Chapter VII: The Consulate (1799-1804) (3)

The concessions were in fact great, the First Consul abandoning points which had long been disputed,--Egypt, Malta, and Ceylon; and he showed extreme annoyance when Lord Hawkesbury refused to admit the principle of complete restitution in America. Several threatening articles were inserted in the _Moniteur_, and Bonaparte urgently hurried the preparation of a fleet of gun-boats at Boulogne, which were supposed to be intended for the invasion of England. It had long been an idea of the First Consul's thus to intimidate the English Government, but it was only the people on the coast who were really alarmed. Nelson wrote immediately to the Admiralty, that "even on leaving the French harbors the landing is impossible were it only for the difficulties caused by the tides: and as to the notion of rowing over, it is impracticable humanly speaking." An attempt to land a large army on the English coast was soon to become a fixed idea in Bonaparte's mind; but then he used his armaments to disquiet the British Government. Twice Nelson attempted to destroy our fleet, and twice he failed completely: in the second attack, which was begun at night, and vigorously carried on to boarding, Admiral Latouche-Tréville compelled the English ships to withdraw, after inflicting severe losses upon them. Nevertheless, England still insisted on obtaining possession of the island of Trinidad, which belonged to Spain. The First Consul refused for a long time, but the Prince de la Paix had betrayed the hopes of his imperious ally. Bonaparte had guaranteed the throne of "Etruria" to the young Duke of Parma, and recently received in Paris the new sovereign, and his wife, the daughter of the King of Spain, and showed the nation that the prince was a simple lad, to be easily bent to his purposes. In return for so many favors, the Spanish troops had with difficulty conquered a few provinces, and King Charles IV., already reconciled to his son-in-law, the King of Portugal, concluded the treaty of Badajoz, which closed the harbors to the English, and granted an indemnity of twenty millions to France. The First Consul was extremely indignant, having counted on the threat of a war in Portugal to exercise a preponderating influence in the negotiations in London. At first he insisted that the treaty must be broken. "At the very time," said he, "when the First Consul places a prince of the house of Spain on a throne which is the fruit of the victories of the French nation, the French Republic is treated as the Republic of San Marino might with impunity be treated. Let the Prince de la Paix know that if he has been bought by England, and has drawn the king and queen into measures contrary to the honor and interest of the Republic, the last hour of the Spanish monarchy has struck."

The Prince de la Paix made ample excuses, but refused to break the treaty of Badajoz. The real intention of the First Consul was to have peace: he had three vessels granted him by Portugal, and abandoned the island of Trinidad to the demands of the English Government. At one time England also claimed Tobago, but the very terms of the treaty were displeasing to Bonaparte's pride, and he assumed the insulting tone which he had been accustomed to use with foreign diplomatists. "The following is what I am directed to tell you," wrote Talleyrand: "excepting Trinidad, the First Consul will not yield, not only Tobago, but even a single rock, if there is one, with only a village of a hundred people; and the ground of the First Consul's conduct is, that in the treaty he has yielded to England to the last limit of honor, and that further there would be for the French nation dishonor. He will grant nothing more, even if the English fleets were anchored before Chaillot."

Lord Hawkesbury withdrew his demands as to Tobago, and the First Consul modified his threats, both nations being eagerly desirous of peace. The preliminaries were at last signed in London, on the 1st October, 1801; and when, two days afterwards, the ratifications were brought from Paris by Colonel Lauriston, the welcome news caused an irresistible outburst of joy amongst the populace. The horses of the French envoy's carriage were unharnessed, that he might be drawn in triumph to Lord Hawkesbury's house; and everywhere in the streets there were shouts of "Long live Bonaparte!" At the banquets the First Consul's health was drunk, and cheered as loudly as the speeches in favor of the friendship of the two nations. The same excessive delight was shown in Paris, which was soon crowded with the foreigners whom war had long kept away; and Fox was received by the First Consul with such flattering attentions as made a deep impression on his mind. Party feeling had so influenced the mind of the illustrious orator as to partially efface his patriotic sentiments. A few days after the preliminaries were signed, he wrote to his friend Lord Grey, "I confess to you that I go farther than you in my hatred of the English Government: the triumph gained by France excites in me a joy I can scarcely conceal."

The public joy and hopes, both in France and England, were founded on motives superior to those which inspired Fox's satisfaction, but they were not more permanent, or better founded. On the day after signing the preliminaries of London, and as if to increase the renown of his successes, the First Consul took pleasure in concluding successively treaties with Portugal, the Sublime Porte, the Deys of Algiers and Tunis, Bavaria, and finally Russia. One clause of the last treaty stipulated that both sovereigns should prevent criminal conduct on the part of emigrants from either country. The House of Bourbon and the Poles were thus equally deprived of important protection. The situation of the King of Sardinia was to be regulated in every way according to actual circumstances. Each of the conventions, and especially the treaty of peace with England contained reticences and obscurities, which were fertile in pretexts for war and in unfriendly interpretations. The First Consul wished to secure an interval of rest and leisure, to consolidate his conquests at home and abroad. He had not renounced the glorious and ill-defined project of the imperial government which he affected to exercise over Europe. "If England made a new coalition," he wrote to M. Otto, "the only result would be a renewal of the history of the greatness of Rome."

