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XLIII.

CHAP. was to choose. There was little difference betwen the two systems, save the semblance of popular election. The tribunate was reduced to fifty members, to be subsequently abolished altogether, the senate to eighty. The latter was endowed with the power of prolonging the executive, in other words of declaring the First Consul to hold his office for life. But whilst endowing the senate with these powers, the jealous ruler would not commit to it the examination or vote of treaties. This he reserved to a Council of State of his nomination. The senate sought to retain a shadow of power by voting the prolongation of the consulate for only ten years. Bonaparte, dissatisfied, instantly resolved to do without that senate which he had just created, and appeal to a plebiscite or general vote of the population to sanction his consulate for life. Of course the people voted for the conqueror, and the senate was allowed to proclaim what they could not oppose. August, 1802, was the date of the re-inauguration of absolute sovereignty in France.

Whilst the base and summit of the new structure were thus made to proceed from the same forge with the most rude and antiquated fetters of tyranny, elaborate care was taken to adorn and gild the edifice with the most decorous and even gorgeous externals. Splendid museums were opened and filled with works of art taken from every capital in Europe. Architectural plans for the renovation of palaces and the beautifying of the metropolis were ordained and acted upon. Gardens were opened, triumphal arches erected, fountains made to spout. Everything that could efface the memory of freedom, and substitute gaping admiration for it, was created. And whilst the tendency of laws and institutions was seriously to degrade the spirit of man and convert him into a mere servile machine, ingenuity was tasked to flatter his vanity and please his eye.

Yet it would be unjust to attribute this to any deep

laid scheme of tyranny and deceit. Bonaparte knew nothing of freedom, but its shameful and sanguinary excesses. His political education had been scant. He had never learned either to revere the principles of constitutional freedom or to appreciate its happy results. His idea of order was to enregiment mankind, and his scheme of national happiness to dominate. He knew nothing higher, nothing better, and he proceeded to apply these narrow principles, with the conviction that he was a Solon as well as an Alexander.

Such a system of government and such a character in a ruler, rendered any lasting agreement difficult, if not impossible, with other and neighbouring countries possessed of a vestige of either freedom or pride. The Cisalpine republic soon found that it was but a republic

It was not permitted even to be Italian, and was compelled to elect Bonaparte its first magistrate. Piedmont about the same period was annexed to France, and divided into French departments. Tuscany was styled the Kingdom of Etruria, under a young and imbecile Spanish Bourbon, but the French General Clarke ruled at Florence in his name. Elba was seized by the French, evidently for the sake of encircling and closing the port of Leghorn. The Pope Pius the Seventh had accepted with the Concordat the loss of the Legations, and could be looked upon as little more than a French bishop. The First Consul was supreme in Italy.

In Switzerland he was no less so. Geneva formed a French department. The Valais was destined to be another, as through it ran the great road which the French Consul was opening over the Simplon to Milan. The Vaud, which lay between Geneva and the Valais, was scarcely less French from gratitude. It was necessary, however, to make a show of Swiss independence, and the French ministry avowed it. The moment it did, a national party arose within the Confederation, and the French government sent an army to put it

СНАР.

XLIII.

XLIII.

CHAP. down. Bonaparte in a courteous despatch, whilst declaring that Switzerland must remain federal and neutral, added, that its government must contain nothing hostile to France; the Swiss, in fact, must support whatever was French policy.* And this despatch was published in the Moniteur of January the 2nd, 1803.

