A History of Modern Europe, 1792-1878 Part 9

Defeats on the Mincio, announced during the following days, increased the necessity for peace. Thugut was finally removed from power. Some resistance was offered to the conditions proposed by Bonaparte, but these were directed more to the establishment of French influence in Germany than to the humiliation of the House of Hapsburg. Little was taken from Austria but what she had surrendered at Campo Formio. It was not by the cession of Italian or Slavonic provinces that the Government of Vienna paid for Marengo and Hohenlinden, but at the cost of that divided German race whose misfortune it was to have for its head a sovereign whose interests in the Empire and in Germany were among the least of all his interests. The Peace of Luneville, [88] concluded between France and the Emperor on the 9th of February, 1801, without even a reference to the Diet of the Empire, placed the minor States of Germany at the mercy of the French Republic. It left to the House of Hapsburg the Venetian territory which it had gained in 1797; it required no reduction of the Hapsburg influence in Italy beyond the abdication of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; but it ceded to France, without the disguises of 1797, the German provinces west of the Rhine, and it formally bound the Empire to compensate the dispossessed lay Sovereigns in such a manner as should be approved by France. The French Republic was thus made arbiter, as a matter of right, in the rearrangement of the maimed and shattered Empire. Even the Grand Duke of Tuscany, like his predecessor in ejection, the Duke of Modena, was to receive some portion of the German race for his subjects, in compensation for the Italians taken from him. To such a pa.s.s had political disunion brought a nation which at that time could show the greatest names in Europe in letters, in science, and in art.

[Peace with Naples.]

[Russia turns against England.]

[Northern Maritime League, Dec., 1800.]

Austria having succ.u.mbed, the Court of Naples, which had been the first of the Allies to declare war, was left at the mercy of Bonaparte. Its cruelties and tyranny called for severe punishment; but the intercession of the Czar kept the Bourbons upon the throne, and Naples received peace upon no harder condition than the exclusion of English vessels from its ports.

England was now left alone in its struggle with the French Republic. Nor was it any longer to be a struggle only against France and its dependencies. The rigour with which the English Government had used its superiority at sea, combined with the folly which it had shown in the Anglo-Russian attack upon Holland, raised against it a Maritime League under the leadership of a Power which England had offended as a neutral and exasperated as an ally. Since the pitiful Dutch campaign, the Czar had transferred to Great Britain the hatred which he had hitherto borne to France. The occasion was skilfully used by Bonaparte, to whom, as a soldier, the Czar felt less repugnance than to the Government of advocates and contractors which he had attacked in 1799. The First Consul restored without ransom several thousands of Russian prisoners, for whom the Austrians and the English had refused to give up Frenchmen in exchange, and followed up this advance by proposing that the guardianship of Malta, which was now blockaded by the English, should be given to the Czar. Paul had caused himself to be made Grand Master of the Maltese Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His vanity was touched by Bonaparte's proposal, and a friendly relation was established between the French and Russian Governments.

England, on the other hand, refused to place Malta under Russian guardianship, either before or after its surrender. This completed the breach between the Courts of London and St. Petersburg. The Czar seized all the English vessels in his ports and imprisoned their crews (Sept. 9). A difference of long standing existed between England and the Northern Maritime Powers, which was capable at any moment of being made a cause of war. The rights exercised over neutral vessels by English ships in time of hostilities, though good in international law, were so oppressive that, at the time of the American rebellion, the Northern Powers had formed a league, known as the Armed Neutrality, for the purpose of resisting by force the interference of the English with neutral merchantmen upon the high seas. Since the outbreak of war with France, English vessels had again pushed the rights of belligerents to extremes. The Armed Neutrality of 1780 was accordingly revived under the auspices of the Czar. The League was signed on the 16th of December, 1800, by Russia, Sweden, and Denmark. Some days later Prussia gave in its adhesion. [89]

[Points at issue.]

