return of the emigres—the concordat—legion of honor—code napoleon
but there were wounds in the french nation more profound than those caused by lack of credit, by neglect and corruption. the body which in 1789 made up france had, in the last ten years, been violently and horribly wrenched asunder. one hundred and fifty thousand of the richest, most cultivated, and most capable of the population had been stripped of wealth and position, and had emigrated to foreign lands.
napoleon saw that if the émigrés could be reconciled, he at once converted a powerful enemy into a zealous friend. in spite of the opposition of those who had made the revolution and gained their positions through it, he accorded an amnesty to the émigrés, which included the whole one hundred and fifty thousand, with the exception of about one thousand, and this number, it was arranged, should be reduced to five hundred in the course of a year. more, he provided for their wants. most of the smaller properties confiscated by the revolution had been sold, and napoleon insisted that those who had bought them from the state should be assured of their tenure; but in case a property had not been disposed of, he returned it to the family, though rarely in full. in case of forest lands, not over three hundred and seventy-five acres were given back. gifts and positions were given to many émigrés, so that the majority were able to live in ease.
120a valuable result of this policy of reconciliation was the amount of talent, experience, and culture which he gained for the government. france had been run for ten years by country lawyers, doctors, and pamphleteers, who, though they boasted civic virtue and eloquence, and though they knew their plutarch and rousseau by heart, had no practical sense, and little or no experience. the return of the émigrés gave france a body of trained diplomats, judges, and thinkers, many of whom were promptly admitted to the government.
more serious than the amputation of the aristocracy had been that of the church. the revolution had torn it from the nation, had confiscated its property, turned its cathedrals into barracks, its convents and seminaries into town halls and prisons, sold its lands, closed its schools and hospitals. it had demanded an oath of the clergy which had divided the body, and caused thousands to emigrate. not content with this, it had tried to supplant the old religion, first with a worship of the goddess of reason, afterwards with one of the supreme being.
but the people still loved the catholic church. the mass of them kept their crucifixes in their houses, told their beads, observed fast days. no matter how severe a penalty was attached to the observance of sunday instead of the day which had replaced it, called the “decade,” at heart the people remembered it. “we rest on the decade,” said a workman once, “but we change our shirts on sunday.”
napoleon understood the popular heart, and he proposed the re?stablishment of the catholic church. the revolutionists, even his warmest friends among the generals, opposed it. infidelity was a cardinal point in the creed of the majority of the new régime. they not only rejected the church, they ridiculed it. rather than restore catholicism, 121they advised protestantism. “but,” declared napoleon, “france is not protestant; she is catholic.”
in the council of state, where the question was argued, he said: “my policy is to govern men as the greatest number wish to be governed.... i carried on the war of vendée by becoming a catholic; i established myself in egypt by becoming a mussulman; i won over the priests in italy by becoming ultramontane. if i governed jews i should re?stablish the temple of solomon.... it is thus, i think, that the sovereignty of the people should be understood.”
evidently this was a very different way of understanding that famous doctrine from that which had been in vogue, which consisted in forcing the people to accept what each idealist thought was best, without consulting their prejudices or feelings. in spite of opposition, napoleon’s will prevailed, and in the spring of 1802 the concordat was signed. this treaty between the pope and france is still in force in france. it makes the catholic church the state church, allows the government to name the bishops, compels it to pay the salaries of the clergy, and to furnish cathedrals and churches for public worship, which, however, remain national property. the concordat provided for the absolution of the priests who had married in the revolution, restored sunday, and made legal holidays of certain fête days. this arrangement was not made at the price of intolerance towards other bodies. the french government protects and contributes towards the support of all religions within its bounds, catholic, protestant, jew, or mohammedan. the concordat was ridiculed by many in the government and army, but undoubtedly it was one of the most statesmanlike measures carried out by napoleon.
122
signing of concordat.
by gérard. the original is at versailles.
