arranged. France and Russia accordingly joined hands in order to secure predominance in the affairs of Central and Southern Europe, and to counterbalance England's supremacy at sea. For it was not enough to break up the Second Coalition and recover Northern Italy. Bonaparte's policy was more than European; it was oceanic. England must be beaten on her own element: then and then only could the young warrior secure his grasp on Egypt and return to his oriental schemes. His correspondence before and after the Marengo campaign reveals his eagerness for a peace with Austria and an alliance with Russia. His thoughts constantly turn to Egypt. He bargains with Britain that his army there may be revictualled, and so words his claim that troops can easily be sent also. Grenville refuses (September 10th); whereupon Bonaparte throws himself eagerly into further plans for the destruction of the islanders. He seeks to inflame the Czar's wrath against the English maritime code. His success for the time is complete. At the close of 1800 Lord the Russian Emperor marshals the Baltic Powers for the overthrow of England's navy, and outstrips Bonaparte's wildest hopes by proposing a Franco-Russian invasion of India with a view to "dealing his enemy a mortal blow.' This plan, as drawn up at the close of 1800, arranged for the mustering of 35,000 Russians at Astrakan; while as many French were to fight their way to the mouth of the Danube, set sail on Russian ships for the Sea of Azov, join their allies on the Caspian Sea, sail to its southern extremity, and, rousing the Persians and Afghans by the hope of plunder, sweep the British from India. The scheme received from Bonaparte a courteous perusal; but he subjected it to several criticisms, which led to less patient rejoinders from the irascible potentate. Nevertheless, Paul began to march his troops towards the lower Volga, and several polks of Cossacks had crossed that river on the ice, when the news of his assassination cut short the scheme.1 1 See Czartoryski's "Memoirs," ch. xi., and Driault's "La Question d'Orient," ch. iii. The British Foreign Office was informed of the plan. In its records (No. 614) is a memoir (pencilled on the back January 31st, The grandiose schemes of Paul vanished with their fantastic contriver; but the rapprochement of Russia to revolutionary France was ultimately to prove an event of far-reaching importance; for the eastern power thereby began to exert on the democracy of western Europe that subtle, semi-Asiatic influence which has so powerfully warped its original character. The dawn of the nineteenth century witnessed some startling rearrangements on the political chess-board. While Bonaparte brought Russia and France to sudden amity, the unbending maritime policy of Great Britain leagued the Baltic Powers against the mistress of the seas. In the autumn of 1800 the Czar Paul, after hearing of our capture of Malta, forthwith revived the Armed Neutrality League of 1780 and opposed the forces of Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark to the might of England's navy. But Nelson's brilliant success at Copenhagen and the murder of the Czar by a palace conspiracy shattered this league only four months after its formation, and the new Czar, Alexander, reverted for a time to friendship with England. This sudden ending to the first Franco-Russian alliance so enraged Bonaparte that he caused a paragraph to be inserted in the official "Moniteur," charging the British Government with procuring the assassination of Paul, an insinuation that only proclaimed his rage at this sudden rebuff to his hitherto successful diplomacy. Though foiled for a time, he never lost sight of the hoped-for alliance, which, with a deft commixture of force and persuasion, he gained seven years later, after the crushing blow of Friedland. Dread of a Franco-Russian alliance undoubtedly helped to compel Austria to a peace. Humbled by Moreau at the great battle of Hohenlinden, the Emperor Francis opened 1801) from a M. Leclerc to Mr. Flint, referring the present proposal back to that offered by M. de St. Génie to Catherine II., and proposing that the first French step should be the seizure of Socotra and Perim. 1 Garden, "Traités," vol. vi., ch. xxx.; Captain Mahan's "Life of Nelson," vol. ii., ch. xvi.; Thiers, "Consulate," bk. ix. For the assassination of the Czar Paul see "Kaiser Paul's Ende," von R. R. (Stuttgart, 1897); also Czartoryski's" Memoirs," chs. xiii.