Part 4

[Footnote 10: M.M. David and Falconnet. In order to appease the public indignation, a summons was issued against these writers, it being stated in the process that they had endeavoured to excite civil war. There was no difficulty in guessing that this proceeding was a farce, and that by overcharging the crime it was the intention of the government to favour the acquittal of the accused; and accordingly they were acquitted.]

It is calculated that the individuals who are interested directly or indirectly either in the purchases of the national domains, or in the rights and liabilities arising out of them, amount in number to somewhat between nine and ten millions.

An opportunity offered itself when all the uneasiness felt by this integral portion of the population of France might have been removed. It was when the law; by which the emigrants recovered possession of such part of their property as had not been alienated, came under consideration. It was natural to suppose that the administration would take advantage of the capability of the proceeding, in order to revive the confidence of the public, and to renew the guarantee of the charter. Such was not their conduct. On the contrary, M. Ferrand, the government orator, one of the men who did most mischief to the King and the kingdom, abandoned himself--we borrow the expression of the reporter of the committee--to all the acrimony of his passions, and all the profligacy of his principles. His fury could only be equalled by his folly. He did not scruple to maintain, in the midst of the representatives of the nation, that the emigrants had the greatest right to claim the justice and favour of the royal government, because they alone had not wandered from the righteous path. And starting with this position, he represented the forfeiture and sale of their property, not as the justifiable acts of a legislative body, but as revolutionary outrages and robberies which the nation ought to hasten to make good.

The Chamber of Deputies passed their censure upon the inflammatory doctrines and language of the royalist orator, and expunged the word "restitution" from the law. It had not been inserted without design, for "restitution" supposes a previous robbery, and the emigrants had not been robbed of the property: it had been confiscated by virtue of a law sanctioned by the King; and which law was only a new application of the system of confiscation created and followed up by the King's predecessors.

Without travelling into more remote periods, we may ask if it was not with the spoils of the victims who had been sacrificed to the murderous policy of Richelieu, and the religious intolerance of Louis XIV., that the first families had been enriched? And who can tell whether the lands which the emigrants reclaimed with so much pride and bitterness, were not the same which their ancestors had received without a blush from the bloody hands of Richelieu and Louis?

It must be confessed that the unalterable fidelity of a certain number amongst the emigrants bound the royal government to reward their fidelity and to alleviate their misfortunes. But all had not an equal right to the affection and gratitude of the King. If some had generously sacrificed their fortunes and their country in the cause of royalty, yet others only fled from France because they wished to escape their creditors[11], and thought that in strange countries they might find dupes to feed upon, and thus exist upon swindling resources to which they could no longer resort with impunity at home.

[Footnote 11: Before the revolution it was customary for "_les grands seigneurs_" to obtain what were called "_lettres de surséance_," by means of which they avoided the payment of their debts, and defeated their creditors.]

It was therefore necessary to separate the first class of emigrants from the last; and after establishing this distinction, the government should have made a fair appeal to the justice and generosity of the nation. Frenchmen, who yield so readily to every dignified sentiment, would not have allowed the faithful and virtuous servants of their King to languish in poverty. We may appeal to the universal assent which was given to the proposal[12] made by the marshal duke of Tarentum, that ten millions of francs should be annually appropriated for the indemnification of the emigrants who had been deprived of their property, and of the soldiers who had lost their "_dotations_."

[Footnote 12: This proposal was not carried into execution.]

But the government party should not have attempted to assist the emigrants by resorting to means offensive to the nation, and derogatory to the charter. And, above all, they should not have puffed up the emigrants with proud and silly hopes. If they had been left to themselves, they would have fallen in with the purchasers of their property, they would have treated for an amicable settlement of their claims, and they would have regained possession of their hereditary estates without jarring and without scandal.

The partiality which was shown towards the emigrants on all occasions produced another evil of still greater extent. It contributed, even more than the efforts of disaffection, in persuading the peasantry that the government wished to chain them again to the soil, and to render them once more the tributaries both of the nobility and of the priesthood.

