Part 6

Such was the fatality which influenced all the actions of the government, that all proceedings which in themselves were simple and reasonable, became venomous and corrupted when conducted by the ministry, and only added to the general disorder and discontent, instead of producing the good effects which they might have been justly expected to produce.

The discontent of the people, the inevitable result of the injuries inflicted on the feelings and interests of individuals, was increased by the open infringement of the rights of the people, although these rights were secured to the country by a compact which seemed to be inviolable.

Liberty of conscience had been promised by the charter, and this liberty was immediately annihilated. An ordonnance was issued by the police, which revived regulations enacted in an age of intolerance, for enforcing the strict and universal observance of the Lord's day, and the festivals of the church. Napoleon, anxious to preserve a strict neutrality between the catholics and the protestants, prohibited the religious processions of the former in all towns containing places of worship belonging to the latter communion. His prohibition was removed, and the catholic priesthood exulted in their processions, in which they marched in triumph. They ought to have tranquillized the apprehensions of their opponents, and to have edified the faithful by humility, or at least by feigning humility; but they disdained to conciliate the public, whom they scandalized by their pride and irritated by their violence.

The imagination of the priests became fired by the victory which they supposed they had gained. They dreamt that they were in full possession of their ancient power; and they wished immediately to revive it according to their ancient fashion. An actress belonging to the Theatre Francais died without being absolved, and without suspecting that it was necessary to be absolved, from the excommunication which had been formerly fulminated against stage players; and which, as every body knows, deprived Moliere of Christian burial.

Following the same precedents, the clergy would not allow the rites of sepulture to the actress in question. The populace, who followed the funeral out of curiosity, learnt the affront which was thus offered to her remains. Transported by sudden indignation, they rushed to the hearse, and dragged it onwards. The doors of the interdicted church were burst open in a moment. They called for a priest; no priest appeared. The tumult augmented. The church and the neighbouring streets resounded with the groans and threats of ten thousand persons. Their agitation became more violent, and there was no possibility of foreseeing where the effervescence of popular feeling would stop, when a messenger arrived from the court, who ordered, in the name of the King, that the funeral should proceed.

The accounts of this event, and the comments to which it gave rise, excited the most lively interest in Paris and throughout France: nor did it fail to give the greatest pleasure to the enemies of religion. The friends of public decency and good order accused the government of encouraging the alarming progress of sacerdotal despotism. It was particularly in the smaller towns, and in the country, that the priests behaved with the most blamable audacity, abusing the privilege of speech which had been restored to them. The pulpit became a tribunal from whence they pronounced sentence of present infamy, with the reversion of eternal damnation, upon all who refused to participate in their opinions and bigotry. Making common cause with the emigrants, they employed hints, inuendoes, insinuations, arguments, promises, and threats of every species, for the purpose of compelling the owners of the national property to yield up their lands, and of leading the wretched peasantry again beneath the tyrant yokes of feudality and superstition.

During the revolution, the priesthood had betrayed its real character. Contempt had fallen on the clergy, and it was out of the power of the government to invest them suddenly with the salutary influence which they had lost. This influence ought to be gained by wise and prudent conduct, by active and impartial benevolence, by the practice of sacerdotal virtues. It cannot be gained by ordonnances of police, by abuse, by violence, by mumming processions, which, in our times, are out of character and ridiculous.

By the charter the liberty of the press had been guarantied as well as the liberty of public worship; yet every day innumerable publications were seized or suppressed contrary to the laws. M. Durbach, a deputy who never equivocated with his conscience or yielded to danger, complained on this subject in the chamber: the opinion of the house went along with him; and the government, pretending to yield to the feeling of the deputies, presented a bill to the chambers through the medium of M. de Montesquiou, which, instead of delivering the press from its slavery, gave full establishment to the censorship, and legalized the tyranny which had been exercised over the press by mere force under the former government.