The points at issue between Great Britain and the Neutrals were such as arise between a great naval Power intent upon ruining its adversary and that larger part of the world which remains at peace and desires to carry on its trade with as little obstruction as possible. It was admitted on all sides that a belligerent may search a neutral vessel in order to ascertain that it is not conveying contraband of war, and that a neutral vessel, attempting to enter a blockaded port, renders itself liable to forfeiture; but beyond these two points everything was in dispute. A Danish ship conveys a cargo of wine from a Bordeaux merchant to his agent in New York.

Is the wine liable to be seized in the mid-Atlantic by an English cruiser, to the destruction of the Danish carrying-trade, or is the Danish flag to protect French property from a Power whose naval superiority makes capture upon the high seas its princ.i.p.al means of offence? England announces that a French port is in a state of blockade. Is a Swedish vessel, stopped while making for the port in question, to be considered a lawful prize, when, if it had reached the port, it would as a matter of fact have found no real blockade in existence? A Russian cargo of hemp, pitch, and timber is intercepted by an English vessel on its way to an open port in France. Is the staple produce of the Russian Empire to lose its market as contraband of war? Or is an English man-of-war to allow material to pa.s.s into France, without which the repair of French vessels of war would be impossible?

[War between England and the Northern Maritime Powers, Jan., 1801.]

These were the questions raised as often as a firm of shipowners in a neutral country saw their vessel come back into port cleared of its cargo, or heard that it was lying in the Thames awaiting the judgment of the Admiralty Court. Great Britain claimed the right to seize all French property, in whatever vessel it might be sailing, and to confiscate, as contraband of war, not only muskets, gunpowder, and cannon, but wheat, on which the provisioning of armies depended, and hemp, pitch, iron, and timber, out of which the navies of her adversary were formed. The Neutrals, on the other hand, demanded that a neutral flag should give safe pa.s.sage to all goods on board, not being contraband of war; that the presence of a vessel of State as convoy should exempt merchantmen from search; that no port should be considered in a state of blockade unless a competent blockading force was actually in front of it; and that contraband of war should include no other stores than those directly available for battle.

Considerations of reason and equity may be urged in support of every possible theory of the rights of belligerents and neutrals; but the theory of every nation has, as a matter of fact, been that which at the time accorded with its own interests. When a long era of peace had familiarised Great Britain with the idea that in the future struggles of Europe it was more likely to be a spectator than a belligerent, Great Britain accepted the Neutrals' theory of international law at the Congress of Paris in 1856; but in 1801, when the lot of England seemed to be eternal warfare, any limitation of the rights of a belligerent appeared to every English jurist to contradict the first principles of reason. Better to add a general maritime war to the existing difficulties of the country than to abandon the exercise of its naval superiority in crippling the commerce of an adversary. The Declaration of armed Neutrality, announcing the intention of the Allied Powers to resist the seizure of French goods on board their own merchantmen, was treated in this country as a declaration of war. The Government laid an embargo upon all vessels of the allied neutrals lying in English ports (Jan. 14th, 1801), and issued a swarm of privateers against the trading ships making for the Baltic. Negotiations failed to lower the demands of either side, and England prepared to deal with the navies of Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia.

[Battle of Copenhagen, April 2, 1801.]

At the moment, the concentrated naval strength of England made it more than a match for its adversaries. A fleet of seventeen ships of the line sailed from Yarmouth on the 12th of March, under the command of Parker and Nelson, with orders to coerce the Danes and to prevent the junction of the confederate navies. The fleet reached the Sound. The Swedish batteries commanding the Sound failed to open fire. Nelson kept to the eastern side of the channel, and brought his ships safely past the storm of shot poured upon them from the Danish guns at Elsinore. He appeared before Copenhagen at mid-day on the 30th of March. Preparations for resistance were made by the Danes with extraordinary spirit and resolution. The whole population of Copenhagen volunteered for service on the ships, the forts, and the floating batteries. Two days were spent by the English in exploring the shallows of the channel; on the morning of the 2nd of April Nelson led his ships into action in front of the harbour. Three ran aground; the Danish fire from land and sea was so violent that after some hours Admiral Parker, who watched the engagement from the mid-channel, gave the signal of recall.

