 |
"the field is open to all talents,"
and hence all talents, gathered into the central current and precipitated headlong through competition, swell with their inflow the immensity of the public power.
This done, the principal features of modern France are traced; a tool of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues forth, its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social body organized by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains lucid and this will remains healthy. It is adapted to a military life and not to civil life, and therefore badly balanced, hampered (gene) in its development, exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but viable for a long time, and, for the present robust, alone able to bear the weight of the new reign and to furnish for fifteen successive years the crushing labor, the conquering obedience, the superhuman, murderous, insensate effort which its master exacts.
IV. Napoleon's barracks.
General aspect and characteristics of the new State. —Contrast between its structure and that of other contemporary or pre-existing States.—The plurality, complexity, and irregularity of ancient France.—The unity, simplicity, and regularity of modern France.—To what class of works it belongs.—It is the modern masterpiece of the classic spirit in the political and social order of things.
Let us take a nearer view of the master's idea and of the way in which, at this moment, he figures to himself the society which is assuming new shape in his hands. All the leading features of the plan are fixed beforehand in his mind: they are already deeply graven on it through his education and through his instinct. By virtue of this instinct, which is despotic, by virtue of this education, which is classic and Latin, he conceives human associations not in the modern fashion, Germanic and Christian, as a concert of initiations starting from below, but in the antique fashion, pagan and Roman, as a hierarchy of authorities imposed from above. He puts his own spirit into his civil institutions, the military spirit; consequently, he constructs a huge barracks wherein, to begin with, he lodges thirty million, men, women, and children, and, later on, forty-two million, all the way from Hamburg to Rome.
The edifice is, of course, superb and of a new style. On comparing it with other societies in surrounding Europe, and particularly France as she was previous to 1789, the contrast is striking.—Everywhere else the social edifice is a composition of many distinct structures—provinces, cities, seignories, churches, universities, and corporations. Each has begun by being a more or less isolated block of buildings where, on an enclosed area, a population has lived apart. Little by little the barriers have given way; either they have been broken in or have tumbled down of their own accord; passages have been made between one and the other and new additions have been put up; at last, these scattered buildings have all become connected and soldered on as annexes to the central pile. But they combine with it only through a visible and clumsy juxtaposition, through incomplete and bizarre communications: the vestiges of their former independence are still apparent athwart their actual dependence. Each still rests on its own primitive and appropriate foundations; its grand lines subsist; its main work is often almost intact. In France, on the eve of 1789, it is easily recognized what she formerly was; for example, it is clear that Languedoc and Brittany were once sovereign States, Strasbourg a sovereign town, the Bishop of Mende and the Abbess of Remiremont, sovereign princes;[2327] every seignior, laic, or ecclesiastic, was so in his own domain, and he still possessed some remnants of public power. In brief, we see thousands of states within the State, absorbed, but not assimilated, each with its own statutes, its own legal customs, its own civil law, its own weights and measures; several with special privileges and immunities; some with their own jurisdiction and their own peculiar administration, with their own imposts and tariffs like so many more or less dismantled fortresses, but whose old feudal, municipal, or provincial walls still rose lofty and thick on the soil comprehended within the national enclosure.
Nothing could be more irregular than this total aggregate thus formed; it is not really an entire whole, but an agglomeration. No plan, good or bad, has been followed out; the architecture is of ten different styles and of ten different epochs. That of the dioceses is Roman and of the fourth century; that of the seignories is Gothic and of the ninth century; one structure dates from the Capetians, another from the Valois, and each bears the character of its date. Because each has been built for itself and with no regard to the others, adapted to an urgent service according to the exigencies or requirements of time, place, and circumstance; afterward, when circumstances changed, it had to adapt itself to other services, and this constantly from century to century, under Philippe le Bel, under Louis XI., under Francis I., under Richelieu, under Louis XIV., through constant revision which never consists of entire destruction, through a series of partial demolitions and of partial reconstructions, in such a way as to maintain itself, during the transformation, in conciliating, well or ill, new demands and rooted habits, in reconciling the work of the passing generation with the works of generations gone before.—The central seignory itself is merely a donjon of the tenth century, a military tower of which the enclosure has extended so as to embrace the entire territory, and of which the other buildings, more or less incorporated with it, have become prolongations.—A similar medley of constructions—disfigured by such mutilations, adjuncts, and patches, a pell-mell so complicated with such incongruous bits and fragments—can be comprehended only by antiquaries and historians; ordinary spectators—the public—pronounce it absurd; it finds no favor with that class of reasoners who, in social architecture as in physical architecture, repudiate disorder, posit theories, deduce consequences, and require that every work shall proceed from the application of a simple idea.
And worse still, not only is good taste offended but, again, good sense often murmurs. Practically, the edifice fails in its object, for, erected for men to dwell in, it is in many places scarcely habitable. Because it endures it is found superannuated, ill-adapted to prevailing customs; it formerly suited, and still suits, the feudal, scattered, and militant way of living; hence it no longer suits the unity and repose of modern life. New-born rights obtain no place in it alongside of established rights; it is either not sufficiently transformed or it has been transformed in an opposite sense, in such a way as to be inconvenient or unhealthy, badly accommodating people who are useful and giving good accommodations to useless people, costing too much to keep up and causing discomfort and discontent to nearly all its occupants.—In France, in particular, the best apartments, especially that of the King, are for a century past too high and too large, too sumptuous and too expensive. Since Louis XIV. these have imperceptibly ceased to be government and business bureaus; they have become in their disposition, decoration, and furnishing, saloons for pomp and conversation, the occupants of which, for lack of other employment, delight in discussing architecture and in tracing plans on paper for an imaginary edifice in which everybody will find himself comfortable. Now, underneath these, everybody finds himself uncomfortable, the bourgeoisie in its small scanty lodgings on the ground-floor and the people in their holes in the cellar, which are low and damp, wherein light and air never penetrate. Innumerable vagabonds and vagrants are still worse off, for, with no shelter or fireside, they sleep under the stars, and as they are without anything to care for, they are disposed to pull everything down.—Under the double pressure of insurrection and theory the demolition begins, while the fury of destruction goes on increasing until nothing is left of the razed edifice but the soil it stood on.
The new one rises on this cleared ground and, historically as well as structurally, it differs from all the others.—In less than ten years it springs up and is finished according to a plan which, from the first day, is definite and complete. It forms one unique, vast, monumental block, in which all branches of the service are lodged under one roof; in addition to the national and general services belonging to the public power, we find here others also, local and special, which do not belong to it, such as worship, education, charity, fine arts, literature, departmental and communal interests, each installed in a distinct compartment. All the compartments are ordered and arranged alike, forming a circle around the magnificent central apartment, with which each is in communication by a bell; as soon as the bell rings and the sound spreads from division to sub-division, the entire service, from the chief clerk down to the lowest employee, is instantly in motion; in this respect the arrangement, as regards despatch, co-ordination, exactitude, and working facilities, is admirable.[2328]
On the other hand, its advantages and attractions for employees and aspirants of every kind and degree are not mediocre. There is no separation between the stories, no insurmountable barrier or enclosure between large and small apartments; all, from the least to the finest, from the outside as well as from the inside, have free access. Spacious entrances around the exterior terminate in broad, well-lighted staircases open to the public; everybody can clamber up that pleases, and to mount these one must clamber; from top to bottom there is no other communication than that which they present. There is no concealed and privileged passage, no private stairway or false door; glancing along the whole rectilinear, uniform flight, we behold the innumerable body of clerks, functionaries, supernumeraries, and postulants, an entire multitude, ranged tier beyond tier and attentive; nobody advances except at the word and in his turn.—Nowhere in Europe are human lives so well regulated, within lines of demarcation so universal, so simple, and so satisfactory to the eye and to logic: the edifice in which Frenchmen are henceforth to move and act is regular from top to bottom, in its entirety as well as in its details, outside as well as inside; its stories, one above the other, are adjusted with exact symmetry; its juxtaposed masses form pendants and counterpoise; all its lines and forms, every dimension and proportion, all its props and buttresses combine, through their mutual dependencies, to compose a harmony and to maintain an equilibrium. In this respect the structure is classic, belonging to the same family of productions which the same spirit, guided by the same method, had produced in Europe for the previous one hundred and fifty years.[2329] Its analogues, in the physical order of things, are the architectural productions of Mansard, Le Notre, and their successors, from the structures and gardens of Versailles down to and embracing the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli. In the intellectual order, its analogues consist of the literary forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the superb oratorical prose and correct, eloquent poetry, especially epics and tragedies, including those still manufactured according to rule about the year 1810. It corresponds to these and forms their pendant in the political and social order of things, because it emanates from the same deliberate purpose. Four constitutions, in the same style, preceded it; but these were good only on paper, while this one stands firm on the ground. For the first time in modern history we see a society due to ratiocination and, at the same time, substantial; the new France, under these two heads, is the masterpiece of the classic spirit.
