Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  In Brittany, between September 1800 and February 1801, in the first six months of their existence the military commissions tried more than 1,200 people, a third of whom were condemned to death, mostly for criminal offences like armed robbery.117 Another 150 were killed while ‘resisting arrest’. The trials and executions were widely publicized and often occurred on powerful local sites of memory, places where counter-revolutionaries had committed atrocities. The regime was making a point. Violence against the state and its citizens would no longer be tolerated. While the number of executions between 1800 and 1802 was around 2,300, it is an exaggeration to assert that Bonaparte unleashed a veritable ‘Consular Terror’.118 By comparison, at the height of the Terror in 1793, some 1,900 people were executed in Lyons for participating in a revolt against Paris.119 The repression of ‘banditry’ under Bonaparte was harsh, but entirely in keeping with ancien régime notions of the rule of order.

  One cannot underestimate the success of this mixture of repression and reconciliation in consolidating the new regime.120 Bonaparte succeeded where other revolutionary governments did not because he deployed larger numbers of regular troops to quash resistance, and he consistently used an apparatus of repression (flying columns, military commissions and the regular imposition of a state of siege on hundreds of towns and villages). The royalist cause was going to be weakened even further when Bonaparte concluded peace with Britain in 1802. By then, his policies had started to pay off; counter-revolution and banditry in the departments where they had once been rife were under control. The politics of reconciliation coupled with extraordinarily brutal measures was a winning combination that brought the regime acceptance and, more importantly, followers. Bonaparte knew how to take the credit for all these successes.

  2

  ‘Perfect Glory and Solid Peace’

  The Seat of Power

  The day after the results of the plebiscite were announced (19 February 1800), Bonaparte vacated the Luxembourg for the Tuileries Palace, redubbed the Palace of the Government (Palais du gouvernement). The transfer of the executive to the palace of a former king, a king executed by the ‘nation’, was the occasion for the first large-scale public manifestation of the new regime.1 One police report referred exaggeratedly to the ‘rejoicing’ (allégresse) of the people and the acclamations from the crowds lining the streets to watch the procession.2 The repossession of the former royal palace was supposed to respect republican forms. There was nothing remarkable about the procession of carriages that drove that day through the streets of Paris from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries: the servants were dressed in hand-me-downs from the Directory, and there was as yet no return of powdered hair or livery.3 And yet the procession took on the appearance of a royal entry.4 Cavalry headed the procession, followed by the Council of State in carriages that looked a little worse for wear, as did the horses drawing them. Then fifty musicians preceded the general staff of Paris, followed by ministers in various carriages, the guides brought over from Egypt, transformed into the Chasseurs de la garde, the aides-de-camp and, finally, the carriage with the three consuls, drawn by six white horses, a gift from the Holy Roman Emperor. The procession closed with the horse guard.5

  The procession, whose pomp was muted, was something entirely new, and was all about a display of power to the public and the world. It was also in stark contrast to the way in which European monarchs generally behaved in the eighteenth century. Most other European sovereigns would not have dared be so brazen in their display of power. The Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, for example, preferred ‘domestic obscurity’, and went about in a carriage drawn by two not six horses, and no guards.6 Remarkable too was the mixture of representatives of both the civilian administration and the military. The military were present not just as an escort to the civilian authorities, and not just as an integral part of the parade. They were placed at the head of the procession, signifying that they were now the premier corps in the state.7 It was also a subtle reminder to the army that Bonaparte was in command and that it was to serve him, as well as a reminder to the public that he was master of the army.

  ‘The crowds had not gathered in any magnificence along the route,’ wrote one observer, ‘but there were enough people there. A few were surprised that the move was such a great affair; it is certain that that little representation was a test of [public] opinion.’8 Cries of ‘Vive Bonaparte!’ and ‘Vive la République!’ could be heard in the crowd – during the Consulate it was not uncommon for the two to be paired together9 – but the procession also drove past a barrier made of wood upon which an inscription was mounted that read, ‘Royalty has been abolished in France, and it will never return.’10 That remained to be seen, but the procession allowed the crowd to identify with the new government, as well as with the army.