Nelson laughed at the signal, and continued the battle. In another hour the six Danish men-of-war and the whole of the floating batteries were disabled or sunk. The English themselves had suffered most severely from a resistance more skilful and more determined than anything that they had experienced from the French, and Nelson gladly offered a truce as soon as his own victory was a.s.sured. The truce was followed by negotiation, and the negotiation by an armistice for fourteen weeks, a term which Nelson considered sufficient to enable him to visit and to overthrow the navies of Sweden and Russia.

[Murder of Paul, March 23.]

[Peace between England and the Northern Powers.]

But an event had already occurred more momentous in its bearing upon the Northern Confederacy than the battle of Copenhagen itself. On the night of the 23rd of March the Czar of Russia was a.s.sa.s.sinated in his palace. Paul's tyrannical violence, and his caprice verging upon insanity, had exhausted the patience of a court acquainted with no mode of remonstrance but homicide. Blood-stained hands brought to the Grand Duke Alexander the crown which he had consented to receive after a pacific abdication. Alexander immediately reversed the policy of his father, and sent friendly communications both to the Government at London and to the commander of the British fleet in the Baltic. The maintenance of commerce with England was in fact more important to Russia than the protection of its carrying trade.

Nelson's attack was averted. A compromise was made between the two Governments, which saved Russia's interests, without depriving England of its chief rights against France. The principles of the Armed Neutrality were abandoned by the Government of St. Petersburg in so far as they related to the protection of an enemy's goods by the neutral flag. Great Britain continued to seize French merchandise on board whatever craft it might be found; but it was stipulated that the presence of a ship of war should exempt neutral vessels from search by privateers, and that no port should be considered as in a state of blockade unless a reasonable blockading force was actually in front of it. The articles condemned as contraband were so limited as not to include the flax, hemp, and timber, on whose export the commerce of Russia depended. With these concessions the Czar was easily brought to declare Russia again neutral. The minor Powers of the Baltic followed the example of St. Petersburg; and the naval confederacy which had threatened to turn the balance in the conflict between England and the French Republic left its only trace in the undeserved suffering of Denmark.

[Affairs in Egypt.]

Eight years of warfare had left France una.s.sailable in Western Europe, and England in command of every sea. No Continental armies could any longer be raised by British subsidies: the navies of the Baltic, with which Bonaparte had hoped to meet England on the seas, lay at peace in their ports. Egypt was now the only arena remaining where French and English combatants could meet, and the dissolution of the Northern Confederacy had determined the fate of Egypt by leaving England in undisputed command of the approach to Egypt by sea. The French army, vainly expecting reinforcements, and attacked by the Turks from the east, was caught in a trap. Soon after the departure of Bonaparte from Alexandria, his successor, General Kleber, had addressed a report to the Directory, describing the miserable condition of the force which Bonaparte had chosen to abandon. The report was intercepted by the English, and the Government immediately determined to accept no capitulation which did not surrender the whole of the French army as prisoners of war. An order to this effect was sent to the Mediterranean.

Before, however, the order reached Sir Sidney Smith, the English admiral cooperating with the Turks, an agreement had been already signed by him at El Arish, granting Kleber's army a free return to France (Feb. 24, 1800).

After Kleber, in fulfilment of the conditions of the treaty, had withdrawn his troops from certain positions, Sir Sidney Smith found himself compelled to inform the French General that in the negotiations of El Arish he had exceeded his powers, and that the British Government insisted upon the surrender of the French forces. Kleber replied by instantly giving battle to the Turks at Heliopolis, and putting to the rout an army six times as numerous as his own. The position of the French seemed to be growing stronger in Egypt, and the prospect of a Turkish re-conquest more doubtful, when the dagger of a fanatic robbed the French of their able chief, and transferred the command to General Menou, one of the very few French officers of marked incapacity who held command at any time during the war.

