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$Title{Life Of Napoleon Bonaparte And Life Of Josephine
Chapter IX}
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$Author{Tarbell, Ida M.}
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$Subject{napoleon
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madame
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$Date{1906}
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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 anarchy, and socialism has acted with
less wisdom and less respect for freedom of thought than Napoleon did at this
period of his career; and that, too, in circumstances less complicated and
critical.  If there were still dull rumors of discontent, a cabinet noir, a
restricted press, a censorship over the theatre, proscriptions, even
imprisonments and executions, on the whole France was happy.

     "Not only did the interior wheels of the machine commence to run
smoothly," says the Duchesse d'Abrantes, "but the arts themselves, that most
peaceful part of the interior administration, gave striking proofs of the
returning prosperity of France.  The exposition at the Salon that year (1800)
was remarkably fine.  Guerin, David, Gerard, Girodet, a crowd of great
talents, spurred on by the emulation which always awakes the fire of genius,
produced works which must some time place our school at a high rank."

     The art treasures of Europe were pouring into France.  Under the
direction of Denon, that indefatigable dilettante and student, who had
collected in the expedition in Egypt more entertaining material than the whole
Institute, and had written a report of it which will always be preferred to
the "Great Work," the galleries of Paris were reorganized and opened two days
of the week to the people.  Napoleon inaugurated this practice himself.  Not
only was Paris supplied with galleries; those department museums which today
surprise and delight the tourist in France were then created at Angers,
Antwerp, Autun, Bordeaux, Brussels, Caen, Dijon, Geneva, Grenoble, Le Mans,
Lille, Lyons, Mayence, Marseilles, Montpellier, Nancy, Nantes, Rennes, Rouen,
Strasburg, Toulouse, and Tours. The prix de Rome, for which there had been no
money in the treasury for some time, was reestablished.

     Every effort was made to stimulate scientific research.  The case of
Volta is one to the point.  In 1801 Bonaparte called the eminent physicist to
Paris to repeat his experiments before the Institute.  He proposed that a
medal should be given him, with a sum of money, and in his honor he
established a prize of sixty thousand francs, to be awarded to any one who
should make a discovery similar in value to Volta's. ^* An American - Robert
Fulton - was about the same time encouraged by the First Consul. Fulton was
experimenting with his submarine torpedo and diving boat, and for four years
had been living in Paris and besieging the Directory to grant him attention
and funds.  Napoleon took the matter up as soon as Fulton brought it to him,
ordered a commission appointed to look into the invention, and a grant of ten
thousand francs for the necessary experiments.

[Footnote *: The Volta prize has been awarded only three or four times. An
award of particular interest to Americans was that made in 1880 to Dr.
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.  The amount of the prize
was a little less than ten thousand dollars.  Dr. Bell, being already in
affluent circumstances upon receiving this prize, set it apart to be used for
the benefit of the deaf, in whose welfare he had for many years taken a great
interest.  He invested it in another invention of his, which proved to be very
profitable, so that the fund came to amount to one hundred thousand dollars.
This he termed the Volta Fund.  Some of this fund has been applied by Dr. Bell
to the organization of the Volta Bureau, which collects all valuable
information that can be obtained with reference to not only deaf-mutes as a
class, but to deaf-mutes individually.  Twenty-five thousand dollars has been
given to the Association for the Promotion of Teaching Speech to the Deaf.
Napoleon is thus indirectly the founder of one of the most interesting and
valuable present undertakings of the country.]

     The Institute was reorganized, and to encourage science and the arts he
founded, in 1804, twenty-two prizes, nine of which were of ten thousand francs
each, and thirteen of five thousand francs each.  They were to be awarded
every ten years by the emperor himself, on the 18th Brumaire.  The first
distribution of these prizes was to have taken place in 1809, but the judges
could not agree on the laureates; and before a conclusion was reached, the
empire had fallen.

     In literature and in music, as in art and science, there was a renewal of
activity.  A circle of poets and writers gathered about the First Consul.
Paisiello was summoned to Paris to direct the opera and conservatory of music.
There was a revival of dignity and taste in strong contrast to the license and
carelessness of the Revolution.  The incroyable passed away.  The Greek
costume disappeared from the street. Men and women began again to dress, to
act, to talk, according to conventional forms.  Society recovered its
systematic ways of doing things, and soon few signs of the general dissolution
which had prevailed for ten years were to be seen.

     Once more the traveller crossed France in peace; peasant and laborer went
undisturbed about their work, and slept without fear.  Again the people danced
in the fields and "sang their songs as they had in the days before the
Revolution." "France has nothing to ask from Heaven," said Regnault de Saint
Jean d'Angely, "but that the sun may continue to shine, the rain to fall on
our fields, and the earth to render the seed fruitful."