the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Napoleon I
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or I. (1769-1821), Emperor of the French. Napoleon Bonaparte (or Buonaparte, as he almost always spelt the name down the year 1796) was born at Ajaccio in Corsica on the i 5th of August 1769. The date of his birth has been disputed, and certain curious facts have been cited in proof of the assertion that he was born on the 7th of January 1768, and that his brother Joseph, who passed as the eldest surviving son, was in reality his junior. Recent research has, however, explained how it came about that a son born on the earlier date received the name Nabulione (Napoleon). The father, Carlo Mariada Buonaparte (Charles Marie de Bonaparte), had resolved to call his three first sons by the names given by his great-grandfather to his sons, namely Joseph, Napoleon and Lucien. This was done; but on the death of the eldest (Joseph) the child first baptized Nabulion received the name Joseph; while the third son (the second surviving son) was called Napoleon. The baptismal register of Ajaccio leaves no doubt as to the date of his birth as given above. For his parents and family see Bonaparte. The father's literary tastes, general inquisitiveness, and powers of intrigue reappeared in Napoleon, who, however, derived from his mother Letizia (a descendant of the Ramolino and Pietra Santa families) the force of will, the power of forming a quick decision and of maintaining it against all odds, which made him so terrible an opponent both in war and in diplomacy. The sterner strain in the mother's nature may be traced to intermarriage with the families of the wild interior of Corsica, where the vendetta was the unwritten but omnipotent law of the land. The Bonapartes, on the other hand, had long concerned themselves with legal affairs at Ajaccio or in the coast towns of the island. They traced their descent to ancestors who had achieved distinction in the political life of medieval Florence and Sarzana; Francesco Buonaparte of Sarzana migrated to Corsica early in the 16th century. What is equally noteworthy, as explaining the characteristics of Napoleon, is that his descent was on both sides distinctly patrician. He once remarked that the house of Bonaparte dated from the coup d'etat of Brumaire (November 1 799); but it is certain the de Buonapartes had received the title of nobility from the senate of the republic of Genoa which, during the 18th century, claimed to exercise sovereignty over Corsica.
It was in the midst of the strifes resulting from those claims that Napoleon Bonaparte saw the light in 1769. His compatriots had already freed themselves from the yoke of Genoa, thanks to Pasquale Paoli; but in 1764 that republic appealed to Louis XV. of France for aid, and in 1768 a bargain was struck by which the French government succeeded to the nearly bankrupt sovereignty of Genoa. In the campaigns of 1768-69 the French gradually overcame the fierce resistance of the islanders; and Paoli, after sustaining a defeat at Ponte-Novo (9th of May 1769), fled to the mainland, and ultimately to England. Napoleon's father at first sided with Paoli, but after the disaster of Ponte-Novo he went over to the conquerors, and thereafter solicited places for himself and for his sons with a skill and persistence which led to a close union between the Bonapartes and France. From the French governor of Corsica, the comte de Marbeuf, he procured many favours, among them being the nomination of the young Napoleon to the military school at Brienne in the east of France.
Already the boy had avowed his resolve to be a soldier. In the large playroom of the house at Ajaccio, while the others amused themselves with ordinary games, Napoleon delighted most in beating a drum and wielding a sword. His elder brother, Joseph, a mild and dreamy boy, had to give way before him; and it was a perception of this difference of temperament which decided the father to send Joseph into the church and Napoleon into the army. Seeing that the younger boy was almost entirely ignorant of French, he took him with Joseph to the college at Autun at the close of the year 1778. After spending four months at Autun, Napoleon entered the school at Brienne in May 1779.
The pupils at Brienne, far from receiving a military education, were grounded in ordinary subjects, and in no very efficient manner, by brethren of the order, or society, of Minims. The moral tone of the school was low; and Napoleon afterwards spoke with contempt of the training of the "monks" and the manner of life of the scholars. Perhaps his impressions were too gloomy; his whole enthusiasm had been for the Corsicans, who still maintained an unequal struggle against the French; he deeply resented his father's espousal of the French cause; and dislike of the conquerors of his native island made him morose and solitary. Apart from decided signs of proficiency in mathematics, he showed no special ability. Languages he disliked, but he spent much of his spare time in reading history, especially Plutarch. The firmness of character which he displayed caused him to be recommended in 1782 for the navy by one of the inspectors of the school; but a new inspector, who was appointed in 1783, frustrated this plan. In October 1784 Bonaparte and three other Briennois were authorized, by a letter signed by Louis XVI., to proceed as gentlemen cadets to the military school at Paris. There the education was more thorough, and the discipline stricter, than at Brienne. Napoleon applied himself with more zest to his studies, in the hope of speedily qualifying himself for the artillery. In this he succeeded. As the result of an examination conducted in September 1785 by Laplace, Bonaparte was included among those who entered the army without going through an intermediate stage.
At the end of October 1785 he closed a scholastic career which had been creditable but not brilliant. He now entered the artillery regiment, La Fere, quartered at Valence, and went through all the duties imposed on privates, and thereafter those of a corporal and a sergeant. Not until January 1786 did he actually serve as junior lieutenant. A time of furlough in Corsica from September 1786 to September 1787 served to strengthen his affection for his mother, and for the island which he still hoped to free from the French yoke. The father having died of cancer at Montpellier in 1785, Napoleon felt added responsibilites, which he zealously discharged. In order to push forward a claim which Letizia urged on the French government, he proceeded to Paris in September 1787, and toyed for a time with the pleasures of the Palais Royal, but failed to make good the family claim. After gaining a further extension of leave of absence from his regiment he returned to Ajaccio and spent six months more in the midst of family and political affairs. Rejoining his regiment, then in the garrison at Auxonne, after a furlough of twenty-one months, the young officer went through a time of much privation, brightened only by the study of history and cognate subjects. Many of the notes and essays written by him at Auxonne bear witness to his indomitable resolve to master all the details of his profession and the chief facts relating to peoples who had struggled successfully to achieve their liberation. Enthusiasm for Corsica was a leading motive prompting him to this prolonged exertion. His notes on English history (down to the time of the revolution of 1688) were especially detailed. Of Cromwell he wrote: "Courageous, clever, deceitful, dissimulating, his early principles of lofty republicanism yielded to the devouring flames of his ambition; and, having tasted the sweets of power, he aspired to the pleasure of reigning alone." At Auxonne, as previously at Valence, Napoleon commanded a small detachment of troops sent to put down disturbances in neighbouring towns, and carried out his orders unflinchingly. To this period belongs his first crude literary effort, a polemic against a Genevese pastor who had criticized Rousseau.
