[1800-1801 A.D.]

The code in regard to general ideas could not but lose by being altered under the direction of the first consul. Civil laws are not like political laws. The men who gave to the code its definite form were too much imbued with the modern spirit to return to the traditions prior to '89 and Bonaparte himself had no such idea. What he wished, above all, was that the codification of the new civil institutions of France should appear as his own personal work and that the immense labours of the revolutionary assembly might be cast into the shade. The same men who had prepared the composition of the code under the constituent assembly, like Tronchet, or had it executed under the convention, like Cambacérès, Treilhard, Merlin de Douai, Berlier, Thibaudeau, altered it under the consulate and gave the credit of it to the first consul.

Bonaparte moreover posed with great artfulness before France and all Europe in order to be considered a great legislator. To sustain successfully the rôle he was playing required all those extraordinary faculties with which he was endowed. He assimilated with an incredible facility, by hasty interviews with specialists, elements of knowledge most foreign to him, and discoursed with much force, brilliancy, and originality upon subjects of which he had not known a word the day before. It is thus he debated on ecclesiastical themes with theologians and the canonists of the pope, and now he debated before the state council on judiciary matters. He had an amazing talent for condensing long discussions and cutting them short with a single word for or against.

This was not always to the advantage of the soundest ideas and it was rarely to the advancement of progressive ideas that he employed these marvellous faculties. Thus, although affecting constantly the desire to reconstruct the society overthrown by the Revolution, the desire to strengthen the ties of families, and above all to facilitate the formation of associations, in reality he wanted only isolated individuals: they are easier to govern. As to divorce, which the Revolution had made so easy as to be almost a menace to public morals, the civil code imposed serious restrictions and returned again to the true principles according to which divorce should be only the exception- a necessary evil, to prevent still greater evils; but this reform demanded by the interests of society was in a manner forced upon Bonaparte by the jurists by whom he was surrounded. He surpassed on this point the revolutionary exaggeration, and would have wished that the divorce might be decreed on the demand of only one of the spouses, on the plea of "facts not proven." This would have meant illimitable freedom of divorce. It required much persuasion to induce him to renounce this idea. This was because he was laying plans for himself, having abandoned all hope of having children by Josephine and hoping thus to provide himself with an heir.

He wished at the same time to relax family ties and subjugate women. Women were for him entirely inferior beings, and he professed in regard to them views which seemed to be at times the outlived ideas of the most retrograde peoples, of those Mussulmans whom he preferred to Christians; views which indicated the absence of moral principle which characterised him and the greater part of his family. He resembled the cæsars in this respect as well as in his political ideas. His enormous labours were always incompatible with his unmethodical habits and above all he disliked scandal and affected to react by the imposing etiquette of his family against the brazen license of the time of Barras.

The imperfections of the code, be they in regard to the rights of women and the inconceivable preference to the most distant collateral relatives of the sur

[1801-1802 A.D.] viving heirs to an estate, be they in regard to other important matters, such as the unjust inequality between employers and employés in their industrial relations (civil code and penal code), are principally if not exclusively imputable to Bonaparte. The enormous blank which the code presents relative to associations of all kinds may perhaps not entirely be attributed to Bonaparte, but also to the fact that the prodigious development of industrial and commercial relations could not be foreseen. The most eminent members of the state council were learned jurists but not economists. In regard to this point they too often looked back to the Roman law and did not see whither modern progress was tending. For the same reason they occupied themselves almost exclusively with landed property and had not the slightest premonition of the immense future of personal property.

In spite of these shortcomings and defects, the civil code of France is, taken on the whole, none the less the realisation of the views of the eighteenth century and the principles of '89. New France will revise and correct, but will never replace it. As the combined work of 1791, of 1793 and 1801, it is a monument to the French Revolution which the reaction from the 18th Brumaire was obliged to build and consecrate. Much superior to the confused mass of traditions and conditions and contradictory customs which formed the legislation of other European nations, it was adopted with a reasonable and steadfast fidelity by the peoples then reunited to France and since separated from her; and it has become a model which other nations have striven to copy. The next presentation of the concordat of the civil code to the body of state which was to discuss and vote upon them gave great importance to the legislative session of the year X. It opened on the 1st Frimaire (November 22nd, 1801).

