BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON L 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



he separated lh Vlai. which he afterward* aggregated to France. 

 To the end of hii reign Bonaparte respected the boundaries ot 

 Switaerland, a* settled by the act of mediation ; that and little San 

 Marino wen the only Republic! in Europe whose independence he 



Bonaparte had directed a commission of lawyer* of the first eminence 

 under the presidency of Cambacere* to frame or ducat a code of civil 

 law* for Franc*. He himself frequently attended their meetings, and 

 took great interest in the discusaion*. The result of their labour* wai 

 the Civil Code, which ha* continued ever iboe to be the law of France. 

 It waa styled ' Code civil dee Franca!*,' and it was accompanied by a 

 Code de procedure. A Code penal, accompanied likewise by a Code 

 d'instruction criminrlle, a commercial code, and a military code, were 

 afterwards compiled and promulgated under Bonaparte's administra- 

 tion. Of these several codes, which are very different in their respective 

 merit*, and an often confusedly designated by the name of Code 

 Napoleon, the Civil Code is considered by far the beat, and constitutes 

 perhaps the most useful bequest of Bonaparte's reign. 



The various branches of public instruction also attracted Bonaparte's 

 attention, though in very unequal proportions. The task of providing 

 elementary education waa thrown upon the communes, but the com- 

 munes being mostly very poor, the establishment of primary schools 

 met with many difficulties, and elementary education remained in a 

 languishing and precarious state during the whole of Napoleon's reign. 

 Several report* delivered by the councillor of state, Fourcroy, to the 

 legislative body under the consulate and the empire, show the wretched 

 slate of primary and secondary instruction throughout France. The 

 secondary instruction was chiefly given in private establishments. 

 Fourcroy stated the number of pupils under ten years of age in the 

 primary and secondary schools at only 75,000, and this in a popula- 

 tion of 32,000,000. Classical and literary instruction was afforded by 

 the lyoeoma to about 4000 pupils, whose expenses were defrayed by 

 the State, besides boarders kept at the charge of their parents. The 

 discipline of these establishment* was altogether military. Latin, 

 mathematics, and military manoeuvres were the chief objects of in- 

 struction at the lyceums. Scientific education was given in the 

 special schools in the chief towns of France, such as the schools of 

 law and of medicine, the college of France, and the Polytechnic School 

 at Paris, the Military School at Fontainebleau, the School of Artillery 

 and Engineers at Mainz, that of bridges and highways, or civil engi- 

 neers, the schools for the mines, &c. Speculative, philosophical, or 

 political studies met with little encouragement under Bonaparte's 

 administration. He sneered at all such studies as ideology, and 

 censured them as an idle and dangerous occupation. 



The provincial administration of France was now organised upon 

 one uniform plan, and was made entirely dependent on the central 

 power or executive. Each department hod a prefect, who had the 

 chief civil authority ; he was generally a stranger to the department, 

 received a large salary, and was removed or dismissed at the will of 

 Bonaparte. The mayor* of the towns of 5000 inhabitant* and upward* 

 ware appointed by Bonaparte ; those of the communes under 6000 

 inhabitant*, a* well a* all the members of the municipal councils, were 

 appointed by the respective prefects. Thus all remains of municipal 

 or communal liberty and popular election were quietly abrogated in 

 France. The power possessed in fact by Napoleon was much greater 

 than that of the king* of the old monarchy, as his prefect* were not 

 man distingnfahod by rank and fortune and connections, as the former 

 governors and lieutenant-general* ; they owed their whole power to 

 their immediate commissions ; they had no personal influence on 

 opinion, and no force except the impulse they received from the chief 



After the peace with England, Bonaparte sent a fleet and an army 

 under hi* brother-in-law, General Leclerc, to St. Domingo, to reduce 

 the blacks, who had revolted. A dreadful war ensued, which was 

 marked by atrocities on both aides, and ended in the destruction of 

 the French force, and the total emancipation of the blacks. At the 

 same time be re-established the slavery of the blacks in Ouadoloupo 

 and Martinique, and authorised afresh the slave trade. By a treaty 

 with Spain, that country gave up Louisiana to France, which Franco 

 shortly afterward* sold to the United State* for fifteen million* of 

 dollar*. By another treaty with Portugal, France acquired Portu- 

 RUM Ouiana. In Itely, France took possession of the duchy of 

 Parma, at the death of the duke Ferdinand, in October 1802. She 

 likewiM tookpoasiaaian of the inland of Elba, by an agreement with 

 Naples and Tuscany. The annexation of Piedmont to France next 

 filled up the measure of alarm of the other powers at Bonaparte's 

 soeroadiiMnte, Since the victory of Marengo, Piedmont bad been 

 provisional!* occupied by the French, and Bonaparte bad given out 

 hop** that be would restore it to the old king, for whom Paul of 

 Kuaia evinced a personal interest. He was then still at war with 

 England, and be bad formed a scheme of an offensive alliance with 

 Russia at the expeue of Turkey, with a view to march a combined 

 army to India. Th violent death of Paul having put on end to this 

 ebrnM, b. Immtdiately procured a decree of the senate constituting 

 Piedmont into a military division of the French empire, under a 

 MMl of administration, with General Menou at the head. Still the 

 Itosnato fate of Piedmont remained in nurx-ns*, as it was understood 

 that the emperor Alexander interested himself for the king of Sardinia. 



