Part 36

There was no intention to diminish the weight of the military element as the predominant partner. By the premature death of Hoche, Napoleon was left without a rival, and he did not hesitate to speak of the Directory as a makeshift government. The immediate question was to prevent an outbreak between the victorious general and his superiors, by which a return to the monarchy might be made easy. France was still at war with Great Britain; therefore, when Napoleon proposed to attack the vulnerable point of British influence in Egypt, with the ultimate purpose of advancing from there on the British domains in India, the plan was eagerly accepted by the Directors, despite the obviously utopian character of the proposal. Napoleon spoke in his best sententious style of the East as the only place where real glory could be acquired. The Directors were willing that he should absent himself from France, glad to purchase freedom from his control by assigning him a new important command over the best troops in France.

It is not probable that Napoleon was at all in earnest in planning an expedition to India; he appreciated the weakness of the home government, and from Egypt it would not be difficult to return, whenever he was needed, in the rôle of the sole savior of the country. The scale of preparation for this unique military adventure was most imposing; there was an air of mystery about it; people talked of its destination being Constantinople or India. Ships, to the number of 500, were gathered at Toulon, manned by 10,000 sailors and fitted to transport 35,000 veteran troops, taken mostly from the army of Italy. All of Napoleon’s best generals were to be with him, Berthier, Murat, Lannes, Davout, Marmont, Duroc, and the two popular commanders from the army of the Rhine, Kléber and Desaix. Great care was given to the material and scientific side of the expedition. Scholars and scientific experts were to accompany it, either for the purpose of antiquarian research in Egypt, or to develop the unused powers of the soil of the fertile Nile valley. There was plenty of money, for Berthier was sent to Rome to exact additional contributions from churches and convents. He called himself the treasurer of the Egyptian expedition and promised to fill his treasure chests.

The great fleet set sail on the 19th of May, 1798; only when the ships were at sea did the troops know what was to be their destination. The first point reached was Malta, where the famous Knights, so long the residuary legatees of the great crusading tradition, surrendered without resistance and received a French garrison. By good fortune the French armada escaped the vigilance of the English fleet which was cruising in the Mediterranean; and the army was landed at Alexandria on June 30th.

At this time Turkey had only the nominal sovereignty in Egypt, the real power being in the hands of a military caste, the Mamelouks, who exercised an oppressive rule over the cultivators of the soil, and the Arab chieftains, who represented the ancient conquerors of the country. Napoleon proclaimed himself as a liberator, promising to respect the customs and religion of the land, and offering his help in the development of its natural resources. After the easy capture of Alexandria there was a long, weary march across the desert to Cairo, during which the troops so suffered from intense heat, fatigue, and lack of food that there was discontent among both officers and men.

The final stand of the Mamelouks was made near Cairo within sight of the Pyramids, where they tried to rush the French squares with their cavalry. But the French artillery with its murderous fire decimated the advancing squadrons before they could come in contact with the French troops, with the result that on the French side the loss was only about thirty men, while the Mamelouks reckoned theirs by the thousand. Many of them, too, were drowned in the Nile. The French soldiers bent their bayonets and fished the bodies out in order to get the gold pieces in the belts of the dead warriors. Napoleon grimly reported that “the army was becoming reconciled to Egypt.” In the midst of these brilliant achievements, the victory of Nelson at Aboukir on the 1st of August came like a bolt from the blue, for the French admiral’s fleet was virtually annihilated, and by this disaster the French army was cut off from its base and, as it were, imprisoned in the land it had conquered. Yet Nelson could not follow up his victory; he had no frigates and, therefore, could not enter the harbor of Alexandria to destroy the provisions and the transport ships which were collected there.

One of the results of the naval battle was an uprising at Cairo, which was ruthlessly repressed, 5000 of the insurgents losing their lives. After an expedition had been sent into upper Egypt as far as the cataracts of Syene, the country was reduced to some kind of order, but there were further difficulties to deal with from another quarter, for, under the instigation of England, the Turks were preparing to retake Egypt, and two armies were now on the way with this object. One of them was to proceed through Asia Minor and Syria; to meet the enemy Napoleon, with the bulk of his army, advanced through Syria, conquering towns as he proceeded with his usual unbroken fortune. The march was signalized by spectacular deeds of personal prowess on the part of his subordinate generals. But he also shocked his admirers by the horrible massacre of 3000 prisoners at Jaffa. The excuse for this deed of bloodshed was that the victims had been previously released on parole and had broken it by taking part in the defense of Jaffa. The first failure in this unexampled course of success came at St. John d’Acre, an important seaport which was obstinately defended by its Turkish garrison, aided by an English commodore, Sidney Smith. After two unsuccessful assaults had been made by the French, with heavy losses, Napoleon withdrew in unconcealed disgust at his failure. He never forgot Sidney Smith, and spoke of him always as the man who had spoiled his luck; “that idiot [bicoque] was the only thing,” he said, “that prevented me from entering India and striking a deathblow at England.”