V. Modeled after Rome.
Its analogue in the antique world.—The Roman State from Diocletian to Constantine.—Causes and bearing of this analogy.—Survival of the Roman idea in Napoleon's mind. —The new Empire of the West.
Nevertheless, if we go back in time, beyond modern times, beyond the Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter during the Roman emperors Diocletian's and Constantine's era another monument whose architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still grander scale: back then we are in the natal atmosphere and stand on the natal soil of the classic spirit.—At this time, the human material, more reduced and better prepared than in France, existed similarly in the requisite condition. At this date, we likewise see at work the prearranging reasoning-faculty
* which simplifies in order to deduce,
* which leaves out historic customs and local diversities,
* which considers the basic human being,
* which treats individuals as units and the people as totals,
* which forcibly applies its general outlines to all special lives, and
* which glories in constituting, legislating, and administering by rule according to the measurements of square and compass.
At this date, in effect, the turn of mind, the talent, the ways of the Roman architect, his object, his resources and his means of execution, are already those of his French successor; the conditions around him in the Roman world are equivalent; behind him in Roman history the precedents, ancient and recent, are almost the same.
In the first place,[2330] there is, since emperor Augustus, the absolute monarchy, and, since the Antonines, administrative centralization the result of which is that
* all the old national and municipal communities are broken up or crushed out,
* all collective existences chilled or extinguished,
* local patriotism slowly worn away,
* an increasing diminution of individual initiative,
and, under the invasive interference, direction, and providence of the State, one hundred millions of men become more and more passive and separated from each other.[2331]
And as a result, in full enjoyment of peace and internal prosperity under the appearances of union, force, and health, latent feebleness, and, as in France on the approach of 1789, a coming dissolution.
There is next, as after 1789 in France, the total collapse, not from below and among the people, but from above and through the army, a worse collapse than in France, prolonged for fifty years of anarchy, civil wars, local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions, rural jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole frontier, with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activities, with such a diminution of public and private capital, with such a destruction of human lives that, in twenty years, the number of the population seems to have diminished one half.[2332] There is, finally, as after 1799, in France, the re-establishment of order brought about more slowly, but by the same means, the army and a dictatorship, in the rude hands of three or four great military parvenus, Pannonians or Dalmatians, Bonapartes of Sirmium or of Scutari, they too, of a new race or of intact energy, adventurers and children of their own deeds, the last Diocletian, like Napoleon, a restorer and an innovator. Around them, as around Napoleon, to aid them in their civil undertakings, is a crowd of expert administrators and eminent jurisconsults, all practitioners, statesmen, and businessmen, and yet men of culture, logicians, and philosophers. They were imbued with the double governmental and humanitarian view, which for three centuries Greek speculation and Roman practice had introduced into minds and imaginations. This view, at once leveling and authoritative, tending to exaggerate the attributes of the State and the supreme power of the prince,[2333] was nevertheless inclined
* to put natural right in the place of positive law,[2334]
* to preferring equity and logic to antiquity and to custom,
* to reinstate the dignity of man among the qualities of mankind,
* to enhance the condition of the slave, of the provincial, of the debtor, of the bastard, of woman, of the child, and
* to recover for the human community all its inferior members, foreign or degraded, which the ancient constitution of the family and of the city had excluded from it.
Therefore Napoleon could find the outlines of his construction in the political, legislative, and judicial organizations extending from Diocletian to Constantine, and beyond these down to Theodosius. At the base, popular sovereignty;[2335] the powers of the people delegated unconditionally to one man. This omnipotence conferred, theoretically or apparently, through the free choice of citizens, but really through the will of the army. No protection against the Prince's arbitrary edict, except a no less arbitrary rescript from the same hand. His successor designated, adopted, and qualified by himself. A senate for show, a council of state for administration; all local powers conferred from above; cities under tutelage. All subjects endowed with the showy title of citizen, and all citizens reduced to the humble condition of taxpayers and of people under control. An administration of a hundred thousand officials taking all services into its hands, comprising public instruction, public succor, and public supplies of food, together with systems of worship. This was at first pagan cults, and after Constantine, the Christian cult. All these services were classified, ranked, co-coordinated, carefully defined in such a way as not to encroach on each other, and carefully combined in such a way as to complete each other. An immense hierarchy of transferable functionaries was kept at work from above on one hundred and eighty square leagues of territory; thirty populations of different race and language-Syrians, Egyptians, Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Germans, Greeks, Italians—subject to the same uniform Regime. The territory was divided like a checker-board, on arithmetical and geometrical principles, into one hundred or one hundred and twenty small provinces; old nations or States dismembered and purposely cut up so as to put an end forever to natural, spontaneous, and viable groups. A minute and verified census taking place every fifteen years to correctly assign land taxes. An official and universal language; a State system of worship, and, very soon, a Church and State orthodoxy. A systematic code of laws, full and precise, admirable for the rule of private life, a sort of moral geometry in which the theorems, rigorously linked together, are attached to the definitions and axioms of abstract justice. A scale of grades, one above the other, which everybody may ascend from the first to the last; titles of nobility more and more advanced, suited to more and more advanced functions; spectabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi, analogous to Napoleon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes. A programme of promotion once exhibiting, and on which are still seen, common soldiers, peasants, a shepherd, a barbarian, the son of a cultivator (colon), the grandson of a slave, mounting gradually upward to the highest dignities, becoming patrician, Count, Duke, commander of the cavalry, Caesar, Augustus, and donning the imperial purple, enthroned amid the most sumptuous magnificence and the most elaborate ceremonial prostrations, a being called God during his lifetime, and after death adored as a divinity, and dead or alive, a complete divinity on earth.[2336]
So colossal an edifice, so admirably adjusted, so mathematical, could not wholly perish; its hewn stones were too massive, too nicely squared; too exactly fitted, and the demolisher's hammer could not reach down to its deepest foundations.—This one, through its shaping and its structure, through its history and its duration, resembles the stone edifices which the same people at the same epoch elevated on the same soil, the aqueducts, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, the Coliseum, the baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla.
The medieval man, using their intact foundations and their shattered fragments, built here and there, haphazard, according to the necessities of the moment, planting his Gothic towers between Corinthian columns against the panels of walls still standing.[2337] But, under his incoherent masonry, he observed the beautiful forms, the precious marbles, the architectural combinations, the symmetrical taste of an anterior and superior art; he felt that his own work was rude. The new world, to all thinking minds, was miserable compared with the old one; its languages seemed a patois (crude dialect), its literature mere stammering or driveling, its law a mass of abuses or a mere routine, its feudality anarchy, and its social arrangements, disorder.—In vain had the medieval man striven to escape through all issues, by the temporal road and by the spiritual road, by the universal and absolute monarchy of the German Cesars, and by the universal and absolute monarchy of the Roman pontiffs. At the end of the fifteenth century the Emperor still possessed the golden globe, the golden crown, the scepter of Charlemagne and of Otho the Great, but, after the death of Frederick II., he was nothing more than a majesty for show; the Pope still wore the tiara, still held the pastoral staff and the keys of Gregory VII. and of Innocent III., but, after the death of Boniface VIII., he was nothing more than a majesty of the Church. Both abortive restorations had merely added ruins to ruins, while the phantom of the ancient empire alone remained erect amid so many fragments. Grand in its outlines and decorations, it stood there, august, dazzling, in a halo, the unique masterpiece of art and of reason, as the ideal form of human society. For ten centuries this specter haunted the medieval epoch, and nowhere to such an extent as in Italy.[2338]
It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking firm hold of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the great Italian,[2339] to whom the opportunity afforded the means for executing the grand Italian dream of the Middle Ages; it is according to this retrospective vision that the Diocletian of Ajaccio, the Constantine of the Concordat, the Justinian of the Civil Code, the Theodosius of the Tuileries and of St. Cloud reconstructed France.