GROWING AUTOCRACY OF NAPOLEON

The discontent caused by the concordat spoiled the satisfaction produced by the state of general peace. The treaties of peace and then the first three sections of the civil code were presented to the legislative body. Bonaparte, in view of the spirit which was being manifested, adjourned the presentation of the concordat. One article in the treaty with Russia caused the liveliest discussions in the tribunate. It was said in that article that the two contracting parties (France and Russia) promised mutually not to allow any one of their subjects to foment trouble on the territory of the other party. The word "subjects" roused indignation: "Our armies," cried Chénier, "have fought for ten years, that we might become citizens'; and we have become 'subjects.' Thus the vow of double alliance is kept." There were at this time three senatorial vacancies to fill; the tribunate, the legislative body, and the first consul, according to the constitution, could each present a candidate, and the senate could choose. The candidate of the legislative body for the first place was Grégoire. The senate by a large majority elected Grégoire, preferring him to the candidate of the first consul. Bonaparte was hurt by that rebuff, but soon received a more serious one.

Daunou was proposed simultaneously by the tribunate and the legislative body for the second place vacant in the senate. It was an act of opposition much more marked than the choice of Grégoire. Daunou, who could not console himself for having taking part in the 18th Brumaire, had broken with Bonaparte on the occasion of the law which established the tribunals of exceptional (special) law and had declared that he would take no part in legislative work while this tyranny continued.

[1802 A.D.]

Bonaparte was exasperated. The following day he had a violent scene with the senators who presented themselves for an audience. He intimated to them that he should consider it a personal insult if the senate nominated Daunou and that he never forgot an injury. The senate weakened most deplorably and shamefully. It feigned to have no knowledge of the nomination of Daunou by the legislative body, and to have received no notification except of the nomination of General Lamartillière — Napoleon's candidate.

Bonaparte had thought for a moment of a coup d'état, a new 18th Brumaire against his own constitution. Cambacérès dissuaded him from this, and suggested that he evade the constitution in lieu of breaking it. The pusillanimity of the senate had made the thing easy. Tronchet, who was at this time president of the senate, fearing the violent actions of which he foresaw Bonaparte would be capable was persuaded to second Cambacérès. The constitution had said that the tribunate and the legislative body should be renewed by a fifth from the year X. It was quite natural that this renewal should be made by drawing lots; but the constitution did not say so expressly. It was decided there should be no drawing of lots and that the senate should designate the retiring members, that is to say, that it excluded those displeasing to the first consul.

The senate consented to this strange interpretation of the constitution. It eliminated sixty members of the legislative body and twenty of the tribunate: Daunou, Benjamin Constant, Chénier, Ganilh the economist, the eminent writer Ginguené, the ex-Girondin Isnard, and with these other former conventionists or former patriotic priests opposed to the concordat; in a word, all those who elected Bonaparte (end of January, 1802). Among those replacing the excluded members, who were mainly military men or functionaries, was one republican, Carnot, who long ago had resigned from the ministry of war. Bonaparte expected henceforth not to hear another dissenting voice. April 5th, 1802, he had the concordat presented to the tribunate and the legislative body.

An historian favourable to Napoleon, Bignonc says very truly that the first consul intended to make of a clergy a sort of "sacred police." Bonaparte had completed the concordat, under the title of articles organiques, by a regulation which had been thoroughly studied and worked out by the state council and which was the application and development of the article by which the pope granted to the new government of France all the rights which it had had under the Old Régime. These articles organiques were invented to serve a double purpose: first, to protect the state against all interference by the court of Rome in home affairs; second, to make the bishops subject to the government, and the ordinary priests to the bishops. The bishops were not allowed to call themselves by any title except "Citizen" or "Monsieur."

The curés had to be chosen by the bishops of the diocese, but with the sanction of the first consul, and the bishop could not revoke the nominations arbitrarily; but there should be only one curé in a "canton," and as for vicars and officiating priests, their nomination was, and is still, entirely at the discretion of the bishop. The protection given formerly to the lower clergy by the ecclesiastical disciplinary board had been taken away. The lower clergy found and still find themselves in a worse position than before '89. The articles organiques are for them a law of servitude.

The concordat was followed by the recall of the émigrés. The resolution was presented to, and voted upon by the senate, the 6th Floréal (April 26th).

[1802 A.D.] The irrevocability of the sale of national properties was again demonstrated. The amnesty accorded to the émigrés excluded the heads of army corps and some others whose cases were particularly grave. Such of the properties of the émigrés as had not been sold were restored to them, excepting woodlands. Bonaparte intended to gradually give back the forests in order to propitiate the aristocracy. The bill concerning taxes showed at this time neither the state of the receipts nor that of the expenses. The vote on duties was henceforth nothing more than a mere formality. Bonaparte regulated the budgets as he wished without any control.