Benjamin Constant attacked the bill with vigour: the same side was taken by the public journals, and by all public writers; but there was no possibility of putting M. de Montesquiou out of countenance. It was demonstrated to him that his law would wholly destroy the liberty of the press. By holding the charter before his eyes, the advocates of public rights proved that the charter only declared that the licence of the press was to be restrained, and that his bill was therefore radically unconstitutional, because the preliminary censorship was not intended to restrain abuses, but to prevent their taking place. Montesquiou answered gravely, that the persons with whom such objections originated did not understand French; that the words "prevenir" and "reprimer" were perfectly synonymous: and that the bill, instead of being offensive or unconstitutional, contained a most complete and a most liberal development of the clause in the charter.

This unparalleled endeavour of Montesquiou, who persuaded himself that he could convince an assembly of Frenchmen that they did not understand their own language, was justly considered by the chamber as a matchless specimen of impudence and folly. Lexicographical subtleties were employed with bitter mockery for the purpose of destroying a public right, consecrated by the constitutional compact. Never had insolence and bad faith been displayed so prominently: Raynouard, the reporter of the committee, exclaimed in the language of grief and indignation, "Minister of our King, confess, at least, that your law is contrary to the constitution, since you cannot refute the evidence adduced against it: your obstinacy in contesting such an indisputable truth would not then inspire us with such just alarms."

The law was ultimately adopted by both chambers; ministerial influence triumphed over reason, and rased the most important bulwark of the rights guarantied to the nation. The result of the conflict produced the most lively sensation. No man who was capable of forethought and reasoning could remain undisturbed. Notwithstanding the patriotism of Dupont (of the department of the Eure), of Raynouard, of Durbach, of Bedoch, of Flaugergues, it was seen too clearly that the chamber of deputies could not oppose any effectual obstacle to the despotic and anti-constitutional plans of the government; and that the ministers would have full power, whenever they thought proper, to interpret the clauses of the charter according to their own way, and to rob the French nation of the few rights which it yet might promise to them. "By means of such interpretations," the people said, "the senate sacrificed the independence of the nation to Napoleon. But at least the imperial despotism assumed a character by which it was justified and ennobled. It tended to render our nation the greatest nation in the world; but the despotism which awaits us has no other accompaniment but bad faith, and no other end except the degradation and slavery of France."

By such reflections, the suspicion and disgust and aversion inspired by the government, were excited to the utmost pitch. The public feeling did not stop there: the French people are naturally inconstant in their opinions and sentiments; and their former prejudices against Napoleon were changed into transports of admiration. France, under the royal government, was humiliated, disorganized, and degenerate; and they contrasted the present state of the country with the influence, the strength, the compactness, which it enjoyed under the reign of Napoleon; and He, who had lately been cursed as the root of all evil, now appeared to be the greatest of men, and the greatest of heroes, though in misfortune.

The government knew that Napoleon was again admired by the people, and that they regretted his loss. To counteract these sentiments, coarse and vulgar caricatures were exposed to the eyes of the populace; and his person and his character became the theme of false and scandalous libels published under the direction of the ministry. No effect was produced. The mob looked at the caricatures with a smile of contempt; and the actions of Napoleon, which, under his reign, excited the greatest censure and disapprobation, now found the most zealous apologists and defenders.

If Napoleon was accused of having overthrown the republican government, and enslaved the country by the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, they answered:--"At that era, anarchy, emboldened by the misfortunes of the country, could only be repressed by victory. Civil war had been organized in twenty departments; insurrections had taken place in many, rapine infected them all; robbery and murder took place with impunity on many of the principal high roads. Two dreadful laws, the law of the hostages, and that of the forced loans, occasioned greater evils than they could cure. No nation had ever existed in which the finances of the state were in equal confusion; and a succession of partial bankruptcies prolonged the opprobrium of the general bankruptcy of the country. The money of the public was robbed whilst in transit on the high roads. Robbers even carried it off from the houses of the receivers, and the deficiency could not be made good by the most violent exactions. The jacobins were on the point of recommencing their reign of terror. The royalists had recourse without scruple to all the measures which might enable them to satiate their revenge; and the peaceable friends of the law were placed between the conflicting parties in a state of disgraceful weakness and neutrality. Such was the desperate situation of France when Napoleon seized the helm of the state. Instead of imputing the slavery of the country to him, he ought to have been blessed; for he delivered us from the spoliations, the murders, and the tyranny which were consequent upon the reign of anarchy and terror."

