the day. His proclamation was a tissue of impudent | Constitution was overthrown by lying and hypocrisy, falsehoods. backed by the show of force. It was feebly defended, as The consuls retained Cambacérès as minister of if there were a consciousness that it was not worth justice, and Fouché as minister of police. Dubois- an effort to preserve it. The conspiracy was an illCrancé, minister of war, was replaced by Alexander organized plan; its execution was contemptible, and Berthier; Quinette, for the interior, was replaced by mere accident turned the scale. But the consequences the geometrician Laplace; Robert Lindet, for finance, were immense for France and all Europe. Henceforth made way for Gaudin; and for foreign affairs, Reinhart one man's will directed the energies of a whole nation, was succeeded by Talleyrand. Forfait had the marine, which he turned into one vast camp; and the tread of in place of Bourdon-Vatry. his armies, and the thunder of his artillery, shook Europe from the pillars of Hercules to the banks of the Vistula.

This was the 18th and 19th of Brumaire,—not days of glory either for the victors or the vanquished.

The

CHAPTER LXIV.

THE CONSULATE, AND THE CONSTITUTION OF THE YEAR VIII.

THE consuls took possession of the Luxembourg | weight. The press, which was under the constraint of on the morning of the 20th Brumaire of the year VIII. (November 11th, 1799). The question of presidency was settled by an agreement that each consul should preside in turn; but Bonaparte was president in fact. At their first meeting Sièyes showed the other two consuls a bureau which contained 800,000 francs, which were put aside under the pretext of providing for extraordinary expenses, but which served, it is said, to supply the retiring Directors with an indemnity for the loss of their places. By a decree of the consuls of the 21st of Frimaire, what remained in this bureau was set aside to meet the expenses of the farce of the 18th and 19th Brumaire; but it appears that this was only done to hide a robbery. Sièyes and Ducos, with Bonaparte's consent, divided the money between them. Gohier, in his Mémoires,' says that Ducos told him that he only had 100,000 francs. The priest had the lion's share.

The power which Bonaparte had got by lying, fraud, and accident, he used moderately and wisely; but his own personal aggrandizement was the end and object of all that he did, a fact which is proved by his whole career. His activity was unwearied. He sought to please everybody, to gain everybody, who could be useful to him he flattered every one, rejected nobody. He paid a visit to the École Polytechnique, one of the most valuable creations of the Revolution, the work of the Convention. He assisted at a sitting of the Institut, of which he had been appointed a member after the 18th Fructidor in place of Carnot, and he adopted the title of Member of the Institut in his proclamations and in his signature of public acts. He reviewed the troops, visited his old comrades at the Hôtel des Invalides, went to the prisons, received the public authorities and the citizens. He said to the public functionaries, "We must no longer see Jacobins, Terrorists, Moderates, and so forth, but only Frenchmen." There was general satisfaction with the new state of things: the dissentients were few, and of little

fear, and had been decimated by the Directors and made an humble instrument, could only repeat the cry of the Moniteur and other accredited journals, that the 18th Brumaire was necessary in order to anticipate the execution of a conspiracy; and the consuls, to prevent all chance of the lie being given to their lie, shut up the clubs. They proposed to the two Legislative Commissions to abolish the law of the 24th Messidor, called the law des otages, which was immediately done, and all who had been arrested under it were set at liberty, and the sequestration was removed from their property. But the consuls fell upon the Jacobins at the very time they were showing their clemency to the relatives of emigrants, to nobles, and to the families of the Vendéans and Chouans. They published a sentence of deportation against a great number of the extreme Republicans, on the report of Fouché, who was now denouncing his old friends. There was no sympathy with the men, but a strong opinion against the injustice of the measure; and the consuls felt that opinion was still something in France. They rescinded their sentence. Though the consuls had used strong language against royalism, fanaticism, and the emigrants, yet royalists, priests, and emigrants were eager to return to France; a testimony to the consular government of which they might be proud. The first consul took up the case of the Naufragés de Calais, nine emigrants of the noblest families in France, who had been wrecked on the French coast, and thrown into prison. Their violation of the ban against the emigrants was purely an accident: they had no intention to land in France. They had been four years in prison when the 18th Brumaire came; and the consuls humanely and justly ordered them to be removed from the territory of the Republic. The Representatives and Journalists who were condemned to deportation immediately after the 18th Fructidor, were relieved from their sentence by the Legislative Commissions (3 Nivose), on the recommendation of the consuls, and Carnot, Portalis, Barbé

