Already the night expeditions, intended to exercise the sailors and inure the soldiers, had commenced; the ardor of the chief spread to the army. On the 7th of January, 1804, the minister of marine wrote from Boulogne to the First Consul: "In the flotilla they are beginning to believe firmly that the departure will be more immediate than is generally supposed, and they have promised to prepare seriously for it. They shake off all thoughts of danger, and each man sees only Caesar and his fortunes. The ideas of all the subalterns do not pass the limits of the roadstead and its currents. They argue about the wind, and the anchorage, and the line of bearing. As for the crossing, that is your affair. You know more about it than they do, and your eyes are worth more than their telescopes. They have implicit faith in everything that you do. The admiral himself is in just the same condition. He has never presented you any plan, because in fact he has none. Besides, you have not yet asked him for it; it will be the moment of execution which will decide him. Very possibly he will be obliged to sacrifice a hundred vessels to draw down the enemy upon them, whilst the rest, setting out at the moment of the defeat of the others, will go across without hindrance."

The First Consul, ceasingly watching the sea which protected his enemies, wrote to Cambaceres on November 16th: "I have passed these three days in the midst of the camp and the port. I have seen from the heights of Ambleteuse the coasts of England, as one sees the Calvaire from the Tuileries. You can distinguish the houses, and the movements going on. It is a ditch, which shall be crossed as soon as we shall have the audacity to attempt it."

So many preparations, pushed forward with such ardor, disquieted England. The most illustrious of her naval officers—Nelson, Lord Cornwallis, and Lord Keith—were ordered to blockade the French ports, and hinder the return of distant squadrons. Everywhere corps of volunteers were formed, and actively exercised on the coasts. Men of considerable note in the political or legal world—Pitt and Addington, as well as the great lords and the great judges—clothed themselves in uniform, and commanded regiments. Pitt proposed to fortify London. Insurrectionary movements were being fomented in Ireland; the French squadron at Brest was destined to aid them.

In the midst of this warlike and patriotic agitation, it was only natural that the excitement should gain a party, naturally restless and credulous. The French emigrants could not but feel a desire for action, in the hope of taking an active part in the general struggle waged against the enemy who kept them far from their country by the very fact of his existence and his power. The First Consul had offered an amnesty to all the emigrants, restored their property to some, and attracted a certain number of them round his own person; he had recalled the priests, and re-established the Catholic religion; but he had repelled the advances of the House of Bourbon. His hostility to the restoration of the monarchy had always been flagrant; the throne might be re-erected, but it should be for his own profit. He alone was the obstacle to the hopes cherished by the exiled princes and their friends, in presence of the re-establishment of order and the public prosperity. Delivered from his yoke, that pressed heavily upon her, France would salute with enthusiasm the return of her legitimate sovereign.

It was in England even, and amongst the circle that surrounded the Count d'Artois, that expression was given to these hopes and ignorant illusions as to the true state of men's minds in France. The Princes of the House of Conde, recently enrolled with their little army in the service of England, held themselves ready to fight, without conspiring. Louis XVIII. lived in Germany, withdrawn from the centre of warlike preparations; he was cold, sensible, and prudent; he thought little of plots, and had a healthier judgment than his brother as to the chances which might restore his fortune. The actual resources, the noisy agents of the emigration, were collected in England: there were found the chiefs of the Chouans, with Georges Cadoudal at their head; there dwelt the generals who had had the misfortune to abandon their country or betray their honor—Willot, Dumouriez, Pichegru; there were hatched chimerical projects, impressed from the first with the fatal errors and the terrible ignorance which doom to inevitable sterility the hopes and the efforts of exiles.

By his counsels, or his orders, Georges Cadoudal had taken part in the plot which had been discovered in 1801. After the failure of the infernal machine of St. Rejant he had felt regret, and some repugnance, for such proceedings. He proposed to go to Paris, with twenty or twenty-five resolute men, to attack the guard of the First Consul while he passed along the street, and strike him in the midst of his defenders. In order to profit by this bold stroke intrigues were to be carried on beforehand with discontented generals, who might be able to dispose the forces necessary for the sudden overthrow of the consular government. Bonaparte dead, the Count d'Artois and his son the Duc de Berry, secretly brought into France, would rally their friends round them, and proclaim the restoration of the House of Bourbon.

Two principal actors were indispensable to the execution of the project; Georges at Paris, unknown to the prying police of the First Consul; and General Moreau, favorable to the fall of Bonaparte, if not to his assassination. A nearly complete rupture had succeeded to the professed regard which for a long time covered the secret jealousy of the First Consul with respect to his glorious companion-in-arms. At the summit of his power and glory, Napoleon Bonaparte was never exempt from a recollection of rivalry with regard to the former chiefs of the republican army, his old rivals, and who had not bowed before the prestige of his recognized superiority. He liked neither Kleber, nor Massena, nor Gouvion St. Cyr. As regards Moreau, he experienced a concealed uneasiness; it was the only military name that had been mentioned as that of a possible successor to himself. Wounded susceptibilities, and the quarrels of women, had aggravated a situation naturally delicate and strained. Moreau was spirited as well as modest; he felt himself injured; he dwelt in the country, living in grand style, sought after by the discontented, and speaking of Bonaparte without much reserve. The emigrant conspirators believed that circumstances were favorable for engaging him in their plans. General Pichegru had formerly been his friend. Moreau had long concealed the proofs of the former treason; perhaps he regretted having given them up at the moment of his comrade's just disgrace: he was known to be favorable to the return of Pichegru to France. It was in the name of Pichegru, and for his interests, that Moreau was to be approached. The first agent sent to Moreau was soon arrested; he has said in his "Memoires," "Moreau would have nothing to do with conspiracy, and said, 'he must cease to waste men and things.'" Other emissaries had no better success. An active intriguer, General Lajolais, an old friend of Pichegru, meanwhile left Paris for London; he repeated the bitter words of Moreau respecting the First Consul—words which created illusions and hopes. On the 21st August, 1803, Georges landed at the cliff of Biville, crossing the rocks by the footpaths of smugglers. The police had for some time been on the traces of the conspiracy: they were, perhaps, actively concerned in it. A few Chouans, obscure companions of Cadoudal, were arrested and put in prison, without their trial being proceeded with; their chief succeeded in reaching Paris safely, where he hid himself. Two successive arrivals completed the band of conspirators; on January 16th, 1804, General Pichegru, the Marquis de la Riviere, Jules and Armand de Polignac, landed in France. On the same day, and by a coincidence which suggests the idea of a certain knowledge of the situation, the First Consul said in his statement as to the condition of the republic,—

"The British Government will attempt to cast, and has perhaps already cast upon our shores, a few of those monsters which it has nourished during the peace, in order to injure the land which gave them birth. But they will no longer find the impious bands who were the instruments of their first crimes; terror has dissolved them, or justice has purged our country of their presence. They will no longer find that credulity they abused, or that hatred which once sharpened their daggers. Surrounded everywhere by the public power, everywhere within the grasp of the tribunals, these horrible wretches will be able henceforth neither to make rebels, nor to resume with impunity their profession as brigands and assassins."

The conspirators succeeded in assuring themselves that, contrary to the hopes of some English diplomatists, an insurrection was no longer possible in Vendee or Brittany. Already a certain amount of discouragement was influencing their minds as to the success of their perilous enterprise. At their first interview, by night, on the Boulevard of La Madeleine, Moreau showed himself cold towards Pichegru. Georges, who had accompanied the latter, was dissatisfied and gloomy. "This looks bad," said he, at once. The two generals conferred. Moreau displayed no repugnance towards the overthrow of the First Consul; he would form no project of conspiracy, but he believed himself sure of becoming the master of power if Bonaparte happened to disappear; he was, and he remained, a republican. He reproached Pichegru with being mixed up with men unworthy of him. The general had more than once bitterly felt this. "You are with us (avec nous)," the Chouans used to say to him. "No gentlemen," cried Pichegru, one day; "I am in your company (chez vous)."

"Poor man!" said the conqueror of Holland, on quitting the conqueror of Hohenlinden, "he also has his ambition, and wishes to have a turn at governing France: he would not be its master for twenty-four hours." Georges Cadoudal laughed scornfully; "Usurper for usurper! I love better the one who is ruling now than this Moreau, who has neither heart nor head!" The conspirators felt their danger. Their preliminary interviews had led to no result; the murmurs of discontent had not developed into serious promises, still less into effective actions. La Riviere lost hope every day; the First Consul every day became better informed as to what was going on.

