The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0004/00042.txt

Text File | 1992-08-07 | 14KB | 234 lines

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$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter IX}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{napoleon
first
france
madame
de
thousand
consul
paris
letters
consulate}
$Date{1906}
$Log{}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter IX

Opposition To The Centralization Of The Government - General Prosperity

     The centralization of France in Napoleon's hands was not to be allowed to
go on without interference.  Jacobinism, republicanism, royalism, were
deeply-rooted sentiments, and it was not long before they began to struggle
for expression.

     Early in the Consulate, plots of many descriptions were unearthed. The
most serious before 1803 was that known as the "Opera Plot," or "Plot of the
3d Nivose" (December 24, 1800), when a bomb was placed in the street, to be
exploded as the First Consul's carriage passed.  By an accident he was saved,
and, in spite of the shock, went on to the opera.

     Madame Junot, who was there, gives a graphic description of the way the
news was received by the house:

          "The first thirty measures of the oratorio were scarcely played, when
     a strong explosion like a cannon was heard.

          "'What does that mean?'exclaimed Junot with emotion.  He opened the
     door of the loge and looked into the corridor. . . .  'It is strange; how
     can they be firing cannon at this hour?' And then 'I should have known it.
     Give me my hat; I am going to find out what it is. . . .'

          "At this moment the loge of the First Consul opened, and he himself
     appeared with Generals Lannes, Lauriston, Berthier, and Duroc.  Smiling,
     he saluted the immense crowd, which mingled cries like those of love with
     its applause.  Madame Bonaparte followed him in a few seconds. . . .

          "Junot was going to enter the loge to see for himself the serene air
     of the First Consul that I had just remarked, when Duroc came up to us
     with troubled face.

          "'The First Consul has just escaped death,' he said quickly to Junot.
     'Go down and see him; he wants to talk to you.'. . . But a dull sound
     commenced to spread from parterre to orchestra, from orchestra to
     amphitheatre, and thence to the loges.

          "'The First Consul has just been attacked in the Rue Saint Nicaise,'
     it was whispered.  Soon the truth was circulated in the salle; at the same
     instant, and as by an electric shock, one and the same acclamation arose,
     one and the same look enveloped Napoleon, as if in a protecting love.

          "What agitation preceded the explosion of national anger which was
     represented in that first quarter of an hour, by that crowd whose fury for
     so black an attack could not be expressed by words!  Women sobbed aloud,
     men shivered with indignation.  Whatever the banner they followed, they
     were united heart and arm in this case to show that differences of opinion
     did not bring with them differences in understanding honor."

     It was such attempts, and suspicion of like ones, that led to the
extension of the police service.  One of the ablest and craftiest men of the
Revolution became Napoleon's head of police in the Consulate, Fouche. A
consummate actor and skilful flatterer, hampered by no conscience other than
the duty of keeping in place, he acted a curious and entertaining part.
Detective work was for him a game which he played with intense relish.  He was
a veritable amateur of plots, and never gayer than when tracing them.

     Napoleon admired Fouche, but he did not trust him, and, to offset him,
formed a private police to spy on his work.  He never succeeded in finding
anyone sufficiently fine to match the chief, who several times was malicious
enough to contrive plots himself, to excite and mislead the private agents.

     The system of espionage went so far that letters were regularly opened.
It was commonly said that those who did not want their letters read, did not
send them by post; and though it was hardly necessary, as in the Revolution,
to send them in pies, in coat-linings, or hat-crowns, yet care and prudence
had to be exercised in handling all political letters.

     It was difficult to get officials for the post-office who could be relied
on to intercept the proper letters; and in 1802, the Postmaster- General,
Monsieur Bernard, the father of the beautiful Madame Recamier, was found to be
concealing an active royalist correspondence, and to be permitting the
circulation of a quantity of seditious pamphlets.  His arrest and imprisonment
made a great commotion in his daughter's circle, which was one of social and
intellectual importance.  Through the intercessions of Bernadotte, Monsieur
Bernard was pardoned by Napoleon. The cabinet noir, as the department of the
post-office which did this work was called, was in existence when Napoleon
came to the Consulate, and he rather restricted than increased its operations.
It has never been entirely given up, as many an inoffensive foreigner in
France can testify.

     The theatre and press were also subjected to a strict censorship.  In
1800 the number of newspapers in Paris was reduced to twelve; and in three
years there were but eight left, with a total subscription list of eighteen
thousand six hundred and thirty.  Napoleon's contempt for journalists and
editors equalled that he had for lawyers, whom he called a "heap of babblers
and revolutionists." Neither class could, in his judgment, be allowed to go
free.

     The salons were watched, and it is certain that those whose habitues
criticised Napoleon freely were reported.  One serious rupture resulted from
the supervision of the salons, that with Madame de Stael.  She had been an
ardent admirer of Napoleon in the beginning of the Consulate, and Bourrienne
tells several amusing stories of the disgust Napoleon showed at the letters of
admiration and sentiment which she wrote him even so far back as the Italian
campaign.  If the secretary is to be believed, Madame de Stael told Napoleon,
in one of these letters, that they were certainly created for each other, that
it was an error in human institutions that the mild and tranquil Josephine was
united to his fate, that nature evidently had intended for a hero such as he,
her own soul of fire. Napoleon tore the letter to pieces, and he took pains
thereafter to announce with great bluntness to Madame de Stael, whenever he
met her, his own notions of women, which certainly were anything but "modern."

     As the centralization of the government increased, Madame de Stael and
her friends criticized Napoleon more freely and sharply than they would have
done, no doubt, had she not been incensed by his personal attitude towards
her.  This hostility increased until, in 1803, the First Consul ordered her
out of France.  "The arrival of this woman, like that of a bird of omen, has
always been the signal for some trouble," he said in giving the order.  "It is
not my intention to allow her to remain in France."

     In 1807 this order was repeated, and many of Madame de Stael's friends
were included in the proscription:

          "I have written to the Minister of Police to send Madame de Stael to
     Geneva.  This woman continues her trade of intriguer.  She went near Paris
     in spite of my orders.  She is a veritable plague.  Speak seriously to the
     Minister, for I shall be obliged to have her seized by the gendarmerie.
     Keep an eye upon Benjamin Constant; if he meddles with anything I shall
     send him to his wife at Brunswick.  I will not tolerate this clique."

     But when one compares the policy of restriction during the Consulate with
what it had been under the old regime and during the Revolution, it certainly
was far in advance in liberty, discretion, and humanity.  The republican
government to-day, in its repression of