Chapter 29

DECLARATION OF THE EMPIRE[29]

[Footnote 29: See in particular the memoirs of Miot de Melito, Pasquier, Ségur, Thiébault, Marmont, Lafayette, Savary, Rémusat, Rapp, Thibaudeau, and Bourrienne; the Souvenirs of Macdonald and Chaptal; and the Lettres inédites. Also, De Bausset: Cour de Napoléon; Masson: Josephine, Impératrice et Reine; Aulard: Révolution Française; Remacle: Relations secrètes des agents de Louis XVIII à Paris sous le Consulat.]

Bonaparte's Principles -- His Comprehension of French Conditions -- Meaning of Enghien's Murder -- The Dynasties of Europe -- The Possibilities of Hereditary Power -- The New France -- Desire for a Dynasty -- Suggestions of Monarchy -- The Empire Proposed -- The New Constitution -- Imperial State -- The New Nobility -- Device of the Empire -- The New Court -- The Plebiscite.

Step by step, laboriously and painfully, by guile and prudence, in the exercise of consummate genius as soldier and politician, Napoleon Bonaparte had now climbed to the pinnacle of revolutionary power. Insubordinate as a subaltern under a worn-out system, he found for his soaring ambition no fitting sphere in the country of his birth, the only fatherland he ever knew; and in that limited field he was both ineffectual as an agitator and unsuccessful as a revolutionary. But with keen insight he studied and apprehended the greater movement as it developed in France. Standing ever at the parting of the ways, and indifferent to principle, he carefully considered each path, and finally chose the one which seemed likeliest to guide his footsteps toward the goal of his ambition. Fertile in resources, he strove always to construct a double plan, and in the failure of one expedient passed easily to another. His career had been marked by many blunders, and he had often been brought to a stand on the verge of some abyss which threatened failure and ruin; yet, like the driver of a midnight train, he kept the headlight of caution trimmed and burning. Careless of the dangers abounding behind the walls of revolutionary darkness which hedged his track, he ever paused before those immediately confronting him, and sometimes retreated far to find a hazardless circuit. Brumaire was almost the only occasion of his larger life on which, unwary, he had come in full career upon an open chasm. Fate being propitious, he was saved. Lucien, with presence of mind, opened the throttle, and, by releasing the pent-up enthusiasm of the soldiers at the critical instant, safely drove the machine across a toppling bridge.

Sobered for the moment by contemplating a past danger which had threatened annihilation, and by the crowding responsibilities of the future, the First Consul put into practical operation many important revolutionary ideals. But in this process he took full advantage of the state of French society to make himself indispensable to the continuance of French life on its new path. By the parade of civil liberty and a restored social order he so minimized the constitutional side of his government as to erect it into a virtual tyranny. The self-styled commonwealth, with a chief magistrate claiming to hold his office as a public trust, was quite ready to be launched as a liberal empire under a ruler who in reality held the highest power as a possession.

[Sidenote: 1804]

The murder of the Duc d'Enghien was virtually a notification of this fact to all the dynasties of Europe as well as to the French nation. Their behavior was conclusive evidence that they understood it as such. Death was the fate destined not merely for the intestine and personal enemies of the First Citizen, but for the foreign foe, prince or peasant, who should conspire against him whom the French delighted to honor. Had the continental powers been ready for war, it is quite possible that they would have made the execution of a Bourbon, and he the most popular of his line, the ground of immediate action. But they were far from ready. When a few days later the "Moniteur" made known the high probability of what is now a certainty, that Drake and Smith, British diplomatic agents in central Europe, were compromised hopelessly in the conspiracy to kill the chief magistrate of France, the bitterness of all classes, even the aristocracy, in France was assuaged. Great Britain could do nothing officially except to knit up a coalition and strengthen her forces. The Elector of Bavaria dismissed Drake, the British envoy at his court, as a base conspirator; the Duke of Würtemberg congratulated Bonaparte on his escape from assassins; the Holy Roman Emperor at Vienna kept silence while his ministers expressed sympathy for France; the King of Prussia and Alexander of Russia exchanged letters of reciprocal regard and awaited the British subventions to complete their armaments: but they gave no offense in any official way. The Pope exhibited his grief without restraint, but uttered no remonstrance, and the court of Naples was of course indifferent. There was a general putting on of mourning garb in the high circles of Europe; Louis XVIII sent back his decoration of the Golden Fleece to Madrid because Bonaparte had received and retained its insignia, and the dethroned Gustavus of Sweden returned to Frederick William the badges of the Red Eagle for a similar reason. Pretenders may indulge their sensibilities as hard-working kings dare not. It is entirely possible that Bonaparte believed himself, and a dynasty proceeding from his loins, to be the best, if not the only, conservators of the new France; that he conceived of a purely French empire which should be the depository for that land of all that had been gained by the Revolution; and that he believed he could overcome the inertia of the tremendous speed with which he had entered upon his career of single rule. But it is not probable; for no one knew the French better, appreciating as he did their patriotism and their passion for leadership among nations. It was because the Bourbons had failed to represent these qualities that reconstructed France despised the Bourbons; it was because the new France saw their incarnation in Bonaparte that it had assisted him to climb. He must have known very well that, having mounted so high, he would be compelled to mount still higher.