It was to the honor of the First Consul, in the midst of this brilliant political and military renown, and in spite of his impulsive and ungovernable disposition, that he understood that the restoration of peace, the joy of victory, and the hope of a regular government, were unable to satisfy all the wants or regulate all the movements of the human soul. Personally without experience of religious prejudices or feelings, free from any connection with philosophical coteries, Bonaparte did not limit himself to a sense of the support which religion could lend in France to the new order which he wished to establish: he understood the higher wants of minds and consciences, and the supreme law which assigns to Heaven the regulation of human life. The doctrines of Christianity, as well as the divisions of the Christian Church, were indifferent to him; he did not understand their importance, and would have thought little of them; but he knew that, in spite of the efforts of the eighteenth century philosophy--in spite of the ravages caused by the French Revolution, the attachment and respect of many for the Catholic religion had still great power. He knew also that Catholicism could not be re-established in France, under his auspices, without the assistance and good will of the Court of Rome. No impression was made on his mind by the attempts made to persuade him to found in France an independent church freed from all connection with the Papacy, or by the arguments used in favor of Protestantism. His traditional respect, as well as the religious sentiment of the mass of the French nation, were in favor of Catholicism. His good sense, as well as his profound instinct of the means of action in government, had long urged him towards religious toleration. During his last campaign in Italy, a circular to the curés of Milan had revived the hopes of the Roman Court; and after Pope Pius VII. returned to his capital, on its evacuation by the Neapolitan troops, M. Spina, at first envoy at Turin, had followed the First Consul to Paris. He treated with Abbé Bernier who had skilfully negotiated to bring about the pacification of Vendée--a man of great ambition, determined to serve the government which could raise him to the episcopal purple. The _pourparlers_ were prolonged; the situation was difficult; the new powers founded in France by the Revolution and by victory raised pretensions which were contrary to the Roman tradition. They were, moreover, embarrassed by the unequal position of the ecclesiastics who were performing in France their sacred functions, some having submitted to the republican demands rather than leave their country and their flocks, others believing it was their duty to sacrifice everything to their former oaths. Proscribed and outlawed, they had for a long time preached, said mass, and given the sacraments in spite of an unrelenting persecution. A large number had decided to take to flight, but having now returned, the faithful were divided between them and the priests who had remained in France. Almost alone in Paris, and among those men whose opinion he was accustomed to consult, the First Consul persevered in his idea of again joining the French Church to the general Catholic body. His patience, however, was exhausted by the delay of the Holy College, and he resolved to have recourse to means which were more efficacious, and more in accordance with his character. On the 13th May, 1801, he wrote to M. Cacault, French minister at Rome, that he had determined to accept no longer the irresolution and dilatory procedure of the Court of Rome; if in five days the scheme sent from Paris, and long discussed by the Sacred College, was not accepted, Cacault must leave Rome to join, in Florence, General Murat, the commander-in-chief of the army of Italy.

The emotion at the Vatican was great. Shortly before, when giving Cacault his final instructions, the First Consul said, "Forget not to treat the Pope as if he had 200,000 men at his orders." The French minister had faithfully observed this injunction, which agreed with his personal opinions: he knew the obstacles which still separated the new master of France from the Roman Court. The scheme of ecclesiastical organization proposed by Bonaparte was simple: sixty bishops named by the civil power and confirmed by the Pope, the clergy salaried by the State, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction transferred to the Council of State, and the official management of religious bodies to the temporal authority. Pius VII. agreed to accept this new condition of the Church exclusively restored to her spiritual functions. The situation in the Church of the priests who had taken the oath to the civil constitution of 1789, their reconciliation to the papacy, the tacit admission of the appropriation by the State of the ecclesiastical property, the nomination of new bishops and consequent resignation or deprivation of those already holding the titles,--such were the various questions which occupied Pope Pius VII. and his skilful minister Cardinal Consalvi. Cacault tried to persuade them that the cardinal himself must go to Paris. "Most Holy Father," said the French minister, "it is necessary that Consalvi himself carry your reply to Paris. What alarms me most is the character of the First Consul; that man is never open to persuasion. Believe me, something stronger than cold reason advises me in this matter: a mere animal instinct some would call it, but it never deceives. What inconvenience if somehow or other you appear yourself? You are blamed. What did they say? They wish for a 'Concordat' of religion; we anticipate them and bring it, there it is!"

Pope Pius VII. had long felt for General Bonaparte an attraction caused by a mixed feeling of alarm and confidence. Alarm reigned in the mind of his minister, who made up his mind to set out for Paris as if he were going to martyrdom. "Since a victim is necessary," said he, "I devote myself, and go to see the First Consul: let the will of God be done!" He rode in Cacault's carriage from Rome to Florence, whence the French minister wrote to Talleyrand,--

"Citizen Minister, here I am, arrived in Florence. The cardinal secretary of state set out with me from Rome, and we have travelled together in the same carriage. We were looked upon everywhere with great astonishment. The cardinal was much afraid people should think I had withdrawn on account of a rupture, and kept saying to everybody, 'This is the French minister.' This country, crushed under the recent evils of war, shudders at the least thought of military disturbance. The Roman Government has still greater fear of its own dissatisfied subjects, especially those who have been allured to authority and pillage by the sort of revolution just gone through.... The cardinal set out this morning for Paris, and will arrive shortly before my despatch, as he goes extremely quickly. The wretched man feels that if he fails he will be irretrievably lost, and that all will be lost for Rome. He is eager to know his lot. I tried at Rome to bring the Pope to sign the Concordat only; and if he had granted me that point, I should not have left Rome; but that idea was unsuccessful.