  The Tuileries Palace no longer exists; fire gutted it during the civil war in 1870 and it was later razed. One can imagine where the palace once was, though, between the wings of the Louvre, the garden of the Tuileries on one side and the courtyard presently containing the glass pyramids on the other. The kings of France had resided there, if only rarely, since the seventeenth century, so the palace was important to the people of Paris.11 Taking possession of the former domicile of the kings of France was marking a change in regime, underlining Bonaparte’s power. As a former royal residence, it had more than just symbolic significance. ‘The idea that prevailed over him [Bonaparte]’, wrote Cambacérès, ‘was to give the government the character of seniority [ancienneté] that it lacked.’ He would have liked to make disappear all the governments that had existed since 1792, so that Consular power appeared to be the heir of the monarchy.12

  Edouard Baldus, Le Louvre et les Tuileries vus de la cour Napoléon (The Louvre and the Tuileries seen from the Napoleon Courtyard), c. 1860. This photograph was taken before the fire of 1870 from the so-called Napoleon Courtyard, where today the glass pyramids are to be found. The work on the courtyard had only just been completed; the trees were newly planted. The triumphal arch of the Carrousel, built between 1806 and 1808 to commemorate Napoleon’s victories, is still in its original place. The troop reviews (about which more below) took place between the iron grille, barely discernible in the background and behind the arch, and the palace.

  Once Bonaparte had taken over the reins of power, he was conscious of the need to introduce an element of continuity, even if it was only symbolic, between his regime and those of the past. The Tuileries was a symbol not only of the monarchy, but also of the state. The fact that the other two consuls, Cambacérès and Lebrun, did not move to the Tuileries – they chose as their residences, respectively, the Hôtel d’Elbeuf and the Hôtel de Flore (abandoned in 1802 for the Hôtel de Noailles) – meant also that Bonaparte was from that moment on the only consul at the centre of power. The Tuileries was where Bonaparte received the ministers, as well as foreign visitors and foreign ambassadors, many of whom were struck by his febrile activity. It reinforced the distinction between the First Consul and the other two, and lent a certain regal character to Bonaparte and the regime.

  Two days after Bonaparte had moved into the Tuileries, France was given a new, highly centralized administrative structure known as the prefectural system, part of a reorganization wanted by Bonaparte, but which Lucien as minister of the interior largely carried out. In charge of each department was a prefect. Power emanated from the centre, that is, Bonaparte, and was to reach down the line to prefects, sub-prefects and the local mayor.13 Bonaparte was not yet in a position personally to name the ninety-eight prefects who had to be found to govern each department. For the moment, he relied on his close advisers for suggestions. Nor was the reform without controversy; some in the Tribunate believed that a form of tyranny – people were already using the word in connection with Bonaparte – was being introduced.

  In those first weeks in power, Bonaparte made a number of important symbolic gestures. He had dug up the ‘trees of liberty’ that had been planted in the courtyard of the Tuile
ries during the Revolution, on the pretext that they were creating too much shade. Similarly, he had the Phrygian bonnets that had been painted on the walls of the palace removed, although he made sure that some connection with the revolutionary past was maintained. The façade of the Tuileries, damaged by cannon shot when it was stormed by the mob on 10 August 1792, was restored, but the words ‘tenth August’ were painted around the indentations made by the shot.14 Then, almost as soon as Bonaparte had moved into the Tuileries, a new form of etiquette was introduced, leading to a formalization of the relations of power, tentative at first but increasingly complex as the Consulate evolved.15 Finally, Bonaparte instituted a ceremonial review of troops in the courtyard of the palace. Sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, he went through the ranks stopping to talk with both officers and rank and file.

