Вальтер Скотт
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume II

Buonaparte was opposed to this. He knew that if war was resumed, the difficulties of the campaign would be thrown on him, and the blame also, if the results were not happy. He was determined, therefore, in virtue of his full powers, to bring the matter to a conclusion, whether the Directory would or not. For this purpose he confronted Cobentzel, who still saw his game in gaining delay, with the sternness of a military envoy. On the 16th October, the conferences were renewed upon the former grounds, and Cobentzel went over the whole subject of the indemnifications – insisting that Mantua, and the line of the Adige, should be granted to the Emperor; threatening to bring down the Russians in case the war should be renewed; and insinuating that Buonaparte sacrificed the desire of peace to his military fame, and desired a renewal of the war. Napoleon, with stern but restrained indignation, took from a bracket an ornamental piece of china, on which Cobentzel set some value, as being a present from the Empress Catherine. "The truce," he said, "is then ended, and war declared. But beware – before the end of autumn, I will break your empire into as many fragments as this potsherd."³⁰² He dashed the piece of china against the hearth, and withdrew abruptly. Again we are reminded of the Argantes of Tasso.³⁰³

The Austrian plenipotentiaries no longer hesitated to submit to all Napoleon's demands, rather than again see him commence his tremendous career of irresistible invasion. The treaty of Campo Formio therefore was signed on the following day; not the less promptly, perhaps, that the affairs at Paris appeared so doubtful as to invite an ambitious and aspiring man like Napoleon to approach the scene where honours and power were distributed, and where jarring factions seemed to await the influence of a character so distinguished and so determined.

The fate of Venice, more from her ancient history than either the value of her institutions, which were execrable, or the importance of her late existence, still dwells somewhat on the memory. The ancient republic fell "as a fool dieth." The aristocrats cursed the selfishness of Austria, by whom they were swallowed up, though they had perilled themselves in her cause. The republicans hastened to escape from Austrian domination, grinding their teeth with rage, and cursing no less the egotistic policy of the French, who, making a convenient pretext of their interest, had pretended to assign them a free constitution, and then resigned them to become the vassals of a despotic government.

The French secretary of legation, who had played a remarkably active part during the Revolution, hazarded a remonstrance to Buonaparte on the surrender of Venice to Austria, instead of its being formed into a free democracy, or united with the Cisalpine republic.³⁰⁴ Buonaparte laughed to scorn a man, whose views were still fixed on diffusing and propagating the principles of Jacobinism. "I have received your letter," was the stern and contemptuous reply, "and cannot comprehend it. The Republic of France is not bound by any treaty, to sacrifice its interests and advantages to the Committee of Public Safety in Venice, or to any other class of individuals. France does not make war in behalf and for the benefit of others.³⁰⁵ I know it costs nothing for a few chattering declaimers, whom I might better describe as madmen, to talk of a universal republic – I wish they would try a winter campaign. The Venetian republic exists no longer. Effeminate, corrupted, treacherous, and hypocritical, the Venetians are unfit for liberty. If she has the spirit to appreciate, or courage to assert it, the time is not unfavourable – let her stand up for it."³⁰⁶ Thus, with insult added to misery, and great contempt thrown by Napoleon on the friends of liberty all over the world, the fate of Venice was closed. The most remarkable incident of the final transfer to the Austrians was, that the aged Doge Marini dropt down senseless as he was about to take the oath of allegiance to the Imperial commissioner, and died shortly after.

CONGRESS OF RASTADT

Nov. 12

Napoleon Buonaparte had now finished for the present his career of destiny in Italy, which country first saw his rising talents, and was always a subject of peculiar interest to him. He took an affecting leave of the soldiers,³⁰⁷ who could scarce hope ever to see him replaced by a general of merits so transcendent, and made a moderate and judicious address to the Cisalpine republic. Finally, he departed, to return through Switzerland to Rastadt, where a congress was sitting for the settlement and pacification of the German empire, and where he was to act as a plenipotentiary on the part of France.³⁰⁸

On the journey he was observed to be moody and deeply contemplative. The separation from a hundred thousand men whom he might call his own, and the uncertainty of the future destinies to which he might be summoned, are enough to account for this, without supposing, as some have done, that he already had distinctly formed any of those projects of ambition which Time opened to him. Doubtless, however, his ardent ambition showed him remote and undefined visions of greatness. He could not but be sensible that he returned to the capital of France in a situation which scarce admitted of any mediocrity. He must either be raised to a yet more distinguished height, or altogether broken down, levelled with the mass of subjects, and consigned to comparative obscurity. There was no middle station for the Conqueror and Liberator of Italy.