"You understand that the cardinal is not sent to Paris to sign that which the Pope has refused to sign at Rome; but being the prime minister of his Holiness, and his favorite, it is with the Pope's mind that you will be in communication. I hope the result will be an agreement as to the modifications. It is a matter of phrases and words, which can be turned in so many meanings that at last the good meaning is got hold of."

The First Consul had resolved to make from the very first an impression on the mind of the pontifical envoy by the display of his power. Scarcely had the cardinal stepped out of his carriage when he received a visit from Abbé Bernier, whom he at once employed to ask an audience for him. The same day, at the Tuileries, before the crowd of courtiers who were thronging to one of the grand receptions, Cardinal Consalvi was presented to the First Consul. "My astonishment," says he in his correspondence, "was like that felt in the theatre by the sudden scene-shifting, when a cottage, prison, or wood is unexpectedly changed to the dazzling spectacle of the most magnificent court. You can easily imagine that a person arriving at Paris on the night preceding, without being told beforehand, without knowing anything of the habits, customs, and dispositions of those before whom he appeared, and who was in a measure considered responsible for the bad success of the negotiations so far as they had been carried, must, at the sight of such grandeur, as imposing as it was unexpected, have felt not only profound emotion, but even a too evident embarrassment." As the cardinal approached the three consuls, alone in the midst of a magnificent drawing-room filled with a brilliant throng, Bonaparte left him no time to speak. "I know the object of your journey to France," said he. "I wish the conferences to be immediately opened. I leave you five days' time; and I tell you beforehand that if at the expiration of the fifth day the negotiations are not finished, you must return to Rome; whilst as for me, I have decided what to do in that case."

Consalvi came to Paris ardently wishing to bring to a successful completion the difficult negotiations which had been entrusted to him. His Italian cunning was not deceived as to the motive of the display of magnificence, and the rough reception of himself which signalized his first audience. He was conscientious and resolute without narrowness of mind, and he understood the immense importance to religion and politics of the restoration of agreement between France and the Court of Rome. He appeared neither astonished nor disturbed with reference to the First Consul. When they came to the discussion of the questions which had brought him to Paris, the Pope's envoy showed himself easily influenced on most of the points. Bonaparte himself summarized the whole of the Concordat in a few words: "Fifty emigrant bishops, paid by England, manage all the French clergy, and their influence must be destroyed. The authority of the Pope is necessary for that. He deprives them of their charge, or obliges them to resign. As it is said that the Catholic religion is that of the majority of the French, the exercise of it should be organized. The First Consul nominates the fifty bishops; the Pope institutes them; they name the curés, and the State pays their salaries. They take the oath: the priests who refuse to submit are removed, and those who preach against the government are referred to their superiors. After all, enlightened men will not rise against Catholicism; they are indifferent."

A rather keen opposition, however, was raised among the courtiers and in the army against the Concordat, which assisted in hampering the progress of the negotiations. Most of the military men were still imbued with the spirit of the Revolution, and suspicious of the influence of the priests. The constitutional clergy, who had no serious objection to the Concordat, the only means of securing them a regular ecclesiastical standing, feared lest they should be sacrificed in favor of the priests who had refused to take the oath. Several of them were married, and had thus increased the difficulties of their position by new ties. So many personal interests and different motives kept the First Consul's advisers in a state of hostility to the claims of the Holy See. Even the preamble of the Concordat gave room to long discussions. On the refusal to apply the title "State religion" to the Catholic religion, Cardinal Consalvi agreed to the simple statement of the fact that the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion was the religion of the great majority of the French people. On the other hand, the Pope admitted the great advantage that religion should derive from the re-establishment of Catholic worship in France, and from the personal profession of it made by the consuls of the republic. He at the same time agreed to ask the old titular bishops to resign. The resignation of the constitutional bishops had been already secured. The First Consul wrote to Pius VII.: "Most holy Father, Cardinal Consalvi has showed me your Holiness' letter, and I recognize the evangelical sentiments which distinguish it. The cardinal will inform your Holiness of my intention to do all that may contribute to your happiness. It will depend only on you to find again in the French Government the support which it has always granted to your predecessors, when they have classed with their principal duties the preaching of maxims which help to confirm peace, morality, and obedience to the civil power.

"It only depends on me that the tears of Europe cease to flow, that the revolutions and wars be followed by general peace and order.

"On all occasions, I beg your Holiness to reckon upon the assistance of your devoted son."

