a number of his friends asked to be excused from attendance, but were compelled to be present. The First Consul went, with all the style—coaches, harness, lackeys, and the like—which had been used by the Bourbon kings. But, after all, it was a Napoleon Bonaparte and not a Louis Capet who was the personage, and the remark attributed to an old general, whether correctly or not, is utterly inapt—that everything had been restored except the two million Frenchmen who had died for liberty. The difference was great. For instance, a priest who had refused the rites of burial to a dancer was removed from office for three months, in order that he might reflect how Jesus Christ "prayed even for his enemies." Could anything have been more antipodal to the state of things as it had been in 1762 and 1766, when the cases of Calas, Sirven, and Labarre, innocent men, done to cruel, unmerited death by the connivance of church and state, enabled Voltaire to launch his first thunderbolt on the devoted system of the ancient monarchy so abhorrent to all intelligence and so opposed to righteousness?

The Pope, moreover, was compelled to prohibit those who offended the First Consul from residing at Rome, and when he suggested that compensation should be made for the loss of Avignon, and that the legations Bologna, Ferrara, and Romagna should be restored,—not, of course, in return for the Concordat, which would savor of simony, but as the proof of a heart magnanimous, wise, and just,—the First Consul gravely forwarded to Rome the mortal remains of Pius VI, which had so far rested in the common cemetery at Valence. Bonaparte is credibly reported to have said ironically that the Concordat was the vaccine of religion: in fifty years there would be no more in France. The army openly expressed its contempt for the arrangement, the council of state tittered when announcement was made that the Pope's ban was withdrawn from Talleyrand, and for a long time the public ministrations of a clergy which was called "a consecrated constabulary" were not taken seriously by the multitude. A century has failed to restore in France the consideration which even scoffers felt for the hierarchy antecedent to the Concordat; nay, more, the First Consul's augury has been largely fulfilled; but on the other hand, the former bitterness has never since been equaled.

Bonaparte's innermost thoughts were not at the time revealed; if indeed he had a clear and definite idea of his policy. Later explanations are, however, probable interpretations. Protestantism is at once sectarian and individualistic in its tendencies, Romanism makes for central unified control, secular as well as religious. The restorer of Romanism in France found consideration throughout Roman Europe for his later plans of imperial expansion. The clerical or white police of France was a model for the like institution elsewhere, as the military or black police of France became the basis of armed force everywhere. But the degree of spiritual mission yielded to the Pope was measured with a hand as sparing as that which doled scanty stipends to archbishops and bishops, now a prelacy of public functionaries which had once been princely in its incomes. Furthermore, the organic articles, which were nothing more nor less than consular decrees, were unsparing in their use of the police power for the control of public worship. No bull nor ecumenical ordinance was valid in France, no council nor synod could assemble within its borders unless authorized by government, nor could a prelate leave his diocese without its assent, even though summoned to Rome by the Pope. The temporalities of the church were in the hands of the state. Galled by such pitiless restrictions, the hierarchy winced and cried out, but France has remained inexorable. Later the cults of both the Protestants and the Jews were similarly organized.

On February seventh, 1800, were promulgated the measures which still control departmental administration in France, the law which virtually revived the Bourbon system of intendants, imposing on the country that rigorous hierarchical-political centralization which no succeeding government—royalist, imperial, or republican—has been willing to dispense with. Working in coöperation with the wonderful social system of private life, it minimizes the consequences of political revolutions, and preserves the identity of France. Each local administration was a consulate in miniature. Every department had its prefect, every arrondissement its subprefect, every commune its mayor. These officials were all appointed by the executive, and were subordinate to the minister of the interior. Each had an advising associate appointed from the electoral lists; and the various councils, some likewise appointed, some, however, elected, were in ordinary times only the registers of the decrees sent down from above. Before these measures were put into operation, neither country roads nor city streets were safe, and brigandage was rife to the very gates of Paris. The courts of law were disorganized, the police undisciplined, and local government for the most part was a farce. Within two years the whole machine was working smoothly throughout the length and breadth of the land. Public order was restored, life and property were safe, industry was guaranteed in its rewards, and the productive energy of the people was unhampered by the fear of injustice or by the uncertainty of possession. This transformation made the institution tolerable to the Frenchmen of Napoleon's time, but thoughtful men understand to-day that it annihilated liberty under the Consulate and Empire, and that it still has undiminished possibilities as an instrument of oppression.

It is significant that the great measure which went hand in hand with this one was a true reform of the most vital nature. On January eighteenth, 1800, was founded the Bank of France. The monarchy in its straits had issued bills with no security; the Convention and the Directory also flooded the country with worthless paper, although they assumed to find an adequate collateral in the domains of the crown and of the emigrants, which were seized and held as national property. But war and internal strife destroyed the value of these lands, and in 1795 a gold livre was worth seventy-five in paper, while a year later the price had risen to three hundred and forty. The Directory had recourse to forced loans and the statutory regulation of values, but to no avail: at the close of their career the public lands, except a small part estimated to be worth four hundred million francs, had all passed into private hands at a price about one hundredth of their estimated value. The greediest usury, the most disgraceful speculation, had been universal, and of all those who had owned property in any shape in 1785 there was scarcely one who was not reduced to beggary, while, with numerous exceptions of course, adventurous men of doubtful character were now the landed proprietors and controlling capitalists. The public creditors had seen their obligations legally scaled to a nominal value of one third the face, payable in paper, and these bonds were almost worthless. Under such conditions it was not remarkable that the collection of taxes even by the use of force had become well-nigh impossible. The amount of arrears on the eighteenth of Brumaire was eleven hundred million francs. The Directory and, for a time, the Consulate subsisted on contributions levied on conquered states.