In the latter part of his stay at Auxonne (June 1788 - September 1789) occurred the first events of the Revolution which was destined to mould anew his ideas and his career. But his preoccupation about Corsica, the privations to which he and his family were then exposed, and his bad health, left him little energy to expend on purely French affairs. He read much of the pamphlet literature then flooding the country, but he still preferred the, more general studies in history and literature, Plutarch, Caesar, Corneille, Voltaire and Rousseau being his favourite author:. The plea of the last named on behalf of Corsica served to enlist the sympathy of Napoleon in his wider speculations, and so helped to bring about that mental transformation which merged Buonaparte the Corsican in Bonaparte the Jacobin and Napoleon the First Consul and Emperor.
Family influences also played their part in this transformation. On proceeding to Ajaccio in September 1789 for another furlough, he found his brother Joseph enthusiastic in the democratic cause and acting as secretary of the local political club. Napoleon seconded his efforts, and soon they had the help of the third brother, Lucien, who proved to be most eager and eloquent. Thanks to the exertions of Saliceti, one of the two deputies sent by the tiers etat of Corsica to the National Assembly of France, that body, on the 30th of November 1789, declared the island to be an integral part of the kingdom with right to participate in all the reforms then being decreed. This event decided Napoleon to give his adhesion to the French or democratic party; and when, in July 1790, Paoli returned from exile in England (receiving on his way the honours of the sitting by the National Assembly) the claims of nationality and democracy seemed to be identical, though the future course of events disappointed these hopes. Shortly before returning to his regiment in the early weeks of 1791 he indited a letter inveighing in violent terms against Matteo Buttafuoco, deputy for the Corsican noblesse in the National Assembly of France, as having betrayed the cause of insular liberty in 1768 and as plotting against it again.
The experiences of Bonaparte at Auxonne during his second stay in garrison were again depressing. With him in his poorly furnished lodgings was Louis Bonaparte, the fourth surviving son, whom he carefully educated and for whom he predicted a brilliant future. For the present their means were very scanty, and, as the ardent royalism of his brother officers limited his social circle, he plunged into work with the same ardour as before, frequently studying fourteen or fifteen hours a day. Then it was, or perhaps at a slightly later date, that he became interested in the relations subsisting between political science and war. From L'Esprit des lois of Montesquieu he learnt suggestive thoughts like the following: "L'objet de la guerre, c'est la victoire; celui de la victoire, la conquete; celui de la conquete, l'occupation." Machiavelli taught him the need of speed, decision and unity of command, in war. From the Traite de tactique (1772) of Guibert he caught a glimpse of the power which a patriotic and fully armed nation might gain amidst the feeble and ill-organized governments of that age.
External events served to unite him more closely to France. The reorganization of the artillery, which took place in the spring of 1791, brought Bonaparte to the rank of lieutenant in the regiment of Grenoble, then stationed at Valence. He left the regiment La Fere with regret on the 14th of June 1791; but at Valence he renewed former friendships and plunged into politics with greater ardour. Most of his colleagues refused to take the oath of obedience to the Constituent Assembly, after the attempted escape of Louis XVI. to the eastern frontier at midsummer. Bonaparte took the oath on the 4th of July, but said later that the Assembly ought to have banished the king and proclaimed a regency for Louis XVII. In general, however, his views at that time were republican; he belonged to the club of Friends of the Constitution at Valence, spoke there with much acceptance, and was appointed librarian to the club.
At Valence also he wrote an essay for a prize instituted by his friend and literary adviser, Raynal, at the academy of Lyons. The subject was "What truths and sentiments is it most important to inculcate to men for their happiness?" Bonaparte's essay bore signs of study of Rousseau and of the cult of Lycurgus which was coming into vogue. The Spartans were happy, said the writer, because they had plenty of good, suitable clothing and lodging, robust women, and were able to meet their requirements both physical and mental. Men should live according to the laws and dictates of nature, not forgetting the claims of reason and sentiment. The latter part of the essay is remarkable for its fervid presentment of the charms of scenery and for vigorous declamation against the follies and a crimes of ambitious men. The judges at Lyons placed it fifteenth in order of merit among the sixteen essays sent in. Thanks to the friendly intervention of the marechal du camp, baron Duteil, Bonaparte once more gained leave of absence for three months and reached Corsica in September 1791. Opinion there was in an excited state, the priests and the populace being inflamed against the anti-clerical decrees of the National Assembly of France. Paoli did little to help on the Bonapartes; and the advancement of Joseph Bonaparte was slow. Napoleon's admiration for the dictator also began to cool, and events began to point to a rupture. The death of Archdeacon Lucien Bonaparte, the recognized head of the family, having placed property at the disposal of the sons, they bought a house, which became the rendezvous of the democrats and of a band of volunteers whom they raised. In the intrigues for the command of this body Napoleon had his rival, Morati, carried off by force - his first coup d'etat. The incident led to a feud with the supporters of Morati, among whom was Pozzo di Borgo (destined to be his life-long enemy), and opened a breach between the Bonapartes and Paoli. Bonaparte's imperious nature also showed itself in family matters, which he ruled with a high hand. No one, said his younger brother Lucien, liked to thwart him.
Further discords naturally arose between so masterful a lieutenant as Bonaparte and so autocratic a chief as Paoli. The beginnings of this rupture, as well as a sharp affray between his volunteers and the townsfolk of Ajaccio, may have quickened Bonaparte's resolve to return to France in May 1792, but there were also personal and family reasons for this step. Having again exceeded his time of furlough, he was liable to the severe penalties attaching to a deserter and an émigré but he saw that the circumstances of the time would help to enforce the appeal for reinstatement which he resolved to make at Paris. His surmise was correct. The Girondin ministry then in power had brought Louis XVI. to declare war against Austria (loth. of April 1792) and against Sardinia (15th of May 1792). The lack of trained officers was such as to render the employment and advancement of Bonaparte probable in the near future, and on the 30th of August, Servan, the minister for war, issued an order appointing him to be captain in his regiment and to receive arrears of pay. During this stay at Paris he witnessed some of the great "days" of the Revolution; but the sad plight of his sister, Marianna Elisa, on the dissolution of the convent of St Cyr, where she was being educated, compelled him to escort her back to Corsica shortly after the September massacres.
