Part 2 — Chapter III. (These four articles abrogated by the four articles following them, 118-122.) Article 118. The Federal Constitution may at any time be amended. (continued 54)

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, chapter 40.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and Empire, book 5 (volume 1).

{1333}

FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (May-February). Bonaparte's second Italian campaign. The crossing of the Alps. The Battle of Marengo. Moreau in Germany. Hohenlinden. Austrian siege of Genoa.

"Preparations for the new campaign in spring were completed. Moreau was made commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine, 150,000 strong. The plan of the campaign was concerted between the First Consul and Carnot, who had superseded Berthier as Minister at War. The operations were conducted with the utmost secrecy. Napoleon had determined to strike the decisive blow against Austria in Italy, and to command there in person. By an article in the Constitution the First Consul was forbidden to take command of an army. To this interdiction he cheerfully assented; but he evaded it, as soon as the occasion was ripe, by giving the nominal command of the army of Italy to Berthier. He began to collect troops at Dijon, which were, he publicly announced, intended to advance upon Italy. They consisted chiefly of conscripts and invalids, with a numerous staff, and were called 'the army of reserve.' Meantime, while caricatures of some ancient men with wooden legs and little boys of twelve years old, entitled 'Bonaparte's Army of Reserve,' were amusing the Austrian public, the real army of Italy was formed in the heart of France, and was marching by various roads towards Switzerland. … The artillery was sent piecemeal from different arsenals; the provisions necessary to an army about to cross barren mountains were forwarded to Geneva, embarked on the lake, and landed at Villeneuve, near the entrance to the valley of the Simplon. The situation of the French army in Italy had become critical. Massena had thrown himself into Genoa with 12,000 men, and was enduring all the rigours of a siege, pressed by 30,000 Austrians under General Ott, seconded by the British fleet. Suchet, with the remainder of the French army, about 10,000 strong, completely cut off from communication with Massena, had concentrated his forces on the Var, was maintaining an unequal contest with Melas, the Austrian commander-in-chief, and strenuously defending the French frontier. Napoleon's plan was to transport his army across the Alps, plant himself in the rear of the Austrians, intercept their communications, then manœuvre so as to place his own army and that of Massena on the Austrian right and left flanks respectively, cut off their retreat, and finally give them battle at the decisive moment. While all Europe imagined that the multifarious concerns of the Government held the First Consul at Paris, he was travelling at a rapid rate towards Geneva, accompanied only by his secretary. He left Paris on the 6th of May, at two in the morning, leaving Cambacérès to preside until his return, and ordering Fouché to announce that he was about to review the army at Dijon, and might possibly go as far as Geneva, but would return in a fortnight. 'Should anything happen,' he significantly added, 'I shall be back like a thunderbolt.' … On the 13th the First Consul reviewed the vanguard of his army, commanded by General Lannes, at Lausanne. The whole army consisted of nearly 70,000 men. Two columns, each of about 6,000 men, were put in motion, one under Tureau, the other under Chabran, to take the routes of Mont Cenis and the Little St. Bernard. A division consisting of 15,000 men, under Moncey, detached from the army of the Rhine, was to march by St. Gothard. Moreau kept the Austrian army of the Rhine, under General Kray, on the defensive before Ulm [to which he had forced his way in a series of important engagements, at Engen, May 2, at Moeskirch, May 4, at Biberach, May 9, and at Hochstadt, June 19], and held himself in readiness to cover the operations of the First Consul in Italy. The main body of the French army, in numbers about 40,000, nominally commanded by Berthier, but in fact by the First Consul himself, marched on the 15th from Lausanne to the village of St. Pierre, at the foot of the Great St. Bernard, at which all trace of a practicable road entirely ceased. General Marescot, the engineer who had been sent forward from Geneva to reconnoitre, reported the paths to be 'barely passable.' 'Set forward immediately!' wrote Napoleon. Field forges were established at St. Pierre to dismount the guns, the carriages and wheels were slung on poles, and the ammunition-boxes carried by mules. A number of trees were felled, then hollowed out, and the pieces, being jammed into these rough cases, 100 soldiers were attached to each and ordered to drag them up the steeps. … The whole army effected the passage of the Great St. Bernard in three days."

