The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

by Eugène Sue

  CHAPTER VII.

  GLORY; AND ELBA.

  The war, immediately after the Brumaire coup d'etat, was pushed withvigor. Moreau received the commandership-in-chief of the Army of theRhine, and Bonaparte, on the 16th Floreal of the same year (May 6,1800), left Paris to put himself at the head of the Army of Italy. Onthe 25th Prairial (June 14), he achieved the brilliant victory ofMarengo, which, completing the work begun under the Directorate,expelled the Austrians from Italy.

  Between January 8, 1801, and the 25th of March, 1802, the various powersat war with France were one by one forced to sue for peace. The firsttreaty was signed by England at Amiens. The peace was to be short-lived,but Bonaparte improved his days of calm to restore a great part of theabuses overthrown by the Revolution, and to lay the foundations for hisfuture hereditary power. Himself a sceptic, but considering religion inthe light of an instrument of domination, he treated with the Pope ofRome toward the end of re-establishing Catholicism in all its splendor.He founded the order of the Legion of Honor, a ridiculous andanti-democratic body, and in so much a restoration of social inequality.Shortly thereafter the Revolutionary calendar was replaced by theGregorian; in short, the First Consul set himself against the currentof public opinion, by returning, more and more, to the traditions of theOld Regime.

  On May 6, 1802, the Tribunate promulgated the suggestion that the powersof the First Consul be extended for ten years; and two months later uponmotion of the Senate, the docile tool of Bonaparte, he was voted theConsulate for life. Pope Pius VII came to Paris to anoint and crown thebrow of Napoleon, Emperor of the French by the grace of God.

  The consequences of the restoration of hereditary monarchy in Francewere not long to await. One by one Napoleon forcibly seized all thebudding republics of Europe which the breath of the Revolution hadfanned into being, and bestowed them as benefices upon his family. Partof Italy, incorporated into France, was given into the vice-regency ofPrince Eugene Beauharnais, the Emperor's brother-in-law; and one of theEmperor's sisters received the Duchy of Modena.

  The 11th of April, 1803, was marked by a new coalition between England,Austria and Russia. For a moment bent on a descent upon England,Napoleon abandoned the adventurous project. Recalled from Boulogne toface a war on the continent, Bonaparte, whose military genius stillattended him, gained on the 2nd of December, 1805, the wonderful victoryof Austerlitz. Peace was again imposed upon Austria; on the 26th of thesame month she signed the treaty of Presburg by which she surrenderedenormous slices of territory.

  In 1806 the King of Naples broke his treaties with France. He wassummarily dispossessed of his throne to the profit of Joseph Bonaparte,brother to Napoleon. A short time thereafter, the republic of Bataviawas presented to Louis Bonaparte, another brother.

  Now dreaming of universal empire, and retrograding toward the era offeudal barbarism, Napoleon attached foreign duchy after foreign duchy asfiefs to his throne. His continual inroads into the neighboringterritories rekindled the war. A fourth coalition was formed against theEmpire. Prussia, neutral in the previous war, this time took an activepart; but October 14, 1806, saw her crushing defeat at Jena; on the 26ththe French army entered Berlin in triumph.

  Russia, defeated at Friedland and at Eylau, begged for peace; it wasconcluded at Tilsitt, June 21, 1807.

  At each of these new and crowning victories Napoleon's vertigo grew.Drunk with constant success, a universal monarchy now became his fixedidea, and still another of his brothers, Jerome Bonaparte, was investedwith a kingdom formed out of several states of the GermanicConfederation. The single member of the Bonaparte family who took nopart in the rich quarry of thrones distributed by the conqueror wasLucien. Did he seek thus voluntarily to expiate his complicity in theevents of Brumaire, or was he victim to the Emperor's ingratitude?Lucien received not a single crown out of the booty.

  Napoleon's return to the traditions of the Old Regime, even to thosemost execrated by the nation, became more and more extravagant. Forinstance, the right of primogeniture, abolished by the Revolution, wasre-established. This iniquity, from the point of view of society and ofthe family, was forced upon the Emperor by the logic of his mistakes:if he reconstituted the nobility, he could not but ensure its existenceby restricting the partition of property.

