The Tuileries, however, blazed with candles and jewels; the extravagance and heartburnings of a court began at once. Thanks to Ségur, the exterior at least was gorgeous. That the cup of the aristocracy might overflow, the clemency of the Empire was first displayed in the pardon of all the nobles who had been implicated with Georges. The Emperor's first journey was in July to his camp at Boulogne, where a distribution of decorations and the swearing of allegiance by the army were made the occasion of a second magnificent ceremonial. The ancient Frankish warriors were accustomed to set up their kings on a stage formed of their own bucklers. Napoleon received the acclamations of his troops seated in an iron chair, which was said to have been Dagobert's, and gazing over the sea towards the cliffs of Albion.
On this notable journey, which was intended to have political as well as military significance, he was accompanied by Josephine. Her position was far from comfortable. As will be remembered, her husband when first in Italy had been disappointed in the expectation that she was soon to give him an heir, and her intrigues at Milan were the cause of frequent quarrels between them. Bonaparte had justified his public and scandalous association with a certain Mme. Fougé in Egypt by a suggestion that if he could but have a son he would marry the child's mother; the reconciliation of Brumaire was an act of expediency, and while it did a perfect work for the Consulate, the discussions which had been rife about the line of descent ever since the talk of empire had become general showed the instability of the relation between the imperial pair; even the formal regulations of the new constitution had inspired little confidence in the Beauharnais party. The new Empress, therefore, was the embodiment of meekness, but for the present she was, according to the old Roman formula, "Caia" where her husband was "Caius." Side by side, and apparently in perfect amity, they proceeded from Boulogne to Aachen, the ancient capital of Charles the Great, on the German frontier.
As if to mock the Roman and German claims of Francis, Napoleon and his consort held high court in that historic town, whose memories were redolent of European sway, and whose walls had been the bulwarks of that medieval Roman empire which, though itself an ineffective anachronism, was about to be renewed in modern guise. The dukes, princes, and kings of Germany, either in person or by their ambassadors, came to do homage; even Austria had a representative. Constantine had made a capital for his reunited empire by building a new Rome on the banks of the Bosporus; Paris and France could see how easily Napoleon might adopt a similar policy. They did observe, and not without dismay.
But while the princes of the earth were jostling each other to honor this new monarch of monarchs, the underground currents of feeling were doing his work. Already the "Empire" meant war; but the war so far was with England alone, and must necessarily be either a maritime conflict or else a costly and risky invasion. Pitt's return to power on May twelfth signified the resistance of a united Britain to Bonaparte and all his works: on her own soil, if necessary, but preferably by the renewal of the premier's old policy of continental coalition against France. It was the irony of fate that, thanks to the intricacies of party politics and the King's imbecility, the strong man was brought back to power with a contemptible and feeble cabinet. For the first, therefore, he could only fortify the island kingdom. Signs soon began to appear, however, that his enemy would meet him at least half-way in provoking a new coalition; the union of western Europe for war would give Napoleon the Emperor a new hold on France, that second string to his bow which he always intended to have by him, and of which he now had greater need than ever. Moreover, success would mean to him the immediate realization of a French empire so transcending the boundaries of France herself that men would forget the old nation in the splendors of a new inclusive French political organism, destructive of nationality as an influence in the world.
In July, Russia, whose ruler in reality had cared little for the death of Enghien, and was actuated by an unbounded ambition for Oriental empire, made a formal protest against France's foreign policy, demanding the evacuation of Naples and an indemnity for the King of Sardinia. Talleyrand replied roughly that France had asked no explanation of the suspicious death of the Emperor Paul; that Russia had naturalized notorious French emigrants; that she had sent to Paris in the person of Markoff a distasteful diplomat, who, by the sarcastic disdain of his manners, clearly showed his master's animus toward France; and that, moreover, she had occupied the Ionian Islands. "The Emperor of the French wants peace," said Talleyrand, "but with the aid of God and his armies he need fear no one." Taken in connection with certain high-handed acts already committed by Napoleon,—as, for example, the expulsion from their posts, by his command, of the English envoys at Stuttgart and Munich, who had imprudently plotted with Méhée de la Touche; and the much more arbitrary seizure at Hamburg of Rumbold, the recently appointed minister of England to Saxony, while on his way to assume his diplomatic duties,—these words of Talleyrand meant nothing less than defiance to the whole Continent, as well as to England. Russia had protested in vain against the violation of Baden's neutral territory by the seizure of Enghien; Prussia was successful in her remonstrance with regard to Rumbold, but in view of the continued occupation of Hanover by a strengthened French garrison, this scanty grace did not reassure her ministers.
These provocations seem to furnish cumulative evidence that the ostentatious preparations for invading England were little more than a feint. It may have been that, as ever, the colossal genius of the man who knew that he was a match in military strength for the whole Continent was making ready for either alternative. The romance of his imperial policy knew no bounds: thwarted in crossing the Channel, he might confirm his new position by overwhelming the coalition which, as a result of his conduct and of Pitt's time-honored policy, was sure to be formed at once; or, on the other hand, checked on the Continent, he might retrieve all by one crushing blow at England. But this is the most that can be conceded, even in view of his great preparations and his apparent earnestness.