R. H. Horne, History of Napoleon Bonaparte, chapter 18.

"From May 16 to May 19, the solitudes of the vast mountain track echoed to the din and tumult of war, as the French soldiery swept over its heights to reach the valley of the Po and the plains of Lombardy. A hill fort, for a time, stopped the daring invaders, but the obstacle was passed by an ingenious stratagem; and before long Bonaparte, exulting in hope, was marching from the verge of Piedmont on Milan, having made a demonstration against Turin, in order to hide his real purpose. By June 2 the whole French army, joined by the reinforcement sent by Moreau, was in possession of the Lombard capital, and threatened the line of its enemy's retreat, having successfully accomplished the first part of the brilliant design of its great leader. While Bonaparte was thus descending from the Alps, the Austrian commander had been pressing forward the siege of Genoa and his operations on the Var. Masséna, however, stubbornly held out in Genoa; and Suchet had defended the defiles of Provence with a weak force with such marked skill that his adversary had made little progress. When first informed of the terrible apparition of a hostile army gathering upon his rear, Melas disbelieved what he thought impossible; and when he could no longer discredit what he heard, the movements by Mont Cenis and against Turin, intended to perplex him, had made him hesitate. As soon, however, as the real design of the First Consul was fully revealed, the brave Austrian chief resolved to force his way to the Adige at any cost; and, directing Ott to raise the siege of Genoa, and leaving a subordinate to hold Suchet in check, he began to draw his divided army together, in order to make a desperate attack on the audacious foe upon his line of retreat. Ott, however, delayed some days to receive the keys of Genoa, which fell [June 4] after a defence memorable in the annals of war; and, as the Austrian forces had been widely scattered, it was June 12 [after a severe defeat at Montebello, on the 9th, by Lannes] before 50,000 men were assembled for an offensive movement round the well-known fortresses of Alessandria. Meanwhile, the First Consul had broken up from Milan; and, whether ill-informed of his enemy's operations, or apprehensive that, after the fall of Genoa, Melas would escape by a march southwards, he had advanced from a strong position he had taken between the Ticino, the Adda, and the Po, and had crossed the Scrivia into the plains of Marengo, with forces disseminated far too widely. Melas boldly seized the opportunity to escape from the weakened meshes of the net thrown round him; and attacked Bonaparte on the morning of June 14 with a vigor and energy which did him honor. {1334} The battle raged confusedly for several hours; but the French had begun to give way and fly, when the arrival of an isolated division on the field [that of Desaix, who had been sent southward by Bonaparte, and who turned back, on his own responsibility, when he heard the sounds of battle] and the unexpected charge of a small body of horsemen, suddenly changed defeat into a brilliant victory. The importance was then seen of the commanding position of Bonaparte on the rear of his foe; the Austrian army, its retreat cut off, was obliged to come to terms after a single reverse; and within a few days an armistice was signed by which Italy to the Mincio was restored to the French, and the disasters of 1799 were effaced. … While Italy had been regained at one stroke, the campaign in Germany had progressed slowly; and though Moreau was largely superior in force, he had met more than one check near Ulm, on the Danube. The stand, however, made ably by Kray, could not lessen the effects of Marengo; and Austria, after that terrible reverse, endeavored to negotiate with the dreaded conqueror. Bonaparte, however, following out a purpose which he had already made a maxim of policy, and resolved if possible to divide the Coalition, refused to treat with Austria jointly with England, except on conditions known to be futile; and after a pause of a few weeks hostilities were resumed with increased energy. By this time, however, the French armies had acquired largely preponderating strength; and while Brune advanced victoriously to the Adige—the First Consul had returned to the seat of government—Moreau in Bavaria marched on the rivers which, descending from the Alps to the Danube, form one of the bulwarks of the Austrian Monarchy. He was attacked incautiously by the Archduke John—the Archduke Charles, who ought to have been in command, was in temporary disgrace at the Court—and soon afterwards [December 3] he won a great battle at Hohenlinden, between the Iser and the Inn, the success of the French being complete and decisive, though the conduct of their chief has not escaped criticism. This last disaster proved overwhelming, and Austria and the States of the Empire were forced to submit to the terms of Bonaparte. After a brief delay peace was made at Luneville in February 1801."

W. O'C. Morris, The French Revolution and First Empire, chapter 10.

ALSO IN: C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapters 1-2.

Baron Jomini, Life of Napoleon, chapter 6 (volume l).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns in Europe from 1796 to 1870, chapter 2.

Duke de Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 19-20.

FRANCE: A. D. 1800-1801 (June-February). The King of Naples spared at the intercession of the Russian Czar. The Czar won away from the Coalition. The Pope befriended.

"Replaced in his richest territories by the allies, the King of Naples was bound by every tie to assist them in the campaign of 1800. He accordingly sent an army into the march of Ancona, under the command of Count Roger de Damas. … Undeterred by the battle of Marengo, the Count de Damas marched against the French general Miollis, who commanded in Tuscany, and sustained a defeat by him near Sienna. Retreat became now necessary, the more especially as the armistice which was entered into by General Melas deprived the Neapolitans of any assistance from the Austrians, and rendered their whole expedition utterly hopeless. They were not even included by name in the armistice, and were thus left exposed to the whole vengeance of the French. … At this desperate crisis, the Queen of the Two Sicilies took a resolution which seemed almost as desperate, and could only have been adopted by a woman of a bold and decisive character. She resolved, notwithstanding the severity of the season, to repair in person to the court of the Emperor Paul, and implore his intercession with the First Consul, in behalf of her husband and his territories." The Russian autocrat was more than ready to accede to her request. Disgusted and enraged at the discomfiture of Suwarrow in Switzerland, dissatisfied with the conduct of Austria in that unfortunate campaign, and equally dissatisfied with England in the joint invasion of the Batavian republic, he made prompt preparations to quit the coalition and to ally himself with the First Consul of France. Bonaparte welcomed his overtures and gave them every flattering encouragement, conceding instantly the grace which he asked on behalf of the King and Queen of Naples. "The respect paid by the First Consul to the wishes of Paul saved for the present the royal family of Naples; but Murat [who commanded the army sent to central and southern Italy], nevertheless, made them experience a full portion of the bitter cup which the vanquished are generally doomed to swallow. General Damas was commanded in the haughtiest terms to evacuate the Roman States, and not to presume to claim any benefit from the armistice which had been extended to the Austrians. At the same time, while the Neapolitans were thus compelled hastily to evacuate the Roman territories, general surprise was exhibited when, instead of marching to Rome, and re-establishing the authority of the Roman Republic, Murat, according to the orders which he had received from the First Consul, carefully respected the territory of the Church, and reinstalled the officers of the Pope in what had been long termed the patrimony of St. Peter's. This unexpected turn of circumstances originated in high policy on the part of Buonaparte. … Besides evacuating the Ecclesiastical States, the Neapolitans were compelled by Murat to restore various paintings, statues, and other objects of art, which they had, in imitation of Buonaparte, taken forcibly from the Romans,—so captivating is the influence of bad example. A French army of about 18,000 men was to be quartered in Calabria. … The harbours of the Neapolitan dominions were of course to be closed against the English. A cession of part of the isle of Elba, and the relinquishment of all pretensions upon Tuscany, summed up the sacrifices of the King of Naples [stipulated in the treaty of Foligno, signed in February, 1801], who, considering how often he had braved Napoleon, had great reason to thank the Emperor of Russia for his effectual mediation."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapter 38.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (February). The Peace of Luneville. The Rhine boundary confirmed.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1801-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801 (March). Recovery of Louisiana from Spain.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801. Expedition against the Blacks of Hayti.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1632-1803.

{1335}

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1802. The import of the Peace of Luneville. Bonaparte's preparations for conflict with England. The Northern Maritime League. English bombardment of Copenhagen and summary crushing of the League. Murder of the Russian Czar. English expedition to Egypt. Surrender of the French army. Peace of Amiens.