Marbois, and many others reappeared. Pichegru and some other traitors and royalists were not pardoned. Even Barrère and Vadier had the benefit of the law of the 3 Nivose; and Barrère, it is said, was secretly employed by Bonaparte, who had no objections to employ anybody whom he could make useful to himself. But for the emigrants there was no relaxation of severity: "The country," said Fouché in a circular, "rejected them for ever from its bosom; and the government would not open the gates to any except those who had not deserved to lose the rights of citizens."

could you imagine," said Bonaparte, "that a man of any talent, and of some slight honour, would be content to play the part of a fatting hog with some millions a year?" This put an end to the scheme of a Grand Elector. Sièyes had already discovered that he had not given France a Constitution, but himself a master.* On the 24th of December, 1799 (Nivose of the year VIII.), five and forty days after the affair of Brumaire, the Constitution of the year VIII. was published. The last act in this drama of fraud and force was performed on the night of the 22nd to the 23rd of Nivose, when Bonaparte, who knew that the members of the Commissions intended to attack several parts of the Constitution, summoned them one by one to give their signatures to it, which persuasion or fear extorted from them all. The journals, which at this time are no evidence of truth, simply announced that the two Commissions met at the residence of Bonaparte on the evening of the 22nd. This Constitution contained no declaration of rights: the sovereignty of the people

The eleventh article of the law of the 19th Brumaire empowered the commissions of the two Councils to propose changes in the Constitution, but the intention was to make a new one, a resolution which had been formed by the conspirators before the 18th Brumaire. Sièyes had a Constitution in his head, and he now thought that he had attained the summit of his wishes, to organize France according to his own ideas. But Bonaparte intended to govern France in his own disappeared.† The first article declares that "The way; and the priest and the general could not agree. The Constitution of Sieyès was entirely distorted in the Constitution which was actually adopted. It was a curiosity; and it is difficult to see how it could work.* Some progress had been made in the organization of the Legislative power, when Bonaparte summoned the two Commissions to the Luxembourg: the members obeyed the order, and henceforth the discussions were continued in the presence of Bonaparte, who presided. With great sagacity he attacked all the vicious parts of the proposed Constitution: with a natural instinct for power, he fastened on everything that could serve his own views, and rejected the rest. There is complete evidence that he let nothing escape him; he examined, he discussed everything; and he stamped on the new Constitution the marks of his own ungovernable will. He astonished all the members of the Commission by the quickness of his apprehension, his dexterity in arguing, and his sound good sensenot the least remarkable feature in his character, which, if his passions had allowed it fair play, would have made him a really great man. Sièyes had a personage in his scheme, who was to be entitled the Grand Elector: he was to have a salary of six millions, a guard of three thousand men, and Versailles for a residence. But the Grand Elector was to have no power: it was to be in the hands of two consuls, after Roman fashion, a consul of peace, and a consul of war. This honourable office was designed by Sièyes for the conqueror of Italy, but he little knew his man. "How

Mignet has some remarks on it, Hist. de la Rév. Française,' chap. xiv. Mignet, generally a judicious and sensible writer, says, "If ever a constitution fitted an epoch, it was that of Sièyes, for France, of the year VIII." It is not easy to assent to this. See Thibaudeau, Consulat,' d. 3, on the discussions which preceded the adoption of the Constitution; and as to the Constitution of Sièyes, Théorie Constitutionelle de Sièyes, Extrait des Mémoires de M. Boulay de la Meurthe, Paris, 1836."

French Republic is one and indivisible,” and that is all. Every man born and resident in France, who was twenty-one years of age, and had his name entered on the civic register of his communal arrondissement, and who had remained a year on the territory of the Republic, was declared to be a French citizen. There was a Senate, called Sénat Conservateur, consisting of eighty members, appointed for life, all of whom must be forty years of age at least. The citizens Sièyes and Roger Ducos retired from the consulship (Art. 24), with their pockets well filled, and became members of the Senate: they were to meet the second and third consuls, appointed by the Constitution, and to nominate the majority of the Senate, which would then fill up the list of its members, and proceed to the other elections. The sittings of the Senate were not public. All new laws were to be proposed by the govern ment, communicated to a Tribunat, and passed by a Legislative body. The Tribunat was composed of a hundred members, aged twenty-five at least: one-fifth of the number was to be changed annually: the Tribunat discussed the proposed laws, and adopted or rejected them. It sent three orators chosen from among the members, whose business was to explain and defend before a Legislative body the reasons for the resolutions which the Tribunat had come to. The Legislative body was composed of three hundred members, aged thirty at least, of whom a fifth part was changed annually. The Legislative body gave the force of law, by secret voting and without any discussion, to such measures as had been discussed before it by the orators of the Tribunat and of the government. The members of the Tribunat and of the Legislative body were elected by the Senate out of a national list,

