The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte Part 2

This "deformity" removed from the Italian peninsula, it revealed a still greater one-the fact that the Papal States disturbed the connection between the two kingdoms of Italy and Naples. Pius VII, returning disillusioned and embittered after the coronation ceremony, and finding that his temporal weapons had failed him, had taken a stand with his spiritual armor. It has already been recalled that he began to refuse everything Napoleon desired,-the coronation as Western emperor, the extension of the Concordat to Venice, the confirmation of bishops appointed in France and Italy by the temporal power, the annulment of Jerome's marriage, the recognition of Joseph's royalty,-except in return for a guarantee of his own independence and neutrality; in short, he feebly abjured the French alliance and all its works. There now came a demand from Napoleon that henceforth there should be as many French cardinals as Roman, that the agents of hostile powers should be banished from the Papal States, and that the papal ports should be closed to England. The Emperor was weary, too, of the petty squabbles in connection with the Church, of the threats to excommunicate him and declare his throne vacant. Did they mean to put him in a convent and whip him like Louis the Pious? If not, let the full powers of an amba.s.sador be sent to the cardinal legate at Paris; in any case, let there be an end to menaces. At the same time Eugene showed to Pius a personal letter from his stepfather, which, though marked confidential, was intended to be thus shown. It contained the threat that the Emperor contemplated calling a council of the Gallican, Italian, German, and Polish churches to liberate those peoples from the domination of Roman priests. The Pontiff was terrified, and hastened to yield the most pressing demands made in the message which he had himself received, among them the nomination of a negotiator. But he childishly refused the letter of the Emperor's demand, and commissioned, not the French cardinal legate at Paris, but an Italian cardinal. Napoleon notified the See that he would treat only with Bayanne, the French cardinal at Paris, and that longer dallying would compel him to annex Ancona, Urbino, and Macerata to the kingdom of Italy. Pius yielded at once, nominating Bayanne, agreeing to enter the federation with France, and promising to crown Napoleon; but the annexation took place quite as expeditiously as the surrender-was, in fact, complete before it!

Of the three minor sea powers, Denmark, commanding as she did the gateway of the Baltic, was far the most important. Bernadotte was already on her borders with an army. She was notified by him that she must declare war against England immediately, or lose all her continental possessions. Her government promised to obey, but procrastinated. It has been claimed that English spies at Tilsit had caught sc.r.a.ps of the bargain contained in the secret articles, and that the Portland cabinet, in which Canning was secretary for foreign affairs and Castlereagh for war and the colonies, had divined the rest. It is now known that Canning believed there were no secret articles, but was convinced that the two emperors had reached a secret understanding hostile to England.[14] During the summer the ministry received what they called the most positive information-what was its extent and how it was obtained have never been made known-that the French intended to invade Holstein and force Denmark to close the Sound to British commerce. The danger seemed imminent: the Danish fleet contained no fewer than twenty ships of the line, eighteen frigates, nine brigs, and a number of gunboats. Such a reinforcement of the French navy would put it again on a war footing. The English ministry, therefore, offered to defend Denmark, guarantee her colonies, and give her every means of defense, naval, military, pecuniary, if only she would surrender her fleet to England, to be restored in the event of peace. The Danish regent was already committed to France, and did not accept. Accordingly the English army under Cathcart landed, and laid siege to Copenhagen, while the fleet bombarded it for three days, until the government agreed to their stipulations. This shameful deed of high-handed violence must be laid at Canning's door. It was the first step in the humiliation of a fine people, to their loss of Norway, and ultimately of Schleswig and Holstein. Moreover, it was impolitic in the highest degree, making the Czar a bitter enemy of England for four years. The wretched country, in distraction, threw itself into the arms of Bernadotte. Christian VII had long been an imbecile, and his son, Frederick VI, though energetic and well-meaning, turned Denmark into another va.s.sal state of France by the treaty of Fontainebleau, signed October thirtieth, 1807.

In none of their many sovereignties had the incapacity of the Bourbons been more completely demonstrated than in Spain. With intermittent flickerings, the light of that famous land had been steadily growing dimmer ever since Louis XIV exultingly declared that the Pyrenees had ceased to exist. Stripped of her colonial supremacy, shattered in naval power, reduced to pay tribute to France, she looked silently on while Napoleon trafficked with her lands, mourning that even the memory of her former glories was fading out in foreign countries. The proud people themselves had, however, never forgotten their past; with each successive humiliation their irritation grew more extreme, and soon after Trafalgar they made an effort to organize under the crown prince against the scandalous regime of G.o.doy. Both parties sought French support, and the quarrel was fomented from Paris until the whole country was torn by the most serious dissensions.

When, in the previous year, Prussia declared war, and the French legions were about to face those trained in the school of Frederick the Great, a vigorous attempt was made by the Russian envoy in Madrid to win the support of Spain for the coalition. England, too, at the same moment, threatened to make the South American colonies independent if she did not consent. G.o.doy was persuaded that Napoleon had at last found his match, if not his master, and on October fourteenth issued a manifesto couched for the most part in ambiguous terms, but clearly announcing war as an immediate necessity. By a strange coincidence, its date was that of the day on which was fought the battle of Jena, and after hearing the news of that event the Prince of the Peace hastened to make his submission in the name of the King. Napoleon turned pale as he read the news of the contemplated defection, which reached him at Berlin; he never forgave the treachery, although for the time he feigned ignorance of its existence. The renewal of Charles IV's submission gave him the opportunity to demand that the Spanish fleet should proceed to Toulon, that the King should send fifteen thousand men to oppose a possible English landing at the mouth of the Elbe, and at the same time undertake the sustenance of twenty-five thousand Prussian prisoners of war, while thenceforward he must rigidly enforce the embargo on English trade in all Spanish ports and markets.

These demands the weak and contemptible government could not resist. G.o.doy and the Queen resumed their scandalous living, while the King joined in a conspiracy to cut off his son Ferdinand from the succession. The young prince had the people's sympathy; but although he had sought Napoleon's favor, and wished to marry the Empress Josephine's niece, there was no response, and he remained impotent before an administration apparently supported by France. He was, in the sequel, arrested on a charge of conspiring against his father's life. Before the summer of 1807 closed, everything was ripe for Napoleon's contemplated intervention to "regenerate" Spain.