He had recently suppressed the ministry of police; Fouche continued, without authority, the profession which he had always practised with enthusiasm; he informed Napoleon as to the result of his researches. The latter had ardently cherished a hope of pursuing, and striking down at one blow, enemies of diverse origin, dangerous on different accounts. Amongst the Chouans arrested in the month of August, two had remained obstinately silent, and had been shot; a third was less courageous. "I have secret information which makes me believe that they only came here to assassinate me," wrote Bonaparte to Cambaceres. Querelle revealed all he knew of the plot; he named the place of disembarkation; General Savory was sent there in disguise, ordered to wait for that arrival of a prince, as had been promised to the conspirators. Already his doom was determined on in the mind of the First Consul.

Fresh arrests had taken place in Paris, for a servant of Georges had given information. One of his principal officers, Bouvet de Lozier, vainly attempted to kill himself; rescued from death, he asked to see the chief judge. Regnier sent in his place Real, the counsellor of state, more penetrating and more clever than himself. It is supposed that the latter was no stranger to the drawing up of the deposition of Bouvet, who implicated General Moreau in the gravest manner. "Here is a man who comes back from the gates of the tomb, still surrounded by the shadows of death, who demands vengeance upon those who by their perfidy have thrown him and his party into the abyss where they now find themselves. Sent to sustain the cause of the Bourbons, he finds himself compelled either to fight for Moreau, or to renounce an enterprise which was the sole object of his mission. Monsieur was to pass into France, to put himself at the head of the royalist party. Moreau promised to unite himself to the cause of the Bourbons; the royalists arrived in France, and Moreau retracts. He proposes to them to work for him, and to get him named Dictator. Hence the hesitation, the dissension, and the almost total loss of the royalist party. I know not what weight you will attach to the assertions of a man snatched an hour ago from the death to which he had devoted himself, and who sees before him the fate which an offended government has in reserve for him. But I cannot withhold the cry of despair, or refrain from attacking the man who has reduced me to this."

Real hastened to the Tuileries. The First Consul was less astonished than himself; he was acquainted with the interviews of Moreau and Pichegru. He was well aware that the opinions of Moreau were quite opposed to any thought of monarchical restoration. The general returned to Paris, after a visit to Grosbois, on the morning of the 15th of February; he was arrested on the bridge of Charenton, and taken to the Temple. Lajolais was arrested at the same time. The trial was directed to take place before the civil tribunal of the Seine. Cambaceres had proposed a military commission. "No," said the First Consul; "it would be said that I desire to disembarrass myself of Moreau, and to get him judicially assassinated by own creatures." The jury was chosen in the department of the Seine; a report upon the causes of the arrest of Moreau was sent to the Senate, the Corps Legislatif, and the Tribunate.

The commotion in Paris was great, and the public instinct was favorable to General Moreau. The presumed accomplices of his crime had not yet fallen into the hands of the government. People refused to believe him guilty, a traitor to the opinions of a lifetime, and mixed up in a royalist conspiracy. The attitude of the general was firm and calm. For a moment, the First Consul conceived the idea of seeing him. "I pardon Moreau," said he; "let him own everything to me, and I will forget the errors of a foolish jealousy." General Lajolais had recounted the details of the interviews of Moreau with Pichegru; the accused persisted in denying everything. "Ah, well," replied Napoleon, "since he will not open with me, it will be necessary for him to yield to justice." Anger broke forth, in spite of the efforts of the First Consul to preserve the appearance of a sorrowful justice. The brother of Moreau, was a member of the Tribunate; he had loudly pleaded in favor of the accused. "I declare," cried he, "to the assembly, to the entire nation, that my brother is innocent of the atrocious crimes that are imputed to him. Let him be given the means of justifying himself, and he will do so. I demand that he may be judged by his natural judges," The president of the Tribunate dared to style the accusation against Moreau a denunciation; the First Consul warmly criticised this expression. "The greatness of the services rendered by Moreau is not a sufficient motive for screening him from the rigor of the laws," cried he. "There is no government in existence where a man by reason of his past services may screen himself from the law, which ought to have the same grasp on him as on the meanest individual. What! Moreau is already guilty in the eyes of the highest powers of the State, and you will not even consider him as accused!" "Paris and France have only one sentiment, only one opinion," wrote he to Comte Melzi, vice-president of the Italian Republic.

The pursuit had become rigorous. It was known that Pichegru and Georges were hidden in Paris; the gates of the city were closed, egress by the river watched by armed vessels. The Corps Legislatif voted a measure condemning to death whoever should conceal the conspirators, to the number of sixty. Whoever should be cognizant of them without denouncing them, was liable to six years in irons. One night General Pichegru went to ask asylum of Barbe-Marbois, formerly intendant of St. Domingo, transported, like himself, to Sinnamari, and now become a minister of the First Consul. Barbe-Marbois did not hesitate to receive him. When he avowed it afterwards to Napoleon, the latter warmly congratulated him upon it.

A few days passed by; General Pichegru, shamefully betrayed by one of his former officers, was arrested on the 28th of February, bravely resisting the agents of the police. Georges, seized in the street on the 9th of March, blew out the brains of the first gendarme who seized the bridle of his horse. La Riviere and Polignac were also in prison. Moreau had given up his system of absolute denials; at the prayer of his wife and his friends he wrote to the First Consul, simply recounting his relations with Pichegru, without asking pardon, and without denying the past transactions, seeking to disengage his cause from the Royalist conspiracy —less haughty, however, than he had till then appeared. Bonaparte had the letter affixed to the process of the trial. He appeared moved at the situation of Pichegru. "A fine end!" said he to Real: "A fine end for the conqueror of Holland. It will not do for the men of the Revolution to devour each other. I have long had a dream about Cayenne; it is the finest country in the world for founding a colony. Pichegru has been proscribed, as he knows; ask him how many men and how much money he wants to create a great establishment; I will give them to him, and he will retrieve his glory by rendering a service to France." The general did not reject the proposition, but he persisted in his silence. "I will speak before the tribunal," said he. Before the supreme day when the trial was about to take place before human justice, Pichegru had appeared before a more august tribunal; on the morning of the 6th of April he was found dead in his bed, strangled, it was said, by his own hands.

The royalist conspirators at first proudly avowed the aim of their enterprise. "What did you come to do in Paris?" asked the prefect of the police of Georges Cadoudal. "I came to attack the First Consul." "What were your means?" "I had as yet little enough; I counted on collecting them." "Of what nature were your means of attack?" "By means of living force." "Where did you count on finding this force?" "In all France." "And what was your project?" "To put a Bourbon in the place of the First Consul." "Had you many people with you?" "No, because I was not to attack the First Consul until there was a French prince in Paris, and he has not yet arrived."

This was the prince for whom General Savary had been, waiting in vain for nearly a month on the cliff of Biville. The anger of the First Consul continued to increase. "The Bourbons think they can get me killed like a dog," said he. "My blood is worth more than theirs; I shall make no more of their case than of Moreau or Pichegru; the first Bourbon prince who falls into my hands, I will have shot remorselessly." The Comte d'Artois and the Duc de Berry were announced, and did not arrive. Napoleon stretched forth his arm to seize an innocent prince, whose misfortune it was to be within his reach. On the 10th of March, 1804, he wrote to General Berthier: "You will do well, citizen minister, to give orders to General Ordener, whom I place at your disposal, to repair at night, by post, to Strasburg. He will travel under another name than his own, and see the general of division. The aim of his mission is to throw himself upon Ettenheim, invest the city, and carry away from it the Duc d'Enghien, Dumouriez, an English colonel, and any other individual who may be in their suite. The general of division, the marshal of the barracks of gendarmes, who has been to reconnoitre Ettenheim, as well as the commissary of police, will give him all necessary information."