This does not mean that he copies—he restores; his conception is not plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to him through the nature of his intellect and through racial traditions. In the way of social and political conceptions, as in literature and in art, his spontaneous taste is ultra-classic. We detect this in his mode of comprehending the history of France; State historians, "encouraged by the police," must make it to order; they must trace it "from the end of Louis XIV. to the year VIII," and their object must be to show how superior the new architecture is to the old one.[2340] "The constant disturbance of the finances must be noted, the chaos of the provincial assemblies,... the pretensions of the parliaments, the lack of energy and order in the administration, that parti-colored France with no unity of laws or of administration, being rather a union of twenty kingdoms than one single State, so that one breathes on reaching the epoch in which people enjoy the benefits of the unity of the laws, of the administration, and of the territory." In effect, he breathes; in thus passing from the former to the latter spectacle, he finds real intellectual pleasure; his eyes, offended with Gothic disorder, turn with relief and satisfaction to majestic simplicity and classic regularity; his eyes are those of a Latin architect brought up in the "Ecole de Rome."
This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no other. Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He misconceives their local propriety and the historical reasons for their existence. He takes no account of their solidity. He is going to dash himself against Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever of England.[2341]—This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and on vassal[2342] countries the same uniform arrangements, his own administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub-divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality and promotion, the entire French system, and, as far as possible, the language, literature, drama, and even the spirit of his France,—in brief, civilization as he conceives it, so that conquest becomes propaganda, and, as with his predecessors, the Cesars of Rome, he sometimes really fancies that the establishment of his universal monarchy is a great benefit to Europe.
*****
[Footnote 2301: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien regime et la Revolution." p. 64 and following pages, also p.354 and following pages.—"The Ancient Regime," p. 368.]
[Footnote 2302: "The Revolution," I., book I., especially pp. 16, 17, 55, 61, 62-65. (Laffont I., 326, 354, 357 to 360.)]
[Footnote 2303: "The Ancient Regime," pp.—36-59. (Laff. I. pp. 33-48.)]
[Footnote 2304: Ibid., pp. 72-77. (Laff. I. pp. 59 to 61.)]
[Footnote 2305: Ibid., pp. 78-82. (Laff. I. pp. 50-52)]
[Footnote 2306: Cf. Frederic Masson, "Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. I.]
[Footnote 2307: "The Revolution," I., p. 161 and following pages; II., book VI., ch. I., especially p. 80 and following pages. (Laffont I. 428 to 444, 632 and II 67 to 69.)]
[Footnote 2308: Ibid., I., P.193 and following pages, and p.226 and following pages.(Ed. Laffont. I. 449 to 452, 473 to 481.)]
[Footnote 2309: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 148 (in relation to the institution prefects and sub-prefects): "The perceptible good resulting from this change was the satisfaction arising from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant men, mostly without any merit or shadow of capacity and to who the administration of department and arrondissement had been surrendered for the past ten years. As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest ranks in society, they were only the more disposed to make the weight of their authority felt."]
[Footnote 2310: Guyot, "Repertoire de jurisprudence" (1785), article King: "It is a maxim of feudal law that the veritable ownership of lands, the domain, directum dominium, is vested in the dominant seignior or suzerain. The domain in use, belonging to the vassal or tenant, affords him really no right except to its produce."]
[Footnote 2311: Luchaire," Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers Capetiens," I., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I., Philip I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) "A divine minister."—(Kings are) "servants of the kingdom of God."—"Gird on the ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of the wicked."—"Kings and priests alone, by ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy oils."]
[Footnote 2312: "The Revolution," III., p.94. (Laffont II, p. 75)]
[Footnote 2313: Janssen, "L'Allemagne a la fin du moyen age" (French translation), I., 457. (On the introduction of Roman law into Germany.)—Declaration of the jurists at the Diet of Roncaglia: "Quod principi placuit, legis habet vigorem."—Edict of Frederick I., 1165: "Vestigia praedecessorum suorum, divorum imperatorum, magni Constantini scilicet et Justiniani et Valentini,... sacras eorum leges,... divina oracula.... Quodcumque imperator constituerit, vel cognoscens decreverit, vel edicto praeceperit, legem esse constat."—Frederick II.: "Princeps legibus solutus est."—Louis of Bavaria: "Nos qui sumus supra jus."]
[Footnote 2314: Guyot, ibid., article Regales. "The great 'regales,' majora regalia, are those which belong to the King, jure singulari et proprio, and which are incommunicable to another, considering that they cannot be divorced from the scepter, being the attributes of sovereignty, such as... the making of laws, the interpretation or change of these, the last appeal from the decisions of magistrates, the creation of offices, the declaration of war or of peace,... the coining of money, the augmentation of titles or of values, the imposition of taxes on the subjects,... the exemption of certain persons from these, the award of pardon for crimes,... the creation of nobles, the foundation of universities,... the assembling of the etats-generaux or provinciaux, etc."—Bossuet, "Politique tiree de l'Ecriture sainte": The entire state exists in the person of the prince."—Louis XIV., "aeuvres," I., 50 (to his son): "You should be aware that kings can naturally dispose fully and freely of all possessions belonging as well to persons of the church as to laymen, to make use of at all times with wise economy, that is to say, according to the general requirements of their government."—Sorel, "L'Europe et la Revolution francaise," I., 231 (Letter of the "intendant" Foucault): "It is an illusion, which cannot proceed from anything but blind preoccupation, that of making any distinction between obligations of conscience and the obedience which is due to the King."]
[Footnote 2315: "The Ancient Regime," p.9 and following pages.—"Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de le Marck," II., 74 (Note by Mirabeau, July 3, 1790): "Previous to the present revolution, royal authority was incomplete: the king was compelled to humor his nobles, to treat with the parliaments,, to be prodigal of favors to the court."]
[Footnote 2316: "The Revolution," III., p.318. (Laff.II. p. 237-238).—" The Ancient Regime," p. 10 (Laff. I. 25n.) Speech by the Chancellor Seguier, 1775: "Our kings have themselves declared that they are fortunately powerless to attack property."]
[Footnote 2317: Rousseau's text in the "Contrat Social."—On the meaning and effect of this principle cf "The Revolution," I., 217 and following pages, and III., book VI., ch. I. Laff. 182-186 et II. 47 to 74).]
[Footnote 2318: The opinion, or rather the resignation which confers omnipotence on the central power, goes back to the second half of the fifteenth century, after the Hundred Years' war, and is due to that war; the omnipotence of the king was then the only refuge against the English invaders, and the ravages of the Ecorcheurs.—Cf. Fortescue, "In leges Angliae," and" "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited Monarchy" (end of the fifteenth century), on the difference at this date between the English and the French government.—The same decision is found in the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors of this date: "In France everything is based on the will of the king. Nobody, whatever might be his conscientious scruples, would dare express an opinion opposed to his. The French respect their king to such an extent that they would not only sacrifice their property for him, but again their souls." (Janssen, "L'Allemagne a la fin du moyen age. I. 484.)—As to the passage of the monarchical to the democratic idea, we see it plainly in the following quotations from Restif de la Bretonne: "I entertained no doubt that the king could legally oblige any man to give me his wife or his daughter, and everybody in my village (Sacy in Burgundy) thought so too." ("Monsieur Nicolas," I., 443.)—In relation to the September massacres: "No, I do not pity them, those fanatical priests... When a community or its majority wants anything, it is right. The minority is always culpable, even when right morally. Common sense is that is needed to appreciate that truth. It is indisputable that the nation has the power to sacrifice even an innocent person." ("Nuits de Paris," XVth, p.377.)]
[Footnote 2319: "The Revolution," III., 393. (Laff. II. p. 291)]
[Footnote 2320: "Contrat Social," book 1st, ch. III.: "It is accordingly essential that, for the enunciation of the general will, no special organization should exist in the State, and that the opinion of each citizen should accord with that. Such was the unique and sublime law of the great Lycurgus."]
[Footnote 2321: "The Revolution," I., 170. (Laff. I. 433.)]
[Footnote 2322: Ibid., II., 93; III., 78-82. (Laff. I. p. 632 and II. pp. 65-68.)]