CHAPTER XI

Retrospect – The Directory – they become unpopular – Causes of their unpopularity – Also at enmity among themselves – State of public feeling in France – In point of numbers, favourable to the Bourbons; but the Army and monied Interest against them – Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed President of the Council of Five Hundred – Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients – Directory throw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte – Buonaparte's personal Politics discussed – Pichegru's Correspondence with the Bourbons – known to Buonaparte – He despatches Augereau to Paris – Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana – Narrow and Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte – Projected Invasion of England.

 

While the conqueror of Italy was pursuing his victories beyond the Alps, the French Directory, in whose name he achieved them, had become, to the conviction of all men, as unlikely to produce the benefits of a settled government, as any of their predecessors vested with the supreme rule.

RETROSPECT

It is with politics as with mechanics, ingenuity is not always combined with utility. Some one observed to the late celebrated Mr. Watt, that it was wonderful for what a number of useless inventions, illustrated by the most ingenious and apparently satisfactory models, patents were yearly issued: he replied, that he had often looked at them with interest, and had found several, the idea of which had occurred to himself in the course of his early studies. "But," said he, with his natural masculine sagacity, "it is one thing to make an ingenious model, and another to contrive an engine which shall work its task. Most of these pretty toys, when they are applied to practical purposes, are found deficient in some point of strength, or correctness of mechanism, which destroys all chance of their ever becoming long or generally useful." Some such imperfection seems to have attended the works of these speculative politicians who framed the various ephemeral constitutions of France. However well they looked upon paper, and however reasonable they sounded to the ear, no one ever thought of them as laws which required veneration and obedience. Did a constitutional rule preclude a favourite measure, to break it down, or leap over it, was the French statesman's unhesitating practice. A rule was always devised applicable to circumstances; and before that, the theory of the constitution was uniformly made to give way.

THE DIRECTORY

The constitution of the year Three was not more permanent than those by which it had been preceded. For some time, the Directory, which contained men of considerable talent, conducted themselves with great prudence. The difficulty and danger of their situation served to prevent their separating, as the weight put above an arch keeps the stones in their places. Their exertions in the attempt to redeem the finances, support the war, and re-establish the tranquillity of the country, were attended at first with success. The national factions also sunk before them for a season. They had defeated the aristocratic citizens of Paris on the 13th Vendemiaire; and when the original revolutionists, or democrats, attempted a conspiracy, under the conduct of Gracchus Babœuf,³⁰⁹ their endeavours to seduce the troops totally failed, and their lives paid the forfeit of their rash attempt to bring back the Reign of Terror. Thus, the Directory, or executive power, under the constitution of the year Three, were for a season triumphant over the internal factions, and, belonging to neither, were in a situation to command both.

But they had few who were really, and on principle, attached to their government, and most endured it only as something better than a new revolutionary movement, and otherwise in no respect eligible. To have rendered their authority permanent, the Directory must have had great unanimity in their own body, and also brilliant success abroad, and they enjoyed neither one nor the other. The very concoction of their body included the principles of disunion. They were a sort of five kings, retiring from office by rotation, inhabiting each his separate class of apartments in the Luxembourg palace, having each his different establishments, classes of clients, circles of courtiers, flatterers, and instruments. The republican simplicity, of late so essential to a patriot, was laid aside entirely. New costumes of the most splendid kind were devised for the different office-bearers of the state. This change took its rise from the weakness and vanity of Barras, who loved show, and used to go a-hunting with all the formal attendance of a prince. But it was an indulgence of luxury, which gave scandal to both the great parties in the state; – the Republicans, who held it altogether in contempt; – and the Royalists, who considered it as an usurpation of the royal dress and appendages.³¹⁰