-xiv. For Bonaparte's offer of a naval truce to us and his overture of December, 1800, see Bowman, op. cit. negotiations at Lunéville in Lorraine. The subtle obstinacy of Cobenzl there found its match in the firm yet suave diplomacy of Joseph Bonaparte, who wearied out Cobenzl himself, until the march of Moreau towards Vienna compelled Francis to accept the River Adige as his boundary in Italy. The other terms of the treaty (February 9th, 1801) were practically the same as those of the treaty of Campo Formio, save that the Hapsburg Grand Duke of Tuscany was compelled to surrender his State to a son of the Bourbon Duke of Parma. He himself was to receive "compensation" in Germany, where also the unfortunate Duke of Modena was to find consolation in the district of the Breisgau on the Upper Rhine. The helplessness of the old Holy Roman Empire was, indeed, glaringly displayed; for Francis now admitted the right of the French to interfere in the rearrangement of that medley of States. He also recognized the Cisalpine, Ligurian, Helvetic, and Batavian Republics, as at present constituted; but their independence, and the liberty of their peoples to choose what form of government they thought fit, were expressly stipulated. The Court of Naples also made peace with France by the treaty of Florence (March, 1801), whereby it withdrew its troops from the States of the Church, and closed its ports to British and Turkish ships; it also renounced in favour of the French Republic all its claims over a maritime district of Tuscany known as the Présidii, the little principality of Piombino, and a port in the Isle of Elba. These cessions fitted in well with Napoleon's schemes for the proposed elevation of the heir of the Duchy of Parma to the rank of King of Tuscany or Etruria. The King of Naples also pledged himself to admit and support a French corps in his dominions. Soult with 10,000 troops thereupon occupied Otranto, Taranto, and Brindisi, in order to hold the Neapolitan Government to its engagements, and to facilitate French intercourse with Egypt. In his relations with the New World Bonaparte had also prospered. Certain disputes between France and the United States had led to hostilities in the year 1798. Negotiations for peace were opened in March, 1800, and led to the treaty of Morfontaine, which enabled Bonaparte to press on the Court of Madrid the scheme of the Parma-Louisiana exchange, that promised him a magnificent cmpire on the banks of the Mississippi. These and other grandiose designs were confided only to Talleyrand and other intimate counsellors. But, even to the mass of mankind, the transformation scene ushered in by the nineteenth century was one of bewildering brilliance. Italy from the Alps to her heel controlled by the French; Austria compelled to forego all her Italian plans; Switzerland and Holland dominated by the First Consul's influence; Spain following submissively his imperious lead; England, despite all her naval triumphs, helpless on land; and France rapidly regaining more than all her old prestige and stability under the new institutions which form the most enduring tribute to the First Consul's glory. CHAPTER XII THE NEW INSTITUTIONS OF FRANCE "WE have done with the romance of the Revolution : we must now commence its history. We must have eyes only for what is real and practicable in the application of principles, and not for the speculative and hypothetical." Such were the memorable words of Bonaparte to his Council of State at one of its early meetings. They strike the keynote of the era of the Consulate. It was a period of intensely practical activity that absorbed all the energies of France and caused the earlier events of the Revolution to fade away into a seemingly remote past. The failures of the civilian rulers and the military triumphs of Bonaparte had exerted a curious influence on the French character, which was in a mood of expectant receptivity. In 1800 everything was in the transitional state that favours the efforts of a master builder; and one was now at hand whose constructive ability in civil affairs equalled his transcendent genius for war. I propose here briefly to review the most important works of reconstruction which render the Consulate and the early part of the Empire for ever famous. So vast and complex were Bonaparte's efforts in this field that they will be described, not chronologically, but subject by subject. The reader will, however, remember that for the most part they went on side by side, even amidst the distractions caused by war, diplomacy, colonial enterprises, and the myriad details of a vast administration. What here appears as a series of canals was in reality a mighty river of enterprise rolling in undivided volume. and fed by the superhuman vitality of the First Consul. It was his inexhaustible curiosity which compelled functionaries to reveal the secrets of their office it was his intelligence that seized on the salient points of every |