More galling to England and other independent governments than even the annihilation of Swiss independence were the French projects for redistributing and reorganizing Germany. The task imposed by treaty, of indemnifying the German and Italian princes, who had been dispossessed by France, might have been left, one should think, to Germans. But Bonaparte undertook this himself, Prussia earnestly abetting him. A German power might, it was alleged, have shown a way more patriotic. But what Napoleon was executing was greatly advantageous to Prussia. He was destroying those ecclesiastical Electorates, which had been the support of Austrian influence in North and Central Germany. Thus showing himself the foe of the court of Vienna, Napoleon would gladly have conciliated that of Berlin, not only by giving it Hanover, but also the Mecklenburgs, the Dukes of which Duchies he would have transferred, like so many cabbages, into the interior of Germany.† Napoleon thus dreamt in 1802 that which his nephew has allowed to be accomplished in 1866. But Prussia was as fearful of his pretensions, as greedy of his gifts. Bonaparte in consequence turned to Russia, and for a time did receive its sanction. But Russia under its successive rulers was continually alternating from fanatic hatred to fanatic admiration of Napoleon.

Although the completion of these French designs upon Germany was subsequent to the peace of Amiens, still the aim and assumption of domination on the left

* Une Suisse amie de la France, ou point de Suisse du tout.

Hardenberg, Stein's Leben.

as well as on the right bank of the Rhine, were evident and present to the alarmed vigilance of English statesmen. The First Consul indeed took care that they should be aware of it. In the Exposé of the State of the Republic laid before the Assemblies and published in the Moniteur of February the 11th, 1802, it was pointed out that England had no longer an ally on the Continent, and that whatever the success of intriguers in London they could not influence any continental power to join them. The consequence was, that England stood alone, and could not now maintain a struggle against France. Such a taunt appearing in a week or two after Sebastiani's Report upon Egypt and the East, full of vulgar abuse of the English, their armies and their government, excited great exasperation in London.

The English anti-Gallican opposition naturally made the most of such grievances, and the French émigré press in London took the opportunity to shed its gall on the First Consul. He had complained of a certain Peltier and of his journal, even before the conclusion of the peace, and was especially mortified by the continuance of his diatribes. Coupling this with the effort of certain French bishops in England, and the presence there of George Cadoudal still in the pay of the British government, he made angry remonstrance against the hostility thus kept up. The English ministry observed, that the French government might prosecute the libellers, but that England could not deny hospitality to the exiled princes and other French émigrés. It could not silence the press, that spared neither the English ministry nor the royal familysuch was the legal license of journalism in England. At the same time Mr. Addington pointed out to the French envoy, M. Otto, how peace could be strengthened. He enumerated all that had been done in Italy, in Switzerland, and in Germany to extend French predominance, and added, "We will pass over all this,

CHAP.

XLIII.

XLIII.

CHAP. but for God's sake leave Holland alone. Do not make its ports altogether your ports. And do not manifest fresh designs upon Egypt or Turkey. If you do, public opinion in England will set in once more for war and we shall be unable to resist it. Make a treaty of commerce allowing us to trade with the countries you have placed in your dependence, and above all things settle the affair of Malta by procuring the guarantee of neutral powers."

This fair and pacific advice of Addington, M. Thiers records from Otto's despatches, and he admits that M. de Talleyrand did not take the pains he ought to have done to have procured the guarantees for Malta. The French historian then proceeds to state that though Addington was anxious for peace, Pitt was for a renewal of the war. Pitt, however, was at first as much for peace as Addington. It was he who caused the order to be sent for the evacuation of the Cape, nor was it till the opening of 1803, and after the publication of Sebastiani's report, that Pitt considered peace to be untenable.* The fears of the English statesman that the French might recover Egypt and thence march to India, was indeed as chimerical as Bonaparte's undoubted aim of accomplishing such results. But Pitt's fears, as well as those of English politicians, were serious. It pleases M. Thiers to describe this as jealousy. But a victim is not jealous of an enemy which threatens to devour it, and daily acquires additional strength for that purpose. M. Thiers also describes the reluctance of the English to part with Malta as ambition. But this term is equally inapplicable to the mingled sentiments of mistrust and self-defence which animated the English. We have quoted Addington's language to Otto, let us complete this by an answer of Lord Whitworth's to General Bonaparte. When this envoy enumerated to the French ruler the great

* Stanhope's Life of Pitt.

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