[Footnote 2323: "Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck,"II., 74 (Letter of Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): "Compare the new state of things with the ancient regime.... One portion of the acts of the national assembly (and that the largest) is evidently favorable to monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, then, to have no parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes, no clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body of citizens would have pleased Richelieu: this equalized surface facilitates the exercise of power. Many years of absolute rule could not have done so much for royal authority as this one year of revolution."—Sainte-Beuve, "Port-Royal," V., 25 (M. Harlay conversing with the superieure of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about Port-Royal, about these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever excites talk. Only lately he caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did not approve of the meetings at his house; that there is no objection to his seeing all sorts of people indifferently like everybody else, but why should certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an intimate association among these gentlemen?... The King does not want any rallying point; a headless assemblage in a State is always dangerous."—Ibid., p.33: "The reputation of this establishment was too great. People were anxious to put their children in it. Persons of rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction with it. This provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and who together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not consent to this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State."]
[Footnote 2324: "Napoleon Ire et ses lois civiles," by Honore Perouse, 280: Words of Napoleon: "I have for a long time given a great deal of thought and calculation to the re-establishment of the social edifice. I am to-day obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I have no idea of the French people becoming serfs."—"The prefects are wrong in straining their authority."—"The repose and freedom of citizens should not depend on the exaggeration or arbitrariness of a mere administrator."—"Let authority be felt by the people as little as possible and not bear down on them needlessly."—(Letters of January 15, 1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to Fouche, and of March 6, 1807, to Regnault.)—Thibaudeau, "Memoires sur le Consulat," P. 178 (Words of the first consul before the council of state): "True civil liberty depends on the security of property. In no country can the rate of the tax-payer be changed every year. A man with 3000 francs income does not know how much he will have left to live on the following year; his entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on it... A mere clerk, with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you thousands of francs... Nothing has ever been done in France in behalf of real estate. Whoever has a good law passed on the cadastre (official valuation of all the land in France) will deserve a statue."]
[Footnote 2325: Honore Perouse, Ibid, 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the council of state on the law on mines):" "Myself, with many armies at my disposition, I could not take possession of any one's field, for the violation of the right of property in one case would be violating it in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and hence sacred in fact and by law."—Ibid., 279:" "What is the right of property? It is not only the right of using but, again, of abusing it. ... One must always keep in mind the advantage of owning property. The best protection to the owner of property is the interest of the individual; one may always rely on his activity.... A government makes a great mistake in trying to be too paternal; liberty and property are both ruined by over-solicitude."—"If the government prescribes the way in which property shall be used it no longer exists.".—Ibid., 284 (Letters of Aug.21 and Sept. 7, 1809, on expropriations by public authority): "It is indispensable that the courts should supervise, stop expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners against the enterprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and all other agents.... Expropriation is a judicial proceeding.... I cannot conceive how France can have proprietors if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an administrative decision."—In relation to the ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his jurists. Madame de Stael, "Dix annees d'exil," ch. XVIII. (Napoleon conversing with the tribune Gallois): "Liberty consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care for nothing but property."—"Correspondance," letter to Fouche, Jan. 15, 1805. (This letter gives a good summary of his ideas on government.) "In France, whatever is not forbidden is allowed, and nothing can be forbidden except by the laws, by the courts, or police measures in all matters relating to public order and morality."]
[Footnote 2326: Roederer, "aeuvres completes," III., 339 (Speech by the First Consul, October 21, 1800): "Rank, now, is a recompense for every faithful service—the great advantage of equality, which has converted 20,000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to emulation, into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of 400,000 soldiers."—Lafayette, "Memoires," V., 350: "Under Napoleon, the soldiers said, he has been promoted King of Naples, of Holland, of Sweden, or of Spain, as formerly it was said that a than had been promoted sergeant in this or that company."]
[Footnote 2327: "The Ancient Regime," book I., ch.2, the Structure of Society, especially pp.19-21. (Laff. I. p. 21-22)]
[Footnote 2328: Memorial de Sainte-Helene"—Napoleon, speaking of his imperial organization, said that he had made the most compact government, one with the quickest circulation and the most nervous energy, that ever existed. And, he remarked, nothing but this would have answered in overcoming the immense difficulties around us, and for effecting the wonderful things we accomplished. The organization of prefectures, their action, their results, were admirable and prodigious. The same impulsion affected at the same time more than forty millions of men, and, aided by centers of local activity, the action was as rapid at every extremity as at the heart."]
[Footnote 2329: "The Ancient Regime," book III., chs. 2 and 3. (Laff. I, pp. 139 to 151 and pp. 153 to 172.)]
[Footnote 2330: Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chs. I, 2, 3, and 13.—Duruy, "Histoire des Romains" (illustrated edition), tenth period, chs. 82, 83, 84, and 85; twelfth period, chs. 95 and 99; fourteenth period, ch. 104.—(The reader will find in these two excellent works the texts and monuments indicated to which it is necessary to resort for a direct and satisfactory impression.)]
[Footnote 2331: See in Plutarch (Principles of Political Government) the situation of a Greek city under the Antonines.]
[Footnote 2332: Gibbon, ch. 10.—Duruy, ch. 95. (Decrease of the population of Alexandria under Gallien, according to the registers of the alimentary institution, letter of the bishop Dionysius.)]
[Footnote 2333: "Digest," I., 4, I.: "Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem, utpote, cum lege regia, quae de imperio ejus lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat. Quodcumque igitur imperator per epistolam et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens decrevit, vel de plano interlocutus est, vel edicto praecepit, legis habet vigorem." (Extracts from Ulpian.)—Gaius, Institutes, I., 5: "Quod imperator constituit, non dubium est quin id vicem legis obtineat, quum ipse imperator per legem imperium obtineat."]
[Footnote 2334: "Digest," I, 2. (Extracts from Ulpian): "Jus est a justitia appellatum; nam, ut eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni et aequi. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellat: justitiam namque colimus, et boni et aequi notitiam profitemur, aequum ab iniquo separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes,... veram, nisi fallor, philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes.... Juris praecepta sunt haec: honeste vivere, alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere."—cf. Duruy, 12th period, ch. 87.]
[Footnote 2335: Cf., on this immemorial principle of the entire body of Roman public law, cf. Fustel de Coulanges, "Histoire des institutions politiques et privees de l'ancienne France," vol. I., book II., ch. I, p.66 and following pages.]
[Footnote 2336: Read the "Notitia dignitatum tam civilium quam militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis." It is the imperial almanac for the beginning of the fifth century. There are eleven ministers at the centre, each with his bureaux, divisions, subdivisions and squads of superposed functionaries,]
[Footnote 2337: Cf. Piranesi's engravings.]
[Footnote 2338: Cf., among other clues see Dante's: "De Monarchia".]
[Footnote 2339: We can trace in Napoleon's brain and date the formation of this leading idea. At first, it is simply a classic reminiscence, as with his contemporaries; but suddenly it takes a turn and has an environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which prevents the idea from remaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning he speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May 20, 1796.) "We are the friends of every people, and especially of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great men whom we have chosen as models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place there with honor the statues of heroes who render it famous, to arouse the Roman people benumbed by centuries of slavery, such will be the fruit of our victories."—Fifteen months afterwards, on becoming master of Italy, his historic meditations turn into positive ambition henceforth, the possession of Italy and of the Mediterranean is to be with him a central and preponderant idea. (Letter to the Directory, Aug. 16, 1797, and correspondence on the subject of Corsica, Sardinia, Naples, and Genoa; letters to the pasha of Scutari, to the Maniotes, etc.) "The islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of more interest to us than all Italy put together.... The Turkish empire is daily tottering; the possession of these islands will enable us to support it as long as possible, or to take our portion of it. The time is not remote when we shall feel that, for the real destruction of England, we must get possession of Egypt." Formerly, the Mediterranean was a Roman lake; it must become a French lake. (Cf. "Souvenirs d'un Sexagenaire," by Arnault, vol. IV., p.102, on his dream, in 1798, of making Paris a colossal Rome.)—At this same date, his conception of the State is fixed and wholly Roman. (Conversations with Miot, June 1797, and letter to Talleyrand, Sep. 19, 1797.) "I do not see but one thing in fifty years well defined, and that is the sovereignty of the people.... The organization of the French nation is still only sketched out....The power of the government, with the full latitude I give to it, should be considered as really representing the nation." In this government, "the legislative power, without rank in the republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would not be ambitious and would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance laws, worthless on account of their absurdity." It is evident that he describes in anticipation his future senate and legislative corps.—Repeatedly, the following year, and during the expedition into Egypt, he presents the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views himself as a successor to Scipio and Caesar.—(Proclamation of June 22, 1798.): "Be as tolerant to the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you are for the religion of Moses and Jesus. The Roman legions protected all religions."—(Proclamation of May 10, 1798.) "The Roman legions that you have often imitated but not yet equaled fought Carthage in turn on this wall and in the vicinity of Zama."—Carthage at this time is England: his hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his fleet at Aboukir, which forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which holds on to Malta, which robs him of his substance, his patrimony, his Mediterranean, is that of a Roman consul against Carthage; it leads him to conquer all western Europe against her and to "resuscitate the empire of the Occident." (Note to Otto, his ambassador at London, Oct.. 23, 1802.)—Emperor of the French, king of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain of the Pope, protector of the confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds the German emperors, the titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which has just ended in 1806; he is accordingly the heir of Charlemagne and, through Charlemagne, the heir of the ancient Caesars.—In fact, he reproduces the work of the ancient Caesars by analogies of imagination, situation and character, but in a different Europe, and where this posthumous reproduction can be only an anachronism.]