"The treaty of Luneville was of far greater import than the treaties which had ended the struggle of the first coalition. … The significance then of the Peace of Luneville lay in this, not only that it was the close of the earlier revolutionary struggle for supremacy in Europe, the abandonment by France of her effort to 'liberate the peoples,' to force new institutions on the nations about her by sheer dint of arms; but that it marked the concentration of all her energies on a struggle with Britain for the supremacy of the world. For England herself the event which accompanied it, the sudden withdrawal of William Pitt from office, which took place in the very month of the treaty, was hardly less significant. … The bulk of the old Ministry returned in a few days to office with Mr. Addington at their head, and his administration received the support of the whole Tory party in Parliament. … It was with anxiety that England found itself guided by men like these. … The country stood utterly alone; while the peace of Luneville secured France from all hostility on the Continent. … To strike at England's wealth had been among the projects of the Directory: it was now the dream of the First Consul. It was in vain for England to produce, if he shut her out of every market. Her carrying-trade must be annihilated if he closed every port against her ships. It was this gigantic project of a 'Continental System' that revealed itself as soon as Buonaparte became finally master of France. From France itself and its dependencies in Holland and the Netherlands English trade was already excluded. But Italy also was shut against her after the Peace of Luneville [and the Treaty of Foligno with the King of Naples], and Spain not only closed her own ports but forced Portugal to break with her English ally. In the Baltic, Buonaparte was more active than even in the Mediterranean. In a treaty with America, which was destined to bring this power also in the end into his great attack, he had formally recognized the rights of neutral vessels which England was hourly disputing. … The only powers which now possessed naval resources were the powers of the North. … Both the Scandinavian states resented the severity with which Britain enforced that right of search which had brought about their armed neutrality at the close of the American war; while Denmark was besides an old ally of France; and her sympathies were still believed to be French. The First Consul therefore had little trouble in enlisting them in a league of Neutrals, which was in effect a declaration of war against England, and which Prussia as before showed herself ready to join. Russia indeed seemed harder to gain." But Paul, the Czar, afraid of the opposition of England to his designs upon Turkey, dissatisfied with the operations of the coalition, and flattered by Bonaparte, gave himself up to the influence of the latter. "It was to check the action of Britain in the East that the Czar now turned to the French Consul, and seconded his efforts for the formation of a naval confederacy in the North, while his minister, Rostopchin, planned a division of the Turkish Empire in Europe between Russia and her allies. … A squabble over Malta, which had been blockaded since its capture by Buonaparte, and which surrendered at last [September, 1800] to a British fleet, but whose possession the Czar claimed as his own on the ground of an alleged election as Grand Master of the Order of St. John, served as a pretext for a quarrel with England; and at the close of· 1800 Paul openly prepared for hostilities. … The Danes, who throughout the year had been struggling to evade the British right of search, at once joined this neutral league, and were followed by Sweden in their course. … But dexterous as the combination was, it was shattered at a blow. On the 1st of April, 1801, a British fleet of 18 men-of-war [under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson second in command] forced the passage of the Belt; appeared before Copenhagen, and at once attacked the city and its fleet. In spite of a brave resistance from the Danish batteries and gunboats six Danish ships were taken, and the Crown Prince was forced to conclude an armistice which enabled the English ships to enter the Baltic. … But their work was really over. The seizure of English goods and the declaration of war had bitterly irritated the Russian nobles, whose sole outlet for the sale of the produce of their vast estates was thus closed to them; and on the 24th of March, nine days before the battle of Copenhagen, Paul fell in a midnight attack by conspirators in his own palace. With Paul fell the Confederacy of the North. … At the very moment of the attack on Copenhagen, a stroke as effective wrecked his projects in the East. … In March, 1801, a force of 15,000 men under General Abercrombie anchored in Aboukir Bay. Deserted as they were by Buonaparte, the French had firmly maintained their hold on Egypt. … But their army was foolishly scattered, and Abercrombie was able to force a landing five days after his arrival on the coast. The French however rapidly concentrated; and on the 21st of March their general attacked the English army on the ground it had won, with a force equal to its own. The battle [known as the battle of Alexandria] was a stubborn one, and Abercrombie fell mortally wounded ere its close; but after six hours' fighting the French drew off with heavy loss; and their retreat was followed by the investment of Alexandria and Cairo. … At the close of June the capitulation of the 13,000 soldiers who remained closed the French rule over Egypt." Threatening preparations for an invasion of England were kept up, and gunboats and flatboats collected at Boulogne, which Nelson attacked unsuccessfully in August, 1801. "The First Consul opened negotiations for peace at the close of 1801. His offers were at once met by the English Government. … The negotiations which went on through the winter between England and the three allied Powers of France, Spain, and the Dutch, brought about in March, 1802, the Peace of Amiens." The treaty secured "a pledge on the part of France to withdraw its forces from Southern Italy, and to leave to themselves the republics it had set up along its border in Holland, Switzerland, and Piedmont. In exchange for this pledge, England recognized the French government, restored all the colonies which they had lost, save Ceylon and Trinidad, to France and its allies [including the restoration to Holland of the Cape of Good Hope and Dutch Guiana, and of Minorca and the citadel of Port Mahon to Spain, while Turkey regained possession of Egypt], acknowledged the Ionian Islands as a free republic, and engaged to restore Malta within three months to its old masters, the Knights of St. John."

J. R. Green, History of the English People, book 9, chapter 5 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: R. Southey, Life of Nelson, chapter 7 (volume 2).

J. Gifford, Political Life of Pitt, chapter 47 (volume 6).

C. Joyneville, Life and Times of Alexander I., volume 1, chapter 4.

A. Rambaud, History of Russia, volume 2, chapter 11-12.

G. R. Gleig, Life of General Sir R. Abercromby (Eminent British Military Commanders, volume 3).

{1336}

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1803. Domestic measures of Bonaparte. His Legion of Honor. His wretched educational scheme. He is made First Consul for life. His whittling away of the Constitution. Revolutions instigated and dictated in the Dutch, Swiss, and Cisalpine Republics. Bonaparte president of the Italian Republic.

