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THE ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE, VOLUME 5

THE MODERN REGIME, VOLUME 1 [NAPOLEON]

by Hippolyte A. Taine



Contents:

PREFACE

BOOK FIRST. Napoleon Bonaparte.

 Chapter I. Historical Importance of his Character and Genius.

 Chapter II. His Ideas, Passions and Intelligence.


BOOK SECOND. Formation and Character of the New State.

 Chapter I. The Institution of Government.

 Chapter II. Use and Abuse of Government Services.

 Chapter III. The New Government Organization.


BOOK THIRD. Object and Merits of the System.

 Chapter I. Recovery of Social Order.

 Chapter II. Taxation and Conscription.

 Chapter III. Ambition and Self-esteem.


BOOK FOURTH. Defect and Effects of the System.

 Chapter I. Local Society.

 Chapter II. Local society since 1830.


*****




PREFACE

The following third and last part of the Origins of Contemporary France
is to consist of two volumes. After the present volume, the second is
to treat of the Church, the School and the Family, describe the modern
milieu and note the facilities and obstacles which a society like our
own encounters in this new milieu: here, the past and the present meet,
and the work already done is continued by the work which is going on
under our eyes.--The undertaking is hazardous and more difficult than
with the two preceding parts. For the Ancient Régime and the Revolution
are henceforth complete and finished periods; we have seen the end
of both and are thus able to comprehend their entire course. On the
contrary, the end of the ulterior period is still wanting; the great
institutions which date from the Consulate and the Empire, either
consolidation or dissolution, have not yet reached their historic term:
since 1800, the social order of things, notwithstanding eight changes
of political form, has remained almost intact. Our children or
grandchildren will know whether it will finally succeed or miscarry;
witnesses of the denouement, they will have fuller light by which to
judge of the entire drama. Thus far four acts only have been played;
of the fifth act, we have simply a presentiment.--On the other hand, by
dint of living under this social system, we have become accustomed to
it; it no longer excites our wonder; however artificial it may be
it seems to us natural. We can scarcely conceive of another that is
healthier; and what is much worse, it is repugnant to us to do so. For,
such a conception would soon lead to comparisons and hence to a judgment
and, on many points, to an unfavorable judgment, one which would be a
censure, not only of our institutions but of ourselves. The machine
of the year VIII,[1101] applied to us for three generations, has
permanently shaped and fixed us as we are, for better or for worse. If,
for a century, it sustains us, it represses us for a century. We
have contracted the infirmities it imports--stoppage of development,
instability of internal balance, disorders of the intellect and of
the will, fixed ideas and ideas that are false. These ideas are ours;
therefore we hold on to them, or, rather, they have taken hold of us.
To get rid of them, to impose the necessary recoil on our mind, to
transport us to a distance and place us at a critical point of view,
where we can study ourselves, our ideas and our institutions as
scientific objects, requires a great effort on our part, many
precautions, and long reflection.--Hence, the delays of this study; the
reader will pardon them on considering that an ordinary opinion, caught
on the wing, on such a subject, does not suffice. In any event, when one
presents an opinion on such a subject one is bound to believe it. I
can believe in my own only when it has become precise and seems to me
proven.

Menthon Saint-Bernard, September, 1890.


*****




BOOK FIRST. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.




CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE OF HIS CHARACTER AND GENIUS.

If you want to comprehend a building, you have to imagine the
circumstances, I mean the difficulties and the means, the kind and
quality of its available materials, the moment, the opportunity, and
the urgency of the demand for it. But, still more important, we must
consider the genius and taste of the architect, especially whether he
is the proprietor, whether he built it to live in himself, and, once
installed in it, whether he took pains to adapt it to how own way of
living, to his own necessities, to his own use.--Such is the social
edifice erected by Napoleon Bonaparte, its architect, proprietor, and
principal occupant from 1799 to 1814. It is he who has made modern
France; never was an individual character so profoundly stamped on any
collective work, so that, to comprehend the work, we must first study
the character of the Man.[1102]




I. Napoleon's Past and Personality.

     He is of another race and another century.--Origin of his
     paternal family.--Transplanted to Corsica.--His maternal
     family.--Laetitia Ramolino.--Persistence of Corsican
     souvenirs in Napoleon's mind.--His youthful sentiments
     regarding Corsica and France.--Indications found in his
     early compositions and in his style.--Current monarchical or
     democratic ideas have no hold on him.--His impressions of
     the 20th of June and 10th of August after the 31st of May.
     --His associations with Robespierre and Barras without
     committing himself.--His sentiments and the side he takes
     Vendémiaire 13th.--The great Condottière.--His character and
     conduct in Italy.--Description of him morally and physically
     in 1798.--The early and sudden ascendancy which he exerts.
     Analogous in spirit and character to his Italian ancestors
     of the XVth century.

Disproportionate in all things, but, stranger still, he is not only
out of the common run, but there is no standard of measurement for him;
through his temperament, instincts, faculties, imagination, passions,
and moral constitution he seems cast in a special mould, composed of
another metal than that which enters into the composition of his fellows
and contemporaries. Evidently he is not a Frenchman, nor a man of the
eighteenth century; he belongs to another race and another epoch.[1103]
We detect in him, at the first glance, the foreigner, the Italian,[1104]
and something more, apart and beyond these, surpassing all similitude
or analogy.-Italian he was through blood and lineage; first, through
his paternal family, which is Tuscan,[1105] and which we can follow
down from the twelfth century, at Florence, then at San Miniato; next
at Sarzana, a small, backward, remote town in the state of Genoa, where,
from father to son, it vegetates obscurely in provincial isolation,
through a long line of notaries and municipal syndics. "My origin,"
says Napoleon himself,[1106] "has made all Italians regard me as a
compatriot.... When the question of the marriage of my sister Pauline
with Prince Borghése came up there was but one voice in Rome and in
Tuscany, in that family, and with all its connections: 'It will
do,' said all of them, 'it's amongst ourselves, it is one of our own
families...'" When the Pope later hesitated about coming to Paris to
crown Napoleon, "the Italian party in the Conclave prevailed against
the Austrian party by supporting political arguments with the following
slight tribute to national amour propre: 'After all we are imposing
an Italian family on the barbarians, to govern them. We are revenging
ourselves on the Gauls.'" Significant words, which will one day throw
light upon the depths of the Italian nature, the eldest daughter of
modern civilization, imbued with her right of primogeniture, persisting
in her grudge against the transalpines, the rancorous inheritor of Roman
pride and of antique patriotism.[1107]

From Sarzana, a Bonaparte emigrates to Corsica, where he establishes
himself and lives after 1529. The following year Florence is taken and
subjugated for good. Henceforth, in Tuscany, under Alexander de Medici,
then under Cosmo I. and his successors, in all Italy under Spanish rule,
municipal independence, private feuds, the great exploits of political
adventures and successful usurpations, the system of ephemeral
principalities, based on force and fraud, all give way to permanent
repression, monarchical discipline, external order, and a certain
species of public tranquility. Thus, just at the time when the energy
and ambition, the vigorous and free sap of the Middle Ages begins to
run down and then dry up in the shriveled trunk,[1108] a small detached
branch takes root in an island, not less Italian but almost barbarous,
amidst institutions, customs, and passions belonging to the primitive
medieval epoch,[1109] and in a social atmosphere sufficiently rude for
the maintenance of all its vigor and harshness.--Grafted, moreover, by
frequent marriages, on the wild stock of the island, Napoleon, on the
maternal side, through his grandmother and mother, is wholly indigenous.
His grandmother, a Pietra-Santa, belonged to Sarténe,[1110] a Corsican
canton par excellence where, in 1800, hereditary vendettas still
maintained the system of the eleventh century; where the permanent
strife of inimical families was suspended only by truces; where, in many
villages, nobody stirred out of doors except in armed bodies, and
where the houses were crenellated like fortresses. His mother, Laetitia
Ramolini, from whom, in character and in will, he derived much more than
from his father,[1111] is a primitive soul on which Civilization
has taken no hold. She is simple, all of a piece, unsuited to the
refinements, charms, and graces of a worldly life; indifferent to
comforts, without literary culture, as parsimonious as any peasant
woman, but as energetic as the leader of a band. She is powerful,
physically and spiritually, accustomed to danger, ready in desperate
resolutions. She is, in short, a "rural Cornelia," who conceived and
gave birth to her son amidst the risks of battle and of defeat, in the
thickest of the French invasion, amidst mountain rides on horseback,
nocturnal surprises, and volleys of musketry.[1112]

"Losses, privations, and fatigue," says Napoleon, "she endured all and
braved all. Hers was a man's head on a woman's shoulders."

Thus fashioned and brought into the world, he felt that, from first to
the last, he was of his people and country.

"Everything was better there," said he, at Saint Helena,[1113] "even the
very smell of the soil, which he could have detected with his eyes shut;
nowhere had he found the same thing. He imagined himself there again
in early infancy, and lived over again the days of his youth, amidst
precipices, traversing lofty peaks, deep valleys, and narrow defiles,
enjoying the honors and pleasures of hospitality, "treated everywhere
as a brother and compatriot," without any accident or insult ever
suggesting to him that his confidence was not well grounded." At
Bocognano,[1114] where his mother, pregnant with him, had taken
refuge, "where hatred and vengeance extended to the seventh degree of
relationship, and where the dowry of a young girl was estimated by the
number of her Cousins, I was feasted and made welcome, and everybody
would have died for me." Forced to become a Frenchman, transplanted
to France, educated at the expense of the king in a French school, he
became rigid in his insular patriotism, and loudly extolled Paoli, the
liberator, against whom his relations had declared themselves. "Paoli,"
said he, at the dinner table,[1115]" was a great man. He loved his
country. My father was his adjutant, and never will I forgive him
for having aided in the union of Corsica with France. He should have
followed her fortunes and have succumbed only with her." Throughout his
youth he is at heart anti-French, morose, "bitter, liking very few and
very little liked, brooding over resentment," like a vanquished man,
always moody and compelled to work against the grain. At Brienne, he
keeps aloof from his comrades, takes no part in their sports, shuts
himself in the library, and opens himself up only to Bourrienne
in explosions of hatred: "I will do you Frenchmen all the harm I
can!"--"Corsican by nation and character," wrote his professor of
history in the Military Academy, "he will go far if circumstances
favor him."[1116]--Leaving the Academy, and in garrison at Valence and
Auxonne, he remains always hostile, denationalized; his old bitterness
returns, and, addressing his letters to Paoli, he says: "I was born when
our country perished. Thirty thousand Frenchmen vomited on our shores,
drowning the throne of liberty in floods of blood--such was the odious
spectacle on which my eyes first opened! The groans of the dying, the
shrieks of the oppressed, tears of despair, surrounded my cradle from
my birth... I will blacken those who betrayed the common cause with
the brush of infamy.... vile, sordid souls corrupted by gain!"[1117]
A little later, his letter to Buttafuoco, deputy in the Constituent
Assembly and principal agent in the annexation to France, is one long
strain of renewed, concentrated hatred, which, after at first trying
to restrain it within the bounds of cold sarcasm, ends in boiling over,
like red-hot lava, in a torrent of scorching invective.--From the age of
fifteen, at the Academy and afterwards in his regiment, he finds refuge
in imagination in the past of his island;[1118] he recounts its history,
his mind dwells upon it for many years, and he dedicates his work to
Paoli. Unable to get it published, he abridges it, and dedicates the
abridgment to Abbé Raynal, recapitulating in a strained style, with
warm, vibrating sympathy, the annals of his small community, its revolts
and deliverances, its heroic and sanguinary outbreaks, its public
and domestic tragedies, ambuscades, betrayals, revenges, loves,
and murders,--in short, a history similar to that of the Scottish
highlanders, while the style, still more than the sympathies, denotes
the foreigner. Undoubtedly, in this work, as in other youthful writings,
he follows as well as he can the authors in vogue--Rousseau, and
especially Raynal; he gives a schoolboy imitation of their tirades,
their sentimental declamation, and their humanitarian grandiloquence.
But these borrowed clothes, which incommode him, do not fit him;
they are too tight, and the cloth is too fine; they require too much
circumspection in walking; he does not know how to put them on, and they
rip at every seam. Not only has he never learned how to spell, but he
does not know the true meaning, connections, and relations of words,
the propriety or impropriety of phrases, the exact significance
of imagery;[1119] he strides on impetuously athwart a pell-mell of
incongruities, incoherencies, Italianisms, and barbarisms, undoubtedly
stumbling along through awkwardness and inexperience, but also through
excess of ardor and of heat;[1120] his jerking, eruptive thought,
overcharged with passion, indicates the depth and temperature of its
source. Already, at the Academy, the professor of belles-lettres[1121]
notes down that "in the strange and incorrect grandeur of his
amplifications he seems to see granite fused in a volcano." However
original in mind and in sensibility, ill-adapted as he is to the society
around him, different from his comrades, it is clear beforehand that the
current ideas which take such hold on them will obtain no hold on him.

Of the two dominant and opposite ideas which clash with each other,
it might be supposed that he would lean either to one or to the other,
although accepting neither.--Pensioner of the king, who supported him at
Brienne, and afterwards in the Military Academy; who also supported his
sister at Saint-Cyr; who, for twenty years, is the benefactor of his
family; to whom, at this very time, he addresses entreating or grateful
letters over his mother's signature--he does not regard him as his born
general; it does not enter his mind to take sides and draw his sword in
his patron's behalf;' in vain is he a gentleman, to whom, d'Hozier
has certified; reared in a school of noble cadets, he has no noble or
monarchical traditions.[1122]--Poor and tormented by ambition, a reader
of Rousseau, patronized by Raynal, and tacking together sentences of
philosophic fustian about equality, if he speaks the jargon of the day,
it is without any belief in it. The phrases in vogue form a decent,
academical drapery for his ideas, or serve him as a red cap for the
club; he is not bewildered by democratic illusions, and entertains no
other feeling than disgust for the revolution and the sovereignty of
the populace.--At Paris, in April,1792, when the struggle between the
monarchists and the revolutionaries is at its height, he tries to find
"some successful speculation,"[1123] and thinks he will hire and sublet
houses at a profit. On the 20th of June he witnesses, only as a matter
of curiosity, the invasion of the Tuileries, and, on seeing the king at
a window place the red cap on his head, exclaims, so as to be heard,"
Che Caglione!" Immediately after this: "How could they let that rabble
enter! Mow down four or five hundred of them with cannons and the rest
would run away." On August 10, when the tocsin sounds, he regards the
people and the king with equal contempt; he rushes to a friend's house
on the Carrousel and there, still as a looker-on, views at his ease all
the occurrences of the day.[1124] Finally, the chateau is forced and he
strolls through the Tuileries, looks in at the neighboring cafés, and
that is all: he is not disposed to take sides, he has no Jacobin or
royalist inclination. His features, even, are so calm "as to provoke
many hostile and distrustful stares, as someone who is unknown and
suspicious."--Similarly, after the 31st of May and the 2nd of June,
his "Souper de Beaucaire" shows that if he condemns the departmental
insurrection it is mainly because he deems it futile: on the side of
the insurgents, a defeated army, no position tenable, no cavalry, raw
artillerymen, Marseilles reduced to its own troops, full of hostile
sans-culottes and so besieged, taken and pillaged. Chances are against
it: "Let the impoverished regions, the inhabitants of Vivaris, of the
Cevennes, of Corsica, fight to the last extremity, but if you lose a
battle and the fruit of a thousand years of fatigue, hardship, economy,
and happiness become the soldier's prey."[1125] Here was something
with which the Girondists could be converted!--None of the political or
social convictions which then exercised such control over men's minds
have any hold on him. Before the 9th of Thermidor he seemed to be a
"republican montagnard," and we follow him for months in Provence, "the
favorite and confidential adviser of young Robespierre," "admirer"
of the elder Robespierre,[1126] intimate at Nice with Charlotte
Robespierre. After the 9th of Thermidor has passed, he frees himself
with bombast from this compromising friendship: "I thought him sincere,"
says he of the younger Robespierre, in a letter intended to be shown,
"but were he my father and had aimed at tyranny, I would have stabbed
him myself." On returning to Paris, after having knocked at several
doors, he takes Barras for a patron. Barras, the most brazen of the
corrupt, Barras, who has overthrown and contrived the death of his two
former protectors.[1127] Among the contending parties and fanaticisms
which succeed each other he keeps cool and free to dispose of himself as
he pleases, indifferent to every cause and concerning himself only
with his own interests.--On the evening of the 12th of Vendémiaire,
on leaving the Feydeau theatre, and noticing the preparations of the
sectionists,[1128] he said to Junot:

"Ah, if the sections put me in command, I would guarantee to place them
in the Tuileries in two hours and have all those Convention rascals
driven out!"

Five hours later, summoned by Barras and the Conventionalists, he takes
"three minutes" to make up his mind, and, instead of "blowing up the
representatives," he mows down the Parisians. Like a good condottière,
he does not commit himself, considers the first that offers and then
the one who offers the most, only to back out afterwards, and finally,
seizing the opportunity, to grab everything.--He will more and
more become a true condottière, that is to say, leader of a band,
increasingly independent, pretending to submit under the pretext of
the public good, looking out only for his own interest, self-centered,
general on his own account and for his own advantage in his Italian
campaign before and after the 18th of Fructidor.[1129] He is, however,
a condottière of the first class, already aspiring to the loftiest
summits, "with no stopping-place but the throne or the scaffold,"[1130]
"determined[1131] to master France, and through France Europe. Without
distraction, sleeping only three hours during the night," he plays
with ideas, men, religions, and governments, exploiting people with
incomparable dexterity and brutality. He is, in the choice of means
as of ends, a superior artist, inexhaustible in glamour, seductions,
corruption, and intimidation, fascinating, and yet more terrible than
any wild beast suddenly released among a herd of browsing cattle. The
expression is not too strong and was uttered by an eye-witness, almost
at this very date, a friend and a competent diplomat: "You know that,
while I am very fond of the dear general, I call him to myself the
little tiger, so as to properly characterize his figure, tenacity, and
courage, the rapidity of his movements, and all that he has in him which
maybe fairly regarded in that sense."[1132]

At this very date, previous to official adulation and the adoption of
a recognized type, we see him face to face in two portraits drawn from
life, one physical, by a truthful painter, Guérin, and the other moral,
by a superior woman, Madame de Staël, who to the best European culture
added tact and worldly perspicacity. Both portraits agree so perfectly
that each seems to interpret and complete the other. "I saw him for the
first time,"[1133] says Madame de Staël, "on his return to France after
the treaty of Campo-Formio. After recovering from the first excitement
of admiration there succeeded to this a decided sentiment of fear." And
yet, "at this time he had no power, for it was even then supposed that
the Directory looked upon him with a good deal of suspicion." People
regarded him sympathetically, and were even prepossessed in his favor;

"thus the fear he inspired was simply due to the singular effect of his
person on almost all who approached him. I had met men worthy of respect
and had likewise met men of ferocious character; but nothing in the
impression which Bonaparte produced on me reminded me of either. I soon
found, in the various opportunities I had of meeting him during his stay
in Paris, that his character was not to be described in terms commonly
employed; he was neither mild nor violent, nor gentle nor cruel, like
certain personages one happens to know. A being like him, wholly unlike
anybody else, could neither feel nor excite sympathy; he was both
more and less than a man; his figure, intellect, and language bore the
imprint of a foreign nationality.. .. far from being reassured on seeing
Bonaparte oftener, he intimidated me more and more every day. I had a
confused impression that he was not to be influenced by any emotion of
sympathy or affection. He regards a human being as a fact, an object,
and not as a fellow-creature. He neither hates nor loves, he exists for
himself alone; the rest of humanity are so many ciphers. The force of
his will consists in the imperturbable calculation of his egoism. He is
a skillful player who has the human species for an antagonist, and
whom he proposes to checkmate... Every time that I heard him talk I
was struck with his superiority; it bore no resemblance to that of men
informed and cultivated through study and social intercourse, such as
we find in France and England. His conversation indicated the tact
of circumstances, like that of the hunter in pursuit of his prey. His
spirit seemed a cold, keen sword-blade, which freezes while it wounds.
I felt a profound irony in his mind, which nothing great or beautiful
could escape, not even his own fame, for he despised the nation whose
suffrages he sought... "--"With him, everything was means or aims;
spontaneity, whether for good or for evil, was entirely absent."

No law, no ideal and abstract rule, existed for him;

"he examined things only with reference to their immediate usefulness; a
general principle was repugnant to him, either as so much nonsense or as
an enemy."

Now, if we contemplate Guérin's portrait,[1134] we see a spare body,
whose narrow shoulders under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements,
the neck swathed in its high twisted cravat, the temples covered by
long, smooth, straight hair, exposing only the mask, the hard features
intensified through strong contrasts of light and shade, the cheeks
hollow up to the inner angle of the eye, the projecting cheek-bones, the
massive, protuberant jaw, the sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as
if attentive, the large, clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad, arched
eyebrows, the fixed, oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the
two creases which extend from the base of the nose to the brow, as if
in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will. Add to this the
accounts of his contemporaries[1135] who saw or heard the curt accent or
the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, imperious, absolute tone
of voice, and we comprehend how, the moment they accosted him, they felt
the dominating hand which seizes them, presses them down, holds them
firmly and never relaxes its grasp.

Already, at the receptions of the Directory, when conversing with men,
or even with ladies, he puts questions "which prove the superiority
of the questioner to those who have to answer them."[1136] "Are you
married?" says he to this one, and "How many children have you?"to
another. To that one, "When did you come here?" or, again, "When are you
going away? He places himself in front of a French lady, well-known for
her beauty and wit and the vivacity of her opinions, "like the stiffest
of German generals, and says: 'Madame, I don't like women who meddle
with politics!'" Equality, ease, familiarity and companionship, vanish
at his approach. Eighteen months before this, on his appointment as
commander-in-chief of the army in Italy, Admiral Decrès, who had known
him well at Paris,[1137] learns that he is to pass through Toulon: "I at
once propose to my comrades to introduce them, venturing to do so on my
acquaintance with him in Paris. Full of eagerness and joy, I start off.
The door opens and I am about to press forwards," he afterwards wrote,
"when the attitude, the look, and the tone of voice suffice to arrest
me. And yet there was nothing offensive about him; still, this was
enough. I never tried after that to overstep the line thus imposed on
me." A few days later, at Albenga,[1138] certain generals of division,
and among them Augereau, a vulgar, heroic old soldier, vain of his tall
figure and courage, arrive at headquarters, not well disposed toward the
little parvenu sent out to them from Paris. Recalling the description of
him which had been given to them, Augereau is abusive and insubordinate
beforehand: one of Barras' favorites, the Vendémiaire general, a street
general, "not yet tried out on the field of battle,[1139] hasn't a
friend, considered a loner because he is the only one who can thinks for
himself, looking peaky, said to be a mathematician and a dreamer!" They
enter, and Bonaparte keeps them waiting. At last he appears, with his
sword and belt on, explains the disposition of the forces, gives them
his orders, and dismisses them. Augereau has remained silent; It is only
when he gets out of doors does he recover himself and fall back on his
accustomed oaths. He admits to Massena that "that little bastard of a
general frightened him." He cannot "comprehend the ascendancy which made
him feel crushed right away."[1140]

Extraordinary and superior, made for command[1141] and for conquest,
singular and of an unique species, is the feeling of all his
contemporaries. Those who are most familiar with the histories of other
nations, Madame de Staël and, after her, Stendhal, go back to the
right sources to comprehend him, to the "petty Italian tyrants of the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries," to Castruccio-Castracani, to the
Braccio of Mantua, to the Piccinino, the Malatestas of Rimini, and
the Sforzas of Milan. In their opinion, however, it is only a chance
analogy, a psychological resemblance. Really, however, and)historically
it is a positive relationship. He is a descendant of the great Italians,
the men of action of the year 1400, the military adventurers, usurpers,
and founders of governments lasting their life-time. He inherits in
direct affiliation their blood and inward organization, mental and
moral.[1142] A bud, collected in their forest, before the age of
refinement, impoverishment, and decay, has been transported into a
similar and remote nursery, where a tragic and militant régime is
permanently established. There the primitive germ is preserved intact
and transmitted from one generation to another, renewed and invigorated
by interbreeding. Finally, at the last stage of its growth, it springs
out of the ground and develops magnificently, blooming the same as ever,
and producing the same fruit as on the original stem. Modern cultivation
and French gardening have pruned away but very few of its branches and
blunted a few of its thorns: its original texture, inmost substance,
and spontaneous development have not changed. The soil of France and of
Europe, however, broken up by revolutionary tempests, is more favorable
to its roots than the worn-out fields of the Middle Ages and there it
grows by itself, without being subject, like its Italian ancestors, to
rivalry with its own species; nothing checks the growth; it may absorb
all the juices of the ground, all the air and sunshine of the region,
and become the Colossus which the ancient plants, equally deep-rooted
and certainly as absorbent, but born in a less friable soil and more
crowded together, could not provide.




II. The Leader and Statesman

     Intelligence during the Italian Renaissance and at the
     present day.--Integrity of Bonaparte's mental machinery.
     --Flexibility, force, and tenacity of his attention.--Another
     difference between Napoleon's intellect and that of his
     contemporaries.--He thinks objects and not words.--His
     antipathy to Ideology.--Little or no literary or
     philosophical education.--Self-taught through direct
     observation and technical instruction.--His fondness for
     details.--His inward vision of physical objects and places.
     --His mental portrayal of positions, distances, and
     quantities.

"The human plant," said Alfieri, "is in no country born more vigorous
than in Italy"; and never, in Italy, was it so vigorous as from 1300 to
1500, from the contemporaries of Dante down to those of Michael
Angelo, Caesar Borgia, Julius II., and Macchiavelli.[1143] The first
distinguishing mark of a man of those times is the soundness of his
mental instrument. Nowadays, after three hundred years of service,
ours has lost somewhat of its moral fiber, sharpness, and versatility:
usually the compulsory specialization has caused it to become lop-sided
making it unfit for other purposes. What's more, the increase in
ready-made ideas and clichés and acquired methods incrusts it and
reduces its scope to a sort of routine. Finally, it is exhausted by
an excess of intellectual activity and diminished by the continuity of
sedentary habits. It is just the opposite with those impulsive minds
of uncorrupted blood and of a new stock.--Roederer, a competent and
independent judge, who, at the beginning of the consular government,
sees Bonaparte daily at the meetings of the Council of State, and who
notes down every evening the impressions of the day, is carried away
with admiration:[1144]

"Punctual at every sitting, prolonging the session five or six hours,
discussing before and afterwards the subjects brought forward, always
returning to two questions, 'Can that be justified?[1145]' 'Is that
useful?' examining each question in itself, in these two respects, after
having subjected it to a most exact and sharp analysis; next, consulting
the best authorities, the pasts, experience, and obtaining information
about bygone jurisprudence, the laws of Louis XIV. and of Frederick the
Great.... Never did the council adjourn without its members knowing more
than the day before; if not through knowledge derived from him, at least
through the researches he obliged them to make. Never did the members
of the Senate and the Legislative Corps, or of the tribunals, pay their
respects to him without being rewarded for their homage by valuable
instructions. He cannot be surrounded by public men without being the
statesman, all forming for him a council of state."

"What characterizes him above them all," is not alone the penetration
and universality of his comprehension, but likewise and especially "the
force, flexibility, and constancy of his attention. He can work eighteen
hours at a stretch, on one or on several subjects. I never saw him
tired. I never found his mind lacking in inspiration, even when weary
in body, nor when violently exercised, nor when angry. I never saw him
diverted from one matter by another, turning from that under discussion
to one he had just finished or was about to take up. The news, good
or bad, he received from Egypt, did not divert his mind from the civil
code, nor the civil code from the combinations which the safety of Egypt
required. Never did a man more wholly devote himself to the work in
hand, nor better devote his time to what he had to do. Never did a mind
more inflexibly set aside the occupation or thought which did not come
at the right day or hour, never was one more ardent in seeking it, more
alert in its pursuit, more capable of fixing it when the time came to
take it up."

He himself said later on:[1146]

"Various subjects and affairs are stowed away in my brain as in a chest
of drawers. When I want to take up any special business I shut one
drawer and open another. None of them ever get mixed, and never does
this incommode me or fatigue me. If I feel sleepy I shut all the drawers
and go to sleep."

Never has brain so disciplined and under such control been seen, one so
ready at all times for any task, so capable of immediate and absolute
concentration. Its flexibility[1147] is wonderful, "in the instant
application of every faculty and energy, and bringing them all to bear
at once on any object that concerns him, on a mite as well as on an
elephant, on any given individual as well as on an enemy's army. ...
When specially occupied, other things do not exist for him; it is a sort
of chase from which nothing diverts him." And this hot pursuit, which
nothing arrests save capture, this tenacious hunt, this headlong course
by one to whom the goal is never other than a fresh starting-point, is
the spontaneous gait, the natural, even pace which his mind prefers.

"I am always at work," says he to Roederer.[1148] "I meditate a great
deal. If I seem always equal to the occasion, ready to face what
comes, it is because I have thought the matter over a long time before
undertaking it. I have anticipated whatever might happen. It is no
spirit which suddenly reveals to me what I ought to do or say in any
unlooked-for circumstance, but my own reflection, my own meditation. ...
I work all the time, at dinner, in the theatre. I wake up at night in
order to resume my work. I got up last night at two o'clock. I stretched
myself on my couch before the fire to examine the army reports sent to
me by the Minister of War. I found twenty mistakes in them, and made
notes which I have this morning sent to the minister, who is now engaged
with his clerks in rectifying them."--

His associates weaken and sink under the burden imposed on them and
which he supports without feeling the weight. When Consul,[1149] "he
sometimes presides at special meetings of the section of the interior
from ten o'clock in the evening until five o'clock in the morning..
.. Often, at Saint-Cloud, he keeps the counselors of state from nine
o'clock in the morning until five in the evening, with fifteen minutes'
intermission, and seems no more fatigued at the close of the session
than when it began." During the night sessions "many of the members
succumb through weariness, while the Minister of War falls asleep";
he gives them a shake and wakes them up, "Come, come, citizens, let us
bestir ourselves, it is only two o'clock and we must earn the money
the French people pay us." Consul or Emperor,[1150] "he demands of each
minister an account of the smallest details: It is not rare to see
them leaving the council room overcome with fatigue, due to the long
interrogatories to which he has subjected them; he appears not to have
noticed, and talks about the day's work simply as a relaxation which has
scarcely given his mind exercise." And what is worse, "it often happens
that on returning home they find a dozen of his letters requiring
immediate response, for which the whole night scarcely suffices." The
quantity of facts he is able to retain and store away, the quantity of
ideas he elaborates and produces, seems to surpass human capacity, and
this insatiable, inexhaustible, unmovable brain thus keeps on working
uninterruptedly for thirty years.

Through another result of the same mental organization, Napoleon's brain
is never unproductive; that's today our great danger.--During the past
three hundred years we have more and more lost sight of the exact and
direct meaning of things. Subject to the constraints of a conservative,
complex, and extended educational system we study

* the symbols of objects rather than on the objects themselves;

* instead of the ground itself, a map of it;

* instead of animals struggling for existence,[1151] nomenclatures and
classifications, or, at best, stuffed specimens displayed in a museum;

* instead of persons who feel and act, statistics, codes, histories,
literatures, and philosophies;

in short, printed words. Even worse, abstract terms, which from century
to century have become more abstract and therefore further removed
from experience, more difficult to understand, less adaptable and more
deceptive, especially in all that relates to human life and society.
Here, due to the growth of government, to the multiplication of
services, to the entanglement of interests, the object, indefinitely
enlarged and complex, now eludes our grasp. Our vague, incomplete,
incorrect idea of it badly corresponds with it, or does not correspond
at all. In nine minds out of ten, or perhaps ninety-nine out of a
hundred, it is but little more than a word. The others, if they desire
some significant indication of what society actually is beyond the
teachings of books, require ten or fifteen years of close observation
and study to re-think the phrases with which these have filled their
memory, to interpret them anew, to make clear their meaning, to get at
and verify their sense, to substitute for the more or less empty and
indefinite term the fullness and precision of a personal impression. We
have seen how ideas of Society, State, Government, Sovereignty, Rights,
Liberty, the most important of all ideas, were, at the close of the
eighteenth century, curtailed and falsified; how, in most minds, simple
verbal reasoning combined them together in dogmas and axioms; what an
offspring these metaphysical simulacra gave birth to, how many lifeless
and grotesque abortions, how many monstrous and destructive chimeras.
There is no place for any of these fanciful dreams in the mind of
Bonaparte; they cannot arise in it, nor find access to it; his aversion
to the unsubstantial phantoms of political abstraction extends beyond
disdain, even to disgust.[1152] That which was then called ideology, is
his particular bugbear; he loathes it not alone through calculation,
but still more through an instinctive demand for what is real, as a
practical man and statesman, always keeping in mind, like the great
Catherine, "that he is operating, not on paper, but on the human hide,
which is ticklish." Every idea entertained by him had its origin in
his personal observation, and he used his own personal observations to
control them.

If books are useful to him it is to suggest questions, which he never
answers but through his own experience. He has read only a little, and
hastily;[1153] his classical education is rudimentary; in the way of
Latin, he remained in the lower class. The instruction he got at the
Military Academy as well as at Brienne was below mediocrity, while,
after Brienne, it is stated that "for the languages and belles-lettres,
he had no taste." Next to this, the literature of elegance and
refinement, the philosophy of the closet and drawing-room, with which
his contemporaries are imbued, glided over his intellect as over a hard
rock. None but mathematical truths and positive notions about geography
and history found their way into his mind and deeply impressed it.
Everything else, as with his predecessors of the fifteenth century,
comes to him through the original, direct action of his faculties in
contact with men and things, through his prompt and sure tact, his
indefatigable and minute attention, his indefinitely repeated and
rectified divinations during long hours of solitude and silence.
Practice, and not speculation, is the source of his instruction, the
same as with a mechanic brought up amongst machinery.

"There is nothing relating to warfare that I cannot make myself. If
nobody knows how to make gunpowder, I do. I can construct gun-carriages.
If cannon must be cast, I will see that it is done properly. If tactical
details must be taught, I will teach them."[1154]

This is why he is competent right from the beginning, general in the
artillery, major-general, diplomatist, financier and administrator of
all kinds. Thanks to this fertile apprenticeship, beginning with the
Consulate, he shows officials and veteran ministers who send in their
reports to him what to do.

"I am a more experienced administrator than they,[1155] when one has
been obliged to extract from his brains the ways and means with which to
feed, maintain, control, and move with the same spirit and will two or
three hundred thousand men, a long distance from their country, one has
soon discovered the secrets of administration."

In each of the human machines he builds and manipulates, he perceives
right away all the parts, each in its proper place and function, the
motors, the transmissions, the wheels, the composite action, the speed
which ensues, the final result, the complete effect, the net product.
Never is he content with a superficial and summary inspection; he
penetrates into obscure corners and to the lowest depths "through
the technical precision of his questions," with the lucidity of
a specialist, and in this way, borrowing an expression from the
philosophers, with him the concept should be adequate to its
purpose.[1156]

Hence his eagerness for details, for these form the body and substance
of the concept; the hand that has not grasped these, or lets them go,
retains only the shell, an envelope. With respect to these his curiosity
is "insatiable."[1157] In each ministerial department he knows more than
the ministers, and in each bureau he knows as much as the clerks. "On
his table[1158] lie reports of the positions of his forces on land and
on water. He has furnished the plans of these, and fresh ones are issued
every month"; such is the daily reading he likes best.

"I have my reports on positions always at hand; my memory for an
Alexandrine is not good, but I never forget a syllable of my reports on
positions. I shall find them in my room this evening, and I shall not go
to bed until I have read them."

He always knows "his position" on land and at sea better than is known
in the War and Navy departments; better even than his staff-officers the
number, size, and qualities of his ships in or out of port, the present
and future state of vessels under construction, the composition and
strength of their crews, the formation, organization, staff of officers,
material, stations, and enlistments, past and to come, of each army
corps and of each regiment. It is the same in the financial and
diplomatic services, in every branch of the administration, laic or
ecclesiastical, in the physical order and in the moral order. His
topographical memory and his geographical conception of countries,
places, ground, and obstacles culminate in an inward vision which he
evokes at will, and which, years afterwards, revives as fresh as on the
first day. His calculation of distances, marches, and maneuvers is so
rigid a mathematical operation that, frequently, at a distance of two
or four hundred leagues,[1159] his military foresight, calculated two
or four months ahead, turns out correct, almost on the day named, and
precisely on the spot designated.[1160] Add to this one other faculty,
and the rarest of all. For, if things turn out as he foresaw they would,
it is because, as with great chess-players, he has accurately measured
not alone the mechanical moves of the pieces, but the character and
talent of his adversary, "sounded his draft of water," and divined his
probable mistakes. He has added the calculation of physical quantities
and probabilities to the calculation of moral quantities and
probabilities, thus showing himself as great a psychologist as he is an
accomplished strategist. In fact, no one has surpassed him in the art
of judging the condition and motives of an individual or of a group of
people, the real motives, permanent or temporary, which drive or curb
men in general or this or that man in particular, the incentives to be
employed, the kind and degree of pressure to be employed. This central
faculty rules all the others, and in the art of mastering Man his genius
is found supreme.




III. His acute Understanding of Others.

     His psychological faculty and way of getting at the thought
     and feeling of others.--His self-analysis.--How he imagines
     a general situation by selecting a particular case,
     imagining the invisible interior by deducting from the
     visible exterior.--Originality and superiority of his style
     and discourse.--His adaptation of these to his hearers and
     to circumstances.--His notation and calculation of
     serviceable motives.

No faculty is more precious for a political engineer; for the forces he
acts upon are never other than human passions. But how, except
through divination, can these passions, which grow out of the deepest
sentiments, be reached? How, save by conjecture, can forces be estimated
which seem to defy all measurement? On this dark and uncertain ground,
where one has to grope one's way, Napoleon moves with almost absolute
certainty; he moves promptly. First of all, he studies himself; indeed,
to find one's way into another's soul requires, preliminarily, that one
should dive deep into one's own.[1161]

"I have always delighted in analysis," said he, one day, "and should I
ever fall seriously in love I would take my sentiment to pieces. Why and
How are such important questions one cannot put them to one's self too
often."

"It is certain," writes an observer, "that he, of all men, is the one
who has most meditated on the why which controls human actions."

His method, that of the experimental sciences, consists in testing every
hypothesis or deduction by some positive fact, observed by him under
definite conditions; a physical force being ascertained and accurately
measured through the deviation of a needle, or through the rise and
fall of a fluid, this or that invisible moral force can likewise be
ascertained and approximately measured through some emotional sign, some
decisive manifestation, consisting of a certain word, tone, or gesture.
It is these words, tones, and gestures which he dwells on; he detects
inward sentiments by the outward expression; he figures to himself
the internal by the external, by some facial appearance, some telling
attitude, some brief and topical scene, by such specimen and shortcuts,
so well chosen and detailed that they provide a summary of the
innumerable series of analogous cases. In this way, the vague, fleeting
object is suddenly arrested, brought to bear, and then gauged and
weighed, like some impalpable gas collected and kept in a graduated
transparent glass tube.--Accordingly, at the Council of State, while the
others, either jurists or administrators, see abstractions, articles of
the law and precedents, he sees people as they are--the Frenchman, the
Italian, the German; that of the peasant, the workman, the bourgeois,
the noble, the returned émigré,[1162] the soldier, the officer and the
functionary--everywhere the individual man as he is, the man who plows,
manufactures, fights, marries, brings forth children, toils, enjoys
himself, and dies.--Nothing is more striking than the contrast between
the dull, grave arguments advanced by the wise official editor, and
Napoleon's own words caught on the wing, at the moment, vibrating and
teeming with illustrations and imagery.[1163] Apropos of divorce, the
principle of which he wishes to maintain:

"Consult, now, national manners and customs. Adultery is no phenomenon;
it is common enough--une affaire de canapé... There must be some curb on
women who commit adultery for trinkets, poetry, Apollo, and the muses,
etc."

But if divorce be allowed for incompatibility of temper you undermine
marriage; the fragility of the bond will be apparent the moment the
obligation is contracted;

"it is just as if a man said to himself, 'I am going to marry until I
feel different.'"

Nullity of marriage must not be too often allowed; once a marriage is
made it is a serious matter to undo it.

"Suppose that, in marrying my cousin just arrived from the Indies, I wed
an adventuress. She bears me children, and I then discover she is not my
cousin--is that marriage valid? Does not public morality demand that it
should be so considered? There has been a mutual exchange of hearts, of
transpiration."

On the right of children to be supported and fed although of age, he
says:

"Will you allow a father to drive a girl of fifteen out of his house? A
father worth 60,000 francs a year might say to his son, 'You are stout
and fat; go and turn plowman.' The children of a rich father, or of one
in good circumstances, are always entitled to the paternal porridge.
Strike out their right to be fed, and you compel children to murder
their parents."

As to adoption:

"You regard this as law-makers and not as statesmen. It is not a civil
contract nor a judicial contract. The analysis (of the jurist) leads
to vicious results. Man is governed by imagination only; without
imagination he is a brute. It is not for five cents a day, simply to
distinguish himself, that a man consents to be killed; if you want to
electrify him touch his heart. A notary, who is paid a fee of twelve
francs for his services, cannot do that. It requires some other process,
a legislative act. Adoption, what is that? An imitation by which society
tries to counterfeit nature. It is a new kind of sacrament.... Society
ordains that the bones and blood of one being shall be changed into the
bones and blood of another. It is the greatest of all legal acts.
It gives the sentiments of a son to one who never had them, and
reciprocally those of a parent. Where ought this to originate? From on
high, like a clap of thunder!"

All his expressions are bright flashes one after another.[1164] Nobody,
since Voltaire and Galiani, has launched forth such a profusion of them;
on society, laws, government, France and the French, some penetrate and
explain, like those of Montesquieu, as if with a flash of lightening.
He does not hammer them out laboriously, but they burst forth, the
outpourings of his intellect, its natural, involuntary, constant action.
And what adds to their value is that, outside of councils and private
conversations, he abstains from them, employing them only in the service
of thought; at other times he subordinates them to the end he has in
view, which is always their practical effect. Ordinarily, he writes and
speaks in a different language, in a language suited to his audience;
he dispenses with the oddities, the irregular improvisations and
imagination, the outbursts of genius and inspiration. He retains and
uses merely those which are intended to impress the personage whom he
wishes to dazzle with a great idea of himself, such as Pius VII., or the
Emperor Alexander. In this case, his conversational tone is that of
a caressing, expansive, amiable familiarity; he is then before the
footlights, and when he acts he can play all parts, tragedy or comedy,
with the same life and spirit whether he fulminates, insinuates, or
even affects simplicity. When he is with his generals, ministers, and
principal performers, he falls back on the concise, positive, technical
business style; any other would be harmful. The keen mind only reveals
itself through the brevity and imperious strength and rudeness of
the accent. For his armies and the common run of men, he has his
proclamations and bulletins, that is to say, sonorous phrases
composed for effect, a statement of facts purposely simplified and
falsified,[1165] in short, an excellent effervescent wine, good for
exciting enthusiasm, and an equally excellent narcotic for maintaining
credulity,[1166] a sort of popular mixture to be distributed just at
the proper time, and whose ingredients are so well proportioned that
the public drinks it with delight, and becomes at once intoxicated.--His
style on every occasion, whether affected or spontaneous, shows his
wonderful knowledge of the masses and of individuals; except in two or
three cases, on one exalted domain, of which he always remains ignorant,
he has ever hit the mark, applying the appropriate lever, giving just
the push, weight, and degree of impulsion which best accomplishes his
purpose. A series of brief, accurate memoranda, corrected daily, enables
him to frame for himself a sort of psychological tablet whereon he notes
down and sums up, in almost numerical valuation, the mental and moral
dispositions, characters, faculties, passions, and aptitudes, the strong
or weak points, of the innumerable human beings, near or remote, on whom
he operates.




IV. His Wonderful Memory.

     His Three Atlases.--Their scale and completeness.

Let us try for a moment to show the range and contents of this
intellect; we may have to go back to Caesar to his equal; but, for lack
of documents, we have nothing of Caesar but general features--a summary
outline. Of Napoleon we have, besides the perfect outline, the features
in detail. Read his correspondence, day by day, then chapter by
chapter;[1167] for example, in 1806, after the battle of Austerlitz, or,
still better, in 1809, after his return from Spain, up to the peace of
Vienna; whatever our technical shortcomings may be, we shall find that
his mind, in its comprehensiveness and amplitude, largely surpasses all
known or even credible proportions.

He has mentally within him three principal atlases, always at hand, each
composed of "about twenty note-books," each distinct and each regularly
posted up.--

1. The first one is military, forming a vast collection of topographical
charts as minute as those of an general staff, with detailed plans of
every stronghold, also specific indications and the local distribution
of all forces on sea and on land--crews, regiments, batteries, arsenals,
storehouses, present and future resources in supplies of men, horses,
vehicles, arms, munitions, food, and clothing.

2. The second, which is civil, resembles the heavy, thick volumes
published every year, in which we now read the state of the budget, and
comprehend, first, the innumerable items of ordinary and extraordinary
receipt and expenditure, internal taxes, foreign contributions,
the products of the domains in France and out of France, the fiscal
services, pensions, public works, and the rest; next, all administrative
statistics, the hierarchy of functions and of functionaries, senators,
deputies, ministers, prefects, bishops, professors, judges, and those
under their orders, each where he resides, with his rank, jurisdiction,
and salary.

3. The third is a vast biographical and moral dictionary, in which, as
in the pigeon-holes of the Chief of Police, each notable personage and
local group, each professional or social body, and even each population,
has its label, along with a brief note on its situation, needs, and
antecedents, and, therefore, its demonstrated character, eventual
disposition, and probable conduct. Each label, card, or strip of paper
has its summary; all these partial summaries, methodically classified,
terminate in totals, and the totals of the three atlases, combined
together, thus furnish their possessor with an estimate of his
disposable forces.

Now, in 1809, however full these atlases, they are clearly imprinted on
Napoleon's mind he knows not only the total and the partial summaries,
but also the slightest details; he reads them readily and at every hour;
he comprehends in a mass, and in all particulars, the various nations he
governs directly, or through some one else; that is to say, 60,000,000
men, the different countries he has conquered or overrun, consisting of
70,000 square leagues[1168]. At first, France increased by the addition
of Belgium and Piedmont; next Spain, from which he is just returned,
and where he has placed his brother Joseph; southern Italy, where, after
Joseph, he has placed Murat; central Italy, where he occupies Rome;
northern Italy, where Eugène is his delegate; Dalmatia and Istria, which
he has joined to his empire; Austria, which he invades for the second
time; the Confederation of the Rhine, which he has made and which
he directs; Westphalia and Holland, where his brothers are only his
lieutenants; Prussia, which he has subdued and mutilated and which he
oppresses, and the strongholds of which he still retains; and, add
a last mental tableau, that which represents the northern seas, the
Atlantic and the Mediterranean, all the fleets of the continent at sea
and in port from Dantzic to Flessingen and Bayonne, from Cadiz to Toulon
and Gaëta, from Tarentum to Venice, Corfu, and Constantinople.[1169]--On
the psychological and moral atlas, besides a primitive gap which he will
never fill up, because this is a characteristic trait, there are some
estimates which are wrong, especially with regard to the Pope and to
Catholic conscience. In like manner he rates the energy of national
sentiment in Spain and Germany too low. He rates too high his own
prestige in France and in the countries annexed to her, the balance of
confidence and zeal on which he may rely. But these errors are rather
the product of his will than of his intelligence, he recognizes them at
intervals; if he has illusions it is because he fabricates them; left
to himself his good sense would rest infallible, it is only his passions
which blurred the lucidity of his intellect.--As to the other two
atlases, the topographical and the military, they are as complete and as
exact as ever; No matter how much the realities they contain will swell
and daily become ever more complex, they continue to correspond to it in
their fullness and precision, trait for trait.




V. His Imagination and its Excesses.

     His constructive imagination.--His projects and dreams.
     --Manifestation of the master faculty and its excesses.

But this multitude of information and observations form only the
smallest portion of the mental population swarming in this immense
brain; for, on his idea of the real, germinate and swarm his concepts of
the possible; without these concepts there would be no way to handle and
transform things, and that he did handle and transform them we all know.
Before acting, he has decided on his plan, and if this plan is adopted,
it is one among several others,[1170] after examining, comparing,
and giving it the preference; he has accordingly thought over all the
others. Behind each combination adopted by him we detect those he has
rejected; there are dozens of them behind each of his decisions, each
maneuver effected, each treaty signed, each decree promulgated, each
order issued, and I venture to say, behind almost every improvised
action or word spoken. For calculation enters into everything he does,
even into his apparent expansiveness, also into his outbursts when in
earnest; if he gives way to these, it is on purpose, foreseeing the
effect, with a view to intimidate or to dazzle. He turns everything in
others as well as in himself to account--his passion, his vehemence, his
weaknesses, his talkativeness, he exploits it all for the advancement
of the edifice he is constructing.[1171] Certainly among his diverse
faculties, however great, that of the constructive imagination is
the most powerful. At the very beginning we feel its heat and boiling
intensity beneath the coolness and rigidity of his technical and
positive instructions.

"When I plan a battle," said he to Roederer, "no man is more spineless
than I am. I over exaggerate to myself all the dangers and all the evils
that are possible under the circumstances. I am in a state of truly
painful agitation. But this does not prevent me from appearing quite
composed to people around me; I am like a woman giving birth to a
child.[1172]

Passionately, in the throes of the creator, he is thus absorbed with
his coming creation; he already anticipates and enjoys living in his
imaginary edifice. "General," said Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre to him,
one day, "you are building behind a scaffolding which you will take
down when you have done with it." "Yes, Madame, that's it,"
replied Bonaparte; "you are right. I am always living two years in
advance."[1173] His response came with "incredible vivacity," as if a
sudden inspiration, that of a soul stirred in its innermost fiber.--Here
as well, the power, the speed, fertility, play, and abundance of his
thought seem unlimited. What he has accomplished is astonishing, but
what he has undertaken is more so; and whatever he may have undertaken
is far surpassed by what he has imagined. However vigorous his practical
faculty, his poetical faculty is stronger; it is even too vigorous for
a statesman; its grandeur is exaggerated into enormity, and its enormity
degenerates into madness. In Italy, after the 18th of Fructidor, he said
to Bourrienne:

"Europe is a molehill; never have there been great empires and
great revolutions, except in the Orient, with its 600,000,000
inhabitants."[1174]

The following year at Saint-Jean d'Acre, on the eve of the last assault,
he added

"If I succeed I shall find in the town the pasha's treasure and arms
for 300,000 men. I stir up and arm all Syria.... I march on Damascus
and Aleppo; as I advance in the country my army will increase with the
discontented. I proclaim to the people the abolition of slavery, and
of the tyrannical government of the pashas. I reach Constantinople with
armed masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire; I found in the East a new
and grand empire, which fixes my place with posterity, and perhaps I
return to Paris by the way of Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having
annihilated the house of Austria." [1175]

Become consul, and then emperor, he often referred to this happy period,
when, "rid of the restraints of a troublesome civilization," he could
imagine at will and construct at pleasure.[1176]

"I created a religion; I saw myself on the road to Asia, mounted on an
elephant, with a turban on my head, and in my hand a new Koran, which I
composed to suit myself."

Confined to Europe, he thinks, after 1804, that he will reorganize
Charlemagne's empire.

"The French Empire will become the mother country of other
sovereignties... I mean that every king in Europe shall build a grand
palace at Paris for his own use; on the coronation of the Emperor of
the French these kings will come and occupy it; they will grace
this imposing ceremony with their presence, and honor it with their
salutations."[1177] The Pope will come; he came to the first one; he
must necessarily return to Paris, and fix himself there permanently.
Where could the Holy See be better off than in the new capital of
Christianity, under Napoleon, heir to Charlemagne, and temporal
sovereign of the Sovereign Pontiff? Through the temporal the emperor
will control the spiritual,[1178] and through the Pope, consciences."

In November, 1811, unusually excited, he says to De Pradt:

"In five years I shall be master of the world; only Russia will remain,
but I will crush her.[1179]... Paris will extend out to St. Cloud."

To render Paris the physical capital of Europe is, through his own
confession, "one of his constant dreams."

"At times," he says,[1180]"I would like to see her a city of two, three,
four millions of inhabitants, something fabulous, colossal, unknown down
to our day, and its public establishments adequate to its population....
Archimedes proposed to lift the world if he could be allowed to place
his lever; for myself, I would have changed it wherever I could have
been allowed to exercise my energy, perseverance, and budgets."

At all events, he believes so; for however lofty and badly supported
the next story of his structure may be, he has always ready a new
story, loftier and more unsteady, to put above it. A few months before
launching himself, with all Europe at his back, against Russia, he said
to Narbonne:[1181]

"After all, my dear sir, this long road is the road to India. Alexander
started as far off as Moscow to reach the Ganges; this has occurred
to me since St. Jean d'Acre.... To reach England to-day I need the
extremity of Europe, from which to take Asia in the rear.... Suppose
Moscow taken, Russia subdued, the czar reconciled, or dead through some
court conspiracy, perhaps another and dependent throne, and tell me
whether it is not possible for a French army, with its auxiliaries,
setting out from Tiflis, to get as far as the Ganges, where it needs
only a thrust of the French sword to bring down the whole of that grand
commercial scaffolding throughout India. It would be the most gigantic
expedition, I admit, but practicable in the nineteenth century. Through
it France, at one stroke, would secure the independence of the West and
the freedom of the seas."

While uttering this his eyes shone with strange brilliancy, and he
accumulates subjects, weighing obstacles, means, and chances: the
inspiration is under full headway, and he gives himself up to it. The
master faculty finds itself suddenly free, and it takes flight; the
artist,[1182] locked up in politics, has escaped from his sheath; he is
creating out of the ideal and the impossible. We take him for what
he is, a posthumous brother of Dante and Michael Angelo. In the clear
outlines of his vision, in the intensity, coherency, and inward logic
of his dreams, in the profundity of his meditations, in the superhuman
grandeur of his conceptions, he is, indeed, their fellow and their
equal. His genius is of the same stature and the same structure; he is
one of the three sovereign minds of the Italian Renaissance. Only, while
the first two operated on paper and on marble, the latter operates on
the living being, on the sensitive and suffering flesh of humanity.


*****

[Footnote 1101: Reforms introduced by Napoleon after his coup d'état 9
Nov. 1799. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1102: The main authority is, of course, the "correspondance
de l'Empereur Napoléon I.," in thirty-two-volumes. This correspondance,
unfortunately, is still incomplete, while, after the sixth volume, it
must not be forgotten that much of it has been purposely stricken out.
"In general," say the editors (XVI., p.4), "we have been governed simply
by this plain rule, that we were required to publish only what the
Emperor himself would have given to the public had he survived himself,
and, anticipating the verdict of time, exposed to posterity his own
personality and system."--The savant who has the most carefully examined
this correspondence, entire in the French archives, estimates that it
comprises about 80,000 pieces, of which 30,000 have been published in
the collection referred to; passages in 20,000 of the others have been
stricken out on account of previous publication, and about 30,000 more,
through considerations of propriety or policy. For example, but little
more than one-half of the letters from Napoleon to Bigot de Préameneu
on ecclesiastical matters have been published; many of these omitted
letters, all important and characteristic, may be found in "L'Église
romaine et le Premier Empire," by M. d'Haussonville. The above-mentioned
savant estimates the number of important letters not yet published at
2,000.]

[Footnote 1103: "Mémorial de Sainte Héléne," by Las Casas (May 29,
1816).--"In Corsica, Paoli, on a horseback excursion, explained
the positions to him, the places where liberty found resistance or
triumphed. Estimating the character of Napoleon by what he saw of it
through personal observation, Paoli said to him, "Oh, Napoleon, there
is nothing modern in you, you belong wholly to Plutarch!"--Antonomarchi,
"Mémoires," Oct. 25, 1819. The same account, slightly different, is
there given: "Oh. Napoleon," said Paoli to me, "you do not belong to
this century; you talk like one of Plutarch's characters. Courage, you
will take flight yet!"]

[Footnote 1104: De Ségur, "Histoire et Mémoires," I., 150. (Narrative by
Pontécoulant, member of the committee in the war, June, 1795.) "Boissy
d'Anglas told him that he had seen the evening before a little Italian,
pale, slender, and puny, but singularly audacious in his views and
in the vigor of his expressions.--The next day, Bonaparte calls on
Pontécou1ant, Attitude rigid through a morbid pride, poor exterior,
long visage, hollow and bronzed.... He is just from the army and talks
like one who knows what he is talking about."]

[Footnote 1105: Coston, "Biographie des premières années de Napoléon
Buonaparte," 2 vols. (1840), passim.--Yung, "Bonaparte et son Temps,"
I., 300, 302. (Pièces généalogiques.)--King Joseph, "Mémoires," I., 109,
111. (On the various branches and distinguished men of the Bonaparte
family.)--Miot de Melito, "Mémoires," II., 30. (Documents on the
Bonaparte family, collected on the spot by the author in 1801.)]

[Footnote 1106: "Mémorial," May 6, 1816.--Miot de Melito, II., 30. (On
the Bonapartes of San Miniato): "The last offshoot of this branch was a
canon then still living in this same town of San Miniato, and visited by
Bonaparte in the year IV, when he came to Florence."]

[Footnote 1107: "Correspondance de l'Empereur Napoléon I." (Letter of
Bonaparte, Sept.29, 1797, in relation to Italy): "A people at bottom
inimical to the French through the prejudices, character, and customs of
centuries."]

[Footnote 1108: Miot de Melito, I., 126, (1796): "Florence, for two
centuries and a half, had lost that antique energy which, in the stormy
times of the Republic, distinguished this city. Indolence was the
dominant spirit of all classes.. . Almost everywhere I saw only men
lulled to rest by the charms of the most exquisite climate, occupied
solely with the details of a monotonous existence, and tranquilly
vegetating under its beneficent sky."--(On Milan, in 1796, cf. Stendhal,
introduction to the "Chartreuse de Parme.")]

[Footnote 1109: "Miot de Melito," I., 131: "Having just left one of the
most civilized cities in Italy, it was not without some emotion that I
found myself suddenly transported to a country (Corsica) which, in
its savage aspect, its rugged mountains, and its inhabitants uniformly
dressed in coarse brown cloth, contrasted so strongly with the rich and
smiling landscape of Tuscany, and with the comfort, I should almost
say elegance, of costume worn by the happy cultivators of that fertile
soil."]

[Footnote 1110: Miot de Melito, II., 30: "Of a not very important family
of Sartène."--II., 143. (On the canton of Sartène and the Vendettas of
1796).--Coston, I., 4: "The family of Madame Laetitia, sprung from the
counts of Cotalto, came originally from Italy."]

[Footnote 1111: His father, Charles Bonaparte, weak and even frivolous,
"too fond of pleasure to care about his children," and to see to his
affairs, tolerably learned and an indifferent head of a family, died at
the age of thirty-nine of a cancer in the stomach, which seems to be the
only bequest he made to his son Napoleon.--His mother, on the contrary,
serious, authoritative, the true head of a family, was, said Napoleon,
"hard in her affections she punished and rewarded without distinction,
good or bad; she made us all feel it."--On becoming head of the
household, "she was too parsimonious-even ridiculously so. This was due
to excess of foresight on her part; she had known want, and her terrible
sufferings were never out of her mind.... Paoli had tried persuasion
with her before resorting to force... . Madame replied heroically, as a
Cornelia would have done.... From 12 to 15,000 peasants poured down from
the mountains of Ajaccio; our house was pillaged and burnt, our vines
destroyed, and our flocks. ... In other respects, this woman, from whom
it would have been so difficult to extract five francs, would have given
up everything to secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she
offered me all she possessed to restore my affairs." (" Mémorial," May
29, 1816, and "Mémoires d'Antonomarchi," Nov. 18, 1819.--On the ideas
and ways of Bonaparte's mother, read her "Conversation" in "Journal
et Mémoires," vol. IV., by Stanislas Girardin.) Duchesse d'Abrantès,"
Mémoires," II., 318, 369. "Avaricious out of all reason except on a few
grave occasions.... No knowledge whatever of the usages of society....
very ignorant, not alone of our literature, but of her own."--Stendhal,
"Vie de Napoleon": "The character of her son is to be explained by the
perfectly Italian character of Madame Laetitia."]

[Footnote 1112: The French conquest is effected by armed force between
July 30, 1768, and May 22, 1769. The Bonaparte family submitted May 23,
1769, and Napoleon was born on the following 15th of August.]

[Footnote 1113: Antonomarchi, "Mémoires," October 4, 1819. "Mémorial,"
May 29, 1816.]

[Footnote 1114: "Miot de Melito," II., 33: "The day I arrived at Bocognano
two men lost their lives through private vengeance. About eight years
before this one of the inhabitants of the canton had killed a neighbor,
the father of two children.... On reaching the age of sixteen or
seventeen years these children left the country in order to dog the
steps of the murderer, who kept on the watch, not daring to go far from
his village.... Finding him playing cards under a tree, they fired at
and killed him, and besides this accidentally shot another man who was
asleep a few paces off. The relatives on both sides pronounced the act
justifiable and according to rule." Ibid., I., 143: "On reaching Bastia
from Ajaccio the two principal families of the place, the Peraldi
and the Visuldi, fired at each other, in disputing over the honor of
entertaining me."]

[Footnote 1115: Bourrienne, "Mémoires," I., 18, 19.]

[Footnote 1116: De Ségur, "Histoire et Mémoires," I,, 74.]

[Footnote 1117: Yung, I., 195. (Letter of Bonaparte to Paoli, June 12,
1789); I., 250 (Letter of Bonaparte to Buttafuoco, January 23 1790).]

[Footnote 1118: Yung, I., 107 (Letter of Napoleon to his father, Sept.
12, 1784); I., 163 (Letter of Napoleon to Abbé Raynal, July, 1786); I.,
197 (Letter of Napoleon to Paoli, June 12, 1789). The three letters on
the history of Corsica are dedicated to Abbé Raynal in a letter of June
24, 1790, and may be found in Yung, I., 434.]

[Footnote 1119: Read especially his essay "On the Truths and Sentiments
most important to inculcate on Men for their Welfare" (a subject
proposed by the Academy of Lyons in 1790). "Some bold men driven by
genius.. .. Perfection grows out of reason as fruit out of a tree....
Reason's eyes guard man from the precipice of the passions... The
spectacle of the strength of virtue was what the Lacedaemonians
principally felt.... Must men then be lucky in the means by which they
are led on to happiness?.... My rights (to property) are renewed along
with my transpiration, circulate in my blood, are written on my nerves,
on my heart.... Proclaim to the rich--your wealth is your misfortune,
withdrawn within the latitude of your senses.... Let the enemies of
nature at thy voice keep silence and swallow their rabid serpents'
tongues.... The wretched shun the society of men, the tapestry of gayety
turns to mourning.... Such, gentlemen, are the Sentiments which, in
animal relations, mankind should have taught it for its welfare."]

[Footnote 1120: Yung, I., 252 (Letter to Buttafuoco). "Dripping with the
blood of his brethren, sullied by every species of crime, he presents
himself with confidence under his vest of a general, the sole reward of
his criminalities."--I., 192 (Letter to the Corsican Intendant, April 2,
1879). "Cultivation is what ruins us"--See various manuscript letters,
copied by Yung, for innumerable and gross mistakes in French.--Miot de
Melito, I., 84 (July, 1796). "He spoke curtly and, at this time, very
incorrectly."--Madame de Rémusat, I., 104. "Whatever language he
spoke it never seemed familiar to him; he appeared to force himself
in expressing his ideas."--Notes par le Comte Chaptal (unpublished),
councillor of state and afterwards minister of the interior under
the Consulate: "At this time, Bonaparte did not blush at the slight
knowledge of administrative details which he possessed; he asked a good
many questions and demanded definitions and the meaning of the commonest
words in use. As it very often happened with him not to clearly
comprehend words which he heard for the first time, he always repeated
these afterwards as he understood them; for example, he constantly
used section for session, armistice for amnesty, fulminating point for
culminating point, rentes voyagères for 'rentes viagères,' etc."]

[Footnote 1121: De Ségur, I., 174]

[Footnote 1122: Cf. the "Mémoires" of Marshal Marmont, I., 15, for the
ordinary sentiments of the young nobility. "In 1792 I had a sentiment
for the person of the king, difficult to define, of which I recovered
the trace, and to some extent the power, twenty-two years later; a
sentiment of devotion almost religious in character, an innate respect
as if due to a being of a superior order. The word King then possessed a
magic, a force, which nothing had changed in pure and honest breasts....
This religion of royalty still existed in the mass of the nation,, and
especially amongst the well-born, who, sufficiently remote from power,
were rather struck with its brilliancy than with its imperfections....
This love became a sort of worship."]

[Footnote 1123: Bourrienne, "Mémoires," I. 27.--Ségur, I. 445. In 1795,
at Paris, Bonaparte, being out of military employment, enters upon
several commercial speculations, amongst which is a bookstore, which
does not succeed. (Stated by Sebastiani and many others.)]

[Footnote 1124: "Mémorial," Aug. 3, 1816.]

[Footnote 1125: Bourrienne, I., 171. (Original text of the "Souper de
Beaucaire.")]

[Footnote 1126: Yung, II., 430, 431. (Words of Charlotte Robespierre.)
Bonaparte as a souvenir of his acquaintance with her, granted her a
pension, under the consulate, of 3600 francs.--Ibid. (Letter of Tilly,
chargé d'affaires at Genoa, to Buchot, commissioner of foreign affairs.)
Cf. in the "Mémorial," Napoleon's favorable judgment of Robespierre.]

[Footnote 1127: Yung, II., 455. (Letter from Bonaparte to Tilly, Aug.
7, 1794.) Ibid., III., 120. (Memoirs of Lucien.) "Barras takes care of
Josephine's dowry, which is the command of the army in Italy." Ibid.,
II., 477. (Grading of general officers, notes by Schérer on Bonaparte.)
"He knows all about artillery, but is rather too ambitious, and too
intriguing for promotion."]

[Footnote 1128: De Ségur, I., 162.--La Fayette, "Mémoires," II., 215.
"Mémorial" (note dictated by Napoleon). He states the reasons for and
against, and adds, speaking of himself: "These sentiments, twenty-five
years of age, confidence in his strength, his destiny, determined him."
Bourrienne, I., 51: "It is certain that he has always bemoaned that day;
he has often said to me that he would give years of his life to efface
that page of his history."]

[Footnote 1129: "Mémorial," I., Sept 6, 1815. "It is only after Lodi
that the idea came to me that I might, after all, become a decisive
actor on our political stage. Then the first spark of lofty ambition
gleamed out." On his aim and conduct in the Italian campaign of
Sybel, "Histoire de l'Europe pendant la Révolution Française" (Dosquet
translation), vol. IV., books II. and III., especially pp.182, 199, 334,
335, 406, 420, 475, 489.]

[Footnote 1130: Yung, III., 213. (Letter of M. de Sucy, August 4,
1797.)]

[Footnote 1131: Ibid., III., 214. (Report of d'Entraigues to M. de
Mowikinoff, Sept., 1797.) "If there was any king in France which was not
himself, he would like to have been his creator, with his rights at the
end of his sword, this sword never to be parted with, so that he might
plunge it in the king's bosom if he ever ceased to be submissive to
him."--Miot de Melito, I., 154. (Bonaparte to Montebello, before Miot
and Melzi, June, 1797.) Ibid, I., 184. (Bonaparte to Miot, Nov. 18,
1797, at Turin.)]

[Footnote 1132: D'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et la Premier Empire,"
I., 405. (Words of M. Cacault, signer of the Treaty of Tolentino,
and French Secretary of Legation at Rome, at the commencement of
negotiations for the Concordat.) M. Cacaut says that he used this
expression, "After the scenes of Tolentino and of Leghorn, and
the fright of Manfredini, and Matéi threatened, and so many other
vivacities."]

[Footnote 1133: Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la Révolution
Française," 3rd part, ch. XXVI., and 4th part, ch. XVIII.]

[Footnote 1134: Portrait of Bonaparte in the "Cabinet des Etampes,"
"drawn by Guérin, engraved by Fiesinger, deposited in the National
Library, Vendémiaire 29, year VII."]

[Footnote 1135: Madame de Rémusat, "Mémoires," I., 104.--Miot de Melito,
I., 84.]

[Footnote 1136: Madame de Staël, "Considerations," etc., 3rd part, ch.
XXV.--Madame de Rémusat, II., 77.]

[Footnote 1137: Stendhal, "Mémoires sur Napoléon," narration of Admiral
Decrès.--Same narration in the "Mémorial."]

[Footnote 1138: De Ségur, I., 193.]

[Footnote 1139: Roederer, "Oeuvres complétes," II., 560. (Conversations
with General Lasalle in 1809, and Lasalle's judgment on the débuts of
Napoleon).]

[Footnote 1140: Another instance of this commanding influence is found
in the case of General Vandamme, an old revolutionary soldier still more
brutal and energetic than Augereau. In 1815, Vandamme said to Marshal
d'Ornano, one day, on ascending the staircase of the Tuileries
together: "My dear fellow, that devil of a man (speaking of the Emperor)
fascinates me in a way I cannot account for. I, who don't fear either
God or the devil, when I approach him I tremble like a child. He would
make me dash through the eye of a needle into the fire!" ("Le Général
Vandamme," by du Casse, II., 385).]

[Footnote 1141: Roederer, III., 356. (Napoleon himself says, February
11, 1809): "I, military! I am so, because I was born so; it is my habit,
my very existence. Wherever I have been I have always had command. I
commanded at twenty-three, at the siege of Toulon; I commanded at Paris
in Vendémiaire; I won over the soldiers in Italy the moment I presented
myself. I was born for that."]

[Footnote 1142: Observe the various features of the same mental and
moral structure among different members of the family. (Speaking of his
brothers and sisters in the "Memorial" Napoleon says): "What family
as numerous presents such a splendid group?"--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
(Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France, in VI volumes, Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893. Vol. I. p. 400. (This author, a young magistrate under
Louis XVI., a high functionary under the Empire, an important political
personage under the restoration and the July monarchy, is probably the
best informed and most judicious of eye-witnesses during the first half
of our century.): "Their vices and virtues surpass ordinary proportions
and have a physiognomy of their own. But what especially distinguishes
them is a stubborn will, and inflexible resolution.... All possessed
the instinct of their greatness." They readily accepted "the highest
positions; they even got to believing that their elevation was
inevitable.... Nothing in the incredible good fortune of Joseph
astonished him; often in January, 1814, I heard him say over and over
again that if his brother had not meddled with his affairs after the
second entry into Madrid, he would still be on the throne of Spain.
As to determined obstinacy we have only to refer to the resignation
of Louis, the retirement of Lucien, and the resistances of Fesch; they
alone could stem the will of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance with
him.--Passion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside
of rules, and self-confidence combined with talent, super abound
among the women, as in the fifteenth century. Elisa, in Tuscany, had
a vigorous brain, was high spirited and a genuine sovereign,
notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even
appearances were not sufficiently maintained." Caroline at Naples,
"without being more scrupulous than her sisters," better observed the
proprieties; none of the others so much resembled the Emperor; "with
her, all tastes succumbed to ambition"; it was she who advised and
prevailed upon her husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1814. As to
Pauline, the most beautiful woman of her epoch, "no wife, since that
of the Emperor Claude, surpassed her in the use she dared make of her
charms; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to the
strain of this life-style and for which we have so often seen her
borne in a litter."--Jerome, "in spite of the uncommon boldness of his
debaucheries, maintained his ascendancy over his wife to the last."--On
the "pressing efforts and attempts" of Joseph on Maria Louise in 1814,
Chancelier Pasquier, after Savary's papers and the evidence of M. de
Saint-Aignan, gives extraordinary details.--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon,
346, by the count Chaptal: "Every member of this numerous family
(Jérôme, Louis, Joseph, the Bonaparte sisters) mounted thrones as if
they had recovered so much property."]

[Footnote 1143: Burkhardt, "Die Renaissance in Italien,"
passim.--Stendhal, "Histoire de la peinture en Italie"(introduction),
and" Rome, Naples, et Florence," passim.--"Notes par le Comte Chaptal":
When these notes are published, many details will be found in them in
support of the judgment expressed in this and the following chapters.
The psychology of Napoleon as here given is largely confirmed by them.]

[Footnote 1144: Roederer, III, 380 (1802).]

[Footnote 1145: Napoleon uses the French word just which means both
fair, justifiable, pertinent, correct, and in music true.]

[Footnote 1146: "Mémorial."]

[Footnote 1147: De Pradt, "Histoire de l'Ambassade dans la grande-duché
de Varsovie en 1812," preface, p. X, and 5.]

[Footnote 1148: Roederer, III., 544 (February 24, 1809). Cf. Meneval,
"Napoléon et Marie-Louise, souvenirs historiques," I., 210-213.]

[Footnote 1149: Pelet de la Lozère," Opinions de Napoléon au conseil
d'état," p.8.--Roederer, III., 380.]

[Footnote 1150: Mollien, "Mémoires," I., 379; II., 230.--Roederer,
III., 434. "He is at the head of all things. He governs, administrates,
negotiates, works eighteen hours a day, with the clearest and best
organized head; he has governed more in three years than kings in
a hundred years."--Lavalette, "Mémoires," II., 75. (The words of
Napoleon's secretary on Napoleon's labor in Paris, after Leipsic) "He
retires at eleven, but gets up at three o'clock in the morning, and
until the evening there is not a moment he does not devote to work.
It is time this stopped, for he will be used up, and myself before he
is."--Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte, "Mémoires," III. (supplement), p.75. Account
of an evening in which, from eight o'clock to three in the morning,
Napoleon examines with Gaudin his general budget, during seven
consecutive hours, without stopping a minute.--Sir Neil Campbell,
"Napoléon at Fontainebleau and at Elbe," p.243. "Journal de Sir Neil
Campbell a' l'ile d'Elbe": I never saw any man, in any station in life,
so personally active and so persistent in his activity. He seems to
take pleasure in perpetual motion and in seeing those who accompany
him completely tired out, which frequently happened in my case when I
accompanied him.. . Yesterday, after having been on his legs from eight
in the morning to three in the afternoon, visiting the frigates and
transports, even to going down to the lower compartments among the
horses, he rode on horseback for three hours, and, as he afterwards said
to me, to rest himself."]

[Footnote 1151: The starting-point of the great discoveries of Darwin is
the physical, detailed description he made in his study of animals and
plants, as living; during the whole course of life, through so many
difficulties and subject to a fierce competition. This study is wholly
lacking in the ordinary zoologist or botanist, whose mind is busy only
with anatomical preparations or collections of plants. In every science,
the difficulty lies in describing in a nutshell, using significant
examples, the real object, just as it exists before us, and its
true history. Claude Bernard one day remarked to me, "We shall know
physiology when we are able to follow step by step a molecule of carbon
or azote in the body of a dog, give its history, and describe its
passage from its entrance to its exit."]

[Footnote 1152: Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of
the tribunate): "They consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who
ought to be flung into the water; they crawl all over me like vermin."]

[Footnote 1153: Madame de Rémusat, I., 115: "He is really ignorant,
having read very little and always hastily."--Stendhal, "Mémoires sur
Napoleon": "His education was very defective....He knew nothing of the
great principles discovered within the past one hundred years," and
just those which concern man or society. "For example, he had not read
Montesquieu as this writer ought to be read, that is to say, in a way to
accept or decidedly reject each of the thirty-one books of the 'Esprit
des lois.' He had not thus read Bayle's Dictionary nor the Essay on the
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This ignorance of the Emperor's was not
perceptible in conversation, and first, because he led in conversation,
and next because with Italian finesse no question put by him,
or careless supposition thrown out, ever betrayed that
ignorance."--Bourrienne. I., 19, 21: At Brienne, "unfortunately for us,
the monks to whom the education of youth was confided knew nothing, and
were too poor to pay good foreign teachers.... It is inconceivable
how any capable man ever graduated from this educational
institution."--Yung, I., 125 (Notes made by him on Bonaparte, when
he left the Military Academy): "Very fond of the abstract sciences,
indifferent to others, well grounded in mathematics and geography."]

[Footnote 1154: Roederer, III., 544 (March 6, 1809), 26, 563 (Jan. 23,
1811, and Nov. 12, 1813).]

[Footnote 1155: Mollien, I., 348 (a short time before the rupture of the
peace of Amiens), III., 16: "It was at the end of January, 1809, that he
wanted a full report of the financial situation on the 31st of December,
1808 .... This report was to be ready in two days."--III., 34: "A
complete balance sheet of the public treasury for the first six months
of 1812 was under Napoleon's eyes at Witebsk, the 11th of August, eleven
days after the close of these first six months. What is truly wonderful
is, that amidst so many different occupations and preoccupations.... he
could preserve such an accurate run of the proceedings and methods of
the administrative branches about which he wanted to know at any moment.
Nobody had any excuse for not answering him, for each was questioned in
his own terms; it is that singular aptitude of the head of the State,
and the technical precision of his questions, which alone explains how
he could maintain such a remarkable ensemble in an administrative system
of which the smallest threads centered in himself."]

[Footnote 1156: 200 years after the death of Napoleon Sir Alfred Ayer
thus writes in "LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC": 'Actually, we shall see that
the only test to which a form of scientific procedure which satisfies
the necessary condition of self-consistency is subject, is the test of
its success in practice. We are entitled to have faith in our procedure
just so long as it does the work it is designed to do--that is, enables
us to predict future experience, and so to control our environment.'
And on the Purpose of Inquiry: 'The traditional disputes of philosophers
are, for the most part, as unwarranted as they are unfruitful. The
surest way to end them is to establish beyond question what should be
the purpose and the method of philosophical inquiry.' (SR.)]

[Footnote 1157: An expression of Mollien.]

[Footnote 1158: Meneval, I., 210, 213.--Roederer, III., 537, 545
(February and March, 1889): Words of Napoleon: "At this moment it was
nearly midnight."--Ibid., IV., 55 (November, 1809). Read the admirable
examination of Roederer by Napoleon on the Kingdom of Naples. His
queries form a vast systematic and concise network, embracing the entire
subject, leaving no physical or moral data, no useful circumstance not
seized upon.--Ségur, II., 231: M. De Ségur, ordered to inspect every
part of the coast-line, had sent in his report: "'I have seen
your reports,' said the First Consul to me, 'and they are exact.
Nevertheless, you forgot at Osten two cannon out of the four.'--And
he pointed out the place, 'a roadway behind the town.' I went out
overwhelmed with astonishment that among thousands of cannon distributed
among the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces
should not have escaped his recollection."--"Correspondance," letter to
King Joseph, August 6, 1806: "The admirable condition of my armies is
due to this, that I give attention to them every day for an hour or two,
and, when the monthly reports come in, to the state of my troops and
fleets, all forming about twenty large volumes. I leave every other
occupation to read them over in detail, to see what difference there
is between one month and another. I take more pleasure in reading those
than any young girl does in a novel."--Cadet de Gassicourt, "Voyage en
Autriche"(1809). On his reviews at Schoenbrunn and his verification of
the contents of a pontoon-wagon, taken as an example.]

[Footnote 1159: One ancient French league equals app. 4 km. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1160: Bourrienne, II., 116; IV., 238: "He had not a good
memory for proper names, words, and dates, but it was prodigious for
facts and localities. I remember that, on the way from Paris to Toulon,
he called my attention to ten places suitable for giving battle.... It
was a souvenir of his youthful travels, and he described to me the lay
of the ground, designating the positions he would have taken even before
we were on the spot." March 17, 1800, puncturing a card with a pin,
he shows Bourrienne the place where he intends to beat Mélas, at San
Juliano. "Four months after this I found myself at San Juliano with his
portfolio and dispatches, and, that very evening, at Torre-di-Gafolo, a
league off, I wrote the bulletin of the battle under his dictation" (of
Marengo).--De Ségur, II., 30 (Narrative of M. Daru to M. De Ségur Aug.
13, 1805, at the headquarters of La Manche, Napoleon dictates to M. Daru
the complete plan of the campaign against Austria): "Order of marches,
their duration, places of convergence or meeting of the columns, attacks
in full force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all,
in this rapid dictation, was foreseen two months beforehand and at a
distance of two hundred leagues.... The battle-field, the victories, and
even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and Vienna were
then announced and written down as it all turned out.... Daru saw these
oracles fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich; if
there were any differences of time and not of results between Munich
and Vienna, they were all in our favor."--M. de La Vallette, "Mémoires,"
II., p. 35. (He was postmaster-general): "It often happened to me that
I was not as certain as he was of distances and of many details in my
administration on which he was able to set me straight."--On returning
from the camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who
had got lost, asks what regiment they belong to, calculates the day they
left, the road they took, what distance they should have marched.
and then tells them, "You will find your battalion at such a halting
place."--At this time, "the army numbered 200,000 men."]

[Footnote 1161: Madame de Rémusat, I., 103, 268.]

[Footnote 1162: Thibaudeau, p.25, I (on the Jacobin survivors):
"They are nothing but common artisans, painters, etc., with lively
imaginations, a little better instructed than the people, living amongst
the people and exercising influence over them."--Madame de Rémusat,
I., 271 (on the royalist party): "It is very easy to deceive that party
because its starting-point is not what it is, but what it would like to
have."--I., 337: "The Bourbons will never see anything except through
the Oeil de Boeuf."--Thibaudeau, p.46: "Insurrections and emigrations
are skin diseases; terrorism is an internal malady." Ibid., 75: "What
now keeps the spirit of the army up is the idea soldiers have that they
occupy the places of former nobles."]

[Footnote 1163: Thibaudeau, pp.419 to 452. (Both texts are given
in separate columns.) And passim, for instance, p.84, the following
portrayal of the decadal system of worship under the Republic: "It was
imagined that citizens could be got together in churches, to freeze
with cold and hear, read, and study laws, in which there was already but
little fun for those who executed them." Another example of the way
in which his ideas expressed themselves through imagery (Pelet de la
Lozère, p. 242): "I am not satisfied with the customs regulations on
the Alps. They show no life. We don't hear the rattle of crown pieces
pouring into the public treasury." To appreciate the vividness of
Napoleon's expressions and thought the reader must consult, especially,
the five or six long conversations, noted on the very evening of the day
they occurred by Roederer; the two or three conversations likewise noted
by Miot de Melito; the scenes narrated by Beugnot; the notes of Pelet de
la Lozère and by Stanislas de Girardin, and nearly the entire volume by
Thibaudeau.]

[Footnote 1164: Pelet de la Lozère, 63, 64. (On the physiological
differences between the English and the French.)--Madame de Rémusat, I.,
273, 392: "You, Frenchmen, are not in earnest about anything, except,
perhaps, equality, and even here you would gladly give this up if you
were sure of being the foremost.... The hope of advancement in the world
should be cherished by everybody.... Keep your vanity always alive The
severity of the republican government would have worried you to death.
What started the Revolution? Vanity. What will end it? Vanity, again.
Liberty is merely a pretext."--III., 153 "Liberty is the craving of a
small and privileged class by nature, with faculties superior to the
common run of men; this class, therefore, may be put under
restraint with impunity; equality, on the contrary, catches the
multitude."--Thibaudeau, 99: "What do I care for the opinions and cackle
of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to what rude
peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of
picturesque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of
Leoben? Because I played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His
insight into (dramatic) character is that of the most sagacious critic.
"The 'Mahomet' of Voltaire is neither a prophet nor an Arab, only an
impostor graduated out of the École Polytechnique."--"Madame de Genlis
tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it."--(On Madame
de Staël): "This woman teaches people to think who never took to it, or
have forgotten how."--(On Chateaubriand, one of whose relations had just
been shot): "He will write a few pathetic pages and read them aloud in
the faubourg Saint-Germain; pretty women will shed tears, and that
will console him."--(On Abbé Delille): "He is wit in its dotage."--(On
Pasquier and Molé): "I make the most of one, and made the
other."--Madame de Rémusat, II., 389, 391, 394, 399, 402; III., 67.]

[Footnote 1165: Bourrienne, II., 281, 342: "It pained me to write
official statements under his dictation, of which each was an
imposture." He always answered: "My dear sir, you are a simpleton--you
understand nothing!"--Madame de Rémusat, II., 205, 209.]

[Footnote 1166: See especially the campaign bulletins for 1807, so
insulting to the king and queen of Prussia, but, owing to that fact,
so well calculated to excite the contemptuous laughter and jeers of the
soldiers.]

[Footnote 1167: In "La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in
thirty-two volumes, the letters are arranged under dates.--In his
'"Correspondance avec Eugène, vice-roi d'Italie," they are arranged
under chapters; also with Joseph, King of Naples and afterwards King of
Spain. It is easy to select other chapters not less instructive: one on
foreign affairs (letters to M. de Champagny, M de Talleyrand, and M.
de Bassano); another on the finances (letters to M. Gaudin and to M.
Mollien); another on the navy (letters to Admiral Decrès); another on
military administration (letters to General Clarke); another on the
affairs of the Church (letters to M. Portalis and to M. Bigot de
Préameneu); another on the Police (letters to Fouché), etc.--Finally, by
dividing and distributing his letters according as they relate to this
or that grand enterprise, especially to this or that military campaign,
a third classification could be made.--In this way we can form a concept
of the vastness of his positive knowledge, also of the scope of his
intellect and talents. Cf. especially the following letters to Prince
Eugène, June II, 1806 (on the supplies and expenses of the Italian
army); June 1st and 18th, 1806 (on the occupation of Dalmatia, and on
the military situation, offensive and defensive). To Gen. Dejean, April
28, 1806 (on the war supplies); June 27, 1806 (on the fortifications
of Peschiera) July 20, 1806 (on the fortifications of Wesel and of
Juliers).--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoleon", p. 353 by the Count Chaptal:
"One day, the Emperor said to me that he would like to organize a
military school at Fontainebleau; he then explained to me the principal
features of the establishment, and ordered me to draw up the necessary
articles and bring them to him the next day. I worked all night and they
were ready at the appointed hour. He read them over and pronounced them
correct, but not complete. He bade me take a seat and then dictated to
me for two or three hours a plan which consisted of five hundred and
seventeen articles. Nothing more perfect, in my opinion, ever issued
from a man's brain.--At another time, the Empress Josephine was to
take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Emperor summoned me.
'The Empress,' said he, 'is to leave to-morrow morning. She is a
good-natured, easy-going woman and must have her route and behavior
marked out for her. Write it down.' He then dictated instructions to me
on twenty-one large sheets of paper, in which everything she was to say
and to do was designated, even the questions and replies she was to make
to the authorities on the way."]

[Footnote 1168: One French league equals approximately 4 km. 70,000
square leagues then equal 1,120,000 km.2, or 400,000 square miles or 11%
of the United States but 5 times the size of Great Britain. (SR.)]

[Footnote 1169: Cf. in the "Correspondance" the letters dated at
Schoenbrunn near Vienna, during August and September, 1809, and
especially: the great number of letters and orders relating to the
English expeditions to Walcheren; the letters to chief-judge Régnier and
to the arch-chancellor Cambacérès on expropriations for public benefit
(Aug. 21, Sept. 7 and 29); the letters and orders to M. de Champagny
to treat with Austria (Aug. 19, and Sept. 10, 15, 18, 22, and 23);
the letters to Admirable Decrès, to despatch naval expeditions to the
colonies (Aug.17 and Sept. 26); the letter to Mollien on the budget of
expenditure (Aug. 8); the letter to Clarke on the statement of guns
in store throughout the empire (Sept. 14). Other letters, ordering the
preparation of two treatises on military art (Oct. 1), two works on
the history and encroachments of the Holy See (Oct. 3), prohibiting
conferences at Saint-Sulpice (Sept. 15), and forbidding priests to
preach outside the churches (Sept. 24).--From Schoenbrunn, he watches
the details of public works in France and Italy; for instance, the
letters to M. le Montalivet (Sept.30), to send an auditor post to Parma,
to have a dyke repaired at once, and (Oct. 8) to hasten the building of
several bridges and quays at Lyons.]

[Footnote 1170: He says himself; "I always transpose my theme in many
ways."]

[Footnote 1171: Madame de Rémusat, I., 117, 120. "1 heard M. de
Talleyrand exclaim one day, some what out of humor, 'This devil of a
man misleads you in all directions. Even his passions escape you, for he
finds some way to counterfeit them, although they really exist.'"--For
example, immediately prior to the violent confrontation with Lord
Whitworth, which was to put an end to the treaty of Amiens, he was
chatting and amusing himself with the women and the infant Napoleon, his
nephew, in the gayest and most unconcerned manner: "He is suddenly told
that the company had assembled. His countenance changes like that of
an actor when the scene shifts. He seems to turn pale at will and his
features contract"; he rises, steps up precipitately to the English
ambassador, and fulminates for two hours before two hundred persons.
(Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. XXVI, dispatches of Lord
Whitworth, pp. 1798, 1302, 1310.)--"He often observes that the
politician should calculate every advantage that could be gained by his
defects." One day, after an explosion he says to Abbé de Pradt: "You
thought me angry! you are mistaken. Anger with me never mounts higher
than here (pointing to his neck)."]

[Footnote 1172: Roederer, III. (The first days of Brumaire, year VIII.)]

[Footnote 1173: Bourrienne, III., 114.]

[Footnote 1174: Bourrienne, II., 228. (Conversation with Bourrienne in
the park at Passeriano.)]

[Footnote 1175: Ibid., II., 331. (Written down by Bourrienne the same
evening.)]

[Footnote 1176: Madame de Rémusat, I., 274.--De Ségur, II., 459.
(Napoleon's own words on the eve of the battle of Austerlitz): "Yes, if
I had taken Acre, I would have assumed the turban, I would have put the
army in loose breeches; I would no longer have exposed it, except at the
last extremity; I would have made it my sacred battalion, my immortals.
It is with Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians that I would have ended the war
against the Turks. Instead of one battle in Moravia I would have gained
a battle of Issus; I would have made myself emperor of the East,
and returned to Paris by the way of Constantinople."--De Pradt, p.19
(Napoleon's own words at Mayence, September, 1804): "Since two hundred
years there is nothing more to do in Europe; it is only in the East that
things can be carried out on a grand scale."]

[Footnote 1177: Madame de Rémusat, I., 407.--Miot de Melito, II., 214
(a few weeks after his coronation): "There will be no repose in Europe
until it is under one head, under an Emperor, whose officers would be
kings, who would distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, who would make
one of them King of Italy, another King of Bavaria, here a landmann of
Switzerland, and here a stadtholder of Holland, etc."]

[Footnote 1178: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.," vol. XXX., 550, 558.
(Memoirs dictated by Napoleon at Saint Hélène.)--Miot de Melito, II.,
290.--D'Hausonvillc, "l'Église Romaine et le Premier Empire, passim.--
Mémorial." "Paris would become the capital of the Christian world, and
I would have governed the religious world as well as the political
world."]

[Footnote 1179: De Pradt, 23.]

[Footnote 1180: "Mémoires et Mémorial." "It was essential that Paris
should become the unique capital, not to be compared with other
capitals. The masterpieces of science and of art, the museums, all that
had illustrated past centuries, were to be collected there. Napoleon
regretted that he could not transport St. Peter's to Paris; the meanness
of Notre Dame dissatisfied him."]

[Footnote 1181: Villemain, "Souvenir contemporaines," I., 175.
Napoleon's statement to M. de Narbonne early in March, 1812, and
repeated by him to Villemain an hour afterwards. The wording is at
second hand and merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are
substantially Napoleon's. Cf. his fantasies about Italy and the
Mediterranean, equally exaggerated ("Correspondence," XXX., 548), and an
admirable improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bayonne.--De Pradt.
"Mémoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p.130: "Therefore Napoleon
talked, or rather poetised; he Ossianized for a long time... like a man
full of a sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated, picturesque
style, and with the impetuosity, imagery, and originality which were
familiar to him,... on the vast throne of Mexico and Peru, on the
greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them.. .. and on the
results which these great foundations would have on the universe. I had
often heard him, but under no circumstances had I ever heard him develop
such a wealth and compass of imagination. Whether it was the richness of
his subject, or whether his faculties had become excited by the scene he
conjured up, and all the chords of the instrument vibrated at once, he
was sublime."]

[Footnote 1182: Roederer, III., 541 (February 2, 1809): "I love power.
But I love it as an artist.... I love it as a musician loves his violin,
for the tones, chords, and harmonies he can get out of it."]




CHAPTER II. HIS IDEAS, PASSIONS AND INTELLIGENCE.




I. Intense Passions.

     Personality and character during the Italian Renaissance and
     during the present time.--Intensity of the passions in
     Bonaparte.--His excessive touchiness.--His immediate
     violence.--His impatience, rapidity, and need of talking.
     --His temperament, tension, and faults.