123“the joy of the overwhelming majority of france silenced even the boldest malcontents,” says pasquier; “it became evident that napoleon, better than those who surrounded him, had seen into the depths of the nation’s heart.”
it is certain that in re?stablishing the church napoleon did not yield to any religious prejudice, although the catholic church was the one he preferred. it was purely a question of policy. in arranging the concordat he might have secured more liberal measures—measures in which he believed—but he refused them.
“do you wish me to manufacture a religion of caprice for my own special use, a religion that would be nobody’s? i do not so understand matters. what i want is the old catholic religion, the only one which is imbedded in every heart, and from which it has never been torn. this religion alone can conciliate hearts in my favor; it alone can smooth away all obstacles.”
in discussing the subject at st. helena he said to las cases:
“when i came to the head of affairs, i had already formed certain ideas on the great principles which hold society together. i had weighed all the importance of religion; i was persuaded of it, and i had resolved to re?stablish it. you would scarcely believe in the difficulties that i had to restore catholicism. i would have been followed much more willingly if i had unfurled the banner of protestantism.... it is sure that in the disorder to which i succeeded, in the ruins where i found myself, i could choose between catholicism and protestantism. and it is true that at that moment the disposition was in favor of the latter. but outside the fact that i really clung to the religion in which i had been born, i had the highest motives to decide me. by proclaiming protestantism, what would i have obtained? i should have created in france two great parties about equal, when i wished there should be longer but one. i should have excited the fury of religious quarrels, when the enlightenment of the age and my desire was to make them disappear altogether. these two parties in tearing each other to pieces would have annihilated france and rendered her the slave of europe, when i was ambitious of making her its mistress. with catholicism i arrived much more surely at my great results. within, at home, the great number would absorb the small, and i promised myself to treat with the latter so liberally that it would soon have no motive for knowing the difference.
124“without, catholicism saved me the pope; and with my influences and our forces in italy i did not despair sooner or later, by one way or another, of finishing by ruling the pope myself.”
when the church fell in france, the whole system of education went down with her. the revolutionary governments tried to remedy the condition, but beyond many plans and speeches little had been done. napoleon allowed the religious bodies to reopen their schools, and thus primary instruction was soon provided again; and he founded a number of secondary and special schools. the greatest of his educational undertakings was the organization of the university. this institution was centralized in the head of the state as completely as every other napoleonic institution. it exists to-day but little changed—a most efficient body, in spite of its rigid state control. this university did nothing for woman.
“i do not think we need trouble ourselves with any plan of instruction for young females,” napoleon told the council. “they cannot be brought up better than by their mothers. public education is not suitable for them, because they are never called upon to act in public. manners are all in all to them, and marriage is all they look to. in times past the monastic life was open to women; they espoused god, and, though society gained little by that alliance, the parents gained by pocketing the dowry.”
it was with the education of the daughters of soldiers, civil functionaries, and members of the legion of honor, who had died and left their children unprovided for, that he concerned himself, establishing schools of which the well known one at st. denis is a model. the rules were prepared by napoleon himself, who insisted that the girls should be taught all kinds of housework and needlework—everything, in fact, which would make them good housekeepers and honest women.
125the military schools were also reorganized at this time. remembering his own experience at the ecole militaire, napoleon arranged that the severest economy should be practised in them, and that the pupils should learn to do everything for themselves. they even cleaned, bedded, and shod their own horses.
the destruction of the old system of privileges and honors left the government without any means of rewarding those who rendered it a service. napoleon presented a law for a legion of honor, under control of the state, which should admit to its membership only those who had done something of use to the public. the service might be military, commercial, artistic, humanitarian; no limit was put on its nature; anything which helped france in any way was to be rewarded by membership in the proposed order. in fact, it was the most democratic distinction possible, since the same reward was given for all classes of service and to all classes of people.