"The concordat was succeeded by the emigrants' recall, which resolution was presented and passed April 26. The irrevocability of the sale of national property was again established, and amnesty granted to all emigrants but the leaders of armed forces, and some few whose offences were specially grave. The property of emigrants remaining unsold was restored, excepting forests, which Bonaparte reserved to be gradually returned as bribes to great families. … Two important projects were presented to the Tribunal and Legislative Corps, the Legion of Honor, and free schools. The Convention awarded prizes to the troops for special acts of daring, and the First Consul increased and arranged the distribution, but that was not enough: he wanted a vast system of rewards, adapted to excite amour propre, repay service, and give him a new and potent means of influencing civilians as well as soldiers. He therefore conceived the idea of the Legion of Honor, embracing all kinds of service and title to public distinction. … But this plan for forming an order of chivalry was contested even by the Council of State as offensive to that equality which its members were to defend [under the oath prescribed to the Legion], and as a renewal of aristocracy. It only passed the Tribunal and Legislative Corps by a very small majority, and this after the removal of so many of the opposition party. The institution of the Legion of Honor was specious, and, despite the opposition it met within its early days, suits a people who love distinction, despite their passion for equality, provided it be not hereditary. As for the educational scheme, it was wretched, doing absolutely nothing for the primary schools. The state had no share in it. The Commune was to provide the buildings when the pupils could pay a teacher, thus forsaking the plans of the great assemblies. The wisest statesmen desired to sustain in an improved form the central schools founded by the Convention; but Bonaparte meant to substitute barracks to educate young men for his service. … He diminished scientific study; suppressed history and philosophy, which were incompatible with despotism; and completed his system of secondary instruction by creating 6,000 scholarships, to be used as means of influence, like the ribbon of the Legion of Honor. … All his measures succeeded, and yet he was not content: he wanted to extend his power. … Cambacérès … , when the Amiens treaty was presented to the Tribunal and Legislature, … proposed, through the president of the former, that the Senate should be invited to give the First Consul some token of national gratitude (May 6, 1802). … The Senate only voted to prolong the First Consul's power for ten years (May 8), with but one protesting voice, that of Lanjuinais, who denounced the flagrant usurpation that threatened the Republic. This was the last echo of the Gironde ringing through the tame assemblies of the Consulate. Bonaparte was very angry, having expected more; but Cambacérès' calmed him and suggested a mode of evading the question, namely, to reply that an extension of power could only be granted by the people, and then to make the Council of State dictate the formula to be submitted to the people, substituting a life consulate for ten years. This was accordingly done. … The Council of State even added the First Consul's right to name his successor. This he thought premature and likely to make trouble, and therefore erased it. … Registers were opened at the record offices and mayoralties to receive votes, and there were three million and a half votes in the affirmative; a few thousand only daring to refuse, and many abstaining from voting. La Fayette registered a 'no' … and sent the First Consul a noble letter. … La Fayette then ceased the relations he had hitherto maintained with the First Consul since his return to France. … The Senate counted the popular vote on the proposal they did not make, and carried the result to the Tuileries in a body, August 8, 1802; and the result was proclaimed in the form of a Senatus-Consultum, in these terms: 'The French people name and the Senate proclaim Napoleon Bonaparte First Consul for life.' This was the first official use of the prenomen Napoleon, which was soon, in conformity with royal custom, to be substituted for the family name of Bonaparte. … The next day various modifications of the Constitution were offered to the Council of State. … The Senate were given the right to interpret and complete the Constitution, to dissolve the Legislature and Tribunal, and, what was even more, to break the judgment of tribunals, thus subordinating justice to policy. But these extravagant prerogatives could only be used at the request of the government, The Senate was limited to 120 members, 40 of whom the First Consul was to elect. The Tribunal was reduced to 50 members, and condemned to discuss with closed doors, divided into sections. … Despotism concentrated more and more. Bonaparte took back his refusal to choose his successor, and now claimed that right. He also formed a civil list of six millions. … The Senate agreed to everything, and the Senatus-Consultum was published August 5. … The Republic was now but a name; … Early in 1808 things grew dark on the English shore," and "the loss of San Domingo [to which Bonaparte had sent an expedition at the beginning of 1801] seemed inevitable [see HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1808]. While making this expedition, doomed to so fatal an end, Bonaparte continued his haughty policy on the European continent. By article second of the Luneville treaty France and Austria mutually guaranteed the independence of the Dutch, Swiss, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics, and their freedom in the adoption of whatever form of government they saw fit to choose. {1337} Bonaparte interpreted this article by substituting for independence his own more or less direct rule in those republics. … During the negotiations preceding the Amiens treaty he stirred up a revolution in Holland. That country had a Directory and two Chambers, as in the French Constitution of year III., and he wished to impose a new constitution on the Chambers, putting them more into his power; they refused, and he expelled them by means of the Directory, whom he had won over to his side. The Dutch Directory, in this imitation of November 9, was sustained by French troops, occupying Holland under Augereau, now reconciled to Bonaparte (September, 1801). The new Constitution was put to popular vote. A certain number voted against it. The majority did not vote. Silence was taken for consent, and the new Constitution was proclaimed October 17, 1801. … The English government protested, but did not resist. At the same time he [Bonaparte] imposed on the Cisalpine republic, but without conflict or opposition, a constitution even more anti-liberal than the French one of year VIII.; the president who there replaced the First Consul having supreme power. But who was to be that President? The Cisalpines for an instant were simple enough to think that they could choose an Italian: they decided on Count Melzi, well known in the Milanese. They were soon undeceived, when Bonaparte called Cisalpine delegates to Lyons in midwinter. These delegates were landowners, scholars, and merchants, some hundreds in number, and his agents explained to them that none but Bonaparte 'was worthy to govern their republic or able to maintain it.' They eagerly offered him the presidency, which he accepted in lofty terms, and took Melzi for vice-president (January 25, 1802). Italian patriots were consoled for this subjection by the change of name from Cisalpine to Italian Republic, which seemed to promise the unity of Italy. Bonaparte threw out this hope, never meaning to gratify it. … He acted as master in Switzerland as well as Italy and Holland. Since Switzerland had ceased to be the scene of war, she had been given over to agitation, fluctuating between revolutionary democracy and the old aristocracy joined to the retrograde democracy of the small Catholic cantons. Modern democracy was at strife with itself. … Bonaparte encouraged the strife, that Switzerland might call him in as arbiter. Suddenly, late in July, 1802, he withdrew his troops, which had occupied Switzerland ever since 1798. Civil war broke out at once; the smaller Catholic cantons and the aristocrats of Berne and Zurich overthrew the government established at Berne by the moderate democrats. The government retired to Lausanne, and the country was thus divided. Bonaparte then announced that he would not suffer a Swiss counter-revolution, and that if the parties could not agree he must mediate between them. He summoned the insurrectional powers of Berne to dissolve, and invited all citizens who had held office in the central Swiss government within three years, to meet at Paris and confer with him, announcing that 30,000 men under General Ney were ready to support his mediation. The democratic government at Lausanne were willing to receive the French; the aristocratic government at Berne, anxious to restore the Austrians, appealed to European powers, who replied by silence, England only protesting against French interference. … Bonaparte responded to the English protest by so extraordinary a letter that his charge d'Affaires at London dared not communicate it verbatim. It said that, if England succeeded in drawing the continental powers into her cause, the result would be to force France to 'conquer Europe! Who knows how long it would take the First-Consul to revive the Empire of the West?' (October 23, 1802). … There was slight resistance to Ney's troops in Switzerland. All the politicians of the new democracy and some of the aristocrats went to Paris at the First Consul's summons. He did not treat their country as he had Holland and Italy, but gave her, instead, a vain show of institutions, a constitution imposing on the different parties a specious compromise. … Switzerland was dependent on France in regard to general policy, and was bound to furnish her with troops; but, at least, she administered her own affairs (January, 1803)."