Cardinal Consalvi had made several concessions; the French negotiators had more than once extended as they chose the exact sense of his concessions; but he refused absolutely to entrust the regulation of the public worship to the civil authority. In view of the cardinal's conscientious obstinacy, the First Consul at last agreed to important modifications of this point. When the day for signing arrived, Joseph Bonaparte, who had always a share in diplomatic negotiations, being one of the appointed signatories, the cardinal went to his house with the Abbé Bernier, both bringing a copy of the act. At the moment when the papal envoy was taking the pen, he cast his eyes over the text of the convention, and saw that the article referring to the exercise of worship had been restored to the form which he had objected to. Reading further, and finding other changes and additions, the cardinal protested against it. Joseph Bonaparte declared that he knew nothing of it. "The First Consul wished it to be so," said Bernier with some confusion, "declaring that anything may be changed so long as it is not signed. Besides, the draft agreed upon did not please him; and he insists upon the articles being so modified."

The time was short, the First Consul having announced his intention of announcing publicly the signature of the Concordat at a great banquet the same evening. The outbursts of his anger even reached the cardinal's ears. He had torn the Concordat, and threatened to declare the rupture of the negotiations if Consalvi did not consent to give way. "I underwent the agonies of death," said the cardinal. But he was convinced of his duty, and went to the Tuileries as unbending in his resolution as the First Consul in his imperious will. Bonaparte came to him as he entered the drawing-room, and called loudly, "Well, cardinal, you wish then to break! I have no need of Rome! Let it be so! I have no need of the Pope! If Henry VIII., who had not the twentieth part of my power, was able to change the religion of his country, I am much more able to do so! By that change of religion I shall change the religion through nearly the whole of Europe, wherever the influence of my power extends. Rome will be sensible of the losses she brings on herself. She will lament them, but there will be no remedy. You wished to break.... Very well! let it be so, since you wished it. When do you set out?" "After dinner, general," replied the cardinal with calmness.

Consalvi did not set out. Next day, in spite of the reiterated attempt made to influence him, in spite of the weakness of the majority of his legation, the Pope's secretary of state held firm. The First Consul gave way, or pretended it, in order afterwards to withdraw the concessions granted, but sufficiently to satisfy the conscience of the cardinal, and persuade him to put his signature to the Concordat. The ratification at Rome quickly succeeded, and a legate was sent to Paris, chosen at the First Consul's express desire. After Cardinal Caprara's arrival, the publication of the Concordat was still delayed by the choosing of the new bishops. Thirteen of the former prelates, who had taken refuge in England, alone refused to resign at the command of the Holy See; and thirty-three bishops, still abroad or already returned to France, obeyed generously and without reluctance. The constitutional bishops had just dissolved their council, which Bonaparte had authorized in order to influence the Court of Rome; but he ordered its cessation as soon as the Concordat was signed. His resolution to place several constitutional priests among the new bishops annoyed and disturbed the Pope. The First Consul became angry, making charges of systematic delay which prevented him from publishing the Concordat, and introducing into their dioceses the prelates nominated during Lent. The legate quietly claimed the submission which the constitutional priests had promised. "There is haughtiness in asking it," exclaimed Bonaparte; "there would be cowardice in submitting." The conduct of the constitutional prelates remained doubtful: ten, however, were nominated. Cardinal Caprara was both less resolute and less clear-sighted than Consalvi: at one time frightened, at another easily persuaded. In spite of his resistance, "his cries and tears," he at last yielded to the pressing demands of the First Consul. On the 18th April, 1802, Easter Sunday, the Concordat was proclaimed in the streets of Paris. At eleven o'clock an immense crowd thronged Notre Dame, curious to see the legate officiating, and gaze again on the pompous ritual of the Catholic service; but still more eager to look at the First Consul in the brilliancy of his triumph and power, surrounded by his companions in arms, all compelled by his will to assist at a ceremony at variance with the opinions of several of them. The concessions of the Court of Rome and the obedience of the generals could not conceal the vast gulf that separated Revolutionary France from the religious tradition of the past. Bonaparte felt this. He wished for the Concordat, understanding its lofty aim and practical utility; he had conceded more in appearance than he intended to grant in reality. The _Te Deum_ was chanted: the bishops were confirmed, and had now set out for their dioceses. In every district, along with the Concordat, and as if invested with the same sanction, the First Consul published a series of "organic articles," regulating in detail the relations of the civil power with the religious authority. Already, when discussing the Concordat the representative of the Holy See had rejected most of Bonaparte's pretensions on that subject; but he now reproduced them, transformed, by the power of his will alone, into administrative measures, voted like the Concordat by the Corps Législatif, and having equal force for the Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, and the Jewish form of worship. The anger and sorrow of the Court of Rome had no effect in modifying the resolution of the First Consul. Cardinal Caprara was constantly passing from submission to despair. "He who is fated to treat with the First Consul," he wrote to Cardinal Consalvi, "must bear always in mind that he is treating with a man who is arbiter of the affairs of the world--a man who has paralyzed, one might say, all the other powers of Europe, who has conceived projects the execution of which seemed impossible, and who has conducted them with a success which astonishes the whole world. Nor should it be forgotten that I am appointed here in a nation where the Catholic religion has not a ruling power, even in peace. Here all the powerful personages are against her, and they strive as much as possible against the First Consul. He is the only man who watches over her. Unfortunately, her future depends on his intention, but at least that intention is sure of completion. When the First Consul is against us, things proceed with a frightful rapidity." The Pope felt obliged to protest against the organic articles in an allocution to the Consistory, and to address his claims to the First Consul, who took no notice of them. In his communications with the religious authority in France, he proved imperious and insolent. "If the morality of the gospel is insufficient to direct a bishop," he wrote Portalis, "he must act by policy, and by fear of the prosecution which government might institute against him as a disturber of the public peace. I could not be otherwise than full of sorrow at the conduct of certain bishops. Why have you not informed the _préfets_?"

