Note what he means by—personal insult[12101], how he intends to avenge himself by reprisals of the worst kind, to what excess he carries his interference, how he enters the cabinets of foreign sovereigns, forcibly entering and breaking, to drive out their councilors and control their meetings: like the Roman senate with an Antiochus or a Prusias, like an English Resident with the King of Oude or of Lahore. With others as at home, he cannot help but act as a master. The aspiration for universal dominion is in his very nature; it may be modified, kept in check, but never can it be completely stifled."[12102]

It declares itself on the organization of the Consulate. It explains why the peace of Amiens could not last; apart from the diplomatic discussions and behind his alleged grievances, his character, his exactions, his avowed plans, and the use he intends making of his forces form the real and true causes of the rupture. In comprehensible sometimes even in explicit terms, he tells the English: Expel the Bourbons from your island and close the mouths of your journalists. If this is against your constitution so much the worse for it, or so much the worse for you. "There are general principles of international law to which the (special) laws of states must give way."[12103] Change your fundamental laws. Suppress the freedom of the press and the right of asylum on your soil, the same as I have done. "I have a very poor opinion of a government which is not strong enough to interdict things objectionable to foreign governments."[12104] As to mine, my interference with my neighbors, my late acquisitions of territory, that does not concern you: "I suppose that you want to talk about Piedmont and Switzerland? These are trifles"[12105] "Europe recognizes that Holland, Italy, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France.[12106] On the other hand, Spain submits to me and through her I hold Portugal. Thus, from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, from Lisbon to Cadiz and Genoa, from Leghorn to Naples and to Tarentum, I can close every port to you; no treaty of commerce between us. Any treaty that I might grant to you would be trifling: for each million of merchandise that you would send into France a million of French merchandise would be exported;[12107] in other words, you would be subject to an open or concealed continental blockade, which would cause you as much distress in peace as if you were at war." My eyes are nevertheless fixed on Egypt; "six thousand Frenchmen would now suffice to re-conquer it";[12108] forcibly, or otherwise, I shall return there; opportunities will not be lacking, and I shall be on the watch for them; "sooner or later she will belong to France, either through the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, or through some arrangement with the Porte."[12109] Evacuate Malta so that the Mediterranean may become a French lake; I must rule on sea as on land, and dispose of the Orient as of the Occident. In sum, "with my France, England must naturally end in becoming simply an appendix: nature has made her one of our islands, the same as Oleron or Corsica."[12110] Naturally, with such a perspective before them, the English keep Malta and recommence the war. He has anticipated such an occurrence, and his resolution is taken; at a glance, he perceives and measures the path this will open to him; with his usual clear-sightedness he has comprehended, and he announces that the English resistance "forces him to conquer Europe...." [12111]—"The First Consul is only thirty-three and has thus far destroyed only the second-class governments. Who knows how much time he will require to again change the face of Europe and resurrect the Western Roman Empire?"

To subjugate the Continent in order to form a coalition against England, such, henceforth, are his means, which are as violent as the end in view, while the means, like the end, are given by his character. Too imperious and too impatient to wait or to manage others, he is incapable of yielding to their will except through constraint, and his collaborators are to him nothing more than subjects under the name of allies.—Later, at St. Helena, with his indestructible imaginative energy and power of illusion, he plays on the public with his humanitarian illusions.[12112] But, as he himself avows, the accomplishment of his retrospective dream required beforehand the entire submission of all Europe; a liberal sovereign and pacificator, "a crowned Washington, yes," he used to say, "but I could not reasonably attain this point, except through a universal dictatorship, which I aimed at."[12113] In vain does common sense demonstrate to him that such an enterprise inevitably rallies the Continent to the side of England, and that his means divert him from the end. In vain is it repeatedly represented to him that he needs one sure great ally on the Continent;[12114] that to obtain this he must conciliate Austria; that he must not drive her to despair, but rather win her over and compensate her on the side of the Orient; place her in permanent conflict with Russia, and attach her to the new French Empire by a community of vital interests. In vain does he, after Tilsit, make a bargain of this kind with Russia. This bargain cannot hold, because in this arrangement Napoleon, as usual with him, always encroaching, threatening, and attacking, wants to reduce Alexander to the role of a subordinate and a dupe.[12115] No clear-sighted witness can doubt this. In 1809, a diplomat writes: "The French system, which is now triumphant, is directed against the whole body of great states,"[12116] not alone against England, Prussia, and Austria, but against Russia, against every power capable of maintaining its independence; for, if she remains independent, she may become hostile, and as a precautionary step Napoleon crushes in her a probable enemy.

All the more so because this course once entered upon he cannot stop; at the same time his character and the situation in which he has placed himself impels him on while his past hurries him along to his future.[12117] At the moment of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he is already so strong and so aggressive that his neighbors are obliged, for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.—At this same date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, to organize against them the continental blockade, to proclaim against them an European crusade, to prevent the neutrality of sovereigns like the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns like his brother Louis, of doubtful collaborators or inadequate, like the Braganzas of Portugal and the Bourbons of Spain, and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the Pontifical States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from the mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and Dantzic, his cordon of military chiefs, prefects, and custom-houses, a sort of net of which he draws the meshes tighter and tighter every day, even stifling not alone his home consumer, but the producer and the merchant.[12118]—And all this sometimes by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure,[12119] brusquely and arbitrarily, in violation of international law, humanity, and hospitality. It would take volumes to describe his abuses of power, the tissue of brutalities and knaveries,[12120] the oppression of the ally and despoiling of the vanquished, the military brigandage exercised over populations in time of war, and by the systematic exactions practiced on them in times of peace.[12121]

Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. He has so deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt their feelings to such an extent,[12122] he has so trodden them down, ransomed, and forced them into his service. He has destroyed, apart from French lives, so many Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch lives, he has slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxiliaries, that nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns. Unquestionably, nobody can live together with such a character; his genius is too vast, too baneful, and all the more because it is so vast. War will last as long as he reigns; it is in vain to reduce him, to confine him at home, to drive him back within the ancient frontiers of France; no barrier will restrain him; no treaty will bind him; peace with him will never be other than a truce; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as soon as he has done this, he will begin again;[12123] he is in his very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect is made up definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone shows how unanimous and profound this conviction was. On the 7th of March the news reached Vienna that he had escaped from the island of Elba, without its being yet known where he would land. M. de Metternich[12124] brings the news to the Emperor of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who says to him, "Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Russia, and tell them that I am ready to order my army to march at once for France." At a quarter past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar, and at half-past eight, with the King of Prussia; both of them reply instantly in the same manner. "At nine o'clock," says M. de Metternich, "I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direction countermanding army orders.... Thus was war declared in less than an hour."



VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

Inward principle of his outward deportment.—He subordinates the State to him instead of subordinating himself to the State.—Effect of this.—His work merely a life-interest. —It is ephemeral.—Injurious.—The number of lives it cost. —The mutilation of France.—Vice of construction in his European edifice.—Analogous vice in his French edifice.

Other heads of states have similarly passed their lives in doing violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last, and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the imagination, to personal passions, to their own peculiar ambition and pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State, the great body of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely through the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If they drew blood from the passing generation it was for the benefit of coming generations, to preserve them from civil war or from foreign domination.[12125] They have acted generally like able surgeons, if not through virtue, at least through dynastic sentiment and family traditions; having practiced from father to son, they had acquired the professional conscience; their first and only aim was the safety and health of their patient. It is for this reason that they have not recklessly undertaken extravagant, bloody, and over-risky operations; rarely have they given way to temptation through a desire to display their skill, through the need of dazzling and astonishing the world, through the novelty, keenness, and success of their saws and scalpels. They felt that a longer and superior existence to their own was imposed upon them; they looked beyond them-selves as far as their sight would reach, and so took measures that the State after them might do without them, live on intact, remain independent, vigorous, and respected athwart the vicissitudes of European conflict and the uncertain problems of coming history. Such, under the ancient regime, was what were called reasons of state; these had prevailed in the councils of princes for eight hundred years; along with unavoidable failures and after temporary deviations, these had become for the time being and remained the preponderating motive. Undoubtedly they excused or authorized many breaches of faith, many outrages, and, to come to the word, many crimes; but, in the political order of things, especially in the management of external affairs, they furnished a governing and a salutary principle. Under its constant influence thirty monarchs had labored, and it is thus that, province after province, they had solidly and enduringly built up France, by ways and means beyond the reach of individuals but available to the heads of States.