The young Duc d'Enghien, son of the Duc de Bourbon, and grandson of the Prince of Conde, resided in fact at Ettenheim, in the grand duchy of Baden. Drawn at times to Strasburg, by his taste for the theatre, he was held fast in this little city by a passionate attachment for the Princess Charlotte of Rohan, who lived there. He was young and brave, and was waiting for the call from England to take part in the war. He was not implicated in the plot hatched round the Comte d'Artois, and was absolutely ignorant of it. A few emigrants—very few in numbers, and without political importance—resided near him; one of them was the Marquis de Thumery, whose name, mispronounced with a German accent, gave rise to the error which supposed the presence of Dumouriez at Ettenheim. This supposition might for a moment deceive the First Consul as to the complicity of the Duc d'Enghien; it was cleared up when, after having violated the territory of the Grand Duke of Baden (for which Talleyrand was careful to apologize), he learnt the arrival of the unfortunate prince at Strasburg; all the papers seized at Ettenheim were in his hands.

The first movement of the Duc d'Enghien had been to defend himself. "Are you compromised?" asked a German officer who was at his house. "No!" replied the young man with astonishment. Resistance was useless; he surrendered. There was one single ground of accusation against him: like all the princes of his house, and thousands of emigrants, he had borne arms against France. Nearly all the nobility had been permitted again to tread the soil of their country: he alone was about to expiate the fault of all. The minister of France at Baden, Massias, felt compelled to bear witness that "the conduct of the Prince had always been innocent and guarded." A few days later the Moniteur had to announce the assembling of emigrants, with a staff of officers and bureaux of officials round a prince of the House of Bourbon. Massias had beforehand given the lie to this rumor. The Duc d'Enghien was brought to Paris; detained for a few hours at the barriers, he was then conducted to the chateau of Vincennes. On the same morning the First Consul had sent this order to his brother- in-law, General Murat, whom he had just named governor of Paris: "General, in accordance with the orders of the First Consul, the Duc d'Enghien is to be conducted to the castle of Vincennes, where arrangements are made to receive him. He will probably arrive at his destination to-night. I pray you to make such arrangements as shall provide for the safety of this prisoner at Vincennes, as well as on the road from Meaux by which he comes. The First Consul has ordered that the name of this prisoner, and everything relative to him, shall be kept a profound secret. In consequence, the officer entrusted with his guard ought not to be made acquainted with the name and rank of his prisoner; he travels under the name of Plessis."

Bonaparte was at Malmaison, gloomy and agitated; since the day when the order had been given to arrest the Duc d'Enghien, the intimate companions of the First Consul had no doubt as to his fatal resolution. Cambaceres had warmly insisted upon the deplorable consequences of such an act; Madame Bonaparte had cast herself at his feet, but he raised her up ill- temperedly. "You have grown very saving over the blood of the Bourbons," said he bitterly to Cambaceres. "I shall not allow myself to be killed without being able to defend myself." The fatal moment approached. Madame de Remusat, playing at chess with Napoleon, heard him repeating in a low voice the noble words of Augustus pardoning Cinna, and she believed the prince saved: he had just entered the castle of Vincennes, and already the judges were awaiting him.

Murat had loudly declared his repugnance for the functions imposed on him by his brother-in-law. "He wants to stain my uniform with blood," said he with anger. He was not called to Vincennes. General Savary, devoted without reserve to the First Consul, had set out with a corps of gendarmes. Already the Duc d'Enghien, weighed down by fatigue, was asleep; he was roused up at midnight. A captain, as judge advocate, was entrusted with a first examination. He being asked his names, Christian names, age, and place of birth, in reply said "he was named Louis-Antoine-Henri de Bourbon, Duc d'Enghien, born at Chantilly, the 2nd of August, 1772." Being asked at what time he quitted France, in reply he said, "I cannot say precisely, but I think it was on the 16th July, 1789, that I set out with the Prince de Conde my grandfather, my father the Comte d'Artois, and the children of the Comte d'Artois." Being asked where he had resided since leaving France, in reply he said, "On leaving France I passed with my parents, whom I always accompanied, by Mons and Brussels; thence we returned to Turin, to the palace of the king, where we remained nearly sixteen months. Thence, always with my parents, I went to Worms and the neighborhood, upon the banks of the Rhine. Lastly the Conde corps was formed, and I was with it throughout the war. I had before that made the campaign of 1792, in Brabant, with the Bourbon corps, in the army of Duke Albert. We terminated the last campaign in the environs of Graetz, and I asked permission of the Cardinal de Rohan to go into his country, to Ettenheim, in Brisgau, the former bishopric of Strasburg. For two years and a half I remained in this country, with the permission of the Elector of Baden." Being asked if he had ever passed into England, and if that power had always accorded him a grant of money, in reply he said he had never been there; that England always accorded him a grant of money, and that he had only that to live upon. Being asked if he kept up correspondence with the French princes in London, and if he had seen them for some time, he said that naturally he kept up a correspondence with his grandfather, and that equally naturally he corresponded with his father, whom he had not seen, so far as he could recollect, since 1794 or 1795. Being asked if he knew General Pichegru, and if he had any relations with him, he said, "I believe I have never seen him; I have had no relations with him. I know that he has desired to see me. I am thankful not to have known him, after the vile means of which it is said he has desired to make use, if it is true." Being asked if he knew the ex-general Dumouriez, and if he had had relations with him, he said, "On the contrary, I have never seen him." Being asked if, since the peace, he had not kept up correspondence with the interior of the republic, he said, "I have written to a few friends who are still attached to me, who have been my companions in war, about their affairs and my own; these correspondences are not, I think, those to which it is intended to refer."

Upon the minute of the examination, beneath his signature, the Duc d'Enghien wrote, "I earnestly entreat to have a private audience with the First Consul. My name, my rank, my way of thinking, and the horror of my situation, make me hope that he will not refuse me my request." The request was foreseen, and the answer, according to instructions given, that under no pretext would the First Consul be willing to receive the Duc d'Enghien. At two o'clock in the morning the military commission was assembled, presided over by General Hullin, formerly life-guard of Louis XVI., and one of the insurgent leaders before the Bastille. The same questions were addressed to the prince, more briefly—less explicitly, as if the time was short, and the enemy threatening. Sometimes the president interfered with an appearance of rude benevolence. General Savary did not speak. When the examination was finished he rose up. "Now this is my concern," said he. The judges deliberated a moment. The sentence, signed in blank, was already in their hands. The Governor of Vincennes, Harel, appeared at the gate carrying a light. He had formerly delivered to Bonaparte the conspirators of the plot of Arena and Topino-Lebrun; to-day he preceded in the sombre corridors the prisoner, escorted by a piquet of troops. The prince did not pale; he reiterated his request for an audience, which was harshly denied. Already the grave was dug in the ditch of the chateau; a detachment of gendarmes waited for the condemned.

The Duke stopped. "Comrades," said he loudly, "there is without doubt among you a man of honor who will charge himself with receiving and transmitting my last thoughts." And as a young officer stepped out of the ranks, "Has any one here a pair of scissors?" asked the Prince. He cut a lock of his hair, and joining it in the form of a ring, he pronounced in low tones the name of the person for whom he intended this souvenir; then pushing back with his hands the bandage with which they wished to cover his eyes, he made one step towards the soldiers: they fired, and he was dead. General Savary went to tell his master that he was obeyed.

Shakespeare has depicted remorse with that terrible truthfulness which carries home to our minds the horror of crime. Lady Macbeth passes before us haunted by a vision, and ceaselessly washing her blood-stained hands. During all his life, even in his exile, Napoleon vainly sought to wash off the innocent and illustrious blood which he caused to flow in the fosse of Vincennes on the 20th of March, 1804. The men whom he had employed as the instruments of his heinous crime struggled like himself under this terrible responsibility. In vain has Bonaparte reproached Talleyrand with having perfidiously urged him on in the fatal path; in vain has Real affirmed that an order reached his house during the night assuring to the prisoner a new examination, unfortunately forestalled by his death. All explanations, and all accusations have failed before the severe justice of history and the infallible instinct of the public conscience. The odious burden of a cowardly assassination was constantly weighing upon him who had ordered it. The blood of his victim created round him an abyss that all the efforts of supreme power could never succeed in filling up.

When the news spread in Paris, on March 21st, it was received with stupor; people wept, even at Malmaison. Caulaincourt, previously entrusted with the explanatory letter for the Elector of Baden, complained bitterly of the stain upon his honor. Fourcroy was sent to dissolve the Corps Legislatif; Fontanes, who presided over the assembly, replied to the counsellor of state without making allusion to the catastrophe, the intelligence of which the latter had mixed up with matters of business. His speech was modified in the Moniteur. Fontanes had the courage to protest against the approbation which had been attributed to him. The same journal contained the judgment of the military commission which had condemned the Duc d'Enghien; like the speech of Fontanes, the wording had been altered.