The finances became continually more and more a subject of uneasiness. In the days of terror, money was easily raised, because it was demanded under pain of death, and assignats were raised to par by guillotining those who bought or sold them at less than their full value; but the powerful argument of violence and compulsion being removed, the paper money fell to a ruinous discount, till its depression threatened, unless remedied, altogether to stop the course of public business.³¹¹ It perhaps arose from the difficulty of raising supplies, that the Directory assumed towards other countries a greedy, grasping, and rapacious character, which threw disgrace at once upon the individuals who indulged it, and the state whom they represented. They loaded with exactions the trade of the Bavarian republic, whose freedom they had pretended to recognise, and treated with most haughty superiority the ambassadors of independent states. Some of these high officers, and Barras in particular, were supposed accessible to gross corruption, and believed to hold communication with those agents and stock-brokers, who raised money by jobbing in the public funds – a more deservedly unpopular accusation than which can hardly be brought against a minister. It was, indeed, a great error in the constitution, that, though one hundred thousand livres were yearly allowed to each director while in office, yet he had no subsequent provision after he had retired from his fractional share of sovereignty. This penury, on the part of the public, opened a way to temptation, though of a kind to which mean minds only are obnoxious; and such men as Barras³¹² were tempted to make provision for futurity, by availing themselves of present opportunity.

Their five majesties (sires) of the Luxembourg, as people called them in ridicule, had also their own individual partialities and favourite objects, which led them in turn to tease the French people with unnecessary legislation. La Reveillere-Lepaux was that inconsistent yet not uncommon character, an intolerant philosopher and an enthusiastic deist. He established a priesthood, and hymns and ceremonies for deism; and, taking up the hopeful project of substituting a deistical worship for the Christian faith, just where Robespierre had laid it down, he harassed the nation with laws to oblige them to observe the decades of their new calendar as holidays, and to work at their ordinary trades on the Christian Sabbath.³¹³ At La Reveillere's theory freethinkers laughed, and religious men shuddered; but all were equally annoyed by the legislative measures adopted on a subject so ridiculous as this new ritual of heathenism.³¹⁴ Another cause of vexation was the philosophical arrangement of weights and measures upon a new principle, which had, in the meantime, the inconvenience of introducing doubt and uncertainty into all the arrangements of internal commerce, and deranging entirely such as France continued to hold with countries who were only acquainted with the ordinary standard.³¹⁵

It might have been thought that the distinguished success of the French arms under the auspices of the Directory would have dazzled the eyes of the French, attached as they have always been to military glory, and blinded them to other less agreeable measures of their government. But the public were well aware, that the most brilliant share of these laurels had been reaped by Buonaparte on his own account; that he had received but slender reinforcements from France – the magnitude of his achievements considered; and that in regard to the instructions of government, much of his success was owing to his departure from them, and following his own course. It was also whispered, that he was an object of suspicion to the directors, and on his part undervalued their talents, and despised their persons. On the Rhine, again, though nothing could have been more distinguished than the behaviour of the Republican armies, yet their successes had been checkered with many reverses, and, contrasted with the Italian campaigns, lost their impression on the imagination.