[Footnote 2340: "Correspondance," note for M. Cretet, minister of the interior, April 12, 1808.]
[Footnote 2341: Metternich, "Memoires," I., 107 (Conversations with Napoleon,, 1810): "I was surprised to find that this man, so wonderfully endowed, had such completely false ideas concerning England, its vital forces and intellectual progress. He would not admit any ideas contrary to his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which he condemned."—Cf. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint-Helena," III., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at Saint-Helena based on his ignorance of the English parliamentary system,) and Stanislas Girardin, III., 296, (Words of the First Consul, Floreal 24, year XI, quoted above.)]
[Footnote 2342: Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King of Westphalia, October 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that kingdom on that date, and especially titles 4 to 12: "The welfare of your people concerns me, not only through the influence it may exercise on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view of the general European system.... Individuals who have talent and are not noble must enjoy equal consideration and employment from you. ... Let every species of serfage and of intermediary lien between the sovereign and the lowest class of people be abolished. The benefits of the code Napoleon, the publicity of proceedings, the establishment of juries, will form so many distinctive characteristics of your monarchy."—His leading object is the suppression of feudalism, that is to say, of the great families and old historic authorities. He relies for this especially on his civil code: "That is the great advantage of the code;... it is what has induced me to preach a civil code and made me decide on establishing it." (Letter to Joseph, King of Naples, June 5, 1806.)—"The code Napoleon is adopted throughout Italy. Florence has it, and Rome will soon have it." (Letter to Joachim, King of the Two Sicilies, Nov. 27, 1808.)—"My intention is to have the Hanseatic towns adopt the code Napoleon and be governed by it from and after the 1st of January."—The same with Dantzic: "Insinuate gently and not by writing to the King of Bavaria, the Prince-primate, the grand-dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt and of Baden, that the civil code should be established in their states by suppressing all customary law and confining themselves wholly to the code Napoleon." (Letter to M. de Champagny, Oct. 31, 1807.)—"The Romans gave their laws to their allies. Why should not France have its laws adopted in Holland?... It is equally essential that you should adopt the French monetary system." (Letter to Louis, King of Holland, Nov. 13, 1807.)—To the Spaniards: "Your nephews will honor me as their regenerator." (Allocution addressed to Madrid Dec. 9, 1808.)—"Spain must be French. The country must be French and the government must be French." (Roederer, III., 529, 536, words of Napoleon, Feb. 11, 1809.)—In short, following the example of Rome, which had Latinized the entire Mediterranean coast, he wanted to render all western Europe French. The object was, as he declared, "to establish and consecrate at last the empire of reason and the full exercise, the complete enjoyment of every human faculty." (Memorial.)]
BOOK THIRD. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM.
CHAPTER I. RECOVERY OF SOCIAL ORDER.
I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.
How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people.—His maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of government.—Two groups of prominent and obvious desires in 1799.
However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for him that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. As he lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants first of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants. But these needs must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he is as accurate as he is shrewd, and deals only with positive facts.
"My political system," says he to the Council of State,[3101] "is to rule men as the mass want to be ruled... By constituting myself a Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendee; by turning into a Moslem I established myself in Egypt: by turning ultramontane[3102] I gained over the priests in Italy. Were I to govern a population of Jews, I would restore the temple of Solomon. I shall speak just in this fashion about liberty in the free part of St. Domingo; I shall confirm slavery in the Ile-de-France and even in the slave section of St. Domingo, with the reservation of diminishing and limiting slavery where I maintain it, and of restoring order and keeping up discipline where I maintain freedom. I think that is the way to recognize the sovereignty of the people."
"Now, in France, at this epoch, there are two groups of preponderant desires which evidently outweigh all others, one dating back the past ten years, and the other for a century or more: the question is how to satisfy these, and the sagacious constructor, who estimates them for what they are worth, combines to this end the proportions, plan, arrangement, and entire interior economy of his edifice.
II. The Revolution Ends.
Necessities dating from the Revolution.—Lack of security for Persons, Property, and Consciences.—Requisite conditions for the establishment of order.—End of Civil war, Brigandage, and Anarchy.—Universal relief and final security.
The first of these two needs is urgent, almost physical. For the last ten years, the government has not done its duty, or has ruled in a contrary sense. By turns or at the same time its impotence and injustice have been deplorable. It has committed or allowed too many outrages on persons, property, and consciences. All in all the Revolution did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is the loud and unanimous outcry vibrating in all hears.[3103]—To calm things down, many novelties are required: To start with, the political and administrative concentration just described, a centralization of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the central power, and, to exercise this supreme power a resolute chief, equal in intelligence to his high position. Next, a regularly paid army,[3104] carefully equipped, properly clothed and fed, strictly disciplined and therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or faltering, like any other instrument of precision. An active police force and gendarmerie kept on a tight rein. Administrators independent of those under their jurisdiction, and judges independent of those due to be tried. All appointed, maintained, watched, and restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent, and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries. Finally, freedom of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of the Catholic Church, that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox hierarchy and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as legitimate, in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and of priests by the bishops.
This done, the rest is easily accomplished. A well-led army corps marches along and tramples out the embers of the conflagration now kindling in the West, while religious toleration extinguishes the smoldering fires of popular insurrection. Henceforth, there is an end to civil war.[3105] Regiments ready to act in harmony with the military commissions[3106] purge the South and the valley of the Rhone; thenceforth, there are no more roving bands in the rural districts, while brigandage on a grand scale, constantly repressed, ceases, and after this, that on a small scale. No more chouans, chauffeurs, or barbets;[3107] The mail-coach travels without a guard, and the highways are safe.[3108] There is longer any class or category of citizens oppressed or excluded from the common law, the latest Jacobin decrees and the forced loan have been at once revoked: noble or plebeian, ecclesiastic or layman, rich or poor, former emigre or former terrorist, every man, whatever his past, his condition, or his opinions, now enjoys his private property and his legal rights; he has no longer to fear the violence of the opposite party; he may relay on the protection of the authorities,[3109] and on the equity of the magistrates.[3110] So long as he respects the law he can go to bed at night and sleep tranquilly with the certainty of awaking in freedom on the morrow, and with the certainty of doing as he pleases the entire day; with the privilege of working, buying, selling, thinking, amusing himself,[3111] going and coming at his pleasure, and especially of going to mass or of staying away if he chooses. No more jacqueries either rural or urban, no more proscriptions or persecutions and legal or illegal spoliations, no more intestine and social wars waged with pikes or by decrees, no more conquests and confiscations made by Frenchmen against each other. With universal and unutterable relief people emerge from the barbarous and anarchical regime which reduced them to living from one day to another, and return to the pacific and regular regime which permits them to count on the morrow and make provision for it. After ten years of harassing subjection to the incoherent absolutism of unstable despotism, here, for the first time, they find a rational and stable government, or, at least, a reasonable, tolerable, and fixed degree of it. The First Consul is carrying out his declarations and he has declared that "The Revolution has ended."[3112]
III. Return of the Emigres.
Lasting effect of revolutionary laws.—Condition of the Emigres.—Progressive and final amnesty.—They return.—They recover a portion of their possessions.—Many of them enter the new hierarchy.—Indemnities for them incomplete.
The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds it has made and which are still bleeding, with as little torture as possible, for it has cut down to the quick, and its amputations, whether foolish or outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social organism.