Such was the harvest of Tilsit in the field of foreign relations-a harvest which to the last the Emperor claimed that Talleyrand had sown. As to its effect in France, Metternich, then Austrian amba.s.sador in Paris, declared that men sat in the cafes coldly discussing an entire reconstruction of Europe-two empires, and seventeen new kingdoms with new sovereigns either from or in the interest of the imperial houses! "Rhapsodies," he said, "which proved that all Europe might crumble without exciting a single emotion of sorrow, astonishment, or satisfaction in a people degraded beneath all others, beneath all imagination, and which, worn out, demoralized to the point where every trace of even national feeling is wiped out, by nineteen years of revolution and crimes, now looks on with cold-blooded indifference at what is pa.s.sing beyond its own frontiers. Wise men think that the treaties, being as advantageous to Russia as to France, necessarily contain a germ which in developing will prove dangerous to the latter." In reality there was not now a state in Europe toward which the French empire did not stand in strained relations, not a nationality besides the French which did not feel its self-respect wounded, and resent the abas.e.m.e.nt.

This, however, was not the panorama which the Emperor unfolded in Paris. He reached St. Cloud quietly on the evening of July twenty-seventh. The people of Paris learned the news incidentally, and burst into spontaneous rejoicings, illuminating the city, and sending addresses in which the terms of adulation were exhausted. Napoleon was no longer an actor in merely human history: he was a man of the heroic age; he was beyond admiration; nothing but love could rise to his lofty place. On August sixteenth the Emperor opened the legislature in person. "Since your last session," he said, "new wars, new triumphs, new treaties, have changed the face of Europe." If the house of Brandenburg still reigned, he continued, it was due to the sincere friendship he felt for the Czar. A French prince would rule on the Elbe, and would know how to conciliate his subjects, while ever mindful of his most sacred duties. Saxony had recovered her independence, the peoples of Dantzic and the duchy of Warsaw their country and their rights. All nations rejoiced to see the direful influence of England destroyed. France was united to the Confederation of the Rhine by its laws, by the federative system to the countries of Holland, Switzerland, and Italy; her new relations with Russia were cemented by reciprocal esteem. In all this, he affirmed, his pole-star had been the happiness of his people, dearer to him than his own glory. He would like maritime peace, and for its sake would overlook the exasperations caused by a people tossed and torn by party strife. Whatever happened, he would be worthy of his people, as they had shown themselves to be worthy of him. Their behavior in his absence had only increased his esteem for their character. He had thought of several measures to simplify and perfect their inst.i.tutions.

This picture of martial and political renown, painted by a master who had on one campaign changed the meaning of his t.i.tle from its primitive sense of military ruler to its later and grander one of chief among and over princes, thus realizing the revival of the Western Empire, could not but please the fancy and arouse the enthusiasm of a generous, imaginative, forgiving people. The impression was heightened by their Emperor's activity in keeping faith as to their own prosperity. As after Austerlitz, his first care was now finance. The new commercial code was promulgated, and it proved scarcely less satisfactory to the merchants than the civil code had been to the people at large. The Bank of France was immediately compelled to lower its rate of discount, and a council was held to consider how Italy and the Rhine Confederation could be made tributary to French industry and commerce. Recourse was also had to those measures of internal development by the execution of great public works which had been begun after Austerlitz, but were suspended before Jena.

Before the last campaign the Emperor and Empress had been accustomed to visit various portions of France. During every halt the Emperor would mount his horse, and, attended occasionally by one or more of the local officials, but usually only by Rustan or an adjutant, would gallop hither and thither, gathering information, examining conditions, and making suggestions. Immediately afterward he would throw off a sketch of needed improvements: public buildings, almshouses, roads, ca.n.a.ls, aqueducts, town streets, mountain roads-anything, in short, which would arouse local enthusiasm and benefit the country at large. Many-most, perhaps-of these schemes remained inchoate; but many of the grandest were executed, and Napoleon has left his impress as indelibly upon France itself as upon its society. The routes of the Simplon and Mont Cenis, the great ca.n.a.ls which bind together the river systems, the restoration of the cathedral at St. Denis, the quays of the Seine in Paris, the great Triumphal Arch, the Vendome Column, the Street of Peace, the Street of Rivoli, the bridges of Austerlitz, Jena, and the Arts-these are some of the magnificent enterprises due to his initiative. Such works were pushed throughout the summer of 1807 by employing large numbers of laborers and artisans, while local workshops were opened in every department to furnish employment to all who could not otherwise find it. The political economist may lift his eyebrows and shrug his shoulders in contemplating such shifts; but they were imperial shifts, and created a high degree of comfort at the time, while they satisfied in permanency that pa.s.sion for beauty in utility which does not sufficiently enter as an element into economic science.

Closely connected with this policy was a measure of Napoleon's already referred to, but little known. In some respects it was more successful than any other; it certainly is most characteristic of the man. The evil aimed at was cured at the time, and the permanent question is less acute in modern France than in any other European country. For years past there had been chronic distress among the agricultural cla.s.ses in some of the most fertile districts of France, notably in the northeast. This was attributed to the presence of Jews in large numbers. The stringent laws of the old regime had crowded that unfortunate people out of all occupations but two-peddling and money-lending. In both of these they became experts, and when emanc.i.p.ated by the Revolution they used their liberty, not to widen their activities, but to intensify the evils of the monopoly which they had secured. Since 1791 large numbers of Polish and German Jews had established themselves on the right bank of the Rhine; and reaching hands across that stream to their kinsfolk on the left bank, they combined to strip the French peasantry by the familiar arts of barter and usury, which need not be described here, until in a few years they were creditors to the extent of twenty-three million francs, and had become extensive landed proprietors. They were never seen to labor with their hands, and having no family name, they evaded the conscription laws with impunity, while the courts of justice became their humble servants in enforcing the collection of scandalous debts or in the foreclosure of inflated mortgages.