The British Government, as soon as it learnt what had taken place between Kleber and Sir Sidney Smith, declared itself willing to be bound by the convention of El Arish. The offer was, however, rejected by the French. It was clear that the Turks could never end the war by themselves; and the British Ministry at last came to understand that Egypt must be re-conquered by English arms.

[English army lands in Egypt, March, 1801.]

[French capitulate at Cairo, June 27, 1801.]

[And at Alexandria, Aug. 30.]

On the 8th of March, 1801, a corps of 17,000 men, led by Sir Ralph Abercromby, landed at Aboukir Bay. According to the plan of the British Government, Abercromby's attack was to be supported by a Turkish corps from Syria, and by an Anglo-Indian division brought from Ceylon to Kosseir, on the Red Sea. The Turks and the Indian troops were, however, behind their time, and Abercromby opened the campaign alone. Menou had still 27,000 troops at his disposal. Had he moved up with the whole of his army from Cairo, he might have destroyed the English immediately after their landing.

Instead of doing so, he allowed weak isolated detachments of the French to sink before superior numbers. The English had already gained confidence of victory when Menou advanced in some force in order to give battle in front of Alexandria. The decisive engagement took place on the 21st of March. The French were completely defeated. Menou, however, still refused to concentrate his forces; and in the course of a few weeks 13,000 French troops which had been left behind at Cairo were cut off from communication with the rest of the army. A series of attempts made by Admiral Ganteaume to land reinforcements from France ended fruitlessly. Towards the end of June the arrival of a Turkish force enabled the English to surround the French in Cairo. The circuit of the works was too large to be successfully defended; on the other hand, the English were without the heavy artillery necessary for a siege. Under these circ.u.mstances the terms which had originally been offered at El Arish were again proposed to General Belliard for himself and the army of Cairo. They were accepted, and Cairo was surrendered to the English on condition that the garrison should be conveyed back to France (June 27). Soon after the capitulation General Baird reached Lower Egypt with an Anglo-Indian division. Menou with the remainder of the French army was now shut up in Alexandria. His forts and outworks were successively carried; his flotilla was destroyed; and when all hope of support from France had been abandoned, the army of Alexandria, which formed the remnant of the troops with which Bonaparte had won his earliest victories in Italy, found itself compelled to surrender the last stronghold of the French in Egypt (Aug. 30). It was the first important success which had been gained by English soldiers over the troops of the Republic; the first campaign in which English generalship had permitted the army to show itself in its true quality.

[Negotiations for peace.]

[Preliminaries of London, Oct. 1, 1801.]

[Peace of Amiens, March 27, 1802.]

Peace was now at hand. Soon after the Treaty of Luneville had withdrawn Austria from the war, unofficial negotiations had begun between the Governments of Great Britain and France. The object with which Pitt had entered upon the war, the maintenance of the old European system against the aggression of France, was now seen to be one which England must abandon. England had borne its share in the defence of the Continent. If the Continental Powers could no longer resist the ascendancy of a single State, England could not struggle for the Balance of Power alone. The negotiations of 1801 had little in common with those of 1796. Belgium, which had been the burden of all Pitt's earlier despatches, no longer figured as an object of contention. The frontier of the Rhine, with the virtual possession of Holland and Northern Italy, under the t.i.tle of the Batavian, Ligurian, and Cisalpine Republics, was tacitly conceded to France. In place of the restoration of the Netherlands, the negotiators of 1801 argued about the disposal of Egypt, of Malta, and of the colonies which Great Britain had conquered from France and its allies. Events decided the fate of Egypt. The restoration of Malta to the Knights of St.