The revolution has taught the countryman to know that he is somebody in the state. After the revolution the peasants became rich, and they were delivered from the double vassalage of former days, when they crouched before the priest and the lord: therefore they could not think of any alteration without horror. Day after day they heard or they read (in France every body reads now,) that the government intended to restore the "_ancien régime_." And the restoration of the "_ancien régime_" was interpreted by them, as well as by many others, to mean the restoration of tithes, vassalage, and feudal rights. They were confirmed in their dangerous and disquieting opinion by the outrageous claims of the emigrants, and the declamations of the priests. It was to no purpose that the government tried to re-assure them. They had been already deceived and it seldom happens that you can catch a French peasant twice in the same snare. The abolition of the conscription had been promised, and the old code was continued in force with all its harshness, and still the refractory conscripts were sent away in chains, whilst fines were imposed upon their families. The abolition of the "_droits réunis_" had also been promised, and they were not only levied with greater rigour and harshness than before, but even some of these imposts had been greatly increased.

Such was the fatality which influenced all the actions of the government, that all proceedings which in themselves were simple and reasonable, became venomous and corrupted when conducted by the ministry, and only added to the general disorder and discontent, instead of producing the good effects which they might have been justly expected to produce.

The discontent of the people, the inevitable result of the injuries inflicted on the feelings and interests of individuals[13], was increased by the open infringement of the rights of the people, although these rights were secured to the country by a compact which seemed to be inviolable.

[Footnote 13: There are times when a government may attack general principles without danger. But men and their personal interests can never be assailed with impunity. Personal interest is the prime mover of public opinion and feeling; and however degrading the truth may appear, it is not to be disputed. After a great national catastrophe this baleful egotism is particularly evident. Dignified passions become extinct for want of fuel; and the human mind, destitute of external occupation, works inward upon itself, and begets selfishness, the true pestilence of the soul. When this disease affects a nation, the government is lost if it attacks the interests of individuals.]

Liberty of conscience had been promised by the charter, and this liberty was immediately annihilated. An ordonnance was issued by the police[14], which revived regulations enacted in _an age of intolerance_, for enforcing the strict and universal observance of the Lord's day, and the festivals of the church. Napoleon, anxious to preserve a strict neutrality between the catholics and the protestants, prohibited the religious processions of the former in all towns containing places of worship belonging to the latter communion. His prohibition was removed, and the catholic priesthood exulted in their processions, in which they marched in triumph. They ought to have tranquillized the apprehensions of their opponents, and to have edified the faithful by humility, or at least by feigning humility; but they disdained to conciliate the public, whom they scandalized by their pride and irritated by their violence[15].

[Footnote 14: By means of ordonnances the ministers legislated according to their pleasure in matters which ought only to have been regulated by the law, so that the greater part of the bills presented to the chambers "had been already enacted and executed in the shape of ordonnances; and the legislature had no other function except that of giving a legal sanction to the arbitrary decrees of the ministers."--_Censeur._]

[Footnote 15: Even in Paris several persons were ill treated and bayoneted, because they refused to pull off their hats and kneel, whilst the processions were passing by.]

The imagination of the priests became fired by the victory which they supposed they had gained. They dreamt that they were in full possession of their ancient power; and they wished immediately to revive it according to their ancient fashion. An actress belonging to the Theatre Français died without being absolved, and without suspecting that it was necessary to be absolved, from the excommunication which had been formerly fulminated against stage players; and which, as every body knows, deprived Moliere of Christian burial.

Following the same precedents, the clergy would not allow the rites of sepulture to the actress in question. The populace, who followed the funeral out of curiosity, learnt the affront which was thus offered to her remains. Transported by sudden indignation, they rushed to the hearse, and dragged it onwards. The doors of the interdicted church were burst open in a moment. They called for a priest; no priest appeared. The tumult augmented. The church and the neighbouring streets resounded with the groans and threats of ten thousand persons. Their agitation became more violent, and there was no possibility of foreseeing where the effervescence of popular feeling would stop, when a messenger arrived from the court, who ordered, in the name of the King, that the funeral should proceed.