On taking a near view of the contemporaries of Dante and Michael
Angelo, we find that they differ from us more in character than in
intellect.[1201] With us, three hundred years of police and of courts
of justice, of social discipline and peaceful habits, of hereditary
civilization, have diminished the force and violence of the passions
natural to Man. In Italy, in the Renaissance epoch, they were still
intact; human emotions at that time were keener and more profound than
at the present day; the appetites were ardent and more unbridled; man's
will was more impetuous and more tenacious; whatever motive inspired,
whether pride, ambition, jealousy, hatred, love, envy, or sensuality,
the inward spring strained with an energy and relaxed with a violence
that has now disappeared. All these energies reappear in this great
survivor of the fifteenth century; in him the play of the nervous
machine is the same as with his Italian ancestors; never was there, even
with the Malatestas and the Borgias, a more sensitive and more impulsive
intellect, one capable of such electric shocks and explosions, in which
the roar and flashes of tempest lasted longer and of which the effects
were more irresistible. In his mind no idea remains speculative and
pure; none is a simple transcript of the real, or a simple picture
of the possible; each is an internal eruption, which suddenly and
spontaneously spends itself in action; each darts forth to its goal and
would reach it without stopping were it not kept back and restrained
by force[1202] Sometimes, the eruption is so sudden, that the restraint
does not come soon enough. One day, in Egypt,[1203] on entertaining
a number of French ladies at dinner, he has one of them, who was
very pretty and whose husband he had just sent off to France, placed
alongside of him; suddenly, as if accidentally, he overturns a pitcher
of water on her, and, under the pretence of enabling her to rearrange
her wet dress, he leads her into another room where he remains with her
a long time, too long, while the other guests seated at the table wait
quietly and exchange glances. Another day, at Paris, toward the epoch
of the Concordat,[1204] he says to Senator Volney: "France wants a
religion." Volney replies in a frank, sententious way, "France wants the
Bourbons." Whereupon he gives Volney a kick in the stomach and he falls
unconscious; on being moved to a friend's house, he remains there ill in
bed for several days.--No man is more irritable, so soon in a passion;
and all the more because he purposely gives way to his irritation; for,
doing this just at the right moment, and especially before witnesses,
it strikes terror; it enables him to extort concessions and maintain
obedience. His explosions of anger, half-calculated, half-involuntary,
serve him quite as much as they relieve him, in public as well as in
private, with strangers as with intimates, before constituted bodies,
with the Pope, with cardinals, with ambassadors, with Talleyrand, with
Beugnot, with anybody that comes along,[1205] whenever he wishes to set
an example or "keep the people around him on the alert." The public and
the army regard him as impassible; but, apart from the battles in which
he wears a mask of bronze, apart from the official ceremonies in which
he assumes a necessarily dignified air, impression and expression with
him are almost always confounded, the inward overflowing in the outward,
the action, like a blow, getting the better of him. At Saint Cloud,
caught by Josephine in the arms of another woman, he runs after
the unlucky interrupter in such a way that "she barely has time to
escape";[1206] and again, that evening, keeping up his fury so as to
put her down completely, "he treats her in the most outrageous manner,
smashing every piece of furniture that comes in his way." A little
before the Empire, Talleyrand, a great mystifier, tells Berthier that
the First Consul wanted to assume the title of king. Berthier, in eager
haste, crosses the drawing-room full of company, accosts the master of
the house and, with a beaming smile, "congratulates him."[1207] At the
word king, Bonaparte's eyes flash. Grasping Berthier by the throat, he
pushes him back against the wall, exclaiming, "You fool! who told you
to come here and stir up my bile in this way? Another time don't come
on such errands."--Such is the first impulse, the instinctive action,
to pounce on people and seize them by the throat; we divine under each
sentence, and on every page he writes, out-bursts and assaults of this
description, the physiognomy and intonation of a man who rushes forward
and knocks people down. Accordingly, when dictating in his cabinet, "he
strides up and down the room," and, "if excited," which is often the
case, "his language consists of violent imprecations, and even of oaths,
which are suppressed in what is written."[1208] But these are not
always suppressed, for those who have seen the original minutes of his
correspondence on ecclesiastical affairs find dozens of them, the b...,
the p... and the swearwords of the coarsest kind.[1209]

Never was there such impatient touchiness. "When dressing himself,[1210]
he throws on the floor or into the fire any part of his attire which
does not suit him.... On gala-days and on grand ceremonial occasions
his valets are obliged to agree together when they shall seize the
right moment to put some thing on him... He tears off or breaks whatever
causes him the slightest discomfort, while the poor valet who has been
the means of it meets with a violent and positive proof of his anger. No
thought was ever more carried away by its own speed. "His handwriting,
when he tries to write, "is a mass of disconnected and undecipherable
signs;[1211] the words lack one-half of their letters." On reading it
over himself, he cannot tell what it means. At last, he becomes almost
incapable of producing a handwritten letter, while his signature is a
mere scrawl. He accordingly dictates, but so fast that his secretaries
can scarcely keep pace with him: on their first attempt the perspiration
flows freely and they succeed in noting down only the half of what he
says. Bourrienne, de Meneval, and Maret invent a stenography of their
own, for he never repeats any of his phrases; so much the worse for
the pen if it lags behind, and so much the better if a volley of
exclamations or of oaths gives it a chance to catch up.--Never did
speech flow and overflow in such torrents, often without either
discretion or prudence, even when the outburst is neither useful nor
creditable the reason is that both spirit and intellect are charged to
excess subject to this inward pressure the improvisator and polemic,
under full headway,[1212] take the place of the man of business and the
statesman.

"With him," says a good observer,[1213] "talking is a prime necessity,
and, assuredly, among the prerogatives of high rank, he ranks first that
of speaking without interruption."

Even at the Council of State he allows himself to run on, forgetting the
business on hand; he starts off right and left with some digression
or demonstration, some invective or other, for two or three hours at
a stretch,[1214] insisting over and over again, bent on convincing or
prevailing, and ending in demanding of the others if he is not right,
"and, in this case, never failing to find that all have yielded to the
force of his arguments." On reflection, he knows the value of an assent
thus obtained, and, pointing to his chair, he observes:

"It must be admitted that it is easy to be brilliant when one is in that
seat!"

Nevertheless he has enjoyed his intellectual exercise and given way to
his passion, which controls him far more than he controls it.

"My nerves are very irritable," he said of himself, "and when in this
state were my pulse not always regular I should risk going crazy."[1215]

The tension of accumulated impressions is often too great, and it ends
in a physical break-down. Strangely enough in so great a warrior and
with such a statesman, "it is not infrequent, when excited, to see him
shed tears." He who has looked upon thousands of dying men, and who
has had thousands of men slaughtered, "sobs," after Wagram and after
Bautzen,[1216] at the couch of a dying comrade. "I saw him," says his
valet, "weep while eating his breakfast, after coming from Marshal
Lannes's bedside; big tears rolled down his cheeks and fell on his
plate." It is not alone the physical sensation, the sight of a bleeding,
mangled body, which thus moves him acutely and deeply; for a word, a
simple idea, stings and penetrates almost as far. Before the emotion of
Dandolo, who pleads for Venice his country, which is sold to Austria, he
is agitated and his eyes moisten.[1217] Speaking of the capitulation
of Baylen, at a full meeting of the Council of State,[1218] his voice
trembles, and "he gives way to his grief, his eyes even filling with
tears." In 1806, setting out for the army and on taking leave of
Josephine, he has a nervous attack which is so severe as to bring on
vomiting.[1219] "We had to make him sit down," says an eye-witness, "and
swallow some orange water; he shed tears, and this lasted a quarter
of an hour." The same nervous and stomachic crisis came on in 1808, on
deciding on the divorce; he tosses about a whole night, and laments like
a woman; he melts, and embraces Josephine; he is weaker than she is:
"My poor Josephine, I can never leave you!" Folding her in his arms, he
declares that she shall not quit him; he abandons himself wholly to the
sensation of the moment; she must undress at once, sleep alongside of
him, and he weeps over her; "literally," she says, "he soaked the bed
with his tears."--Evidently, in such an organism, however powerful
the superimposed regulator, there is a risk of the equilibrium being
destroyed. He is aware of this, for he knows himself well; he is afraid
of his own nervous sensibility, the same as of an easily frightened
horse; at critical moments, at Berezina, he refuses to receive the bad
news which might excite this, and, on the informer's insisting on it,
he asks him again,[1220] "Why, sir, do you want to disturb
me?"--Nevertheless, in spite of his precautions, he is twice taken
unawares, at times when the peril was alarming and of a new kind; he, so
clear headed and so cool under fire, the boldest of military heroes
and the most audacious of political adventurers, quails twice in a
parliamentary storm and again in a popular crisis. On the 18th of
Brumaire, in the Corps Législatif, "he turned pale, trembled, and seemed
to lose his head at the shouts of outlawry.... they had to drag
him out.... they even thought for a moment that he was going to
faint."[1221] After the abdication at Fontainebleau, on encountering the
rage and imprecations which greeted him in Provence, he seemed for
some days to be morally shattered; the animal instincts assert their
supremacy; he is afraid and makes no attempt at concealment.[1222] After
borrowing the uniform of an Austrian colonel, the helmet of a Prussian
quartermaster, and the cloak of the Russian quartermaster, he still
considers that he is not sufficiently disguised. In the inn at Calade,
"he starts and changes color at the slightest noise"; the commissaries,
who repeatedly enter his room, "find him always in tears." "He wearies
them with his anxieties and irresolution"; he says that the French
government would like to have him assassinated on the road, refuses to
eat for fear of poison, and thinks that he might escape by jumping out
of the window. And yet he gives vent to his feelings and lets his
tongue run on about himself without stopping, concerning his past, his
character, unreservedly, indelicately, trivially; like a cynic and one
who is half-crazy; his ideas run loose and crowd each other like the
anarchical gatherings of a tumultuous mob; he does not recover his
mastery of them until he reaches Fréjus, the end of his journey, where
he feels himself safe and protected from any highway assault; then only
do they return within ordinary limits and fall back in regular line
under the control of the sovereign intellect which, after sinking for
a time, revives and resumes its ascendancy.--There is nothing in him
so extraordinary as this almost perpetual domination of the lucid,
calculating reason; his willpower is still more formidable than his
intelligence; before it can obtain the mastery of others it must be
master at home. To measure its power, it does not suffice to note its
fascinations; to enumerate the millions of souls it captivates, to
estimate the vastness of the obstacles it overcomes: we must again, and
especially, represent to ourselves the energy and depth of the passions
it keeps in check and urges on like a team of prancing, rearing
horses--it is the driver who, bracing his arms, constantly restrains the
almost ungovernable steeds, who controls their excitement, who regulates
their bounds, who takes advantage even of their viciousness to guide his
noisy vehicle over precipices as it rushes on with thundering speed.
If the pure ideas of the reasoning brain thus maintain their daily
supremacy it is due to the vital flow which nourishes them; their roots
are deep in his heart and temperament, and those roots which give them
their vigorous sap constitute a primordial instinct more powerful than
intellect, more powerful even than his will, the instinct which leads
him to center everything on himself, in other words egoism.[1223]




II. Will and Egoism.

     Bonaparte's dominant passion.--His lucid, calculating mind.
     --Source and power of the Will.--Early evidences of an
     active, absorbing egoism.--His education derived from the
     lessons of things.--In Corsica.--In France during the
     Revolution.--In Italy.--In Egypt.--His idea of Society and
     of Right.--Maturing after the 18th of Brumaire.--His idea of
     Man.--It conforms to his character

It is egoism, not a passive, but an active and intrusive egoism,
proportional to the energy and extension of his faculties developed
by his education and circumstances, exaggerated by his success and
his omnipotence to such a degree that a monstrous colossal I has been
erected in society. It expands unceasingly the circle of a tenacious and
rapacious grasp, which regards all resistance as offensive, which all
independence annoys, and which, on the boundless domain it assigns to
itself, is intolerant of anybody that does not become either an appendix
or a tool.--The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent
in the youth and even in the infant.

"Character: dominating, imperious, and stubborn,"

says the record at Brienne.[1224] And the notes of the Military Academy
add;[1225]

"Extremely inclined to egoism,"--"proud, ambitious, aspiring in all
directions, fond of solitude,"

undoubtedly because he is not master in a group of equals and is ill at
ease when he cannot rule.

"I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date.[1226]--"I had
selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used to go and sit
down and indulge my fancies. When my comrades were disposed to drive me
out of this corner I defended it with all my might. My instinct already
told me that my will should prevail against other wills, and that
whatever pleased me ought to belong to me."

Referring to his early years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he
depicts himself as a little mischievous savage, rebelling against
every sort of restraint, and without any conscience.[1227] "I respected
nothing and feared nobody; I beat one and scratched another; I made
everybody afraid of me. I beat my brother Joseph; I bit him and
complained of him almost before he knew what he was about." A clever
trick, and one which he was not slow to repeat. His talent for
improvising useful falsehoods is innate; later on, at maturity, he
is proud of this; he makes it the index and measure of "political
superiority," and "delights in calling to mind one of his uncles who,
in his infancy, prognosticated to him that he would govern the world
because he was fond of lying."[1228]

Remark this observation of the uncles--it sums up the experiences of a
man of his time and of his country; it is what social life in Corsica
inculcated; morals and manners there adapted themselves to each other
through an unfailing connection. The moral law, indeed, is such because
similar customs prevail in all countries and at all times where the
police is powerless, where justice cannot be obtained, where public
interests are in the hands of whoever can lay hold of them, where
private warfare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man goes
armed, where every sort of weapon is fair, and where dissimulation,
fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard, are allowed, which
was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth century, as in Italy in the
fifteenth century.--Hence the early impressions of Bonaparte similar to
those of the Borgias and of Macchiavelli; hence, in his case, that first
stratum of half-thought which, later on, serves as the basis of complete
thought; hence, the whole foundation of his future mental edifice and of
the conceptions he subsequently entertains of human society. Afterwards,
on leaving the French schools and every time he returns to them and
spends any time in them, the same impressions, often renewed, intensify
in his mind the same final conclusion. In this country, report the
French commissioners,[1229] "the people have no idea of principle in the
abstract," nor of social interest or justice. "Justice does not exist;
one hundred and thirty assassinations have occurred in ten years....
The institution of juries has deprived the country of all the means for
punishing crime; never do the strongest proofs, the clearest evidence,
lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or of the same family
as the accused, to convict him; and, if the accused is of the opposite
party, the juries likewise acquit him, so as not to incur the risk of
revenge, slow perhaps but always sure."--"Public spirit is unknown."
There is no social body, except any number of small parties hostile to
each other.... One is not a Corsican without belonging to some family,
and consequently attached to some party; he who would serve none, would
be detested by all.... All the leaders have the same end in view, that
of getting money no matter by what means, and their first care is to
surround themselves with creatures entirely devoted to them and to whom
they give all the offices.... The elections are held under arms, and
all with violence.... The victorious party uses its authority to avenge
itself on their opponents, and multiplies vexations and outrages... .
The leaders form aristocratic leagues with each other.... and mutually
tolerate abuses. They impose no assessment or collection (of taxes) to
curry favor with electors through party spirit and relationships....
Customs-duties serve simply to compensate friends and relatives....
Salaries never reach those for whom they are intended. The rural
districts are uninhabitable for lack of security. The peasants carry
guns even when at the plow. One cannot take a step without an escort; a
detachment of five or six men is often sent to carry a letter from one
post-office to another."

Interpret this general statement by the thousands of facts of which it
is the summary; imagine these little daily occurrences narrated with all
their material accompaniments, and with sympathetic or angry comments
by interested neighbors, and we have the moral lessons taught to young
Bonaparte.[1230] At table, the child has listened to the conversation of
his elders, and at a word uttered, for instance, by his uncle, or at
a physiognomic expression, a sign of approbation, a shrug of the
shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of society is not that
of peace but of war; he sees by what ruses one maintains one's-self,
by what acts of violence one makes ones way, by what sort of help one
mounts upward. Left to himself the rest of the day, to the nurse Ilaria,
or to Saveria the housekeeper, or to the common people amongst whom
he strays at will, he listens to the conversation of sailors or of
shepherds assembled on the public square, and their simple exclamations,
their frank admiration of well-planned ambuscades and lucky surprises,
impress more profoundly on him, often repeated with so much energy,
the lessons which he has already learned at home. These are the lessons
taught by things. At this tender age they sink deep, especially when
the disposition is favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions
them beforehand, because education finds its confederate in instinct.
Accordingly, at the outbreak of the Revolution, on revisiting Corsica,
he takes life at once as he finds it there, a combat with any sort of
weapon, and, on this small arena, he acts unscrupulously, going farther
than anybody.[1231] If he respects justice and law, it is only in
words, and even here ironically; in his eyes, law is a term of the code,
justice a book term, while might makes right.

A second blow of the coining-press gives another impression of the same
stamp on this character already so decided, while French anarchy forces
maxims into the mind of the young man, already traced in the child's
mind by Corsican anarchy; the lessons of things provided by a society
going to pieces are the same as those of a society which is not yet
formed.--His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through the
flourish of theory and the parade of phrases; they detect the real
foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty of unbridled
passions and the conquest of the majority by the minority; conquering or
conquered, a choice must be made between these two extreme conditions;
there is no middle course. After the 9th of Thermidor, the last
veils are torn away, and the instincts of license and domination, the
ambitions of individuals, fully display themselves. There is no concern
for public interests or for the rights of the people; it is clear that
the rulers form a band, that France is their prey, and that they intend
to hold on to it for and against everybody, by every possible means,
including bayonets. Under this civil régime, a clean sweep of the broom
at the center makes it necessary to be on the side of numbers.--In the
armies, especially in the army of Italy, republican faith and patriotic
abnegation, since the territory became free, have given way to natural
appetites and military passions.[1232] Barefoot, in rags, with four
ounces of bread a day, paid in assignats which are not accepted in the
markets, both officers and men desire above all things to be relieved
of their misery; "the poor fellows, after three years of longing on
the summits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to enjoy
it."[1233] Another spur consists in the pride which is stimulated by
the imagination and by success; add to this the necessity for finding
an outlet for their energy, the steam and high pressure of youth; nearly
all are very young men, who regard life, in Gallic or French fashion, as
a party of pleasure and as a duel. But to feel brave and to prove that
one is so, to face bullets for amusement and defiantly, to abandon a
successful adventure for a battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy
ones-self and take risks to excess, without dissimulating, and with
no other object than the sensation of the moment,[1234] to revel in
excitement through emulation and danger, is no longer self-devotion,
but giving one's-self up to one's fancies; and, for all who are not
harebrained, to give one's-self up to one's fancies means to make one's
way, obtain promotion, pillage so as to become rich, like Massena,
and conquer so as to become powerful, like Bonaparte.--All this is
understood between the general and his army from the very first,[1235]
and, after one year's experience, the understanding is perfect. One
moral is derived from their common acts, vague in the army, precise in
the general; what the army only half sees, he sees clearly; if he urges
his comrades on, it is because they follow their own inclination. He
simply has a start on them, and is quicker to make up his mind that the
world is a grand banquet, free to the first-comer, but at which, to be
well served, one must have long arms, be the first to get helped, and
let the rest take what is left.

So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to men who are
not his intimates; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Melzi a foreigner:

"Do you suppose, says he to them,[1236] after the preliminaries of
Leoben, "that to make great men out of Directory lawyers, the Carnots'
and the Barras, I triumph in Italy? Do you suppose also that it is for
the establishment of a republic? What an idea! A republic of thirty
million men! With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is
a delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will vanish
along with so many others. What they want is glory, the gratification of
vanity--they know nothing about liberty. Look at the army! Our successes
just obtained, our triumphs have already brought out the true character
of the French soldier. I am all for him. Let the Directory deprive me of
the command and it will see if it is master. The nation needs a chief,
one who is famous though his exploits, and not theories of government,
phrases and speeches by ideologists, which Frenchmen do not
comprehend.... As to your country, Monsieur de Melzi, it has still
fewer elements of republicanism than France, and much less ceremony is
essential with it than with any other... In other respects, I have
no idea of coming to terms so promptly with Austria. It is not for my
interest to make peace. You see what I am, what I can do in Italy. If
peace is brought about, if I am no longer at the head of this army which
has become attached to me, I must give up this power, this high position
I have reached, and go and pay court to lawyers in the Luxembourg. I
should not like to quit Italy for France except to play a part there
similar to that which I play here, and the time for that has not yet
come--the pear is not ripe."

To wait until the pear is ripe, but not to allow anybody else to gather
it, is the true motive of his political fealty and of his Jacobin
proclamations: "A party in favor of the Bourbons is raising its head;
I have no desire to help it along. One of these days I shall weaken the
republican party, but I shall do it for my own advantage and not for
that of the old dynasty. Meanwhile, it is necessary to march with the
Republicans," along with the worst, and' the scoundrels about to purge
the Five Hundred, the Ancients, and the Directory itself, and then
re-establish in France the Reign of Terror.--In effect, he contributes
to the 18th of Fructidor, and, the blow struck, he explains very clearly
why he took part in it:

"Do not believe[1237] I did it in conformity with the ideas entertained
by those with whom I acted. I did--not want a return of the Bourbons,
and especially if brought back by Moreau's army and by Pichegru...
Finally, I will not take the part of Monk, I will not play it, and I
will not have others play it.... As for myself, my dear Miot, I declare
to you that I can no longer obey; I have tasted command and I cannot
give it up. My mind is made up. If I cannot be master I will leave
France."

There is no middle course for him between the two alter natives. On
returning to Paris he thinks of "overthrowing the Directory,[1238]
dissolving the councils and of making himself dictator"; but, having
satisfied himself that there was but little chance of succeeding, "he
postpones his design" and falls back on the second course. "This is the
only motive of his expedition into Egypt."[1239]--That, in the actual
condition of France and of Europe, the expedition is opposed to public
interests, that France deprives itself of its best army and offers
its best fleet to almost certain destruction, is of little consequence
provided, in this vast and gratuitous adventure, Bonaparte finds the
employment he wants, a large field of action and famous victories which,
like the blasts of a trumpet, will swell beyond the seas and renew his
prestige: in his eyes, the fleet, the army, France, and humanity exist
only for him and are created only for his service.--If, in confirmation
of this persuasion, another lesson in things is still necessary, it will
be furnished by Egypt. Here, absolute sovereign, free of any restraint,
contending with an inferior order of humanity, he acts the sultan and
accustoms himself to playing the part.[1240] His last scruples towards
the human species disappear; "I became disgusted with Rousseau"; he
is to say, later on, "After seeing the Orient: the savage man is a
dog,"[1241] and, in the civilized man, the savage is just beneath the
skin; if the intellect has become somewhat polished, there is no change
in his instincts. A master is as necessary to one as to the other--a
magician who subjugates his imagination, disciplines him, keeps him from
biting without occasion, ties him up, cares for him, and takes him out
hunting. He is born to obey, does not deserve any better lot, and has no
other right.

Become consul and afterward emperor, he applies the theory on a grand
scale, and, in his hands, experience daily furnishes fresh verifications
of the theory. At his first nod the French prostrate themselves
obediently, and there remain, as in a natural position; the lower class,
the peasants and the soldiers, with animal fidelity, and the
upper class, the dignitaries and the functionaries, with Byzantine
servility.--The republicans, on their side, make no resistance; on
the contrary, among these he has found his best governing
instruments--senators, deputies, state councilors, judges, and
administrators of every grade.[1242] He has at once detected behind
their sermonizing on liberty and equality, their despotic instincts,
their craving for command, for leadership, even as subordinates; and,
in addition to this, with most of them, the appetite for money or for
sensual pleasures. The difference between the delegate of the Committee
of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, or subprefect under the
Empire is small; it is the same person in two costumes: at first in the
carmagnole, and later in the embroidered coat. If a rude, poor puritan,
like Cambon or Baudot, refuses to don the official uniform, if two
or three Jacobin generals, like Lecourbe and Delmas, grumble at the
coronation parade, Napoleon, who knows their mental grasp, regards them
as ignoramuses, limited to and rigid inside a fixed idea.--As to the
cultivated and intelligent liberals of 1789, he consigns them with a
word to the place where they belong; they are "ideologists"; in other
words, their pretended knowledge is mere drawing-room prejudice and the
imagination of the study. "Lafayette is a political ninny," the eternal
"dupe of men and of things."[1243] With Lafayette and some others, one
embarrassing detail remains namely:

* impartiality and generosity,

* constant care for the common good,

* respect for others,

* the authority of conscience,

* loyalty,

* and good faith.

In short, noble and pure motives.

Napoleon does not accept the denial thus given to his theory; when
he talks with people, he questions their moral nobleness. "General
Dumas,"[1244] said he, abruptly, to Mathieu Dumas, "you were one of the
imbeciles who believed in liberty?" "Yes, sire, and I was and am still
one of that class." "And you, like the rest, took part in the Revolution
through ambition?" "No, sire, I should have calculated badly, for I am
now precisely where I stood in 1790."

"You were not sufficiently aware of the motives which prompted you; you
cannot be different from other people; it is all personal interest. Now,
take Massena. He has glory and honors enough; but he is not content.
He wants to be a prince, like Murat and like Bernadotte. He would
risk being shot to-morrow to be a prince. That is the incentive of
Frenchmen."--

His system is based on this. The most competent witnesses, and those who
were most familiar with him certify to his fixed idea on this point.

"His opinions on men," writes M. de Metternich,[1245] "centered on one
idea, which, unfortunately for him, had acquired in his mind the force
of an axiom; he was persuaded that no man who was induced to appear on
the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the active pursuits
of life, governed himself, or was governed, otherwise than by his
interest."

According to him, Man is held through his egoistic passions, fear,
cupidity, sensuality, self-esteem, and emulation; these are the
mainsprings when he is not under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover,
it is not difficult to turn the brain of man; for he is imaginative,
credulous, and subject to being carried away; stimulate his pride or
vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion of himself and
of his fellow-men, and you can start him off head downward wherever you
please.[1246]--None of these motives is entitled to much respect,
and beings thus fashioned form the natural material for an absolute
government, the mass of clay awaiting the potter's hand to shape it. If
parts of this mass are obdurate, the potter has only to crush and pound
them and mix them thoroughly.

Such is the final conception on which Napoleon has anchored himself,
and into which he sinks deeper and deeper, no matter how directly
and violently he may be contradicted by palpable facts. Nothing will
dislodge him; neither the stubborn energy of the English, nor the
inflexible gentleness of the Pope, nor the declared insurrection of the
Spaniards, nor the mute insurrection of the Germans, nor the resistance
of Catholic consciences, nor the gradual disaffection of the French; the
reason is, that his conception is imposed on him by his character;[1247]
he sees man as he needs to see him.




III. Napoleon's Dominant Passion: Power.

     His mastery of the will of others.--Degree of submission
     required by him.--His mode of appreciating others and of
     profiting by them.--Tone of command and of conversation.

We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss into which
instinct, education, reflection, and theory have plunged him, and which
is to engulf the proud edifice of his fortune--I mean, his ambition. It
is the prime motor of his soul and the permanent substance of his will,
so profound that he no longer distinguishes between it and himself, and
of which he is sometimes unconscious.

"I," said he to Roederer,[1248] "I have no ambition," and then,
recollecting himself, he adds, with his ordinary lucidity, "or, if I
have any, it is so natural to me, so innate, so intimately associated
with my existence, that it is like the blood which flows in my veins and
the atmosphere I breathe."--

Still more profoundly, he likens it to that unconscious, savage, and
irresistible emotion which vibrates the soul from one end to the other,
to this universal thrill moving all living beings, animal or moral, to
those keen and terrible tremors which we call the passion of love.

"I have but one passion,[1249] one mistress, and that is France. I sleep
with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes her blood and
treasures on me. If I need 500,000 men, she gives them to me."

Let no one come between him and her. Let Joseph, in relation to
the coronation, abstain from claiming his place, even secondary and
prospective, in the new empire; let him not put forth his fraternal
rights.[1250] "It is to wound me in the most tender spot." This he does,
and, "Nothing can efface that from my souvenirs. It is as if he had told
an impassioned lover that he had slept with his mistress, or merely that
he hoped to succeed with her. My mistress is power. I have worked too
hard to obtain her, to let her be ravished from me, or even suffer
anybody to covet her." This ambition, as avid as it is jealous, which
becomes exasperated at the very idea of a rival, feels hampered by the
mere idea of setting a limit to it; however vast the acquired power,
he would like to have it still more vast; on quitting the most copious
banquet, he still remains insatiate. On the day after the coronation he
said to Decrés:[1251]

"I come too late, there is no longer anything great to accomplish.
I admit that my career is brilliant and that I have made my way
successfully. But what a difference alongside of antiquity! Take
Alexander! After having conquered Asia, and proclaimed himself to the
people as the son of Jupiter, with the exception of Olympias, who knew
what all this meant, and Aristotle, and a few Athenian pedants, the
entire Orient believed him. Very well, should I now declare that I was
the son of God Almighty, and proclaim that I am going to worship him
under this title, every market woman would hoot at me as I walked along
the streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to do."

And yet, even on this secluded, elevated domain, and which twenty
centuries of civilization keeps inaccessible, he still encroaches, and
to the utmost, in a roundabout way, by laying his hand on the Church,
and next on the Pope; here, as elsewhere, he takes all he can get.
Nothing in his eyes, is more natural; he has a right to it, because he
is the only capable one.

"My Italian people[1252] must know me well enough not to forget
that there is more in my little finger than in all their brains put
together."

Alongside of him, they are children, "minors," the French also, and
likewise the rest of mankind. A diplomat, who often saw him and studied
him under all as aspects, sums up his character in one conclusive
phrase:

"He considered himself an isolated being in this world, made to govern
and direct all minds as he pleased."[1253]

Hence, whoever has anything to do with him, must abandon his
independence and become his tool of government.

"That terrible man," often exclaimed Decrés[1254] "has subjugated us
all! He holds all our imaginations in his hands, now of steel and now
of velvet, but whether one or the other during the day nobody knows, and
there is no way to escape from them whatever they seize on they never
let go!"

Independence of any kind, even eventual and merely possible, puts him in
a bad mood; intellectual or moral superiority is of this order, and he
gradually gets rid of it;[1255] toward the end he no longer tolerates
alongside of him any but subject or captive spirits. His principal
servants are machines or fanatics, a devout worshipper, like Maret, a
gendarme, like Savary,[1256] ready to do his bidding. From the outset,
he has reduced his ministers to the condition of clerks; for he is
administrator as well as ruler, and in each department he watches
details as closely as the entire mass. Accordingly, he requires simply
for head of departments active pen pushers, mute executors, docile and
special hands, no need for honest and independent advisers.

"I should not know what to do with them," he said, "if they were not to
a certain extent mediocre in mind and character."

As to his generals, he admits himself that "he likes to award fame only
to those who cannot stand it." In any event, "he must be sole master in
making or unmaking reputations," according to his personal requirements.
Too brilliant a soldier would become too important; a subordinate should
never be tempted to be less submissive. To this end he studies what he
will omit in his bulletins, what alterations and what changes shall be
made in them.

"It is convenient to keep silent about certain victories, or to convert
the defeat of this or that marshal into a success. Sometimes a general
learns by a bulletin of an action that he was never in and of a speech
that he never made."

If he complains, he is notified to keep still, or by way of recompense
he is allowed to pillage, levy contributions, and enrich himself. On
becoming duke or hereditary prince, with half a million or a million
of revenue from his estate, he is not less held in subjection, for the
creator has taken precautions against his own creations.

"There are men,"[1257] he said, "who I have made independent, but I know
well where to find them and keep them from being ungrateful."

In effect, if he has endowed them magnificently it is with domains
assigned to them in conquered countries, which insures their fortune
being his fortune. Besides, in order that they may not enjoy any
pecuniary stability, he expressly encourages them and all his grand
dignitaries to make extravagant outlays; thus, through their financial
embarrassments be holds them in a leash. "We have seen most of his
marshals, constantly pressed by their creditors, come to him for
assistance, which he has given as he fancied, or as he found it for his
interest to attach some one to him."[1258]

Thus, beyond the universal ascendancy which his power and genius have
conferred on him, he craves a personal, supplementary, and irresistible
hold on everybody. Consequently,[1259] "he carefully cultivates all the
bad passions.... he is glad to find the bad side in a man, so as to get
him in his power"; the thirst for money in Savary, the Jacobin defects
of Fouché, the vanity and sensuality of Cambacérès, the careless
cynicism and "the easy immorality" of Talleyrand, the "dry bluntness"
of Duroc, the courtier-like insipidity of Maret, "the silliness" of
Berthier; he brings this out, diverts himself with it, and profits by
it. "Where he sees no vice, he encourages weaknesses, and, in default
of anything better, he provokes fear, so that he may be ever and
continually the strongest.. ..He dreads ties of affection, and strives
to alienate people from each other.... He sells his favors only by
arousing anxiety; he thinks that the best way to attach individuals
to him is to compromise them, and often, even, to ruin them in public
opinion."--"If Caulaincourt is compromised," said he, after the murder
of the Duc d'Enghien, "it is no great matter, he will serve me all the
better."

Once that the creature is in his clutches, let him not imagine that
he can escape or withhold anything of his own accord; all that he has
belongs to him. Zeal and success in the performance of duty, punctual
obedience within limits previously designated, is not enough; behind the
functionary he claims the man. "All that may well be," he replies, to
whatever may be said in praise of him,[1260] "but he does not belong to
me as I would like." It is devotion which he exacts, and, by devotion,
he means the irrevocable and complete surrender "of the entire person,
in all his sentiments and opinions." According to him, writes a witness,
"one must abandon every old habit, even the most trifling, and be
governed by one thought alone, that of his will and interests."[1261]
For greater security, his servitors ought to extinguish in themselves
the critical sense. "What he fears the most is that, close to him or far
off, the faculty of judging should be applied or even preserved."

"His idea is a marble groove," out of which no mind should
diverge.[1262] Especially as no two minds could think of diverging
at the same time, and on the same side, their concurrence, even when
passive, their common understanding, even if kept to themselves, their
whispers, almost inaudible, constitute a league, a faction, and, if they
are functionaries, "a conspiracy." On his return from Spain he declares,
with a terrible explosion of wrath and threats,[1263] "that the
ministers and high dignitaries whom he has created must stop expressing
their opinions and thoughts freely, that they cannot be otherwise than
his organs, that treason has already begun when they begin to doubt,
and that it is under full headway when, from doubt, they proceed
to dissent." If, against his constant encroachments, they strive to
preserve a last refuge, if they refuse to abandon their conscience
to him, their faith as Catholics or their honor as honest men, he is
surprised and gets irritated. In reply to the Bishop of Ghent, who, in
the most respectful manner, excuses himself for not taking a second
oath that is against his conscience, he rudely turns his back, and
says, "Very well, sir, your conscience is a blockhead!"[1264] Portalis,
director of the publishing office,[1265] having received a papal
brief from his cousin, the Abbé d'Astros, respected a confidential
communication; he simply recommended his cousin to keep this document
secret, and declared that, if it were made public, he would prohibit
its circulation; by way of extra precaution he notified the prefect
of police. But he did not specially denounce his cousin, have the man
arrested and the document seized. On the strength of this, the Emperor,
in full council of state, apostrophizes him to his face, and, "with one
of those looks which go straight through one,"[1266] declares that he
has committed "the vilest of perfidies"; he bestows on him for half an
hour a hailstorm of reproaches and insults, and then orders him out of
the room as if a lackey who had been guilty of a theft. Whether he
keeps within his function or not, the functionary must be content to do
whatever is demanded of him, and readily anticipate every commission. If
his scruples arrest him, if he alleges personal obligations, if he had
rather not fail in delicacy, or even in common loyalty, he incurs the
risk of offending or losing the favor of the master, which is the case
with M. de Rémusat,[1267] who is unwilling to become his spy, reporter,
and denunciator for the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who does not offer, at
Vienna, to pump out of Madame d'André the address of her husband so
that M. d'André may be taken and immediately shot. Savary, who was
the negotiator for his being given up, kept constantly telling M. de
Rémusat, "You are going against your interest--I must say that I do
not comprehend you!" And yet Savary, himself minister of the police,
executor of most important services, head manager of the murder of the
Duc d'Enghien and of the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian
bank-notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for that
of 1812,[1268] Savary ends in getting weary; he is charged with too many
dirty jobs; however hardened his conscience it has a tender spot; he
discovers at last that he has scruples. It is with great repugnance
that, in February, 1814, he executes the order to have a small infernal
machine prepared, moving by clock-work, so as to blow up the Bourbons on
their return into France.[1269] "Ah," said he, giving himself a blow on
the forehead, "it must be admitted that the Emperor is sometimes hard to
serve!"

If he exacts so much from the human creature, it is because, in playing
the game he has to play, he must absorb everything; in the situation in
which he has placed himself, caution is unnecessary. "Is a statesman,"
said he, "made to have feeling? Is he not wholly an eccentric
personage, always alone by himself, he on one side and the world on the
other?"[1270]

In this duel without truce or mercy, people interest him only whilst
they are useful to him; their value depends on what he can make out of
them; his sole business is to squeeze them, to extract to the last drop
whatever is available in them.

"I find very little satisfaction in useless sentiments," said he
again,[1271] "and Berthier is so mediocre that I do not know why I waste
my time on him. And yet when I am not set against him, I am not sure
that I do not like him."

He goes no further. According to him, this indifference is necessary in
a statesman. The glass he looks through is that of his own
policy;[1272] he must take care that it does not magnify or diminish
objects.--Therefore, outside of explosions of nervous sensibility,
"he has no consideration for men other than that of a foreman for his
workmen,"[1273] or, more precisely, for his tools; once the tool is worn
out, little does he care whether it rusts away in a corner or is cast
aside on a heap of scrap-iron. "Portalis, Minister of Justice,[1274]
enters his room one day with a downcast look and his eyes filled with
tears. 'What's the matter with you, Portalis?' inquired Napoleon, 'are
you ill? 'No, sire, but very wretched. The poor Archbishop of Tours, my
old schoolmate...' 'Eh, well, what has happened to him?' 'Alas, sire, he
has just died.' 'What do I care? he was no longer good for anything.'"
Owning and making the most of men and of things, of bodies and of souls,
using and abusing them at discretion, even to exhaustion, without being
responsible to any one, he reaches that point after a few years where he
can say as glibly and more despotically than Louis XIV. himself,

"My armies, my fleets, my cardinals, my councils, my senate, my
populations, my empire."[1275]

Addressing army corps about to rush into battle:

"Soldiers, I need your lives, and you owe them to me."

He says to General Dorsenne and to the grenadiers of the guard:[1276]

"I hear that you complain that you want to return to Paris, to your
mistresses. Undeceive yourselves. I shall keep you under arms until you
are eighty. You were born to the bivouac, and you shall die there."

How he treats his brothers and relations who have become kings; how he
reins them in; how he applies the spur and the whip and makes them trot
and jump fences and ditches, may be found in his correspondence; every
stray impulse to take the lead, even when justified by an unforeseen
urgency and with the most evident good intention, is suppressed as a
deviation, is arrested with a brusque roughness which strains the loins
and weakens the knees of the delinquent. The amiable Prince Eugene, so
obedient and so loyal,[1277] is thus warned:

"If you want orders or advice from His Majesty in the alteration of
the ceiling of your room you should wait till you get them; were Milan
burning and you asked orders for putting out the fire, you should let
Milan burn until you got them... His Majesty is displeased, and very
much displeased, with you; you must never attempt to do his work. Never
does he like this, and he will never forgive it."

This enables us to judge of his tone with subalterns. The French
battalions are refused admission into certain places in Holland:[1278]

"Announce to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on
their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all their heads
cut off."

He says to M. de Ségur, member of the Academy commission which had just
approved M. de Chateaubriand's discourse:[1279]

"You, and M. de Fontaines, as state councillor and grand master, I ought
to put in Vincennes.... Tell the second class of the Institute that
I will have no political subjects treated at its meetings.....If it
disobeys, I will break it up like a bad club.

Even when not angry or scolding,[1280] when the claws are drawn in,
one feels the clutch. He says to Beugnot, whom he has just berated,
scandalously and unjustly,--conscious of having done him injustice and
with a view to produce an effect on the bystanders,--

"Well, you great imbecile, you have got back your brains?"

On this, Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very low, while the smaller
man, raising his hand, seizes him by the ear, "a heady mark of favor,"
says Beugnot, a sign of familiarity and of returning good humor. And
better yet, the master deigns to lecture Beugnot on his personal tastes,
on his regrets, on his wish to return to France: What would he like? To
be his minister in Paris? "Judging by what he saw of me the other day I
should not be there very long; I might die of worry before the end
of the month." He has already killed Portalis, Cretet, and almost
Treilhard, even though he had led a hard life: he could no longer
urinate, nor the others either. The same thing would have happened to
Beignot, if not worse....

"Stay here.... after which you will be old, or rather we all shall be
old, and I will send you to the Senate to drivel at your ease."

Evidently,[1281] the nearer one is to his person the more disagreeable
life becomes.[1282] "Admirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he
still delights in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the
details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult task been
accomplished? He expresses no thanks, never or scarcely ever praises,
and, which happens but once, in the case of M. de Champagny, Minister of
Foreign Affairs, who is praised for having finished the treaty of Vienna
in one night, and with unexpected advantages;[1283] this time, the
Emperor has thought aloud, is taken by surprise; "ordinarily, he
manifests approbation only by his silence."--When M. de Rémusat, prefect
of the palace, has arranged "one of those magnificent fêtes in which
all the arts minister to his enjoyment," economically, correctly, with
splendor and success, his wife never asks her husband[1284] if the
Emperor is satisfied, but whether he has scolded more or less.

"His leading general principle, which he applies in every way, in great
things as well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends upon his
anxiety."

How insupportable the constraint he exercises, with what crushing weight
his absolutism bears down on the most tried devotion and on the most
pliable characters, with what excess he tramples on and wounds the best
dispositions, up to what point he represses and stifles the respiration
of the human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was heard to say,

"The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the depths of some
province."

And, another day, having asked M. de Ségur what people would say of
him after his death, the latter enlarged on the regrets which would
be universally expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then,
drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of universal
relief, he replied,

"They'll say, 'Whew!'"[1285]




IV. His Bad Manners.

     His bearings in Society.--His deportment toward Women.--His
     disdain of Politeness.

There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persistently, and
from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude. Generally, and
especially in France, the sovereign makes two divisions of his time, one
for business and the other for social duties, and, in the latter case,
while always head of the State, he is also head of his house: for he
welcomes visitors, entertains his guests, and, that his guests may not
be robots, he tries to put them at their ease.--That was the case with
Louis XIV.[1286]--polite to everybody, always affable with men, and
sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some times gallant,
carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and sarcasms, never
allowing himself to use an offensive word, never making people feel
their inferiority and dependence, but, on the contrary, encouraging them
to express opinions, and even to converse, tolerating in conversation
a semblance of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a
story--such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room as well
as every human society needs one, and a liberal one; otherwise life dies
out. Accordingly, the observance of this constitution in by-gone society
is known by the phrase savoir-vivre, and, more rigidly than anybody
else, Louis XIV. submitted himself to this code of proprieties.
Traditionally, and through education, he had consideration for others,
at least for the people around him; his courtiers becoming his guests
without ceasing to be his subjects.

There is nothing of this sort with Napoleon. He preserves nothing of the
etiquette he borrows from the old court but its rigid discipline and
its pompous parade. "The ceremonial system," says an eyewitness, "was
carried out as if it had been regulated by the tap of a drum; everything
was done, in a certain sense, 'double-quick.'[1287]... This air of
precipitation, this constant anxiety which it inspires," puts an end
to all comfort, all ease, all entertainment, all agreeable intercourse;
there is no common bond but that of command and obedience. "The few
individuals he singles out, Savary, Duroc, Maret, keep silent and simply
transmit orders.... We did not appear to them, in doing what we were
ordered to do, and we did not appear to ourselves, other than veritable
machines, all resembling, or but little short of it, the elegant gilded
arm-chairs with which the palaces of Saint-Cloud and the Tuileries had
just been embellished."

For a machine to work well it is important that the machinist should
overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to do, especially
after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way from Tilsit, "everybody
anxiously examines his conscience to ascertain what he has done that
this rigid master will find fault with on his return. Whether spouse,
family, or grand dignitary, each is more or less disturbed; while
the Empress, who knows him better than any one, naively says, 'As
the Emperor is so happy it is certain that he will do a deal of
scolding!'"[1288] Actually, he has scarcely arrived when he gives a rude
and vigorous wrench of the bolt; and then, "satisfied at having excited
terror all around, he appears to have forgotten what has passed and
resumes the usual tenor of his life." "Through calculation as well as
from taste,[1289] he never ceases to be a monarch"; hence, "a mute,
frigid court.... more dismal than dignified; every face wears an
expression of uneasiness... a silence both dull and constrained."
At Fontainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real
enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. "I pity
you," said M. de Talleyrand to M. de Rémusat, "you have to amuse the
unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted or yawns. Applause is
prohibited; the court, sitting out "the file of eternal tragedies,
is mortally bored.... the young ladies fall asleep, people leave the
theatre, gloomy and discontented."--There is the same constraint in the
drawing-room. "He did not know how to appear at ease, and I believe that
he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of the slightest approach
to familiarity, and inspiring each with a fear of saying something
offensive to his neighbor before witnesses.... During the quadrille,
he moves around amongst the rows of ladies, addressing them with
some trifling or disagreeable remark," and never does he accost them
otherwise than "awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts
them and is ill-disposed toward them.[1290] It is because "the
power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolerable
usurpation.--"Never did he utter to a woman a graceful or even a
well-turned compliment, although the effort to find one was often
apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice.... He talks to them
only of their toilet, of which he declares himself a severe and minute
judge, and on which he indulges in not very delicate jests; or again, on
the number of their children, demanding of them in rude language whether
they nurse them themselves; or again, lecturing them on their social
relations."[1291] Hence, "there is not one who does not rejoice when he
moves off."[1292] He would often amuse himself by putting them out of
countenance, scandalizing and bantering them to their faces, driving
them into a corner the same as a colonel worries his canteen women.
"Yes, ladies, you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint-Germain
with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A..., that you are
intimate with Monsieur B..., and you Madame C...., with Monsieur D." On
any intrigue chancing to appear in the police reports, "he loses no time
in informing the husband of what is going on."--He is no less indiscreet
in relation to his own affairs;[1293] when it is over he divulges the
fact and gives the name; furthermore, he informs Josephine in detail
and will not listen to any reproach: "I have a right to answer all your
objections with an eternal I!"

This term, indeed, answers to everything, and he explains it by adding:
"I stand apart from other men. I accept nobody's conditions," nor any
species of obligation, no code whatever, not even the common code
of outward civility, which, diminishing or dissimulating primitive
brutality, allows men to associate together without clashing. He does
not comprehend it, and he repudiates it. "I have little liking,"[1294]
he says, "for that vague, leveling word propriety (convenances), which
you people fling out every chance you get. It is an invention of fools
who want to pass for clever men; a kind of social muzzle which annoys
the strong and is useful only to the mediocre... Ah, good taste! Another
classic expression which I do not accept." "It is your personal enemy";
says Talleyrand to him, one day, "if you could have shot it away with
bullets, it would have disappeared long ago!"--It is because good taste
is the highest attainment of civilization, the innermost vestment
which drapes human nudity, which best fits the person, the last garment
retained after the others have been cast off, and which delicate tissue
continues to hamper Napoleon; he throws it off instinctively, because
it interferes with his natural behavior, with the uncurbed, dominating,
savage ways of the vanquisher who knocks down his adversary and treats
him as he pleases.




V. His Policy.

     His tone and bearing towards Sovereigns.--His Policy.--His
     means and ends.--After Sovereigns he sets populations
     against him.--Final opinion of Europe.

Such behavior render social intercourse impossible, especially among the
independent and armed personages known as nations or States. This is why
they are outlawed in politics and in diplomacy and every head of a State
or representative of a country, carefully and on principle, abstains
from them, at least with those on his own level. He is bound to treat
these as his equals, humor them, and, accordingly, not to give way
to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling; in short, to
exercise self-control and measure his words. To this is due the tone of
manifestos, protocols, dispatches, and other public documents the formal
language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions
purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently
spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft
wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen
the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are
already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable
encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences of which are
too serious; it is unnecessary to add to the wounds of interest the
wounds of imagination and of pride; and above all, it is unnecessary to
amplify these without reason, at the risk of increasing the obstacles of
to-day and the resentments of to-morrow.--With Napoleon it is just the
opposite: his attitude, even at peaceful interviews, remains aggressive
and militant; purposely or in-voluntarily, he raises his hand and the
blow is felt to be coming, while, in the meantime, he insults. In his
correspondence with sovereigns, in his official proclamations, in his
deliberations with ambassadors, and even at public audiences,[1295] he
provokes, threatens, and defies.[1296] He treats his adversary with a
lofty air, insults him often to his face, and charges him with the most
disgraceful imputations.[1297] He divulges the secrets of his private
life, of his closet, and of his bed; he defames or calumniates his
ministers, his court, and his wife;[1298] he purposely stabs him in the
most sensitive part. He tells one that he is a dupe, a betrayed husband;
another that he is an abettor of assassination; he assumes the air of a
judge condemning a criminal, or the tone of a superior reprimanding an
inferior, or, at best, that of a teacher taking a scholar to task. With
a smile of pity, he points out mistakes, weak points, and incapacity,
and shows him beforehand that he must be defeated. On receiving the
envoy of the Emperor Alexander at Wilna,[1299] be says to him:

"Russia does not want this war; none of the European powers are in favor
of it; England herself does not want it, for she foresees the harm it
will do to Russia, and even, perhaps, the greatest... I know as well
as yourself, and perhaps even better, how many troops you have. Your
infantry in all amounts to 120,000 men and your cavalry to about 60,000
or 70,000; I have three times as many.... The Emperor Alexander is badly
advised. How can he tolerate such vile people around him--an Armfeld, an
intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who is known
only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia; a Stein, driven from
his country like an outcast, a miscreant with a price on his head; a
Bennigsen, who, it is said, has some military talent, of which I know
nothing, but whose hands are steeped in blood?[12100].... Let him
surround himself with the Russians and I will say nothing.... Have you
no Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached to
him than these mercenaries? Does he imagine that they are fond of him
personally? Let him put Armfeld in command in Finland and I have nothing
to say; but to have him about his person, for shame!.... What a
superb perspective opened out to the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit, and
especially at Erfurt!.... He has spoilt the finest reign Russia ever
saw.... How can he admit to his society such men as a Stein, an Armfeld,
a Vinzingerode? Say to the Emperor Alexander, that as he gathers around
him my personal enemies it means a desire to insult me personally,
and, consequently, that I must do the same to him. I will drive all his
Baden, Wurtemburg, and Weimar relations out of Germany. Let him provide
a refuge for them in Russia!"

Note what he means by--personal insult[12101], how he intends to avenge
himself by reprisals of the worst kind, to what excess he carries his
interference, how he enters the cabinets of foreign sovereigns, forcibly
entering and breaking, to drive out their councilors and control their
meetings: like the Roman senate with an Antiochus or a Prusias, like an
English Resident with the King of Oude or of Lahore. With others as at
home, he cannot help but act as a master. The aspiration for universal
dominion is in his very nature; it may be modified, kept in check, but
never can it be completely stifled."[12102]

It declares itself on the organization of the Consulate. It explains
why the peace of Amiens could not last; apart from the diplomatic
discussions and behind his alleged grievances, his character, his
exactions, his avowed plans, and the use he intends making of his
forces form the real and true causes of the rupture. In comprehensible
sometimes even in explicit terms, he tells the English: Expel the
Bourbons from your island and close the mouths of your journalists. If
this is against your constitution so much the worse for it, or so much
the worse for you. "There are general principles of international law
to which the (special) laws of states must give way."[12103] Change your
fundamental laws. Suppress the freedom of the press and the right
of asylum on your soil, the same as I have done. "I have a very poor
opinion of a government which is not strong enough to interdict
things objectionable to foreign governments."[12104] As to mine, my
interference with my neighbors, my late acquisitions of territory, that
does not concern you: "I suppose that you want to talk about Piedmont
and Switzerland? These are trifles"[12105] "Europe recognizes that
Holland, Italy, and Switzerland are at the disposition of France.[12106]
On the other hand, Spain submits to me and through her I hold Portugal.
Thus, from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, from Lisbon to Cadiz and Genoa, from
Leghorn to Naples and to Tarentum, I can close every port to you; no
treaty of commerce between us. Any treaty that I might grant to you
would be trifling: for each million of merchandise that you would send
into France a million of French merchandise would be exported;[12107]
in other words, you would be subject to an open or concealed continental
blockade, which would cause you as much distress in peace as if you
were at war." My eyes are nevertheless fixed on Egypt; "six thousand
Frenchmen would now suffice to re-conquer it";[12108] forcibly, or
otherwise, I shall return there; opportunities will not be lacking, and
I shall be on the watch for them; "sooner or later she will belong to
France, either through the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, or through
some arrangement with the Porte."[12109] Evacuate Malta so that the
Mediterranean may become a French lake; I must rule on sea as on land,
and dispose of the Orient as of the Occident. In sum, "with my France,
England must naturally end in becoming simply an appendix: nature has
made her one of our islands, the same as Oleron or Corsica."[12110]
Naturally, with such a perspective before them, the English keep Malta
and recommence the war. He has anticipated such an occurrence, and his
resolution is taken; at a glance, he perceives and measures the
path this will open to him; with his usual clear-sightedness he has
comprehended, and he announces that the English resistance "forces him
to conquer Europe...." [12111]--"The First Consul is only thirty-three
and has thus far destroyed only the second-class governments. Who knows
how much time he will require to again change the face of Europe and
resurrect the Western Roman Empire?"

To subjugate the Continent in order to form a coalition against England,
such, henceforth, are his means, which are as violent as the end in
view, while the means, like the end, are given by his character. Too
imperious and too impatient to wait or to manage others, he is
incapable of yielding to their will except through constraint, and his
collaborators are to him nothing more than subjects under the name
of allies.--Later, at St. Helena, with his indestructible imaginative
energy and power of illusion, he plays on the public with his
humanitarian illusions.[12112] But, as he himself avows, the
accomplishment of his retrospective dream required beforehand the
entire submission of all Europe; a liberal sovereign and pacificator,
"a crowned Washington, yes," he used to say, "but I could not reasonably
attain this point, except through a universal dictatorship, which I
aimed at."[12113] In vain does common sense demonstrate to him that such
an enterprise inevitably rallies the Continent to the side of England,
and that his means divert him from the end. In vain is it repeatedly
represented to him that he needs one sure great ally on the
Continent;[12114] that to obtain this he must conciliate Austria; that
he must not drive her to despair, but rather win her over and compensate
her on the side of the Orient; place her in permanent conflict with
Russia, and attach her to the new French Empire by a community of vital
interests. In vain does he, after Tilsit, make a bargain of this kind
with Russia. This bargain cannot hold, because in this arrangement
Napoleon, as usual with him, always encroaching, threatening, and
attacking, wants to reduce Alexander to the role of a subordinate and
a dupe.[12115] No clear-sighted witness can doubt this. In 1809,
a diplomat writes: "The French system, which is now triumphant, is
directed against the whole body of great states,"[12116] not alone
against England, Prussia, and Austria, but against Russia, against
every power capable of maintaining its independence; for, if she
remains independent, she may become hostile, and as a precautionary step
Napoleon crushes in her a probable enemy.

All the more so because this course once entered upon he cannot stop;
at the same time his character and the situation in which he has
placed himself impels him on while his past hurries him along to his
future.[12117] At the moment of the rupture of the treaty of Amiens he
is already so strong and so aggressive that his neighbors are obliged,
for their own security, to form an alliance with England; this leads him
to break down all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer
Naples, to mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up
Prussia, to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms
for his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia.--At this same
date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the English, which
leads him to close against them all the ports of the Continent, to
organize against them the continental blockade, to proclaim against them
an European crusade, to prevent the neutrality of sovereigns like
the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns like his brother Louis, of doubtful
collaborators or inadequate, like the Braganzas of Portugal and the
Bourbons of Spain, and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the
Pontifical States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the
duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from the
mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and Dantzic, his cordon of
military chiefs, prefects, and custom-houses, a sort of net of which he
draws the meshes tighter and tighter every day, even stifling not alone
his home consumer, but the producer and the merchant.[12118]--And all
this sometimes by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than
his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure,[12119] brusquely
and arbitrarily, in violation of international law, humanity, and
hospitality. It would take volumes to describe his abuses of power, the
tissue of brutalities and knaveries,[12120] the oppression of the ally
and despoiling of the vanquished, the military brigandage exercised over
populations in time of war, and by the systematic exactions practiced on
them in times of peace.[12121]

Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. He has so
deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt their feelings to such
an extent,[12122] he has so trodden them down, ransomed, and forced them
into his service. He has destroyed, apart from French lives, so many
Spanish, Italian, Austrian, Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch
lives, he has slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers
at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxiliaries, that
nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns. Unquestionably,
nobody can live together with such a character; his genius is too vast,
too baneful, and all the more because it is so vast. War will last as
long as he reigns; it is in vain to reduce him, to confine him at home,
to drive him back within the ancient frontiers of France; no barrier
will restrain him; no treaty will bind him; peace with him will never
be other than a truce; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as
soon as he has done this, he will begin again;[12123] he is in his
very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect is made up
definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone shows how unanimous
and profound this conviction was. On the 7th of March the news reached
Vienna that he had escaped from the island of Elba, without its being
yet known where he would land. M. de Metternich[12124] brings the news
to the Emperor of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who says
to him, "Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia and the Emperor of
Russia, and tell them that I am ready to order my army to march at once
for France." At a quarter past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar,
and at half-past eight, with the King of Prussia; both of them reply
instantly in the same manner. "At nine o'clock," says M. de Metternich,
"I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direction countermanding
army orders.... Thus was war declared in less than an hour."




VI. Fundamental Defaults of his System.

     Inward principle of his outward deportment.--He subordinates
     the State to him instead of subordinating himself to the
     State.--Effect of this.--His work merely a life-interest.
     --It is ephemeral.--Injurious.--The number of lives it cost.
     --The mutilation of France.--Vice of construction in his
     European edifice.--Analogous vice in his French edifice.

Other heads of states have similarly passed their lives in doing
violence to mankind; but it was for something that was likely to last,
and for a national interest. What they deemed the public good was not
a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem due to a caprice of the
imagination, to personal passions, to their own peculiar ambition and
pride. Outside of themselves and the coinage of their brain a real and
substantial object of prime importance existed, namely, the State,
the great body of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely
through the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If
they drew blood from the passing generation it was for the benefit of
coming generations, to preserve them from civil war or from foreign
domination.[12125] They have acted generally like able surgeons, if
not through virtue, at least through dynastic sentiment and family
traditions; having practiced from father to son, they had acquired the
professional conscience; their first and only aim was the safety and
health of their patient. It is for this reason that they have not
recklessly undertaken extravagant, bloody, and over-risky operations;
rarely have they given way to temptation through a desire to display
their skill, through the need of dazzling and astonishing the world,
through the novelty, keenness, and success of their saws and scalpels.
They felt that a longer and superior existence to their own was imposed
upon them; they looked beyond them-selves as far as their sight would
reach, and so took measures that the State after them might do without
them, live on intact, remain independent, vigorous, and respected
athwart the vicissitudes of European conflict and the uncertain problems
of coming history. Such, under the ancient régime, was what were called
reasons of state; these had prevailed in the councils of princes for
eight hundred years; along with unavoidable failures and after temporary
deviations, these had become for the time being and remained the
preponderating motive. Undoubtedly they excused or authorized many
breaches of faith, many outrages, and, to come to the word, many crimes;
but, in the political order of things, especially in the management of
external affairs, they furnished a governing and a salutary principle.
Under its constant influence thirty monarchs had labored, and it is thus
that, province after province, they had solidly and enduringly built up
France, by ways and means beyond the reach of individuals but available
to the heads of States.

Now, this principle is lacking with their improvised successor. On the
throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, or emperor, he remains
the military adventurer, and cares only for his own advancement. Owing
to the great defect in the education of both conscience and sentiments,
instead of subordinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State
to him; he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to the
nation which is to survive him. Consequently, he sacrifices the future
to the present, and his work is not to be enduring. After him the
deluge! Little does he care who utters this terrible phrase; and worse
still, he earnestly wishes, from the bottom of his heart that everybody
should utter it.

"My brother," said Joseph, in 1803,[12126] "desires that the necessity
of his existence should be so strongly felt, and the benefit of
this considered so great, that nobody could look beyond it without
shuddering. He knows, and he feels it, that he reigns through this idea
rather than through force or gratitude. If to-morrow, or on any day, it
could be said, 'Here is a tranquil, established order of things, here
is a known successor; Bonaparte might die without fear of change or
disturbance,' my brother would no longer think himself secure.... Such
is the principle which governs him."

In vain do years glide by, never does he think of putting France in
a way to subsist without him; on the contrary, he jeopardizes lasting
acquisitions by exaggerated annexations, and it is evident from the very
first day that the Empire will end with the Emperor. In 1805, the five
per cents being at eighty francs, his Minister of the Finances, Gaudin,
observes to him that this is a reasonable rate.[12127] "No complaint
can now be made, since these funds are an annuity on Your Majesty's
life."--"What do you mean by that?"--"I mean that the Empire has become
so great as to be ungovernable without you."--"If my successor is a fool
so much the worse for him!"--"Yes, but so much the worse for France!"
Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a political summing
up, expresses his general opinion: "It is remarkable that Napoleon,
constantly disturbing and modifying the relations of all Europe, has
not yet taken a single step toward ensuring the maintenance of his
successors."[12128] In 1809, adds the same diplomat:[12129] "His death
will be the signal for a new and frightful upheaval; so many divided
elements all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by
former subjects; new princes will have new crowns to defend. A veritable
civil war will rage for half a century over the vast empire of the
continent the day when the arms of iron which held the reins are
turned into dust." In 1811, "everybody is convinced[12130] that on
the disappearance of Napoleon, the master in whose hands all power is
concentrated, the first inevitable consequence will be a revolution."
At home, in France, at this same date, his own servitors begin to
comprehend that his empire is not merely a life-interest and will not
last after he is gone, but that the Empire is ephemeral and will not
last during his life; for he is constantly raising his edifice higher
and higher, while all that his building gains in elevation
it loses in stability. "The Emperor is crazy," said Decrees to
Marmont,[12131]"completely crazy. He will ruin us all, numerous as we
are, and all will end in some frightful catastrophe." In effect, he is
pushing France on to the abyss, forcibly and by deceiving her, through a
breach of trust which willfully, and by his fault, grows worse and worse
just as his own interests, as he comprehends these, diverge from those
of the public from year to year.

At the treaty of Luneville and before the rupture of the peace of
Amiens,[12132] this variance was already considerable. It becomes
manifest at the treaty of Presbourg and still more evident at the treaty
of Tilsit. It is glaring in 1808, after the deposition of the Spanish
Bourbons; it becomes scandalous and monstrous in 1812, when the war with
Russia took place. Napoleon himself admits that this war is against
the interests of France and yet he undertakes it.[12133] Later, at St.
Helena, he falls into a melting mood over "the French people whom he
loved so dearly."[12134] The truth is, he loves it as a rider loves his
horse; as he makes it rear and prance and show off its paces, when he
flatters and caresses it; it is not for the advantage of the animal but
for his own purposes, on account of its usefulness to him; to be spurred
on until exhausted, to jump ditches growing wider and wider, and leap
fences growing higher and higher; one ditch more, and still another
fence, the last obstacle which seems to be the last, succeeded by
others, while, in any event, the horse remains forcibly and for ever,
what it already is, namely, a beast of burden and broken down.--For, on
this Russian expedition, instead of frightful disasters, let us imagine
a brilliant success, a victory at Smolensk equal to that of Friedland,
a treaty of Moscow more advantageous than that of Tilsit, and the
Czar brought to heel. As a result the Czar is probably strangled or
dethroned, a patriotic insurrection will take place in Russia as in
Spain, two lasting wars, at the two extremities of the Continent,
against religious fanaticism, more irreconcilable than positive
interests, and against a scattered barbarism more indomitable than a
concentrated civilization. At best, a European empire secretly mined
by European resistance; an exterior France forcibly superposed on
the enslaved Continent;[12135] French residents and commanders at
St. Petersburg and Riga as at Dantzic, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Lisbon,
Barcelona, and Trieste. Every able-bodied Frenchman that can be employed
from Cadiz to Moscow in maintaining and administering the conquest. All
the able-bodied youth annually seized by the conscription, and, if
they have escaped this, seized again by decrees.[12136] The entire male
population thus devoted to works of constraint, nothing else in prospect
for either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil
career other than a prolonged guard duty, threatened and threatening,
as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect, sub-prefect, or
commissioner of police, that is to say, as subaltern henchman and bully
restraining subjects and raising contributions, confiscating and burning
merchandise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the
mark.[12137] In 1810, one hundred and sixty thousand of the refractory
were already condemned by name, and, moreover, penalties were imposed
on their families to the amount of one hundred and seventy millions
of francs In 1811 and 1812 the roving columns which tracked fugitives
gathered sixty thousand of them, and drove them along the coast from the
Adour to the Niemen; on reaching the frontier, they were en-rolled in
the grand army; but they desert the very first month, they and their
chained companions, at the rate of four or five thousand a day.[12138]
Should England be conquered, garrisons would have to be maintained
there, and of soldiers equally zealous. Such is the dark future which
this system opens to the French, even with the best of good luck. It
turns out that the luck is bad, and at the end of 1812 the grand army is
freezing in the snow; Napoleon's horse has let him tumble. Fortunately,
the animal has simply foundered; "His Majesty's health was never
better";[12139] nothing has happened to the rider; he gets up on his
legs, and what concerns him at this moment is not the sufferings of his
broken-down steed, but his own mishap; his reputation as a horseman is
compromised; the effect on the public, the hooting of the audience, is
what troubles him, the comedy of a perilous leap, announced with such a
flourish of trumpets and ending in such a disgraceful fall. On reaching
Warsaw[12140] he says to himself, ten times over:

"There is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous."

The following year, at Dresden, he exposes still more foolishly, openly,
and nakedly his master passion, the motives which determine him, the
immensity and ferocity of his pitiless pride.

"What do they want of me?" said he to M. de Metternich.[12141] "Do they
want me to dishonor myself? Never! I can die, but never will I yield an
inch of territory! Your sovereigns, born to the throne, may be beaten
twenty times over and yet return to their capitals: I cannot do this,
because I am a parvenu soldier. My domination will not survive the day
when I shall have ceased to be strong, and, consequently, feared."

In effect, his despotism in France is founded on his European
omnipotence; if he does not remain master of the Continent," he must
settle with the corps législatif.[12142] Rather than descend to an
inferior position, rather than be a constitutional monarch, controlled
by parliamentary chambers, he plays double or quits, and will risk
losing everything.

"I have seen your soldiers," says Metternich to him, "they are children.
When this army of boys is gone, what will you do then?"

At these words, which touch his heart, he grows pale, his features
contract, and his rage overcomes him; like a wounded man who has made a
false step and exposes himself, he says violently to Metternich:

"You are not a soldier You do not know the impulses of a soldier's
breast! I have grown up on the battle-field, and a man like me does not
give a damn for the lives of a million men!"[12143]

His imperial pipe-dreams has devoured many more. Between 1804 and 1815
he has had slaughtered 1,700,000 Frenchmen, born within the boundaries
of ancient France,[12144] to which must be added, probably, 2,000,000
men born outside of these limits, and slain for him, under the title of
allies, or slain by him under the title of enemies. All that the poor,
enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls have gained by entrusting their public
welfare to him is two invasions; all that he bequeaths to them as a
reward for their devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood
and the blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen departments
acquired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, of the left bank of the
Rhine and of Belgium, despoiled of the northeast angle by which it
completed its boundaries, fortified its most vulnerable point, and,
using the words of Vauban, "made its field square," separated from
4,000,000 new Frenchmen which it had assimilated after twenty years of
life in common, and, worse still, thrown back within the frontiers
of 1789, alone, diminished in the midst of its aggrandized neighbors,
suspected by all Europe, and lastingly surrounded by a threatening
circle of distrust and rancor.

Such is the political work of Napoleon, the work of egoism served
by genius. In his European structure as in his French structure this
sovereign egoism has introduced a vice of construction. This fundamental
vice is manifest at the outset in the European edifice, and, at the
expiration of fifteen years, it brings about a sudden downfall: in the
French edifice it is equally serious but not so apparent; only at the
end of half a century, or even a whole century, is it to be made clearly
visible; but its gradual and slow effects will be equally pernicious and
they are no less sure.


*****


[Footnote 1201: See my "Philosophy of Art" for texts and facts, Part
II., ch. VI.--Other analogies, which are too long for development here,
may be found, especially in all that concerns the imagination and
love. "He was disposed to accept the marvelous, presentiments, and even
certain mysterious communications between beings.... I have seen him
excited by the rustling of the wind, speak enthusiastically of the roar
of the sea, and sometimes inclined to believe in nocturnal apparitions;
in short, leaning to certain superstitions." (Madame de Rémusat, I.,
102, and III., 164.)--Meneval (III., 114) notes his "crossing himself
involuntarily on the occurrence of some great danger, on the discovery
of some important fact." During the consulate, in the evening, in a
circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and declaimed tragic "tales,"
Italian fashion, quite worthy of the story-tellers of the XVth and XVIth
centuries. (Bourrienne, VI., 387, gives one of his improvisations.
Cf. Madame de Rémusat, I., 102.)--As to love, his letters to Josephine
during the Italian campaign form one of the best examples of Italian
passion and "in most piquant contrast with the temperate and graceful
elegance of his predecessor M. de Beauharnais." (Madame de Rémusat,
I., 143).--His other amours, simply physical, are too difficult to deal
with; I have gathered some details orally on this subject which are
almost from first hands and perfectly authentic. It is sufficient to
cite one text already published: "According to Josephine, he had no
moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the
other? "--"I am not a man like other men, he said of himself, "and moral
laws and those of propriety do not apply to me." (Madame de Rémusat, I.,
204, 206.)--Note again (II., 350) his proposals to Corvisart.--Such are
everywhere the sentiments, customs, and morality of the great Italian
personages of about the year 1500.]

[Footnote 1202: De Pradt, "Histoire de l'ambassade dans le grand-duché
de Varsovie," p.96. "with the Emperor, desire springs out of his
imagination; his idea becomes passion the moment it comes into his
head."]

[Footnote 1203: Bourrienne, II., 298.--De Ségur, I., 426.]

[Footnote 1204: Bodin, "Recherches sur l'Anjou," II., 325.--"Souvenirs
d'un nonagénaire," by Besnard.--Sainte-Beuve, "Causeries du Lundi,"
article on Volney.--Miot de Melito, I., 297. He wanted to adopt Louis's
son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that this
marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at one time
in relation to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated, "seized
Prince Louis by the waist and pushed him violently out of the room."--"
Mémorial," Oct.10, 1816. Napoleon relates that at the last conference
of Campo-Fermio, to put an end to the resistance of the Austrian
plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain on a stand
near him and dashed it to the floor, exclaiming, "Thus will I shatter
your monarchy before a month is over!" (Bourrienne questions this
story.)]

[Footnote 1205: Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewahlte Schriften," III.,
77 (Public reception of July 22, 1810). Napoleon first speaks to
the Austrian Ambassador and next to the Russian Ambassador with a
constrained air, forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot
persist. "Treating with I do not know what unknown personage, he
interrogated him, reprimanded him, threatened him, and kept him for a
sufficiently long time in a state of painful dismay. Those who stood
near by and who could not help feeling a dismayed, stated later that
there had been nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor had only
sought an opportunity to vent his ill-humor; that he did it purposely
on some poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in
advance any tendency to opposition. Cf. Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 380,
386, 387.--This mixture of anger and calculation likewise explains his
conduct at Sainte Helena with Sir Hudson Lowe, his unbridled diatribes
and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face. (W.
Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena, from the
letters and journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," III., 306.)]

[Footnote 1206: Madame de Rémusat, II., 46.]

[Footnote 1207: "Les Cahiers de Coignat." 191. "At Posen, already, I saw
him mount his horse in such a fury as to land on the other side and then
give his groom a cut of the whip."]

[Footnote 1208: Madame de Rémusat, I., 222.]

[Footnote 1209: Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi
and to the Préfet of Montenotte (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for
this information).--Besides, he is lavish of the same expressions in
conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of
Séez and thus publicly addresses him: "Instead of merging the parties,
you distinguish between constitutionalists and non-constitutionalists.
Miserable fool! You are a poor subject,--hand in your resignation
at once!"--To the grand-vicars he says, "Which of you governs your
bishop--who is at best a fool?"--As M. Legallois is pointed out to
him, who had of late been absent. "Fuck, where were you then?" "With
my family." "With a bishop who is merely a damned fool, why are you so
often away, etc.?" (D'Haussonville,VI., 176, and Roederer, vol. III.)]

[Footnote 1210: Madame de Rémusat--I., 101; II., 338.]

[Footnote 1211: Ibid., I., 224.--M. de Meneval, I., 112, 347; III.,
120: "On account of the extraordinary event of his marriage, he sent a
handwritten letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor of Austria).
It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after a great effort,
he succeeded in penning a letter that was readable."--Meneval,
nevertheless, was obliged "to correct the defective letters without
letting the corrections be too plainly seen."]

[Footnote 1212: For example, at Bayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the
outrageous and never-to-be forgotten scene which, on his return
from Spain, occurred with Talleyrand--("Souvenirs", by PASQUIER
Etienne-Dennis, duc, Chancelier de France. Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.
I., 357);--The gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the
last word of their interview ("Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie,"
I., 230).--Cf. his not less gratuitous and hazardous confidential
communications to Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his five conversations
with Sir Hudson Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major
Gorrequer. (W. Forsyth, I.,147, 161, 200.)]

[Footnote 1213: De Pradt, preface X]

[Footnote 1214: Pelet de la Lozére, p. 7.--Mollien, "Mémoires," II.,
222.--"Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 66, 69.]

[Footnote 1215: "Madame de Rémusat," I., 121: I have it from Corvisart
that the pulsations of his arteries are fewer than is usual with men.
He never experienced what is commonly called giddiness." With him, the
nervous apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incomparable for
receiving, recording, registering, combining, and reflecting, but other
organs suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Ségur, VI., 15 and
16, note of Drs. Yvan and Mestivier, his physicians.) "To preserve
the equilibrium it was necessary with him that the skin should always
fulfill its functions; as soon as the tissues were affected by any moral
or atmospheric cause.... irritation, cough, ischuria." Hence his need of
frequent prolonged and very hot baths. "The spasm was generally shared
by the stomach and the bladder. If in the stomach, he had a nervous
cough which exhausted his moral and physical energies." Such was the
case between the eve of the battle of Moscow and the morning after his
entry into Moscow: "a constant dry cough, difficult and intermittent
breathing; the pulse sluggish, weak, and irregular; the urine thick and
sedimentary, drop by drop and painful; the lower part of the legs and
the feet extremely oedematous." Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, "after
violent convulsions in the stomach," he declared to the Count de Loban,
"that he bore within him the germs of a premature death, and that he
would die of the same disease as his father's." (De Ségur, VI., 82.)
After the victory of Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic,
he is seized with such violent gripings as to make him think he was
poisoned, and he makes a retrograde movement, which causes the loss of
Vandamme's division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. "Souvenirs",
by Pasquier, Etienne-Dennis, duc, chancelier de France. Librarie Plon,
Paris 1893, (narrative of Daru, an eye-witness.)--This susceptibility of
the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in
early youth. "One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as
a punishment, on the sill of the refectory, he is seized with sudden
vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, I., 71.--It is well
known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father Charles
Bonaparte. His grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fesch, his
brother Lucien, and his sister Caroline died of the same, or of an
analogous disease.]

[Footnote 1216: Meneval, I., 269. Constant, "Mémoires," V., 62. De
Ségur, VI., 114, 117.]

[Footnote 1217: Marshal Marmont, "Mémoires," I., 306. Bourrienne, II.,
119: "When off the political field he was sensitive, kind, open to
pity."]

[Footnote 1218: Pelet de la Lozére, p.7. De Champagny, "Souvenirs,"
p.103. At first, the emotion was much stronger. "He had the fatal
news for nearly three hours; he had given vent to his despair alone by
himself. He summoned me.... plaintive cries involuntarily escaped him."]

[Footnote 1219: Madame de Rémusat, I., 121, 342; II., 50; III., 61, 294,
312.]

[Footnote 1220: De Ségur, V., 348.]

[Footnote 1221: Yung, II., 329, 331. (Narrated by Lucien, and report to
Louis XVIII.)]

[Footnote 1222: "Nouvelle relation de l'Itinéraire de Napoléon, de
Fontainebleau à l'Ile de l'Elbe," by Count Waldberg-Truchsees, Prussian
commissioner (1885), pp.22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 37.--The violent
scenes, probably, of the abdication and the attempt at Fontainebleau to
poison himself had already disturbed his balance. On reaching Elba, he
says to the Austrian commissioner, Koller, "As to you, my dear general,
I have let you see my bare rump."--Cf. in "Madame de Rémusat," I., 108,
one of his confessions to Talleyrand: he crudely points out in himself
the distance between natural instinct and studied courage.--Here and
elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian
buffoon; M. de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his reflections
before M. de Pradt, on his return from Russia, in which he appears in
the light of a comedian who, having played badly and failed in his
part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticize the
imperfections of the audience. (De Pradt, p.219.)]

[Footnote 1223: The reader may find his comprehension of the author's
meaning strengthened by the following translation of a passage from his
essay on Jouffroy (Philosophes classiques du XIXth Siécle," 3rd ed.):
"What is a man, master of himself? He is one who, dying with thirst,
refrains from swallowing a cooling draft, merely moistening his lips:
who insulted in public, remains calm in calculating his most appropriate
revenge; who in battle, his nerves excited by a charge, plans a
difficult maneuver, thinks it out, and writes it down with a lead-pencil
while balls are whistling around him, and sends it to his colonels. In
other words, it is a man in whom the deliberate and abstract idea of
the greatest good is stronger than all other ideas and sensations. The
conception of the greatest good once attained, every dislike, every
species of indolence, every fear, every seduction, every agitation, are
found weak. The tendency which arise from the idea of the greatest good
constantly dominates all others and determines all actions." TR.]

[Footnote 1224: Bourrienne, I. 21.]

[Footnote 1225: Yung, 1., 125.]

[Footnote 1226: Madame de Rémusat, I., 267.--Yung, II., 109. On his
return to Corsica he takes upon himself the government of the whole
family. "Nobody could discuss with him, says his brother Lucien; he
took offence at the slightest observation and got in a passion at the
slightest resistance. Joseph (the eldest) dared not even reply to his
brother."]

[Footnote 1227: Mémorial, August 27-31, 1815.]

[Footnote 1228: "Madame de Rémusat," I., 105.--Never was there an abler
and more persevering sophist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order
to make it appear that he was right. Hence his dictations at St.
Helena; his proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence; his
ascendancy in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and
over his adversaries; also his posthumous ascendancy over posterity.
He is as great a lawyer as he is a captain and administrator. The
peculiarity of this disposition is never submitting to truth, but always
to speak or write with reference to an audience, to plead a cause.
Through this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience; on the
other hand, as the author himself forms part of the audience, he ends in
not along leading others into error but likewise himself, which is the
case with Napoleon.]

[Footnote 1229: Yung, II., 111. (Report by Volney, Corsican
commissioner, 1791.--II., 287.) (Mémorial, giving a true account of the
political and military state of Corsica in December, 1790.)--II.,
270. (Dispatch of the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept.
10, 1793.)--Miot de Melito I.,131, and following pages. (He is peace
commissioner in Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)]

[Footnote 1230: Miot de Melito, II., 2. "The partisans of the First
consul's family... regarded me simply as the instrument of their
passions, of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to center all
favors on their protégés."]

[Footnote 1231: Yung., I., 220. (Manifest of October--31, 1789.)--I.,
265. (Loan on the seminary funds obtained by force, June 23, 1790.)--I.,
267, 269. (Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other officers; plan for taking
the citadel of Ajaccio.)--II., 115. (letter to Paoli, February 17,
1792.) "Laws are like the statues of certain divinities--veiled
on certain occasions."--II., 125. (Election of Bonaparte as
lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April 1, 1792.)
The evening before he had Murati, one of the three departmental
commissioners, carried off by an armed band from the house of the
Peraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares, is
brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely
says to him "I wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty; you were not
so with the Peraldi."--His Corsican biographer (Nasica, "Mémoires sur la
jeunesse et l'enfance de Napoléon,") considers this a very praiseworthy
action]

[Footnote 1232: Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont,
I., 180, 196; the Memoirs of Stendhal, on Napoleon; the Report of
d'Antraigues (Yung, III., 170, 171); the "Mercure Britannique" of
Mallet-Dupan, and the first chapter of "La Chartreuse de Parme," by
Stendhal.]

[Footnote 1233: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter of Napoleon
to the Directory, April 26, 1796.)--Proclamation of the same date: "You
have made forced marches barefoot, bivouacked without brandy, and often
without bread."]

[Footnote 1234: Stendhal, "Vie de Napoléon," p. 151. "The commonest
officers were crazy with delight at having white linen and fine new
boots. All were fond of music; many walked a league in the rain to
secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre.... In the sad plight in which the
army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the
knowing officers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to
quit Italy."--"Marmont," I., 296: "We were all of us very young,...
all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic for glory.... This
variety of our occupations and pleasures, this excessive employment
of body and mind gave value to existence, and made time pass with
extraordinary rapidity."]

[Footnote 1235: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. Proclamation of March
27, 1796: "Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed. The government is
vastly indebted to you; it has nothing to give you.... I am going to
lead you to the most fertile plains in the world; rich provinces, large
cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and
wealth."--Proclamation of April 26, 1796:--"Friends, I guarantee that
conquest to you!"--Cf. in Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte
plays the part of tempter in offering Marmont, who refuses, an
opportunity to rob a treasury chest.]

[Footnote 1236: Miot de Melito, I., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of
Montebello.) "Such are substantially the most remarkable expressions in
this long discourse which I have recorded and preserved."]

[Footnote 1237: Miot de Melito, I. 184. (Conversation with Bonaparte,
November 18, 1797, at Turin.) "I remained an hour with the general
tête-à-tête. I shall relate the conversation exactly as it occurred,
according to my notes, made at the time."]

[Footnote 1238: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," III., 156. "It is certain
that he thought of it from this moment and seriously studied the
obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu Dumas cites the
testimony of Desaix, who was engaged in the enterprise): "It seems that
all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor
the means sufficient."--Hence his departure. "He wanted to get out of
the way of the rule and caprices of these contemptible dictators,
while the latter wanted to get rid of him because his military fame and
influence in the army were obnoxious to them."]

[Footnote 1239: Larevellière-Lepaux (one of the five directors on duty),
"Mémoires," II., 340. "All that is truly grand in this enterprise, as
well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in its conception or
execution, belongs wholly to Bonaparte. The idea of it never occurred to
the Directory nor to any of its members.... His ambition and his pride
could not endure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of
accepting a post which, however eminent, would have always subjected him
to the orders of the Directory."]

[Footnote 1240: Madame de Rémusat, I., 142. "Josephine laid great stress
on the Egyptian expedition as the cause of his change of temper and of
the daily despotism which made her suffer so much."--"Mes souvenirs sur
Napoleon," 325 by the count Chaptal. (Bonaparte's own words to the poet
Lemercier who might have accompanied him to the Middle East and there
would have learned many things about human nature): "You would have
seen a country where the sovereign takes no account of the lives of
his subjects, and where the subject himself takes no account of his own
life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic 'notions."]

[Footnote 1241: Roederer, III., 461 (Jan. 12, 1803)]

[Footnote 1242: Cf. "The Revolution," Vol. p. 773. (Note I., on the
situation, in 1806, of the Conventionalists who had survived the
revolution.) For instance, Fouché is minister; Jeanbon-Saint-André,
prefect; Drouet (de Varennes), sub-prefect; Chépy (of Grenoble),
commissary-general of the police at Brest; 131 regicides are
functionaries, among whom we find twenty one prefects and forty-two
magistrates.--Occasionally, a chance document that has been preserved
allows one to catch "the man in the act." ("Bulletins hebdomadaires
de la censure, 1810 and 1814," published by M. Thurot, in the Revue
Critique, 1871): "Seizure of 240 copies of an indecent work printed for
account of M. Palloy, the author. This Palloy enjoyed some celebrity
during the Revolution, being one of the famous patriots of the Faubourg
Saint-Antoine. The constituent Assembly had conceded to him the
ownership of the site of the Bastille, of which he distributed its
stones among all the communes. He is a bon vivant, who took it into his
head to write out in a very bad style the filthy story of his amours
with a prostitute of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the
book should be seized on condition that he might retain a few copies
of his jovial production. He professes high admiration for, and strong
attachment to His Majesty's person, and expresses his sentiments
piquantly, in the style of 1789."]

[Footnote 1243: "Mémorial," June 12, 1816.]

[Footnote 1244: Mathieu Dumas, III., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days
before Wagram).--Madame de Rémusat," I., 105: "I have never heard him
express any admiration or comprehension of a noble action."--I., 179:
On Augustus's clemency and his saying, "Let us be friends, Cinna," the
following is his interpretation of it: "I understand this action simply
as the feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I find puerile
as sentiment."--"Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He believed neither
in virtue nor in probity, often calling these two words nothing
but abstractions; this is what rendered him so distrustful and so
immoral.... He never experienced a generous sentiment; this is why he
was so cold in company, and why he never had a friend. He regarded men
as so much counterfeit coin or as mere instruments."]

[Footnote 1245: M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 241.--"Madame de
Rémusat," I., 93: "That man has been so harmful (si assommateur de
toute vertu...) to all virtue."--Madame de Staël, "Considerations sur la
Revolution Française," 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de
Melzi, to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.)]

[Footnote 1246: Madame de Rémusat, I., 106; II., 247, 336: "His means
for governing man were all derived from those which tend to debase him.
... He tolerated virtue only when he could cover it with ridicule."]

[Footnote 1247: Nearly all his false calculations are due to this
defect, combined with an excess of constructive imagination.--Cf. De
Pradt, p.94: "The Emperor is all system, all illusion, as one cannot
fail to be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course
has noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary
Catholicism, an imaginary England, an imaginary financial state, an
imaginary noblesse, and still more an imaginary France, and, in late
times, an imaginary congress."]

[Footnote 1248: Roederer, III., 495. (March 8, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1249: Ibid., III., 537 (February 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1250: Roederer, III., 514. (November 4, 1804.)]

[Footnote 1251: Marmont, II., 242.]

[Footnote 1252: "Correspondance de Napoléon," I. (Letter to Prince
Eugéne, April 14, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1253: M. de Metternich, I., 284.]

[Footnote 1254: Mollien, III., 427.]

[Footnote 1255: "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": During the Consulate, "his
opinion not being yet formed on many points, he allowed discussion
and it was then possible to enlighten him and enforce an opinion once
expressed in his presence. But, from the moment that he possessed
ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects,
he consulted no one;... he treated everybody who differed from him in
opinion contemptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often
exclaimed, giving his forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far
more useful than the counsels of men who were commonly supposed to be
instructed and experienced... For four years, he sought to gather around
him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of his agents
began to be indifferent to him. Regarding himself as strong enough to
rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents and character
of those who stood in his way were discarded. What he wanted was valets
and not councillors... The ministers were simply head-clerks of the
bureaus. The Council of State served only to give form to the decrees
emanating from him; he ruled even in petty details. Everybody around him
was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an oracle and
executed without reflection.... Self-isolated from other men, having
concentrated in his own hands all powers and all action, thoroughly
convinced that another's light and experience could be of no use to him,
he thought that arms and hands were all that he required."]

[Footnote 1256: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. In VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I.
chap. IX. and X. pp. 225-268. (Admirable portraiture of his principal
agents, Cambacérès, Talleyrand, Maret, Cretet, Real, etc.) Lacuée,
director of the conscription, is a perfect type of the imperial
functionary. Having received the broad ribbon of the Legion d'Honneur,
he exclaimed, at the height of his enthusiasm: "what will not France
become under such a man? To what degree of happiness and glory will it
not ascend, always provided the conscription furnishes him with 200,000
men a year! And, indeed, that will not be difficult, considering the
extent of the empire."--And likewise with Merlin de Douai: "I never
knew a man less endowed with the sentiment of the just and the unjust;
everything seems to him right and good, as the consequences of a
legal text. He was even endowed with a kind of satanic smile which
involuntarily rose to his lips... every time the opportunity occurred,
when, in applying his odious science, he reached the conclusion that
severity is necessary or some condemnation." The same with Defermon, in
fiscal matters]

[Footnote 1257: Madame de Rémusat, II., 278; II., 175.]

[Footnote 1258: Ibid., III., 275, II., 45. (Apropos of Savary, his most
intimate agent.): "He is a man who must be constantly corrupted."]

[Footnote 1259: Ibid., I., 109; II., 247; III., 366.]

[Footnote 1260: "Madame de Rémusat," II., 142, 167, 245. (Napoleon's own
words.) "If I ordered Savary to rid himself of his wife and children, I
am sure he would not hesitate."--Marmont, II., 194: "We were at Vienna
in 1809. Davoust said, speaking of his own and Maret's devotion: "If
the Emperor should say to us both, 'My political interests require the
destruction of Paris without any one escaping,' Maret would keep the
secret, I am sure; but nevertheless he could not help letting it be
known by getting his own family out. I, rather than reveal it I would
leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado expressions, wordy
exaggerations, but significant.)]

[Footnote 1261: Madame de Rémusat, II., 379.]

[Footnote 1262: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 230. (Words
of Maret, at Dresden, in 1813; he probably repeats one of Napoleon's
figures.)]

[Footnote 1263: Mollien, II., 9.]

[Footnote 1264: D'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le premier
Empire,"VI., 190, and passim.]

[Footnote 1265: Ibid., III., 460-473.--Cf. on the same scene,
"Souvenirs", by Pasquier (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Chancelier de France.
(He was both witness and actor.)]

[Footnote 1266: An expression of Cambacérès. M. de Lavalette, II., 154.]

[Footnote 1267: Madame de Rémusat, III. 184]

[Footnote 1268: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-,
I., 521. Details of the manufacture of counterfeit money, by order of
Savary, in an isolated building on the plain of Montrouge.--Metternich,
II., 358. (Words of Napoleon to M. de Metternich): "I had 300 millions
of banknotes of the Bank of Vienna all ready and was going to flood
you with them." Ibid., Correspondence of M. de Metternich with M. de
Champagny on this subject (June, 1810).]

[Footnote 1269: "Souvenirs", by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris
1893.--Vol. II. p. 196.]

[Footnote 1270: Madame de Rémusat, II., 335.]

[Footnote 1271: Madame de Rémusat, I., 231.]

[Footnote 1272: Ibid., 335.]

[Footnote 1273: M. de Metternich, I., 284. "One of those to whom he
seemed the most attached was Duroc. 'He loves me the same as a dog loves
his master,' is the phrase he made use of in speaking of him to me. He
compared Berthier's sentiment for his person to that of a child's nurse.
Far from being opposed to his theory of the motives influencing men
these sentiments were its natural consequence whenever he came across
sentiments to which he could not apply the theory of calculation based
on cold interest, he sought the cause of it in a kind of instinct."]

[Footnote 1274: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 59.]

[Footnote 1275: "Mémorial." "If I had returned victorious from Moscow,
I would have brought the Pope not to regret temporal power: I would have
converted him into an idol... I would have directed the religious world
as well as the political world... My councils would have represented
Christianity, and the Pope would have only been president of them."]

[Footnote 1276: De Ségur, III., 312. (In Spain, 1809.)]

[Footnote 1277: "Mémoires du Prince Eugène." (Letters of Napoleon,
August, 1806.)]

[Footnote 1278: Letter of Napoleon to Fouché, March 3, 1810. (Left out
in the "Correspondance de Napoléon I.," and published by M. Thiers in
"Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," XII., p. 115.)]

[Footnote 1279: De Ségur, III., 459.]

[Footnote 1280: Words of Napoleon to Marmont, who, after three months in
the hospital, returns to him in Spain with a broken arm and his hand in
a black sling: "You hold on to that rag then?" Sainte-Beuve, who loves
the truth as it really is, quotes the words as they came, which Marmont
dared not reproduce. (Causeries du Lundi, VI., 16.)--"Souvenirs",
by Pasquier, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893: "M. de Champagny having been
dismissed and replaced, a courageous friend defended him and insisted on
his merit: "You are right," said the Emperor, "he had some when I took
him; but by cramming him too full, I have made him stupid."]

[Footnote 1281: Beugnot, I., 456, 464]

[Footnote 1282: Mme. de Rémusat, II., 272.]

[Footnote 1283: M. de Champagny, "Souvenirs," 117.]

[Footnote 1284: Madame de Rémusat, I., 125.]

[Footnote 1285: De Ségur, III., 456.]

[Footnote 1286: "The Ancient Regime," p. 125.--"æuvres de Louis XIV.,"
191: "If there is any peculiar characteristic of this monarchy, it is
the free and easy access of the subjects to the king; it an egalité de
justice between both, and which, so to say, maintains both in a genial
and honest companionship, in spite of the almost infinite distance in
birth, rank, and power. This agreeable society, which enables persons
of the Court to associate familiarly with us, impresses them and charms
them more than one can tell."]

[Footnote 1287: Madame de Rémusat, II., 32, 39.]

[Footnote 1288: Madame de Rémusat, III., 169.]

[Footnote 1289: Ibid., II., 32, 223, 240, 259; III., 169.]

[Footnote 1290: Ibid., I., 112, II., 77.]

[Footnote 1291: M. de Metternich, I., 286.--"It would be difficult
to imagine any greater awkwardness than that of Napoleon in a
drawing-room.--Varnhagen von Ense, "Ausgewählte Schriften," III., 177.
(Audience of July 10, 1810): "I never heard a harsher voice, one so
inflexible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion
of the cheeks; the brow and eyes remained immovably sombre,... This
compound of a smile with seriousness had in it something terrible and
frightful."--On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard him exclaim
over and over again, twenty times, before a group of ladies, "How hot!"]

[Footnote 1292: Mme. de Rémusat, II., 77, 169.--Thibaudeau, "Mémoires
sur le Consulat," p. 18: "He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments
on their toilet or adventures, which was his way of censuring
morals."--"Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon," 322 by le Comte Chaptal: "At a
fête, in the Hôtel de Ville, he exclaimed to Madame----, who had just
given her name to him: 'Good God, they told me you were pretty!' To some
old persons: 'You haven't long to live! To another lady: 'It is a fine
time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns!' In general, the
tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often invited
a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the
soup was finished... The court was a regular galley where each rowed
according to command."]

[Footnote 1293: Madame de Rémusat, I., 114, 122, 206; II., 110, 112.]

[Footnote 1294: Ibid., I., 277.]

[Footnote 1295: "Hansard's Parliamentary History," vol. XXXVI.,.310.
Lord Whitworth's dispatch to Lord Hawkesbury, March 14, 1803, and
account of the scene with Napoleon. "All this took place loud enough for
the two hundred persons present to hear it."--Lord Whitworth (dispatch
of March 17) complains of this to Talleyrand and informs him that he
shall discontinue his visits to the Tuileries unless he is assured that
similar scenes shall not occur again.--Lord Hawkesbury approves of this
(dispatch of March 27), and declares that the proceeding is improper and
offensive to the King of England.--Similar scenes, the same conceit and
intemperate language, with M. de Metternich, at Paris, in 1809, also at
Dresden, in 1813: again with Prince Korsakof, at Paris, in 1812; with
M. de Balachof, at Wilna, in 1812, and with Prince Cardito, at Milan, in
1805.]