His last time of furlough in Corsica is remarkable for the failure of the expedition in which he and his volunteers took part, against la Maddalena, a small island off the coast of Sardinia. The breach between Paoli and the Bonapartes now rapidly widened, the latter having now definitely espoused the cause of the French republic, while Paoli, especially after the execution of Louis XVI., repudiated all thought of political connexion with the regicides. Ultimately the Bonapartes had to flee from Corsica (11th of June 1793), an event which clinched Napoleon's decision to identify his fortunes with those of the French republic. His ardent democratic opinions rendered the change natural when Paoli and his compatriots declared for an alliance with England.
The arrival of the Bonapartes at Toulon coincided with a time of acute crisis in the fortunes of the republic. Having declared war on England and Holland (1st of February 1793), and against Spain (9th of March), France was soon girdled by foes; and the forces of the first coalition invaded her territory at several points. At first the utmost efforts of the republic failed to avert disaster; for the intensely royalist district of la Vendee, together with most of Brittany, burst into revolt, and several of the northern, central and southern departments rose against the Jacobin rule. The struggle which the constitutionalists and royalists of Marseilles made against the central government furnished Bonaparte with an occasion for writing his first important political pamphlet, entitled "Le Souper de Beaucaire." It purports to be a conversation at the little town of Beaucaire between a soldier (obviously the writer himself) and three men, citizens of Marseilles, Nimes and Montpellier, who oppose the Jacobinical government and hope for victory over its forces. The officer points out the folly of such a course, and the certainty that the republic, whose troops had triumphed over those of Prussia and Austria, will speedily disperse the untrained levies of Provence. The pamphlet closes with a passionate plea for national unity.
He was now to further the cause of the republic one and indivisible in the sphere of action. The royalists of Toulon had admitted British and Spanish forces to share in the defence of that stronghold (29th of August 1793). The blow to the republican cause was most serious: for from Toulon as a centre the royalists threatened to raise a general revolt throughout the south of France, and Pitt cherished hopes of dealing a death-blow to the Jacobins in that quarter. But fortune now brought Bonaparte to blight those hopes. Told off to serve in the army of Nice, he was detained by a special order of the commissioners of the Convention, Saliceti and Gasparin, who, hearing of the severe wound sustained by Dommartin, the commander of the artillery of the republican forces before Toulon, ordered Bonaparte to take his place. He arrived at the republican headquarters, then at 0111oules on the north-west of Toulon, on the 16th of September; and it is noteworthy that as early as September 10th the commissioners had seen the need of attacking the allied fleet and had paid some attention to the headland behind l'Eguillette, which commanded both the outer and the inner harbour. But there is no doubt that Bonaparte brought to bear on the execution of this as yet vague and general proposal powers of concentration and organization which ensured its success. In particular he soon put the artillery of the besiegers in good order. Carteaux, an ex-artist, at first held the supreme command, but was superseded on the 23rd of October. Doppet, the next commander, was little better fitted for the task; but his successor, Dugommier, was a brave and experienced soldier who appreciated the merits of Bonaparte. Under their direction steady advance was made on the side which Bonaparte saw to be all important; a sortie of part of the British, Spanish and Neapolitan forces on the 30th of November was beaten back with loss, General O'Hara, their commander, being severely wounded and taken prisoner. On the night of the 16th-17th December, Dugommier, Bonaparte, Victor and Muiron headed the storming column which forced its way into the chief battery thrown up by the besieged on the height behind l'Eguillette; and on the next day Hood and Langara set sail, leaving the royalists to the vengeance of the Jacobins. General du Teil, the younger, who took part in the siege, thus commented on Bonaparte's services: "I have no words in which to describe the merit of Bonaparte: much science, as much intelligence and too much bravery.. .. It is for you, Ministers, to consecrate him to the glory of the republic." At Toulon Bonaparte made the acquaintance of men who were to win renown under his leadership - Desaix, Junot, Marmont, Muiron, Suchet and Victor.
It is often assumed that the fortunes of Bonaparte were made at Toulon. This is an exaggeration. True, on the 22nd of December 1793 he was made general of brigade for his services; and in February 1794 he gained the command of the artillery in the French army about to invade Italy; but during the preliminary work of fortification along the coast he was placed under arrest for a time owing to his reconstruction of an old fort at Marseilles which had been destroyed during the Revolution. He was soon released owing to the interposition of the younger Robespierre and of Saliceti. Thereafter he resided successively at Toulon, St Tropez and Antibes, doing useful work in fortifying the coast and using his spare time in arduous study of the science of war. This he had already begun at Auxonne under the inspiring guidance of the baron du Teil. General du Teil, younger brother of the baron, had recently published a work, L' Usage de l'artillerie nouvelle; and it is now known that Bonaparte derived from this work and from those of Guibert and Bourcet that leading principle, concentration of effort against one point of the enemy's line, which he had advocated at Toulon and which he everywhere put in force in his campaigns.
On or about the 20th of March 1794 he arrived at the headquarters of the army of Italy. At Colmars, on the 21st of Ma 1 794, he drew up the first draft of his Italian plan of campaigi, for severing the Piedmontese from their Austrian allies and for driving the latter out of their Italian provinces. A secret mission to Genoa enabled him to inspect the pass north of Savona, and the knowledge of the peculiarities of that district certainly helped him in maturing his plan for an invasion of Italy, which he put into execution in 1796. For the present he experienced a sharp rebuff of fortune, which he met with his usual fortitude. He was suddenly placed under arrest owing to intrigues or suspicions of the men raised to power by the coup d'etat of Thermidor 9-10 (July 27-28) 1794. The commissioners sent by the Convention, Albitte, Laporte and Saliceti, suspected him of having divulged the plan of campaign, and on the 6th of August ordered his arrest as being the "maker of plans" for the younger Robespierre. On a slighter accusation than this many had perished; but an examination into the details of the mission of Bonaparte to Genoa and the new instructions which arrived from Carnot, availed to procure his release on the 10th of August. It came in time to enable him to share in the operations of the French army against the Austrians that led to the battle of Dego, north of Savona (21st of September), a success largely due to his skilful combinations. But the decline in the energies of the central government at Paris and the appointment of Scherer as commander-in-chief of the army of Italy frustrated the plans of a vigorous offensive which Bonaparte continued to develop and advocate.