  The review became a regular feature of life at the Tuileries when Bonaparte was in Paris, and would be held every ten or twenty days, after which the officers would be invited to a banquet. Bonaparte fell into the habit of reviewing the troops whenever he thought necessary, even when on campaign. This was no vain parade, but an occasion for him to reveal to the people of Paris his army, the source of his glory, ‘and to exert on all the souls of that empire, an irresistible ascendancy of power, of force, of genius, and of fortune joined together in one man’. 16 Troops were encouraged to shout ‘Vive Bonaparte!’ In the process, the First Consul strengthened the bonds between himself and his men, reinforcing the image of Bonaparte (and later Napoleon) as father figure.17

  These reviews or parades could be gruelling exercises that sometimes went on for seven or eight hours.18 However, by listening to and addressing the men’s complaints, by appearing to care about the welfare of his troops, by coming into contact with them, questioning and joking with his men – Bonaparte still allowed a degree of familiarity – remembering them from previous campaigns (often with a little help from his aides) and asking about their families, he deliberately cultivated a closer relationship with his troops than any other contemporary head of state. Anecdotes about Bonaparte’s friendliness with his troops became the stuff of legend. Memoirs, letters and journals are replete with examples of individual soldiers’ encounters with him, sometimes in formalized settings such as the reviews, sometimes as he walked through campsites while on campaign, repeated in publications such as newspapers and pamphlets.19

  The parades were also political theatre, providing a dazzling display of Bonaparte’s position as both military and political leader.20 All his public appearances were strictly choreographed and announced well in advance to give those who wanted to see him the chance to take up positions where they could. The windows of the apartments of the palace that commanded a view of the courtyard would be occupied hours beforehand.21 At the same time, Bonaparte was creating a cult of honour in which individuals would publicly receive recognition for their valour on behalf of the nation.22 In turn, the nation was meant to be proud of what it had achieved, while any foreigners present were intended to respect and fear what it was capable of. The presence of military uniforms on the streets of Paris was noted by visitors to the capital in later years, as were the monthly parades. This did not always give the impression it was meant to. For English tourists like Abraham Raimbach, hardly sympathetic to the First Consul or the French, the ‘universal appearance’ of the military at every public occasion was the visible sign of ‘an oppressive power’.23

  The Search for Peace

  Military parades might appear incongruous for a man who made a point of portraying himself as the ‘hero of peace’, but this kind of public performance was as much about consolidating Bonaparte’s power and authority, of legitimating it, as it was about underlining the role of the military in the new regime. Bonaparte’s image was undergoing a transformation in the first years of his rule.24 We see a merging of all the different images that had till now been used in the press – the victorious general, the man of science, the orientalist, the hero – into one, that of Bonaparte as General of Peace.

  The first inkling came with a spectacular propaganda coup. On Christmas Day 1799, Bonaparte wrote to the crowned heads of England and Austria expressing his wish for a prompt reconciliation.25 The letters marked a rupture with the aggressive behaviour of the Directory. Although historians have speculated that the offer was never serious – Bonaparte needed to consolidate his position at home by a resounding military victory against the Austrians26 – evidence suggests that he would have accepted at least a truce before launching a war with Austria.27

  Bonaparte was a conundrum to the British, a character who had come to their attention through his conquests of Italy and Egypt where the ‘poisoning incident’* was to colour British views of him for the rest of his life.28 With the coup, the British were unsure what to expect, and unsure where to place Bonaparte on the French political spectrum. Was he another rabid Jacobin, an ‘ambitious Corsican’,29 or someone bent on founding his own dynasty? A debate about Bonaparte even took place in parliament.30 British views of him were, it would appear, hopelessly muddled.31 Only much later, after the resumption of war in 1803, did the British government launch an anti-Bonaparte propaganda campaign.32

  George III did not reply to Bonaparte’s letter. Indeed, it was unusual, although not wholly inadmissible, for Bonaparte to have bypassed the prime minister to address the king personally, and could therefore be considered a violation of normal diplomatic procedure.33 If done out of ignorance, it demonstrated a lack of familiarity with British procedure; the cabinet and not the king discussed and decided questions of foreign policy. Since Bonaparte apparently took this step against the advice of Talleyrand,34 we can surmise that he knew what he was doing, and that it was therefore deliberately calculated, a theatrical gesture that would make him look good in the eyes of the French public. This does not mean that Bonaparte was insincere – some diplomatic back-channels were used, to no avail, to get negotiations going before the public letter to the king35 – but rather that he thought Britain would remain intractable.

