789 



BONAPAETE. NAPOLEON I. 



BONAPARTE. NAPOLEON I. 



790 



of the members, aud who abruptly told the court that it was inexpe- 

 dient to grant the prisoner's request The duke was sentenced, by 

 the same court, to death for crimes of espionage, of correspondence 

 with the enemies of the republic, and of attempts against the safety, 

 internal and external, of the state. Savary had orders from Bona- 

 parte to see the sentence carried into execution, which was done that 

 very night, or rather early in the morning of the 21st of March. The 

 duke asked for a priest, which was refused ; he then knelt down, aud 

 prayed for a minute or two, after which he was led down by torch- 

 light to a postern-gate, which opened into the castle ditch, where a 

 party of gendarmes was drawn up, and a grave had been dug. It 

 was dawn. Savary from the parapet gave the signal for firing. 

 The duke fell dead, and was immediately buried in the dress he 

 hnd on, without any funeral ceremony. (Savary's 'Memoirs,' and 

 General Hulin's pamphlet in extenuation of his share in the transac- 

 tion.) It is remarkable that Murat, afterwards King of Naples, when 

 himself nnder sentence of death, told Captain Stratti, who guarded 

 him, " I took no part in the tragedy of the Due d'Enghien, and I swear 

 this before that Qod into whose presence I am soon to appear." 

 (Colletta, ' Stork del Reame di Napoll') In fact, Murat, as governor 

 of Paris, merely appointed the members of the court-martial according 

 to the orders he received. It is not true that the duke wrote a letter 

 to Bonaparte which was not delivered to him, as Bonaparte himself 

 seems to have believed. (Las Cases and Bourienne.) The apology 

 which Bonaparte made at St. Helena for this judicial murder, was, 

 that he believed the duke was privy to the conspiracy against his 

 life, and that he was obliged to strike terror amoug the royalists, and 

 put an end to their plots by showing that he was not a man to be 

 trifled with. Joseph Bonaparte in his ' Mdmoires,' vol. i. published in 

 1853, asserts that " the Due d'Enghien had been executed before the 

 report of his sentence had been communicated to the emperor," but 

 that he assumed the responsibility of the event, lest his denial of it 

 should lay him open to the suspicion of being afraid to avow it. But 

 it is scarcely necessary to say that this statement is contradicted in 

 every part by contemporary evidence. 



On the 6th of April Pichegru was found dead in his prison. About 

 the same time, Captain Wright of the English navy, who, having been 

 employed in landing Pichegru and the other emigrants in Brittany, 

 was afterwards captured by the French, and brought to Paris for the 

 purpose of being examined concerning the conspiracy, was likewise 

 reported to have been found dead. The death of these two men is 

 still involved in mystery. Bonaparte has positively denied any know- 

 ledge of Captain Wright's death, and has asserted his belief that Pichegru 

 really strangled himself, as it was reported. Yet, even freely admitting 

 the sincerity of his statements, one may suspect that the agents of his 

 police, screened as they were from all public responsibility, might, in 

 their eagerness to serve their master, or rather themselves, have 

 resorted to foul means to get rid of these men when they could not 

 extract from them confessions that would suit their purpose. In 

 Wright's case there might have been special reasons for concealment. 

 Some dark rumours were circulated about Captain Wright having been 

 put to excruciating torture, and it is very possible that Bonaparte 

 himself did not know at that time all the secrets of his prison-houses. 

 There is a remarkable passage in Bourienne, who, when lie was French 

 agent at Hamburg, kidnapped a spy, a really bad character, and sent 

 him to Paris, " where," he says, " Fouchi! no doubt took good care of 

 him." These are ominous words. 



The trial of Moreau, Georges, and the others, did not take place for 

 several months after Pichegru 's death. Meantime a motion was made 

 in the Tribunate, by one Curde, to bestow upon Napoleon Bonaparte 

 the title of Etnperor of the French, with the hereditary succession in 

 hU family. Carnot alone spoke against the motion, which however 

 was passed by a great majority ou the 3rd of May. The resolution of 

 the Tribunate was then carried to the Senate, where it was unanimously 

 greed to. It was then submitted to the votes of the people in the 

 department!). Above three millions of the registered votes were 

 favourable, and between three and four thousand contrary. But even 

 before the votes were collected, Napoleon assumed the title of emperor 

 at St. Cloud on the 18th of May 1804. On the 19th he issued a decree 

 appointing eighteen of his first generals marshals of the French empire. 

 Deputations with congratulatory addresses soon began to pour in from 

 the departments, and the clergy followed in the wake. 



In the montli of June the trial of Moreau, Georges, and the others 

 concerned in the conspiracy, took place before a special court. A 

 decree of the senate had previously suspended for two years the 

 functions of the jury in cases of attempts against the person of 

 Napoleon Bonaparte. Twenty of the accused, with Georges at their 

 head, were condemned to death; Moreau, with four more, to two 

 years' imprisonment; and the rest were acquitted, but the police seized 

 them ou coming out of court, and replaced them in prison, at the 

 command of the emperor. Riviere, Polignac, and some others who 

 had been condemned to death, were reprieved by Napoleon through 

 the entreaties of his wife and sisters. Georges and some of his more 

 stubborn friends were executed. Moreau had his sentence of imprison- 

 ment exchanged for perpetual banishment, and sailed for the United 

 States. 



Napoleon requested the pope to perform the ceremony of his coro- 

 nation. After consulting with his cardinals, Pius VII. determined to 



comply with his wish, and came to Paris at the end of November 1804. 

