Another law presented and accepted was a measure which destroyed all communal and local rights, and turned over the whole administration in town and country to prefects and sub-prefects, appointed by, and responsible to, the central government. Mayors, acting mayors, and town and county councilmen were all appointed by either the First Consul or his appointees, the prefects.
The body known as the Tribunate, which discussed the laws and gave its opinion upon them, and the Legislative Chamber, which voted upon them without discussion, adopted this measure, the first with a strong minority against it, who voiced, by vigorous speeches, their protests against the suppression of all liberty. But the press was muzzled, and there was general satisfaction because of the admirable selection made by Napoleon for the subordinate officials. The new administration was simple and effective, and had not yet shown the possibilities of tyranny it contained.
As to the First Consul, though he took up his residence in the Tuileries, there was no consular court; republican etiquette was observed, and the title of citizen was still retained. When the news of Washington’s death reached Paris, mourning was ordered in the name of the principles of liberty and equality. But the new tendencies were shown in the favor extended by the First Consul to men of strong monarchical sympathies. Napoleon, however, was soon occupied with more momentous questions than the discovery of fresh means to paralyze republican institutions in France.
After the withdrawal of Russia from the anti-French coalition,—a step which was due to the victories of Masséna,—Austria, England, and some of the lesser states of Italy and Germany, kept up the conflict. Bonaparte had no desire to see the war terminated, but he so far bowed to public sentiment as to write letters to the King of England and to Francis II, the Emperor, suggesting a cessation of hostilities. England refused to make peace except on the condition that the Bourbons should be restored, and Austria declined to take any action without the consent of her ally. The publication of the correspondence appealed to French patriotism, and the answer of the nation was a vote of 200,000 conscripts to carry on the war.
For the purpose of invading France, Austria had two armies in the field, each of 120,000 men. The French forces under Moreau and Masséna were told off to keep the Austrians in check in Germany and along the Italian Riviera; Bonaparte himself planned with a third army to drive them out of Italy, in a second campaign which was to be the replica of his first in Italy. Both Moreau and Masséna showed great capacity in carrying out the strategical plans assigned to them. Bonaparte gathered together an army of 60,000 and suddenly crossed the St. Bernard pass by a march in which the French engineers showed remarkable skill in overcoming the natural difficulties of the way. The commander-in-chief made the passage on the back of a mule, as many tourists still do, led by a peasant-guide of the neighborhood. On the top, the soldiers were hospitably received at the famous monastery. The chief problem was to get the artillery over, and this was done by dismounting the guns and fastening them within hollowed-out trunks of trees. They were then dragged along the precipitous path by relays of 100 men.
While the Austrian general, Melas, was looking for the French along the Riviera road, Bonaparte was making his entrance into Milan, where the stupid excesses of recent Austrian rule had made the population forget the more intelligent or subtle tyranny of the French conqueror. Instead of rescuing Masséna, who was suffering the extremities of a siege at Genoa, he preferred to leave him to his fate and to risk deciding the campaign by a pitched battle with an enemy much stronger in numbers than himself. These hazards were plainly seen in the engagement that followed at Marengo on June 14, 1800. Three times the French were forced to withdraw, and Melas was sending off couriers to announce his victory, when Desaix, who had been sent, the day before, to Novi to prevent a turning movement on the part of the Austrians, heard the cannonading and came to the aid of his leader. A fresh charge was made, and the ground that had been lost was regained. The first to fall was Desaix, the man who had saved the day. The effect of the victory was instantaneous, for the day afterward, Melas signed an armistice, by which warfare was to be stopped for five months, in which time the Austrians were to evacuate the whole of Italy as far as the Mincio.
When the war was resumed later, French successes continued, until finally the whole of the Italian peninsula was brought once more under French control. After Marengo, the decisive battle of the campaign, which brought Austria to sue for peace, was Moreau’s victory at Hohenlinden, the 2d of December, 1800, on which occasion the Austrians lost in killed and wounded 20,000 men. The victory brought forth from Bonaparte the public acknowledgment, made before the legislative body, that Hohenlinden was one of the finest achievements in history, and he also wrote to Moreau saying that he, Bonaparte himself, had been outdone. He afterwards criticised Moreau, and ascribed his victory to mere chance, saying that his opponent, the archduke, had shown greater strategical ability than the commander of the French army.
As the result of these various operations, came the peace of Lunéville, February, 1801, which marked the complete humiliation of Austria. In its main lines it followed the stipulations of Campo Formio, but it added the demand that the Dutch and Swiss republics should be recognized as states under French protection. Moreover, the Pope was allowed to retain some of his territory, and the King of Naples also benefited by Napoleon’s moderation towards monarchical governments.
England, now left alone as the sole enemy of France, had been enabled, by her control of the sea, to make a clean sweep of the French colonies. She acquired Malta, and forced the French to abandon Egypt. But English supremacy at sea was resented on the Continent, a league of neutrals was formed, and the Russian government showed distinct signs of drawing towards France, after the refusal of England to restore Malta to its ancient owners, the Knights of St. John. Portugal was detached from England, and Spain was brought into such friendly relations that she ceded to France the territory of Louisiana, which had been in her possession since 1763.
England’s isolation was unpopular at home because the enormous accumulation of war debts was dreaded, and the threats of Napoleon to invade the country were taken seriously, after he had established an armed camp at Boulogne. William Pitt, the soul of resistance to France, had left the government on account of differences over the Irish question. His successor, Addington, was not averse to coming to an agreement. After the signing of certain preliminaries in London the terms of peace, as the result of a five months’ discussion between Lord Cornwallis and Joseph Bonaparte at Amiens, took the form of a treaty named from that place on March 25, 1802, between France, Spain, and the Dutch republic on one side, and England on the other. Most of the colonial conquests made by England were restored to their owners. Egypt was returned to Turkey, and England agreed to return Malta to the Knights of St. John and at the same time undertook not to interfere in the internal affairs of Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and the Italian republics.