The Best of the Bureau/The_Best_of_the_Bureau_Bureau_Development_Inc._1992.iso/dp/0004/00044.txt

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$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter XI}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
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$Subject{napoleon
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emperor
napoleon's
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$Date{1906}
$Log{}
Title:       Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Book:        Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte
Author:      Tarbell, Ida M.
Date:        1906

Chapter XI

Opposition To Napoleon - The Establishment Of The Empire - King Of Italy

     While the preparation for the invasion was going on, the feeling against
England was intensified by the discovery of a plot against the life of the
First Consul.  Georges Cadoudal, a fanatical royalist, who was accused of
being connected with the plot of the 3d Nivose (December 24), and who had
since been in England, had formed a gigantic conspiracy, having as its object
nothing less than the assassination of Napoleon in broad daylight, in the
streets of Paris.

     He had secured powerful aid to carry out his plan.  The Bourbon princess
supported him, and one of them was to land on the north coast and put himself
at the head of the royalist sympathizers as soon as the First Consul was
killed.  In this plot was associated Pichegru, who had been connected with the
18th Fructidor.  General Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden, was suspected of
knowing something of it.

     It came to light in time, and a general arrest was made of those
suspected of being privy to it.  The first to be tried and punished was the
Duc d'Enghien, who had been seized at Ettenheim, in Baden, a short distance
from the French frontier, on the supposition that he had been coming secretly
to Paris to be present at the meetings of the conspirators.  His trial at
Vincennes was short, his execution immediate. There is good reason to believe
that Napoleon had no suspicion that the Duc d'Enghien would be executed so
soon as he was, and even to suppose that he would have lightened the sentence
if the punishment had not been pushed on with an irregularity and inhumanity
that recalls the days of the Terror.

     The execution was a severe blow to Napoleon's popularity, both at home
and abroad.  Fouche's cynical remark was just: "The death of the Duc d'Enghien
is worse than a crime; it is a blunder." Chateaubriand, who had accepted a
foreign embassy, resigned at once, and a number of the old aristocracy, such
as Pasquier and Mole, who had been saying among themselves that it was their
duty to support Napoleon's splendid work of reorganization, went back into
obscurity.  In society the effect was distressing.  The members of Napoleon's
own household met him with averted faces and sad countenances, and Josephine
wept until he called her a child who understood nothing of politics.  Abroad
there was a revulsion of sympathy, particularly in the cabinets of Russia,
Prussia, and Austria.

     The trial of Cadoudal and Moreau followed.  The former with several of
his accomplices was executed.  Moreau was exiled for two years. Pichegru
committed suicide in the Temple.

     This plot showed Napoleon and his friends that a Jacobin or royalist
fanatic might any day end the life upon which the scheme of reorganization
depended.  It is true he had already been made First Consul for life by a
practically unanimous vote, but there was need of strengthening his position
and providing a succession.  In March, six days after the death of the Duc
d'Enghien, the Senate proposed to him that he complete his work and take the
throne.  In April the Council of State and the Tribunate took up the
discussion.  The opinion of the majority was voiced by Regnault de Saint-Jean
d'Angely: "It is a long time since all reasonable men, all true friends of
their country, have wished that the First Consul would make himself emperor,
and reestablish, in favor of his family, the old principles of hereditary
succession.  It is the only means of securing permanency for his own fortune,
and to the men whom merit has raised to high offices.  The Republic, which I
loved passionately, while I detested the crimes of the Revolution, is now in
my eyes a mere Utopia.  The First Consul has convinced me that he wishes to
possess supreme power only to render France great, free, and happy, and to
protect her against the fury of factions."

     The Senate soon after proceeded in a body to the Tuileries.  "You have
extricated us from the chaos of the past," said the spokesman; "you enable us
to enjoy the blessings of the present; guarantee to us the future." On the
18th of May, 1804, when thirty-five years old, Napoleon was first addressed as
"sire," and congratulated on his elevation to the throne of the French people.

     Immediately his household took on the forms of royalty.  His mother was
Madame Mere; Joseph, Grand-Elector, with the title of Imperial Highness;
Louis, Constable, with the same title; his sisters were Imperial Highnesses.
Titles were given to all officials; the ministers were excellencies;
Cambaceres and Le Brun, the Second and Third Consuls, bcame Arch Chancellor
and Arch Treasurer of the Empire.  Of his generals, Berthier, Murat, Moncey,
Jourdan, Massena, Augureau, Bernadotte, Soult, Brune, Lannes, Mortier, Ney,
Davoust, and Bessieres were made marshals. The red button of the Legion of
Honor was scattered in profusion.  The title of citoyen, which had been
consecrated by the Revolution, was dropped, and hereafter everybody was called
monsieur.

     Two of Napoleon's brothers, unhappily, had no part in these honors.
Jerome, who had been serving as lieutenant in the navy, had, in 1803, while in
the United States, married a Miss Elizabeth Patterson of Baltimore.  Napoleon
forbade the recording of the marriage, and declared it void.  As Jerome had
not as yet given up his wife, he had no share in the imperial rewards.  Lucien
was likewise omitted, and for a similar reason.  His first wife had died in
1801, and much against Napoleon's wishes he had married a Madame Jouberthon,
to whom he was deeply attached; nothing could induce him to renounce his wife
and take the Queen of Etruria, as Napoleon wished.  The result of his refusal
was a violent quarrel between the brothers, and Lucien left France.

     This rupture was certainly a grief to Napoleon.  Madame de Remusat draws
a pathetic little picture of the effect upon him of the last interview with
Lucien:

          "It was near midnight when Bonaparte came into the room; he was
     deeply dejected, and, throwing himself into an arm-chair, he exclaimed in
     a troubled voice, 'It is all over!  I have broken with Lucien, and ordered
     him from my presence.' Madame Bonaparte began to expostulate.  'You are a
     good woman,' he said, 'to plead for him.' Then he rose from his chair,
     took his wife in his arms, and laid her head softly on his shoulder, and
     with his hand still resting on the beautiful head, which formed a contrast
     to the sad, set countenance so near it, he told us that Lucien had
     resisted all his entreaties, and that he had resorted equally in vain to
     both threats and persuasion.  'It is hard, though,' he added, 'to find in
     one's own family such stubborn opposition to interests of such magnitude.
     Must I, then, isolate myself from every one?  Must I rely on myself alone?
     Well!  I will suffice to myself; and you, Josephine - you will be my
     comfort always."

     A fever of etiquette seized on all the inhabitants of the imperial palace
of Saint Cloud.  The ponderous regulations of Louis XIV. were taken down from
the shelves in the library, and from them a code began to be compiled.  Madame
Campan, who had been First Bedchamber Woman to Marie Antoinette, was summoned
to interpret the solemn law, and to describe costumes and customs.  Monsieur
de Talleyrand, who had been made Grand Chamberlain, was an authority who was
consulted on everything.

     "We all felt ourselves more or less elevated," says Madame de Remusat.
"Vanity is ingenious in its expectations, and ours we