The Modern Regime Volume I Part 10

[Footnote 12108: Moniteur, January 30, 1803 (Sebastiani).]

[Footnote 12109: Hansard, vol. x.x.xVI., p.1298. (Lord Whitworth's dispatch, Feb.21, 1803, the First Consul's words to Lord Whitworth.)]

[Footnote 12110: "Memorial." (Napoleon's own words, March 24, 1806.)]

[Footnote 12111: Lanfrey, II., 476. (Note to Otto, October 23, 1802.)--Thiers,VI., 249.]

[Footnote 12112: Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. "If, at Leipsic, I had had 30,000 cannon b.a.l.l.s to fire off on the evening of the 18th, I should to-day be master of the world."]

[Footnote 12113: "Memorial," Nov. 30, 1815.]

[Footnote 12114: Lanfrey, III.,--399. Letters of Talleyrand, October 11 and 27, 1805, and memorandum addressed to Napoleon.]

[Footnote 12115: At the council held in relation to the future marriage of Napoleon, Cambaceres vainly supported an alliance with the Russians.

The following week, he says to M. Pasquier: "When one has only one good reason to give and it cannot possibly be given, it is natural that one should be beaten..., You will see that it is so good that one phrase suffices to make its force fully understood. I am deeply convinced that in two years we shall have a war with that of two powers whose daughter the Emperor does not marry. Now a war with Austria does not cause me any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war with Russia. The consequences are incalculable." "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I., p 293, p 378.).]

[Footnote 12116: M. de Metternich, II., 305. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, Aug.10, 1809.)--Ibid. 403.. (Letter of Jan.11, 1811.) "My appreciation of Napoleon's plans and projects, at bottom, has never varied. The monstrous purpose of the complete subjection of the continent under one head was, and is still, his object."]

[Footnote 12117: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): "The war will take place in spite of him (the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me, in spite of the interests of France and those of Russia. Having already seen this so often, it is my past experience which enables me to unveil the future,"]

[Footnote 12118: Mollien, III., 135, 190.--In 1810 "prices have increased 400% on sugar, and 100 % on cotton and dye stuffs."--"More than 20,000 custom-house officers were employed on the frontier against more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant activity and favored by the population."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 387.--There were licenses for importing colonial products, but on condition of exporting a proportionate quant.i.ty of French manufactures; now, England refused to receive them. Consequently, "not being allowed to bring these articles back to France, they were thrown overboard."--"They began at first by devoting the refuse of manufactures to this trade, and then ended by manufacturing articles without other destination; for example, at Lyons, taffetas and satins."]

[Footnote 12119: Proclamation of Dec.27, 1805: "The Naples dynasty has ceased to reign. Its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honor of my crown."--Message to the Senate, Dec. 10, 1810: "Fresh guarantees having become necessary, the annexation to the Empire of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, seemed to me to be the first and most important.... The annexation of the Valais is an antic.i.p.ated result of the vast works I have undertaken for the past ten years in that section of the Alps."]

[Footnote 12120: We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment of Portugal is anterior and of same order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to Junot, Oct.31, 1807):--'I have already informed you, that in authorizing you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to possess yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take Portugal."--(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23, 1807): "Disarm the country. Send all the Portuguese troops to France.... I want them out of the country.

Have all princes, ministers, and other men who serve as rallying points, sent to France."--(Decree of Dec. 23, 1807): "An extra contribution of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to redeem all property, of whatever denomination, belonging to private parties... All property belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the possessions of the n.o.bles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country, and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1, shall be put under sequestration."--Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'eglise Romaine et le premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No other work enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings better nor more closely.]

[Footnote 12121: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a specimen of steps taken in time of war, see the register of Marshal Bessieres' orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 to July 15, 1811.)--"Correspondance du Roi Jerome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon, Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in times of peace): "If war should break out, all countries between the Rhine and the Oder will become the center of a vast and active insurrection. The mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely hatred of the French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the misfortunes of the day, in the total ruin of all cla.s.ses, in over-taxation, consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops, soldiers traversing the country, and every sort of constantly renewed vexation.... At Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the princ.i.p.al towns of my kingdom, owners of property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere presses on families; capital is exhausted; the n.o.ble, the peasant, the bourgeois, are crushed with debt and want.... The despair of populations no longer having anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to be feared."--De Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied countries.) At Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I found his secretary, canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross of his order, who showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the previous evening by General Count Vandamme, because he had refused to serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the general; he was told that the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle the day before, and had carted away all this wine."]

