Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/215

Rh 1800.] NAPOLEON 203 and that they were not called upon to act against an assembly, but only against a traitorous minority, as at Fructidor. Lucien Bonaparte, who was president of the Five Hundred, performed this miracle. Bonaparte had sent grenadiers to rescue him. Lucien was at the tribune, where he was defending his brother amidst noisy interrup tion. At the appearance of the grenadiers he threw off his official dress and retired under their escort. In the hall he mounted on horseback and addressed the troops who were employed to guard the legislature, declaring that the council was oppressed by assassins, brigands paid by England ; he charged the soldiers to deliver the majority from this oppression by clearing the hall. He brandished a sword and swore to stab his brother if ever he attacked the liberties of Frenchmen. On the clear understanding that no violence against the assembly was intended, and with the express sanction of its president, the soldiers then cleared the hall. In the evening at 9 o clock Lucien reassembled a certain number of the members and proposed to them to nominate a committee which should report on the state of affairs. This committee was at once named, and speedily presented a report to the effect that Sieyes, Roger-Ducos, and Bonaparte should compose a provisional executive under the title of consuls, that the legislature should adjourn till February 20 (1 Ventose), a committee of twenty-five members from each Council being left to deliberate along with the consuls upon the changes to be made in the constitution ; at the same time, as in Fructidor, a certain number of members (fifty-five) were to be expelled from the Councils. Thus the original plan was on the whole carried into effect. But it had been sadly marred by the unseemly appearance of Bonaparte and by his gasconades, in which he bade the Council remember that he &quot; marched under the escort of the god of fortune and the god of war.&quot; An attempt was made to conceal these mistakes by publishing in the Moniteur a garbled report of his speech. Brumaire taken by itself is the victory of Sieyes rather than of Bonaparte. It raised Sieyes to the position he had so long coveted of legislator for France. The con stitution now introduced was really in great part his work, but his work so signally altered in one point that it resulted in the absolute supremacy of Bonaparte. We should especially notice that it is Sieyes, not Bonaparte, who practically suppresses representative institutions. The long-expected scheme of Sieyes was at last promulgated, and we see with astonishment that the man of 1789, the author of Qu est ce que le Tiers fitat ? himself condemns political liberty. In this scheme the assemblies, of which there are three, the Senate, the Tribunate, and the Corps Le&quot;gislatif, are not chosen by popular election at all. The two latter are nominated by the Senate, and the Senate is chosen at the outset in part by the provisional consuls and in part by co-optation. The Tribunate alone had the right of public debate, which was separated from the right of voting. This latter was assigned to the Corps Le&quot;gislatif. These arrangements, which caused the nullity of parlia mentary institutions in the Napoleonic period, were devised not by Bonaparte but by Sieyes, who confined popular elec tion to certain lists of notability out of which the assemblies were required to be chosen. By this scheme Sieyes, who retained all his hatred for the old regime and the old noblesse, passed sentence upon the whole constructive work of the Revolution ; this sentence was only ratified by Bonaparte. But, while he absolutely condemned democracy, Sieyes did not want to set up despotism. The Senate was to be supreme; it was to be a kind of hereditary aristocracy, the depositary of the tradition of the Revolution ; above it, and capable of being deposed by it, was to be a doge called Grand Elector, whose main function consisted in choosing two consuls, of whom one was to take the home and the other the foreign department. Here again Bonaparte ac quiesced as far as he could. He adopted the consuls and the triple executive, even lowering apparently the grand elector of Sieyes by giving him the more republican title of First Consul. But he displayed signally and for the first time the adroitness, rapid and audacious, which was to be the characteristic of his diplomacy. He declaimed violently against the feebleness of the grand elector and the consuls in this scheme, feigning to overlook that it concentrated power intentionally in the Senate ; then instead of sending back the scheme for revision he simply strengthened immensely the attributions of the first consul, leaving the other consuls and the assemblies as weak as before. By this stroke a strong aristocracy was turned into a strong despotism, and at the same time advantage was taken of the very peculiar character of Sieyes, who always when he met with opposition sank into an im penetrable silence. Bonaparte boasted afterwards that he had sealed his victory over Sieyes by a handsome bribe at the expense of the public. The provisional consulate of Sieyes, Ducos, and Bona parte lasted only from November 10th to December 13th. Then through the promulgation of the new constitution it made way for the definitive consulate of Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and Lebrun, which lasted four years. By the constitution of 22 Frimaire, year VIII. (which was never debated in any assembly, but, after being devised by the two legislative committees meeting at the Luxem bourg under the presidency of Bonaparte, and in the presence of the other consuls, and after being redacted by Daunou, was introduced by a popular vote), Bonaparte Bona- became First Consul for ten years with a salary of half a P arte million francs, with a sole power of nominating the council Becomes of state, the ministers, ambassadors, officers of army and fleet, and most of the judges and local officials, and with a power in nominal conjunction with the other consuls of initiating all legislation and deciding war and peace. Sieyes and Ducos retired, and under the new constitution the second and third consuls were Cambaceres, an eminent legist, and Lebrun, an old official of Louis XV. s time. The party of Brumaire had intended to set up a republic, but this constitution created a strong monarchy under the thinnest disguise. For the moment it was much that France renounced Jacobinism and ceased to tear herself to pieces. The civil war of the west and the foreign war were alike energetic ally taken in hand. A proclamation to the inhabitants of the west (December 28th) breathed for the first time the spirit of tolerance, of respect for religion, and con sideration for the clergy. It was a precursor of the Concordat, and attacked the civil war at its. root. It was accompanied by the most imperious threats against the refractory, who are to be treated &quot;like the Arabs of the desert,&quot; who are warned that they have to do with a man &quot;accustomed to rigorous and energetic measures,&quot; an allusion apparently to the massacres of Jaffa and Cairo. This policy, accompanied by decisive military action, was speedily successful. By the end of February all was quiet in the west; Frotte&quot;, the most active leader in Normandy, had surrendered at discretion, and had been shot, though Bonaparte had expressly announced that if he surrendered he might count on the generosity of the Government. In preaching a religious peace at home Bonaparte was sincere ; he was less so in announcing a policy of peace in Europe, for he well knew that he needed a victory to cover his apostasy from republicanism. Nevertheless the announcement was necessary as part of the national renunciation of Jacobinism; and it was