The autumn of 1803 and the spring of 1804 had seen a steady development of resources at Boulogne. It was tentatively arranged that a French fleet of ten sail of the line under Latouche-Tréville should leave Toulon on July thirtieth as if to reoccupy Egypt, and thus tempt Nelson to follow with the hope of repeating his victory in the scenes of his former exploits. But the French admiral was to turn and appear at Rochefort on the Bay of Biscay, increase his armament by the addition to it of six first-rate vessels with a number of frigates, and then, by a long detour, arrive in the Strait of Dover, as if doubling Cape Clear from the West. "Masters of the Channel for six hours, we are masters of the world," wrote the Emperor. This scheme was thwarted by the untimely death of the admiral.
However, a much grander one was evolved in September. Napoleon's policy of conciliating Spain by gifts and promises to the Duke of Parma had made the queen of that country his friend, and her criminal intimacy with Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, being already notorious, both she and her paramour paid the price of toleration by abject servility. At the First Consul's nod Spain invaded and humiliated Portugal, whose ships had aided Nelson in the Levant, and whose fine harbors were invaluable to England. At the peace of Amiens he gave the Spanish colony of Trinidad to England without consulting its owner, and he sold Louisiana in utter disregard of the right of redemption reserved by Spain. He now forced his ally to a monstrous treaty whereby she was to keep Portugal neutral, and increase her subsidy to the exorbitant sum of six million francs a month. This alliance made Napoleon absolute master of the Spanish maritime resources, when, in December, 1804, as was inevitable, war broke out between England and Spain: he commenced even earlier to act as if the French mastery of the seas were to be not for six hours, but forever. A feverish activity began in all his dockyards and arsenals; press-gangs ranged the harbor cities and seized all available sailors, and in a few weeks the imperial marine was nearly doubled in ships, guns, and men. Its efficiency unfortunately diminished in the direct ratio of its unwieldy size. Villeneuve, the new commander at Toulon, though capable in many ways, was only too well aware of the utter demoralization in French naval affairs. He was consequently destitute of all enthusiasm, and shy of the task imposed upon him.
This mattered little, for his and the Rochefort squadron were now destined to sail for the West Indies separately, in order to draw away the English; incidentally they were to recover San Domingo, if possible, and to strengthen Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Santa Lucia. Ganteaume, the commander at Brest, was to bring out his squadron of twenty line-of-battle ships with Augereau and eighteen thousand men on board, sail westward half-way to Newfoundland as a feint, then, returning, land the soldiers in the north of Ireland, and, sailing thence, enter the Channel from the north to coöperate with the flotilla of invasion which, with great expense, had been got together at and near Boulogne. How little in earnest the Emperor was in this showy plan is evinced by his carefully studied letter of January sixteenth, 1805, in which he proposes attacking England in the East Indies with this same Brest squadron and a force of thirty thousand men. This proposition was seriously made even before Villeneuve had put to sea; it should not be considered as one of the occasional divagations which such a man may either claim as revealing a genuine state of mind, or which may be ridiculed by himself, and forgotten by others, as chimerical, according to the turn of affairs. The Rochefort squadron succeeded in passing the English blockaders, and reached Martinique in safety. Villeneuve left Toulon on January seventeenth, 1805, under cover of a storm, which he hoped to use in running from Nelson; but it so dispersed his ships as to make any concerted action impossible, and the separate vessels returned with some difficulty to their port of departure. Ganteaume did not even make an effort to run the English blockade before Brest.
Three months later a third preposterous scheme for mystifying England was divulged, the Indian expedition being held still in reserve. This time the apparent object was to effect a union of all the French naval forces in the West Indies, and orders were given accordingly. Thence under the command of Villeneuve the vast fleet, forty ships of the line, should return, by the tremendous detour around Scotland and through the North Sea to sweep the Channel clear and keep it so until the flotilla of transports could cross. The whole scheme has been stigmatized as a landsman's conception. In fact, viewed as a serious design, it makes every quality of Napoleon's mind the reverse of what it really was. The monstrous expense of sustaining for such a length of time, and without the usual war indemnities, both a fleet and a large army entirely disproportionate to the demands of invasion; the theatrical character of all these arrangements; the apparent carelessness of indefinite delay; the calmness with which the news of Trafalgar was heard by the great captain—all these are considerations which cumulatively lead to the conclusion that he was in earnest neither with the maritime campaign nor with the invasion, and that his real armament was the costly land force which was prepared for the purpose of conquering Austria, the enemy against whom, in the following year, it was actually used; while the naval armament, including the Boulogne flotilla, was intended to prevent, as it did, the active interference of England to destroy his own so-called blockade of the continental ports, and thereby to renew her commerce.