H. Martin, Popular History of France from the First Revolution, volume 2, chapters 8-9.

ALSO IN: F. C. Schlosser, History of the 18th Century, volume 7, pages 286-302.

Mrs. L. Hug and R. Stead, Story of Switzerland, chapters 30-31.

C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 3.

M. Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 20-26.

Duchess D' Abrantes, Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 1, chapter 80.

Count M. Dumas, Memoirs, chapter 9 (volume 2).

H. A. Taine, The Modern Regime, volume 1, book 3, chapter 3.

FRANCE: A. D. 1801-1804. The Civil Code and the Concordat.

"Four years of peace separated the Treaty of Luneville from the next outbreak of war between France and any Continental Power. They were years of the extension of French influence in every neighbouring State; in France itself, years of the consolidation of Bonaparte's power, and of the decline of everything that checked his personal rule. … Among the institutions which date from this period, two, equally associated with the name of Napoleon, have taken a prominent place in history, the Civil Code and the Concordat. Since the middle of the 18th century the codification of law had been pursued with more or less success by almost every Government in the western continent. The Constituent Assembly of 1789 had ordered the statutes by which it superseded the variety of local customs in France to be thus cast into a systematic form. … Bonaparte instinctively threw himself into a task so congenial to his own systematizing spirit, and stimulated the efforts of the best jurists in France by his own personal interest and pride in the work of legislation. A Commission of lawyers, appointed by the First Consul, presented the successive chapters of a Civil Code to the Council of State. In the discussions in the Council of State Bonaparte himself took an active, though not always a beneficial, part. … In March, 1804, France received the Code which, with few alterations, has formed from that time to the present the basis of its civil rights. … It is probable that a majority of the inhabitants of Western Europe believe that Napoleon actually invented the laws which bear his name. As a matter of fact, the substance of these laws was fixed by the successive Assemblies of the Revolution; and, in the final revision which produced the Civil Code, Napoleon appears to have originated neither more nor less than several of the members of his Council whose names have long been forgotten. {1338} He is unquestionably entitled to the honour of a great legislator, not, however, as one who, like Solon or like Mahomet, himself created a new body of law. … Four other Codes, appearing at intervals from the year 1804 to the year 1810, embodied, in a corresponding form, the Law of Commerce, the Criminal Law, and the Rules of Civil and of Criminal Process. … Far more distinctively the work of Napoleon himself was the reconciliation with the Church of Rome effected by the Concordat [July, 1801]. It was a restoration of religion similar to that restoration of political order which made the public service the engine of a single will. The bishops and priests, whose appointment the Concordat transferred from their congregations to the Government, were as much instruments of the First Consul as his prefects and his gensdarmes. … An alliance with the Pope offered to Bonaparte the means of supplanting the popular organisation of the Constitutional Church by an imposing hierarchy, rigid in its orthodoxy and unquestioning in its devotion to himself. In return for the consecration of his own rule, Bonaparte did not shrink from inviting the Pope to an exercise of authority such as the Holy See had never even claimed in France. The whole of the existing French Bishops, both the exiled non-jurors and those of the Constitutional Church, were summoned to resign their sees into the hands of the Pope; against all who refused to do so sentence of deposition was pronounced by the Pontiff. … The sees were reorganised, and filled up by nominees of the First Consul. The position of the great body of the clergy was substantially altered in its relation to the Bishops. Episcopal power was made despotic, like all other powers in France. … In the greater cycle of religious change, the Concordat of Bonaparte appears in another light. … It converted the Catholicism of France from a faith already far more independent than that of Fénélon and Bossuet into the Catholicism which in our day has outstripped the bigotry of Spain and Austria in welcoming the dogma of Papal infallibility."

C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 1, chapter 5.

"It is … easy, from the official reports which have been preserved, to see what part the First Consul took in the framing of the Civil Code. While we recognise that his intervention was advantageous on some minor points, … we must say that his views on the subjects of legislation in which this intervention was most conspicuous, were most often inspired by suggestions of personal interest, or by political considerations which ought to have no weight with the legislator. … Bonaparte came by degrees to consider himself the principal creator of a collective work to which he contributed little more than his name, and which probably would have been much better if the suggestions of a man of action and executive authority had not been blended with the views, necessarily more disinterested, larger and more humane, of the eminent jurisconsults whose glory he tried to usurp."

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 5.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and the Empire, volume 1, books 12-14.

W. H. Jervis, History of the Church of France, volume 2, chapter 11.

J. E. Darras, General History of the Catholic Church, volume 4, pages 547-554.

The Code Napoleon, translated by Richards.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802. Fourcroy's education law.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: EUROPEAN COUNTRIES, FRANCE: A. D. 1565-1802.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802 (August-September). Annexation of Piedmont, Parma, and the Isle of Elba.