John was strenuously demanded by France, and not refused by England. It was in relation to the colonial claims of France that the two Governments found it most difficult to agree. Great Britain, which had lost no territory itself, had conquered nearly all the Asiatic and Atlantic colonies of the French Republic and of its Dutch and Spanish allies. In return for the restoration of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, Guiana, Trinidad, and various East and West Indian settlements, France had nothing to offer to Great Britain but peace. If peace, however, was to be made, the only possible settlement was by means of a compromise; and it was finally agreed that England should retain Ceylon and Trinidad, and restore the rest of the colonies which it had taken from France, Spain, and Holland. Preliminaries of peace embodying these conditions were signed at London on the 1st of October, 1801. Hostilities ceased; but an interval of several months between the preliminary agreement and the conclusion of the final treaty was employed by Bonaparte in new usurpations upon the Continent, to which he forced the British Government to lend a kind of sanction in the continuance of the negotiations. The Government, though discontented, was unwilling to treat these acts as new occasions of war. The conferences were at length brought to a close, and the definitive treaty between France and Great Britain was signed at Amiens on the 27th of March, 1802. [90]

[Pitt's retirement. Its cause.]

[Union of Ireland and Great Britain, 1800.]

The Minister who, since the first outbreak of war, had so resolutely struggled for the freedom of Europe, was no longer in power when Great Britain entered into negotiations with the First Consul. In the same week that Austria signed the Peace of Luneville, Pitt had retired from office.

The catastrophe which dissolved his last Continental alliance may possibly have disposed Pitt to make way for men who could treat for peace with a better grace than himself, but the immediate cause of his retirement was an affair of internal policy. Among the few important domestic measures which Pitt had not sacrificed to foreign warfare was a project for the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland. Ireland had up to this time possessed a Parliament nominally independent of that of Great Britain. Its population, however, was too much divided to create a really national government; and, even if the internal conditions of the country had been better, the practical sovereignty of Great Britain must at that time have prevented the Parliament of Dublin from being more than an agency of ministerial corruption. It was the desire of Pitt to give to Ireland, in the place of a fict.i.tious independence, that real partic.i.p.ation in the political life of Great Britain which has more than recompensed Scotland and Wales for the loss of separate nationality. As an earnest of legislative justice, Pitt gave hopes to the leaders of the Irish Catholic party that the disabilities which excluded Roman Catholics from the House of Commons and from many offices in the public service would be no longer maintained. On this understanding the Catholics of Ireland abstained from offering to Pitt's project a resistance which would probably have led to its failure. A majority of members in the Protestant Parliament of Dublin accepted the price which the Ministry offered for their votes. A series of resolutions in favour of the Legislative Union of the two countries was transmitted to England in the spring of 1800; the English Parliament pa.s.sed the Act of Union in the same summer; and the first United Parliament of Great Britain and Ireland a.s.sembled in London at the beginning of the year 1801.

[Pitt desires to emanc.i.p.ate the Catholics.]

[Pitt resigns Feb. 1801.]

[Addington Minister.]

Pitt now prepared to fulfil his virtual promise to the Irish Catholics. A measure obliterating the ancient lines of civil and religious enmity, and calling to public life a cla.s.s. .h.i.therto treated as alien and hostile to the State, would have been in true consonance with all that was best in Pitt's own statesmanship. But the ignorant bigotry of King George III. was excited against him by men who hated every act of justice or tolerance to Roman Catholics; and it proved of greater force than the genius of the Minister.

The old threat of the King's personal enmity was publicly addressed to Pitt's colleague, Dundas, when the proposal for Catholic emanc.i.p.ation was under discussion in the Cabinet; and, with a just regard for his own dignity, Pitt withdrew from office (Feb. 5, 1801), unable to influence a Sovereign who believed his soul to be staked on the letter of the Coronation Oath. The ablest members of Pitt's government, Grenville, Dundas, and Windham, retired with their leader. Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons, became Prime Minister, with colleagues as undistinguished as himself. It was under the government of Addington that the negotiations were begun which resulted in the signature of Preliminaries of Peace in October 1801.

[The Peace of 1801.]

