Worlds Best Histories France Vol 7 by M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

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"I am not insensible to the misfortune of your family. I shall contribute
with pleasure to the comfort and tranquillity of your retreat."

Five hundred thousand corpses of French soldiers were yet to strew the
soil of Europe to serve the ambition of Bonaparte, without hindering that
return of the House of Bourbon which he declared to be so disastrous. In
1800 the First Consul deigned to promise his benevolence to the
descendants of Henry IV., and felt no fear as to royalist intrigues in
France. Since the troubles had ceased in the west, only Georges Cadoudal
had continued sometimes to attract his attention. A letter in the month of
July had ordered Bernadotte to pursue him: "Have this miserable Georges
arrested, and shot within twenty-four hours," he wrote. Georges had
returned to England.

He was back again in France on the 24th December, 1800, when the coach of
the First Consul was stopped in the Rue St. Nicaise by a small cart which
barred the way; the coachman urged forward the horses, and passed it. At
the same instant an explosion was heard; the dead and the wounded fell
round the carriage of Bonaparte, shaken by the violence of the shock, all
the windows being broken. Bonaparte stopped his carriage, and comprehended
at once the cause of the accident. "Drive to the opera!" said he. Madame
Bonaparte was waiting for him there. When the public was reassured by his
presence, he returned to the Tuileries. A barrel of powder, loaded with
grape-shot, had been placed upon the road; the victims were numerous, and
the assassins escaped.

The general fright was of use to the anger and emotion of the First
Consul. The enemies of Fouche denounced a police everywhere favorable to
the old Jacobins. The suspicions of Bonaparte were all directed against
these known and furious enemies of his person and his policy. He was
enraged in his irritation, and disdained, according to his custom, the
legal forms and the justice of the tribunals. "We must make the number of
the convicted equal to the number of their victims," he said, "and
transport all their adherents. I will not have all quarters of Paris
successively undermined. There are always Septembrisers, miscreants
covered with crimes, in square battalion against every successive
government. It is necessary to make an end of them." Fouche, silent but
imperturbable, for a long time on the traces of the conspiracy, persisted
in seeing in the infernal machine the work of the agents of Chouannerie.
The Council of State proposed to institute a military commission and
authorize the First Consul to remove the men who appeared dangerous.
Bonaparte was irritated by this slowness of justice. "The action of a
special tribunal will be slow," said he; "it will not get hold of the
truly guilty. It is not a question of judicial metaphysics. There are in
France 10,000 miscreants who have persecuted all honest men, and who are
steeped in blood. They are not all culpable in the same degree, far from
it. Strike the chiefs boldly and the soldiers will disperse. There is no
middle course here; it is necessary to pardon all, like Augustus, or else
there must be a prompt and terrible vengeance proportionate to the crime.
It is necessary to shoot fifteen or twenty of these miscreants, and
transport 200 of them. I am so convinced of the necessity of purging
France from these sanguinary dregs that I am ready to constitute myself
sole tribunal--to bring forward the guilty, examine them, judge them, and
have their condemnation carried into effect. It is not myself that I seek
to avenge here. I am as ready to die as First Consul for the preservation
of the Republic and the Constitution as to fall upon the field of battle;
but it is necessary to reassure France, who will approve my policy."

The members of the council listened, struck with consternation at such
absolutist and revolutionary violence, but already too much dismayed to
defend the cause of the most elementary justice. Admiral Truguet alone
suggested doubts as to the true authors of the crime. "It is desired,"
said he, "to defeat the miscreants who trouble the Republic, so be it; but
the miscreants are of more than one kind. The returned emigrants menace
those who have acquired national property, the Chouans infest the
highways, the priests inflame the passions of the people, the public
spirit is corrupted by pamphlets." The First Consul blushed violently at
this allusion; the reminder of the unfortunate attempt of Lucien Bonaparte
increased his anger. Advancing towards the admiral, "Of what pamphlets do
you speak?" cried he. "You know as well as I do," without giving way,
answered the brave sailor.