Meanwhile he took part in an expedition fitted out in the southern ports to drive the English from Corsica. It was a complete failure, and for a time his prospects were overclouded. In the spring of 1795 he received an order from Paris to proceed to la Vendee in command of an infantry brigade. He declined on the score of ill-health, but set out for Paris in May, along with Marmont, Junot and Louis Bonaparte. At the capital he found affairs quickly falling back into the old ways of pleasure and luxury. "People," he wrote, "remember the Terror only as a dream." That he still pursued his studies of military affairs is shown by the compilation of further plans for the Italian campaign. The news of the ratification of peace with Spain brought at once the thought that an offensive plan of campaign in Piedmont was thenceforth inevitable. Probably these plans gained for him an appointment (loth of August) in the topographical bureau of the committee of Public Safety. But, either from weariness of the life at Paris, or from disgust at clerical work, he sought permission to go to Turkey in order to reorganize the artillery of the Sultan. But an inspection of his antecedents showed the many irregularities of his conduct as officer and led to his name being erased from the list of general officers (September 15th).
Again the difficulty of the republic was to be his opportunity. The action of the Convention in perpetuating its influence by the imposition of two-thirds of its members on the next popularly elected councils, aroused a storm of indignation in Paris, where the "moderate" and royalist reaction was already making headway. The result was the massing of some 30,000 National Guards to coerce the Convention. Confronted by this serious danger, the Convention entrusted its defence to Barras, who appointed the young officer to be one of the generals assisting him. The vigour and tactical skill of Bonaparte contributed very largely to the success of the troops of the Convention over the Parisian malcontents on the famous day of 1 3 Vendemiaire (October 5th, 1795), when the defenders of the Convention, sweeping the quays and streets near the Tuilleries by artillery and musketry, soon paralysed the movement at its headquarters, the church of St Roch. The results of this day were out of all proportion to the comparatively small number of casualties. With the cost of about 200 killed on either side, the Convention crushed the royalist or malcontent reaction, and imposed on France a form of government which ensured the perpetuation of democracy though in a bureaucratic form - the first of those changes which paved the way to power for Bonaparte. For the constitution of the year 1795 which inaugurated the period of the Directory (1795-1799) see French Revolution. Here we may notice that the perpetuation of the republic by means of the armed forces tended to exalt the army at the expense of the civil authorities. The repetition of the same tactics by Bonaparte in Fructidor, 1797, served still more decidedly to tilt the balance in favour of the sword, with results which were to be seen at the coup d'etat of Brumaire 1799.
The events which helped the disgraced officer of August 1795 to impose his will on France in November 1799 now claim our attention. The services which he rendered to the republic at Vendemiaire brought as their reward the hand of Josephine de Beauharnais. The influence of Barras with this fashionable lady helped on the match. At the outset she felt some repugnance for the thin sallow-faced young officer, and was certainly terrified by his ardour and by the imperious egoism of his nature; but she consented to the union, especially when he received the promise of the command of the French army of Italy. The story that he owed this promotion solely to the influence of Barras and Josephine is, however, an exaggeration. It is now known that the plans of campaign which he had drawn up for that army had enlisted the far more influential support of Carnot on his behalf. In January 1796 he drew up another plan for the conquest of Italy, which gained the assent of the Directory. Vendemiaire and the marriage with Josephine (9th of March 1796) were but stepping-stones to the attainment of the end which he had kept steadily in sight since the spring of the year 1794. For the events of this campaign in Italy see French Revolutionary Wars. The success at the bridge of Lodi (loth of May) seems first to have inspired in the young general dreams of a grander career than that of a successful general of the Revolution; while his narrow escape at the bridge of Arcola in November strengthened his conviction that he was destined for a great future. The means whereby he engaged the energies of the Italians on behalf of the French Republic and yet refrained from persecuting the Roman Catholic Church in the way only too common among revolutionary generals, bespoke political insight of no ordinary kind. From every dispute which he had with the central authorities at Paris he emerged victorious; and he took care to assure his ascendancy by sending presents to the Directors, large sums to the nearly bankrupt treasury and works of art to the museums of Paris. Thus when, after the crowning victory of Rivoli (14th of January 1797), Mantua surrendered and the Austrian rule in Italy for the time collapsed, Bonaparte was virtually the idol of the French nation, the master of the Directory and potentially the protector of the Holy See.
It may be well to point out here the salient features in Bonaparte's conduct towards the states of northern Italy. While arousing the enthusiasm of their inhabitants on behalf of France, he in private spoke contemptuously of them, mercilessly suppressed all outbreaks caused by the exactions and plundering of his army, and carefully curbed the factions which the new political life soon developed. On his first entry into Milan (15th of May 1796) he received a rapturous welcome as the liberator of Italy from the Austrian yoke; but the instructions of the Directory allowed him at the outset to do little more than effect the organization of consultative committees and national guards in the chief towns of Lombardy. The successful course of the campaign and the large sums which he sent from Italy to the French exchequer served to strengthen his hold over the Directors, and his constructive policy grew more decided. Thus, when the men of Reggio and Modena overthrew the rule of their duke, he at once accorded protection to them, as also to the inhabitants of the cities of Bologna and Ferrara when they broke away from papal authority. He even allowed the latter to send delegates to confer with those of the duchy at Modena, with the result that a political union was decreed in a state called the Cispadane Republic (16th of October 1796). This action was due in large measure to the protection of Bonaparte.
The men of Lombardy, emboldened by his tacit encouragement, prepared at the close of the year to form a republic, which assumed the name of Transpadane, and thereafter that of Cisalpine. Its constitution was drawn up in the spring of 1797 by committees appointed, and to some extent supervised, by him; and he appointed the first directors, deputies and chief administrators of the new state (July 1797). The union of these republics took place on the 15th of July 1797. The bounds of the thus enlarged Cisalpine Republic were afterwards extended eastwards to the banks of the Adige by the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio; and in November 1797 Bonaparte added the formerly Swiss district of the Valtelline, north-east of Lake Como, to its territory. Much of this work of reorganization was carried on at the castle of Montebello, or Mombello, near Milan, where he lived in almost viceregal pomp (May - July, 1 797). Taking advantage of an outbreak at Genoa, he overthrew that ancient oligarchy, replaced it by a form of government modelled on that of France (June 6th); and subsequently it adopted the name of the Ligurian Republic.