Now, this principle is lacking with their improvised successor. On the throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, or emperor, he remains the military adventurer, and cares only for his own advancement. Owing to the great defect in the education of both conscience and sentiments, instead of subordinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State to him; he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to the nation which is to survive him. Consequently, he sacrifices the future to the present, and his work is not to be enduring. After him the deluge! Little does he care who utters this terrible phrase; and worse still, he earnestly wishes, from the bottom of his heart that everybody should utter it.

"My brother," said Joseph, in 1803,[12126] "desires that the necessity of his existence should be so strongly felt, and the benefit of this considered so great, that nobody could look beyond it without shuddering. He knows, and he feels it, that he reigns through this idea rather than through force or gratitude. If to-morrow, or on any day, it could be said, 'Here is a tranquil, established order of things, here is a known successor; Bonaparte might die without fear of change or disturbance,' my brother would no longer think himself secure.... Such is the principle which governs him."

In vain do years glide by, never does he think of putting France in a way to subsist without him; on the contrary, he jeopardizes lasting acquisitions by exaggerated annexations, and it is evident from the very first day that the Empire will end with the Emperor. In 1805, the five per cents being at eighty francs, his Minister of the Finances, Gaudin, observes to him that this is a reasonable rate.[12127] "No complaint can now be made, since these funds are an annuity on Your Majesty's life."—"What do you mean by that?"—"I mean that the Empire has become so great as to be ungovernable without you."—"If my successor is a fool so much the worse for him!"—"Yes, but so much the worse for France!" Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a political summing up, expresses his general opinion: "It is remarkable that Napoleon, constantly disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a single step toward ensuring the maintenance of his successors."[12128] In 1809, adds the same diplomat:[12129] "His death will be the signal for a new and frightful upheaval; so many divided elements all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by former subjects; new princes will have new crowns to defend. A veritable civil war will rage for half a century over the vast empire of the continent the day when the arms of iron which held the reins are turned into dust." In 1811, "everybody is convinced[12130] that on the disappearance of Napoleon, the master in whose hands all power is concentrated, the first inevitable consequence will be a revolution." At home, in France, at this same date, his own servitors begin to comprehend that his empire is not merely a life-interest and will not last after he is gone, but that the Empire is ephemeral and will not last during his life; for he is constantly raising his edifice higher and higher, while all that his building gains in elevation it loses in stability. "The Emperor is crazy," said Decrees to Marmont,[12131]"completely crazy. He will ruin us all, numerous as we are, and all will end in some frightful catastrophe." In effect, he is pushing France on to the abyss, forcibly and by deceiving her, through a breach of trust which willfully, and by his fault, grows worse and worse just as his own interests, as he comprehends these, diverge from those of the public from year to year.

At the treaty of Luneville and before the rupture of the peace of Amiens,[12132] this variance was already considerable. It becomes manifest at the treaty of Presbourg and still more evident at the treaty of Tilsit. It is glaring in 1808, after the deposition of the Spanish Bourbons; it becomes scandalous and monstrous in 1812, when the war with Russia took place. Napoleon himself admits that this war is against the interests of France and yet he undertakes it.[12133] Later, at St. Helena, he falls into a melting mood over "the French people whom he loved so dearly."[12134] The truth is, he loves it as a rider loves his horse; as he makes it rear and prance and show off its paces, when he flatters and caresses it; it is not for the advantage of the animal but for his own purposes, on account of its usefulness to him; to be spurred on until exhausted, to jump ditches growing wider and wider, and leap fences growing higher and higher; one ditch more, and still another fence, the last obstacle which seems to be the last, succeeded by others, while, in any event, the horse remains forcibly and for ever, what it already is, namely, a beast of burden and broken down.—For, on this Russian expedition, instead of frightful disasters, let us imagine a brilliant success, a victory at Smolensk equal to that of Friedland, a treaty of Moscow more advantageous than that of Tilsit, and the Czar brought to heel. As a result the Czar is probably strangled or dethroned, a patriotic insurrection will take place in Russia as in Spain, two lasting wars, at the two extremities of the Continent, against religious fanaticism, more irreconcilable than positive interests, and against a scattered barbarism more indomitable than a concentrated civilization. At best, a European empire secretly mined by European resistance; an exterior France forcibly superposed on the enslaved Continent;[12135] French residents and commanders at St. Petersburg and Riga as at Dantzic, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Lisbon, Barcelona, and Trieste. Every able-bodied Frenchman that can be employed from Cadiz to Moscow in maintaining and administering the conquest. All the able-bodied youth annually seized by the conscription, and, if they have escaped this, seized again by decrees.[12136] The entire male population thus devoted to works of constraint, nothing else in prospect for either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil career other than a prolonged guard duty, threatened and threatening, as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect, sub-prefect, or commissioner of police, that is to say, as subaltern henchman and bully restraining subjects and raising contributions, confiscating and burning merchandise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the mark.[12137] In 1810, one hundred and sixty thousand of the refractory were already condemned by name, and, moreover, penalties were imposed on their families to the amount of one hundred and seventy millions of francs In 1811 and 1812 the roving columns which tracked fugitives gathered sixty thousand of them, and drove them along the coast from the Adour to the Niemen; on reaching the frontier, they were en-rolled in the grand army; but they desert the very first month, they and their chained companions, at the rate of four or five thousand a day.[12138] Should England be conquered, garrisons would have to be maintained there, and of soldiers equally zealous. Such is the dark future which this system opens to the French, even with the best of good luck. It turns out that the luck is bad, and at the end of 1812 the grand army is freezing in the snow; Napoleon's horse has let him tumble. Fortunately, the animal has simply foundered; "His Majesty's health was never better";[12139] nothing has happened to the rider; he gets up on his legs, and what concerns him at this moment is not the sufferings of his broken-down steed, but his own mishap; his reputation as a horseman is compromised; the effect on the public, the hooting of the audience, is what troubles him, the comedy of a perilous leap, announced with such a flourish of trumpets and ending in such a disgraceful fall. On reaching Warsaw[12140] he says to himself, ten times over:

"There is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

The following year, at Dresden, he exposes still more foolishly, openly, and nakedly his master passion, the motives which determine him, the immensity and ferocity of his pitiless pride.

"What do they want of me?" said he to M. de Metternich.[12141] "Do they want me to dishonor myself? Never! I can die, but never will I yield an inch of territory! Your sovereigns, born to the throne, may be beaten twenty times over and yet return to their capitals: I cannot do this, because I am a parvenu soldier. My domination will not survive the day when I shall have ceased to be strong, and, consequently, feared."

In effect, his despotism in France is founded on his European omnipotence; if he does not remain master of the Continent," he must settle with the corps legislatif.[12142] Rather than descend to an inferior position, rather than be a constitutional monarch, controlled by parliamentary chambers, he plays double or quits, and will risk losing everything.

"I have seen your soldiers," says Metternich to him, "they are children. When this army of boys is gone, what will you do then?"

At these words, which touch his heart, he grows pale, his features contract, and his rage overcomes him; like a wounded man who has made a false step and exposes himself, he says violently to Metternich:

"You are not a soldier You do not know the impulses of a soldier's breast! I have grown up on the battle-field, and a man like me does not give a damn for the lives of a million men!"[12143]

His imperial pipe-dreams has devoured many more. Between 1804 and 1815 he has had slaughtered 1,700,000 Frenchmen, born within the boundaries of ancient France,[12144] to which must be added, probably, 2,000,000 men born outside of these limits, and slain for him, under the title of allies, or slain by him under the title of enemies. All that the poor, enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls have gained by entrusting their public welfare to him is two invasions; all that he bequeaths to them as a reward for their devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood and the blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen departments acquired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, of the left bank of the Rhine and of Belgium, despoiled of the northeast angle by which it completed its boundaries, fortified its most vulnerable point, and, using the words of Vauban, "made its field square," separated from 4,000,000 new Frenchmen which it had assimilated after twenty years of life in common, and, worse still, thrown back within the frontiers of 1789, alone, diminished in the midst of its aggrandized neighbors, suspected by all Europe, and lastingly surrounded by a threatening circle of distrust and rancor.

