Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 Read Online Free Page A
Author: Arthur Bryant
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
overwhelming majority he was given powers greater than those of Louis XIV at the height of his glory. A few die-hard republicans like Carnot recorded their dissent, but the opposition was too trifling to excite more than ridicule. Thirteen years of civil upheaval had left the French without respect for anything but strength and success. To whoever commanded these they were ready to grant everything. Colonel Dyott was told by a republican banker that Bonaparte would shortly repudia te his wife, marry the daughter of some European monarchical house and make the Consulship hereditary. The man of finance saw nothing shocking in the prospect. Cromwell and Caesar had become the most popular historical characters in Revolutionary France.
Before he seized power Bonaparte told a fellow soldier that if he succeeded the reign of ranting would soon be at an end. With his accession popular clamour ceased to play any part in public affairs. When the terrible poisardes who had so often given mob law to Paris waited to congratulate him on his elevation, they were sent about their business with a curt command to attend to their husbands and children: a rebuke on which in pre-revolutionary days no King would have ventured. Even a royalist assassination plot was skilfully used as a pretext to liquidate unwanted Jacobin leaders.
The idea of criticism by, let alone dependence on, an assembly of politicians was utterly repugnant to Bonaparte's mind. He declined to share the powers he derived from popular favour with any one. He used his triumph at Amiens to secure the adoption of a new Constitution—the fifth since 1789—which reduced the Senate to a company of nominated retainers and the Legislative Assembly and Tribune to ciphers—the one "an assembly of mutes" passing laws without discussion, the other "a sort of legislative eunuch" debating without power in secret session, where, he graciously announced till he grew weary of their insolence, " they might jabber as they chose."
Centralisation was the soul of the new government. Everything turned on the will of the First Consul. He appointed the Prefects of the Departments and the Mayors of the larger cities, and his Prefects appointed the Mayors of the smaller towns. It was the despotism of Louis XIV over again without the limitations imposed by local and aristocratic privileges and corporations. For the Revolution admitted of no power which did not derive from the State itself. The State alone was holy and its officers above the law. The droit administratif invested every agent who enforced the dictator's will with virtual immunity from punishment.
No one but a great man could have administered such a State without stagnation or confusion. But Bonaparte was a great man. He possessed the supreme quality of genius—inexhaustible energy. He could work eighteen hours a day and take in the most complicated document at a glance. His mind, which could turn swiftly from subject to subject, was almost as universal as the France he controlled. Out of the chaos produced by the Terror, the long, wasting war and the corruption of the Directory, he constructed, almost single-handed, a rationally organised State strong in the allegiance of its members and capable of enduring stress and storm. He endowed it with laws culled from the best systems of the past and published them in a Code of more than two thousand articles covering every department of human activity. He gave France a new system of education. He enriched it with roads, canals, bridges, harbours and magnificent public buildings.
On all that he wrought he left the indelible stamp of a clear, original, logical mind with a strong authoritarian bent. His educational system was as rational as an arithmetic table and directed to one aim: the enlargement of authority. His secondary schools or lycees and the University of Paris which was their apex were dedicated to the task of making obedient administrators, lawyers, officers, writers and
Before he seized power Bonaparte told a fellow soldier that if he succeeded the reign of ranting would soon be at an end. With his accession popular clamour ceased to play any part in public affairs. When the terrible poisardes who had so often given mob law to Paris waited to congratulate him on his elevation, they were sent about their business with a curt command to attend to their husbands and children: a rebuke on which in pre-revolutionary days no King would have ventured. Even a royalist assassination plot was skilfully used as a pretext to liquidate unwanted Jacobin leaders.
The idea of criticism by, let alone dependence on, an assembly of politicians was utterly repugnant to Bonaparte's mind. He declined to share the powers he derived from popular favour with any one. He used his triumph at Amiens to secure the adoption of a new Constitution—the fifth since 1789—which reduced the Senate to a company of nominated retainers and the Legislative Assembly and Tribune to ciphers—the one "an assembly of mutes" passing laws without discussion, the other "a sort of legislative eunuch" debating without power in secret session, where, he graciously announced till he grew weary of their insolence, " they might jabber as they chose."
Centralisation was the soul of the new government. Everything turned on the will of the First Consul. He appointed the Prefects of the Departments and the Mayors of the larger cities, and his Prefects appointed the Mayors of the smaller towns. It was the despotism of Louis XIV over again without the limitations imposed by local and aristocratic privileges and corporations. For the Revolution admitted of no power which did not derive from the State itself. The State alone was holy and its officers above the law. The droit administratif invested every agent who enforced the dictator's will with virtual immunity from punishment.
No one but a great man could have administered such a State without stagnation or confusion. But Bonaparte was a great man. He possessed the supreme quality of genius—inexhaustible energy. He could work eighteen hours a day and take in the most complicated document at a glance. His mind, which could turn swiftly from subject to subject, was almost as universal as the France he controlled. Out of the chaos produced by the Terror, the long, wasting war and the corruption of the Directory, he constructed, almost single-handed, a rationally organised State strong in the allegiance of its members and capable of enduring stress and storm. He endowed it with laws culled from the best systems of the past and published them in a Code of more than two thousand articles covering every department of human activity. He gave France a new system of education. He enriched it with roads, canals, bridges, harbours and magnificent public buildings.
On all that he wrought he left the indelible stamp of a clear, original, logical mind with a strong authoritarian bent. His educational system was as rational as an arithmetic table and directed to one aim: the enlargement of authority. His secondary schools or lycees and the University of Paris which was their apex were dedicated to the task of making obedient administrators, lawyers, officers, writers and