[Footnote 1296: Before the rupture of the peace of Amiens ("Moniteur,"
Aug. 8, 1802): The French government is now more firmly established than
the English government."--("Moniteur" Sept.10, 1802): "What a difference
between a people which conquers for love of glory and a people of
traders who happen to become conquerors!"--("Moniteur," Feb. 20, 1803):
"The government declares with a just pride that England cannot now
contend against France."--Campaign of 1805, 9th bulletin, words of
Napoleon in the presence of Mack's staff: "I recommend my brother the
Emperor of Germany to make peace as quick as he can! Now is the time
to remember that all empires come to an end; the idea that an end might
come to the house of Lorraine ought to alarm him."--Letter to the Queen
of Naples, January 2, 1805: "Let your Majesty listen to what I predict.
On the first war breaking out, of which she might be the cause, she and
her children will have ceased to reign; her children would go wandering
about among the different countries of Europe begging help from their
relations."]

[Footnote 1297: 37th bulletin, announcing the march of an army on Naples
"to punish the Queen's treachery and cast from the throne that criminal
woman, who, with such shamelessness, has violated all that men hold
sacred."--Proclamation of May 13, 1809: "Vienna, which the princes of
the house of Lorraine have abandoned, not as honorable soldiers yielding
to circumstances and the chances of war, but as perjurers pursued
by remorse.... In flying from Vienna their adieus to its inhabitants
consisted of murder and fire. Like Medea, they have sacrificed their
children with their own hands."--13th bulletin: "The rage of the house
of Lorraine against the city of Vienna,"]

[Footnote 1298: Letter to the King of Spain, Sept. 18, 1803, and a note
to the Spanish minister of foreign affairs, on the Prince de la Paix:
"This favorite, who has succeeded by the most criminal ways to a degree
unheard of in the annals of history.... Let Your Majesty put away a
man who, maintaining in his rank the low passions of his character, has
lived wholly on his vices."--After the battle of Jéna, 9th, 17th,
18th, and 19th bulletins, comparison of the Queen of Prussia with Lady
Hamilton, open and repeated insinuations, imputing to her an intrigue
with the Emperor Alexander. "Everybody admits that the Queen of Prussia
is the author of the evils the Prussian nation suffers. This is heard
everywhere. How changed she is since that fatal interview with the
Emperor Alexander!... The portrait of the Emperor Alexander, presented
to her by the Prince, was found in the apartment of the Queen at
Potsdam."]

[Footnote 1299: "La Guerre patriotique" (1812-1815), according to the
letters of contemporaries, by Doubravine (in Russian). The Report of the
Russian envoy, M. de Balachof, is in French,]

[Footnote 12100: An allusion to the murder of Paul I.]

[Footnote 12101: Stanislas de Girardin, "Mémoires," III., 249.
(Reception of Nivôse 12, year X.) The First consul addresses the Senate:
"Citizens, I warn you that I regard the nomination of Daunou to the
senate as a personal insult, and you know that I have never put up with
one."--"Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter of Sept.23, 1809, to M.
de Champagny): "The Emperor Francis insulted me in writing to me that I
cede nothing to him, when, out of consideration for him, I have reduced
my demands nearly one-half." (Instead of 2,750,000 Austrian subjects
he demanded only 1,600,000.)--Roederer, III., 377 (Jan.24, 1801): "The
French people must put up with my defects if they find I am of service
to them; it is my fault that I cannot endure insults."]

[Footnote 12102: M. de Metternich, II., 378. (Letter to the Emperor of
Austria, July 28, 1810.)]

[Footnote 12103: Note presented by the French ambassador, Otto, Aug. 17,
1802.]

[Footnote 12104: Stanislas Girardin, III., 296. (Words of the First
consul, Floreal 24, year XI.): "I had proposed to the British minister,
for several months, to make an arrangement by which a law should be
passed in France and in England prohibiting newspapers and the members
of the government from expressing either good or ill of foreign
governments. He never would consent to it."--St. Girardin: "He could
not."--Bonaparte: "Why?"--St. Girardin: "Because an agreement of that
sort would have been opposed to the fundamental law of the country."
Bonaparte: "I have a poor opinion," etc.]

[Footnote 12105: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Dispatch of Lord
Whitworth, Feb.21, 1803, conversation with the First consul at the
Tuileries.)--Seeley, 'A Short History of Napoleon the First." "Trifles
is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has
never been printed; "the expression he made use of is too insignificant
and too low to have a place in a dispatch or anywhere else, save in the
mouth of a hack-driver."]

[Footnote 12106: Lanfrey, "Histoire de Napoléon," II., 482. (Words
of the First consul to the Swiss delegates, conference of January 29,
1803.)]

[Footnote 12107: Sir Neil Campbell, "Napoleon at Fontainebleau and
Elba," p.201. (The words of Napoleon to Sir Neil Campbell and to the
other commissioners.)--The Mémorial de Sainte Helene mentions the
same plan in almost identical terms.--Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de
Napoléon au conseil d'état," p.238 (session of March 4, 1806): "Within
forty-eight hours after peace with England, I shall interdict foreign
commodities and promulgate a navigation act forbidding any other than
French vessels entering our ports, built of French timber, and with the
crews two-thirds French. Even coal and English 'milords' shall land only
under the French flag."--Ibid., 32.]

[Footnote 12108: Moniteur, January 30, 1803 (Sebastiani).]

[Footnote 12109: Hansard, vol. XXXVI., p.1298. (Lord Whitworth's
dispatch, Feb.21, 1803, the First Consul's words to Lord Whitworth.)]

[Footnote 12110: "Memorial." (Napoleon's own words, March 24, 1806.)]

[Footnote 12111: Lanfrey, II., 476. (Note to Otto, October 23,
1802.)--Thiers,VI., 249.]

[Footnote 12112: Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. "If,
at Leipsic, I had had 30,000 cannon balls to fire off on the evening of
the 18th, I should to-day be master of the world."]

[Footnote 12113: "Memorial," Nov. 30, 1815.]

[Footnote 12114: Lanfrey, III.,--399. Letters of Talleyrand, October 11
and 27, 1805, and memorandum addressed to Napoleon.]

[Footnote 12115: At the council held in relation to the future marriage
of Napoleon, Cambacérès vainly supported an alliance with the Russians.
The following week, he says to M. Pasquier: "When one has only one good
reason to give and it cannot possibly be given, it is natural that one
should be beaten..., You will see that it is so good that one phrase
suffices to make its force fully understood. I am deeply convinced that
in two years we shall have a war with that of two powers whose daughter
the Emperor does not marry. Now a war with Austria does not cause me
any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war with Russia. The consequences are
incalculable." "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893. Vol I., p 293, p 378.).]

[Footnote 12116: M. de Metternich, II., 305. (Letter to the Emperor
of Austria, Aug.10, 1809.)--Ibid. 403.. (Letter of Jan.11, 1811.) "My
appreciation of Napoleon's plans and projects, at bottom, has never
varied. The monstrous purpose of the complete subjection of the
continent under one head was, and is still, his object."]

[Footnote 12117: "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King
of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): "The war will take place in spite of him
(the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me, in spite of the interests of
France and those of Russia. Having already seen this so often, it is my
past experience which enables me to unveil the future,"]

[Footnote 12118: Mollien, III., 135, 190.--In 1810 "prices have
increased 400% on sugar, and 100 % on cotton and dye stuffs."--"More
than 20,000 custom-house officers were employed on the frontier against
more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant activity and favored by the
population."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893.-, I., 387.--There were licenses for importing colonial
products, but on condition of exporting a proportionate quantity of
French manufactures; now, England refused to receive them. Consequently,
"not being allowed to bring these articles back to France, they were
thrown overboard."--"They began at first by devoting the refuse of
manufactures to this trade, and then ended by manufacturing articles
without other destination; for example, at Lyons, taffetas and satins."]

[Footnote 12119: Proclamation of Dec.27, 1805: "The Naples dynasty has
ceased to reign. Its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe
and the honor of my crown."--Message to the Senate, Dec. 10, 1810:
"Fresh guarantees having become necessary, the annexation to the Empire
of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, the Weser,
and the Elbe, seemed to me to be the first and most important.... The
annexation of the Valais is an anticipated result of the vast works I
have undertaken for the past ten years in that section of the Alps."]

[Footnote 12120: We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment
of Portugal is anterior and of same order.-" Correspondance." (Letter to
Junot, Oct.31, 1807):--'I have already informed you, that in authorizing
you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to possess
yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take
Portugal."--(Letter to Junot, Dec. 23, 1807): "Disarm the country. Send
all the Portuguese troops to France.... I want them out of the country.
Have all princes, ministers, and other men who serve as rallying points,
sent to France."--(Decree of Dec. 23, 1807): "An extra contribution
of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to
redeem all property, of whatever denomination, belonging to private
parties... All property belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the
prince-regent, and to princes in appanage;.... all the possessions of
the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country,
and who had not returned to the kingdom before February 1, shall be put
under sequestration."--Cf. M. d'Haussonville, "L'Église Romaine et le
premier Empire," 5 vols. (especially the last volume). No other work
enables one to see into Napoleon's object and proceedings better nor
more closely.]

[Footnote 12121: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," p.143. (As a
specimen of steps taken in time of war, see the register of Marshal
Bessières' orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 to July 15,
1811.)--"Correspondance du Roi Jérome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon,
Dec. 5, 1811. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in times of
peace): "If war should break out, all countries between the Rhine and
the Oder will become the center of a vast and active insurrection. The
mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely hatred of the
French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the misfortunes
of the day, in the total ruin of all classes, in over-taxation,
consisting of war levies, the maintenance of troops, soldiers traversing
the country, and every sort of constantly renewed vexation.... At
Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my kingdom, owners of
property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose
of them at the lowest prices.... Misery everywhere presses on families;
capital is exhausted; the noble, the peasant, the bourgeois, are crushed
with debt and want.... The despair of populations no longer having
anything to lose, because all has been taken away, is to be feared."--De
Pradt, p.73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied countries.) At
Wolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, "I found his secretary,
canon of Cujavie, decorated with the ribbon and cross of his order, who
showed me his jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the
previous evening by General Count Vandamme, because he had refused to
serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by the general; he was told that
the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle the day before, and had
carted away all this wine."]

[Footnote 12122: Fievée, "Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte,
de 1802 à 1813," III., 82. (Dec. 1811), (On the populations annexed
or conquered): "There is no hesitation in depriving them of their
patrimony, their language, their legislatures, in disturbing all their
habits, and that without any warrant but throwing a bulletin des lois at
their heads (inapplicable).... How could they be expected to recognize
this, or even become resigned to it?... Is it possible not to feel that
one no longer has a country, that one is under constraint, wounded in
feeling and humiliated?... Prussia, and a large part of Germany, has
been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to
kill a man than to stir up a pile of manure."]

[Footnote 12123: "Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, Feb. 18, 1814.
"If I had signed the treaty reducing France to its ancient limits,
I should have gone to war two years after"--Marmont, V., 133 (1813):
"Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always preferred to lose all
rather than to yield anything."]

[Footnote 12124: M. de Metternich, II., 205.]

[Footnote 12125: Words of Richelieu on his death-bed: "Behold my judge,"
said he, pointing to the Host, "the judge who will soon pronounce his
verdict. I pray that he will condemn me, if, during my ministry, I
have proposed to myself aught else than the good of religion and of the
State."]

[Footnote 12126: Miot de Melito, "Mémoires,"II., 48, 152.]

[Footnote 12127: "Souvenirs," by Gaudin, duc de Gaëte (3rd vol. of the
"Mémoires," p.67).]

[Footnote 12128: M. de Metternich, II., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July
26, 1807.)]

[Footnote 12129: Ibid., II., 291. (Letter of April 11, 1809.)]

[Footnote 12130: Ibid., II., 400. (Letter of Jan.17, 1811.) In lucid
moments, Napoleon takes the same view. Cf. Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions
de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That will last as long as I do.
After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 40,000
francs a year."--(De Ségur, "Histoire et Mémoires," III., 155.): "How
often at this time (1811) was he heard to foretell that the weight of
his empire would crush his heir!" "Poor child," said he, regarding the
King of Rome, "what an entanglement I shall leave to you!" From the
beginning he frequently passed judgment on himself and foresaw the
effect of his action in history." On reaching the isle of Poplars, the
First Consul stopped at Rousseau's grave, and said: 'It would have, been
better for the repose of France, if that man had never existed.' 'And
why, citizen Consul?' 'He is the man who made the French revolution.'
'It seems to me that you need not complain of the French revolution!'
'well, the future must decide whether it would not have been better for
the repose of the whole world if neither myself nor Rousseau had ever
lived.' He then resumed his promenade in a revery."--Stanislas
Girardin; "Journal et Mémoires," III., Visit of the French Consul to
Ermenonville.]

[Footnote 12131: Marmont, "Mémoires," III., 337. (On returning from
Wagram.)]

[Footnote 12132: On this initial discord, cf. Armand Lefèvre, "Histoire
des Cabinets de l'Europe," vol.VI.]

[Footnote 12133: "Correspondance de Napoléon I." (Letter to the King of
Wurtemberg, April 2, 1811.)]

[Footnote 12134: Testament of April 25, 1821 "It is my desire that my
remains rest on the banks of the Seine, amidst that French people I have
so dearly loved."]

[Footnote 12135: "Correspondance de Napoleon I.", XXII., 119. (Note by
Napoleon, April, 1811.) "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen,
and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen, either as employees or as
gendarmes, in the custom-houses and warehouses."]

[Footnote 12136: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.-, II., 88, and following pages: "During the
year 1813, from Jan. 1 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men had already been drafted
from imperial France and they had to be furnished."--Other decrees
in December, placing at the disposition of the government 300,000
conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.--Another decree in
November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in cohorts,
intended for the defense of strongholds.--In all, 1,300,000 men summoned
in one year. "Never has any nation been thus asked to let itself be
voluntarily led in a mass to the slaughterhouse.--Ibid., II., 59.
Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising 10,000 young men,
exempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose,
arbitrarily, from amongst the highest classes in society. The purpose
was plainly "to secure hostages in every family of doubtful loyalty.
No measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable enemies."--Cf.
De Ségur, II., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding
a division of young men.) Many were sons of Vendéans or of
Conventionalists, some torn from their wives the day after their
marriage, or from the bedside of a wife in her confinement, of a dying
father, or of a sick son; "some looked so feeble that they seemed
dying." One half perished in the campaign of 1814.--"Correspondance,"
letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Oct.23, 1813 (in relation to the new
levies): "I rely on 100,000 refractory conscripts."]

[Footnote 12137: "Archives nationales," A F.,VI., 1297. (Documents 206
to 210.) (Report to the Emperor by Count Dumas, April 10, 1810.) Besides
the 170 millions of penalties 1,675,457 francs of penalty were inflicted
on 2335 individuals, "abettors or accomplices."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1051.
(Report of Gen. Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13,
1808.) "He always calculated in this department on the desertion of
one-half of the conscripts. In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic
with the conscription shamefully; certain conscripts pension them to
show them favors."--Ibid., A F.,VI., 1052. (Report by Pelet, Jan. 12,
1812.) "The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault);
the contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800
refractory, or deserters of the previous classes; 1600 have been
arrested or made to surrender by the flying column; 200 have still to be
pursued." Faber,--"Notice (1807) sur l'intérieur de la France," p. 141:
"Desertion, especially on the frontiers, is occasionally frightful; 80
deserters out of 160 have sometimes been arrested."--Ibid., p.149: It
has been stated in the public journals that in 1801 the court in session
at Lille had condemned 135 refractory out of the annual conscription,
and that which holds its sittings at Ghent had condemned 70. Now, 200
conscripts form the maximum of what an arrondissement in a department
could furnish."--Ibid, p.145. "France resembles a vast house of
detention where everybody is suspicious of his neighbor, where each
avoids the other... One often sees a young man with a gendarme at his
heels oftentimes, on looking closely, this young man's hands are found
tied, or he is handcuffed."--Mathieu Dumas, III., 507 (After the battle
of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals): "I observed, with sorrow, that
many of these men were slightly wounded: most of them, young conscripts
just arrived in the army, had not been wounded by the enemy's fire,
but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. Antecedents of this
kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the campaign
of 1809."]

[Footnote 12138: De Ségur, III., 474.--Thiers, XIV., 159. (One month
after crossing the Niemen one hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped
out of the ranks.)]

[Footnote 12139: Bulletin 29 (December 3, 1812).]

[Footnote 12140: "De Pradt, Histoire de l'Ambassade de Varsovie," p.219.]

[Footnote 12141: M. de Metternich, I., 147.--Fain, "Manuscript," of
1813, II., 26. (Napoleon's address to his generals.) "What we want is a
complete triumph. To abandon this or that province is not the question;
our political superiority and our existence depend on it. "--II., 41,
42. (Words of Napoleon to Metternich.) "And it is my father-in-law who
favors such a project! And he sends you! In what attitude does he wish
to place me before the French people? He is strangely deluded if he
thinks that a mutilated throne can offer an asylum to his daughter and
grandson.... Ah, Metternich, how much has England given you to make you
play this part against me?" (This last phrase, omitted in Metternich's
narrative, is a characteristic trait; Napoleon at this decisive moment,
remains insulting and aggressive, gratuitously and even to his own
destruction.)]

[Footnote 12142: "Souvenirs du feu duc de Broglie," I., 235.]

[Footnote 12143: Ibid., I., 230. Some days before Napoleon had said to
M. de Narbonne, who told me that very evening: "After all, what has this
(the Russian campaign) cost me? 300,000 men, among whom, again, were
a good many Germans."--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc,
Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. II. 110. (Apropos of the Frankfurt basis, and
accepted by Napoleon when too late.) "What characterizes this mistake
is that it was committed much more against the interests of France
than against his own.... He sacrificed her to the perplexities of his
personal situation, to the mauvaise honte of his own ambition, to the
difficulty he finds in standing alone to a certain extent before a
nation which had done everything for him and which could justly reproach
him with having sacrificed so much treasure and spilled so much blood on
enterprises proved to have been foolish and impracticable."]

[Footnote 12144: Leonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France,"
P.40. (According to the former director of the conscription under the
Empire.)]





BOOK SECOND. FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW STATE.




CHAPTER I. THE INSTITUTION OF GOVERNMENT




I. The Institution of Government.

     Conditions on which the public power can act.--Two points
     forgotten by the authors of the preceding constitutions.--
     Difficulty of the undertaking and poor quality of the
     available materials.

Every human society requires government, that is to say an authority. No
other machinery is more useful. But a machinery is useful only if it
is adapted to its purpose; if not it will not work, or may even work
contrary to its purpose. Hence, during its construction, one must first
of all consider the magnitude of the work it has to do as well as the
quality of the materials one has at one's disposal. It is very important
to know beforehand whether it will lift 100 or of 100,000 kilograms,
whether the pieces fitted together will be of iron or of steel, of
sound or of unsound timber.--But the legislators had not taken that into
consideration during the last ten years. They had set themselves up as
theoreticians, and likewise as optimists, without looking at the things,
or else imagining the them as they wished to have them. In the national
assemblies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy and
simple, whereas it was extraordinary and immense; for the matter in
hand consisted in effecting a social revolution and in carrying on an
European war. The materials were supposed to be excellent, as manageable
as they were substantial, while, in fact, they were very poor, being
both refractory and brittle, for these human materials consisted of
the Frenchmen of 1789 and of the following years; that is to say,
of exceedingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm,
inexperienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intractable,
and overexcited. Calculations had been made on these prodigiously false
data; consequently, although the calculations were very exact, the
results obtained were found absurd. Relying on these data, the machine
had been planned, and all its parts been adjusted, assembled, and
balanced. That is why the machine, irreproachable in theory, remained
unsuccessful in practice: the better it appeared on paper the quicker it
broke down when set up on the ground.




II. Default of previous government.

     The consequences of the years 1789 to 1799.--Insubordination
     of the local powers, conflict of the central powers,
     suppression of liberal institutions, and the establishment
     of an unstable despotism.--Evil-doing of the government thus
     formed.

A capital defect at once declared itself in the two principal
compositions, in the working gear of the superposed powers and in the
balance of the motor powers.--In the first place, the hold given to the
central government on its local subordinates was evidently too feeble;
with no right to appoint these, it could not select them as it pleased,
according to the requirements of the service. Department, district,
canton, and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges,
assessors, appraisers, and collectors of taxes, officers of the
national-guard and even of the gendarmerie, police-commissioners,
and other agents who had to enforce laws on the spot, were nearly all
recruited elsewhere: either in popular assemblies or provided ready-made
by elected bodies.[2101] They were for it merely borrowed instruments;
thus originating, they escaped its control; it could not make them work
as it wanted them to work. On most occasions they would shirk their
duties; at other times, on receiving orders, they would stand inert;
or, again, they would act outside of or beyond their special function,
either going too far or acting in a contrary sense; never did they act
with moderation and precision, with coherence and consequence. For this
reason any desire of the government to do its job proved unsuccessful.
Its legal subordinates--incapable, timid, lukewarm, unmanageable, or
even hostile--obeyed badly, did not obey at all, or willfully disobeyed.
The blade of the executive instrument, loose in the handle, glanced or
broke off when the thrust had to be made.

In the second place, never could the two or three motor forces thrusting
the handle act in harmony, owing to the clashing of so many of them; one
always ended in breaking down the other. The Constituent Assembly
had set aside the King, the Legislative Assembly had deposed him, the
Convention had decapitated him. Afterward each fraction of the sovereign
body in the Convention had proscribed the other; the Montagnards had
guillotined the Girondists, and the Thermidorians had guillotined
the Montagnards. Later, under the Constitution of the year III, the
Fructidorians had banished the Constitutionalists, the Directory had
purged the Councils, and the Councils had purged the Directory.--Not
only did the democratic and parliamentary institution fail in its work
and break down on trial, but, again, through its own action, it became
transformed into its opposite. In a year or two a coup d'état in Paris
took place; a faction seized the central power and converted it into
an absolute power in the hands of five or six ringleaders. The new
government at once re-forged the executive instrument for its own
advantage and refastened the blade firmly on the handle; in the
provinces it dismissed those elected by the people and deprived the
governed of the right to choose their own rulers; henceforth, through
its proconsuls on mission, or through its resident commissioners, it
alone appointed, superintended, and regulated on the spot all local
authorities.[2102]

Thus the liberal constitution, at its close, gave birth to a centralized
despotism, and this was the worst of its species, at once formless and
monstrous; for it was born out of a civil crime, while the government
which used it had no support but a band of bigoted fanatics or political
adventurers; without any legal authority over the nation, or any moral
hold on the army, detested, threatened, discordant, exposed to the
resistance of its own upholders, to the treachery of its own members,
and living only from day to day, it could maintain itself only through a
brutal absolutism and permanent terror, while the public power of which
the first care is the protection of property, consciences, and lives,
became in its hands the worst of persecutors, robbers, and murderers.




III. In 1799, the undertaking more difficult and the materials worse.

Twice in succession had the experiment been tried, the monarchical
constitution of 1791, and the republican constitution of 1795; twice in
succession had the same events followed the same course to attain the
same end; twice in succession had the theoretical, cunningly-devised
machine for universal protection changed into an efficient and brutal
machine for universal oppression. It is evident that if the same machine
were started the third time under analogous conditions, one might expect
to see it work in the same manner; that is to say, contrary to its
purpose.

Now, in 1799, the conditions were analogous, and even worse, for the
work which the machine had to do was not less, while the human materials
available for its construction were not so good.--Externally, the
country was constantly at war with Europe; peace could not be secured
except by great military effort, and peace was as difficult to preserve
as to win. The European equilibrium had been too greatly disturbed;
neighboring or rival States had suffered too much; the rancor and
distrust provoked by the invading revolutionary republic were too
active; these would have lasted a long time against pacified France even
after she had concluded reasonable treaties. Even should she abandon a
policy of propaganda and interference, return brilliant acquisitions,
cease the domination of protectorates, and abandon the disguised
annexation of Italy, Holland, and Switzerland, the nation was still
bound to keep watch under arms. A government able to concentrate all its
forces--that is to say, placed above and beyond all dispute and promptly
obeyed-was indispensable, if only to remain intact and complete, to keep
Belgium and the frontier of the Rhine.--Likewise internally, and for no
other purpose than to restore civil order; for here, too, the
outrages of the Revolution had been too great. There had been too
much spoliation, too many imprisonments, exiles, and murders, too many
violations of every kind, too many invasions of the rights of property
and of persons, public and private. It was so much more difficult

* To insure respect for persons and all private and public possessions;

* to restrain at once both Royalists and Jacobins;

* to restore 140,000 émigrés to their country and yet satisfy 1,200,000
possessors of national property;

* to give back to 25,000,000 of orthodox Catholics the right, faculty,
and means for worshipping, and yet not allow the schismatic clergy to be
maltreated;

* to bring face to face in the same commune the dispossessed seigneur
and the peasant holders of his domain;

* to compel the delegates of the Committee of Public Safety and their
victims, the shooters and the shot of Vendémiaire, the Fructidorians and
the Fructidorized, the Whites and the Blues of La Vendée and Brittany,
to live in peace side by side,

because the future laborers in this immense work, from the village
mayor to the state-senator and state-councilor, had borne a part in
the Revolution, either in effecting it or under subjection to
it--Monarchists, Feuillantists, Girondists, Montagnards, Thermidorians,
moderate Jacobins or desperate Jacobins, all oppressed in turn and
disappointed in their calculations. Their passions, under this régime,
had become embittered; each brought personal bias and resentment into
the performance of his duties; to prevent him from being unjust and
mischievous demanded a tightened curb.[2103] All sense of conviction,
under this régime, had died out; no body would serve gratis as in
1789;[2104] nobody would work without pay; disinterestedness had lost
all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; genuine zeal seemed
self-dupery; each looked out for himself and not for the community;
public spirit had yielded to indifference, to egotism, and to the need
of security, of enjoyment, and of self-advancement. Human materials,
deteriorated by the Revolution, were less than ever suited to providing
citizens--they simply furnished functionaries. With such wheels combined
together according to formula current between 1791 and 1795, the
requisite work could not possibly be done. As a consequence, definitely
and for a long time, any use of the two great liberal mechanisms were
doomed. So long as the wheels remained of such poor quality and the
task so hard, both the election of local powers and the division of the
central power had to be abandoned.




IV. Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.

     Motives for suppressing the election of local powers.--The
     Electors.--Their egoism and partiality.--The Elected.--Their
     inertia, corruption, and disobedience.

All were agreed on the first point. If any still doubted, they had only
to open their eyes, fix them on the local authorities, watch them
as soon as born, and follow them throughout the exercise of their
functions.--Naturally, in filling each office, the electors had chosen
a man of their own species and caliber; their fixed and dominant
disposition was accordingly well known; they were indifferent to public
matters and therefore their candidate was as indifferent as themselves.
Had they shown too great a concern for the nation this would have
prevented their election; the State to them was a troublesome moralist
and remote creditor. Their candidate must choose between them and this
intruder, side with them against it, and not act as a pedagogue in its
name or as bailiff on its behalf. When power is born on the spot and
conferred to-day by constituents who are to submit to it to-morrow as
subordinates, they do not put the whip in the hands of one who will
flog them; they demand sentiments of him in conformity with their
inclinations; in any event they will not tolerate in him the opposite
ones. From the beginning, this resemblance between them and him is
great, and it goes on increasing from day to day because the creature is
always in the hands of his creators; subject to their daily pressure, he
at last becomes as they are; after a certain period they have shaped him
in their image.--Thus the candidate-elect, from the start or very soon
after, became a confederate with his electors. At one time, and this
occurred frequently, especially in the towns, he had been elected by a
violent sectarian minority; he then subordinated general interests
to the interests of a clique. At another, and especially in the rural
districts, he had been elected by an ignorant and brutal majority, when
he accordingly subordinated general interests to those of a village.--If
he chanced to be conscientious and somewhat intelligent and was anxious
to do his duty, he could not; he felt himself weak and was felt to be
weak;[2105] both authority and the means for exercising it were wanting
in him. He had not the force which a power above communicates to its
delegates below; nobody saw behind him the government and the army; his
only resource was a national-guard, which either shirked or refused to
do its duty, and which often did not exist at all.--On the contrary, he
could prevaricate, pillage, and persecute for his own advantage and
that of his clique with impunity; for there was no restraint on him from
above; the Paris Jacobins would not be disposed to alienate the Jacobins
of the province; they were partisans and allies, and the government
had few others; it was bound to retain them, to let them intrigue and
embezzle at will.

Suppose an extensive domain of which the steward is appointed, not by
the absent owner, but by his tenants, debtors, farmers, and dependents:
the reader may imagine whether rents will be paid and debts collected,
whether road-taxes will be worked out, what care will be taken of the
property, what its annual income will be to the owner, how abuses of
commission and omission will be multiplied indefinitely, how great the
disorder will be, the neglect, the waste, the fraud, the injustice, and
the license.--The same in France,[2106] and for the same reason:

* every public service disorganized, destroyed, or perverted;

* no justice, no police;

* authorities abstaining from prosecution, magistrates not daring to
condemn, a gendarmerie which receives no orders or which stands still;

* rural marauding become a habit;

* roving bands of brigands in forty-five departments;

* mail wagons and coaches stopped and pillaged even up to the environs
of Paris;

* highways broken up and rendered impassable;

* open smuggling, customs yielding nothing, national forests devastated,
the public treasury empty,[2107] its revenues intercepted and expended
before being deposited, taxes decreed and not collected;

* everywhere arbitrary assessments of real and personal estate, no less
wicked exemptions than overcharges;

* in many places no list prepared for tax assessments,

* communes which here and there, under pretext of defending the republic
against neighboring consumers, exempt themselves from both tax and
conscription;

* conscripts to whom their mayor gives false certificates of infirmity
and marriage, who do not turn out when ordered out, who desert by
hundreds on the way to headquarters, who form mobs and use guns in
defending themselves against the troops,--such were the fruits of the
system.

The government could not constrain rural majorities with the officials
chosen by the selfish and inept rural majorities. Neither could it
repress the urban minorities with agents elected by the same partial
and corrupt urban minorities. Hands are necessary, and hands as firm as
tenacious, to seize conscripts by the collar, to rummage the pockets
of taxpayers, and the State did not have such hands. They were required
right away, if only to prepare and provide for urgent needs. If the
western departments had to be subdued and tranquilized, relief furnished
to Massena besieged in Genoa, Mélas prevented from invading Provence,
Moreau's army transported over the Rhine, the first thing was to restore
to the central government the appointment of local authorities.




V. Reasons for centralization.

     Reasons for placing the executive central power in one
     hand.--Sieyès' chimerical combinations.--Bonaparte's
     objections.

On this second point, the evidence was scarcely less.--And clearly, the
moment the local powers owed their appointment to the central powers, it
is plain that the central executive power, on which they depend, should
be unique. For, this great team of functionaries, driven from aloft,
could not have aloft several distinct drivers; being several and
distinct, the drivers would each pull his own way, while the horses,
pulling in opposite directions, would do nothing but prance. In this
respect the combinations of Sieyès do not bear examination. A mere
theorist and charged with preparing the plan of a new constitution,
he had reasoned as if the drivers on the box were not men, but robots:
perched above all, a grand-elector, a show sovereign, with two places
to dispose of and always passive, except to appoint or revoke two active
sovereigns, the two governing consuls. One, a peace-consul, appointing
all civil officers, and the other a war-consul, making all military and
diplomatic appointments; each with his own ministers, his own council of
state, his own court of judicature. All these functionaries, ministers,
consuls, and the grand-elector himself, were revocable at the will of
a senate which from day to day could absorb them, that is to say,
make them senators with a salary of 30,000 francs and an embroidered
dress-coat.[2108] Sieyès evidently had not taken into account either the
work to be done or the men who would have to do it, while Bonaparte,
who was doing the work at this very time, who understood men and who
understood himself, at once put his finger on the weak spot of this
complex mechanism, so badly adjusted and so frail. Two consuls,[2109]
"one controlling the ministers of justice, of the interior, of the
police, of the treasury, and the other the ministers of war, of the
navy, and of foreign affairs." The conflict between them is certain;
look at them facing each other, subject to contrary influences and
suggestions: around the former "only judges, administrators, financiers,
and men in long robes," and round the latter "only epaulets and men of
the sword." Certainly "one will need money and recruits for his army
which the other will not grant."--And it is not your grand-elector who
will make them agree. "If he conforms strictly to the functions which
you assign to him he will be the mere ghost, the fleshless phantom of
a roi fainéant. Do you know any man vile enough to take part in such
contrivances? How can you imagine any man of talent or at all honorable
contentedly playing the part of a hog fattening himself on a few
millions?"--And all the more because if he wants to abandon his part
the door stands open. "Were I the grand-elector I would say to the
war-consul and to the peace-consul on appointing them, If you put in a
minister or sign a bill I don't like I'll put you out." Thus does the
grand-elector become an active, absolute monarch.

"But," you may say, "the senate in its turn will absorb the
grand-elector."--"The remedy is worse than the disease; nobody,
according to this plan, has any guarantees," and each, therefore, will
try to secure them to himself, the grand-elector against the senate,
the consuls against the grand-elector, and the senate against the
grand-elector and consuls combined, each uneasy, alarmed, threatened,
threatening, and usurping to protect himself; these are the wheels
which work the wrong way, in a machine constantly getting out of order,
stopping, and finally breaking down entirely.

Thereupon, and as Bonaparte, moreover, was already master, all the
executive powers were reduced to one, and this power was vested in
him.[2110] In reality, "to humor republican opinion"[2111] they gave him
two associates with the same title as his own; but they were appointed
only for show, simply as consulting, inferior, and docile registrars,
with no rights save that of signing their names after his and putting
their signatures to the procès verbal declaring his orders; he alone
commanded, "he alone had the say, he alone appointed to all offices," so
that they were already subjects as he alone was already the sovereign.




VI. Irreconcilable divisions.

     Difficulty of organizing a legislative power.--Fraudulent
     and violent elections for ten years.--Spirit and diffusion
     of hatred against the men and dogmas of the Revolution.
     --Probable composition of a freely elected Assembly.--Its two
     irreconcilable divisions.--Sentiments of the army.
     --Proximity and probable meaning of a new coup d'État.

It remained to frame a legislative power as a counterpoise to this
executive power, so concentrated and so strong.--In organized and
tolerably sound communities this point is reached through an elective
parliament which represents the public will; it represents this because
it is a copy, a faithful reduction of that will on a small scale; it
is so organized as to present a loyal and proportionate expression of
diverse controlling opinions. In this case, the electoral selection has
worked well; one superior right, that of election, has been respected,
or, in other words, the passions excited have not proved too strong,
which is owing to the most important interests not having proved too
divergent.--Unfortunately, in France, rent asunder and discordant, all
the most important interests were in sharp antagonism; the passions
brought into play, consequently, were furious; no right was respected,
and least of all that of election; hence the electoral test worked
badly, and no elected parliament was or could be a veritable expression
of the public will. Since 1791, the elections, violated and deserted,
had brought intruders only to the legislative benches, under the name of
mandatories. These were endured for lack of better; but nobody had any
confidence in them, and nobody showed them any deference. People knew
how they had been elected and how little their title was worth. Through
inertness, fear, or disgust, the great majority of electors had not
voted, while the voters at the polls fought among themselves, the
strongest or least scrupulous expelling or constraining the rest. During
the last three years of the Directory the electoral assembly was often
divided; each faction elected its own deputy and protested against
the election of the other. The government then chose between the two
candidates elected, arbitrarily and always with barefaced partiality;
and again, if but one candidate was elected, and that one an adversary,
his election was invalidated. In sum, for nine years, the legislative
body, imposed on the nation by a faction, was scarcely more legitimate
than the executive power, another usurper, and which, later on, filled
up or purged its ranks. Any remedy for this defect in the electoral
machine was impossible; it was due to its internal structure, to the
very quality of its materials. At this date, even under an impartial and
strong government, the machine could not have answered its purpose,
that of deriving from the nation a body of sober-minded and respected
delegates, providing France with a parliament capable of playing its own
part, or any part whatever, in the conduct of public business.

For, suppose

* that the new governors show uncommon loyalty, energy, and vigilance,
remarkable political abnegation and administrative omnipresence,

* that the factions are contained without suppression of free speech,

* the central powers neutral yet active,

* no official candidature,

* no pressure from above,

* no constraint from below,

* the police-commissioners respectful and gendarmes protecting the
entrance to every electoral assembly,

* all proceedings regular, no disturbance inside, voting perfectly free,
the electors numerous, five or six millions of Frenchmen gathered at the
polls,

and guess what choice they will make.

After Fructidor, there is a renewal of religious persecution and of
excessive civil oppression; the brutality and unworthiness of the rulers
have doubled and diffused hatred against the men and the ideas of the
Revolution.--In Belgium, recently annexed, the regular and secular
clergy had just been proscribed in a mass,[2112] and a great rural
insurrection had broken out. The uprising had spread from the Waes
country and the ancient seignory of Malines, around Louvain as far as
Tirlemont, and afterward to Brussels, to Campine, to South Brabant, to
Flanders, to Luxembourg, in the Ardennes, and even to the frontiers of
Liège; many villages had to be burned, and many of their inhabitants
killed, and the survivors keep this in mind. In the twelve western
departments,[2113] at the beginning of the year 1800, the royalists were
masters of nearly the whole country and had control of forty thousand
armed men in regimental order; undoubtedly these were to be overcome
and disarmed, but they were not to be deprived of their opinions, as
of their guns.--In the month of August, 1799,[2114] sixteen thousand
insurgents in Haute Garonne and the six neighboring departments, led by
Count de Paulo, had unfurled the royal white flag; one of the cantons,
Cadours, "had risen almost entirely;" a certain town, Muret, sent
all its able-bodied men. They had penetrated even to the outskirts of
Toulouse, and several engagements, including a pitched battle, were
necessary to subdue them. On one occasion, at Montréjean, 2000 were
slain or drowned. The peasants fought with fury, "a fury that bordered
on frenzy;" "some were heard to exclaim with their last breath, 'Vive
le Roi!' and others were cut to pieces rather than shout, 'Vive la
République!'"--From Marseilles to Lyons the revolt lasted five years
on both banks of the Rhône, under the form of brigandage; the royalist
bands, increased by refractory conscripts and favored by the inhabitants
whom they spared, killed or pillaged the agents of the republic and
the buyers of national possessions.[2115] There were thus, in more
than thirty departments, intermittent and scattered Vendées. In all the
Catholic departments there was a latent Vendée. Had the elections been
free during this state of exasperation it is probable that one-half
of France would have voted for men of the ancient régime--Catholics,
Royalists, or, at least, the Monarchists of 1790.

Let the reader imagine facing this party, in the same chamber, about
an equal number of representatives elected by the other party; the only
ones it could select, its notables, that is to say, the survivors of
preceding assemblies, probably Constitutionalists of the year IV and
the year V, Conventionalists of the Plain and of the Feuillants of 1792,
from Lafayette and Dumolard to Daunou, Thibaudeau and Grégoire, among
them Girondists and a few Montagnards, Barère,[2116] with others, all of
them wedded to the theory the same as their adversaries to traditions.
To one who is familiar with the two groups, behold two inimical
doctrines confronting each other; two irreconcilable systems of opinions
and passions, two contradictory modes of conceiving sovereignty, law,
society, the State, property, religion, the Church, the ancient régime,
the Revolution, the present and the past; it is civil war transferred
from the nation to the parliament. Certainly the Right would like to see
the First Consul a Monck, which would lead to his becoming a Cromwell;
for his power depends entirely on his credit with the army, then the
sovereign force; at this date the army is still republican, at least in
feeling if not intelligently, imbued with Jacobin prejudices, attached
to revolutionary interests, and hence blindly hostile to aristocrats,
kings, and priests.[2117] At the first threat of a monarchical
and Catholic restoration it will demand of him an eighteenth
Fructidor[2118]; otherwise, some Jacobin general, Jourdan, Bernadotte,
or Augereau, will make one without him, against him, and they fall back
into the rut from which they wished to escape, into the fatal circle of
revolutions and coups d'état.




VII. Establishment of a new Dictatorship.

     The electoral and legislative combinations of Sieyès.
     --Bonaparte's use of them.--Paralysis and submission of the
     three legislative bodies.--The Senate as the ruler's tool.
     --Senatus-consultes and Plebiscites.--Final establishment of
     the Dictatorship.--Its dangers and necessity.--Public power
     now able to do its work.

Sieyès comprehended this: he detects on the horizon the two specters
which, for ten years, have haunted all the governments of France, legal
anarchy and unstable despotism; he has found a magic formula with which
to exorcise these two phantoms; henceforth "power is to come from above
and confidence from below."[2119]--Consequently, the new constitutional
act withdraws from the nation the right to elect its deputies; it will
simply elect candidates to the deputation and through three degrees of
election, one above the other; thus, it is to take part in the choice
of its candidates only through "an illusory and metaphysical
participation."[2120] The right of the electors of the first degree is
wholly reduced to designating one-tenth among themselves; the right
of those of the second degree is also reduced to designating one-tenth
among themselves; the right of those of the third degree is finally
reduced to designating one-tenth of their number, about six thousand
candidates. On this list, the government itself, by right and by way of
increasing the number, inscribes its own high functionaries; evidently,
on such a long list, it will have no difficulty in finding men who,
as simple tools, will be devoted to it. Through another excess of
precaution, the government, on its sole authority, in the absence of any
list, alone names the first legislature. Last of all, it is careful to
attach handsome salaries to these legislative offices, 10,000 f., 15,000
f., and 30,000 f. a year; parties canvass with it for these places the
very first day, the future depositaries of legislative power being, to
begin with, solicitors of the antechamber.--To render their docility
complete, there is a dismemberment of this legislative power in
advance; it is divided among three bodies, born feeble and passive by
institution. Neither of these has any initiative; their deliberations
are confined to laws proposed by the government. Each possesses only a
fragment of function; the "Tribunat" discusses without passing laws, the
"Corps Législatif" decrees without discussion, the conservative"
Sénat" is to maintain this general paralysis. "What do you want?" said
Bonaparte to Lafayette.[2121] "Sieyès everywhere put nothing but ghosts,
the ghost of a legislative power, the ghost of a judiciary, the ghost
of a government. Something substantial had to be put in their place. Ma
foi, I put it there," in the executive power.

There it is, completely in his hands; other authorities to him are
merely for show or as instruments.[2122] The mutes of the Corps
Législatif come annually to Paris to keep silent for four months;
one day he will forget to convoke them, and nobody will remark their
absence.--As to the Tribunat, which talks too much, he will at first
reduce its words to a minimum "by putting it on the diet of laws;"
afterward, through the interposition of the senate, which designates
retiring members, he gets rid of troublesome babblers; finally, and
always through the interposition of the senate, titular interpreter,
guardian, and reformer of the constitution, he ventilates and then
suppresses the Tribunat itself.--The senate is the grand instrument
by which he reigns; he commands it to furnish the senatus-consultes of
which he has need. Through this comedy played by him above, and through
another complementary comedy which he plays below, the plebiscite, he
transforms his ten-year consulate into a consulate for life, and then
into an empire, that is to say, into a permanent, legal, full, and
perfect dictatorship. In this way the nation is handed over to the
absolutism of a man who, being a man, cannot fail to think of his own
interest before all others. It remains to be seen how far and for how
long a time this interest, as he comprehends it, or imagines it, will
accord with the interest of the public. All the better for France should
this accord prove complete and permanent; all the worse for France
should it prove partial and temporary. It is a terrible risk, but
inevitable. There is no escape from anarchy except through despotism,
with the chance of encountering in one man, at first a savior and then a
destroyer, with the certainty of henceforth belonging to an unknown will
fashioned by genius and good sense, or by imagination and egoism, in
a soul fiery and disturbed by the temptations of absolute power, by
success and universal adulation, in a despot responsible to no one but
himself, in a conqueror condemned by the impulses of conquest to regard
himself and the world under a light growing falser and falser.

Such are the bitter fruits of social dissolution: the authority of the
state will either perish or become perverted; each uses it for his
own purposes, and nobody is disposed to entrust it to an external
arbitrator, and the usurpers who seize it only remain trustee on
condition that they abuse it; when it works in their hands it is only to
work against its office. It must be accepted when, for want of better or
fear of worse, through a final usurpation, it falls into the only hands
able to restore it, organize it, and apply it at last to the service of
the public.


*****


[Footnote 2101: "The Revolution," P.193 and following pages, also p.224
and following pages. The provisions of the constitution of the year
III, somewhat less anarchical, are analogous; those of the "Mountain"
constitution (year II) are so anarchical that nobody thought of
enforcing them.]

[Footnote 2102: "The Revolution," vol. III., pp.446, 450, 476.]

[Footnote 2103: Sauzay, "Histoire de la persecution révolutionnaire dans
le département du Doubs," X., 472 (Speech of Briot to the five-hundred,
Aug.29, 1799): "The country seeks in vain for its children; it finds the
chouans, the Jacobins, the moderates, and the constitutionalists of
'91 and '93, clubbists, the amnestied, fanatics, scissionists and
antiscissionists; in vain does it call for republicans."]

[Footnote 2104: "The Revolution," III., 427, 474.--Rocquain, "L'état de
la France au 18 Brumaire," 360, 362: "Inertia or absence of the national
agents. .. It would be painful to think that a lack of salary was one of
the causes of the difficulty in establishing municipal administrations.
In 1790, 1791, and 1792, we found our fellow-citizens emulously striving
after these gratuitous offices and even proud of the disinterestedness
which the law prescribed." (Report of the Directory, end of 1795.)
After this date public spirit is extinguished, stifled by the Reign
of Terror.--Ibid., 368, 369: "Deplorable indifference for public
offices.... Out of seven town officials appointed in the commune of
Laval, only one accepted, and that one the least capable. It is the same
in the other communes."--Ibid., 380 (Report of the year VII): "General
decline of public spirit."--Ibid., 287 (Report by Lacuée, on the
1st military division, Aisne, Eure-et-Loire, Loiret, Oise, Seine,
Seine-et-Marne, (year IX): "Public spirit is dying out and is even
gone."]

[Footnote 2105: Rocquain, Ibid., p.27 (Report of François de Nantes, on
the 8th military division,Vaucluse, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, Basses-Alpes,
and Alpes-Maratimes, year IX): "Witnesses, in some communes, did not
dare furnish testimony, and, in all, the justices of the peace were
afraid of making enemies and of not being re-elected. It was the same
with the town officials charged with prosecutions and whom their quality
as elected and temporary officials always rendered timid."--Ibid., 48:
"All the customs-directors complained of the partiality of the courts. I
have myself examined several cases in which the courts of Marseilles
and Toulon decided against the plain text the law and with criminal
partiality.--Archives nationales, series F7, Reports "on the situation,
on the spirit of the public," in many hundreds of towns, cantons, and
departments, from the year III to the year VIII and after.]

[Footnote 2106: Cf. "The Revolution," III., book IX., ch. I.--Rocquain,
passim.--Schmidt, "Tableaux de la Révolution française," III., parts 9
and 10.--Archives nationales, F7, 3250 (Letter of the commissioner of
the executive directory, Fructidor 23, year VII): "Armed mobs on the
road between Saint-Omer and Arras have dared fire on the diligences and
rescue from the gendarmerie the drawn conscripts."--Ibid., F7, 6565.
Only on Seine-inferiure, of which the following are some of the reports
of the gendarmerie for one year.--Messidor, year VII, seditious mobs of
conscripts and others in the cantons of Motteville and Doudeville.
"What shows the perverted spirit of the communes of Gremonville and of
Héronville is that none of the inhabitants will make any declaration,
while it is impossible that they should not have been in the rebels'
secrets."--Similar mobs in the communes of Guerville, Millebose,and
in the forest of Eu: "It is stated that they have leaders, and that
drilling goes on under their orders.--Vendémiarie 27, year VIII.)
"Twenty-five armed brigands or drafted men in the cantons of Réauté
and Bolbec have put farmers to ransom."--(Nivôse 12~ year VIII.) In the
canton of Cuny another band of brigands do the same thing.--(Germinal
14, year VIII.) Twelve brigands stop the diligence between Neufchatel
and Rouen; a few days after, the diligence between Rouen and Paris is
stopped and three of the escort are killed.--Analogous scenes and mobs
in the other departments.]

[Footnote 2107: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893. I., 260. Under the Directory," one day, in order to
dispatch a special courier, the receipts of the Opera had to be taken
because they were in coin. Another day, it was on the point of sending
every gold piece in the musée of medals to be melted down (worth in the
crucible from 5000 to 6000 francs)."]

[Footnote 2108: "Théorie constitutionnelle de Sieyès." (Extract from
unpublished memoirs by Boulay de la Meurthe.) Paris, 1866, Renouard.]

[Footnote 2109: "Correspondance de Napoleon 1er," XXX.. 345.
("Mémoires.")--"Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène"]

[Footnote 2110: "Extrait des Mémoires" de Boulay de la Meurthe, p.50.
(Words of Bonaparte to Roederer about Sieyès, who raised objections and
wanted to retire.) "If Sieyès goes into the country, draw up for me at
once the plan of a constitution. I will summon the primary assemblies
in a week and make them accept it after discharging the (Constituant)
committees."]

[Footnote 2111: "Correspondance de Napoléon ler" XXX., 345, 346.
("Mémoires.") "Circumstances were such as to still make it necessary to
disguise the unique magistracy of the president."]

[Footnote 2112: The Revolution," III., 458, 417.--"Mercure
britannique," nos. for November 1798 and January 1799. (Letters from
Belgium.)--"More than 300 millions have been seized by force in these
desolated provinces; there is not a landowner whose fortune has not
been ruined, or sequestrated, or fatally sapped by forced levies and the
flood of taxes which followed these, by robberies of movable property
and the bankruptcy due to France having discredited claims on the
emperor and on the governments, in short through confiscation."--The
insurrection breaks out, as in Vendée, on account of the conscription;
the war-cry of the insurgents is, "Better die here than elsewhere."]

[Footnote 2113: De Martel, "Les Historiens fantaisistes," part 2 (on the
Pacification of the West, according to reports of the royalist leaders
and of the republican generals).]

[Footnote 2114: Archives nationales, F7, 3218. (Summary of dispatches
arranged according to dates.-Letters of Adjutant-General Vicose,
Fructidor 3, year VII.--Letters of Lamagdelaine, commissioner of the
executive Directory, Thermidor 26 and Fructidor 3, year VII.)--"The
rascals who led the people astray had promised them, in the King's name,
that they should not be called on for further taxes, that the conscripts
and requisitionnaires should not leave, and, finally, that they should
have the priests they wanted."--Near Montréjean "the carnage
was frightful, nearly 2000 men slain or drowned and 1000
prisoners."--(Letter of M. Alquier to the first consul, Pluviôse 18,
year VIII.) "The insurrection of Thermidor caused the loss of 3000
cultivators.--(Letters of the department administrators and of the
government commissioners, Nivôse 25 and 27, Pluviôse 13, 15, 25, 27, and
30, year VIII.)--The insurrection is prolonged through a vast number of
isolated outrages, with sabers or guns, against republican functionaries
and partisans, justices of the peace, mayors, etc. In the commune of
Balbèze, fifty conscripts, armed deserters with their knapsacks, impose
requisitions,give balls on Sunday, and make patriots give up their arms.
Elsewhere, this or that known patriot is assaulted in his house by a
band of ten or a dozen young folks who make him pay a ransom, shout
"Vive le Roi!" etc.--Cf. "Histoire de I' insurrection royaliste de l'an
VII," by B. Lavigne, 1887.]

[Footnote 2115: Archives nationales, F7, 3273 (Letter of the
commissioner of the executive Directory, Vaucluse, Fructidor 6, year
VII.): "Eighty armed royalists have carried off, near the forest of
Suze, the cash-box of the collector, Bouchet, in the name of Louis
XVIII. These rascals, it must be noted, did not take any of the money
belonging to the collector himself."--(Ibid., Thermidor 3, year VII.)
"On looking around among our communes I find all of them under the
control of royalist or town-councillors. That is the spirit of the
peasants generally.... Public spirit it so perverted, so opposed to the
constitutional regime, that a miracle only will bring them within the
pale of freedom."--Ibid., F7, 3199. (Similar documents on the department
of Bouches-du-Rhône.) Outrages continue here far down into
the consulate, in spite of the vigor and multitude of military
executions.--(Letter of the sub-prefect of Tarascon, Germinal 15, year
IX.) "In the commune of Eyragues, yesterday, at eight o'clock, a band of
masked brigands surrounded the mayor's house, while some of them entered
it and shot this public functionary without anybody daring to render
him any assistance.... Three-quarters of the inhabitants of Eyragues
are royalists."--In series F7, 7152 and those following may be found
an enumeration of political crimes classified by department and by the
month, especially for Messidor, year VII.]

[Footnote 2116: Barère, representative of Hautes Pyrénées, had preserved
a good deal of credit in this remote department, especially in the
district of Argeles, with populations which knew nothing about the
"Mountain." In 1805, the electors presented him as a candidate for the
legislative body and the senate; in 1815, they elected him deputy.]

[Footnote 2117: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I.,
158. At the time the concordat was under consideration the aversion to
"priest rule" was very great in the army; there were secret meetings
held against it. Many of the superior officers took part in them, and
even some of the leading generals. Moreau was aware of them although he
did not attend them. In one of these gatherings, things were carried far
enough to resolve upon the assassination of the first consul. A certain
Donnadieu, then of a low rank in the army, offered to strike the blow.
General Oudinot, who was present, informed Davoust, and Donnadieu,
imprisoned in the Temple, made revelations. Measures were at once taken
to scatter the conspirators, who were all sent away more or less farther
off; some were arrested and others exiled, among them General Mounier,
who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at Marengo. General Lecourbe
was also one of the conspirators.]

[Footnote 2118: On the 18th Fructidor Napoléon used grape-shot and
artillery to sweep the royalists off the streets of Paris. (SR.)]

[Footnote 2119: "Extrait des Mémoires de Boulay de la Meurthe," p.10.]

[Footnote 2120: Napoleon's words. ("Correspondance," XXX., 343, memoirs
dictated at Saint Helena.)]

[Footnote 2121: Lafayette, "Mémoires," II., 192.]

[Footnote 2122: Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil
d'état," p. 63 "The senate is mistaken if it thinks it possesses
a national and representative chamber. It is merely a constituted
authority emanating from the government like the others."--Ibid., P.147:
"It must not be in the power of a legislative body to impede government
by refusing taxes; once the taxes are established they should be levied
by simple decrees. The court of cassation regards my decrees as laws;
otherwise, there would be no government." (January 9, 1808.)--Ibid., p.
147:" If I ever had any fear of the senate I had only to put fifty young
state-councillors into it." (December 1, 1803.)--Ibid., p.150: "If an
opposition should spring up in the legislative corps I would fall
back on the senate to prorogue, change it, or break it up." (March 29,
1806.)--Ibid., p.151: "Sixty legislators go out every year which one
does not know what to do with; those who do not get places go and
grumble in the departments. I should like to have old land-owners
married, in a certain sense, to the state through their family or
profession, attached by some tie to the commonwealth. Such men would
come to Paris annually, converse with the emperor in his own circle, and
be contented with this little bit of vanity relieving the monotony
of their existence." (Same date.)--Cf. Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le
Consulat," ch. XIII., and M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 120 (Words
of Napoleon at Dresden, in the spring of 1812): "I shall give the senate
and the council of state a new organization. The former will take the
place of the upper chamber, the latter that of the chamber of deputies.
I shall continue to appoint the senators; I shall have the state
councillors elected one-third at a time on triple lists; the rest I will
appoint. Here will the budget be prepared and the laws elaborated."--We
see the corps législatif, docile as it is, still worrying him, and very
justly; he foresaw the session of 1813.]




CHAPTER II. PUBLIC POWER




I. Principal service rendered by the public power.

     Principal service rendered by the public power.--It is an
     instrumentality.--A common law for every instrumentality.
     --Mechanical instruments.--Physiological instruments.--Social
     instruments.--The perfection of an instrument increases with
     the convergence of its effects.

What is the service which the public power renders to the public?--The
principal one is the protection of the community against the foreigner,
and of private individuals against each other.--Evidently, to do this,
it must in all cases be provided with indispensable means, namely:
diplomats, an army, a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts,
prisons, a police, taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents
and local supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to
his special duty, will co-operate in securing the desired
effect.--Evidently, again, to apply all these instruments, the
public power must have, according to the case, this or that form or
constitution, this or that degree of impulse and energy: according to
the nature and gravity of external or internal danger, it is proper that
it should be concentrated or divided, emancipated from control or under
control, authoritative or liberal. No indignation need be cherished
beforehand against its mechanism. Strictly speaking, it is a vast piece
appliance in the human community, such as a machine in a factory or such
as organ in the human body. If this organ is the only on that can carry
out the task, let us accept it and its structure: whoever wants the end
wants the means. All we can ask is that the means shall be adapted to
the end; in other terms, that the myriad of large or small local or
central pieces shall be determined, adjusted, and coordinated in view of
the final and total effect to which they co-operate nearly or remotely.

But, whether simple or compound, every engine which does any work
is subject to one condition; the better it is suited to any distinct
purpose the less it is suited to other purposes; as its perfection
increases, so does its application become limited.--Accordingly, if
there are two distinct instruments applied to two distinct objects,
the more perfect they are, each of its kind, the more do their domains
become circumscribed and opposed to each other; as one of them becomes
more capable of doing its own work it becomes more incapable of doing
the work of the other; finally, neither can take the place of the
other, and this is true whatever the instrument may be, mechanical,
physiological, or social.

At the very lowest grade of human industry the savage possesses but one
tool; with his cutting or pointed bit of stone he kills, breaks, splits,
bores, saws, and carves; the instrument suffices, in the main, for all
sorts of services. After this come the lance, the hatchet, the hammer,
the punch, the saw, the knife, each adapted to a distinct purpose and
less efficacious outside of that purpose: one cannot saw well with a
knife, and one cuts badly with a saw. Later, highly-perfected engines
appear, and, wholly special, the sewing-machine and the typewriter:
it is impossible to sew with the typewriter or write with the
sewing-machine.--In like manner, when at the lowest round of the organic
ladder the animal is simply a shapeless jelly, homogeneous and viscous,
all parts of it are equally suited to all functions; the amoebae,
indifferently and by all the cells of its body, can walk, seize,
swallow, digest, breathe, and circulate all its fluids, expel its waste,
and propagate its species. A little higher up, in fresh-water polyp, the
internal sac which digests and the outer skin which serves to envelop
it can, if absolutely necessary, change their functions; if you turn the
animal inside out like a glove it continues to live; its skin, become
internal, fulfills the office of a stomach; its stomach, become
external, fulfills the office of an envelope. But, the higher we ascend,
the more do the organs, complicated by the division and subdivision of
labor, diverge, each to its own side, and refuse to take each other's
place. The heart, with the mammal, is only good for impelling the blood,
while the lungs only furnish the blood with oxygen; one cannot possibly
do the work of the other; between the two domains the special structure
of the former and the special structure of the latter interpose an
impassable barrier.--In like manner, finally, at the very bottom of the
social scale--lower down than the Andamans and the Fuegians--we find a
primitive stage of humanity in which society consists wholly of a herd.
In this herd there is no distinct association in view of a distinct
purpose; there is not even a family--no permanent tie between male and
female; there is simply a contact of the sexes. Gradually, in this
herd of individuals, all equal and all alike, particular groups define
themselves, take shape, and separate: we see appearing more and more
precise relationships, more and more distinct habitations, more and
more hereditary homesteads, fishing, hunting, and war groups, and
small workshops; if the people is a conquering people, castes establish
themselves. At length, we find in this expanded and solidly-organized
social body provinces, communes, churches, hospitals, schools, corporate
bodies and associations of every species and dimension, temporary or
permanent, voluntary or involuntary, in brief, a multitude of social
engines constructed out of human beings who, on account of personal
interest, habit, and constraint, or through inclination, conscience,
and generosity, co-operate according to a public or tacit statute in
effecting in the material or spiritual order of things this or that
determinate undertaking. In France, to-day, there are, besides the
State, eighty-six departments, thirty-six thousand communes, four church
bodies, forty thousand parishes, seven or eight millions of families,
millions of agricultural, industrial, and commercial establishments,
hundreds of institutions of science and art, thousands of educational
and charitable institutions, benevolent and mutual-aid societies, and
others for business or for pleasure by tens and hundreds and thousands,
in short, innumerable associations of every kind, each with a purpose
of its own, and, like a tool or a special organ, carrying out a distinct
work.

Now, each of these associations so far as it is a tool or an organ is
subject to the same law; the better it is in one direction, the more
mediocre it is in other directions; its special competency constitutes
its general incompetence. This is why, among developed nations, no
specialized organization can replace another in a satisfactory manner.
"An academy of painting which should also be a bank would, in all
probability, exhibit very bad pictures and discount very bad bills. A
gas company which should also be a kindergarten would, we expect, light
the streets poorly and teach the children badly." [2201] And the
reason is that an instrument, whatever it may be, a mechanical tool, or
physiological organ, or human association, is always a system of pieces
whose effects converge to a given end; it matters little whether the
pieces are bits of wood and metal, as in the tool, cells and fibers,
as in the organ, souls and understandings, as in the association;
the essential thing is the convergence of their effects; for the more
convergent these effects, the more efficient is the instrument in the
realization of its end. But, through this convergence, it takes one
direction exclusively and cannot take any other; it cannot operate at
once in two different senses; it cannot possibly turn to the right and
at the same time turn to the left. If any social instrument devised
for a special service is made to act additionally for another, it will
perform its own office badly as well the one it usurps. Of the two works
executed by it, the first injures the second and the second injures the
first one. The end, ordinarily, is the sacrifice of one to the other,
and, most frequently, the failure of both.




II. Abusive Government Intervention.

     Application of this law to the public power.--General effect
     of its intervention.

Let us follow out the effects of this law when it is the public power
which, beyond its principal and peculiar task, undertakes a different
task and puts itself in the place of corporate bodies to do their
work; when the State, not content with protecting the community and
individuals against external or internal oppression, takes upon itself
additionally the government of churches, education, or charity, the
direction of art, science, and of commercial, agricultural, municipal,
or domestic affairs.--Undoubtedly, it can intervene in all corporate
bodies other than itself; it has both the right and the duty to
interfere; it is bound to do this through its very office as defender
of persons and property, to repress in these bodies spoliation and
oppression, to compel in them the observance of the primordial statute,
charter, or contract, to maintain in the them rights of each member
fixed by this statute, to decide according to this statute all conflicts
which may arise between administrators and the administrated, between
directors and stockholders, between pastors and parishioners, between
deceased founders and their living successors. In doing this, it affords
them its tribunals, its constables, and its gendarmes, and it affords
these to them only with full consent after having looking into and
accepted the statute. This, too, is one of the obligations of its
office: its mandate hinders it from placing the public power at the
service of despoiling and oppressive enterprises; it is interdicted from
authorizing a contract for prostitution or slavery, and above all, for
the best of reasons, a society for brigandage and insurrections, an
armed league, or ready to arm itself, against the community, or a part
of the community, or against itself.--But, between this legitimate
intervention which enables it to maintain rights, and the abusive
interference by which it usurps rights, the limit is visible and it
oversteps this limit when, to its function of justiciary, it adds a
second, that of governing or supporting another corporation. In this
case two series of abuses unfold themselves; on the one side, the State
acts contrary to its primary office, and, on the other, it discharges
the duties of its superadded office badly.[2202]




III. The State attacks persons and property.

     It acts against its function. Its encroachments are attacks
     on persons and property.

For, in the first place, to govern another corporate body, for example
the Church, the State at one time appoints its ecclesiastical heads, as
under the old monarchy after the abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction by
the Concordat of 1516; at another, as with the Constituent Assembly in
1791, without appointing its heads, it invents a new mode of appointment
by imposing on the Church a discipline contrary to its spirit and even
to its dogmas. Sometimes it goes further still and reduces a special
body into a mere administrative branch, transforming its heads into
revocable functionaries whose acts it orders and directs; such under
the Empire as well as under the Restoration, were the mayor and
common-councilors in a commune, and the professors and head-masters of
the University. One step more and the invasion is complete: naturally,
either through ambition or precaution, or through theory or prejudice,
on undertaking a new service it is tempted to reserve to itself or
delegate its monopoly. Before 1789 there existed one of these monopolies
to the advantage of the Catholic Church, through the interdiction of
other cults, also another to the advantage of each corporation of "Arts
et Métiers," through the interdiction of free labor; after 1800, there
existed one for the benefit of the University through all sorts of
shackles and constraints imposed on the establishment and maintenance
of private schools.--Now, through each of these constraints the State
encroaches on the domain of the individual; the more extended its
encroachments the more does it prey upon and reduce the circle of
spontaneous initiation and of independent action, which constitute the
true life of the individual; if, in conformity with the Jacobin program,
it pushes its interference to the end, it absorbs in itself all other
lives;[2203] henceforth, the community consists only of automata
maneuvered from above, infinitely small residues of men, passive,
mutilated, and, so to say, dead souls; the State, instituted to preserve
persons, has reduced them to nonentities.

The effect is the same with property when the State supports other
organizations than its own. For, to maintain these, it has no other
funds than those of the taxpayers; consequently, using its collectors,
it takes the money out of their pockets; all, indiscriminately,
willingly or not, pay supplementary taxes for supplementary services,
whether this service benefits them or is repugnant to them. If I am a
Protestant in a Catholic State, or a Catholic in a Protestant State, I
pay for religion which seems wrong to me and for a Church which seems
to me mischievous. If I am a skeptic, a free-thinker, indifferent or
hostile to positive religions in France, I pay to-day for the support of
four cults which I regard as useless or pernicious. If I am a provincial
or a peasant, I pay for maintaining an "Opéra" which I never attend and
for a "Sèvres" and "Gobelins" of which I never see a vase or a piece of
tapestry.--In times of tranquility the extortion is covered up, but
in troubled times it is nakedly apparent. Under the revolutionary
government, bands of collectors armed with pikes made raids on villages
as in conquered countries;[2204] the farmer, collared and kept down by
blows from the butt end of a musket, sees his grain taken from his barn
and his cattle from their stable; "all scampered off on the road to
the town;" while around Paris, within a radius of forty leagues, the
departments fasted in order that the capital might be fed. With gentler
formalities, under a regular government, a similar extortion occurs when
the State, employing a respectable collector in uniform, takes from our
purse a crown too much for an office outside of its competency. If,
as with the Jacobin State, it claims all offices, it empties the purse
entirely; instituted for the conservation of property, it confiscates
the whole of it.--Thus, with property, as with persons, when the state
proposes to itself another purpose than the preservation of these, not
only does it overstep its mandate but it acts contrary to its mandate.




IV. Abuse of State powers.

     It badly fills the office of the bodies it supplant.--Cases
     in which it usurps their powers and refuses to be their
     substitute.--Cases in which it violates or profits by their
     mechanism.--In all cases it is bad or mediocre substitute.
     --Reasons derived from its structure compared with that of
     other bodies.

Let us consider the other series of abuses, and the way in which the
State performs the service of the corporate bodies it supplants.

In the first place there is a chance that, sooner or later, it will
shirk this work, for this new service is more or less costly, and,
sooner or later, it seems too costly.--Undoubtedly the State has
promised to defray expenses; sometimes even, like the Constituent and
Legislative assemblies, the revenues for this having been confiscated,
it has to furnish an equivalent; it is bound by contract to make good
the local or special sources of revenue which it has appropriated
or dried up, to furnish in exchange a supply of water from the grand
central reservoir, the public treasury.--But if water becomes low in
this reservoir, if the taxes in arrears stop the regular supply, if
a war happens to open a large breach in it, if the prodigality and
incapacity of the rulers, multiply its fissures and leaks, then there is
no money on hand for accessory and secondary services. The State, which
has adopted this service drops it: we have seen under the Convention
and the Directory how, having taken the property of all corporations,
provinces, and communes, of institutions of education, art, and science,
of churches, hospitals, and asylums, it performed their functions; how,
after having been a despoiler and a robber, it became insolvent and
bankrupt; how its usurpation and bankruptcy ruined and then destroyed
all other services; how, through the double effect of its intervention
and desertion, it annihilated in France education, worship, and charity;
why the streets in the towns were no longer lighted nor swept; why, in
the provinces, roads went to decay, and dikes crumbled; why schools
and churches stood empty or were closed; why, in the asylum and in
the hospital, foundlings died for lack of milk, the infirm for lack
of clothing and food, and the sick for lack of broth, medicines, and
beds.[2205]

In the second place, even when the State respects a service or provides
the means for it, there is a chance that it will pervert this simply
because it comes under its direction.--When rulers lay their hands on an
institution it is almost always for the purpose of making something
out of it for their own advantage and to its detriment: they render
everything subordinate to their interests or theories, they put some
essential piece or wheel out of shape or place; they derange its action
and put the mechanism out of order; they make use of it as a
fiscal, electoral, or doctrinal engine, as a reigning or sectarian
instrument.--Such, in the eighteenth century, was the ecclesiastical
staff with which we are familiar,[2206] court bishops, drawing-room
abbés imposed from above on their diocese or their abbey, non-residents,
charged with functions which they do not fulfill, largely-paid idlers,
parasites of the Church, and, besides all this, worldly, gallant, often
unbelievers, strange leaders of a Christian clergy and which, one would
say, were expressly selected to undermine Catholic faith in the minds
of their flocks, or monastic discipline in their convents.--Such,
in 1791,[2207] is the new constitutional clergy, schismatic,
excommunicated, interlopers, imposed on the orthodox majority to say
masses which they deem sacrilegious and to administer sacraments which
they refuse to accept.

In the last place, even when the rulers do not subordinate the interests
of the institution to their passions, to their theories, or to their own
interests, even when they avoid mutilating it and changing its
nature, even when they loyally fulfill, as well as they know how,
the supererogatory (distributive) mandate which they have adjudged to
themselves, they infallibly fulfill it badly, at least worse than the
special and spontaneous bodies for which they substitute themselves,
for the structure of these bodies and the structure of the state are
different.--Unique of its kind, alone wielding the sword, acting from
above and afar by authority and constraints, the State acts over the
entire territory through uniform laws, through imperative and minute
regulations, by a hierarchy of obedient functionaries, which it
maintains under strict instructions. Hence, it is not adapted to
business which, to be well done, needs springs and processes of another
species. Its springs, wholly exterior, are insufficient, too weak to
support and push undertakings which require an internal motor like
private interest, local patriotism, family affections, scientific
curiosity, charitable instincts, and religious faith. Its wholly
mechanical processes, too rigid and too limited, cannot urge on
enterprises which demand of whoever undertakes them delicate and safe
handling, supple manipulation, appreciation of circumstances, ready
adaptation of means to ends, constant contrivance, the initiative, and
perfect independence. On this account the State is a poor head of a
family, a poor commercial or agricultural leader, a bad distributor of
labor and of subsistence, a bad regulator of production, exchanges, and
consumption, a mediocre administrator of the province and the commune,
an undiscerning philanthropist, an incompetent director of the fine
arts, of science, of instruction, and of worship.[2208] In all these
offices its action is either dilatory or bungling, according to routine
or oppressive, always expensive, of little effect and feeble in returns,
and always beyond or apart from the real wants it pretends to satisfy.
The reason is that it starts from too high a point therefore extending
over too vast a field. Transmitted by hierarchical procedures, it lags
along in formalism, and loses itself in "red-tape." On attaining its
end and object it applies the same program to all territories alike
a program devised beforehand in the Cabinet, all of a piece, without
experimental groping and the necessary corrections;

* a program which, calculated approximately according to the average and
the customary, is not exactly suited to any particular case;

* a program which imposes its fixed uniformity on things instead of
adjusting itself to its diversity and change;

* a sort of model coat, obligatory in pattern and stuff, which the
government dispatches by thousands from the center to the provinces, to
be worn, willingly or not, by figures of all sizes and at all seasons.




V. Final Results of Abusive Government Intervention

     Other consequences.--Suppressed or stunted bodies cease to
     grow.--Individuals become socially and politically
     incapable.--The hands into which public power then falls.
     --Impoverishment and degradation of the social body.

And much worse. Not only does the State do the work badly on a domain
not its own, roughly, at greater cost, and with smaller yield than
spontaneous organizations, but, again, through the legal monopoly which
it deems its prerogative, or through its unfair competition, it kills
and paralyzes these natural organizations or prevents their birth; and
hence so many precious organs, which, absorbed, curbed or abandoned, are
lost to the great social body.--And still worse, if this system lasts,
and continues to crush them out, the human community loses the faculty
of reproducing them; entirely extirpated, they do not grow again;
even their germ has perished. Individuals no longer know how to form
associations, how to co-operate under their own impulses, through their
own initiative, free of outside and superior constraint, all together
and for a long time in view of a definite purpose, according to regular
forms under freely-chosen chiefs, frankly accepted and faithfully
followed. Mutual confidence, respect for the law, loyalty, voluntary
subordination, foresight, moderation, patience, perseverance, practical
good sense, every disposition of head and heart, with which no
association of any kind is efficacious or even viable, have died out
for lack of exercise. Henceforth spontaneous, pacific, and fruitful
co-operation, as practiced by a free people, is unattainable; men
have arrived at social incapacity and, consequently, at political
incapacity.--In fact they no longer choose their own constitution or
their own rulers; they put with these, willingly or not, according as
accident or usurpation furnishes them: now the public power belongs
to the man, the faction, or the party sufficiently unscrupulous,
sufficiently daring, sufficiently violent, to seize and hold on to it
by force, to make the most of it as an egotist or charlatan, aided by
parades and prestige, along with bravura songs and the usual din of
ready-made phrases on the rights of Man and the public salvation.--This
central power itself has in its hands no body who might give it an
impetus and inspiration, it rules only over an impoverished, inert,
or languid social body, solely capable of intermittent spasms or of
artificial rigidity according to order, an organism deprived of its
secondary organs, simplified to excess, of an inferior or degraded
kind, a people no longer anything but an arithmetical sum of separate,
unconnected units, in brief, human dust or mud.--This is what the
interference of the State leads to.

There are laws in the social and moral world as in the physiological
and physical world; we may misunderstand them, but we cannot elude them;
they operate now against us, now for us, as we please, but always
alike and without heeding us; it is for us to heed them; for the two
conditions they couple together are inseparable; the moment the first
appears the second inevitably follows.


*****


[Footnote 2201: Macaulay, "Essays: Gladstone on Church and State."--This
principle, of capital importance and of remarkable fecundity, may be
called the principle of specialties. Adam Smith fist applied it to
machines and to workmen. Macaulay extended it to human associations.
Milne-Edwards applied it to the entire series of animal organs. Herbert
Spencer largely develops it in connection with physiological organs
and human societies in his "Principles of Biology" and "Principles of
Sociology." I have attempted here to show the three parallel branches
of its consequences, and, again, their common root, a constitutive and
primordial property inherent in every instrumentality.]

[Footnote 2202: Cf. "The Revolution," III., book VI., ch. 2 The
encroachments of the State and their effect on individuals is there
treated. Here, the question is their effects on corporations. Read, on
the same subject, "Gladstone on Church and State," by Macaulay, and "The
Man versus the State," by Herbert Spencer, two essays in which the close
reasoning and abundance of illustrations are admirable.]

[Footnote 2203: "The Revolution," III, 346. (Laffont II. p 258.)]

[Footnote 2204: Ibid., III. 284 Laff. 213.]

[Footnote 2205: "The Revolution," III., 353, 416. (Laffont II. notes pp
262 and 305 to 308.)]

[Footnote 2206: "The Ancient Régime," 64, 65, 76, 77, 120, 121, 292.
(Laffont I. pp. 52-53, 60-61, 92 to 94, 218 to 219.)]

[Footnote 2207: "The Revolution," I., 177 and following pages. (Laffont
I, pp. 438 to 445.)]

[Footnote 2208: The essays of Herbert Spencer furnish examples for
England under the title of "Over-legislation and Representative
government." Examples for France may be found in "Liberté du Travail,"
by Charles Dunoyer (1845). This work anticipates most of the ideas of
Herbert Spencer, lacking only the physiological "illustrations."]




CHAPTER III. THE NEW GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION.




I. Precedents of the new organization.

     Precedents of the new organization.--In practical
     operation.--Anterior usurpations of the public power.
     --Spontaneous bodies under the Ancient Regime and during the
     Revolution.--Ruin and discredit of their supports.--The
     central power their sole surviving dependence.

Unfortunately, in France at the end of the eighteenth century the bent
was taken and the wrong bent. For three centuries and more the public
power had increasingly violated and discredited spontaneous bodies:

Sometimes it had mutilated them and decapitated them; for example, it
had suppressed provincial governments (états) over three-quarters of the
territory, in all the electoral districts; nothing remained of the old
province but its name and an administrative circumscription.

Sometimes, without mutilating the corporate body it had upset and
deformed it, or dislocated and disjointed it.--So that in the
towns, through changes made in old democratic constitutions, through
restrictions put upon electoral rights and repeated sales of municipal
offices,[2301] it had handed over municipal authority to a narrow
oligarchy of bourgeois families, privileged at the expense of the
taxpayer, half separated from the main body of the public, disliked
by the lower classes, and no longer supported by the confidence or
deference of the community. And in the parish and in the rural canton,
it had taken away from the noble his office of resident protector
and hereditary patron, reducing him to the odious position of a mere
creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the yet worse position
of an absentee creditor.[2302]--So that in the parish and in the
rural canton, it had taken away from the noble his office of resident
protector and hereditary patron, reducing him to the odious position of
a mere creditor, and, if he were a man of the court, to the yet worse
position of an absentee creditor.[2303] Thus, as to the clergy, it had
almost separated the head from the trunk by superposing (through
the concordat) a staff of gentleman prelates, rich, ostentatious,
unemployed, and skeptical, upon an army of plain, poor, laborious, and
believing curates.[2304]

Finally, it had, through a protection as untimely as it was aggressive,
sometimes conferred on the corporation oppressive privileges which
rendered it offensive and mischievous, or else fossilized in an obsolete
form which paralyzed its action or corrupted its service. Such was
the case with the corporations of crafts and industries to which, in
consideration of financial aid, it had conceded monopolies onerous to
the consumer and a clog on industrial enterprises. Such was the case
with the Catholic Church to which, every five years, it granted, in
exchange for its voluntary gift (of money), cruel favors or obnoxious
prerogatives, the prolonged persecution of Protestants, the censorship
of intellectual speculation, and the right of controlling schools and
education.[2305] Such was the case with the universities benumbed by
routine; with latest provincial "Ètats," constituted in 1789, as in
1489. Such was the case with noble families subjected by law to the
antique system of substitutions and of primogeniture, that is to say,
to social constraint which, devised long ago for private as well as for
public interest in order to secure the transmission of local patronage
and political power. This system, however, became useless and
corrupting, fecund in pernicious vanities,[2306] in detestable
calculations, domestic tyrannies, forced vocations, and private
bickering, from the time when the nobles, become frequenters of the
court, had lost political power and renounced local patronage.

Thus deprived of, or diverted from, their purpose, the corporate bodies
had become unrecognizable under the crust of the abuses which disfigured
them. Nobody, except a Montesquieu, could comprehend why they should
exist; on the approach of the Revolution, they seemed, not organs, but
outgrowths, deformities, and, so to say, superannuated monstrosities.
Their historical and natural roots, their living germs far below the
surface, their social necessity, their fundamental utility, their
possible usefulness, were no longer visible. Only their present
inconvenience was felt; people suffered by their friction and burden;
their lack of harmony and incoherence created dissatisfaction; annoyance
due to their degeneracy were attributed to radical defects; they were
judged to be naturally unsound and were condemned, in principle, because
of the deviations and laws which the public power had imposed on their
development.

Suddenly, the public power, which had produced the evil by its
intervention, pretended to remove it by a still greater intervention: in
1789 it again intruded itself on corporate bodies, not to reform them,
not restore each to its proper channel, not to confine each with proper
limits, but to destroy them outright. Through a radical, universal, and
extraordinary amputation, the like of which is not mentioned in history,
with the rashness of the theorist and the brutality of the butcher, the
legislator extirpated them all, as far as he could, even including the
family, while his fury extended beyond the present into the future.
To legal abolition and total confiscation, he added the systematic
hostility of his preventive laws, together with a fresh obstacle in
the shape of his new constructions; during three successive
legislatures[2307] he provided against their future regeneration,
against the permanent instincts and necessities which might one day
resuscitate stable families, distinct provinces, and an orthodox church,
against artistic, industrial, financial, charitable, and educational
corporations, against every spontaneous and organized group, and against
every collective, local, or special enterprise. In place of these he
installed synthetic bodies or institutions:

* a Church without believers,

* schools without pupils,

* hospitals without incomes,

* a geometrical hierarchy of improvised powers in the commune, district,
and department,

all badly organized, badly adjusted, out of gear at the start,
overwhelmed with political functions, as incapable of performing
their proper duties as their supplementary duties, and, from the very
beginning, either powerless or mischievous.[2308] Changes repeatedly
marred by arbitrariness from above or from below, set aside or perverted
now by the mob and again by the government, inert in the country,
oppressive in the towns, we have seen the state into which they had
fallen at the end of the Directory; how, instead of a refuge for
liberty, they had become haunts of tyranny or sinks of egoism; why, in
1800, they were as much decried as their predecessors in 1788, why their
two successive props, the old one and the most recent, historic custom
and popular election, were now discredited and no longer resorted
to.--After the disastrous experience of the monarchy and the still worse
experience of the republic, another prop had to be sought for; but only
one remained, that of the central power, the only one visible and
which seemed substantial; in default of others they had recourse to
this.[2309] In any event, no protestation, even secret and moral, any
longer prevented the State from attaching other corporate bodies to
itself, in order to use them for its own purposes as instruments or
appendages.




II. Doctrines of Government.

     The theory.--Agreement of speculative ideas with practical
     necessities.--Public rights under the Ancient Regime.--The
     King's three original rights.--Labors of the jurists in
     extending royal prerogatives.--Historical impediments.--The
     primitive or ulterior limits of royal power.--The
     philosophic and revolutionary principle of popular
     sovereignty.--Unlimited extension of State power.
     --Application to spontaneous bodies.--Convergence of ancient
     and new doctrines.--Corporations considered as creations of
     the public power.--Centralization through the universal
     intervention of the State.

The theory here agreed with the need, and not alone the recent theory,
but again the ancient theory. Long before 1789, public right had
elevated the prerogative of centralized power into a dogma and
exaggerated it beyond measure.

There are three titles under which this power was conferred.--Feudal
seignior, and suzerain, that is to say, commander-in-chief of the great
resident army whose willing forces had served to reconstruct society in
the ninth century, the King, through the remotest of his origins--that
is to say, through the immemorial confusion of sovereignty with
property--was the owner of France, the same as an individual owns his
private domain.[2310]--Married, moreover, to the Church since the first
Capets, consecrated and crowned at Rheims, anointed by God like a second
David,[2311] not only was he believed to be authorized from on high,
like other monarchs, but, from Louis le Gros, and especially after the
time of saint Louis, he appeared as the delegate from on high, invested
with a laic sacerdotalism, clothed with moral power, minister of eternal
justice, redresser of wrongs, protector of the weak, benefactor of the
humble--in short, "His Most Christian Majesty."--At length, after the
thirteenth century, the recent discovery and diligent study of the
ancient codes of Justinian had shown in his person the successor of
the Caesars of Rome and of the Emperors of Constantinople. According
to these codes the people in a body had transferred its rights to the
prince; now, in antique cities, all rights were vested in the community,
and the individual had none;[2312] accordingly, through this transfer,
all rights, public or private, passed into the hands of the prince;
henceforth he could exercise them as he pleased, under no restriction
and no control. He was above the law, since he made it; his powers were
illimitable and his decision absolute.[2313]

On this triple frame the jurists, like State spiders, had, from Philippe
le Bel down, spun their web, and the instinctive concordance of their
hereditary efforts had attached all its threads to the omnipotence of
the King.--Being jurisconsults--that is to say, logicians--they were
obliged to deduce, and their minds naturally recurred to the unique
and rigid principle to which they might attach their arguments.--As
advocates and councilors of the crown they espoused the case of their
client and, through professional zeal, derived or forced precedents and
texts to his advantage.--By virtue of being administrators and judges
the grandeur of their master constituted their grandeur, and personal
interest counseled them to expand a prerogative in which, through
delegation, they took part.--Hence, during four centuries, they had spun
the tissue of "regalian rights," the great net in the meshes of which,
since Louis XIV., all lives found themselves caught.[2314]

Nevertheless, however tightly spun was the web, there were openings
in it, or, at least, very weak spots.--And first, of the consequences
flowing from these three principles in their hands, two of them had
hindered the third from unwinding its skein to the end: owing to the
fact that the King was formerly Count de Paris and Abbot of St. Denis,
he could not become a veritable Augustus, an authentic Diocletian: his
two French titles limited his Roman title. Without regard to the laws,
so-called fundamental, which imposed his heir on him beforehand, also
the entire line of his successive heirs, the tutor, male or female,
of his minor heir, and which, if he derogated from immemorial usage,
annulled his will like that of a private individual, his quality of
suzerain and that of Most Christian, were for him a double impediment.
As hereditary general of the feudal army he was bound to consider and
respect the hereditary officers of the same army, his old peers and
companions in arms--that is to say, the nobles. As outside bishop, he
owed to the Church not alone his spiritual orthodoxy, but, again, his
temporal esteem, his active zeal, and the aid furnished him by his
secular arm. Hence, in applied right, the numerous privileges of the
nobles and the Church, so many immunities and even liberties, so
many remains of antique local independence, and even of antique local
sovereignty,[2315] so many prerogatives, honorific or serviceable,
maintained by the law and by the tribunals. On this side, the meshes of
the monarchical netting had not been well knit or remained loose;
and the same elsewhere, with openings more or less wide, in the five
provincial governments (états), in the Pyrenees districts, in Alsace, at
Strasbourg, but especially in Languedoc and in Brittany, where the
pact of incorporation, through a sort of bilateral contract, associated
together on the same parchment and under the same seal the franchises of
the province and the sovereignty of the King.

Add to these original lacunae the hole made by the Prince himself in his
net already woven: he had with his own hand torn away its meshes, and
by thousands. Extravagant to excess and always needy, he converted
everything into money, even his own rights, and, in the military order,
in the civil order, in commerce and in industry, in the administration,
in the judicature, and in the finances. From one end of the territory to
the other, he had sold innumerable offices, imposts, dignities,
honors, monopolies, exemptions, survivorships, expectancies--in brief,
privileges which, once conferred for a money consideration, became legal
property,[2316] often hereditary and transmissible by the individual or
the corporation which had paid for them. In this way the King alienated
a portion of his royalty for the benefit of the buyer. Now, in 1789, he
had alienated a great many of these portions; accordingly, his present
authority was everywhere restricted by the use he had previously made of
it.--Sovereignty, thus, in his hands had suffered from the double effect
of its historic origins and its historic exercise; the public power had
not become, or had ceased to be, omnipotence. On the one hand it had not
reached its plenitude, and on the other hand it had deprived itself of a
portion of its own completeness.

The philosophers wished to find a solution for this double weakness,
innate and acquired They had therefore transported sovereignty out of
history into the ideal and abstract world, with an imaginary city of
mankind reduced to the minimum of a human being Here men, infinitely
simplified, all alike, equal, separate from their surroundings and from
their past, veritable puppets, were all lifting their hands in common
rectangular motion to vote unanimously for the contrat social. In this
contract "all classes are reduced to one,[2317] the complete surrender
of each associate, with all his rights, to the community, each giving
himself up entirely, just as he actually is, himself and all his forces,
of which whatever he possesses forms a part," each becoming with respect
to himself and every act of his private life a delegate of the State, a
responsible clerk, in short, a functionary, a functionary of the people,
henceforth the unique, the absolute, and the universal sovereign. A
terrible principle, proclaimed and applied for ten years, below by
the mob and above by the government! Popular opinion had adopted
it; accordingly the passage from the sovereignty of the King to the
sovereignty of the people was easy, smooth,[2318] and to the novice in
reasoning, the old-fashioned taxable and workable subject, to whom the
principle conferred a portion of the sovereignty, the temptation was too
great.

At once, according to their custom, the jurists put themselves at
the service of the new reign. And no dogma was better suited their to
authoritative instinct; no axiom furnished them so convenient a fulcrum
on which to set up and turn their logical wheel. This wheel, which they
had latterly managed with care and caution under the ancient Régime, had
suddenly in their hands turned with frightful speed and effect in order
to convert the rigid, universal, and applied laws, the intermittent
processes, the theoretical pretensions, and the worst precedents of the
monarchy into practice. This meant

* the use of extraordinary commissions,

* accusations of lésé majesté,

* the suppression of legal formalities,

* the persecution of religious beliefs and of personal opinions,

* the right of condemning publications and of coercing thought,

* the right of instruction and education,

* the rights of pre-emption, of requisition, of confiscation, and of
proscription,

in short, pure and perfect arbitrariness. The result is visible in the
deeds of Treilhard, of Berlier, of Merlin de Douai, of Cambacérès, in
those of the Constituant and Legislative Assemblies, in the Convention,
under the Directory, in their Jacobin zeal or hypocrisy, in their talent
for combining despotic tradition with tyrannical innovation, in their
professional skill in fabricating on all occasions a snare of plausible
arguments with which to properly strangle the individual, their
adversary, to the profit of the State, their eternal master.

In effect, not only had they almost strangled their adversary, but
likewise, through an aftereffect, their master: France which, after
fourteen months of suffocation, was approaching physical suicide.[2319]
Such success, too great, had obliged them to stop; they had abandoned
one-half of their destructive creed, retaining only the other half, the
effect of which, less imminent, was less apparent. If they no longer
dared paralyze individual acts in the man, they persisted in paralyzing
in the individual all collective acts.--There must be no special
associations in general society; no corporations within the State,
especially no spontaneous bodies endowed with the initiative,
proprietary and permanent: such is Article II. of the Revolutionary
Creed, and the direct consequence of the previous one which posits
axiomatically the sovereignty of the people and the omnipotence of the
State. Rousseau,[2320] inventor of the first, had like-wise enunciated
the second; the constituent assembly had solemnly decreed it and applied
it on a grand scale,[2321] and successive assemblies had applied it on
a still grander scale;[2322] it was a faith with the Jacobins, and,
besides, in conformity with the spirit of Roman imperial right and with
the leading maxim of French monarchical right. On this point the three
known jurisprudential systems were in accord, while their convergence
brought together around the same table the jurists of the three
doctrines in a common task, ex-parliamentarians and ex-members of the
Committee of Public Safety, former pro-scribers and the proscribed, the
purveyors of Sinamari with Treilhard and Merlin de Douai, returned from
Guiana, alongside of Simeon, Portalis, and Barbé-Marbois. There was
nobody in this conclave to maintain the rights of spontaneous bodies;
the theory, on all three sides, no matter from whom it proceeded,
refused to recognize them for what they are originally and essentially,
that is to say, distinct organisms equally natural with the State,
equally indispensable in their way, and, therefore, as legitimate as
itself; it allowed them only a life on trust, derived from above and
from the center. But, since the State created them, it might and ought
to treat them as its creatures, keep them indefinitely under its thumb,
use them for its purposes, act through them as through other agencies,
and transform their chiefs into functionaries of the central power.




III. Brilliant Statesman and Administrator.

     The Organizer.--Influence of Napoleon's character and mind
     on his internal and French system.--Exigencies of his
     external and European rôle.--Suppression of all centers of
     combination and concord.--Extension of the public domain and
     what it embraces.--Reasons for maintaining the private
     domain.--The part of the individual.--His reserved
     enclosure.--Outlets for him beyond that.--His talents are
     enlisted in the service of public power.--Special aptitude
     and temporary vigor, lack of balance, and doubtful future of
     the social body thus formed.

A new France, not the chimerical, communistic, equalized, and Spartan
France of Robespierre and Saint-Just, but a possible real, durable, and
yet leveled and uniform France, logically struck out at one blow, all
of a piece, according to one general principle, a France, centralized,
administrative, and, save the petty egoistic play of individuals,
managed in one entire body from top to bottom,--in short, the France
which Richelieu and Louis XIV. had longed for, which Mirabeau after 1790
had foreseen,[2323] is now the work which the theories of the monarchy
and of the Revolution had prepared, and toward which the final
concurrence of events, that is to say, "the alliance of philosophy and
the saber," led the sovereign hands of the First Consul.

Accordingly, considering his well-known character, the promptitude, the
activity, the reach, the universality, and the cast of his intellect, he
could not have proposed to himself a different work nor reduced himself
to a lower standard. His need of governing and of administrating was too
great; his capacity for governing and administrating was too great:
his was an exacting genius.--Moreover, for the outward task that he
undertook he required internally, not only undisputed possession of all
executive and legislative powers, not only perfect obedience from all
legal authorities, but, again, the annihilation of all moral authority
but his own, that is to say, the silence of public opinion and the
isolation of each individual, and therefore the abolition, preventive
and systematic, of any religious, ecclesiastic, pedagogic, charitable,
literary, departmental, or communal initiative that might, now or in the
future gather men against him or alongside of him. Like a good general
he secures his rear. At strife with all Europe, he so arranges it as
not to allow in the France he drags along after him refractory souls or
bodies which might form platoons in his rear. Consequently, and through
precaution, he suppresses in advance all eventual rallying points or
centers of combination Henceforth, every wire which can stir up and
bring a company of men together for the same object terminates in his
hands; he holds in his firm grasp all these combined wires, guards them
with jealous care, in order to strain them to the utmost. Let no one
attempt to loosen them, and, above all, let no one entertain a thought
of getting hold of them; they belong to him and to him alone, and
compose the public domain, which is his domain proper.