Pitt himself supported the new Ministry in their policy of peace; Grenville, lately Pitt's Foreign Minister, unsparingly condemned both the cession of the conquered colonies and the policy of granting France peace on any terms whatever. Viewed by the light of our own knowledge of events, the Peace of 1801 appears no more than an unprofitable break in an inevitable war; and perhaps even then the signs of Bonaparte's ambition justified those who, like Grenville, urged the nation to give no truce to France, and to trust to Bonaparte's own injustice to raise us up allies upon the Continent. But, for the moment, peace seemed at least worth a trial. The modes of prosecuting a war of offence were exhausted; the cost of the national defence remained the same. There were no more navies to destroy, no more colonies to seize; the sole means of injuring the enemy was by blockading his ports, and depriving him of his maritime commerce. On the other hand, the possibility of a French invasion required the maintenance of an enormous army and militia in England, and prevented any great reduction in the expenses of the war, which had already added two hundred millions to the National Debt. Nothing was lost by making peace, except certain colonies and military positions which few were anxious to retain. The argument that England could at any moment recover what she now surrendered was indeed a far sounder one than most of those which went to prove that the positions in question were of no real service. Yet even on the latter point there was no want of high authority. It was Nelson himself who a.s.sured the House of Lords that neither Malta nor the Cape of Good Hope could ever be of importance to Great Britain. [91] In the face of such testimony, the men who lamented that England should allow the adversary to recover any lost ground in the midst of a struggle for life or death, pa.s.sed for obstinate fanatics. The Legislature reflected the general feeling of the nation; and the policy of the Government was confirmed in the Lords and the Commons by majorities of ten to one.

[Aggressions of Bonaparte during the Continental peace.]

[Holland, Sept., 1801.]

Although the Ministry of Addington had acted with energy both in Egypt and in the Baltic, it was generally felt that Pitt's retirement marked the surrender of that resolute policy which had guided England since 1793. When once the Preliminaries of Peace had been signed in London, Bonaparte rightly judged that Addington would waive many just causes of complaint, rather than break off the negotiations which were to convert the Preliminaries into a definitive treaty. Accordingly, in his instructions to Joseph Bonaparte, who represented France at the conferences held at Amiens, the First Consul wrote, through Talleyrand, as follows:--"You are forbidden to entertain any proposition relating to the King of Sardinia, or to the Stadtholder, or to the internal affairs of Batavia, of Helvetia, or the Republic of Italy. None of these subjects have anything to do with the discussions of England." The list of subjects excluded from the consideration of England was the list of aggressions by which Bonaparte intended to fill up the interval of Continental peace. In the Treaty of Luneville, the independence of the newly-established republics in Holland, Switzerland, and Italy had been recognised by France. The restoration of Piedmont to the House of Savoy had been the condition on which the Czar made peace. But on every one of these points the engagements of France were made only to be broken. So far from bringing independence to the client-republics of France, the peace of Luneville was but the introduction to a series of changes which brought these States directly into the hands of the First Consul. The establishment of absolute government in France itself entailed a corresponding change in each of its dependencies, and the creation of an executive which should accept the First Consul's orders with as little question as the Prefect of a French department. Holland received its new const.i.tution while France was still at war with England. The existing Government and Legislature of the Batavian Republic were dissolved (Sept., 1801), and replaced by a council of twelve persons, each holding the office of President in turn for a period of three months, and by a legislature of thirty-five, which met only for a few days in the year. The power given to the new President during his office was enough, and not more than enough, to make him an effective servant: a three-months' Minister and an a.s.sembly that met and parted at the word of command were not likely to enter into serious rivalry with the First Consul. The Dutch peaceably accepted the const.i.tution thus forced upon them; they possessed no means of resistance, and their affairs excited but little interest upon the Continent.

[Bonaparte made President of the Italian Republic, Jan., 1802.]

[Piedmont annexed to France, Sept., 1802.]

