1801. RELIGION RESTORED. 165 chosen by the senate, itself appointed by the first consul, the members of these assemblies were still the children of the revolution, averse to arbitrary power established by law, however they might excuse and admire its action from expediency; and inspired with a far greater hatred to aristocracy than to tyranny. Thus the first consul obtained with far more ease their consent to his unlimited authority over personal freedom, and even over the press, than their acquiescence in allowing the emigrants to return, in re-establishing religion, and in other acts of justice and expediency. Bonaparte, however, pursued his plan of reorganizing the monarchy, with its higher ranks, its hierarchy, and all the necessary machinery for holding together and moving the body politic. His first enterprise was to re-establish the Catholic. religion, as not only tolerated but instituted by the state. He had spared the pope with this view; and the year 1801 was spent in negotiating a concordat or agreement with Rome. No doubt policy was in this affair the motive of Bonaparte: but it was an instinctive feeling of religion, and a thorough knowledge of the necessity and imperishability of the principle, that was the foundation even of this policy. His counsellors opposed the idea with all the prejudice of incredulity. “Hearken,” said Bonaparte to one of them during a promenade at Malmaison: "I was here last Sunday, walking in this solitude amidst the silence of nature. The sound of the church bells of Ruel suddenly struck upon my ears. I was moved, and said, If I am thus affected, what must be the influence of those ideas upon the simple and credulous mass! The people must have a religion; and that religion must be in the hands of the government." After divers commonplace assertions, the counsellor, waiving the broad question of religion or no religion, objected to Catholicism. "It is intolerant; its clergy are counter-revolutionary; the spirit of the present time is entirely opposed to it. And, after all, we, in our thoughts and principles, are nearer to the true spirit of the gospel than the Catholics, who affect to reverence it." Here Bonaparte urged, that by his leaning to Protestanism, one half of France might embrace it, but the other half would remain Catholic; and weakness, not strength, would be gained to both nation and government." Let them call me papist if they will. I am no such thing. I was a Mahometan in Egypt, and I will be a Catholic here, for the good of the people. Bonaparte succeeded in gaining from the pope a concordat, by which, in return for a decree declaring the Catholic religion that" of the great majority of the French," and undertaking to give salaries to the clergy the pontiff agreed to con secrate such bishops as the French government should nominate; to give up all claim to the old church lands; and to order a form of prayer for the consuls, to whom the new bishops were to swear allegiance. The court of Rome thus showed itself obsequious, secularizing bishop Talleyrand at the same time, by Bonaparte's desire. But it was from the nation, at least from the eminent personages, that resistance was to be expected. The theophilanthropists raised the no popery cry. The soldiers were indignant. It was on Easter Sunday, 1802, that a Te Deum was celebrated at Notre Dame by cardinal Caprava, in commemoration of the re-establishment of the church. The first consul attended, surrounded by his officers. On his return he asked several what they thought of the ceremony. "A pretty capucinade," replied Delman; "there was merely wanting the million of men, who have perished in overthrowing all you have built up.' The first consul soon after observed to Rapp, his aide-de-camp, who was a Protestant, You will go to mass now?" "Not I." " Why not?" "These things may do very well for you. They don't concern me, unless you should take these people for aides-de-camp or cooks.'* Whilst the French, triumphant over the continental powers, were obliged to rest on their arms, regarding England with inactive enmity, the latter country had resolved manfully to put forth its strength, and send an army to Egypt. Malta was already in their power. The French force in Egypt, though formidable, was little anxious to defend the country, and looked rather to the hopes of escape. Kleber, who had been left with the command, had, in 1800, proposed to evacuate Egypt; and Sir Sidney Smith, the admiral commanding in the Mediterranean, had concluded an agreement with him to this effect. But the Austrians at that time still held out, and the British government could not allow the veteran army of Egypt to reinforce the army opposed to her. The capitulation entered into betwixt Kleber and Sir Sidney was accordingly refused to be ratified, and war continued in Africa. A Turkish army advanced from Syria, which was met and defeated by Klebe in the plains of Heliopolis. That rude but talented leader soon after fell a victim to an Arab assassin in his quarters'at Cairo; and the command devolved upon Menou, who had es * Rapp and Savary were aides-de-camp to Desaix, adopted by Bonaparte on the field of Marengo. The latter soon made progress by his suppleness: the former was a blunt Alsatian, and became neither duke nor marshal. He once ushered a dark-looking Corsican to the presence of Bonaparte, and took care to hold the door open whilst the interview lasted. When questioned by Bonaparte, why he did this?" Because,' replied Rapp, "I don't put much trust in your Corsicans." The blunt remark caused much amusement 1801. FRENCH EXPELLED FROM EGYPT. 167 poused a Turkish woman, adopted the Mahometan religion and dress, and prefixed Abdallah to his name. The honor of the expedition to Egypt belongs, according to Sir Walter Scott, exclusively to lord Melville, who promoted it despite the irresolution of Pitt and the reluctance of George III. The free constitution of England, and its representative system of government, proved, indeed, sadly destitute of vigor, compared with that which the tyranny of the committee of public safety, and subsequently of Bonaparte, gave to France. Even now this expedition, entered into with but half a will on the part of the go ernment, was inferior to the French force in Egypt. "We were incontestably superior," says Savary, “in cavalry and artillery." Yet with an inferior army general Abercrombie was to force a landing, to take and garrison Alexandria, and then march to Cairo. Fortunately for the British, Menou wanted generalship and activity. His force was disseminated, and the British landed without opposition on the very beach which had proved fatal to the Turkish expedition. This was early in March, 1801. The garrison of Alexandria attacked the British, but were beaten back. Menou in the mean time arrived from Cairo, and