In 1806 a temporary decree had suspended all legal executions in certain districts, and many Jews of the better cla.s.s made ready to bow before the coming tempest and come to the a.s.sistance of the government. Napoleon, aware that the Old Testament law was civil and political as well as religious, shrewdly asked advice from these and other men of the more enlightened sort. It was agreed to call a council. The Emperor summoned his prefects to name its members, and appointed a committee to represent the government at its sessions. Decisions taken by this a.s.sembly were to be submitted to a general Sanhedrim of all Europe. The a.s.sembly of French Israelites met in Paris during the latter part of 1806, and after due deliberation gave satisfactory answers to a carefully prepared set of questions propounded by the government commission. In 1807 the economic situation had nevertheless become graver. The Sanhedrim met early in February. Its members vied in flattery with the Roman priesthood, setting the imperial eagle above the ark of the covenant, and blending the letters N and J with those of the Jehovah in a monogram for the adornment of their meeting-place. On March fourth they issued a decree which is still the basis of religious instruction among Jewish youth. They forbade polygamy, and admitted the principle of civil marriage without anathema; they ordered all Israelites to treat those who believe that G.o.d is the Creator of heaven and earth as fellow-citizens and brothers; to obey the civil and military laws, including that of conscription, and to train their children to industry and handiwork; they also invited them to enter the learned professions, and to attach themselves to the country by the purchase of public obligations. Usury was absolutely forbidden, the Israelite being enjoined as a religious precept to make no distinction in money transactions between Hebrew and Christian. The minutest details of the whole transaction were foreseen and regulated by Napoleon, and may be studied in his correspondence with his ministers.

A year later, after careful and mature deliberation, there appeared an imperial decree, not only organizing the Jewish Church and regulating its relations with the state, but defining the civil and political status of Hebrews. They were p.r.o.nounced to be citizens like other men; but they could not exact higher interest than five per cent., while if they should demand over ten they should be punished for usury. Every Jew in the northeastern department must have a license to do business, and a notarial authorization for p.a.w.nbrokerage. Any Jew not domiciled at the moment in Alsace might not thereafter acquire domicile in that department, and could do so in others only by becoming a landowner and tilling the soil. Every Jew should be liable to military service, and, unlike his Christian fellow-citizens might not provide a subst.i.tute; moreover, he must adopt and use a family name. This stringent law was rigidly enforced, except in Bordeaux, the Gironde, and the Landes, where no offense had been given. Its effect was steady and sure. Before long, first one and then another Israelite was exempted from its rigors, until finally, in 1812, the department or the man still subject to its provisions was the exception and not the rule. From that day to this there has scarcely been in France what is known elsewhere as the Jewish question. Hebrews are found in every line of human activity; they have the same civil, political, and religious standing as men of other blood and confessions; they are ill.u.s.trious in finance, in politics, in science, and in the arts. They are, moreover, pa.s.sionate patriots, and to the casual observer scarcely distinguishable in mien and appearance from other citizens. The temporary contravention of the civil code, both as to spirit and letter, by the notorious decree above referred to has been so beneficent that it has for the most part escaped any criticism or even remark.[15]

While in ways like these the clutch of the usurer was relaxed and the general well-being promoted, measures were taken to crown the work by a stable system of finance. It will be recalled that two years before the Emperor had saved the public credit by the direct expenditure of the Austrian war indemnity. It was his fixed principle that France should not pay for his wars, except with her children. He knew too well the thrift of the whole nation and the greed of the lower cla.s.ses to jeopardize their good will either by the emission of paper money or by the increase of tax rates. The panic of 1805 had been precipitated by the virtual failure of a bankers' syndicate which made advances to the government on its taxes and on the annual Spanish contribution as well. In 1807 the war indemnity exacted from Prussia, Poland, and Westphalia was used for a double purpose, the creation of two funds: one to furnish an immediate supply of cash on the outbreak of war, the other to replace the bankers' syndicate by making advances on the taxes whenever required. There was therefore no increase in the rate of taxation, work was abundant, and under the forcing process the wheels were moving in almost every department of trade and industry. The price of the imperial bonds on the Bourse rose to ninety-nine, a price never afterward reached in Napoleon's day.

There was one sharp pinch. Coffee and sugar were no longer luxuries, but necessities; and through the continental embargo colonial wares had become, and were likely to remain, very dear and very scarce. Such subst.i.tutes as ingenuity could devise were gradually accepted for the former; to provide the latter the beet-root industry was fostered by every means. The Emperor kept a sample of sugar made from beets on his chimney-piece as an ornament, and occasionally sent gifts of the precious commodity to his fellow-sovereigns. The story is told that an official who had been banished from favor recovered his standing entirely by planting a whole estate with beets. Such traits were considered evidence of plain, homely common sense by the people, who enjoyed the sensation that their Emperor shared their feelings and partic.i.p.ated in their daily shifts.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VII.

The New Feudalism.[16]

Imperial France - The Aristocracy - The Va.s.sal Sovereigns - Suppression of the Tribunate - The Right of Entail - Evasions of Law - The New n.o.bility - t.i.tles and Emoluments - Style in the First Empire - Theory of the University - Its Establishment - The Lycees - Effects of the System - Regulation of the Court - The Emperor's Moods - Matrimonial Alliances with Royalty - Gloom at Court - Decline of Talleyrand's Influence - His New Role.

1807-08.

It was not long before the people of Paris and of all France were in the best possible humor; they were busy, they were clothed, they were fed, they were making and saving money. With every hour grew the feeling that their unity and strength were embodied in the Emperor. Mme. de Remusat was tired of his ill-breeding: it shocked her to observe his coa.r.s.e familiarity, to see him sit on a favorite's knee, or twist a bystander's ear till it was afire; to hear him sow dissension among families by coa.r.s.e innuendo, and to see him crush society that he might rule it. But such things would not have shocked the ma.s.ses of plain burgher Frenchmen at all. When the querulous lady opened her troubles to the sympathetic Talleyrand, and bemoaned the sad fate which kept her at the imperial court to gain a living, his reply was not consoling. As time pa.s.sed, the gulf between the ruler and his venal but soft-spoken minister had been widening, and the Prince of Benevento had oftentimes to hear taunts and reproaches in scenes of such violence as were unsuspected even by the complaining lady in waiting. But nevertheless Talleyrand replied to her that Napoleon still stood for the unity of France, and it was both his and her duty to endure and support their monarch.