One hundred and ninety-two thousand names have been inscribed on the list of emigres[3113] the terms of the law, every emigre is civilly dead, and his possessions have become the property of the Republic;" if he dared return to France, the same law condemned him to death; there could be no appeal, petition, or respite; it sufficed to prove identity and the squad of executioners was at once ordered out. Now, at the beginning of the Consulate, this murderous law is still in force; summary proceedings are always applicable,[3114] and one hundred and forty-six thousand names still appear on the mortuary list. This constitutes a loss to France of 146,000 Frenchmen, and not those of the least importance—gentlemen, army and navy officers, members of parliaments, priests, prominent men of all classes, conscientious Catholics, liberals of 1789, Feuillantists of the Legislative assembly, and Constitutionalists of the years III and V. Worse still, through their poverty or hostility abroad, they are a discredit or even a danger for France, as formerly with the Protestants driven out of the country by Louis XIV.[3115]—To these 146,000 exiled Frenchmen add 200,000 or 300,000 others, residents, but semi-proscribed:[3116] First, those nearly related and allied to each emigre, excluded by the law from "every legislative, administrative, municipal and judicial function," and even deprived of the elective vote. Next, all former nobles or ennobled, deprived by the law of their status as Frenchmen and obliged to re-naturalize themselves according to the formalities.
It is, accordingly, almost the entire elite of old France which is wanting in the new France, like a limb violently wrenched and half-detached by the unskillful and brutal scalpel of the revolutionary "sawbones"; for both the organ and the body are not only living, but they are still feverish and extremely sensitive; it is important to avoid too great irritation; inflammation of any kind would be dangerous. A skilful surgeon, therefore, must mark the places for the stitches, not force the junctures, but anticipate and prepare for the final healing process, and await the gradual and slow results of vital effort and spontaneous renewal. Above all he must not alarm the patient. The First Consul is far from doing this; on the contrary his expressions are all encouraging. Let the patient keep quiet, there shall be no re-stitching, the wound shall not be touched. The constitution solemnly declares that the French people shall never allow the return of the emigres,[3117] and, on this point, the hands of future legislators are already tied fast; it prohibits any exception being added to the old ones.—But, first, by virtue of the same constitution, every Frenchman not an emigre or banished has the right to vote, to be elected, to exercise every species of public function; consequently, twelve days later,[3118] a mere order of the Council of State restores civil and political rights to former nobles and the ennobled, to the kinsmen and relations of emigres, to all who have been dubbed emigres of the interior and whom Jacobin intolerance had excluded, if not from the territory, at least from the civic body: here are 200,000 or 300,000 Frenchmen already brought back into political communion if not to the soil.—They had succumbed to the coup-d'etat of Fructidor; naturally, the leading fugitives or those transported, suffering under the same coup-d'etat, were restored to political rights along with them and thus to the territory—Carnot, Barthelemy, Lafont-Ladebat, Simeon, Poissy d'Anglas, Mathieu Dumas, in all thirty-nine, designated by name;[3119] very soon after. Through a simple extension of the same resolution, others of the Fructidor victims, a crowd of priests huddled together and pining away on the Ile-de-Re, the most unfortunate and most inoffensive of all.[3120]—Two months later, a law declares that the list of emigres is definitely closed;[3121] a resolution orders immediate investigation into the claims of those who are to be struck off the list; a second resolution strikes off the first founders of the new order of things, the members of the National Assembly "who voted for the establishment of equality and the abolition of nobility;" and, day after day, new erasures succeed each other, all specific and by name, under cover of toleration, pardon, and exception:[3122] on the 19th of October 1800, there are already 1200 of them. Bonaparte, at this date, had gained the battle of Marengo; the surgical restorer feels that his hands are more free; he can operate on a larger scale and take in whole bodies collectively. On the 20th of October 1800, a resolution strikes off entire categories from the list, all whose condemnation is too grossly unjust or malicious,[3123] at first, minors under sixteen and the wives of emigres; next, farmers, artisans, workmen, journeymen and servants with their wives and children and at last 18,000 ecclesiastics who, banished by law, left the country only in obedience to the law. Besides these, "all individuals inscribed collectively and without individual denomination," those already struck off, but provisionally, by local administrations; also still other classes. Moreover, a good many emigrants, yet standing on the lists, steal back one by one into France, and the government tolerates them.[3124] Finally, eighteen months later, after the peace of Amiens and the Concord at,[3125] a senatus-consulte ends the great operation; an amnesty relieves all who are not yet struck off, except the declared leaders of the militant emigration, its notables, and who are not to exceed one thousand; the rest may come back and enjoy their civic rights; only, they must promise "loyalty to the government established under the constitution and not maintain directly or indirectly any connection or correspondence with the enemies of the State." On this condition the doors of France are thrown open to them and they return in crowds.
But their bodily presence is not of itself sufficient; it is moreover essential that they should not be absent in feeling, as strangers and merely domiciliated in the new society. Were these mutilated fragments of old France, these human shreds put back in their old places, simply attached or placed in juxtaposition to modern France, they would prove useless, troublesome and even mischievous. Let us strive, then, to have them grafted on afresh through adherence or complete fusion; and first, to effect this, they must not be allowed to die of inanition; they must take root physically and be able to live. In private life, how can former proprietors, the noblesse, the parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie, support themselves, especially those without a profession or pursuit, and who, before 1789, maintained themselves, not by their labor, but by their income? Once at home, they can no longer earn their living as they did abroad; they can no longer give lessons in French, in dancing, or in fencing.—There is no doubt but that the senatus-consulte which amnesties them restores to them a part of their unsold possessions;[3126] but most of these are sold and, on the other hand, the First Consul, who is not disposed to re-establish large fortunes for royalists,[3127] retains and maintains the largest portion of what they have been despoiled of in the national domain: all woods and forests of 300 arpents[3128] and over, their stock and property rights in the great canals, and their personal property already devoted to the public service. The effective restitution is therefore only moderate; the emigres who return recover but little more than one-twentieth of their patrimony, one hundred millions[3129] out of more than two milliards. Observe, besides, that by virtue even of the law and as admitted by the First Consul,[3130] this alms is badly distributed; the most needy and the greatest number remain empty-handed, consisting of the lesser and medium class of rural proprietors, especially of country gentlemen whose domain, worth less than 50,000 francs, brings in only 2000 or 3000 francs income;[3131] a domain of this size came within reach of a great many purses, and hence found purchasers more readily and with greater facility than a large holding; the State was almost always the seller, and thenceforth the old proprietor could make no further claim or pretension.—Thus, for many of the emigres, "the senatus-consulte of the year X is simply a permit to starve to death in France "and,[3132] four years later,[3133] Napoleon himself estimates that "40,000 are without the means of subsistence." They manage to keep life and soul together and nothing more;[3134] many, taken in and cared for by their friends or relations, are supported as guests or parasites, somewhat through compassion and again on humanitarian grounds. One recovers his silver plate, buried in a cellar; another finds notes payable to bearer, forgotten in an old chest. Sometimes, the purchaser of a piece of property, an honest man, gives it back at the price he paid for it, or even gratis, if, during the time he had held it, he had derived sufficient profit from it. Occasionally, when the adjudication happens to have been fraudulent, or the sale too irregular, and subject to legal proceedings, the dishonest purchaser does not refuse a compromise. But these cases are rare, and the evicted owner, if he desires to dine regularly, will wisely seek a small remunerative position and serve as clerk, book-keeper or accountant. M. des Echerolles, formerly a brigadier-general, keeps the office of the new line of diligences at Lyons, and earns 1200 francs a year. M. de Puymaigre, who, in 1789, was worth two millions, becomes a controleur des droits reunis at Briey with a salary of 2400 francs.—In every branch of the new administration a royalist is welcome to apply for a post;[3135] however slightly recommended, he obtains the place. Sometimes he even receives one without having asked for it; M. de Vitrolles[3136] thus becomes, in spite of himself, inspector of the imperial sheepfolds; this fixes his position and makes it appear as if he had given in his adhesion to the government.—Naturally, the great political recruiter singles out the tallest and most imposing subjects, that is to say, belonging to the first families of the ancient monarchy, and, like one who knows his business, he brings to bear every means, constraint and seduction, threats and cajoleries, supplies in ready money, promises of promotion with the influence of a uniform and gold-lace embroidery.[3137] It matters little whether the enlistment is voluntary or extorted; the moment a man becomes a functionary and is enrolled in the hierarchy, he loses the best portion of his independence; once a dignitary and placed at the top of the hierarchy, he gives his entire individuality up, for henceforth he lives under the eye of the master, feels the daily and direct pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and he forcibly becomes a mere tool.[3138] These historic names, moreover, contribute to the embellishment of the reign. Napoleon hauls in a good many of them, and the most illustrious among the old noblesse, of the court of the robe and of the sword. He can enumerate among his magistrates, M. Pasquier, M. Seguier, M. Mole; among his prelates, M. de Boisgelin, M. du Barral, M. du Belley, M. de Roquelaure, M. de Broglie; among his military officers, M. de Fezensac, M. de Segur, M. de Mortemart, M. de Narbonne;[3139] among the dignitaries of his palace, chaplains, chamberlains and ladies of honor—the Rohan, Croy, Chevreuse, Montmorency, Chabot, Montesquiou, Noailles, Brancas, Gontaut, Grammont, Beauvau, Saint-Aignan, Montalembert, Haussonville, Choiseul-Praslin, Mercy d'Argenteau, Aubusson de la Feuillade, and many others, recorded in the imperial almanac as formerly in the royal almanac.