Concurrently with these undertakings, he steadily prepared to strengthen his position in the political life of France; and it will be well to notice the steps by which he ensured the defeat of the royalists in France and the propping up of the directorial system in the coup d'etat of Fructidor 1797. The unrest in France in the years1795-1797resulted mainly from the harshness, incompetence and notorious corruption of the five Directors who, after the 13th of Vendemiaire 1795, practically governed France. All those who wished for peace and orderly government came by degrees to oppose the Directors; and, seeing that the latter clung to Jacobinical catchwords and methods, public opinion tended to become "moderate" or even royalist. This was seen in the elections for one-third of the 750 members composing the two councils of the nation (the Anciens and the Council of Five Hundred); they gave the moderates a majority alike in that of the older deputies and in that of the younger deputies (April 1797), and that majority elected Barthelemy, a well-known moderate, as the fifth member of the Directory. Carnot, the ablest administrator, but not the strongest man, soon joined Barthelemy in opposing their Jacobinical colleagues - Barras, Rewbell and Larevelliere - Lepeaux. Time was on the side of the moderates; they succeeded in placing General Pichegru, already known for his tendencies towards constitutional monarchy, in the presidential chair of the Council of Five Hundred; and they proceeded to agitate, chiefly through the medium of a powerful club founded at Clichy, for the repeal of the revolutionary and persecuting laws. The three Jacobinical Directors thereupon intrigued to bring to Paris General Lazarre Hoche and his army destined for the invasion of Ireland for the purpose of coercing their opponents; but these, perceiving the danger, ordered Hoche to Paris, rebuked him for bringing his army nearer to the capital than was allowed by law, and dismissed him in disgrace.
The failure of Hoche led the three Directors to fix their hopes on Bonaparte. The commander of the ever-victorious army of Italy had recently been attacked by one of the moderates in the councils for proposing to hand over Venice to Austria. This cession was based on political motives, which Bonaparte judged to be of overwhelming force; and he now decided to support the Directors and overthrow the moderates. Prefacing his action by a violent tirade against the royalist conspirators of Clichy, he sent to Paris General Augereau, well known for his brusque behaviour and demagogic Jacobinism. This officer rushed to Paris, breathing out threats of slaughter against all royalists, and entered into close relations with Barras. In order to discount the chances of failure, Bonaparte warned the three Directors that Augereau was a turbulent politician, not to be trusted overmuch. Events, indeed, might readily have gone in favour of the moderates had Carnot acted with decision; but he relapsed into strange inactivity, while Barras and his military tool prepared to coerce the majority. Before dawn of September the 4th (is Fructidor) Augereau with 2000 soldiers marched against the Tuileries, where the councils were sitting, dispersed XIX. 7 their military guards, arrested several deputies and seized Barthelemy in his bed. Carnot, on receiving timely warning, fled from the Luxemburg palace and made his way to Switzerland. The remembrance of the fatal day of Vendemiaire 1795 perhaps helped to paralyse the majority. In any case exile, and death in the prisons of Cayenne, now awaited the timid champions of law and order; while parliamentary rule sustained a shock from which it never recovered. The Councils allowed the elections to be annulled in forty-nine departments of France, and re-enacted some of the laws of the period of the Terror, notably those against non-juring priests and returned émigrés. The election of Merlin of Douay and Francois of Neufchatel as Directors, in place of Carnot and Barthelemy, gave to that body a compactness which enabled it to carry matters with a high hand, until the hatred felt by Frenchmen for this soulless revival of a moribund Jacobinism gradually endowed the Chambers with life and strength sufficient to provoke a renewal of strife with the Directory. These violent oscillations not only weakened the fabric of the Republic, but brought about a situation in which Bonaparte easily paralysed both the executive and the legislative powers so ill co-ordinated by the constitution of the year 1795.
In the sphere of European diplomacy, no less than in that of French politics, the results of the coup d'etat of Fructidor were momentous. The Fructidorian Directors contemptuously rejected the overtures for peace which Pitt had recently made through the medium of Lord Malmesbury at Lille; and they further illustrated their desire for war and plunder by initiating a forward policy in central Italy and Switzerland which opened up a new cycle of war. The coup d'etat was favourable to Bonaparte; it ensured his hold over the Directors and enabled him to impose his own terms of peace on Austria; above all it left him free for the prosecution of his designs in a field of action which now held the first place in his thoughts - the Orient. Having rivalled the exploits of Caesar, he now longed to follow in the steps of Alexander the Great.
At the time of his first view of the Adriatic (February 1797) he noted the importance of the port of Ancona for intercourse with the Sultan's dominions; and at that city fortune placed in his hands Russian despatches relative to the designs of the Tsar Paul on Malta. The incident reawakened the interest which had early been aroused in the young Corsican by converse with the savant Volney, author of Les Ruines, ou meditation sur les revolutions des empires. The intercourse which he had with Monge, the physicist and ex-minister of marine, during the negotiations with Austria, served to emphasize the orientation of his thoughts. This explains the eagerness with which he now insisted on the acquisition of the Ionian Isles by France and the political extinction of their present possessor, Venice. That city had given him cause for complaint, of which he made the most unscrupulous use. Thanks to the blind complaisance of its democrats and the timid subserviency of its once haughty oligarchs, he became master of its fleet and arsenal (16th of May 1797). Already, as may be seen by his letters to the Directory, he had laid his plans for the bartering away of the Queen of the Adriatic to Austria; and throughout the lengthy negotiations of the summer and early autumn of 1797 which he conducted with little interference from Paris, he adhered to his plan of gaining the fleet and the Ionian Isles; while the house of Habsburg was to acquire the city itself, together with all the mainland territories of the Republic as far west as the River Adige. In vain did the Austrian envoy, Cobenzl, resist the cession of the Ionian Isles to France; in vain did the Directors intervene in the middle of September with an express order that Venice must not be ceded to Austria, but must, along with Friuli, be included. in the Cisalpine Republic. To the subtle tenacity of Cobenzl he opposed a masterful violence: he checkmated the Directors, when they sought to thwart him in this and in other directions, by sending in once more his resignation with a letter in which he accused them of "horrible ingratitude." He was successful at all points. The Directors feared a rupture with the man to whom they owed their existence; and the house of Austria was fain to make peace with the general rather than expose itself to harder terms at the hands of the Directory.
The treaty of Campo Formio, signed on the 17th of October 1797, was therefore pre-eminently the work of Bonaparte. Already at Cherasco and Leoben he had dictated the preliminaries of peace to the courts of Turin and Vienna quite independently of the French Directory. At Campo Formio he showed himself the first diplomatist of the age, and the arbiter of the destinies of Europe. The terms were on the whole unexpectedly favourable to Austria. In Italy she was to acquire the Venetian lands already named, along with Dalmatia and Venetian Istria. The rest of the Venetian mainland (the districts between the rivers Adige and Ticino) went to the newly constituted Cisalpine republic, France gaining the Ionian Isles and the Venetian fleet. The Emperor Francis renounced all claims to his former Netherland provinces, which had been occupied by the French since the summer of 1794; he further ceded the Breisgau to the dispossessed duke of Modena, agreed to summon a congress at Rastatt for the settlement of German affairs, and recognized the independence of the Cisalpine republic. In secret articles the emperor bound himself to use his influence at the congress of Rastatt in order to procure the cession to France of the Germanic lands west of the Rhine, while France promised to help him to acquire the archbishopric of Salzburg and a strip of land on the eastern frontier of Bavaria.