mustered hastily his troops. With these he gave battle to the enemy on the 21st, near Alexandria. He was defeated, driven within the walls, and soon besieged. Abercrombie had fallen in the action, as well as Lanuze on the part of the French. General Hutchinson succeeded the former; and conducted the rest of the campaign, according to the French testimony, with great ability. General Belliarde was compelled to surrender in Cairo, Menou himself in Alexandria; on honorable conditions, however, those of being transported to France. Thus terminated Bonaparte's brilliant scheme for revolutionizing the East. The reconquest of Egypt left the rival nations no means or possibility of wounding each other. French vessels had been swept from the sea; the English flag had often in vain strove to wave upon the continent. A truce de facto was established, and both governments could not but feel ashamed of remaining at war, yet be unable to strike a blow. Bonaparte, indeed, to amuse the French, caused a flotilla to be prepared at Boulogne, and affected to make preparations for a descent upon England. But he too well knew the risk of such an undertaking, to enter upon it seriously. England was, nevertheless, alarmed; and Nelson made an attack on the boats at Boulogne, which caused serious loss, and brought no consequence to either side. Even before Egypt was evacuated by the French, negotiations had been entered into. Pitt had abandoned the helm of state to Addington. Lord Hawkes bury, the British foreign minister, was a nobleman of moderate views, uninspired by that inveterate spirit of either hostility or admiration towards France, into which extremes their rivalry had driven the two great orators of the British senate. Bonaparte, yet unfixed in power, was still in the first good humor of grandeur and success, and had not yet reached the insolence of uninterrupted fortune. Betwixt him and the British government was concluded the peace of Amiens, in the month of March, 1802. The preliminaries, had, however been signed in the month of October preceding. It was certainly to the disadvantage of the British, who yielded Trinidad, and the Cape of Good Hope, and Malta. For what return? Merely the evacuation of southern Italy by the French. But the preliminaries had been signed previous to the English plenipotentiaries receiving tidings of the evacuation of Egypt, and this evacuation the French voluntarily stipulated. They knew of Menou's surrender, and thus gave but that which was already won. In addition to our being outwitted, the feebleness of our negotiations proceeded, no doubt, in a great measure, from the feebleness of a ministry based upon no great party in the state. The voice of the British people was for peace, now especially that their pride was satisfied by the victories of Egypt. And this, too, had its influence upon Addington. If ever the existence of a weak administration is an evil, it is in the case of negotiating with an enemy. It forms one of the inevitable defects of freedom, and was never more fully exemplified than in this peace. Hesitating and irresolute, the British ministry could not determine to yield, nor yet refuse, the Cape of Good Hope, and especially Malta,-the key of Egypt and the Mediterranean, without a recompense. But the old opposition clamored as to the folly of war. The new were decided to cavil, and accuse the treaty, whether it was good or bad. The people had set their full thoughts on peace, and were not to be balked; and Lord Hawkesbury consented to these cessions, with a kind of half resolve. The French accuse Britain of treachery and insincerity, because these stipulations were never performed. The cause lay in the timidity, the incertitude, the weakness, of the British minister; who had been overreached, and who could not muster confidence enough to break off the bargain until after it was signed and sealed. The truce of Amiens concluded,-it had none of the characters of peace, Bonaparte pursued his projects for the internal organization of his sovereignty. A church had been reared up. The next desideratum was an aristocracy. The 1802. LEGION OF HONOR. 169 ancient noblesse were allowed to return; but, stripped of the greater part of their properties, and disinclined to the revolution and its representatives, very few abandoned the cause of legitimacy to court Bonaparte. Even had they done so, it was necessary to counterbalance them by electing to the same rank those who had risen to pre-eminence during the last ten years. But these, warriors and civilians, were shocked as yet at the least approach to aristocracy. This was even greater heresy in their eyes than to have gone to church and ordained public worship. Bonaparte, obliged to abandon the idea for a time, formed a scheme equally calculated to attach to him numbers of the French. This was the legion of honor, by which red ribands, with pensions and other privileges attached to them, were bestowed at the will of the first consul. There was an instant outcry in the council and the mock legislature against the project. "It destroys equality; it contradicts the principles of the revolution. The legion of honor contains all the elements of hereditary noblesse, privileges, powers, honors, titles, and pensions. It is sowing the seeds of an aristocracy." Bonaparte combated their objections with his own eminent good sense, and mocked the pedantic allusions of his counsellors to classic times. "You cite the Roman republicans against me; the Romans, amongst whom distinctions were perhaps more marked than amongst any people. See the consequence when the noble class of patricians was destroyed in Rome; the republic, at the mercy of the rabble and its leaders, ran straight through anarchy and proscription to despotism.' How perfectly applicable was this to France! These were not the only prejudices that Bonaparte had to refute and repress. Matthieu Dumas wished to confine the decoration of the legion of honor to the military alone. The first consul would not admit of this exclusiveness, and persisted in honoring equally military and civilian merit. While he thus carefully erected the buttresses and supports of monarchical power, it may be supposed that he did not neglect the edifice itself; in other words, to re-establish in his person a permanent sovereignty. In this, too, he labored by degrees. It was at first hoped that he would be contented with the second place, and restore the crown to the Bourbons. Louis XVIII. twice addressed him in a tone at once dignified and conciliating. Josephine exhorted him to act the part of Monk, either from that sense of loyalty and disinterestedness natural to the female mind, or from a presentiment that in the soarings of ambition she might one day be left behind, and sacrificed by her aspiring husband. Bonaparte's only thought |