  Anonymous, The Corsican Crocodile dissolving the Council of Frogs, 1799. A popular British caricature of Bonaparte’s coup. Metamorphosed into a crocodile, having come straight from Egypt, he is holding in each hand a deputy-frog. Two elements of the black legend are already present: Bonaparte wearing a crown and therefore as usurper of legitimate power; and as a monster devouring his own people. Bonaparte, and later Napoleon, became the first major European figure in the history of satire.

  Prime Minister William Pitt decided there should be no official answer, and indeed led a personal attack against the First Consul in the Commons on 3 February 1800, condemning Bonaparte, the French Revolution and the Republic.36 He insisted that Britain could make peace with France only if the Bourbon monarchy were restored. He was, under the circumstances, a little short-sighted; the British cabinet had placed far too much faith in their allies and had grossly underestimated Bonaparte’s position. The British foreign secretary, Lord Grenville, one of many Britons convinced that France was still Jacobin, wrote to Talleyrand (and not Bonaparte) to say that if France truly wished peace, it had to recall its legitimate dynasty forthwith.37

  The reply from the Austrian minister of foreign affairs, Johann Amadeus Baron von Thugut, was a little less haughty but no less discouraging.38 In fact, Britain and Austria made the same mistake as in 1792 and 1793, when they went to war against France under the misguided impression that the country was far weaker than it really was. Admittedly, Austria, like Britain, was speaking from a position of strength – it dominated most of northern Italy at this stage, having won back Bonaparte’s hard-fought gains from his first campaign – and wanted to negotiate on that basis. Bonaparte, on the other hand, wanted to negotiate on the basis of the Treaty of Campo Formio of 1797.39 He was effectively asking Austria to give up all its gains in northern Italy and to hand them back to the French. This was a less than sincere offer on the part of Bonaparte, one that Austria naturally rejected. The t
raditional explanation for Austria’s behaviour – that it had territorial ambitions in Italy which only a successful war could bring about – is valid, but the real reason was Austria’s desire to remain a great power.40

  One could hardly blame the European powers for not warmly embracing Bonaparte’s peace overtures. He was a relatively unknown factor, and doubts about the regime’s stability and viability predominated in the courts of Europe. In view of the rapid turnover of political personalities in France since 1789, it would have been rash to make any predictions about the durability of the new regime; many people did not expect Bonaparte to last very long. In February 1800, for example, the royalist Hyde de Neuville was told by one of his collaborators that Bonaparte’s fall was both imminent and certain.41

  Most historians have assumed that in writing these letters to the kings of Britain and Austria Bonaparte was looking for a propaganda coup, that it was an attempt to portray himself as the champion of peace rather than earnestly looking for a settlement through negotiations. There is an element of this; even he later admitted that he needed the war, that the Republic would have been ‘lost’ without it, and that it was necessary to continue the momentum sparked by Brumaire in order to end the Revolution.42 Bonaparte’s true intentions are revealed in a proclamation to the army issued the same day he sent his peace overtures. He stated that now it was a question not of defending the borders of France, but of invading the states of the enemy. When the time came, he promised, he would be among his troops.43 The same day too he sent a letter to the minister of war, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, advising him that he intended to form what he dubbed the ‘Army of Reserve’, made up of recruits and troops freed up after the cessation of hostilities in the west of France as well as units from the Rhine.44 Officially, the army was placed under the command of Berthier; the new Constitution forbade a consul from taking command of any army. Bonaparte got around this by serving in the coming campaign in an unofficial, advisory capacity.