which was formed according to the ninth article of the Constitution. The sittings of the Tribunat and of the Legislative body were' public, but the number of persons allowed to attend was limited. A senator's place was worth having: each received one twentieth part of the first consul's allowance; and the first consul had 500,000 francs a year. A tribune had 15,000 francs, and a legislator 10,000 francs a year,-which was a pretty good allowance for a man who had only to vote, and was not allowed to speak. The government was in the hands of three consuls, chosen by the senate out of the national list, for ten years, and re-eligible indefinitely. Each was elected separately with his distinct qualification of first, second, or third consul. "The Constitution" named as first consul citizen Bonaparte, that is, citizen Bonaparte named himself; the second consul was Cambacérès, ex-minister of justice; the third was Lebrun, ex-member of the commission of the Council of Antients; "for this time the third consul was only named for five years." The first consul was everything: the other two were ciphers which gave him more value by being placed after him. Their humbler rank was marked by their humbler salary: each had only three-tenths of the first consul's salary: Both together were valued at little more than half of a first consul. The Constitution was simply a surrender of the whole power to Bonaparte. The 93rd article declared that the French nation would never allow the return of those Frenchmen, who, having abandoned their country since the 14th of July, 1789, were not comprehended within the exceptions made to the law passed against the emigrants; and the nation forbade any new exceptions to be made on this point. The property of the emigrants was irrevocably forfeited for the advantage of the Republic. The 94th and last article declared that the Constitution should be immediately presented to the French people for their acceptance.

the Legislative body. Most of the festivals of the Republic were suppressed.*

The

Already on the third the consuls assumed their functions, met and deliberated. They named Lucièn Bonaparte minister of the interior in place of Laplace, who was made a senator; and Abrial was minister of justice in place of Cambacérès, who had become a consul. Their next step was to form a conseil d'état, which could only sit as a body, when it was convoked by the consuls. Each counsellor had a salary of 25,000 francs. Bonaparte's system was to interest a number of well-paid persons in the maintenance of his administration. The counsellors' dress was blue velvet in winter, and blue silk in summer. They were all put in livery, councillors, senate, tribunes, and legislators. There were five sections of the conseil d'etat-war, marine, finance, justice, and the interior. The council sat on the 4th, even before their livery could be ready, as we may suppose, unless it was ordered some time before; and the consuls settled the form of a proclamation which was published next day. It announced that the reign of the new Constitution had commenced. people, in the meanwhile, were voting on its acceptation or rejection. Everything was hurried on the first consul could never wait. As early as the 3rd Nivose, a list of the senators was published in the Journal de Paris. The list must therefore have been formed on the 2nd, at the latest, the day before Bérenger's motion. The senate lost no time: on the 4th Nivose, a list of the tribunes elected by the senate appeared in the journals; and on the 7th appeared the names of the three hundred members of the Legislative body. On the 5th Nivose, the two Legislative Commissions received an official communication from the senate, which informed them that the senate existed; whereupon the two commissions declared themselves dissolved. The whole proceeding is very weil characterized by Gohier, one of the ex-directors: "A miserable minority on the 19th Brumaire created three provisional commissions; these three commissions, without being a constituent body, create a Constitution; this Constitution engenders a great consul; the great consul engenders two new consuls and councillors of state; the two new little consuls, in concert with two little provisional consuls, metamorphosed into senators, engender one-half of the great body, of which the two latter are already members; this engendered half engenders the other half; and this great political body, which was called by an antiphrasis,

On the 23rd Frimaire, the two commissions, after receiving a message from the consuls, determined on the mode in which the Constitution should be ratified by the people. They did not present it to the primary assemblies for ratification, but they opened registers at the secretariat of each administration, and at other places: even justices of the peace (juges de paix), and notaries were empowered to receive the acceptances or refusals of the people. Only fifteen days were allowed for the voting, and fifteen days from the time when the Constitutional Act was received in the chief town of each department. The consuls were to collect the Sénat-conservateur, being thus completely engendered, votes and proclaim the result. But this was too slow for the impatience of the first consul, and on the 3rd Nivose, Bérenger proposed to the Legislative Commission of the Five Hundred, that they should decree that the Sénat Conservateur and the consuls should enter on their functions the next day (the 4th), because the result of the people's vote was not doubtful. This was done; and the Tuileries were assigned to the consuls, the Luxembourg to the Senate, the Palais Royal to Hist. Parl.,' xxxviii., 30, contains the Constitution of the Tribunat, and the Palace of the Five Hundred to the blue velvet and silk men.

engenders a Legislative body and a Tribunat: in three days and three nights these merry procreations are

* Hist. Parl.,' xxxviii., 302. Thibaudeau says, that the festivals of the 14th of July, and of the 1st Vendémiaire, the day of the foundation of the Republic, were the festivals that all the festivals were suppressed except the 10th of which were preserved. The 'Hist. Parl.' states erroneously August.

performed; and all the authorities which were to govern France, thus illegitimately engendered, do not wait to be legitimated by the national adoption, in order to take possession of the functions of those authorities whom they replace."