After acting for a brief space as one of the French envoys to the congress of Rastatt, Napoleon returned to Paris early in December and received the homage of the Directors and the acclaim of the populace. The former sought to busy him by appointing him commander-in-chief of the Army of England, the island power being now the only one which contested French supremacy in Europe. In February 1798 he inspected the preparations for the invasion of England then proceeding at the northern ports. He found that they were wholly inadequate, and summed up his views in a remarkable letter to the Directory (23rd of February), wherein he pointed out two possible alternatives to an invasion of England, namely, a conquest of the coast of the north-west of Germany, for the cutting off of British commerce with central Europe, or the undertaking of an expedition to the Orient which would be equally ruinous to British trade. The inference was inevitable that, as German affairs were about to be profitably exploited by France in the bargains then beginning at Rastatt, she must throw her chief energies into the Egyptian expedition.
One of the needful preliminaries of this enterprise had already received his attention. In November 1797 he sent to Malta Poussielgue, secretary of the French legation at Genoa, on business which was ostensibly commercial but (as he informed the Directory) "in reality to put the last touch to the design that we have on that island." The intrigues of the French envoy in corrupting the knights of the order of St John were completely successful. It remained, however, to find the funds needful for the equipment of a great expedition. Here the difficulties were great. The Directory, after the coup d'etat of Fructidor, had acknowledged a state of bankruptcy by writing off twothirds of the national debt in a form which soon proved to be a thin disguise for repudiation. The return of a large part of the armed forces from Italy and Germany, where they had lived on the liberated inhabitants, also threw new burdens on the Republic; and it was clear that French money alone would not suffice to fit out an armada. Again, however, the financial situation was improved by conquest. The occupation of Rome in February 1798 enabled Berthier to send a considerable sum to Paris and to style himself "treasurer to the chest of the Army of England." The invasion of Switzerland, which Bonaparte had of late persistently pressed on the Directory, proved to be an equally lucrative device, the funds in several of the cantonal treasuries being transferred straightway to Paris or Toulon. The conquest of north and central Italy also placed great naval resources at the disposal of France, Venice alone providing nine sail of the line and twelve frigates (see Bonaparte's letter of the 15th of November 1797), Genoa, Spezzia, Leghorn, Civita Vecchia and Ancona also supplied their quota in warships, transports, stores and sailors, with the result that the armada was ready for sea by the middle of May 1798. The secrecy maintained as to its destination was equally remarkable. The British government inclined to the belief that it was destined either for Ireland or for Naples. As the British fleet had abandoned the Mediterranean since November 1796 and had recently been disorganized by two serious mutinies, Bonaparte's plan of conquering Egypt was .by no means so rash as has sometimes been represented.
The ostensible aims of the expedition, as drawn up by him, and countersigned by the Directory on the 12th of April, were the seizure of Egypt, the driving of the British from all their possessions in the East and the cutting of the Suez canal. But apart from these public aims there were private motives which weighed with Bonaparte. His relations to the Directors were most strained. They feared his ability and ambition; while he credited them with the design of poisoning him. Shortly before his starting, an open rupture was scarcely averted; and he and his brothers allowed the idea to get abroad that he was being virtually banished from France. It is certain, however, that his whole heart was in the expedition, which appealed to his love of romance and of the gigantic. His words to Joseph Bonaparte shortly before sailing are significant: "Our dreams of a republic were youthful illusions. Since the 9th of Thermidor, the republican instinct has grown weaker every day. To-day all eyes are on me: to-morrow they may be on another.... I depart for the Orient with all the means of success at my disposal. If my country needs me, if there are additions to the number of those who share the opinion of Talleyrand, Sieyes and Roederer, that war will break out again and that it will be unsuccessful for France, I will return, more sure of the feeling of the nation." He added, however, that if France waged a successful war, he would remain in the East, and do more damage to England there than by mere demonstrations in the English Channel.
The Toulon fleet set sail on the 19th of May; and when the other contingents from the ports of France and Italy joined the flag, the armada comprised thirteen sail of the line, fourteen frigates, many smaller warships and some three hundred transports. An interesting feature of the expedition was the presence on board of several savants who were charged to examine the antiquities and develop the resources of Egypt. The chief had lately become a member of the Institute, and did his utmost to inflame in France that love of art and science which he had helped to kindle by enriching the museums of Paris with the treasures of Italy. By good fortune the armada evaded Nelson and arrived safely off Malta. Thanks to French intrigues, the Knights of Malta offered the tamest defence of their capital. During the week which he spent there, Bonaparte displayed marvellous energy in endowing the city with modern institutions; he even arranged the course of studies to be followed in the university. Setting sail for Egypt on the 19th of June, he again had the good fortune to elude Nelson and arrived off Alexandria on the 2nd of July. For an account of the Egyptian and Syrian campaigns see French Revolutionary Wars. But here we may point out the influence of the expedition on Egypt, on European politics and on the fortunes of Bonaparte. The chief direct result in the life of the Egyptian people was the virtual destruction of the governing caste of the Mamelukes, the Turks finding it easy to rid themselves of their surviving chiefs and to re-establish the authority of the Sultan. As for the benefits which Bonaparte and his savants helped to confer on Egypt, they soon vanished. The great canal was not begun; irrigation works were started but were soon given up. The letters of Kleber and Menou (the successors of Bonaparte) show that the expenditure on public works had been so reckless that the colony was virtually bankrupt at the time of Bonaparte's departure; and William Hamilton, who travelled through Egypt in 1802, found few traces, other than military, of the French occupation. The indirect results, however, were incalculably great. Though for the present the Sultan regained his hold upon Egypt, yet in reality Bonaparte set in motion forces which could not be stayed until the ascendancy of one or other of the western maritime powers in that land was definitely decided.
The effects of the expedition in the sphere of world-politics were equally remarkable and more immediate. The British government, alarmed by Bonaparte's attempt to intrigue with Tippoo Sahib, put forth all its strength in India and destroyed the power of that ambitious ruler. Nelson's capture of Malta (5th of September 1800) also secured for the time a sure base for British fleets in the Mediterranean. A Russo-Turkish fleet wrested Corfu from the French; and the Neapolitan Bourbons, emboldened by the news of the battle of the Nile, began hostilities with France which preluded the war of the Second Coalition. In the domain of science the results of the expedition were of unique interest. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone furnished the key to Egyptian hieroglyphics; and archaeology, no less than the more practical sciences, acknowledges its debt of gratitude to the man who first brought the valley of the Nile into close touch with the thought of the West.