The accounts of this event, and the comments to which it gave rise, excited the most lively interest in Paris and throughout France: nor did it fail to give the greatest pleasure to the enemies of religion. The friends of public decency and good order accused the government of encouraging the alarming progress of sacerdotal despotism. It was particularly in the smaller towns, and in the country, that the priests behaved with the most blamable audacity, abusing the privilege of speech which had been restored to them[16]. The pulpit became a tribunal from whence they pronounced sentence of present infamy, with the reversion of eternal damnation, upon all who refused to participate in their opinions and bigotry. Making common cause with the emigrants, they employed hints, inuendoes, insinuations, arguments, promises, and threats of every species, for the purpose of compelling the owners of the national property to yield up their lands, and of leading the wretched peasantry again beneath the tyrant yokes of feudality and superstition.

[Footnote 16: Under the reign of Napoleon, if a priest had ventured to utter any opinion contrary to the system of government, he would have been immediately removed.]

During the revolution, the priesthood had betrayed its real character. Contempt had fallen on the clergy, and it was out of the power of the government to invest them suddenly with the salutary influence which they had lost. This influence ought to be gained by wise and prudent conduct, by active and impartial benevolence, by the practice of sacerdotal virtues. It cannot be gained by ordonnances of police, by abuse, by violence, by mumming processions, which, in our times, are out of character and ridiculous.

By the charter the liberty of the press had been guarantied as well as the liberty of public worship; yet every day innumerable publications were seized or suppressed contrary to the laws. M. Durbach, a deputy who never equivocated with his conscience or yielded to danger, complained on this subject in the chamber: the opinion of the house went along with him; and the government, pretending to yield to the feeling of the deputies, presented a bill to the chambers through the medium of M. de Montesquiou, which, instead of delivering the press from its slavery, gave full establishment to the censorship, and legalized the tyranny which had been exercised over the press by mere force under the former government.

Benjamin Constant attacked the bill with vigour: the same side was taken by the public journals, and by all public writers; but there was no possibility of putting M. de Montesquiou out of countenance. It was demonstrated to him that his law would wholly destroy the liberty of the press. By holding the charter before his eyes, the advocates of public rights proved that the charter only declared that the licence of the press was to be restrained, and that his bill was therefore radically unconstitutional, because the preliminary censorship was not intended to restrain abuses, but to prevent their taking place. Montesquiou answered gravely, that the persons with whom such objections originated did not understand French; that the words "_prévenir_" and "_réprimer_" were perfectly synonymous: and that the bill, instead of being offensive or unconstitutional, contained a most complete and a most liberal development of the clause in the charter.

This unparalleled endeavour of Montesquiou, who persuaded himself that he could convince an assembly of Frenchmen that they did not understand their own language, was justly considered by the chamber as a matchless specimen of impudence and folly. Lexicographical subtleties were employed with bitter mockery for the purpose of destroying a public right, consecrated by the constitutional compact. Never had insolence and bad faith been displayed so prominently: Raynouard, the reporter of the committee, exclaimed in the language of grief and indignation, "Minister of our King, confess, at least, that your law is contrary to the constitution, since you cannot refute the evidence adduced against it: your obstinacy in contesting such an indisputable truth would not then inspire us with such just alarms."

The law was ultimately adopted by both chambers; ministerial influence triumphed over reason, and rased the most important bulwark of the rights guarantied to the nation. The result of the conflict produced the most lively sensation. No man who was capable of forethought and reasoning could remain undisturbed. Notwithstanding the patriotism of Dupont (of the department of the Eure), of Raynouard, of Durbach, of Bedoch, of Flaugergues, it was seen too clearly that the chamber of deputies could not oppose any effectual obstacle to the despotic and anti-constitutional plans of the government; and that the ministers would have full power, whenever they thought proper, to interpret the clauses of the charter according to their own way, and to rob the French nation of the few rights which it yet might promise to them. "By means of such interpretations," the people said, "the senate sacrificed the independence of the nation to Napoleon. But at least the imperial despotism assumed a character by which it was justified and ennobled. It tended to render our nation the greatest nation in the world; but the despotism which awaits us has no other accompaniment but bad faith, and no other end except the degradation and slavery of France."

By such reflections, the suspicion and disgust and aversion inspired by the government, were excited to the utmost pitch. The public feeling did not stop there: the French people are naturally inconstant in their opinions and sentiments; and their former prejudices against Napoleon were changed into transports of admiration. France, under the royal government, was humiliated, disorganized, and degenerate; and they contrasted the present state of the country with the influence, the strength, the compactness, which it enjoyed under the reign of Napoleon; and He, who had lately been cursed as the root of all evil, now appeared to be the greatest of men, and the greatest of heroes, though in misfortune.