The Constitution had not been accepted, when the commencement of its reign was proclaimed; but the consuls took care that its acceptance was secured by means of their agents. There seems, however, no reason to doubt that it would have been accepted, if they had taken no trouble about it. According to a report made to the council of state, and published by the consuls on the 18th of February, 1800, it appeared that 3,011,007 votes accepted, and 1562 rejected it. The Constitution of 1791 was not subjected to the same test. That of 1793 was accepted by 1,801,918 votes, and rejected by 11,610. The Constitution of the year III. was accepted by 1,057,390 votes, and rejected by 49,978.

A great number of persons were provided for by the nominations; and those who had forwarded or encouraged the affair of the 18th Brumaire were not forgotten. Sièyes and Ducos, ex-directors and provisional consuls, became senators. But Sièyes got more. His

scheme of a grand elector, a kind of constitutional king, had failed. Whether he seriously thought of having the place himself, has been doubted; for as Thibaudeau observes, "it is difficult to believe that a man like Sièyes could ever have supposed that Republican France would have consented to be governed by a priest, and that Bonaparte, who represented the military glory of France, would choose to obey him." Bonaparte got the place of grand elector, under the name of First Consul, with a less income than Sièyes proposed for his elector, but a great deal more to do. Bonaparte was greedy of power: Sièyes was greedy of money, and he received an indemnity before the Constitution was in operation. The commissions, moved by a message from the consuls, resolved (30 Frimaire, year VIII.,) that "considering that it is important for the stability of every political constitution to give signal testimonials of gratitude to the citizens who have rendered great services to the country, the national domain of Crosne, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, or some other equivalent, is decreed in ownership, full and entire, to citizen Sièyes, as a mark of national gratitude." Sièyes preferred an equivalent which was not so palpable: the state preserved the domain of Crosne, and Sièyes got for it, if Gohier tells the truth,

*There is a list of them, with the rewards they got, in a good deal more than it was worth. the 'Hist. Parl.,' xxxviii., 314.

CHAPTER LXV.

MARENGO.

BONAPARTE was First Consul, and from this time begins his reign in France. The 18th and 19th Brumaire elevated him at once to the supreme power. His activity was unbounded, his assumption of authority manifest every day furnished the French with something to think of besides the illegal measures by which he had seized on the government. The French were accustomed to revolutions, and one which promised security and tranquillity at home and victory abroad, could not fail to be generally acquiesced in. The republican enthusiasm was now to be replaced by an enthusiasm for military glory and the First Consul, who had sprung from the army, centred in himself the hopes of all. He left nothing undone to secure opinion. The journals had hardly space enough for all his proclamations and the resolutions of the council of state, of which the First Consul was president. There was a proclamation to the army of Italy, which Masséna now commanded in place of Championnet, who was dead; a proclamation to the French soldiers, and a resolution of the Consuls, by which honorary distinctions of various kinds were given to soldiers of all ranks. Bonaparte had done this before. In Italy he distributed seventy-five sabres; and in Egypt he gave various honorary presents, such as muskets ornamented

with silver, trumpets and the like. He seized, with his instinctive knowledge of men, on a characteristic of the French nation. He even affected to wish for peace, and he wrote a letter to the king of England (5th Nivose), which was communicated to lord Grenville by Talleyrand. Bonaparte's letter contained no particular terms, but it clearly expressed a strong desire for peace: "Your majesty will only see in this overture my sincere desire to contribute efficiently, for the second time, to a general pacification, by a proceeding prompt and confiding, and disengaged from those forms which, perhaps necessary to disguise the dependence of weak states, only show in strong states a mutual desire to deceive." The king's answer, through lord Grenville, dated "London, the 4th of January, 1800," is a distinct refusal to treat of peace with the French government, founded on the conviction that there was no security for the king's own dominions and those of his allies, and for the security of Europe in general, no guarantee for the principles which should direct the new government of France, no reasonable ground to judge of its stability. The answer stated that the best guarantee for the stability of the administration of France would be the restoration of the line of princes, who for so many ages had maintained the interna'

prosperity of the French nation, and secured for it | cared no more for religion than he did, but they knew respect and consideration abroad; but though this was that the mass of the nation had never abandoned the desirable, the king did not make it an indispensable Catholic faith, and it was politic to attach them to the condition of a solid and lasting peace; he did not new government. The venerable pope Pius VI. had assume to prescribe to France her form of government, died at Valence, in Dauphiné. The Directory treated nor in what hands she should place the authority for him harshly: the French people showed him the the administration of affairs. The sum was that the respect due to his rank and his virtues: the consuls king stood by his continental allies, and considered celebrated his funeral obsequies with pomp and splenthe interests of his own people as involved in the dor. All this was done before the tribunat and the interests of the rest of Europe.* Legislative body met.