After the raising of the siege hope of further progress through Syria was abandoned, and the army, suffering from illness and discontent, had a miserable march back to Egypt, their route being marked by dead and dying. Napoleon showed great constancy in this disastrous experience, exposing himself to the ravages of the plague and restoring the confidence of his men by his coolness. On reaching Egypt the French found that a Turkish army of 18,000 men had disembarked at Alexandria; these, however, were soon disposed of at the second battle of Aboukir, fought almost a year after the first (July 25, 1799). The Turkish soldiers who refused, or were not able, to reembark on their transports were thrown into the sea.

While the expedition was marked by such deeds of barbarism, it had a more justifiable side because of the civilized and progressive administration given to Egypt by its French conquerors. Intelligent efforts were made to conciliate the Mussulman population; justice, finance, and administration were reformed; even a beginning was made in establishing something resembling representative government. Works of public utility were encouraged, some planned on a large scale, such as the building of a canal at Suez, a project only realized many decades afterwards. Remarkable also were the scientific results attained through the foundation of an Egyptian Institute consisting of French specialists in archeology, architecture, and art. Among its members were men who devoted themselves to promoting an industrial reformation, while others accomplished hygienic improvements for the cities. Indeed, the most durable result of this extraordinary scheme of Oriental conquest was the primacy of culture it gave to France in Egypt, a primacy she has continued to maintain even in the face of the military occupation of the country by England.

III THE FALL OF THE DIRECTORY

During the long absence of Napoleon from France, the incapacity of the government of the Directory at home and abroad had been continually manifested; there were internal disorders due to royalist insurrections, which seemed for a time most threatening in the southwest, in the Garonne valley, while at Paris the radicals, who represented what was left of the Terrorist element, were restless under a system which they charged with disloyalty to the revolutionary tradition. There was, besides, no harmony between the legislative and executive organs of government; the Directors were not respected, some being manifestly incompetent, others, like Barras, mere intriguers.

With this weakness at home there had been displayed towards other European powers a consistent policy of provocation and aggression. To all of its weaker neighbors, France, in the hands of the Directory, played the rôle of an absolute dictator; all of them were to be forced, willing or unwilling, to organize themselves on the model of the French Republic. Napoleon had set the fashion in Italy; this example was followed through French influence and by French aggression. When the Swiss cantons rose to defend their ancient rights, they met with no more consideration than the absolute monarch, King Charles Emmanuel IV of Piedmont, whose Italian dominions were annexed to France, or the clerical oligarchy of Rome, who had to see themselves despoiled of their temporal power, when the Roman Republic was proclaimed from the Forum by General Berthier.

A new European coalition was brought into existence to resist the general movement of French expansion and to restore the Bourbon monarchy by invading French territory. Much was hoped from the accession of Russia, which along with Austria, engaged to put in the field the largest masses of men. At the opening of the campaign the French met discouraging defeats; Italy was soon lost through the inability of the French generals to withstand the united Russians and Austrians. In Switzerland, Masséna, by brilliant strategy kept the coalition armies in check; while by the superior initiative of a much smaller French force, a British army, operating in Holland, was obliged to sign an ignominious treaty and to evacuate Dutch territory.

With some of these vicissitudes of the Directorial government, Napoleon became acquainted at a dinner, at which he and Sidney Smith met to discuss matters relative to the exchange of prisoners and where the commander of the French army in Egypt received the public papers and letters intended for him which had been seized by English warships. Napoleon saw the necessity of leaving Egypt, where he was cooped up by an English fleet, and also he must have realized that the chance of a permanent French occupation was infinitesimal. With a few of his generals he left the country suddenly on the 22d of August, 1799, and, avoiding by skilful navigation the danger of being captured by the British warships, disembarked on French soil at Fréjus on October 16th. All parties greeted his return; his trip to Paris was a triumph; the _Moniteur_ reported that the crowd on the roads was so great that vehicular traffic was completely blocked. All the places through which he passed from Fréjus as far as Paris were illuminated. Even the Directory disguised their real feelings and gave the hero of the Egyptian campaign a cordial welcome back. Bonaparte won much favor by a discreet modesty of demeanor, ingratiating himself with the generals who were defending France against the coalition, while he represented the Egyptian campaign as an affair undertaken simply for scientific purposes. His popularity was as unrestrained as it was real. The press was filled with stories about him; he dressed as an ordinary citizen rather than as a soldier, wearing a semi-civilian costume at social functions.