No doubt the Emperor was perfectly aware of the situation. But he felt that what was a new aristocracy in truth, though not yet so in name, must be appeased as well as the people. He was furious at times with the venality of his a.s.sociates. Talleyrand once admitted that he had taken sixty millions from various German princes. Ma.s.sena, Augereau, Brune, and Junot were not so colossal in their greed, but they were equally ill-disposed, and very successful in lining their coffers. With Talleyrand Napoleon never joked; but when he wished to give a warning to the others he drew a bill for some enormous sum on one or other of them, and deposited it with a banker. There is no evidence that such a draft was ever dishonored. On one occasion Ma.s.sena disgorged two millions of francs in this way. Of the ancient n.o.bility the Emperor once said, with a sneer: "I offered them rank in my army, they declined the service. I opened my antechambers to them, they rushed in and filled them." To this sweeping statement there were many noteworthy exceptions, but on the whole Napoleon never cla.s.sed the estate of the French n.o.bles lower than they deserved. Still they had a power which he recognized, and it was with a sort of grim humor that he began to distribute honors and the sops of patronage among both the old and the new aristocracy-a process which only made the latter independent and failed to win the affections of the former.

It was in the hope of securing the good will of the ancient n.o.bility that he took two steps radical in their direct negation of Revolutionary principles: the destruction of the tribunate and the restoration of the right of entail. The connection between the two lies in the tendency of both: merging tribunate and legislature made it easy to subst.i.tute for an elective senate a hereditary house of lords. Feeling himself sufficiently strong, Napoleon clearly intended to gratify in others the weak human pride which, as Montesquieu says, desires the eternity of a name, and thereby to erect a four-square foundation for the perpetuity of his own dynasty. The brothers Joseph, Louis, and Jerome were now no longer Bonapartes, but Napoleons, ruling as Joseph Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, Jerome Napoleon, over their respective fiefs. Murat, the brother-in-law, was already provided for in the same way, and there were three reigning princes among the satellites of the imperial throne. All these could transmit their name and dominions in the line of hereditary succession. It may be read in the "Moniteur" of July, 1810, that, in whatever position they were placed by Napoleon's politics and the interest of his empire, their first duty was to him, their second to France. "All your other duties, even those to the people I may intrust to you, are only secondary."

Ten years earlier General Bonaparte had declared that what the French wanted was glory and the gratification of their vanity; of liberty, he said, they knew nothing. The Emperor Napoleon, in one of his spoken musings, applied the same conception to all continental Europeans, saying that there were everywhere a few men who knew what freedom was and longed to secure it; but that the ma.s.ses needed paternal guidance, and enjoyed it as long as they were comfortable. The asylum of this enlightened minority in France was for a time the tribunate; to many it seemed that, if free government be government by discussion, in the tribunate alone was any semblance of freedom left; its name had consequently retained a halo of n.o.bility, and its mere existence was a comfort to the few who still recalled the ideals of the Revolution. But, in truth, the body itself had ceased to have any dignity whatsoever. The system of legislation was briefly this: from the throne came a message exposing the situation of the country, the council of state then formulated the measures set forth as necessary, the tribunate approved them in one or other of its sections, and the legislature gave the enacting vote. The suppression of the tribunate, therefore, appeared to the general public like final proceedings in bankruptcy. Some of the members went into the legislature, some into official administrative positions, and the right of discussion in committee behind closed doors was transferred to certain sections of the legislature. By way of compensation it was "decreed by the senate," as the formality was called, that no man could thenceforth sit in the legislature until he had reached the age of forty. Perhaps Napoleon remembered that his own fiery ambition had made him emperor before he was thirty-six. The measure was announced to the tribunes as a mere matter of course, and created no stir at the time. In later years it was recalled that the English Parliament under the Plantagenets had never entirely perished, and so was ready for powerful deeds in more propitious days. But in France's later crisis the French tribunate could not be revived; with it disappeared forever the last rallying-point for the scattered remnant still true to the Revolution.

The complement of this negative measure was the creation of the right to transmit together, and for an indefinite time, a t.i.tle and the realty on which its dignity reposed. Though the restoration of this inst.i.tution was slightly anterior in time to the other as to its beginnings, yet the final decree was not published until 1808, and logically it is complementary and subsequent to it. To this day many men of ancient and honorable name in France have not ceased to bemoan the destruction of primogeniture by the Revolution and the Code Napoleon. They are proud to transmit their t.i.tle untarnished to their descendants, are ready to make serious sacrifices in its behalf, to exercise the rigid self-denials of family control for its sake, and to engrave the motto of "n.o.blesse oblige" on their hearts in order to sustain it; but they bitterly complain that without the majorat, and the transmission of outward, visible supports in land and houses to strengthen it, the empty sound carries little weight. The compulsory subdivision of estates at the death of the owner enables every scion to live, if not to thrive, on the home stock. The failure of France in colonization is largely due to the absence of men from good families among the colonizers, while England sends her younger sons to the ends of the earth, there to found new houses and perpetuate the old line under favorable conditions. Hence, too, the petty dimensions of aristocratic French life: little fortunes, little ambitions, little establishments, little families, among that very cla.s.s in society which by cultivating the sentiment of honor should leaven the practical, materialistic temper of the mult.i.tude. At the present time, when the burghers ama.s.s in trade far greater fortunes than the aristocracy possess, when the learned secure greater power by intellectual vigor, when the demagogues grow mightier by the command of votes, t.i.tles alone carry little weight, and the virtues of honor, of chivalry, of elegance, can with difficulty display their example.

No argument can ever restore general confidence in the inst.i.tution of primogeniture, but it dies hard, even in England. In the United States the absolute liberty of testamentary disposition enables a wealthy father to found a family almost as perfectly as if the right of entail existed, and the bulk of large fortunes is constantly left by will to the most capable son, in order that he may keep up the family name, the family estates, and the family pride. But under the provisions of the Code Napoleon such a course is impossible. As the lawgiver did not hesitate to contravene his own legislation in the case of the Jews, so he again disregarded it in order to consolidate that aristocracy of which he hoped to make another strong prop to his throne; for he already had the Church and the people. "The code," he said, "was made for the welfare of the people; and if that welfare demands other measures, we must take them." This was not difficult, because the imperial power had gradually shaped two instruments wherewith to act: one was the laws sanctioned by the legislature and pertaining ordinarily to abstract questions of jurisprudence; the other was the Emperor's personal decrees, which, though discussed by the council of state, were the expression of the Emperor's will, and covered in their scope the whole field of authority.