Alone amongst the public functionaries of every rank or origin, young Chateaubriand, minister of France to the republic of Valais, felt himself constrained to give in his resignation. Louis XVIII. sent back the collar of the Golden Fleece to the King of Spain, who remained the ally of Napoleon. The courts of Russia and Sweden put on mourning for the Duc d'Enghien.

Thus was preparing in Europe, under the impulse of public opinion, the third coalition, which was to unite all the sovereigns against France. Alone till then, England had hatched against us the plots in which its diplomatic agents were found compromised; but the denunciations of the First Consul against Spencer and Drake vanish, and lose all importance in presence of the crime committed at Vincennes. Prussia, long and obstinately faithful to its policy of neutrality, and recently disposed to draw nearer to us, began to incline towards Russia, with whom she soon concluded an alliance. Austria evinced neither regret nor anger, but the action of the German powers was silently influencing her. The First Consul broke out against the Emperor Alexander, violently hurling a gross insult at him. "When England meditated the assassination of Paul I., if it had been known that the authors of the plot could be found at a place on the frontiers, would not you have been inclined to have them seized?" General Hedouville, ambassador of France at St. Petersburg, received the order to set out in forty-eight hours. "Know for your direction," said he to the charge d'affaires, "that the First Consul does not wish for war, but he does not fear it with anybody."

In presence of this general perturbation of Europe, of the loud indignation of some and the dull uneasiness of others—in order to respond to the denunciations of the royalists, who understood the fatal consequences of the blow that Bonaparte had dealt to his own glory, the First Consul resolved to take at length the last step which separated him from supreme greatness. A year before he had been appointed Consul for life of the French Republic: the murderer of a prince of the house of Bourbon, he raised again on his own account the overturned throne. Still without children, he founded in his person an hereditary monarchy, assured of finding in the nation the assent of admiration as of lassitude and fear. Eight days had scarcely passed since the execution of the Duc d'Enghien; the brothers of the First Consul were absent and discontented. Cambaceres was opposed to the projects which he had divined in the mind of Napoleon Bonaparte. In his place, Fouche, always eager to serve the man whose favor he courted, cleverly prepared the minds of the Senate. No equivocation was possible as to the desires of Napoleon. On March 27th the first assembly of the state addressed to the supreme chief this humble request: "You found a new era," said the Senate, "but you ought to make it eternal. Splendor is nothing without duration. You are harassed by circumstances, by conspirators, by the ambitious. You are also in another sense harassed by the uneasiness which agitates all Frenchmen. You can conquer the times, master circumstances, put a curb on conspirators, disarm the ambitious, tranquillize all France, by giving it institutions which shall cement your edifice, and prolong for the children what you have done for the fathers. In town and country if you could interrogate all Frenchmen one after another, no one would speak otherwise than we. Great Man, complete your work by rendering it as immortal as your glory; you have drawn us forth from the chaos of the past, you make us blessed in the benefits of the present—make us sure of the future."

The clever manoeuvre of Fouche gave Napoleon the opportunity of declaring himself; he wished to be invited to speak. His answer was not, and could not, be ready; he asked of the Senate time to reflect. Meanwhile he set himself to sound the courts of Europe. On the morrow of the insult he had offered to all the sovereigns by the murder of the Duc d'Enghien, their good-will was doubtful: the earnest adhesion of Prussia and Austria astonished and satisfied him; he was at war with England, embroiled with Russia; the rest of Europe seemed to be at his feet. Clever at managing those of whom he had need, he wished to assure himself of the disposition of the army still agitated by the arrest of Moreau. He wrote to General Soult, who commanded the camp of Saint Omer: "Citizen General Soult, I have received your letter. The Councils-General of the departments, the Electoral Colleges, and all the great bodies of the State, ask that an end should be at last put to the hopes of the Bourbons, by placing the republic in safety from the shocks of elections and the uncertainty of the life of a single man. But up to this moment I have decided upon nothing; meanwhile I desire that you should instruct me in great detail as to the opinion of the army on a measure of this nature. You perceive that I would not be drawn into it except with the sole object of the nation's interest, for the French people have made me so great and so powerful that I can desire nothing more."

The malcontents in the army were silent; the ambitious, the courtiers, the faithful and devoted servants of the great general, brought him the protestation of their devotion; the addresses from the departments succeeded each other in great numbers. On April 25 the First Consul sent a message to the Senate: "Your address of the 6th Germinal has not ceased to be present to my thoughts," said he. "You have judged the hereditary succession of the chief magistrate to be necessary to shelter the French people from the plots of our enemies, and the agitation born of rival ambitions. Many of our institutions have at the same time appeared to you to require to be improved in order to assure without reversal the triumph of equality and public liberty, and to offer to the government and the nation the double guarantee of which they have need. In proportion as I have fixed my attention on these great objects, I have perceived more and more that, under circumstances as novel as they are important, the counsels of your wisdom and of your experience are necessary to me in order to fix all my ideas. I invite you then to let me become completely acquainted with all your thoughts. I desire that on the 14th July this year we shall be able to say to the French people: Fifteen years ago, by a spontaneous movement, you rushed to arms; you required liberty, equality, and glory. To-day, this best of all national wealth, assured to you without fear of reversal, is protected from all tempests. Institutions conceived and commenced in the midst of the storms of internal and external war, developed with constancy, have been brought to their climax amidst the noise of the efforts and plots of our mortal enemies, by the adoption of all that the experience of ages and of peoples has demonstrated as fit to guarantee the laws which the nation has judged necessary for its dignity, its liberty, and its honor."

On the day following the 14th of July, 1789, the Duc de Rochefoucauld said, with prophetic sadness, "It is very difficult to enter into true liberty by such a gate." General Bonaparte was destined to confirm this solemn truth, so often and so sorrowfully misunderstood by our country. France, exhausted and disgusted by the enthusiasms of demagogy and the bloody tyranny of the Terror, had been tossed by shock after shock into the arms of the conqueror who promised her order and energy in government; she had forgotten for a time those great and salutary conquests of the liberty which she unreservedly yielded up at his feet.

By a tardy return towards the convictions of the past, Carnot alone raised his voice in the Tribunate to recall the Republic, abandoned by all, in the name of that liberty which he wrongly attributed to it. "Was liberty then always to be shown to man without his being able to enjoy it? Was it ceaselessly offered for his desires, like a fruit to which he could not stretch forth his hand without being in danger of death? No! I cannot consent to regard this gift, so universally preferable to all others, without which the others are nothing, as a simple illusion. My heart tells me that liberty is possible, that its rule is easy and more stable than any arbitrary or oligarchic government. You say that Bonaparte has effected the salvation of his country, that he has restored public liberty; is it then a recompense to offer up to him this same liberty as a sacrifice?"

On the 3rd of May, on the proposal of Curee and the report of Jard- Panvillier, the Tribunate sent to the Senate a proposal to the effect: "Firstly, that Napoleon Bonaparte, at present Consul for life, be appointed Emperor, and in this capacity entrusted with the government of the French Republic. Secondly, that the title of Emperor and the imperial power be hereditary in his family, from male to male, in order of primogeniture. Thirdly and lastly, that in deciding as regards the organization of the constituted authorities upon the modifications required by the establishment of hereditary power—equality, liberty, and the rights of the people, be preserved in their integrity."