But, alongside of his proper domain, he recognizes another in which he
himself assigns a limit to the complete absorption of all wills by his
own; he does not admit, of course in his own interest, that the public
power, at least in the civil order of things and in common practice,
should be illimitable nor, especially, arbitrary.[2324]--This is due
to his not being an utopian or a theorist, like his predecessors of the
Convention, but a perspicacious statesman, who is in the habit of
using his own eyes. He sees things directly, in themselves; he does not
imagine them through book formulae or party phrases, by a process of
verbal reasoning, employing the gratuitous suppositions of humanitarian
optimism or the dogmatic prejudices of Jacobin nonsense. He sees Man
just as he is, not Man in himself, an abstract citizen, the philosophic
puppet of the Contrat Social, but the real individual, the entire living
man, with his profound instincts, his tenacious necessities, which,
whether tolerated or not by legislation, still subsist and operate
infallibly, and which the legislator must take into consideration if he
wants to turn them to account.--This individual, a civilized European
and a modern Frenchman, constituted as he is by several centuries
of tolerable police discipline, of respected rights and hereditary
property, must have a private domain, an enclosed area, large or small,
which belongs and is reserved to him personally, to which the public
power interdicts access and before which it mounts guard to prevent
other individuals from intruding on it. Otherwise his condition seems
intolerable to him; he is no longer disposed to exert himself, to set
his wits to work, or to enter upon any enterprise. Let us be careful not
to snap or loosen this powerful and precious spring of action; let him
continue to work, to produce, to economize, if only that he may be in
a condition to pay taxes; let him continue to marry, to bring forth and
raise up sons, if only to serve the conscription. Let us ease his mind
with regard to his enclosure;[2325] let him exercise full proprietorship
over it and enjoy it exclusively; let him feel himself at home in his
own house in perpetuity, safe from any intrusion, protected by the
code and by the courts, not alone against his enemies, but against the
administration itself. Let him in this well-defined, circumscribed abode
be free to turn round and range as he pleases, free to browse at will,
and, if he chooses, to consume all his hay himself. It is not essential
that his meadows should be very extensive: most men live with their nose
to the ground; very few look beyond a very narrow circle; men are not
much troubled by being penned up; the egoism and urgent needs of daily
life are already for them ready-made limits: within these natural
barriers they ask for nothing but to be allowed to graze in security.
Let us give them this assurance and leave them free to consult their
own welfare.--As to the rest, in very small number, more or less
imaginative, energetic, and ardent, there is, outside the enclosure, an
issue expressly provided for them: the new administrative and military
professions offer an outlet to their ambition and to their vanity which,
from the start, keeps on expanding until, suddenly, the first Consul
points to an infinite perspective on the horizon.[2326] According to an
expression attributed to him, henceforth,

"the field is open to all talents,"

and hence all talents, gathered into the central current and
precipitated headlong through competition, swell with their inflow the
immensity of the public power.

This done, the principal features of modern France are traced; a tool
of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues forth,
its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social body
organized by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of one
man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with a
superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains
lucid and this will remains healthy. It is adapted to a military life
and not to civil life, and therefore badly balanced, hampered (géné) in
its development, exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious
debility, but viable for a long time, and, for the present robust, alone
able to bear the weight of the new reign and to furnish for fifteen
successive years the crushing labor, the conquering obedience, the
superhuman, murderous, insensate effort which its master exacts.




IV. Napoleon's barracks.

     General aspect and characteristics of the new State.
     --Contrast between its structure and that of other
     contemporary or pre-existing States.--The plurality,
     complexity, and irregularity of ancient France.--The unity,
     simplicity, and regularity of modern France.--To what class
     of works it belongs.--It is the modern masterpiece of the
     classic spirit in the political and social order of things.

Let us take a nearer view of the master's idea and of the way in which,
at this moment, he figures to himself the society which is assuming
new shape in his hands. All the leading features of the plan are fixed
beforehand in his mind: they are already deeply graven on it through his
education and through his instinct. By virtue of this instinct, which
is despotic, by virtue of this education, which is classic and Latin,
he conceives human associations not in the modern fashion, Germanic and
Christian, as a concert of initiations starting from below, but in the
antique fashion, pagan and Roman, as a hierarchy of authorities imposed
from above. He puts his own spirit into his civil institutions, the
military spirit; consequently, he constructs a huge barracks wherein,
to begin with, he lodges thirty million, men, women, and children, and,
later on, forty-two million, all the way from Hamburg to Rome.

The edifice is, of course, superb and of a new style. On comparing it
with other societies in surrounding Europe, and particularly France as
she was previous to 1789, the contrast is striking.--Everywhere else the
social edifice is a composition of many distinct structures--provinces,
cities, seignories, churches, universities, and corporations. Each has
begun by being a more or less isolated block of buildings where, on
an enclosed area, a population has lived apart. Little by little the
barriers have given way; either they have been broken in or have tumbled
down of their own accord; passages have been made between one and the
other and new additions have been put up; at last, these scattered
buildings have all become connected and soldered on as annexes to the
central pile. But they combine with it only through a visible and
clumsy juxtaposition, through incomplete and bizarre communications: the
vestiges of their former independence are still apparent athwart their
actual dependence. Each still rests on its own primitive and appropriate
foundations; its grand lines subsist; its main work is often almost
intact. In France, on the eve of 1789, it is easily recognized what she
formerly was; for example, it is clear that Languedoc and Brittany were
once sovereign States, Strasbourg a sovereign town, the Bishop of Mende
and the Abbess of Remiremont, sovereign princes;[2327] every seignior,
laic, or ecclesiastic, was so in his own domain, and he still possessed
some remnants of public power. In brief, we see thousands of states
within the State, absorbed, but not assimilated, each with its own
statutes, its own legal customs, its own civil law, its own weights
and measures; several with special privileges and immunities; some with
their own jurisdiction and their own peculiar administration, with their
own imposts and tariffs like so many more or less dismantled fortresses,
but whose old feudal, municipal, or provincial walls still rose lofty
and thick on the soil comprehended within the national enclosure.

Nothing could be more irregular than this total aggregate thus formed;
it is not really an entire whole, but an agglomeration. No plan, good or
bad, has been followed out; the architecture is of ten different styles
and of ten different epochs. That of the dioceses is Roman and of
the fourth century; that of the seignories is Gothic and of the ninth
century; one structure dates from the Capetians, another from the
Valois, and each bears the character of its date. Because each has been
built for itself and with no regard to the others, adapted to an urgent
service according to the exigencies or requirements of time, place, and
circumstance; afterward, when circumstances changed, it had to adapt
itself to other services, and this constantly from century to century,
under Philippe le Bel, under Louis XI., under Francis I., under
Richelieu, under Louis XIV., through constant revision which never
consists of entire destruction, through a series of partial demolitions
and of partial reconstructions, in such a way as to maintain itself,
during the transformation, in conciliating, well or ill, new demands and
rooted habits, in reconciling the work of the passing generation with
the works of generations gone before.--The central seignory itself is
merely a donjon of the tenth century, a military tower of which the
enclosure has extended so as to embrace the entire territory, and of
which the other buildings, more or less incorporated with it, have
become prolongations.--A similar medley of constructions--disfigured by
such mutilations, adjuncts, and patches, a pell-mell so complicated
with such incongruous bits and fragments--can be comprehended only by
antiquaries and historians; ordinary spectators--the public--pronounce
it absurd; it finds no favor with that class of reasoners who, in social
architecture as in physical architecture, repudiate disorder, posit
theories, deduce consequences, and require that every work shall proceed
from the application of a simple idea.

And worse still, not only is good taste offended but, again, good
sense often murmurs. Practically, the edifice fails in its object, for,
erected for men to dwell in, it is in many places scarcely habitable.
Because it endures it is found superannuated, ill-adapted to prevailing
customs; it formerly suited, and still suits, the feudal, scattered, and
militant way of living; hence it no longer suits the unity and repose
of modern life. New-born rights obtain no place in it alongside of
established rights; it is either not sufficiently transformed or it
has been transformed in an opposite sense, in such a way as to be
inconvenient or unhealthy, badly accommodating people who are useful and
giving good accommodations to useless people, costing too much to
keep up and causing discomfort and discontent to nearly all its
occupants.--In France, in particular, the best apartments, especially
that of the King, are for a century past too high and too large, too
sumptuous and too expensive. Since Louis XIV. these have imperceptibly
ceased to be government and business bureaus; they have become in
their disposition, decoration, and furnishing, saloons for pomp and
conversation, the occupants of which, for lack of other employment,
delight in discussing architecture and in tracing plans on paper for an
imaginary edifice in which everybody will find himself comfortable. Now,
underneath these, everybody finds himself uncomfortable, the bourgeoisie
in its small scanty lodgings on the ground-floor and the people in their
holes in the cellar, which are low and damp, wherein light and air never
penetrate. Innumerable vagabonds and vagrants are still worse off, for,
with no shelter or fireside, they sleep under the stars, and as they
are without anything to care for, they are disposed to pull everything
down.--Under the double pressure of insurrection and theory the
demolition begins, while the fury of destruction goes on increasing
until nothing is left of the razed edifice but the soil it stood on.

The new one rises on this cleared ground and, historically as well as
structurally, it differs from all the others.--In less than ten years
it springs up and is finished according to a plan which, from the first
day, is definite and complete. It forms one unique, vast, monumental
block, in which all branches of the service are lodged under one roof;
in addition to the national and general services belonging to the public
power, we find here others also, local and special, which do not belong
to it, such as worship, education, charity, fine arts, literature,
departmental and communal interests, each installed in a distinct
compartment. All the compartments are ordered and arranged alike,
forming a circle around the magnificent central apartment, with which
each is in communication by a bell; as soon as the bell rings and the
sound spreads from division to sub-division, the entire service, from
the chief clerk down to the lowest employee, is instantly in motion;
in this respect the arrangement, as regards despatch, co-ordination,
exactitude, and working facilities, is admirable.[2328]

On the other hand, its advantages and attractions for employees and
aspirants of every kind and degree are not mediocre. There is no
separation between the stories, no insurmountable barrier or enclosure
between large and small apartments; all, from the least to the finest,
from the outside as well as from the inside, have free access.
Spacious entrances around the exterior terminate in broad, well-lighted
staircases open to the public; everybody can clamber up that pleases,
and to mount these one must clamber; from top to bottom there is no
other communication than that which they present. There is no concealed
and privileged passage, no private stairway or false door; glancing
along the whole rectilinear, uniform flight, we behold the innumerable
body of clerks, functionaries, supernumeraries, and postulants, an
entire multitude, ranged tier beyond tier and attentive; nobody advances
except at the word and in his turn.--Nowhere in Europe are human lives
so well regulated, within lines of demarcation so universal, so simple,
and so satisfactory to the eye and to logic: the edifice in which
Frenchmen are henceforth to move and act is regular from top to bottom,
in its entirety as well as in its details, outside as well as inside;
its stories, one above the other, are adjusted with exact symmetry;
its juxtaposed masses form pendants and counterpoise; all its lines
and forms, every dimension and proportion, all its props and buttresses
combine, through their mutual dependencies, to compose a harmony and
to maintain an equilibrium. In this respect the structure is classic,
belonging to the same family of productions which the same spirit,
guided by the same method, had produced in Europe for the previous one
hundred and fifty years.[2329] Its analogues, in the physical order
of things, are the architectural productions of Mansard, Le Notre, and
their successors, from the structures and gardens of Versailles down to
and embracing the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli. In the intellectual
order, its analogues consist of the literary forms of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, the superb oratorical prose and correct,
eloquent poetry, especially epics and tragedies, including those still
manufactured according to rule about the year 1810. It corresponds
to these and forms their pendant in the political and social order
of things, because it emanates from the same deliberate purpose. Four
constitutions, in the same style, preceded it; but these were good only
on paper, while this one stands firm on the ground. For the first time
in modern history we see a society due to ratiocination and, at the
same time, substantial; the new France, under these two heads, is the
masterpiece of the classic spirit.




V. Modeled after Rome.

     Its analogue in the antique world.--The Roman State from
     Diocletian to Constantine.--Causes and bearing of this
     analogy.--Survival of the Roman idea in Napoleon's mind.
     --The new Empire of the West.

Nevertheless, if we go back in time, beyond modern times, beyond the
Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter during the Roman
emperors Diocletian's and Constantine's era another monument whose
architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still grander scale:
back then we are in the natal atmosphere and stand on the natal soil of
the classic spirit.--At this time, the human material, more reduced
and better prepared than in France, existed similarly in the requisite
condition. At this date, we likewise see at work the prearranging
reasoning-faculty

* which simplifies in order to deduce,

* which leaves out historic customs and local diversities,

* which considers the basic human being,

* which treats individuals as units and the people as totals,

* which forcibly applies its general outlines to all special lives, and

* which glories in constituting, legislating, and administering by rule
according to the measurements of square and compass.

At this date, in effect, the turn of mind, the talent, the ways of the
Roman architect, his object, his resources and his means of execution,
are already those of his French successor; the conditions around him
in the Roman world are equivalent; behind him in Roman history the
precedents, ancient and recent, are almost the same.

In the first place,[2330] there is, since emperor Augustus, the absolute
monarchy, and, since the Antonines, administrative centralization the
result of which is that

* all the old national and municipal communities are broken up or
crushed out,

* all collective existences chilled or extinguished,

* local patriotism slowly worn away,

* an increasing diminution of individual initiative,

and, under the invasive interference, direction, and providence of the
State, one hundred millions of men become more and more passive and
separated from each other.[2331]

And as a result, in full enjoyment of peace and internal prosperity
under the appearances of union, force, and health, latent feebleness,
and, as in France on the approach of 1789, a coming dissolution.

There is next, as after 1789 in France, the total collapse, not from
below and among the people, but from above and through the army, a worse
collapse than in France, prolonged for fifty years of anarchy, civil
wars, local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions, rural
jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole frontier,
with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activities, with such
a diminution of public and private capital, with such a destruction of
human lives that, in twenty years, the number of the population seems
to have diminished one half.[2332] There is, finally, as after 1799, in
France, the re-establishment of order brought about more slowly, but by
the same means, the army and a dictatorship, in the rude hands of three
or four great military parvenus, Pannonians or Dalmatians, Bonapartes
of Sirmium or of Scutari, they too, of a new race or of intact energy,
adventurers and children of their own deeds, the last Diocletian, like
Napoleon, a restorer and an innovator. Around them, as around
Napoleon, to aid them in their civil undertakings, is a crowd of expert
administrators and eminent jurisconsults, all practitioners, statesmen,
and businessmen, and yet men of culture, logicians, and philosophers.
They were imbued with the double governmental and humanitarian view,
which for three centuries Greek speculation and Roman practice had
introduced into minds and imaginations. This view, at once leveling and
authoritative, tending to exaggerate the attributes of the State and the
supreme power of the prince,[2333] was nevertheless inclined

* to put natural right in the place of positive law,[2334]

* to preferring equity and logic to antiquity and to custom,

* to reinstate the dignity of man among the qualities of mankind,

* to enhance the condition of the slave, of the provincial, of the
debtor, of the bastard, of woman, of the child, and

* to recover for the human community all its inferior members, foreign
or degraded, which the ancient constitution of the family and of the
city had excluded from it.

Therefore Napoleon could find the outlines of his construction in
the political, legislative, and judicial organizations extending from
Diocletian to Constantine, and beyond these down to Theodosius. At the
base, popular sovereignty;[2335] the powers of the people delegated
unconditionally to one man. This omnipotence conferred, theoretically or
apparently, through the free choice of citizens, but really through the
will of the army. No protection against the Prince's arbitrary edict,
except a no less arbitrary rescript from the same hand. His successor
designated, adopted, and qualified by himself. A senate for show, a
council of state for administration; all local powers conferred from
above; cities under tutelage. All subjects endowed with the showy
title of citizen, and all citizens reduced to the humble condition of
taxpayers and of people under control. An administration of a hundred
thousand officials taking all services into its hands, comprising public
instruction, public succor, and public supplies of food, together
with systems of worship. This was at first pagan cults, and after
Constantine, the Christian cult. All these services were classified,
ranked, co-coordinated, carefully defined in such a way as not to
encroach on each other, and carefully combined in such a way as to
complete each other. An immense hierarchy of transferable functionaries
was kept at work from above on one hundred and eighty square leagues of
territory; thirty populations of different race and language-Syrians,
Egyptians, Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Germans, Greeks,
Italians--subject to the same uniform Régime. The territory was divided
like a checker-board, on arithmetical and geometrical principles, into
one hundred or one hundred and twenty small provinces; old nations or
States dismembered and purposely cut up so as to put an end forever to
natural, spontaneous, and viable groups. A minute and verified census
taking place every fifteen years to correctly assign land taxes. An
official and universal language; a State system of worship, and, very
soon, a Church and State orthodoxy. A systematic code of laws, full
and precise, admirable for the rule of private life, a sort of moral
geometry in which the theorems, rigorously linked together, are attached
to the definitions and axioms of abstract justice. A scale of grades,
one above the other, which everybody may ascend from the first to the
last; titles of nobility more and more advanced, suited to more and more
advanced functions; spectabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectissimi,
analogous to Napoleon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes. A programme
of promotion once exhibiting, and on which are still seen, common
soldiers, peasants, a shepherd, a barbarian, the son of a cultivator
(colon), the grandson of a slave, mounting gradually upward to the
highest dignities, becoming patrician, Count, Duke, commander of the
cavalry, Cæsar, Augustus, and donning the imperial purple, enthroned
amid the most sumptuous magnificence and the most elaborate ceremonial
prostrations, a being called God during his lifetime, and after
death adored as a divinity, and dead or alive, a complete divinity on
earth.[2336]

So colossal an edifice, so admirably adjusted, so mathematical, could
not wholly perish; its hewn stones were too massive, too nicely squared;
too exactly fitted, and the demolisher's hammer could not reach down
to its deepest foundations.--This one, through its shaping and its
structure, through its history and its duration, resembles the stone
edifices which the same people at the same epoch elevated on the same
soil, the aqueducts, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, the Coliseum,
the baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla.

The medieval man, using their intact foundations and their shattered
fragments, built here and there, haphazard, according to the necessities
of the moment, planting his Gothic towers between Corinthian columns
against the panels of walls still standing.[2337] But, under his
incoherent masonry, he observed the beautiful forms, the precious
marbles, the architectural combinations, the symmetrical taste of an
anterior and superior art; he felt that his own work was rude. The new
world, to all thinking minds, was miserable compared with the old one;
its languages seemed a patois (crude dialect), its literature mere
stammering or driveling, its law a mass of abuses or a mere routine, its
feudality anarchy, and its social arrangements, disorder.--In vain had
the medieval man striven to escape through all issues, by the temporal
road and by the spiritual road, by the universal and absolute monarchy
of the German Cesars, and by the universal and absolute monarchy of the
Roman pontiffs. At the end of the fifteenth century the Emperor still
possessed the golden globe, the golden crown, the scepter of Charlemagne
and of Otho the Great, but, after the death of Frederick II., he was
nothing more than a majesty for show; the Pope still wore the tiara,
still held the pastoral staff and the keys of Gregory VII. and of
Innocent III., but, after the death of Boniface VIII., he was nothing
more than a majesty of the Church. Both abortive restorations had merely
added ruins to ruins, while the phantom of the ancient empire alone
remained erect amid so many fragments. Grand in its outlines and
decorations, it stood there, august, dazzling, in a halo, the unique
masterpiece of art and of reason, as the ideal form of human society.
For ten centuries this specter haunted the medieval epoch, and nowhere
to such an extent as in Italy.[2338]

It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking firm hold
of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the great Italian,[2339] to
whom the opportunity afforded the means for executing the grand Italian
dream of the Middle Ages; it is according to this retrospective vision
that the Diocletian of Ajaccio, the Constantine of the Concordat, the
Justinian of the Civil Code, the Theodosius of the Tuileries and of St.
Cloud reconstructed France.

This does not mean that he copies--he restores; his conception is not
plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to him through the nature
of his intellect and through racial traditions. In the way of social
and political conceptions, as in literature and in art, his spontaneous
taste is ultra-classic. We detect this in his mode of comprehending the
history of France; State historians, "encouraged by the police," must
make it to order; they must trace it "from the end of Louis XIV. to
the year VIII," and their object must be to show how superior the new
architecture is to the old one.[2340] "The constant disturbance of the
finances must be noted, the chaos of the provincial assemblies,... the
pretensions of the parliaments, the lack of energy and order in the
administration, that parti-colored France with no unity of laws or of
administration, being rather a union of twenty kingdoms than one single
State, so that one breathes on reaching the epoch in which people enjoy
the benefits of the unity of the laws, of the administration, and of the
territory." In effect, he breathes; in thus passing from the former to
the latter spectacle, he finds real intellectual pleasure; his eyes,
offended with Gothic disorder, turn with relief and satisfaction to
majestic simplicity and classic regularity; his eyes are those of a
Latin architect brought up in the "École de Rome."

This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no other.
Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He misconceives their
local propriety and the historical reasons for their existence. He takes
no account of their solidity. He is going to dash himself against
Spain and against Russia, and he has no comprehension whatever of
England.[2341]--This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he
applies his own social system; he imposes on annexed territories and
on vassal[2342] countries the same uniform arrangements, his
own administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and
sub-divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitutional
and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of equality
and promotion, the entire French system, and, as far as possible, the
language, literature, drama, and even the spirit of his France,--in
brief, civilization as he conceives it, so that conquest becomes
propaganda, and, as with his predecessors, the Cesars of Rome, he
sometimes really fancies that the establishment of his universal
monarchy is a great benefit to Europe.


*****


[Footnote 2301: De Tocqueville, "L'Ancien régime et la Revolution." p.
64 and following pages, also p.354 and following pages.--"The Ancient
Régime," p. 368.]

[Footnote 2302: "The Revolution," I., book I., especially pp. 16, 17,
55, 61, 62-65. (Laffont I., 326, 354, 357 to 360.)]

[Footnote 2303: "The Ancient Regime," pp.--36-59. (Laff. I. pp. 33-48.)]

[Footnote 2304: Ibid., pp. 72-77. (Laff. I. pp. 59 to 61.)]

[Footnote 2305: Ibid., pp. 78-82. (Laff. I. pp. 50-52)]

[Footnote 2306: Cf. Frédéric Masson, "Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. I.]

[Footnote 2307: "The Revolution," I., p. 161 and following pages; II.,
book VI., ch. I., especially p. 80 and following pages. (Laffont I. 428
to 444, 632 and II 67 to 69.)]

[Footnote 2308: Ibid., I., P.193 and following pages, and p.226 and
following pages.(Ed. Laffont. I. 449 to 452, 473 to 481.)]

[Footnote 2309: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I.,
148 (in relation to the institution prefects and sub-prefects): "The
perceptible good resulting from this change was the satisfaction arising
from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant men, mostly
without any merit or shadow of capacity and to who the administration
of department and arrondissement had been surrendered for the past ten
years. As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest ranks in society,
they were only the more disposed to make the weight of their authority
felt."]

[Footnote 2310: Guyot, "Répertoire de jurisprudence" (1785), article
King: "It is a maxim of feudal law that the veritable ownership of
lands, the domain, directum dominium, is vested in the dominant seignior
or suzerain. The domain in use, belonging to the vassal or tenant,
affords him really no right except to its produce."]

[Footnote 2311: Luchaire," Histoire des institutions monarchiques de
la France sous les premiers Capétiens," I., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I.,
Philip I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) "A divine minister."--(Kings are)
"servants of the kingdom of God."--"Gird on the ecclesiastical sword
for the punishment of the wicked."--"Kings and priests alone, by
ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy
oils."]

[Footnote 2312: "The Revolution," III., p.94. (Laffont II, p. 75)]

[Footnote 2313: Janssen, "L'Allemagne à la fin du moyen âge" (French
translation), I., 457. (On the introduction of Roman law into
Germany.)--Declaration of the jurists at the Diet of Roncaglia: "Quod
principi placuit, legis habet vigorem."--Edict of Frederick I., 1165:
"Vestigia praedecessorum suorum, divorum imperatorum, magni Constantini
scilicet et Justiniani et Valentini,... sacras eorum leges,...
divina oracula.... Quodcumque imperator constituerit, vel cognoscens
decreverit, vel edicto praeceperit, legem esse constat."--Frederick II.:
"Princeps legibus solutus est."--Louis of Bavaria: "Nos qui sumus supra
jus."]

[Footnote 2314: Guyot, ibid., article Régales. "The great 'régales,'
majora regalia, are those which belong to the King, jure singulari et
proprio, and which are incommunicable to another, considering that
they cannot be divorced from the scepter, being the attributes of
sovereignty, such as... the making of laws, the interpretation or
change of these, the last appeal from the decisions of magistrates, the
creation of offices, the declaration of war or of peace,... the coining
of money, the augmentation of titles or of values, the imposition of
taxes on the subjects,... the exemption of certain persons from
these, the award of pardon for crimes,... the creation of nobles, the
foundation of universities,... the assembling of the états-généraux or
provinciaux, etc."--Bossuet, "Politique tirée de l'Écriture sainte": The
entire state exists in the person of the prince."--Louis XIV., "æuvres,"
I., 50 (to his son): "You should be aware that kings can naturally
dispose fully and freely of all possessions belonging as well to persons
of the church as to laymen, to make use of at all times with wise
economy, that is to say, according to the general requirements of their
government."--Sorel, "L'Europe et la Révolution française," I., 231
(Letter of the "intendant" Foucault): "It is an illusion, which cannot
proceed from anything but blind preoccupation, that of making any
distinction between obligations of conscience and the obedience which is
due to the King."]

[Footnote 2315: "The Ancient Régime," p.9 and following
pages.--"Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de le Marck," II., 74
(Note by Mirabeau, July 3, 1790): "Previous to the present revolution,
royal authority was incomplete: the king was compelled to humor his
nobles, to treat with the parliaments,, to be prodigal of favors to the
court."]

[Footnote 2316: "The Revolution," III., p.318. (Laff.II. p. 237-238).--"
The Ancient Régime," p. 10 (Laff. I. 25n.) Speech by the Chancellor
Séguier, 1775: "Our kings have themselves declared that they are
fortunately powerless to attack property."]

[Footnote 2317: Rousseau's text in the "Contrat Social."--On the meaning
and effect of this principle cf "The Revolution," I., 217 and following
pages, and III., book VI., ch. I. Laff. 182-186 et II. 47 to 74).]

[Footnote 2318: The opinion, or rather the resignation which confers
omnipotence on the central power, goes back to the second half of the
fifteenth century, after the Hundred Years' war, and is due to that war;
the omnipotence of the king was then the only refuge against the English
invaders, and the ravages of the Écorcheurs.--Cf. Fortescue, "In
leges Angliæ," and" "The Difference between an Absolute and a Limited
Monarchy" (end of the fifteenth century), on the difference at this date
between the English and the French government.--The same decision is
found in the dispatches of the Venetian ambassadors of this date: "In
France everything is based on the will of the king. Nobody, whatever
might be his conscientious scruples, would dare express an opinion
opposed to his. The French respect their king to such an extent that
they would not only sacrifice their property for him, but again their
souls." (Janssen, "L'Allemagne à la fin du moyen âge. I. 484.)--As to
the passage of the monarchical to the democratic idea, we see it plainly
in the following quotations from Restif de la Bretonne: "I entertained
no doubt that the king could legally oblige any man to give me his wife
or his daughter, and everybody in my village (Sacy in Burgundy) thought
so too." ("Monsieur Nicolas," I., 443.)--In relation to the September
massacres: "No, I do not pity them, those fanatical priests... When a
community or its majority wants anything, it is right. The minority is
always culpable, even when right morally. Common sense is that is needed
to appreciate that truth. It is indisputable that the nation has the
power to sacrifice even an innocent person." ("Nuits de Paris," XVth,
p.377.)]

[Footnote 2319: "The Revolution," III., 393. (Laff. II. p. 291)]

[Footnote 2320: "Contrat Social," book 1st, ch. III.: "It is accordingly
essential that, for the enunciation of the general will, no special
organization should exist in the State, and that the opinion of each
citizen should accord with that. Such was the unique and sublime law of
the great Lycurgus."]

[Footnote 2321: "The Revolution," I., 170. (Laff. I. 433.)]

[Footnote 2322: Ibid., II., 93; III., 78-82. (Laff. I. p. 632 and II.
pp. 65-68.)]

[Footnote 2323: "Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la
Marck,"II., 74 (Letter of Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): "Compare
the new state of things with the ancient régime.... One portion of
the acts of the national assembly (and that the largest) is evidently
favorable to monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, then, to
have no parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes,
no clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body
of citizens would have pleased Richelieu: this equalized surface
facilitates the exercise of power. Many years of absolute rule could
not have done so much for royal authority as this one year of
revolution."--Sainte-Beuve, "Port-Royal," V., 25 (M. Harlay conversing
with the supérieure of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about
Port-Royal, about these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever
excites talk. Only lately he caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did
not approve of the meetings at his house; that there is no objection to
his seeing all sorts of people indifferently like everybody else, but
why should certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an
intimate association among these gentlemen?... The King does not
want any rallying point; a headless assemblage in a State is always
dangerous."--Ibid., p.33: "The reputation of this establishment was too
great. People were anxious to put their children in it. Persons of
rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction with it. This
provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and who
together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not consent
to this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State."]

[Footnote 2324: "Napoleon Ire et ses lois civiles," by Honoré Pérouse,
280: Words of Napoleon: "I have for a long time given a great deal of
thought and calculation to the re-establishment of the social edifice.
I am to-day obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I
have no idea of the French people becoming serfs."--"The prefects
are wrong in straining their authority."--"The repose and freedom of
citizens should not depend on the exaggeration or arbitrariness of a
mere administrator."--"Let authority be felt by the people as little as
possible and not bear down on them needlessly."--(Letters of January 15,
1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to Fouché, and of March 6, 1807,
to Regnault.)--Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," P. 178 (Words
of the first consul before the council of state): "True civil liberty
depends on the security of property. In no country can the rate of the
tax-payer be changed every year. A man with 3000 francs income does
not know how much he will have left to live on the following year; his
entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on it... A mere clerk,
with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you thousands of francs...
Nothing has ever been done in France in behalf of real estate. Whoever
has a good law passed on the cadastre (official valuation of all the
land in France) will deserve a statue."]

[Footnote 2325: Honoré Pérouse, Ibid, 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the
council of state on the law on mines):" "Myself, with many armies at
my disposition, I could not take possession of any one's field, for the
violation of the right of property in one case would be violating it
in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and
hence sacred in fact and by law."--Ibid., 279:" "What is the right of
property? It is not only the right of using but, again, of abusing it.
... One must always keep in mind the advantage of owning property.
The best protection to the owner of property is the interest of the
individual; one may always rely on his activity.... A government makes
a great mistake in trying to be too paternal; liberty and property are
both ruined by over-solicitude."--"If the government prescribes the
way in which property shall be used it no longer exists.".--Ibid.,
284 (Letters of Aug.21 and Sept. 7, 1809, on expropriations by public
authority): "It is indispensable that the courts should supervise,
stop expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners
against the enterprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and
all other agents.... Expropriation is a judicial proceeding.... I cannot
conceive how France can have proprietors if anybody can be deprived of
his field simply by an administrative decision."--In relation to the
ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the
portion of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more
liberal than his jurists. Madame de Staël, "Dix années d'exil," ch.
XVIII. (Napoleon conversing with the tribune Gallois): "Liberty
consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care for nothing
but property."--"Correspondance," letter to Fouché, Jan. 15, 1805. (This
letter gives a good summary of his ideas on government.) "In France,
whatever is not forbidden is allowed, and nothing can be forbidden
except by the laws, by the courts, or police measures in all matters
relating to public order and morality."]

[Footnote 2326: Roederer, "æuvres complètes," III., 339 (Speech by the
First Consul, October 21, 1800): "Rank, now, is a recompense for every
faithful service--the great advantage of equality, which has converted
20,000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to emulation,
into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of 400,000
soldiers."--Lafayette, "Mémoires," V., 350: "Under Napoleon, the
soldiers said, he has been promoted King of Naples, of Holland, of
Sweden, or of Spain, as formerly it was said that a than had been
promoted sergeant in this or that company."]

[Footnote 2327: "The Ancient Régime," book I., ch.2, the Structure of
Society, especially pp.19-21. (Laff. I. p. 21-22)]

[Footnote 2328: Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène"--Napoleon, speaking of
his imperial organization, said that he had made the most compact
government, one with the quickest circulation and the most nervous
energy, that ever existed. And, he remarked, nothing but this would
have answered in overcoming the immense difficulties around us, and
for effecting the wonderful things we accomplished. The organization of
prefectures, their action, their results, were admirable and prodigious.
The same impulsion affected at the same time more than forty millions of
men, and, aided by centers of local activity, the action was as rapid at
every extremity as at the heart."]

[Footnote 2329: "The Ancient Régime," book III., chs. 2 and 3. (Laff. I,
pp. 139 to 151 and pp. 153 to 172.)]

[Footnote 2330: Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chs. I,
2, 3, and 13.--Duruy, "Histoire des Romains" (illustrated edition),
tenth period, chs. 82, 83, 84, and 85; twelfth period, chs. 95 and
99; fourteenth period, ch. 104.--(The reader will find in these two
excellent works the texts and monuments indicated to which it is
necessary to resort for a direct and satisfactory impression.)]

[Footnote 2331: See in Plutarch (Principles of Political Government) the
situation of a Greek city under the Antonines.]

[Footnote 2332: Gibbon, ch. 10.--Duruy, ch. 95. (Decrease of the
population of Alexandria under Gallien, according to the registers of
the alimentary institution, letter of the bishop Dionysius.)]

[Footnote 2333: "Digest," I., 4, I.: "Quod principi placuit legis habet
vigorem, utpote, cum lege regia, quæ de imperio ejus lata est, populus
ei et in eum omne suum imperium et potestatem conferat. Quodcumque
igitur imperator per epistolam et subscriptionem statuit, vel cognoscens
decrevit, vel de plano interlocutus est, vel edicto præcepit, legis
habet vigorem." (Extracts from Ulpian.)--Gaius, Institutes, I., 5: "Quod
imperator constituit, non dubium est quin id vicem legis obtineat, quum
ipse imperator per legem imperium obtineat."]

[Footnote 2334: "Digest," I, 2. (Extracts from Ulpian): "Jus est a
justitia appellatum; nam, ut eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni
et æqui. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes appellat: justitiam
namque colimus, et boni et æqui notitiam profitemur, æquum ab iniquo
separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes,... veram, nisi fallor,
philosophiam, non simulatam affectantes.... Juris præcepta sunt hæc:
honeste vivere, alterum non lædere, suum cuique tribuere."--cf. Duruy,
12th period, ch. 87.]

[Footnote 2335: Cf., on this immemorial principle of the entire body of
Roman public law, cf. Fustel de Coulanges, "Histoire des institutions
politiques et privées de l'ancienne France," vol. I., book II., ch. I,
p.66 and following pages.]

[Footnote 2336: Read the "Notitia dignitatum tam civilium quam
militarium in partibus orientis et occidentis." It is the imperial
almanac for the beginning of the fifth century. There are eleven
ministers at the centre, each with his bureaux, divisions, subdivisions
and squads of superposed functionaries,]

[Footnote 2337: Cf. Piranesi's engravings.]

[Footnote 2338: Cf., among other clues see Dante's: "De Monarchia".]

[Footnote 2339: We can trace in Napoleon's brain and date the formation
of this leading idea. At first, it is simply a classic reminiscence,
as with his contemporaries; but suddenly it takes a turn and has an
environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which prevents
the idea from remaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning
he speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May
20, 1796.) "We are the friends of every people, and especially of the
Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great men whom we have chosen as
models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place there with honor the
statues of heroes who render it famous, to arouse the Roman people
benumbed by centuries of slavery, such will be the fruit of our
victories."--Fifteen months afterwards, on becoming master of Italy,
his historic meditations turn into positive ambition henceforth, the
possession of Italy and of the Mediterranean is to be with him a central
and preponderant idea. (Letter to the Directory, Aug. 16, 1797, and
correspondence on the subject of Corsica, Sardinia, Naples, and Genoa;
letters to the pasha of Scutari, to the Maniotes, etc.) "The islands of
Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of more interest to us than all Italy
put together.... The Turkish empire is daily tottering; the possession
of these islands will enable us to support it as long as possible, or to
take our portion of it. The time is not remote when we shall feel that,
for the real destruction of England, we must get possession of Egypt."
Formerly, the Mediterranean was a Roman lake; it must become a French
lake. (Cf. "Souvenirs d'un Sexagénaire," by Arnault, vol. IV., p.102,
on his dream, in 1798, of making Paris a colossal Rome.)--At this
same date, his conception of the State is fixed and wholly Roman.
(Conversations with Miot, June 1797, and letter to Talleyrand, Sep. 19,
1797.) "I do not see but one thing in fifty years well defined, and
that is the sovereignty of the people.... The organization of the French
nation is still only sketched out....The power of the government,
with the full latitude I give to it, should be considered as really
representing the nation." In this government, "the legislative power,
without rank in the republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would
not be ambitious and would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance
laws, worthless on account of their absurdity." It is evident that
he describes in anticipation his future senate and legislative
corps.--Repeatedly, the following year, and during the expedition into
Egypt, he presents the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views
himself as a successor to Scipio and Cæsar.--(Proclamation of June 22,
1798.): "Be as tolerant to the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you
are for the religion of Moses and Jesus. The Roman legions protected all
religions."--(Proclamation of May 10, 1798.) "The Roman legions that you
have often imitated but not yet equaled fought Carthage in turn on this
wall and in the vicinity of Zama."--Carthage at this time is England:
his hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his fleet at
Aboukir, which forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which
holds on to Malta, which robs him of his substance, his patrimony, his
Mediterranean, is that of a Roman consul against Carthage; it leads him
to conquer all western Europe against her and to "resuscitate the empire
of the Occident." (Note to Otto, his ambassador at London, Oct.. 23,
1802.)--Emperor of the French, king of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain
of the Pope, protector of the confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds
the German emperors, the titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which
has just ended in 1806; he is accordingly the heir of Charlemagne
and, through Charlemagne, the heir of the ancient Cæsars.--In fact, he
reproduces the work of the ancient Cæsars by analogies of imagination,
situation and character, but in a different Europe, and where this
posthumous reproduction can be only an anachronism.]

[Footnote 2340: "Correspondance," note for M. Cretet, minister of the
interior, April 12, 1808.]

[Footnote 2341: Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 107 (Conversations with
Napoleon,, 1810): "I was surprised to find that this man, so wonderfully
endowed, had such completely false ideas concerning England, its vital
forces and intellectual progress. He would not admit any ideas
contrary to his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which
he condemned."--Cf. Forsyth, "History of the Captivity of Napoleon
at Saint-Helena," III., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at
Saint-Helena based on his ignorance of the English parliamentary
system,) and Stanislas Girardin, III., 296, (Words of the First Consul,
Floreal 24, year XI, quoted above.)]

[Footnote 2342: Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King
of Westphalia, October 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that
kingdom on that date, and especially titles 4 to 12: "The welfare of
your people concerns me, not only through the influence it may exercise
on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view of the
general European system.... Individuals who have talent and are not
noble must enjoy equal consideration and employment from you. ... Let
every species of serfage and of intermediary lien between the sovereign
and the lowest class of people be abolished. The benefits of the code
Napoleon, the publicity of proceedings, the establishment of juries,
will form so many distinctive characteristics of your monarchy."--His
leading object is the suppression of feudalism, that is to say, of
the great families and old historic authorities. He relies for this
especially on his civil code: "That is the great advantage of the
code;... it is what has induced me to preach a civil code and made me
decide on establishing it." (Letter to Joseph, King of Naples, June 5,
1806.)--"The code Napoleon is adopted throughout Italy. Florence has
it, and Rome will soon have it." (Letter to Joachim, King of the Two
Sicilies, Nov. 27, 1808.)--"My intention is to have the Hanseatic towns
adopt the code Napoleon and be governed by it from and after the 1st of
January."--The same with Dantzic: "Insinuate gently and not by
writing to the King of Bavaria, the Prince-primate, the grand-dukes of
Hesse-Darmstadt and of Baden, that the civil code should be established
in their states by suppressing all customary law and confining
themselves wholly to the code Napoleon." (Letter to M. de Champagny,
Oct. 31, 1807.)--"The Romans gave their laws to their allies. Why
should not France have its laws adopted in Holland?... It is equally
essential that you should adopt the French monetary system." (Letter to
Louis, King of Holland, Nov. 13, 1807.)--To the Spaniards: "Your nephews
will honor me as their regenerator." (Allocution addressed to Madrid
Dec. 9, 1808.)--"Spain must be French. The country must be French and
the government must be French." (Roederer, III., 529, 536, words of
Napoleon, Feb. 11, 1809.)--In short, following the example of Rome,
which had Latinized the entire Mediterranean coast, he wanted to render
all western Europe French. The object was, as he declared, "to establish
and consecrate at last the empire of reason and the full exercise, the
complete enjoyment of every human faculty." (Mémorial.)]





BOOK THIRD. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM.




CHAPTER I. RECOVERY OF SOCIAL ORDER.




I. Rule as the mass want to be ruled.

     How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people.--His
     maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of
     government.--Two groups of prominent and obvious desires in
     1799.

However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, his mind
is absorbed by the preoccupations of the ruler: It is not enough for him
that his edifice should be monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. As he
lives in it and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants first
of all that it should be fit to live in, habitable for Frenchmen of
the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into account the habits and
dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and permanent wants. But these
needs must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he
is as accurate as he is shrewd, and deals only with positive facts.

"My political system," says he to the Council of State,[3101] "is
to rule men as the mass want to be ruled... By constituting myself a
Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendée; by turning into a Moslem
I established myself in Egypt: by turning ultramontane[3102] I gained
over the priests in Italy. Were I to govern a population of Jews, I
would restore the temple of Solomon. I shall speak just in this fashion
about liberty in the free part of St. Domingo; I shall confirm slavery
in the Ile-de-France and even in the slave section of St. Domingo, with
the reservation of diminishing and limiting slavery where I maintain
it, and of restoring order and keeping up discipline where I maintain
freedom. I think that is the way to recognize the sovereignty of the
people."

"Now, in France, at this epoch, there are two groups of preponderant
desires which evidently outweigh all others, one dating back the past
ten years, and the other for a century or more: the question is how to
satisfy these, and the sagacious constructor, who estimates them
for what they are worth, combines to this end the proportions, plan,
arrangement, and entire interior economy of his edifice.




II. The Revolution Ends.

     Necessities dating from the Revolution.--Lack of security
     for Persons, Property, and Consciences.--Requisite
     conditions for the establishment of order.--End of Civil
     war, Brigandage, and Anarchy.--Universal relief and final
     security.

The first of these two needs is urgent, almost physical. For the last
ten years, the government has not done its duty, or has ruled in a
contrary sense. By turns or at the same time its impotence and injustice
have been deplorable. It has committed or allowed too many outrages
on persons, property, and consciences. All in all the Revolution did
nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. Safety and security
for consciences, property, and persons is the loud and unanimous outcry
vibrating in all hears.[3103]--To calm things down, many novelties are
required: To start with, the political and administrative concentration
just described, a centralization of all powers in one hand, local powers
conferred by the central power, and, to exercise this supreme power
a resolute chief, equal in intelligence to his high position. Next, a
regularly paid army,[3104] carefully equipped, properly clothed and
fed, strictly disciplined and therefore obedient and able to do its duty
without wavering or faltering, like any other instrument of precision.
An active police force and gendarmerie kept on a tight rein.
Administrators independent of those under their jurisdiction, and
judges independent of those due to be tried. All appointed, maintained,
watched, and restrained from above, as impartial as possible,
sufficiently competent, and, in their official spheres, capable
functionaries. Finally, freedom of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty
with Rome and the restoration of the Catholic Church, that is to say, a
legal recognition of the orthodox hierarchy and of the only clergy which
the faithful may accept as legitimate, in other words, the institution
of bishops by the Pope, and of priests by the bishops.

This done, the rest is easily accomplished. A well-led army corps
marches along and tramples out the embers of the conflagration now
kindling in the West, while religious toleration extinguishes the
smoldering fires of popular insurrection. Henceforth, there is an end
to civil war.[3105] Regiments ready to act in harmony with the
military commissions[3106] purge the South and the valley of the Rhône;
thenceforth, there are no more roving bands in the rural districts,
while brigandage on a grand scale, constantly repressed, ceases, and
after this, that on a small scale. No more chouans, chauffeurs, or
barbets;[3107] The mail-coach travels without a guard, and the highways
are safe.[3108] There is longer any class or category of citizens
oppressed or excluded from the common law, the latest Jacobin decrees
and the forced loan have been at once revoked: noble or plebeian,
ecclesiastic or layman, rich or poor, former émigré or former terrorist,
every man, whatever his past, his condition, or his opinions, now enjoys
his private property and his legal rights; he has no longer to fear the
violence of the opposite party; he may relay on the protection of the
authorities,[3109] and on the equity of the magistrates.[3110] So long
as he respects the law he can go to bed at night and sleep tranquilly
with the certainty of awaking in freedom on the morrow, and with the
certainty of doing as he pleases the entire day; with the privilege of
working, buying, selling, thinking, amusing himself,[3111] going and
coming at his pleasure, and especially of going to mass or of staying
away if he chooses. No more jacqueries either rural or urban, no more
proscriptions or persecutions and legal or illegal spoliations, no
more intestine and social wars waged with pikes or by decrees, no more
conquests and confiscations made by Frenchmen against each other. With
universal and unutterable relief people emerge from the barbarous and
anarchical régime which reduced them to living from one day to another,
and return to the pacific and regular régime which permits them to count
on the morrow and make provision for it. After ten years of harassing
subjection to the incoherent absolutism of unstable despotism, here,
for the first time, they find a rational and stable government, or, at
least, a reasonable, tolerable, and fixed degree of it. The First
Consul is carrying out his declarations and he has declared that "The
Revolution has ended."[3112]




III. Return of the Emigrés.

     Lasting effect of revolutionary laws.--Condition of the
     Émigrés.--Progressive and final amnesty.--They return.--They
     recover a portion of their possessions.--Many of them enter
     the new hierarchy.--Indemnities for them incomplete.

The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds it has made and which
are still bleeding, with as little torture as possible, for it has cut
down to the quick, and its amputations, whether foolish or outrageous,
have left sharp pains or mute suffering in the social organism.

One hundred and ninety-two thousand names have been inscribed on the
list of émigrés[3113] the terms of the law, every émigré is civilly
dead, and his possessions have become the property of the Republic;" if
he dared return to France, the same law condemned him to death; there
could be no appeal, petition, or respite; it sufficed to prove identity
and the squad of executioners was at once ordered out. Now, at the
beginning of the Consulate, this murderous law is still in force;
summary proceedings are always applicable,[3114] and one hundred
and forty-six thousand names still appear on the mortuary list. This
constitutes a loss to France of 146,000 Frenchmen, and not those of
the least importance--gentlemen, army and navy officers, members of
parliaments, priests, prominent men of all classes, conscientious
Catholics, liberals of 1789, Feuillantists of the Legislative assembly,
and Constitutionalists of the years III and V. Worse still, through
their poverty or hostility abroad, they are a discredit or even a danger
for France, as formerly with the Protestants driven out of the country
by Louis XIV.[3115]--To these 146,000 exiled Frenchmen add 200,000
or 300,000 others, residents, but semi-proscribed:[3116] First, those
nearly related and allied to each émigré, excluded by the law from
"every legislative, administrative, municipal and judicial function,"
and even deprived of the elective vote. Next, all former nobles or
ennobled, deprived by the law of their status as Frenchmen and obliged
to re-naturalize themselves according to the formalities.

It is, accordingly, almost the entire elite of old France which
is wanting in the new France, like a limb violently wrenched and
half-detached by the unskillful and brutal scalpel of the revolutionary
"sawbones"; for both the organ and the body are not only living, but
they are still feverish and extremely sensitive; it is important to
avoid too great irritation; inflammation of any kind would be dangerous.
A skilful surgeon, therefore, must mark the places for the stitches, not
force the junctures, but anticipate and prepare for the final healing
process, and await the gradual and slow results of vital effort and
spontaneous renewal. Above all he must not alarm the patient. The First
Consul is far from doing this; on the contrary his expressions are all
encouraging. Let the patient keep quiet, there shall be no re-stitching,
the wound shall not be touched. The constitution solemnly declares that
the French people shall never allow the return of the émigrés,[3117]
and, on this point, the hands of future legislators are already tied
fast; it prohibits any exception being added to the old ones.--But,
first, by virtue of the same constitution, every Frenchman not an émigré
or banished has the right to vote, to be elected, to exercise every
species of public function; consequently, twelve days later,[3118] a
mere order of the Council of State restores civil and political rights
to former nobles and the ennobled, to the kinsmen and relations of
émigrés, to all who have been dubbed émigrés of the interior and whom
Jacobin intolerance had excluded, if not from the territory, at least
from the civic body: here are 200,000 or 300,000 Frenchmen already
brought back into political communion if not to the soil.--They had
succumbed to the coup-d'état of Fructidor; naturally, the leading
fugitives or those transported, suffering under the same coup-d'état,
were restored to political rights along with them and thus to the
territory--Carnot, Barthélémy, Lafont-Ladébat, Siméon, Poissy d'Anglas,
Mathieu Dumas, in all thirty-nine, designated by name;[3119] very soon
after. Through a simple extension of the same resolution, others of the
Fructidor victims, a crowd of priests huddled together and pining
away on the Ile-de-Ré, the most unfortunate and most inoffensive of
all.[3120]--Two months later, a law declares that the list of émigrés
is definitely closed;[3121] a resolution orders immediate investigation
into the claims of those who are to be struck off the list; a second
resolution strikes off the first founders of the new order of things,
the members of the National Assembly "who voted for the establishment
of equality and the abolition of nobility;" and, day after day, new
erasures succeed each other, all specific and by name, under cover of
toleration, pardon, and exception:[3122] on the 19th of October 1800,
there are already 1200 of them. Bonaparte, at this date, had gained the
battle of Marengo; the surgical restorer feels that his hands are
more free; he can operate on a larger scale and take in whole bodies
collectively. On the 20th of October 1800, a resolution strikes off
entire categories from the list, all whose condemnation is too grossly
unjust or malicious,[3123] at first, minors under sixteen and the wives
of émigrés; next, farmers, artisans, workmen, journeymen and servants
with their wives and children and at last 18,000 ecclesiastics who,
banished by law, left the country only in obedience to the law. Besides
these, "all individuals inscribed collectively and without individual
denomination," those already struck off, but provisionally, by local
administrations; also still other classes. Moreover, a good many
emigrants, yet standing on the lists, steal back one by one into France,
and the government tolerates them.[3124] Finally, eighteen months later,
after the peace of Amiens and the Concord at,[3125] a sénatus-consulte
ends the great operation; an amnesty relieves all who are not yet
struck off, except the declared leaders of the militant emigration, its
notables, and who are not to exceed one thousand; the rest may come back
and enjoy their civic rights; only, they must promise "loyalty to the
government established under the constitution and not maintain directly
or indirectly any connection or correspondence with the enemies of the
State." On this condition the doors of France are thrown open to them
and they return in crowds.

But their bodily presence is not of itself sufficient; it is moreover
essential that they should not be absent in feeling, as strangers and
merely domiciliated in the new society. Were these mutilated fragments
of old France, these human shreds put back in their old places, simply
attached or placed in juxtaposition to modern France, they would prove
useless, troublesome and even mischievous. Let us strive, then, to have
them grafted on afresh through adherence or complete fusion; and first,
to effect this, they must not be allowed to die of inanition; they
must take root physically and be able to live. In private life, how
can former proprietors, the noblesse, the parliamentarians, the upper
bourgeoisie, support themselves, especially those without a profession
or pursuit, and who, before 1789, maintained themselves, not by their
labor, but by their income? Once at home, they can no longer earn their
living as they did abroad; they can no longer give lessons in French, in
dancing, or in fencing.--There is no doubt but that the sénatus-consulte
which amnesties them restores to them a part of their unsold
possessions;[3126] but most of these are sold and, on the other hand,
the First Consul, who is not disposed to re-establish large fortunes for
royalists,[3127] retains and maintains the largest portion of what they
have been despoiled of in the national domain: all woods and forests of
300 arpents[3128] and over, their stock and property rights in the
great canals, and their personal property already devoted to the public
service. The effective restitution is therefore only moderate; the
émigrés who return recover but little more than one-twentieth of their
patrimony, one hundred millions[3129] out of more than two milliards.
Observe, besides, that by virtue even of the law and as admitted by the
First Consul,[3130] this alms is badly distributed; the most needy and
the greatest number remain empty-handed, consisting of the lesser and
medium class of rural proprietors, especially of country gentlemen
whose domain, worth less than 50,000 francs, brings in only 2000 or 3000
francs income;[3131] a domain of this size came within reach of a great
many purses, and hence found purchasers more readily and with greater
facility than a large holding; the State was almost always the seller,
and thenceforth the old proprietor could make no further claim or
pretension.--Thus, for many of the émigrés, "the sénatus-consulte of the
year X is simply a permit to starve to death in France "and,[3132] four
years later,[3133] Napoleon himself estimates that "40,000 are without
the means of subsistence." They manage to keep life and soul together
and nothing more;[3134] many, taken in and cared for by their friends
or relations, are supported as guests or parasites, somewhat through
compassion and again on humanitarian grounds. One recovers his silver
plate, buried in a cellar; another finds notes payable to bearer,
forgotten in an old chest. Sometimes, the purchaser of a piece of
property, an honest man, gives it back at the price he paid for it,
or even gratis, if, during the time he had held it, he had derived
sufficient profit from it. Occasionally, when the adjudication happens
to have been fraudulent, or the sale too irregular, and subject to legal
proceedings, the dishonest purchaser does not refuse a compromise.
But these cases are rare, and the evicted owner, if he desires to dine
regularly, will wisely seek a small remunerative position and serve
as clerk, book-keeper or accountant. M. des Echerolles, formerly a
brigadier-general, keeps the office of the new line of diligences at
Lyons, and earns 1200 francs a year. M. de Puymaigre, who, in 1789, was
worth two millions, becomes a contrôleur des droits réunis at Briey with
a salary of 2400 francs.--In every branch of the new administration
a royalist is welcome to apply for a post;[3135] however slightly
recommended, he obtains the place. Sometimes he even receives one
without having asked for it; M. de Vitrolles[3136] thus becomes, in
spite of himself, inspector of the imperial sheepfolds; this fixes his
position and makes it appear as if he had given in his adhesion to the
government.--Naturally, the great political recruiter singles out the
tallest and most imposing subjects, that is to say, belonging to the
first families of the ancient monarchy, and, like one who knows his
business, he brings to bear every means, constraint and seduction,
threats and cajoleries, supplies in ready money, promises of promotion
with the influence of a uniform and gold-lace embroidery.[3137] It
matters little whether the enlistment is voluntary or extorted; the
moment a man becomes a functionary and is enrolled in the hierarchy, he
loses the best portion of his independence; once a dignitary and placed
at the top of the hierarchy, he gives his entire individuality up, for
henceforth he lives under the eye of the master, feels the daily and
direct pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and he forcibly
becomes a mere tool.[3138] These historic names, moreover, contribute to
the embellishment of the reign. Napoleon hauls in a good many of them,
and the most illustrious among the old noblesse, of the court of the
robe and of the sword. He can enumerate among his magistrates, M.
Pasquier, M. Séguier, M. Molé; among his prelates, M. de Boisgelin,
M. du Barral, M. du Belley, M. de Roquelaure, M. de Broglie; among his
military officers, M. de Fézensac, M. de Ségur, M. de Mortemart, M.
de Narbonne;[3139] among the dignitaries of his palace, chaplains,
chamberlains and ladies of honor--the Rohan, Croy, Chevreuse,
Montmorency, Chabot, Montesquiou, Noailles, Brancas, Gontaut, Grammont,
Beauvau, Saint-Aignan, Montalembert, Haussonville, Choiseul-Praslin,
Mercy d'Argenteau, Aubusson de la Feuillade, and many others, recorded
in the imperial almanac as formerly in the royal almanac.

But they are only with him nominally and in the almanac. Except
certain individuals, M. de las Cases and M. Philippe de Ségur, who gave
themselves up body and soul, even to following him to Saint Helena, to
glorifying, admiring and loving him beyond the grave, the others are
submissive conscripts and who remain more or less refractory spirits. He
does nothing to win them over. His court is not, like the old court, a
conversational ball-room, but a hall of inspection, the most sumptuous
apartment in his vast barracks; the civil parade is a continuation of
the military parade; one finds one's self constrained, stiff, mute and
uncomfortable.[3140]

He does not know how to entertain as the head of his household, how
to welcome guests and be gracious or even polite to his pretended
courtiers; he himself declares that[3141] "they go two years without
speaking to him, and six months without seeing him; he does not like
them, their conversation displeases him." When he addresses them it is
to browbeat them; his familiarities with their wives are those of the
gendarme or the pedagogue, while the little attentions he inflicts upon
them are indecorous criticisms or compliments in bad taste. They know
that they are spied upon in their own homes and responsible for whatever
is said there; "the upper police is constantly hovering over all
drawing-rooms."[3142] For every word uttered in privacy, for any lack of
compliance, every individual, man or woman, runs the risk of exile or
of being relegated to the interior at a distance of forty leagues.[3143]
And the same with the resident gentry in the provinces; they are obliged
to pay court to the prefect, to be on good terms with him, or at least
attend his receptions; it is important that their cards should be seen
on his mantel piece.[3144] Otherwise, let them take heed, for it is he
who reports on their conduct to the minister Fouché or to Savary who
replaced him. In vain do they live circumspectly and confine themselves
to a private life; a refusal to accept an office is unpardonable; there
is a grudge against them if they do not employ their local influence in
behalf of the reign.[3145] Accordingly, they are, under the empire as
under the republic, in law as in fact, in the provinces as well as at
Paris, privileged persons the wrong way, a suspicious class under
a special surveillance" and subject to exceptional rigor.[3146] In
1808,[3147] Napoleon orders Fouché "to draw up ... among the old and
wealthy families who are not in the system... a list of ten in each
department, and of fifty for Paris," of which the sons from sixteen to
eighteen years of age shall be forced to enter Saint-Cyr and from thence
go into the army as second lieutenants. In 1813, still "in the highest
classes of society," and arbitrarily selected by the prefects, he takes
ten thousand other persons, exempt or redeemed from the conscription,
even the married, even fathers of families, who, under the title of
guards of honor, become soldiers, at first to be slaughtered in his
service, and next, and in the mean time, to answer for the fidelity
of their relatives. It is the old law of hostages, a resumption of the
worst proceedings of the Directory for his account and aggravated for
his profit.--Decidedly, the imperial Régime, for the old royalists,
resembles too much the Jacobin régime; they are about as repugnant to
one as to the other, and their aversion naturally extends to the whole
of the new society.--As they comprehend it, they are more or less robbed
and oppressed for a quarter of a century. In order that their hostility
may cease, the indemnity of 1825 is essential, fifty years of gradual
adaptation, the slow elimination of two or three generations of fathers
and the slow elimination of two or three generations of sons.

Nothing is so difficult as the reparation of great social wrongs.
In this case the incomplete reparation did not prove sufficient; the
treatment which began with gentleness ended with violence, and, as a
whole, the operation only half succeeded.




IV. Education and Medical Care.

     Confiscation of collective fortunes.--Ruin of the Hospitals
     and Schools.

Other wounds are not less deep, and their cure is not less urgent;
for they cause suffering, not only to one class, but to the whole
people--that vast majority which the government strives to satisfy.
Along with the property of the émigrés, the Revolution has confiscated
that of all local or special societies, ecclesiastic or laic, of
churches and congregations, universities and academies, schools and
colleges, asylums and hospitals, and even the property of the communes.
All these fortunes have been swallowed up by the public treasury, which
is a bottomless pit, and are gone forever.--Consequently, all services
thus maintained, especially charitable institutions, public worship and
education, die or languish for lack of sustenance; the State, which has
no money for itself, has none for them. And what is worse, it hinders
private parties from taking them in charge; being Jacobin, that is to
say intolerant and partisan, it has proscribed worship, driven nuns out
of the hospitals, closed Christian schools, and, with its vast power,
it prevents others from carrying out at their own expense the social
enterprises which it no longer cares for.

And yet the needs for which this work provides have never been so
great nor so imperative. In ten years,[3148] the number of foundlings
increased from 23,000 to 62,000; it is, as the reports state, a deluge:
there are 1097 instead of 400 in Aisne, 1500 in Lot-et-Garonne, 2035 in
la Manche, 2043 in Bouches-du-Rhône, 2673 in Calvados. From 3000 to
4000 beggars are enumerated in each department and about 300,000 in all
France.[3149] As to the sick, the infirm, the mutilated, unable to earn
their living, it suffices, for an idea of their multitude, to consider
the régime to which the political doctors have just subjected France,
the Régime of fasting and bloodletting. Two millions of Frenchmen have
marched under the national flag, and eight hundred thousand have died
under it;[3150] among the survivors, how many cripples, how many with
one arm and with wooden legs! All Frenchmen have eaten dog-bread for
three years and often have not had enough of that to live on; over
a million have died of starvation and poverty; all the wealthy and
well-to-do Frenchmen have been ruined and have lived in constant fear
of the guillotine; four hundred thousand have wasted away in prisons;
of the survivors, how many shattered constitutions, how many bodies and
brains disordered by an excess of suffering and anxiety, by physical and
moral wear and tear![3151]

Now, in 1800, assistance is lacking for this crowd of civil and military
invalids, the charitable establishments being no longer in a condition
to furnish it. Under the Constituent Assembly, through the suppression
of ecclesiastical property and the abolition of octrois, a large portion
of their revenue had been cut off, that assigned to them out of octrois
and the tithes. Under the Legislative Assembly and the Convention,
through the dispersion and persecution of nuns and monks, they were
deprived of a body of able male and female volunteer servants who,
instituted for centuries, gave their labor without stint. Under the
Convention, all their possessions, the real-estate and the debts due
them, had been confiscated;[3152] and, in the restitution to them of the
remainder at the end of three years, a portion of their real-estate is
found to have been sold, while their claims, settled by assignats or
converted into state securities, had died out or dwindled to such an
extent that, in 1800, after the final bankruptcy of the assignats and
of the state debt, the ancient patrimony of the poor is two-thirds or
one-half reduced.[3153] It is for this reason that the eight hundred
charitable institutions which, in 1789, had one hundred thousand or
one hundred and ten thousand occupants, could not support more than
one-third or one-half of them; on the other hand, it may be estimated
that the number of applicants tripled; from which it follows that, in
1800, there is less than one bed in the hospitals and asylums for six
children, either sick or infirm.




V. Old and New.

     Complaints of the Poor, of Parents, and of Believers.
     --Contrast between old and new educational facilities.
     --Clandestine instruction.--Jacobin teachers.

Under this wail of the wretched who vainly appeal for help, for nursing
and for beds, another moan is heard, not so loud, but more extensive,
that of parents unable to educate their children, boys or girls, and
give them any species of instruction either primary or secondary.

Previous to the Revolution "small schools" were innumerable: in
Normandy, Picardy, Artois, French Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, in the
Ile-de-France, in Burgundy and Franche-Comté, in the Dombes, Dauphiny
and Lyonnais, in the Comtat, in the Cévennes and in Béarn,[3154] almost
as many schools could be counted as there were parishes, in all probably
twenty or twenty-five thousand for the thirty-seven thousand parishes
in France, and all frequented and serviceable; for, in 1789, forty-seven
men out of a hundred, and twenty-six girls or women out of a hundred,
could read and write or, at least, sign their names.[3155]--And these
schools cost the treasury nothing, next to nothing to the tax-payer, and
very little to parents. In many places, the congregations, supported
by their own property, furnished male or female teachers,--Frères de la
Doctrine Chrétienne, Frères de Saint-Antoine, Ursulines, Visitandines,
Filles de la Charité, Sæurs de Saint-Charles, Sæurs de la Providence,
Sæurs de la Sagesse, Sæurs de Notre-Dame de la Croix, Vatelottes,
Miramiones, Manettes du Tiers Ordre, and many others. Elsewhere, the
curate of the parish was obliged through a parish regulation to teach
himself, or to see that his vicar taught. A very large number of
factories or of communes had received legacies for maintaining a school;
the instructor often enjoyed, through an endowment, a métayer farm or a
piece of ground; he was generally provided with a lodging; if he was a
layman he was exempt, besides, from the most onerous taxes; as sexton,
beadle, chorister or bell-ringer, he had small perquisites; finally,
he was paid for each child four or five sous[3156] a month; sometimes,
especially in poor districts, he taught only from All Saints' day down
to the spring, and followed another occupation during the summer. In
short, his salary and his comfort were about those of a rural vicar or
of a suitably paid curate.

Higher education (éducation secondaire) was provided for in the same
manner, and still better by local and private enterprise. More than one
hundred and eight establishments furnished it completely, and more than
four hundred and fifty-four partially.[3157] Like the others, and
not less liberally than the smaller schools, these were supported
by endowments, some of which were very ample and even magnificent;
a certain upper school in the provinces, Rodez,[3158] possessed
twenty-seven thousand livres income, and one in Paris, Louis-le-Grand,
an income of four hundred and fifty thousand livres, each of these,
large or small, having its own distinct endowment, in real property,
lands and houses, and in revenues on privileges derived from the
hotel-de-ville, the octroi and from transportation lines.--And, in
each of them, the scholarships, or half-scholarships, were numerous-six
hundred alone in Louis-le-Grand. In total, out of the seventy-two
thousand scholars in the kingdom, there were forty thousand for whom a
high-school education was gratuitous or half-gratuitous; nowadays, it is
less than five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand.[3159] The reason
why is that, before 1789, the revenues were not only large, but
the expenses were small. The salary of a head-master, teacher, or
assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred and fifty, six
hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred livres per annum at most, just
enough for a single man to live on; in effect, most of the teachers were
priests or monks, Benedictines, regular canons, Oratorians, the latter
alone officiating in thirty colleges. Not subject to the expenses and
necessities which a family imposes, they were abstemious through
piety, or at least through discipline, habit, and respect for persons;
frequently, the statutes of the school obliged them to live in
common,[3160] which was much cheaper than living apart.--The same
economical accord is found with all the wheels, in the arrangement and
working of the entire system. A family, even a rural one, never lived
far away from a high-school, for there were high-schools in nearly all
the small towns, seven or eight in each department, fifteen in Ain,
seventeen in Aisne.[3161] The child or youth, from eight to eighteen,
had not to endure the solitude and promiscuity of a civil barracks; he
remained within reach of his parents. If they were too poor to pay the
three hundred francs board required by the school, they placed their son
in a respectable family, in that of some artisan or acquaintance in the
town; there, with three or four others, he was lodged, had his washing
done, was cared for and watched, had a seat at the family table and by
the fireside, and was provided with light; every week, he received from
the country his supply of bread and other provisions; the mistress of
the house cooked for him and mended his clothes, the whole for two or
three livres a month.[3162]--Thus do institutions flourish that arise
spontaneously on the spot; they adapt themselves to circumstances,
conform to necessities, utilize resources and afford the maximum of
returns for the minimum of expense.

This great organization disappears entirely, bodily and with all its
possessions, like a ship that sinks beneath the waves. The teachers
are dismissed, exiled, transported, and proscribed; its property is
confiscated, sold and destroyed, and the remainder in the hands of the
State is not restored and again applied to its former service. Public
education, worse treated than public charity, does not recover a
shred of its former endowment. Consequently, in the last years of the
Directory, and even early in the Consulate,[3163] there is scarcely any
instruction given in France; in fact, for the past eight or nine years
it has ceased,[3164] or become private and clandestine. Here and there,
a few returned priests, in spite of the intolerant law and with the
connivance of the local authorities, also a few scattered nuns, teach
in a contraband fashion a few small groups of Catholic children; five or
six little girls around a disguised Ursuline nun spell out the alphabet
in a back room;[3165] a priest without tonsure or cassock secretly
receives in the evening two or three youths whom he makes translate the
De Viris.--During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign of Terror, before
the 13th of Vendémiaire and the 18th of Fructidor, sundry schools spring
up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-ground, but only in
certain spots and meagerly; moreover, as soon as the Jacobin returns to
power he stubbornly stamps them out;[3166] he wants to have teaching all
to himself.--Now the institution by which the State pretends to replace
the old and free establishments makes a figure only on paper. One école
centrale in each department is installed or decreed, making eighty eight
on the territory of ancient France; this hardly supplies the place of
the eight or nine hundred high-schools (collèges), especially as these
new schools are hardly viable, being in ruin at the very start,[3167]
poorly maintained, badly furnished, with no preparatory schools nor
adjacent boarding-houses,[3168] the programme of studies being badly
arranged and parents suspicious of the spirit of the studies.[3169]
Thus, there is little or no attendance at most of the courses of
lectures; only those on mathematics are followed, particularly on
drawing, and especially mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably
by the future surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building
contractors and a few aspirants to the École Polytechnique. As to
the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral sciences, as
comprehended by the Republic and imposed by it, these obtain not over a
thousand auditors in all France; instead of 72,000 pupils, only 7000 or
8000 seek superior education, while six out of seven, instead of
seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some practical
pursuit.[3170]

It is much worse with primary instruction. This task is given to the
local authorities. But, as they have no money, they generally shirk this
duty, and, if they do set up a school, are unable to maintain it.[3171]
On the other hand, as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, "almost
everywhere,"[3172] the teacher is an outcast layman, a fallen Jacobin,
some old, starving party member, unemployed, foul-mouthed and of
ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust their children with
him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the reason is that, in
1800, Jacobin and scoundrel have become synonymous terms. Henceforth,
parents desire that their children should learn to read in the catechism
and not in the declaration of rights:[3173] as they view it, the old
manual formed polite and civilized youths and respectful sons; the
new one forms only insolent rascals and precocious, slovenly
blackguards.[3174] Consequently, the few primary schools in which the
Republic has placed its people and imposed its educational system remain
three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors of those in
which other masters teach with other books; fathers persist in their
repugnance and distaste; they prefer for their sons utter ignorance
to unsound instruction.[3175]--A secular establishment, created and
provided for by twenty generations of benefactors, gave gratis, or at
a much lower rate, the first crumbs of intellectual food to more
than 1,200,000 children.[3176] It was demolished; in its place, a few
improvised and wretched barracks distributed here and there a small
ration of moldy and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur,
a long time suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that of
parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in any event, they
demand that their sons and daughters be no longer forced, under penalty
of fasting, to consume the patent flour of the State, that is to say
a nauseous, unsatisfactory, badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on
trial, proves offensive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach.




VI. Religion

     The Spirit and Ministrations of Catholicism.--How the
     Revolution develops a sense of this.

Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that of all souls
in which regret for their established church and forms of worship still
subsists or is revived.

In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon faith, for it
is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; they are the outcome
and expansion of this; it attains its ends through these, and manifests
itself by them; they are the exterior of which it is the interior; thus,
let these be attacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating
flesh suffers through the sensitive skin.--In Catholicism, this skin
is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not alone
through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation and custom,
but again through a special organic attachment, consisting of dogmatic
doctrine; theology, in its articles of belief, has here set up
the absolute necessity of the sacraments and of the priesthood;
consequently, between the superficial and central divisions of religion
the union is complete. The Catholic sacraments, therefore, are not
merely symbols; they possess in themselves "an efficacious power,
a sanctifying virtue." "That which they represent, they really work
out."[3177] If I am denied access to them, I am cut off from the
fountains to which my soul resorts to drink in grace, pardon, purity,
health and salvation. If my children cannot be regularly baptized, they
are not Christians; if extreme unction cannot be administered to my
dying mother, she sets out on the long journey without the viaticum; if
I am married by the mayor only, my wife and I live in concubinage; if
I cannot confess my sins, I am not absolved from them, and my burdened
conscience seeks in vain for the helping hand which will ease the too
heavy load; if I cannot perform my Easter duties, my spiritual life is a
failure; the supreme and sublime act by which it perfects itself through
the mystic union of my body and soul with the body, soul, and divinity
of Jesus Christ, is wanting.--Now, none of these sacraments are valid if
they have not been conferred by a priest, one who bears the stamp of
a superior, unique, ineffaceable character, through a final sacrament
consisting of ordination and which is conferred only on certain
conditions; among other conditions, it is essential that this priest
should have been ordained by a bishop; among other conditions, it is
essential that this bishop[3178] should have been installed by the Pope.
Consequently, without the Pope there are no bishops; without bishops
no priests; without priests no sacraments; without the sacraments no
salvation. The ecclesiastical institution is therefore indispensable
to the believer. The canonical priesthood, the canonical hierarchy is
necessary to him for the exercise of his faith.--He must have yet more,
if fervent and animated with true old Christian sentiment, ascetic and
mystic, which separates the soul from this world and ever maintains it
in the presence of God. Several things are requisite to this end:

* First, vows of chastity, poverty and obedience, that is to say, the
steady and voluntary repression of the most powerful animal instinct and
of the strongest worldly appetites;

* Next, unceasing prayer, especially prayer in common, where the emotion
of the prostrate soul increases through the emotion of the souls that
surround it; in the same degree, active piety, meaning by this the doing
of good works, education and charity, especially the accomplishment of
repulsive tasks, such as attending the sick, the infirm, the incurable,
idiots, maniacs and repentant prostitutes;

* Finally, the strict daily rule which, a sort of rigorous and minute
countersign, enjoining and compelling the repetition of the same acts
at the same hours, renders habit the auxiliary of will, adds mechanical
enthusiasm to a serious determination, and ends in making the task easy.

Hence, communities of men and of women, congregations and convents,
these likewise, the same as the sacraments, the priesthood and the
hierarchy, form a body along with belief and thus constitute the
inseparable organs of faith.

Before 1789, the ignorant or indifferent Catholic, the peasant at his
plow, the artisan at his work-bench, the good wife attending to her
household, were unconscious of this innermost suture. Thanks to the
Revolution, they have acquired the sentiment of it and even the physical
sensation. They had never asked themselves in what respect orthodoxy
differed from schism, nor how positive religion was opposed to natural
religion; it is the civil organization of the clergy which has led
them to distinguish the difference between the unsworn curé and the
interloper, between the right mass and the wrong mass; it is the
prohibition of the mass which has led them to comprehend its importance;
it is the revolutionary government which has transformed them into
theologians and canonists.[3179] Compelled, under the Reign of Terror,
to sing and dance before the goddess Reason, and next, in the temple of
the "Étre Supreme," subjected, under the Directory, to the new-fangled
republican calendar, and to the insipidity of the decade festivals,
they have measured, with their own eyes, the distance which separates
a present, personal, incarnate deity, redeemer and savior, from a deity
without form or substance, or, in any event, absent; a living, revealed,
and time-honored religion, and an abstract, manufactured, improvised
religion; their spontaneous worship, which is an act of faith, and a
worship imposed on them which is only frigid parade; their priest, in
a surplice, sworn to continence, delegated from on high to open out to
them the infinite perspectives of heaven or hell beyond the grave, and
the republican substitute, officiating in a municipal scarf, Peter or
Paul, a lay-man like themselves, more or less married and convivialist,
sent from Paris to preach a course of Jacobin morality.[3180]--Their
attachment to their clergy, to the entire body regular and secular, is
due to this contrast. Previously, they were not always well-disposed to
it; the peasantry, nowhere, were content to pay tithes, and the artisan,
as well as the peasant, regarded the idle, well-endowed, meditative
monks as but little more than so many fat drones. The man of the people
in France, by virtue of being a Gaul, has a dry, limited imagination;
he is not inclined to veneration, but is rather mocking, critical and
insubordinate at the powers above him, with a hereditary undertone of
distrust and envy at every man who wears a cloth suit and who eats and
drinks without doing manual labor.--At this time, his clergy do not
excite his envy, but his pity; monks and nuns, cure's and prelates,
roofless, without bread, imprisoned, transported, guillotined, or, at
best, fugitives, hunted down and more unfortunate than wild beasts--it
is he who, during the persecutions of the years II, IV and VI, harbors
them, conceals them, lodges them and feeds them. He sees them suffering
for their faith, which is his faith, and, before their constancy, equal
to that of the legendary martyrs, his indifference changes into respect
and next into zeal. From the year IV,[3181] the orthodox priests have
again recovered their place and ascendancy in his soul which the creed
assigns to them; they have again become his serviceable guides, his
accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian truth,
the only authorized dispensers and ministers of divine grace. He attends
their mass immediately on their return and will put up with no other.
Brutalized as he may be, or indifferent and dull, and his mind filled
with nothing but animal concerns, he needs them;[3182] he misses their
solemnities, the great festivals, the Sunday; and this privation is a
periodical want both for eyes and ears; he misses the ceremonial, the
lights, the chants, the ringing of the bells, the morning and evening
Angelus.--Thus, whether he knows it or not, his heart and senses are
Catholic[3183] and he demands the old church back again. Before the
Revolution, this church lived on its own revenues; 70,000 priests,
37,000 nuns, 23,000 monks, supported by endowments, cost the State
nothing, and scarcely anything to the tax-payer; at any rate, they cost
nothing to the actual, existing tax-payer not even the tithes, for,
established many centuries ago, the tithes were a tax on the soil, not
on the owner in possession, nor on the farmer who tilled the ground, who
has purchased or hired it with this tax deducted. In any case, the real
property of the Church belonged to it, without prejudice to anybody,
through the strongest legal and most legitimate of property titles,
the last will and testament of thousands of the dead, its founders and
benefactors. All is taken from it, even the houses of prayer which,
in their use, disposition and architecture, were, in the most manifest
manner, Christian works and ecclesiastical objects, 38,000 parsonages,
4000 convents, over 40,000 parochial churches, cathedrals and chapels.
Every morning, the man or woman of the people, in whom the need of
worship has revived, passes in front of one of these buildings robbed of
its cult; these declare aloud to them through their form and name what
they have been and what they should be to-day. This voice is heard
by incredulous philosophers and former Conventionalists;[3184] all
Catholics hear it, and out of thirty-five millions of Frenchmen,[3185]
thirty-two millions are Catholics.




VII. The Confiscated Property.

     Reasons for the concordat.--Napoleon's economical
     organization of the Church institution.--A good bargainer.
     --Compromise with the old state of things.

How withstand such a just complaint, the universal complaint of the
destitute, of relatives, and of believers?--The fundamental difficulty
reappears, the nearly insurmountable dilemma into which the Revolution
has plunged every steady government, that is to say the lasting effect
of revolutionary confiscations and the conflict which sets two rights to
the same property against each other, the right of the despoiled owner
and the right of the owner in possession. This time, again the fault is
on the side of the State, which has converted itself from a policeman
into a brigand and violently appropriated to itself the fortune of the
hospitals, schools, and churches; the State must return this in money or
in kind. In kind, it is no longer able; everything has passed out of
its hands; it has alienated what it could, and now holds on only to the
leavings. In money, nothing more can be done; it is itself ruined,
has just become bankrupt, lives on expedients from day to day and has
neither funds nor credit. Nobody dreams of taking back property that is
sold; nothing is more opposed to the spirit of the new Régime: not only
would this be a robbery as before, since its buyers have paid for it and
got their receipts, but again, in disputing their title the government
would invalidate its own. For its authority is derived from the same
source as their property: it is established on the same principle as
their rights of possession and by virtue of the same accomplished facts

* because things are as they are and could not be different,

* because ten years of revolution and eight years of war bear down on
the present with too heavy a weight,

* because too many and too deep interests are involved and enlisted on
the same side,

* because the interests of twelve hundred thousand purchasers are
incorporated with those of the thirty thousand officers to whom
the Revolution has provided a rank, along with that of all the new
functionaries and dignitaries, including the First Consul himself, who,
in this universal transposition of fortunes and ranks, is the greatest
of parvenus and who must maintain the others if he wants to be
maintained by them.

Naturally, he protects everybody, through calculation as well as
sympathy, in the civil as in the military order of things, particularly
the new property-owners, especially the smaller and the average ones,
his best clients, attached to his reign and to his person through love
of property, the strongest passion of the ordinary man, and through love
of the soil, the strongest passion of the peasant.[3186] Their loyalty
depends on their security, and consequently he is lavish of guarantees.
In his constitution of the year VIII,[3187] he declares in the name
of the French nation that after a legally consummated sale of national
property, whatever its origin, the legitimate purchaser cannot be
divested of it." Through the institution of the Legion of Honor he
obliges each member "to swear, on his honor, to devote himself to the
conservation of property sanctioned by the laws of the republic."[3188]
According to the terms of the imperial constitution[3189] "he swears"
himself "to respect and to enforce respect for the irrevocability of the
sale of national possessions."

Unfortunately, a cannon-ball on the battle-field, an infernal machine
in the street, an illness at home, may carry off the guarantor and the
guarantees.[3190] On the other hand, confiscated goods preserve their
original taint. Rarely is the purchaser regarded favorably in his
commune; the bargain he has made excites envy; he is not alone in his
enjoyment of it, but the rest suffer from it. Formerly, this or that
field of which he reaps the produce, this or that domain of which he
enjoys the rental, once provided for the parsonage, the asylum and
the school; now the school, the asylum and the parsonage die through
inanition for his advantage; he fattens on their fasting. In his own
house, his wife and mother often look melancholy, especially during
Easter week; if he is old, or becomes ill, his conscience disturbs him;
this conscience, through habit and heredity, is Catholic: he craves
absolution at the last moment at the priest's hands, and says to himself
that, at the last moment, he may not probably be absolved.[3191] In
other respects, he would find it difficult to satisfy himself that
his legal property is legitimate property; for, not only is it not so
rightfully before the tribunal of conscience, but again it is not so
in fact on the market; the figures, in this particular, are convincing,
daily and notorious. A patrimonial domain which brings in 3000 francs
finds a purchaser at 100,000 francs; alongside of this a national domain
which brings in just as much, finds a purchaser only at 60,000 francs;
after several sales and resale, the depreciation continues and 40 % of
the value of the confiscated property is lost.[3192] A low, indistinct
murmur is heard, and reverberates from sale to sale, the muttering of
private probity protesting against public probity, declaring to the
new proprietor that his title is defective; it lacks one clause and a
capital one, that of the surrender and cession, the formal renunciation,
the authentic withdrawal of the former owner. The State, the first
seller, owes this voucher to the purchasers; let it procure this and
negotiate accordingly; let it apply for this to the rightful party, to
the owners whom it has dispossessed, to the immemorial and legitimate
authorities, I mean to the ancient corporations. These have been
dissolved by revolutionary law and have no longer a representative who
can sign for them. Nevertheless, in spite of revolutionary law, one of
these corporations, with more vitality than the rest, still subsists
with its proper, if not legal, representative, its regular and
undisputed chief. This chief is qualified and authorized to bind the
body; for, institutionally, he is supreme, and the conscience of all
its members is in his hand. His signature is of the highest value; it
is very important to obtain this, and the First Consul concludes the
Concordat with the Pope.

By this Concordat, the Pope "declares that neither himself nor his
successors shall in any manner disturb the purchasers of alienated
ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership of the said property,
the rights and revenues derived there from, shall consequently remain
in commutable in their hands or in those of their assigns."[3193]
Henceforth the possession of this property is no longer a sin; at
least, it is not condemned by the spiritual authority, by that external
conscience which, in Catholic countries, governs the inward conscience
and often supplies its place; the Church, the moral head, removes with
its own hands the moral scruple, the last small stone, troublesome
and dangerous, which, lying underneath the cornerstone of lay society,
breaks the level of the entire structure and compromises the equilibrium
of the new government.--In exchange, the State endows the Church. By
the same Concordat, and by the decrees which follow it, "the
government[3194] ensures a suitable salary to bishops and cure's,"
15,000 francs to each archbishop, 10,000 francs to each bishop, 1500
francs to each curé of the first class and 1000 francs to each curé of
the second class,[3195] also, later on,[3196] a maximum of 500 francs
and a minimum of 300 francs to each assistant-priest or vicar. "If
circumstances require it,[3197] the conseils-généraux of the large
communes may grant to prelates or to curés an increase of salary out of
their rural possessions or octrois." In all cases, archbishops, bishops,
curés and priests shall be lodged, or receive a lodging indemnity. So
much for the support of persons.-As to real property,[3198] "all the
metropolitan churches, cathedrals, parochial buildings and others, not
alienated, and needed for the purposes of worship, shall be subject to
the disposition of the bishops."--The parsonages and gardens attached
to these, not alienated, shall be given up to the curés and
assistant-priests."--"The possessions of the fabriques,[3199] not
alienated, as well as the rentals they enjoyed, and which have not been
transferred, shall be restored to their original purpose.--As to the
outlay and expenditure for worship,[31100] for the parochial center or
cathedral, if its revenue is not sufficient, this shall receive aid
from its commune or from its department; besides, "an assessment of 10
%.[31101] shall be laid on the revenues of all the real estate of
the communes, such as houses, woods, and rural possessions, for the
formation of a common fund of subsidy," a general sum with which to
provide for "acquisitions, reconstructions or repairs of churches,...
seminaries and parsonages." Moreover,[31102] the government allows
"the French Catholics to make endowments, if so disposed, in favor of
churches.. . for the support of ministers and the exercise of worship,"
that is to say to bequeath or make gifts to the fabriques or
seminaries; in fine, it exempts seminarists, the future cure's, from the
conscription.

It also exempts the "Ignorantins," or brethren of the Christian schools,
who are the instructors of the common people. With respect to these and
in relation to every other Catholic institution, it follows the same
utilitarian principle, the fundamental maxim of laic and practical good
sense: when religious vocations make their appearance and serve the
public, it welcomes and makes use of them; it grants them facilities,
dispensations and favors, its protection, its donations, or at least
its tolerance. Not only does it turn their zeal to account, but it
authorizes their association.[31103] Numerous societies of men or of
women again spring up with the assent of the public authorities--the
"Ignorantins," the "Filles de la Charité," the "Seurs Hospitalières,"
the "Sæurs de Saint-Thomas," the "Sæurs de Saint-Charles," the "Sæurs
Vatelottes." The Council of State accepts and approves of their
statutes, vows, hierarchy, and internal regulations. They again
become proprietors; they may accept donations and legacies. The
State frequently makes presents to them. In 1808,[31104] thirty-one
communities of Sisters of Charity, and mostly educational, thus obtain
the buildings and furniture they ask for, in full possession and
gratuitously. The State, also, frequently supports them;[31105] it
repeatedly decides that in this asylum, or in that school, the "sisters"
designated by the ancient foundation shall resume their work and be
paid out of the income of the asylum or school. Better still, and
notwithstanding threatening decrees,[31106] Napoleon, between 1804 and
1814, allows fifty-four communities to arise and exist, outside of the
congregations authorized by him, which do not submit their statutes to
him and which dispense with his permission to exist; he lets them live
and does not disturb them; he judges[31107] "that there is every sort
of character and imagination, that eccentricities even should not be
repressed when they do no harm," that, for certain people, an ascetic
life in common is the only refuge; if that is all they desire they
should not be disturbed, and it is easy to feign ignorance of them; but
let them remain quiet and be sufficient unto themselves!--Such is the
new growth of the regular clergy alongside of the secular clergy, the
two main branches of the Catholic trunk. Owing to the help, or to the
authorization, or to the connivance of the State, inside or outside of
its limitations, both clerical bodies, legally or in reality, recover a
civil existence, and thus obtain, or at least nearly so, their physical
maintenance.[31108]

And nothing more. Nobody, better than Napoleon, knows how to make a good
bargain, that is to say, to give a little in order to gain a great
deal. In this treaty with the Church he tightens his purse-strings and
especially avoids parting with his ready money. Six hundred and fifty
thousand francs for fifty bishops and ten archbishops, a little more
than four million francs for the three or four thousand cantonal curés,
in all five million francs per annum, is all that the State promises to
the new clergy. Later on,[31109] he takes it on himself to pay those
who officiate in the branch chapels; nevertheless, in 1807, the entire
appropriation for public worship costs the State only twelve million
francs a year;[31110] the rest, as a rule, and especially the salaries
of the forty thousand assistant-priests and vicars, must be provided
by the fabriques and the communes.[31111] Let the clergy benefit by
occasional contributions;[31112] let it appeal to the piety of believers
for its monstrances, chalices, albs and chasubles, for decorations
and the other expenses of worship; they are not prohibited from being
liberal to it, not only during the services, on making collections, but
in their houses, within closed doors, from hand to hand. Moreover,
they have the right of making gifts or bequests before a notary, of
establishing foundations in favor of seminaries and churches; the
foundation, after verification and approval by the Council of State,
becomes operative; only,[31113] it must consist of state securities,
because, in this shape, it helps maintain their value and the credit of
the government; in no case must it be composed of real estate;[31114]
should the clergy become land-owners it would enjoy too much local
influence. No bishop, no curé must feel himself independent; he must be
and always remain a mere functionary, a hired workman for whom the
State provides work in a shop with a roof overhead, a suitable and
indispensable atelier, in other words, the house of prayer well known in
each parish as "one of the edifices formerly assigned to worship."
This edifice is not restored to the Christian community, nor to
its representatives; it is simply "placed at the disposition of the
bishop."[31115] The State retains the ownership of it, or transfers this
to the communes; it concedes to the clergy merely the right of using
it, and, in that, loses but little. Parish and cathedral churches in its
hands are, for the most part, dead capital, nearly useless and almost
valueless; through their structure, they are not fitted for civil
offices; it does not know what to do with them except to make barns of
them; if it sells them it is to demolishers for their value as building
material, and then at great scandal. Among the parsonages and
gardens that have been surrendered, several have become communal
property,[31116] and, in this case, it is not the State which loses its
title but the commune which is deprived of its investment. In short, in
the matter of available real estate, land or buildings, from which the
State might derive a rent, that which it sets off from its domain and
hands over to the clergy is of very little account. As to military
service, it makes no greater concessions. Neither the Concordat nor
the organic articles stipulate any exemption for the clergy; the
dispensation granted is simply a favor; this is provisional for the
seminarians and only becomes permanent under ordination; now, the
government fixes the number of the ordained, and it keeps this down as
much as possible;[31117] for the diocese of Grenoble, it allows only
eight in seven years.[31118] In this way, it not only saves conscripts,
but again, for lack of young priests, it forces the bishops to appoint
old priests, even constitutionalists, nearly all pensioners on the
treasury, and which either relieves the treasury of a pension or
the commune of a subsidy.[31119]--Thus, in the reconstruction of the
ecclesiastical fortune the State spares itself and the portion it
contributes remains very small: it furnishes scarcely more than
the plan, a few corner and foundation stones and the permission
or injunction to build; the rest concerns the communes and private
individuals. They must exert themselves, continue and complete it, by
order or spontaneously and under its permanent direction.




VIII. Public Education.

     State appropriations very small.--Toleration of educational
     institutions.--The interest of the public in them invited.
     --The University.--Its monopoly.--Practically, his
     restrictions and conditions are effective.--Satisfaction
     given to the first group of requirements.

Invariably the government proceeds in the same manner with the
reorganization of the other two collective fortunes.--As regards the
charitable institutions, under the Directory, the asylums and hospitals
had their unsold property restored to them, and in the place of what had
been sold they were promised national property of equal value.[31120]
But this was a complicated operation; things had dragged along in the
universal disorder and, to carry it out, the First Consul reduced and
simplified it. He at once sets aside a portion of the national domain,
several distinct morsels in each district or department, amounting
in all to four millions of annual income derived from productive
real-estate,[31121] which he distributes among the asylums, pro rata,
according to their losses. He assigns to them, moreover, all the rents,
in money or in kind, due for foundations to parishes, curés, fabriques
and corporations; finally, "he applies to their wants" various
outstanding claims, all national domains which have been usurped by
individuals or communes and which may be subsequently recovered, "all
rentals be-longing to the Republic, the recognition and payment of which
have been interrupted."[31122] In short, he rummages every corner and
picks out the scraps which may help them along; then, resuming and
extending another undertaking of the Directory, he assigns to them,
not merely in Paris, but in many other towns, a portion of the product
derived from theatres and octrois.[31123]--Having thus increased their
income, he applies himself to diminishing their expenses. On the one
hand, he gives them back their special servants, those who cost the
least and work the best, I mean the Sisters of Charity. On the other
hand, he binds them down rigidly to exact accounts; he subjects them
to strict supervision; he selects for them competent and suitable
administrators; he stops, here as everywhere else, waste and peculation.
Henceforth, the public reservoir to which the poor come to quench their
thirst is repaired and cleaned; the water remains pure and no longer
oozes out; private charity may therefore pour into it its fresh streams
with full security; on this side, they flow in naturally, and, at this
moment, with more force than usual, for, in the reservoir, half-emptied
by revolutionary confiscations, the level is always low.