But they are only with him nominally and in the almanac. Except certain individuals, M. de las Cases and M. Philippe de Segur, who gave themselves up body and soul, even to following him to Saint Helena, to glorifying, admiring and loving him beyond the grave, the others are submissive conscripts and who remain more or less refractory spirits. He does nothing to win them over. His court is not, like the old court, a conversational ball-room, but a hall of inspection, the most sumptuous apartment in his vast barracks; the civil parade is a continuation of the military parade; one finds one's self constrained, stiff, mute and uncomfortable.[3140]
He does not know how to entertain as the head of his household, how to welcome guests and be gracious or even polite to his pretended courtiers; he himself declares that[3141] "they go two years without speaking to him, and six months without seeing him; he does not like them, their conversation displeases him." When he addresses them it is to browbeat them; his familiarities with their wives are those of the gendarme or the pedagogue, while the little attentions he inflicts upon them are indecorous criticisms or compliments in bad taste. They know that they are spied upon in their own homes and responsible for whatever is said there; "the upper police is constantly hovering over all drawing-rooms."[3142] For every word uttered in privacy, for any lack of compliance, every individual, man or woman, runs the risk of exile or of being relegated to the interior at a distance of forty leagues.[3143] And the same with the resident gentry in the provinces; they are obliged to pay court to the prefect, to be on good terms with him, or at least attend his receptions; it is important that their cards should be seen on his mantel piece.[3144] Otherwise, let them take heed, for it is he who reports on their conduct to the minister Fouche or to Savary who replaced him. In vain do they live circumspectly and confine themselves to a private life; a refusal to accept an office is unpardonable; there is a grudge against them if they do not employ their local influence in behalf of the reign.[3145] Accordingly, they are, under the empire as under the republic, in law as in fact, in the provinces as well as at Paris, privileged persons the wrong way, a suspicious class under a special surveillance" and subject to exceptional rigor.[3146] In 1808,[3147] Napoleon orders Fouche "to draw up ... among the old and wealthy families who are not in the system... a list of ten in each department, and of fifty for Paris," of which the sons from sixteen to eighteen years of age shall be forced to enter Saint-Cyr and from thence go into the army as second lieutenants. In 1813, still "in the highest classes of society," and arbitrarily selected by the prefects, he takes ten thousand other persons, exempt or redeemed from the conscription, even the married, even fathers of families, who, under the title of guards of honor, become soldiers, at first to be slaughtered in his service, and next, and in the mean time, to answer for the fidelity of their relatives. It is the old law of hostages, a resumption of the worst proceedings of the Directory for his account and aggravated for his profit.—Decidedly, the imperial Regime, for the old royalists, resembles too much the Jacobin regime; they are about as repugnant to one as to the other, and their aversion naturally extends to the whole of the new society.—As they comprehend it, they are more or less robbed and oppressed for a quarter of a century. In order that their hostility may cease, the indemnity of 1825 is essential, fifty years of gradual adaptation, the slow elimination of two or three generations of fathers and the slow elimination of two or three generations of sons.
Nothing is so difficult as the reparation of great social wrongs. In this case the incomplete reparation did not prove sufficient; the treatment which began with gentleness ended with violence, and, as a whole, the operation only half succeeded.
IV. Education and Medical Care.
Confiscation of collective fortunes.—Ruin of the Hospitals and Schools.
Other wounds are not less deep, and their cure is not less urgent; for they cause suffering, not only to one class, but to the whole people—that vast majority which the government strives to satisfy. Along with the property of the emigres, the Revolution has confiscated that of all local or special societies, ecclesiastic or laic, of churches and congregations, universities and academies, schools and colleges, asylums and hospitals, and even the property of the communes. All these fortunes have been swallowed up by the public treasury, which is a bottomless pit, and are gone forever.—Consequently, all services thus maintained, especially charitable institutions, public worship and education, die or languish for lack of sustenance; the State, which has no money for itself, has none for them. And what is worse, it hinders private parties from taking them in charge; being Jacobin, that is to say intolerant and partisan, it has proscribed worship, driven nuns out of the hospitals, closed Christian schools, and, with its vast power, it prevents others from carrying out at their own expense the social enterprises which it no longer cares for.
And yet the needs for which this work provides have never been so great nor so imperative. In ten years,[3148] the number of foundlings increased from 23,000 to 62,000; it is, as the reports state, a deluge: there are 1097 instead of 400 in Aisne, 1500 in Lot-et-Garonne, 2035 in la Manche, 2043 in Bouches-du-Rhone, 2673 in Calvados. From 3000 to 4000 beggars are enumerated in each department and about 300,000 in all France.[3149] As to the sick, the infirm, the mutilated, unable to earn their living, it suffices, for an idea of their multitude, to consider the regime to which the political doctors have just subjected France, the Regime of fasting and bloodletting. Two millions of Frenchmen have marched under the national flag, and eight hundred thousand have died under it;[3150] among the survivors, how many cripples, how many with one arm and with wooden legs! All Frenchmen have eaten dog-bread for three years and often have not had enough of that to live on; over a million have died of starvation and poverty; all the wealthy and well-to-do Frenchmen have been ruined and have lived in constant fear of the guillotine; four hundred thousand have wasted away in prisons; of the survivors, how many shattered constitutions, how many bodies and brains disordered by an excess of suffering and anxiety, by physical and moral wear and tear![3151]
Now, in 1800, assistance is lacking for this crowd of civil and military invalids, the charitable establishments being no longer in a condition to furnish it. Under the Constituent Assembly, through the suppression of ecclesiastical property and the abolition of octrois, a large portion of their revenue had been cut off, that assigned to them out of octrois and the tithes. Under the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, through the dispersion and persecution of nuns and monks, they were deprived of a body of able male and female volunteer servants who, instituted for centuries, gave their labor without stint. Under the Convention, all their possessions, the real-estate and the debts due them, had been confiscated;[3152] and, in the restitution to them of the remainder at the end of three years, a portion of their real-estate is found to have been sold, while their claims, settled by assignats or converted into state securities, had died out or dwindled to such an extent that, in 1800, after the final bankruptcy of the assignats and of the state debt, the ancient patrimony of the poor is two-thirds or one-half reduced.[3153] It is for this reason that the eight hundred charitable institutions which, in 1789, had one hundred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand occupants, could not support more than one-third or one-half of them; on the other hand, it may be estimated that the number of applicants tripled; from which it follows that, in 1800, there is less than one bed in the hospitals and asylums for six children, either sick or infirm.
V. Old and New.
Complaints of the Poor, of Parents, and of Believers. —Contrast between old and new educational facilities. —Clandestine instruction.—Jacobin teachers.
Under this wail of the wretched who vainly appeal for help, for nursing and for beds, another moan is heard, not so loud, but more extensive, that of parents unable to educate their children, boys or girls, and give them any species of instruction either primary or secondary.