The Senate was resolved not to lose the fruits of its initiative; the project of the senatus-consultum was ready, and was immediately carried to the First Consul, accompanied by the views of all the great bodies of the State. When it returned to the Senate, amended and modified by the will of the supreme chief, the authority which the senators had sought to arrogate to themselves had been taken away. "The senators, if they were allowed to do it, would go on to absorb the Corps Legislatif, and, who knows? perhaps even to restore the Bourbons," said the First Consul to the Council of State. "They wish at once to legislate, to judge, and to govern. Such a union of powers would be monstrous; I shall not suffer it!" The Tribunate ceased to exist as an assembly, and could no longer discuss except in sections; the Corps Legislatif were permitted to debate in secret committees only. A High Court was to be constituted, to judge the crimes of personages too important for the jurisdictions of ordinary tribunals. In order to satisfy the vanity of Joseph and Louis Bonaparte, alone entitled to the succession of the empire, two officers were borrowed from the constitution devised by Sieyes, and from mediaeval history; the one became Grand Elector, and the other Constable. Sagacious and docile counsellor of the First Consul in their apparent equality, Cambaceres was appointed arch-chancellor of the empire, and Lebrun became arch-treasurer. Four honorary marshals [Footnote: Kellermann, Perignon, Lefevre, Serurier.] and fourteen active marshals [Footnote: Murat, Berthier, Massena, Lannes, Soult, Brune, Ney, Augereau, Moncey, Mortier, Davout, Jourdan, Bernadotte, Bessieres.] were grouped around the restored throne. Alone and beforehand the Senate decided upon the destinies of France, arrogantly called upon to ratify decisions over which it exercised no authority; on May 19th, 1804, at the close of the sitting, all the senators went together to St. Cloud, and by the voice of Cambaceres prayed his Imperial Majesty that the organic arrangements might come into force immediately. "For the glory, as for the happiness of the country, we proclaim at this very moment Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of the French."

Those present cried, "Long live the Emperor!" Only the sanction of the law of hereditary succession was submitted to the popular vote. By the force of his genius as much as by the splendor of his military glory, Napoleon had conquered France more completely than Italy or Egypt.



CHAPTER VIII.

GLORY AND SUCCESS (1804-1805).

On the eve of the declaration of the Senate in favor of the empire, Cambaceres had said to Lebrun, "All is over! the monarchy is re- established! But I have a presentiment that what they are now constructing will not be durable. We made war upon Europe to give it republics, which should be daughters of the French Republic; now we shall make it to give Europe monarchs, sons or brothers of ours; and France, exhausted, will finally succumb to such fatal attempts."

A year before that, when the consulship for life was proclaimed, the wise and virtuous Tronchet, when a sorrowful witness of the revolutionary crimes against which he had defended King Louis XVI., had shown the same inquietude and fatal presentiment. "This young man begins like Caesar," he said of General Bonaparte; "I am afraid he may end as he did."

The daggers of the Roman conspirators had arrested Caesar in his course. Napoleon had found neither a Brutus nor a Cassius: he reigned without contest, by a triumphal acclamation of 3,572,329 suffrages against 2569 "Noes." The country was eager to salute its new master, with a curiosity mixed with confidence in the unexpected resources of his genius. The courtiers alone around him who had found no place in the prodigal distribution of honors, muttered their murmurs. They served him nevertheless; and Talleyrand remained minister of foreign affairs, even when all the important posts of the empire had escaped his desires.

With more calmness and pride than the courtiers, Moreau and the royalist conspirators waited in prison for their verdict. Napoleon was as eager as they were, being in haste to rid himself of an embarrassment which could become a danger. In proportion as the trial proceeded, Moreau's case was more and more kept distinct from that of the other prisoners. The mode of defence adopted by the royalists tended entirely to prove his innocence. "We entered France," they said, "deceived by false reports, and with the hope of securing our restoration: General Moreau refused us his assistance, and our project failed." The general did not appear disturbed by the irregular jurisdiction to which his case was to be referred. "Strive," he wrote to his wife, "to make sure that those who are to judge me are just men, incapable of betraying their conscience. If I am judged by persons of honor, I cannot complain, although they have apparently suppressed the jury."

The public interest was lively, and openly shown, in spite of the evident annoyance of the emperor. The friends of the royalist prisoners were numerous and ardent; and, whether from admiration or indifference, the public believed General Moreau innocent of all conspiracy, and made excuse for the dissatisfaction or ambition which he might have manifested. The sharers of his renown—Dessoles, Gouvion St. Cyr, Macdonald, Lecourbe— were faithfully present at every sitting. I borrow from the interesting recollections of Madame Recamier the picture of the spectacle then seen in the hall of the Palace of Justice, every approach to which was choked by the crowd. "The prisoners, of whom there were forty-seven, were for the most part unknown to each other, and filled the raised seats facing those where the judges sat. Each prisoner was seated between two gendarmes; those near Moreau were full of respect. When I raised my veil the general recognized me, and rose to salute me. I returned his salute with emotion and respect. I was deeply touched at seeing them treat as a criminal that great general whose reputation was then so glorious and unstained. It was no longer a question of republic and republicans. Excepting Moreau, who I am certain was an entire stranger to the conspiracy, it was the royalist loyalty that alone was on its defence against the new power. This cause of the ancient monarchy had as its head a man of the people, Georges Cadoudal.

"That fearless Georges! We looked at him with the thought that that head, so freely and energetically devoted, must fall on the scaffold; or that he alone, probably, would not escape death, as he did nothing for that purpose. Disdaining to defend himself, he only defended his friends; and when they tried to persuade him to ask for pardon, as the other prisoners had done, he replied, 'Do you promise me a fairer opportunity of dying?'

"In the ranks of the accused, Polignac and Riviere were still noticeable, interesting from their youth and devotion. Pichegru, whose name will remain historically united with Moreau's, was missing at his side—or rather, one believed his shade was visible there, because it was known that he also was not in the prison.

"Another recollection, the death of the Duc d'Enghien, increased the sorrow and terror of many minds, even among the most devoted partisans of Bonaparte."

Taken as a whole, and in spite of the embarrassment caused by the persistence of two or three of the accusers, the public judicial examination was favorable to General Moreau. On being accused of having agreed to a reconciliation with the traitor Pichegru, he replied, "Since the beginning of the Revolution there have been many traitors. There were some who were traitors in 1789, without being so in 1793; there were others who were so in '93 but were not in '95, others who were so in '95 but have not been so since. Many were republicans who are not so now. General Pichegru may have had an understanding with Conde in the year IV.; I believe that he had; but he was included in the proscription of Fructidor, and must be considered as one of those who were then proscribed. When I saw other Fructidorians at the head of the authorities of state—when Conde's army filled the Parisian drawing-rooms and those of the First Consul, I might very well take a share in restoring to France the conqueror of Holland. I am credited with the absurd idea of making use of royalists in the hope of regaining power if they were successful. I have made war for ten years, and during those ten years I am not aware of having done absurd things." When they laid emphasis on his interview with Pichegru and Georges, he said, "A quarter of an hour is but little for the discussion of a plan of government. It is said that Pichegru was dissatisfied; probably we were not of the same mind." On the president regretting that he had not denounced Pichegru and the royalists, saying that he owed it to a government that loaded him with benefits, Moreau exclaimed, "The conqueror of Hohenlinden is not a denouncer, M. le President. Do not put my services and my fortune in the same balance, for there is no possible comparison between the things. I should have fifty millions to-day, had I made the same use of victory which many others have done!"

Moreau wished to plead himself the cause of his life and renown. "It is only by my counsel," he said, "that I wish to address justice"—here the illustrious general looked round upon the attentive multitude—"but I feel that both on your account and mine I ought to speak myself. Unfortunate circumstances, produced by chance or caused by hatred, may for an instant obscure the life of the most honorable man; and a clever criminal may keep off suspicion and the proof of his crimes. The whole life of a prisoner is always the most certain testimony against him and for him. I therefore set my whole life to witness against my accusers and prosecutors; it has been public enough to be known: I shall only recall a few of its epochs: and the witnesses whom I shall summon will be the French people, and the people whom France has conquered. I was devoted to the study of law at the beginning of that revolution which was to establish the liberty of the French people; and the object of my life being thus changed, I devoted it to arms. I became a warrior because I was a citizen: I bore this character beneath our standards, and have always preserved it. I was promoted quickly, but always from step to step without passing any; always by serving my country, never by flattering the committees. On being appointed commander, when victory obliged us to march through the countries of our enemies, I was as anxious that our character should be respected as that our arms should be dreaded. War, under my orders, was a calamity only on the battlefield. I have the presumption to think that the country has not forgotten my services then, nor the ready devotion which I showed when fighting as a subordinate; nor how I was appointed to the command-in-chief by the reverses of our arms, and, in one sense, named general by our misfortunes. It is still remembered how I twice recomposed the army from the fragments of those which had been scattered, and how, after having twice restored it to a condition of being able to cope with the Russians and Austrians, I twice laid down the command to take another of greater responsibility. I was not during that period of my life more republican than during the others, though I seemed so. It is well known that there was a proposal to put me at the head of a movement similar to that of the 18th Brumaire. I refused, believing that I was made to command armies, and having no desire to command a Republic. I did more; on the 18th Brumaire I was in Paris. That revolution, instigated by others, could not disturb my peace of mind; but directed by a man surrounded by great renown, I might have hoped for happy results from it. I took part in it to assist it, whilst some other parties urged me to lead them in opposing it. I received in Paris General Bonaparte's orders, and, in seeing them executed, I assisted in raising him to that high degree of power which circumstances rendered necessary. When, shortly afterwards, he offered me the command of the army of the Rhine, I accepted it from him with as much devotion as from the hands of the Republic itself. Never had my successes been more rapid, more numerous, or more decisive, than during that period; and their renown was reflected upon the government which accuses me. What a moment for conspiring, if such a scheme had ever entered my mind! Would an ambitious man, or a conspirator, have let slip the opportunity when at the head of an army of 100,000 men so often victorious? I only thought of disbanding the army before returning to the repose of civil life.