While they were thus becoming unpopular in the public opinion, the Directory had the great misfortune to be at enmity among themselves. From the time that Letourneur³¹⁶ retired from office in terms of the constitution, and Barthelemy was elected in his stead, there was a majority and an opposition in the Directory, the former consisting of Barras, Rewbel,³¹⁷ and La Reveillere – the latter, of Carnot and Barthelemy. Of the two last, Carnot (who had been, it may be remembered, a member of the Committee of Public Safety under Robespierre) was a determined Republican, and Barthelemy a Royalist; – so strangely do revolutionary changes, like the eddies and currents of a swollen river, bring together and sweep down side by side in the same direction, objects the most different and opposed. Barthelemy of course dissented from the majority of the Directors, because secretly and warmly he desired the restoration of the Bourbons – an event which must have been fraught with danger to his colleagues, all of whom had voted for the death of Louis XVI. Carnot also differed from the majority, certainly with no such wish or view; but, his temper being as overbearing as his genius was extensive, he was impatient of opposition, especially in such cases where he knew he was acting wisely. He advised strongly, for example, the ratification of the articles of Leoben, instead of placing all which France had acquired, and all which she might lose, on the last fatal cast with an enemy, strong in his very despair, and who might raise large armies, while that of Buonaparte could neither be reinforced nor supported in case of a reverse. Barras's anger on the occasion was so great, that he told Carnot at the council-board, it was to him they owed that infamous treaty of Leoben.

While the Directory were thus disunited among themselves, the nation showed their dissatisfaction openly, and particularly in the two bodies of representatives. The majority indeed of the Council of Elders adhered to the Directory, many of that body belonging to the old republican partisans. But in the more popularly composed Council of Five Hundred, the opposition to the government possessed a great majority, all of whom were decidedly against the Directory, and most of them impressed with the wish of restoring, upon terms previously to be adjusted, the ancient race of legitimate monarchs. This body of persons so thinking, was much increased by the number of emigrants, who obtained, on various grounds, permission to return to their native country after the fall of Robespierre. The forms of civil life began now to be universally renewed; and, as had been the case in France at all times, excepting during the bloody Reign of Terror, women of rank, beauty, talent, and accomplishments, began again to resume their places in society, and their saloons or boudoirs were often the scene of deep political discourse, of a sort which in Britain is generally confined to the cabinet, library, or dining-parlour. The wishes of many, or most of these coteries, were in favour of royalty; the same feelings were entertained by the many thousands who saw no possible chance of settling the nation on any other model; and there is little doubt, that had France been permitted at that moment an uninfluenced choice, the Bourbon family would have been recalled to the throne by the great majority of the French people.

But, for reasons mentioned elsewhere, the military were the decided opponents of the Bourbons, and the purchasers of national domains, through every successive sale which might have taken place, were deeply interested against their restoration. Numbers might be on the side of the Royalists; but physical force, and the influence of wealth and of the monied interest, were decidedly against them.

PICHEGRU

Pichegru might now be regarded as chief of the Royal party. He was an able and successful general, to whom France owed the conquest of Holland. Like La Fayette and Dumouriez, he had been disgusted with the conduct of the Revolution; and like the last of the two generals named, had opened a communication with the Bourbons. He was accused of having suffered his army to be betrayed in a defeat by Clairfait; and the government, in 1796, removed him from the command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, offering him in exchange the situation of ambassador to Sweden. He declined this species of honourable exile, and, retiring to Franche Compté, continued his correspondence with the Imperial generals.³¹⁸ The Royalists expected much from the countenance of a military man of a name so imposing; but we have seen more than once in the course of these memoirs, that a general without an army is like a hilt without the blade which it should wield and direct.

An opportunity, however, offered Pichegru the means of serving his party in a civil capacity, and that a most important one. The elections of May, 1797, made to replace that proportion of the councils which retired by rotation, terminated generally in favour of the Royalists, and served plainly to show on which side the balance of popular feeling now leaned. Pichegru, who had been returned as one of the deputies, was chosen by acclamation President of the Council of Five Hundred, and Barbé Marbois, another Royalist, was elected to the same office by the Council of Ancients, while, as we have already said, Barthelemy likewise friendly to monarchy, was introduced into the Directory.

These elections were evil signs for the Directory, who did not fail soon to be attacked on every side, and upbraided with the continuance of the war and the financial distresses. Various journals were at the disposal of the party opposed to the majority of the directors, and hostilities were commenced between the parties, both in the assemblies, where the Royalists had the advantage, and in the public papers, where they were also favourably listened to. The French are of an impatient temper, and could not be long brought to carry on their warfare within the limits assigned by the constitution. Each party, without much regard to the state of the law, looked about for the means of physical force with which they might arm themselves. The Directory, (that is, the majority of that body,) sensible of their unpopularity, and the predominance of the opposite party, which seemed for a time to have succeeded to the boldness and audacity of the revolutionary class had, in their agony of extremity, recourse to the army, and threw themselves upon the succour of Hoche and of Buonaparte.