It was by the latter course that he had intended to create the new n.o.bility. Ostensibly the measure was to be the last blow of the ax at the root of feudalism. The new dignities carried no privilege with them; they were, it was explained, a sort of civic crown to which any one might aspire, and their creation was therefore in no way derogatory to the principle of equality. The holders might become too independent and self-reliant, they might even display a cla.s.s spirit; but the Emperor felt himself to be striving upward, these creatures of his would have to run fast before they could outstrip their master. At St. Helena the prisoner, recalling with bitterness the ingrat.i.tude of his beneficiaries, declared that he took the unfortunate step in order to reconcile France with the rest of Europe. He was by that time aware that though the Legion of Honor was, and would continue to be, an inst.i.tution dear to the French heart, this one was not so, and needed an apology; for his imperial n.o.bility had never been taken seriously or kindly by the people, who could not draw the nice distinction between a feudal and an imperial aristocracy. Even in the first steps of his enterprise he was made to feel the need of caution, and it was by statute, after all, not by decree, that the whole matter was finally regulated. So curious is popular fickleness that an Emperor who could boldly tyrannize in almost any other direction felt that he dared not take the risk of const.i.tuting himself a fountain of honor, such as legitimate monarchs were.

The system was for the world outside like some fairy wonder completed overnight, since the duchies had been ready the year before. The Italian t.i.tles were the most honorable and the most highly endowed. They were either at once or later given as follows: Soult, Duke of Dalmatia; Mortier, Duke of Treviso; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Bessieres, Duke of Istria; Duroc, Duke of Friuli; Victor, Duke of Belluno; Moncey, Duke of Conegliano; Clarke, Duke of Feltre; Ma.s.sena, Duke of Rivoli; Lannes Duke of Montebello; Marmont, Duke of Ragusa; Oudinot, Duke of Reggio; Macdonald, Duke of Taranto; Augereau, Duke of Castiglione; Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo. In Germany there were created three similar duchies-Auerstadt for Davout, Elchingen for Ney, and Dantzic for Lefebvre. Berthier was made Prince of Neufchatel. So much for the military officials. In civil life there were corresponding distinctions: Cambaceres, Duke of Parma; Maret, Duke of Ba.s.sano; Lebrun, Duke of Piacenza; Fouche, Duke of Otranto; Champagny, Duke of Cadore. The members of the senate, the councilors of state, the presiding officers of the legislature, and the archbishops were all created counts. Each one of these t.i.tles was, like the others, richly endowed with land from the public domains in Poland, Germany, and Italy. But the distinction bestowed on the soldiers was marked in the difference between the accompanying gifts to them and those to civilians. The only portion of the great force which had returned to France was the guard, who were instructed to keep themselves as exclusive as possible. A most lavish pension-system, as it was considered even in that age of military splendor, drew from the army chest five hundred francs a year for soldiers who had lost a limb; officers received as high as ten thousand francs, according to the nature of their disabilities. But the marshals were showered with gold. Berthier had a million; Ney, Davout, Soult, and Bessieres, six hundred thousand each; Ma.s.sena, Augereau, Bernadotte, Mortier, and Victor, four hundred thousand apiece; and the rest two hundred thousand. But even this was nothing to what some of them secured later by holding several offices at once. At one time Berthier had a yearly income of a million three hundred and fifty-five thousand francs; Davout, of nine hundred and ten thousand; Ney, of seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand; Ma.s.sena, of six hundred and eighty-three thousand. The ministers were able to secure salaries averaging about two hundred thousand francs, and amba.s.sadors had incomes corresponding to their dignity. Caulaincourt, the ablest of all the latter cla.s.s, had eight hundred thousand francs at St. Petersburg wherewith to support the imperial state of France. It is interesting to note from Napoleon's letters that he had occasionally to admonish some of these gentlemen to make use of their t.i.tles.

The Revolution had chosen to find its artistic expression in the correct and strict severity of cla.s.sical forms. Napoleon had from the beginning of his career been under the spell of Greek and Roman examples. Thus it happened that the art of the First Empire was what it is-heavy, conventional, and reminiscent. With the ever-growing rigidity of censorship, literature sometimes took refuge in abstractions, or, what is much the same thing, in the contemplation of events so remote that their discussion could give no offense. Sometimes authors accepted the curious task of defending the external forms and results of the Revolution as expressed in the Empire, while combating every principle from which the movement had sprung. Able men like Chenier published some of their writings, and locked others in their desks against a brighter day. In religion the Emperor's principle was that his subjects should hate the English because they were heretics, and the Pope because he was a fanatic. The "ideologues" and "metaphysicians" were anarchists, for the public order was endangered by their teachings. The newspapers were not only gagged, but metamorphosed-the "French Citizen" into the "French Courier," the "Journal of Debates" into the "Journal of the Empire." Their columns were filled with laudations of the Emperor; their political articles were virtually composed in the Foreign Office; and there was not a symptom of anything like the existence of party feeling. A certain journalist having been allowed to make statements concerning the luxury at court, the editor of the offending paper was given to understand that the Emperor would tolerate no such criticism nor any remarks contrary to his interests.[17]

But the crowning work of this period was the final realization of the plan for organizing public instruction in what was designated by the head of the state as the Imperial University. Though somewhat changed in name and character, it exists to-day virtually as it came from the maker's hand. Like the inst.i.tution of the prefecture, it is a faultless machine of equalization and centralization, molding the ma.s.s of educated Frenchmen into one form, rendering them responsive and receptive to authoritative ideas from their youth upward, and pa.s.sive in their att.i.tude toward instruction. Joseph de Maistre used to preach that, all social order depending on the authority of beliefs as well as on the authority of behavior, no man who denied the supremacy of the Pope would permanently admit the sovereignty of the state. Napoleon furnished a standing refutation of this thesis. The whole system of public instruction in France has under the third republic not merely been secularized, but it has been made, and for a quarter of a century has remained, substantially infidel. Twenty-five academic generations of living French citizens, reckoning each year's output as a generation, have come out from its laboratory with a minimum of faith; but state supremacy and state socialism are, in a moderate form, more prevalent among them than among any similar body of men elsewhere.