The first session was on the 11th Nivose (January 1, 1800). Daunou was elected president of the Tribunat, and Perrin of the Legislative body. The Tribunat, the only body in which speaking was allowed, sat at the Palais Royal: "the selection of the place," said Duveyrier, "was satisfactory; it was the cradle of the Revolution:" "it is the place," he said,

A resolution of the council of state (6th Nivose) with respect to the laws of the 3rd Brumaire of the year III., 19th Fructidor of the year V., and 9th Frimaire of the year VI., which excluded from political rights and admissibility to public functions, the relatives of emigrants and former nobles, declared that these laws were repealed by the promulgation of the Constitution, and that the government could invite such persons to accept" in which, if any one should speak of an idol of public functions without the consent of the legislature. A proclamation of the consuls (8th Nivose) to the inhabitants of the departments of the west was in a conciliatory tone; it declared that the freedom of religious worship was guaranteed by the Constitution, and that "the ministers of a God of peace should be the first to recommend concord." A resolution, which followed this proclamation, offered a complete and absolute amnesty for the past, but it declared those to be out of the pale of the Constitution who should persist in their rebellion. General Brunet was soon after appointed commander of the army of the West, and Hédouville, who hitherto held the command, acted under him. Further relief was given to many scrupulous people by a law that all public functionaries, ministers of religion and others, who were required to take an oath or make a declaration by any law passed before the formation of the recent Constitution, could satisfy the law by the following declaration: "I promise to be faithful to the Constitution." By thus tempering the strictness of the Republican oath, the government hoped to relieve the consciences of the ecclesiastics, whom they wished to conciliate; and the Moniteur' laboured to show that the ecclesiastics could take without scruple an oath, which merely bound them not to be hostile to the Constitution.

fifteen days, one would recollect that an idol of fifteen centuries had been broken in a single day." Bonaparte and the public understood the allusion; and the first consul was displeased. On the 13th Nivose, the Legislative body transmitted to the Tribunat a measure, which had been presented to them by the conseil d'état for regulating the passing of laws; and the measure fixed a limit to the time of the discussions. This was finally carried, though it was said. by some that the government seemed to wish to carry their measures in a gallop. Measures were also adopted for improving the revenue; such as the sale of certain charges on land which had fallen to the Republic by the confiscation of the property of those to whom the charges belonged. The direct taxes were paid monthly: better accounts were kept; and the receivers-general gave securities. On the 27th Nivose the consuls chained the liberty of the press by a resolution that the minister of police, during the continuance of the war, should allow no journals to appear in the department of the Seine except the Moniteur Universel,' the Journal des Débats,' and 'des Décrets,' and a few others which were mentioned, and also the journals which were exclusively devoted to science, art, literature, commerce and advertisements. No new journal was to be published in the department of the Seine, or in the other departments of the Republic; and the minister of police was to report immediately on all the journals which were printed in the other departments. The fifth article was still more severe : "Every journal shall be immediately suppressed which shall insert any articles contrary to the respect due to the social pact, to the sovereignty of the people and to the glory of the armies, or which shall publish invectives against the government, and the nations which are friends or allies of the Republic, even if these articles should be taken from foreign journals." This bold measure met with no opposition. With the army devoted to him, the priests enlisted on his side, the journals silenced, and a constitution which placed * Bonaparte's note, and the answer, are printed in the the chief power in his hands, Bonaparte saw the way 'Hist. Parl.,' xxxviii., 320 open to the accomplishment of all his wishes. Soon

The churches were again opened for the Catholic worship; but the clergy demanded the exclusive possession of the buildings, which the law had given up for the celebration of the ceremonies of the décadi. But though the government were well disposed to get rid of the décadi, it still struggled with the Sunday, and great inconvenience arose from the conflict between the ceremonials of the Catholic worship and those of the décadi, until the décadi was abolished some time after. The government slowly but resolutely destroyed all the work of the Hébertistes; and Fouché, the apostle of atheism, was their agent in the restoration of religion. The other members of the government

F F