785 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



786 



Bonaparte had shown at this period an earnest desire for peace, 

 which France stood greatly in need of. Both royalists and republicans 

 were dissatisfied with his dictatorship. Joseph Arena, a Corsican, and 

 brother of Bartolomeo Arena of the Council of Five Hundred, who 

 had warmly opposed Bonaparte on the 19th Brumaire, Ceracchi and 

 Diana, Italian refugees, and several other violent republicans, formed 

 a. conspiracy against Bonaparte's life ; but they were discovered and 

 imprisoned. Soon after a fresh conspiracy of the royalists some say 

 of the royalists and Jacobins united was near terminating the life of 

 the first consul. As Bonaparte was passing in his carriage through the 

 Rue-Nicaise on his way to the opera, 24th of December 1800, a tremen- 

 dous explosion of several barrels of gunpowder in a waggon, that was 

 drawn up on one side of the street, destroyed several houses and 

 killed many persons. Bonaparte's carriage had just passed, owing to 

 the furious driving of the coachman, who was half intoxicated, and 

 who made his way through all obstacles that had been purposely 

 placed on the road. The police discovered the conspirators, who were 

 fanatical royalists connected with the Chouans in the west of France. 

 Th'-y were tried and executed. At the same time Arena and his 

 republican friends, who had been already found guilty, although, it 

 was said, upon evidence not quite conclusive, were brought out of 

 their confinement and executed. By a Senatus Consultum, for such 

 the decrees of the Senate were styled, 130 known leaders of the old 

 Jacobin party, several of whom had participated in the atrocities of 

 the reipn of terror, were ordered to be transported beyond the seas. 

 Bonaparte expressed his determination to put down both Jacobins and 

 BourbonisU. A law passed the Legislative Body empowering the 

 executive to banish from Paris, and even from France, persons who 

 should express opinions inimical to the present government. By 

 another law, which passed the Tribunate by a majority of only eight, 

 and was afterwards sanctioned by the legislative body, special criminal 

 courts were established to try all persons accused of treason against 

 the state. The secret police was now organised with the utmost skill 

 by Fouche', and numerous informers from all classes were taken into 

 its pay. Besides the general police there was a military police, and 

 another police establishment under Bonaparte himself, in his own 

 household. 



In April 1801 a general amnesty was granted to all emigrants who 

 chose to return to France and take the oath of fidelity to the govern- 

 ment within a certain period. From this amnesty about 500 were 

 excepted, including those who had been at the head of armed bodies 

 of royalists, those who belonged to the household of the Bourbon 

 princes, those French officers who had been guilty of treason, and 

 those who had held rank in foreign armies against France. The pro- 

 perty of the returned emigrants which had not been sold was restored 

 to them. Another conciliatory measure was the concordat concluded 

 between Joseph Bonaparte and Cardinal Consalvi, which was signed 

 by Pius VII. in September 1801. The pope made several concessions 

 seldom if ever granted by his predecessors. He suppressed many 

 bishoprics, he sanctioned the sale of church property which had taken 

 place, be superseded all bishops who had refined the oath to the 

 republic, and he agreed that the first consul should appoint the bishops, 

 subject to the approbation of the pontiff, who was to bestow upon them 

 the canonical institution. The bishops, in concert with the govern- 

 ment, were to make a new distribution of the parishes of their respec- 

 tive dioceses, and the incumbents appointed by them were to be 

 approved by the civil authorities. The bishops, as well as the incum- 

 bents, were to take the oath of fidelity to the government, with the 

 clause of revealing any plots they might hear of against the state. 

 With these conditions it was proclaimed, on the part of the French 

 government, that the Catholic religion was that of the majority of 

 Frenchmen ; that its worship should be free, public, and protected by 

 the authorities, but under such regulations as the civil power should 

 think proper to prescribe for the sake of public tranquillity ; that its 

 clergy should be provided for by the state ; that the cathedrals and 

 parish churches should be restored to them. The total abolition of 

 convents was also confirmed. This concordat was not agreed to by the 

 pope without some scruples, nor without much opposition from several 

 of the theologians and canonists of the court of Rome. (' Compendio 

 Storico su Pio VII.,' Milan, 1824; and also Botta, 'Storia d'ltalia del 

 1789 al 1814.') On Easter Sunday 1802 the concordat was published 

 at Paris, together with a decree of regulations upon matters of dis- 

 cipline, which were so worded as to mako them appear part of the 

 text of the original concordat. The regulations were that no bull, 

 brief, or decision from Rome should be acknowledged in France with- 

 out the previous approbation of the government ; no nuncio or apos- 

 tolic commissioner to appear in France, and no council to be held 

 without a similar consent ; appeals against abuses of discipline to be 

 laid before the council of state ; professors of seminaries to subscribe 

 to the four article! of the Qallican Church of 1682 : no priest to be 

 ordained unless he be twenty-five years of age, and have an income 

 of at least 300 francs ; and lastly, that the grand vicars of the respec- 

 tive dioceses should exercise the episcopal authority after the demise 

 of the bishop, and uqil the election of his successor, instead of vicars 

 elected ad hoc by the respective chapters, as prescribed by the Council 

 of Trent. This last article grieved most the court of Rome, as it 

 (] ..fc'fl the spiritual jurisdiction of the church. The pope made 

 remonstrances, to which Bonaparte turned a deaf ear. Regulations 

 iilV. VOl. I. 



concerning the discipline of the Protestant Churches in Prance were 

 issued at the same time with those concerning the Catholic Church. 