Such is the political work of Napoleon, the work of egoism served by genius. In his European structure as in his French structure this sovereign egoism has introduced a vice of construction. This fundamental vice is manifest at the outset in the European edifice, and, at the expiration of fifteen years, it brings about a sudden downfall: in the French edifice it is equally serious but not so apparent; only at the end of half a century, or even a whole century, is it to be made clearly visible; but its gradual and slow effects will be equally pernicious and they are no less sure.

*****

[Footnote 1201: See my "Philosophy of Art" for texts and facts, Part II., ch. VI.—Other analogies, which are too long for development here, may be found, especially in all that concerns the imagination and love. "He was disposed to accept the marvelous, presentiments, and even certain mysterious communications between beings.... I have seen him excited by the rustling of the wind, speak enthusiastically of the roar of the sea, and sometimes inclined to believe in nocturnal apparitions; in short, leaning to certain superstitions." (Madame de Remusat, I., 102, and III., 164.)—Meneval (III., 114) notes his "crossing himself involuntarily on the occurrence of some great danger, on the discovery of some important fact." During the consulate, in the evening, in a circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and declaimed tragic "tales," Italian fashion, quite worthy of the story-tellers of the XVth and XVIth centuries. (Bourrienne, VI., 387, gives one of his improvisations. Cf. Madame de Remusat, I., 102.)—As to love, his letters to Josephine during the Italian campaign form one of the best examples of Italian passion and "in most piquant contrast with the temperate and graceful elegance of his predecessor M. de Beauharnais." (Madame de Remusat, I., 143).—His other amours, simply physical, are too difficult to deal with; I have gathered some details orally on this subject which are almost from first hands and perfectly authentic. It is sufficient to cite one text already published: "According to Josephine, he had no moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the other? "—"I am not a man like other men, he said of himself, "and moral laws and those of propriety do not apply to me." (Madame de Remusat, I., 204, 206.)—Note again (II., 350) his proposals to Corvisart.—Such are everywhere the sentiments, customs, and morality of the great Italian personages of about the year 1500.]

[Footnote 1202: De Pradt, "Histoire de l'ambassade dans le grand-duche de Varsovie," p.96. "with the Emperor, desire springs out of his imagination; his idea becomes passion the moment it comes into his head."]

[Footnote 1203: Bourrienne, II., 298.—De Segur, I., 426.]

[Footnote 1204: Bodin, "Recherches sur l'Anjou," II., 325.—"Souvenirs d'un nonagenaire," by Besnard.—Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi," article on Volney.—Miot de Melito, I., 297. He wanted to adopt Louis's son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that this marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at one time in relation to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated, "seized Prince Louis by the waist and pushed him violently out of the room."—" Memorial," Oct.10, 1816. Napoleon relates that at the last conference of Campo-Fermio, to put an end to the resistance of the Austrian plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain on a stand near him and dashed it to the floor, exclaiming, "Thus will I shatter your monarchy before a month is over!" (Bourrienne questions this story.)]

[Footnote 1205: Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewahlte Schriften," III., 77 (Public reception of July 22, 1810). Napoleon first speaks to the Austrian Ambassador and next to the Russian Ambassador with a constrained air, forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot persist. "Treating with I do not know what unknown personage, he interrogated him, reprimanded him, threatened him, and kept him for a sufficiently long time in a state of painful dismay. Those who stood near by and who could not help feeling a dismayed, stated later that there had been nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor had only sought an opportunity to vent his ill-humor; that he did it purposely on some poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in advance any tendency to opposition. Cf. Beugnot, "Memoires," I., 380, 386, 387.—This mixture of anger and calculation likewise explains his conduct at Sainte Helena with Sir Hudson Lowe, his unbridled diatribes and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face. (W. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena, from the letters and journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," III., 306.)]

[Footnote 1206: Madame de Remusat, II., 46.]

[Footnote 1207: "Les Cahiers de Coignat." 191. "At Posen, already, I saw him mount his horse in such a fury as to land on the other side and then give his groom a cut of the whip."]

[Footnote 1208: Madame de Remusat, I., 222.]

[Footnote 1209: Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi and to the Prefet of Montenotte (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for this information).—Besides, he is lavish of the same expressions in conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of Seez and thus publicly addresses him: "Instead of merging the parties, you distinguish between constitutionalists and non-constitutionalists. Miserable fool! You are a poor subject,—hand in your resignation at once!"—To the grand-vicars he says, "Which of you governs your bishop—who is at best a fool?"—As M. Legallois is pointed out to him, who had of late been absent. "Fuck, where were you then?" "With my family." "With a bishop who is merely a damned fool, why are you so often away, etc.?" (D'Haussonville,VI., 176, and Roederer, vol. III.)]

[Footnote 1210: Madame de Remusat—I., 101; II., 338.]

[Footnote 1211: Ibid., I., 224.—M. de Meneval, I., 112, 347; III., 120: "On account of the extraordinary event of his marriage, he sent a handwritten letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor of Austria). It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after a great effort, he succeeded in penning a letter that was readable."—Meneval, nevertheless, was obliged "to correct the defective letters without letting the corrections be too plainly seen."]

[Footnote 1212: For example, at Bayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the outrageous and never-to-be forgotten scene which, on his return from Spain, occurred with Talleyrand—("Souvenirs", by PASQUIER Etienne-Dennis, duc, Chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 357);—The gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the last word of their interview ("Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230).—Cf. his not less gratuitous and hazardous confidential communications to Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his five conversations with Sir Hudson Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major Gorrequer. (W. Forsyth, I.,147, 161, 200.)]

[Footnote 1213: De Pradt, preface X]

[Footnote 1214: Pelet de la Lozere, p. 7.—Mollien, "Memoires," II., 222.—"Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 66, 69.]

[Footnote 1215: "Madame de Remusat," I., 121: I have it from Corvisart that the pulsations of his arteries are fewer than is usual with men. He never experienced what is commonly called giddiness." With him, the nervous apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incomparable for receiving, recording, registering, combining, and reflecting, but other organs suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Segur, VI., 15 and 16, note of Drs. Yvan and Mestivier, his physicians.) "To preserve the equilibrium it was necessary with him that the skin should always fulfill its functions; as soon as the tissues were affected by any moral or atmospheric cause.... irritation, cough, ischuria." Hence his need of frequent prolonged and very hot baths. "The spasm was generally shared by the stomach and the bladder. If in the stomach, he had a nervous cough which exhausted his moral and physical energies." Such was the case between the eve of the battle of Moscow and the morning after his entry into Moscow: "a constant dry cough, difficult and intermittent breathing; the pulse sluggish, weak, and irregular; the urine thick and sedimentary, drop by drop and painful; the lower part of the legs and the feet extremely oedematous." Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, "after violent convulsions in the stomach," he declared to the Count de Loban, "that he bore within him the germs of a premature death, and that he would die of the same disease as his father's." (De Segur, VI., 82.) After the victory of Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic, he is seized with such violent gripings as to make him think he was poisoned, and he makes a retrograde movement, which causes the loss of Vandamme's division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Etienne-Dennis, duc, chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893, (narrative of Daru, an eye-witness.)—This susceptibility of the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in early youth. "One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as a punishment, on the sill of the refectory, he is seized with sudden vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, I., 71.—It is well known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father Charles Bonaparte. His grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fesch, his brother Lucien, and his sister Caroline died of the same, or of an analogous disease.]

[Footnote 1216: Meneval, I., 269. Constant, "Memoires," V., 62. De Segur, VI., 114, 117.]

[Footnote 1217: Marshal Marmont, "Memoires," I., 306. Bourrienne, II., 119: "When off the political field he was sensitive, kind, open to pity."]

[Footnote 1218: Pelet de la Lozere, p.7. De Champagny, "Souvenirs," p.103. At first, the emotion was much stronger. "He had the fatal news for nearly three hours; he had given vent to his despair alone by himself. He summoned me.... plaintive cries involuntarily escaped him."]

[Footnote 1219: Madame de Remusat, I., 121, 342; II., 50; III., 61, 294, 312.]