[Footnote 12122: Fievee, "Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte, de 1802 a 1813," III., 82. (Dec. 1811), (On the populations annexed or conquered): "There is no hesitation in depriving them of their patrimony, their language, their legislatures, in disturbing all their habits, and that without any warrant but throwing a bulletin des lois at their heads (inapplicable).... How could they be expected to recognize this, or even become resigned to it?... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that one is under constraint, wounded in feeling and humiliated?... Prussia, and a large part of Germany, has been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man than to stir up a pile of manure."]

[Footnote 12123: "Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, Feb. 18, 1814.

"If I had signed the treaty reducing France to its ancient limits, I should have gone to war two years after"--Marmont, V., 133 (1813): "Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always preferred to lose all rather than to yield anything."]

[Footnote 12124: M. de Metternich, II., 205.]

[Footnote 12125: Words of Richelieu on his death-bed: "Behold my judge,"

said he, pointing to the Host, "the judge who will soon p.r.o.nounce his verdict. I pray that he will condemn me, if, during my ministry, I have proposed to myself aught else than the good of religion and of the State."]

[Footnote 12126: Miot de Melito, "Memoires,"II., 48, 152.]

[Footnote 12127: "Souvenirs," by Gaudin, duc de Gaete (3rd vol. of the "Memoires," p.67).]

[Footnote 12128: M. de Metternich, II., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July 26, 1807.)]

[Footnote 12129: Ibid., II., 291. (Letter of April 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 12130: Ibid., II., 400. (Letter of Jan.17, 1811.) In lucid moments, Napoleon takes the same view. Cf. Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That will last as long as I do.

After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 40,000 francs a year."--(De Segur, "Histoire et Memoires," III., 155.): "How often at this time (1811) was he heard to foretell that the weight of his empire would crush his heir!" "Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, "what an entanglement I shall leave to you!" From the beginning he frequently pa.s.sed judgment on himself and foresaw the effect of his action in history." On reaching the isle of Poplars, the First Consul stopped at Rousseau's grave, and said: 'It would have, been better for the repose of France, if that man had never existed.' 'And why, citizen Consul?' 'He is the man who made the French revolution.'

'It seems to me that you need not complain of the French revolution!'

'well, the future must decide whether it would not have been better for the repose of the whole world if neither myself nor Rousseau had ever lived.' He then resumed his promenade in a revery."--Stanislas Girardin; "Journal et Memoires," III., Visit of the French Consul to Ermenonville.]

[Footnote 12131: Marmont, "Memoires," III., 337. (On returning from Wagram.)]

[Footnote 12132: On this initial discord, cf. Armand Lefevre, "Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe," vol.VI.]

[Footnote 12133: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1811.)]

[Footnote 12134: Testament of April 25, 1821 "It is my desire that my remains rest on the banks of the Seine, amidst that French people I have so dearly loved."]

[Footnote 12135: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.", XXII., 119. (Note by Napoleon, April, 1811.) "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen, either as employees or as gendarmes, in the custom-houses and warehouses."]

[Footnote 12136: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, II., 88, and following pages: "During the year 1813, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men had already been drafted from imperial France and they had to be furnished."--Other decrees in December, placing at the disposition of the government 300,000 conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.--Another decree in November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in cohorts, intended for the defense of strongholds.--In all, 1,300,000 men summoned in one year. "Never has any nation been thus asked to let itself be voluntarily led in a ma.s.s to the slaughterhouse.--Ibid., II., 59.

Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising 10,000 young men, exempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose, arbitrarily, from amongst the highest cla.s.ses in society. The purpose was plainly "to secure hostages in every family of doubtful loyalty.

No measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable enemies."--Cf.

De Segur, II., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding a division of young men.) Many were sons of Vendeans or of Conventionalists, some torn from their wives the day after their marriage, or from the bedside of a wife in her confinement, of a dying father, or of a sick son; "some looked so feeble that they seemed dying." One half perished in the campaign of 1814.--"Correspondance,"

letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Oct.23, 1813 (in relation to the new levies): "I rely on 100,000 refractory conscripts."]

[Footnote 12137: "Archives nationales," A F.,VI., 1297. (Doc.u.ments 206 to 210.) (Report to the Emperor by Count Dumas, April 10, 1810.) Besides the 170 millions of penalties 1,675,457 francs of penalty were inflicted on 2335 individuals, "abettors or accomplices."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1051.

(Report of Gen. Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13, 1808.) "He always calculated in this department on the desertion of one-half of the conscripts. In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic with the conscription shamefully; certain conscripts pension them to show them favors."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1052. (Report by Pelet, Jan. 12, 1812.) "The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault); the contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800 refractory, or deserters of the previous cla.s.ses; 1600 have been arrested or made to surrender by the flying column; 200 have still to be pursued." Faber,--"Notice (1807) sur l'interieur de la France," p. 141: "Desertion, especially on the frontiers, is occasionally frightful; 80 deserters out of 160 have sometimes been arrested."--Ibid., p.149: It has been stated in the public journals that in 1801 the court in session at Lille had condemned 135 refractory out of the annual conscription, and that which holds its sittings at Ghent had condemned 70. Now, 200 conscripts form the maximum of what an arrondiss.e.m.e.nt in a department could furnish."--Ibid, p.145. "France resembles a vast house of detention where everybody is suspicious of his neighbor, where each avoids the other... One often sees a young man with a gendarme at his heels oftentimes, on looking closely, this young man's hands are found tied, or he is handcuffed."--Mathieu Dumas, III., 507 (After the battle of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals): "I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men were slightly wounded: most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not been wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the campaign of 1809."]

[Footnote 12138: De Segur, III., 474.--Thiers, XIV., 159. (One month after crossing the Niemen one hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped out of the ranks.)]

[Footnote 12139: Bulletin 29 (December 3, 1812).]

[Footnote 12140: "De Pradt, Histoire de l'Amba.s.sade de Varsovie," p.219.]

[Footnote 12141: M. de Metternich, I., 147.--Fain, "Ma.n.u.script," of 1813, II., 26. (Napoleon's address to his generals.) "What we want is a complete triumph. To abandon this or that province is not the question; our political superiority and our existence depend on it. "--II., 41, 42. (Words of Napoleon to Metternich.) "And it is my father-in-law who favors such a project! And he sends you! In what att.i.tude does he wish to place me before the French people? He is strangely deluded if he thinks that a mutilated throne can offer an asylum to his daughter and grandson.... Ah, Metternich, how much has England given you to make you play this part against me?" (This last phrase, omitted in Metternich's narrative, is a characteristic trait; Napoleon at this decisive moment, remains insulting and aggressive, gratuitously and even to his own destruction.)]

[Footnote 12142: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 235.]

[Footnote 12143: Ibid., I., 230. Some days before Napoleon had said to M. de Narbonne, who told me that very evening: "After all, what has this (the Russian campaign) cost me? 300,000 men, among whom, again, were a good many Germans."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. II. 110. (Apropos of the Frankfurt basis, and accepted by Napoleon when too late.) "What characterizes this mistake is that it was committed much more against the interests of France than against his own.... He sacrificed her to the perplexities of his personal situation, to the mauvaise honte of his own ambition, to the difficulty he finds in standing alone to a certain extent before a nation which had done everything for him and which could justly reproach him with having sacrificed so much treasure and spilled so much blood on enterprises proved to have been foolish and impracticable."]

[Footnote 12144: Leonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France,"

P.40. (According to the former director of the conscription under the Empire.)]

BOOK SECOND. FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW STATE.

CHAPTER I. THE INSt.i.tUTION OF GOVERNMENT