He also understood the dynastic exclusiveness of Europe. In a sense the houses of Hanover, of Hohenzollern, and of Savoy were parvenus in the councils of royalty; yet they were ancient princely stocks, and their accession to supreme power had not shocked popular feeling; the dubious and blood-stained title of the Czar did not diminish his influence, for his succession was not more irregular than that of many of his predecessors on the semi-oriental Russian throne. But to substitute for the Bourbons, the oldest divine-right dynasty of Europe, and in the enlightened West, a citizen king of low descent, who based his claims on popular suffrage, was to hurl defiance at a system than which to millions of minds none other was conceivable. To reach the goal fighting was not a voluntary choice, but an absolute necessity; for the French must be left in no doubt but that their popular sovereign was quite as able to assert his peerage among kings as any one of royal lineage and ecclesiastical unction would be.

These were the conditions under which the bark of liberal empire was to set sail. It does not seem possible that any pilot could have saved her amid such typhoons as she must encounter. Bonaparte was more likely to succeed than any other, and for years his craft was taut and saucy; but she had no friendly harbors in which to refit, she rode out one storm only to enter another more violent, and at last even the supernal powers of the great captain failed him. Even at the outset the omens were not as propitious as they appeared to be, since the defiance contained in Enghien's murder was better understood abroad than at home. For the moment the mistake, which in the long run was an element in Napoleon's undoing, appeared of little importance. The French public began almost immediately to discuss whether the consular power should not be made hereditary, and, within a week after its occurrence, relegated the "Enghien affair" to apparent oblivion.

For this there were numerous reasons. The discontent in the army virtually disappeared with Moreau's disgrace, and for long thereafter both generals and men were entirely docile. The Bourbons returned to their conspiracies, but so ineffectively that neither the cabinets of Europe nor the French people felt any active interest. Royalism in France was thus temporarily crushed. The France of 1803 was the new France. Her church had been reconstructed; her army was devoted to Bonaparte as the man of the nation; her revolution had been partly pruned and partly warped into the forms of a personal government, her laws revised and codified, her old orders of chivalry replaced by a new one, her financial administration purified and strengthened, her educational system renovated, her social and family life given new direction by the stringent regulation of testamentary disposition, her government centralized--in short, the whole structure, from foundation to turret, had been repaired, restored, strengthened, and given its modern form.