[Footnote 1220: De Segur, V., 348.]

[Footnote 1221: Yung, II., 329, 331. (Narrated by Lucien, and report to Louis XVIII.)]

[Footnote 1222: "Nouvelle relation de l'Itineraire de Napoleon, de Fontainebleau a l'Ile de l'Elbe," by Count Waldberg-Truchsees, Prussian commissioner (1885), pp.22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 37.—The violent scenes, probably, of the abdication and the attempt at Fontainebleau to poison himself had already disturbed his balance. On reaching Elba, he says to the Austrian commissioner, Koller, "As to you, my dear general, I have let you see my bare rump."—Cf. in "Madame de Remusat," I., 108, one of his confessions to Talleyrand: he crudely points out in himself the distance between natural instinct and studied courage.—Here and elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his reflections before M. de Pradt, on his return from Russia, in which he appears in the light of a comedian who, having played badly and failed in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticize the imperfections of the audience. (De Pradt, p.219.)]

[Footnote 1223: The reader may find his comprehension of the author's meaning strengthened by the following translation of a passage from his essay on Jouffroy (Philosophes classiques du XIXth Siecle," 3rd ed.): "What is a man, master of himself? He is one who, dying with thirst, refrains from swallowing a cooling draft, merely moistening his lips: who insulted in public, remains calm in calculating his most appropriate revenge; who in battle, his nerves excited by a charge, plans a difficult maneuver, thinks it out, and writes it down with a lead-pencil while balls are whistling around him, and sends it to his colonels. In other words, it is a man in whom the deliberate and abstract idea of the greatest good is stronger than all other ideas and sensations. The conception of the greatest good once attained, every dislike, every species of indolence, every fear, every seduction, every agitation, are found weak. The tendency which arise from the idea of the greatest good constantly dominates all others and determines all actions." TR.]

[Footnote 1224: Bourrienne, I. 21.]

[Footnote 1225: Yung, 1., 125.]

[Footnote 1226: Madame de Remusat, I., 267.—Yung, II., 109. On his return to Corsica he takes upon himself the government of the whole family. "Nobody could discuss with him, says his brother Lucien; he took offence at the slightest observation and got in a passion at the slightest resistance. Joseph (the eldest) dared not even reply to his brother."]

[Footnote 1227: Memorial, August 27-31, 1815.]

[Footnote 1228: "Madame de Remusat," I., 105.—Never was there an abler and more persevering sophist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order to make it appear that he was right. Hence his dictations at St. Helena; his proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence; his ascendancy in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and over his adversaries; also his posthumous ascendancy over posterity. He is as great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The peculiarity of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always to speak or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause. Through this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience; on the other hand, as the author himself forms part of the audience, he ends in not along leading others into error but likewise himself, which is the case with Napoleon.]

[Footnote 1229: Yung, II., 111. (Report by Volney, Corsican commissioner, 1791.—II., 287.) (Memorial, giving a true account of the political and military state of Corsica in December, 1790.)—II., 270. (Dispatch of the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept. 10, 1793.)—Miot de Melito I.,131, and following pages. (He is peace commissioner in Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)]

[Footnote 1230: Miot de Melito, II., 2. "The partisans of the First consul's family... regarded me simply as the instrument of their passions, of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to center all favors on their proteges."]

[Footnote 1231: Yung., I., 220. (Manifest of October—31, 1789.)—I., 265. (Loan on the seminary funds obtained by force, June 23, 1790.)—I., 267, 269. (Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other officers; plan for taking the citadel of Ajaccio.)—II., 115. (letter to Paoli, February 17, 1792.) "Laws are like the statues of certain divinities—veiled on certain occasions."—II., 125. (Election of Bonaparte as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April 1, 1792.) The evening before he had Murati, one of the three departmental commissioners, carried off by an armed band from the house of the Peraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares, is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty; you were not so with the Peraldi."—His Corsican biographer (Nasica, "Memoires sur la jeunesse et l'enfance de Napoleon,") considers this a very praiseworthy action]

[Footnote 1232: Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont, I., 180, 196; the Memoirs of Stendhal, on Napoleon; the Report of d'Antraigues (Yung, III., 170, 171); the "Mercure Britannique" of Mallet-Dupan, and the first chapter of "La Chartreuse de Parme," by Stendhal.]

[Footnote 1233: "Correspondance de Napoleon," I. (Letter of Napoleon to the Directory, April 26, 1796.)—Proclamation of the same date: "You have made forced marches barefoot, bivouacked without brandy, and often without bread."]

[Footnote 1234: Stendhal, "Vie de Napoleon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy."—"Marmont," I., 296: "We were all of us very young,... all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic for glory.... This variety of our occupations and pleasures, this excessive employment of body and mind gave value to existence, and made time pass with extraordinary rapidity."]

[Footnote 1235: "Correspondance de Napoleon," I. Proclamation of March 27, 1796: "Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed. The government is vastly indebted to you; it has nothing to give you.... I am going to lead you to the most fertile plains in the world; rich provinces, large cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth."—Proclamation of April 26, 1796:—"Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!"—Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity to rob a treasury chest.]

[Footnote 1236: Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions in this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."]

[Footnote 1237: Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte, November 18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general tete-a-tete. I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred, according to my notes, made at the time."]

[Footnote 1238: Mathieu Dumas, "Memoires," III., 156. "It is certain that he thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the testimony of Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor the means sufficient."—Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators, while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame and influence in the army were obnoxious to them."]

[Footnote 1239: Larevelliere-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty), "Memoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred to the Directory nor to any of its members.... His ambition and his pride could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always subjected him to the orders of the Directory."]

[Footnote 1240: Madame de Remusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."]

[Footnote 1241: Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 1803)]

[Footnote 1242: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. p. 773. (Note I., on the situation, in 1806, of the Conventionalists who had survived the revolution.) For instance, Fouche is minister; Jeanbon-Saint-Andre, prefect; Drouet (de Varennes), sub-prefect; Chepy (of Grenoble), commissary-general of the police at Brest; 131 regicides are functionaries, among whom we find twenty one prefects and forty-two magistrates.—Occasionally, a chance document that has been preserved allows one to catch "the man in the act." ("Bulletins hebdomadaires de la censure, 1810 and 1814," published by M. Thurot, in the Revue Critique, 1871): "Seizure of 240 copies of an indecent work printed for account of M. Palloy, the author. This Palloy enjoyed some celebrity during the Revolution, being one of the famous patriots of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. The constituent Assembly had conceded to him the ownership of the site of the Bastille, of which he distributed its stones among all the communes. He is a bon vivant, who took it into his head to write out in a very bad style the filthy story of his amours with a prostitute of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the book should be seized on condition that he might retain a few copies of his jovial production. He professes high admiration for, and strong attachment to His Majesty's person, and expresses his sentiments piquantly, in the style of 1789."]

[Footnote 1243: "Memorial," June 12, 1816.]

[Footnote 1244: Mathieu Dumas, III., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days before Wagram).—Madame de Remusat," I., 105: "I have never heard him express any admiration or comprehension of a noble action."—I., 179: On Augustus's clemency and his saying, "Let us be friends, Cinna," the following is his interpretation of it: "I understand this action simply as the feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I find puerile as sentiment."—"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He believed neither in virtue nor in probity, often calling these two words nothing but abstractions; this is what rendered him so distrustful and so immoral.... He never experienced a generous sentiment; this is why he was so cold in company, and why he never had a friend. He regarded men as so much counterfeit coin or as mere instruments."]

[Footnote 1245: M. de Metternich, "Memoires," I., 241.—"Madame de Remusat," I., 93: "That man has been so harmful (si assommateur de toute vertu...) to all virtue."—Madame de Stael, "Considerations sur la Revolution Francaise," 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de Melzi, to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.)]

[Footnote 1246: Madame de Remusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means for governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him. ... He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."]

[Footnote 1247: Nearly all his false calculations are due to this defect, combined with an excess of constructive imagination.—Cf. De Pradt, p.94: "The Emperor is all system, all illusion, as one cannot fail to be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course has noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary Catholicism, an imaginary England, an imaginary financial state, an imaginary noblesse, and still more an imaginary France, and, in late times, an imaginary congress."]