"During that rest, which has not been without glory, I enjoyed my honors (such honors as no human power can deprive me of), the recollections of what I had done, the testimony of my conscience, the esteem of my country and of foreigners, and, to be candid, the flattering and pleasant presentiment of the esteem of posterity. My mind and disposition were so well known, and I kept myself so far aloof from any ambitious project, that from the victory of Hohenlinden till my arrest my enemies were never able to accuse me of any crime except freedom in speaking. Do conspirators openly find fault with that which they do not approve? So much candor is scarcely reconcilable with political secrets and plots. If I had wished to adopt and follow the plans of any conspirators, I should have concealed my sentiments, and solicited every appointment which might have restored me to power. As a guide on such a route, in default of the political talent which I have never had, there were examples known to all the world and rendered imposing by success. I might have known that Monk retained command of his armies when he wished to conspire, and that Cassius and Brutus came nearer Caesar's heart in order to pierce it."

When the pleading was finished, the emperor and the public anxiously waited for the sentence. The fact of the royalist plot being proved, the condemnation of the prisoners was certain, and the inquietude and hopes of all were concentrated on Moreau. "Towards the close of the trial," said Madame Recamier, "all business was stopped, the entire population were out of doors, they talked of nothing but Moreau." The emperor had informed the judges that he would not demand that the general be condemned to death unless in the interest of justice, and as a salutary example, his fixed intention being to grant him pardon. One of the members of the tribunal, Clavier, a man of great virtue and learning, said, on hearing General Murat's proposition, "And who will pardon us ourselves, if we pass judgment and condemnation against our consciences?" At the first deliberation of the tribunal, seven judges out of twelve voted for acquittal pure and simple: being afraid of Napoleon's anger, they sentenced Moreau to two years' imprisonment. "Why, that's a punishment for a pickpocket!" exclaimed the emperor in a passion. By wise counsel he was induced to show a prudent clemency. Moreau, nearly ruined by the expense of the trial, and as annoyed by the sentence as Napoleon was, refused to ask any favor. "If it was certain that I took part in the conspiracy," he exclaimed, "I ought to have been condemned to death as a leader. I undergo the extremity of horror and disgrace. Nobody will believe that I played the part of a corporal."

His young and handsome wife, being near confinement, asked for and obtained permission to sail to America with her husband, and when delayed at Cadiz by child-birth, was urged to set out on the voyage through Fouche's influence in the Spanish court. "Four years ago about this time," wrote the general, "I gained the battle of Hohenlinden. That event, so glorious for my country, procured for my fellow-countrymen a repose which they had long wanted. I alone have been unable to obtain it. Will they refuse it me at the extremity of Europe, 500 leagues from my native land?"

Moreau carried with him into exile the cruel recollection of the name "brigand" (ruffian), which had been formerly abusively replied to him, and that keen desire for vengeance which was one day to prove so fatal to his renown.

Of the royalist prisoners, twenty were condemned to death. In spite of Murat's eager pleading, eleven perished on the scaffold with Georges Cadoudal, equal to him in the imperturbability of their political and religious faith. Riviere and Polignac, General Lajolais, and four others owed their lives to the supplications of their families, judiciously assisted by the kindness of the Empress Josephine. They were all sent to prison.

Napoleon felt with more justice than Moreau himself that the conscience of the judges had been opposed to his supreme will. In spite of the silence which he imposed upon the organs of the press, more and more roughly treated by him, public opinion remained equally stirred up against the murder of the Duc d'Enghien. A thought which had arisen in his mind from the day of his elevation to the empire, gained fresh forces from the feeling of silent disapprobation of all honorable men. He wished to place a religious stamp upon his greatness, and instructed Cardinal Caprara to ask the Pope to come to Paris to consecrate him. "It is most unlikely," said he, "that any power will make objection to it either in right or in fact. Therefore broach the subject, and when you have transmitted the reply, I shall make the suitable and necessary arrangements with the Pope."

As in the case of the Concordat, the emperor's confidential advisers were not favorable to the idea of consecration. The discussion in the Council of State was lively, characterized by all the philosophical and revolutionary suspicion as to the pretensions of a power being invited to bestow the crown and thus probably believing it had the power to withdraw it. Napoleon had formed a better judgment of the profound and permanent effect of the condescension which he asked from the Pope. "Gentlemen," said he to his council, "you are deliberating in Paris in the Tuileries; suppose that you were deliberating in London in the British cabinet, that in a word, you were ministers of the King of England, and that you were told that at this moment the Pope was crossing the Alps to consecrate the Emperor of the French, would you consider that as a triumph for England or for France?"

The council had not insisted, and the court of Rome felt their force of resistance becoming weaker every day. The death of the Duc d'Enghien had caused the Pope much sorrow:—"My tears now," said Pius VII., "at the death of the one and the attempt upon the other." The French bishops who had not resigned had renewed their protestations against the Concordat. The Sacred College, when consulted as to the journey of the holy father, were divided in their opinion. Five cardinals declared that by so doing the Pope would ratify all the usurpations of which the new Emperor of the French had rendered himself culpable; fifteen showed less severity, but all insisted upon surrounding the solicited favor with numerous conditions. "The actual advantage to religion expressly professed in the invitation which his Holiness is about to accept, but actually injured in the result, can alone excuse in the eyes of Catholics the temporary abandonment of the holy seat," wrote Cardinal Consalvi to Cardinal Caprara: "the dignity and honor of the head of religion both require it." He also wrote, "The form of oath taken by the emperor raises great difficulties. We cannot admit the oath to respect and caused to be respected the laws of the Concordat, which is the same thing as saying that one must respect the organic articles and cause them to be respected. To respect the liberty of worship supposes an engagement not to tolerate and allow, but to sustain and protect, and extends not only to persons, but to the thing, that is to say to all forms of worship. But a Catholic cannot defend the error of false forms of worship."

Cardinal Caprara, as papal legate in Paris, and Cardinal Fesch, as French ambassador in Rome, explained away or avoided the difficulties. The legate, always timid and easily persuaded, gave grounds for hopes which he was not always able to realize; the cardinal, haughty and violent, divided between devotion to his all-powerful nephew and his own restoration to ecclesiastical practices and sentiments, was at Rome lavish of presents and threats. He at the same time advised the court of Rome to claim the Legations, whatever were the scruples of the Pope to confound temporal questions with spiritual concessions. Skilful in making use of the real Intentions or wishes which he was aware of, without compromising his government by any formal engagement, Cardinal Fesch at last triumphed over the repugnances of the Pope by avoiding most of the conditions of the Holy College, and on the 30th September, 1804, he presented to Pius VII. General Caffarelli, the emperor's deputy at Rome, instead of the two bishops formerly insisted upon. Still less explicit than his ambassador, Napoleon gave no hopes to the holy father of the important concessions with which the latter was fondly flattering himself.

"Very Holy Father," said the emperor, "the happy result evinced in the morality and character of my people by the re-establishment of the Christian religion, leads me to pray your Holiness to give me a new proof of the interest which your Holiness takes in my destiny and that of this great nation, in one of the most important periods shown in the annals of the world. I beg your Holiness to come and give a religious character of the highest degree to the ceremony of the consecration and coronation of the first Emperor of the French. That ceremony will acquire a new lustre if done by your Holiness. It will bring upon us and our peoples the blessing of God, whose decrees govern according to His will the lot of empires and of families.