The government knew that Napoleon was again admired by the people, and that they regretted his loss. To counteract these sentiments, coarse and vulgar caricatures were exposed to the eyes of the populace; and his person and his character became the theme of false and scandalous libels published under the direction of the ministry. No effect was produced. The mob looked at the caricatures with a smile of contempt; and the actions of Napoleon, which, under his reign, excited the greatest censure and disapprobation, now found the most zealous apologists and defenders.

If Napoleon was accused of having overthrown the republican government, and enslaved the country by the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, they answered[17]:--"At that era, anarchy, emboldened by the misfortunes of the country, could only be repressed by victory. Civil war had been organized in twenty departments; insurrections had taken place in many, rapine infected them all; robbery and murder took place with impunity on many of the principal high roads. Two dreadful laws, the law of the hostages, and that of the forced loans, occasioned greater evils than they could cure. No nation had ever existed in which the finances of the state were in equal confusion; and a succession of partial bankruptcies prolonged the opprobrium of the general bankruptcy of the country. The money of the public was robbed whilst in transit on the high roads. Robbers even carried it off from the houses of the receivers, and the deficiency could not be made good by the most violent exactions. The jacobins were on the point of recommencing their reign of terror. The royalists had recourse without scruple to all the measures which might enable them to satiate their revenge; and the peaceable friends of the law were placed between the conflicting parties in a state of disgraceful weakness and neutrality. Such was the desperate situation of France when Napoleon seized the helm of the state. Instead of imputing the slavery of the country to him, he ought to have been blessed; for he delivered us from the spoliations, the murders, and the tyranny which were consequent upon the reign of anarchy and terror."

[Footnote 17: I cannot express their thoughts more forcibly than by copying the passage, which I have quoted in my text, from the View of the Revolution by Lacretelle.]

Was it maintained that Napoleon had reigned despotically? They held that this accusation was unjust; and they had recourse to the following reasoning. "Anarchy was silenced by Napoleon." It became necessary, that order should take the place of disorder; that the authority of one should be substituted for the authority of all. Parties were to be restrained within the bound of moderation; traitors were to be annihilated. It was necessary to curb the prejudices of the nobility, and the revolutionary habits and manners of the jacobins. This great work could not be accomplished, without engaging in a conflict against individual interests and opinions. Napoleon was considered as a despot; this was inevitable. Whenever the existing polity of a state has been totally subverted, he who first raises the edifice of society from its ruins, is necessarily accused of despotism, because apparently he has no other rule except his own will. Nor must we forget that Napoleon had been accustomed to command implicit obedience in the camp. He retained his military attitude on the throne. He usually addressed his courtiers, his connexions, and his ministers, in the tone which he had formerly adopted when speaking to his soldiers or their generals[18]. An appearance of despotism was certainly given to his way of reigning and commanding, by such language which is seldom heard in civil society. And in almost all cases, appearance is taken for reality.

[Footnote 18: From his early youth, it may be even said from his days of boyhood, Napoleon felt an inward presentiment that he was not destined to live in mediocrity. This persuasion soon taught him to treat others with disdain, and to entertain the highest opinion of himself. Scarcely had he obtained a subaltern command in the artillery, when he considered himself as the superior of his equals, and the equal of his superiors. In his 20th year he was placed at the head of the army of Italy. Without appearing to be in the slightest degree surprised by his elevation, he passed from a secondary station to the chief command. He immediately treated the old generals of the army--they who were so proud of the laurels--with an air of dignity and authority, which placed them in a situation which was probably new to them. But they did not feel humiliated, and their inferiority seemed to result as a matter of course, for the ascendancy exercised by Napoleon was irresistible; and he was thoroughly endued; with that instinct of authority, that talent of ensuring obedience, with those faculties which are usually confined to those who are kings by birth. Napoleon could probably have attained to supreme authority in any country in the world. Nature had formed him for command, and she never creates such men for the purpose of leaving them in obscurity. It seems, according to the remark of a writer whose name I have forgotten, that she is proud of her own work, and that she wishes to offer it to admiration, by placing it at the head of human society.]