The ecclesiastical organization in France would have been incomplete, had Bonaparte not extended his care to the Protestant churches. In a kindly report addressed to him on the subject, it was stated that "the government, in declaring that Catholicism was in a majority in France, had no wish to authorize in its favor any political or civil pre-eminence. Protestanism is a Christian communion, bringing together, in the same faith and to the same rites, a very large number of Frenchmen. In recent times the Protestants were in the foremost ranks under the standards of liberty, and have never abandoned them. All that is secured to the various Christian communions by the articles of agreement between his Holiness and the Government of the Republic is equally guaranteed to the Protestants, _with the exception of the pecuniary subvention_."

The original idea of Bonaparte had, in fact, been to leave to the Protestants the full liberty of their internal government, as well as the charge of their worship. The principle, admitted by the Constituent Assembly, of compensating the Catholic clergy for the confiscation of their property, was not applicable to the Protestant Church. On a consideration of the administrative advantages of a church paid by the state, Bonaparte decided that the law of the 18th Germinal, year X., should be drawn up, regulating the nomination of pastors and consistories after the manner of the interior government of the Protestant Church. The principle which, in this respect, equalized the Protestant and Catholic modes of worship was hailed with satisfaction by the reformers. The Jews established in France were admitted to enjoy the same privileges.

At the same time that an alliance between religion and the state was being re-established in France, Chateaubriand, still a very young man, published his "Genius of Christianity." The sense of the poetic beauty of Christianity then reawakening in men's minds, the success of the book was deservedly great. It marked in recent history the epoch of literary admiration for the greatness and beauty of the gospel. We have since sadly learnt that it was only a shallow and barren admiration.

Peace seemed again established in the world and the church. In spite of several difficulties and suspicions, the definitive treaty with England was at last to be signed at Amiens. But rest seemed already to weigh heavily on the new master of France, and the increasing ambition of his power could not deceive men of foresight as to the causes of disturbance in Europe which were perpetually reappearing. Scarcely were the preliminaries of peace signed in London, when the Batavian Republic-- recently composed, after the example of the French Republic, of a Directory and two Legislative Chambers--found itself again undergoing a revolution, the necessary reaction of what was being done in France. On a new constitution being proposed to the Chambers they rejected it. The Dutch Directory, with the assistance of General Augereau, effected at the Hague, in September, 1800, the _coup d'état_ which took place in Paris on the 18th Brumaire; the representatives were dismissed, and the people were assembled to pronounce upon the new constitution. Only 50,000 voters out of 400,000 electors presented themselves in the Assemblies. A president was chosen for three months. The absolute authority of the First Consul was secured in the Batavian Republic.

In Switzerland, an agitation diligently kept up throughout all the cantons, rendered a government there impossible. The French minister at Berne, "a powerless conciliator of the divided parties," as Bonaparte called him, received secret instructions from him. "Citizen Verninac must, under all the circumstances, say publicly that the present government can only be considered provisional, and give them to understand that, not only does the French Government not rely upon it, but it is even dissatisfied with its composition and procedure. It is a mockery of nations to believe that France will acknowledge as the intention of the Helvetic people the will of the sixteen persons who compose the Legislative Body." The French troops had evacuated Switzerland. The First Consul was scheming to annex the canton of Valais to the two departments of Mont Terrible and Léman, which he had already taken from the Helvetian territory. After several months passed, the seeds of discord began to bear fruit; and Aloys of Reding, formerly Landamman, being overthrown, Dolder, the leader of the radicals, was raised in his place. As a concession to the patriotic wishes of the Swiss, the French troops were suddenly recalled from their territory. When freed from that constant menace, interior dissensions burst forth; the Landamman Dolder, replaced at Berne by Mulinen, took refuge in Lausanne, where he founded a new government. The cantons were already taking sides, when the First Consul launched a proclamation as the natural arbiter of the destinies of Switzerland:--

"People of Helvetia, you have been disputing for three years without understanding each other. If you are left longer to yourselves, you will kill yourselves in three years without understanding each other any better. Your history, moreover, proves that your civil wars have never been finished unless by the efficacious intervention of France. I shall therefore be mediator in your quarrels, but my mediation will be an active one, such as becomes the great nation in whose name I speak. All the powers will be dissolved. The Senate alone, assembled at Berne, will send deputies to Paris; each canton can also send some; and all the former magistrates can come to Paris, to make known the means of restoring union and tranquillity and conciliating all parties. Inhabitants of Helvetia! revive your hopes!" At the same time Bonaparte said to Mulinen, who had already escaped to Paris, "I am now thoroughly persuaded of the necessity of some definitive measure. If in a few days the conditions of my proclamation are not fulfilled, 30,000 men will enter Switzerland under General Ney's orders; and if they thus compel me to use force it is all over with Switzerland. It is time to put an end to that; and I see no middle course between a Swiss government strongly organized, and friendly to France, or no Switzerland at all."