The First Consul paced the hall; the councillors of State watched him,
vaguely recognizing in the outbursts of the anger of the master the
powerful instinct of government, which discerned the permanent hostility
of the revolutionaries without being able to divest itself of their
principles or of their modes of action. "Do people take us for children?"
he cried. "Do they expect to draw us aside with these declamations against
the emigrants, the Chouans, and the priests? Because there are still a few
partial attempts in Vendee, must we be called upon to declare the country
in danger? If the Chouans commit crimes, I will have them shot. But must I
commence proscribing for a quality? Must I strike these because they are
priests, those because they are old nobles? Must I send away into exile
10,000 old men, who only ask to be allowed to live peaceably in obedience
to the established laws? Do you not know, gentlemen, members of the
council, that excepting two or three you all pass for royalists? You,
Citizen Defermon, don't they take you for a partisan of the Bourbons? Must
I send Citizen Portalis to Sinnamari, and Citizen Devaisne to Madagascar,
and then must I make for myself a Babeuf council? No, no, Citizen Truguet,
you won't get me to make any change; there are none to fear except the
Septembrisers. They would not spare even you yourself, and it would be in
vain for you to tell them that you defended them at the Council of State.
They would cut your throat, just the same as mine or the throats of your
colleagues."

He went out without giving time for any one to answer him. Cambaceres,
moderate and prudent, equally clever in giving counsel and at yielding
when counsels were useless, deemed the anger of the First Consul too
passionate to admit of contradiction. The Council of State, several times
consulted, was brought over with repugnance to the idea of an
extraordinary measure. The First Consul wished a law; it was decided to
involve the great bodies of the State in the arbitrary act which he was
about to commit. "The consuls do not know what may happen," said he. "So
long as I am alive I am not afraid of any one daring to ask me an account
of my actions; but I may be killed, and then I cannot answer for my two
colleagues. You are not very firmly placed in your stirrups," he added,
turning to Cambaceres, with a smile. "Better to have a law now as well as
for the future." The Council of State hesitated from a repugnance to form
a proscription list, assuring him that it would be rejected by the
Tribunate and the Legislative Body. "You are always afraid of the
Tribunate," said Bonaparte, "because it rejected one or two of your laws;
but there are only a few Jacobins in the Legislative Body, ten or twelve
at most. The others know well that but for me they would all have been
massacred. The law will be passed."

At last, Talleyrand, who had previously remained silent, said that since
there was a Senate, some use should be made of it. The proscription list
was sent to the Senate. It had been written by Fouche, who knew the real
criminals; and the statement of reasons were drawn up by the two sections
of the Council of State who were at first unanimously opposed to the
measure: the Senate voted, the First Consul having signed the act. "All
these men have not taken the dagger in their hands," said the preamble,
"but they are all universally known to be capable of sharpening it and
taking it." Two days afterwards 133 Jacobins sailed from Nantes for
Guiana--formerly members of the Convention and the Commune, proved or
supposed to have had a part in the massacres of September, all certainly
loaded with crime, and worthy of the punishment which they underwent,
strangers to the attempt to assassinate the First Consul, and condemned
without regard to moral or legal justice. At the same time, and as if to
clear off all old accounts with the conspirators, the four men accused in
October, Arena, formerly a representative, and recently employed by the
Committee of Public Safety, and the artists Ceracchi and Topino-Lebrun,
were at last tried, and condemned to perish on the scaffold. Chauveau-
Lagarde defended them, as he had formerly defended Charlotte Corday and
the men of Nantes denounced by Carrier. His efforts were not crowned with
success; whether acknowledged or only suspected, the Jacobin conspiracy
was everywhere repressed with the same rigor.

Nevertheless, Fouche had at last recovered the temporarily lost traces of
the real criminals. Two assistants of Georges Cadoudal, Limoelan and St.
Rejant, who had formerly taken part in the civil wars, entered into
partnership with a man of the lower orders named Carbon, who bought them
the cart, the horse, and powder. He was found concealed in Paris; Limoelan
had fled abroad. St. Rejant, who had let off the infernal machine, had not
yet recovered from the injuries caused by it; and Carbon having betrayed
his place of concealment, and all the details of the plot, they were both
executed. Fouche's penetration on this occasion gained him still greater
confidence with the First Consul. "He was right," repeated Bonaparte: "his
opinion was better than that of the others. The returned emigrants, the
royalist plotters, and people of that sort, ought to be closely watched. I
am pleased, however, to be rid of the Jacobin staff."

