Читать книгу Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century - Charles Morris - Страница 5

The Peace of Amiens

The war between these two countries was mainly confined to Egypt, where remained the army which Napoleon had left in his hasty return to France. As it became evident in time that neither the British land forces nor the Turkish troops could overcome the French veterans in the valley of the Nile, a treaty was arranged which stipulated that the French soldiers, 24,000 in all, should be taken home in English ships, with their arms and ammunition, Egypt being given back to the rule of the Sultan. This was followed by the peace of Amiens (March 27, 1802), between England and France, and the long war was, for the time, at an end. Napoleon had conquered peace.

During the period of peaceful relations that followed Napoleon was by no means at rest. His mind was too active to yield him long intervals of leisure. There was much to be done in France in sweeping away the traces of the revolutionary insanity. One of the first cares of the Consul was to restore the Christian worship in the French churches and to abolish the Republican festivals. But he had no intention of giving the church back its old power and placing another kingship beside his own. He insisted that the French church should lose its former supremacy and sink to the position of a servant of the Pope and of the temporal sovereign of France.

Establishing his court as First Consul in the Tuileries, Napoleon began to bring back the old court fashions and etiquette, and attempted to restore the monarchical customs and usages. The elegance of royalty reappeared, and it seemed almost as if monarchy had been restored.

A further step towards the restoration of the kingship was soon taken. Napoleon, as yet Consul only for ten years, had himself appointed Consul for life, with the power of naming his successor. He was king now in everything but the name. But he was not suffered to wear his new honor in safety. His ambition had aroused the anger of the republicans, conspiracies rose around him, and more than once his life was in danger. On his way to the opera house an infernal machine was exploded, killing several persons but leaving him unhurt.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

MEETING OF TWO SOVEREIGNS

Pope Pius VII, at the request, almost the command, of Napoleon, came from Rome to France in 1804 to crown the great conqueror Emperor of the French. He was very ceremoniously received by Napoleon, and treated with every outward show of honor. Years afterwards he was brought to France and forced to reside there, as the virtual captive of the Emperor.

The Punishment of the Conspirators and the Assassination of the Duke d’Enghien

Other plots were organized, and Fouché, the police-agent of the time, was kept busy in seeking the plotters, for whom there was brief mercy when found. Even Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden, accused of negotiating with the conspirators, was disgraced, and exiled himself from France. Napoleon dealt with his secret enemies with the same ruthless energy as he did with his foes in the field of battle.

His rage at the attempts upon his life, indeed, took a form that has been universally condemned. The Duke d’Enghien, a royalist French nobleman, grandson of the Prince of Condé, who was believed by Napoleon to be the soul of the royalist conspiracies, ventured too near the borders of France, and was seized in foreign territory, taken in haste to Paris, and shot without form of law or a moment’s opportunity for defence. The outrage excited the deepest indignation throughout Europe. No name was given it but murder, and the historians of to-day speak of the act by no other title.

The opinion of the world had little effect upon Napoleon. He was a law unto himself. The death of one man or of a thousand men weighed nothing to him where his safety or his ambition was concerned. Men were the pawns he used in the great game of empire, and he heeded not how many of them were sacrificed so that he won the game.

Napoleon Crowned Emperor of the French

The culmination of his ambition came in 1804, when the hope he had long secretly cherished, that of gaining the imperial dignity was realized. He imitated the example of Cæsar, the Roman conqueror, in seeking the crown as a reward for his victories, and was elected emperor of the French by an almost unanimous vote. That the sanction of the church might be obtained for the new dignity, the Pope was constrained to come to Paris, and there anointed him emperor on December 2, 1804.

The new emperor hastened to restore the old insignia of royalty. He surrounded himself with a brilliant court, brought back the discarded titles of nobility, named the members of his family princes and princesses, and sought to banish every vestige of republican simplicity. Ten years before he had begun his career in the streets of Paris by sweeping away with cannon-shot the mob that rose in support of the Reign of Terror. Now he had swept away the Republic of France and founded a French empire, with himself at its head as Napoleon I.

But though royalty was restored, it was not a royalty of the old type. Feudalism was at an end. The revolution had destroyed the last relics of that effete and abominable system, and it was an empire on new and modern lines which Napoleon had founded, a royalty voted into existence by a free people, not resting upon a nation of slaves.

The Great Works Devised By the New Emperor

The new emperor did not seek to enjoy in leisure his new dignity. His restless mind impelled him to broad schemes of public improvement. He sought glory in peace as actively as in war. Important changes were made in the management of the finances in order to provide the great sums needed for the government, the army, and the state. Vast contracts were made for road and canal building, and ambitious architectural labors were set in train. Churches were erected, the Pantheon was completed, triumphal arches were built, two new bridges were thrown over the Seine, the Louvre was ordered to be finished, the Bourse to be constructed, and a temple consecrated to the exploits of the army (now the church of the Madeleine) to be built. Thousands of workmen were kept busy in erecting these monuments to his glory, and all France resounded with his fame.

Among the most important of these evidences of his activity of intellect was the formation of the Code Napoleon, the first organized code of French law, and still the basis of jurisprudence in France. First promulgated in 1801, as the Civil Code of France, its title was changed to the Code Napoleon in 1804, and as such it stands as one of the greatest monuments raised by Napoleon to his glory. Thus the Consul, and subsequently the Emperor, usefully occupied himself in the brief intervals between his almost incessant wars.