A "flagrant act of the First Consul's at this time was the seizure and annexation of Piedmont. Although that country was reconquered by the Austro-Russian army in 1799, the-King of Sardinia had not been restored when, by the battle of Marengo, it came again into the possession of the French. Bonaparte then united part of it to the Cisalpine Republic, and promised to erect the rest into a separate State; but he afterwards changed his mind; and by a decree of April 20th 1801, ordered that Piedmont should form a military division of France. … Charles Emanuel, disgusted with the injustice and insults to which he was exposed, having abdicated his throne in favour of his brother Victor Emanuel, Duke of Aosta, June 4th 1802, Bonaparte … caused that part of Piedmont which had not been united to the Italian Republic to be annexed to France, as the 27th Military Department, by a formal Senatus-Consulte of September 11th 1802. A little after, October 11th, on the death of Ferdinand de Bourbon, Duke of Parma, father of the King of Etruria, that duchy was also seized by the rapacious French Republic. The isle of Elba had also been united to France by a Senatus-Consulte of August 26th."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 7, chapter 11 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: A. Gallenga, History of Piedmont, volume 3, chapter 5.

FRANCE: A. D. 1802-1803. Complaints against the English press. The Peltier trial. The First Consul's rage. War declared by Great Britain. Detention of all the English in France, Italy, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Occupation of Hanover.

"Mr. Addington was wont to say in after years that the ink was scarcely dry, after the signature of the treaty of Amiens, when discontents arose which perilled the new peace. On the 24th of May [1802], M. Otto told Lord Glenbervie that if the English press were not controlled from censuring Napoleon, there must be a war to the death: and in the course of the summer, six requisitions were formally made to the British government, the purport of which was that the press must be controlled; the royal emigrants sent to Warsaw; the island of Jersey cleared of persons disaffected to the French government; and all Frenchmen dismissed from Great Britain who wore the decorations of the old monarchy. The reply was, that the press was free in England; and that if any of the emigrants broke the laws, they should be punished; but that otherwise they could not be molested. The government, however, used its influence in remonstrance with the editors of newspapers which were abusive of the French. Cobbet was pointed out by name by Napoleon, as a libeller who must be punished; and Peltier, a royalist emigrant, who had published some incentives to the assassination of the French ruler, or prophecies which might at such a crisis be fairly regarded as incentives. M. Peltier's object was to use his knowledge of the tools of Napoleon, and his great political and literary experience, in laying bare the character and policy of Napoleon; and he began, in the summer of 1802, a journal, the first number of which occasioned the demand for his punishment. {1339} He was prosecuted by the Attorney-General, and defended by Sir James Mackintosh, in a speech which was translated into nearly all the languages of Europe, and universally considered one of the most prodigious efforts of oratory ever listened to in any age. The Attorney-General, Mr. Percival, declared in Court, that he could hardly hope for an impartial decision from a jury whose faculties had been so roused, dazzled and charmed. … M. Peltier was found guilty; but the Attorney-General did not call for judgment on the instant. War was then—at the close of February [1808]—imminent; and the matter was dropped. M: Peltier was regarded as a martyr, and, as far as public opinion went, was rather rewarded than punished in England. He was wont to say that he was tried in England and punished in France. His property was confiscated by the consular agents; and his only near relations, his aged father and his sister, died at Nantes, through terror at his trial. By this time the merchants of Great Britain were thoroughly disgusted with France. Not only had Napoleon prevented all commercial intercourse between the nations throughout the year, but he had begun to, confiscate English merchant vessels, driven by stress of weather into his ports. By this time, too, the Minister's mind was made up as to the impossibility of avoiding war. … Napoleon had published [January 30, 1803] a Report of an official agent of his, Sebastiani, who had explored the Levant, striving as he went to rouse the Mediterranean States to a desertion of England and an alliance with France. He, reported of the British force at Alexandria, and of the means of attack and defence there; and his employer put forth this statement in the 'Moniteur,' his own paper, while complaining of the insults of the English press towards himself. Our ambassador at Paris, Lord Whitworth, desired an explanation: and the reception of his demand by the First Consul … was characteristic. … He sent for Lord Whitworth to wait on him at nine in the morning of the 18th; made him sit down; and then poured out his wrath 'in the style of an Italian bully,' as the record has it: and the term is not too strong; for he would not allow Lord Whitworth to speak. The first impression was, that it was his design to terrify England: but Talleyrand's anxiety to smooth matters afterwards, and to explain away what his master had said, shows that the ebullition was one of mere temper. And this was presently confirmed by his behaviour to Lord Whitworth at a levee, when the saloon was crowded with foreign ambassadors and their suites, as well as with French courtiers. The whole scene was set forth in the newspapers of every country. Napoleon walked about, transported with passion: asked Lord Whitworth if he did not know that a terrible storm had arisen between the two governments; declared that England was a violator of treaties; took to witness the foreigners present that if England did not immediately surrender Malta, war was declared; and condescended to appeal to them whether the right was not on his side; and, when Lord Whitworth would have replied, silenced him by a gesture, and observed that, Lady Whitworth being out of health, her native air would be of service to her; and she should, have it, sooner than she expected.—After this, there could be little hope of peace in the most sanguine mind. … Lord Whitworth left Paris on the 12th of May; and at Dover met General Andreossi, on his way to Paris. On the 16th, it became publicly known that war was declared: and on the same day Admiral Cornwallis received telegraphic orders which caused him to appear before Brest on the 18th. On the 17th, an Order in Council, directing reprisals, was issued; and with it the proclamation of an embargo being laid on all French and Dutch ships in British ports. … On the next day, May 18th, 1803, the Declaration of War was laid before parliament, and the feverish state, called peace, which had lasted for one year and sixteen days, passed into one of open hostility. The reason why the vessels of the Dutch were to be seized with those of the French was that Napoleon had filled Holland with French troops, and was virtually master of the country. … In July, the militia force amounted to 173,000 men; and the deficiency was in officers to command them. The minister proposed, in addition to all the forces actually in existence, the formation of an army of reserve, amounting to 50,000 men: and this was presently agreed to. There was little that the parliament and people of England would not have agreed to at this moment, under the provocation of Napoleon's treatment of the English in France. His first act was to order the detention, as prisoners of war, of all the English then in the country, between the ages of 18 and 60. The exasperation caused by this cruel measure was all that he could have expected or desired. Many were the young men thus doomed to lose, in wearing expectation or despair, twelve of the best years of their lives, cut off from family, profession, marriage, citizenship—everything that young men most value. Many were the parents separated for twelve long years from the young creatures at home, whom they had left for a mere pleasure trip: and many were the grey-haired fathers and mothers at home who went down to the grave during those twelve years without another sight of the son or daughter who was pining in some small provincial town in France, without natural occupation, and well nigh without hope. In June, the English in Rouen were removed to the neighbourhood of Amiens; those in Calais to, Lisle; those at Brussels to Valenciennes. Before the month was out, all the English in Italy and Switzerland, in addition to those in Holland, were made prisoners. How many the whole amounted to does not appear to have been ascertained: but it was believed at the time that there were 11,000 in France, and 1,800 in Holland. The first pretence was that these travellers were detained as hostages for the prizes which Napoleon accused us of taking before the regular declaration of war; but when proposals were made for an exchange, he sent a savage answer that he would keep his prisoners till the end of the war. It is difficult to conceive how there could be two opinions about the nature of the man after this act. The naval captures of which Napoleon complained, as made prior to a declaration of war, were of two merchant Ships taken by English frigates: and we find notices of such being brought into port on the 25th of May. Whether they were captured before the 18th, there is no record that we can find. … On the sea, our successes seemed a matter of course; but meantime a blow was struck at Great Britain, and especially at her sovereign, which proved that the national exasperation against France was even yet capable of increase. {1340} On the breaking out of the war; George III. issued a proclamation, as Elector of Hanover, declaring to Germany that the Germanic states had nothing to fear in regard to the new hostilities, as he was entering into war as King of Great Britain, and not as Elector of Hanover. Whatever military preparations were going forward in Hanover were merely of a defensive character. Napoleon, however, set such defence at defiance. On the 13th of June, news arrived of the total surrender of Hanover to the French. … Government resolved to declare the Elbe and the Weser, and all the ports of Western Germany, in a state of blockade; as the French had now command over all the intermediate rivers. It was calculated that this would annoy and injure Napoleon effectually, as it would cause the ruin of foreign merchants trading from the whole series of ports. English merchants would suffer deeply; but it was calculated that English capital and stock would hold out longer than those of foreign merchants. Thus was the sickening process of private ruin, as a check to public aggression, entered upon, before war had been declared a month."