On the 15th October, 1802, General Ney received orders to enter Switzerland, and publish "a short proclamation in simple terms, announcing that the small cantons and the Senate had asked for the mediation of the First Consul, who had granted it; but a handful of men, friends of disorder, and indifferent to the evils of their country, having deceived and led astray a portion of the people, the First Consul was obliged to take measures to disperse these senseless persons, and punish them if they persisted in their rebellion." At the same time, after an imperious summons, the chiefs of the Swiss aristocracy, Mulinen, Affry, and Watteville, joined the radical deputies in Paris. There could be no long discussion, as the plan of the Helvetic Constitution was decided upon in the mind of the First Consul. He had recognized the inconveniences arising from the "unitary government:" he next abolished the old independent institutions of the cantons, and systematically weakened the central power, as the Diet, composed of twenty-five deputies, was to sit by rotation in the six principal cantons; he at the same time nominated Affry as President of the Helvetian Confederation, after carefully securing his services. Henceforward the Swiss cantons, free in their internal government, fell as a state under the rule of France. "I shall never permit in Switzerland any other influence than my own, though it should cost me 100,000 men," Bonaparte had said to the assembled deputies. "It is acknowledged by Europe that Italy, Holland, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France." At the same time (11th September, 1802), and as if to justify this haughty declaration, the territory of Piedmont was divided into six French departments, the Isle of Elba was united to France, and the Duchy of Parma was definitively occupied by our troops.

For a long time the north of Italy was subjected to the laws of its conqueror, and he arrogantly made it bear the whole burden. When the Congress of Vienna had begun its sittings, Talleyrand absolutely forbade Joseph Bonaparte to allow the usurpations of France in Europe to be discussed. "You will consider it a fixed point that the French Government can listen to nothing regarding the King of Sardinia, the Stadtholder, or the internal affairs of Batavia, Germany, Helvetia, or the Italian republics. All these subjects are absolutely unknown to our discussions with England."

England admitted the truce of which she stood in need. She tacitly accepted the reticences of the negotiators; and without any protest on her part the First Consul set out for Lyons, where he had summoned the 500 members of the Italian Consulte. Overwhelmed with the gifts of her conqueror, the Cisalpine Republic was now to receive from his hands a definitive constitution. Lombardy as far as the Adige, the Legations, the Duchy of Modena, had sent their deputies to France, prepared to vote by acclamation for the constitution, which had been carefully prepared by several leading Italians under the eyes of the First Consul. The Consulte of Milan had accepted it. Bonaparte reserved to himself the direction of the choice of functionaries, and the important nomination of the President of the Republic. Lyons was in grand holiday, crowded by the Italians and numerous bodies of troops. The old army of Italy, on arriving from Egypt, had been ordered to Lyons; and the populace hailed with delight the arrival of the First Consul, who was always popular personally. The Consulte opened its sittings with distinction; and soon the Italian deputies understood who was the president designed for them by the solicitude of General Bonaparte. They accepted without repugnance his proclamation:--"The Consulte has appointed a committee of thirty persons," wrote the First Consul to his colleagues; "they have reported that, considering the internal and external circumstances of the Cisalpine, it was indispensable to allow me to conduct the first magistracy, till such time as the situation may permit, and I may judge it suitable, to name a successor." To the request of the Consulte, in humble terms, the general replied, "I find no one among you who has sufficient claims upon public opinion--who would be sufficiently independent of local influences--who, in short, has rendered to his country sufficiently great services, for me to trust him with the first magistracy." The Count Melzi accepted the vice-presidentship of the Republic. On the 28th January, after reviewing the army of Egypt, the First Consul, president of the Italian Republic, started again for Paris.

He was now waiting for news of the expedition which he had recently sent to St. Domingo. The horrors which signalized the violent emancipation of our negroes and their possession of the territory, was succeeded by a state somewhat regular, largely due to the unexpected authority of a black, recently a slave, who displayed faculties which are very unusual in his race. In his difficult government, Toussaint Louverture had given proofs of a generalship, foresight, courage, and gentleness which gave him the right to address Bonaparte, the object of his passionate admiration, in the following terms: "The first of the blacks to the first of the whites." Toussaint Louverture loved France, and rendered homage to it by driving from the island the Spanish and English troops. He claimed the ratification of his Constitution, and sent his sons to France to be properly educated.