But under this ingenuous pose much political intriguing was being set in motion. Napoleon, who was described by one of his brothers as “just as much a manipulator as a general,” was planning with Director Siéyès, now recognized as the chief political expert, to be called in to prepare a new constitution. Napoleon cared nothing for constitutions, but he was glad to have Siéyès’s influence in overturning the Directory. Siéyès, on his side, recognized the civic virtues of his friend, General Bonaparte, but at the same time anticipated that the result of all this scheming would be to establish him in a position where he would exercise sole autocratic rule.

As to whether the opportunity was favorable, there was a difficulty. France was no longer directly menaced by the coalition since the splendid campaign of Masséna in Switzerland; besides, the royalist insurrections had been suppressed, and the extremists muzzled. The middle classes, to whom the wealth of the nation now belonged, felt secure. At this time the Prussian Minister at Paris wrote that confidence was being restored throughout the country, and that even religious dissensions had become less acute. Some of the most questionable and unpopular legislation, passed against the fortunes and persons of citizens who were suspected by the Directory, was on the point of being withdrawn by the legislative body. The debate on these measures was to conclude on the 17th Brumaire.

There was a difference between the two bodies of the legislature on the question of the change of the constitution. The more popular chamber distrusted Siéyès and passed upon him an indirect vote of censure of a severe character, by threatening with death anyone who proposed to alter the existing form of government. Apparently Napoleon’s share in Siéyès’s scheme was not suspected, for the Five Hundred named as their speaker Lucien Bonaparte, who had taken an oath to stab to death anyone aiming to make himself dictator. The complicity of various generals being assured by Bonaparte, Siéyès, who could count on the inactivity or sympathy of his fellow-Directors, proceeded to set the machinery in motion by which the government was to be overthrown. When the Ancients met, they listened to a vague harangue by one of Siéyès’s adherents, who spoke of a conspiracy, by which the country was threatened, the intimation being conveyed that it was instigated by some foreign power. To escape from impending danger a resolution was offered that both houses should meet outside Paris on the 19th of Brumaire at St. Cloud, and that the command of the troops in Paris should be turned over to Bonaparte.

As soon as this was done, there was a great display of military activity. The city was placed in a state of siege, and care was taken that the minority of the Directors should be kept as virtual prisoners in the Luxembourg. The opponents of the change in the Five Hundred had time enough to prepare for resistance, and they did not propose to annul the existing constitution on the basis of a rumor. Napoleon appeared first before the Ancients, where he made an incoherent speech, and showed himself unable to name the conspirators he charged with disloyalty against the country. When he was ushered into the Hall where the Five Hundred were in session, the whole body had just sworn allegiance to the Directorial Constitution. Walking between four grenadiers, his diminutive figure added no gravity to the scene; he was pale, disturbed, and undecided. The members refused to listen to him, and cried “outlaw” or “down with the traitor.” It is alleged that in the tumult daggers were drawn, and that Napoleon was in personal danger, as his adversaries closed round him. But all that happened, according to the most reliable witnesses, was that Napoleon and his escort were jostled and finally ejected from the hall. One grenadier, it is known, had the sleeve of his coat torn. Lucien, who rose to defend his brother, was hissed, and finally gave up his place as presiding officer. Another conspirator, when he refused to pass a motion depriving Napoleon of his command, was replaced by Lucien Bonaparte, who, on his part, collapsed from the nervous strain when he was bidden to put the motion declaring Napoleon an outlaw. He was allowed to go out and find his brother, so that the whole matter might be peaceably settled without extreme measures being taken.

In the meantime the leading conspirator, Napoleon, was suffering from a nervous crisis. When he was outside the hall, he appeared to observers as if he were walking in his sleep; upon trying to address his troops from horseback, he fell to the ground. Lucien just then came on the scene and conveyed him to a room in the palace, where Siéyès said to him: “They wish to put you outside the law; we’ll put them outside the hall.” The story of the display of daggers was now concocted, and Napoleon’s troops were told of the danger their commander had been in. Lucien directed the soldiers to go into the hall and clear out the legislature. This order was executed by two companies of armed grenadiers, who, despite the protests of the deputies, pushed them good-humoredly out of the building, taking some of the members who resisted, in their arms.