But after the assumption of the presidency of the. Italian republic, 

 and the annexation of Parma and Elba, and other stretches of power 

 on the side of Holland and the Rhine, at which Alexander openly 

 ixpressed his displeasure, Bonaparte having no further reason to 

 aumour him, a Senates Consultum appeared in September 1809, 

 definitively incorporating Piedmont with the French republic, and 

 dividing it into six department*, Po, Dora, Seaia, Stun, Marengo, and 

 Tanaro. England on her aid* refused to deliver up Malta, aa a Nea- 

 politan garrison would have been a poor security against a sudden 

 visit of the French. Lord Whitworth had a long and stormy con- 

 ference with Bonaparte at the Tuilerieg on this subject The English 

 minister having represented to him that the state of things which the 

 treaty of Amiens had contemplated was completely altered by his 

 enormous accession of power in Italy, Bonaparte peremptorily rejected 

 England's claim to interfere in his arrangements concerning other 

 states; he insisted upon Malta being delivered up to some neutral 

 power; and at the same time did not even disguise his further views 

 upon Egypt He complained of the attacks of the English press 

 upon him, talked of conspiracies hatched in England against him, 

 rhich he assumed that the English government was privy to, although 

 Charles Fox himself, who was in opposition to the English minister of 

 the day, had once during hi* visit to Paris told him with honest 

 bluntness to drive that nonsense out of his head ; he complained that 

 every wind that blew from England was fraught with mischief for 

 him ; and at lost, after an hour and a half of almost incessant talking, 

 he dismissed the English minister to prepare for the renewal of hosti- 

 lities. (See the instructions given by Bonaparte in hia own hand- 

 writing to Talleyrand concerning the manner in which he was to 

 receive Lord Whitworth at the lost conference between them, in No. 

 IV. Appendix to Sir W. Scott's ' Life of Napoleon.' See also in the 

 ' Me'moire* sur le Consulat ' by Thibaudeau, the real opinion of Bona- 

 parte concerning the peace of Amiens, expressed by him confidentially 

 soon after the ratification : " It was but a truce ; bis government 

 stood in need of fresh victories to consolidate itself; it must be either 

 the first government in Europe, or it must fall.") On the 25th of 

 March 1803, a Senatus Consultum placed at the disposal of the first 

 consul 120,000 conscripts. England on her side was making active 

 preparations. On the 18th of May England declared war against 

 France, and laid on embargo upon all French vessels in her ports. In 

 retaliation for this, a decree of the 22ud of May ordered that all the 

 English of whatever condition found on the territory of France should 

 be detained OB prisoners of war, under pretence that many of them 

 belonged to the militia. General Mortier was sent to occupy the 

 Electorate of Hanover belonging to the king of Great Britain. 



In the following September a decree of the consuls, " in order, 1 ' OB 

 it i- tiled, " to secure the liberty of the press," forbade any bookseller 

 to publish any work until he had submitted a copy of it to the com- 

 mission of revision. Journals had already been placed under still 

 greater restrictions. 



In February 1804, the police discovered that a number of emigrants 

 and Vendeans were concealed at Paris; that General Pichegru, who, 

 after bis escape from Ouiana, had openly espoused the cause of the 

 Bourbons, was with them, and that he had had some interviews with 

 General Moreau. Georges Oodoudal, the Chouan chief, who had once 

 before submitted to the first consul, was likewise lurking about Paris. 

 Pichegru, Moreau, and Georges were arrested. The real purpose of 

 the conspirators ha* never been clearly known. Georges, it seems, 

 proposed to take away the life of the first consul, but it was not 

 proved that the rest assented to this. (Bourienue.) It was also 

 reported to Bonaparte that the young Due d'Enghien, sou of the 

 Duke of Bourbon, and grandson of the Prince of Conde, who was 

 living at Ktteiiheim in the grand-duchy of Baden, was in correspon- 

 dence with some of the Paris conspirators, and that he was to enter 

 France as soon a* the intended insurrection should break out Bona- 

 parte, worried with reports of plots and conspiracies against him, 

 gave orders to arrest the duke, although on a neutral territory. ' MI 

 the 14th of March a party of gendarmes from Strasbourg crowed the 

 Rhine, entered the Baden territory, surrounded the chateau of Ktten- 

 licitn, seized the duke and his attendants, and took him to the citadel 

 of Strasbourg. On the morning of the 18th the duke was put into a 

 carriage, and taken under an escort to the castle of Vincennes, near 

 Paris, where he arrived in the evening of the UOth. A military court 

 of seven members was ordered by the fint consul to assemble at 

 Vincennes that very night The members were appointed by General 

 Murat, commandant of Paris. General llulin was president The 

 captain rapporteur, D'Autancourt, interrogated the duke. The charge* 

 laid before the court against the prisoner were : that he had borne 

 arms against the French republic ; that he had offered hi* services to 

 the English government; that he was at the head of a party of emi- 

 grants assembled near the frontiers of France, and had treasonable 

 correspondence with the neighbouring departments ; and lastly, that 

 he waa an accomplice in the conspiracy formed at Paris against the 

 life of the first consul This Ust charge the duke indignantly denied, 

 and there is not the least evidence that he was implicated in it, nor 

 that he had corresponded with either Pichegru or Georges. (Bour < 

 He was however found guilty of all the charge*. The duke expressed 

 a desire to have an interview with the first consul. This however 

 was overruled by Sarary, who wa* present at the trial, though not one 