H. Martineau, History of England, 1800-1815, book l, chapter 4.

ALSO IN: M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 28-30.

Sir J. Mackintosh, Speech in Defense of Jean Peltier (Miscellaneous Works).

J. Ashton, English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I., volume 1, chapters 24-87.

FRANCE: A. D. 1803 (April-May). Sale or Louisiana to the United States of America.

See LOUISIANA: A. D. 1798-1808; and UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1803. Loss of San Domingo, or Hayti.

See HAYTI: A. D. 1682-1803.

FRANCE: A. D. 1804-1805. Royalist plots and Bonaparte's use or them. The abduction and execution or the Duc d'Enghien. The First Consul becomes Emperor. His coronation by the Pope. His acceptance of the crown or Italy. Annexation of Genoa to France.

The rupture with England furnished Bonaparte "with the occasion of throwing off the last disguise and openly restoring monarchy. It was a step which required all his audacity and cunning. He had crushed Jacobinism, but two great parties remained. There was first the more moderate republicanism, which might be called Girondism, and was widely spread among all classes and particularly in the army. Secondly, there was the old royalism, which after many years of helpless weakness had revived since Brumaire. These two parties, though hostile to each other, were forced into a sort of alliance by the new attitude of Bonaparte, who was hurrying France at once into a new revolution at home and into an abyss of war abroad. England, too, after the rupture, favoured the efforts of these parties. Royalism from England began to open communications with moderate republicanism in France. Pichegru acted for the former, and the great representative of the latter was Moreau, who had helped to make Brumaire in the tacit expectation probably of rising to the consulate in due course when Bonaparte's term should have expired, and was therefore hurt in his personal claims as well as in his republican principles. Bonaparte watched the movement through his ubiquitous police, and with characteristic strategy determined not merely to defeat it but to make it his stepping-stone to monarchy. He would ruin Moreau by fastening on him the stigma of royalism; he would persuade France to make him emperor in order to keep out the Bourbons. He achieved this with the peculiar mastery which he always showed in villainous intrigue. … Pichegru [who had returned secretly to France from England some time in January, 1804] brought with him wilder partisans, such as Georges [Cadoudal] the Chouan. No doubt Moreau would gladly have seen and gladly have helped an insurrection against Bonaparte. … But Bonaparte succeeded in associating him with royalist schemes and with schemes of assassination. Controlling the Senate, he was able to suppress the jury; controlling every avenue of publicity, he was able to suppress opinion; and the army, Moreau's fortress, was won through its hatred of royalism. In this way Bonaparte's last personal rival was removed. There remained the royalists, and Bonaparte hoped to seize their leader, the Comte d'Artois, who was expected, as the police knew, soon to join Pichegru and Georges at Paris. What Bonaparte would have done with him we may judge from the course he took when the Comte did not come. On March 15, 1804, the Duc d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de Condé, residing at Ettenheim in Baden, was seized at midnight by a party of dragoons, brought to Paris, where he arrived on the 20th, confined in the castle of Vincennes, brought before a military commission at two o'clock the next morning, asked whether he had not borne arms against the republic, which he acknowledged himself to have done, conducted to a staircase above the moat, and there shot and buried in the moat. … That the Due d'Enghien was innocent of the conspiracy, was nothing to the purpose; the act was political, not judicial; accordingly he was not even charged with complicity. That the execution would strike horror into the cabinets, and perhaps bring about a new Coalition, belonged to a class of considerations which at this time Bonaparte systematically disregarded. This affair led immediately to the thought of giving heredity to Bonaparte's power. The thought seems to have commended itself irresistibly even to strong republicans and to those who were most shocked by the murder. To make Bonaparte's position more secure seemed the only way of averting a new Reign of Terror or new convulsions. He himself felt some embarrassment. Like Cromwell, he was afraid of the republicanism of the army, and heredity pure and simple brought him face to face with the question of divorcing Josephine. To propitiate the army, he chose from the titles suggested to him—consul, stadtholder, &c.—that of emperor, undoubtedly the most accurate, and having a sufficiently military sound. The other difficulty after much furious dissension between the two families of Bonaparte and Beauharnais, was evaded by giving Napoleon himself (but none of his successors) a power of adoption, and fixing the succession, in default of a direct heir, natural or adoptive, first in Joseph and his descendants, then in Louis and his descendants. Except abstaining from the regal title, no attempt was made to conceal the abolition of republicanism. … The change was made by the constituent power of the Senate, and the Senatus-Consulte is dated May 18, 1804. The title of Emperor had an ulterior meaning. {1341} Adopted at the moment when Napoleon began to feel himself master both in Italy and Germany, it revived the memory of Charles the Great. To himself it was the more satisfactory on that account, and, strange to say, it gave satisfaction rather than offence to the Head of the Holy Roman Empire, Francis II. Since Joseph, the Habsburg Emperors had been tired of their title, which, being elective, was precarious. They were desirous of becoming hereditary emperors in Austria, and they now took this title (though without as yet giving up the other). Francis II. bartered his acknowledgement of Napoleon's new title against Napoleon's acknowledgement of his own. It required some impudence to condemn Moreau for royalism at the very moment that his rival was re-establishing monarchy. Yet his trial began on May 15th. The death of Pichegru, nominally by suicide, on April 6th, had already furnished the rising sultanism with its first dark mystery. Moreau was condemned to two years' imprisonment, but was allowed to retire to the United States."