Was it maintained that Napoleon had reigned despotically? They held that this accusation was unjust; and they had recourse to the following reasoning. "Anarchy was silenced by Napoleon." It became necessary, that order should take the place of disorder; that the authority of one should be substituted for the authority of all. Parties were to be restrained within the bound of moderation; traitors were to be annihilated. It was necessary to curb the prejudices of the nobility, and the revolutionary habits and manners of the jacobins. This great work could not be accomplished, without engaging in a conflict against individual interests and opinions. Napoleon was considered as a despot; this was inevitable. Whenever the existing polity of a state has been totally subverted, he who first raises the edifice of society from its ruins, is necessarily accused of despotism, because apparently he has no other rule except his own will. Nor must we forget that Napoleon had been accustomed to command implicit obedience in the camp. He retained his military attitude on the throne. He usually addressed his courtiers, his connexions, and his ministers, in the tone which he had formerly adopted when speaking to his soldiers or their generals. An appearance of despotism was certainly given to his way of reigning and commanding, by such language which is seldom heard in civil society. And in almost all cases, appearance is taken for reality.

At first the imperious tone adopted by Napoleon was blamed, next it was admired. He soon employed it in his intercourse with foreign ambassadors, with foreign sovereigns. The wily forms of ancient diplomacy were discarded. Napoleon did not negociate; he issued his orders. With one hand he brandished his victorious sword; in the other he held crowns and sceptres. He bade the sovereigns of Europe make their choice; he offered his friendship or his hatred, kingdoms or blows. The monarchs who stood before his throne were taught wisdom by experience. They knew that Napoleon could reward and punish; they crowded into the ranks of his allies; and they consoled themselves for their weakness, by crying out upon his tyranny.

When these causes were united, they aided in persuading the world that Napoleon was really a despot. For, as Montesquieu observes, there are some things which we believe at last, merely because we hear them continually repeated. But if the government of Napoleon is considered impartially, we shall feel convinced, that the despotism attributed to him existed rather in words and forms, than in deeds. Let the acts of his reign be scrutinized, and none will be found impressed with the character of real despotism; that is to say, of despotism founded on the mere arbitrary will and pleasure of the prince. On the contrary, they all prove that the interest and aggrandizement of France entered alone into the views of Napoleon, and that instead of being under a tyrannical government, the people never enjoyed the benefits of distributive justice with greater equality, and were never protected more completely against the oppressions of public functionaries, and of the higher ranks. He may, perhaps, be censured for having violated certain laws, for violations in which the senate and the representatives of the people were his accomplices. But laws are only binding upon sovereigns in the ordinary course of things, and the most rigid writers on the law of nations acknowledge this principle. When extraordinary and unforeseen circumstances take place, it is the duty of the sovereign to be above the law. In order to judge fairly of the actions of a monarch, we must not consider them separately. Many an action which, if taken singly, appears unjustifiable or hateful, loses that character when viewed as one of the series of events from which it arose, as a connecting link in the political chain of which it forms a part. Neither should the conduct of a sovereign be judged according to the principles of natural equity. In the estimation of those, upon whom the task of ruling nations has devolved, necessity and the public safety ought to know no law. Every apprehension of injuring private interest vanishes, and must ever vanish, before state considerations.

"After all," continued they, "the real point at issue is, not whether the government of Napoleon was more or less despotic; but whether it was such as was required by the character of his people and of his times,--such as it needed to be, in order that France might become tranquil, happy, and powerful." Now it is impossible to deny but that, during the reign of Napoleon, the interior of France enjoyed an unruffled calm, and that the ascendancy of his genius bestowed upon the country a degree of power and prosperity, which it never attained before, and which probably it will never possess again.

Was the emperor taxed with boundless ambition? Were the calamities of Spain and Russia laid to his charge?--his indefatigable apologists found a ready answer.--The Spanish war, instead of being an unjust aggression, was an enterprise guided by the soundest political talent. It had been provoked by the wavering treachery of that allied government, which, in spite of its engagements, was secretly negociating with the English; and which, yielding to their instigations, had endeavoured to take advantage of our difficulties and of the absence of our armies, in order to invade our territory, and to become a sharer in the plots of our enemies.