Neither the banishment of the old revolutionists, nor the condemnation of
those who had contrived the infernal machine, had disturbed the repose of
public opinion, then in close alliance with the steady and firm power
which ruled France. The abstract principles of justice were no longer
thought of by men in general: the desire for permanent freedom had given
place to the longing for rest and quiet, and all were pleased with the
energy which the government had shown against disturbers of the peace; and
the oppressive laws being modified, prosperity was reappearing. The state
of the finances became more satisfactory: a part of the public funds had
been paid, and that which still remained had just been registered in the
"Great Ledger;" the fundholders accepted without too much difficulty the
delay in paying the first dividend. The national property not yet sold was
set apart for the liquidation, excepting what was assigned for public
instruction and the support of the Invalides. Everywhere roads were being
made or repaired, canals dug, and three bridges were built over the Seine.
In spite of the formation of extraordinary tribunals, the great Code of
Civil Law was being slowly made--destined to rule France and extend her
useful action. An agent, almost unknown at Rome and only recently arrived
in Paris, was already discussing with Abbe Bernier those great questions
of order and organization which were afterwards to introduce the
concordat. Peace, even when partial and precarious, was everywhere bearing
its fruits; at home, France displayed that wonderful recuperative power so
frequently and painfully put to the proof by the severe shocks of our
modern history; abroad, her importance in Europe was daily increasing, and
caused more disquiet to all her enemies. The government of England,
however, was soon to pass from Pitt's hands: the whole English nation
called loudly to stop a war of which they had financially borne the
burden, even though their armies had generally had little share in it.

In the south of Europe the First Consul, while negotiating with the Pope,
and occupying Piedmont without diplomacy, had no longer any enemy to
subdue worthy of his power. Murat had invaded the kingdom of Naples,
causing so great terror that the queen herself was on the point of
accepting an armistice by which the ports of the Two Sicilies were closed
to the English. The treaty of definitive peace was signed at Florence on
the 18th of March, 1801, the conditions being the same as those of the
armistice, with the important addition that the territory of Elba, a
dependency of the kingdom of Naples, was to be ceded. By a secret article,
the sovereign of the Two Sicilies was obliged to receive and maintain a
body of fifteen thousand men, which the First Consul intended to transport
to Egypt, important armaments being prepared in our ports in order to be
sent to the same place, their real destination being yet concealed. A
Franco-Spanish expedition, nominally commanded by Prince de la Paix but
really directed by General Gouvion St. Cyr, was to attempt in April the
conquest of Portugal. In spite of repeated promises, the government of
that small State remained obstinately faithful to England.

England was suffering from a scarcity of food which threatened to become a
famine, constantly made worse by the hindrances put in the way of her
commerce. The difficulties of the home government increased those of the
diplomatic and military isolation which she underwent in Europe. At the
moment of the conclusion of the Treaty of Union, Pitt had entered upon
engagements with the Irish Catholics which he felt himself bound to
fulfil. The conscientious but shortsighted and narrow-minded George III.
opposed every act of toleration with respect to his Catholic subjects: he
refused to give his assent, and Pitt by resigning his post sacrificed, at
a perilous crisis for his country, foreign policy to the duties and
obligations of parliamentary tactics. The reason of King George, already
tottering, was unable to undergo so much agitation; he remained faithful
to his convictions, but was for a short time out of his mind. When he
regained his faculties, Pitt, who was moved to the heart by the trouble
which he had caused to his aged king, and disturbed by the evils which
threatened England under the regency of the Prince of Wales, undertook
never to raise the question of the emancipation of the Catholics during
the life of George III. He had no seat, however, in the new cabinet, which
was obviously incapable, and unequal to the difficult task which it had
undertaken, and in their earlier proceedings still influenced by Pitt's
action, and following the line of policy which he had traced. Scarcely had
Addington become prime minister, when an attempt which had long been
projected against Denmark was put in execution. Nelson had charge of it
under the superior command of Sir Hyde Parker, who was above him in the
order of seniority. "This is no time to feel nervous," said Nelson to his
superior as they were setting sail. "Dark nights and mountains of ice
matter little; we must take courage to meet the enemy."

Having passed the Sound, the English squadron blockaded the fleet which
covered Copenhagen. The Danes made an heroic defence, and the old Admiral
Parker, somewhat alarmed, gave the signal for the action to cease. "I'll
be d----d first!" cried Nelson in a passion: "I have the right of seeing
badly"--putting his telescope to the eye which he had lost at Aboukir. "I
don't see the signal. Nail mine to the mast. Let them press closer on the
enemy. That's my reply to such signalling." It was Nelson, moreover, who,
when the battle was gained, arranged with the Prince Royal of Denmark the
terms of the armistice which separated his country from the number of the
neutral states.