[Footnote 1248: Roederer, III., 495. (March 8, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1249: Ibid., III., 537 (February 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1250: Roederer, III., 514. (November 4, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1251: Marmont, II., 242.]

[Footnote 1252: "Correspondance de Napoleon," I. (Letter to Prince Eugene, April 14, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1253: M. de Metternich, I., 284.]

[Footnote 1254: Mollien, III., 427.]

[Footnote 1255: "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": During the Consulate, "his opinion not being yet formed on many points, he allowed discussion and it was then possible to enlighten him and enforce an opinion once expressed in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he consulted no one;... he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be instructed and experienced... For four years, he sought to gather around him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of his agents began to be indifferent to him. Regarding himself as strong enough to rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents and character of those who stood in his way were discarded. What he wanted was valets and not councillors... The ministers were simply head-clerks of the bureaus. The Council of State served only to give form to the decrees emanating from him; he ruled even in petty details. Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an oracle and executed without reflection.... Self-isolated from other men, having concentrated in his own hands all powers and all action, thoroughly convinced that another's light and experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands were all that he required."]

[Footnote 1256: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. In VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I. chap. IX. and X. pp. 225-268. (Admirable portraiture of his principal agents, Cambaceres, Talleyrand, Maret, Cretet, Real, etc.) Lacuee, director of the conscription, is a perfect type of the imperial functionary. Having received the broad ribbon of the Legion d'Honneur, he exclaimed, at the height of his enthusiasm: "what will not France become under such a man? To what degree of happiness and glory will it not ascend, always provided the conscription furnishes him with 200,000 men a year! And, indeed, that will not be difficult, considering the extent of the empire."—And likewise with Merlin de Douai: "I never knew a man less endowed with the sentiment of the just and the unjust; everything seems to him right and good, as the consequences of a legal text. He was even endowed with a kind of satanic smile which involuntarily rose to his lips... every time the opportunity occurred, when, in applying his odious science, he reached the conclusion that severity is necessary or some condemnation." The same with Defermon, in fiscal matters]

[Footnote 1257: Madame de Remusat, II., 278; II., 175.]

[Footnote 1258: Ibid., III., 275, II., 45. (Apropos of Savary, his most intimate agent.): "He is a man who must be constantly corrupted."]

[Footnote 1259: Ibid., I., 109; II., 247; III., 366.]

[Footnote 1260: "Madame de Remusat," II., 142, 167, 245. (Napoleon's own words.) "If I ordered Savary to rid himself of his wife and children, I am sure he would not hesitate."—Marmont, II., 194: "We were at Vienna in 1809. Davoust said, speaking of his own and Maret's devotion: "If the Emperor should say to us both, 'My political interests require the destruction of Paris without any one escaping,' Maret would keep the secret, I am sure; but nevertheless he could not help letting it be known by getting his own family out. I, rather than reveal it I would leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado expressions, wordy exaggerations, but significant.)]

[Footnote 1261: Madame de Remusat, II., 379.]

[Footnote 1262: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230. (Words of Maret, at Dresden, in 1813; he probably repeats one of Napoleon's figures.)]

[Footnote 1263: Mollien, II., 9.]

[Footnote 1264: D'Haussonville, "L'Eglise Romaine et le premier Empire,"VI., 190, and passim.]

[Footnote 1265: Ibid., III., 460-473.—Cf. on the same scene, "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Chancelier de France. (He was both witness and actor.)]

[Footnote 1266: An expression of Cambaceres. M. de Lavalette, II., 154.]

[Footnote 1267: Madame de Remusat, III. 184]

[Footnote 1268: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 521. Details of the manufacture of counterfeit money, by order of Savary, in an isolated building on the plain of Montrouge.—Metternich, II., 358. (Words of Napoleon to M. de Metternich): "I had 300 millions of banknotes of the Bank of Vienna all ready and was going to flood you with them." Ibid., Correspondence of M. de Metternich with M. de Champagny on this subject (June, 1810).]

[Footnote 1269: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.—Vol. II. p. 196.]

[Footnote 1270: Madame de Remusat, II., 335.]

[Footnote 1271: Madame de Remusat, I., 231.]

[Footnote 1272: Ibid., 335.]

[Footnote 1273: M. de Metternich, I., 284. "One of those to whom he seemed the most attached was Duroc. 'He loves me the same as a dog loves his master,' is the phrase he made use of in speaking of him to me. He compared Berthier's sentiment for his person to that of a child's nurse. Far from being opposed to his theory of the motives influencing men these sentiments were its natural consequence whenever he came across sentiments to which he could not apply the theory of calculation based on cold interest, he sought the cause of it in a kind of instinct."]

[Footnote 1274: Beugnot, "Memoires," II., 59.]

[Footnote 1275: "Memorial." "If I had returned victorious from Moscow, I would have brought the Pope not to regret temporal power: I would have converted him into an idol... I would have directed the religious world as well as the political world... My councils would have represented Christianity, and the Pope would have only been president of them."]

[Footnote 1276: De Segur, III., 312. (In Spain, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1277: "Memoires du Prince Eugene." (Letters of Napoleon, August, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1278: Letter of Napoleon to Fouche, March 3, 1810. (Left out in the "Correspondance de Napoleon I.," and published by M. Thiers in "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," XII., p. 115.)]

[Footnote 1279: De Segur, III., 459.]

[Footnote 1280: Words of Napoleon to Marmont, who, after three months in the hospital, returns to him in Spain with a broken arm and his hand in a black sling: "You hold on to that rag then?" Sainte-Beuve, who loves the truth as it really is, quotes the words as they came, which Marmont dared not reproduce. (Causeries du Lundi, VI., 16.)—"Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893: "M. de Champagny having been dismissed and replaced, a courageous friend defended him and insisted on his merit: "You are right," said the Emperor, "he had some when I took him; but by cramming him too full, I have made him stupid."]

[Footnote 1281: Beugnot, I., 456, 464]

[Footnote 1282: Mme. de Remusat, II., 272.]

[Footnote 1283: M. de Champagny, "Souvenirs," 117.]

[Footnote 1284: Madame de Remusat, I., 125.]

[Footnote 1285: De Segur, III., 456.]

[Footnote 1286: "The Ancient Regime," p. 125.—"aeuvres de Louis XIV.," 191: "If there is any peculiar characteristic of this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of the subjects to the king; it an egalite de justice between both, and which, so to say, maintains both in a genial and honest companionship, in spite of the almost infinite distance in birth, rank, and power. This agreeable society, which enables persons of the Court to associate familiarly with us, impresses them and charms them more than one can tell."]

[Footnote 1287: Madame de Remusat, II., 32, 39.]

[Footnote 1288: Madame de Remusat, III., 169.]

[Footnote 1289: Ibid., II., 32, 223, 240, 259; III., 169.]

[Footnote 1290: Ibid., I., 112, II., 77.]

[Footnote 1291: M. de Metternich, I., 286.—"It would be difficult to imagine any greater awkwardness than that of Napoleon in a drawing-room.—Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewaehlte Schriften," III., 177. (Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a harsher voice, one so inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably sombre,... This compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something terrible and frightful."—On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group of ladies, "How hot!"]

[Footnote 1292: Mme. de Remusat, II., 77, 169.—Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring morals."—"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a fete, in the Hotel de Ville, he exclaimed to Madame——, who had just given her name to him: 'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some old persons: 'You haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was finished... The court was a regular galley where each rowed according to command."]

[Footnote 1293: Madame de Remusat, I., 114, 122, 206; II., 110, 112.]

[Footnote 1294: Ibid., I., 277.]

[Footnote 1295: "Hansard's Parliamentary History," vol. XXXVI.,.310. Lord Whitworth's dispatch to Lord Hawkesbury, March 14, 1803, and account of the scene with Napoleon. "All this took place loud enough for the two hundred persons present to hear it."—Lord Whitworth (dispatch of March 17) complains of this to Talleyrand and informs him that he shall discontinue his visits to the Tuileries unless he is assured that similar scenes shall not occur again.—Lord Hawkesbury approves of this (dispatch of March 27), and declares that the proceeding is improper and offensive to the King of England.—Similar scenes, the same conceit and intemperate language, with M. de Metternich, at Paris, in 1809, also at Dresden, in 1813: again with Prince Korsakof, at Paris, in 1812; with M. de Balachof, at Wilna, in 1812, and with Prince Cardito, at Milan, in 1805.]