now the revolutionary spirit spurned all distinction; and as free discussion was allowed on the law, a severe arraignment of it was made. nevertheless, it passed. it immediately became a power in the hands of the first consul, and such it has remained until to-day in the government. though it has been frequently abused, and never, perhaps, more flagrantly than by the present republic, unquestionably the french “red button” is a decoration of which to be proud.
the greatest civil achievement of napoleon was the codification of the laws. up to the revolution, the laws of france had been in a misty, incoherent condition, feudal in their spirit, and by no means uniform in their application. the constituent assembly had ordered them revised, but the work had only been begun. napoleon believed justly that the greatest benefit he could render france would be to give her a complete and systematic code. he organized the force for this gigantic task, and pushed revision with unflagging energy.
126
napoleon reviewing the consular guards in the court of the tuileries.
1800.
engraved in london, by c. turner, after a painting by j. masquerier.
127his part in the work was interesting and important. after the laws had been well digested and arranged in preliminary bodies, they were submitted to the council of state. it was in the discussion before this body that napoleon took part. that a man of thirty-one, brought up as a soldier, and having no legal training, could follow the discussions of such a learned and serious body as napoleon’s council of state always was, seems incredible. in fact, he prepared for each session as thoroughly as the law-makers themselves. his habit was to talk over, beforehand generally with cambacérès and portalis, two legislators of great learning and clearness of judgment, all the matters which were to come up.
“he examined each question by itself,” says roederer, “inquiring into all the authorities, times, experiences; demanding to know how it had been under ancient jurisprudence, under louis xiv., or frederick the great. when a bill was presented to the first consul, he rarely failed to ask these questions: is this bill complete? does it cover every case? why have you not thought of this? is that necessary? is it right or useful? what is done nowadays and elsewhere?”
at night, after he had gone to bed, he would read or have read to him authorities on the subject. such was his capacity for grasping any idea, that he would come to the council with a perfectly clear notion of the subject to be treated, and a good idea of its historical development. thus he could follow the most erudite and philosophical arguments, and could take part in them. he stripped them at once of all conventional phrases and learned terms, and stated clearly what they meant. he had no use for anything but the plain 128meaning. by thus going directly to the practical sense of a thing, he frequently cleared up the ideas of the revisers themselves.
in framing the laws, he took care that they should be worded so that everybody could understand them. thus, when a law relating to liquors was being prepared, he urged that wholesale and retail should be defined in such a way that they would be definite ideas to the people. “pot and pint must be inserted,” he said. “there is no objection to those words. an excise act isn’t an epic poem.”
napoleon insisted on the greatest freedom of speech in the discussions on the laws, just as he did on “going straight to the point and not wasting time on idle talk.” this clearheadedness, energy, and grasp of subject, exercised over a body of really remarkable men, developed the council until its discussions became famous throughout europe. one of its wisest members, chancellor pasquier, says of napoleon’s direction that “it was of such a nature as to enlarge the sphere of one’s ideas, and to give one’s faculties all the development of which they were capable. the highest legislative, administrative, and sometimes even political matters were taken up in it (the council). did we not see, for two consecutive winters, the sons of foreign sovereigns come and complete their education in its midst?”
it was the genius of the head of the state, however, which was the most impressive feature of the council of state. de molleville, a former minister of louis xvi., said once to las cases:
“it must be admitted that your bonaparte, your napoleon, was a very extraordinary man. we were far from understanding him on the other side of the water. we could not refuse the evidence of his victories and his invasions, it is true; but genseric, attila, alaric had done as much; so he made more of an impression of terror on me than of admiration. but when i came here and followed the discussions on the civil code, from that moment i had nothing but profound veneration 129for him. but where in the world had he learned all that? and then every day i discovered something new in him. ah, sir, what a man you had there! truly, he was a prodigy.”