We have elsewhere said, that Buonaparte at this period was esteemed a steady Republican. Pichegru believed him to be such when he dissuaded the Royalists from any attempt to gain over the General of Italy; and as he had known him at school at Brienne, declared him of too stubborn a character to afford the least hope of success. Augereau was of the same opinion, and mistook his man so much, that when Madame de Staël asked whether Buonaparte was not inclined to make himself King of Lombardy, he replied, with great simplicity, "that he was a young man of too elevated a character."³¹⁹ Perhaps Buonaparte himself felt the same for a moment, when, in a despatch to the Directory, he requests their leave to withdraw from the active service of the Republic, as one who had acquired more glory than was consistent with happiness. "Calumny," he said, "may torment herself in vain with ascribing to me treacherous designs. My civil, like my military career, shall be conforming to republican principles."³²⁰

The public papers also, those we mean on the side of the Directory, fell into a sort of rapture on the classical republican feelings by which Buonaparte was actuated, which they said rendered the hope of his return a pleasure pure and unmixed, and precluded the possibility of treachery or engrossing ideas on his side. "The factious of every class," they said, "cannot have an enemy more steady, or the government a friend more faithful, than he who, invested with the military power of which he has made so glorious a use, sighs only to resign a situation so brilliant, prefers happiness to glory, and now that the Republic is graced with triumph and peace, desires for himself only a simple and retired life."³²¹

But though such were the ideas then entertained of Buonaparte's truly republican character, framed, doubtless, on the model of Cincinnatus in his classical simplicity, we may be permitted to look a little closer into the ultimate views of him, who was admitted by his enemies and friends, avouched by himself, and sanctioned by the journals, as a pure and disinterested republican: and we think the following changes may be traced.

Whether Buonaparte was ever at heart a real Jacobin even for the moment, may be greatly doubted, whatever mask his situation obliged him to wear. He himself always repelled the charge as an aspersion. His engagement in the affair of the Sections probably determined his opinions as Republican, or rather Thermidorien, at the time, as became him by whom the Republican army had been led and commanded on that day. Besides, at the head of an army zealously republican, even his power over their minds required to be strengthened, for some time at least, by an apparent correspondence in political sentiments betwixt the troops and the general. But in the practical doctrines of government which he recommended to the Italian Republics, his ideas were studiously moderate, and he expressed the strongest fear of, and aversion to, revolutionary doctrines. He recommended the granting equal rights and equal privileges to the nobles, as well as to the indignant vassals and plebeians who had risen against them. In a word, he advocated a free set of institutions, without the intermediate purgatory of a revolution. He was, therefore, at this period, far from being a Jacobin.

But though Buonaparte's wishes were thus wisely moderated by practical views, he was not the less likely to be sensible that he was the object of fear, of hatred, and of course of satire and misrepresentation, to that side of the opposed parties in France which favoured royalty. Unhappily for himself, he was peculiarly accessible to every wound of this nature, and, anxiously jealous of his fame, suffered as much under the puny attacks of the journalists,³²² as a noble steer or a gallant horse does amid his rich pasture, under the persecutions of insects, which, in comparison to himself, are not only impotent, but nearly invisible. In several letters to the Directory, he exhibits feelings of this nature which would have been more gracefully concealed, and evinces an irritability against the opposition prints, which we think likely to have increased the zeal with which he came forward on the Republican side at this important crisis.³²³

INTRIGUES OF PICHEGRU

Another circumstance, which, without determining Buonaparte's conduct, may have operated in increasing his good-will to the cause which he embraced, was his having obtained the clew of Pichegru's correspondence with the house of Bourbon.³²⁴ To have concealed this, would have been but a second rate merit with the exiled family, whose first thanks must have been due to the partisan whom he protected. This was no part for Buonaparte to play; not that we have a right to say he would have accepted the chief character had it been offered to him, but his ambition could never have stooped to any inferior place in the drama. In all probability, his ideas fluctuated betwixt the example of Cromwell and of Washington – to be the actual liberator, or the absolute governor of his country.