[Footnote 1296: Before the rupture of the peace of Amiens ("Moniteur," Aug. 8, 1802): The French government is now more firmly established than the English government."—("Moniteur" Sept.10, 1802): "What a difference between a people which conquers for love of glory and a people of traders who happen to become conquerors!"—("Moniteur," Feb. 20, 1803): "The government declares with a just pride that England cannot now contend against France."—Campaign of 1805, 9th bulletin, words of Napoleon in the presence of Mack's staff: "I recommend my brother the Emperor of Germany to make peace as quick as he can! Now is the time to remember that all empires come to an end; the idea that an end might come to the house of Lorraine ought to alarm him."—Letter to the Queen of Naples, January 2, 1805: "Let your Majesty listen to what I predict. On the first war breaking out, of which she might be the cause, she and her children will have ceased to reign; her children would go wandering about among the different countries of Europe begging help from their relations."]

[Footnote 1297: 37th bulletin, announcing the march of an army on Naples "to punish the Queen's treachery and cast from the throne that criminal woman, who, with such shamelessness, has violated all that men hold sacred."—Proclamation of May 13, 1809: "Vienna, which the princes of the house of Lorraine have abandoned, not as honorable soldiers yielding to circumstances and the chances of war, but as perjurers pursued by remorse.... In flying from Vienna their adieus to its inhabitants consisted of murder and fire. Like Medea, they have sacrificed their children with their own hands."—13th bulletin: "The rage of the house of Lorraine against the city of Vienna,"]

[Footnote 1298: Letter to the King of Spain, Sept. 18, 1803, and a note to the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, on the Prince de la Paix: "This favorite, who has succeeded by the most criminal ways to a degree unheard of in the annals of history.... Let Your Majesty put away a man who, maintaining in his rank the low passions of his character, has lived wholly on his vices."—After the battle of Jena, 9th, 17th, 18th, and 19th bulletins, comparison of the Queen of Prussia with Lady Hamilton, open and repeated insinuations, imputing to her an intrigue with the Emperor Alexander. "Everybody admits that the Queen of Prussia is the author of the evils the Prussian nation suffers. This is heard everywhere. How changed she is since that fatal interview with the Emperor Alexander!... The portrait of the Emperor Alexander, presented to her by the Prince, was found in the apartment of the Queen at Potsdam."]

[Footnote 1299: "La Guerre patriotique" (1812-1815), according to the letters of contemporaries, by Doubravine (in Russian). The Report of the Russian envoy, M. de Balachof, is in French,]

[Footnote 12100: An allusion to the murder of Paul I.]

[Footnote 12101: Stanislas de Girardin, "Memoires," III., 249. (Reception of Nivose 12, year X.) The First consul addresses the Senate: "Citizens, I warn you that I regard the nomination of Daunou to the senate as a personal insult, and you know that I have never put up with one."—"Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter of Sept.23, 1809, to M. de Champagny): "The Emperor Francis insulted me in writing to me that I cede nothing to him, when, out of consideration for him, I have reduced my demands nearly one-half." (Instead of 2,750,000 Austrian subjects he demanded only 1,600,000.)—Roederer, III., 377 (Jan.24, 1801): "The French people must put up with my defects if they find I am of service to them; it is my fault that I cannot endure insults."]

[Footnote 12102: M. de Metternich, II., 378. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, July 28, 1810.)]

[Footnote 12103: Note presented by the French ambassador, Otto, Aug. 17, 1802.]

[Footnote 12104: Stanislas Girardin, III., 296. (Words of the First consul, Floreal 24, year XI.): "I had proposed to the British minister, for several months, to make an arrangement by which a law should be passed in France and in England prohibiting newspapers and the members of the government from expressing either good or ill of foreign governments. He never would consent to it."—St. Girardin: "He could not."—Bonaparte: "Why?"—St. Girardin: "Because an agreement of that sort would have been opposed to the fundamental law of the country." Bonaparte: "I have a poor opinion," etc.]

[Footnote 12105: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Dispatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation with the First consul at the Tuileries.)—Seeley, 'A Short History of Napoleon the First." "Trifles is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has never been printed; "the expression he made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a place in a dispatch or anywhere else, save in the mouth of a hack-driver."]

[Footnote 12106: Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoleon," II., 482. (Words of the First consul to the Swiss delegates, conference of January 29, 1803.)]

[Footnote 12107: Sir Neil Campbell, "Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba," p.201. (The words of Napoleon to Sir Neil Campbell and to the other commissioners.)—The Memorial de Sainte Helene mentions the same plan in almost identical terms.—Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p.238 (session of March 4, 1806): "Within forty-eight hours after peace with England, I shall interdict foreign commodities and promulgate a navigation act forbidding any other than French vessels entering our ports, built of French timber, and with the crews two-thirds French. Even coal and English 'milords' shall land only under the French flag."—Ibid., 32.]

[Footnote 12108: Moniteur, January 30, 1803 (Sebastiani).]

[Footnote 12109: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Lord Whitworth's dispatch, Feb.21, 1803, the First Consul's words to Lord Whitworth.)]

[Footnote 12110: "Memorial." (Napoleon's own words, March 24, 1806.)]

[Footnote 12111: Lanfrey, II., 476. (Note to Otto, October 23, 1802.)—Thiers,VI., 249.]

[Footnote 12112: Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. "If, at Leipsic, I had had 30,000 cannon balls to fire off on the evening of the 18th, I should to-day be master of the world."]

[Footnote 12113: "Memorial," Nov. 30, 1815.]

[Footnote 12114: Lanfrey, III.,—399. Letters of Talleyrand, October 11 and 27, 1805, and memorandum addressed to Napoleon.]

[Footnote 12115: At the council held in relation to the future marriage of Napoleon, Cambaceres vainly supported an alliance with the Russians. The following week, he says to M. Pasquier: "When one has only one good reason to give and it cannot possibly be given, it is natural that one should be beaten..., You will see that it is so good that one phrase suffices to make its force fully understood. I am deeply convinced that in two years we shall have a war with that of two powers whose daughter the Emperor does not marry. Now a war with Austria does not cause me any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war with Russia. The consequences are incalculable." "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I., p 293, p 378.).]

[Footnote 12116: M. de Metternich, II., 305. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, Aug.10, 1809.)—Ibid. 403.. (Letter of Jan.11, 1811.) "My appreciation of Napoleon's plans and projects, at bottom, has never varied. The monstrous purpose of the complete subjection of the continent under one head was, and is still, his object."]

[Footnote 12117: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): "The war will take place in spite of him (the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me, in spite of the interests of France and those of Russia. Having already seen this so often, it is my past experience which enables me to unveil the future,"]

[Footnote 12118: Mollien, III., 135, 190.—In 1810 "prices have increased 400% on sugar, and 100 % on cotton and dye stuffs."—"More than 20,000 custom-house officers were employed on the frontier against more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant activity and favored by the population."—"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 387.—There were licenses for importing colonial products, but on condition of exporting a proportionate quantity of French manufactures; now, England refused to receive them. Consequently, "not being allowed to bring these articles back to France, they were thrown overboard."—"They began at first by devoting the refuse of manufactures to this trade, and then ended by manufacturing articles without other destination; for example, at Lyons, taffetas and satins."]

[Footnote 12119: Proclamation of Dec.27, 1805: "The Naples dynasty has ceased to reign. Its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honor of my crown."—Message to the Senate, Dec. 10, 1810: "Fresh guarantees having become necessary, the annexation to the Empire of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, seemed to me to be the first and most important.... The annexation of the Valais is an anticipated result of the vast works I have undertaken for the past ten years in that section of the Alps."]

[Footnote 12120: We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment of Portugal is anterior and of same order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to Junot, Oct.31, 1807):—'I have already informed you, that in authorizing you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to possess yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take Portugal."—(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23, 1807): "Disarm the country. Send all the Portuguese troops to France.... I want them out of the country. Have all princes, ministers, and other men who serve as rallying points, sent to France."—(Decree of Dec. 23, 1807): "An extra contribution of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to redeem all property, of whatever denomination, belonging to private parties... All property belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the possessions of the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country, and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1, shall be put under sequestration."—Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'Eglise Romaine et le premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No other work enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings better nor more closely.]

