From this period begins the departure from the external signs of republican simplicity. The First Consul was no longer Citizen Bonaparte, but Napoleon Bonaparte; the anniversary of his birth was celebrated by a ministerial decree. Like a sovereign the new ruler had his civil list, and in his residence, the Tuileries, he began to display the ostentatious character of court life. Military dress was abandoned, and it began to be the fashion again to wear one’s hair in a cue and to use powder, although the First Consul still appeared with his own hair dressed in the revolutionary manner. Josephine took much interest in reorganizing her household after the model of the old régime; in the exercise of her taste she was allowed to go far, but it was remarked that women had no political influence in the new court.
Judged by contemporary opinion, one of the plainest steps taken by Bonaparte towards a monarchy was the inauguration of the Legion of Honor, having at its head the First Consul, assisted by a great council, subordinate to which there were 1500 posts, each with 27 officers of various degrees, and 350 legionaries. This institution, which was endowed by national funds, was composed of members distinguished by their services to the Republic either as soldiers or as civilians. They pledged themselves among other things to oppose any enterprise tending to re-establish the feudal system, or proposing to reproduce the titles and the characteristics by which feudalism was marked, and to do everything in their power to maintain liberty and equality.
But these republican sentiments did not protect the measure from criticism. It was opposed both in the Council of State and in the Tribunate, where there was only a majority of sixteen in its favor when it was finally passed. Even the Legislative Body made difficulties, as is seen in their recorded vote of 170 for and 110 against. But it was not only from such shadows of representative government as were still permitted to linger on, that opposition came to Bonaparte’s personal rule. Moreau, the hero of the Hohenlinden campaign, was known to have sturdy republican sentiments. Moreover, there was Bernadotte, the commander of the eastern army, who was openly discontented and was supposed by many to have instigated a plot against the First Consul at Rennes. There were, indeed, a series of military plots at this time, but the knowledge of their existence was suppressed by the government, whose object it was to impress on public opinion at home and abroad the popularity of the consular system.
The Legislative Body and the Tribunate busied themselves with subordinate affairs such as laws governing the practice of medicine and the organization of a notary public system. In the Senate the hand of the First Consul was seen in the liberal financial provisions for certain senators, who were allowed a suitable house and 25,000 francs annual income. Of course the selection of the beneficiaries of these favors was left to the First Consul. There was no reluctance in voting money and troops for the defense of the state, for by this time Bonaparte’s personal policy and the national interests were closely identified.
This feeling of loyalty was all the more intensified when, after war broke out again with England, the British government took a hand in encouraging the schemes of various royalist groups. Among these were some irreconcilable survivors of the Vendéan insurrection, led by Cadoudal, who planned to remove Bonaparte by assassination, after which it was assumed that a Bourbon restoration would follow as a matter of course. Pichegru, an old revolutionary general, was an accomplice, and the conspirators made an effort to secure the coöperation of Moreau, but failed. Learning through his spies of this invitation, and glad of a plea to rid himself of a rival, Bonaparte had Moreau arrested, though he knew his innocence, and instigated a bitter press campaign against him. Police agents encouraged the plot, hoping that some of the Bourbon princes, certain of its success, might cross from England to France, in expectation of Bonaparte’s death.
In this atmosphere of plots, Bonaparte seems to have lost his head, and to have descended to the weapons of revenge handed down among the clansmen of his native island when they settled their domestic feuds. One member of the Bourbon house was from this point of view as good as any other, when it was a question of proving the capacity of the government to deal with its monarchical enemies. The nearest victim was selected for a stroke worthy of Cæsar Borgia—the Duke d’Enghien, a distant relative of the direct heirs of the old monarchy, who had been living quietly for two years at Ettenheim in Baden. A detachment of dragoons was sent across the frontier, into the territory of a small state, at peace with France, and arrested the young prince, March 15, 1804. The papers that were found showed clearly that the Duke was not involved in the plot in any way, but in spite of this evidence of non-culpability, he was tried by a commission made up of colonels of the regiments of the Paris garrison.
The prisoner was shot six days after his arrest, the sentence being executed at the château of Vincennes. Though freed from any complicity in the Pichegru plot, the Duke d’Enghien had tried to enter the service of England against France; he had also fought against the French Republic as an émigré, so whatever may be said in criticism of the abject subservience of the officers who acted as judges in the court-martial, it must be remembered that the law of the revolutionary period, by which the death penalty was inflicted upon any Frenchman engaged in open warfare against his country, had never been abrogated. Probably it was to this justification of his act that Napoleon referred when he refused to listen to Josephine’s entreaties in behalf of the Bourbon prince. “I am,” he said, “a man of the State. I am the French Revolution, and I shall uphold it.” These words were spoken in a moment of typical exaltation. After many years had passed he commented in the following way on his action: “The deserved death of the Duc d’Enghien hurt Napoleon in public opinion, and was of no use to him politically.” There soon followed a report of Pichegru’s suicide in his prison, a way of accounting for his death which, after the execution of the Bourbon Duke, it was hard to accept as satisfactory. Many believed that he was assassinated at Bonaparte’s command because the publicity of an open trial was dreaded.
V
THE INAUGURATION OF THE EMPIRE
From the excitement caused by these conspiracies came the movement which led to the inauguration of the empire. Petitions were drawn up asking that the consulate should be made hereditary in the Bonaparte family; there was considerable reluctance in using explicitly the word “empire,” and there was much wavering and intrigue before a member of the Tribunate, Curie, offered a resolution on the 23rd of April, 1804, according to the terms of which Napoleon Bonaparte, the then First Consul, should be declared Emperor of the French, and the imperial dignity should remain hereditary in his family. Carnot was the only member who argued against the change, but his plea in behalf of a régime of liberty found no supporters, though he pointed out in frank language that the movement in favor of hereditary monarchy was fictitious, because freedom of the press no longer existed. The Senate acted quickly on the motion from the one popular body that now was in session, for the Legislative Body was adjourned. A decree establishing the imperial constitution was passed on May 18, 1804. The measure was to be submitted to popular approval, but from the date of its passage Bonaparte received the title of Emperor of the French, and the empire actually came into existence. The international situation played a considerable part in forcing the abandonment of the few remaining vestiges of a republican system. Bonaparte had no desire to maintain for any length of time the pose of an apostle of peace, which for the sake of popularity he had assumed, while the negotiations at Amiens were in progress. England, too, had no wish to fulfil the engagements of that treaty, by which her power would be diminished. She was interested in keeping both Malta and Alexandria, and her promise of non-intervention on the Continent was very liberally interpreted by her government.
In the light of Bonaparte’s own policy a strict interpretation of engagements would have been indeed a counsel of perfection, for his plans for the expansion of France were not modeled on the traditions of the eighteenth-century system of balance of power. He had schemes for controlling the Mississippi valley, and he also elaborated a revival of French colonial policy in which the possession of San Domingo was the chief factor. When the revolted slaves of that island made it impossible for the French troops to keep French administration intact, Bonaparte gave up the enterprise, and sold Louisiana to the United States for 80,000,000 francs. French agents and officers were sent to the east of the Mediterranean and to India, with instructions obviously intended to work for the downfall of British power and influence. Only a month after the treaty of Amiens was signed, General Decaen, notorious for his Anglophobia, was despatched to India, with secret instructions to get into touch with the Indian princes who were hostile to England’s rule, with the object of forming an alliance among them. Moreover, the official government paper, the Moniteur, took no pains to disguise the intention of the First Consul to organize, on the first opportunity, a second expedition for the conquest of Egypt.