His particular information respecting Pichegru's negotiations, was derived from an incident at the capture of Venice.

When the degenerate Venetians, more under the impulse of vague terror than from any distinct plan, adopted in haste and tumult the measure of totally surrendering their constitution and rights, to be new modelled by the French general after his pleasure, they were guilty of a gross and aggravated breach of hospitality, in seizing the person and papers of the Comte d'Entraigues,³²⁵ agent or envoy of the exiled Bourbons, who was then residing under their protection. The envoy himself, as Buonaparte alleges, was not peculiarly faithful to his trust; but, besides his information, his portfolio contained many proofs of Pichegru's correspondence with the allied generals, and with the Bourbons, which placed his secret absolutely in the power of the General of Italy, and might help to confirm the line of conduct which he had already meditated to adopt.

Possessed of these documents, and sure that, in addressing a French army of the day, he would swim with the tide if he espoused the side of Republicanism, Buonaparte harangued his troops on the anniversary of the taking the Bastille, in a manner calculated to awake their ancient democratic enthusiasm: – "Soldiers, this is the 14th July! You see before you the names of our companions in arms, dead in the field of honour for the liberty of their country. They have set you an example; you owe your lives to thirty millions of Frenchmen, and to the national name, which has received new splendour from your victories. Soldiers! I am aware you are deeply affected by the dangers which threaten the country. But she can be subjected to none which are real. The same men who made France triumph over united Europe, still live. – Mountains separate us from France, but you would traverse them with the speed of eagles, were it necessary to maintain the constitution, defend liberty, protect the Government and the Republicans. Soldiers, the Government watches over the laws as a sacred deposit committed to them. The Royalists shall only show themselves to perish. Dismiss all inquietude, and let us swear by the manes of those heroes who have died by our sides for liberty – let us swear, too, on our standards – War to the enemies of the Republic, and of the Constitution of the year Three!"³²⁶

It is needless to remark, that, under the British constitution, or any other existing on fixed principles, the haranguing an armed body of soldiers, with the purpose of inducing them to interfere by force in any constitutional question, would be in one point of view mutiny, in another high treason.

The hint so distinctly given by the general, was immediately adopted by the troops. Deep called to deep, and each division of the army, whatever its denomination, poured forth its menaces of military force and compulsion against the opposition party in the councils, who held opinions different from those of their military chief, but which they had, at least hitherto, only expressed and supported by those means of resistance which the constitution placed in their power. In other words, the soldiers' idea of a republic was, that the sword was to decide the constitutional debates, which give so much trouble to ministers in a mixed or settled government. The Pretorian bands, the Strelitzes, the Janissaries, have all in their turn entertained this primitive and simple idea of reforming abuses in a state, and changing, by the application of military force, an unpopular dynasty, or an obnoxious ministry.

AUGEREAU DESPATCHED TO PARIS

It was not by distant menaces alone that Buonaparte served the Directory at this important crisis. He despatched Augereau to Paris, ostensibly for the purpose of presenting the standards taken at Mantua, but in reality to command the armed force which the majority of the Directory had determined to employ against their dissentient colleagues, and the opponents of their measures in the national councils. Augereau was a blunt, bold, stupid soldier, a devoted Jacobin, whose principles were sufficiently well known to warrant his standing upon no constitutional delicacies.³²⁷ But in case the Directory failed, Buonaparte kept himself in readiness to march instantly to Lyons at the head of fifteen thousand men. There rallying the Republicans, and all who were attached to the Revolution, he would, according to his own well-chosen expression, like Cæsar, have crossed the Rubicon at the head of the popular party – and ended, doubtless, like Cæsar, by himself usurping the supreme command, which he pretended to assert in behalf of the people.³²⁸