Almost at the same moment the coalition of maritime powers underwent a
more fatal check. For several months the strange workings of the mind of
the Emperor Paul I. had become more obvious. Everybody trembled before
him, and even the empress, as well as her sons, had been threatened with
banishment to Siberia. A caricature was published representing the Czar
holding in one hand a paper on which was written the word "order;" in the
other, the word "counter-order;" on his forehead was read the word
"disorder." A conspiracy was formed, including the principal nobles and
the most intimate members of his household. "They are conspiring against
me, Pahlen," said the emperor to the Governor of St. Petersburg. "Let your
Majesty's mind be easy," replied the Russian, coolly; "I am up to them."
He really was so, and on the night of the 23rd March, 1801, he entered the
Michael palace with the conspirators. The next in importance to him,
General Benningsen, had afterwards the honor of fighting bravely against
the Emperor Napoleon when subduing Poland; he was already distinguished,
and had been decorated with all the orders of the empire. On making his
way to the bedroom of the Czar, who was asleep, the two Hungarians who
formed the only guard ran away after striking one or two blows; the
palace-guard were already on an understanding with the conspirators. The
unfortunate Czar, pursued by the assassins, took refuge behind a screen.
Benningsen observing him held out a paper: "There is your act of
abdication," said he; "sign it and I answer for your life." The emperor
resisted; the conspirators crowded into the room; the lamp fell and was
extinguished, and in that moment of darkness a scarf was tightened round
the neck of Paul I., and he was struck on the head with the pummel of a
sword. When a light was brought in he was dead.

Count Pahlen had not entered the room, being engaged in guarding the doors
with a troop of soldiers: he went to call on the new emperor. Alexander
was not ignorant of the plot formed to force from his father an abdication
which had become necessary; but he had not considered, and did not
anticipate, the fatal consequences of that enterprise. Pahlen's silence
was the only reply to his questions about the Czar: the young man burst
into tears, hiding his face in his hands and heaping reproaches upon the
Governor of St. Petersburg, who still remained motionless before him. But
by this time the empress, out of her mind from sorrow, and suddenly seized
with an ill-regulated ambition, sent to announce to her son that she was
resolved to take possession of the power. Count Pahlen at once threw off
his apathy. "Enough of childish tears," said he to the young emperor;
"now, come and reign!" He then presented him to the troops, by whom he was
well received.

A few days afterwards the Emperor Alexander was crowned. "Before him
marched his grandfather's murderers," wrote Madame de Bonneuil, "beside
him those of his father, and behind him his own." Count Pahlen's ambition
was to govern the young monarch, but he was not to reap the fruits of his
crime. The empress-mother insisted upon the banishment of the murderers of
Paul I. In the retirement of his country estate, where he lived a long
time, the count on the 23rd of March made himself drunk from daybreak, in
order to pass in oblivion the dreaded anniversary which awoke in his mind
a remorse which was only slumbering. "That's the regular mode of
deposition in Russia," said Talleyrand, cynically, on hearing of the
emperor's assassination. The First Consul's anger overcame his judgment.
"The wretches!" he exclaimed; "they failed here on the 3rd Nivose, but
they have not failed in St. Petersburg." And bent on showing his spite
towards his enemies, he had the following note inserted in the _Moniteur_:
"Paul I. died on the night of the 23rd March, and the English squadron
passed the Sound on the 31st. History will inform us the relation that
possibly exists between these two events."