The people, composed of successive alluvia of immigrants and conquerors since the days of Julius Cæsar, had been thoroughly unified by the spirit of the French Revolution. They were convinced that the gains of the Revolution would be better secured by making hereditary the power of a house which must represent the principles of that event. All but a few sincerely believed that patriotism for the new France was in large measure only another name and form for devotion to the man who presided at its birth and claimed to be its progenitor. For some time past the phrase "French empire" had been used by orators and writers to designate the majesty of its institutions. As early as May, 1802, the Austrian ambassador heard the First Consul spoken of as "Emperor of the Gauls," and in March, 1803, an English gentleman in Paris recorded the same expression in his journal. There was, therefore, neither shock nor surprise anywhere in the nation when on March twenty-seventh, 1804, the senate presented to the First Consul an address proposing in the name of the people that he should take measures "to keep for the sons what he had made for the fathers." This was the moment, presumably, of Bonaparte's greatest unpopularity--not a week after the execution of the Duc d'Enghien; while yet the blundering trial of Moreau was incomplete, and his friends were representing their hero as the victim of Bonaparte's hate; before Georges had been condemned, and while Pichegru was yet alive. Yet all expected the event, most desired it, partly for the reason given by the senate, partly for the dramatic effect, partly because they wanted neither the Bourbons nor the Terror again. The senate was now known as the tool of the First Consul; Fouché was second to none of his colleagues in power and he thirsted for a renewal of favor, imperial if that was the desired label. In spite of changes, the tribunate still retained the national respect: it was desirable that the formal initiative should come from this body. During the weeks which elapsed between the address of the senate and the end of April, Bonaparte had made certain that neither Austria nor Prussia would oppose, and that army and people were willing. Indeed the fate of Moreau had, as the officers all felt, cast a limelight on the chances of insubordination, and had illuminated into a dazzling brilliance the possibilities of complaisance. The efforts of historians to prove that France did not want the empire are all failures. Every new contemporary document which sees the light of day contains more or less to prove the contrary. The French of any intelligence understood the Roman meaning of empire and indeed it was easily comprehensible. They had had long experience of the interests of all in the charge of an oligarchy; that type of democracy had brought them to the verge of ruin since nowhere could responsibility be fixed or penalties be inflicted. But the interests of all in the charge of one supernal man was a conception so plain as to be almost tangible, and to a nation distracted by revolution, most attractive. It was an imperial democracy which they desired, which they got, and which for a time retained its character. On the twenty-fifth, therefore, the First Consul seized once more the shield of the Revolution, and told the senate that he had heard with interest their plan "to insure the triumph of equality and public liberty," and would be glad to know their thoughts without reserve. "I should like on July fourteenth of this year to say to the French people: 'Fifteen years ago by a spontaneous movement you ran to arms, you secured liberty, equality, glory. To-day these chiefest treasures of the nation, assured beyond a doubt, are sheltered from every storm; they are preserved for you and your children.'"

On April thirtieth, a member of the tribunate who had been richly bribed brought in a complete project. In the interval a committee had inquired what title the future incumbent of the new hereditary office would like to have--consul, stadholder, or emperor. His prudent choice fell on the last. The word has acquired a new significance in our age; but then it still had the old Roman meaning. It propitiated the professional pride which had taken the place of republicanism in the army, and while plainly abolishing radical democracy, it also bade defiance to absolute royalism. Accordingly, the tribunes voted that Napoleon Bonaparte be intrusted with the government of France as emperor, and that the imperial power be declared hereditary. There was only one man who dared to interpose his negative vote--Napoleon's earliest protector, the veteran republican Carnot. He admitted that there was already a temporary dictator, and that the republican constitutions of the country had been unstable, but he thought that with peace would come wisdom and permanency, as in the United States. Bonaparte was a man of virtue and talent, to be sure, but what about his descendants? Commodus was the son of Marcus Aurelius. Whatever might be the splendor of a man's services, there were bounds to public gratitude, and these bounds had been reached; to overstep them would destroy the liberty which the First Consul had helped to restore. But if the nation desired what he conscientiously opposed, he would retire to private life, and unqualifiedly obey its will.

The legislative body was quickly summoned to a special meeting, and, according to the constitution, made the resolutions law by its approval. As soon as decency would permit, a new constitution was laid before the council of state, discussed under Bonaparte's direction, and sent down to the senate for consideration. On May eighteenth the paper was adopted in that body with four dissenting voices, including that of the Abbé Sieyès, who hated all charters not of his own making. On the same day the decree of the senate constituting the Empire was carried to the First Consul at St. Cloud, where it was duly approved by him, and was formally promulgated. It was found that the difficulty concerning heredity had been evaded by giving to Napoleon, but to none of his successors, the right of adoption; and should there be neither a natural nor an adoptive heir, by settling the succession first in the family of Joseph, then in that of Louis, both of whom were declared to be imperial princes. All chance was thus removed for the return of a dynasty likely to disturb the existing conditions of property.