The University of France means literally the totality of all instruction in the country, organized by successive stages into a single system, and rigidly controlled from above. The outlines sketched in the law pa.s.sed in 1802, and supplemented in 1806, were carefully followed by Napoleon in his final step, and neither the theory nor the method need be again discussed. It is significant that it was an imperial decree, and not a statute, which on March seventeenth, 1808, created the organism. There was an endowment of four hundred million francs, and a separate budget, "in order that instruction might not suffer by pa.s.sing disturbances in imperial finances." In order, also, that its doctrine might not feel the influence of every pa.s.sing philosophical fashion, the corporation was subordinate to, but separate from, the ministry, with a grand master, chancellor, and treasurer of its own, and thirty members, of whom ten were appointed for life by the Emperor, the rest being annually designated by the grand master. They made rules for the discipline, revised the textbooks, and chose the instructors of all the inst.i.tutions of learning in all France, except some of the great ecclesiastical seminaries and a few of the technical schools. At the outset it was ordered that all the masters, censors, and teachers in the great intermediate schools or lyceums should be celibates! The professors might marry, but in that case they could not live in the precincts of what was virtually a military barrack.

Liberal culture, so far as given, was provided in the lyceums, and they really form the heart of the university. Under the Empire their instruction was largely in mathematics, with a sprinkling of Latin. It is now greatly broadened and elevated. The pupils of the primary schools felt a quasi-dependence on the Emperor; those of the lyceums were the very children of patronage, for the cheapness of their education, combined with their semi-military uniforms and habits, impressed at every turn on them and their families the immanence of the Empire. They entered by government examinations; all their letters pa.s.sed through the head master's hands; they were put under a threefold system of espionage culminating in the grand master; the one hundred and fifty scholarships and bourses in each were paid by the state; the punishments were, like those of soldiers, arrest and imprisonment. With the acquisition of military habits the young lyceen could look forward to military promotion, for two hundred and fifty of the most select were sent every year to the military schools, where they lived at the Emperor's expense, expecting professional advancement by the Emperor's patronage. Others of less merit were detached for the civil service, and in that also their careers were at the imperial mercy. They were daily and hourly reminded of Napoleon's greatness, for twenty-four hundred foreigners from the va.s.sal states of the Empire were scattered among these inst.i.tutions, where they were turned into Frenchmen and docile subjects at the Emperor's expense, while being virtually held as hostages for the good behavior of their parents. These powerful engines did not work in vain. During the comparatively short existence of the Empire their product a.s.sumed enormous proportions, and largely modified the temper of society throughout France. The youth educated by priests or tutors were found unable to keep pace with their favored contemporaries from the government schools, and from the first no prophet was needed to foretell the destiny of private inst.i.tutions and ecclesiastical seminaries. Little by little they made way for or became annexed to the lyceums which one after another were founded wherever needed. The charges of the latter were, and are, very low; and thrifty fathers appreciate the fact. The state is at enormous cost to support them; but public sentiment, preferring indirect to direct taxation, approves of the expenditure, while crafty statesmen, whether royalist, imperialist, or republican, employ them to create citizens of the kind in power at the time.

Throughout the late summer and autumn of 1807 the imperial court was more stately than ever before. The old n.o.bility became a.s.siduous in their attendance, and, as one of the Empress's ladies in waiting is said to have remarked they "received good company." On his return Napoleon had found Josephine's extravagance to be as unbounded as ever; but he could not well complain, because, although for the most part frugal himself, he had latterly encouraged lavishness in his family. Still, it was not agreeable to have dressmakers' bills flung into his carriage when driving in state with his consort, and on one occasion he sent an unprincipled but clever milliner to the prison of Bicetre for having disobeyed his orders in furnishing her wares to the Empress at exorbitant prices. The person was so indispensable to the court ladies, however, that they crowded her cell, and she was soon released. At St. Cloud, Malmaison, the Tuileries, and Fontainebleau the social vices of courts began to appear; but they were sternly repressed, especially high play. By way of contrast, the city of Paris was at that very moment debauched by a profusion of gambling-h.e.l.ls and houses of prost.i.tution, all licensed at an enormous figure by Fouche and producing great revenues for the secret police. The gorgeous state uniforms of the marshals, the rich and elegant costumes of the ladies, the bespangled and begilt coats of the household, dancing, theatricals, concerts, and excursions-all these elements should have combined to create brilliancy and gaiety in the imperial circle, but they did not.

There was something seriously amiss with the central figure. He was often sullen and morose, often violent and even hysterical. To calm his nervous agitation the court physician ordered warm baths, which he spent hours in taking. Then again he was irregular in his habits, being often somnolent during the daytime, but as frequently breaking his rest at midnight to set the pens of his secretaries scampering to keep pace with the flow of his speech. With old friends he was coa.r.s.e and severe: even the brutal Vandamme confessed that he trembled before that "devil of a man," while Lannes was the only human being who still dared to use the familiar "thou" in addressing his old comrade. To the face of his generals the Emperor was merely cold: behind their backs he sneered-saying, for instance, of Davout that he might give him never so much renown, he would not be able to carry it; of Ney that he was disposed to ingrat.i.tude and turbulence; of Bessieres, Oudinot, and Victor that they were mere mediocrities. Among all these dazzling stars he himself moved in simple uniform and in a c.o.c.ked hat ornamented with his favorite cheap little c.o.c.kade. It was a well-calculated vanity, for with increasing corpulence plainness of dress called less attention to his waddling gait and growing awkwardness of gesture.