History has done justice to those false insinuations, unworthy even of him
who pronounced them. Admiral Nelson felt no joy at the death of the
Emperor Paul, which finally broke the league of the neutrals, and deprived
him of the easy triumph which he made sure of gaining over the Russian
fleet. It was of service, however, to England, and contributed to assist
the wish for peace which was beginning to be awakened in the mind of the
First Consul. Scarcely was the Emperor of Russia dead, when Piedmont, long
protected by his favor, was reduced to the condition of a French
department: but it was in vain that Bonaparte pretended to reckon on the
alliance of the young Czar, in vain that Duroc was despatched to St.
Petersburg with a mission of confidence; he was not deceived as to the
Emperor Alexander's leaning to ally himself with England. In fact, M.
Otto, who had been sent to London to arrange the exchange of prisoners,
had already several weeks previously been authorized to meet favorably the
advances made by Lord Hawkesbury, then the foreign minister. On both sides
they tried to gain time. The great question which then separated France
and England, the possession of Egypt, remained undecided, and both sides
determined that it should be settled. On the 7th of March, 1801, the
English squadron of the Mediterranean, which was long stationed at Mahon,
and had recently been directed towards Malta, suddenly disembarked a body
of 18,000 soldiers under the orders of Sir Ralph Abercromby. Thus, with a
Turkish contingent and the regiments of sepoys brought from India, there
were 60,000 men united against the army of occupation, which was reduced
to 15,000 or 18,000 soldiers, commanded by dissatisfied officers, and
generals who could not act together. Unfortunate in his relations to his
colleagues, and showing little tact in his application of European methods
of organization to the native population, General Menou was unable to take
the necessary precautions against the English invasion of Egypt; and in
spite of his bravery, General Friant, who was in charge of 15,000 men
defending Alexandria, could make only a feeble resistance to the landing
of the English. Assisted by General Lanusse, he again joined battle, 13th
March, on the road to Ramanieh; while General Menou--"Abdallah Menou," as
his soldiers called him after he became a Mussulman--was on march with all
his troops to assist Alexandria. After committing the fault of allowing
the English army to land, it was necessary to make haste to fight it
before it should have received the expected reinforcements. The battle of
Canopa was fought on the 21st March under disadvantageous circumstances;
and General Lanusse being killed in the action, General Reynier's
disposition prevented his supplying his chief's incapacity. The battle,
though remaining indecisive, left the English masters of the coast, and
constantly revictualled by the fleet.

For more than two months, the French army hoped and waited for the
assistance which had been promised them. Admiral Ganteaume, provided with
the best vessels of our navy, a body of picked soldiers, and supplies and
resources of every kind, had in fact set sail on the 23rd January, leaving
Brest in the midst of a frightful tempest in the hopes of escaping the
English cruisers. After being beaten about and somewhat damaged by the
sea, the French vessels made for the Straits of Gibraltar, without any
accident except a short engagement between the frigate "Bravoure" and an
English one. The admiral hesitated; in spite of his personal courage, he
felt loaded with too great a responsibility. Bringing back his squadron
almost within view of Toulon, he thought he saw Mahon's English fleet
making straight for him, and as the struggle threatened to be unequal he
returned into the harbor of Toulon. Leaving it on the 19th of March, after
his vessels were repaired and urgent orders were received from the First
Consul, he again delayed, on account of an accident which had happened to
one of his ships, and it was only on the 22nd that he finally put to sea.
On the 26th he was delayed by the collision of two vessels at Cape
Carbonara in Sardinia, and becoming discouraged and uneasy, the admiral
again entered Toulon on the 5th of April, at the moment when the English
fleet were passing Rosetta. The town was badly defended and fell into the
hands of the enemies, who thus became masters of the mouth of the Nile;
and sending some gun-boats up as far as Foueh, they soon took it. Generals
Lagrange and Morand held Ramanieh; and Menou delaying to lend the
assistance which he promised, Lagrange fell back upon Cairo, and
communication with Alexandria was interrupted. General Billiard, who
commanded in the capital of Egypt, made a sally to repulse the vizier's
troops; but in spite of several skirmishes he could not reach the main
body of the army, and returning to the town, he offered to capitulate. The
English were anxious to finish, being afraid of one of those strokes of
good fortune to which the French arms had so often owed their success. The
most honorable conditions were granted to the army, the troops evacuating
Egypt being carried back to France at the expense of England, and in their
vessels (27th June, 1801). Almost at the same moment (24th June), Admiral
Ganteaume, with his squadron reduced by sickness, at last anchored before
Derne, several marches from Alexandria; but as the people on the coast
opposed his landing, and the undertaking was hazardous and the land route
difficult, he again put to sea, thinking himself fortunate in finding in
the Straits at Candia an English ship, which he captured and brought
triumphantly to Toulon. General Menou, now alone, and shut up in
Alexandria, obstinately and heroically resisted in vain. When at last he
surrendered, he had been long forgotten in his isolation. Thus though
Bonaparte's thoughts often went back to that famous and chimerical
conquest of his youth, Egypt was definitively lost to France.