Though vanity undoubtedly played a part, these rituals were inspired principally by the need to create the institutions and framework which Bonaparte believed to be essential props of the nascent French polity. They were all of a piece with everything else he was doing, which he famously described as laying down blocks of granite on which the state would rest.
He was not insensible to the fact that the authoritative government and strong hand required to put France back together were in conflict with the ideals of the Revolution, most of which were his own. That it had degenerated into a series of murderous convulsions he ascribed to a lack of discipline and the pursuit of consensus through discussion, which ultimately led to the rule of the mob. The tensions between liberty and effective government had been one of the principal preoccupations of eighteenth-century thinkers; in the first sentence of Du Contrat Social, a seminal Enlightenment text, Rousseau sought a formula that could tailor good legislation to the imperfections of man. ‘In this quest I shall everywhere try to reconcile what the law permits with what is required by the common good, in such a manner that justice and utility should not conflict,’ he wrote, recognising that laws too rigid to adapt to developing events can prove pernicious in certain situations, even leading to the downfall of states.22
The Revolution, Bonaparte believed, had shown the way and then got lost. ‘We have finished the novel of the Revolution,’ he told the Council of State. ‘We now have to write its history, to pick out only those of its principles which are real and possible to apply, and not those which are speculative and hypothetical. To follow a different course today would be to philosophise, not to govern.’23
Rousseau defined the man who usurps royal authority as a tyrant and the one who usurps the sovereignty of the people as a despot. ‘The tyrant will break the law in order to take power and govern according to the law; the despot places himself above the law itself,’ he explained. ‘Thus a tyrant may not be a despot, but the despot is always a tyrant.’ France needed a tyrant, and Bonaparte fitted Rousseau’s definition, but he did not at this stage aspire to the role of despot. ‘My policy is to govern people as the majority wishes to be governed,’ he would explain to Roederer a couple of months later. ‘That is, I believe, the best way to acknowledge the sovereignty of the people.’24
He had gone to great lengths to allow a voice and a forum to everyone who was not opposed to the state as it was constituted. The credibility of the four constitutional bodies was grounded in his non-partisan appointments, which gave many who were ill-disposed to him a platform on which to air their views. As the various bodies met in different places – the Legislative at the Palais-Bourbon, the Tribunes at the Palais-Royal, the Senate at the Luxembourg and the Council of State at the Tuileries – they were not in a position to form a nexus of resistance. And there were few prepared to stand in his way, if only out of fear. The prominent liberal Benjamin Constant had invited a number of friends to dinner at his house on 6 January 1800, but the previous day he had criticised one of Bonaparte’s projects in the Tribunate, and in consequence only two turned up – and they only because he had bumped into them that afternoon, which left them no excuse. Such self-control provided no guarantee, and Bonaparte realised the necessity of building state structures of requisite strength and stabilising the political, economic and social situation to the point at which the benefits of the status quo would outweigh any desire for change. A key element in this was local administration.25
A law of 17 February 1800 fixed the administrative structure of the country (which survives almost unchanged to this day). It was based on a project devised by Sieyès at the beginning of the Revolution in 1789, and its guiding principle was centralisation, with every department run by a single prefect. ‘Discussion is the function of many, execution is that of one man,’ was how he had introduced it. As with many of Sieyès’ projects, it was theoretically sound but wanting in practice, and the new structure put in place by Bonaparte, Daunou, Roederer and Chaptal was more effective. The administration of the country was divided up into ninety-eight departments, each with a prefect exercising full authority, assisted by a sub-prefect and a General Council (Conseil général). A department consisted of a number of districts (arrondissements), which grouped together the communes, run by a mayor and a municipal council. The new law abolished the election of prefects, sub-prefects and mayors, who were henceforth to be nominated by the first consul. In the interests of stability, most incumbents were maintained, but as they now held their office by the grace of the first consul, he acquired a control throughout the provinces which the monarch under the ancien régime could only have dreamed of.26
Lying in the department of the Seine, Paris was granted special status, with twelve mayors overseeing the arrondissements, but the city’s real mayor was the prefect of the Seine – an autonomous mayor of Paris would have been a potential focus for political opposition. Fear of the city’s populace made Bonaparte act fast; barely a week after the coup d’état, some 70 per cent of the municipal authorities had been sacked, with those of lower-class origins replaced by men of property, mostly shopkeepers, who were admonished to act in such a way as to ‘extinguish all hatreds’.27
A month later, on 18 March, a new system of justice came into being, with 400 local courts, a high court (cour de première instance) for every department, and twenty-nine courts of appeal, all overseen by the highest court in the land, the Tribunal de Cassation. Before any case came to court, it was brought before one of 3,000 justices of the peace. The prestige of the law was enhanced by regulations which created a new class of magistrates who were given the robes and titles which had obtained before the Revolution. This class, along with the wealthier and more active citizens in every locality, constituted what were termed as ‘notables’, a social grouping described by Thibaudeau as ‘a kind of aristocracy destined exclusively for public office’. They would become the backbone of the new French state.28