The Ancients set forward their part of the revolution by voting the suppression of the Directory, by appointing an executive commission of three members, and by demanding the adjournment of the whole legislative body. But to give the transaction a specious form of legality, Lucien called some of the members of the Five Hundred together, and they, under his direction, proceeded to behave as if they were a majority. An executive consular commission was appointed, composed of Siéyès, Ducas, and Bonaparte, to be called the Consuls of the French Republic. During the adjournment of the legislature, the powers of that body were to be exercised by a commission composed of twenty-five members of each branch. These two commissions were to decide on the measures initiated by the Consuls in matters of administration and finance and also on the changes in the constitution required to free it from its imperfections. This proposal was accepted by the Ancients, and the three Consuls swore to be faithful to the republic, one and undivided, to liberty, to equality, and to the representative system.

The news of the suppression of the Directorial régime caused suspense, but little excitement. People were puzzled rather than alarmed; there had been so many transformations since 1789 that one more seemed hardly irregular. Besides, the Directory had often violated their own constitution; hence the illegality in their suppression was regarded as nothing strange. The Paris workmen stayed quietly in their quarters; there was no Jacobin Club to champion the cause of the radicals or to act as a center of protest. Financial circles were reassured, when government securities rose; there was a difference of seven francs between the quotations on the 17th Brumaire and 24th of the same month.

The royalists were happy, for they were naïve enough to believe that Napoleon would play the rôle of General Monk in a Bourbon restoration. On the whole, at Paris and in the country, the masses of the people were apathetic; some clubs here and there protested and called upon the citizens to arm themselves in defense of the dead government, while some departmental officials were dismissed, because they questioned the legality of the changes at Paris. But nowhere was there anything like an uprising in behalf of the Directory, which too forcibly recalled the terrible years of revolutionary experience.

IV THE FIRST CONSUL

The provisional consuls remained in control from November 11 to December 24, 1799. Napoleon presided at the first meeting because his name began with “B,” it having been arranged that the consular power should be exercised in alphabetical order. The Consuls seemed to have no more authority than the Directors they had superseded. Governmental policy was still anonymous. Napoleon never appeared in public life except with his two colleagues, and his influence was exerted altogether in military affairs, in which he exercised the functions that Carnot had held under the Committee of Public Safety. He dressed as a civilian, not as a general. Moreover, the Consuls showed themselves most conciliatory; they published no magniloquent program and behaved as if the lawlessness which had ushered in their rule was something foreign to their own desires. No one talked of a military dictatorship; there was, indeed, a studied moderation in the new government. It is true a few Jacobins were placed under police supervision, but some of the members of the revolutionary convention were used as agents to reassure the good republicans throughout the country. Among the deputies who had been expelled on the famous 19th Brumaire, several made their peace with the government, while the irreconcilables carefully avoided any overt acts in opposing it. The republican tradition was maintained by manifestoes against superstition and the émigrés. An era of good feeling was now ushered in most auspiciously.

Napoleon seemed to be content with the rôle of a Washington, but the moment he saw there was no fear of resistance he took steps to secure the adoption of a constitution fitted to make him the master of France. The machinery for this purpose was near at hand in the two legislative commissions mentioned above. Siéyès was working hard on a model constitution which was to be a marvelous harmony of various democratic principles. According to this scheme the people were to draw up a list of candidates, while an elector chose from the list those who should carry on the administration. The government was placed in the hands of a Council of State, there were additional bodies to act as representatives or as checks to keep the proper balance and to repress personal ambition and demagoguery. There was, besides this, a scheme to revive the Directory with the names of its constituent parts changed.

Bonaparte, who saw no chance for personal rule in either of these proposals, organized a small sub-committee to which he presented a scheme of his own, that never really went before either of the committees in a regular session, but was signed individually by the members under pressure from him. It was carefully planned, but the project that had such an irregular origin was nothing more than a sham constitution. It contained no declaration of rights and had no reference to liberty of the press. But the most shrewdly planned scheme for centralizing the power in the hands of one man was revealed in the so-called electoral provisions, by which the citizens of each district prepared, by voting for one-tenth of their number, a communal list from which all officials were to be selected. This system was carried through several gradations, until a national list was reached, from which all the higher popular representatives were to be chosen. The right of nomination from these various lists was conferred, in vague and ambiguous language, upon the First Consul. After the lists were once drawn up no further change could be made in these provisions.

Bonaparte transferred to himself the right of appointing all the local officials, the members of municipal and departmental councils, and so by a stroke of his pen deprived France of all trace of local government. His plan brought into existence an intensified centralization such as the country had not known, even under the ancient monarchy. All laws had to be proposed by the executive government; among the various representative bodies, the Senate, Council of State, Tribunate, and Legislative bodies, power was so divided that no single one had an effective initiative.