  On March 1st, 1813, the Prussian government, yielding to the publicvoice of Germany, which was ever more and more hostile to Napoleon, gavethe signal for treachery by breaking its alliance with the French Empireand again joining hands with England and Russia. The new coalition wasreinforced by Sweden, where Bernadotte, the old general of the Republic,had become King. The victories of Lutzen and Bautzen at first seemed toassure Napoleon's success. Austria proffered its mediation to thebelligerent parties, and they concluded, on June 4, 1813, the armisticeof Plessewitz. A congress, in session at Prague, offered Napoleon asnational limits those won by the armies of the Republic--the Rhine, theMeuse, and the Alps. But Napoleon rejected the proposal with disdain; hefeared to lose by it his prestige in the eyes of the world and ofFrance, which he believed he could hold in subjection only by the glamorof his victories.

  The war recommenced, but soon, blow upon blow, began the reverses.Macdonald was defeated in Silesia, Ney in Prussia, Vandamme at Culm. Theprinces of the Germanic Confederation, encouraged by these checks, andyielding to the pressure of their people, abandoned Napoleon on thebattle-field of Leipzig. They turned their troops against him. TheFrench army, in full rout, retreated within its frontiers, October 31,1813; soon the allies threatened them even there. Napoleon rushed toParis on November 9th, and ordered new levies of troops. Thousands offamilies, at extortionate prices, had previously bought off their sonsfrom conscription. This last draft took them all. The Corsican ogredevoured the whole generation.

  The situation was desperate. The Austrians advanced by way of Italy andthrough Switzerland; the English, masters of Spain and Portugal, pouredover the Pyrenees, under the command of Wellington; the Prussians, ledby Bluecher, invaded Frankfort; and the army of the North, withBernadotte at its head, penetrated France by way of Belgium. In vain theFrench soldiers performed miracles of valor; in vain were the Prussiansannihilated at Montmirail, at Champaubert, and at Chateau-Thierry, andthe Austrians overthrown at Montereau. These sterile victories were thefinal effort of Napoleon's warrior genius.

  On the 30th of March, 1814, the foreign armies entered the capital, ashame which France had undergone but once before across the ages, underthe monarchy, in the reign of King John. Talleyrand and Fouche, so longthe servile tools of their master, were the first to betray him. OnApril 11, 1814, Napoleon abdicated the Empire after a reign of tenyears.

  The Senate, whose conduct during the Empire had been marked with abjectservility, put the final touches to its ignominy by decreeing with thefollowing justifications the deposition of the man of whom its ownmembers had been the accomplices:

  The Senate Conservator,

  Considering, That under a constitutional monarchy the monarch exists only in virtue of the Constitution, or the social contract;

  That Napoleon Bonaparte, for some time head of a firm and prudent government, gave to the nation and his subjects reason to depend for the future upon his wisdom and justice; but thereupon he sundered the pact which bound the French people, notably by levying imposts and establishing taxes not warranted by the law, and against the expressed tenor of the oath which he swore to before his ascension to the throne, according to Article 43 of the Act of Constitution of the 28th Floreal, year XII;

  That he committed this assault upon the rights of the people just when he had without necessity adjourned the legislative body and had caused to be suppressed as criminal a report of that body in which it contested his title and his part in the national representation;

  That he undertook a series of wars in violation of Article 50 of the Constitutional Act of the 22nd Frimaire, year VIII, which states that declarations of war must be moved, d
iscussed, decreed and promulgated the same as laws;

  That he unconstitutionally rendered several decrees carrying the penalty of death, namely the decrees of the 5th of March, last; that he presumed to consider national a war which he entered upon in the interest alone of his own unbridled ambition;

  That he violated the laws and the Constitution by his decrees on State Prisons;

  That he has abolished ministerial responsibility, confounded all powers, and destroyed the independence of the judiciary;