As important as any political or administrative measures were those Bonaparte undertook to stabilise the economic and financial situation. The French state had been struggling to avoid bankruptcy for most of the eighteenth century, and the crisis of the late 1780s had led to the outbreak of the Revolution. The ensuing chaos and wars had wrought yet more havoc with the economy. Consecutive revolutionary governments had issued vast quantities of assignats, paper money backed by the supposed value of the confiscated biens nationaux. More and more notes were printed, precipitating a headlong fall in their value, leading to a monetary crisis which by 1793 had become endemic. The introduction of the silver franc in 1795 only served to underline the worthlessness of the paper currency (the printing costs of which exceeded its value), and in February 1796 the Directory attempted to halt the slide by holding a ceremonial smashing of the plates, hoping to convince people that no more would be printed. But in March it issued a new form of paper currency – which lost 80 per cent of its value in the space of a month and had to be withdrawn within less than a year. It then resorted to a sleight of hand that made two-thirds of all paper currency valueless.29
The Directory just about managed to survive on the proceeds of successful wars which brought millions in specie as ‘contributions’ and straight looting from Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and western Germany. But the majority of the people suffered. While the rural population could feed itself it could not sell its produce at a reasonable price, and the knock-on effect on manufacturing led to stagnation. The only sector which thrived was that of supplying the armies, and fortunes were made by unscrupulous entrepreneurs (members of the Bonaparte clan among them) who were paid in specie by the government, bought victuals and goods at knockdown prices and often did not even pass them on to the troops but sold them to locals in occupied territories. The situation began to improve in the last year of the Directory, but this went largely unnoticed. In time, Bonaparte would take the credit, but when he took power the situation was dire. The coffers of the treasury contained no more than 167,
000 francs. Expected receipts were 470 million, to cover a budget of 600 million and service a debt of 500 million.
Financial milieus, badly battered by the Directory’s attempts to deal with the liquidity crisis, were ready to pin their hopes on any government that looked as though it might provide fiscal stability. Cambacérès’ prestige stood high in these circles, and they were prepared to follow his lead. Shortly after the coup, on 24 November, Bonaparte received five leading financiers whom he assured that his government would respect private property, defend the social order and provide stability. He then withdrew, leaving the finance minister Gaudin to ask them for a loan, which they readily subscribed.30
Gaudin instituted a lottery, sold off government property and imposed a levy on the Sister Republics. He persuaded Bonaparte to introduce a range of indirect taxes, including duties on tobacco, alcohol and salt – the very taxes which had done so much to provoke the Revolution and been repealed in 1789. In order to provide a new mechanism for raising credit for the government, on 13 February he established the Banque de France. Gaudin’s work on enforcing the payment of arrears and bringing in efficient methods of collecting taxes gradually began to pay off.
Bonaparte had already gone a long way to destroy, disable or disarm the political malcontents on both the right and the left. Their capability had been eroded by the general mood of contentment. He had managed to win over many without necessarily fulfilling their hopes or expectations. Hyde de Neuville admitted that the advent of the new regime had induced ‘a sense of relief and acceptance’, and that ‘the desire for order and stability was so universal that people were delighted to find themselves taken in hand by one capable of re-establishing them’.31
‘The favourable opinion of the talents and principles of the First Consul grows daily, and that opinion, along with his authority, is really held by the people,’ reported the Prussian minister on 2 January. ‘It is difficult to imagine in what a state of relief and happiness France soon found itself,’ recorded the young Amable de Barante. ‘After ten years of anarchy, of civil wars, of bloody discord, after the fall of an ignoble tyranny, we saw public order re-establish itself as though by miracle.’ He did note that some far-sighted people were alarmed that these benefits all stemmed from the absolute power of one man, but the price seemed worth paying.32
21
Marengo
If he was to achieve his aim of rebuilding the French state, Bonaparte needed to put an end to the war. The enemies of France were preparing to resume hostilities in the spring of 1800, and the condition of the French forces did not inspire confidence. As Britain was the paymaster of the coalition, he believed that the road to peace lay through London. One of his first acts on taking office as first consul on 25 December 1799 was to write to George III professing his desire for peace and offering to open negotiations. He also sent Louis-Guillaume Otto to London to arrange the exchange of prisoners along with a brief to try to initiate peace talks.1
Writing a personal letter to the king was a breach of protocol, and the response, from the foreign secretary Lord Grenville, was haughty. Addressed to his counterpart Talleyrand rather than Bonaparte, it accused France of ten years of aggression, and declared that since Britain did not recognise the present authorities in France as legitimate, it would only negotiate with the restored Bourbons. Bonaparte’s response, delivered by Talleyrand, rejected the charge of aggression and challenged Grenville’s attitude to the French government, given that every other state in Europe had recognised the Republic and Britain had itself conducted negotiations with it only two years before. Every nation had the right to choose its rulers, he went on, pointing out that the house of Hanover itself reigned in Britain thanks to a revolution. The point was picked up in the House of Commons by a member of the opposition who asked Prime Minister William Pitt what he would say if a victorious France were to declare she would only negotiate with the Stuarts. Pitt countered that there was no point in entering into negotiations with Bonaparte, an adventurer who would not last long, as he was ‘a stranger, a foreigner, and an usurper’. Grenville replied to the second French note only to say that he would not accept any further correspondence.2
Pitt could see no reason to enter into negotiations. Victory appeared to be in sight: Nelson’s destruction of the French fleet in the bay of Aboukir had established British dominance in the Mediterranean, the French force on Malta was besieged, and it was thought that the French occupation of Egypt was about to collapse.