Previous to the Revolution "small schools" were innumerable: in Normandy, Picardy, Artois, French Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, in the Ile-de-France, in Burgundy and Franche-Comte, in the Dombes, Dauphiny and Lyonnais, in the Comtat, in the Cevennes and in Bearn,[3154] almost as many schools could be counted as there were parishes, in all probably twenty or twenty-five thousand for the thirty-seven thousand parishes in France, and all frequented and serviceable; for, in 1789, forty-seven men out of a hundred, and twenty-six girls or women out of a hundred, could read and write or, at least, sign their names.[3155]—And these schools cost the treasury nothing, next to nothing to the tax-payer, and very little to parents. In many places, the congregations, supported by their own property, furnished male or female teachers,—Freres de la Doctrine Chretienne, Freres de Saint-Antoine, Ursulines, Visitandines, Filles de la Charite, Saeurs de Saint-Charles, Saeurs de la Providence, Saeurs de la Sagesse, Saeurs de Notre-Dame de la Croix, Vatelottes, Miramiones, Manettes du Tiers Ordre, and many others. Elsewhere, the curate of the parish was obliged through a parish regulation to teach himself, or to see that his vicar taught. A very large number of factories or of communes had received legacies for maintaining a school; the instructor often enjoyed, through an endowment, a metayer farm or a piece of ground; he was generally provided with a lodging; if he was a layman he was exempt, besides, from the most onerous taxes; as sexton, beadle, chorister or bell-ringer, he had small perquisites; finally, he was paid for each child four or five sous[3156] a month; sometimes, especially in poor districts, he taught only from All Saints' day down to the spring, and followed another occupation during the summer. In short, his salary and his comfort were about those of a rural vicar or of a suitably paid curate.
Higher education (education secondaire) was provided for in the same manner, and still better by local and private enterprise. More than one hundred and eight establishments furnished it completely, and more than four hundred and fifty-four partially.[3157] Like the others, and not less liberally than the smaller schools, these were supported by endowments, some of which were very ample and even magnificent; a certain upper school in the provinces, Rodez,[3158] possessed twenty-seven thousand livres income, and one in Paris, Louis-le-Grand, an income of four hundred and fifty thousand livres, each of these, large or small, having its own distinct endowment, in real property, lands and houses, and in revenues on privileges derived from the hotel-de-ville, the octroi and from transportation lines.—And, in each of them, the scholarships, or half-scholarships, were numerous-six hundred alone in Louis-le-Grand. In total, out of the seventy-two thousand scholars in the kingdom, there were forty thousand for whom a high-school education was gratuitous or half-gratuitous; nowadays, it is less than five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand.[3159] The reason why is that, before 1789, the revenues were not only large, but the expenses were small. The salary of a head-master, teacher, or assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred and fifty, six hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred livres per annum at most, just enough for a single man to live on; in effect, most of the teachers were priests or monks, Benedictines, regular canons, Oratorians, the latter alone officiating in thirty colleges. Not subject to the expenses and necessities which a family imposes, they were abstemious through piety, or at least through discipline, habit, and respect for persons; frequently, the statutes of the school obliged them to live in common,[3160] which was much cheaper than living apart.—The same economical accord is found with all the wheels, in the arrangement and working of the entire system. A family, even a rural one, never lived far away from a high-school, for there were high-schools in nearly all the small towns, seven or eight in each department, fifteen in Ain, seventeen in Aisne.[3161] The child or youth, from eight to eighteen, had not to endure the solitude and promiscuity of a civil barracks; he remained within reach of his parents. If they were too poor to pay the three hundred francs board required by the school, they placed their son in a respectable family, in that of some artisan or acquaintance in the town; there, with three or four others, he was lodged, had his washing done, was cared for and watched, had a seat at the family table and by the fireside, and was provided with light; every week, he received from the country his supply of bread and other provisions; the mistress of the house cooked for him and mended his clothes, the whole for two or three livres a month.[3162]—Thus do institutions flourish that arise spontaneously on the spot; they adapt themselves to circumstances, conform to necessities, utilize resources and afford the maximum of returns for the minimum of expense.
This great organization disappears entirely, bodily and with all its possessions, like a ship that sinks beneath the waves. The teachers are dismissed, exiled, transported, and proscribed; its property is confiscated, sold and destroyed, and the remainder in the hands of the State is not restored and again applied to its former service. Public education, worse treated than public charity, does not recover a shred of its former endowment. Consequently, in the last years of the Directory, and even early in the Consulate,[3163] there is scarcely any instruction given in France; in fact, for the past eight or nine years it has ceased,[3164] or become private and clandestine. Here and there, a few returned priests, in spite of the intolerant law and with the connivance of the local authorities, also a few scattered nuns, teach in a contraband fashion a few small groups of Catholic children; five or six little girls around a disguised Ursuline nun spell out the alphabet in a back room;[3165] a priest without tonsure or cassock secretly receives in the evening two or three youths whom he makes translate the De Viris.—During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign of Terror, before the 13th of Vendemiaire and the 18th of Fructidor, sundry schools spring up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-ground, but only in certain spots and meagerly; moreover, as soon as the Jacobin returns to power he stubbornly stamps them out;[3166] he wants to have teaching all to himself.—Now the institution by which the State pretends to replace the old and free establishments makes a figure only on paper. One ecole centrale in each department is installed or decreed, making eighty eight on the territory of ancient France; this hardly supplies the place of the eight or nine hundred high-schools (colleges), especially as these new schools are hardly viable, being in ruin at the very start,[3167] poorly maintained, badly furnished, with no preparatory schools nor adjacent boarding-houses,[3168] the programme of studies being badly arranged and parents suspicious of the spirit of the studies.[3169] Thus, there is little or no attendance at most of the courses of lectures; only those on mathematics are followed, particularly on drawing, and especially mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably by the future surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building contractors and a few aspirants to the Ecole Polytechnique. As to the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral sciences, as comprehended by the Republic and imposed by it, these obtain not over a thousand auditors in all France; instead of 72,000 pupils, only 7000 or 8000 seek superior education, while six out of seven, instead of seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some practical pursuit.[3170]
It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally shirk this duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[3171] On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost everywhere,"[3172] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin, some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust their children with him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the reason is that, in 1800, Jacobin and scoundrel have become synonymous terms. Henceforth, parents desire that their children should learn to read in the catechism and not in the declaration of rights:[3173] as they view it, the old manual formed polite and civilized youths and respectful sons; the new one forms only insolent rascals and precocious, slovenly blackguards.[3174] Consequently, the few primary schools in which the Republic has placed its people and imposed its educational system remain three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors of those in which other masters teach with other books; fathers persist in their repugnance and distaste; they prefer for their sons utter ignorance to unsound instruction.[3175]—A secular establishment, created and provided for by twenty generations of benefactors, gave gratis, or at a much lower rate, the first crumbs of intellectual food to more than 1,200,000 children.[3176] It was demolished; in its place, a few improvised and wretched barracks distributed here and there a small ration of moldy and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur, a long time suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that of parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in any event, they demand that their sons and daughters be no longer forced, under penalty of fasting, to consume the patent flour of the State, that is to say a nauseous, unsatisfactory, badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on trial, proves offensive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach.
VI. Religion
The Spirit and Ministrations of Catholicism.—How the Revolution develops a sense of this.
Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls in which regret for their established church and forms of worship still subsists or is revived.
In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus, let these be attacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating flesh suffers through the sensitive skin.—In Catholicism, this skin is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not alone through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation and custom, but again through a special organic attachment, consisting of dogmatic doctrine; theology, in its articles of belief, has here set up the absolute necessity of the sacraments and of the priesthood; consequently, between the superficial and central divisions of religion the union is complete. The Catholic sacraments, therefore, are not merely symbols; they possess in themselves "an efficacious power, a sanctifying virtue." "That which they represent, they really work out."[3177] If I am denied access to them, I am cut off from the fountains to which my soul resorts to drink in grace, pardon, purity, health and salvation. If my children cannot be regularly baptized, they are not Christians; if extreme unction cannot be administered to my dying mother, she sets out on the long journey without the viaticum; if I am married by the mayor only, my wife and I live in concubinage; if I cannot confess my sins, I am not absolved from them, and my burdened conscience seeks in vain for the helping hand which will ease the too heavy load; if I cannot perform my Easter duties, my spiritual life is a failure; the supreme and sublime act by which it perfects itself through the mystic union of my body and soul with the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, is wanting.—Now, none of these sacraments are valid if they have not been conferred by a priest, one who bears the stamp of a superior, unique, ineffaceable character, through a final sacrament consisting of ordination and which is conferred only on certain conditions; among other conditions, it is essential that this priest should have been ordained by a bishop; among other conditions, it is essential that this bishop[3178] should have been installed by the Pope. Consequently, without the Pope there are no bishops; without bishops no priests; without priests no sacraments; without the sacraments no salvation. The ecclesiastical institution is therefore indispensable to the believer. The canonical priesthood, the canonical hierarchy is necessary to him for the exercise of his faith.—He must have yet more, if fervent and animated with true old Christian sentiment, ascetic and mystic, which separates the soul from this world and ever maintains it in the presence of God. Several things are requisite to this end: |
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