Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/650

 G14 FRANCE [HISTORY, 1801-2. The op position of Eug- laiul. The peace of Amiens. Bona parte s organiz ing power. at this distance of time, to realize completely the combina tion of causes which led to the determined resistance of England ; the most prominent and least defensible cause was the &quot; dominium maris,&quot; asserted in opposition to the principles of the armed neutrality of 1780. At the end of the 18th century the English navy had risen to very great proportions, and the interests of the country, as was then thought, were hostile to the claims of neutral com merce. Consequently, the northern powers, irritated and insulted by English claims carried out with the strong hand, formed a great coalition at the end of 1800, in which Den mark and Sweden, Russia and Prussia, set themselves to secure the liberty of the seas. They invited the First Consul to join them, and he desired nothing better ; it seemed as if the national hatred of France against Pitt and England would now find vent, and would overthrow that persistent enemy. It seemed, too, as if Bonaparte, as he consolidated his power at home, would be able to assert himself also as the protector of the liberties of Europe abroad. On the other side, the English Government did not waste time. Parker and Nelson were sent into the Baltic, to break up the coali tion, if possible. As Denmark had the most ready fleet, and was in fact the most active member of the coalition, Nelson determined to strike hard at Copenhagen. The hard-fought battle of Copenhagen, in which the Danes made heroic resistance to the English forces, led to an armistice ; and the assassination of the emperor Paul L, which reversed the policy of Russia, brought the great coalition to an end. By the summer of 1801 the northern powers were all again the friends and allies of England. It was in vain that Bonaparte threatened the English shores with invasion ; he felt that his great plan had broken down, and wanted a little breathing time. He made peace with Portugal, occu pying with French troops two of its provinces. On the other hand, the army Bonaparte had left in Egypt, after the re fusal of England to allow it to return to Europe, had lost its general Kleber, who had been assassinated by a Turk ; all the efforts made to reinforce the army from France failed ; an English force from Minorca, and 7000 sepoys from India, as well as a Turkish army, now converged on Egypt. Abercromby, at Aboukir, repulsed the attack of the French under Menou ; the French army after a short time had to capitulate (27th June 1801), and was carried over to France in English ships. At the same time war between France and England was drawing to an end; the negotiations were concluded in March 1802 by the peace of Amiens. The principles of the armed neutrality had failed to establish themselves, and England secured not only her command of the sea, but her lordship over India. She had also freed Portugal, the kingdom of Naples, the States of the Church, from French control ; Egypt was restored to the Sublime Porte. On the other hand, the authority of France in central Europe re mained unbroken ; the great campaigns on the Po and the Danube had secured this result. The brilliant successes of the French arms, and the treaties of Luneville and Amiens, prepared the way for the next forward movement of the First Consul. Meanwhile France at home was prosperous and productive ; Bonaparte s splendid gifts of organization continued to work wonders ; he made the income of the country meet all the outgoings, and croated a real surplus, a thing unknown throughout the previous century. On every side fresh energy was evoked, new enterprise stimulated ; all things were felt to proceed from one centre, a centre not, as in the old monarchy, of selfishness and waste, but of active and beneficent influence. Too little was left for private and spontaneous effort, that being the weak side of the development of France ; yet considering the state of the country, the rule of a beneficent despot was welcome and most successful. The greatest work of this period was the construction of the civil code, on which Bonaparte isc t himself worked with amazing zeal, clearness, and ability. The d It was issued in January 1804. In other domestic matters Naj his ascendency displayed itself more and more; the at-^ 01 tempts made against his life enabled him to crush and terrorize the extremer republicans. The system of senalus- consultes, by which he veiled his arbitrary edicts under the authority of an obsequious senate, enabled him by degrees to crush the remnant of free discussion still possessed by, France in the tribunate of the constitution. He got rid of constitutional opposition as readily as he had freed himself from the attempts of conspiracy, and reduced the legislative I assembly to a nullity. The age of the Revolution seemed j to be past ; the grand organizing faculty of the First Consul , was doing what the destructive forces of the republic could not do, was reconstructing society on a basis partly new I and partly old, was centralizing authority, was creating a despotism adapted to the phraseology of a &quot; republic one and indivisible,&quot; and giving to France a new position among the nations. For the autocracy of Napoleon was the direct I outcome of republicanism, as it allied itself with military organization, and slowly attracted to itself many of the relics of the old order of things. Though essentially hostile to_real liberty, the coming empire sprang out of a&quot; great and generous effort made by France in that direction ; it was not till our own days that she succeeded, if even now she has succeeded, in shaking off the iron trammels of imperial ism, and ruling herself with constitutional freedom and calmness under the republic of her choice. In these years (1800-1804) the First Consul not only Tl-;. crushed the spirit of the two chambers and the tribunate, co but also passed on boldly to reconstruct French society, a tic much harder task. Directly after the peace of Amiens, when France was in the first flush of an unwonted tran quillity, Bonaparte made terms with the papacy, and by the Concordat reconstructed the Church of France. All the old Tl : divisions were swept away ; ten archbishoprics and fifty co * bishoprics were newly mapped out by First Consul and Pope; and in 1802 the will of Bonaparte and Pius VII. per emptorily put an end to the schism between refractory and constitutional clergy, and so cut away from the ancient mon archy its chief support. The traditional life of the church was rudely cut off; the authority of the state was displayed in full; the constitutional priests were sacrificed to the political needs of the First Consul, who saw that, if he would have firm hold of power, he must first win over the royalist clergy. The chief opponents of the Revolution got the chief rewards ; the constitutionalists were mortified. From this moment dates the friendship between the Napoleonic dynasty and the Church of Rome ; from this dates also that secret hostility between the clergy and the army, which has often since that period produced results none the less strik ing because their origin was concealed. For the time, however, the paramount authority of Bonaparte over the army made resistance impossible. The weak point in the arrangement was the certainty that | in their hearts the courtier-like clergy would always prefer a Bourbon to a Napoleon ; and of this, too, history has provided more than one proof. Still, for the time, in church as in army, the step was successful, and gave strength to Bonaparte s posi tion. The emigrants also returned, thanks to an armistice, I &quot; and in large numbers took oath to respect the new govern- ^ ment. It was a bold and hazardous step, which the first consul afterwards saw good reason to regret. An exiled adherent of a lost cause never changes, never learns pru dence, never is satisfied with the de facto ruler of his people ; his mind is warped, his moral sense, in matters political, vitiated; the existing government has in him a secret enemy, a plotter and intriguer, a fierce fanatic, outwardly subdued, inwardly smouldering, and ready to burst forth in