The Modern Regime Volume I Part 19

In this manner are the worst damages repaired. The three new administrative services, with a different set-up, do the job of the old ones and, at the expiration of twenty-five years, give an almost equal return.--In sum, the new proprietor of the great structure sacked by the Revolution has again set up the indispensable apparatus for warming, lighting and ventilation; as he knows his own interests perfectly, and is poorly off in ready money, he contributes only a minimum of the expense; in other respects, he has grouped together his tenants into syndicates, into barracks, in apartments, and, voluntarily or involuntarily, he has put upon them the burden of cost. In the meantime, he has kept the three keys of the three engines in his own cabinet, in his own hands, for himself alone; henceforth, it is he who distributes throughout the building, on each story and in every room, light, air and heat. If he does not distribute the same quant.i.ty as before he at least distributes whatever is necessary; the tenants can, at last, breathe comfortably, see clearly and not shiver; after ten years of suffocation, darkness and cold they are too well satisfied to wrangle with the proprietor, discuss his ways, and dispute over the monopoly by which he has const.i.tuted himself the arbitrator of their wants.--The same thing is done in the material order of things, in relation to the highways, dikes, ca.n.a.ls, and structures useful to the people: here also he repairs or creates through the same despotic initiative,

* with the same economy,[31146]

* the same apportionment of expense,[31147]

* the same spontaneous or forced aid to those interested,

* the same practical efficiency.[31148]

Summing it up and if we take things as a whole, and if we offset the worse with the better, it may be said that the French people have recovered the possessions they had been missing since 1789:

* internal peace,

* public tranquility,

* administrative regularity,

* impartial justice,

* a strict police,

* security of persons, property and consciences,

* liberty in private life,

* enjoyment of one's native land, and, on leaving it, the privilege of coming back;

* the satisfactory endowment, gratuitous celebration and full exercise of worship;

* schools and instruction for the young;

* beds, nursing and a.s.sistance for the sick, the indigent and for foundlings;

* the maintenance of roads and public buildings.

So that of the two groups of cravings which troubled men in 1800, the first one, that which dated from the Revolution, has, towards 1808 or 1810, obtained reasonable satisfaction.

[Footnote 3101: Roederer, III., 334 (August 6, 1800).]

[Footnote 3102: The word means "what is beyond the Alps" but refers to a number of doctrines favoring the Pope's absolute authority. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3103: Stanislas Girardin, "Memoires," I., 273 (22 Thermidor, year X): "The only craving, the only sentiment in France, disturbed for so many years, is repose. Whatever secures this will gain its a.s.sent.

Its inhabitants, accustomed to take an active part in all political questions, now seem to take no interest in them."--Roederer, III., 484 (Report on the Senatorerie of Caen, Dec. 1, 1803): "The people of the rural districts, busy with its new affairs,... are perfectly submissive, because they now find security for persons and property.. .. They show no enthusiasm for the monarch, but are full of respect for and trust in a gendarme; they stop and salute him on pa.s.sing him on the roads."]

[Footnote 3104: Rocquam, "l'etat de la France au 18 Brumaire." (Report by Barbe-Marbois, p. 72, 81.) Cash-boxes broken open and exclamations by the officers "Money and fortune belong to the brave. Let us help ourselves. Our accounts will be settled at the cannon's mouth."--"The subordinates," adds Barbe-Marbois, "fully aware of their superior's drafts on the public treasury, stipulate for their share of the booty; accustomed to exacting contributions from outside enemies they are not averse to treating as conquered enemies the departments they were called upon to defend."]

[Footnote 3105: Ibid. (Reports of Barbe-Marbois and Fourcroy while on their missions in the 12th and 13th military divisions, year IX., p.158, on the tranquility of La Vendee.) "I could have gone anywhere without an escort. During my stay in some of the villages I was not disturbed by any fear or suspicion whatever.... The tranquility they now enjoy and the cessation of persecutions keep them from insurrection."]

[Footnote 3106: Archives nationales, F7,3273 (Reports by Gen. Ferino, Pluviose, year IX, with a table of verdicts by the military commission since Floreal, year VIII.) The commission mentions 53 a.s.sa.s.sinations, 3 rapes, 44 pillagings of houses, by brigands in Vaucluse, Drome, and the Lower Alps; 66 brigands taken in the act are shot, 87 after condemnation, and 6, who are wounded, die in the hospital.--Rocquain, ibid., p. 17, (Reports of Francais, from Nantes, on his mission in the 8th military division.) "The South may be considered as purged by the destruction of about 200 brigands who have been shot. There remains only three or four bands of 7 or S men each."]

[Footnote 3107: Three cla.s.ses of insurrectionary peasants or marauders.--Tr.]