  Considering, That the liberty of the press, established and consecrated as one of the rights of the nation, has been constantly subjected to the arbitrary censorship of the police, and that at the same time he has made use of the press to fill France and all Europe with contradicted facts, false maxims, doctrines favorable to despotism, and outrages against foreign governments;

  That acts and reports rendered by the Senate have been caused to be garbled in publication;

  Considering, That, in place of reigning with an eye singly to the interest, the happiness and the glory of the French people and in accordance with the words of his oath, Napoleon has heaped high the woes of the fatherland by his refusal to treat upon conditions which the national interests bade him accept, and which would have compromised neither French honor nor the interests of the nation;

  By the abuse he has made of all the resources of men and of money that have been confided to him;

  By his abandoning of the wounded without medical attention, without assistance, and without food;

  By various measures, the result of which has been the ruin of cities, the misery and depopulation of the country districts, famine and contagious diseases;

  Considering, That, by all these causes, the Imperial Government, established by the Senate-Consulate on the 28th Floreal, year XII, has ceased to exist, and that the manifest will of all the French calls for an order of things whose first result shall be the re-establishment of general peace and which may be also an epoch of solemn reconciliation among all the states of the great European family,

  The Senate declares and decrees as follows:

  Article 1.--Napoleon Bonaparte is deposed from the throne, and the hereditary right set up in his family is abolished. The French people and the army are released from their oath of fidelity towards Napoleon Bonaparte, who has ceased to be Emperor.

  The heart rises with indignation and disgust at the thought of theshamefulness of these miserable senators. Not alone did not one amongthem dare to protest, even by his silence, against these acts which theynow condemned, but these very acts in their time had had no morevociferous upholders than they themselves.

  One last test was reserved for France and Napoleon. The latter wasfurnished later (in 1815) with the opportunity to expiate and redeem thepast. His monarchical pride, his hatred for the Revolution bothcontrived to render impossible this supreme expiation, and a terriblechastisement fell upon him. In 1814 Bonaparte, although his throne wasforfeit, was recognized sovereign of the island of Elba. The coalizedKings assigned him that place as a residence, and thither, attended byseveral officers and soldiers faithful to him in his misfortune, herepaired.

  So great was the need felt by France for peace, repose, andindependence, after these ten years of warfare and hard service, that inspite of her profound aversion for the Bourbons, their return was hailedwith joy. The kingdom of 1814, a new usurpation of the sole,indivisible, indefeasable and inalienable sovereignty of the people,consecrated again the iniquitous principle of monarchy, against whichthe republican minority in vain protested.

  Louis XVIII, accordingly, made his solemn entry into Paris on the 3rd ofMay, 1814, in the midst of the princes of his family, escorted by thegreater part of the Marshals of the Empire, among whom mingled Emigrantsand foreign generals: legitimate punishment to Napoleon!

  The Bourbons deeply wounded the sentiment of the nation by a return tothe usages of the Old Regime and by outrages against the acts of theRevolution. Decrees restored to the Emigrants the estates and propertythat had not yet been sold; the loans contracted by Louis XVIII invarious countries were placed among the debts of the state. Ordinancesprescribed the observation of church days and Sundays; the censorshipwas retained almost as rigorous as under the Empire. Processionscommenced again to circulate about the churches. Thus the royalgovernment in a short space became as odious as the imperial governmenthad been. Several military conspiracies were organized. One faction ofthe bourgeoisie thought of calling to the throne the Duke of Orleans,while the republican party thought, on its part, to turn the trend ofevents to its own profit. But, as has well been said, the fate of Francelay in the hands of the army, attached to Napoleon by the privileges hehad showered upon it, and by the memories of its glory. The people, longgrown disused to political life, switched off by Napoleon, and woundedby the Bourbons in its revolutionary instincts, lay inert, all save afew old patriots of the illustrious days of the Revolution. The armyalone, then, was the deciding factor in the fate of the Restoration.Such was the state of mind in France from the 3rd of May, 1814, the dayof Louis XVIII's entry into Paris, up to the beginning of the month ofMarch, 1815, at which period begins our next chapter.