There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect to these,
the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient endowment is
almost entirely wasted; the government has nothing to give back but
dilapidated buildings, a few scattered investments formerly intended
for the maintenance of a college scholarship,[31124] or for a village
schoolhouse. And to whom should these be returned since the college and
the schoolhouse no longer exist?--Fortunately, instruction is an article
of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure it for
his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if not too
dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind and in quality and,
therefore, from a particular source, bearing this or that factory stamp
or label. If you want him to buy it do not drive the purveyors of it
from the market who enjoy his confidence and who sell it cheaply; on the
contrary, welcome them and allow them to display their wares. This is
the first step, an act of toleration; the conseils-généraux demand
it and the government yields.[31125] It permits the return of the
Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and authorizes the towns to
employ them; later on, it graduates them at its University: in 1810,
they already possess 41 schoolhouses and 8400 pupils.[31126] Still more
liberally, it authorizes and favors female educational congregations;
down to the end of the empire and afterwards, nuns are about the only
instructors of young girls, especially in primary education.--Owing to
the same toleration, the upper schools are likewise reorganized, and
not less spontaneously, through the initiative of private individuals,
communes, bishops, colleges or pensionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau,
Metz, Évreux, Sorrèze, Juilly, La Fléche and elsewhere small seminaries
in all the dioceses. Offer and demand have come together; instructors
meet the children half-way, and education begins on all sides.[31127]

Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State invites
everybody, the communes as well as private persons, to the undertaking.
It is on their liberality that it relies for replacing the ancient
foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies in favor of new
establishments, and it promises "to surround these donations with the
most invariable respect."[31128] Meanwhile, and as a precautionary
measure, it assigns to each its eventual duty;[31129] if the commune
establishes a primary school for itself, it must provide the tutor with
a lodging and the parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a
college or accepts a lycée, it must pay for the annual support of the
building,[31130] while the pupils, either day-scholars or boarders, pay
accordingly. In this way, the heavy expenses are already met, and the
State, the general-manager of the service, furnishes simply a very small
quota; and this quota, mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact,
for its main largess consists in 6400 scholarships which it establishes
and engages to support; but it confers only about 3000 of them,[31131]
and it distributes nearly all of these among the children of its
military or civilian employees This way a son's scholarship becomes
additional pay or an increased salary for the father; thus, the 2
millions which the State seems, under this head, to assign to the lycées
are actually gratifications which it distributes among its functionaries
and officials: it takes back with one hand what it be-stows with the
other.--Having put this in place, it establishes the University. It is
not at its own expense, however, but at the expense of others, at the
expense of private persons and parents, of the communes, and above all
at the expense of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the
free institutions, and all this in favor of the University monopoly
which subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is
multifarious.[31132] A private individual obtaining diploma to open on
a boarding school must pay from 200 to 300 francs to the University;
likewise, every person obtaining a diploma to open an institution shall
pay from 400 to 600 francs to the University; likewise every person
obtaining permission to lecture on law or medicine.[31133] Every
student, boarder, half-boarder or day-scholar in any school,
institution, seminary, college or lycée, must pay to the University
one-twentieth of the sum which the establishment to which he belongs
demands of each of its pupils. In the higher schools, in the faculties
of law, medicine, science and literature, the students pay entrance and
examination fees and for diplomas, so that the day comes when superior
instruction provides for its expenditures out of its receipts and even
shows on its budget a net surplus of profit. The new University, with
its expenses thus defrayed, will support itself alone; accordingly, all
that the State really grants to it, as a veritable gift, in ready cash,
is 400,000 francs annual income on the public ledger, a little less than
the donation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789.[31134]
It may even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college
which, after being made use of in many ways, turned aside and with other
mischance, becomes the patrimony of the new University.[31135] From
high-school to University, the State has effected the transfer. Such is
its generosity. This is especially apparent in connection with primary
instruction; in 1812, for the first time, it allows 25,000 francs for
this purpose, of which only 4,500 are received.[31136]

Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. A
settlement of accounts, an express or tacit bargain, intervenes between
the State and all institutions for instruction, worship and charity. It
has taken from the poor, from the young and from believers, 5 milliards
of capital and 270 millions of revenue;[31137] it gives back to them, in
public income and treasury interest, about 17 millions per annum. As it
has the might and makes the law it has no difficulty in obtaining or in
giving itself its own discharge; it is a bankrupt who, having spent his
creditors money, bestows on these 6%. of their claim by way of alms.

Naturally, it takes the opportunity to bring them under its strict and
permanent dependence, in adding other claims to those with which the
old monarchy had already burdened the corporations that administered
collective fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and
screws them tighter. Not only does he take it upon himself to impose
order, probity, and economy on the administrators, but, again, he
appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes or authorizes each of
their acts. He puts words in their mouths; he wants to be the great
bishop, the universal genius, the sole tutor and professor, in short,
the dictator of opinion, the creator and director of every political,
social and moral idea throughout his empire.--With what rigidity and
pertinacious intent, with what variety and convergence of means, with
what plenitude and certainty of execution, with what detriment and with
what danger, present and to come, for corporations, for the public, for
the State, for himself, we shall see presently; he himself, living and
reigning, is to realize this. For his interference, pushed to extremes,
is to end in encountering resistance in a body which he considers as
his own creature, the Church: here, forgetting that she has roots of her
own, deep down and out of his reach, he carries off the Pope, holds
him captive, sends cardinals into the interior, (Page 198/504)imprisons
bishops, banishes priests, and incorporates seminarians in his
regiments.[31138] He decrees the closing of all small seminaries,[31139]
alienates forever the Catholic clergy like the royalist nobility,
precisely at the same moment and through the same absolutism, through
the same abuse of power, through the same recurrence to revolutionary
tradition, to Jacobin infatuation and brutality, even to the frustration
of his Concordat of 1802 as with his amnesty of 1802, even to
compromising his capital work of the attempted reconciliation and
reunion of old France with the new France. His work, nevertheless,
although incomplete, even interrupted and marred by himself, remains
substantial and salutary. The three grand machines which the Revolution
had demolished with so little foresight, and which he had reconstructed
at so little cost, are in working order, and, with deviations or
shortcomings in result, they render to the public the required services,
each its own, worship, charity and instruction. Full toleration and
legal protection to the three leading Christian cults, and even to
Judaism, would of itself already satisfy the most sensitive of religious
demands; owing to the donation furnished by the State and communes and
by private individuals, the necessary complement is not wanting.

The Catholic community, in particular, the most numerous of all,
exercises and celebrates its system of worship in conformity with
its faith, according to ecclesiastical canons under its own orthodox
hierarchy; in each parish, or within reach of each parish, dwells one
authorized priest who administers valid sacraments; in his stole he says
mass publicly in a consecrated edifice, plainly decorated at first but
gradually beautified; not less publicly, various congregations of monks
and nuns, the former in black robes and the "sisters in wimples and
white caps, serve in the schools and asylums.

On the other hand, in these well-equipped and well-governed asylums
and hospitals, in the bureaux of charity, their resources are no longer
inferior to their needs, while Christian charity and philanthropic
generosity are constantly operating in all directions to fill the empty
drawers; legacies and private donations, after 1802, authorized by
the Council of State, multiply; we see them swelling the pages of the
"Bulletin des Lois."[31140] From 1800 to 1845, the hospitals and asylums
are thus to receive more than 72 millions, and the charity bureaux over
49 millions; from 1800 to 1878, all together will thus receive more
than 415 millions.[31141] The old patrimony of the poor is again
reconstituted piece by piece; and on January 1st, 1833, asylums and
hospitals, with their 51 millions of revenue, are able to support
154,000 elderly and the sickly.[31142]

Like public charity, public education again becomes effective; Fourcroy,
after 1806,[31143] lists 29 organized and full lycées; besides these,
370 communal secondary schools and 377 private secondary schools are
open and receive 50,200; there are 25,000 children in the 4500 schools.
Finally, in 1815,[31144] we find in France, restored to its ancient
boundaries, 12 faculties of Law or Medicine with 6,329 students, 36
lycées with 9000 pupils, 368 colleges with 28,000 pupils, 41 small
seminaries with 5233 pupils, 1255 boarding-schools and private
institutions with 39,623 pupils, and 22,348 primary schools with 737,369
scholars; as far as can be gathered, the proportion of men and women
able to read and to sign their name is raised under the empire up to and
beyond the figures[31145] it had reached previous to 1789.

In this manner are the worst damages repaired. The three new
administrative services, with a different set-up, do the job of the old
ones and, at the expiration of twenty-five years, give an almost equal
return.--In sum, the new proprietor of the great structure sacked by
the Revolution has again set up the indispensable apparatus for warming,
lighting and ventilation; as he knows his own interests perfectly,
and is poorly off in ready money, he contributes only a minimum of the
expense; in other respects, he has grouped together his tenants
into syndicates, into barracks, in apartments, and, voluntarily or
involuntarily, he has put upon them the burden of cost. In the meantime,
he has kept the three keys of the three engines in his own cabinet, in
his own hands, for himself alone; henceforth, it is he who distributes
throughout the building, on each story and in every room, light, air and
heat. If he does not distribute the same quantity as before he at least
distributes whatever is necessary; the tenants can, at last, breathe
comfortably, see clearly and not shiver; after ten years of suffocation,
darkness and cold they are too well satisfied to wrangle with the
proprietor, discuss his ways, and dispute over the monopoly by which he
has constituted himself the arbitrator of their wants.--The same thing
is done in the material order of things, in relation to the highways,
dikes, canals, and structures useful to the people: here also he repairs
or creates through the same despotic initiative,

* with the same economy,[31146]

* the same apportionment of expense,[31147]

* the same spontaneous or forced aid to those interested,

* the same practical efficiency.[31148]

Summing it up and if we take things as a whole, and if we offset the
worse with the better, it may be said that the French people have
recovered the possessions they had been missing since 1789:

* internal peace,

* public tranquility,

* administrative regularity,

* impartial justice,

* a strict police,

* security of persons, property and consciences,

* liberty in private life,

* enjoyment of one's native land, and, on leaving it, the privilege of
coming back;

* the satisfactory endowment, gratuitous celebration and full exercise
of worship;

* schools and instruction for the young;

* beds, nursing and assistance for the sick, the indigent and for
foundlings;

* the maintenance of roads and public buildings.

So that of the two groups of cravings which troubled men in 1800, the
first one, that which dated from the Revolution, has, towards 1808 or
1810, obtained reasonable satisfaction.


*****

[Footnote 3101: Roederer, III., 334 (August 6, 1800).]

[Footnote 3102: The word means "what is beyond the Alps" but refers to a
number of doctrines favoring the Pope's absolute authority. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3103: Stanislas Girardin, "Mémoires," I., 273 (22 Thermidor,
year X): "The only craving, the only sentiment in France, disturbed for
so many years, is repose. Whatever secures this will gain its assent.
Its inhabitants, accustomed to take an active part in all political
questions, now seem to take no interest in them."--Roederer, III., 484
(Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, Dec. 1, 1803): "The people of the
rural districts, busy with its new affairs,... are perfectly submissive,
because they now find security for persons and property.. .. They show
no enthusiasm for the monarch, but are full of respect for and trust in
a gendarme; they stop and salute him on passing him on the roads."]

[Footnote 3104: Rocquam, "l'État de la France au 18 Brumaire." (Report
by Barbé-Marbois, p. 72, 81.) Cash-boxes broken open and exclamations
by the officers "Money and fortune belong to the brave. Let us help
ourselves. Our accounts will be settled at the cannon's mouth."--"The
subordinates," adds Barbé-Marbois, "fully aware of their superior's
drafts on the public treasury, stipulate for their share of the booty;
accustomed to exacting contributions from outside enemies they are not
averse to treating as conquered enemies the departments they were called
upon to defend."]

[Footnote 3105: Ibid. (Reports of Barbe-Marbois and Fourcroy while on
their missions in the 12th and 13th military divisions, year IX., p.158,
on the tranquility of La Vendée.) "I could have gone anywhere without
an escort. During my stay in some of the villages I was not disturbed
by any fear or suspicion whatever.... The tranquility they now enjoy and
the cessation of persecutions keep them from insurrection."]

[Footnote 3106: Archives nationales, F7,3273 (Reports by Gen. Ferino,
Pluviôse, year IX, with a table of verdicts by the military commission
since Floreal, year VIII.) The commission mentions 53 assassinations, 3
rapes, 44 pillagings of houses, by brigands in Vaucluse, Drôme, and
the Lower Alps; 66 brigands taken in the act are shot, 87 after
condemnation, and 6, who are wounded, die in the hospital.--Rocquain,
ibid., p. 17, (Reports of Français, from Nantes, on his mission in the
8th military division.) "The South may be considered as purged by the
destruction of about 200 brigands who have been shot. There remains only
three or four bands of 7 or S men each."]

[Footnote 3107: Three classes of insurrectionary peasants or
marauders.--Tr.]

[Footnote 3108: Archives Nationales, F7, 7152 (on the prolongation of
brigandage). Letter from Lhoste, agent, to the minister of justice,
Lyons, Pluviôse 8, year VIII. "The diligences are robbed every
week."--Ibid., F7,3267, (Seine-et-Oise, bulletins of the military police
and correspondence of the gendarmerie). Brumaire 25, year VIII, attack
on the Paris mail near Arpajon by 5 brigands armed with guns. Fructidor,
year VIII, at three o'clock P.M., a cart loaded with 10,860 francs sent
by the collector at Mantes to the collector at Versailles is
stopped near the Marly water-works, by 8 or 10 armed brigands on
horseback.--Similar facts abound. It is evident that more than a year is
required to put an end to brigandage.--It is always done by employing
an impartial military force. (Rocquam, Ibid, p. 10.) "There are at
Marseilles three companies of paid national guards, 60 men each, at a
franc per man. The fund for this guard is supplied by a contribution of
5 francs a month paid by every man subject to this duty who wishes to
be exempt. The officers... are all strangers in the country. Robberies,
murders, and conflicts have ceased in Marseilles since the establishment
of this guard."]

[Footnote 3109: Archives Nationales, 3144 and 3145, No.1004. (Reports
of the councillors of State on mission during the year IX, published by
Rocquam, with omissions, among which is the following, in the report of
François de Nantes.) "The steps taken by the mayors of Marseilles are
sufficiently effective to enable an émigré under surveillance and just
landed, to walk about Marseilles without being knocked down or knocking
anybody else down, an alternative to which they have been thus far
subject. And yet there are in this town nearly 500 men who have
slaughtered with their own hands, or been the accomplices of
slaughterers, at different times during the Revolution.... The
inhabitants of this town are so accustomed to being annoyed and
despoiled, and to being treated like those of a rebellious town or
colony, that arbitrary power no longer frightens them, and they simply
ask that their lives and property be protected against murderers and
pillagers, and that things be entrusted to sure and impartial hands."]

[Footnote 3110: Roederer, III., 481. (Report on the Sénatorerie of
Caen, Germinal 2, year XIII.)--Faber, "Notice sur l'intérieur de la
France"(1807), p.110, 112. "Justice is one of the bright sides of France
of to-day. It is costly, but it cannot be called venal."]

[Footnote 3111: Rocquain, ibid., 19. (Report of François de Nantes on
the 8th military division.) "For the past eighteen months a calm has
prevailed here equal to that which existed before the Revolution. Balls
and parties have been resumed in the towns, while the old dances
of Provence, suspended for ten years, now gladden the people of the
country."]

[Footnote 3112: Proclamation to the French people, Dec. 15, 1799.]

[Footnote 3113: See "The Revolution," vol. III., p.292. (Notes.) (Laff.
II, the notes on pp. 218-219.)]

[Footnote 3114: Decision of the Council of State, Pluviôse 5, year VIII
(Jan. 25, 1800).]

[Footnote 3115: Forneron, "Histoire générale des émigrés," II., 374.
In 1800, the army of Condé still comprised 1007 officers and 5840
volunteers.]

[Footnote 3116: Decrees of Brumaire 3, year IV, and of Frimaire 9, year
VI. (Cf. "The Revolution," pp.433, 460.)]

[Footnote 3117: Constitution of Frimaire 22, year VIII. (December 13,
1799), article 93. "The French nation declares that in no case will it
suffer the return of the Frenchmen who, having abandoned their country
since the 14th of July 1789, are not comprised in the exceptions made to
the laws rendered against émigrés. It interdicts every new exception in
this respect."]

[Footnote 3118: Opinion of the Council of State, Dec. 25, 1799.]

[Footnote 3119: Resolution of Dec. 26, 1799.--Two ultra-Jacobins, exiled
after Thermidor, are added to the list, Barère and Vadier, undoubtedly
by way of compensation and not to let it appear that the scales inclined
too much on one side.]

[Footnote 3120: Resolution of Dec. 30, 1799.]

[Footnote 3121: Resolutions of February 26, March 2, and March 3, 1800.]

[Footnote 3122: Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," 199. (Stated
by the First Consul at Regnault at a meeting of the council of state,
Aug.12, 1801.) "I am glad to hear the denunciation of striking off
names. How many have you yourselves not asked for? It could not be
otherwise. Everybody has some relation or friend on the lists."]

[Footnote 3123: Thibaudeau. ibid. (Speech by the First Consul.) "Never
have there been lists of émigrés; there are only lists of absentees.
The proof of this is that names have always been struck off. I have seen
members of the Convention and even generals on the lists. Citizen Monge
was inscribed."]

[Footnote 3124: Thibaudeau, ibid., 97.--"The minister of police made a
great hue and cry over the arrest and sending back of a few émigrés
who returned without permission, or who annoyed the buyers of their
property, while, at the same time, it granted surveillance to all
who asked for it, paying no attention to the distinction made by the
resolution of Vendémiaire 28."]

[Footnote 3125: Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802.]

[Footnote 3126: Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802, title II., articles
16 and 17.--Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte, "Mémoires," I., 183. (Report on the
administration of the Finances in 1803.) "The old proprietors have been
reinstated in more than 20,000 hectares of forests."]

[Footnote 3127: Thibaudeau, ibid., p. 98. (Speech of the First Consul,
Thermidor 24, year IX.) "Some of the émigrés who have been pardoned
are cutting down their forests, either from necessity or to send
money abroad. I will not allow the worst enemies of the republic, the
defenders of ancient prejudices, to recover their fortunes and despoil
France. I am glad to welcome them back; but it is important that the
nation should preserve its forests; the navy needs them."]

[Footnote 3128: An arpent measures about an acre and a half.(TR.)]

[Footnote 3129: Stourm, "Les Finances de l'ancien régime et de la
révolution,"II., 459 to 461.--(According to the figures appended to the
projected law of 1825.)--This relates only to their patrimony in real
estate; their personal estate was wholly swept away, at first through
the abolition, without indemnity, of their available feudal rights under
the Constituent and Legislative assemblies, and afterwards through the
legal and forced transformation of their personal capital into national
bonds (titres sur le grand-livre, rentes) which the final bankruptcy of
the Directory reduced to almost nothing.]

[Footnote 3130: Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil
d'état" (March 15th and July 1st, 1806): "One of the most unjust effects
of the revolution was to let an émigré; whose property was found to be
sold, starve to death, and give back 100,000 crowns of rente to another
whose property happened to be still in the hands of the government. How
odd, again, to have returned unsold fields and to have kept the woods!
It would have been better, starting from the legal forfeiture of
all property, to return only 6000 francs of rente to one alone and
distribute what remained among the rest."]

[Footnote 3131: Léonce de Lavergne, "Economie rurale de la France,"
p.26. (According to the table of names with indemnities awarded by the
law of 1825.)--Duc de Rovigo, "Mémoires," IV., 400.]

[Footnote 3132: De Puymaigre, "Souvenirs de l'émigration de l'empire et
de la restauration," p.94.]

[Footnote 3133: Pelet de la Lozère, ibid., p.272.]

[Footnote 3134: De Puymaigre, ibid., passim.--Alexandrine des
Écherolles, "Une famille noble pendant la Terreur," pp.328, 402, 408.--I
add to published documents personal souvenirs and family narrations.]

[Footnote 3135: Duc de Rovigo, "Mémoires," IV., 399. (On the provincial
noblesse which had emigrated and returned.) "The First Consul quietly
gave orders that none of the applications made by the large number
of those who asked for minor situations in various branches of the
administration should be rejected on account of emigration."]

[Footnote 3136: M. de Vitrolles, "Mémoires."--M. d'Haussonville, "Ma
jeunesse," p. 60: "One morning, my father learns that he has been
appointed chamberlain, with a certain number of other persons belonging
to the greatest families of the faubourg Saint-Germain."]

[Footnote 3137: Madame de Rémusat, "Mémoires," II., 312, 315 and
following pages, 373.--Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la
révolution française," 4th part, ch IV.]

[Footnote 3138: Roederer, III., 459. (Speech by Napoleon, December 30,
1802.)--"Very well, I do protect the nobles of France; but they must
see that they need protection.... I give places to many of them;
I restore them to public distinction and even to the honors of
the drawing-room; but they feel that it is alone through my good
will.--Ibid., III., 558 (January 1809): "I repent daily of a mistake
I have made in my government; the most serious one I ever made, and
I perceive its bad effects every day. It was the giving back to the
émigrés the totality of their possessions. I ought to have massed them
in common and given each one simply the chance of an income of 6000
francs. As soon as I saw my mistake I withdrew from thirty to forty
millions of forests; but far too many are still in the hands of a great
number of them."--We here see the attitude he would impose on them, that
of clients and grateful pensioners. They do not stand in this attitude.
(Roederer, III., 472. Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen, 1803.)--"The
returned émigrés are not friendly nor even satisfied; their enjoyment
of what they have recovered is less than their indignation at what they
have lost. They speak of the amnesty without gratitude, and as only
partial justice.... In other respects they appear submissive."]

[Footnote 3139: Duc de Rovigo1 "Memoires." V., 297. Towards the end,
large numbers of the young nobles went into the army. "In 1812, there,
was not a marshal, or even a general, who had not some of these on his
staff, or as aids-de-camp. Nearly all the cavalry regiments in the army
were commanded by officers belonging to these families. They had already
attracted notice in the infantry. All these young nobles had openly
joined the emperor because they were easily influenced by love of
glory."]

[Footnote 3140: Madame de Rémusat II., 299 (1806): "He began to surround
himself about this time with so much ceremony that none of us had
scarcely any intimate relations with him.... The court became more and
more crowded and monotonous, each doing on the minute what he had to do.
Nobody thought of venturing outside the brief series of ideas which are
generated within the restricted circle of the same duties.... Increasing
despotism,... fear of a reproof if one failed in the slightest
particular, silence kept by us all.... There was no opportunity
to indulge emotion or interchange any observation of the slightest
importance."]

[Footnote 3141: Roederer, III., 558 (January 1809).--"The Modern
Régime," ante, book I., ch. II.]

[Footnote 3142: Madame de Rémusat, III., 75, 155: "When the minister of
police learned that jesting or malicious remarks had been made in one
of the Paris drawing-rooms he at once notified the master or mistress of
the house to be more watchful of their company."--Ibid., p.187 (1807):
"The emperor censured M. Fouché for not having exercised stricter
watchfulness. He exiled women, caused distinguished persons to be
warned, and insinuated that, to avoid the consequences of his anger,
steps must be taken to show that his power was recognized in atonement
for the faults committed. In consequence of these hints many thought
themselves obliged to be presented."--Ibid., II., 170, 212, 303.--Duc
de Rovigo, "Mémoires," IV., 311 and 393. "Appointed minister of police,
said he, I inspired everybody with fear: each packed up his things;
nothing was talked about but exiles, imprisonment and worse still."--He
took advantage of all this to recommend "everybody on his list who was
inscribed as an enemy of the government" to be presented at court, and
all, in fact, except stubborn "grandmothers" were presented. (Note that
the Duc de Rovigo and the general Savary mentioned many times by Taine
is one and the same person. Savary was the general who organized the
infamous kidnapping and execution of the Duc d'Enghien. He was later
made minister of police (1810-1814) and elevated Duke of Rovigo by
Napoleon. SR.)]

[Footnote 3143: Madame de Staël, "Considérations sur la révolution
française" and "Dix ans d'exil." Exile of Madame de Balbi, of Madame de
Chevreuse, of Madame de Duras, of Madame d'Aveaux, of Madame de Staël,
of Madame de Récamier, etc.--Duc de Rovigo, Ibid., IV., 389: "The first
exiles dated from 1805; I think there were fourteen."]

[Footnote 3144: Roederer, III., 472. (Report on the Sénatorerie of Caen,
1803.) The nobles "have no social relations either with citizens or
with the public functionaries, except with the prefect of Caen and the
general in command.... Their association with the prefect intimates
their belief that they might need him. All pay their respects to the
general of division; his mantelpiece is strewed with visiting-cards."]

[Footnote 3145: Madame de la Rochejaquelein, "Mémoires," 423: "We lived
exposed to a tyranny which left us neither calm nor contentment. At
one time a spy was placed amongst our servants, at another some of our
relations would be exiled far from their homes, accused of exercising
a charity which secured them too much affection from their neighbors.
Sometimes, my husband would be obliged to go to Paris to explain his
conduct. Again, a hunting-party would be represented as a meeting of
Vendéans. Occasionally, we were blamed for going into Poitou because our
influence was regarded as too dangerous; again, we were reproached
for not living there and not exercising our influence in behalf of
the conscription."--Her brother-in-law, Auguste de la Rochejaquelein,
invited to take service in the army comes to Paris to present his
objections. He is arrested, and at the end of two months "the minister
signifies to him that he must remain a prisoner so long as he refuses to
be a second-lieutenant."]

[Footnote 3146: Sénatus-consulte of April 26, 1802: "Considering that
this measure is merely one of pardon to the large number who are always
more led astray than criminal... the amnestied will remain for ten years
under a special government surveillance." It may oblige each one "to
leave his usual residence and go to a distance of twenty leagues, and
even farther if circumstances demand it."]

[Footnote 3147: Thiers, X., 41. (Letter to Fouché, Dec.31, 1808, not
inserted in the correspondence.)--"The Modern Régime," book I., ch.II.]

[Footnote 3148: Rocquain, "État de la France au 18 brumaire," pp.33,
189, 190. (Reports of Français de Nantes and of Fourcroy.)--"Statistique
elementaire de la France," by Peuchet (according to a statement
published by the minister of the interior, year IX), p.
260.--"Statistiques des préfets," Aube, by Aubray, p.23; Aisne, by
Dauchet, p.87; Lot-et-Garonne, by Pieyre, p. 45: "It is during the
Revolution that the number of foundlings increased to this extraordinary
extent by the too easy admission in the asylums of girls who had become
mothers, along with their infants; through the passing sojourn of
soldiers in their houses; through the subversion of every principle
of religion and morality."--Gers, by Balguerie: "Many defenders of the
country became fathers before their departure.... The soldiers, on their
return, maintained the habits of their conquests.... Many of the girls,
besides, for lack of a husband took a lover."--Moselle, by Coichen,
p.91: "Morals are more lax. In 1789, at Metz, there are 524 illegitimate
births; in the year IX, 646; in 1789, 70 prostitutes; in the year IX,
260. There is the same increase of kept women."--Peuchet, "Essai d'une
statistique générale de la France," year IX, p.28. "The number of
illegitimate births, from one forty-seventh in 1780, increased to nearly
one eleventh of the total births, according to the comparative estimates
of M. Necker and M. Mourgue."]

[Footnote 3149: Rocquam, ibid., p. 93. (Report of Barbé-Marbois.)]

[Footnote 3150: "The Revolution," III., p.416 (note), P.471 (note).
(Laff. II. pp. 307-308, p 348.)]

[Footnote 3151: "Statistiques des préfets," Deux-Sèvres, by Dupin, p.
174: "Venereal diseases which thanks to good habits. were still unknown
in the country in 1789, are now spread throughout the Bocage and in all
places where the troops have sojourned."--"Dr. Delahay, at Parthenay
observes that the number of maniacs increased fright fully in the
Reign of Terror." (It should be remembered that the terminal stage of
untreated syphilis is madness and death. SR.)]

[Footnote 3152: Decrees of March 19, 1793, and Messidor 23, year
II.--Decrees of Brumaire 2, year IV, and Vendémiaire 16 year V.]

[Footnote 3153: "Statistiques des préfets," Rhône, by Verminac, year X.
Income of the Lyons Asylums in 1789,1.510,827 francs; to-day, 459,371
francs.--Indre, by Dalphonse, year XII. The principal asylum of
Issoudun, founded in the twelfth century, had 27,939 francs revenue, on
which it loses 16,232. Another asylum, that of the Incurables, loses, on
an income of 12,062 francs, 7457 francs.--Eure, by Masson Saint-Amand,
year XIII: "14 asylums and 3 small charity establishments in the
department, with about 100,000 francs income in 1789, have lost at least
60,000 francs of it.--Vosges, by Desgouttes, year X: "10 asylums in
the department. Most of these have been stripped of nearly the whole of
their property and capital on account of the law of Messidor 23, year
II; on the suspension of the execution of this law, the property had
been sold and the capital returned.--Cher, by Luçay: "15 asylums before
the revolution; they remain almost wholly without resources through the
loss of their possessions.--Lozère, by Jerphaniou, year X: "The property
belonging to the asylums, either in real estate or state securities, has
passed into other hands."--Doubs, analysis by Ferrieres: "Situation of
the asylums much inferior to that of 1789, because they could not have
property restored to them in proportion to the value of that which had
been alienated. The asylum of Pontarlier lost one-half of its revenue
through reimbursements in paper-money. All the property of the Ornans
asylum has been sold," etc.--Rocquain, p. 187. (Report by Fourcroy.)
Asylums of Orne: their revenue, instead of 123,189 francs, is no more
than 68,239.--Asylums of Calvados: they have lost 173,648 francs of
income, there remains of this only 85,955 francs.--Passim, heart-rending
details on the destitution of the asylums and their inmates, children,
the sick and the infirm.--The figures by which I have tried to show the
disproportion between requirements and resources are a minimum.]

[Footnote 3154: Abbé Allain, "l'Instruction primaire en France avant
la Révolution," and Albert Duruy, "l'Instruction publique et la
Révolution," passim.]

[Footnote 3155: "Statistique de l'enseignement primaire" (1880),II.,
CCIV. The proportion of instructed and uninstructed people has been
ascertained in 79 departments, and at various periods, from 1680 down
to the year 1876, according to the signatures on 1,699,985
marriage-records.--In the "Dictionnaire de pédagogie et d'instruction
primaire," published by M. Buisson, M. Maggiolo, director of these vast
statistics, has given the proportion of literate and illiterate people
for the different departments; now, from department to department, the
figures furnished by the signatures on marriage records correspond with
sufficient exactness to the number of schools, verified moreover by
pastoral visits and by other documents. The most illiterate departments
are Cantal, Puy-de-Dome, Nièvre, Allier, Vienne, Haute-Vienne,
Deux-Sèvres, Vendée and the departments of Brittany.]

[Footnote 3156: One sou equals 1/20 of a franc or 5 centimes. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3157: Albert Duruy, ibid., p.25. (According to the report
of M. Villemain on common-school education in 1843.)--Abbé Allain, "la
Question d'enseignement en 1789," p. 88--A. Silvy, "les Collèges en
France avant la Révolution," p.5. The researches of M. Silvy show that
the number of high-schools (collèges) given by M. Villemain is much too
low: "The number of these schools under the ancient Régime cannot be
estimated at less than about 900.... I have ascertained 800.... I must
add that my search is not yet finished and that I find new institutions
every day."]

[Footnote 3158: Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," p. 110.--Edmond,
"Histoire du collège de Louis-le-Grand," p. 238.--"Statistiques des
préfets," Moselle. (Analysis by Ferrière, year XII.) Before 1789,
4 high-schools at Metz, very complete, conducted by regular canons,
Benedictines, with 33 professors, 38 assistant teachers, 63 servants,
259 day-scholars and 217 boarders. All this was broken up. In the year
IX there is only one central school, very inadequate, with 9 professors,
5 assistants, 3 servants and 233 day-scholars.]

[Footnote 3159: Albert Duruy, ibid., p. 25.]

[Footnote 3160: Lunet, ibid, p.110,]

[Footnote 3161: "Statistiques des préfets," Ain, by Bossi, p.368. At
Bourg, before the revolution, 220 pupils, of which 70 were
boarders, 8000 livres income in real property confiscated during the
revolution.--At Belley, the teachers consist of the congregationist of
Saint-Joseph; 250 pupils, 9950 francs revenue from capital invested in
the pays d'état, swept away by the revolution.--At Thoissy, 8000 francs
rental of real property sold, etc.--Deux-Sèvres, by Dupin, year IX,
and "analyse" by Ferrière, P. 48: "Previous to the revolution, each
department town had its high-school.--At Thouars, 60 boarders at 300
livres per annum, and 40 day-scholars. At Niort, 80 boarders at 450
livres per annum, and 100 day-scholars".--Aisne, by Dauchy, p.88. Before
1789, nearly all the small high-schools were gratuitous, and, in the
large ones, there were scholarships open to competition. All their
possessions, except large buildings, were alienated and sold, as well
as those of the 60 communities in which girls were taught
gratuitously.--Eure, by Masson Saint-Amand. There were previous to
1789, 8 high-schools which were all suppressed and destroyed.--Drôme,
by Collin, p.66. Before the revolution, each town had its high-school,"
etc.]

[Footnote 3162: Cf. Marmontel, "Mémoires," I., 16, for details of these
customs; M. Jules Simon found the same customs afterwards and describes
them in the souvenirs of his youth.--La Chalotais, at the end of
the reign of Louis XV., had already described the efficiency of the
institution. "Even the people want to study. Farmers and craftsmen
send their children to the schools in these small towns where living
is cheap."--This rapid spread of secondary education contributed a good
deal towards bringing on the revolution.]

[Footnote 3163: "Statistiques des préfets," Indre, by Dalphonse,
year XII, p.104: "The universities, the colleges, the seminaries, the
religious establishments, the free schools are all destroyed; vast plans
only remain for a new system of education raised on their ruins. Nearly
all of these rest unexecuted.... Primary schools have nowhere, one may
say, been organized, and those which have been are so poor they had
better not have been organized at all. With a pompous and costly system
of public instruction, ten years have been lost for instruction."]

[Footnote 3164: Moniteur, XXI., 644. (Session of Fructidor 19, year II.)
One of the members says: "It is very certain, and my colleagues see it
with pain, that public instruction is null."--Fourcroy: "Reading and
writing are no longer taught."--Albert Duruy, p. 208. (Report to the
Directory executive, Germinal 13, year IV.) "For nearly six years no
public instruction exists."--De La Sicotiere, "Histoire du collège
de Alençon," p.33: "In 1794, there were only two pupils in the
college."--Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," p.157: "The
recitation-rooms remained empty of pupils and teachers from March
1793 to May 16, 1796."--"Statistiques des préfets," Eure, by Masson
Saint-Amand year XIII: "In the larger section of the department,
school-houses existed with special endowments for teachers of both
sexes. The school-houses have been alienated like other national
domains; the endowments due to religious corporations or establishments
have been extinguished--As to girls, that portion of society has
suffered an immense loss, relatively to its education, in the
suppression of religious communities which provided them with an almost
gratuitous and sufficiently steady instruction."]

[Footnote 3165: My maternal grandmother learned how to read from a nun
concealed in the cellar of the house.]

[Footnote 3166: Albert Duruy, ibid., 349. (Decree of the Directory,
Pluviôse 17, year V, and circular of the minister Letourneur against
free schools which are "dens of royalism and superstition."--Hence the
decrees of the authorities in the departments of Eure, Pas de Calais,
Drôme, Mayenne and La Manche, closing these dens.) "From Thermidor 27,
year VI, to Messidor 2, year VII, say the authorities of La Manche,
we have revoked fifty-eight teachers on their denunciation by the
municipalities and by popular clubs."]

[Footnote 3167: Archives nationales, cartons 3144 to 3145, No. 104.
(Reports of the Councillors of State on mission in the year IX.) Report
by Lacuée on the first military division. Three central schools at
Paris, one called the Quatre-Nations. "This school must be visited in
order to form any idea of the state of destruction and dilapidation
which all the national buildings are in. No repairs have been made since
the reopening of the schools; everything is going to ruin.... Walls are
down and the floors fallen in. To preserve the pupils from the risks
which the occupation of these buildings hourly presents, it is necessary
to give lessons in rooms which are very unhealthy on account of their
small dimensions and dampness. In the drawing-class the papers and
models in the portfolios become moldy."]

[Footnote 3168: Albert Duruy, ibid., 484. ("Procès-verbaux des
conseils-généraux," year IX, passim.)]

[Footnote 3169: Ibid., 476. ("Statistiques des préfets," Sarthe, year
X.) "Prejudices which it is difficult to overcome, as well on the
stability of this school as on the morality of some of the teachers,
prevented its being frequented for a time."--483. (Procès-verbaux des
conseils-généraux," Bas-Rhin.) "The overthrow of religion has excited
prejudices against the central schools."--482. (Ibid., Lot.) "Most of
the teachers in the central school took part in the revolution in a
not very honorable way. Their reputation affects the success of their
teaching. Their schools are deserted."]

[Footnote 3170: Albert Duruy, ibid., '94. (According to the reports of
15 central schools, from the year VI. to the year VIII.) The average for
each central school is for drawing, 89 pupils; for mathematics, 28; for
the classics, 24; for physics, chemistry and natural history, 19;
for general grammar, 5; for history, 10; for legislation, 8: for
belles-lettres, 6.--Rocquam, ibid., P.29. (Reports of Français de
Nantes, on the departments of the South-east.) "There, as elsewhere, the
courses on general grammar, on belles-lettres, history and legislation,
are unfrequented. Those on mathematics, chemistry, Latin and drawing
are better attended, because these sciences open up lucrative
careers.--Ibid., p. 108. (Report by Barbé-Marboi on the Brittany
departments.)]

[Footnote 3171: "Statistiques des préfets," Meurthe, by Marquis, year
XIII, p.120. "In the communal schools of the rural districts, the
fee was so small that the poorest families could contribute to the
(teacher's) salary. Assessments on the communal property, besides,
helped almost everywhere in providing the teacher with a satisfactory
salary, so that these functions were sought after and commonly well
fulfilled.. .. Most of the villages had Sisters of Saint-Vincent de
Paul for instructors, or others well known under the name of
Vatelottes."--"The partition of communal property, and the sale of that
assigned to old endowments, had deprived the communes of resources which
afforded a fair compensation to schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The
product of the additional centimes scarcely sufficed for administrative
expenses.--Thus, there is but little else now than people without means,
who take poorly compensated places; again, they neglect their,
schools just as soon as they see an opportunity to earn something
elsewhere."--Archives nationales, No. 1004, cartons 3044 and 3145.
(Report of the councillors of state on mission in the year IX.--First
military division, Report of Lacuée.) Aisne: "There is now no primary
school according to legal institution."--The situation is the same in
Oise, also in Seine for the districts of Sceaux and Saint Denis.]

[Footnote 3172: Albert Duruy, 178. (Report drawn up in the bureaux of
the ministry of the interior, year VIII.) "A detestable selection of
those called instructors; almost everywhere, they are men without morals
or education, who owe their nomination solely to a pretended civism,
consisting of nothing but an insensibility to morality and propriety.
... They affect an insolent contempt for the (old) religious
opinions."--Ibid., p.497. (Procès-verbaux des conseils-généraux.)
On primary school-teachers, Hérault: "Most are blockheads and
vagabonds."--Pas-de-Calais:" Most are blockheads or ignoramuses."]

[Footnote 3173: Rocquam, '94. (Report by Fourcroy on the 14th military
division, Manche, Orne, Calvados.) "Besides bad conduct, drunkenness,
and the immorality of many of these teachers, it seems certain that the
lack of instruction in religion is the principal motive which prevents
parents from sending their children to these schools."--Archives
nationales, ibid. (Report by Lacuée on the 1st military division.) "The
teachers, male and female, who desired to conform to the law of Brumaire
3 and to the different rules prescribed by the central administration,
on placing the constitution and the rights of man in the hands of their
pupils, found their schools abandoned one after the other. The schools
the best attended are those where the Testament, the catechism, and the
life of Christ are used.... The instructors, obliged to pursue the line
marked out by the government, could not do otherwise than carry out the
principles which opposed the prejudices and habits of the parents; hence
their loss of credit, and the almost total desertion of the pupils."]

[Footnote 3174: "The Revolution," vol. III., p. 81, note 2. (Laff. II.
pp.68-69, note 4.)]

[Footnote 3175: "Statistiques des préfets," Moselle. (Analysis by
Ferrière.) At Metz, in 1789, there were five free schools for young
children, of which one was for boys and four for girls, kept by monks or
nuns; in the year XII there were none: "An entire generation was given
up to ignorance." Ibid., Ain, by Bossi, 1808: "In 1800, there were
scarcely any primary schools in the department, as in the rest of
France." In 1808, there are scarcely thirty.--Albert Duruy, p.480, 496.
(Procès-verbaux des conseils-généraux, year IX.) Vosges: "Scarcely
any primary instruction."--Sarthe: "Primary instruction,
none."--Meuse-Inférieure: "It is feared that in fifteen years or so
there will not be one man in a hundred able to write," etc.]

[Footnote 3176: These are the minimum figures, and they are arrived at
through the following calculation. Before 1789, 47 men out of 100, and
26 women out of 100, that is to say 36 or 37 persons in 100, received
primary instruction. Now, according to the census from 1876 to 1881
(official statistics of primary instruction, III., XVI.), children
from six to thirteen number about twelve % of the entire population.
Accordingly, in 1789, out of a population of 26 millions, the children
from 6 to 13 numbered 3,120,000, of whom 1,138,000 learned to read and
write. It must be noted that, in 1800, the adult population had greatly
diminished, and that the infantine population had largely increased.
France, moreover, is enlarged by 12 departments (Belgium, Savoy, Comtat,
Nice), where the old schools had equally perished.--If all the old
schools had been kept up, it is probable that the children who would
have had primary instruction would have numbered nearly 1,400,000.]

[Footnote 3177: Saint Thomas, "Summa theologica," pars III., questio 60
usque ad 85: "Sacramenta efficiunt quod figurant.... Sant necessaria ad
salutem hominum.... Ab ipso verbo incarnata efficaciam habent. Ex sua
institutione habent quod conferant gratiam.... Sacramentum est causa
gratiæ, causa agens, principalis et instrumentalis."]

[Footnote 3178: Except priests ordained by a bishop of the Greek
church.]

[Footnote 3179: "The Revolution," I. 161.--Archives nationales. (Reports
of the Directory commissioners from the cantons and departments.--There
are hundreds of these reports, of which the following are
specimens.)--F7, 7108. (Canton of Passavent, Doubs, Ventôse 7, year IV.)
"The sway of religious opinions is much more extensive here than
before the revolution, because the mass of the people did not concern
themselves about them, while nowadays they form among the generality
the subject of conversation and complaint."--F7, 7127. (Canton of Goux,
Doubs, Pluviôse 13, year IV.) "The hunting down of unsworn priests,
coupled with the dilapidation and destruction of the temples, displeased
the people, who want a religion and a cult; the government became
hateful to them."--Ibid. (Dordogne, canton of Livrac, Ventôse 13,
year IV.) "The demolition of altars, the closing of the churches,
had rendered the people furious under the Tyranny."--F7, 7129.
(Seine-Infèrieure, canton of Canteleu, Pluviôse 12, year IV.) "I knew
enlightened men who, in the ancient regime, never went near a church,
and yet who harbored refractory priests."--Archives nationales, cartons
3144-3145, No. 1004. (Missions of the councillors of state in the year
IX.) At this date, worship was everywhere established and spontaneously.
(Report by Lacuée.) In Eure-et-Loire, "nearly every village has its
church and minister; the temples are open in the towns and are well
attended."--In Seine-et-Oise, "the Roman Catholic cult prevails in all
the communes of the department."--In Oise, "worship is carried on in all
the communes of the department."-In Loiret, "the churches are attended
by the multitude almost as regularly as before 1788. One-sixth of
the communes (only) have neither worship nor minister and, in these
communes, both are strongly desired."]

[Footnote 3180: Archives nationales, F7, 7129. (Tarn, canton of Vielmur,
Germinal 10, year IV.) "The ignorant now regard patriot and brigand as
synonymous."]

[Footnote 3181: Archives nationales, F7, 7108. (Doubs, canton of Vercel,
Pluviôse 20, year IV.) "Under the law of Prairial II, the unsworn
priests were all recalled by their former parishioners. Their hold on
the people is so strong that there is no sacrifice that they will not
make, no ruse nor measures that they will not employ to keep them
and elude the rigor of the laws bearing on them"--(Ibid., canton of
Pontarlier, Pluviôse 3, year IV.) "In the primary assemblies, the
aristocracy, together with spite, have induced the ignorant people not
to accept the constitution except on condition of the recall of
their transported or emigrant priests for the exercise of their
worship."--(Ibid., canton of Labergement, Pluviôse 14, year IV.) "The
cultivators adore them.... I am the only citizen of my canton who,
along with my family, offers up prayers to the Eternal without any
intermediary."--F7, 7127. (Côte-d'Or, canton of Beaune, Ventôse 5, year
IV.) "Fanaticism is a power of great influence."--(Ibid., canton of
Frolois, Pluviôse 9, year IV.) "Two unsworn priests returned eighteen
months ago; they are hidden away and hold nocturnal meetings. .. They
have seduced and corrupted at least three-quarters of the people of both
sexes."--(Ibid., canton of Ivry, Pluviôse 1, year IV.) "Fanaticism and
popery have perverted the public mind."--F7, 7119. (Puy-de-Dôme, canton
of Ambert, Ventôse 15, year IV.) "Five returned priests have
celebrated the mass here, and each time were followed by 3000 or 4000
persons."--F7, 7127. (Dordogne, canton of Carlux, Pluviôse 18, year IV.)
"The people are so attached to the Catholic faith, they walk fully
two leagues to attend mass."--F7, 7119. (Ardèche, canton of
Saint-Barthélemy, Pluviôse 15, year IV.) "The unsubmissive priests have
become absolute masters of popular opinion."--(Orne, canton of Alençon,
Ventôse 22, year IV.) "Presidents, members of the municipal councils,
instead of arresting the refractory priests and bringing them into
court, admit them to their table, lodge them and impart to them the
secrets of the government."--F7, 7129. (Seine-et-Oise, canton of Jouy,
Pluviôse 8, year IV.) "Forty-nine out of fifty citizens seem to have
the greatest desire to profess the Catholic faith."--Ibid., canton of
Dammartin, Pluviôse 7, year IV.) "The Catholic religion has full
sway; those who do not accept it are frowned upon."--At the same date
(Pluviôse 9, year IV), the commissioner at Chamarande writes: "I see
persons giving what they call blessed bread and yet having nothing to
eat."]

[Footnote 3182: Ibid., cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004, missions of the
councillors of state, year IX.--(Report of Barbé-Marbois on Brittany.)
"At Vannes, I entered the cathedral on the jour des Rois, where the
constitutional mass was being celebrated; there were only one priest
and two or three poor people there. A little farther on I found a large
crowd barring the way in the street; these people could not enter a
chapel which was already full and where the mass called for by the
Catholics was being celebrated.--Elsewhere, the churches in the town
were likewise deserted, and the people went to hear mass by a priest
just arrived from England."--(Report by Français de Nantes on Vaucluse
and Provence.) One tenth of the population follows the constitutional
priests; the rest follow the returned emigré priests; the latter have
on their side the rich and influential portion of society."--(Report of
Lacuée on Paris and the seven surrounding departments.) "The situation
of the unsubmissive priests is more advantageous than that of the
submissive priests.... The latter are neglected and abandoned; it is
not fashionable to join them... (The former) are venerated by their
adherents as martyrs; they excite tender interest, especially from the
women."]

[Footnote 3183: Archives nationales, cartons 3144 and 3145, No.1004,
missions of the councillors of state, year IX.--(Report by Lacuée.) "The
wants of the people in this way seem at this moment to be confined... to
a vain spectacle, to ceremonies: going to mass, the sermon and vespers,
which is all very well; but confession, the communion, fasting, doing
without meat, is not common anywhere.... In the country, where there are
no priests, the village schoolmaster officiates, and people are content;
they would prefer bells without priests rather than priests without
bells."--This regret for bells is very frequent and survives even in
the cantons which are lukewarm.--(Creuse, Pluviôse 10, year IV.) "They
persist in replanting the crosses which the priests have dug up; they
put back the ropes to the bells which the magistrate has taken away."]

[Footnote 3184: Archives nationales, cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004,
missions of the councilors of state, year IX.--(Report by Fourcroy.)
"The keeping of Sunday and the attendance on the churches, which is seen
everywhere, shows that the mass of Frenchmen desire a return to ancient
usages, and that the time has gone by for resisting this national
tendency... The mass of mankind require a religion, a system of worship
and a priesthood. It is an error of certain modern philosophers, into
which I have myself been led, to believe in the possibility of any
instruction sufficiently widespread to destroy religious prejudices;
they are a source of consolation for the vast number of the
unfortunate.... Priests, altars and worship must accordingly be left to
the mass of the people."]

[Footnote 3185: Peuchet, "Statistique élémentaire de la France"
(published in 1805), p.228. According to statements furnished by
prefects in the years IX and X, the population is 33,111,962 persons;
the annexation of the island of Elbe and of Piedmont adds 1,864,350
Total, 34,976,313.--Pelet de la Lozère, P.203. (Speech by Napoleon to
the council of state, February 4, 1804, on the Protestant seminaries of
Geneva and Strasbourg, and on the number of Protestants in his states.)
"Their population numbers only 3 millions."]

[Footnote 3186: Roederer, III., 330 (July 1800): "The First Consul spoke
to me about the steps necessary to be taken to prevent the (emigrés)
who had been struck off from getting back their possessions, in view of
maintaining the interest in the revolution of about 1,200,000 purchasers
of national domains. "--Rocquain, "État de la France au 18 Brumaire."
(Report by Barbé-Marbois on Morbihan, Finisterre, Ile-et-Vilaine, and
Côtes-du-Nord, year IX.) "In every place I have just passed through the
proprietors recognize that their existence is attached to that of the
First Consul."]

[Footnote 3187: Constitution of Frimaire 22, year VIII, art.
94.--Article 93, moreover, declares that "the possessions of the émigrés
are irrevocably acquired by the republic."]

[Footnote 3188: Law of Floréal 29, year X, title I, article 8. The
member also swears "to combat with all the means which justice, reason
and the law authorize, every enterprise tending to restore the feudal
régime," and, consequently, feudal rights and tithes]

[Footnote 3189: Organic Sénatus-consulte, Floreal 28, year XII (18th May
1804). Title VII., art. 53.]

[Footnote 3190: Roederer, III., 430-432 (April 4, 1802, May I, 1802):
"Defermon remarked to me yesterday, 'This will all go on well as long as
the First Consul lives; the day after his death we shall all emigrate.'
"--"Every one, from the sailor to the worker, says to himself, 'All
this is very well, but will it last?...--This work we undertake, this
capital we risk, this house we build, these trees we plant, what will
become of them if he dies?"]

[Footnote 3191: Ibid., 340. (Words of the First Consul, November 4,
1800.) "Who is the rich man to-day? The buyer of national domains, the
contractor. the robber."--These details, above, are provided for me by
family narrations and souvenirs.]

[Footnote 3192: Napoleon, "Correspondance," letter of September 5,
1795. "National and émigré property is not dear; patrimonies are
priceless."--Archives nationales, cartons 3144 to 3145, No.1004,
missions of the councillors of state, year IX. (Report by Lacuée on
the seven departments of the division of the Seine.) "The proportion of
value, in Seine, between national and patrimonial properties is from 8
to 15."--In Eure, national property of every kind is sold about 10 %.
off, and patrimonial at about 4 %. off. There are two sorts of national
property, one of first origin (that of the clergy), and the other of
second origin (that of the émigrés). The latter is much more depreciated
than the former. Compared with patrimonial property, in Aisne, the
former loses a fifth or a quarter of its value and the latter a third;
in Loiret, the former loses a quarter and the latter one-half; in
Seine-et-Oise the former loses one-third and the latter three-fifths; in
Oise the former is at about par, the latter loses a quarter.--Roederer,
III., 472 (December 1803). Depreciation of national property in
Normandy: "But little is bought above 7 %. off; this, however, is the
fate of this sort of property throughout France."--Ibid., III., 534
(January 1809): "In Normandy, investments on patrimonial property bring
only 3 %., while State property brings 5 %. "--Moniteur (January 4,
1825). Report of M. de Martignac: "The confiscated property of the
emigrés finds its purchasers with difficulty, and its commercial value
is not in proportion to its real value."--Duclosonge, former inspector
of domains, "Moyens de porter les domaines nationaux à la valeur des
biens patrimoniaux," p.7. "Since 1815, national property has generally
been bought at a rate of income of 3 %. or, at the most, 4 %.
The difference for this epoch is accordingly one-fifth, and even
two-fifths."]

[Footnote 3193: Treaty between the Pope and the French government, July
'5, 1801. Ratifications exchanged September 1, 1801, and published with
its articles April 8, 1802.--Article 13.]

[Footnote 3194: Ibid., article 14.]

[Footnote 3195: Articles organiques, 64, 65, 66.]

[Footnote 3196: Law of November 30, 1809, and opinion of the Council of
State, May 19, 1811.]

[Footnote 3197: Articles organiques, 68.]

[Footnote 3198: Articles organiques, 71, 72.--Concordat, article
12.--Law passed July 26, 1803.]

[Footnote 3199: Councils of laymen entrusted with the administration of
parish incomes.]

[Footnote 31100: Law of December 30, 1809, articles 39, 92 and following
articles, 105 and following articles.]

[Footnote 31101: Law of September 15, 1807, title IX.]

[Footnote 31102: Concordat, article 15.--Articles organiques, 73.]

[Footnote 31103: Alexis Chevalier, "les Frères des écoles chrétiennes et
l'Enseignement primaire après la révolution," passim. (Act of Vendémiare
24 and Prairial 28, year XI, and Frimiaire II, year XII; laws of May 14,
1806, March 7, 1808, February 17, 1809, Dec. 26, 1810.)]

[Footnote 31104: Alexis Chevalier, ibid., 189.]

[Footnote 31105: Ibid., p.185 sequitur. (Decision of Aug. 8, 1803, of
March 25, of May 30, 1806.)]

[Footnote 31106: Decree of June 22, 1804 (articles I and
4).--"Consultation sur les decrets du 29 Mars 1880," by Edmond Rousse,
p.32. (Out of 54 communities, there were two of men, the "Pères du
tiers-ordre de Saint-François" and the priests of "la Miséricorde," one
founded in 1806 and the other in 1808.)]

[Footnote 31107: "Mémorial de Sainte-Héléne." Napoleon adds" that an
empire like France may and must have some refuge for maniacs called
Trappists."--Pelet de la Lozère, p.208. (Session of the council of
state, May 22, 1804.) "My intention is to have the house of foreign
missions restored; these monks will be of great use to me in Asia,
Africa, and America.... I will give them a capital of 15,000 francs
a year to begin with.... I shall also re-establish the 'Sisters of
Charity;' I have already had them put in possession of their old
buildings. I think it necessary also, whatever may be said of it, to
re-establish the 'Ignorantins.'"]

[Footnote 31108: Roederer, III., 481. (Sénatorerie of Caen, Germinal 17,
year XIII.) Constant lamentations of bishops and most of the priests he
has met. "A poor curé, an unfortunate curé,... The bishop invites you to
dinner, to partake of the poor cheer of an unfortunate bishop on 12,000
francs salary."--The episcopal palaces are superb, but their furniture
is that of a village curé; one can scarcely find a chair in the finest
room.--"The officiating priests have not yet found a fixed salary in any
commune.... The peasants ardently longed for their usual mass and Sunday
service as in the past, but to pay for this is another thing."]

[Footnote 31109: Decrees of May 31 and Dec. 26, 1804, assigning to the
Treasury the salaries of 24,000 and then 30,000 assistant-priests.]

[Footnote 31110: Charles Nicolas, "le Budget de la France depuis le
commencement du XIXe siecle;" appropriation in 1807, 12,341,537 francs.]

[Footnote 31111: Decrees of Prairial 2, year XII, Nivôse 5. year XIII,
and Sep. 30, 1807.--Decree of Dec. 30, 1809 (articles 37, 39, 40, 49 and
ch. IV.)--Opinion of the council of state, May 19, 1811.]

[Footnote 31112: These are limited (articles organiques, 5): "All
ecclesiastical functions are gratuitous except the authorized oblations
fixed by the regulations."]

[Footnote 31113: Articles organiques, 73.]

[Footnote 31114: Ibid., 74: "Real property other than dwellings with
their adjoining gardens, shall not be held under ecclesiastical titles
or possessed by ministers of worship by reason of their functions."]

[Footnote 31115: Opinion of the Council of State, January 22, 1805, on
the question whether the communes have become owners of the churches and
parsonages abandoned to them by the law of Germinal 18, year X (articles
organiques).--The Council of State is of the opinion that "the said
churches and parsonages must be considered as communal property." If the
State renounces ownership in these buildings it is not in favor of the
fabrique, curé or bishop, but in favor of the commune.]

[Footnote 31116: In 1790 and 1791 a number of communes had made offers
for national property with a view to re-sell it afterwards, and much of
this, remaining unsold, was on their hands.]

[Footnote 31117: Articles organiques, 26. "The bishops will make no
ordination before submitting the number of persons to the government for
its acceptance."]

[Footnote 31118: "Archives de Grenoble." (Documents communicated by
Mdlle. de Franclieu.) Letter of the bishop, Monseigneur Claude Simon,
to the Minister of Worship, April 18, 1809. "For seven years that I have
been bishop of Grenoble, I have ordained thus far only eight priests;
during this period I have lost at least one hundred and fifty. The
survivors threaten me with a more rapid gap; either they are infirm,
bent with the weight of years, or wearied or overworked. It is therefore
urgent that I be authorized to confer sacred orders on those who are old
enough and have the necessary instruction. Meanwhile, you are limited to
asking authorization for the first eight on the aforesaid list, of whom
the youngest is twenty-four.... I beg Your Excellency to present
the others on this list for the authorization of His Imperial
Majesty."--Ibid., October 6, 1811. "I have only one deacon and one
subdeacon, whilst I am losing three or four priests monthly."]

[Footnote 31119: Articles organiques, 68, 69. "The pensions enjoyed by
the curés by virtue of the laws of the constituent assembly shall be
deducted from their salary. The vicars and assistants shall be
taken from the pensioned ecclesiastics according to the laws of the
constituent assembly. The amount of these pensions and the product of
oblations shall constitute their salary."]

[Footnote 31120: Laws of Vendémiaire 16, year V, and Ventôse 20, year
V..]

[Footnote 31121: Decree of Nov. 6, 1800.]

[Footnote 31122: Decisions of February 23, 1801, and June 26, 1801.
(We find, through subsequent decisions, that these recoveries were
frequently effected.)]

[Footnote 31123: Law of Frimaire 7, year V (imposing one decime per
franc above the cost of a ticket in every theatre for the benefit of the
poor not in the asylums).--Also the decree of Dec. 9, 1809.--Decisions
of Vendémiaire 27, year VII, and the restoration of the Paris octroi,
"considering that the distress of the civil asylums and the interruption
of succor at domiciles admit of no further delay."--Also the law of
Frimaire 19, year VIII, with the addition of 2 decimes per franc to the
octroi duties, established for the support of the asylums of the commune
of Paris.--Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des finances," I.,
685. Many towns follow this example: "Two years had scarcely passed when
there were 293 Octrois in France."]

[Footnote 31124: Law of Messidor 25, year V.--Alexis Chevalier, ibid.,
p. 185. (Decisions of Thermidor 20, year XI, and Germinal 4, year
XIII.)--Law of Dec.. 11, 1808 (article 1.)]

[Footnote 31125: Albert Duruy, "l'Instruction publique et la
Révolution," p.480 et seq. ("Procès-verbaux des conseils-généraux de
l'an IX;" among others, the petitions from Gironde, Ile-et-Vilaine,
Maine-et-Loire, Puy.de-Dôme, Haute-Saône, Haute Vienne, la Manche,
Lot-et-Garonne, Sarthe, Aisne, Aude, Côte-d'Or, Pas-de-Calais,
BassePyrénées, Pyrénées-Orienta1es, and Lot.)]

[Footnote 31126: Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 182. (According to
statistical returns of the parent establishment, rue Oudinot.--These
figures are probably too low.)]

[Footnote 31127: "Recueil des lois et réglemens sur l'enseignement
supérieur," by A. de Beauchamp, I., 65. (Report by Fourcroy, April
20, 1802.) "Old schools, since the suppression of upper schools and
universities, have taken a new extension, and a pretty large number of
private institutions have been formed for the literary education of the
young."]

[Footnote 31128: Ibid., 65 and 71. (Report by Fourcroy.) "As to the
primary schools, the zeal of the municipalities must be aroused, the
emulation of the functionaries excited, and charitable tendencies
revived, so natural to the French heart and which will so promptly
spring up when the religious respect of the government for local
endowments becomes known."]

[Footnote 31129: Ibid., p. 81. (Decree of May 1st, 1802, titles 2 and
9.--Decree of Sept. 17, 1808, article 23.)]

[Footnote 31130: "Histoire du collège des Bons-Enfans de l'université de
Reims," by abbé Cauly, p. 649.--The lycée of Reims, decreed May 6,
1802, was not opened until the 24th of September, 1803. The town was to
furnish accommodations for 150 pupils. It spent nearly 200,000 francs to
put buildings in order.... This sum was provided, on the one hand, by
a voluntary subscription which realized 45,000 francs and, on the other
hand, by an additional tax.]

[Footnote 31131: Law of May 1, 1802, articles 32, 33, and 34.--Guizot,
"Essai sur l'instruction publique, I., 59. Bonaparte maintained and
brought up in the lycées, at his own expense and for his own advantage,
about 3000 children... commonly selected from the sons of soldiers
or from poor families."--Fabry, "Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire de
l'instruction publique," III., 802. "Children of soldiers whose wives
lived in Paris, the sons of office-holders who were prevented by
luxury from bringing up their families--such were the scholarships of
Paris."--"In the provinces, the employees in the tax--and
post-offices, with other nomadic functionaries--such were the communal
scholarships."--Lunet, "Histoire du collège de Rodez," 219, 224. Out of
150 scholarships, 87 are filled, on the average.]

[Footnote 31132: "Recueil," etc., by A. de Beauchamp, I, 171, 187, 192.
(Law of September 17, 1808, article 27, and decision of April 7, 1809.)]

[Footnote 31133: Ibid. Masters of private schools and heads of
institutions must pay additionally every year one-quarter of the sums
above fixed. (Law of Sept. 17, 1808, article 25. Law of March 17, 1808,
title 17.--Law of February 17, 1809.)]

[Footnote 31134: Ibid., I., 189. (Decree of March 24, 1808, on the
endowment of the University.)]

[Footnote 31135: Emond, "Histoire du collège Louis-le-Grand,"
p.238. (This college, previous to 1789, enjoyed an income of 450,000
livres.)--Guizot, ibid., I., 62.--This college was maintained during
the revolution under the name of the "Prytanée Français" and received
in 1800 the property of the University of Louvain. Many of its pupils
enlisted in 1792, and were promised that their scholarships should be
retained for them on their return; hence the military spirit of the
"Prytanée."--By virtue of a decree, March 5, 1806, a perpetual income of
400,000 francs was transferred to the Prytanée de Saint-Cyr. It is this
income which, by the decree of March 24, 1808, becomes the endowment
of the imperial University. Henceforth, the expenses of the Prytanée de
Saint-Cyr are assigned to the war department.]

[Footnote 31136: Alexis Chevalier, Ibid., p.265. Allocution to the
"Ignorantin" brethren.]

[Footnote 31137: "The Ancient Régime," pp.13-15. (Laff. I. pp. 17 and
18.)--"The Revolution," III., p. 54. (Laff. II. pp. 48-49)--Alexis
Chevalier, "Les Frères des écoles chrétiennes," p.341. "Before
the revolution, the revenues of public instruction exceeded 30
millions."--Peuchet, "Statistique elementaire de la France" (published
in 1805), p.256. Revenue of the asylums and hospitals in the time of
Necker, 40 millions, of which 23 are the annual income from real-estate
and 17 provided by personal property, contracts, the public funds, and a
portion from octrois, etc.]

[Footnote 31138: D'Haussonville, "l'Église romaine et le premier
Empire," vol. IV. et V., passim--Ibid., III., 370, 375. (13 Italian
cardinals and 19 bishops of the Roman states are transported and
assigned places in France, as well as many of their grand-vicars and
chanoines; about the same date over 200 Italian priests are banished to
Corsica).--V., 181. (July 12, 1811, the bishops of Troyes, Tournay and
Ghent are sent to (the fortress-prison of) Vincennes.)--V., 286. (236
pupils in the Ghent seminary are enrolled in an artillery brigade
and sent off to Wesel, where about fifty of them die in the
hospital.)--"Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893. (Numbers of Belgian priests confined in the castles of
Ham, Bouillon and Pierre-Châtel were set free after the Restoration.)]

[Footnote 31139: Decree of November 15, 1811, art. 28, 29, and 30.
(Owing to M. de Fontanes, the small seminaries were not all closed, many
of them, 41, still existing in 1815.)]

[Footnote 31140: Collection of laws and decrees, passim, after 1802.]

[Footnote 31141: Documents furnished by M. Alexis Chevalier, former
director of public charities. The total amount of legacies and bequests
is as follows: 1st Asylums and hospitals, from January 1, 1800, to
December 31, 1845, 72,593,360 francs; from January 1st, 1846, to
December 31, 1855, 37,107,812; from January 1st, 1856, to December 31,
1877, 121,197,774. in all, 230,898,346 francs.--2d. Charity bureaux.
From January 1st, 1800, to December 31, 1845, 49,911,090; from January
1st, 1846, to December 31, 1873, 115,629,925; from January 1st 1874, to
December 31, 1877, 19,261,065. In all, 184,802,080 francs.--Sum total,
415,701,026 francs.]

[Footnote 31142: According to the statements of M. de Watteville and M.
de Gasparin.]

[Footnote 31143: Report by Fourcroy, annexed to the exposition of the
empire and presented to the Corps Législatif, March 5, 1806.]

[Footnote 31144: Coup d'oeil général sur l'éducation et l'instruction
publique en France," by Basset, censor of studies at Charlemagne college
(1816),--p. 21.]

[Footnote 31145: "Statistique de l'enseignement primaire," II., CCIV.
(From 1786 to 1789, 47 out of 100 married men and 26 married women out
of a hundred signed their marriage contract. From 1816 to 1820, the
figures show 54 husbands and 34 wives.)--Morris Birbeck, "Notes of a
Journey through France in July, August and September 1814." p.3 (London,
1815). "I am told that all the children of the laboring classes learn to
read, and are generally instructed by their parents."]

[Footnote 31146: Madame de Rémusat, I., 243. (Journey in the north of
France and in Belgium with the First Consul, 1803.) "On journeys of this
kind he was in the habit, after obtaining information about the public
buildings a town needed, to order them as he passed along, and, for this
munificence, he bore away the blessings of the people."--Some time after
this a letter came from the minister of the interior: "In conformity
with the favor extended to you by the First Consul (later, emperor) you
are required, citizen mayor, to order the construction of this or
that building, taking care to charge the expenses on the funds of your
commune," and which the prefect of the department obliges him to do,
even when available funds are exhausted or otherwise applied.]

[Footnote 31147: Thiers, VIII., 117 (August 1807) and 124. 13,400
leagues of highways were constructed or repaired; 10 canals were dug
or continued, at the expense of the public treasury; 32 departments
contribute to the expense of these through the extra centimes tax,
which is imposed on them. The State and the department, on the average,
contribute each one-half.--Among the material evils caused by the
Revolution, the most striking and the most seriously felt was the
abandonment and running down of roads which had become impracticable,
also the still more formidable degeneracy of the dikes and barriers
against rivers and the sea. (Cf. in Rocquain, "État de la France au 18
Brumaire," the reports of Français de Nantes, Fourcroy, Barbeé-Marbois,
etc.)--The Directory had imagined barrriers with toll-gates on each road
to provide expenses, which brought in scarcely 16 millions to offset 30
and 35 millions of expenditure. Napoleon substitutes for these tolls the
product of the salt-tax. (Decree of April 24, 1806, art. 59.)]

[Footnote 31148: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc) Librarie
Plon, Paris 1893. "Scarcely two or three highways remained in decent
order. ... Navigation on the rivers and canals became impossible Public
buildings and monuments were everywhere falling to ruin.... If the
rapidity of destruction was prodigious, that of restoration was no less
so."]




CHAPTER II. TAXATION AND CONSCRIPTION.




I. Distributive Justice in Allotment of Burdens and Benefits.

     Requirements previous to the Revolution.--Lack of
     distributive justice.--Wrongs committed in the allotment of
     social sacrifices and benefits.--Under the ancient Regime.
     --During the Revolution.--Napoleon's personal and public
     motives in the application of distributive justice.--The
     circumstances favorable to him.--His principle of
     apportionment.--He exacts proportion in what he grants.

The other group of needs, dating from long before 1789, involve wants
which have survived the Revolution, because the Revolution has not
satisfied these. The first, the most tenacious, the most profound,
the most inveterate, the most frustrated of all is the desire for
distributive justice.--In political society, as in every other society,
there are burdens and benefits to be allotted. When the apportionment
of these is unbiased, it takes place according to a very simple,
self-evident principle:

For each individual the costs must be in proportion to the benefits and
the benefits to the costs, so that, for each one, the final expense
and the final receipt may exactly compensate each other, the larger or
smaller share of expense being always equal to the larger or smaller
share of profits.

Now, in France, this proportion had been wanting for many centuries; it
had even given way to the inverse proportion. If, towards the middle
of the eighteenth century, two sum-totals of the budget, material and
moral, had been calculated, assets on one side and liabilities on the
other:

On the one hand the sum of the apportionments exacted by the State,
taxes in ready money, enforced labor, military service, civil
subordination, every species of obedience and subjection, in short,
every sacrifice of leisure, comfort and self-esteem.

On the other hand the sum of dividends distributed by the State of
whatever kind or shape, security for persons and property, use and
convenience of roads, delegations of public authority land liens on the
public treasury, dignities, ranks, grades, honors, lucrative salaries,
sinecures, pensions, and the like, that is to say, every gratification
belonging to leisure, comfort, or pride--one might have concluded that
the more a man contributed to the receipts the less would his dividend
be, and the greater his dividend the less would he furnish to the
general contribution.

Consequently, every social or local group consisted of two other
groups: a majority which suffered for the benefit of the minority, and
a minority which benefited at the expense of the majority, to such an
extent that the privations of the greatest number defrayed the luxury
of the small number. This was the case in all compartments as on every
story, owing to the multitude, enormity and diversity of honorific
or useful privileges, owing to the legal prerogatives and effective
preferences by which the court nobles benefited at the expense of the
provincial nobility,

* the noblesse at the expense of plebeians,

* the prelates and beneficiaries at the expense of poorly-paid curés and
vicars,

* the two highest orders of the clergy at the expense of the third,

* the bourgeoisie at the expense of the people,

* the towns at the expense of the rural districts,

* this or that town or province at the expense of the rest,

* the artisan member of a corporation at the expense of the free
workman,

and, in general, the strong, more or less well-to-do, in league and
protected, at the expense of the weak, more or less needy, isolated and
unprotected (indéfendus).[3201]

One hundred years before the Revolution a few clairvoyant, open-hearted
and generous spirits had already been aroused by this scandalous
disproportion.[3202] Finally, everybody is shocked by it, for, in each
local or social group, nearly everybody is a sufferer, not alone
the rural, the peasant, the artisan, and the plebeian, not alone the
citizen, the curé and the bourgeois notable," but again the gentleman,
the grand seignior, the prelate and the King himself.[3203] Each is
denouncing the privileges of all others that affect his interests, each
striving to diminish another's share in the public cake and to keep his
own, all concurring in citing natural right and in claiming or accepting
as a principle liberty and equality, but all concurring in misconception
and solely unanimous in destroying and in allowing destruction,[3204] to
such an extent that, at last, the attack being universal and no defense
anywhere, social order itself perishes, entirely owing to the abuses of
it.

On the reappearance of the same abuses, the lack of distributive justice
in revolutionary France became still more apparent than in monarchical
France. Through a sudden transposition, the preferred of the former
Régime had become the disgraced, while the disgraced of the former
Régime had become the preferred; unjust favor and unjust disfavor still
subsisted, but with a change of object. Before 1789, the nation was
subject to an oligarchy of nobles and notables; after 1789, it
became subject to an oligarchy of Jacobins big or little. Before
the Revolution, there were in France three or four hundred thousand
privileged individuals, recognizable by their red heels or silver
shoe-buckles. After the Revolution, there were three or four hundred
thousand of the privileged, recognizable by their red caps or their
carmagnoles.[3205] The most privileged of all, the three or four
thousand verified nobles, presented at court and of racial antiquity,
who, by virtue of their parchments, rode in the royal carriages, were
succeeded by three or four thousand Jacobins of a fresh sprout, no less
verified and accepted, who, by virtue of their civic patent, sat in
the club of the rue Saint-Honoré and the latter coterie was still
more dominant, more exclusive, more partial than the former one.
Consequently, before the Revolution, the burden of taxation was light
for the rich or the well-to-do, crushing for the peasants or the common
people; after the Revolution, on the contrary, the peasants, the common
people, paid no more taxes,[3206] while from the rich and the well-to-do
the government took all, not alone their income but their capital.--On
the other hand, after having fed the court of Versailles, the public
treasury had to feed the rabble of Paris, still more voracious; and,
from 1793 to 1796, the maintenance of this rabble cost it twenty-five
times as much as, from 1783 to 1786, the maintenance of the court.[3207]
Finally, at Paris as at Versailles, the subordinates who lived on the
favored spot, close to the central manger, seized on all they could get
and ate much more than their allowance. Under the ancient Régime, "the
ladies of honor, every time they travel from one royal country-house to
another, gain 80 %. on the cost of the journey," while the queen's first
chambermaid gains, over and above her wages, 38,000 francs a year out
of the sales of half-burnt candles.[3208] Under the new Régime, in the
distribution of food, "the matadors of the quarter," the patriots of the
revolutionary committees, deduct their portions in advance, and a very
ample portion, to the prejudice of the hungry who await their turn, one
taking seven rations and another twenty.[3209] Thus did the injustice
remain; in knocking it over, they had simply made matters worse; and had
they wished to build permanently, now was the time to put an end to it;
for, in every social edifice it introduced an imbalance. Whether the
plumb-line deflects right or left is of little consequence; sooner or
later the building falls in, and thus had the French edifice already
fallen twice, the first time in 1789, through imminent bankruptcy and
hatred of the ancient Régime, and the second time in 1799, through an
actual bankruptcy and hatred of the Revolution.

An architect like the French Consul is on his guard against a
financial, social and moral danger of this sort. He is aware that, in a
well-organized society, there must be neither surcharge nor discharge,
no favors, no exemptions and no exclusions. Moreover, "l'Etat c'est
lui;"[3210] thus is the public interest confounded with his personal
interest, and, in the management of this double interest, his hands are
free. Proprietor; and first inhabitant of France in the fashion of
its former kings, he is not obliged and embarrassed as they were by
immemorial precedents, by the concessions they have sanctioned or the
rights they have acquired. At the public table over which he presides
and which is his table, he does not, like Louis XV. or Louis XVI.,
encounter messmates already installed there, the heirs or purchasers of
the seats they occupy,[3211] extending in long rows from one end of the
room to the other, each in his place according to rank, in an arm-chair,
or common chair, or on a footstool, all being the legitimate and
recognized owners of their seats, all of them the King's messmates and
all authorized by law, tradition and custom to eat a free dinner or pay
for it at less than cost, to find fault with the dishes passed around,
to reach out for those not near by, to help themselves to what they want
and to carry off the dessert in their pockets. At the new table there
are no places secured beforehand. It is Napoleon himself who arranges
the table, and on sitting down, he is the master who has invited
whomsoever he pleases, who assigns to each his portion, who regulates
meals as he thinks best for his own and the common interest, and who
introduces into the entire service order, watchfulness and economy.
Instead of a prodigal and negligent grand-seignior, here at last is
a modern administrator who orders supplies, distributes portions and
limits consumption, a contractor who feels his responsibility, a man of
business able to calculate. Henceforth, each is to pay for his portion,
estimated according to his ration, and each is to enjoy his ration
according to his quota.--Judge of this by one example: In his own house,
customarily a center of abuses and sinecures, there must be no more
parasites. From the grooms and scullions of his palace up to its
grand officials, even to the chamberlains and ladies of honor, all his
domestics, with or without titles, work and perform their daily tasks
in person, administrative or decorative, day or night, at the appointed
time, for exact compensation, without pickings or stealing and without
waste. His train and his parades, as pompous as under the old monarchy,
admit of the same ordinary and extraordinary expenses--stables, chapel,
food, hunts, journeys, private theatricals, renewals of plate and
furniture, and the maintenance of twelve palaces or châteaux. While,
under Louis XV., it was estimated that "coffee with one roll for each
lady of honor cost the King 2,000 livres a year," and under Louis XVI.,"
the grand broth night and day" which Madame Royale, aged two years,
sometimes drank and which figured in the annual accounts at 5201
livres,[3212] under Napoleon "in the pantries, in the kitchens, the
smallest dish, a mere plate of soup, a glass of sugared water, would
not have been served without the authorization or check of grand-marshal
Duroc. Every abuse is watched; the gains of each are calculated and
regulated beforehand."[3213] Consequently, this or that journey to
Fontainebleau which had cost Louis XVI. nearly 2 million livres, cost
Napoleon, with the same series of fêtes, only 150,000 francs, while the
total expense of his civil household, instead of amounting to 25 million
livres, remains under 3 million francs.[3214] The pomp is thus equal,
but the expense is ten times less; the new master is able to derive
a tenfold return from persons and money, because he squeezes the full
value out of every man he employs and every crown he spends. Nobody has
surpassed him in the art of turning money and men to account, and he is
as shrewd, as careful, as sharp in procuring them as he is in profiting
by them.




II. Equitable Taxation.

     The apportionment of charges.--New fiscal principle and new
     fiscal machinery.

In the assignment of public burdens and of public offices Napoleon
therefore applies the maxims of the new system of rights, and his
practice is in conformity with the theory. For the social order, which,
according to the philosophers, is the only just one in itself, is at the
same time the most profitable for him: he adds equity because equity is
profitable to him.--And first, in the matter of public burdens, there
shall be no more exemptions. To relieve any category of taxpayers or
of conscripts from taxation or from military service would annually
impoverish the treasury by so many millions of crowns, and diminish
the army by so many thousands of soldiers. Napoleon is not the man to
deprive himself without reason of either a soldier or a franc; above
all things, he wants his army complete and his treasury full; to supply
their deficits he seizes whatever he can lay his hands on, both taxable
material as well as recruitable material. But all material is limited;
if he took too little on the one hand he would be obliged to take too
much on the other; it is impossible to relieve these without oppressing
those, and oppression, especially in the matter of taxation, is what,
in 1789, excited the universal jacquerie, perverted the Revolution,
and broke France to pieces.--At present, in the matter of taxation,
distributive justice lays down a universal and fixed law; whatever the
property may be, large or small, and of whatever kind or form, whether
lands, buildings, indebtedness, ready money, profits, incomes or
salaries, it is the State which, through its laws, tribunals, police,
gendarmes and army, preserves it from ever ready aggression within and
without; the State guarantees, procures and ensures the enjoyment of it.
Consequently, property of every species owes the State its premium of
assurance, so many centimes on the franc. The quality, the fortune, the
age or the sex of the owner is of little importance; each franc assured,
no matter in whose hands, must pay the same number of centimes, not one
too much, not one too little.--Such is the new principle. To announce it
is easy enough; all that is necessary is to combine speculative
ideas, and any Academy can do that. The National Assembly of 1789 had
proclaimed it with the rattling of drums, but merely as a right and with
no practical effect. Napoleon turns it into a reality, and henceforth
the ideal rule is applied as strictly as is possible with human
material, thanks to two pieces of fiscal machinery of a new type,
superior of their kind, and which, compared with those of the ancient
Régime, or with those of the Revolution, are masterpieces.




III. Formation of Honest, Efficient Tax Collectors

     Direct real and personal taxation.--In what respect the new
     machinery is superior to the old.--Full and quick returns.--
     Relief to taxpayers.--Greater relief to the poor workman and
     small farmer.

The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation performed on
the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his substance: he suffers on
account of this and submits to it only because he is obliged to. If the
operation is performed on him by other hands he submits to it willingly
or not. But that he should do it himself, spontaneously and with his own
hands, it is not to be thought of. On the other hand, the collection of
a direct tax according to the prescriptions of distributive justice, is
a subjection of each taxpayer to an amputation proportionate to his bulk
or, at least, to his surface; this requires delicate calculation and is
not to be entrusted to the patients themselves, for, not only are they
surgical novices and poor calculators, but, again, they are interested
in calculating falsely. They have been ordered to assess their group
with a certain total weight of human substance, and to apportion to
each individual in their group the lighter or heavier portion he must
provide. Everyone will soon understand that, the more that is cut
from the others, the less will be required of him. And as each is more
sensitive to his own suffering, although moderate, than to another's
suffering, even excessive, each, therefore, be his neighbor little or
big, is inclined, in order to unjustly diminish his own sacrifice by an
ounce, to add a pound unjustly to that of his neighbor.

Up to this time, in the construction of the fiscal machine, nobody knew
or had been disposed to take into account such natural and powerful
sentiments; through negligence or through optimism, the taxpayer had
been introduced into the mechanism in the quality of first agent; before
1789, in the quality of a responsible and constrained agent; after 1789,
in the quality of a voluntary and philanthropic agent. Hence, before
1789, the machine had proved mischievous, and after 1789, impotent;
before 1789, its working had been almost fatal,[3215] and after 1789
its returns scarcely amounted to anything.[3216] Finally, Napoleon
establishes independent, special and competent operators, enlightened
by local informers, but withdrawn from local influences. These are
appointed, paid and supported by the central government, forced to
act impartially by the appeal of the taxpayer to the council of the
prefecture, and forced to keep correct accounts by the final auditing of
a special court (cour des comptes). The are kept interested, through
the security they have given as well as by commissions, in the integral
recovery of unpaid arrears and in the prompt returns of collected taxes.
All, assessors, auditors, directors, inspectors and collectors, being
good accountants, are watched by good accountants, kept to their
duties by fear, and made aware that embezzlements, lucrative under the
Directory,[3217] are punished under the Consulate.[3218] They are soon
led to consider necessity a virtue, to pride themselves inwardly on
compulsory rectitude, to imagine that they have a conscience and hence
to acquiring one, in short, to voluntarily imposing on themselves
probity and exactitude through amour-propre and honorable scruples.--For
the first time in ten years lists of taxes are prepared and their
collection begun at the beginning of the year.[3219] Previous to 1789,
the taxpayer was always in arrears, while the treasury received only
three-fifths of that which was due in the current year.[3220] After
1800, direct taxes are nearly always fully returned before the end of
the current year, and half a century later, the taxpayers, instead of
being in arrears, are often in advance.[3221] To do this work required,
before 1789, about 200,000 collectors, besides the administrative
corps,[3222] occupied one half of their time for two successive years
in running from door to door, miserable and detested, ruined by their
ruinous office, fleecers and the fleeced, and always escorted by
bailiffs and constables. Since 1800, from five thousand to six thousand
collectors, and other fiscal agents, honorable and respected, have only
to do their office-work at home and make regular rounds on given days,
in order to collect more than double the amount without any vexation and
using very little constraint. Before 1780, direct taxation brought
in about 170 millions;[3223] after the year XI, it brought in 360
millions.[3224] By the same measure, an extraordinary counter-measure,
the taxable party, especially the peasant-proprietor, the small farmer
with nobody to protect him, diametrically opposite to the privileged
class, the drudge of the monarchy, is relieved of three-fourths of his
immemorial burden.[3225] At first, through the abolition of tithes and
of feudal privileges, he gets back one-quarter of his net income, that
quarter which he paid to the seignior and to the clergy; next, through
the application of direct taxation to all lands and to all persons,
his quota is reduced one-half. Before 1789, he paid, on 100 francs net
income, 14 to the seignior, 14 to the clergy, 53 to the State, and kept
only 18 or 19 for himself. After 1800, he pays nothing out of 100 francs
of income to the seignior or to the clergy; he pays but little to the
State, only 21 francs to the commune and department, and keeps 79 francs
in his pocket.[3226]

If each franc insured pays so many centimes insurance premium, each
franc of manual gain and of salary should pay as many centimes as each
franc of industrial or commercial gain, also as each franc of personal
or land revenue; that is to say, more than one-fifth of a franc, or 21
centimes.--At this rate, the workman who lives on his own labor, the
day-laborer, the journeyman who earns 1 franc 15 centimes per day and
who works 300 days of the year, ought to pay out of his 345 francs wages
69 francs to the public treasury. At this rate; the ordinary peasant
or cultivator of his own field, owner of a cottage and a small tract
of ground which he might rent at 100 francs a year, should pay into
the public treasury, out of his land income and from manual labor, 89
francs.[3227] The deduction, accordingly, on such small earnings would
be enormous; for this gain, earned from day to day, is just enough to
live on, and very poorly, for a man and his family: were it cut down
one-fifth he and his family would be obliged to fast; he would be
nothing but a serf or half-serf, exploited by the exchequer, his
seignior and his proprietor. Because the exchequer, as formerly the
proprietary seigniors, would appropriate to itself 60 days of labor out
of the 300. Such was the condition of many millions of men, the great
majority of Frenchmen, under the ancient Régime. Indeed, the five direct
taxes, the taille, its accessories, the road-tax, the capitatim and the
vingtièmes, were a tax on the taxpayer, not only according to the net
revenue of his property, if he had any, but again and especially "of his
faculties" and presumed resources whatever these might be, comprising
his manual earnings or daily wages.--Consequently, "a poor laborer
owning nothing,"[3228] who earned 19 sous a day, or 270 livres a
year,[3229] was taxed 18 or 20 livres. Out of 300 days' work
there were 20 or 22 which belonged beforehand to the public
treasury.--Three-fifths[3230] of the French people were in this
situation, and the inevitable consequences of such a fiscal system have
been seen--the excess of extortions and of suffering, the spoliation,
privations and deep-seated resentment of the humble and the poor. Every
government is bound to care for these, if not from compassion, at least
through prudential considerations, and this one more than any other,
since it is founded on the will of the greatest number, on the repeated
votes of majorities counted by heads.

To this end, it establishes two divisions of direct taxation: one,
the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer without any
property; and the other, the personal tax, which does affect him, but
lightly: calculated on the rate of rent, it is insignificant on an
attic, furnished lodging, hut or any other hovel belonging to a
laborer or peasant; again, when very poor or indigent, if the octroi is
burdensome, the exchequer sooner or later relieves them; add to this the
poll-tax which takes from them 1 franc and a half up to 4.50 francs per
annum, also a very small tax on doors and windows, say 60 centimes per
annum in the villages on a tenement with only one door and one window,
and, in the towns, from 60 to 75 centimes per annum for one room above
the second story with but one window.[3231] In this way, the old tax
which was crushing becomes light: instead of paying 18 or 20 livres for
his taille, capitatim and the rest, the journeyman or the artisan with
no property pays no more than 6 or 7 francs;[3232] instead of paying
53 livres for his vingtièmes for his poll, real and industrial tax, his
capitatim and the rest, the small cultivator and owner pays no more than
21 francs. Through this reduction of their fiscal charges (corvée) and
through the augmentation of their day wages, poor people, or those
badly off, who depended on the hard and steady labor of their hands,
the plowmen, masons, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights and
porters, every hired man and artisan, in short, all the laborious and
tough hands, again became almost free; these formerly owed, out of their
300 working days, from 20 to 59 to the exchequer; they now owe only
from 6 to 19,[3233] and thus gain from 14 to 40 free days during which,
instead of working for the exchequer, they work for themselves.--The
reader may estimate the value to a small household of such an
alleviation of the burden of discomfort and care.




IV. Various Taxes.

     Other direct taxes.--Tax on business licenses.--Tax on
     real-estate transactions.--The earnings of manual labor almost
     exempt from direct taxation.--Compensation on another side.
     --Indirect taxation.--In what respect the new machinery is
     superior to the old.--Summary effect of the new fiscal
     régime.--Increased receipts of the public treasury.--Lighter
     burdens of the taxpayer.--Change in the condition of the
     small taxpayer.

This infraction of the principle of distributive justice is in favor
of the poor. Through the almost complete exemption of those who have no
property the burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those
who own property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they
support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is a
supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains.[3234]
Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the probable or
certain income derived from invested or floating capital, the exchequer
adds an eventual tax on capital itself, consisting of the mutation
tax, assessed on property every time it changes hands through gift,
inheritance or by contract, obtaining its title under free donation
or by sale, and which tax, aggravated by the timbre,[3235] is
enormous[3236] since, in most cases, it takes 5, 7, 9, and up to 10
1/2 % on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case of
real-estate, 2, 3 and even 4 years' income from it. Thus, in the first
shearing of the sheep the exchequer cuts deep, as deep as possible; but
it has sheared only the sheep whose fleece is more or less ample; its
scissors have scarcely touched the others, much more numerous, whose
wool, short, thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages, the petty
gains of manual labor.--Compensation is to come when the exchequer,
resuming its scissors, shears the second time: it is the indirect tax
which, although properly levied and properly collected, is, in its
nature, more burdensome for the poor than for the rich and well-off.

Through this tax, and through to the previous action of customs-duties,
tolls, octrois or monopolies, the State collects a certain percentage
on the price of various kinds of merchandise sold. In this way it
participates in trade and commerce and itself becomes a merchant.
It knows, therefore, like all able merchants, that, to obtain large
profits, it must sell large quantities, that it must have a very large
body of customers, that the largest body is that which ensures to it and
embraces all its subjects, in short, that its customers must consist
not only of the rich, who number merely tens of thousands, not only the
well-to-do, who number merely hundreds of thousands, but likewise the
poor and the half-poor, who number millions and tens of millions. Hence,
in the merchandise by the sale of which it is to profit, it takes care
to include staple articles which everybody needs, for example, salt,
sugar, tobacco and beverages in universal and popular use. This
accomplished, let us follow out the consequences, and look in at the
shops over the whole surface of the territory, in the towns or in the
villages, where these articles are disposed of. Daily and all day long,
consumers abound; their large coppers and small change constantly rattle
on the counter; and out of every large copper and every small piece of
silver the national treasury gets so many centimes: that is its share,
and it is very sure of it, for it is already in hand, having received
it in advance. At the end of the year, these countless centimes fill
its cash-box with millions, as many and more millions than it gathers
through direct taxation.

And this second crop causes less trouble than the first one for the
taxpayer who is subject to it has less trouble and like-wise the State
which collects it.--In the first place, the tax-payer suffers less. In
relation to the exchequer, he is no longer a mere debtor, obliged to pay
over a particular sum at a particular date; his payments are optional;
neither the date nor the sum are fixed; he pays on buying and in
proportion to what he buys, that is to say, when he pleases and as
little as he wants. He is free to choose his time, to wait until his
purse is not so empty; there is nothing to hinder him from thinking
before he enters the shop, from counting his coppers and small change,
from giving the preference to more urgent expenditure, from reducing his
consumption. If he is not a frequenter of the cabaret, his quota, in
the hundreds of millions of francs obtained from beverages, is almost
nothing; if he does not smoke or snuff, his quota, in the hundreds of
millions derived from the tax on tobacco, is nothing at all; because he
is economical, prudent, a good provider for his family and capable of
self-sacrifice for those belonging to him, he escapes the shearing of
the exchequer. Moreover, when he does come under the scissors, these
hardly graze his skin; so long as tariff regulations and monopolies levy
nothing on articles which are physically indispensable to him, as on
bread in France, indirect taxation does not touch his flesh. In general,
fiscal or protective duties, especially those which increase the price
of tobacco, coffee, sugar, and beverages, do not affect his daily life,
but merely deprive him of some of its pleasures and comforts.--And, on
the other hand, in the collection of these duties, the exchequer may
not show its hand; if it does its business properly, the anterior
and partial operation is lost sight of in the total operation which
completes and covers this up; it screens itself behind the merchant. The
shears are invisible to the buyer who presents himself to be sheared;
in any event, he has no distinct sensation of them. Now, with the man of
the people, the common run of sheep, it is the positive, actual, animal
sensation which is the cause of his cries, his convulsive shudders, and
contagious alarms and panics. As long as he is not being excited he can
be manipulated; at the utmost, he grumbles at the hard times; the high
prices from which he suffers are not imputed to the government; he does
not know how to reckon, check off and consider for himself the surplus
price which the fiscal impost extorts from him. Even at the present day,
one might tell a peasant in vain that the State takes fifteen out of the
forty sous which he pays for a pound of coffee, and five centimes out
of every two sous he pays for a pound of salt; for him, this is simply a
barren notion, a vague calculation at random; the impression on his mind
would be very different if, standing before the grocer who weighs out
his coffee and salt, he saw with his own eyes, right before him, the
clerk of the customs and of the salt-tax actually taking the fifteen
sous and the five centimes off the counter.

