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 were down to the lowest. One of the worst features of the situation was the condition of the taxes. The assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution, and they were collected with greater difficulty.
To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting. Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said:
“I fully acknowledge all your protégé is worth; but it might easily happen that, with all his intelligence, he would give me nothing but fresh water, whilst with my good Gaudin I can always rely on having good crown pieces.”
The famous Bank of France dates from this time. It was founded under Napoleon’s personal direction, and he never ceased to watch over it jealously.
Most important of all the financial measures was the reorganization of the system of taxation. The First Consul insisted that the taxes must meet the whole expense of the nation, save war, which must pay for itself; and he so ordered affairs that never, after his administration was fairly begun, was a deficit known or a loan made. This