Finally, it should be noted that, amid the failure of the national aims which the Directory and Bonaparte set forth, his own desires received a startlingly complete fulfilment. The war of the Second Coalition having brought about the expulsion of the French from Italy, the Directors were exposed to a storm of indignation in France, not unmixed with contempt; and this state of public opinion enabled the young conqueror within a month of his landing at Frejus (9th of October 1799) easily to prevail over the Directory and the elective councils of the nation. In the spring of 1798 he had judged the pear to be not ripe; in Brumaire 1799 it came off almost at a touch.
In order to understand the sharp swing of the political pendulum back from republicanism to autocracy which took place at Brumaire, it is needful to remember that the virtual failure of the Egyptian Expedition was then unknown. The news of Bonaparte's signal victory over the Turkish army at Aboukir aroused general rejoicings undimmed by any save the vaguest rumours of his reverse at Acre. In the popular imagination he seemed to be the only possible guarantor of victory abroad and order at home. This was unjust to the many men who were working, not without success, to raise the Republic out of its many difficulties. Massena's triumph at Zurich (September 25th-26th, 1799) paralysed the Second Coalition; and, though the Austrians continued to make progress along the Italian riviera, the French Republic was in little danger on that side so long as it held Switzerland.
The internal condition of France was also not so desperate as has often been represented. True, the Directory seemed on the point of collapse; it had been overcome by the popularly elected Chambers in the insignificant coup d'etat of 30 Prairial (18th of June) 1799; when Larevelliere-Lepeaux and Merlin were compelled to resign. The retirement of Rewbell a short time previously also rid France of a turbulent and corrupt administrator. His place was now filled by Sieyes. This expriest, this disillusioned Jacobin and skilful spinner of cobweb constitutions, enjoyed for a time the chief reputation in France. His oracular reserve, personal honesty and consistency of aim had gained him the suffrages of all who hoped to save France from the harpies of the Directory and the violent rhetoricians of the now reconstituted Jacobin Club. He was known to disapprove of the Directory both as an institution in the making of which he had had no hand, and of its personnel, with one exception. This was natural. The new Directors, Gohier and Moulin, were honest but incapable and narrow-minded. As for Barras, his venality and vices outweighed even his capacity for successful intrigue. The fifth Director, Ducos, an ex-Girondin, was sure to swim with the stream. Clearly, then, the Directory was doomed.
It was far otherwise with the Councils. A majority of the Ancients was ready to support Sieyes and make drastic changes in the constitution; but in the Council of Five Hundred the prevalent feeling was democratic or even Jacobinical. The aim of Sieyes was to perpetuate the republic, but in a bureaucratic or autocratic form. With this aim in view he sought to find a man possessing ability in war and probity in civil affairs, who would act as figure-head to his long projected constitution. For a time affairs moved as he wished. The Jacobin Club was closed, thanks to the ability of Fouche, the new minister of Police; but the hopes of Sieyes were dashed by the death of General Joubert, commander of the Army of Italy, at the disastrous battle of Novi (15th of August). The dearth of ability among the generals left in France (Kleber and Desaix were in Egypt) was now painfully apparent. Moreau was notoriously lethargic in civil affairs. Bernadotte, Jourdan and Augereau had compromised themselves by close association with the Jacobins. The soldiery had never forgiven Massena his peculations after the capture of Rome. One name, and one alone, leaped to men's thoughts, that of Bonaparte.
He arrived from Egypt at the psychological moment,and his journey from Frejus to Paris resembled a triumphant procession. Nevertheless he acted with the utmost caution. A fortnight passed before he decided to support Sieyes in effecting a change in the constitution; and by then he had captivated all men except Bernadotte and a few intransigeant Jacobins. Talleyrand, Roederer, Cambaceres and Real were among his special confidants, his brothers Joseph and Lucien also giving useful advice. Of the generals, Murat, Berthier, Lannes and Leclerc were those who prepared the way for the coup d'etat. Fouche, pulling the wires through the police, was an invaluable helper. The conduct of Barras was known to depend on material considerations.
All being ready, the Ancients on the 18 Brumaire (9th of November) decreed the transference of the sessions of both Councils to St Cloud, on the plea of a Jacobin plot which threatened the peace of Paris. They also placed the troops in Paris and its neighbourhood under the command of Bonaparte. Thereupon Sieyes and Ducos resigned office. Barras, after a calculating delay, followed suit. Gohier and Moulin, on refusing to retire, were placed under a military guard; and General Moreau showed his political incapacity by discharging this duty, for the benefit of Bonaparte.
Nevertheless the proceedings of St Cloud on the day following bade fair to upset the best-laid schemes of Bonaparte and his coadjutors. The Five Hundred, meeting in the Orangerie of the palace, had by this time seen through the plot; and, on the entrance of the general with four grenadiers, several deputies rushed at him, shook him violently, while others vehemently demanded a decree of outlawry against the new Cromwell. He himself lost his nerve, stammered, nearly fainted, and was dragged out by the soldiers in a state of mental and physical collapse. The situation was saved solely by the skill of his brother Lucien, then president of the Council. He refused to put the vote of outlawry, uttered a few passionate words, cast off his official robes, declared the session at an end, and made his way out under protection of a squad of grenadiers. The coup d'etat seemed to have failed. In reality matters now rested with the troops outside. Stung to action by some words of Sieyes, Bonaparte appealed to the troops of the line in terms which provoked a ready response. Imprecations uttered by Lucien against the brigands and traitors in the pay of England decided the grenadiers of the Council to march against the deputies whom it was their special duty to protect. Drums beat the charge, Murat led the way through the corridors of the palace to the Orangerie, and levelled bayonets ended the existence of the Council. Within the space of ten and a half years from the summoning of the States-General at Versailles (May 1789), parliamentary government fell beneath the sword.
Lucien now consolidated the work of the soldiery by procuring from the Ancients a decree which named Bonaparte, Sieyes and Ducos as provisional consuls, while a legislative commission was appointed to report on necessary changes in the constitution. Lucien also gathered together a small group of the younger deputies to throw the cloak of legality over the events of the day. The Rump proceeded to expel sixty-one Jacobins from the Council of Five Hundred, adjourned its sessions until the 19th of February 1800, and appointed a commission of twenty-five members with power to act in the meantime. Clearly the succoss of the coup d'etat of Brumaire was due in the last resort to Lucien Bonaparte.