The instructions given by the First Consul to his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, are still secret. He had placed under his command 20,000 men, excellent troops, borrowed from the old army of the Rhine, the generals and officers of which were unwilling to resign during the peace. The squadron, in charge of Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, was a large one. The English had been informed of the expedition, by a note signed by Talleyrand but drawn up by Bonaparte himself. "Let England know," said he, "that in undertaking to destroy the government of the negroes at St. Domingo, I have been less guided by commercial and financial considerations than by the necessity of smothering in all parts of the world every kind of inquietude and disturbance--that one of the chief benefits of peace for England at the present moment was that it was concluded at a time when the French Government had not yet recognized the organization of St. Domingo, and afterwards the power of the negroes. The liberty of the blacks acknowledged at St. Domingo, and legitimized by the French Government, would be for all time a fulcrum for the Republic in the New World. In that case the sceptre of the New World must sooner or later have fallen into the hands of the negroes; the shock resulting for England is incalculable, whereas the shock of the empire of the negroes would, with reference to France, reckon as part of the Revolution."

At the same time, and in contradiction to the intentions which he announced to England, Bonaparte wrote to Toussaint Louverture: "We have conceived esteem for you, and we are pleased to recognize and proclaim the services which you have rendered to the French people. If their flag still floats over St. Domingo, it is to you and the brave blacks it is due. Called by your talents and the force of circumstances to the first command, you have overthrown the civil war, curbed the persecution of several fierce men, restored honor to religion and the worship to God, to whom everything is due. The Constitution which you have made contains many good things: the circumstances in which you are placed, surrounded on every side by enemies, without the power of being assisted or provisioned by the capital (mother country), have rendered legitimate the articles of the Constitution which otherwise are not so. We have informed your children and their tutor of our sentiments towards you. We shall send them back to you. Assist the general by your advice, your influence, and your talents. What can you desire? The liberty of the negroes? You know that in every country in which we have been, we have given it to the peoples who had it not. Hence consideration, honors, fortune! After the services which you have rendered, which you can render in this matter, with the personal feelings which we entertain for you, you ought not to be doubtful as to the position before you. Consider, general, that if you are the first of your color who has arrived at so great power, and is distinguished by his valor and military talents, you are also before God and before us the most responsible for their conduct. Count without reserve upon our esteem, and let your behavior be that which becomes one of the principal citizens of the greatest nation of the world."

One of the incurable evils of a long state of slavery is the distrust begot in those who have undergone it, though it is also the defence and instinctive protection of weakness. Along with his admiration for the First Consul and his traditional attachment to France, Toussaint Louverture remained uneasy and suspicious as a slave. Already, under the orders of General Richepanse, the expedition was being prepared which was to re-establish slavery in Guadeloupe, in spite of the decrees of the Constituent Assembly and the formal declaration of the First Consul in a statement of the State of the Republic (November 30th, 1801). When the French squadron was signalled at St. Domingo, and the negro dictator ascertained the crushing force brought to impose upon him the will of the mother country, he made preparations for defence, entrusted his lieutenant, Christophe, with the guard of the shore and the town of Le Cap, ordering him to oppose the landing by threatening the white population with fire and sword should they offer to assist the French troops. Toussaint, counting upon the effect of threats, had not estimated the savage horror of slavery which animated his companions, nor the ferocity which could be displayed by men of his race when let loose upon their former masters. On entering the roads the French squadron began to fire; the negroes set the town on fire, put chains on some of the principal white men, and withdrew to the mountains or hills. Toussaint having preceded them, the army of negroes was again formed round him. The coast, however, being already taken by General Leclerc, the white population joined them; and a large number of the negroes, becoming alarmed, accepted the conditions offered by the general. Then, after offering some defence, several of Toussaint's lieutenants, one after another, surrendered. The most ferocious of them, Dessalines, had just been driven from St. Marc, where he committed great atrocities. Toussaint was pursued to his retreat, and after his entrenchments were forced he accepted a capitulation, and withdrew to his plantation at Ennery. The climate of St. Domingo caused frightful ravages to the French army, and the consequent weakness of his troops greatly increased General Leclerc's alarm. He had, moreover received peremptory orders, the severity of which he frequently modified. "Follow exactly my instructions," General Bonaparte wrote to him on the 16th of March, 1802, "and as soon as ever you have got rid of Toussaint, Christophe, Dessalines, and the leading brigands, and the masses of the blacks are disarmed, send away all the blacks and men of color who shall have played any part in the civil troubles." A certain agitation continued to reign among the blacks, and Leclerc seized upon this pretext to summon Toussaint to a conference. The vanity of the former dictator was flattered, and triumphed over his mistrust. "These white gentlemen who know everything still have need of the old negro," said he, and he set out for the French camp (June 10, 1802). Immediately arrested and cast into a frigate, he was taken to the town of Le Cap; his family had been captured as well as himself, and he found them on board the vessel that carried him to France. He was alone when he was imprisoned in the Temple, and afterwards transferred to the fortress of Joux, in the icy casemates under the canopy of the mountains. The only question asked him was where he had hidden his treasures. The dictator of the blacks gave no answer; he had fallen into a deep lethargy. On the 27th April, 1803, he at last expired, the victim of cold, imprisonment, and solitude. A few months later (November, 1803) the mournful remains of our army evacuated St. Domingo, for ever lost to the power of France. General Leclerc was dead of fever, as well as the greater part of his officers, like Richepanse at Guadeloupe. The climate of his country had avenged Toussaint Louverture; the instruments of Bonaparte had perished, the enterprise had failed. The sister of General Bonaparte returned to France, ready for higher destinies; the wife and children of the dictator of St. Domingo pined away slowly in exile.