[Footnote 12121: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a specimen of steps taken in time of war, see the register of Marshal Bessieres' orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 to July 15, 1811.)—"Correspondance du Roi Jerome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon, Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in times of peace): "If war should break out, all countries between the Rhine and the Oder will become the center of a vast and active insurrection. The mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely hatred of the French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the misfortunes of the day, in the total ruin of all classes, in over-taxation, consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops, soldiers traversing the country, and every sort of constantly renewed vexation.... At Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my kingdom, owners of property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere presses on families; capital is exhausted; the noble, the peasant, the bourgeois, are crushed with debt and want.... The despair of populations no longer having anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to be feared."—De Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied countries.) At Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I found his secretary, canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross of his order, who showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the previous evening by General Count Vandamme, because he had refused to serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the general; he was told that the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle the day before, and had carted away all this wine."]

[Footnote 12122: Fievee, "Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte, de 1802 a 1813," III., 82. (Dec. 1811), (On the populations annexed or conquered): "There is no hesitation in depriving them of their patrimony, their language, their legislatures, in disturbing all their habits, and that without any warrant but throwing a bulletin des lois at their heads (inapplicable).... How could they be expected to recognize this, or even become resigned to it?... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that one is under constraint, wounded in feeling and humiliated?... Prussia, and a large part of Germany, has been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man than to stir up a pile of manure."]

[Footnote 12123: "Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, Feb. 18, 1814. "If I had signed the treaty reducing France to its ancient limits, I should have gone to war two years after"—Marmont, V., 133 (1813): "Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always preferred to lose all rather than to yield anything."]

[Footnote 12124: M. de Metternich, II., 205.]

[Footnote 12125: Words of Richelieu on his death-bed: "Behold my judge," said he, pointing to the Host, "the judge who will soon pronounce his verdict. I pray that he will condemn me, if, during my ministry, I have proposed to myself aught else than the good of religion and of the State."]

[Footnote 12126: Miot de Melito, "Memoires,"II., 48, 152.]

[Footnote 12127: "Souvenirs," by Gaudin, duc de Gaete (3rd vol. of the "Memoires," p.67).]

[Footnote 12128: M. de Metternich, II., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July 26, 1807.)]

[Footnote 12129: Ibid., II., 291. (Letter of April 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 12130: Ibid., II., 400. (Letter of Jan.17, 1811.) In lucid moments, Napoleon takes the same view. Cf. Pelet de la Lozere, "Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That will last as long as I do. After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 40,000 francs a year."—(De Segur, "Histoire et Memoires," III., 155.): "How often at this time (1811) was he heard to foretell that the weight of his empire would crush his heir!" "Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, "what an entanglement I shall leave to you!" From the beginning he frequently passed judgment on himself and foresaw the effect of his action in history." On reaching the isle of Poplars, the First Consul stopped at Rousseau's grave, and said: 'It would have, been better for the repose of France, if that man had never existed.' 'And why, citizen Consul?' 'He is the man who made the French revolution.' 'It seems to me that you need not complain of the French revolution!' 'well, the future must decide whether it would not have been better for the repose of the whole world if neither myself nor Rousseau had ever lived.' He then resumed his promenade in a revery."—Stanislas Girardin; "Journal et Memoires," III., Visit of the French Consul to Ermenonville.]

[Footnote 12131: Marmont, "Memoires," III., 337. (On returning from Wagram.)]

[Footnote 12132: On this initial discord, cf. Armand Lefevre, "Histoire des Cabinets de l'Europe," vol.VI.]

[Footnote 12133: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1811.)]

[Footnote 12134: Testament of April 25, 1821 "It is my desire that my remains rest on the banks of the Seine, amidst that French people I have so dearly loved."]

[Footnote 12135: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.", XXII., 119. (Note by Napoleon, April, 1811.) "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen, either as employees or as gendarmes, in the custom-houses and warehouses."]

[Footnote 12136: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, II., 88, and following pages: "During the year 1813, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men had already been drafted from imperial France and they had to be furnished."—Other decrees in December, placing at the disposition of the government 300,000 conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.—Another decree in November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in cohorts, intended for the defense of strongholds.—In all, 1,300,000 men summoned in one year. "Never has any nation been thus asked to let itself be voluntarily led in a mass to the slaughterhouse.—Ibid., II., 59. Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising 10,000 young men, exempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose, arbitrarily, from amongst the highest classes in society. The purpose was plainly "to secure hostages in every family of doubtful loyalty. No measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable enemies."—Cf. De Segur, II., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding a division of young men.) Many were sons of Vendeans or of Conventionalists, some torn from their wives the day after their marriage, or from the bedside of a wife in her confinement, of a dying father, or of a sick son; "some looked so feeble that they seemed dying." One half perished in the campaign of 1814.—"Correspondance," letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Oct.23, 1813 (in relation to the new levies): "I rely on 100,000 refractory conscripts."]

[Footnote 12137: "Archives nationales," A F.,VI., 1297. (Documents 206 to 210.) (Report to the Emperor by Count Dumas, April 10, 1810.) Besides the 170 millions of penalties 1,675,457 francs of penalty were inflicted on 2335 individuals, "abettors or accomplices."—Ibid., A F.,VI., 1051. (Report of Gen. Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13, 1808.) "He always calculated in this department on the desertion of one-half of the conscripts. In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic with the conscription shamefully; certain conscripts pension them to show them favors."—Ibid., A F.,VI., 1052. (Report by Pelet, Jan. 12, 1812.) "The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault); the contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800 refractory, or deserters of the previous classes; 1600 have been arrested or made to surrender by the flying column; 200 have still to be pursued." Faber,—"Notice (1807) sur l'interieur de la France," p. 141: "Desertion, especially on the frontiers, is occasionally frightful; 80 deserters out of 160 have sometimes been arrested."—Ibid., p.149: It has been stated in the public journals that in 1801 the court in session at Lille had condemned 135 refractory out of the annual conscription, and that which holds its sittings at Ghent had condemned 70. Now, 200 conscripts form the maximum of what an arrondissement in a department could furnish."—Ibid, p.145. "France resembles a vast house of detention where everybody is suspicious of his neighbor, where each avoids the other... One often sees a young man with a gendarme at his heels oftentimes, on looking closely, this young man's hands are found tied, or he is handcuffed."—Mathieu Dumas, III., 507 (After the battle of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals): "I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men were slightly wounded: most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not been wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the campaign of 1809."]

[Footnote 12138: De Segur, III., 474.—Thiers, XIV., 159. (One month after crossing the Niemen one hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped out of the ranks.)]

[Footnote 12139: Bulletin 29 (December 3, 1812).]

[Footnote 12140: "De Pradt, Histoire de l'Ambassade de Varsovie," p.219.]

[Footnote 12141: M. de Metternich, I., 147.—Fain, "Manuscript," of 1813, II., 26. (Napoleon's address to his generals.) "What we want is a complete triumph. To abandon this or that province is not the question; our political superiority and our existence depend on it. "—II., 41, 42. (Words of Napoleon to Metternich.) "And it is my father-in-law who favors such a project! And he sends you! In what attitude does he wish to place me before the French people? He is strangely deluded if he thinks that a mutilated throne can offer an asylum to his daughter and grandson.... Ah, Metternich, how much has England given you to make you play this part against me?" (This last phrase, omitted in Metternich's narrative, is a characteristic trait; Napoleon at this decisive moment, remains insulting and aggressive, gratuitously and even to his own destruction.)]

[Footnote 12142: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 235.]

[Footnote 12143: Ibid., I., 230. Some days before Napoleon had said to M. de Narbonne, who told me that very evening: "After all, what has this (the Russian campaign) cost me? 300,000 men, among whom, again, were a good many Germans."—"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. II. 110. (Apropos of the Frankfurt basis, and accepted by Napoleon when too late.) "What characterizes this mistake is that it was committed much more against the interests of France than against his own.... He sacrificed her to the perplexities of his personal situation, to the mauvaise honte of his own ambition, to the difficulty he finds in standing alone to a certain extent before a nation which had done everything for him and which could justly reproach him with having sacrificed so much treasure and spilled so much blood on enterprises proved to have been foolish and impracticable."]