The changes in the constitution were radical, and many of them were not made public except as they were put into operation. The tribunate was untouched; but the legislature was divided into three sections, juristic, administrative, and financial. Its members regained a partial liberty of speech, and might again discuss, but only with closed doors, the measures laid before them. The senate became a house of lords. Six great dignitaries, sixteen military grandees called marshals, and a number of the highest administrative officials were added to its numbers. Referring to the imperial state of the great German whom the French style Charlemagne, the imperial officers of Napoleon were designated, some by titles from Karling history, such as the "Great Elector," the "Arch-chancellor of the Empire," the "Arch-chancellor of State," the "Arch-treasurer"; others by ancient French designations, such as the "Constable" and the "High Admiral." These, with the imperial princes, were to be addressed as "Monseigneur," or "Your Highness," either "imperial" or "most serene," as the case might be. The Emperor himself was to be addressed as "Your Majesty" or "Sire." His civil list was twenty-five million francs; the income of each "arch" dignitary was a third of a million. Cambacérès was made Chancellor; Lebrun, Treasurer; Joseph Bonaparte was appointed Elector, and Louis, Constable; Fouché was reappointed Minister of Police; Talleyrand remained Minister of Foreign Affairs. The heraldic device chosen for the seal of the Napoleonic dynasty was the favorite symbol of the Holy Roman Empire, an eagle "au vol"--that is, on the wing.

There was nothing original in the idea of all this tawdry state except the institution of the marshals, which was altogether so. In prosperity this military hierarchy was a bulwark to the Empire, but in adversity it proved a serious element of weakness. The list was shrewdly chosen to assure the good will of the army. Jourdan, who as consular minister had successfully pacified Piedmont, was named as having been the victor of Fleurus in 1794; his republicanism was thus both recalled and finally quenched. Berthier was rewarded for his skill as chief of staff; Masséna for his daring at Rivoli, his victory at Zurich, his endurance at Genoa. Augereau, another converted democrat, was remembered for Castiglione; Brune was appointed for his campaign in Holland against the Duke of York; Davout for his Egyptian laurels; Lannes and Ney for their bravery in many actions; Murat as the great cavalry commander; Bessières as chief of the guards; Bernadotte, Soult, Moncey, and Mortier for reasons of policy and for their general reputation.

The "lion couchant" had been suggested as the heraldic device of the new Empire, but Napoleon scorned it. In all his preparations he carefully distinguished between the "State," which was of course France with its natural boundaries, and the "Empire," which was evidently something more; the resting lion might typify the former, the soaring eagle was clearly a device for the other, which, like the realm of Charles the Great, was to know no "natural" obstacles in its extension.

The most immediate sign of the new order was a changed life at the Tuileries. The palace was thronged no longer with powerful but maladroit persons who did not know how to advance, bow, and recede, and who could not wear their elegant clothes with dignity; nor with others who, more refined in their training, smiled condescendingly at the imperfect manners of the former. A thorough court was organized with careful supervision and rigid etiquette. Soon everybody could behave with sufficient grace and dignity. Fesch was the Grand Almoner; Duroc was Grand Marshal of the Palace; Talleyrand, Grand Chamberlain; Berthier, Master of the Hounds; and Caulaincourt, Master of the Horse. Many of the returned emigrants filled minor places of imperial dignity. The perfection of ceremonial was assured by the appointment, to regulate all etiquette, of Ségur, once minister of Louis XVI to Russia. Everybody was expected to study the rules and be present at numerous rehearsals. Mme. Campan, formerly a lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette, was summoned to lend her assistance.

Finally the now traditional formality of seeking the popular approval was not forgotten. To be sure, the question put was merely whether the imperial succession should remain in the Emperor's family. The reply was a thunderous yes; there being, out of three and a half million votes all told, only two and a half thousand in the negative. It was a sign of the times that among the latter were those of all but three of the Paris lawyers.