the modern reader who looks at france and sees how her university, her special schools, her hospitals, her great honorary legion, her treaty with the catholic church, her code of laws, her bank—the vital elements of her life, in short—are as they came from napoleon’s brain, must ask, with de molleville, how did he do it—he a foreigner, born in a half-civilized island, reared in a military school, without diplomatic or legal training, without the prestige of name or wealth? how could he make a nation? how could he be other than the barbaric conqueror the english and the émigrés first thought him.
those who look at napoleon’s achievements, and are either dazzled or horrified by them, generally consider his power superhuman. they call it divine or diabolic, according to the feeling he inspires in them; but, in reality, the qualities he showed in his career as a statesman and lawgiver are very human ones. his stout grasp on subjects; his genius for hard work; his power of seeing everything that should be done, and doing it himself; his unparalleled audacity, explain his civil achievements.
the comprehension he had of questions of government was really the result of serious thinking. he had reflected from his first days at brienne; and the active interest he had taken in the revolution of 1789 had made him familiar with many social and political questions. his career in italy, which was almost as much a diplomatic as a military career, had furnished him an experience upon which he had founded many notions. in his dreams of becoming an oriental lawgiver he had planned a system of government of which he was to be the centre. thus, before the 18th brumaire made him the dictator of france, he had his ideas of centralized government all formed, just as, before he crossed the great saint bernard, he had fought, over and over, the battle of marengo, with black- and red-headed pins stuck into a great map of italy spread out on his study floor.
130
bonaparte, 1er consul de la rép. fran?.
napoleon while first consul of france.
engraved in 1801 by audouin, after a design by bouillon.
131his habit of attending to everything himself explains much of his success. no detail was too small for him, no task too menial. if a thing needed attention, no matter whose business it was, he looked after it. reading letters once before madame junot, she said to him that such work must be tiresome, and advised him to give it to a secretary.
“later, perhaps,” he said, “now it is impossible; i must answer for all. it is not at the beginning of a return to order that i can afford to ignore a need, a demand.”
he carried out this policy literally. when he went on a journey, he looked personally after every road, bridge, public building, he passed, and his letters teemed with orders about repairs here, restorations there. he looked after individuals in the same way; ordered a pension to this one, a position to that one, even dictating how the gift should be made known so as to offend the least possible the pride of the recipient.
when it came to foreign policy, he told his diplomats how they should look, whether it should be grave or gay, whether they should discuss the opera or the political situation.
the cost of the soldiers’ shoes, the kind of box josephine took at the opera, the style of architecture for the madeleine, the amount of stock left on hand in the silk factories, the wording of the laws, all was his business.
he thought of the flowers to be scattered daily on the tomb of general régnier, suggested the idea of a battle hymn to rouget de l’isle, told the artists what expression to give him in their portraits, what accessories to use in the battle pieces, ordered everything, verified everything. “beside him,” said those who looked on in amazement, “the most punctilious clerk would have been a bungler.”
132without an extraordinary capacity for work, no man could have done this. napoleon would work until eleven o’clock in the evening, and be up again at three in the morning. frequently he slept but an hour, and came back as fresh as ever. no secretary could keep up to him, and his ministers sometimes went to sleep in the council, worn out with the length of the session. “come, citizen ministers,” he would cry, “we must earn the money the french nation gives us.” the ministers rarely went home from the meetings that they did not find a half-dozen letters from him on their tables to be answered, and the answer must be a clear, exact, exhaustive document. “get your information so that when you do answer me, there shall be no ‘buts,’ no ‘ifs,’ and no ‘becauses,’” was the rule napoleon laid down to his correspondents.
he had audacity. he dared do what he would. he had no conventional notions to tie him, no master to dictate to him. the revolution had swept out of his way the accumulated experience of centuries—all the habits, the prejudices, the ways of doing things. he commenced nearer the bottom than any man in the history of the civilized world had ever done, worked with imperial self-confidence, with a conviction that he “was not like other men;” that the moral laws, the creeds, the conventions, which applied to them, were not for him. he might listen to others, but in the end he dared do as he would.