The detention of Ferdinand ceased to be an odious breach of faith. It resulted necessarily from his duplicity, his parricidal projects, and his English connexions. The nomination of Joseph as King of Spain and the Indies, had been universally attributed to the excessive vanity of Napoleon, who, as it was supposed, was determined to drop a crown upon the head of every member of the imperial family. But now opinion changed. King Joseph's promotion was felt to have been caused by the necessity of placing Spain for ever out of the reach of English influence. Had not Napoleon allowed the Cortes of Spain to elect their monarch of their own uncontrolled authority? Had he not said to them in public, "Dispose of the throne. Little do I care whether the king of Spain is called Ferdinand, or whether he is called Joseph; let him only be the ally of France, and the enemy of England?"

It was still more easy to justify the Russian war. A Quixotic love of the marvellous was no longer supposed to be the passion which excited it. In making war against Russia, he was actuated by the desire of avenging the injuries which that power had occasioned to France, at the moment when the Russian government again opened its ports to the English, thus snatching from the nation the reward of the sacrifices which we had made for the establishment and consolidation of the continental blockade,--of that universal barrier which made England and her thousand vessels tremble!

The invasion of Germany was no longer the effect of Napoleon's insatiate thirst of power and glory. It was seen, that there was no other sure method, by which the English, the irreconcilable enemies of France, could be deprived of their fatal continental influence, by which they could be compelled to abandon the empire of the seas. In short, Napoleon was only inflicting a salutary and equitable punishment, deserved by those sovereigns of all sizes. After having implored or obtained the alliance of Napoleon, and after having ratified the bond by engagements and promises upon which he generously relied, they compelled him to take up arms, in order to prevent them from receiving the agents of England into their cabinets, and her merchandizes into their ports.

Thus the partisans of Napoleon invented arguments by which they palliated his faults and justified his errors. No objection, no reproach was left without its answer. After defending him against his accusers they became his advocates; and, turning to the fairer pages of his history, their praises knew no bounds; these eulogiums were certainly more just, and, perhaps, more sincere.

"Napoleon," said they, "had all the great qualities of the greatest monarchs, whilst he was exempted from their vices. Napoleon was not stained by the lechery of Caesar, nor by the drunkenness of Alexander, nor by the cruelty of Charlemagne."

At an age when others scarcely start in life, his years were outnumbered by his victories; and the kings of Europe, conquered by his sword or subjugated by his genius, cowered before the imperial eagle.

In France, when aggrandized by the conquests of Napoleon, the empire of ancient Rome was re-produced before the astonished world. The French name, tarnished by the crimes of the revolution, regained its ancient honour and its mastery. The nation was feared, admired, and respected by the entire universe.

Philosophy graced Napoleon no less than warlike prowess. After he had covered the nation with glory by his victories, he was willing to insure our welfare by his laws. He bestowed upon us that immortal code of jurisprudence which invested him with the title of the legislator of France, a title to which our former kings had aspired in vain. He organised that admirable system of finance and administration, which their subjects, groaning under misrule, implored but without effect.

Still he had not accomplished enough to satisfy his noble and beneficent ardour. Arts, sciences, and industry were to flourish in our country. The munificent aids which were granted by Napoleon, created the thousands and thousands of manufactories from whence proceeded those finished works of skill and labour which became the pride of the French, and the despair and ruin of foreign nations. The sons of Apollo, on whom he lavished his gifts and favours, seized the crayon, the compass, and the chisel. Paris became a second Athens, when adorned by the wonders of art to which his munificence gave birth. We then saw the venerable Louvre rise, as by enchantment, from its deserted ruins; the palaces of our Kings became more gorgeous; the temples of the arts were enriched by productions which rivalled the relics of antiquity; our native land brought forth those establishments so proudly useful to the public, and those monuments destined to transmit the recollections of our fame and glory to the most distant posterity.