This check was insignificant in the midst of so much success for his armies, and so many easy triumphs over the subdued nations; but the jealous susceptibility of the First Consul kept increasing. He had punished Toussaint Louverture for the resistance he had encountered in St. Domingo; he was irritated against the remnants of isolated opposition which he encountered at times among a few members of the Tribunate. The treaties of peace, so brilliantly concluded after the signature of the preliminaries of London, had been ratified without difficulty by the Corps Législatif. A single article of the treaty with Russia raised strong objections; it was obscure, and assured the Czar of the repression of Polish plots in France. The republican pride was irritated at the word _subjects_ which, was found in the clause. "Our armies have fought for ten years because we were citizens," cried Chenier, "and we have become subjects! Thus has been accomplished the desire of the double coalition!" The treaty was, nevertheless, ratified by an immense majority. But the anger of the master had been roused; "The tribunes are _dogs_ that I encounter everywhere," he often exclaimed. The Tribunate and the Corps Législatif soon incurred his displeasure afresh--the one by discussing, the other by rejecting, a few preliminary articles of the new civil code. The First Consul was present at the discussions of the Council of State, often taking part in them with singular spirit and penetration, sometimes warped by personal or political prejudices. He had adopted as his own the work of the learned lawyers who had drawn up and compiled for the honor and utility of France the wisest and the simplest doctrines of civil and commercial law. "We can still risk two battles," said Bonaparte, after the rejection of the first head of the code. "If we gain them we will continue the march we have commenced. If we lose them we will enter into our winter quarters, and will advise as to the course to be taken."

The second head of the code was voted; the third, relative to the deprivation of civil rights, was excessive in its rigor; it was rejected. At the same time, and as if to give proof of its independence, the Corps Législatif, which had just chosen as its president Dupuis, author of a philosophical work, then famous, upon the "Origin of all Religions," sent up as candidates for the Senate the Abbé Grégoire and Daunou. The former had been dismissed from his charge as constitutional bishop at the time of the Concordat, the second was honored of all men, moderate in a very firm opposition. The Abbé Grégoire was elected. The First Consul had presented Generals Jourdan, Lamartillière, and Berruyer, accompanying their candidature with a message. He broke out violently during a sitting of the Senate. "I declare to you," he said, "that if you appoint Daunou senator, I shall take it as a personal injury, and you know that I never suffer that!" General Lamartillière was appointed, but the slight notion of independence in the constituent bodies had troubled and displeased Bonaparte; he recoiled before the risks that awaited the Concordat and the great project of public instruction presented for the acceptance of the Corps Législatif. On the 8th of January, 1802, a message was brought in during the sitting. "Legislators," said the First Consul, "the government has resolved to withdraw the projects of law of the civil code. It is with pain that it finds itself obliged to defer to another period laws in which the interests of the nation are so much involved, but it is convinced that the time has not yet come when these great discussions can be carried on with that calm and unity of intention which they require."

This was not enough to assure the repose of General Bonaparte and the docile acceptance of his wishes; Consul Cambacérès, clever at veiling absolute power with an appearance of legality, proposed to confide to the Senate the task of eliminating from the Tribunate and the Corps Législatif the fifth who ought regularly to be designated by lot. The legislative labors were suspended; the First Consul had set out for Lyons, in order to guide the destinies of the Italian Republic. He wrote thence to his colleagues: "I think that I shall be in Paris at the end of the decade, and that I shall myself be able to make the Senate understand the situation in which we find ourselves. I do not think it will be possible to continue to march forward when the constituted authorities are composed of enemies; the system has none greater than Daunou; and since, in fine, all these affairs of the Corps Législatif and the Tribunate have resulted in scandal, the least thing that the Senate can do is to remove the twenty and the sixty bad members, and replace them by well-disposed persons. The will of the nation is that the government may not be hindered from doing well, and that the head of Medusa may no longer be displayed in our Tribunes and in our Assemblies. The conduct of Sieyès in this circumstance proves perfectly that, after having concurred in the destruction of all the constitutions since 1791, he still wishes to try his hand against this one. It is very extraordinary that he does not see the folly of it. He ought to go and burn a wax taper at Notre Dame for having been delivered so happily and in a manner so unhoped for. But the older I grow the more I perceive that every one has to fulfil his destiny."

When the First Consul returned to Paris, the opposition, more brilliant than effective, of a few eloquent members, had ceased in the Tribunate; the Corps Législatif had undergone the same purification. Faithful servants had been carefully chosen by the Senate--some capable of ill- temper and anger, like Lucien Bonaparte and Carnot; others distinguished by their administrative merit, like Daru--all fit to vote the great projects which the First Consul meditated. He did not, however, condescend to submit to them the general amnesty in favor of all the emigrants whose names had not yet been erased from the fatal list. Perhaps he still dreaded some remains of revolutionary passion. This act of justice and clemency was the object of a Senatus Consultum. The First Consul kept in his own hands the unsold confiscated property of emigrants--a powerful means of action, which he often exercised in order to attach to himself men and families of consideration by direct or personal restitution.