 The coronation took place in the church of Notre Dame on the 2nd of 

 December. The crown having been blessed by the pope, Napoleon 

 took it himself from the altar and placed it on his head, after which 

 he crowned his wife as empress. The heralds then proclaimed the 

 accession " of the high and mighty Napoleon I., emperor of the French," 

 &c. &c. 



The Italian republic was soon after transformed into a kingdom. A 

 deputation of the consulta or senate proceeded to Paris in March 1805, 

 humbly requesting Napoleon to accept the ancient iron crown, the 

 crown of Italy, with the condition that the two crowns of France and 

 Italy should remain united only on Napoleon's head, and that he should 

 appoint a separate successor to the Italian kingdom. On the 26th of 

 May the ceremony was performed in the cathedral of Milan by the 

 archbishop of that city. Napoleon seized the iron crown of the old 

 Longobard kings and placed it on his brow, saying, " God has given 

 it to me ; woe to him who shall attempt to lay hands on it." He 

 appointed his step-son, Eugene Beauharnais, his viceroy of the kingdom 

 of Italy. On the 7th of June Napoleon opened in person the session 

 of the Italian legislative body. About the same time the Doge of 

 Genoa, Durazzo, repaired to Milan with a deputation of senators, and 

 expressed a wish on the part of the Genoese to be united to the French 

 empire. A decree of Napoleon, 9th of June, united Genoa to France. 

 Soon after the republic of Lucca was transformed into a principality, 

 and given to Elisa, Napoleon's sister, and her husband Baciocchi, to be 

 holden as a fief of the French empire. Thus two more Italian republics 

 disappeared : San Marino alone remained. 



In the preceding year (1804) Napoleon had assembled a large force 

 on the shores of the British channel, with a flotilla at Boulogne, and 

 had given it the name of ' the army of England.' The invasion of 

 England and the plunder of London were confidently talked of among 

 his soldiers. After his return from Milan he gave a new impulse to 

 the preparations for the projected invasion, aud spoke of it publicly 

 as an attempt resolved upon. His real intentions however have been 

 a matter of much doubt and controversy. Bourienne, who was then 

 still near Bonaparte's person, positively states that he did not enter- 

 tain any serious view of landing in England ; that he was fully aware 

 of the difficulty and risk of such an undertaking ; that even had he 

 succeeded in landing 100,000 men, which was no easy matter, he might 

 have lost one-half or two-thirds in taking possession of London ; aud 

 then, had the English nation persevered, he, not having the superiority 

 at sea, could not have obtained reinforcements, &e. Bonaparte at St. 

 Helena spoke differently. He said he had taken all his measures ; he 

 had dispersed his ships all over the sea ; and while the English were 

 sailing after them to different parts of the world, his ships were to 

 return suddenly and at the same time ; he would have had seventy or 

 eighty French and Spanish ships in the channel, with which he could 

 have remained master of the narrow seas for two months ; three or 

 four thousand boats and 100,000 men were ready at a signal. The 

 enterprise was popular with the French, and was supported, Napoleon 

 said, by the wishes of a great number of English. One pitched battle 

 after landing, the result of which could not be doubtful, and in four 

 days he would have been in London, as the nature of the country does 

 not admit of a war of manoeuvres ; his army should have preserved the 

 strictest discipline ; he would have presented himself to the English 

 people with the magical words of liberty and equality, and as having 

 come to restore to them their rights and liberties, &c. (Las Cases, 

 vol. i., part ii.) It must be observed that all this declamation applies 

 to his preparations towards the end of 1803 and the beginning of 1804, 

 when he was still first consul, aud preserved a show of respect for 

 the liberties of the people. To O'Meara he spoke in a rather different 

 strain. Luckily, perhaps for all parties, the trial was not made. While 

 his army was assembled near Boulogne, a new storm burst on the side 

 of Germany. 



Austria had remonstrated against the never-ending encroachments 

 of Napoleon in Italy. The Emperor of Russia and Gustavus, king of 

 Sweden, protested against the violation of the German territory on the 

 occasion of the seizure of the Due d'Enghien ; the ' Moniteur" answered 

 them by taunts aud jibes against the two sovereigns. By the treaty of 

 Luneville the Italian, Batavian, and Ligurian republics were acknow- 

 ledged as independent states ; but Napoleon had now seized the crown 

 of Italy, had annexed Liguria to France, and both Holland and Hanover 

 were occupied by his troops. Both Russia and Austria complained, 

 but their complaints remained unheeded. A new coalition was formed 

 in the summer of 1805 between England, Russia, Austria, and Sweden. 

 Prussia was urged to join it ; she hesitated, increased her armies, but 

 remained neutral, looking forward to the events of the war. Austria, 

 without waiting for the arrival of the Russians, who were assembling 

 on the frontiers of Gallicia, marched an army into the electorate of 

 Bavaria ; and on the elector refusing to join the coalition, they entered 

 Munich. General Mack, who had given sufficient proofs of incapacity 

 in the field while commanding the Neapolitans in 1798, was by some 

 strange influence placed at the head of the great Austrian army. The 

 Archduke Charles commanded the Austrian forces on the side of Italy. 

 Napoleon directed his army of England to march quickly to the Rhine; 

 other troops from Holland, Hanover, and the interior of France, were 

 ordered to march to the same quarter. He appointed Masseua to 

 command the army in Italy. 