The summer of 1807 saw the social triumph of the Bonaparte family, the sometime Jacobins, but now emperor and kings. Jerome Napoleon was married on August twenty-second to the Princess Catherine of Wurtemberg. The Emperor had already spoken at Tilsit with the Czar about unions for himself and family suitable to their rank, but the hint of an alliance with the Romanoffs was coldly received. In the Emperor's opinion this, however, was a really splendid match. The Rhine princes and subsidiary monarchs hastened to Paris, and one of them showed his want of perspicacity by marked attentions to Josephine, which he hoped would secure her husband's favor. When men of such lofty and undisputed lineage were joining what was apparently an irresistible movement, the recusant n.o.bility of France itself could not well stand aloof any longer. It amused and interested the Emperor to see them obey Fouche's hint, and throng to be introduced in the correct way to the new and undisputed sovereign, not merely of France, but of western Europe.

Moreover, they were no longer impertinent. They remembered the fate meted out to Mme. de Stael for her solemn innuendos, and did not forget that the last item in the indictment on which Mme. de Chevreuse had been banished was a snippish remark to Napoleon's face. Astonished at the splendor of her diamonds, he had in his own court clumsily asked if they were all real. "Indeed, sire, I do not know," she replied; "but they are good enough to wear here." In consequence, therefore, of this new and now well-intentioned element the court swelled in numbers and gained in grace, but not in joyousness. The Empress was already foreboding her fate; there was the stiffness of inapt.i.tude about everything, even the amus.e.m.e.nt, and the languid weariness of the ladies was an unforgiven imperial sin. The quick wit of the Emperor remarked this annoying fact, and demanded counsel of Talleyrand. The Prince of Benevento had by this time resigned his position as minister, and the relations between himself and the Emperor were strained, but he was not rebuked when he ventured on the old license of speech. "It is because pleasure will not move at the drum-tap," was his answer, "and you look as if you would command every one just as you do the army: 'Ladies and gentlemen, forward march!'"

Talleyrand's numberless intrigues, his venality and self-seeking, his cynicism and contemptuous airs, had finally destroyed his preponderance with Napoleon, although he still retained much influence. No one was better aware of the fact than he was. Thus far he had reckoned himself an indispensable factor in the administration of the Empire; now he saw that he was so no longer, that his time had come.

He had a sterile mind, and was dest.i.tute of principle. Constructive politics were beyond his powers, and he was hopelessly ignorant of social movements. The real Europe of his time was to him a closed book; and while Napoleon was well served in every other function of state, because he himself could a.s.sist and supervise, he was wretchedly betrayed in the matter of permanent gains by diplomacy, in which he was personally a blunderer and a tyro. Talleyrand was a distinguished and typical aristocrat of the old French school, elegant, adroit, smooth-spoken, and sharp. He was an unequaled courtier, influential by his moderation in word, gesture, and expression, but a feeble adviser, and utterly incapable of broad views. His character, being unequal to his skill, was not strong enough either to curb or guide a headstrong master, for his intellect was neither productive nor solid. No treaty ever made by him was lasting, and he must have known that even the peace of Tilsit would begin to crumble almost before the papers were signed. The balance of Europe was disturbed but temporarily by that agreement, not permanently, as had been intended; the attempted seclusion of Prussia by Napoleon destroyed her old antagonism to other German powers, and marked the beginning of amalgamation with all her sister states for the reconstruction of an avenging German nationality.

Something may be forgiven to an adventurer in the storms of revolution, but Talleyrand trimmed his sails to every wind, outrode every storm, and made gains in every port. He was a trusted official of the Republic, the Consulate, the Empire, and the restored monarchy. Wise in his day and generation, he had long before made ready to withdraw, if necessary, from active life, by the acc.u.mulation of an enormous fortune, heaped up by means which scandalized even imperial France. He had been embittered at the close of the Consulate by Napoleon's determination that his ministers should not be his highest dignitaries, his arch-officers. The t.i.tle of "prince," with two hundred thousand francs a year, was a poor consolation when men like Lebrun and Cambaceres had the precedence as arch-treasurer and arch-chancellor, while-most unendurable of all-they drew salaries of three hundred and fifty thousand francs. Berthier, the Prince of Neufchatel, had recently been made vice-constable to represent Louis Bonaparte, who, though still constable, had left Paris to become Louis Napoleon, King of Holland. This was Talleyrand's opportunity to resign from the ministry on his own initiative. He demanded a dignity for himself similar to that accorded to Berthier. The Emperor told him that, accustomed to power as he had become, he would be unhappy in a station which precluded his remaining in the cabinet. But the minister knew his role in the little comedy, and, persisting, was on August ninth made vice-grand elector, while Champagny, an excellent and laborious official, took his seat at the council-board as minister of external relations. Talleyrand's withdrawal had not the slightest influence on the Emperor's foreign policy; in fact, the quidnuncs at Fontainebleau declared that he was seen limping into Napoleon's office almost every evening.[18] But he was so well known in every court, his circle of personal acquaintances was so large, so timorous, and so reverential, that superst.i.tious men believed his retirement augured the turn of Napoleon's fortunes.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER VIII.

The Empires of Land and Ocean.[19]

Diplomacy at St. Petersburg - Internal Politics of Russia - Alexander's Perplexities - War between Great Britain and Russia - New Orders in Council - The Milan Decree - Position of the United States - The Regeneration of Prussia - Napoleon's Repressive Measures - Austria's New Army - Diplomatic Tension between Russia and France - Designs of Napoleon as to Egypt - He Temporizes with Alexander - Caulaincourt and Tolstoi - The Czar's Demands - Napoleon's Visit to Italy - Limitations of his Ambition - Visions of Oriental Empire - Control of the Mediterranean - His Proposition to Russia - His Complete Program.