[Footnote 3108: Archives Nationales, F7, 7152 (on the prolongation of brigandage). Letter from Lhoste, agent, to the minister of justice, Lyons, Pluviose 8, year VIII. "The diligences are robbed every week."--Ibid., F7,3267, (Seine-et-Oise, bulletins of the military police and correspondence of the gendarmerie). Brumaire 25, year VIII, attack on the Paris mail near Arpajon by 5 brigands armed with guns. Fructidor, year VIII, at three o'clock P.M., a cart loaded with 10,860 francs sent by the collector at Mantes to the collector at Versailles is stopped near the Marly water-works, by 8 or 10 armed brigands on horseback.--Similar facts abound. It is evident that more than a year is required to put an end to brigandage.--It is always done by employing an impartial military force. (Rocquam, Ibid, p. 10.) "There are at Ma.r.s.eilles three companies of paid national guards, 60 men each, at a franc per man. The fund for this guard is supplied by a contribution of 5 francs a month paid by every man subject to this duty who wishes to be exempt. The officers... are all strangers in the country. Robberies, murders, and conflicts have ceased in Ma.r.s.eilles since the establishment of this guard."]

[Footnote 3109: Archives Nationales, 3144 and 3145, No.1004. (Reports of the councillors of State on mission during the year IX, published by Rocquam, with omissions, among which is the following, in the report of Francois de Nantes.) "The steps taken by the mayors of Ma.r.s.eilles are sufficiently effective to enable an emigre under surveillance and just landed, to walk about Ma.r.s.eilles without being knocked down or knocking anybody else down, an alternative to which they have been thus far subject. And yet there are in this town nearly 500 men who have slaughtered with their own hands, or been the accomplices of slaughterers, at different times during the Revolution.... The inhabitants of this town are so accustomed to being annoyed and despoiled, and to being treated like those of a rebellious town or colony, that arbitrary power no longer frightens them, and they simply ask that their lives and property be protected against murderers and pillagers, and that things be entrusted to sure and impartial hands."]

[Footnote 3110: Roederer, III., 481. (Report on the Senatorerie of Caen, Germinal 2, year XIII.)--Faber, "Notice sur l'interieur de la France"(1807), p.110, 112. "Justice is one of the bright sides of France of to-day. It is costly, but it cannot be called venal."]

[Footnote 3111: Rocquain, ibid., 19. (Report of Francois de Nantes on the 8th military division.) "For the past eighteen months a calm has prevailed here equal to that which existed before the Revolution. b.a.l.l.s and parties have been resumed in the towns, while the old dances of Provence, suspended for ten years, now gladden the people of the country."]

[Footnote 3112: Proclamation to the French people, Dec. 15, 1799.]

[Footnote 3113: See "The Revolution," vol. III., p.292. (Notes.) (Laff.

II, the notes on pp. 218-219.)]

[Footnote 3114: Decision of the Council of State, Pluviose 5, year VIII (Jan. 25, 1800).]

[Footnote 3115: Forneron, "Histoire generale des emigres," II., 374.

In 1800, the army of Conde still comprised 1007 officers and 5840 volunteers.]

[Footnote 3116: Decrees of Brumaire 3, year IV, and of Frimaire 9, year VI. (Cf. "The Revolution," pp.433, 460.)]

[Footnote 3117: Const.i.tution of Frimaire 22, year VIII. (December 13, 1799), article 93. "The French nation declares that in no case will it suffer the return of the Frenchmen who, having abandoned their country since the 14th of July 1789, are not comprised in the exceptions made to the laws rendered against emigres. It interdicts every new exception in this respect."]

[Footnote 3118: Opinion of the Council of State, Dec. 25, 1799.]

[Footnote 3119: Resolution of Dec. 26, 1799.--Two ultra-Jacobins, exiled after Thermidor, are added to the list, Barere and Vadier, undoubtedly by way of compensation and not to let it appear that the scales inclined too much on one side.]

[Footnote 3120: Resolution of Dec. 30, 1799.]

[Footnote 3121: Resolutions of February 26, March 2, and March 3, 1800.]

[Footnote 3122: Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," 199. (Stated by the First Consul at Regnault at a meeting of the council of state, Aug.12, 1801.) "I am glad to hear the denunciation of striking off names. How many have you yourselves not asked for? It could not be otherwise. Everybody has some relation or friend on the lists."]

[Footnote 3123: Thibaudeau. ibid. (Speech by the First Consul.) "Never have there been lists of emigres; there are only lists of absentees.

The proof of this is that names have always been struck off. I have seen members of the Convention and even generals on the lists. Citizen Monge was inscribed."]

[Footnote 3124: Thibaudeau, ibid., 97.--"The minister of police made a great hue and cry over the arrest and sending back of a few emigres who returned without permission, or who annoyed the buyers of their property, while, at the same time, it granted surveillance to all who asked for it, paying no attention to the distinction made by the resolution of Vendemiaire 28."]

[Footnote 3125: Senatus-consulte of April 26, 1802.]

[Footnote 3126: Senatus-consulte of April 26, 1802, t.i.tle II., articles 16 and 17.--Gaudin, Duc de Gaete, "Memoires," I., 183. (Report on the administration of the Finances in 1803.) "The old proprietors have been reinstated in more than 20,000 hectares of forests."]

[Footnote 3127: Thibaudeau, ibid., p. 98. (Speech of the First Consul, Thermidor 24, year IX.) "Some of the emigres who have been pardoned are cutting down their forests, either from necessity or to send money abroad. I will not allow the worst enemies of the republic, the defenders of ancient prejudices, to recover their fortunes and despoil France. I am glad to welcome them back; but it is important that the nation should preserve its forests; the navy needs them."]

[Footnote 3128: An arpent measures about an acre and a half.(TR.)]