Such are the good indirect taxes: in order that they may be correct,
that is to say, tolerable and tolerated, three conditions, as we see,
are requisite. In the first place, the taxpayer, in his own interest,
must be free to buy or not to buy the merchandise taxed. Next, in the
interest of the taxpayer and of the exchequer, the merchandise must not
be so taxed as to be rendered too dear. After that, in the interest of
the exchequer, its interference must not be perceptible. Owing to
these precautions, indirect taxes can be levied, even on the smaller
taxpayers, without either fleecing or irritating them. It is for lack of
these precautions before 1789, when people were fleeced in such a
clumsy way,[3237] that, in 1789, they first rebelled against indirect
taxation,[3238] against the meal-tax, the salt-tax, the tax on liquors,
the internal tariffs, and the town octrois, against fiscal officers,
bureaux and registries, by murdering, pillaging, and burning, beginning
in the month of March in Provence and after the 13th of July in Paris,
and then throughout France, with such a universal, determined and
persistent hostility that the National Assembly, after having vainly
attempted to restore the suspended tax-levies and enforce the law on the
populace, ended in subjecting the law to the populace and in decreeing
the suppression of indirect taxation entirely.[3239]

Such, in the matter of taxation, is the work of the Revolution. Of
the two sources which, through their regular afflux, fill the public
Treasury, and of which the ancient Régime took possession and managed
badly, violently, through loose and bungling measures, it has nearly
dried up the first one, direct taxation, and completely exhausted the
second one, indirect taxation. At present, as the empty Treasury must
be filled, the latter must be taken in hand the same as the former,
its waters newly gathered in and gently conducted without loss. The
new government sets about this, not like the old one, in a rude,
conventional manner, but as an engineer and calculator who knows the
ground, its inclination and other obstacles, in short, who comprehends
human sensibility and the popular imagination.[3240]--And, first of all,
there is to be no more farming-out (of the collection of the revenues):
the State no longer sells its duties on salt or on beverages to a
company of speculators, mere contractors, who care for nothing but
their temporary lease and annual incomes, solely concerned with coming
dividends, bleeding the tax-payer like so many leeches and invited to
suck him freely, interested in multiplying affidavits by the fines they
get, and creating infractions, authorized by a needy government which,
supporting itself on their advances, places the public force at their
disposal and surrenders the people to their exactions. Henceforth, the
exchequer collects for itself and for its own account. It is the same
as a proprietor who, instead of leasing or renting out, improves his
property and becomes his own farmer. The State, therefore, considers the
future in its own interest; it limits the receipts of the current year
so as not to compromise the receipts of coming years; it avoids ruining
the present tax-payer who is also the future taxpayer; it does not
indulge in gratuitous chicanery, in expensive lawsuits, in warrants
of execution and imprisonment; it is averse to converting a profitable
laborer into a beggar who brings in nothing, or into a prisoner for debt
who costs it something. Through this course, the relief is immense;
ten years previous to the Revolution,[3241] it was estimated that, in
principal and in accessories, especially in costs of collection and in
fines, indirect taxation cost the nation twice as much the king
derived from it, that it paid 371 millions to enable him to receive
184 millions, that the salt-tax alone took out of the pockets of the
taxpayer 100 millions for 45 millions deposited in his coffers. Under
the new government, fines became rarer; seizures, executions and sales
of personal property still rarer, while the costs of collection, reduced
by increasing consumption, are not to exceed one-twentieth in-stead
of one-fifth of the receipts.[3242]--In the second place, the consumer
becomes free again, in law as in fact, not to purchase taxed goods. He
is no longer constrained, as formerly, in the provinces subject to high
salt-tax, to accept, consume, and pay for duty-salt, 7 pounds per head
at 13 sous the pound. Provincial, town or seignorial taxes on Bread,
a commodity which he cannot do without, no longer exist; there is no
piquet, or duty on flour, as in Provence,[3243] no duties on the sale
or of grinding wheat, no impediments to the circulation or commerce of
grain. And, on the other hand, through the lowering of fiscal
charges, in the suppression of internal duties, and the abolition of
multitudinous tolls, other commodities, apart from bread reached by a
different tax, now becomes affordable for those of small means. Salt,
instead of costing thirteen sous and over, no longer costs more than
two sous the pound. A cask of Bordeaux wine no longer pays two hundred
livres before it is retailed by the tavern-keeper at Rennes.[3244]
Except in Paris, and even at Paris, so long as the extravagance of
municipal expenditure does not increase the octroi the total tax on
wine, cider and beer does not add, even at retail, more than 18 % to
their selling price,[3245] while, throughout France, the vine-grower,
or the wine-maker, who gathers in and manufactures his own wine, drinks
this and even his brandy, without paying one cent of tax under this
heading.[3246]--Consequently, consumption increases, and, as there are
no longer any exempt or half-exempt provinces, no more free salt
(franc salé),[3247] no more privileges arising from birth, condition,
profession or residence, the Treasury, with fewer duties, collected or
gained as much as before the Revolution: In 1809 and 1810, 20 millions
on tobacco, 54 millions on salt, 100 millions on liquors, and then, as
the taxpayer became richer and spent more, still larger and larger
sums: in 1884, 305 millions on tobacco: in 1885, 429 millions on
liquors,[3248] without counting another 100 millions again raised on
liquors through town octrois.--And lastly, the exchequer, with extreme
prudence, keeps out of sight and succeeds in almost saving the taxpayer
from contact with, or the presence of, its agents. There is an end to
a domestic inquisition. The excise man no longer pounces in on the
housewife to taste the pickle, to find out whether the ham has been
cured with bogus salt, to certify that all the dutiable salt has been
used in "the pot and the salt-cellar." The wine-inspector no longer
comes suddenly on the wine-grower, or even on the consumer, to gauge his
casks, to demand an account of what he drinks, to make an affidavit in
case of deficit or over-consumption, to impose a fine should a bottle
have been given to a sick person or to a poor one. The 50,000 customs
officers or clerks of the ferme, the 23,000 soldiers without a uniform
who, posted in the interior along a line of 1200 leagues, guarded the
heavily taxed salt districts against the provinces which were less
taxed, redeemed or free, the innumerable employees at the barriers,
forming a confused and complicated band around each province, town,
district or canton, levying on twenty or thirty different sorts of
merchandise forty-five principal duties, general, provincial, or
municipal, and nearly sixteen hundred tolls, in short, the entire body
of officials of the old system of indirect taxation has almost wholly
disappeared. Save at the entrance of towns, and for the octroi the eye
no longer encounters an official clerk. The carters who, from Roussillon
or Languedoc, transport a cask of wine to Paris, are no longer subject
to his levies, humiliations and moods in twenty different places, nor
to ascribe to him the dozen or fifteen days' useless extension of their
trip due to his predecessor, and during which they had to wait in his
office until he wrote a receipt or a permit. There is scarcely any one
now but the inn-keeper who sees his green uniform on his premises. After
the abolition of the house-inventory, nearly two millions of proprietors
and wine métayers are forever free of his visits;[3249] from now on, for
consumers, especially for the people, he seems absent and non existent.
In effect, he has been transferred one or two hundred leagues off, to
the salt-establishments in the interior and on the coasts, and on
the frontier. There only is the system at fault, nakedly exposing
its vice,--a war against exchanges, the proscription of international
commerce, prohibition pushed to extreme, the continental blockade,
an inquisition of 20,000 customs officials, the hostility of 100,000
defrauders, the brutal destruction of seized goods, an augmentation
in price of 100 % on cottons and 400% on sugar, a dearth of colonial
articles, privation to the consumer, the ruin of the manufacturer and
trader, and accumulated bankruptcies one after the other in 1811 in all
the large towns from Hamburg to Rome.[3250] This vice, however, belongs
to the militant policy and personal character of the master; the error
that taints the external side of his fiscal system does not reach
the internal side. After him, under pacific reigns, it is gradually
modified; prohibition gives way to protection and then changes from
excessive protection to limited protection. France remains, along with
secondary improvements and partial amendments, on the course marked out
by the Consulate and the Empire; this course, in all its main lines,
is clearly traced, straight, and yet adapted to all things, by the
plurality, establishment, distribution, rate of taxation and returns of
the various direct and indirect taxes, nearly in conformity with the
new principles of political economy, as well as in conformity with the
ancient maxims of distributive justice, carefully directed between the
two important interests that have to be cared for, that of the people
who pays and of the State which collects.

Consider, in effect, what both have gained.--In 1789, the State had
a revenue of only 475 millions; afterwards, during the Revolution,
it scarcely collected any of its revenues; it lived on the capital it
stole, like a genuine brigand, or on the debts it contracted, like a
dishonest and insolvent bankrupt. Under the Consulate and during the
first years of the Empire, its revenue amounts to 750 to 800 millions,
its subjects being no longer robbed of their capital, while it no longer
runs in debt.--In 1789, the ordinary taxpayer paid a direct tax to his
three former or late sovereigns, namely, to the King, the clergy and the
seigniors, more than three-quarters of his net income. After 1800, he
pays to the State less than one-quarter, the one sovereign alone who
replaces the other three. We have seen how relief came to the old
taxable subject, to the rural, to the small proprietor, to the man
without any property, who lived on the labor of his own hands; the
lightening of the direct tax restored to him from 14 to 43 free days,
during which, instead of working for the exchequer, he worked for
himself. If married, and the father of two children over 7 years of age,
the alleviation of one direct tax alone, that of the salt-tax, again
restores to him 12 days more, in all from one to two complete months
each year during which he is no longer, as formerly, a man doing
statute-work, but the free proprietor, the absolute master of his time
and of his own hands.--At the same time, through the re-casting of
other taxes and owing to the increasing price of labor, his physical
privations decrease. He is no longer reduced to consuming only the
refuse of his crop, the wheat of poor quality, the damaged rye, the
badly-bolted flour mixed with bran, nor to drink water poured over the
lees of his grapes, nor to sell his pigs before Christmas because the
salt he needs is too dear.[3251] He salts his pork and eats it, and
likewise butcher's meat; he enjoys his boiled beef and broth on
Sunday; he drinks wine; his bread is more nutritious, not so black
and healthier; he no longer lacks it and has no fear of lacking it.
Formerly, he entertained a lugubrious phantom, the fatal image of famine
which haunted him day and night for centuries, an almost periodical
famine under the monarchy, a chronic famine and then severe and
excruciating during the Revolution, a famine which, under the republic,
had in three years destroyed over a million of lives.[3252] The
immemorial specter recedes and vanishes; after two accidental and local
recurrences, in 1812 and 1817, it never again appears in France.[3253]




V. Conscription or Professional soldiers.

     Military service.--Under the Ancient Regime.--The militia
     and regular troops.--Number of soldiers.--Quality of the
     recruits.--Advantages of the institution.--Results of the
     new system.--The obligation universal.--Comparison between
     the burdens of citizens and subjects.--The Conscription
     under Napoleon.--He lightens and then increases its weight.
     --What it became after him.--The law of 1818.

One tax remains, and the last, that by which the State takes, no longer
money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul and body, and
for the best years of his life, namely military service. It is the
Revolution which has rendered this so burdensome; formerly, it was
light, for, in principle, it was voluntary. The militia, alone, was
raised by force, and, in general, among the country people; the
peasants furnished men for it by casting lots.[3254] But it was simply
a supplement to the active army, a territorial and provincial reserve,
a distinct, sedentary body of reinforcements and of inferior rank which,
except in case of war, never marched; it turned out but nine days of the
year, and, after 1778, never turned out again. In 1789, it comprised
in all 72,260 men, and for eleven years their names, inscribed on the
registers, alone constituted their presence in the ranks.[3255] There
were no other conscripts under the monarchy; in this matter, its
exactions were not great, ten times less than those of the Republic and
of the Empire, since both the Republic and the Empire, using the same
constraint, were to levy more than ten times the number of drafted men
or conscripts.[3256]

Alongside of this militia body, the entire army properly so called, the
"regular" troops were, under, the ancient Régime, all recruited by free
enlistment, not only the twenty-five foreign regiments, Swiss, Irish,
Germans, and Liégeois, but again the hundred and forty-five French
regiments, 177 000 men.[3257] The enlistment, indeed, was not free
enough; frequently, through the maneuvers of the recruiting-agent, it
was tainted with inveigling and surprises, and sometimes with fraud
or violence; but, owing to the remonstrances due to the prevailing
philanthropic spirit, these abuses had diminished; the law of 1788
had suppressed the most serious of them and, even with its abuses, the
institution had two great advantages.--The army, in the first place,
served as an issue: through it the social body purged itself of its bad
humors, of its overheated or vitiated blood. At this date, although the
profession of soldier was one of the lowest and least esteemed, a barren
career, without promotion and almost without escape, a recruit was
obtainable for about one hundred francs bounty and a "tip"; add to this
two or three days and nights of revel in the grog-shop, which indicates
the kind and quality of the recruits; in fact, very few could be
obtained except among men more or less disqualified for civil and
domestic life, incapable of spontaneous discipline and of steady labor,
adventurers and outcasts, half-savage or half-blackguard, some of them
sons of respectable parents thrown into the army in an angry fit, and
others again, regular vagabonds picked up in beggars' haunts, mostly
stray workmen and loafers, in short, "the most debauched, the most
hot-brained, the most turbulent people in an ardent, turbulent and
somewhat debauched community."[3258] In this way, the anti-social class
was utilized for the public good. Let the reader imagine an ill-kept
domain overrun by a lot of stray curs that might prove dangerous: they
are enticed and caught; a collar, with a chain attached to it, is put on
their necks and they become good watch-dogs.--In the second place, this
institution preserved to the subject the first and most precious of all
liberties, the full possession and the unrestricted management of one's
own person, the complete mastery of body and being. This was assured to
him, guaranteed to him against the encroachments of the State. It was
better guaranteed than by the wisest constitution, for the institution
was a recognized custom accepted by everybody. In other words, it was a
tacit, immemorial convention,[3259] between the subject and the State,
proclaiming that, if the State had a right to draw on purses it had
no right to draft persons: in reality and in fact, the King, in his
principal function, was merely a contractor like any other; he undertook
natural defense and public security the same as others undertook
cleaning the streets or the maintenance of a dike. It was his business
to hire military workmen as they hired their civil workmen, by
mutual agreement, at an understood price and at current market rates.
Accordingly, the sub-contractors with whom he treated, the colonel and
captains of each regiment, were subject as he was to the law of supply
and demand; he allowed them so much for each recruit,[3260] to replace
those dropped out, and they agreed to keep their companies full. They
were obliged to procure men at their own risk and at their own expense,
while the recruiting-agent whom they dispatched with a bag of money
among the taverns, enlisted artillerymen, horsemen or foot-soldiers,
after bargaining with them, the same as one would hire men to sweep or
pave the street and to clean the sewers.

Against this practice and this principle comes the theory of the
Contrat-Social. It declares that the people are sovereign. Now, in
this divided Europe, where a conflict between rival States is always
imminent, sovereigns are military men; they are such by birth,
education, and profession, and by necessity; the title carries along
with it and involves the function. Consequently, the subject, in
assuming their rights, imposes upon himself their duties; in his quota
(of responsibility) he, in his turn, is sovereign; but, in his turn
and in his person, he is a soldier.[3261] Henceforth, if he is born an
elector, he is born a conscript; he has contracted an obligation of a
new species and of infinite reach; the State, which formerly had a claim
only on his possessions, now has one on his entire body; never does
a creditor let his claims rest and the State always finds reasons or
pretexts to enforce its claims. Under the threats or trials of invasion
the people, at first, had consented to pay this one; they regarded it
as accidental and temporary. After victory and when peace came, its
government continues to enforce the claim; it becomes settled and
permanent. After the treaties of Luneville and Amiens, Napoleon
maintains it in France; after the treaties of Paris and Vienna, the
Prussian government is to maintain it in Prussia. One war after another
and the institution becomes worse and worse; like a contagion, it has
spread from State to State. At the present time, it has overspread the
whole of continental Europe and here it reigns along with its natural
companion which always precedes or follows it, its twin-brother,
universal suffrage. Each more or less conspicuously "trotted out" and
dragging the other along, more or less incomplete and disguised, both
being the blind and formidable leaders or regulators of future history,
one thrusting a ballot into the hands of every adult, and the other
putting a soldier's knapsack on every adult's back:

* with what promises of massacre and bankruptcy for the twentieth
century,

* with what exasperation of international rancor and distrust,

* with what waste of human labor,

* through what perversion of productive discoveries,

* through what perfection of destructive appliances,

* through what a recoil to the lower and most unwholesome forms of old
militant societies,

* through what retrograde steps towards brutal and selfish instincts,

* towards the sentiments, habits and morality of the antique city and of
the barbarous tribe

is only too well known.[3262] It is sufficient for us to place the two
military systems face to face, that of former times and that of to-day:
formerly, in Europe, a few soldiers, some hundreds of thousands; to-day,
in Europe, 18 millions of actual or eventual soldiers, all the adults,
even the married, even fathers of families summoned or subject to call
for twenty-five years of their life, that is to say, as long as they
continue able-bodied men; formerly, for the heaviest part of the service
in France, no lives are confiscated by decree, only those bought by
contract, and lives suited to this business and elsewhere idle or
mischievous; about one hundred and fifty thousand lives of inferior
quality, of mediocre value, which the State could expend with less
regret than others, and the sacrifice of which is not a serious injury
to society or to civilization. To-day, for the same service in France,
4 millions of lives are taken by authority, and, if they attempt to
escape, taken by force; all of them, from the twentieth year onward,
employed in the same manual and murderous pursuit, including the least
suited to the purpose and the best adapted to other purposes, including
the most inventive and the most fecund, the most delicate and the most
cultivated, those remarkable for superior talent (Page 232/526)who
are of almost infinite social value, and whose forced collapse, or
precocious end, is a calamity for the human species.

Such is the terminal fruit of the new Régime; military duty is here the
counterpart, and as it were, the ransom of political right; the modern
citizen may balance one with the other like two weights in the scale. On
the one side, he may place his prerogative as sovereign, that is to say,
in point of fact, the faculty every four years of giving one vote among
ten thousand for the election or non-election of one deputy among six
hundred and fifty; on the other side, he may place his positive, active
service, three, four or five years of barrack life and of passive
obedience, and then twenty-eight days more, then a thirteen-days'
summons in honor of the flag, and, for twenty years, at each rumor of
war, anxiously waiting for the word of command which obliges him to
shoulder his gun and slay with his own hand, or be slain. He will
probably end by discovering that the two sides of the scales do not
balance and that a right so hollow is poor compensation for so heavy a
burden.

Of course, in 1789, he foresaw nothing like that; he was optimistic,
pacific, liberal, humanitarian; he knew nothing of Europe nor of
history, nothing of the past nor of the present. When the Constituent
Assembly constituted him a sovereign, he let things go on; he did not
know what he engaged to do, he had no idea of having allowed such a
heavy claim against him. But, in signing the social contract, he made
himself responsible; in 1793, the note came due and the Convention
collected it.[3263] Then comes Napoleon who put things in order.
Henceforth, every male, able-bodied adult must pay the debt of blood; no
more exemptions in the way of military service:[3264] all young men who
had reached the required age drew lots in the conscription and set out
in turn according to the order fixed by their drafted number.[3265] But
Napoleon is an intelligent creditor; he knows that this debt is "most
frightful and most detestable for families," that his debtors are real,
living men and therefore different in kind, that the head of the State
should keep these differences in mind, that is to say their condition,
their education, their sensibility and their vocation; that, not only
in their private interest, but again in the interest of the public,
not merely through prudence but also through equity, all should not be
indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit, to the same
manual labor, to the same prolonged and indefinite servitude of soul and
body. Already, under the Directory, the law had exempted young married
men and widowers or divorced persons who were fathers.[3266] Napoleon
also exempts the conscript who has a brother in the active army, the
only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans, the son of a father
seventy-one years old dependent on his labor, all of whom are family
supports. He joins with these all young men who enlist in one of his
civil militias, in his ecclesiastical militia or in his university
militia, pupils of the École Normale, ignorantin brothers, seminarians
for the priesthood, on condition that they shall engage to do service
in their vocation and do it effectively, some for ten years, others
for life, subject to a discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid, as
military discipline.[3267] Finally, he sanctions or institutes volunteer
substitutes, through private agreement between a conscript and the
able-bodied, certified volunteer substitute for whom the conscript is
responsible.[3268] If such a bargain is made between them it is done
freely, knowing what they are about, and because each man finds the
exchange to his advantage; the State has no right to deprive either of
them uselessly of this advantage, and oppose an exchange by which it
does not suffer. So far from suffering it often gains by it. For, what
it needs is not this or that man, Peter or Paul, but a man as capable as
Peter or Paul of firing a gun, of marching long distances, of resisting
inclemencies, and such are the substitutes it accepts. They must all
be[3269] "of sound health and robust constitution," and sufficiently
tall; as a matter of fact, being poorer than those replaced, they are
more accustomed to privation and fatigue; most of them, having reached
maturity, are worth more for the service than youths who have been
recruited by anticipation and too young; some are old soldiers: and in
this case the substitute is worth twice as much as the new conscript
who has never donned the knapsack or bivouacked in the open air.
Consequently, those who are allowed to obtain substitutes are "the
drafted and conscripts of all classes,... unable to endure the fatigues
of war, and those who shall be recognized of greater use to the State
by continuing their labors and studies than in forming a part of the
army...."[3270]

Napoleon had too much sense to be led by the blind existences of
democratic formulae; his eyes, which penetrated beyond mere words, at
once perceived that the life of a simple soldier, for a young man well
brought up and a peasant or for day-laborer, is unequal. A tolerable
bed, sufficient clothing, good shoes, certainty of daily bread, a piece
of meat regularly, are novelties for the latter but not for the former,
and, consequently, enjoyments; that the promiscuity and odor of the
barrack chamber, the corporal's cursing and swearing and rude orders,
the mess-dish and camp-bread, physical hardships all day and every
other day, are for the former, but not for the latter, novelties
and, consequently, sufferings. From which it follows that, if literal
equality is applied, positive inequality is established, and that by
virtue even of the new creed, it is necessary, in the name of true
equality as in the name of true liberty, to allow the former, who would
suffer most, to treat fairly and squarely with the latter, who will
suffer less. And all the more because, by this arrangement, the civil
staff preserves for itself its future recruits; it is from nineteen to
twenty-six that the future chiefs and under-chiefs of the great work
of peaceful and fruitful labor, the savants, artists or scholars, the
jurisconsults, engineers or physicians, the enterprising men of commerce
or of industry, receive and undertake for themselves a special and
superior education, discover or acquire their leading ideas, and
elaborate their originality or their competency. If talent is to be
deprived of these productive years their growth is arrested in full
vegetation, and civil capacities, not less precious for the State than
military capacities, are rendered abortive.[3271]--Towards 1804,[3272]
owing to substitution, one conscript out of five in the rural districts,
one conscript out of seven in the towns, and, on the average, one
conscript out of ten in France, escapes this forced abortive condition;
in 1806, the price of a substitute varies from eighteen hundred to four
thousand francs,[3273] and as capital is scarce, and ready money still
more so, a sum like this is sufficiently large. Accordingly, it is the
rich or well-to-do class, in other words the more or less cultivated
class, which buys off its sons: reliance may be placed on their giving
them more or less complete culture. In this way, it prevents the State
from mowing down all its sprouting wheat and preserves a nursery
of subjects among which society is to find its future élite.--Thus
attenuated, the military law is still rigid enough: nevertheless
it remains endurable. It is only towards 1807[3274] that it becomes
monstrous and grows worse and worse from year to year until it becomes
the sepulcher of all French youth, even to taking as canon fodder the
adolescent under age and men already exempt or free by purchase. But,
as before these excesses, it may still be maintained with certain
modifications; it suffices almost to retouch it, to establish exemptions
and the privilege of substitution as rights, which were once simply
favors,[3275] reduce the annual contingent, limit the term of service,
guarantee their lasting freedom to those liberated, and thus secure in
1818 a recruiting law satisfactory and efficacious which, for more than
half a century, will attain its ends without being too detrimental
or too odious, and which, among so many laws of the same sort, all
mischievous, is perhaps the least pernicious.


*****


[Footnote 3201: "The Ancient Régime," book II., ch. 2, 3, 4, and book V.
(Laff. I. pp. 95 to 125 and pp. 245 to 308.)]

[Footnote 3202: La Bruyère is, I believe, the first of these precursors.
Cf. his chapters on "The Great," on "Personal Merit," on "The Sovereign
and the Republic," and his chapter on "Man," his passages on "The
Peasants," on "Provincial Notes," etc. These appeals, later on, excite
the applause given to the "Marriage of Figaro." But, in the anticipatory
indictment, they strike deeper; there is no gayety in them, the dominant
sentiment being one of sadness, resignation, and bitterness.]

[Footnote 3203: "Discours prononcé par l'ordre du roi et en sa presence,
le 22 février 1787," by M. de Calonne, contrôleur-général, p.22. "What
remains then to fill this fearful void (in the finances)? Abuses.
The abuses now demanding suppression for the public weal are the most
considerable and the best protected, those that are the deepest rooted
and which send out the most branches. They are the abuses which weigh
most heavily on the working and producing classes, the abuses of
financial privileges, the exceptions to the common law and to so many
unjust exemptions which relieve only a portion of the taxpayers
by aggravating the lot of the others; general inequality in the
distribution of subsidies and the enormous disproportion which exists
in the taxation of different provinces and among the offices filled
by subjects of the same sovereign; severity and arbitrariness in the
collection of the taille; bureaux of internal transportation, and
obstacles that render different parts of the same kingdom strangers
to each other; rights that discourage industry; those of which the
collection requires excessive expenditure and innumerable collectors."]

[Footnote 3204: De Ségur, "Mémoires," III., 591. In 1791, on his return
from Russia, his brother says to him, speaking of the Revolution:
"Everybody, at first, wanted it.. From the king down to the most
insignificant man in the kingdom, everybody did something to help it
along; one let it come on up to his shoe-buckle, another up to his
garter, another to his waist, another to his breast, and some will not
be content until their head is attacked!"]

[Footnote 3205: My French dictionary tells me that the Carmagnole is
not only a popular revolutionary dance but also a short and tight jacket
worn by the revolutionaries between 1792 and 1795 and that it came via
Marseille with workers from the town of Carmagnola in Piedmont. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3206: "The Revolution," pp. 271-279. (Laff. I. 505 to
509.)--Stourm "Les Finances de l'ancien régime et de la Révolution," I.,
171 to 177.--(Report by Ramel, January 31, 1796.) "One would scarcely
believe it--the holders of real-estate now owe the public treasury over
13 milliards."--(Report by Gaudin, Germinal, year X. on the assessment
and collection of direct taxes.) "This state of things constituted a
permanent, annual deficit of 200 millions."]

[Footnote 3207: "The Ancient Régime," p. 99, and "The Revolution,"
p.407. (Laff. I. pp 77-78 and II. 300) (About 1,200 millions per annum
in bread for Paris, instead of 45 millions for the civil and military
household of the King at Versailles.)]

[Footnote 3208: "The Ancient Régime," p. 68. (Laff. I. p. 55)--Madame
Campan, "Mémoires," I., 291, 292.]

[Footnote 3209: "The Revolution," II., 151, and III., 500. (Laff. II.
282-283)]

[Footnote 3210: "Mémorial." (Napoleon's own words.) "The day when,
adopting the unity and concentration of power, which could alone
save us,... the destinies of France depended solely on the character,
measures and conscience of him who had been clothed with this accidental
dictatorship--beginning with that day, public affairs, that is to stay
the State, was myself... I was the keystone of an entirely new building
and how slight the foundation! Its destiny depended on each of my
battles. Had I been defeated at Marengo you would have then had a
complete 1814 and 1815."]

[Footnote 3211: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 317. "To be dressed, taxed, and
ordered to take up arms, like most folks, seemed a punishment as soon as
one had found a privilege within reach," such, for example, as the
title of "déchireur de bateaux" (one who condemns unseaworthy craft
and profits by it), or inspector of fresh butter (using his fingers in
tasting it), or tide-waiter and inspector of salt fish. These titles
raised a man above the common level, and there were over twenty thousand
of them.]

[Footnote 3212: See "The Ancient Régime," p. 129. (Laff. I. p. 99)]

[Footnote 3213: Madame de Rémusat, "Mémoires," III., 316, 317.]

[Footnote 3214: De Beausset, "Intérieur du palais de Napoléon" I., p.
9 et seq.. For the year 1805 the total expense is 2,338,167 francs; for
the year 1806 it reaches 2,770,861 francs, because funds were assigned
"for the annual augmentation of plate, 1,000 silver plates and other
objects."--"Napoleon knew, every New Year's day, what he expended (for
his household) and nobody ever dared overpass the credits he allowed."]

[Footnote 3215: "The Ancient Régime," pp. 350-357.(Laff. I. 259-266)]

[Footnote 3216: "The Revolution," I. pp. 276-281.(Laff. pp.
508-510)--Stourm, ibid., 168-171. (Speech by Bénard-Lagrave to the Five
Hundred, Pluviôse II, year IV.) "It cannot be concealed that, for many
years, people were willingly accustoming themselves to the non-payment
of taxes."]

[Footnote 3217: Stourm, ibid.,II., 365. (Speech of Ozanam to the Five
Hundred, Pluviôse 14, year VII.) "Scandalous traffic.... Most of
the (tax) collectors in the republic are heads and managers of
banks."--(Circular of the minister of the finances, Floréal 25 year
VII.) "Stock-jobbing of the worst kind to which many collectors give
themselves up, using bonds and other public securities received in
payment of taxes."--(Report by Gros-Cassaud Florimond, Sep.19, 1799.)
"Among the corruptible and corrupting agents there are only too many
public functionaries."--Mollien, "Mémoires," I., 222. (In 1800, he had
just been appointed director of the sinking-fund.) "The commonplace
compliment which was everywhere paid to me (and even by statesmen who
affected the sternest morality) was as follows--you are very fortunate
to have an office in which one may legitimately accumulate the largest
fortune in France. "--Cf. Rocquain, "État de la France au 18 Brumaire."
(Reports by Lacuée, Fourcroy and Barbé-Marbois.)]

[Footnote 3218: Charlotte de Sohr, "Napoléon en Belgique et en
Hollande," 1811, vol. I., 243. (On a high functionary condemned
for forgery and whom Napoleon kept in prison in spite of every
solicitation.) "Never will I pardon those who squander the public
funds.... Ah! parbleu! We should have the good old times of the
contractors worse than ever if I did not show myself inexorable for
these odious crimes."]

[Footnote 3219: Stourm, ibid., I., 177. (Report by Gaudin, Sep. 15,
1799.) "A few (tax) rolls for the year V, and one-third of those for the
year VII, are behindhand."--(Report by the same, Germinal I, year X.)
"Everything remained to do, on the advent of the consulate, for the
assessment and collection of direct taxes; 35,000 rolls for the year
VII still remained to be drawn up. With the help of the new office, the
rolls for the year VII have been completed; those of the year VIII were
made out as promptly as could be expected, and those of the year IX
have been prepared with a dispatch which, for the first time since the
revolution, enables the collections to be begun in the very year to
which they belong."]

[Footnote 3220: "Archives parlementaires," VIII., p.11. (Report by
Necker to the States-General, May 5, 1789.) "These two-fifths, although
legitimately due to the king, are always in arrears.... (To-day) these
arrears amount in full to about 80 millions."]

[Footnote 3221: De Foville, "la France économique," p.354.]

[Footnote 3222: "The Ancient Régime," p. 354. (Laff. I. p. 263.)]

[Footnote 3223: Necker, "De l'administration des finances," I., 164,
and "Rapport aux états-généraux," May 5th, 1789. (We arrive at these
figures, 179 millions, by combining these documents, on both sides, with
the observation that the 3rd vingtième is suppressed in 1789.)]

[Footnote 3224: Charles Nicolas, "les Budgets de la France depuis le
commencement du XIXème siècle" (in tabular form).--De Foville, ibid.,
356.--In the year IX, the sum-total of direct taxes is 308 millions;
in the year XI. 360, and in the year XII, 376. The total income from
real-estate in France towards 1800 is 1,500 millions.]

[Footnote 3225: It is only after 1816 that the total of each of the
four direct taxes can be got at (land, individual, personal, doors and
windows). In 1821, the land-tax amounts to 265 millions, and the three
others together to 67 millions. Taking the sum of 1,580 millions,
estimated by the government as the net revenue at this date in France,
we find that, out of this revenue, 16.77 % is deducted for land, and
that, with the other three, it then abstracts from the same revenue 21
%--On the contrary, before 1789, the five corresponding direct taxes,
added to tithes and feudal privileges, abstracted 81.71 % from the net
income of the taxable party. (Cf. "The Ancient Régime," pp.346, 347, 351
et seq. Laff. I. pp. 258, 259, 261 and following pages. )]

[Footnote 3226: These figures are capital, and measure the distance
which separates the old from the new condition of the laboring and poor
class, especially in the rural districts; hence the tenacious sentiments
and judgments of the people with respect to the Ancient Régime, the
Revolution and the Empire.--All local information converges in this
sense. I have verified the above figures as well as I could: 1st, by the
"Statistiques des préfets," of the year IX and year XIII and afterwards
(printed); 2nd, by the reports of the councillors of state on mission
during the year IX (published by Rocquam, and in manuscript in the
Archives nationales); 3rd, by the reports of the senators on their
sénatories and by the prefects on their departments, in 1806, 1809,
1812, 1814 and 1815, and from 1818 to 1823 (in manuscript in the
Archives nationales); 4th, by the observations of foreigners travelling
in France from 1802 to 1815.--For example ("A Tour through several of
the Middle and Western Departments of France," 1802, p.23): "There are
no tithes, no church taxes, no taxation of the poor.... All the taxes
together do not go beyond one-sixth of a man's rent-roll, that is to
say, three shillings and sixpence on the pound sterling."--("Travels
in the South of France, 1807 and 1808," by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney,
citizen of the United States, p.162.) At Tours a two-story house, with
six or eight windows on the front, a stable, carriagehouse, garden and
orchard, rents at £20 sterling per annum, with the taxes which are
from £1,10, to £2, for the state and about ten shillings for the
commune.--("Notes on a Journey through July, August and September,
1814," by Morris Birkbeck, p.23.) Near Cosne (Orléanais), an estate of
1,000 acres of tillable land and 500 acres of woods is rented for nine
years, for about 9,000 francs a year, together with the taxes, about
1,600 francs more.--(Ibid., p.91.) "Visited the Brie. Well cultivated
on the old system of wheat, oats and fallow. Average rent 16 francs
the acre with taxes, which are about one-fifth of the rent."--Roederer,
III., 474 (on the sénatorerie of Caen, Dec.. 1, 1803): "The direct tax
is here in very moderate proportion to the income, it being paid without
much inconvenience.--The travellers above quoted and many others are
unanimous in stating the new prosperity of the peasant, the cultivation
of the entire soil and the abundance and cheapness of provisions.
(Morris Birkbeck, p.11.) "Everybody assures me that the riches
and comfort of the cultivators of the soil have been doubled since
twenty-five years." (Ibid., p.43, at Tournon-sur-le-Rhône.) "I had no
conception of a country so entirely cultivated as we have found from
Dieppe to this place."--(Ibid., P.51,, at Montpellier.) "From Dieppe to
this place we have not seen among the laboring people one such famished,
worn-out, wretched figure as may be met in every parish of England, I
had almost said on almost every farm.... A really rich country, and
yet there are few rich individuals."--Robert, "De l'Influence de la
révolution sur la population, 1802," p.41. "Since the Revolution I have
noticed in the little village of Sainte-Tulle that the consumption of
meat has doubled; the peasants who formerly lived on salt pork and
ate beef only at Easter and at Christmas, frequently enjoy a pot-à-feu
during the week, and have given up rye-bread for wheat-bread."]

[Footnote 3227: The sum of 1 fr. 15 for a day's manual labor is an
average, derived from the statistics furnished by the prefects of the
year IX to the year XIII, especially for Charente, Deux-Sèvres, Meurthe,
Moselle and Doubs.]

[Footnote 3228: "The Ancient Régime." p. 353. (Laff. I. p. 262).]

[Footnote 3229: Arthur Young, II., 259. (Average rate for a day's work
throughout France in 1789.)]

[Footnote 3230: About 15 millions out of 26 millions, in the opinion
of Mallet-Dupan and other observers.--Towards the middle of the 18th
century, in a population estimated at 20 millions, Voltaire reckons
that "many inhabitants possess only the value of 10 crowns rental, that
others have only 4 or 5, and that more than 6 millions of inhabitants
have nothing." ("L'homme aux quarante écus.")--A little later, Chamfort
(I., 178) adds: "It is an incontestable truth that, in France, 7
millions of men beg, and 12 millions of men are incapable of giving
anything."]

[Footnote 3231: Law of Floréal 3, year X, title II, articles 13, 14, § 3
and 4.]

[Footnote 3232: Charles Nicolas, ibid.--In 1821, the personal and poll
tax yields 46 millions; the tax on doors and windows, 21 millions:
total, 67 millions. According to these sums we see that, if the
recipient of 100 francs income from real-estate pays 16 fr. 77
real-estate tax, he pays only 4 fr. 01 for his three other direct
taxes.--These figures, 6 to 7 francs, can nowadays be arrived at through
direct observation.--To omit nothing, the assessment in kind, renewed
in principle after 1802 on all parish and departmental roads, should be
added; this tax, demanded by rural interests, laid by local authorities,
adapted to the accommodation of the taxpayer, and at once accepted by
the inhabitants, has nothing in common with the former covée, save
in appearance; in fact, it is as easy as the corvée was burdensome.
(Stourm, I., 122.)]

[Footnote 3233: They thus pay between 2 and 6% in taxes, a very low
taxation if we compare with the contemporary industrial consumer welfare
society, where, in Scandinavia, the average worker pay more than 50% of
his income in direct and indirect taxes. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3234: Charles Nicolas, "Les Budgets de la France depuis le
commencement du XIXe Siècle," and de Foville, "La France économique,"
p. 365, 373.--Returns of licenses in 1816, 40 millions; in 1820, 22
millions; in 1860, 80 millions; in 1887, 171 millions.]

[Footnote 3235: The mutation tax is that levied in France on all
property transmitted by inheritance. or which changes hands through
formal sale (other than in ordinary business transactions), as in the
case of transfers of real-estate, effected through purchase or sale.
Timbre designates stamp duties imposed on the various kinds of legal
documents.-Tr.]

[Footnote 3236: Ibid. Returns of the mutation tax (registration and
timbre). Registration in 1820, 127 millions; in 1860, 306 millions; in
1886, 518 millions.--Timbre, in 1820, 26 millions; in 1860, 56 millions;
in 1886, 156 millions. Sum-total in 1886, 674 millions.--The rate of
corresponding taxes under the ancient régime (contrôle, insinuation
centième denier, formule) was very much lower; the principal one, or
tax of centieme denier, took only 1 per 100, and on the mutations of
real-estate. This mutation tax is the only one rendered worse; it was
immediately aggravated by the Constituent Assembly, and it is rendered
all the more exorbitant on successions in which liabilities are not
deducted from assets. (That is to say, the inheritor of an indebted
estate in France must pay a mutation tax on its full value. He has the
privilege, however, of renouncing the estate if he does not choose to
accept it along with its indebtedness.)--The taxpayer's resignation to
this tax is explained by the exchequer collecting it at a unique moment,
when proprietorship just comes into being or is just at the point of
birth. In effect, if property changes hands under inheritance or through
free donation it is probable that the new owner, suddenly enriched, will
be only too glad to enter into possession of it, and not object to an
impost which, although taking about a tenth, still leaves him only a
little less wealthy. When property is transferred by contract or sale,
neither of the contracting parties, probably, sees clearly which pays
the fiscal tax; the seller may think that it is the buyer, and the buyer
that it is the seller. Owing to this illusion both are less sensible of
the shearing, each offering his own back in the belief that it is the
back of the other.]

[Footnote 3237: See "The Ancient Régime," pp.358-362. (Ed. Laff. I.
266-268.)]

[Footnote 3238: See "The Revolution," vol. I., pp. 16, 38. (ED. Laff. I.
pp. 326, 342.)]

[Footnote 3239: Decree of Oct. 31--Nov. 5, 1789, abolishing the boundary
taxes between the provinces and suppressing all the collection offices
in the kingdom.--Decree of 21-30 March 1790, abolishing the salt-tax.
Decree of 1-17 March 1791, abolishing all taxes on liquors, and decree
of 19-25 Feb. 1791, abolishing all octroi taxes.--Decree of 20-27 March
1791, in relation to freedom of growing, manufacturing and selling
tobacco; customs-duties on the importation of leaf-tobacco alone are
maintained, and give but an insignificant revenue, from 1,500,000 to
1,800,000 francs in the year V.]

[Footnote 3240: Gaudin, Duc de Gaëte, "Mémoires," I., 215-217.--The
advantages of indirect taxation are well explained by Gaudin. "The
taxpayer pays only when he is willing and has the means. On the other
hand, when the duties imposed by the exchequer are confounded with the
price of the article, the taxpayer, in paying his due, thinks only of
satisfying a want or of procuring an enjoyment."--Decrees of March 16
and 27, and May 4, 1806 (on salt), of February 25, 1804, April 24, 1806,
Nov. 25, 1808 (on liquors), May 19, 1802, March 6, 1804, April 24, 1806,
Dec.. 29, 1810 (on tobacco).]

[Footnote 3241: Letrosne, "De l'administration des finances et de la
réforme de l'impôt" (1779) pp.148, 162.--Laboulaye, "De l'administration
française sous Louis XVI." (Revue des cours littéraires, 1864-1865,
p.677). "I believe that, under Louis XIII., they took at least five and,
under Louis XIV, four to get two."]

[Footnote 3242: Paul Leroy-Bealieu, "Traité de la science des finances,"
I., 261. (In 1875, these costs amount to 5.20 %.)--De Foville, ibid.
(Cost of customs and salt-tax, in 1828, 16.2 %; in 1876, 10.2 %.--Cost
of indirect taxation, in 1828, 14.90 %; in 1876, 3.7 %.)--De Calonné,
"Collection des mémoires présentés à l'assemblée des notables," 1787,
p.63.]

[Footnote 3243: See "The Ancient Régime," P.23, 370.--"The Revolution,"
I., 10, 16, 17. (Ed. Laff. I. pp. 23-24, 274, 322, 326-327.)]

[Footnote 3244: See "The Ancient Régime," p.361. (Ed. Laff. I. p.268.)]

[Footnote 3245: Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., 643.]

[Footnote 3246: Decrees of November 25, 1808, and December 8, 1824.]

[Footnote 3247: Certain persons under the ancient régime enjoyed an
exemption from the tax on salt.]

[Footnote 3248: Stourm, I., 360, 389.--De Foville, 382, 385, 398.]

[Footnote 3249: These figures are given by Gaudin.]

[Footnote 3250: Thiers, XIII., pp.20 to 25.]

[Footnote 3251: Lafayette, "Mémoires." (Letter of October 17, 1779, and
notes made in Auvergne, August 1800.) "You know how many beggars there
were, people dying of hunger in our country. We see no more of them.
The peasants are richer, the land better tilled and the women better
clad."--"The Ancient Régime," 340, 34, 342.--"The Revolution," III.,
p.366, 402.]

[Footnote 3252: "The Ancient Régime," P.340. (ED. Laff. I. pp. 254,
256.)-" The Revolution," III., 212. (Ed. Laff. II. p. 271, 297.)]

[Footnote 3253: These two famines were due to inclement seasons and
were aggravated, the last one by the consequences of invasion and the
necessity of supporting 150,000 foreign troops, and the former by the
course taken by Napoleon who applies the maximum afresh, with the same
intermeddling, the same despotism and the same failure as under the
Convention.( "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier
de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.) "I do not
exaggerate in stating that our operations in the purchase and transport
(of grain) required a full quarter of the time, and often one-third,
more than would have been required in commerce."--Prolongation of the
famine in Normandy. "Bands of famished beggars overran the country....
Riots and pillaging around Caen; several mills burnt.... Suppression of
these by the imperial guard. In the executions which resulted from
these even women were not spared."--The two principal guarantees at the
present day against this public danger are, first, easier circumstances,
and next the multiplication of good roads and of railroads, the dispatch
and cheapness of transportation, and the superabundant crops of Russia
and the United States.]

[Footnote 3254: J. Gebelin, "Histoire des milices provinciales" (1882),
p.87, 143, 157, 288.--Most of the texts and details may be found in
this excellent work.--Many towns, Paris, Lyons, Reims, Rouen, Bordeaux,
Tours, Agen, Sedan and the two generalities of Flanders and Hainault
are examples of drawing by lot; they furnished their contingent by
volunteers enlisted at their own expense; the merchants and artisans,
or the community itself, paying the bounty for enlistment. Besides
this there were many exemptions in the lower class.--Cf. "The Ancient
Régime," p.390. (Ed. Laff. p. 289.)]

[Footnote 3255: J. Gebelin, ibid., 239, 279, 288. (Except the eight
regiments of royal grenadiers in the militia who turned out for one
month in the year.)]

[Footnote 3256: Example afforded by one department. ("Statistics of
Ain," by Rossi, prefect, 1808.) Number of soldiers on duty in the
department, in 1789, 323; in 1801, 6,729; in 1806, 6,764.--"The
department of Ain furnished nearly 30,000 men to the armies, conscripts
and those under requisition."--It is noticeable, consequently, that
in the population of 1801, there is a sensible diminution of persons
between twenty and thirty and, in the population of 1806, of those
between twenty-five and thirty-five years of age. The number between
twenty and thirty is as follows: in 1789, 39,828; in 1801, 35,648; in
1806, 34,083.]

[Footnote 3257: De Dampmartin. "Evénemens qui se sont passés sous mes
yeux pendant la révolution française," V. II. (State of the French
army, Jan. 1, 1789.) Total on a peace footing, 177,890 men.--This is the
nominal force; the real force under arms was 154,000; in March 1791,
it had fallen to 115,000, through the multitude of desertions and the
scarcity of enlistments, (Yung, "Dubois-Crancé et la Révolution," I.,
158. Speech by Dubois-Crancé.)]

[Footnote 3258: "The Ancient Régime," P 390, 391.--"The Revolution,"
p. 328-330. (Ed. Laff. I. 289 and 290, pp. 542-543)--Albert Babeau, "le
Recrutement militaire sous l'ancien Régime." (In "la Réforme sociale"
of Sept. I, 1888, p. 229, 238.)--An officer says, "only the rabble are
enlisted because it is cheaper."--Yung, ibid., I., 32. (Speech by M.
de Liancourt in the tribune.) "The soldier is classed apart and is too
little esteemed."--Ibid., p. 39. ("Vices et abus de la constitution
actuelle française," memorial signed by officers in most of the
regiments, Sept. 6, 1789.) "The majority of soldiers are derived from
the offscourings of the large towns and are men without occupation."]

[Footnote 3259: Gebelin, p. 270. Almost all the cahiers of the
third-estate in 1789 demand the abolition of drafting by lot, and nearly
all of those of the three orders are for volunteer service, as opposed
to obligatory service; most of these demand, for the army, a volunteer
militia enlisted through a bounty; this bounty or security in money to
be furnished by communities of inhabitants which, in fact, was already
the case in several towns.]

[Footnote 3260: Albert Babeau, ibid., 238. "Colonels were allowed only
100 francs per man; this sum, however, being insufficient, the balance
was assessed on the pay of the officers."]

[Footnote 3261: This principle was at once adopted by the Jacobins.
(Yung, ibid., 19, 22, 145. Speech by Dubois-Crancé at the session
held Dec.12, 1789.) "Every citizen will become a soldier of the
Constitution." No more casting lots nor substitution. "Each citizen must
be a soldier and each soldier a citizen."--The first application of the
principle is a call for 300,000 men (Feb. 26, 1793), then through a
levy on the masses which brings 500,000 men under the flag, nominally
volunteers, but conscripts in reality. (Baron Poisson, "l'Armée et la
Garde Nationale,"III, 475.)]

[Footnote 3262: Taine wrote this in 1888, after the end of the second
French Empire, after the transformation of Prussia into the Empire of
Germany. Taine apparently had a premonition of the terrible wars of the
20th century, of Nazism, Communism and their death and concentration
camps. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3263: Baron Poisson, "l'Armée et la Garde nationale," III.,
475. (Summing up.) "Popular tradition has converted the volunteer of the
Republic into a conventional personage which history cannot accept..
.. 1st. The first contingent of volunteers demanded of the country
consisted of 97,000 men (1791). 60,000 enthusiasts responded to the
call, enlisted for a year and fulfilled their engagement; but for no
consideration would they remain longer. 2nd. Second call for volunteers
in April 1792. Only mixed levies, partial, raised by money, most of them
even without occupation, outcasts and unable to withstand the enemy.
3rd. 300,000 men recruited, which measure partly fails; the recruit can
always get off by furnishing a substitute. 4th. Levy in mass of 500,000
men, called volunteers, but really conscripts."]

[Footnote 3264: "Mémorial" (Speech by Napoleon before the Council
of State). "I am inflexible on exemptions; they would be crimes; how
relieve one's conscience of having caused one man to die in the place
of another?"--"The conscription was an unprivileged militia: it was an
eminently national institution and already far advanced in our customs;
only mothers were still afflicted by it, while the time was coming when
a girl would not have a man who had not paid his debt to his country."]

[Footnote 3265: Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, article 10.--Pelet de
La Lozère, 229. (Speech by Napoleon, Council of State, May 29,
1804.)--Pelet adds: "The duration of the service was not fixed.... As
a fact in itself, the man was exiled from his home for the rest of his
life, regarding it as a desolating, permanent exile.... Entire sacrifice
of existence.... An annual crop of young men torn from their families
and sent to death."--Archives nationales, F7, 3014. (Reports of
prefects, 1806.) After this date, and even from the beginning, there
is extreme repugnance which is only overcome by severe means.. ..
(Ardeche.) "If the state of the country were to be judged of by
the results of the conscription one would have a poor idea of
it."--(Ariège.) "At Brussac, district of Foix, four or five individuals
arm themselves with stones and knives to help a conscript escape,
arrested by the gendarmes.... A garrison was ordered to this
commune."--At Massat, district of Saint-Girons, on a few brigades of
gendarmes entering this commune to establish a garrison, in order to
hasten the departure of refractory conscripts, they were stoned; a shot
even was fired at this troop.... A garrison was placed in these hamlets
as in the rest of the commune.--During the night of Frimaire 16-17 last,
six strange men presented themselves before the prison of Saint-Girons
and loudly demanded Gouazé, a deserter and condemned. On the jailor
coming down they seized him and struck him down."--(Haute-Loire.)
"'The flying column is under constant orders simultaneously against the
refractory and disobedient among the classes of the years IX, X, XI,
XII, and XIII, and against the laggards of that of year IV, of which
134 men yet remain to be supplied."--(Bouches-du-Rhône.) "50 deserter
sailors and 84 deserters or conscripts of different classes have been
arrested."--(Dordogne.) "Out of 1353 conscripts, 134 have failed to
reach their destination; 124 refractory or deserters from the country
and 41 others have been arrested; 81 conscripts have surrendered as a
result of placing a garrison amongst them; 186 have not surrendered.
Out of 892 conscripts of the year XIV on the march, 101 deserted on the
road."--(Gard.) "76 refractory or deserters arrested."--(Landes.) "Out
of 406 men who left, 51 deserted on the way," etc.--This repugnance
becomes more and more aggravated. (Cf. analogous reports of 1812 and
1813, F7, 3018 and 3019, in "Journal d'un bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 150 to
214, and "Histoire de 1814," by Henry Houssaye, p.8 to 24.)]

[Footnote 3266: Law of Fructidor, year VI.]

[Footnote 3267: Decree of July 29, 1811 (on the exemption of pupils in
the École Normale).--Decree of March 30, 1810, title II., articles 2,
4, 5, 6 (on the police and system of the École Normale).--Decree on the
organization of the University, titles 6 and 13, March 7, 1808.]

[Footnote 3268: Law of Ventôse 17, year VIII, title III., articles I and
13.--Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, articles 50, 54, and 55.]

[Footnote 3269: Law of Fructidor 8, year XIII, article 51]

[Footnote 3270: Law of Ventôse 17, year VIII, title 3, article I.]

[Footnote 3271: Thibaudeau, p. 108. (Speech of the First Consul before
the Council of State.) "Art, science and the professions must be thought
of. We are not Spartans.... As to substitution, it must be allowed. In a
nation where fortunes are equal each individual should serve personally;
but, with a people whose existence depends on the inequality of
fortunes, the rich must be allowed the right of substitution; only we
must take care that the substitutes be good, and that conscripts
pay some of the money serving to defray the expense of a part of the
equipment of the army of reserve."]

[Footnote 3272: Pelet de La Lozère, 228.]

[Footnote 3273: Archives nationales, F7, 3014. (Reports of prefects,
1806.) Average price of a substitute: Basses Alpes, from 2,000 to 2,500
francs; Bouches-du-Rhône, from 1,800 to 3,000; Dordogne, 2,400; Gard,
3,000; Gers, 4,000; Haute-Garonne, from 2,000 to 3,000; Hérault, 4,000;
Vaucluse, 2,500; Landes, 4,000. Average rate of interest (Ardèche):
"Money, which was from 11/4 to 11/2 %, has declined; it is now at 3 1/4
% a month or 10 % per annum."--(Basses Alpes): "The rate of money has
varied in commerce from 1 to 3/4 % per month."--(Gard): "Interest is at
1 % a month in commerce; proprietors can readily borrow at 9 or 10 %
per annum."--(Hérault): "The interest on money is 1 1/4 % per
month."--(Vaucluse): "Money is from 3/4 to 11/4 % per month."]

[Footnote 3274: Thiers, VII., p.23 and 467. In November 1806,
Napoleon orders the conscription of 1807; in March 1807, he orders the
conscription of 1808, and so on, always from worse to worse.--Decrees
of 1808 and 1813 against young men of family already bought off or
exempted.--"Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," 214. Desolate state
of things in 1813, "general depression and discouragement."--Miot de
Mélito, III., 304. (Report of Miot to the Emperor after a tour in the
departments in 1815.) "Everywhere, almost, the women are your declared
enemies."]

[Footnote 3275: Law of Ventôse 17, year VIII, title 3, articles 6, 7, 8,
9.--Exemption is granted as a favor only to the ignorantin brothers and
to seminarians assigned to the priesthood.--Cf. the law of March 10,
1818, articles 15 and 18.]




CHAPTER III. AMBITION AND SELF-ESTEEM.




I. Rights and benefits.

     The assignment of right.--Those out of favor and the
     preferred under former governments.--Under the Ancient
     Regime.--During the Revolution.--French conception of
     Equality and Rights.--Its ingredients and its excesses.--The
     satisfaction it obtains under the new regime.--Abolition of
     legal incapacity and equality in the possession of rights.
     --Confiscation of collective action and equality in the
     deprivation of rights.--Careers in the modern State.--Equal
     right of all to offices and to promotion.--Napoleon's
     distribution of employments.--His staff of officials
     recruited from all classes and parties.

Now that the State has just made a new allotment of the burdens and
duties which it imposes it must make a new assignment of the rights
and benefits it confers. Distributive justice, on both sides, and long
before 1789, was defective, and, under the monarchy, exclusions had
become as obnoxious as exemptions; all the more because, through a
double iniquity, the ancient Régime in each group distinguished two
other groups, one to which it granted every exemption, and the other
which it made subject to every exclusion. The reason is that, from the
first, the king, in the formation and government of the kingdom, in
order to secure the services, money, collaboration or connivance which
he needed, was obliged to negotiate always with corporations, orders,
provinces, seignories, the clergy, churches, monasteries, universities,
parliaments, professional bodies or industrial guilds and families, that
is to say with constituted powers, more or less difficult to bring under
subjection and which, to be kept in subjection, stipulated conditions.
Hence, in France, so many different conditions: each distinct body had
yielded through one or several distinct capitulations and possessed its
own separate statute. Hence, again, such diversely unequal conditions:
the bodies, the best able to protect themselves, had, of course,
defended themselves the best. Their statutes, written or unwritten,
guaranteed to them precious privileges which the other bodies, much
weaker, could neither acquire nor preserve. These were not merely
immunities but likewise prerogatives, not alone alleviations of taxation
and militia dispensations, but likewise political and administrative
liberties, remnants of their primitive sovereignty, with many other
positive advantages. The very least being precedence, preferences,
social priority, with an incontestable right to rank, honors, offices,
and favors. Such, notably, were the regions-states possessing their
own government (pays d'états), compared with those which elected the
magistrates who apportioned taxation (pays d'élection),[3301] the
two highest orders, the clergy and the nobles, compared with the
third-estate, and the bourgeoisie, and the town corporations compared
with the rest of the inhabitants. On the other hand, opposed to these
historical favorites were the historical disinherited, the latter
much more numerous and counting by millions--the taxable commons, all
subjects without rank or quality, in short, the ordinary run of men,
especially the common herd of the towns and particularly of the country,
all the more ground down on account of their lower status, along with
the Jews lower yet, a sort of foreign class scarcely tolerated, with
the Calvinists, not only deprived of the humblest rights but, again,
persecuted by the State for the past one hundred years.

All these people, who have been transported far outside of civic
relationships by historic right, are brought back, in 1789, by
philosophic right. After the declarations of the Constituent Assembly,
there are no longer in France either Bretons, Provençals, Burgundians
or Alsatians, Catholics, Protestants or Israelites, nobles or plebeians,
bourgeois or rurals, but simply Frenchmen,

* all with the one title of citizens,

* all endowed with the same civil, religious and political rights,

* all equal before the State,

* all introduced by law into every career, collectively, on an equal
footing and without fear or favor from anybody;

* all free to follow this out to the end without distinction of rank,
birth, faith or fortune;

* all, if they are good runners, to receive the highest prizes at the
end of the race, any office or rank, especially the leading honors and
positions which, thus far reserved to a class or coterie, had not been
allowed previously to the great multitude.

Henceforth, all Frenchmen, in theory, enjoy rights in common;
unfortunately, this is only the theory. In reality, in all state
relationships (dans la cité), the new-comers appropriate to themselves
the offices, the pretensions, and more than the privileges of their
predecessors; the latter, consisting of large and small land-owners,
gentlemen, parliamentarians, officials, ecclesiastics, notables of
every kind and degree, are immediately deprived of the rights of man.
Surrendered to rural jacqueries and to town mobs, they undergo, first,
the neglect and, next, the hostility of the State: the public gendarme
has ceased to protect them and refuses his services; afterwards, on
becoming a Jacobin, he declares himself their enemy, treats them
as enemies, plunders them, imprisons them, murders them, expels or
transports them, inflicts on them civil death, and shoots them if they
dare return; he deprives their friends or kindred who remain in France
of their civil rights; he deprives the nobles or the ennobled of their
quality as Frenchmen, and compels them to naturalize themselves afresh
according to prescribed formalities; he renews against the Catholics the
interdictions, persecutions and brutalities which the old government
had practiced against the Calvinist minority.--Thus, in 1799 as in 1789,
there are two classes of Frenchmen, two different varieties of men,
the first one superior, installed in the civic fold, and the second,
inferior and excluded from it; only, in 1799, the greatest inequality
consigned the inferior and excluded class to a still lower, more remote,
and much worse condition.

The principle (of equalite), nevertheless, subsists. Since 1789 it is
inscribed at the top of every constitution; it is still proclaimed in
the new constitution. It has remained popular, although perverted and
disfigured by the Jacobins; their false and gross interpretation of
it could not bring it into discredit; athwart the hideous grotesque
caricature, all minds and sentiments ever recur to the ideal form of
the cité to the veritable social contract, to the impartial, active, and
permanent reign of distributive justice. Their entire education, all the
literature, philosophy and culture of the eighteenth century, leads
them onward to this conception of society and of rights; more profoundly
still, they are predisposed to it by the inner structure of their
intelligence, by the original cast of their sensibility7 by the
hereditary defects and qualities of their nature and of their race.-The
Frenchman easily and quickly grasps some general trait of objects and
persons, some characteristic in common; here, this characteristic is the
inherent quality of man which he dexterously makes prominent, clearly
isolates, and then, stepping along briskly and confidently, rushes
ahead on the high-road to consequences.[3302] He has forgotten that his
summary notion merely corresponds to an extract, and a very brief one,
of man in his completeness; his decisive, precipitate process hinders
him from seeing the largest portion of the real individual; he has
overlooked numerous traits, the most important and most efficacious,
those which geography, history, habit, condition, manual labor, or a
liberal education, stamp on intellect, soul and body and which, through
their differences, constitute different local or social groups. Not only
does he overlook all these characteristics, but he sets them aside; they
are too numerous and too complex; they would interfere with and disturb
his thoughts; however fitted for clear and comprehensive logic he is so
much the less fitted for complex and comprehensive ideas; consequently,
he avoids them and, through an innate operation of which he is
unconscious, he involuntarily condenses, simplifies and curtails
henceforth, his idea, partial and superficial as it is, seems to him
adequate and complete; in his eyes the abstract quality of man takes
precedence of and absorbs all others; not only has this a value, but the
sole value. One man, therefore, is as good as another and the law should
treat all alike.--Here, amour-propre (self-esteem, pride or arrogance),
so keen in France, and so readily excited, comes in to interpret and
apply the formula:[3303]

"Since all men equal each other, I am as good as any man; if the law
confers a right on people of this or that condition, fortune or birth,
it must confer the same right on me. Every door that is open to them
must be open to me; every door that is closed to me must be closed to
them. Otherwise, I am treated as an inferior and wounded in my deepest
feelings. When the legislator places a ballot in their hands he is bound
to place another just like it in my hands, even if they know how to use
it and I do not, even if a limited suffrage is of use to the community
and universal suffrage is not. So much the worse if I am sovereign only
in name, and through the imagination; I consent to my sovereignty being
illusory, but with the understanding that the sovereignty of others is
regarded likewise; so I prefer servitude and privation for all, rather
than liberties and advantages for a few, and, provided the same level is
passed over all heads, I submit to the yoke for all heads, including my
own."

Such is the internal composition of the instinct of' equality, and such
is the natural instinct of Frenchmen. It is beneficial or mischievous
according as one or the other of its ingredients predominates, at one
time the noble sentiment of equity and at another time the low envy of
foolish vanity;[3304] healthy or unhealthy, however, its power in France
is enormous, and the new Régime gratifies it in every possible way, good
or bad. No more legal disqualifications! On the one hand, the republican
laws of proscription or of exception were all repealed: we have seen an
amnesty and the return of the émigrés, the Concordat, the restoration
of Catholic worship, the compulsory reconciliation of the
constitutionalists with the orthodox; the First Consul admits no
difference between them; his new clergy are recruited from both groups
and, in this respect, he forces the Pope to yield.[3305] He gives twelve
of the sixty episcopal thrones to former schismatics; he wants them to
take their places boldly; he relieves them from ecclesiastical penitence
and from any humiliating recantation; he takes care that, in the other
forty-eight dioceses, the priests who formerly took the civic oath shall
be employed and well treated by their superiors who, at the same epoch,
refused to take the civic oath. On the other hand, all the exclusions,
inequalities and distinctions of the monarchy remain abolished. Not only
are the Calvinist and even Israelite cults legally authorized, the same
as the Catholic cult, but, again, the Protestant consistories and Jewish
synagogues[3306] are constituted and organized on the same footing as
the Catholic churches. Pastors and rabbis likewise become functionaries
under the same title as bishops and cure's; all are recognized or
sanctioned by the government and all equally benefit by its patronage:
it is an unique thing in Europe to find the small churches of the
minority obtaining the same measure of indifference and good will from
the State as the great church of the majority, and, henceforth, in fact
as in law, the ministers of the three cults, formerly ignored, tolerated
or proscribed, enjoy their rank, titles and honors in the social as well
as in the legal hierarchy, equally with the ministers of that cult which
was once the only one dominant or allowed

Similarly, in the civilian status, no inferiority or discredit must
legally attach to any condition whatever, either to plebeian, villager,
peasant or poor man as such, as formerly under the monarchy; nor to
noble, bourgeois, citizen, notable or rich man, as recently under the
Republic. Each of these two classes is relieved of its degradation; no
class is burdened by taxation or by the conscription beyond its due; all
persons and all property find in the government, in the administration,
in the tribunals, in the gendarme, the same reliable protection.--So
much for equity and the true spirit of equality.--Let us now turn
around and consider envy and the bad spirit of equality. The plebiscite,
undoubtedly, as well as the election of deputies to the Corps Legislatif
are simply comedies; but, in these comedies, one rôle is as good as
another and the duke of the old or new pattern, a mere figurant
among hundreds and thousands of others, votes only once like the
corner-grocer. Undoubtedly, the private individual of the commune
or department, in institutions of charity, worship or education, is
deprived of any independence, of any initiation, of any control, as the
State has confiscated for itself all collective action; but the classes
deprived of this are especially the upper classes, alone sufficiently
enlightened and wealthy to take the lead, form projects and provide for
expenditure: in this usurpation, the State has encroached upon and eaten
deeper into the large body of superior existences scattered about than
into the limited circle where humbler lives clamber and crawl along;
nearly the entire loss, all perceptible privation, is for the
large landed proprietor and not for his hired hands, for the large
manufacturer or city merchant and not for their workmen or clerks,[3307]
while the clerk, the workman, the journeyman, the handicraftsman, who
grumble at being the groundlings, find themselves less badly off since
their masters or patrons, fallen from a higher point, are where they are
and they can elbow them.

Now that men are born on the ground, all on the same level, and are
confined within universal and uniform limits, social life no longer
appears to them other than a competition, a rivalry instituted and
proclaimed by the State, and of which it is the umpire; for, through
its interference, all are comprised within its enclosure and shut up
and kept there; no other field is open to run on; on the contrary, every
career within these bounds, indicated and staked out beforehand, offers
an opportunity for all runners: the government has laid out and
leveled the ground, established compartments, divided off and prepared
rectilinear lists which converge to the goal; there, it presides, the
unique arbiter of the race, exposing to all competitors the innumerable
prizes which it proposes for them.--These prizes consist of offices, the
various employments of the State, political, military, ecclesiastical,
judiciary, administrative and university, all the honors and dignities
which it dispenses, all the grades of its hierarchy from the lowest
to the highest, from that of corporal, college-regent, alderman,
office--supernumerary, assistant priest up to that of senator, marshal
of France, grand master of the university, cardinal, and minister of
State. It confers on its possessor, according to the greater or lesser
importance of the place, a greater or lesser portion of the advantages
which all men crave and seek for money, power, patronage, influence,
consideration, importance and social pre-eminence; thus, according to
the rank one attains in the hierarchy, one is something, or of some
account; outside of the hierarchy, one is nothing.

Consequently, the faculty for getting in and advancing one's self
in these lists is the most precious of all: in the new Régime it is
guaranteed by the law as a common right and is open to all Frenchmen. As
no other outlet for them is allowed by the State it owes them this
one; since it invites them and reduces everybody to competing under its
direction it is bound to be an impartial arbiter; since the quality of
citizen, in itself and through it alone, confers the right to make one's
way, all citizens indifferently must enjoy the right of succeeding in
any employment, the very highest, and without any distinction as
to birth, fortune, cult or party. There must be no more preliminary
exclusions; no more gratuitous preferences, undeserved favors,
anticipated promotions; no more special favors.--Such is the rule of
the modern State: constituted as it is, that is to say, monopolizer and
omnipresent, it cannot violate this rule for any length of time with
impunity. In France, at least, the good and bad spirits of equality
agree in exacting adherence to it: on this point, the French are
unanimous; no article of their social code is more cherished by them;
this one flatters their amour-propre and tickles their imagination; it
exalts hope, nourishes illusion, intensifies the energy and enjoyment
of life.--Thus far, the principle has remained inert, powerless, held in
suspension in the air, in the great void of speculative declarations and
of constitutional promises. Napoleon brings it down to the ground and
renders it practical; that which the assemblies had decreed in vain for
ten years he brings about for the first time and in his own interest. To
exclude a class or category of men from offices and promotion would be
equivalent to depriving one's self gratuitously of all the talents it
contains, and, moreover, to incurring, besides the inevitable rancor
of these frustrated talents, the sullen and lasting discontent of the
entire class or category. The First Consul would do himself a wrong were
he to curb his right to choose: he needs every available capacity, and
he takes them where he finds them, to the right, to the left, above or
below, in order to keep his regiments full and enroll in his service
every legitimate ambition and every justifiable pretension.

Under the monarchy, an obscure birth debarred even the best endowed men
from the principal offices. Under the Consulate and the Empire the two
leading personages of the State are Lebrun, Maupeou's old secretary,
a productive translator,[3308] a lawyer, formerly councilor in a
provincial court of justice, then third-consul, then Duc de Plaisance
and arch-chancellor of the Empire and Cambacérès, second-consul, then
Duc de Parme and arch-chancellor of the Empire, both of them being
princes. Similarly, the marshals are new men and soldiers of fortune,
a few of them born in the class of inferior nobles or in the ordinary
bourgeois class, mostly among the people or even amongst the populace,
and, in its lowest ranks, Masséna, the son of a wine-dealer, once a
cabin-boy and then common soldier and non-commissioned officer for
fourteen years; Ney, son of a cooper, Lefebvre, son of a miller, Murat,
son of a tavern-keeper, Lannes, son of an hostler, and Augereau, son
of a mason and a female dealer in fruit and vegetables.--Under the
Republic, noble birth consigned, or confined, the ablest and best
qualified men for their posts to a voluntary obscurity, only too glad
when their names did not condemn them to exile, imprisonment or to the
guillotine. Under the Empire, M. de Talleyrand is prince of Benevento,
minister of foreign affairs and vice-grand-elector with a salary of five
hundred thousand francs. We see personages of old nobility figuring in
the first ranks: among the clergy M. de Roquelaure, M. de Boisgelin,
M. de Broglie, M. Ferdinand de Rohan; in the magistracy, M. Séguier, M.
Pasquier, M. Molé; on the domestic and decorative staff of the
palace, Comte de Ségur, grand-master of ceremonies, Comte de
Montesquiou-Fézensac, grand-chamberlain, also as chamberlains, Comtes
d'Aubusson de la Feuillade, de Brigode, de Croy, de Coutades,
de Louvois, de Brancas, de Gontaut, de Grammont, de Beauvau, de
Lur-Saluces, d'Haussonville, de Noailles, de Chabot, de Turenne,[3309]
and other bearers of historic names.--During the Revolution, at each new
parliamentarian, popular or military coup d'état the notabilities of
the vanquished party were always excluded from office and generally
outlawed. After the coup d'état of Brumaire, not only are the vanquished
of the old parties all brought back under the protection of the law,
but, again, their notables are promoted to the highest offices. Among
the monarchists of the Constituent Assembly Mabuet is made councilor of
State, and Maury archbishop of Paris; forty-seven other ecclesiastics
who, like himself, refused to take the oath to the civil constitution
of the clergy, are appointed, like him, to episcopal thrones. Among
the Feuillants of the Legislative Assembly, Vaublanc is made prefect,
Beugnot a councilor of State and minister of the finances in the
grand-duchy of Berg, Matthieu Dumas a brigadier-general and director of
reviews, Narbonne becomes the aid-de-camp and the intimate interlocutor
of Napoleon, and then ambassador to Vienna; if Lafayette had been
willing, not to ask for but to accept the post, he would have been made
a marshal of France.--Among the few Girondists or Federalists who did
not perish after the 2nd June, Riouffe is prefect and baron, Lanjuinais
is senator and count; among others proscribed, or half proscribed, the
new Régime restores to and places at the head of affairs the superior
and special employees whom the Reign of Terror had driven away, or
singled out for slaughter, particularly the heads of the financial and
diplomatic services who, denounced by Robespierre on the 8th Thermidor,
or arrested on the morning of the 9th already felt their necks under the
blade of the guillotine; Reinhart and Otto are ambassadors, Mollien is
count and treasury minister, Miot becomes councilor of state, Comte de
Melito minister of finances at Naples, while Gaudin is made minister of
finances in France and Duc de Gaëte. Among the transported or fugitives
of Fructidor, Barthélemy becomes senator, Barbé-Marbois director of the
Treasury and first president of the Cour des Comptes; Siméon, councilor
of State and then minister of justice in Westphalia; Portalis is made
minister of worship, and Fontanes grand-master of the University. The
First Consul passes the sponge over all political antecedents: not
only does he summon to his side the moderates and half-moderates of the
Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, of the Convention and of the
Directory, but again he seeks recruits among pure royalists and pure
Jacobins, among the men the most devoted to the ancient Régime and
amongst those most compromised by the Revolution, at both extremities
of the most extreme opinions. We have just seen, on the one side, what
hereditary favorites of a venerable royalty, what born supporters of the
deposed dynasty, are elevated by him to the first of his magisterial,
clerical and court dignities. On the other hand, apart from Chasset,
Roederer and Grégoire, apart from Fourcroy, Bérlier and Réal, apart from
Treilhard and Boulay de La Meurthe, he employs others branded or noted
for terrible acts, Barère himself, at least for a certain period, and in
the sole office he was fitted for, that of a denunciator, gazetteer and
stimulator of public opinion; everybody has a place according to his
faculties, and each has rank according to his usefulness and merit.
Barère, consequently, becomes a paid spy and pamphleteer; Drouet,
the postmaster, who arrested the royal family at Varennes, becomes
sub-prefect at Sainte-Menehould; Jean-Bon Saint-André, one of the
Committee of Public Safety, is made prefect at Mayence; Merlin de Douai,
reporter of the law against suspects, is prosecuting attorney in the
court of cassation; Fouché, whose name tells all, becomes minister of
state and Duke of Otranto; nearly all of the survivors of the Convention
are made judges of première instance or of appeal, revenue-collectors,
deputies, prefects, foreign consuls, police commissioners, inspectors of
reviews, head-clerks in the post-offices, custom-houses and tax-offices,
while, in 1808, among these functionaries, one hundred and thirty were
regicides.[3310]




II. Ambitions during the Ancient Regime.

     The need of success.--Initiation and conditions of promotion
     under the old monarchy.--Effect on minds.--Ambitions are
     limited.--The external outlets open to them.

To make one's way, get ahead, and succeed in the world is now the
dominant thought in the minds of men. Before 1789, this thought had
not acquired sovereign control in their minds; it found that there were
rival ideas to contend with, and it had only half-developed itself; its
roots had not sunk down deep enough to monopolize the activity of the
imagination, to absorb the will and possess the mind entirely; and the
reason is that it lacked both air and victuals. Promotion, under the old
monarchy, was slow, and in the first place, because the monarchy was old
and because in every order which is not new each new generation finds
that every office is filled, and next, because, in this old order
founded on tradition and heredity, future vacancies were supplied long
beforehand. The great social staircase led to several stories; each man
could ascend every step of his own flight, but he could not mount above
it; the landing reached, he found closed doors and nearly insurmountable
barriers. The story above was reserved to its own inhabitants; they
occupied it now and were still to occupy it in time to come; the
inevitable successors of the titular possessor were seen around him
on each step, his equals, peers and neighbors, one or the other often
designated by name as his legal heir, the purchaser of his survivorship.
In those days, not only was the individual himself considered, his
merits and his services, but likewise his family and ancestry, his state
and condition, the society he entered into, the "salon" he maintained,
his fortune and his followers; these antecedents and surroundings
composed the quality of the personage; without this requisite quality,
he could not go beyond the landing-place. Strictly speaking, a personage
born on the upper steps of one story might sometimes succeed in mounting
the lowest steps of the next story, but there he stopped. In short, it
was always considered by those on the lower story that the upper story
was inaccessible and, moreover, uninhabitable.

Accordingly, most of the public offices, in the finances, in the
administration, in the judiciary, in the parliaments, in the army,
at court, were private property as is now the case with the places of
advocates, notaries and brokers; they had to be bought to enable one to
follow these pursuits, and were very dear; one had to possess a large
capital and be content beforehand to derive only a mediocre revenue from
it, 10, 5 and sometimes 3 % on the purchase-money.[3311] The place once
acquired, especially if an important one, involved official parade,
receptions, an open table, a large annual outlay;[3312] it often ran
the purchaser in debt; he knew that his acquisition would bring him more
consideration than crowns. On the other hand, to obtain possession of
it, he had to secure the good-will of the body of which he became a
member, or of the patron who bestowed the office. That is to say, he
must be regarded by his future colleagues as acceptable, or by the
patron as a guest, invited, and feasible friend, in other words, provide
sponsors for himself, furnish guarantees, prove that he was well-off and
well-educated, that his ways and manners qualified him for the post,
and that, in the society he was about to enter, he would not turn out
unsuitable. To maintain one's self in office at court one was obliged to
possess the tone of Versailles, quite different from that of Paris and
the provinces.[3313] To maintain one's self in a high parliamentary
position, one was expected to possess local alliances, moral authority,
the traditions and deportment handed down from father to son in the old
magistrate families, and which a mere advocate, an ordinary pleader,
could not arrive at.[3314] In short, on this staircase, each distinct
story imposed on its inmates a sort of distinct costume, more or less
costly, embroidered and gilded, I mean a sum of outward and inward
habits and connections, all obligatory and indispensable, comprising
title, particle and name: the announcement of any bourgeois name by a
lackey in the ante-chamber would be considered a discord; consequently,
one had one's self ennobled in the current coin, or assumed a noble
name gratis. Caron, son of a watchmaker, became Beaumarchais; Nicolas, a
foundling, called himself M. de Champfort; Danton, in public documents,
signed himself d'Anton; in the same way, a man without a dress-coat
hires or borrows one, no matter how, on going out to dine; all this
was tolerated and accepted as a sign of good behavior and of final
conformity with custom, as in testimony of respect for the usages of
good society.

Through this visible separation of stories, people had acquired the
habit of remaining in the condition in which they were placed; they were
not irritated by being obliged to stay in it; the soldier who enlisted
did not aspire to become an officer; the young officer of the lower
noblesse and of small means did not aspire to the post of colonel or
lieutenant-general; a limited perspective kept hopes and the imagination
from fruitlessly launching forth into a boundless future: ambition,
humbled to the ground at the start, walked instead of flying; it
recognized at the outset that the summits were beyond its reach; to be
able to mount upward one or two steps was enough.--In general, a man
obtained promotion on the spot, in his town, corporation or parliament.
The assistant-counselor who pleaded his first case in the court of
Grenoble or of Rennes calculated that, in twenty years, he would become
first judge at Grenoble or at Rennes, rest twenty years or more in
office, and he aimed at nothing better. Alongside of the counselor of
a (court) presidency, or of an "election" magistrate, of a clerk in the
salt-tax bureau, or in the frontier custom-house, or in the bureau of
"rivers and forests," alongside of a clerk in the treasury or ministry
of foreign affairs, or of a lawyer or prosecuting attorney, there was
always some son, son-in-law or nephew, fitted by domestic training, by
a technical apprenticeship, by moral adaptation, not only to perform
the duties of the office, but to be contented in it, pretend to nothing
beyond it, not to look above himself with regret or envy, satisfied with
the society around him, and feel, moreover, that elsewhere he would be
out of his element and uncomfortable.

Life, thus restricted and circumscribed, was more cheerful then than at
the present day; souls, less disturbed and less strained, less exhausted
and less burdened with cares, were healthier. The Frenchman, exempt from
modern preoccupations, followed amiable and social instincts, inclined
to take things easily, and of a playful disposition owing to his natural
talent for amusing himself by amusing others, in mutual enjoyment
of each other's company and without calculation, through easy and
considerate intercourse, smiling or laughing, in short, in a constant
flow of inspiration, good-humor and gayety.[3315] It is probable that,
if the Revolution had not intervened, the great parvenus of the time
and of the Empire would, like their forerunners, have submitted to
prevailing necessities and readily accommodated themselves to the
discipline of the established Régime. Cambacérès, who had succeeded to
his father as counselor at the bar of Montpellier, would have become
president (of the tribunal) in his turn; meanwhile, he would have
composed able jurisprudential treatises and invented some new pâté de
becfigues; Lebrun, former collaborator with Maupeou, might have become
counselor in the court of excise at Paris, or chief-clerk in the
Treasury department; he would have kept up a philosophical salon, with
fashionable ladies and polished men of letters to praise his elegant
and faulty translations. Amongst the future marshals, some of them,
pure plebeians, Masséna, Augereau, Lannes, Ney, Lefebvre, might have
succeeded through brilliant actions and have become "officers of
fortune," while others, taking in hand specially difficult services,
like commandant Fischer who undertook the destruction of Mandrin's band,
and again, like the hero Chevert, and the veteran Lückner, might have
become lieutenant-generals. Rough as these men were, they would have
found, even in the lower ranks, if not full employment for their
superior faculties, at least sufficient food for their strong and coarse
appetites; they would have uttered just the same oaths, at just as
extravagant suppers, with mistresses of just the same caliber.[3316]
Had their temperament, character and genius been indomitable, had they
reared and pranced to escape bridle and harness and been driven like
ordinary men, they need not have broken out of the traces for all that;
there were plenty of openings and issues for them on either side of
the highway on which others were trotting along. Many families often
contained, among numerous children, some hot-headed, imaginative youth,
some independent nature rebellious in advance, in short, a refractory
spirit, unwilling or incapable of being disciplined; a regular life,
mediocrity, even the certainty of getting ahead, were distasteful to
him; he would abandon the hereditary homestead or purchased office to
the docile elder brother, son-in-law or nephew, by which the domain or
the post remained in the family; as for himself, tempted by illimitable
prospects, he would leave France and go abroad; Voltaire says[3317] that
"Frenchmen were found everywhere," in Canada, in Louisiana, as surgeons,
fencing-masters, riding-masters, officers, engineers, adventurers
especially, and even filibusters, trappers and backwoodsmen, the
supplest, most sympathetic and boldest of colonizers and civilizers,
alone capable of bringing the natives under assimilation by assimilating
with them, by adopting their customs and by marrying their women,
mixing bloods, and forming new and intermediary races, like Dumas de La
Pailleterie, whose descendants have furnished original and superior men
for the past three generations, and like the Canada half-breeds by which
the aboriginal race succeeds in transforming itself and in surviving.
They were the first explorers of the great lakes, the first to trace the
Mississippi to its mouth, and found colonial empires with Champlain
and Lasalle in North America and with Dupleix and La Bourdonnais in
Hindustan. Such was the outlet for daring, uncontrollable spirits,
restive temperaments under constraint and subject to the routine of an
old civilization, souls astray and unclassed from their birth, in which
the primitive instincts of the nomad and barbarian sprouted afresh, in
which insubordination was innate, and in which energy and capacity to
take the initiative remained intact.--Mirabeau, having compromised his
family by scandals, was on the point of being dispatched by his father
to the Dutch Indies, where deaths were common; it might happen that he
would be hanged or become governor of some large district in Java or
Sumatra, the venerated and adored sovereign of five hundred thousand
Malays, both ends being within the compass of his merits. Had Danton
been well advised, instead of borrowing the money with which to buy an
advocate's place in the Council at about seventy thousand livres, which
brought him only three cases in four years and obliged him to hang on to
the skirts of his father-in-law, he would have gone to Pondicherry or
to the palace of some indigenous rajah or king as agent, councilor
or companion of his pleasures; he might have become prime-minister to
Tippoo Sahib, or other potentate, lived in a palace, kept a harem and
had lacs of rupees; undoubtedly, he would have filled his prisons and
occasionally emptied them by a massacre, as at Paris in September, but
it would have been according to local custom, and operating only on
the lives of Sheikhs and Mahrattas. Bonaparte, after the fall of his
protectors, the two Robespierres, finding his career arrested, wanted
to enter the Sultan's service; accompanied by Junot, Muiron, Marmont
and other comrades, he could have carried to Constantinople rarer
commodities, much better compensated in the Orient than in the Occident,
namely military honor and administrative talent; he would have dealt
in these two products, as he did in Egypt, at the right time and in the
right place, at the highest price, without our conscientious scruples
and without our European refinements of probity and humanity. No
imagination can picture what he would have become there: certainly some
pasha, like Djezzar in Syria, or a khedive like Mahomet-Ali, afterwards
at Cairo; he already saw himself in the light of a conqueror, like
Ghengis-Khan,[3318] a founder like Alexander or Baber, a prophet like
Mahomet; as he himself declares, "one could work only on a grand scale
in the Orient," and there he would have worked on a grand scale; Europe,
perhaps, would have gained by it, and especially France.




III. Ambition and Selection.

     The Revolution provides an internal outlet and an unlimited
     career.--Effect of this.--Exigencies and pretensions of the
     modern man.--Theoretical rule of selection among rivals.
     --Popular suffrage raised to be lord and judge.--Consequence
     of its verdict.--Unworthiness of its choice.

But the Revolution arrived and the ambitions which, under the ancient
Régime, found a field abroad or cooled down at home, arose on the natal
soil and suddenly expanded beyond all calculation. After 1789, France
resembles a hive in a state of excitement; in a few hours, in the brief
interval of an August morning, each insect puts forth two huge wings,
soars aloft and "all whirl together pell-mell;" many fall to the ground
half cut to pieces and begin to crawl upward as before; others, with
more strength or with better luck, ascend and glitter on the highways
of the atmosphere.--Every great highway and every other road is open to
everybody through the decrees of the Constituent-Assembly, not only for
the future, but even immediately. The sudden dismissal of the entire
ruling staff, executive, or consultative, political, administrative,
provincial, municipal, ecclesiastical, educational, military, judicial
and financial, summon to take office all who covet it and who have a
good opinion of themselves. All previously existing conditions, birth,
fortune, education, old family and all apprenticeships, customs and ways
which retard and limit advancement, are abolished: There are no
longer any guarantees or sponsors; all Frenchmen are eligible to all
employments; all grades of the legal and social hierarchy are conferred
by a more or less direct election, a suffrage becoming more and more
popular, by a mere numerical majority. Consequently, in all branches of
the government under central or local authority and patronage, there is
the installation of a new staff of officials. The transposition
which everywhere substitutes the old inferior to the old superior, is
universal,[3319] "lawyers for judges, bourgeois for statesmen, former
plebeians for former nobles, soldiers for officers, officers for
generals, curés for bishops, vicars for curés, monks for vicars,
stock-jobbers for financiers, self-taught persons for administrators,
journalists for publicists, rhetoricians for legislators, and the poor
for the rich." A sudden jump from the bottom to the top of the social
ladder by a few, from the lowest to the highest rung, from the rank of
sergeant to that of major-general, from the condition of a pettifogger
or starving newspaper-hack to the possession of supreme authority, even
to the effective exercise of omnipotence and dictatorship--such is the
capital, positive, striking work of the Revolution.

At the same time, and as an after-effect, a revolution is going on in
minds and the moral effect of the show is greater and more lasting than
the events themselves. The minds have been stirred to their very depths;
stagnant passions and slumbering pretensions are aroused. The multitude
of offices presented and expected vacancies "has excited the thirst
for power, stimulated self-esteem, and fired the hopes of men the most
inept. An fierce, gross presumption has freed the ignorant and the
foolish of any feeling of modesty or incompetence; they have deemed
themselves capable of everything because the law awards public office
simply to the able. Everybody had a perspective glimpse of gratified
ambition; the soldier dreamt only of displacing the officer, the officer
of becoming general, the clerk of supplanting the head administrator,
the lawyer of yesterday of the supreme court, the curé of becoming
bishop, the most frivolous littérateur of seating himself on the
legislative bench. Places and positions, vacant due to the promotion
of so many parvenus, provided in their turn a vast career to the lower
classes. Seeing a public functionary issue out of nothingness, where
is the shoeblack whose soul would not stir with ambition?"--This new
sentiment must be taken into account: for, whether reasonable or not, it
is going to last, maintain its energy, stimulate men with extraordinary
force[3320] and become one of the great incentives of will and action.
Henceforth, government and administration are to become difficult
matters; the forms and plans of the old social architecture are no
longer applicable; like construction is not possible with materials of a
different kind, whether with stable or unstable materials, with men
who do not dream of quitting their condition or with men who think of
nothing but that.

In effect, whatever vacancy may occur, each aspirant thinks himself fit
for it, and only one of the aspirants can obtain it. Accordingly some
rule of preference must be adopted outside of the opinion that each
candidate entertains of himself. Accordingly, at a very early date, one
was established, and there could be no better one, namely, that, among
the competitors for the place, the most competent to fill it should be
chosen. Unfortunately, the judge, ordinary, extraordinary and supreme,
instituted to decide in this case, was the plurality of male, adult
Frenchmen, counted by heads, that is to say a collective being in which
the small intelligent, élite body is drowned in the great rude mass;
of all juries, the most incompetent, the easiest duped and misled,
the least able to comprehend the questions laid before it and the
consequences of its answer; the worst informed, the most inattentive,
the most blinded by preconceived sympathies or antipathies, the most
willingly absent, a mere flock of enlisted sheep always robbed or
cheated out of their vote, and whose verdict, forced or simulated,
depended on politicians beforehand, above and below, through the
clubs as well as through the revolutionary government, the latter,
consequently, maneuvering in such a way as to impose itself along with
their favorites on the choice of the French people. Between 1792 and
1799, the republican official staff just described is thus obtained.--It
is only in the army where the daily and keen sense of a common physical
and mortal danger ends in dictating the choice of the best, and raises
tried merit to the highest rank; and yet it must be noted that Jacobin
infatuation bore down as rigorously on the army as elsewhere and on
two occasions: at the outset through the election of a superior
officer conferred on subordinates, which handed rank over to the noisy
disputants and intemperate intriguers of the mess-room; and again
during the Reign of Terror, and even later,[3321] in the persecution
or dismissal of so many patriotic and deserving officers, which led
Gouvion-Saint-Cyr and his comrades, through disgust, to avoid or decline
accepting high rank, in the scandalous promotion of club brawlers and
docile nullities, in the military dictatorship of the civil proconsuls,
in the supremacy conferred on Léchelle and Rossignol, in the
subordination forced on Kléber and Marceau, in the absurd plans of a
demagogue with huge epaulettes like Cartaux,[3322] in the grotesque
orders of the day issued by a swaggering inebriate like Henriot,[3323]
in the disgrace of Bonaparte, and in the detention of Hoche.--In the
civil order of things, it was worse. Not only was the rule of regulating
promotion by merit not recognized but it was applied in an inverse
sense. In the central government as in the local government, and from
top to bottom of the hierarchy, from the post of minister of foreign
affairs down to that of president of a petty revolutionary committee,
all offices were for the unworthy. Their unfitness kept on increasing
inasmuch as incessant weeding out worked against them, the functionary,
degraded by his work, growing worse along with his function.--Thus
the constitutional rights of merit and capacity ended in the practical
privilege of incapacity and demerit. And in the allotment of grades and
social advantages, distributive justice had given way to distributive
injustice, while practice, contrary to theory, instituted permanently,
on the one hand, the exclusion or retirement of competent, instructed,
expert, well-bred, honorable and respected men and, on the other hand,
brought forward illiterate, inept and rude novices, coarse and vulgar
brutes, common blackguards, men used up or of tarnished reputations,
rogues ready for anything, fugitives from justice, in short the
adventurers and outcasts of every kind and degree.[3324] The latter,
owing their success to perversion or lack of conscientiousness,
derived their principal title from their vigorous fists and a fixed
determination to hold on to their places as they had obtained them,
that is to say by main force and by the murder or exile of their
rivals.--Evidently, the staff of officials which the Declaration of
Human Rights had promised was not the staff on duty ten years later
there was a lack of experience.[3325] In 1789, careers were open to
every ambition; down to 1799, the rivalry of ambitions had simply
produced a wild uproar and a brutal conquest. The great modern
difficulty remained: how to discipline the competition and to find an
impartial judge, an undisputed arbitrator of the competition.




IV. Napoleon, Judge-Arbitrator-Ruler.

     Napoleon as judge of competition.--Security of his seat.
     --Independence of his decisions.--Suppression of former
     influences and end of monarchical or democratic intrigues.
     --Other influences against which he is on guard.--His favorite
     rule.--Estimate of candidates according to the kind and
     amount of their useful labor.--His own competency.--His
     perspicacity.--His vigilance.--Zeal and labor of his
     functionaries.--Result of competition thus viewed and of
     functions thus exercised.--Talents utilized and jealousies
     disarmed.

Behold him, at last, this judge-arbitrator. On the 8th November, 1799,
he appears and takes his seat, and that very evening he goes to
work, makes his selections among the competitors and gives them their
commissions. He is a military chieftain and has installed himself;
consequently he is not dependent on a parliamentary majority, and any
insurrection or gathering of a mob is at once rendered abortive by his
troops before it is born. Street sovereignty is at an end; Parisians are
long to remember the 13th of Vendémaire and the way General Bonaparte
shot them down on the steps of Saint-Roch. All his precautions against
them are taken the first day and against all agitators whatever, against
all opponents disposed to dispute his jurisdiction. His arm-chair as
first Consul and afterwards his throne as Emperor are firmly fixed;
nobody but himself can undermine them; he is seated definitively and
will stay there. Profound silence reigns in the public crowd around
him; some among them dare whisper, but his police has its eye on them.
Instead of conforming to opinion he rules it, masters it and, if need
be, he manufactures it. Alone by himself from his seat on high,
in perfect independence and security, he announces the verdicts of
distributive justice. Nevertheless he is on his guard against the
temptations and influences which have warped the decisions of his
predecessors; in his tribunal, the schemes and intrigues which formerly
obtained credit with the people, or with the king, are no longer in
vogue; from now on, the profession of courtier or of demagogue is a
poor one.--On the one hand, there is no success, as formerly under the
monarchy, through the attentions of the ante-chamber, through elegant
manners, delicate flattery, fashionable drawing-rooms, or valets and
women on an intimate footing; mistresses here enjoy no credit and there
are neither favorites nor the favored; a valet is regarded as a useful
implement; great personages are not considered as extra-ornamental and
human furniture for the palace. Not one among them dare ask for a place
for a protégé which he is incapable of filling, an advancement which
would derange the lists of promotions, a pass over the heads of others;
if they obtain any favors, these are insignificant or political; the
master grants them as an after-thought, to rally somebody, or a party,
to his side; they personally, their ornamental culture, their high-bred
tone, their wit, their conversational powers, their smiles and bows--all
this is lost on him, or charged to account. He has no liking for their
insinuating and discreet ways;[3326] he regards them as merely good
domestics for parade; all he esteems in them is their ceremonial
significance, that innate suppleness which permits them to be at once
servile and dignified, the hereditary tact which teaches them how to
present a letter, not from hand to hand, but on the rim of a hat, or
on a silver plate, and these faculties he estimates at their true
worth.--On the other hand, nobody succeeds, as lately under the
Republic, through tribunal or club verbosity, through appeals to
principles, through eloquent or declamatory tirades; "glittering
generalities," hollow abstractions and phrases made to produce an
impression have no effect; and what is better, political ideology, with
a solicitor or pleader, is a bad note. The positive, practical mind
of the judge has taken in at a glance and penetrated to the bottom
of arguments, means and valid pretensions; he submits impatiently to
metaphysics and pettifoggery, to the argumentative force and mendacity
of words.--This goes so far that he distrusts oratorical or literary
talent; in any event when he entrusts active positions or a part in
public business then he takes no note of it. According to him, "the men
who write well and are eloquent have no solidity of judgment; they are
illogical and very poor in discussion,"[3327] they are mere artists
like others, so many word-musicians, a kind of special, narrow-minded
instrument, some of them good solo players, like Fontanes, and who the
head of a State can use, but only in official music for grand cantatas
and the decoration of his reign. Wit in itself, not alone the wit which
gives birth to brilliant expressions and which was considered a prime
accomplishment under the old regime, but general intelligence, has for
him only a semi-value.[3328] "I am more brilliant[3329], you may say?
Eh, what do I care for your intelligence? What I care for is the
essence of the matter. There is nobody so foolish that is not good for
something--there is no intelligence equal to everything." In fact,
on bestowing an office it is the function which delegates; the proper
execution of the function is the prime motive in determining his choice;
the candidate appointed is always the one who will best do the work
assigned him. No factitious, party popularity or unpopularity, no
superficial admiration or disparagement of a clique, of a salon, or of
a bureau, makes him swerve from his standard of preference.[3330]
He values men according to the quality and quantity of their work,
according to their net returns, and he estimates them directly,
personally, with superior perspicacity and universal competency. He
is special in all branches of civil or military activity, and even
in technical detail; his memory for facts, actions, antecedence and
circumstances, is prodigious; his discernment, his critical analysis,
his calculating insight into the resources and shortcomings of a mind
or of a soul, his faculty for gauging men, is extraordinary; through
constant verifications and rectifications his internal repertory, his
biographical and moral dictionary, is kept daily posted; his attention
never flags; he works eighteen hours a day; his personal intervention
and his hand are visible even in the appointment of subordinates. "Every
man called to take part in affairs was selected by him;"[3331] it is
through him that they retain their place; he controls their promotion
and by sponsors whom he knows. "A minister could not have dismissed a
functionary without consulting the emperor, while the ministers could
all change without bringing about two secondary changes throughout the
empire. A minister did not appoint even a second-class clerk without
presenting a list of several candidates to the emperor and, opposite to
it, the name of the person recommending him." All, even at a
distance, felt that the master's eyes were on them. "I worked," says
Beugnot,[3332] "from night to morning, with singular ardor; I astonished
the natives of the country who did not know that the emperor exercised
over his servitors, however far from him they might be, the miracle of
the real presence. I thought I saw him standing over me as I worked shut
up in my cabinet."--"Under him," writes Roederer, "there is no man of
any merit who, as a reward for long and difficult labor, does not feel
himself better compensated by a new task than by the most honorable
leisure." Never did positions less resemble sinecures. Never was
the happiness of successful candidates or the misery of unsuccessful
candidates better justified. Never the compliance, the difficulty,
the risks of a required task have been compensated more fairly by the
enjoyment of the allocated rewards nor moderated the bitterness of the
frustrated pretensions.[3333] Never were public functions assigned
or fulfilled in a way to better satisfy the legitimate craving for
advancement, the dominant desire of democracy and of the century, and in
a way to better disarm the bad passions of democracy and of the
century, consisting of an envious leveling, anti-social rancor and
the inconsolable regrets of the man who has failed. Never did human
competition encounter a similar judge, so constant, so expert and so
justified.--He is himself conscious of the unique part he plays. His
own ambition, the highest and most insatiate of all, enables him to
comprehend the ambition of others; to place everywhere the man who suits
the post in the post which suits the man--this is what he has done for
himself and what he does for others. He knows that in this lies his
power, his deep-seated popularity, his social utility.