 The Protestant ministers were also paid by the state. 



On the occasion of the solemn promulgation of the concordat in 

 the cathedral of Notre Dame, the Archbishop of Aix officiated, and 

 Bonaparte attended in full state. The old generals of the republic 

 had been invited by Berthier in the morning to attend the levee of 

 the first consul, who took them unawares with him to Notre Dame. 

 Bonaparte said at St. Helena that he never repented having signed the 

 concordat : that it was a great political measure ; that it gave him 

 influence over the pope, and through him over a great part of the 

 world, and especially over Italy, and that he might one day have 

 ended by directing the pope's councils altogether. " Had there been 

 no pope," he added, "one ought to have been made for the occasion." 

 (Qourgaud and Las Cases. See also a copy of the Concordat in the 

 Appendix to Montholon's 'Memoirs,' vol. i.) 



Bonaparte established an order of knighthood both for military 

 men and civilians, which he called the Legion of Honour. This 

 measure met with considerable opposition in the tribunate. At the 

 first renewal of one-fifth of the members of that body, the senate 

 contrived to eject the most decided members of the opposition. 



In January 1802 Bonaparte convoked together at Lyon the members 

 of the provisional government of the Cisalpine republic, together with 

 deputations of the bishops, of the courts of justice, of the universities 

 and academies, of the several towns and departments, and the national 

 guards, of the regular army, and of the chambers of commerce. The 

 number of deputies amounted to about 500, out of whom a commis- 

 sion of thirty members was selected, which made a report to the first 

 consul of France on the actual state of the Cisalpine republic. The 

 report stated that, owing to the heterogeneous parts of which that 

 republic was composed, there was a want of confidence among them ; 

 that the republic was in a state of infancy, which required for some 

 time to come the tutelary support of France ; and it ended by request- 

 ing that the first consul would assume the chief direction of its affairs. 

 Bonaparte then repaired to the hall of the deputies, and delivered a 

 speech which was an echo of the report : he agreed with all its con- 

 clusions, and confirmed them in more positive language. He told 

 them that " they should still be protected by the strong arm of the 

 first nation in Europe, and that as he found no one among them who 

 had sufficient claims to the chief magistracy, he was willing to assume 

 the direction of their affairs, with the title of President of the Italian 

 Republic, and to retain it as long as circumstances should require it." 

 The new constitution of the Italian republic was then proclaimed : 

 three electoral colleges 1, of proprietors; 2, of the learned; 3, of 

 the merchants represented the nation, and appointed the members 

 of the legislature and the judges of the upper courts. The legislative 

 body of seventy-five members voted without discussion on the pro- 

 jects of law presented to it by the executive. There were two coun- 

 cils, under the names of Consulta of State and Legislative Council, 

 which examined the projects of law proposed by the president, the 

 treaties with foreign states, &c. The principal difference between this 

 constitution and that of France was in the composition of the electoral 

 colleges, they being selected in Italy by classes, and in France by com- 

 munes and departments, without distinction of classes ; and also that 

 in Italy there was no tribunate to discuss the projects of law proposed 

 by the executive. Bonaparte appointed Melzi d'Eril as vice-president 

 to reside at Milan in his absence. This choice was generally approved 

 of. Bonaparte gave also a new constitution to the Ligurian or Genoese 

 republic, similar to that of the Italian republic : he did not assume 

 the chief magistracy himself, but placed a native doge at the head of 

 the state. On August the 2nd 1802 Bonaparte was proclaimed consul 

 for life by a decree of the senate, which was sanctioned by the votes 

 of the people in the departments to the number of three millions and 

 a half. A few days after, another Senatus Consultum appeared, alter- 

 ing the formation of the electoral bodies, reducing the tribunate to 

 fifty members, and paving the way in fact for absolute power. 



Switzerland was at this time distracted by civil war. The French 

 troops had evacuated the country after the peace of Amiens, but the 

 spirit of dissension among the different cantons remained. Bonaparte 

 called to Paris deputations from every part of Switzerland, and after 

 listening to their various claims, he told them he would mediate 

 among them : he rejected the schemes of unity and uniformity, saying, 

 that nature itself had made Switzerland for a federal country ; that 

 the old forest cantons, the democracies of the Alps, being the cradle 

 of Helvetic liberty, still formed the chief claim of Switzerland to the 

 sympathies of Europe. " Destroy those free primitive commonwealths, 

 the monument of five centuries," he added, " and you destroy your 

 historical associations, you become a mere common people, liable to 

 be swamped in the whirlpool of European politics." The new Helvetic 

 federation was formed of nineteen cantons on the principle of equal 

 rights between towns and country, the respective constitutions varying 

 however according to localities. The general Diets of the confederation 

 were re-established. The neutrality of Switzerland was recognised ; no 

 foreign troops were to touch its territory; but the Swiss were to 

 maintain a body of 16,000 men in the service of France, as they 

 formerly did under the old monarchy. Bonaparte assumed the title 

 of Mediator of the Helvetic League. Ho retained however Geneva and 

 the bishopric of Basel, which had been seized by the Directory, and 



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