[Footnote 12144: Leonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France," P.40. (According to the former director of the conscription under the Empire.)]



BOOK SECOND. FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW STATE.



CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT



I. The Institution of Government.

Conditions on which the public power can act.—Two points forgotten by the authors of the preceding constitutions.— Difficulty of the undertaking and poor quality of the available materials.

Every human society requires government, that is to say an authority. No other machinery is more useful. But a machinery is useful only if it is adapted to its purpose; if not it will not work, or may even work contrary to its purpose. Hence, during its construction, one must first of all consider the magnitude of the work it has to do as well as the quality of the materials one has at one's disposal. It is very important to know beforehand whether it will lift 100 or of 100,000 kilograms, whether the pieces fitted together will be of iron or of steel, of sound or of unsound timber.—But the legislators had not taken that into consideration during the last ten years. They had set themselves up as theoreticians, and likewise as optimists, without looking at the things, or else imagining the them as they wished to have them. In the national assemblies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy and simple, whereas it was extraordinary and immense; for the matter in hand consisted in effecting a social revolution and in carrying on an European war. The materials were supposed to be excellent, as manageable as they were substantial, while, in fact, they were very poor, being both refractory and brittle, for these human materials consisted of the Frenchmen of 1789 and of the following years; that is to say, of exceedingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm, inexperienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intractable, and overexcited. Calculations had been made on these prodigiously false data; consequently, although the calculations were very exact, the results obtained were found absurd. Relying on these data, the machine had been planned, and all its parts been adjusted, assembled, and balanced. That is why the machine, irreproachable in theory, remained unsuccessful in practice: the better it appeared on paper the quicker it broke down when set up on the ground.



II. Default of previous government.

The consequences of the years 1789 to 1799.—Insubordination of the local powers, conflict of the central powers, suppression of liberal institutions, and the establishment of an unstable despotism.—Evil-doing of the government thus formed.

A capital defect at once declared itself in the two principal compositions, in the working gear of the superposed powers and in the balance of the motor powers.—In the first place, the hold given to the central government on its local subordinates was evidently too feeble; with no right to appoint these, it could not select them as it pleased, according to the requirements of the service. Department, district, canton, and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges, assessors, appraisers, and collectors of taxes, officers of the national-guard and even of the gendarmerie, police-commissioners, and other agents who had to enforce laws on the spot, were nearly all recruited elsewhere: either in popular assemblies or provided ready-made by elected bodies.[2101] They were for it merely borrowed instruments; thus originating, they escaped its control; it could not make them work as it wanted them to work. On most occasions they would shirk their duties; at other times, on receiving orders, they would stand inert; or, again, they would act outside of or beyond their special function, either going too far or acting in a contrary sense; never did they act with moderation and precision, with coherence and consequence. For this reason any desire of the government to do its job proved unsuccessful. Its legal subordinates—incapable, timid, lukewarm, unmanageable, or even hostile—obeyed badly, did not obey at all, or willfully disobeyed. The blade of the executive instrument, loose in the handle, glanced or broke off when the thrust had to be made.

In the second place, never could the two or three motor forces thrusting the handle act in harmony, owing to the clashing of so many of them; one always ended in breaking down the other. The Constituent Assembly had set aside the King, the Legislative Assembly had deposed him, the Convention had decapitated him. Afterward each fraction of the sovereign body in the Convention had proscribed the other; the Montagnards had guillotined the Girondists, and the Thermidorians had guillotined the Montagnards. Later, under the Constitution of the year III, the Fructidorians had banished the Constitutionalists, the Directory had purged the Councils, and the Councils had purged the Directory.—Not only did the democratic and parliamentary institution fail in its work and break down on trial, but, again, through its own action, it became transformed into its opposite. In a year or two a coup d'etat in Paris took place; a faction seized the central power and converted it into an absolute power in the hands of five or six ringleaders. The new government at once re-forged the executive instrument for its own advantage and refastened the blade firmly on the handle; in the provinces it dismissed those elected by the people and deprived the governed of the right to choose their own rulers; henceforth, through its proconsuls on mission, or through its resident commissioners, it alone appointed, superintended, and regulated on the spot all local authorities.[2102]

Thus the liberal constitution, at its close, gave birth to a centralized despotism, and this was the worst of its species, at once formless and monstrous; for it was born out of a civil crime, while the government which used it had no support but a band of bigoted fanatics or political adventurers; without any legal authority over the nation, or any moral hold on the army, detested, threatened, discordant, exposed to the resistance of its own upholders, to the treachery of its own members, and living only from day to day, it could maintain itself only through a brutal absolutism and permanent terror, while the public power of which the first care is the protection of property, consciences, and lives, became in its hands the worst of persecutors, robbers, and murderers.



III. In 1799, the undertaking more difficult and the materials worse.

Twice in succession had the experiment been tried, the monarchical constitution of 1791, and the republican constitution of 1795; twice in succession had the same events followed the same course to attain the same end; twice in succession had the theoretical, cunningly-devised machine for universal protection changed into an efficient and brutal machine for universal oppression. It is evident that if the same machine were started the third time under analogous conditions, one might expect to see it work in the same manner; that is to say, contrary to its purpose.

Now, in 1799, the conditions were analogous, and even worse, for the work which the machine had to do was not less, while the human materials available for its construction were not so good.—Externally, the country was constantly at war with Europe; peace could not be secured except by great military effort, and peace was as difficult to preserve as to win. The European equilibrium had been too greatly disturbed; neighboring or rival States had suffered too much; the rancor and distrust provoked by the invading revolutionary republic were too active; these would have lasted a long time against pacified France even after she had concluded reasonable treaties. Even should she abandon a policy of propaganda and interference, return brilliant acquisitions, cease the domination of protectorates, and abandon the disguised annexation of Italy, Holland, and Switzerland, the nation was still bound to keep watch under arms. A government able to concentrate all its forces—that is to say, placed above and beyond all dispute and promptly obeyed-was indispensable, if only to remain intact and complete, to keep Belgium and the frontier of the Rhine.—Likewise internally, and for no other purpose than to restore civil order; for here, too, the outrages of the Revolution had been too great. There had been too much spoliation, too many imprisonments, exiles, and murders, too many violations of every kind, too many invasions of the rights of property and of persons, public and private. It was so much more difficult

* To insure respect for persons and all private and public possessions;

* to restrain at once both Royalists and Jacobins;

* to restore 140,000 emigres to their country and yet satisfy 1,200,000 possessors of national property;

* to give back to 25,000,000 of orthodox Catholics the right, faculty, and means for worshipping, and yet not allow the schismatic clergy to be maltreated;

* to bring face to face in the same commune the dispossessed seigneur and the peasant holders of his domain;

* to compel the delegates of the Committee of Public Safety and their victims, the shooters and the shot of Vendemiaire, the Fructidorians and the Fructidorized, the Whites and the Blues of La Vendee and Brittany, to live in peace side by side,

because the future laborers in this immense work, from the village mayor to the state-senator and state-councilor, had borne a part in the Revolution, either in effecting it or under subjection to it—Monarchists, Feuillantists, Girondists, Montagnards, Thermidorians, moderate Jacobins or desperate Jacobins, all oppressed in turn and disappointed in their calculations. Their passions, under this regime, had become embittered; each brought personal bias and resentment into the performance of his duties; to prevent him from being unjust and mischievous demanded a tightened curb.[2103] All sense of conviction, under this regime, had died out; no body would serve gratis as in 1789;[2104] nobody would work without pay; disinterestedness had lost all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; genuine zeal seemed self-dupery; each looked out for himself and not for the community; public spirit had yielded to indifference, to egotism, and to the need of security, of enjoyment, and of self-advancement. Human materials, deteriorated by the Revolution, were less than ever suited to providing citizens—they simply furnished functionaries. With such wheels combined together according to formula current between 1791 and 1795, the requisite work could not possibly be done. As a consequence, definitely and for a long time, any use of the two great liberal mechanisms were doomed. So long as the wheels remained of such poor quality and the task so hard, both the election of local powers and the division of the central power had to be abandoned.