"Nobody," says Napoleon,[3334] "is interested in overthrowing a
government in which all the deserving are employed."

Then, again, comes his significant exclamation at the end, his summary
of modern society, a solemn grandiose figure of speech found in the
legendary souvenirs of a glorious antiquity, a classic reminiscence of
the noble Olympian games,

"Henceforth, all careers are open to talent!"




IV. The Struggle for Office and Title.

     Competition and prizes.--Multitude of offices.--How their
     number is increased by the extension of central patronage
     and of the French territory.--Situation of a Frenchman
     abroad.--It gives him rank.--Rapidity of promotion.
     --Constant elimination and multiplicity of vacancies in the
     army.--Preliminary elimination in the civil service.
     --Proscription of cultivated men and interruption of education
     during the Revolution.--General or special instruction rare
     in 1800.--Small number of competent candidates.--Easy
     promotion due to the lack of competitors.--Importance and
     attraction the prizes offered.--The Legion of Honor.--The
     imperial nobility.--Dotations and majorities.--Emulation.

Let us now consider the career which he thus opens to them and the
prizes he offers. These prizes are in full view, ranged along each
racecourse, graduated according to distances and more and more striking
and magnificent. Every ambition is provided for, the highest as well
as the lowest, and these are countless; for they consist of offices of
every grade in the civil and military hierarchies of a great centralized
State whose intervention is universal, under a government which
systematically tolerates no authority or influence outside of itself
and which monopolizes every species of social importance for its own
functionaries.[3335]--All these prizes, even the smallest and most
insignificant, are awarded by it. In the first place, Napoleon has two
or three times as many offices to bestow, on the soil of old France
alone, as the former kings; for, even in the choice of their staff of
officials, the latter were not always free; in many places they did not
have, or no longer had the right of appointment. At one time, this right
be longed from time immemorial to provincial or municipal corporations,
laic or ecclesiastic, to a certain chapter, abbey or collegiate church,
to a bishop in his diocese, to the seignior in his seignory. At another
time the king, once possessing the right, had surrendered or alienated
it, in whole or in part through gratuitous favor and the concession of
a survivorship or for money and through the sale of an office; in brief,
his hands were tied fast by hereditary or acquired privileges There are
no privileges now to fetter the hands of the First Consul. The entire
civil organization dates from him. The whole body of officials is thus
of his own selection, and under him it is much more numerous than that
of the ancient Régime; for he has extended the attributions of the
State beyond all former bounds. Directly or indirectly, he appoints by
hundreds of thousands the mayors and councilors of municipalities and
the members of general councils, the entire staff of the administration,
of the finances, of the judicature, of the clergy, of the University,
of public works and of public charity. Besides all this, myriads of
ministerial and notarial officials lawyers, ushers, auctioneers, and
by way of surplus, or as a natural result, the members of every great
private association since no collective enterprise, from the Bank of
France and the press to stage lines and tontines, may be established
without his permission, nor exist without his tolerance. Not counting
the latter, and after deducting likewise the military or active duty
and the functionaries who draw pay, the prefect from the earliest
years report that, since 1789, the number of people "employed or under
government pay" has more than doubled: In Doubs, in the year IX, instead
of 916 there are 1820; in Meurthe in the year XIII, instead of 1828
there are 3091; in Ain, in 1806 instead of 955 there are 1771[3336].
As to the army, it has tripled, and according to the First Consul's own
calculations, instead of 9,000 or 10,000 officers as in 1789, there are
more than 20,000.--These figures go on increasing on the old territory
through the very development of the new organization, through the
enormous increase of the army, through the re-establishment of religious
worship, through the installation of droits réunis, through the
institution of the University, owing to the increasing number
of officials, curés and assistant-priests, of professors and
school-teachers, and of retired and pensioned invalids.[3337]

And these figures, which already swell of themselves, are to swell an
additional half through the extension of the ancient territory. Instead
of 86 departments with a population of 26 millions, France ends in
comprising 130 departments with 42 million inhabitants--Belgium and
Piedmont, then Hanover, Tuscany, Central Italy, Illyria, Holland and the
Hanseatic provinces, that is to say 44 departments and 16 millions of
annexed Frenchmen;[3338] affording another large outlet for little and
big ambitions.--Add still another, as a surplus and not less extensive
outlet, outside of France: for the subject princes and the vassal kings,
Eugène, Louis, Jerome, Murat, and Joseph, each with their governments,
import into their realms a more or less numerous body of French
officials, familiars, court dignitaries, generals, ministers,
administrators, even clerks and other indispensable subalterns, if for
no other purpose than to bring the natives within the military and
civil compartments of the new Régime and teach them on the spot the
conscription, the administration, the civil code, and systems of
accounts like those of Paris. Even in the independent or allied States,
in Prussia, in Poland, in the confederation of the Rhine, there are,
at intervals or permanently, Frenchmen in position and in authority to
command contingent forces, to garrison fortresses, to receive supplies
and secure the payment of war contributions. Even with the corporal and
custom-house inspector on duty on coast at Dantzig and at Reggio, the
sentiment of victorious priority equals the possession of rank; in their
eyes the natives of the country are semi-barbarians or semi-savages,
a backward or prejudiced lot, not even knowing how to speak their
language; they feel themselves superior, as formerly the señor soldado
of the sixteenth century, or the civis romanus. Never since the great
Spanish monarchy and the Old Roman empire has a conquering State and
propagator of a new régime afforded its subjects such gratifications of
self-esteem, nor opened so vast a career to their ambitions.

For, having once adopted their career, they know better than the
Spaniards under Charles V. or the Romans under Augustus, how far they
can go and how fast they can get ahead. No obstacle impedes them; nobody
feels himself confined his post; each considers the one he occupies
as provisional, each takes it only to await a better one, anticipating
another at a very early date; he dashes onward, springs aloft and
occupies in advance the superior post which he means to secure on
the first vacancy, and, under this Régime, the vacancies are
numerous.--These vacancies, in the military service and in the grade
of officers, may be estimated at nearly four thousand per annum;[3339]
after 1808 and 1809, but especially after the disaster of 1812 and 1813,
places are no longer lacking but subjects fill them; Napoleon is
obliged to accept youths for officers as beardless as his conscripts,
eighteen-year-old apprentices who, after a year or six months in the
military academy, might finish their apprenticeship on the battle-field,
pupils taken from the philosophy or rhetoric classes, willing children
(de bonne volonté): On the 13th of December 1808, he draws 50 from his
lycées, who don the gold-lace of under-officers at once; in 1809, he
calls out 250, to serve in the depot battalions; in 1810, he calls out
150 of the age of nineteen who "know the drill," and who are to be sent
on distant expeditions with the commission of second-lieutenant; in
1811, 400 for the school of noncommissioned officers at Fontainebleau,
20 for the Ile-de-Ré and 84 who are to be quartermasters; and, in 1812,
112 more and so on. Naturally, thanks to annually increasing gaps made
by cannon and bayonet, the survivors in this body of youth mount the
faster; in 1813 and 1814, there are colonels and lieutenant-colonels of
the age of twenty-five.

In the civil service, if fewer are killed everybody is almost equally
over tasked. Under this reign one is soon used up, physically and
morally, even in pacific employments, and this also supplies vacancies.
Besides, in default of deaths, wounds and violent elimination, there is
another elimination, not less efficacious, operating in this direction,
and for a long time, in favor of men of ability, preparing places for
them and accelerating their advancement. Napoleon accepts none but
competent candidates; now, in 1800, there is a dearth of acceptable
candidates for places in the civil service and not, as in 1789, or at
the present time, a superabundance and even too great a crowd.--In the
military service especially, capacity is innate; natural endowments,
courage, coolness, quick perception, physical activity, moral
ascendancy, topographical imagination form its principal elements; men
just able to read, write and cipher became, in three or four years,
during the Revolution, admirable officers and conquering generals.--It
is not the same in relation to civil capacity; this requires long and
continuous study. To become a priest, magistrate, engineer, professor,
prefect or school-teacher, one must have studied theology or law,
mathematics or Latin, administration or the finances. If not, the
functionary is not qualified to serve: he must, at the very least, know
how to spell, be able to write French, examine a law-case, draw up
a report, keep accounts, and if needs be, comprehend a plan, make an
estimate and read off a map. Men of this stamp are rare at the beginning
of the Consulate. As notables,[3340] the Revolution mowed them down
first. Among all their sons and so many well-bred youth who have become
soldiers through patriotism, or who have left their families to prevent
these from becoming suspect, one half repose on the battlefield or have
left the hospital only for the cemetery; "the muscadin[3341] died from
the first campaign." In any event, for them and their younger brothers,
for the children beginning to learn Latin and mathematics, for all who
hoped to pursue liberal professions, for the entire generation about to
receive either a superior, a common, or even a primary instruction, and
hence to furnish brains prepared for intellectual work, there was a lack
of this for ten years. Not only were the endowments which provided
for instruction confiscated but the educational staff, nearly all
ecclesiastic, was one of the most proscribed among those proscribed.
Whilst military requisition and the closing of the schools suppressed
the pupils, massacres, banishment, imprisonment, destitution and the
scaffold suppressed the teachers. Whilst the ruin of universities
and colleges did away with theoretical apprenticeship, the ruin of
manufactures and of trade abolished practical apprenticeship. Through
the long interruption of all studies, general instruction as well as
special competency became rare product in the market.--Hence it is that,
in 1800, and during the three or four following years, whoever brought
to market either one the other of these commodities was certain of a
quick sale;[3342] the new government needed them more than anybody. The
moment the seller made up his mind, he was bought, and, whatever he may
be, a former Jacobin or a former émigré; he is employed. If he brings
both commodities and is zealous, he is promptly promoted; if, on
trial, he is found of superior capacity, he will, like Mollien, Gaudin,
Tronchet, Pasquier and Molé, attain to the highest posts, for he finds
scarcely any competitors. These he would have had had things followed
their usual course; it is the Revolution which has cleared the ground
around him; without that the road would have been obstructed; competent
candidates would have swarmed. Reckon, if possible, how many men
of talent who were destroyed, royalists, monarchists, feuillants,
Girondists and even Jacobins. They were the élite of the noblesse, of
the clergy, of the bourgeoisie, of the youth and those of riper age.
Thus rid of their most formidable rivals the survivors pursue their way
at top speed; the guillotine has wrought for them in advance; it has
effected openings in their own ranks, made by bullets in every battle
in the ranks of the army, and, in the civil hierarchy as in the military
hierarchy, merit, if demonstrated by services, or not arrested by death,
reaches the highest summit in very few years.

The prizes offered on these summits are splendid; no attraction is
lacking. The great trainer who displays them has omitted none of
the seductions which excite and stimulate an ordinary mind. He has
associated with the positive values of power and wealth every
value incident to imagination and opinion; hence his institution of
decorations and the Legion of Honor.[3343]

"They call it a toy,"[3344] said he, "but men are led by toys...
Frenchmen are not changed by ten years of revolution.... See how the
people prostrate themselves before foreign decorations: they have been
surprised by them and accordingly do not fail to wear them.... The
French cherish but one sentiment, honor: that sentiment, then, requires
nourishing--they must have honors."

A very few are satisfied with their own achievements; ordinary men
are not even content with the approbation they perceive in the eyes of
others: it is too intermittent, too reserved, too mute; they need fame
that is brilliant and noisy; they want to hear the constant hum of
admiration and respect whenever they appear or whenever their name is
mentioned. Even this does not suffice; they are unwilling that their
merit should rest in men's minds in the vague state of undefined
greatness, but that it should be publicly estimated, have its current
value, enjoy undisputed and measured rank on the scale above all other
lesser merits.--The new institution affords complete satisfaction to
all these exigencies of human and French nature. On the 14th of July,
1804,[3345] the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, Napoleon
administers the oath to the legionaries and, after a solemn mass,
distributes the insignia under the dome of the Invalides in the presence
of the empress and the court; and again one month later, August
16, 1804, on the anniversary of the Emperor's birth, in the camp at
Boulogne, facing the ocean and in full view of the flotilla assembled to
conquer England, before one hundred thousand spectators and the entire
army, to the roll of eighteen hundred drums. No ceremony, probably, was
ever more exciting. The eminent surgeon, Larrey, then decorated, a man
of austere virtue, spoke of it with emotion to the end of his life and
never alluded that unique day but with a trembling voice. On that
day, nearly all the men of superior and tried merit and talent in
France[3346] are proclaimed, each with the title proportionate his
degree of eminence--chevaliers, officers, commanders, grand-officers,
and, later on, grand-eagles; each on the same plane with his equals of a
different class, ecclesiastics alongside of laymen, civilians alongside
of soldiers; each honored by the company of his peers, Berthollet,
Laplace and Lagrange alongside of Kellermann, Jourdan and Lefebvre,
Otto and Tronchet alongside of Masséna, Augereau, Ney, Lannes, Soult and
Davout; four cardinals side by side with eighteen marshals, and likewise
even down to corporal, and to Egyptian veterans blinded by ophthalmia
on the banks of the Nile, comprising common soldiers who, through
some brilliant achievement, had won a sword or a gun of honor, as, for
instance, Coignet,[3347] who, dashing ahead with fixed bayonet, kills
five Austrian artillerymen and takes their cannon himself alone. Six
years before this he was a stable-boy on a farm and could neither read
nor write; he is now mentioned among the first of those promoted, a
colleague and almost a comrade of Monge, the inventor of descriptive
geometry, of de Fontanes, grand-master of the university, of marshals,
admirals, and the highest dignitaries, all sharing in common an
inestimable treasure, the legitimate heirs of twelve years' accumulated
glory by the sacrifice of so many heroic lives and all the more
glorified because so few,[3348] and because, in these days, a man did
not obtain the cross by twenty years of plodding in a bureau, on account
of routine punctuality, but by wonderful strokes of energy and audacity,
by wounds, by braving death a hundred times and looking it in the face
daily.

Henceforth, legally as well as in public opinion, they form the staff of
the new society, its declared, verified notables, enjoying precedences
and even privileges. On passing along the street the sentinel
presents arms; a company of twenty-five soldiers attends their
funeral procession; in the electoral colleges of the department or
arrondissement they are electors by right and without being balloted
for, simply by virtue of their rank. Their sons are entitled to
scholarships in La Fléche, at Saint-Cyr, and in the lycées, and their
daughters at Ecouen or Saint-Denis. With the exception of a title, as
formerly, they lack nothing for filling the place of the old nobility,
and Napoleon re-creates this title for their benefit. The title itself
of chevalier, count, duke or prince carries along with an idea of social
superiority; when announced in a drawing room, when it precedes the
first sentence of an address, those who are present do not remain
inattentive; an immemorial prejudice inclines them to award
consideration or even deference. The Revolution tried in vain to destroy
this power of words and of history; Napoleon does better: he confiscates
it; he arrogates to himself the monopoly of it, he steals the trade-mark
from the ancient Régime; he himself creates 48,000 chevaliers, 1000
barons, 388 counts, 31 dukes and 4 princes. Furthermore, he stamps with
his own mark the old nobles whom he introduces into his nobility: he
coins them anew and often with an inferior title; this or that duke
is lowered a notch and becomes simply a count: taken at par or at a
discount the feudal coin must, in order to pass, receive the imperial
stamp which gives it its recognized value in modern figures.

But, let the old-fashioned metal be what it may, whether gold, silver or
copper, even crude and plebeian, the new coin is of good alloy and very
handsome. Frequently, like the old currency, it displays coats of arms
in high relief, a heraldic crown and the name of a locality; it no
longer bears the name of territory, and it does not call to mind a
primitive sovereignty. On the contrary, it bears the name of a victory
or of a conquest and reminds one of recent exploits. Duc de
Montebello or a Prince de la Moskowa is equivalent in the imagination
contemporaries to a Duc de Montmorency or a Prince de Rohan; for, if the
prince or duke of the empire is without ancestors, he is or will be an
ancestor himself. To these prizes coveted by vanity Napoleon tacks on
every substantial and pecuniary advantage, in ready money or landed
property, not alone large salaries, adjunctive sénatoreries, occasional
munificent gifts,

* a million at one time to General Lasalle, but likewise vast revenues
from the extraordinary domain[3349],

* 32,463,817 francs a year divided amongst 4970 persons,

* pensions from 250 to 5000 francs for all legionaries,

* villas, large estates, private incomes, distinct and superb endowments
for those of the highest rank, a fortune of 100,000 livres income and
more to 34 of these,

* a fortune of 450,000 livres in the public funds to Cambacérès, of
683,000 livres in the public funds to Masséna, of 728,000 livres in the
public funds to Ney, of 910,000 livres in the public funds to Davout, of
1,354,000 livres in the public funds to Berthier,

* and besides all this, three "sovereign principalities," Neufchatel to
Berthier, Benevento to Talleyrand, and Ponte-Corvo to Bernadotte.--

This last attraction which, in these times of violent and premature
death, is of no little account. Napoleon opens out hereditary and
undefined prospects beyond the perspectives of life and of inferior
interests. Each of the titles conferred by him, that of prince, duke,
count, baron, and even that of chevalier, is transmissible in direct
descent, according to primogeniture from father to son, and sometimes
from uncle to nephew, under specified conditions which are very
acceptable, and of which the first is the institution of an inalienable
majority, inattackable, consisting of this or that income or real
property, of bank stock or state securities, from 3000 francs for common
chevaliers up to 200,000 francs for the dukes, that is to say, a certain
fortune in perpetuity due to the sovereign's liberality, or to the
prudence of the founder, and intended to support the dignity of the
title from male to male and from link to link throughout the future
chain of successive inheritors. Through this supreme reward, the subtle
tempter has a hold on the men who care not alone for themselves but for
their family: henceforth, the work as he does, eighteen hours a day,
stand fire, and say to themselves, while sinking at their desks or
facing cannon-ball that their pre-eminence survives them in their
posterity:

"In any event my son will succeed me and even become greater by my
death."

All the temptations which serve to overcome the natural lethargy of
human matter are simultaneously united and; with the exception of
personal conscience and the desire for personal independence, all other
internal springs are strained to the utmost. One unusual circumstance
gives to eager ambitions a further increase of energy, impulse and
enthusiasm.--All these successful or parvenu men are contemporaries:
all have started alike on the same line and from the same average or
low condition in life; each sees old comrades superior to himself on the
upper steps; he considers himself as good they are, suffers because he
is not on their level, and strives and takes risks so as to mount up to
them. But, however high he mounts, he still sees higher yet others who
were formerly his equals; consequently, no rank obtained by them seems
to him above his deserts, and no rank that he obtains suffices for his
pretensions.

"See that Masséna," exclaimed Napoleon,[3350] a few days before
the battle of Wagram; "he has honors and fame enough, but he is not
satisfied; he wants be a prince like Murat and Bernadotte: he will risk
getting shot to-morrow simply to be a prince."--

Above these princes who have only the rank, the title and the money,
come the grand-dukes and reigning viceroys like Murat, grand-duke of
Berg, and Eugene, viceroy of Italy. Above Eugene and Murat are the
vassal-kings, Louis, Joseph, Jerome, then Murat himself, who, among
these, is in a better place, and Bernadotte, the only sovereign that is
independent; all more or less envied by the marshals, all more or less
rivals of each other, the inferior aspiring to the superior throne,
Murat inconsolable at being sent to Naples and not to Spain, and at
having only five millions of subjects instead of thirteen millions.
From top to bottom of the hierarchy and even to the loftiest places,
comprising thrones, the steps rise regularly above each other in
continuous file, so that each leads to the following one, with nothing
to hinder the first-comer, provided he is lucky, has good legs and does
not fall on the way, from reaching the top of the staircase in twenty
or thirty years. "It was commonly reported in the army--he has been
promoted king of Naples, of Holland, of Spain, of Sweden, as formerly
was said of the same sort of man, who had been promoted sergeant in this
or that company."--Such is the total and final impression which lingers
on in all imaginations; it is in this sense that the people interpret
the new Régime, and Napoleon devotes himself to confirming the popular
interpretation. Accordingly, the first duchy he creates is for Marshal
Lefebvre

"purposely," as he says,[3351] because "this marshal had been a private
and everybody in Paris had known him as a sergeant in the French
guards."

--With such an example before them, and so many others like it, not less
striking, there is no ambition that does not become exalted, and often
to delirium.

"At this time," says Stendhal, who seized the master-idea of the reign,
"there was no apothecary's apprentice in his back shop, surrounded by
his drugs and bottles, filtering and pounding away in his mortar, who
did not say to himself that, if he chanced to make some great discovery,
he would be made a count with fifty thousand francs a year."

In those days there was no under-clerk who, in his labored penmanship,
inscribed names on a piece of parchment, that did not imagine his own
name appearing some day on a senatorial or ministerial diploma. At this
time the youthful corporal who dons his first stripes of gold braid
already fancies that he hears the beating of the drums, the blast of the
trumpet, and the salvos of artillery which proclaim him marshal of the
Empire.[3352]




V. Self-esteem and a good Reputation.

     The inward spring from 1789 to 1815.--Its force.--Its
     decline.--How it ends in breaking the machine down.

A new force, extraordinary, is just apparent in history, a spiritual
force analogous to that which formerly stimulated souls in Spain in the
sixteenth century, in European the time of the crusades, and in Arabia
in the time of Mahomet. It stimulates the faculties to excess, increases
energy tenfold, transports man beyond or above himself, creates
enthusiasts and heroes, blinding or rendering men crazy, and hence the
irresistible conquerors and rulers. It stamps its imprint and leaves
its memorials in ineffaceable characters on men and things from Cadiz
to Moscow. It overrides all natural barriers and transcends all
ordinary limits. "The French soldier," writes a Prussian officer after
Jena,[3353] "are small and puny. One of our Germans could whip any four
of them. But, under fire, they become supernatural beings. They are
swept along by an indescribable ardor of which there is not a trace
among our soldiers.... What can you do with peasants whom nobles lead
into battle, but whose danger they share without any interest in
their passions or recompenses!"--Coupled with the physical needs which
requires a certain amount of ease and of daily food, and which, if too
strenuously opposed, produces passing jacqueries, there is a still more
potent longing which, on suddenly encountering its object, seizes on
it, clings to it, gorges it, and produces revolutions that last: this
longing is the desire to contemplate one-self with satisfaction and
complacency, forming of one's self a pleasing, flattering image, and of
trying to impress and plant this image in the minds of others; in short,
the ambition for a great self-esteem and of becoming greatly esteemed by
others.[3354] This sentiment, according to the quality of the person and
according to circumstances, gives birth sometimes to the noblest virtues
and the most sublime devotion, and at other times to the worst misdeeds
and the most dangerous delirium: the man becomes transfigured, the
sleeping god or demon which both live within him is suddenly aroused.
After 1789, both appear and both together; from this date onward, says
an eye-witness,[3355] and, during one quarter of a century, "for most
Frenchmen and in whatever class," the object of life is displaced; each
has put it outside of himself; from now on, the essential thing for
everybody is "to have lived," or "to have died for something," for
an idea. A man becomes the slave of his idea, gives himself up to it;
consequently, he has experienced the intense satisfaction of considering
himself a noble being, of superior essence, foremost among the first,
and of seeing himself regarded in that light and proclaimed and
glorified as such.--This keen, profound and intense pleasure was first
enjoyed by the French on listening to the Declaration of the Rights
of Man; from then, and in good faith, they felt themselves citizens,
philosophers, the destroyers of prejudices and wrongs, zealots in behalf
of truth, liberty and equality, and then, when the war of 1792 came, the
defenders of the country, missionaries and propagators of every grand
principle.[3356]--Towards 1796, principles began to recede in the
background;[3357] in the ideal portrait which man makes of himself the
liberator and benefactor of mankind gradually gives way to the admirable
and admired hero capable of great achievements. This inner portrait of
himself suffices for his happiness for some years to come: vanity[3358]
properly so called and a calculating ambition are not the incentives
of action; if he obtains promotion it is without asking for it; his
aspiration is simply to display himself, to be lavish of himself and
live or die courageously and gaily[3359] along with his comrade; to be
considered, outside the service, the equal, friend and brother of his
subordinates and of his chiefs.[3360] Pillage, nevertheless, has begun;
for, a long continuance of war depraves the conqueror; brutality,
indifference to property and to life grows on him; if callous, or he
wishes to become so, he eats, drinks and enjoys the passing hour;
if provident and wary, he scrapes together what he can or levies
contributions and hoards money.--Under the Empire, and especially
towards 1808 and 1809, the ideal figure degenerates still more; from now
on, it is the successful or the coming officer, with his rank and its
accouterments, his gold-embroidered uniform and badges, exercising
authority over so many hundreds and thousands of men and enjoying a
certain notable sum of regular salaries, besides other gratifications
bestowed on him by the master, along with the profits he can make out of
the vanquished.[3361] All that he now cares for is rapid promotion, and
in any way, noble or ignoble, at first, of course, on the main road,
that is in straining himself and risking his life, but likewise on a
new road, in an affectation of zeal, in practicing and professing blind
obedience, in abandoning all political ideas, in devoting himself no
longer to France, but to the sovereign: sympathy for his comrades gives
way to harsh rivalry; soldierly friendships, under the anticipation
of advancement, die out. A vacancy due to death is for the benefit of
survivors and they know it. "At Talavera," says Stendhal, "two officers
stood together at their battery, while a ball comes and the captain
falls. 'Good,' says the lieutenant, 'now François is dead and I shall be
captain.' 'Not yet,' says François, who was only stunned and who gets
up on his feet. These two men were neither unfriendly nor inimical, only
the lieutenant wanted to rise a step higher in rank." And this shrewd
observer adds: "Such was the furious egoism then styled love of glory
and which, under this title, the Emperor had communicated to the
French."

On this slope the slide is rapid and abject. Each, at first, thinks
of himself; the individual makes of himself a center. The example,
moreover, comes from above. Is it for France or for himself that
Napoleon works?[3362] So many immense enterprises, the conquest of
Spain, the expedition into Russia, the installation of his brothers and
relations on new thrones, the constant partition and rearrangement of
Europe, all those incessant and more and more distant wars, is it for
the public good and common safety that he accumulates them? What does
he himself desire if not to push his fortunes still farther?--He is too
much ambitious (trop ambitionnaire), say his own soldiers;[3363] and yet
they follow him to the last. "We have always marched along with him,"
replied the old grenadiers,[3364] who had traversed Poland to penetrate
into Russia; "we couldn't abandon him this time and leave him alone by
himself."--But others who see him nearer by, those who stand first and
next to him, do as he does; and, however high these have mounted, they
want to mount still higher, or, otherwise, to keep their places, or,
at least, provide for themselves and hold on to something substantial.
Masséna has accumulated forty millions and Talleyrand sixty;[3365] in
case of a political crash the money remains. Soult tried to have himself
elected king of Portugal,[3366] and Bernadotte finds means to have
himself elected king of Sweden. After Leipsic, Murat bargains with the
allies, and, to retain his Neapolitan kingdom, he agrees to furnish a
contingent against France; before the battle of Leipsic, Bernadotte is
with the allies and fights with them against France. In 1814, Bernadotte
and Joseph, each caring for himself, the former by intrigues and with
the intriguers of the interior, also by feeling his way with the foreign
sovereigns while the latter, in the absence of Napoleon, by "singular
efforts" and "assiduities" beforehand with Marie Louise thinks of taking
the place of the falling emperor.[3367] Prince Eugene alone, or almost
alone, among the great personalities of the reign, is really loyal, his
loyalty remaining always intact exempt from concealed motives and above
suspicion. Everywhere else, the coming crash or sinister rumors are
heard or anticipated; alarm descends from high places, spreads through
the army and echoes along the lines of the lowest ranks. In 1815, the
soldier has full confidence in himself and in Napoleon; "but he is
moody, distrustful of his other leaders.... Every march incomprehensible
to him makes him uneasy and he thinks himself betrayed."[3368] At
Waterloo, dragoons that pass him with their swords drawn and old
corporals shout to the Emperor that Soult and Vandamme, who are at this
moment about going into battle, are haranguing their troops against him
or deserting him; that General Dhénin, who has repulsed a charge of the
enemy and whose thigh is fractured by a cannon-ball, has just passed
over to the enemy. The mechanism which, for fifteen years, has worked so
well, breaks down of itself through its own action; its cog-wheels have
got out of gear; cracks show themselves in the metal which seemed
so sound; the divinations of popular instinct verify this; the
exaggerations of the popular imagination expand it and suddenly the
whole machine rattles down to the ground.

All this is due to Napoleon having introduced into it the craving for
success as central motor, as the universal main-spring, unscrupulous
ambition, in short, a crude egoism, and in the first place his own
egoism, [3369] and this incentive, strained to excess,[3370] puts the
machine out of order and then ruins it. After him, under his successors,
the same machinery is to work in the same manner, and break down in the
same way, at the expiration of a more or less extensive period. Thus
far, the longest of these periods has lasted less than twenty years.


*****

[Footnote 3301: "Most of the French provinces down to the time of
Richelieu still possessed a special representative body which consented
to and levied the taxes; most of these bodies were supported by the
all-powerful minister and replaced by intendants who, from that time on,
administered, or rather exhausted, the country, divided into thirty-two
generalities. A few provinces, however, Brittany, Burgundy, Languedoc,
a part of Provence, Flanders, Artois, and some small districts in the
Pyrenees kept their old representative body and were called pays d'état,
whilst other provinces were designated, by a strange abuse of language,
under the name of pays d'élection." (Translated from" Madame de Staël et
son Temps," vol. I., p. 38.) TR.]

[Footnote 3302: Cf. on the antiquity of this sort of mind, evident
from the beginning of society and of French literature, my "History of
English Literature," vol. I., and "La Fontaine et ses fables," pp.10 to
13.]

[Footnote 3303: In relation to this sentiment, read La Fontaine's fable
of "The Rat and the Elephant." La Fontaine fully comprehended its social
and psychological bearing. "To believe one's self an important personage
is very common in France.... A childish vanity is peculiar to us.
The Spaniards are vain, but in another way. It is specially a French
weakness."]

[Footnote 3304: Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 317. "This equality which is
now our dominant passion is not the noble kindly sentiment that affords
delight by honoring one's self in honoring one's fellow, and in feeling
at ease in all social relationships; no, it is an aversion to every
kind of superiority, a fear lest a prominent position may be lost; this
equality tends in no way to raise up what is kept down, but to prevent
any elevation whatever."]

[Footnote 3305: D'Haussonville, "l'Église romaine et le Premier Empire,"
I., chs X. and XI.]

[Footnote 3306: Decree of March 17, 1808, on the organization of the
Israelite cult. The members of the Israelite consistories and the rabbis
must be accepted by the government the same as the ministers of the
other cults; but their salary, which is fixed, must be provided by the
Israelites of the conscription; the State does not pay this, the same
as with curés or pastors. This is not done until under the monarchy of
July, when the assimilation of the Israelite with the other Christian
cults is effected.]

[Footnote 3307: "Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815
"(Edinburgh, 1806) I., 176. "The nobility, the great landed proprietors,
the yeomanry, the lesser farmers, all of the intermediate ranks who
might oppose a check to the power of a tyrannical prince, are nearly
annihilated."--Ibid., 236. "Scarcely an intermediate rank was to be
found in the nation between the sovereign and the peasant."--Ibid., II.
239. "The better class of the inhabitants of the cities, whether traders
and manufacturers or the bourgeoisie of France, are those who were the
most decided enemies of Bonaparte."]

[Footnote 3308: Napoleon, desirous of forming an opinion of him, said
to Roederer, "Send me his books." "But," said Roederer, "he is only a
translator." "No matter," replied Napoleon, "I will read his prefaces,"]

[Footnote 3309: Cf. the "Dictionnaire biographique," published at
Leipsic, 1806-1808 (by Eymory) 4 vols., and the "Almanach impérial" for
1807 to 1812; many other historic names are found there, and among
these the ladies of the palace. In 1810, Comte de la Rochefoucauld
is ambassador to Holland and Comte de Mercy-Argenteau ambassador to
Bavaria.]

[Footnote 3310: "The Revolution," II., 323. (Ed. Laffont I. 773, note 1)]

[Footnote 3311: "The Revolution," vol. III., PP. 318~322. (Ed. Laff. II.
pp. 237-240.)]

[Footnote 3312: "The Ancient Régime," pp. 116-119, 128. (Ed. Laff. I.
pp. 90-92, 100-101.)]

[Footnote 3313: De Tilly, "Mémoires," I., 153. "The difference between
the tone and language of the court and that of the city was about as
great as that between Paris and the provinces."]

[Footnote 3314: Hence the lack of success of the Maupeou parliament.]

[Footnote 3315: See the collections of songs previous to the Revolution,
especially military songs such as "Malgré la bataille,"--"Dans les
gardes françaises," etc.--At the time of the Restoration, the pastoral
or gallant songs of Florian, Bouffiers and Berquin were still sung in
bourgeois families, each person, young or old, man or woman, singing one
at the dessert. This undercurrent of gayety, geniality and amiability
lasted throughout the Revolution and the Empire. ("Travels through the
South of France, 1807 and 1808," p.132, by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney,
of the United States.) "I must once for all say that the Memoirs of
Marmontel are founded in nature." He cites a great many facts in proof
of this, and testifies in all classes to a prompt and social nature, a
natural benevolence or habitual civility which leads them instinctively,
and not unfrequently impertinently, into acts of kindness and
consideration."--The same impression is produced on comparing the
engravings, fashion-plates, light subjects and caricatures of this
period with those of the present epoch. The malicious sentiment begins
only with Béranger; and yet his early pieces ("Le Roi d'Yvetot," "le
Sénateur") display the light air, accent and happy, instead of venomous,
malice of the old song. Nobody now sings in the lower bourgeoisie or in
gatherings of clerks or students, while, along with the song, we
have seen the other traits which impressed foreigners disappear, the
gallantry, the jesting humor, the determination to regard life as so
many hours (une serie de quarts d'heures, each of which may be separated
from the others, be ample in themselves and agreeable to him who talks
and to him or her who listens.]

[Footnote 3316: Read the novels of Pigault-Lebrun: books of the epoch
the best adapted to the men of the epoch, to the military parvenus,
swift, frank, lusty and narrow-minded.]

[Footnote 3317: Candide (Récit de la Vieille).]

[Footnote 3318: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. "I am sure that his
imagination was more taken with Ghengis-Khan than with Caesar."]

[Footnote 3319: "The Revolution," II., 12, 22. (Laff. I. pp. 574, 582.)
(Articles by Mailet-Dupan, "Mercure de France," Dec. 30, 1791, and
April 7, 1792.)--Napoleon, "Mémorial" (Sept. 3, 1816), thinks so too and
states the essential characteristic of the Revolution. This consisted
in "telling everybody who held office, every one who had a place or a
fortune: 'Get out.'"]

[Footnote 3320: Roederer, III., 534 (January 1809, on Normandy),
"Children in every situation think of becoming soldiers to get the cross
(legion of honor), and the cross secures the chevalier. The desire
of distinction, of passing ahead of some one else, is a national
sentiment."]

[Footnote 3321: "The Revolution," II., 248. (Laff. I. p. 747.)]

[Footnote 3322: Napoleon, "Mémoires "(edited by M. de Montholon, III.,
11-19), on the extraordinary ignorance of Cartaux.--Ibid., 23, on
Doppet's incapacity, the successor of Cartaux.]

[Footnote 3323: "The Revolution," III., 310. (Laff. II. pp. 178-179.)]

[Footnote 3324: They called themselves exclusives under the
Directory.--Cf. "The Revolution, II.", 23, 187, 196, 245, 297-303,
340-351, 354; book III., ch, 2 and 3, and book IV. (Ed. Laff. I.
pp. 582, 701, pp. 709-710, 745, 782-787, 821-823 and in Vol. II. pp.
131-167, pp. 167-215 and pp 311-357.)]

[Footnote 3325: The declaration of Human Rights in 1789 stated that:
"art. 1st, § 5. Tous les citoyens sont egalement admissible aux emplois
publics. Les peuples ne connaissent d'autres motifs de préference, dans
élections, que les vertus et les talents." Virtue in French is virtue in
English while talent in French must be translated as being both talent
and skill. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3326: Madame de Rémusat, passim.--Roederer, III., 538 (January
1809). (Words of Napoleon) "I took a few of the old court into my
household. They remained two years without speaking to me and six
months without seeing me... I don't like them--they are no good for
anything--their conversation is disagreeable to me."]

[Footnote 3327: Napoléon, "Mémoires."]

[Footnote 3328: Roederer, "Mémoires."]

[Footnote 3329: Taine uses the French expression "esprit" which might
both mean spirit, wit, mind or sense.]

[Footnote 3330: Roederer, "Mémoires, "III., 281. "Men, under his
government, who had hitherto been considered incapable are made useful;
men hitherto considered distinguished found themselves mixed in with
the crowd; men hitherto regarded as the pillars of the State found
themselves useless ... An ass or a knave need never be ambitious to
approach Bonaparte, they will make nothing out of him."]

[Footnote 3331: Fiévée, "Correspondance," III., 33.--Roederer, III.,
381.]

[Footnote 3332: Beugnot, "Mémoires," II., 372.]

[Footnote 3333: Lefebvre, a former sergeant in the French guards, who
became marshal of the empire and Duc de Dantzig, with 150,000 francs a
year, received the visit of a comrade who, instead of having mounted the
ladder as he had done, had remained at the bottom of it. The marshal,
a fine fellow, welcomed his comrade heartily, and showed him over
his hotel. The visitor's face gradually grew somber, and bitter words
escaped from his lips; he often murmured, "Ah, how lucky you are!"--At
last, the marshal, impatient, said to him, "Well, I will make all this
over to you on one condition."--"What is it?"--"You must go down into
the court. I will post two grenadiers at the window with their guns,
and they shall fire at you. If they miss, you shall have the hotel and
everything in it."--"Ah, no, thanks!"--"My friend, more shots than these
have been fired at me and nearer by!"]

[Footnote 3334: Roederer, III., 332 (Aug. 2, 1800).]

[Footnote 3335: Papers of Maine de Biran. (Note communicated by M.
Naville.) Letter of Baron Maurice, prefect of Dordogne, to M. Maine
de Biran, sub-prefect of Bergerac, transmitting to him by order of the
minister of the interior a blank form to be filled up by him presenting
the "Statistics of young ladies belonging to the most notable families
of the arrondissement." The form annexed contained several columns, one
for names and given names, others for the future inheritance of real and
personal estate, etc. A clever or energetic prefect, provided with this
list, was able and was expected to take an active part in marriages
and see that all the large dowries were appropriated on the right
side.--"Memoires de Madame de------," part 3rd, ch. VIII., p. 154.
(These very instructive memoirs by a very sincere and judicious person
are still unpublished. I am not authorized to give the name of the
author.) "It was at this time that the emperor took it into his head
to marry as he saw fit the young girls who had more than 50,000 livres
rental." A rich heiress of Lyons, intended for M. Jules de Polignac,
is thus wedded to M. de Marboeuf. M. d'Aligre, by dint of address and
celerity, evades for his daughter first M. de Caulaincourt and then M.
de Faudoas, brother-in-law to Savary, and in stead weds her to M.
de Pommereu.--Baron de Vitrolles, Mémoires, I. 19. (His daughter
was designated by the prefect of the Basses-Alpes.)--Comte Joseph
d'Estourmel, "Souvenirs de France et d'Italie," 239. (Details of this
description of the young ladies to be married and the circular from the
duke de Rovigo, minister of police.) the eight column of the form was
"reserved to describe the physical charms and deformities, the talents,
the conduct and the religious principles of each of the young ladies."]

[Footnote 3336: "Statistiques des Préfets." (Doubs, by Debry, p. 60;
Meurthe, by Marquis, p. 115, Ain, by Bossi, p.240.)]

[Footnote 3337: "Statistique de l'Ain," by Bossi, p. 1808. From 1140 in
1801, the number of employees and others under state pay amounts to
1771 in 1806. This increase is attributed by the prefect to causes just
stated.]

[Footnote 3338: Napoleon, "Correspondance." (Note of April 11, 1811.)
"There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen and Lubeck from 8,000 to 10,000
French, either employees or gendarmes, in the customs and depots."]

[Footnote 3339: One officer may be counted to every 50 men in the
infantry; in the cavalry 1 officer to every 25 or 30 men,--This ratio of
one officer to every fifty men indicates that, among the 1,700,000 men
who perished between 1804 and 1815, there were 24,000 officers, which
gives about 3,000 vacancies per annum, to which must be added the
vacancies due to the wounded, disabled and and retired. It must be
noted, moreover, that the death or retirement of an officer above the
grade of second-lieutenant makes several vacancies, vacancies which are
more numerous the higher the rank. When a captain is killed there are
three promotions and so on.]

[Footnote 3340: "The Revolution" III., 335. (Laff. II. p. 250)--Already,
in 1795, the need of competent and specialized men was so great that the
government sought, even among royalists, for financial and diplomatic
heads of these services; it made offers to M. Dufresne and to M. de
Rayneval.--Ib. 406.--(Cf. "Mémoires" by Gaudin, Miot de Melito and
Mollien.)]

[Footnote 3341: Words of Bouquier, reporter of the law on education
(session of the Convention, Frimaire 22, year II).]

[Footnote 3342: The reader is recommended to do as I have done and
consult biographies on point, also the souvenirs of his grandparents.
(H.A.Taine.)]

[Footnote 3343: Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur la Consulat," p.88.
(Exposition of motives by Roederer to the corps Législatif, Floréal
25, year X.) "After all, it is the creation of a new currency of quite
different value from that which issues from the public treasury, a
currency of unchangeable worth and of an inexhaustible mine, since
it lies in French honor; a currency which can solely reward actions
regarded as above any recompense."]

[Footnote 3344: Thibaudeau, ibid., 83. (Address by the First Consul to
the council of State, Floréal 14, year X.)--Also "Mémorial": "Old and
corrupt nations are not governed the same as young and virtuous ones;
sacrifices have to be made to interest, to enjoyments, to vanity. This
is the secret of the return to monarchical forms, to titles. crosses,
ribbons, harmless baubles suited to exciting the respect of the
multitude while at the same time enforcing self-respect."]

[Footnote 3345: "La Légion d'honneur," by M. Mazas, passim. Details on
the nomination ceremonials. "The veritable date was July 15th, as the
14th was Sunday. Augereau and about sixty officers, "bad fellows" who
disliked the mass, refused to go into the chapel and remained outside in
the court."]

[Footnote 3346: Several generals, Lecourbe, Souham, etc., were excluded
as being too republican or suspect and hostile. Lemercier, Ducis,
Delille, and Lafayette refused. Admiral Truguet, through pique and
discontent, had at first declined the grade of grand-officer, but
finally changed his mind and became at first commander and then
grand-officer.]

[Footnote 3347: "Les Cahiers du capitaine Coignet," passim and pp. 95,
145. "When the ceremony was over, handsome women who could get at me to
examine my cross, asked me if they might give me a kiss."--At the Palais
Royal the proprietor of a café says to him: "Order whatever you want,
the Legion of Honor is welcome to anything."]

[Footnote 3348: Mazas, ibid., p. 413.--Edmond Blanc, "Napoléon, ses
institutions civiles et administratives," p. 279.--The number of
decorated, at first, was to be 6,000. In 1806, the emperor had nominated
14,500, and taking his entire reign, until his fall, about 48,000. The
real force of legionaries, however, then living does not surpass at this
time 30,000, of which only 1,200 are in civil careers. At the présent
time, December 1, 1888 (documents furnished by the records of the Légion
d'honneur), there are 52.915 decorated persons, of which 31,757 are
soldiers and 21,158 civilians. Under the empire there was in all 1 cross
to every 750 Frenchmen; at that time, out of 50 crosses there were 2 for
civil services, while in our day there are nearly 20. (QUID informs us
that on 30-11-1994 the strength amounted to 207,390 persons. SR.)]

[Footnote 3349: Edmond Blanc, ibid., 276-299, 325 and 326. (List of
titles of prince and duke conferred by the emperor, and of gifts of
100,000 francs rental or of above that sum.)]

[Footnote 3350: Mathieu Dumas, "Mémoires," III., 363.]

[Footnote 3351: Napoleon, "Mémoires."]

[Footnote 3352: Compare with the Brothers Grimm's fairytale: "The
Fisherman and his Wife."]

[Footnote 3353: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire," V. III.,
p. 210.]

[Footnote 3354: Thiers, ibid., p.195 (October 1806). Napoleon, in one of
his bulletins, had mentioned Murat's cavalry alone, omitting to mention
the infantry of Lannes, which behaved as well. Lannes, disappointed, did
not dare read this bulletin to his men, and spoke to the emperor about
it. 'What reward can they look for if they don't find their names
published by the hundred-tongued voice of Fame which is under your
control!" Napoleon replies: "You and your men are children--glory enough
for all!... One of these days your turn will come in the bulletins of
the grand army." Lannes reads this to his troops on the great square of
Stettin and it is received with outbursts of enthusiasm.]

[Footnote 3355: Madame de Rémusat. III., 129.]

[Footnote 3356: "The Revolution," pp. 356-358. (Laff. I. pp.
825-826.)--Marmont, "Mémoires," I. 122. (Letter to his mother, January
12, 1795.) "Behold your son zealously fulfilling his duties, deserving
of his country and serving the republic.... We should not be worthy of
liberty if we did nothing to obtain it."]

[Footnote 3357: Compare the "Journal du sergent Fricasse," and "les
Cahiers du capitaine Coignet." Fricasse is a volunteer who enlists
in the defence of the country; Coignet is a conscript ambitious of
distinguishing himself, and he says to his masters: "I promise to come
back with the fusil d'honneur or I shall be dead."]

[Footnote 3358: Marmont, I., 186, 282, 296. (In Italy, 1796.) "At this
epoch, our ambition was quite secondary; we were solely concerned about
our duties and amusements. The frankest and most cordial union existed
amongst us all.... No sentiment of envy, no low passion found room in
our breasts. (Then) what excitement, what grandeur, what hopes and what
gayety!... Each had a presentiment of an illimitable future and yet
entertained no idea of personal ambition or calculation."--George
Sand, "Histoire de ma vie." (Correspondence of her father, Commander
Dupin.)--Stendhal, "Vie de Napoléon." "At this epoch (1796), nobody in
the army had any ambition. I have known officers to refuse promotion so
as not to quit their regiment or their mistress."]

[Footnote 3359: Roederer, III., 556. (Burgos, April 9, 1809,
conversation with General Lasalle written down the same evening.) "You
pass through Paris?" "Yes, it's the shortest way. I shall get there at
five in the morning; I shall order a pair of boots, get my wife with
child and then leave for Germany."--Roederer remarks to him that one
risks one's life and fights for the sake of promotion and to profit
by rising in the world. "No, not at all. One takes pleasure in it. One
enjoys fighting; it is pleasure enough in itself to fight! You are
in the midst of the uproar, of the action, of the smoke. And then, on
acquiring reputation you have had the fun of making it. When you have
got your fortune you know that your wife and children won't suffer. That
is enough. As for myself, I could die to-morrow." (The details of this
conversation are admirable; no document gives a better idea of the
officer of the epoch.)]

[Footnote 3360: Compare with the idea of an ideal Chaver (kibbutznik).:
Melford E. Spiro, wrote "Kibbutz. Venture in Utopia." 60 and described
how the Israeli kibbutzim as early as 1917 wanted the ideal kibbutzim to
be:

     Loyal to his people
     A brother to his fellows
     A man of truth
     A helpful and dependable brother
     A lover of nature
     Obedient to the orders of his leaders
     Joyful and gay
     Economical and generous
     A man of courage
     Pure in thoughts, words, and deeds (opposition to drinking,
          smoking and sexual relationships).]

[Footnote 3361: Balzac has closely studied and admirably portrayed this
type in a "Ménage de Garçon."--See other similar characters in Mérimée
("Les Mécontens," and "les Espagnols en Danemark"); in Stendhal ("le
Chasseur vert"). I knew five or six of them in my youth.]

[Footnote 3362: Words of Marshal Marmont: "So long as he declared
'Everything for France,' I served him enthusiastically; when he said,
'France and myself' I served him zealously; when he said, 'myself and
France,' I served him with devotion. It is only when he said, 'Myself
without France,' that I left him."]

[Footnote 3363: An expression found by Joseph de Maistre.]

[Footnote 3364: An expression heard by Mickiewicz in his childhood.]

[Footnote 3365: These sums are given, the former by Mérimée and the
latter by Sainte--Beuve.]

[Footnote 3366: M. de Champagny "Souvenirs," III., 183. Napoleon,
passing his marshals in review, said to him (1811): "None of them can
take my place in the command of my armies; some are without the talent,
and others would carry on war for their own benefit. Didn't that burly
Soult want to be king of Portugal?" "Well, sire, war need not be carried
on any longer." "Yes, but how maintain my army? And I must have an
army."]

[Footnote 3367: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc),
chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. IV.,
112. (According to the papers of Savary, many of Napoleon's letters and
statements by M. de Saint-Aignan.)]

[Footnote 3368: "Mémorial," Aug.26, 1816.]

[Footnote 3369: The driving motor of unlimited capitalism as well, a
driving force only to be tempered by the law and by a desire for social
admiration of different kinds. (SR.)]

[Footnote 3370: "Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815."
(Edinburgh, 1816, 2 vols.)--The author, a very good observer, thus sums
up the principle of the system: "To give active employment to all men of
talent and enterprise." There is no other condition: "Birth, education,
moral character were completely set aside."--Hence the general defect of
the system. "The French have literally no idea of any duties which they
must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their
country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible
for the neglect of those public duties for the performance of which he
receives no regular salary."]





BOOK FOURTH. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM.




CHAPTER I. LOCAL SOCIETY.




I. Human Incentives.

     The two Stimuli of human action.--The egoistic instinct and
     the social instinct.--Motives for not weakening the social
     instinct.--Influence on society of the law it prescribes.
     --The clauses of a statute depend on the legislator who adopts
     or imposes them.--Conditions of a good statute.--It favors
     the social instinct.--Different for different societies.
     --Determined by the peculiar and permanent traits of the
     society it governs.--Capital defect of the statute under the
     new régime.

So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his own fortune,
in his own advancement, in his own success, his interests are trivial:
all that is, like himself, of little importance and of short duration.
Alongside of the small boat which he steers so carefully there are
thousands and millions of others of like it; none of them are
worth much, and his own is not worth more. However well he may have
provisioned and sailed it, it will always remain what it is, slight and
fragile; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove ahead
to get the first place; in three steps he has reached its length.
However well he handles and maintains it, in a few years it leaks;
sooner or later it crumbles and sinks, and with it goes all his effort.
Is it reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object
worth so great an effort?

Fortunately, man has, for a better placement of his effort, other
aims, more vast and more substantial: a family, a commune, a church, a
country, all the associations of which he is or becomes a member,
all the collective undertakings in behalf of science, education, and
charity, of local or general utility, most of them provided with legal
statutes and organized as corporations or even as a legal entity. They
are as well defined and protected as he is, but more precious and more
viable: for they are of service to a large number of men and last for
ever. Some, even, have a secular history, and their age predicts their
longevity. In the countless fleet of boats which so constantly sink,
and which are so constantly replaced by others, they last like top
rated liners. The men from the flotilla now and then sign on these large
vessels, and the result of their labor is not, as it is at home, futile
or short-lived; it will remain above the surface after he and his boat
have disappeared. It has entered into the common mass of work which owes
its protection to its mass; undoubtedly the portion he contributes may
be worked over again later on; but its substance remains, and often also
its form:

* like a precept of Jesus,

* like Archimedes' theorem

which rests a definite acquisition, intact and permanently fixed for
two thousand years, immortal from the first day.--Consequently, the
individual may take an interest, no longer merely in his own boat, but
again in some ship, in this or that particular one, in this or
that association or community, according to his preferences and his
aptitudes, according to attractiveness, proximity, and convenience of
access, all of which is a new motivation for his activities, opposing
his egoism, which, powerful as it may be, may still be overcome, since a
soul might be very generous or qualified by long and special discipline.
Out of this issues every sacrifice, the surrender of one's-self to one's
work or to a cause,

* the devotion of the sister of charity or of the missionary,

* the abnegation of the scientist who buries himself for twenty years in
the minutia of a thankless task,

* the heroism of the explorer who risks himself on a desert or among
savages,

* the courage of the soldier who stakes his life in defense of his flag.

But these cases are rare; with the mass of men, and in most of their
actions, personal interest prevails against common interest, while
against the egoistic instinct the social instinct is feeble. Hence the
danger of weakening this. The temptation of the individual to prefer his
own boat to the large ship is only too great; if it is desirable for him
to go aboard and work there, he must be provided with the facilities
and motives which prompt him to go aboard and do the work; at the very
least, he must not be deprived of them. Now, that depends on the State,
a sort of central flag-ship, the only one that is armed, and which has
all subordinate vessels under its guns; for, whatever the society may
be, provincial or municipal, educational or charitable, religious or
laic, it is the State which sanctions or adopts its statues, good
or bad, and which, by its laws, tribunals, and police, insures their
execution, whether rigidly or carelessly. Therefore, on this point, it
is responsible; it must adopt or impose the proper statute, the
most suitable social form for strengthening the social instinct, for
maintaining disinterested zeal, for the encouragement of voluntary and
gratuitous labor.

This form, of course, differs according to different societies; the same
charter or constitution is not proper for a church system and a commune,
nor for a Protestant church and a Catholic church, nor for a town of
one hundred thousand inhabitants and a village of five hundred. Each
association has its own peculiar and distinctive features, which grade
it according to its kind, according to its spiritual or temporal aims,
according to its liberal or authoritative spirit, according to is small
or large dimensions, according to the simplicity or complexity of
its affairs, according to the capacity or incapacity of its members:
features which within it are both efficient and permanent; whatever the
legislator may do, these will remain and will regulate all activity.
Thus let him, in each case, keep this in mind. But in all cases his
office is the same; always, on drawing up and countersigning a statute,
he intervenes in the coming conflict between the social instinct and
the egoistic instinct; every provision which he enacts will contribute,
nearby or at a distance, to the final ascendancy of the former or of
the latter. Now, the legislator the natural ally of the former, for the
former is his indispensable auxiliary. In every work or enterprise
of public utility, if the legislator is the external promoter, social
instinct is the internal promoter; and on the inner spring becoming weak
or breaking, the impulsion from outside remains without effect. Hence it
is that, if the legislator would accomplish anything, otherwise than on
paper, he must, before any object or interest, concern himself with the
social instinct[4101]; thus preserving and humoring it; find room for it
and its usefulness; let it have full play; getting all the service it is
capable of rendering, and especially not twist or release it.--In this
respect, any blunder might prove disastrous; and in every statute for
each society, for each of the human vessels which gather together and
serve as a retinue of individual vessels, there are two capital errors.
On the one hand, if the statute, in fact and practically, is or becomes
too grossly unjust, if the rights and benefits which it confers are not
compensated by the duties and obligations it imposes; if it multiplies
excessive burdens for some and sinecures for others; if, at last,
the exploited individual discovers that he is overcharged beyond his
due,--thereafter he refuses on his own to add voluntarily to his load.
Let others, let the favored and the privileged bear the gratuitous,
extra weight. Far from stepping forward and offering his shoulders, he
gets out of the way, hides himself, and lightens his load as much as he
can; he even rebels when he has a chance, and violently casts off every
legal burden, be it tax or due of any kind. Thus did the ancient régime
perish.--On the other hand, if the statute withdraws the management of
the ship from those who are concerned; if, on this vessel, which belongs
to them, it permanently installs a foreign crew, which assumes and
exercises all command, then the owner of the vessel, reduced to the
humble condition of a mere subject and quiescent taxpayer, will no
longer feel concerned. Since the intruders exercise all authority, let
them have all the trouble; the working of the ship concerns them and not
him; he looks on as a spectator, without any idea of lending a hand; he
folds his arms, remains idle, and becomes critical.--Against the first
defect, the new régime is on its guard: there must be neither the
preferred nor the disgraced, neither favors nor exemptions, neither
exclusions nor releases, no more misappropriation, embezzlement, or
robbery, not alone in the State, but elsewhere in any direction,--in
the department, in the commune, in the Church, or in educational and
benevolent institutions. It excels in practicing distributive justice.
The second defect is its hidden flaw: the legislator having introduced
this into all local and special statutes, its effects differ according
to different societies; but all these effects converge, paralyzing in
the nation the best half of the soul, and, worse still, to leading
the will astray and perverting the public mind, transforming generous
impulses into evil outbursts, and organizing lasting inertia, ennui,
discontent, discord, feebleness, and sterility.[4102]




II. Local Community.

     Local societies.--Their principal and distinctive
     character.--Their type on a small scale.--A dwelling-house
     in Annecy or Grenoble.--Compulsory association of its
     inmates.--Its object and limits.--Private in character.

Let us first consider local society whether a province, a department,
or a county. For the past ten years (1789-99), the legislator has
unceasingly deformed and assaulted. On his side, he refuses to open his
eyes; preoccupied with theories, he will not recognize it for what it is
in reality, a society of a distinct species, different from the
State, with its own peculiar aims, its limits marked out, its members
prescribed, its statutes drawn up, everything formed and defined
beforehand. As it is local, it is founded on the greater or less
proximity of its habitations. Thus, to comprehend it, we must take a
case in which this proximity is greatest that of certain houses in some
of our southeastern towns, as, for example, Grenoble and Annecy. Here,
a house often belongs to several distinct owners, each possessing his
story, or apartment on a story, one owning the cellar and another the
attic, each enjoying all the rights of property over his portion, the
right of renting it, selling it, bequeathing it, and mortgaging it, but
all holding it in common for the maintenance of the roof and the main
walls.--Evidently, their association is not a free one; willingly or
not, each forms a member of it, for, willingly or not, each benefits
or suffers through the good or bad state of the roof and the principal
walls: therefore, all must furnish their quota of the indispensable
expenses; even a majority of votes would not rid them of these; one
claimant alone would suffice to hold them responsible; they have no
right to impose on him the danger which they accept for themselves, nor
to shirk expenses by which they profit as well as himself. Consequently,
on the report of an expert, the magistrate interferes, and, willingly or
not, the repairs are made; then, willingly or not, both by custom and in
law, each pays his quote, calculated according to the locative value of
the portion belonging to him.--But here his obligations cease. In fact
as in law, the community (of property) is restricted; the associates
take good care not to extend this, not to pursue other aims at the same
time, not to add to their primitive and natural purpose a different and
supplementary purpose, not to devote one room to a Christian chapel
for the residents of the house, another room for a kindergarten for the
children that live in it, and a side room to a small hospital for those
who fall ill; especially, they do not admit that a tax may be imposed
for these purposes and each of them be subject to a proportional
increase of assessment at so many additional centimes per franc.[4103]
For, if the proprietor of the ground-floor is an Israelite, the
proprietor of a room on the second story is a bachelor, the proprietor
of the fine suite of rooms on the first story is rich, and has a doctor
visit him at the house, these must pay for a service for which they get
no return.--For the same reason, their association remains private; it
does not form part of the public domain; they alone are interested in
it; if the State let us use its tribunals and officials, it is the same
as it is with ordinary private individuals. It would be unjust both
against it and against itself if it would exclude or exempting it from
common right, if it put it on its administrative rolls. It would deform
and disrupt its work if it interfered with its independence, if added
to its functions or to its obligations. It is not under its tutelage,
obliged to submit its accounts to the prefect; it delegates no powers
and confers no right of justice, or police; in short, it is neither
its pupil nor its agent. Such is the lien which permanent proximity
establishes between men; we see that it is of a singular species:
neither in fact, nor in law, can the associates free themselves from
it; solely because they are neighbors, they form a community for certain
indivisible or jointly owned things, an involuntary and obligatory
community. To make amends, and even owing to this, I mean through
institution and in the natural order of things, their community
is limited, and limited in two ways, restricted to its object and
restricted to its members, reduced to matters of which proprietorship
or enjoyment is forcibly in common, and reserved to inhabitants who, on
account of situation and fixed residence, possess this enjoyment or this
property.i




III. Essential Public Local Works.

     Analysis of other local societies, commune, department, or
     province.--Common interests which necessitate local action.
     --Two objects in view: care of public roads and means of
     protection against spreading calamities.--Why collaboration
     is an obligation.--Neighbors involuntarily subject to a
     common bond on account of proximity.--Willingly or not each
     shares in its benefits.--What portion of the expense belongs
     to each.--Equal advantages for each.--The unequal and
     proportionate advantages for each in his private expenses,
     industrial or commercial gains, and in the locative value of
     his real estate.--Each person's quota of expense according
     to his equal and proportionate share in advantages.

All local societies are of this kind, each limited to a certain
territory and included with others like it inside a larger area, each
possessing two budgets depending on whether it is a distinct body or
member of a larger corporation, each, from the commune to the department
or province, instituted on a basis of interests which make them jointly
but involuntarily liable.--There are two of these important interests
which, as in the Annecy building, elude human arbitrariness, which
demand common action and distribution of the expense, because, as in the
Annecy building, they are the inevitable results of physical proximity:

First, comes care for the public highways, by land or by water, river
navigation, canals, towing-paths, bridges, streets, public squares,
by-roads, along with the more or less optional and gradual improvements
which public roads demand or prescribe, such as their laying-out,
sidewalks, paving, sweeping, lighting, drainage, sewers, rolling,
ditches, leveling, embankments, and other engineering works, which
establish or increase safety and convenience in circulation, with
facilities for and dispatch in transportation.

Next, comes protection against the spread of calamities, such as fires,
inundations, contagious diseases, epidemics, along with the more or
less optional and remote precautions which this protection exacts or
recommends, night watchers in Russia, dikes in Holland, levees in
the valleys of the Po and the Loire, cemeteries and regulations for
interment, cleanliness of the streets, ventilation of holes and
corners, drainage of marshes, hydrants, and supplies of drinkable water,
disinfecting of contaminated areas, and other preventive or necessary
hygienic measures which remove or prevent insalubrities growing out of
neighborhood or contact.

All this has to be provided for, and the enterprise, if not wholly
and in its developments, at least in itself and in what is necessary,
imposes itself, collectively, on all the inhabitants of the
conscription, from the highest to the lowest. For, in the absence of a
public road, none of them can do his daily work, travel about, or even
leave his premises; while transportation ceases and trade is suspended;
hence, commerce and other pursuits languish, industry is arrested,
agriculture becomes impracticable or fruitless; the fields are no longer
cultivated; while provisions, food, including bread,[4104] everything is
wanting; the dwellings becoming uninhabitable, more so than the Annecy
houses when the roofs fall in and let in the rain.--On the other hand,
for lack of protection against calamities, these get a free rein: the
day arrives when an equinoctial tide submerges the flat coastal area,
when the river overflows and devastates the countryside, when the
conflagration spreads, when small-pox and the cholera reach a contagious
point, and life is in danger, far more seriously imperiled than when, in
the Annecy domicile, the main walls threaten to tumble down.[4105]

Undoubtedly, I can personally accept this miserable condition of things,
resign myself to it, and consent, as far as I am concerned, to shut
myself up within my own walls, to fast there, and run the risk, more or
less imminent, of being drowned, burnt, or poisoned; but I have no
right to condemn another to do this, nor to refuse my contribution to a
protection by which I am to profit. As to my share of the expense it is
fixed beforehand, and fixed through my share in the benefit:

Whoever receives, owes, and in proportion to what he receives;

such is an equitable exchange; no society is prosperous and healthy
without this; it is essential that, for each member of it, the duties
should exactly compensate the advantages, and that the two sides of the
scale should balance. In the local community, the care taken of public
roads and the precautions taken against natural calamities are useful in
two ways: one, which especially improves the condition of persons, and
the other, which especially improves the condition of things. The first
is equal and the same for all. The poor man, quite as much as the rich
one, needs to go and come and to look after his affairs; he uses the
street, pavement, sidewalks, bridges, highways, and public fountains
quite as much; he equally benefits by the sweeping and lighting of the
public gardens. It may be claimed that, in certain respects, he derives
more benefits from all this; for he suffers sooner and more keenly when
bad roads stop transportation, arrest labor, and increase the cost of
food; he is more subject to contagion, to epidemics, to all physical
ills; in case of a fire, the risks of a workman in his garret, at the
top of steep, narrow stairs, are greater than those of the opulent
proprietor on the first story, in a mansion provided with a broad range
of steps. In case of inundation, the danger is more suddenly mortal for
the humble villager, in his fragile tenement, than for the gentleman
farmer in his massive constructions. Accordingly, under this heading,
the poor man owes as much as the rich one; the rich man, at least, owes
no more than the poor one; if, each year, the poor man cannot pay but
one franc, the rich one, each year, should not pay more than that sum
likewise.--The second advantage, on the contrary, is not equal for all,
but more or less great for each, according to what he spends on the
spot, according to his industrial or commercial gains, and according to
his local income. Indeed, the more perfect the public highway is, the
more are the necessities and conveniences of life; whatever is agreeable
and useful, even distant and remote, more within reach, and at my
disposition, in my very hands, I enjoy it to the utmost, the measure of
my enjoyment of it being the importance of my purchases, everything
I consume, in short, my home expenditure.[4106] If I am, besides,
industrial or in commerce, the state of the public highway affects me
even more; for my transportation, more or less costly, difficult and
slow, depends on that, and next, the receipt of my raw materials and
goods, the sale of my manufactures, the dispatch of my merchandise,
bought and sold, while the measure of this special interest, so direct
and so intense, is the annual sum-total of my business, or, more
strictly speaking, the probable sum of my profits.[4107] If, finally,
I own real estate, a house or land, its locative value increases or
diminishes according to the salubrity and convenience of its site,
together with its facilities for cultivating, selling, and distributing
its crops, for its various outlets, for its security against floods and
fires, and, after this, to improvements in public transit, and to the
collective works which protect both soil and buildings against natural
calamities.[4108] It follows that the inhabitant who benefits from these
services, owes a second contribution, greater or lesser according to the
greater or lesser advantage which he derives from them.




IV. Local associations.

     Local society, thus constituted, is a collective legal
     entity.--The sphere of its initiation and action.--Its
     relation to the State.--Distinction between the private and
     the public domain.

Such is in itself local society and, with or without the legislator's
permission, we find it to be a private syndicate,[4109] analogous
to many others.[4110] Whether communal or departmental, it concerns,
combines, and serves none but the inhabitants of one circumscription;
its success or failure does not interest the nation, unless indirectly,
and through a remote reaction, similar to the slight effect which, for
good or ill, the health or sickness of one Frenchman produces on the
mass of Frenchmen. That which directly and fully affects a local society
is felt only by that society, the same as that which affects a private
individual is felt only by him; it is a close corporation, and belongs
to itself within its physical limits, the same as he, in his, belongs to
himself; like him, then, it is an individual, less simple, but no less
real, a human combination, endowed with reason and will, responsible
for its acts, capable of wronging and being wronged; in brief, a legal
entity. Such, in fact, it is, and, through the explicit declaration
of the legislator, who constitutes it a legal entity, capable of
possessing, acquiring, and contracting, and of prosecuting in the courts
of law: he likewise confers on the eighty-six departments and on the
thirty-six thousand communes all the legal capacities and obligations of
an ordinary individual. The State, consequently, in relationship to them
and to all collective persons, is what it is with respect to a private
individual, neither more nor less; its title to intervene between them
is not different. As justiciary, it owes them justice the same as to
private persons, nothing more or less; only to render this to them, it
has more to do, for they are composite and complex. By virtue even of
its mandate, it is bound to enter their domiciles in the performance of
its duty, to maintain probity and to prevent disorder, to protect there
not alone the governed against the governors and the governors against
the governed, but again the community, which is lasting, against its
directors, who are temporary, to assign to each member his quota of dues
or of charges, and his quote of influence or of authority, to regulate
the way in which the society shall support and govern itself, to decide
upon and sanction the equitable statute, to oversee and impose its
execution, that is to say, in sum to maintain the right of each person
and oblige each to pay what he owes.--This is difficult and delicate.
But, being done, the collective personality is, as much as any
individual, complete and defined, independent and distinct from the
State; by the same title as that of the individual, it has its own
circle of initiation and of action, its separate domain, which is its
private affair. The State, on its side, has its own affairs too, which
are those of the public; and thus, in the nature of things, both circles
are distinct; neither of them should prey upon or encroach on the
other.--Undoubtedly, local societies and the State may help each other,
lend each other their agents, and thus avoid employing two for one; may
reduce their official staff, diminish their expenses, and, through
this interchange of secondary offices, do their work better and more
economically. For example, the commune and the department may let the
State collect and deposit their "additional centimes," borrow from it
for this purpose its assessors and other accountants, and thus receive
their revenues with no drawback, almost gratis, on the appointed day.
In the like manner, the State has very good reason for entrusting the
departmental council with the re-distribution of its direct taxes among
the districts, and the district council with the same re-distribution
among the communes: in this way it saves trouble for itself, and there
is no other more effective mode of ensuring an equitable allocation.
It will similarly be preferable to have the mayor, rather than anybody
else, handle petty public undertakings, which nobody else could do as
readily and as surely, with less trouble, expense, and mistakes, with
fewer legal document, registers of civil status, advertisements of laws
and regulations, transmissions by the orders of public authorities to
interested parties, and of local information to the public authorities
which they need, the preparation and revision of the electoral lists and
of conscripts, and co-operation in measures of general security. Similar
collaboration is imposed on the captain of a merchant vessel, on the
administrators of a railway, on the director of a hotel or even of a
factory, and this does not prevent the company which runs the ship, the
railway, the hotel, or the factory, from enjoying full ownership and
the free disposition of its capital; from holding meetings, passing
resolutions, electing directors, appointing its managers, and regulating
its own affairs, preserving intact that precious faculty of possessing,
of willing and of acting, which cannot be lost or alienated without
ceasing to be a personality. To remain a personality (i.e. a legal
entity), such is the main interest and right of all persons, singly
or collectively, and therefore of local communities and of the State
itself; it must be careful not to abdicate and be careful not to
usurp.--It renounces in favor of local societies when, through optimism
or weakness, it hands a part of the public domain over to them; when
it gives them the responsibility for the collection of its taxes, the
appointment of its judges and police-commissioners, the employment of
its armed forces, when it delegates local functions to them which
it should exercise itself, because it is the special and responsible
director, the only one who is in a suitable position, competent, well
provided, and qualified to carry them out. On the other side, it causes
prejudice to the local societies, when it appropriates to itself a
portion of their private domain, when it confiscates their possessions,
when it disposes of their capital or income arbitrarily, when it imposes
on them excessive expenses for worship, charity, education, and any
other service which properly belongs to a different association; when it
refuses to recognize in the mayor the representative of the commune and
the government official, when it subordinates the first of these two
titles to the second, when it claims the right of giving or taking away,
through with the second which belongs to it, the first which does
not belong to it, when in practice and in its grasp the commune
and department cease to be private companies in order to become
administrative compartments.--According to the opportunity and the
temptation, it glides downhill, now toward the surrender of its duty,
and now toward the meddlesome interference of an intruder.




V. Local versus State authority.

     Case in which the State abdicates.--Anarchy during the
     Revolution.--Case in which the State usurps.--Regime of the
     year VIII.--Remains of local independence under the ancient
     regime.--Destroyed under the new regime.--Local society
     after 1800.

From and after 1789, the State, passing through intermittent fits and
starts of brutal despotism, had resigned its commission. Under its
almost nominal sovereignty, there were in France forty-four thousand
small States enjoying nearly sovereign power, and, most frequently,
sovereignty in reality.[4111] Not only did the local community manage
its private affairs, but again, in the circumscription, each exercised
the highest public functions, disposed of the national guard, of the
police force, and even of the army, appointed civil and criminal judges,
police commissioners,[4112] the assessors and collectors of taxes. In
brief, the central State handed over, or allowed the seizure of the
powers of which it ought never to deprive itself, the last of its means
by which alone it acts effectively and on the spot,

* its sword, which it alone should wield,

* its scales of justice, which it alone should hold,

* its purse, for it to fill, and we have seen with what harm to
individuals, to the communes, and to itself, with what a lamentable
series of disastrous results:

* universal, incurable, persistent anarchy,

* impotence of the government,

* violation of the laws,

* complete stoppage of revenue, an empty treasury,

* despotism of the strong, oppression of the weak,

* street riots,

* rural brigandage,

* extortions and waste at the town halls,

* municipal usurpations and abdications,

* ruin of the highways, and all useful public works and buildings, and

* the ruin and distress of the communes.[4113]

In contrast with this, and through disgust, the new Régime takes the
other side, and even goes to the other extreme; the central State, in
1800, no longer a party that has resigned, as formerly, becomes the
interloper. Not only does it take back from local communities the
portion of the public domain which had been imprudently conceded to
them, but, again, it lays its hand on their private domain; it
attaches them to it by way of appendices, while its systematic, uniform
usurpation, accomplished at one blow, spread over the whole territory,
again plunges them all, communes and departments alike, into a chaos in
which, under the old monarchy, they would never have fallen.

Before 1789, collective legal entities (persons), provincial and
communal, still existed. On the one hand, five or six great local
bodies, represented by elective assemblies, full of life and
spontaneously active, among others those of Languedoc and Brittany,
still provided for and governed themselves. The other provinces, which
the central power had reduced to administrative districts, retained, at
least, their historic cohesion, their time-honored name, the lament for,
or at least the souvenir of, their former autonomy, and, here and there,
a few vestiges or fragments of their lost independence; and, better yet,
these old, paralyzed, but not mutilated bodies, had just assumed new
life, and under their renewed organism were striving to give the
blood in their veins a fresh start. Twenty-one provincial assemblies,
instituted over the entire territory, between 1778 and 1787, and
provided with powers of considerable importance, undertook, each in its
own sphere, to direct provincial interests. Communal interest, also,
had its representatives in the urban or rural communes. In the towns, a
deliberative assembly, composed of the leading notables and of delegates
elected by all the corporations and communities in the place, formed an
intermittent municipal council the same as to-day, but much more ample,
which voted and passed resolutions on important occasions; there was a
board of management at the head of it, "the town corps," comprising
the various municipal officials, the mayor, his lieutenant, sheriffs,
prosecuting attorney, treasurer, and clerk,[4114] now elected by the
deliberative assembly, now the legal purchasers, heirs, and proprietors
of their office, the same as a notary or advocate of to-day owns
his office, protected against administrative caprices by a royal
acquittance, and, for a money consideration, titular in their towns, the
same as a parliamentarian in his parliament, and hence planted in, or
grafted upon, the commune like a parliamentarian among his peers, and,
like him, defenders of local interests against the central power.--In
the village, the heads of families met together on the public square,
deliberated in common over common affairs, elected the syndic, likewise
the collectors of the taille, and deputies to the intendant; of their
own accord, but with his approval, they taxed themselves for the support
of the school, for repairs to the church or fountain, and for beginning
or carrying on a suit in court.--All these remains of the ancient
provincial and communal initiative, respected or tolerated by
monarchical centralization, are crushed out and extinguished. The First
Consul very soon falls upon these local societies and seizes them in his
claws; in the eyes of the new legislator they scarcely seem to exist;
there must not be any local personalities for him. The commune and
department, in his eyes, are merely territorial districts, physical
portions of the public domain, provincial workshops to which the central
State transfers and uses its tools, in order to work effectively and on
the spot. Here, as elsewhere, he takes the business entirely in his own
hands; if he employs interested parties it is only as auxiliaries, at
odd times, for a few days, to operate with more discernment and more
economy, to listen to complaints and promises, to become better informed
and the better to apportion changes; but, except this occasional and
subordinate help, the members of the local society must remain passive
in the local society; they are to pay and obey, and nothing more. Their
community no longer belongs to them, but to the government; its chiefs
are functionaries who depend on him, and not on it; it no longer issues
its mandate; all its legal mandatories, all its representatives and
directors, municipal or general councilors, mayors, sub-prefects
or prefects, are imposed on it from above, by a foreign hand, and,
willingly or not, instead of choosing them, it has to put up with them.




VI. Local Elections under the First Consul.

     Lists of notables.--Sénatus-consultes of the year X.
     --Liberal institution becomes a reigning instrument.
     --Mechanism of the system of appointments and candidatures.
     --Decree of 1806 and suppression of candidatures.

At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the
constitutional principle proposed by Sieyès: Power in future, according
the accepted formula, must come from above and confidence from below. To
this end, in the year IX, the assembled citizens appointed one-tenth
of their number, about 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise
assembled, appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000
departmental notables. The government selected from this list the
municipal councilors of each commune, and, from this second list, the
general councilors of each department.--The machine, however, is
clumsy, difficult to set going, still more difficult to manage, and too
unreliable in its operation. According to the First Consul, it is an
absurd system, "a childish piece of ideology; a great nation should
not be organized in this way."[4115] At bottom,[4116] "he does not want
notables accepted by the nation. In his system, he is to declare who
the notables of the nation shall be and stamp them with the seal of the
State; it is not for the nation to present them to the head of the State
stamped with the national seal." Consequently, at the end of a year, he
becomes, through the establishment of electoral colleges, the veritable
grand-elector of all the notables; he has transformed, with his usual
address, a liberal institution into a reigning instrumentality.[4117]
Provisionally, he holds on to the list of communal notables, "because it
is the work of the people, the result of a grand movement which must
not prove useless, and because, moreover, it contains a large number
of names.... offering a wide margin from which to make good
selections.[4118] He brings together these notables in each canton, and
invites them to designate their trusty men, the candidates from which he
will choose municipal councilors. But, as there are very few cultivated
men in the rural districts, "nearly always it is the old seignior who
would get himself designated";[4119] it is essential that the hand of
the government should not be forced, that its faculty of choosing should
not be restricted. Thus, the presentation of municipal councilors
of that category must cease, there must no longer be any preliminary
candidates. Now, according the sénatus-consulte, this category is a
large one, for it comprises all communes of less than 5000 souls, and
therefore over 35,000 municipal councils out of 36,000, whose members
are appointed arbitrarily, without the citizens whom they represent
taking any part in their nomination.--Four or five hundred average
or large communes still remain, in which for each municipal post, the
cantonal assembly designates two candidates between whom the government
chooses. Let us see this assembly duly installed and at work.

Its president, as a precautionary step, is imposed upon it. He is
appointed in advance by the government, and is well informed as to what
the government wants. He alone controls the police of the chamber and
the order of all deliberations. On opening the session, he draws a list
from his pocket, which list, furnished by the government, contains the
names of one hundred of the heaviest taxpayers of the canton, from whom
the assembly must select its candidates. The lists lies spread out on
the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, and try to
read it over. The president would not be very adroit and show but little
zeal did he not help them in reading it, and if he did not point out by
some sign, a tone of the voice, or even a direct word, what names
were agreeable to the government. Now, this government, which has five
hundred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition: the electors
know it, and look twice before expressing any counter opinion; it is
very probable that most of the names suggested by the government are
found on their ballots; were only one-half of them there, these would
suffice; of the two candidates proposed for each place, if one is
acceptable this one will be elected; after making him a candidate the
government makes sure that he will become titular. The first act of
the electoral comedy is played, and it is not long before no trouble
whatever is taken to play it. After January, 1806, by virtue of a
decree which has passed himself, Napoleon is the only one[4120] who will
directly fill every vacancy in the municipal councils; from now on these
councils are to owe their existence wholly to him. The two qualities
which constitute them, and which, according to Sieyès, are derived from
two distinct sources, are now derived from only one source. Only the
Emperor can confer upon them both public confidence and legal power.

The second act of the comedy begins; this act is more complicated, and
comprises several scenes which end, some of them, in the appointment of
the arrondissement councils, and others in that of the council-general
of the department. We will take only the latter, the most
important;[4121] there are two, one following the other, and in
different places.--The first one[4122] is played in the cantonal
assembly above described; the president, who has just directed the
choice of municipal candidates, draws from his portfolio another list,
likewise furnished to him by the prefect, and on which six hundred names
of those who pay the heaviest taxes in the department are printed. It is
from among these six hundred that the cantonal assembly must elect ten
or twelve members who, with their fellows, chosen in the same way by
the other cantonal assemblies, will form the electoral college of the
department, and take their seats at the chief town of the prefecture.
This time again, the president, who is the responsible leader of
the cantonal flock, takes care to conduct it; his finger on the list
indicates to the electors which names the government prefers; if need
be, he adds a word to the sign he makes, and, probably, the voters will
be as docile as before; and all the more because the composition of the
electoral college only half interests them. This college, unlike the
municipal council, does not touch or hold any of them on their sensitive
side; it is not obliged to tighten or loosen their purse-strings; it
does not vote the "additional centimes"; it does not meddle with their
business; it there only for show, to simulate the absent people, to
present candidates, and thus perform the second electoral scene in the
same way as the first one, but at the chief town of the prefecture and
by new actors. These extras are also led by a head conductor, appointed
by the government, and who is responsible for their behavior, "a
president who has in sole charge the police of their assembled college,"
and must direct their voting. For each vacancy in the council-general of
the department, they are to present two names; certainly, almost without
any help, and with only a discrete hint, they will guess the suitable
names. For they are smarter, more open-minded, than the backward and
rural members of a cantonal assembly; they are better informed and
better "posted," they have visited the prefect and know his opinion, the
opinion of the government, and they vote accordingly. It is certain that
one-half, at least, of the candidates whom they present on the list are
good, and that suffices, since twice the required number of candidates
have to be nominated. And yet, in Napoleon's eye, this is not
sufficient. For the nomination of general councilors,[4123] as well as
that of municipal councilors, he suppresses preliminary candidature, the
last remnant of popular representation or delegation. According to
his theory, he is himself the sole representative and delegate of the
people, invested with full powers, not alone in the State, but again
in the department and commune, the prime and the universal motor of the
entire machine, not merely at the center, but again at the extremities,
dispenser of all public employments, not merely to suggest the candidate
for these and make him titular, but again to create directly and at
once, both titular and candidate.




VII. Municipal and general councillors under the Empire.

     Quality of municipal and general councilors under the
     Consulate and the Empire.--Object of their meetings.--Limits
     of their power.--Their real role.--Role of the prefect and
     of the government.

Observe the selections which he imposes on himself beforehand; these
selections are those to which he has tied down the electoral bodies.
Being the substitute of these bodies, he takes, as they do, general
councilors from those in the department who pay the most taxes, and
municipal councilors from those most taxed in the canton. One the
other hand, by virtue of the municipal law, it is from the municipal
councilors that he chooses the mayor. Thus the local auxiliaries and
agents he employs are all notables of the place, the leading landowners
and largest manufacturers and merchants. He systematically enrolls the
distributors of labor on his side, all who, through their wealth and
residence, through their enterprises and expenditure on the spot,
exercise local influence and authority. In order not to omit any of
these, and be able to introduce into the general council this or that
rich veteran of the old régime, or this or that parvenu of the new
régime who is not rich, he has reserved to himself the right of adding
twenty eligible members to the list, "ten of which must be taken from
among citizens belonging to the Legion of Honor, or having rendered
important services, and ten taken from among the thirty in the
department who pay the most taxes." In this way none of the notables
escape him; he recruits them as he pleases and according to his needs,
now among men of the revolution who he does not want to see discredited
or isolated,[4124] now among men of the old monarchy whom he wants
to rally to himself by favor or by force. Such is the Baron de
Vitrolles,[4125] who, without asking for the place, becomes mayor of
Versailles and councilor-general in Basses-Alps, and then, a little
later, at his peril, inspector of the imperial sheepfolds. Such is the
Count de Villèle, who, on returning to his estate of Morville, after an
absence of fourteen years, suddenly, "before having determined where he
would live, either in town or in the country," finds himself mayor
of Morville. To make room for him, his predecessor is removed and the
latter, "who, since the commencement of the Revolution, has performed
the functions of mayor," is let down to the post of assistant. Shortly
after this the government appoints M. de Villèle president of the
cantonal assembly. Naturally the assembly, advised underhandedly,
presents him as a candidate for the general council of Haute-Garonne,
and the government places him in that office.--"All the notable
land-owners of the department formed part of this council, and the
Restoration still found us there seven years afterwards. General orders
evidently existed, enjoining the prefects to give preference in their
choice to the most important land-owners in the country." Likewise,
Napoleon everywhere selects the mayors from the rich and
well-to-do class"; in the large towns he appoints only "people with
carriages."[4126] Many of them in the country and several in the towns
are legitimists[4127], at least at heart, and Napoleon knows it; but,
as he says; "these folks do not want the earthquake"; they are too
much interested, and too personally, in the maintenance of order.[4128]
Moreover, to represent his government, he needs decorative people; and
it is only these who can be so gratis, be themselves, look well, at
their own expense, and on the spot. Besides, they are the most informed,
the best able to supervise accounts, to examine article by article the
budgets of the department and commune, to comprehend the necessity of
a road and the utility of a canal, to offer pertinent observations,
to proclaim wise decisions, to obey orders as discreet and useful
collaborators. All this they will not refuse to do if they are sensible
people. In every form of government, it is better to be with the
governors than with the governed, and in this case, when the broom
is wielded from above and applied so vigorously and with such
meticulousness to everybody and everything, it is well to be as near the
handle as possible.

And what is still better, they will volunteer, especially at the
beginning, if they are good people. For, at least during the first
years, one great object of the new government is the re-establishment
of order in the local as well as in the general administration. It is
well-disposed and desires to mend matters; it undertakes the suppression
of robbery, theft, embezzlement, waste, premeditated or unintentional
arrogation of authority, extravagance, negligence and failure.

"Since 1790,"[4129] says the First Consul to the minister of the
interior, "the 36,000 communes represent, in France, 36,000 orphans.
.. girls abandoned or plundered during ten years by their municipal
guardians, appointed by the Convention and the Directory. In changing
the mayors, assistants, and councilors of the commune, scarcely more
has been done than to change the mode of stealing; they have stolen
the communal highway, the by-roads, the trees, and have robbed the
Church;[4130] they have stolen the furniture belonging to the commune
and are still stealing under the spineless municipal system of year
VIII."

All these abuses are investigated and punished;[4131] he thieves are
obliged to restore and will steal no more. The county budget, like of
the State, must now be prepared every year,[4132] with the same method,
precision, and clearness, receipts on one side and expenses on the
other, each section divided into chapters and each chapter into
articles, the state of the liabilities, each debt, the state of the
assets and a tabular enumeration of distinct resources, available
capital and unpaid claims, fixed income and variable income, certain
revenue and possible revenue. In no case must "the calculation of
presumable expenditure exceed the amount of presumable income." In no
case must "the commune demand or obtain an extra tax for its ordinary
expenses." Exact accounts and rigid economy, such are everywhere
indispensable, as well as preliminary reforms, when a badly kept house
has to be transformed into one which is kept in good order. The First
Consul has at heart these two reforms and he adheres to them. Above
all there must be no more indebtedness; now, more than one-half of the
communes are in debt. "Under penalty of dismissal, the prefect is to
visit the communes at least twice a year, and the sub-prefect four times
a year.[4133] A reward must be given to mayors who free their commune
of debt in two years, and the government will appoint a special
commissioner to take charge of the administration of a commune which,
after a delay of five years, shall not be liberated. The fifty mayors
who, each year, shall have most contributed to unencumber their commune
and assure that is has resources available, shall be summoned to Paris
at the expense of the State, and presented in solemn session to the
three consults. A column, raised at the expense of the government and
placed at the principal entrance of the town or village, will transmit
to posterity the mayor's name, and, besides, this inscription: 'To the
guardian of the commune, a grateful country.'"

Instead of these semi-poetic honors adapted to the imaginations of the
year VIII, take the positive honors adapted to the imaginations of the
year XII, and the following years, brevets and grades, decorations of
the Legion d'Honneur, the titles of chevalier, baron, and count,[4134]
presents and endowments,--the rewards offered to the representatives of
local society, the same as to the other functionaries, but on the same
condition that they will likewise be functionaries, that is to say,
tools in the hands of the government. In this respect, every precaution
is taken, especially against those who, forming a collective body,
may be tempted to consider themselves a deliberative assembly, such
as municipal and general councils, less easily handled than single
individuals and, at times, capable of not being quite so docile. None of
these can hold sessions of more than fifteen days in the year; each must
accept its budget of receipts and expenses, almost complete and ready
made, from the prefecture. In the way of receipts, its powers consist
wholly in voting certain additional and optional centimes, more or less
numerous, at will, "within the limits established by law";[4135] again,
even within these limits, its decision can be carried out only after an
examination and approval at the prefecture. There is the same regulation
in regard to expenses; the council, indeed, municipal or general, is
simply consultative; the government delegates the mayor, sub-prefect, or
prefect, who prescribes what must be done. As the preliminary steps are
taken by him, and he has constant direction of the local council for two
weeks, and finally the right of confirmation, he controls it, and
then for eleven months and a half, having sole charge of the daily and
consecutive execution of its acts, he reigns in the local community.
Undoubtedly, having received and expended money for the community, he
is accountable and will present his yearly accounts at the following
session; the law says[4136] that in the commune, "the municipal council
shall listen to and may discuss the account of municipal receipts and
expenses." But read the text through to the end, and note the part which
the law, in this case, assigns to the municipal council. It plays
the part of the chorus in the antique tragedy: it attends, listens,
approves, or disapproves, in the background and subordinate, approved
or rebuked, the principal actors remain in charge and do as they please;
they grant or dispute over its head, independently, just as it suits
them. In effect, it is not to the municipal council that the mayor
renders his accounts, but "to the sub-prefect, who finally passes them,"
and gives him his discharge. Whatever the council may say, the approval
is valid; for greater security, the prefect, if any councilor proves
refractory, "may suspend from his functions" a stubborn fellow like
him, and restore in the council the unanimity which has been partially
disturbed.--In the department, the council-general must likewise
"listen" to the accounts for the year; the law, owing to a significant
omission, does not say that is may discuss them. Nevertheless, a
circular of the year IX requests it to "make every observation on the
use of the additional centimes" which the importance of the subject
demands, to verify whether each sum debited to expenses has been used
for the purpose assigned to it, and even "to reject expenses, stating
the reasons for this decision, which have not been sufficiently
justified." And better still, the minister, who is a liberal, addresses
a systematic series of questions to the general councils, on all
important matters,[4137] "agriculture, commerce, and manufactures,
asylums and public charities, public roads and other works, public
instruction, administration properly so called, state of the number of
population, public spirit and opinions," collecting and printing their
observations and desires. After the year IX, however, this publication
stops; it renders the general councils too important; it might rally the
entire population of the department to them and even of all France that
could read; it might hamper the prefect and diminish his ascendancy.
From now on, it is the prefect alone who replies to these questions, and
of which the government gives an analysis or tables of statistics;[4138]
then, the publication of these ceases; decidedly, printing always has
its drawbacks--manuscript reports are much better; local affairs are
no longer transacted outside the bureaus, and are managed with closed
doors; any report that might spread outside the prefect's cabinet or
that of the minister, is carefully toned down or purposely stifled, and,
under the prefect's thumb, the general council becomes an automaton.

In private, dealing directly with the Emperor's representative, it
appears as if one is dealing directly with the Emperor. Consider these
few words--in the presence of the Emperor; they carry an immeasurable
weight in the scales of contemporaries. For them, he has every
attribute of Divinity, not only omnipotence and omnipresence, but again
omniscience, and, if he speaks to them, what they feel far surpasses
what they imagine. When he visits a town and confers with the
authorities of the place on the interests of the commune or department,
his interlocutors are bewildered; they find him as well informed as
themselves, and more clear-sighted; it is he who explains their affairs
to them. On arriving the evening before, he calls for the summaries of
facts and figures, every positive and technical detail of information,
reduced and classified according to the method taught by himself and
prescribed to his administrators.[4139] During the night he has read
all this over and mastered it; in the morning, at dawn, he has taken
his ride on horseback; with extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his
topographical glance has discerned "the best direction for the projected
canal, the best site for the construction of a factory, a harbor, or a
dike."[4140] To the difficulties which confuse the best brains in the
country, to much debated, seemingly insoluble, questions, he at once
presents the sole practical solution; there it is, ready at hand, and
the members of the local council had not seen it; he makes them touch it
with their fingers. They stand confounded and agape before the universal
competence of this wonder genius. "He's more than a man" exclaimed the
administrators of Dusseldorf to Beugnot.[4141] "Yes," replied Beugnot,
"he's the devil!" In effect, he adds to mental ascendancy the ascendancy
of force; we always see beyond the great man in him the terror-striking
dominator; admiration begins or ends in fear; the soul is completely
subjugated; enthusiasm and servility, under his eye, melt together into
one sentiment of impassioned obedience and unreserved submission.[4142]
Voluntarily and involuntarily, through conviction, trembling, and
fascinated, men abdicate their freedom of will to his advantage. The
magical impression remains in their minds after he has departed. Even
absent, even with those who have never seen him, he maintains his
prestige and communicates it to all who command in his name. Before the
prefect, the baron, the count, the councilor of state, the senator
in embroidered uniform, gilded and garnished with decorations, every
municipal or general council loses his free will and becomes incapable
of saying no, only too glad if not obliged to say yes "inopportunely,"
to enter upon odious and disagreeable undertakings, to simulate at
one's own expense, and that of others, excessive zeal and voluntary
self-sacrifice, to vote for and hurrah at patriotic subscriptions of
which it must contribute the greatest portion and for supplementary
conscriptions[4143] which seize their sons that are except or bought out
of service.[4144] It allows itself to be managed; it is simply one of
the many wheels of our immense machine, one which receives its
impulsion elsewhere, and from above, through the interposition of
the prefect.--But, except in rare cases, when the interference of
the government applies it to violent and oppressive schemes, it
is serviceable; fixed in position, and confining itself to turning
regularly and noiselessly in its little circle, it may, in general,
still render the double service demanded of it in the year IX, by a
patriotic minister. According to the definition which Chaptal then gave
the general councils, fixing their powers and competence, they exist for
two purposes and only two:[4145] they must first "insure to the governed
impartiality in the assessment of taxes along with the verification
of the use of the latest levies in the payment of local expenses," and
next, they must, with discretion and modesty, "obtain for the government
the information which alone enables it to provide for the necessities
of each department and improve the entire working of the public
administration."