The Parisians received the news of the event with joy, believing that freedom was now at last to be established on a firm basis by the man whose name was the synonym for victory in the field and disinterestedness in civil affairs. "People are full of mirth" (wrote Madame Reinhard, wife of the minister for Foreign Affairs, four days later) "believing that they have regained liberty." She added that all the parties except the Jacobins were full of confidence; and that the nobles now cherished hopes of a reaction, seeing that the reduction of the number of rulers from five to three pointed towards monarchy. Her comment on this delusion is instructive. Three consuls had been appointed, she remarked, precisely in order that power might not be vested in the hands of one man.
Only by degrees did the events of the 19th of Brumaire stand out in their real significance; for the new consuls, installed at the Luxemburg palace, and somewhat later at the Tuileries, took care that the new constitution, which they along with the two commissions were now secretly drawing up, should not be promulgated until Paris and France had settled down to the ordinary life of pleasure and toil. In the meantime they won credit by popular measures such as the abolition of forced loans and of the objectionable habit of seizing hostages from the districts of the west where the royalist ferment was still strongly working.
The feelings of suprise at the clemency and moderation with which the victors used their powers predisposed men everywhere to accept their constitution. Sieyes now sketched its outlines in vaguely republican forms; thereupon Bonaparte freely altered them and gave them strongly personal touches. The theorist laid before the joint commission his projet, the result of five years of cogitation, only to have it ridiculed by the great soldier. In one respect alone did it suit him. While restoring the principle of universal suffrage, which had been partially abrogated in 1795, Sieyes rendered this system of election practically a nullity. The voters were to choose one-tenth of their number (notabilities of the commune); one-tenth of these would form the notabilities of the department; while by a similar decimal sifting, the notabilities of the nation were selected. The final and all-important act of selection from among these men was, however, to be made by a personage, styled the proclamateur-electeur, who chose all the important functionaries, and, conjointly with the notabilities of the nation, chose the members for the Council of State (wielding the chief executive powers), the Tribunate and the Senate. The latter body would, however, have the power to "absorb" the head of the state if he showed signs of ambition. Against this power of absorption Bonaparte declaimed vehemently, asserting also that the proclamateurelecteur would be a mere cochon a l'engrais. In vain did Sieyes modify his scheme so as to provide for two consuls, one holding the chief executive powers for war, the other for peace. This division of powers was equally distasteful to Bonaparte: he formed a kind of cabal within the joint commission, and there intimidated the theorist, with the result already foreseen by the latter. Sieyes, conscious that his political mechanism would merely winnow the air, until the profoundly able and forceful man at his side adapted it to the work of government, relapsed into silence; and his resignation of the office of consul, together with that of Ducos, was announced as imminent. Bonaparte further brushed aside a frankly democratic constitution proposed by Daunou, and intimidated his opponents in the joint commission by a threat that he would himself draft a constitution and propose it to the people in a mass vote.
This was what really happened. They looked on helplessly while he refashioned the scheme of Sieyes. Keeping the electoral machinery almost unchanged (save that the lists of notables were to be permanent) Bonaparte entirely altered the upper parts of the constitutional pyramid reared by the philosopher. Improving upon the procedure of the Convention in Vendemiaire 1795, Bonaparte procured the nomination of three consuls in an article of the new constitution; they were Bonaparte (First Consul), Cambaceres and Lebrun. The latter two, uniting with the two retiring consuls, Sieyes and Ducos, were to form the nucleus of the senate and choose the majority among its full complement of sixty members, the minority being thereafter chosen by co-optation. To the senate, thus chosen "from above," was allotted the important task of supervising the constitution, and of selecting, from among the notabilities of the nation, the members of the Corps Legislatif and the Tribunate. These two bodies nominally formed the legislature, the Tribunate merely discussing the bills sent to it by an important body, the Council of State; while the Corps Legislatif, sitting in silence, heard them defended by councillors of state and criticized by members of the Tribunate; thereupon it passed or rejected such proposals by secret voting. Thus, the initiative in lawmaking lay with the Council of State; but, as its members were all chosen by the First Consul, it is clear that that important duty was vested really in him. The executive powers were placed almost entirely in his hands, as will be seen by the terms of article 41 which defined his functions: "The First Consul promulgates the laws; he appoints and dismisses at will the members of the Council of State, the ministers, the ambassadors and other leading agents serving abroad, the officers of the army and navy, the members of local administrative bodies and the commissioners of government attached to the tribunals. He names all the judges for criminal and civil cases, other than the juges de paix (magistrates) and the judges of the Cour de cassation, without having the power to discharge them." - As for the second and third consuls, their functions were almost entirely consultative and formal, their opposition being recorded, but having no further significance against the fiat of the First Consul. Bonaparte's powers were subsequently
extended in the years 1802, 1804 and 1807; but it is clear that autocracy was practically established by his own action in the secret commission of 1799. The new constitution was promulgated on the 15th of December 1799 and in a plebiscite held during January 1800 it received the support of 3,011,007 voters, only 1562 persons voting against it. The fact that the three new consuls had entered upon office and set the constitutional machinery in motion fully six weeks before the completion of the plebiscite, detracts somewhat from the impressiveness of the vox populi on that occasion.
Bonaparte selected his ministers with much skill. They were Talleyrand, Foreign Affairs; Berthier, War; Abrial, Justice; Lucien Bonaparte, Interior; Gaudin, Finance; Forfait, Navy and Colonies. Maret became secretary of state to the consuls. Bonaparte's selection gave general satisfaction, as also did the personnel of the Council of State (divided into five sections for the chief spheres of government) and of the other organs of state. Many of the furious Terrorists now became quiet and active councillors or administrators, the First Consul adopting the plan of multiplying "places," of overwhelming all officials with work, and of busying the watch-dogs of the Jacobinical party by "throwing them bones to gnaw." In our survey of the career of Napoleon, we have now reached the time of the Consulate (November 1799 - May 1804), which marks the zenith of his mental powers and creative activity. Externally, and in a personal sense, the period falls into two parts. The former of these extends to August 1802, when the powers of the First Consul, which had been decreed for ten years, were prolonged to the duration of his life. But in another and wider sense the Consulate has a well-defined unity; it is the time when France gained most of her institutions and the essentials of her machinery of government.
The reader is referred to the article France (Law and Institutions) for the information r
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Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Napoleon I'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/n/napoleon-i.html. 1910.