Bonaparte’s departure had caused consternation in the army he left behind, followed by an explosion of anger, but this soon died down as most of the men accepted that he knew what he was doing and would soon return with reinforcements or send ships to bring them home; they had grown to trust him, and Kléber had raged against ‘that little bugger’ for deserting his army mainly because he missed him and his firm command. He could hold out with the 20,000 or so men he had left, all of them seasoned troops. They were regularly resupplied with essentials by blockade-running despatch boats known as avisos, and by Genoese, Algerian and Tunisian trading vessels, and from the moment Bonaparte came to power a fast sloop and two frigates began making regular runs out of Toulon. But Kléber lacked the will to carry on the enterprise. He entered into negotiations with Sydney Smith, and at the end of January 1800 signed the Convention of El Arish, by which the French would evacuate Egypt with their arms.3
Believing they could obtain an unconditional surrender, the British government disowned the convention and resumed hostilities. Kléber defeated an Ottoman army at Heliopolis and recovered control over the whole of Egypt. But British troops from India had landed on the Red Sea coast, and another force was preparing to come ashore at Alexandria. The letters of French officers writing home intercepted by the Royal Navy painted a picture of low morale. The ease with which the British were able to land small contingents of troops in areas of France where royalist feeling was strong suggested that France itself was vulnerable. Pitt took Bonaparte’s peace overtures as a sign of weakness, believing that ‘the whole game is in our hands now, and it wants little more than patience to play it well, to the end’.4
Bonaparte had also written to the emperor proposing peace negotiations, and although it was more diplomatic, the response from Vienna was just as clear as that from London. The emperor had every intention of pursuing the war. His armies had driven the French out of Italy and overthrown the Cisalpine Republic. In the north, they had pushed the French back across the Rhine. Like his British ally he misjudged the significance of what had taken place in France, seeing it as a sign of internal chaos, and was confident of victory. Austrian armies were preparing to launch a two-pronged attack in the spring, over the Rhine from Germany, and into the south of France through Italy, supported by the Royal Navy, which was to land British troops on France’s south coast.
Bonaparte later admitted that ‘This response could not have been more favourable to us’; if Britain had accepted his offer to negotiate, she would have used her position of power and France’s weakness to force France out of Holland, almost the whole of Italy and Malta. In order to entrench his political power, Bonaparte needed to make good some of France’s recent losses and regain the initiative. ‘The war was essential [to France] at that moment in order to maintain the energy and unity of the State, which was still weak,’ he would explain, adding that as it also strengthened his own hand, he had received the news of the British refusal ‘with secret satisfaction’.5
On 8 March he issued a proclamation stating that he had done everything he could to negotiate a peace, but since the allies were set on war, France must fight. ‘The kings of Europe may well regret not having wished to make peace,’ he said to Cambacérès as he faced up to the challenge. He meant to bring Austria to the negotiating table by a vigorous strike through Germany to defeat the 120,000 men massing there under Field Marshal Kray and then march on Vienna. He was building up a Reserve Army around Dijon which could be used either to move south against
the Austrians in Italy or to reinforce the forces operating in Germany. His main problem was the condition of the troops at his disposal, which were in many cases little better than a mutinous rabble. He held parades, inspected barracks, talked to soldiers and took an interest in their wants. He took every opportunity to enhance their self-esteem, signing off a letter to a grenadier who had distinguished himself with the words ‘I love you like a son.’ He wanted the author of the Marseillaise, Rouget de Lisle, to compose a new hymn that might galvanise them.6
The question also arose as to who was to command the armies in the field. Rulers had long ago ceased leading their troops into battle, delegating the task to professionals, and as virtual head of state Bonaparte might have been expected to do so too. Yet he considered himself best qualified for the task. Moreover, since he had achieved his position largely through military prowess, if he were to hand over command to another, their success might equal or even eclipse his past triumphs and thereby weaken his right to rule. Yet his setting off to war would raise all manner of possibilities, hopes and fears; with Bernadotte in command of the Army of the West and Moreau on the Rhine, a military coup could not be ruled out. There was also the possibility of his being killed in battle, and Joseph suggested he nominate him as his successor. Political considerations also impinged on his military planning.
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