THE LEGION OF HONOUR AND EDUCATIONAL PLANS

Two important bills were presented to the tribune and the legislative body- the Legion of Honour, and public instruction. The convention decreed that weapons of honour should be given to the defenders of the country for distinguished action. The first consul had arranged and regulated their distribution. This did not suffice for him. He wanted a vast system of rewards, calculated to excite the vanity, to remunerate the services, and place in the ruling hand a new and most powerful means of influence over civil as well as military society. He conceived therefore the creation of a Legion of Honour embracing every species of service and claims to public distinction.

He sought at the same time a counterweight to that which he made for the clergy and the émigrés. He exacted from the légionnaires an oath to defend the republic and its territory, equality, and the inviolability of the national property. This bill to reconstitute a great order of chivalry was fought, meanwhile even in the state council, as hindering that equality which the légionnaires were expected to defend, and as the re-establishment of an aristocracy.

In the tribunate the bill passed with only 56 votes against 38; in the legislative body with 166 against 110, this after the weeding out by which it had been calculated to annihilate all opposition. This proves how strong the Revolution still was, even in those departments of state so yielding and enervated. The institution of the Legion of Honour was specious, and although it encountered a strong opposition at its origin it has entered into the life of a people which, in spite of its passion for equality, loves distinctions, providing they are not hereditary. It will no doubt be considerably reformed and modified; it would be difficult to abolish it.

As to the bill on public instruction, it was deplorable. It did absolutely nothing for primary instruction. The state did not interfere. The community was to furnish the premises, wherever the students could pay the instructor. It was the complete abandonment of the plan of the great French assemblies. Concerning instruction in the second grade, the most enlightened of the counsellors of state wished that the "central schools" founded by the convention might be retained after improving them. About a third were successful. The rest weakened. It was necessary to encourage and reorganise them.

But Bonaparte would not allow this. He intended to substitute barracks where the young men should be brought up for this service. He upset the whole great plan of studies which the convention had adopted, started only thirty-two lyceums in place of the one hundred central schools, made them return to the routine of the old system of ecclesiastical colleges and begin the study of Latin and Greek at an age when the child is nearly always incapable of taking an interest in these beautiful learned languages, and

[1802 A.D.]

understands nothing of grammatical and literary instruction. He suppressed the study of the living languages, so necessary to make France acquainted with the peoples with which she is in constant intercourse. He weakened instruction in diminishing the part assigned to the sciences, and curtailed it in doing away with the moral sciences, that is to say, history and philosophy, incompatible with despotism.

He completed his system of secondary instruction by the establishment of six thousand scholarships which would be a means of influence like the Legion of Honour. The scholarships were not to be gained by the competition of the students but distributed by the government, partly to the children of persons who had rendered military or civil service, partly to the students of the special boarding schools, which could not exist without the authorisation of the government, and sent their pupils to take the courses in the lyceums. As to the education of girls, that was entirely another question. This was perhaps the worst of all the institutions of the consulate. The only useful thing which was then done for instruction was the creation of six law schools, a necessary consequence of the codification which was to be made, and the increase of the schools of medicine from three to six. In addition to the Polytechnic School founded by the convention, the first consul established a military academy, formerly at Fontainebleau (late at St. Cyr).

While working thus to develop the study of the sciences of war, Bonaparte continued the campaign he had undertaken against philosophy, and completed the suppression of instruction in history and philosophy in the academies by abolishing the moral and political sciences in the Institute. That class in the Institute was not restored again until after the Revolution of 1830. k

NAPOLEON MADE CONSUL FOR LIFE

The ambitious and intriguing who surrounded Bonaparte asked for nothing better than a continuance in his hands of a power from which they derived the places and honours with which they were loaded. Some even wished for the re-establishment of hereditary monarchy in favour of Bonaparte. That was in reality the first consul's inward prayer. But sharp, cunning, and dissembling as he was, he disclosed this earnest desire to no one, wishing to be understood at half a word. Cambacérès was deceived in this. He thought this insatiable ambition would be satisfied with the consulate for life. It was, moreover, in his opinion quite sufficient remuneration for the services rendered to the country by the first consul. quently he used all his influence in the senate for the carrying out of his plan.

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Already for some months devoted emissaries frequented the public places declaring that the time had come for the country to give some token of recognition to the author of all the blessings it enjoyed. An occasion must now be found to extract from the state bodies that brilliant token. obvious opportunity was the presentation to the legislative body and the tribunate of the Treaty of Amiens, due for the most part to the victories and policy of Bonaparte, a presentation which had been purposely delayed. After the reading to the tribunate of the articles of this treaty on the 6th of May, Chabot, an old member of the convention, and president of the assembly, proposed to announce the offering made to the first consul in token of national gratitude. This having been voted, a deputation from the tribunate proceeded to the Tuileries to apprise General Bonaparte of it. With affected