The diplomatic intrigues at St. Petersburg were intensely amusing after the peace of Tilsit. Alexander coquetted with the English agents, and concealed his plans from the conservative Russians. His lips were sealed about what had occurred at the meeting with Napoleon, and the charge has been disproved that some of his suite blabbed enough to the British diplomats to enable them to divine the rest. Canning's acuteness and his conviction that Napoleon and Alexander had reached an understanding hostile to England sufficiently account for the bombardment of Copenhagen, and place the responsibility for it on his shoulders. But in the interval before that event the Czar cajoled the English emba.s.sy until they felt a.s.sured of a triumph, while almost simultaneously he a.s.sured Lesseps, the French consul-general, how precious Napoleon's society had been to him, and declared that if England did not yield the two allies would compel her. To the formal introductory communications of Russia concerning peace, Canning replied by a demand for the secret articles of Tilsit, and despatched the fleet to the Baltic. The successful stroke made in September at Copenhagen filled the Czar with solicitude; for, like his ally, he had hoped to gain time, and such promptness in imitating Napoleon's contempt for neutral rights dismayed him. It looked as though this were the first event in a maritime war which would end by destroying the shipyards at Cronstadt, or perhaps even St. Petersburg itself. But instead of further aggression came a new mission from the London cabinet asking for Alexander's good offices in appeasing Denmark, and offering every indemnity to that power except the restoration of the fleet. Great Britain, commanding the Baltic, could be magnanimous.

From the collection of W. C. Crane.Engraved by Langier.

QUEEN HORTENSE.

Painted by Girodet.

This conjunction of affairs destroyed Alexander's self-control. He had played the friend of England to no advantage, and England now asked for new and impossible proofs of his friendship. He could neither disclose to her the secret articles nor mediate in her behalf with a country which had already joined his own system. On the other hand, Savary, the French amba.s.sador, and Lesseps, the French consul-general, were daily reminding him of his engagements to Napoleon. There was little need, for the alliance meant to him the attainment of his most cherished ambitions: the acquisition of Finland to the westward, and of the great Danube princ.i.p.alities of Moldavia and Wallachia to the south. In all contingencies he had to reckon with the wealthy Russian proprietors, whose prosperity demanded the easy export of their enormous produce in timber and grain by the same British ships which supplied them with essential articles that were not manufactured in Russia. To them the continental blockade was a horror, and many in the army declared they would not shed their blood to undermine the national prosperity.

This tension could not last. The English secretly introduced into Russia a pamphlet charging that the peace of Tilsit had separated the Czar from both his people and his troops. Savary, mindful of his old detective arts, discovered its origin and adroitly laid the facts before Alexander, who burst into angry abuse of the "libel," and bemoaned the lack of able men to support him both in a wise foreign policy and in such internal reforms as the abolition of serfdom, which he was determined to accomplish. Moreover, Napoleon's conduct was such as to produce serious uneasiness. So far from evacuating Prussia, French troops still occupied all her harbor towns, and menaced the Russian frontier as if their commander were a foe and not a friend. The agreement made with Kalkreuth for the gradual withdrawal of the French army from Prussia was held to be null, for the Prussians could not raise the indemnity of a hundred and fifty million francs computed as the direct cost of the war. To this was added the fact that no move was made toward the dismemberment of Turkey. The Emperor of the French had seized and fortified Corfu, but in a preliminary armistice between Russia and Turkey, due to his intermediation, not a word was said about the Danubian princ.i.p.alities; although the Russian troops were still in Wallachia, it was clear that French influence was daily growing stronger at Constantinople, and might grow strong enough to thwart the Czar's plans entirely.

Such were the disquieting considerations which finally brought to a climax the relations of Russia with England. On October twenty-sixth, Lord Leveson-Gower, the English amba.s.sador, received a note from Count Rumianzoff to the effect that twice Russia had taken up arms for England's advantage, and had in vain solicited even such cooperation as would seem to have been in Great Britain's own interest. She had not even asked, said the writer, for reinforcements, but merely for a diversion, and had been chagrined to see that her ally, so far from maintaining the Czar's cause, had instead, like a cold observer of the b.l.o.o.d.y theater where war had been kindled at her behest, despatched expeditions on her own behalf to seize Egypt and to attack Buenos Ayres. After all this the Czar had still offered his mediation, but in vain: Great Britain had replied by an act of unheard-of violence, despoiling an ancient and dignified monarchy. Could the Czar apologize for such a deed? It was insulting to expect it. After reciting these grievances and a.s.serting the principles of the armed neutrality, the paper announced a rupture of all diplomatic relations until reparation should be made to Denmark.

War was formally declared by Russia on November seventh, and England retorted by orders in council, issued on the eighteenth and twenty-sixth of the same month, which declared that every continental port closed to her flag was thereafter in a state of blockade. The neutral states were each and all notified that she would exercise the right of search to the fullest extent; that all neutral ships must put into English harbors before proceeding to their destination, and pay a duty in case of reexportation of their cargoes. An exception to this latter regulation was made in the case of the United States, they being graciously permitted to have direct commercial intercourse with Sweden, but with Sweden only. This, of course, meant that neutral states must either carry on England's trade under their own flags or abandon their commerce altogether.

This measure was in utter contempt of international law, even as then understood, and was a high-handed outrage against neutral powers, in particular against the United States. It was treating the ocean exactly as Napoleon had treated the lands of Europe. But it was a powerful weapon, for if successfully enforced it would destroy Napoleon's Continental System entirely. Accordingly, in pursuance of his policy that fire must be fought with fire, the Emperor retorted with equal ruthlessness, fulminating the terrible Milan Decree of December seventeenth, 1807. In it he declared that any vessel which obeyed the orders of the English admiralty or suffered itself to be searched was and would be regarded as an English ship. It was essential, therefore, that any nation desiring exemption from the enactments of the Berlin and Milan decrees on the one hand and of the English orders in council on the other must make itself respected by force of arms. The Americans must either accept the humiliating terms of England or enter the French system and seek in a maritime war to capture the continental markets for themselves.

Napoleon, as has already been narrated, intended to force them into the latter course immediately, but he was not well informed concerning American affairs. Jefferson was at that time in his second term as President of the United States. The Democratic party, of which he was the leader, was vastly more concerned with agricultural than with commercial interests. They were afraid to increase the public debt, cared little for the prosperity of New England commerce, and, seeking to avoid the dilemma arranged for them by England and France, pa.s.sed the notorious embargo act forbidding all foreign commerce whatsoever. American ships must avoid foreign waters, which, like the land, had become the arena of a b.l.o.o.d.y duel in which the United States were not interested-so, at least, the Democrats fondly believed. Exports to England fell in a single year from forty-nine to nine millions of dollars. In other words, the embargo, though causing great distress, could not be perfectly enforced, since the Eastern merchants continued their humiliating submission to England for the sake of their lucrative speculations.