"Your Holiness knows the friendly feeling which I have long had towards you, and must therefore infer the pleasure which I shall have in giving you fresh proofs.

"Thereupon we pray God, most holy father, that He may keep you for many years in the rule and government of our mother the holy Church.

"Your devoted son,

"Napoleon."

The Pope had determined to set out, being convinced that resistance was impossible, and harassed by a serious inquietude the importance of which was afterwards confirmed, and by the vague fears of a sickly old man. He was offended by the contemptuous terms which the foreign ambassadors applied to the condescension of him whom they called the "French emperor's chaplain." His Italian subtilty was disturbed, and his natural kindness chafed by the dryness of the emperor's message. "This is poison which you have brought to me," said he to General Caffarelli, after reading Napoleon's letter. He set out nevertheless, obstinately refusing to take with him Cardinal Consalvi, in whose hands he had placed his abdication. "If they keep me here," said he one day in Paris, "they will find that they only have in their power a wretched monk called Barnabus Chiaramonti."

The Pope's departure had been much hastened by the repeated urgency of the emperor, and his journey was so also. The time for the ceremony was fixed without consulting him. As Cardinal Consalvi said in his Memoirs, "they made the holy father gallop from Rome to Paris like an almoner summoned by his master to say mass."

On the 25th November, 1804, about mid-day, the emperor was hunting in the forest of Fontainebleau, and went towards Croix St. Herem at the moment when the Pope's carriage just reached that spot. The carriage stopped, and "the holy father stepped out in his white dress; as the road was muddy he could not soil his silk stockings by stepping on the ground." He got out, however, whilst the emperor, leaping from his horse, advanced to him and embraced him. The meeting had been skilfully arranged in order that the new master of France might be spared the annoyance of a deference which he considered excessive. Both doors of the emperor's carriage were opened at once, and Napoleon entering by the right, Pius VII. naturally took the left. The empress and imperial family were waiting for the Pope at the great portico of the palace. The emperor seemed triumphant. The Pope was full of emotion, affected by the kind reception he had met with by the people during his journey. "I have passed through a population all on their knees," said he.

The Emperor Napoleon was not on his knees, and Pius VII. was even sensible of it. Several questions had remained undecided before the holy father's departure for France: Napoleon had resolutely disposed of them, and yielded only on one point. Still bandied about between his own uncertainty, the love which he still felt for the Empress Josephine, the intrigues of her family, who were opposed to him, and the passionate longing to have a son to inherit his crown, he had been on the point of demanding a divorce a few days previously, but on the empress making the Pope her confidant their union was confirmed, and on the eve of the coronation, with the greatest secrecy, the religious marriage of the emperor with Josephine was celebrated by Cardinal Fesch. Pius VII. declared that it was impossible for him to proceed with the ceremony of the double consecration so long as that act of reparation remained unaccomplished.

Those who had charge of the arrangements for the great spectacle, the Abbe Bernier, lately appointed Bishop of Orleans, and the Arch-chancellor Cambaceres, had frequently discussed the ceremonial of the coronation properly so-called. In France the peers, in Italy the bishops, formerly held the crown above the head of the sovereign, who then received it from the hands of the pontiff. "All the French emperors, all those of Germany who have been consecrated by the popes were at the same crowned by them. The holy father, in order to decide as to the journey, must receive from Paris the assurance that in this case there will be no innovation contrary to the honor and dignity of the sovereign pontiff." At Rome the replies bad been vague; at Paris the emperor had calmed the zeal and inquietude of his servants. "I shall arrange that myself," said he. On the 2nd December, 1804, the ceremony of consecration took place according to the solemn ceremonial, and the emperor, after being anointed with the holy oil, held out his hand towards the crown which the Pope had just taken from the altar. Pius VII., completely taken by surprise, made no resistance, and Napoleon himself placing on his head the emblem of sovereign power, then crowned with his own hands the empress, who was in tears kneeling before him. Mounting his throne whilst his brothers held up his robe, being compelled to that act of humility by his imperious will, and their sisters bore the train of the empress, the Pope pronounced the solemn formula, "Vivat in aeternum Augustus!" And under the very eyes of the holy pontiff, the Emperor Napoleon took the oath in the form which had been so much opposed in Rome. His victory was complete: he triumphed over the old revolutionary prejudices, whilst at the same time confirming in Notre Dame, in spite of the scruples of the court of Rome, the principles of liberty acquired by the French Revolution.

When the Pope, sad and discouraged, at last set out for Rome, 4th April, 1805, he had obtained none of the favors which he thought he had a right to expect. The emperor was inflexible on the question of the "organic articles," making no concession as to their application. The statement presented by the Pope and drawn up by Cardinal Antonelli, the most enthusiastic of his councillors, was on Napoleon's orders replied to by Portalis, who was skilful in concealing the refusal under the grave phraseology of legal and Christian language. Urged to extremity, Pius VII. applied to the emperor himself to ask the restoration of the Legations. Talleyrand wrote in reply, "France has very dearly bought the power which she enjoys. It is not in the emperor's power to take anything from an empire which is the fruit of ten years' war and bloodshed, continued with an admirable courage and accompanied with the most unhappy agitation and an unexampled constancy. It is still less in his power to diminish the territory of a foreign state which, by entrusting him with the care of governing, had laid upon him the duty of protecting it." A few sentences added by the emperor to the diplomatic document left room for vague hopes of certain consolations. The illusions of Pius VII. began to disappear; without compensation or recompense, he had worked to consolidate for a short time the throne of the conqueror; the conquests which he had won were not of this world; the complete submission of the constitutional bishops, and the genuine respect with which the French people constantly surrounded him were due to the personal veneration which he inspired. When at last he crossed the mountains the Emperor Napoleon had reached Italy before him, as if to indicate more emphatically the condescension which the sovereign pontiff had shown to him. It was at Turin that he finally took leave of Pius VII., letting him return to Rome while he took in the cathedral of Milan the iron crown of the Lombard kings, and placed it on his head before an immense crowd of on-lookers, using the traditional words of the ancient Lombard monarchy, "God has given it me, who dare touch it?"

The Cisalpine Republic no longer existed, and the Emperor of the French, King of Italy, boasted of the moderation he had evinced in keeping the two crowns apart. At one time he intended raising his brother Joseph to the new throne, but the latter was afraid of compromising his right to succeed to the imperial crown. Louis Bonaparte refused to govern in the name of the child which he had by Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of the Empress Josephine by her first marriage, whom he had married with regret. Compelled to unite, on his own head, the two crowns of France and Italy, Napoleon entrusted the care of the government to his son-in-law, Eugene de Beauharnais. His protestations of respect for the independence of the allied peoples did not prevent his annexing to the kingdom of Italy the territory of Genoa, whilst forming the domains of Lucca and Piombino into a principality in favor of his eldest sister, Elisa Baciocchi. The storm was already threatening the feeble government of Naples: the queen, obsequious in her alarm, had sent to Milan an ambassador to congratulate the emperor and king. "Tell your queen," exclaimed Napoleon, "that her intrigues are known to me, and that her children will curse her memory, for I shall not leave in her kingdom enough of land to build her tomb upon."

So much brilliance and severity in the display of his sovereign power proved of service to the irreconcilable enemies who were stirring up Europe against the already uncontrollable ambition of the new emperor. Pitt had already returned to power (19th May, 1804), though with less support in Parliament, and very infirm in health. He felt himself sustained by the breath of public opinion, and by the firm confidence of the mass of the nation. In this great duel, of which he was not to see the end, it was the consolation, as well as the honor of the illustrious minister, that he had constantly defended the principles of true liberty, as well as European independence, against the encroachments and contagion of the revolutionary powers, and those of anarchy or absolutism.

It was in the name of the same principles that the young Emperor of Russia then proposed to Europe a mediation which was soon to end in a coalition. Generously chimerical in his inexperience, Alexander dreamt of a general rearrangement of Europe, which was to secure forever the peace of every nation. Poland itself was to be reconstituted, Italy and Germany to recover their independence, and a new code of the rights of nations on sea and land was to regulate the relations of civilized states. Nowosiltzoff was entrusted to discuss this scheme with Pitt.