Far more striking was the revolution next effected by the First Consul. In obedience to orders sent from Paris to the Legislature of the Cisalpine Republic, a body of four hundred and fifty Italian representatives crossed the Alps in the middle of winter in order to meet the First Consul at Lyons, and to deliberate upon a const.i.tution for the Cisalpine Republic.

The const.i.tution had, as a matter of fact, been drawn up by Talleyrand, and sent to the Legislature at Milan some months before. But it was not for the sake of Italy that its representatives were collected at Lyons, in the presence of the First Consul, with every circ.u.mstance of national solemnity. It was the most striking homage which Bonaparte could exact from a foreign race in the face of all France; it was the testimony that other lands besides France desired Bonaparte to be their sovereign. When all the minor offices in the new Cisalpine Const.i.tution had been filled, the Italians learnt that the real object of the convocation was to place the sceptre in Bonaparte's hands. They accepted the part which they found themselves forced to play, and offered to the First Consul the presidency of the Cisalpine State (Jan. 25, 1802). Unlike the French Consulate, the chief magistracy in the new Cisalpine Const.i.tution might be prolonged beyond the term of ten years. Bonaparte had practically won the Crown of Lombardy; and he had given to France the example of a submission more unqualified than its own. A single phrase rewarded the people who had thus placed themselves in his hands. The Cisalpine Republic was allowed to a.s.sume the name of Italian Republic. The new t.i.tle indicated the national hopes which had sprung up in Italy during the past ten years; it indicated no real desire on the part of Bonaparte to form either a free or a united Italian nation. In the Cisalpine State itself, although a good administration and the extinction of feudal privileges made Bonaparte's government acceptable, patriots who asked for freedom ran the risk of exile or imprisonment. What further influence was exercised by France upon Italian soil was not employed for the consolidation of Italy. Tuscany was bestowed by Bonaparte upon the Spanish Prince of Parma, and controlled by agents of the First Consul. Piedmont, which had long been governed by French generals, was at length definitely annexed to France.

[Intervention in Switzerland.]

[Bonaparte Mediator of the Helvetic League, Oct. 4, 1802.]

Switzerland had not, like the Cisalpine Republic, derived its liberty from the victories of French armies, nor could Bonaparte claim the presidency of the Helvetic State under the t.i.tle of its founder. The struggles of the Swiss parties, however, placed the country at the mercy of France. Since the expulsion of the Austrians by Ma.s.sena in 1799, the antagonism between the Democrats of the town and the Federalists of the Forest Cantons had broken out afresh. A French army still occupied Switzerland; the Minister of the First Consul received instructions to interfere with all parties and consolidate none. In the autumn of 1801, the Federalists were permitted to dissolve the central Helvetic Government, which had been created by the Directory in 1798. One change followed another, until, on the 19th of May, 1802, a second Const.i.tution was proclaimed, based, like that of 1798, on centralising and democratic principles, and almost extinguishing the old local independence of the members of the Swiss League. No sooner had French partisans created this Const.i.tution, which could only be maintained by force against the hostility of Berne and the Forest Cantons, than the French army quitted Switzerland. Civil war instantly broke out, and in the course of a few weeks the Government established by the French had lost all Switzerland except the Pays de Vaud. This was the crisis for which Bonaparte had been waiting. On the 4th of October a proclamation appeared at Lausanne, announcing that the First Consul had accepted the office of Mediator of the Helvetic League. A French army entered Switzerland.

Fifty-six deputies from the cantons were summoned to Paris; and, in the beginning of 1803, a new Const.i.tution, which left the central Government powerless in the hands of France and reduced the national sovereignty to cantonal self-administration, placed Switzerland on a level with the Batavian and the Cisalpine dependencies of Bonaparte. The Rhone Valley, with the mountains crossed by the new road over the Simplon, was converted into a separate republic under the t.i.tle of La Valais. The new chief magistrate of the Helvetic Confederacy entered upon his office with a pension paid out of Bonaparte's secret police fund.

[Settlement of Germany.]