VIII. Excellence of Local Government after Napoleon.

     The institution remains intact under the Restoration.
     --Motives of the governors.--Excellence of the machine.
     --Abdication of the administrator.

Such is the spirit of the institution and such is its form. After
1814 and 1815, after the fall of the Empire and the Restoration, the
institution subsists and remains as it was before in form and in
spirit: it is always the government which appoints and directs all the
representatives of local society, in the department, in the commune, and
in the intermediate circumscriptions, the prefect, sub-prefects, mayors
and assistants, the councilors of the department, of the arrondissement
and of the commune. Whatever the ruling power may be it is repugnant to
any change; never does it voluntarily restrict itself in its faculty of
bestowing or withholding offices, authority, consideration, influence,
or salaries, every desirable and every desired good thing; as far as it
can, it retains these in its own hands to distribute them as it pleases,
and in its own interest to bestow them on its partisans and to deprive
its adversaries of them, to attract clients and create minions. The
four thousand offices of prefect, sub-prefect, and councilors of the
prefecture, department, and arrondissement, the four hundred thousand
offices of mayor, assistants, and municipal councilors, and added to
these, the innumerable salaried employments of auxiliary or secondary
agents, from the secretary-general of the prefecture down to the
secretary of the mayor, from the scribes and clerks of the prefecture
and sub-prefecture down to the staff of the municipal police and of the
octroi in the towns, from the city or department architect down to the
lowest road-surveyor, from the watchmen and superintendents of a canal
or harbor down to the field-guards and stone-breakers or the highway,
directly or indirectly, the constitutional government disposes of
them in the same fashion as the imperial government, with the same
interference in the most trifling details and in the most trifling
affair. Commune or department, such local society remains under the
second Régime what it was under the first one, an extension of the
central society, an appendix of the State, an adjunct of the great
establishment of which the seat is at Paris. In these adjuncts,
controlled from above, nothing is changed, neither the extent and limits
of the circumscription, nor the source and hierarchy of powers, nor
the theoretic framework, nor the practical mechanism, not even the
names.[4146] After the prefects of Empire come the prefects of the
Restoration, the same in title and uniform, installed in the same
mansion, to do the same work, with equal zeal, that is to say, with
dangerous zeal, to such an extent that, on taking leave of their final
audience, on setting out for their department, M. de Talleyrand,
who knows men and institutions profoundly, gives them, as his last
injunction, the following admirable order: "And, especially, no zeal!
"--According to the recommendation of Fouché, "the Bourbons slept in the
bed of Napoleon," which was the bed of Louis XIV., but larger and more
comfortable, widened by the Revolution and the Empire, adapted to the
figure of its latest occupant, and enlarged by him so as to spread over
the whole of France. When, after twenty-five years of exile, one returns
home, it is pleasant to find such a bed in the house ready made, taking
down and remaking the old one would give double trouble; moreover, in
the old one, one was less at his ease; let us profit by all that rebels
and the usurper have done that was good. In this particular, not
alone the king, but again the most antiquated of the Bourbons
are revolutionaries and Bonapartists; despotic traditionally, and
monopolists through their situation, they accept with no regrets the
systematic demolition effected by the Constituent Assembly, and the
systematic centralization instituted by the First Consul. The Duc
d'Angoulême, when, in 1815, he was paraded about the country, among the
bridges, canals, and splendid roads of Languedoc, on being reminded that
these fine works were formerly executed by the "Ètats" of the province,
dryly replied "We prefer the departments to the provinces."[4147]

With the exception of a few antiquarian and half-rustic royalists,
nobody objects; there is no thought of reconstructing the machine on
another plan; in sum, nobody is dissatisfied with the way it works. It
works well, most effectively; under the Restoration as under the Empire,
it renders to those who are interested the service demanded of it; it
goes on providing better and better for the two grand objects of local
society, care for the public highways and protection against natural
calamities. In 1814, its net results are already admirable and do it
credit--reparation of the ruins accumulated by the Revolution,[4148]
the continuation and completion of former projects, new and striking
enterprises, dikes against the sea and the rivers, basins, moles, and
jetties in the harbors, quays, and bridges, locks and canals, public
edifices, 27,200 kilometers of national roads and 18,600 kilometers of
departmental roads,[4149] without counting the district roads just
laid out; all this done regularly, exactly, and economically, Charles
Nicolas, "Les Budgets de la France depuis le commencement du XIXe
siècle." In 1816, the four direct contributions returned, in principal,
249 millions, and, in additional centimes, 89 millions only. For a long
time the additional centimes applied to the local service and voted by
the department or by the commune are not many and do not exceed 5 %. of
the principal. by competent functionaries, employed and superintended,
who at first through fear are compelled to be prudent, and then through
habit and honor have become honest accountants; there is no waste, no
underhand stealing, no arbitrary charges; no sum is turned aside between
receipts and expenses to disappear and be lost on the road, or flow out
of its channel in another direction. The sensitive taxpayer, large or
small, no longer smarts under the painful goad which formerly pricked
him and made him jump. Local taxation, annexed to the general tax,
is found to be reformed, lightened, and duly proportioned. Like the
principal, the "additional centimes" are an equitable charge, graduated
according to the sum of net revenue; like the principal, they are
assessed according to the assumed sum of this net revenue by the
councils of the arondissements among the communes, and by the communal
assessors among the inhabitants. They are collected by the same
collector, with the same formalities, and every taxpayer who thinks
himself taxed too heavily finds a court of appeal in the council of the
prefecture, before which he can make his claim and obtain the release
or reduction of his quota.--Thus no crying iniquity exists, nor keen
suffering; on the other hand, there are the infinite conveniences and
daily enjoyment of possessions, the privation of which, to the modern
man, is equal to the lack of fresh, pure air, physical security and
protection against contagion, facilities for circulation and transport,
pavements, light, the salubrity of healthy streets purged of their
filth, and the presence and vigilance of the municipal and rural police.
All these benefits, the objects of local society, are due to the machine
which works with little cost, without breaking down or stopping for any
long time, as lately under the Republic, and without any extortion and
clashing, as in the times of the ancient Régime. It works by itself,
almost without the help of the parties interested, and which, in
their eyes, is not its least merit; with it, there is no bother, no
responsibility, no elections to attend to, no discussions to maintain,
no resolutions to pass. There is only one bill to be settled, not even
a specified bill, but a surplus of centimes added to each franc, and
included with the principal in the annual quota. Just like an owner who,
by his correct, exact, and somewhat slow although punctual and capable
supervisors, are relieved of the care of his property. He may dismiss
the head steward of his domain in a fit of ill-humor, but, if he changes
his stewards, he does not change the system; he is too accustomed to it,
and his indolence demands it; he is not tempted to take care and trouble
on himself, nor is he qualified to become his own intendant.

And what is worse, in the present case the master has forgotten that
he is the owner of his domain, he hardly remembers that he is a
personality. Whether large or small, department or commune, local
society has no longer the consciousness of being a natural body,
composed of involuntarily united members with common interests; this
sentiment, already weakened and drooping at the end of the ancient
régime, lost under the multiplied attacks of the Revolution and under
the prolonged compression of the Empire. During twenty-five years it
has suffered too much; it has been too arbitrarily manufactured or
mutilated, too frequently recast, and made and unmade.--In the
commune, everything has been upset over and over again, the territorial
circumscription, the internal and external system, all collective
property. To the 44,000 municipalities improvised by the Constituent
Assembly, there succeeded under the Directory 6000 or 7000 cantonal
municipalities, a sort of local syndicate, represented in each commune
by a subaltern agent, and then, under the Consulate, 36,000 distinct and
permanent communes. Sovereign at the start, through the improvidence
and abdication of the Constituent Assembly, the communes become, in the
hands of the Convention, so many timorous subjects surrendered to the
brutality of perambulating pashas and resident agas, imposed upon them
by Jacobin tyranny; then under the Empire, a docile herd governed in a
correct way from above, but possessing no authority of their own, and
therefore indifferent to their own affairs and utterly wanting in public
spirit. Other more serious blows affect of the them still more deeply
and acutely. Through a decree of the Legislative Assembly, in every
commune where a third of the inhabitants demand a partition of the
communal property, the commune is stripped, and its time-honored
patrimony is set off in equal lots, in portions according to families
or per head, and converted into small private holdings. (Page
319/584)Through a decree of the Convention, the whole of the communal
fortune, its debts and assets, are swallowed up by the public fortune
and engulfed along with that in the sale of real property, in the
discredit of the assignats, and in the final bankruptcy. After this
prolonged process, communal property, even when disgorged and restored
by the exchequer, is not what it was before; once out of the monster's
stomach, the remains of it, dismembered, spoilt, half-digested, are no
longer held sacred and inviolable; a settlement of accounts intervenes;
"there are a good many communes," says Napoleon[4150] "whose debts have
been paid and whose property was not sold; there are many others whose
property has been sold and whose debts are not paid.... The result is
that many pieces of property in certain communes are not considered
reputable." Consequently, he first deprives these of one-tenth of their
income from land, and then one-quarter of the produce of their extra
cuttings of timber,[4151] and finally, their capital, the whole of their
real property,[4152] estimated at 370 millions; in exchange, he gives
them 138 millions in the rentes; the loss to them as well as the gain
to him, is thus 232 millions, while the sale of communal properties at
auction, begun in 1813, continues under the Restoration in 1814, 1815,
and even in 1816. A human community treated in this way for one quarter
of a century, ceases to be a personality, and becomes a mere material
object; as far as this is concerned, its members have come to believe,
that it is and must be so and cannot be otherwise.

Above the commune, nearly dead, is the department, completely dead; here
local patriotism is stamped out at the beginning by the destruction
of the provinces. Among so many political crimes and other outrages
committed by the Revolution against France, this is one of the worst.
The Constituent Assembly has dismantled long-established associations,
the accumulated work of ten centuries, historic and powerful names,
each of which aroused enthusiasm in thousands of breasts and cemented
together thousands of wills, centers of spontaneous co-operation,
firesides warm with generous feeling, zeal, and devotion, a practical
school of high political education, an admirable theater for available
talent, noble careers open to legitimate ambition, in short, the small
patrimony whose instinctive cult forms the first step out of egoism and
a march onward toward thoughtful devotion to the large patrimony.
Cut apart by geometrical shears, and designated by an entirely new
geographical term, small sections of the province became so many
factitious agglomerations of juxtaposed inhabitants, human assemblages
without any soul; and, for twenty years, the legislator fails to
communicate to them that semblance of spirit, the judicial quality of
which it disposes; it is only after 1811 that the departments arrive at
civil proprietorship and personality: this dignity, besides, the State
confers only to disburden itself and to burden them, to impose expenses
on them which hardly concern them but which do concern it, to compel
them in its place to support the costly maintenance of its prisons,
police quarters, courts of justice, and prefectorial mansions; even at
this late date, they are not yet, in the eyes of jurisconsults or
before the Council of State, incontestable proprietors and complete
personalities;[4153] they are not to be fully qualified in this sense
until the law of 1838.

Local society, accordingly, proves abortive over the whole 27,000
square leagues of territory; it is simply a legal figment, an artificial
grouping together of neighbors who do not find themselves bound and
incorporated together by neighborhood; in order that their society might
become viable and stimulating would require both commune and department
to have in mind and at heart the following idea, which they no longer
entertained:

"We are all aboard the same ship, it is ours and we are its crew. We are
here to manage it ourselves, with our own hands, each according to his
rank and position, each taking his part, little or big, in doing his own
work."


*****


[Footnote 4101: My understanding, today in 1999, that all people other
animals by nature are 'built' as egoists, that is to look out for
themselves, to preserve their life, protect their property and family.
As far as the social (or gregarious) instincts are concerned then there
are several which manifest themselves in the correct and timely order
during our entire existence. Some will regulate falling in love, others
procreation, others relationship between man and woman, others between
parents and children, at yet others the group and its choice and
submission to a leader. One of the results is that everyone wants to be
important and accepted, another that a mob has drives or instincts which
may galvanize it into compassion, anger, fear and action. To this must
be added that all people can remember, not only what they have tried,
but also what they have seen or heard about. They also tend to imagine
that others react in the same way as they themselves do. This allows
them to look ahead and imagine various possible scenarios. They are also
aware of how they would want to be dealt with by others. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4102: That is what has happened during communism where men
worked as little as possible since the principle of equality made most
effort rest without reward.]

[Footnote 4103: The so-called "Centimes additionels" was an increase in
certain taxes to be paid to the communes and departments.]

[Footnote 4104: Rocquain, "L'État de la France au 18 Brumaire" (report
by Fourcroy, pp. 138, 166)": A sack of wheat worth 18 francs at Nantes
costs an equal sum for its cartage to Brest. I have seen carters
plodding along, seven or eight in a line, each with six or eight strong
horses dragging their vehicles and alternately helping each other, their
horses hauling their carts out of ruts into which they had got stuck...
In many places, I was grieved to see carts and wagons leaving the
high-road and traversing, in spaces from 100 to 200 yards wide, the
plowed ground, when each made his own road.... The carters sometimes
make only three or four leagues from morning to night."--Hence, a dearth
of provisions at Brest. "We are assured that the people have long been
on half-rations, or even quarter rations."--And yet, "There is now in
the river, at Nantes, from four to five hundred boats loaded with grain;
they have been there for months, and their number increases daily. Their
cargoes are deteriorating and becoming damaged."]

[Footnote 4105: Ibid., preface and summary, p.41 (on the dikes and works
of protection against inundations at Dol in Brittany, at Fréjus, in
Camargue, in Lower Rhine, in Nord, in Pas-de-Calais, at Ostende and
Blankenberg, at Rochefort, at La Rochelle, etc.). At Blankenberg, a gale
sufficed to carry away the dike and let in the sea. "The dread of some
disaster which would ruin a large portion of the departments of the
Lys and of the Escaut kept the inhabitants constantly in a state of
frightful anxiety."]

[Footnote 4106: Hence the additional centimes to the tax on doors and
windows, the number of which indicates approximately the value of the
rent. Hence also the additional centimes to the personal tax, which
is proportionate to the rent, this being considered as the most exact
indication of domestic expenditure.]

[Footnote 4107: Hence the communal "additional centimes" to the tax on
business licenses.]

[Footnote 4108: Hence the "additional centimes" to the land tax.]

[Footnote 4109: Today, in 1999, we may in Denmark observe how the
contemporary oligarchy of non-violent Jacobins, have transformed the
local authorities into tools of the central government which through an
all permeating administration, has replaced the authority of the
father and the solidarity of the family with a communal care and
supervision.(SR.).]

[Footnote 4110: Syndicates of this kind are instituted by the law of
June 25, 1865, "between proprietors interested in the execution
and maintenance of public works: 1st, Protection against the sea,
inundations, torrents, and navigable or non-navigable rivers; 2d,
Works in deepening, repairing, and regulating canals and non-navigable
water-courses, and ditches for draining and irrigation; 3d, Works for
the drainage of marshes; 4th, Locks and other provisions necessary
in working salt marshes; 5th, Drainage of wet and unhealthy
ground."--"Proprietors interested in the execution of the
above-mentioned works may unite in an authorized syndical company,
either on the demand of one or of several among them, or on the
initiative of the prefect."--(Instead of authorized, we must read
forced, and we then find that the association may be imposed on all
interested parties, on the demand of one alone, or even without any
one's demand.)--Like the Annecy building, these syndicates enable one to
reach the fundamental element of local society. Cf. the law of September
26, 1807 (on the drainage of marshes), and the law of April 21, 1810 (on
mines and the two owners of the mine, one of the surface and the other
of the subsoil, both likewise partners, and no less forcibly so through
physical solidarity.)]

[Footnote 4111: See "The Revolution," vol. I., passim. (Ed. Laff. I. pp.
315-445).]

[Footnote 4112: Two kinds of police must be distinguished one from the
other. The first is general and belongs to the State: its business is to
repress and prevent, outside and inside, all aggression against private
and public property. The second is municipal, and belongs to the local
society: its business is to see to the proper use of the public roads,
and other matters, which, like water, air, and light, are enjoyed in
common; it undertakes, also, to forestall the risks and dangers of
imprudence, negligence, and filth, which any aggregation of men never
fails to engender. The provinces of these two police forces join and
penetrate each other at many points; hence, each of the two is the
auxiliary, and, if need be, the substitute of the other.]

[Footnote 4113: Rocquain, "l'État de la France au 18 Brumaire," passim.]

[Footnote 4114: Raynouard, "Histoire du droit municipal,"II., 356,
and Dareste, "Histoire de l'administration en France," I., 209, 222.
(Creation of the posts of municipal mayor and assessors by the king,
in 1692, for a money consideration.) "These offices were obtained by
individuals, along with hereditary title, now attached to communities,
that is to say, bought in by these," which put in their possession the
right of election.--The king frequently took back these offices which he
had sold, and sold them over again. In 1771, especially, he takes them
back, and, it seems, to keep them forever; but he always reserves the
right of alienating them for money. For example (Augustin Thierry,
"Documens sur l'histoire du tiers État," III., 319), an act of the royal
council, dated October 1, 1772, accepts 70,000 francs from the town of
Amiens for the repurchase of the installment of its magistracies, and
defining these magistracies, as well as the mode of election according
to which the future incumbents shall be appointed. Provence frequently
bought back its municipal liberties in the same fashion, and, for a
hundred years, expended for this purpose 12,500,000 livres. In 1772, the
king once more established the venality of the municipal offices: but,
on the Parliament of Aix remonstrating, in 1774, he returned their old
rights and franchises to the communities.--Cf. Guyot, "Répertoire de
jurisprudence" (1784), articles, Echevins, Capitouls, Conseillers.]

[Footnote 4115: Thibaudeau, p.72 (words of the First Consul at a meeting
of the Council of State, Pluviôse 14, year X).]

[Footnote 4116: Roederer, III., 439 (Note of Pluviôse 28, year VIII),
ib., 443 "The pretended organic sénatus-consulte of Aug. 4, 1802, put an
end to notability by instituting electoral colleges... The First Consul
was really recognized as the grand-elector of the notability,"]

[Footnote 4117: Any dictator or dictator's draftsman will, upon reading
this understand how easy it is to make a sham constitution and sham
electoral systems for a de facto dictatorship.(SR.)]

[Footnote 4118: Thibaudeau, 72, 289 (words of the First Consul at a
meeting of the Council of State, Thermidor 16, year X).]

[Footnote 4119: Ibid., p. 293. Sénatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X,
and of Fructidor 19, year X.]

[Footnote 4120: Decree of January 17, 1806, article 40.]

[Footnote 4121: Aucoc, "Conférence sur l'administration et le droit
administratif," §§ 101, 162, 165. In our legislative system the council
of the arrondissement has not become a civil personality, while it
has scarcely any other object than to apportion direct taxes among the
communes of the arrondissement]

[Footnote 4122: Sénatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year X.]

[Footnote 4123: Decree of May 13, 1806, title III., article 32.]

[Footnote 4124: Thibaudeau, ibid., 294 (Speech of the First Consul to
the Council of State, Thermidor 16, year X). "What has become of the men
of the Revolution? Once out of place, they have been entirely neglected:
they have nothing left; they have no support, no natural refuge. Look at
Barras, Reubell, etc." The electoral colleges are to furnish them with
the asylum they lack. "Now is the time to elect the largest number of
men of the Revolution; the longer we wait, the fewer there will be....
With the exception of some of them, who have appeared on a grand
stage,... who have signed some treaty of peace... the rest are all
isolated and in obscurity. That is an important gap which must be
filled up.... It is for this reason that I have instituted the Legion of
Honor."]

[Footnote 4125: Baron de Vitrolles, "Memoires," preface, XXI. Comte de
Villèle, "Memoires et Correspondance," I., 189 (August, 1807).]

[Footnote 4126: Faber, "Notice sur l'intérieur de la France" (1807),
p.25.]

[Footnote 4127: Supporters of the Sovereign king or of the legitimate
royal dynasty. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4128: The following document shows the sense and aim of the
change, which goes on after the year VIII, also the contrast between
both administrative staffs. (Archives Nationales, F 7, 3219; letter of
M. Alquier to the First Consul, Pluviose 18, year VIII.) M. Alquier,
on his way to Madrid, stops at Toulouse and sends a report to the
authorities of Haute-Garonne: "I was desirous of seeing the central
administration. I found there the ideas and language of 1793. Two
personages, Citizens Barreau and Desbarreaux, play an active part then.
Up to 1792, the first was a shoemaker, and owed his political
fortune simply to his audacity and revolutionary frenzy. The second,
Desbarreaux, was a comedian of Toulouse, his principal role being that
of valets. In the month of Prairial, year III, he was compelled to go
down on his knees on the stage and ask pardon for having made incendiary
speeches at some previous period in the decadal temple. The public, not
deeming his apology sufficient, drove him out of the theater. He now
combines with his function of departmental administrator the post of
cashier for the actors, which thus brings him in 1200 francs... The
municipal councilors are not charged with lack of probity: but they are
derived from too law a class and have too little regard for themselves
to obtain consideration from the public... The commune of Toulouse is
very impatient at being governed by weak, ignorant men, formerly mixed
in with the crowd, and whom, probably, it is urgent to send back to
it.... It is remarkable that, in a city of such importance, which
provides so large a number of worthy citizens of our sort of capacity
and education, only men are selected for public duties who, with respect
to instruction, attainments, and breeding, offer no guarantee whatever
to the government and no inducement to win public consideration."]

[Footnote 4129: "Correspondance de Napoléon," No.4474, note dictated to
Lucien, minister of the interior, year VIII.]

[Footnote 4130: Cf. "Procés-verbaux des conseil généraux" of the year
VIII, and especially of the year IX. "Many of the cross roads have
entirely disappeared at the hands of the neighboring owners of the land.
The paved roads are so much booty." (for example, Vosges, p.429, year
IX.) "The roads of the department are in such a bad state that the
landowners alongside carry off the stones to build their houses and wall
in their inheritance. They encroach on the roads daily; the ditches are
cultivated by them the same as their own property."]

[Footnote 4131: Laws of February 29--March 9, 1804 And February
28--March 10, 1805.]

[Footnote 4132: Laws of July 23, 1802, and of February 27, 1811.]

[Footnote 4133: "Correspondance de Napoléon," No. 4474 (note dictated to
Lucien).]

[Footnote 4134: Decree of March 1, 1808: "Are counts by right, all
ministers, senators, councilors of state for life, presidents of the
corps Legislatif, and archbishops. Are barons by right, all bishops.
May become barons, after ten years of service, all first presidents and
attorney generals, the mayors of the thirty-six principal towns. (In
1811, instead of 36, there are 52 principal towns.) May also become
barons, the presidents and members of the department electoral colleges
who have attended three sessions of these colleges."]

[Footnote 4135: Decree of Thermidor 4, year X.]

[Footnote 4136: Law of Pluviôse 28, year VIII.]

[Footnote 4137: "Procés-verbaux des conseils généraux" of the years
VIII and X. (The second series drawn up after those propounded by the
minister Chaptal, is much more complete and furnishes an historical
document of the highest importance.)]

[Footnote 4138: "Statistiques des préfets" (from the years IX to XIII,
about 40 volumes).]

[Footnote 4139: Beugnot, "Mémoires," I., 363.]

[Footnote 4140: Faber, ibid., 127.--Cf. Charlotte de Sohr, "Napoleon en
1811" (details and anecdotes on Napoleon's journey through Belgium and
Holland).]

[Footnote 4141: Beugnot, I., 380, 384. "He struck the good Germans dumb
with admiration, unable to comprehend how it was that their interests
had become so familiar to him and with what superiority he treated
them."]

[Footnote 4142: Beugnot, ibid., I., 395. Everywhere, on the Emperor's
passage (1811), the impression experienced was a kind of shock as at the
sight of a wonderful apparition.]

[Footnote 4143: Thiers, "Histoire du Consulat et l'Empire," XVI., 246
(January, 1813). "A word to the prefect, who transmitted this to one of
the municipal councilors of his town, was enough to insure an offer from
some large town and have this imitated throughout the empire. Napoleon
had an idea that he could get towns and cantons to offer him troops of
horse, armed and equipped."--In fact, this offer was voted with shouts
by the Paris municipal council and, through contagion, in the provinces.
As to voting this freely it suffices to remark how the annexed towns
voted, which, six months later, are to rebel. Their offers are not
the least. For instance, Amsterdam offers 100 horsemen, Hamburg 100,
Rotterdam 50, the Hague 40, Leyden 24, Utrecht 20, Dusseldorf 12.--The
horsemen furnished are men enlisted for money; 16,000 are obtained, and
the sum voted suffices to purchase additionally 22,000 horses and 22,000
equipments.--To obtain this money, the prefect himself apportions the
requisite sum among those in his department who pay the most taxes,
at the rate of from 600 to 1000 francs per head. On these arbitrary
requisitions and a great many others, either in money or in produce, and
on the sentiments of the farmers and landed proprietors in the South,
especially after 1813, cf. the "Mémoires de M. Villèle," vol. I.,
passim.]

[Footnote 4144: Comte Joseph d'Estourmel, "Souvenirs de France et
d'Italie," 240. The general council of Rouen was the first to suggest the
vote for guards of honor. Assembled spontaneously (meetings are always
spontaneous), its members pass an enthusiastic address. "The example was
found to be excellent; the address was published in the Moniteur, and
sent to all the prefects.... The councils were obliged to meet, which
generously disposed of other people's children, and very worthy persons,
myself first of all, thought that they might join in this shameful
purpose, to such an extent had imperial fanaticism fascinated them and
perverted consciences!"]

[Footnote 4145: Archives nationales (state of accounts of the prefects
and reports of the general police commissioners, F7, 5014 and following
records.--Reports of senators on their senatoreries, AF, IV., 1051, and
following records).--These papers disclose at different dates the state
of minds and of things in the provinces. Of all these reports, that of
Roederer on the senatorerie of Caen is the most instructive, and gives
the most details on the three departments composing it. (Printed in his
"æuvres complètes," vol. III.)]

[Footnote 4146: The reader will find in the Archives nationales, the
fullest and most precise information concerning local administration
and the sentiments of the different classes of society, in the
correspondence of the prefects of the first Restoration, of the hundred
days, and of the second Restoration from 1814 to 1823 (Cf.
especially those of Haute-Garonne, the Rhine, Côte d'Or, Ain, Loiret,
Indre-et-Loire, Indre, Loire-Inférieure and Aisne.) The letters of
several prefects, M. de Chabroe, M. de Tocqueville, M. de Remusat, M. de
Barante, are often worth publishing; occasionally, the minister of the
interior has noted with a pencil in the margin, "To be shown to the
King."]

[Footnote 4147: M. de Villèle, ibid., I., 248.]

[Footnote 4148: Rocquam, "l'État de la France au 18 Brumaire," reports
of the councilors of state sent on missions, p.40.]

[Footnote 4149: De Feville, "La France economique," 248 and 249.]

[Footnote 4150: Pelet de la Lozère, "Opinions de Napoléon au conseil
d'Etat," P. 277 (Session of March 15, 1806).--Decree of March 16, 1806,
and of September 15, 1807.]

[Footnote 4151: Ibid., 276. "To those who objected that a tax could only
be made according to law, Napoleon replied that it was not a tax, since
there were no other taxes than those which the law established, and that
this one (the extra assessment of a quarter of the produce of timber)
was established by decree. It is only a master, and an absolute master,
who could reason in this way."]

[Footnote 4152: Law of March 20, 1813. (Woods, meadows, and
pasture-grounds used by the population in common are excepted, also
buildings devoted to public use, promenades, and public gardens.)--The
law takes rural possessions, houses and factories, rented and producing
an income. Thiers, XVI., 279. The five percents at this time were worth
75 francs, and 138 millions of these gave a revenue of 9 millions, about
the annual income derived by the communes from their confiscated real
estate.]

[Footnote 4153: Aucoc, ibid., §§ 55 and 135.]




CHAPTER II. LOCAL SOCIETY SINCE 1830.




I. Introduction of Universal suffrage.

     Local society since 1830.--Introduction of a new internal
     motor.--Subordinate to the external motor.--Advantageous
     under the system of universal suffrage.

Neither lips nor heart are capable of pronouncing the above invigorating
and conclusive phrase after a silence of 30 years. That local society
ought to be a private association, does not interest those who are
concerned, while the legislator does not permit it. Indeed, after the
year VIII (1799), the State (Napoleon) introduces into the machine the
new motivation described above. After the revolution of 1830,[4201] the
municipal and general councilors become elective and are appointed by
a limited suffrage; after the revolution of 1848, they are elected
by universal suffrage.[4202] After the revolution of 1870,[4203] each
municipal council elects its own mayor, while the council-general,
whose powers are enlarged, leaves in its place, during its vacations, a
standing committee who arrange with, and govern along with, the prefect.
Here, in local society, is a superadded internal motor, working from
below, whilst the first one is external and works from above; from
now on, both are to work together and in accord.--But, in reality, the
second (the council-general) remains subordinate; moreover, it does not
suit the machine[4204] and the machine does not suit it; it is only
a superfluity, an inconvenient and cumbersome intruder, nearly always
useless, and often mischievous. Its influence is feeble and of little
effect; too many brakes are attached to it; its force diminishes through
the complexity of its numerous wheels; it fails in giving action; it
cannot but little more than impede or moderate other impulses, those of
the external motor, sometimes as it should, and sometimes the contrary.
Most frequently, even nowadays (1889), it is of no efficiency whatever.
Three-quarters of the municipal councils, for three-fourths of their
business, hold sessions only to give signatures. Their pretended
deliberations are simply a parade formality; the incentive and direction
continue to come from without, and from above; under the third Republic,
as under the Restoration and the first Empire, it is always the central
State which governs the local society; amid all the wrangling and
disputes, in spite of passing conflicts it is, and remains, the
initiator, mover, leader, controller, accountant, and executor of every
undertaking, the preponderating power in the department as well as in
the commune, and with what deplorable results we all know.--There is
still another and more serious result. Nowadays, its interference is an
advantage, for should it renounce its preponderance this would pass over
to the other power which, since this has become vested in a numerical
majority, is mere blind and brutal force; abandoned to itself and
without any counter-weight, its ascendancy would be disastrous, we
would see reappearing along with the blunders of 1789, the outrages,
usurpations, and distress of 1790, 1791 and 1792.[4205]--In any event,
there is this advantage in despotic centralization, that it still
preserves us from democratic autonomy. In the present state of
institutions and minds, the former system, objectionable as it may be,
is our last retreat against the greater evil of the latter.




II. Universal suffrage.

     Application of universal suffrage to local society.--Two
     assessments for the expenses of local society.--The fixed
     amount of one should in equity be equal to the average sum
     of the other.--Practically, the sum of one is kept too low.-
     -How the new régime provides for local expenditure.--The
     "additional centimes."--How the small taxpayer is relieved
     in town and country.--His quota in local expenditure reduced
     to the minimum.--His quota of local benefits remains
     intact.--Hence the large or average taxpayer bears, beside
     his own burden, that of the relieved small taxpayer.--Number
     of those relieved.--The extra burden of the large and
     average taxpayer is alms-giving.--The relief of the small
     taxpayer is a levy of alms.

In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in local
society a discordant element, a monstrous system, to which it is
adverse. Constituted as this is, not by human judgment, but by the
preponderance of numbers and their force, its mechanism is determined
beforehand; it excludes certain wheels and connections.[4206] That
is why the legislator must write laws which reflect the nature of our
existence, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, without
any gross contradiction. Nature herself presents him with ready-made
statutes.[4207] His business is to read these properly; he has already
transcribed the apportionment of burdens; he can now transcribe the
apportionment of rights.

So, we have seen, local society renders two distinct services[4208],
which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two distinct
assessments, one personal and the other real, one levied on everybody
and of which the amount is alike for all, and the other levied only on
those whose amount is based on what he spends, on the importance of his
business, and on the income from his real estate.--In strict equity,
the amount of the former should be equal to the average amount of the
latter; in effect, as has been shown, the services defrayed by the
former are as many, as diverse, and as precious, still more vital, and
not less costly than those of which the latter is the price. Of the
two interests which they represent, each, did it stand alone, would be
obliged to secure the same services, to take upon itself the whole of
the work; neither would obtain more in the dividend, and each would have
to pay the whole of the expense. Accordingly, each gains as much as the
other in the physical solidarity which binds them together. Hence, in
the legal bond which unites them they enter into it on an equal footing,
on condition that each is burdened or relived as much as the other, on
condition that if the latter assumes one-half of the expense the former
shall assume the other half, on condition that if the latter quota on
each one hundred francs expended against calamities and for public roads
is 50 francs, the former quota shall also be 50 francs.--Practically,
however, this is impossible. Three times out of four the former levy
with this apportionment would not be returned; through prudence as
well as humanity, the legislator is bound not to overburden the poor.
Recently, in organizing the general tax and the revenue of the State,
he has looked out for them; now, in organizing the local tax and the
revenue of the department or of the commune, he looks out for them to a
still greater extent.

In the new financial scheme, so many centimes, added to each franc of
direct tax, form the principal resource of the department and commune,
and it is through this extra charge that each taxpayer pays his quota
of local expenditure. Now, there is no surcharge on the personal tax,
no additional centimes. Under this heading, the laborer without any
property or income, the workman who lives in lodgings, on his wages, and
from day to day, contributes nothing to the expenses of his commune or
department. In vain do "additional centimes" pour down on other branches
of direct taxation; they are not grafted on this one, and do not suck
away the substance of the poor.[4209]--There is the same regard for the
half poor, in relation to the artisan who furnishes his own room, but
who lodges in an upper story, and in relation to the peasant whose hovel
or cottage has but one door and one window.[4210] Their rate of taxation
on doors and windows is very low, purposely reduced, kept below one
franc a year, while the rate of their personal tax is scarcely higher.
"Additional centimes" may be imposed on so small a principal and be
multiplied in vain, never will they reach more than an insignificant
amount.-Not only are the destitute relieved of both principal and
"additional centimes," the verified poor, those who are registered and
are helped, or should be, that is to say 2,470,000 persons;[4211] but,
again, others, by hundreds of thousands, whom the municipal council
judges incapable of paying.--Even when people possess but a small piece
of land, they are also relieved of the land tax and of the numerous
additional centimes which increase it. Such is the case with those
who are infirm or burdened with a family. The exchequer, so as not to
convert them into beggars and vagabonds, avoids expropriation, selling
out their concrete hovel, vegetable garden, and small field of potatoes
or cabbages; it gives them receipts gratis, or, at least, refrains
from prosecuting them.[4212] In this way the poor peasant, although
a land-owner, again exempts himself, or is exempted from his local
indebtedness. In truth, he pays nothing, or nearly nothing, otherwise
than by prestations (payments) in money or in kind; that is to say, by
three days' work on the district roads, which, if he pays in kind, are
not worth more than 50 sous.[4213] Add to this his portion, very small
and often null, of the additional centimes on the tax on doors and
windows, on the personal tax, and on the tax on real estate, in all 4
or 5 francs a year. Such is the amount by which the poor or half-poor
taxpayer in the villages liberates himself toward his department and
commune.--In the towns, he apparently pays more, owing to the octroi.
But, at first, there are only 1525 communes out of 36,000 in which the
octroi[4214] has been established; while in the beginning, under the
Directory and Consulate, it was revived only on his account, for his
benefit, in behalf of public charity, to defray the expenses of asylums
and hospitals ruined by revolutionary confiscation. It was then "an
octroi for charity," in fact as well as in name, like the surplus tax on
theater seats and tickets, established at the same time and for the same
purpose; it still to-day preserves the stamp of its first institution.
Bread, the indispensable provision for the poor, is not subjected to the
octroi nor the materials for making it, either grain or flour, nor
milk, fruits, vegetables, or codfish, while there is only a light tax
on butcher's meat. Even on beverages, where the octroi is heavier, it
remains, like all indirect taxes, nearly proportional and semi-optional.
In effect, it is simply an increase of the tax on beverages, so many
additional centimes per franc on the sum of indirect taxation, as
warrantable as the impost itself, as tolerable, and for the same
motives.[4215] For the greater the sobriety of the taxpayer, the less is
he affected by this tax. At Paris, where the increase is excessive,
and adds to the 6 centimes paid to the state, on each quart of wine, 12
centimes paid to the city; if he drinks but one quart a day, he pays,
under this heading, into the city treasury 43 francs 80 centimes per
annum: but, as compensation for this, he is free of personal tax of 11
3/4%, which this adds to the amount of each rental of the 11 3/4%,
whereby this would have added to his rent, and therefore 47 francs per
annum as a rent of 400 francs. Thus what he has paid with one hand
he gets back with the other. Now, at Paris, all rentals under 400
francs[4216] are thus free of any personal tax; all rentals between 400
and 1000 francs are more or less free, and, in the other octroi towns,
an analogous discharge reimburses to the small taxpayers a portion more
or less great of the sum they pay to the octroi.--Accordingly, in the
towns as in the country, they are favored at one time through fiscal
relief and at another through administrative favor, now through
compulsory deduction and now through total or partial reimbursement.
Always, and very wisely, the legislator apportions the burden according
to the strength of the shoulders; he relieves them as much as he can, at
first, of the general tax, and next, which is still better, of the local
tax. Hence, in local expenditure, their quota diminishes out of all
proportion and is reduced to the minimum. Nevertheless, their quota of
local benefit remains full and entire; at this insignificant price
they enjoy the public highways and profit by all the precautions taken
against physical ills; each profits by this personally, equally with any
millionaire. Each personally receives as much in the great dividend of
security, health, and convenience, in the fruit of the vast works of
utility and enjoyment due to improved communications, which preserve
health, assist traffic, and beautify the locality, and without which, in
town as well as in the country, life would be impossible or intolerable.

But these works which cost so much, these defensive operations and
apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and contagions, these
500,000 kilometers of district and department roads, these dikes, quays,
bridges, public gardens, and promenades, this paving, drainage, sweeping
and lighting, these aqueducts and supplies of drinkable water, all
this is paid for by somebody, and, since it is not done by the small
taxpayer, it is the large or average taxpayer who pays for it. The
latter then, bears, besides his obligatory weight, a gratuitous surplus
burden, consisting of the weight of which the other is relieved.

Evidently the greater the number of the relieved, the heavier will be
this overweight, and the relieved count by millions. Two millions and
a half of declared poor[4217] are relieved of any direct tax, and,
therefore, of all the centimes which have just increased the burden.
Out of 8 millions of real-estate owners,[4218] 3 millions, considered
as insolvent, pay neither the real estate tax nor the centimes which it
comprises. In the octroi towns, it is not the minority but the majority
of the inhabitants who are relieved in the way just described; in
Paris,[4219] out of 685,000 rentals, 625,000, in other terms twelve out
of thirteen lodgings, are exempt, wholly or in part, from the personal
tax, the principal and "additional centimes." On each franc of this
principal there are 96 of these superadded centimes for the benefit of
the town and department and because the department and the town expend
a good deal, and because receipts are essential for the settlement of
these accounts, this or that sum is noted beforehand in every chapter of
receipts, and the main thing now is to have this paid in, and it must
be paid by somebody; it matters little whether the peasants are few or
numerous; if among thirteen taxable persons there is only one that pays,
so much the worse for him, for he must pay for himself and the other
twelve. Such is the case in Paris, which accounts for the "additional
centimes" here being so numerous,[4220] owing to there being less than
60,000 rentals for the acquittance of the entire tax, and, besides
paying their own debt, they must discharge the indebtedness of 625,000
other rentals, the tax on which is reduced or null.--Frequently, before
the Revolution, some rich convent or philanthropic seignior would pay
the taxes of his poor neighbors out of his own pocket; willingly or not,
60,000 Parisians, more or less well lodged, now hand over the same sum,
bestow the same charity, on 625,000 thousand badly or only tolerably
lodged Parisians; among these 60,000 benefactors whom the exchequer
obliges to be benevolent, 34,800 who pay from 1000 to 3000 francs rent,
bestow, under this heading, a pretty large sum for charitable purposes,
while 14,800, who pay more than 3000 francs rent, pay a very large one.
Other branches of direct taxation, in the country as well as in
the city, present the same spectacle: it is always the rich or
the well-to-do taxpayers who, through their over-tax, more or less
completely relieve the poor or straitened taxpayers; it is always the
owners of large or small properties, those who pay heavy or average
licenses, the occupants of lodgings with more than five openings,[4221]
and whose locative value surpasses 1000 francs, who in local expenditure
pay besides their own dues the dues of others and, through their
additional centimes, almost entirely defray the expenses of the
department and commune.--This is nearly always the case in a local
society, except when it chances to possess an abundant income, arising
from productive real estate, and is able to provide for its wants
without taxing its members; apart from this rare exception, it is forced
to tax some in order to relieve others. In other words, the same as with
other enterprises, it manufactures and sells its product but, just the
reverse of other enterprises, it sells the product, an equal quantity
of the same product, that is to say, equal protection against the same
calamities, and the equal enjoyment of the same public highway, at
unequal prices, very dear to a few, moderately dear to many, at cost
price to a large number, and with a discount to the mass; to this last
class of consumers the discount goes on increasing like the emptiness
of their purse; to the last of all, extremely numerous, the goods are
delivered almost gratis, or even for nothing.

But to this inequality of prices may correspond the inequality of
rights, and compensation will come, the balance may be restored,
distributive justice may be applied, if, in the government of the
enterprise, the parts assigned are not equal, if each member sees his
portion of influence growing or diminishing along with the weight of his
charge, if the regulations, graduating authority according to the scale
of the levies, assigns few votes to those who pay the lowest quotas of
expense and receive alms, and many votes to those who give alms and pay
the largest quotas of the expenditure.




III. Equity in taxation.

     Possible compensation in the other side of the scale.--What
     the distribution of rights should be according to the
     principle of distributive justice.--In every association of
     stock-owners.--In local society confined to its natural
     object.--In local society charged with supplementary
     functions.--The local statue in England and Prussia.--The
     exchange equitable when burdens are compensated by rights.

Such is the rule in every association of interests, even in stock
companies in which the distribution of charges allows of no favor or
disfavor to any associate. It must be noted that, in these companies,
co-operation is not compulsory, but voluntary; the associates are not,
as in the local society, conscripts enlisted under the constraint of
physical solidarity, but subscribers bound together under the impulsion
of a deliberate preference, each remaining in its of his own free will
just as he entered it; if he wishes to leave it he has only to sell his
stock; the fact of his keeping this confirms his subscription, and, thus
holding on to it, he daily subscribes anew to the statute. Here, then,
is a perfectly free association; its is accordingly perfectly equitable,
and its statute serves as a model for others.

Now this statute always makes a distinction between the small and the
large stockholders; it always attributes a greater share of authority
and influence to those who share most largely in the risks and expenses;
in principle, the number of votes in confers on each associate is
proportionate to the number of shares of which he is the owner or
bearer.--All the stronger is the reason why this principle should be
embodied in the statutes of a society which, like the local community,
diminishes the burden of the small taxpayer through its reductions,
and increases by its extra taxation the burden of the large or average
taxpayer; when the appointment of managers is handed over to universal
suffrage, counted by heads, the large and average taxpayers are
defrauded of their dues and deprived of their rights, more so by far and
more deeply wronged than the bearer or owner of a thousand shares in an
omnibus or gas company if, on voting at a meeting of stockholders, his
vote did not count for more than that of the owner or bearer of a single
share.--

How is it then when a local society adds to its natural and unavoidable
purpose an optional and supplementary purpose;

* when, increasing its load, it undertakes to defray the cost of public
charity and of primary education;

* when, to support this additional cost, it multiplies the additional
centimes;

* when the large or average taxpayer pays alone, or nearly alone, for
this benevolent work by which he does not benefit;

* when the small taxpayer pays nothing, or next to nothing, to this
benevolent work by which he does benefit;

* when, in voting for the expense thus apportioned, each taxpayer,
whatever the amount of his contribution, has one vote and only one?

In this case, powers, benefits, reductions, and exemptions, all the
advantages are on one side, that of the poor and half-poor forming the
majority and who if not restrained from above, will persistently abuse
their numerical force to augment their advantages, at the increasing
expense of the rich or well-do-do minority. In the future, in the local
society, the average or large taxpayer is no longer an associate but a
victim; were he free to choose he would not enter into it; he would like
to go away and establish himself elsewhere; but were he to enter
others, near or remote, his condition would be no better. He remains,
accordingly, where he is, physically present, but absent in feeling;
he takes no part in deliberate meetings; his zeal has died out; he
withholds from public affairs that surplus of vigilant attention, that
spontaneous and ready collaboration which he would have contributed
gratis; he lets matters go along without him, just as it happens;
he remains there just what he is, a workable, taxable individual in
capricious hands, in short, a passive subject who gives and has become
resigned.--For this reason, in countries where an encroaching democracy
has not yet abolished or perverted the notion of equity, the local
statute applies the fundamental rule of an equitable exchange; it lays
down the principle that

he who pays commands, and in proportion to the sum he pays.[4222]

In England, a surplus of votes is awarded to those most heavily taxed,
even six votes to one voter; in Prussia, local taxation is divided into
thirds, and, accordingly, the taxpayers into three groups, the first one
composed of heavy taxpayers, few in number, and who pay the first third,
the second composed of average taxpayers, average in number, and who pay
the second third, and the third composed of the great number of small
taxpayers, who pay the last third.[4223] To each of these groups is
assigned the same number of suffrages in the commune election, or the
same number of representatives in the commune representation. Through
this approximate balance of legal burdens and of legal rights, the
two sides of the scales are nearly level, the level which distributive
justice demands, and the level which the state, special interpreter,
sole arbiter and universal minister of distributive justice, should
establish when, in the local community, it imposes, rectifies, or
maintains the articles in accordance with which it derives its income
and governs.




IV. On unlimited universal suffrage.

     How unlimited universal suffrage found its way into local
     society.--Object and mode of the French legislator.

If the government, in France, does just the opposite, it is at the
height of a violent and sudden revolution, forced by the party in power
and by popular prejudice, through deductive reasoning, and through
contagion. According to revolutionary and French usage, the legislator
was bound to institute uniformity and to make things symmetrical;
having placed universal suffrage in political society, he was likewise
determined to place it in local society. He had been ordered to apply an
abstract principle, that is to say, to legislate according to a summary,
superficial, and verbal notion which, purposely curtailed and simplified
to excess, did not correspond with its aim. He obeyed and did nothing
more; he made no effort outside of his instructions. He did not propose
to himself to restore local society to its members, to revive it, to
make it a living body, capable of spontaneous, co-ordinate, voluntary
action, and, to this end, provided with indispensable organs. He did
not even take the trouble to imagine, how it really is, I mean by
this, complex and diverse and inversely to legislators before 1789,
and adversely to legislators before and after 1789 outside of France,
against all the teachings of experience, against the evidence of nature,
he refused to recognize the fact that, in France, mankind are of two
species, the people of the towns and the people of the country, and
that, therefore, there are two types of local society, the urban
commune and the rural commune. He was not disposed to take this capital
difference into consideration; he issued decrees for the Frenchman in
general, for the citizen in himself, for fictive men, so reduced that
the statute which suits them can nowhere suit the actual and complete
man. At one stroke, the legislative shears cut out of the same stuff,
according to the same pattern, thirty-six thousand examples of the same
coat, one coat indifferently for every commune, whatever its shape,
a coat too small for the city and too large for the village,
disproportionate in both cases, and useless beforehand, because it
could not fit very large bodies, nor very small ones. Nevertheless, once
dispatched from Paris, people had to put the coat on and wear it;
it must answer for good or for ill, each donning his own for lack of
another better adjusted; hence the strangest attitudes for each, and, in
the long run, a combination of consequences which neither governors nor
the governed had foreseen.




V. Rural or urban communes.

     No distinction between the rural and the urban commune.
     --Effects of the law on the rural commune.--Disproportion
     between the intelligence of its elected representatives and
     the work imposed upon them.--The mayor and the municipal
     council.--Lack of qualified members.--The secretary of the
     mayoralty.--The chief or under chief of the prefectorial
     bureau.

Let us consider these results in turn in the small and in the great
communes; clear enough and distinct at the two extremities of the scale,
they blend into each other at intermediate degrees, because here
they combine together, but in different proportions, according as the
commune, higher or lower in the scale, comes nearer to the village or
to the city.--On this territory, too, subdivided since 1789, and, so to
say, crumbled to pieces by the Constituent Assembly, the small communes
are enormous in number; among the 36,000, more than 27,000 have less
than 1000 inhabitants, and of these, more than 16,000 have less than 500
inhabitants.[4224] Whoever has traveled over France, or lived in this
country, sees at once what sort of men compose such purely rural groups;
he has only to recall physiognomies and attitudes to know to what extent
in these rude brains, rendered torpid by the routine of manual labor and
oppressed by the cares of daily life, how narrow and obstructed are
the inlets to the mind; how limited is their information in the way of
facts; how, in the way of ideas, the acquisition of them is slow; what
hereditary distrust separates the illiterate mass from the lettered
class; what an almost insurmountable wall the difference of education,
of habits, and of manners interposes in France between the blouse
and the dress-coat; why, if each commune contains a few cultivated
individuals and a few notable proprietors, universal suffrage sets them
aside, or at least does not seek them out for the municipal council or
the mayoralty.--Before 1830, when the prefect appointed the municipal
councilors and the mayor, these were always on hand; under the monarchy
of July and a limited suffrage, they were still on hand, at least for
the most part; under the second Empire, whatever the elected municipal
council might be, the mayor, who was appointed by the prefect, and even
outside of this council, might be one of the least ignorant and least
stupid even in the commune. At the present day (1889), it is only
accidentally and by chance that a noble or bourgeois, in a few provinces
and in certain communes, may become mayor or municipal councilor; it is,
however, essential that he should be born on the soil, long established
there, resident and popular. Everywhere else the numerical majority,
being sovereign, tends to select its candidates from among the average
people: in the village, he is a man of average rural intelligence, and,
mostly, in the village a municipal council which, as narrow-minded as
its electors, elects a mayor equally as narrow-minded as itself
Such are, from now on, the representatives and directors of communal
interests; except when they themselves are affected by personal
interests to which they are sensitive, their inertia is only equaled by
their incapacity[4225]

Four times a year a bundle of elaborately drawn papers, prepared by
the prefecture, are submitted to these innately blind paralytics, large
sheets divided into columns from top to bottom, with tabular headings
from right to left, and covered with printed texts and figures in
writing--details of receipts and expenses, general centimes, special
centimes, obligatory centimes, optional centimes, ordinary centimes,
extra centimes, with their sources and employment; preliminary
budget, final budget, corrected budget, along with legal references,
regulations, and decisions bearing on each article. In short, a
methodical table as specific as possible and highly instructive to a
jurist or accountant, but perfect jargon to peasants, most of whom can
scarcely write their name and who, on Sundays, are seen standing before
the advertisement board[4226] trying to spell out the Journal Officiel,
whose abstract phrases, beyond their reach, pass over their heads in
aerial and transient flight, like some confused rustling of vague and
unknown forms. To guide them in political life, much more difficult than
in private life, they require a similar guide to the one they take in
the difficult matters of their individual life, a legal or business
adviser, one that is qualified and competent, able to understand the
prefecture documents, sitting alongside of them to explain their budget,
rights and limits of their rights, the financial resources, legal
expedients, and consequences of a law; one who can arrange their
debates, make up their accounts, watch daily files of bills, attend to
their business at the county town, throughout the entire series of
legal formalities and attendance on the bureaus,--in short, some
trusty person, familiar with technicalities, who they might choose to
select.--Such a person was found in Savoy, before the annexation to
France, a notary or lawyer who, practicing in the neighborhood or at the
principal town, and with five or six communes for clients, visited them
in turn, helped them with his knowledge and intelligence, attended their
meetings and, besides, served them as scribe, like the present secretary
of the mayoralty, for about the same pay, amounting in all to about the
same total of fees or salaries.[4227]--At the present time, there is
nobody in the municipal council to advise and give information to its
members; the schoolmaster is their secretary, and he cannot be, and
should not be, other than a scribe. He reads in a monotonous tone of
voice the long financial enigma which French public book-keeping, too
perfect, offers to their divination, and which nobody, save one who is
educated to it, can clearly comprehend until after weeks of study. They
listen all agog. Some, adjusting their spectacles, try to pick out among
so many articles the one they want, the amount of taxes they have
to pay. The sum is too large, the assessments are excessive; it is
important that the number of additional centimes should be reduced, and
therefore that less money should be expended. Hence, if there is any
special item of expense which can be got rid of by a refusal, they set
it aside by voting No, until some new law or decree from above obliges
them to say Yes. But, as things go, nearly all the expenses designated
on the paper are obligatory; willingly or not, these must be met, and
there is no way to pay them outside of the additional centimes; however
numerous these are, vote them they must and sanction the centimes
inscribed. They accordingly affix their signatures, not with trust but
with mistrust, with resignation, and out of pure necessity. Abandoned
to their natural ignorance, the twenty-seven thousand petty municipal
councilors of the country are no more passive, more inert, more
constrained than ever; deprived of the light which, formerly, the choice
of the prefect or a restricted suffrage could still throw into the
darkness around them, there remains to them only one safe tutor
or conductor; and this final guide is the official of the bureaus,
especially this or that old, permanent chief, or under clerk, who is
perfectly familiar with his files of papers. With about four hundred
municipal councils to lead, one may imagine what he will do with them:
nothing except to drive them like a flock of sheep into a pen of printed
regulations, or urge them on mechanically, in lots, according to his
instructions, he himself being as automatic and as much in a rut as they
are.




VI. The larger Communes.

     Effects of the law on the urban commune.--Disproportion
     between the administrative capacity of its elected
     representatives and the work imposed on them.--Lack of a
     special and permanent manager.--The municipal council and
     the mayor.--The general council and the intermediary
     committee.--The prefect.--His dominant rule.--His obligatory
     concessions.--His principal aim.--Bargains between the
     central authority and the local Jacobins.--Effect on this on
     local government, on the officials, and in local finances.

Let us now look at the other side of the scale, on the side of the large
urban communes, of which there are 223, with above 10,000 inhabitants,
90 of these above 20,000 inhabitants, 9 of the latter above 100,000
inhabitants, and Paris, which has 2,300,000.[4228] We see at the first
glance cast upon an average specimen of these human anthills, a town
containing from 40,000 to 50,000 souls, how vast and complex the
collective undertaking becomes, how many principal and accessory
services the communal society must co-ordinate and unite together in
order to secure to its members the advantages of public roads and insure
their protection against spreading calamities:

* Maintenance and repairs of these roads, the straightening, laying-out,
paving, and drainage, the constructions and expense for sewers, quays,
and rivers, and often for a commercial harbor;

* the negotiations and arrangements with departments and with the state
for this or that harbor, canal, dike, or insane asylum; the contracts
with cab, omnibus, and tramway companies and with telephone and
house-lighting companies; the street-lighting, artesian wells and
aqueducts;

* the city police, supervision and rules for using public highways,
and orders and agents for preventing men from injuring each other when
collected together in large assemblies in the streets, in the markets,
at the theater, in any public place, whether coffee-houses or taverns;

* the firemen and machinery for conflagrations; the sanitary measures
against contagion, and precautions, long beforehand to insure hygiene
during epidemics;

* and, as extra burdens and abuses, the establishment, direction and
support of primary schools, colleges, public lectures, libraries,
theaters, hospitals, and other institutions which should be supported
and governed by different associations; at the very least, the
appropriations to these establishments and therefore a more or less
legitimate and more or less imperative intervention in their internal
management.

Such are the great undertakings which form a whole, which bear alike on
the present, past, and future budget of the commune, and which, as so
many distinct branches of every considerable enterprise, require, for
proper execution, to have their continuity and connection always present
in the thoughtful and directing mind which has them in charge.[4229]
Experience shows that, in the great industrial or financial companies,
in the Bank of France, in the Crédit Lyonnais, and in the insurance,
navigation, and railroad companies, the best way to accomplish this end
is a permanent manager or director, always present, engaged or accepted
by the administrative board on understood conditions, a special, tried
man who, sure of his place for a long period, and with a reputation to
maintain, gives his whole time, faculties, and zeal to the work,
and who, alone, possessing at every moment a coherent and detailed
conception of the entire undertaking, can alone give it the proper
stimulus, and bring to bear the most economical and the most perfect
practical improvements. Such is also the municipal administration in
the Prussian towns on the Rhine. Then, in Bonn, for instance,[4230] the
municipal council, elected by the inhabitants "goes in quest" of some
eminent specialist whose ability is well known. It must be noted that
he is taken wherever he can be found, outside the city, in some remote
province; they bargain with him, the same as with some famous musician,
for the management of a series of concerts. Under the title of
burgomaster, with a salary of 10,000 francs per annum, he becomes for
twelve years the director of all municipal services, leader of the
civic orchestra, solely entrusted with executive power, wielding the
magisterial baton which the various instruments obey, many of these
being salaried functionaries and others benevolent amateurs,[4231]
all in harmony and through him, because they know that he is watchful,
competent, and top quality, constantly occupied with am overall view,
responsible, and in his own interest, as a point of honor, wholly
devoted to his work which is likewise their work, that is to say, to the
complete success of the concert.

Nothing in a French town corresponds to this admirable type of a
municipal institution. Here, also, and to a much greater extent in the
village, the effect of universal suffrage has been to discredit the true
notables and to incite the abdication or insure the exclusion of men
who, by their education, the large proportion of the taxes they pay,
and still greater influence or production on labor and on business, are
social authorities, and who should become legal authorities. In every
country where conditions are unequal, the preponderance of a numerical
majority necessarily ends in the nearly general abstention or almost
certain defeat of the candidates most deserving of election. But here
the case is different; the elected, being towns-people (citadins) and
not rural, are not of the species as in the village. They read a daily
newspaper, and believe that they understand not only local matters but
all subjects of national and general importance, that is to say, high
level economy, philosophy and law; somewhat resembling the schoolmaster
who, being familiar with the rules of arithmetic, thinks that he can
teach the differential calculus, and the theory of functions. At
any rate, they talk loud and argue on every subject with confidence,
according to Jacobin traditions, being, indeed, so many budding
Jacobins. They are the heirs and successors of the old sectarians,
issuing from the same stock and of the same stamp, a few in good faith,
but mainly narrow-minded, excited, and bewildered by the smoke of the
glittering generalities they utter. Most of them are mere politicians,
charlatans, and intriguers, third-class lawyers and doctors, literary
failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, or clique
orators, and vulgar climbers. Left behind in private careers, in which
one is closely watched and accepted for what he is worth, they launch
out on a public career because, in this business, popular suffrage
at once ignorant, indifferent, is a badly informed, prejudiced and
passionate judge and prefers a moralist of easy conscience, instead of
demanding unsullied integrity and proven competency. Nothing more is
demanded from candidates but witty speech-making, assertiveness and
showing off in public, gross flattery, a display of enthusiasm and
promises to place the power about to be conferred on them by the people
in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and prejudices.
Thus introduced into the municipal council, they constitute its majority
and appoint a mayor who is their figurehead or creature, now the bold
leader and again the docile instrument of their spite, their favors, and
their headlong action, of their blunders and presumption, and of their
meddlesome disposition and encroachments.--In the department, the
council general, also elected by universal suffrage, also bears the
marks of its origin; its quality, without falling so low, still descends
in a certain degree, and through changes which keep on increasing:
politicians install themselves there and make use of their place as
a stepping-stone to mount higher; it also, with larger powers and
prolonged during its vacations by its committee, is tempted to regard
itself as the legitimate sovereign of the extensive and scattered
community which it represents.--Thus recruited and composed, enlarged
and deteriorated, the local authorities become difficult to manage, and
from now on, to carry on the administration, the prefect must come to
some understanding with them.




VII. Local society in 1880.

     Present state of local society.--Considered as an organism,
     it is stillborn.--Considered as a mechanism, it gets out of
     order.--Two successive and false conceptions of local
     government.--In theory, one excludes the other.--
     Practically, their union ends in the actual system.--Powers
     of the prefect.--Restrictions on these through subsequent
     changes.--Give and take.--Bargaining.--Supported by the
     government and cost to the State.

Before 1870, when he appointed the mayors and when the council general
held its sessions only fifteen days in the year, the prefect was
almost omnipotent; still, at the present day, (1889), "his powers are
immense,"[4232] and his power remains preponderant. He has the right
to suspend the municipal council and the mayor, and to propose their
dismissal to the head of the state. Without resorting to this extremity,
he holds them with a strong hand, and always uplifted over the commune,
for he can veto the acts of the municipal police and of the road
committee, annul the regulations of the mayor, and, through a skillful
use of his prerogative, impose his own. He holds in hand, removes,
appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks in his office, but
likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, outside his office, serves
the commune or department,[4233] from the archivist, keeper of
the museum, architect, director, and teachers of the municipal
drawing-schools, from the directors and collectors of charity
establishments, directors and accountants of almshouses, doctors of the
mineral springs, doctors and accountants of the insane asylums and for
epidemics, head-overseers of octrois, wolf-bounty guards, commissioners
of the urban police, inspectors of weights and measures, town
collectors, whose receipts do not exceed thirty thousand francs, down
to and comprising the lowest employees, such as forest guards of the
department and commune, lock-keepers and navigation guards, overseers
of the quays and of commercial ports, toll-gatherers on bridges and
highways, field-guards of the smallest village, policemen posted on
the corner of a street, and stone-breakers on the public highway. When
things and not persons are concerned, it is he, again, who, in every
project, enterprise, or proceeding, is charged with the preliminary
examination and final execution of it, who proposes the department
budget and presents it, regularly drawn up, to the council general, who
draws up the communal budget and presents that to the municipal council,
and who, after the council general or municipal council have voted on
it, remains on the spot the sole executor, director, and master of the
operation to which they have assented. Their total, effective part in
this operation is very insignificant, it being reduced to a bare act of
the will; in reaching a vote they have had in their hands scarcely any
other documents than those furnished and arranged by him; in gradually
reaching their decision step by step, they have had no help but his,
that of an independent collaborator who, governed by his own views
and interests, never becomes the mere instrument. They lack for their
decision direct, personal, and full information, and, beyond this,
complete, efficient power; it is simply a dry Yes, interposed between
insufficient resources, or else cut off, and the fruit of which is
abortive or only half ripens. The persistent will of the prefect alone,
informed, and who acts, must and does generally prevail against this
ill-supported and ill-furnished will. At bottom, and as he stands, he
is, in his mental and official capacity, always the prefect of the year
VIII.

Nevertheless, after the laws lately passed, his hands are not so free.
The competency of local assemblies is extended and comprises not only
new cases but, again, of a new species, while the number of their
executive decisions has increased five-fold. The municipal council,
instead of holding one session a year, holds four, and of longer
duration. The council general, instead of one session a year, holds two,
and maintains itself in the interim by its delegation which meets every
month. With these increased authorities and generally present, the
prefect has to reckon, and what is still more serious, he must reckon
with local opinion; he can no longer rule with closed doors; the
proceedings of the municipal council, the smallest one, are duly posted;
in the towns, they are published and commented on by the newspapers
of the locality; the general council furnishes reports of its
deliberations.--Thus, behind elected powers, and weighing with these on
the same side of the scales, here is a new power, opinion, as this grows
in a country leveled by equalized centralization, in heaving or stagnant
crowd of disintegrated individuals lacking any spontaneous, central,
rallying point, and who, failing natural leaders, simply push and
jostle each other or stand still, each according to personal, blind, and
haphazard impressions--a hasty, improvident, inconsistent, superficial
opinion, caught on the wing, based on vague rumors, on four or
five minutes of attention given each week, and chiefly to big words
imperfectly understood, two or three sonorous, commonplace phrases, of
which the listeners fail to catch the sense, but the sound which, by din
of frequent repetition, becomes for them a recognized signal, the blast
of a horn or a shrieking whistle which assembles the herd and arrests or
drives it on. No opposition can make head against this herd as it
rushes along in too compact and too heavy masses.--The prefect, on the
contrary, is obliged to cajole it, yield to it, and satisfy it; for
under the system of universal suffrage, this same herd, besides
local representatives, elects the central powers, the deputies, the
government; and when the government sends a prefect from Paris into the
provinces, it is after the fashion of a large commercial establishment,
with a view to keep and increase the number of its customers, to stay
there, maintain its credit, and act permanently as its traveling-clerk,
or, in other terms, as its electoral agent, and, still more precisely,
as the campaign manager of coming elections for the dominant party and
for the ministers in office who have commissioned and appointed him,
and who, from top to bottom, constantly stimulate him to hold on to
the voters already secured and to gain fresh ones.--Undoubtedly, the
interests of the state, department, and commune must be seriously
considered, but, first and above all, he is the recruiting officer
for voters. By virtue of this position and on this he treats with
the council general and the standing committee, with the municipal
councilors and mayors, with influential electors, but especially
with the small active committee which, in each commune, supports the
prevailing policy and offers its zeal to the government.

Give and take. These indispensable auxiliaries must obtain nearly all
they ask for, and they ask a great deal. Instinctively, as well as by
doctrine and tradition, the Jacobins are exacting, disposed to regard
themselves as the representatives of the real and the ideal people, that
is to say, as sovereigns by right, above the law, entitled to make it
and therefore to unmake it, or, at least, strain it and interpret it as
they please. Always in the general council, in the municipal council,
and in the mayoralty, they are tempted to usurp it; the prefect has as
much as he can do to keep them within the local bounds, to keep them
from meddling with state matters and the general policy; he is often
obliged to accept their lack of consideration, to be patient with them,
to talk to them mildly; for they talk and want the administration to
reckon with them as a clerk with his master; if they vote money for any
service it is on condition that they take part in the use of the funds
and in the details of the service, in the choice of contractors and in
hiring the workmen; on condition that their authority be extended and
their hands applied to the consecutive execution of what does not
belong to them but which belongs to the prefect.[4234] Bargaining,
consequently, goes on between them incessantly and they come to
terms.--The prefect, it must be noted, who is bound to pay, can do so
without violating the letter of the law. The stern page on which the
legislator has printed his imperative text is always provided with an
ample margin where the administrator, charged with its execution, can
write down the decisions that he is free to make. In relation to each
departmental or communal affair, the prefect can with his own hand write
out what suits him on the white margin, which, as we have already seen,
is ample enough; but the margin at his disposition is wider still and
continues, beyond anything we have seen, on other pages; he is chargé
d'affaires not only of the department and commune, but again of the
State. Titular conductor or overseer of all general services, he is, in
his circumscription, head inquisitor of the republican faith[4235],
even in relation to private life and inner sentiments, the responsible
director of orthodox or heretical acts or opinions, which are laudable
or blamable in the innumerably army of functionaries by which the
central state now undertakes the complete mastery of human life, the
twenty distinct regiments of its vast hierarchy--with the staff of the
clergy, of the magistracy, of the preventive and repressive police, of
the customs; with the officials of bridges and highways, forest domains,
stock-breeding establishments, postal and telegraph departments, tobacco
and other monopolies; with those of every national enterprise which
ought to be private, Sévres and Gobelins, deaf and dumb and blind
asylums, and every auxiliary and special workshop for war and navigation
purposes, which the state supports and manages. I pass some of them and
all too many. Only remark this, that the indulgence or severity of
the prefecture in the way of fiscal violations or irregularities is
an advantage or danger of the highest importance to 377,000 dealers in
wines and liquors; that an accusation brought before and admitted in
the prefecture may deprive 38,000 clergymen of their bread,[4236] 43,000
letter-carriers and telegraph messengers, 45,000 sellers of tobacco and
collecting-clerks, 75,000 stone-breakers, and 120,000 male and female
teachers;[4237] directly or indirectly, the good or ill favor of the
prefecture is of consequence, since recent military laws, to all adults
between 20 and 45 years, and, since recent school laws, to all children
between 6 and 13 years of age. According to these figures, which go on
increasing from year to, calculate the breadth of the margin on which,
alongside of the legal text which states the law for persons and things
in general, the prefect in his turn gives the law for persons and things
in particular. On this margin, which belongs to him, he writes what he
pleases, at one time permissions and favors, exemptions, dispensations,
leaves of absence, relief of taxes or discharges, help and subventions,
preferences and gratuities, appointments and promotions, and at another
time disgrace, hardship, legal proceedings, dismissals, and special
favors. To guide his hand in each case, that is to say, to spread all
the favors on one side and all the disfavors on the other, he has, among
the local Jacobins, special informers and important applicants. If not
restrained by a very strong sentiment of distributive justice and very
great solicitude for the public good he can hardly resist them, and in
general when he takes up his pen it is to write under the dictation of
his Jacobin collaborators.


DEMOCRACY IN FRANCE IN 1889, SUMMARY.

Thus has the institution of the year VIII deviated (The France of the
revolution corrected and decreed by Napoleon), no longer attaining its
object. The prefects, formerly appointed to a department, like a
pacier of the Middle Ages, imposed on it from above, ignorant of local
passions, independent, qualified and fitted for the office, was, during
fifty years, in general, able to remain the impartial minister of the
law and of equity, maintaining the rights of each, and exacting from
each his due, without heeding opinions and without respect to persons.
Now he is obliged to become an accomplice of the ruling faction, govern
for the advantage of some to the detriment of others, and to put into
his scales, as a preponderating weight, every time he weighs judgment,
a consideration for persons and opinions. At the same time, the entire
administrative staff in his hands, and under his eye, deteriorates; each
year, on the recommendation of a senator or deputy, he adds to it,
or sees, intruders there, whose previous services are null, feeble in
capacity and of weak integrity who do poor work or none at all, and who,
to hold their post or get promoted, count not on their merits but on
their sponsors. The rest, able and faithful functionaries of the old
school, who are poor and to whom no path is open, become weary and lose
their energy; they are no longer even certain of keeping their place; if
they stay, it is for the dispatch of current business and because they
cannot be dispensed with; perhaps to-morrow, however, they will cease to
be considered indispensable; some political denunciation, or to give a
political favorite a place, will put them by anticipation on the retired
list. From now on they have two powers to consult, one, legitimate and
natural, the authority of their administrative chiefs, and the other
illegitimate and parasite, consisting of democratic influence from both
above and below. For them, as for the prefect, public welfare descends
to the second rank and the electoral interest mounts upward to the
first rank. With them as with him self-respect, professional honor,
the conscientious performance of duty, reciprocal loyalty go down;
discipline relaxes, punctuality falters, and, as the saying goes, the
great administrative edifice is no longer a well-kept house, but a
barracks.

Naturally, under the democratic regime, the maintenance and service
of this house becomes more and more costly;[4238] for, owing to the
additional centimes, it is the rich and well-to-do minority which
defrays the larger portion of the expense. Owing to universal suffrage,
the poor or half-poor majority which dominate the elections so that the
large majority with impunity can overtax the minority. At Paris, the
parliament and the government, elected by this numerical majority,
contrive demands in its behalf, force expenditure, augment public works,
schools, endowments, gratuities, prizes, a multiplication of offices to
increase the number of their clients, while it never tires in decreeing,
in the name of principles, works for show, theatrical, ruinous, and
dangerous, the cost of which they do not care to know, and of which
the social import escapes them. Democracy, above as well as below, is
short-sighted; it seizes whatever food it comes across, like an animal,
with open jaws and head down; it refuses to anticipate and to calculate;
it burdens the future and wastes every fortune it undertakes to manage,
not alone that of the central state, but, again, those of all local
societies. Up to the advent of universal suffrage, the administrators
appointed above or elected below, in the department or in the commune,
kept tight hold of the purse-strings; since 1848, especially since
1870, and still later, since the passage of the laws of 1882, which, in
suppressing the obligatory consent of the heaviest taxed, let slip
the last of these strings, this purse, wide open, is emptied in the
street.--In 1851,[4239] the departments, all together, expended 97
millions; in 1869, 192 millions; in 1881, 314 millions. In 1836, the
communes, all together, save Paris, expended 117 millions, in 1862, 450
millions, in 1877, 676 millions. If we examine the receipts covering
this expenditure, we find that the additional centimes which supplied
the local budgets, in 1820, with 80 millions, and, in 1850, with 131
millions, supplied them, in 1870, with 249 millions, in 1880, with
318 millions, and, in 1887, with 364 millions. The annual increase,
therefore, of these superadded centimes to the principal of the direct
taxes is enormous, and finally ends in an overflow. In 1874,[4240] there
were already 24 departments in which the sum of additional centimes
reached or surpassed the sum of the principal. "In a very few years,"
says an eminent economist,[4241] "it is probable that, for nearly all
of the departments," the overcharge will be similar. Already, for a long
time, in the total of personal taxation,[4242] the local budgets
raised more than the state, and, in 1888, the principal of the tax real
property, 183 millions, is less than the total of centimes joined with
it, 196 millions. Coming generations are burdened over and beyond the
present generation, while the sum of loans constantly increases, like
that of taxation. The indebted communes, except Paris, owed, altogether,
in 1868, 524 millions francs[4243], in 1871, 711 millions, and in 1878,
1322 millions francs.[4244] Paris, in 1868, already owed 1326 millions,
March 30, 1878, it owed 1988 millions. In this same Paris, the annual
contribution of each inhabitant for local expenses was, at the end
of the first Empire, in 1813, 37 francs per head, at the end of the
Restoration,[4245] francs, after the July monarchy, in 1848, 43 francs,
and, at the end of the second Empire, in 1869, 94 francs. In 1887,45 it
is 110 francs per head. [4246]




VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy.

Such, in brief, is the history of local society from 1789 down to 1889.
After the philosophic demolition of the Revolution and the practical
constructions of the Consulate, it could no longer be a small patrimony,
something to take pride in, an object of affection and devotion to its
inhabitants. The departments and communes have become more or less vast
lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed according to the
same regulations one as passable as the other, with apartments in them
which, more or less good, are more or less dear, but at rates which,
higher or lower, are fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire
territory, so that the 36,000 communal buildings and the 86 department
hotels are about equal, it making but little difference whether one
lodges in the latter rather than in the former. The permanent taxpayers
of both sexes who have made these premises their home, have not obtained
recognition for what they are, invincibly and by nature, a syndicate of
neighbors, an involuntary, obligatory and private association, in which
physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a natural, limited
society whose members own the building in common, and each possesses a
property right more or less great, according to the greater or lesser
contribution he makes to the expenses of the establishment. Up to this
time no room has yet been found, either in the law or in minds, for this
very plain truth; its place is taken and occupied in advance by the
two errors which, in turn or both at once, have led the legislator and
opinion astray.

Taking things as a whole, it is admitted up to 1830 that the legitimate
proprietor of the local building is the central state, that it may
install its delegate therein, the prefect, with full powers; that,
for better government, he consents to be instructed by the leading
interested and most capable parties on the spot; that he should fix the
petty rights he concedes to them within the narrowest limits; that he
should appoint them; that, if he calls them together for consultation,
it is from time to time and generally for form's sake, to add the
authority of their assent to the authority of his omnipotence, on the
implied condition that he shall not give heed to their objections if he
does not like them, and not follow their advice if he does not choose to
accept it.--Taking things as a whole, it is admitted that, since
1848, the legitimate proprietors of the building are its adult male
inhabitants, counted by heads, all equal and all with an equal part in
the common property, comprising those who contribute nothing or nearly
nothing to the common expenditure of the house, the numerous body of
semi-poor who lodge in it at half price, and the not less numerous body
to whom administrative charity furnishes house comforts, shelter,
light, and frequently provisions, gratuitously.--Between both these
contradictory and false conceptions, between the prefect of the year
VIII, and the democracy of 1792, a compromise has been effected;
undoubtedly, the prefect, sent from Paris, is and remains the titular
director, the active and responsible manager of the departmental or
communal building; but, in his management of it he is bound to keep
in view the coming elections, and in such a way as will maintain
the parliamentary majority in the seats they occupy in parliament;
consequently, he must conciliate the local leaders of universal
suffrage, rule with their help, put up with the intrusion of their bias
and cupidity, take their advice daily, follow it often, even in
small matters, even in payments day by day of sums already voted, in
appointing an office-clerk, in the appointment of an unpaid underling,
who may some day or other take this clerk's place.[4247]--Hence the
spectacle before our eyes: a badly kept establishment in which profusion
and waste render each other worse and worse, where sinecures multiply
and where corruption enters in; a staff of officials becoming more
and more numerous and less and less serviceable, harassed between two
different authorities, obliged to possess or to simulate political
zeal and to neutralize an impartial law by partiality, and, besides
performing their regular duties, to do dirty work; in this staff, there
are two sorts of employees, the new-comers who are greedy and who,
through favor, get the best places, and the old ones who are patient and
pretend no more, but who suffer and grow disheartened; in the building
itself, there is great demolition and reconstruction, architectural
fronts in monumental style for parade and to excite attention, entirely
new decorative and extremely tiresome structures at extravagant cost;
consequently, loans and debts, heavier bills at the end of each year
for each occupant, low rents, but still high, for favorites in the
small rooms and garrets, and extravagant rents for the larger and more
sumptuous apartments; in sum, forced receipts which do not offset the
expenses; liabilities which exceed assets; a budget which shows only
a stable balance on paper,--in short, an establishment with which the
public is not content, and which is on the road to bankruptcy.


*****


[Footnote 4201: Laws of March 21, 1831, and July 18, 1837, June 22,
1833, and May 10, 1838. The municipal electors number about 2,250,000
and form the superior third of the adult masculine population; in the
choice of its notables and semi-notables, the law takes into account
not only wealth and direct taxation but likewise education and services
rendered to the public.--The department electors number about 200,000,
about as many as the political electors. The reporter observes that "an
almost complete analogy exists between the choice of a deputy and the
choice of a department councilor, and that it is natural to confide the
election to the same electoral body otherwise divided, since the object
is to afford representation to another order of interests."]

[Footnote 4202: Laws of July 3, 1848.]

[Footnote 4203: Laws of Aug. 12, 1876, March 28, 1882, and April 5,
1884; law of Aug. 10, 1871.]

[Footnote 4204: The prefect, who is directed and posted by the minister
of the Interior in Paris.]

[Footnote 4205: "The Revolution," vol. I., book VIII. (Laff. I. pp.
467-559.)]

[Footnote 4206: And in 1880 it certainly excluded the female side of
human nature. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4207: It must have been evident that nature gives to each
worker, hunter, farmer or fisherman in accordance with their competence
and industry. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4208: Construction of roads, canals, sewers, highways etc and
protection against calamities.]

[Footnote 4209: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," 4th edition, I., p. 303: "The personal tax, levied only as
principal, oscillates between the minimum of 1 fr. 50 and the maximum of
4 fr. 50 per annum, according to the communes."--Ibid., 304: "In 1806
the personal tax produced in France about sixteen millions of francs, a
little less than 0 fr. 50 per head of the inhabitants."]

[Footnote 4210: Ibid., I., 367 (on the tax on doors and windows).
According to the population of the commune, this is from 0 fr. 30 to 1
fr. for each opening, from 0 fr. 45 to 1 fr. 50 for two openings, from
0 fr. 90 to 4 fr. 50 for three openings, from 1 fr. 60 to 6 fr. 40 for
four openings, and from 2 fr. 50 to 8 fr. 50 for five openings. The
first of these rates is applied to all communes of less than 5000 souls.
We see that the poor man, especially the poor peasant, is considered;
the tax on him is progressive in an inverse sense.]

[Footnote 4211: De Foville, "La France Economique" (1887), p.59: "Our
14,500 charity bureaux gave assistance in 1883 to 1,405,500 persons;....
as, in reality, the population of the communes aided (by them) is only
22,000,000, the proportion of the registered poor amounts to over six
per cent."]

[Footnote 4212: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Essai sur la répartition des
richesses," p.174, et seq.--In 1851, the number of land-owners in France
was estimated at 7,800,000. Out of these, three millions were relieved
of the land tax, as indigent, and their quotas were considered as
irrecoverable.]

[Footnote 4213: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," p.721.]

[Footnote 4214: De Foville, p.419. (In 1889.)]

[Footnote 4215: Cf ante, on the characteristics of indirect taxation.]

[Footnote 4216: Here it is the estimated rent, which stands to the real
rent as four to five; an estimated rent of 400 francs indicates a real
rent of 500 francs.]

[Footnote 4217: De Foville, p.57.]

[Footnote 4218: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu," Essai sur la répartition de
richesses," p. 174.]

[Footnote 4219: Ibid., p.209: In 1878, in Paris, 74,000 houses with
1,022,539 rentals, 337,587 being for trade and commerce, and 684,952
for dwelling purposes. Among the latter, 468,641 have a locative value
inferior to 300 francs a year; 74,360 are between 500 and 750 francs;
21,147 are between 750 and 1000 francs. All these lodgings are more or
less exempt from the personal tax: those between 1000 and 400 francs
pay it with a more or less great reduction: those under 400 francs pay
nothing. Above 1000 francs, we find 17,202 apartments from between 1000
and 1250 francs; 6198 from between 1250 and 1500 francs; 21,453 from
1500 to 3000 francs. These apartments are occupied by more or less
well-to-do people.--14,858 apartments above 3000 francs are occupied by
the richer or the wealthy class. Among the latter 9985 are from 3000 to
6000; 3040 are from 6000 to 10,000; 1443 are from 10,000 to 20,000; 421
are above 20,000 francs. These two latter categories are occupied by the
really opulent class.--According to the latest statistics, instead of
684,952 dwelling rentals there are 806,187, of which 727,419 are wholly
or partly free of the personal tax. ("Situation au 1ère Janvier, 1888,"
report by M. Lamouroux, conseiller-municipal.)]

[Footnote 4220: The following appropriations for 1889 are printed on my
tax-bill: "To the State, 51%.; to the Department, 21%; to the commune,
25%." On business permits: "To the State, 64%.; to the Department, 12%;
to the commune, 20%. The surplus of taxes is appropriated to the
benevolent fund and for remission of taxes."]

[Footnote 4221: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "Traité de la science des
finances," I., pp. 367-368: "In communes under 5000 inhabitants the
principal of the tax on doors and windows is, for houses with one
opening, 0 fr. 30 per annum; for those with four openings, 1 fr. 60."
Now, "a house with five openings pays nearly nine times as much as a
house with one opening." The small taxpayers are accordingly largely
relieved at the expense of those who pay heavy and average taxes, the
magnitude of this relief being appreciable by the following figures: In
1885, out of 8,975,166 houses, 248,352 had one opening, 1,827,104 two
openings, 1,624,516 three openings, and 1,165,902 four openings. More
than one-half of the houses, all of those belonging to the poor or
straitened, are thus relieved, while the other half, since the tax is an
impost, not a quota, but an apportionment, is overcharged as much.]

[Footnote 4222: One result of this principle is, that the poor who are
exempt from taxation or who are on the poor list have no vote, which is
the case in England and in Prussia.--Through another result of the same
principle, the law of May 15, 1818, in France, summoned the heaviest
taxpayers, in equal number with the members of the municipal council, to
deliberate with it every time that "a really urgent expenditure" obliged
the commune to raise extra additional centimes beyond the usual 0 fr.
05. "Thus," says Henrion de Pancey ("Du pouvoir municipal," p.109),
"the members of the municipal councils belong to the class of small
land-owners, at least in a large number of communes, voted the charges
without examination which only affected them insensibly."--This last
refuge of distributive justice was abolished by the law of April 5,
1882.]

[Footnote 4223: Max Leclerc, "Le Vie municipale en Prusse." (Extrait des
"Annales de l'Ecole libre des sciences politique," 1889, a study on the
town of Bonn.) At Bonn, which has a population of 35,810 inhabitants,
the first group is composed of 167 electors: the second, of 471; the
third, of 2607, each group elects 8 municipal councilors out of 24.]

[Footnote 4224: De Foville, "La France économique," p. 16 (census of
1881).--Number of communes, 36,097; number below 1000 inhabitants,
27,503; number below 500 inhabitants, 16,870.--What is stated applies
partly to the two following categories: 1st, communes from 1000 to
1500 inhabitants, 2982; 2nd, communes from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants,
1917.--All the communes below 2000 inhabitants are counted as rural in
the statistics of population, and they number 33,402.]

[Footnote 4225: See Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'État moderne et ses
fonctions," p. 169. "The various groups of inhabitants, especially in
the country, do not know how to undertake or agree upon anything
of themselves. I have seen villages of two or three hundred people
belonging to a large scattered commune wait patiently for years and
humbly petition for aid in constructing an indispensable fountain, which
required only a contribution of 200 or 300 francs, 5 francs per head, to
put up. I have seen others possessing only one road on which to send off
their produce and unable to act in concert, when, with an outlay of
2000 francs, and 200 or 300 francs a year to keep it in order, it would
easily suffice for all their requirements. I speak of regions relatively
rich, much better off than the majority of communes in France."]

[Footnote 4226: In French villages, on one of the walls of a public
building on the square are notices of all kinds, of interest to the
inhabitants, and among these, in a frame behind a wire netting, the
latest copy of the government official newspaper, giving authentic
political items, those which it thinks best for the people to read.
(Tr.)]

[Footnote 4227: On the communal system in France, and on the reforms
which, following the example of other nations, might be introduced
into it, cf. Joseph Ferrand (formerly a prefect), "Les Institutions
administratives en France et à l'étranger"; Rudolph Gneist, "Les
Réformes administratives en Prusse accomplies par la legislation de
1872," (especially the institution of Amtsvorsteher, for the union of
communes or circumscriptions of about 1500 souls); the Duc de Broglie,
"Vues sur le gouvernement de la France" (especially on the reforms that
should be made in the administration of the commune and canton), p.
21.--"Deprive communal magistrates of their quality as government
agents; separate the two orders of functions; have the public
functionary whose duty it is to see that the laws are executed in
the communes, the execution of general laws and the decisions of the
superior authority carried out, placed at the county town."]

[Footnote 4228: De Foville, ibid., p. 16.--The remarks here made
apply to towns of the foregoing category (from 5000 to 10,000 souls),
numbering 312. A last category comprises towns from 2000 to 5000 souls,
numbering 2160, and forming the last class of urban populations;
these, through their mixed character, assimilate to the 1817 communes
containing from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants, forming the first category of
the rural populations.]

[Footnote 4229: Max Leclerc, "La Vie municipale en Prusse," p 17.--In
Prussia, this directing mind is called "the magistrate," as in our
northern and northeastern communes. In eastern Prussia, the "magistrate"
is a collective body; for example, at Berlin, it comprises 34 persons,
of which 17 are specialists, paid and engaged for twelve years, and
17 without pay. In western Prussia, the municipal management consists
generally of an individual, the burgomaster, salaried and engaged for
twelve years.]

[Footnote 4230: Max Leclerc, ibid., p.20.--"The present burgomaster in
Bonn was burgomaster at Münchens-Gladbach, before being called to Bonn.
The present burgomaster of Crefeld came from Silesia.... A lawyer, well
known for his works on public law, occupying a government position
at Magdeburg," was recently called "to the lucrative position of
burgomaster" in the town of Münster. At Bonn, a town of 30,000
inhabitants, "everything rests on his shoulders he exercises a great
many of the functions which, with us, belong to the prefect."]

[Footnote 4231: Max Leclerc, ibid., p. 25.--Alongside of the paid town
officers and the municipal councilors, there are special committees
composed of benevolent members and electors "either to administer
or superintend some branch of communal business, or to study some
particular question." "These committees, subject, moreover, in
all respects to the burgomaster, are elected by the municipal
council."--There are twelve of these in Bonn and over a hundred in
Berlin. This institution serves admirably for rendering those who
are well disposed useful, as well as for the development of local
patriotism, a practical sense and public spirit.]

[Footnote 4232: Aucoc, p. 283.]

[Footnote 4233: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'administrateur locale en France
et en Angleterre," pp.26, 28, 92. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April
13, 1861.)]

[Footnote 4234: J. Ferrand, ibid., p. 169, 170 (Paris, 1879): "In many
cases, general tutelage and local tutelage are paralyzed.... Since
1870-1876 the mayors, to lessen the difficulties of their task, are
frequently forced to abandon any rightful authority; the prefects are
induced to tolerate, to approve of these infractions of the law....
For many years one cannot read the minutes of a session of the council
general or of the municipal council without finding numerous examples of
the illegality we report.... In another order of facts, for example in
that which relates to the official staff, do we not see every day agents
of the state, even conscientious, yield to the will of all-powerful
political notabilities and entirely abandon the interests of the
service?"--These abuses have largely increased within the past ten
years.]

[Footnote 4235: See "La République et les conservateurs," in the Revue
des Deux Mondes of March 1, 189?, p.108.--"I speak of this de visu
from experience, (SR.): I take my own arrondissement. It is
in one of the eastern departments, lately represented by radicals. This
time it was carried by a conservative. An attempt was first made to
annul the election, which had to be given up as the votes in dispute
were too many. Revenge was taken on the electors. Gendarmes, in the
communes, investigated the conduct of the curés, forest-guard, and
storekeeper. The hospital doctor, a conservative, was replaced by
an opportunist. The tax-comptroller, a man of the district, and of
suspicious zeal, was sent far into the west. Every functionary who, on
the even of the election, did not have a contrite look, was threatened
with dismissal. A road-surveyor was regarded as having been lukewarm,
and accordingly put on the retired list. There is no petty vexation that
was not resorted to, no insignificant person, whom they disdained to
strike. Stone breakers were denounced for saying that they ought not
to have their wages reduced. Sisters of charity, in a certain commune,
dispensed medicine to the poor; they were forbidden to do this, to annoy
the mayor living in Paris. The custodians of mortgages had an errand-boy
who was guilty of distributing, not voting-tickets, but family notices
(of a marriage) on the part of the new deputy; a few days after this, a
letter from the prefecture gave the custodian notice that the criminal
must be replaced in twenty-four hours. A notary, in a public meeting,
dared to interrupt the radical candidate; he was prosecuted in the court
for a violation of professional duties, and the judges of judiciary
reforms condemned him to three months 'suspension.' This took place,
"not in Languedoc, or in Provence, in the south among excited brains
where everything is allowable, but under the dull skies of Champagne.
And when I interrogate the conservatives of the West and the Center,
they reply: "We have seen many beside these, but is long since we have
ceased to be astonished!"]

[Footnote 4236: Ibid., p.105: "Each cantonal chief town has its office
of informers. The Minister of Public Worship has himself told that
on the first of January, 1890, there were 300 curés deprived of their
salary, about three or four times as many as on the first of January,
1889."]

[Footnote 4237: These figures are taken from the latest statistical
reports. Some of them are furnished by the chief or directors of special
services.]

[Footnote 4238: Taine could hardly have imagined how costly the modern
democracy would, 100 years later, become. How could he have imaged that
the "Human Rights" should become the right to live comfortably and well
at the expense of an ever more productive society.]

[Footnote 4239: De Foville, pp.412, 416, 425, 455; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu,
"Traité de la science des finances," I., p.717.]

[Footnote 4240: "Statistiques financières des communes en 1889":--3539
communes pay less than 15 common centimes; 2597 pay from 0 fr. 15 to 0
fr. 30; 9652 pay from 0 fr. 31 to 0 fr. 50; 11,095 from 0 fr. 51 to
1 franc, and 4248 over 1 franc.--Here this relates only to the common
centimes; to have the sum total of the additional local centimes of each
commune would require the addition of the department centimes, which the
statistics do not furnish.]

[Footnote 4241: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, ibid., I., pp.690, 717.]

[Footnote 4242: Ibid.: "If the personal tax were deducted from the
amount of personal and house tax combined we would find that the
assessment of the state in the product of the house tax, that is to say
the product of the tax on rentals, amounts to 41 or 42 millions, and
that the share of localities in the product of this tax surpasses that
of the state by 8 or 9 millions (Year 1877.)"]

[Footnote 4243: Between 1805 and 1900 the French franc was tied to the
gold standard. A 20 francs coin thus weighed 7,21 grams. Its price is
today in 1998 1933.--francs. Taine's figures have to be multiplied by
app. ten in order to compare with today's prices. No real comparison
can, however, be made since production per capita has multiplied by a
large factor and so have taxes.]

[Footnote 4244: "Situation financière des department et des communes,"
published in 1889 by the Minister of the Interior. Loans and
indebtedness of the departments at the end of the fiscal year in 1886,
630,066,102 francs. Loans and indebtedness of the communes Dec. 30,
1886, 3,020,450,528 francs.]

[Footnote 4245: De Foville, p.148; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'État moderne
et ses fonctions," p. 21.]

[Footnote 4246: During the 110 years since Taine wrote his somber
previsions the French have had to pay the same penalty as other ill
managed Democracies; Bankruptcies direct or indirect with galloping
inflation and enormous devaluations with as a consequence impoverishment
of naive depositors and credulous pension fund participants, wars for
which France was badly prepared with millions of dead and prisoners
and with occupation of France as a result. The culprits, the elected
politicians, have either died or anyhow lived out their lives
comfortably on the indexed retirements which the oligarchy generally
reserves for themselves. (SR.)]

[Footnote 4247: Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'Administration locale en France
et en Angleterre," p. 28. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13,
1861.) List of offices directly appointed by the prefect and on
the recommendation of the heads of the service, among others the
supernumeraries of telegraph lines and of the tax offices.]


End of The Modern Regime, Volume 1 [Napoleon]