It was by the prudence and skilful tact of the English minister that the scaffolding of ambitious hopes was overthrown, and the Emperor Alexander brought to the practical consideration of a durable alliance. England and Russia engaged to carry out the formation of a great European league and the legitimate re-establishment of the states. Hanover and Northern Germany were to be evacuated, the independence of Holland and Switzerland guaranteed, the King of Piedmont reestablished, the kingdom of Naples consolidated, Italy delivered. In order to bring Prussia into that alliance, Pitt proposed to grant him the Rhenish provinces. He refused formally to evacuate Malta, and pleaded the English prejudices against the Russian overtures with reference to the Turkish territory. The Emperor Alexander still hoped to obtain important concessions from Napoleon. Trusting in his sincere disinterestedness, the young monarch had got Prussia to ask passports for his envoy; Napoleon was in Italy, and said he could not receive Nowosiltzoff before July. "I expect nothing from this mediation," he wrote to the King of Prussia: "Alexander is too fickle and feeble; Russia is too far, too foreign to colonial and maritime interests; the Woronzovs too much influenced by English money, for one to have reasonable hopes of an advantageous general peace. Whenever propositions are passed at St. Petersburg to reach Paris, there is no wish to come to an understanding: in London they wish to gain time, dazzle the eyes of all the peoples, and perhaps form a coalition which should bring disgrace upon England. My brother, I wish for peace, but I do not wish to agree to my people being disinherited of the commerce of the world. I have no ambition: I have twice evacuated the third part of Europe without being compelled to do so. I owe Russia no more as to Italian affairs than she owes me with reference to Turkish and Persian affairs. Russia has not the right to take that tone with anybody, and with me still less than with anybody whatever."

The Emperor Napoleon had already given his reply to Europe. The annexation of the territory of Genoa, and the threat to the Neapolitan government sufficiently proved his intentions. The treaty provisionally signed on the 11th April between England and the Emperor Alexander was confirmed; and on the 9th August, Austria, which already had a secret engagement with Russia, adhered to the Anglo-Russian alliance. Sweden joining soon after, the third coalition was now complete. Prussia remained as a common object for the negotiations and advances of all. Napoleon gave her hopes of obtaining Hanover.

He had just set out for Boulogne, always the centre of his adventurous plans. Already in the previous year he believed that he had reached the accomplishment of the project so carefully matured and prepared with that mixture of foresight and boldness which so often secured the unexpected success of his attempts. His enormous preparations were at last completed, the Dutch squadron alone being waited for; and the emperor deceived the impatience of his troops and his own agitation by reviews and military ceremonies. On the 2nd July, he wrote to Admiral Latouche-Treville, whom he had put in command of his Toulon squadron: "By the same messenger let me know on what day you will weigh anchor. Let me know also what the enemy is doing, and where Nelson is located. Reflect upon the great enterprise which you are about to execute, and before I sign your definite orders let me understand the manner in which you think they would be most advantageously carried into effect. I have appointed you Grand Officer of the Empire, Inspector of the Coasts of the Mediterranean; but I desire much that the operation you are about to undertake may enable me to elevate you to such a degree of consideration and honor, that you may have nothing more to desire. The squadron of Rochefort (commanded by Admiral Villeneuve), composed of five vessels, of which one is a three-decker, and of four frigates, is ready to weigh anchor; it has before it only five of the enemy's ships. The squadron of Brest (commanded by Admiral Ganteaume) is of twenty-one ships; these ships have just weighed anchor in order to harass the enemy and compel him to keep there a large number of vessels. The enemy have also six ships before the Texel, and there blockade the Dutch squadron, consisting of eight vessels, four frigates, and a convoy of thirty ships in which the corps of General Marmont is embarked. Between Etaples, Boulogne, Wimereux and Ambleteuse (two new ports which I have constructed) we have 1800 gun-boats of various kinds, and 120,000 men, and 10,000 horses; only let us be masters of the strait for six hours, and we shall be the masters of the world.

"The enemy have before Boulogne, before Ostend, and at the Downs, two ships of seventy-four guns, two of sixty-four guns, and two or three of fifty guns. Until now Admiral Cornwallis has had only fifteen vessels, but all the reserves from Plymouth and Portsmouth have come to reinforce him before Brest.

"The enemy keep also at Cork, in Ireland, four or five ships of war; I do not speak of frigates or small vessels, of which they have a large number. If you deceive Nelson, he will go to Sicily or to Egypt or to Ferrol. It would then appear to me best to make a considerable roundabout, and arrive before Rochefort; thus making your squadron one of sixteen ships and eleven frigates; and then, without dropping anchor or losing a single instant, arrive before Boulogne. Our squadron at Brest, twenty-three vessels strong, will have on board an army, and will be constantly under sail set, so that Cornwallis will be obliged to press close to the shore of Brittany in order to try and prevent the escape of our fleet. For the rest, in order to fix my ideas upon this operation, which has its risks, but of which the success offers results so enormous, I wait for the scheme you have mentioned to me, and which you will send me by return of the courier. You must embark as many provisions as possible, so that under any circumstances you may have nothing to hinder you."

It is the weakness as well as the honor of human enterprises to depend upon the life and force of a man. Before Admiral Latouche-Treville had been able to profit by the occurrence of the mistral to get out of Toulon and deceive Nelson, he himself succumbed to the illness that had preyed upon him since the expedition of San Domingo (20th August, 1804), and the projected expedition against the coast of England was indefinitely postponed. "The flotilla has been looked upon as temporary," wrote the Emperor to Decres, the Minister of Marine; "it will be necessary henceforth to look upon it as a fixed establishment, and from this moment to give the greatest attention to all that is unchangeable, managing it by other regulations than the squadron."

It was at the same time the plan of the emperor to try to turn away the thoughts of the English from his schemes of invasion; in the midst of his arrangements for the coronation, and of the diplomatic negotiations, and whilst writing a private letter to the King of England, pompously proposing peace, he had formed other designs and prepared new plans in order at last to carry out his great enterprise.

It was no longer on the coasts of France or of Spain, but far away in the regions of the Antilles that the French squadrons of Toulon, Brest, and Rochefort were to effect their junction and concentrate their forces. The hope of Napoleon was to see the English, deceived by their disappearance, dash off in pursuit of them and rush to the succor of the Indies. The emperor had for a moment thought of directing the blows of his united navy against this distant and new formed empire. Returning to the project of the descent on England, he had made Admiral Villeneuve set out directly after the 30th of March. He was to join at Cadiz the Spanish Admiral Gravina and at Martinique, Admiral Missiessy, who had left Rochefort on the 11th of January. Admiral Ganteaume, taking advantage of the first moment when the English should be obliged by contrary winds to withdraw from Brest, was in his turn to set sail for Martinique. The fleet, which would then be fifty or sixty strong, assured of triumphing over all the English forces if they should dare to face it, would return into the channel to cover the departure of the flotilla. "The English do not know what calamity awaits them," wrote Napoleon on the 4th of August to the Admiral Decres. "If we are masters of the passage for twelve hours, England's day is done."

Racine has said by the mouth of Mithridates,—

"Mais, pour etre approuves, De semblables projets veulent etre acheves."

Villeneuve quoted it to the Minister of Marine when the plans formed by the emperor were confided to him. This mournful forecast haunted, no doubt, more than once the thoughts of the admiral when he found himself at sea, discontented and uneasy. "We have bad masts, bad sails, bad rigging, bad officers, and bad sailors," said he. Arrived, on the 14th of May, at Martinique, he found Missiessy no longer there, but his orders obliged him to await the arrival of Ganteaume. A continuous calm prevented the latter from leaving Brest, where he was blockaded by the English. At the two ends of the world, discouragement weighed upon the admirals consigned to inaction by unforeseen obstacles met with in the execution of a plan which took no account of accidents of wind or sea. In vain wrote Napoleon to Ganteaume, "You hold in your hands the destinies of the world." The unfortunate commander of the Brest squadron communicated his despair to the Minister of Marine: "I believe, my friend, that you share all my experience. Every day that passes is a day of torment for me; and I tremble lest at the end I should be obliged to commit some gross folly. The length of the days and the beauty of the season cause me to despair of the expedition." In the middle of May, Admiral Magon was despatched to Martinique to give Villeneuve orders to return with his squadron, to raise the blockade of Ferrol, to touch at Rochefort, and join Admiral Missiessy, and then to present themselves before Brest in order to force the blockade with the aid of Ganteaume. The united fleets were then to set sail towards the channel.