who in these frightful circumstances would have said, ‘In two hours we shall have gained the battle, made ten thousand prisoners, taken several generals, fifteen flags, forty cannons; the enemy shall have delivered to us eleven fortified places and all the territory of beautiful Italy; they will soon defile shamefaced before our ranks; an armistice will suspend the plague of war and bring back peace into our country,’—he, I say, who would have said that, would have seemed to insult our desperate situation.”
The battle was won finally by the French through the fortunate arrival of Desaix with reënforcements and the imperturbable courage of the commander-in-chief. Bonaparte’s coolness was the marvel of those who surrounded him.
“At the moment when the dead and the dying covered the earth, the Consul was constantly braving death. He gave his orders with his accustomed coolness, and saw the storm approach without seeming to fear it. Those who saw him, forgetting the danger that menaced them, said: ‘What if he should be killed? Why does he not go back?’ It is said that General Berthier begged him to do so.
NAPOLEON THE GREAT CROSSING MOUNT ST. BERNARD, MAY, 1800.
“Once General Berthier came to him to tell him that the army was giving way and that the retreat had commenced. Bonaparte said to him: ‘General, you do not tell me that with sufficient coolness.’ This greatness of soul, this firmness, did not leave him in the greatest dangers. When the Fifty-ninth Brigade reached the battle-field the action was the hottest. The First Consul advanced toward them and cried: ‘Come, my brave soldiers, spread your banners; the moment has come to distinguish yourselves. I count on your courage to avenge your comrades.’ At the moment that he pronounced these words, five men were struck down near him. He turned with a tranquil air towards the enemy, and said: ‘Come, my friends, charge them.’
“I had curiosity enough to listen attentively to his voice, to examine his features. The most courageous man, the hero the most eager for glory, might have been overcome in his situation without any one blaming him. But he was not. In these frightful moments, when fortune seemed to desert him, he was still the Bonaparte of Arcola and Aboukir.”
When Desaix came up with his division, Bonaparte took an hour to arrange for the final charge. During this time the Austrian artillery was thundering upon the army, each volley carrying away whole lines. The men received death without moving from their places, and the ranks closed over the bodies of their comrades. This deadly artillery even reached the cavalry, drawn up behind, as well as a large number of infantry who, encouraged by Desaix’s arrival, had hastened back to the field of honor. In spite of the horror of this preparation Bonaparte did not falter. When he was ready he led his army in an impetuous charge which overwhelmed the Austrians completely, though it cost the French one of their bravest generals, Desaix. It was a frightful struggle, but the perfection with which the final attack was planned, won the battle of Marengo and drove the Austrians from Italy.
The Parisians were dazzled by the campaign. Of the passage of the Alps they said, “It is an achievement greater than Hannibal’s;” and they repeated how “the First Consul had pointed his finger at the frozen summits, and they had bowed their heads.” At the news of Marengo the streets were lit with “joy fires,” and from wall to wall rang the cries of Vive la république! Vive le premier consul! Vive l’armée!
KLÉBER, 1753 OR 1754–1800.
The campaign against the Austrians was finished December 3, 1800, by the battle of Hohenlinden, won by Moreau, and in February the treaty of Lunéville established peace. England was slower in coming to terms, it not being until March, 1802, that she signed the treaty of Amiens.
At last France was at peace with all the world. She hailed Napoleon as her savior, and ordered that the 18th Brumaire be celebrated throughout the republic as a solemn fête in his honor.
The country saw in him something greater than a peacemaker. She was discovering that he was to be her law giver, for, while ending the wars, he had begun to bring order into the interior chaos which had so long tormented the French people, to reëstablish the finances, the laws, the industries, to restore public works, to encourage the arts and sciences, even to harmonize the interests of rich and poor, of church and state.
“LUCIEN BONAPARTE, PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF THE FIVE HUNDRED, 18TH BRUMAIRE, 1799.”
Chapter VII
Napoleon as Statesman and Lawgiver—The Finances—The Industries—The Public Works
“Now we must rebuild, and, moreover, we must rebuild solidly,” said Napoleon to his brother Lucien the day after the coup d’état which had overthrown the Directory and made him the temporary Dictator of France.
The first necessity was a new constitution. In ten years three constitutions had been framed and adopted, and now the third had, like its predecessors, been declared worthless. At Napoleon’s side was a man who had the draft of a constitution ready in his pocket. It had been promised him that, if he would aid in the 18th Brumaire, this instrument should be adopted. This man was the Abbé Sieyès. He had been a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly, but, curiously enough, his fame there had been founded more on his silence and the air of mystery in which he enveloped himself than on anything he had done. The superstitious veneration which he had won, saved him even during the Terror, and he was accustomed to say laconically, when asked what he did in that period, “I lived.”
It was he who, when Napoleon was still in Egypt, had seen the necessity of a military dictatorship, and had urged the Directory to order Napoleon home to help him reorganize the government—an order which was never received.
Soon after the 18th Brumaire, Sieyès presented his constitution. No more bungling and bizarre instrument for conducting the affairs of a nation was ever devised. Warned by the experience of the past ten years, he abandoned the ideas of 1789, and declared that the power must come from above, the confidence from below. His system of voting took the suffrage from the people; his legislative body was composed of three sections, each of which was practically powerless. All the force of the government was centered in a senate of aged men. The Grand Elector, as the figurehead which crowned the edifice was called, did nothing but live at Versailles and draw a princely salary.
Napoleon saw at once the weak points of the structure, but he saw how it could be re-arranged to serve a dictator. He demanded that the Senate be stripped of its power, and that the Grand Elector be replaced by a First Consul, to whom the executive force should be confided. Sieyès consented, and Napoleon was named First Consul.
The whole machinery of the government was now centered in one man. “The state, it was I,” said Napoleon at St. Helena. The new constitution was founded on principles the very opposite of those for which the Revolution had been made, but it was the only hope there was of dragging France from the slough of anarchy and despair into which she had fallen.
Napoleon undertook the work of reconstruction which awaited him, with courage, energy, and amazing audacity. He was forced to deal at once with all departments of the nation’s life—with the finances, the industries, the émigrés, the Church, public education, the codification of the laws.
The first question was one of money. The country was literally bankrupt in 1799. The treasury was empty, and the government practised all sorts of makeshifts to get money to pay those bills which could not be put off. One day, having to send out a special courier, it was obliged to give him the receipts of the opera to pay his expenses. And, again, it was in such a tight pinch that it was on the point of sending the gold coin in the Cabinet of Medals to the mint to be melted. Loans could not be negotiated; government paper was worthless; stocks