J. R. Seeley, Short History of Napoleon I., chapter 8, section 4.

C. C. Fauriel, The Last Days of the Consulate.

Chancellor Pasquier, in his Memoirs, narrates the circumstances of the seizure of the Duc d'Enghien at considerable length, and says: "This is what really occurred, according to what I have been told by those better situated to know. A council was held on the 9th of March: It is almost certain that previous to this council, which was a kind of official affair, a more secret one had been held at the house of Joseph Bonaparte. At the first council, to which were convened only a few persons, all on a footing of family intimacy, it was discussed by order of the First Consul, what would be proper to do with a prince of the House of Bourbon, in case one should have him in one's power, and the decision reached was that if he was captured on French territory, one had the right to take his life, but not otherwise. At the council held on the 9th, and which was composed of the three Consuls, the Chief Justice, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and M. Fouché, although the latter had not then resumed the post of Minister of Police, the two men who expressed contrary opinions were M. de Talleyrand and M. de Cambacérès. M. de Talleyrand declared that the prince should be sent to his death. M. Lebrun, the Third Consul, contented himself with saying that such an event would have a terrible echo throughout the world. M. de Cambacérès contended earnestly that it would be sufficient to hold the prince as hostage for the safety of the First Consul. The latter sided with M. de Talleyrand, whose counsels then prevailed. The discussion was a heated one, and when the meeting of the council was over, M. de Cambacérès thought it his duty to make a last attempt, so he followed Bonaparte into his study, and laid before him with perhaps more strength than might be expected from his character, the consequences of the deed he was about to perpetrate, and the universal horror it would excite. … He spoke in vain. In the privacy of his study, Bonaparte expressed himself even with greater violence than he had done at the council. He answered that the death of the duke would seem to the world but a just reprisal for what was being attempted against him personally; that it was necessary to teach the House of Bourbon that the blows struck with its sanction were liable to recoil on its own head; that this was the only way of compelling it to abstain from its dastardly schemes, and lastly, that matters had gone too far to retrace one's steps. M. de Talleyrand supplied this last argument."

Chancellor Pasquier, Memoirs, volume 1, pages 190-191.

"Bonaparte's accession to the Empire was proclaimed with the greatest pomp, without waiting to inquire whether the people approved of his promotion or otherwise. The proclamation was coldly received, even by the populace, and excited little enthusiasm. … The Emperor was recognised by the soldiery with more warmth. He visited the encampments at Boulogne," and, afterwards, "accompanied with his Empress, who bore her honours both gracefully and meekly, visited Aix-la-Chapelle and the frontiers of Germany. They received the congratulations of all the powers of Europe, excepting England, Russia, and Sweden, upon their new exaltation. … But the most splendid and public recognition of his new rank was yet to be made, by the formal act of coronation, which, therefore, Napoleon determined should take place with circumstances of solemnity which had been beyond the reach of any temporal prince, however powerful, for many ages. … Though Charlemagne had repaired to Rome to receive inauguration from the hands of the Pontiff of that day, Napoleon resolved that he who now owned the proud, and in Protestant eyes profane, title of Vicar of Christ, should travel to France to perform the coronation. … The Pope, and the cardinals whom he consulted, implored the illumination of Heaven upon their councils; but it was the stern voice of necessity which assured them that, except at the risk of dividing the Church by a schism, they could not refuse to comply with Buonaparte's requisition. The Pope left Rome on the 5th November. … On the 2d December [1804] the coronation took place in the ancient cathedral of Notre Dame. … The crown having been blessed by the Pope, Napoleon took it from the altar with his own hands, and placed it on his brows. He then put the diadem on the head of his Empress, as if determined to show that his authority was the child of his own actions. … The northern states of Italy had followed the example of France through all her change of models. … The authorities of the Italian (late Cisalpine) Republic, had a prescient guess of what was expected of them. A deputation appeared at Paris to declare the absolute necessity which they felt, that their government should assume a monarchical and hereditary form. On the 17th March [1805], they obtained an audience of the Emperor, to whom they intimated the unanimous desire of their countrymen that Napoleon, founder of the Italian Republic, should be monarch of the Italian Kingdom. … Buonaparte granted the petition of the Italian States, and … upon the 11th April, … with his Empress, set off to go through the form of coronation as King of Italy. … The new kingdom was, in all respects, modeled on the same plan with the French Empire. An order, called 'of the Iron Crown,' was established on the footing of that of the Legion of Honour. A large French force was taken into Italian pay, and Eugene Beauharnais, the son of Josephine by her former marriage, who enjoyed and merited the confidence of his father-in-law, was created viceroy, and appointed to represent, in that character, the dignity of Napoleon. Napoleon did not leave Italy without further extension of his empire. Genoa, once the proud and the powerful, resigned her independence, and her Doge presented to the Emperor a request that the Ligurian Republic … should be considered in future as a part of the French nation."

Sir W. Scott, Life of Napoleon, chapter 48 (Paris edition, 1828).

{1342}

"Genoa and the Ligurian Republic were incorporated with France, June 3d 1805. … The Duchies of Parma and Piacenza, which, together with Guastalla, had been already seized, were declared dependencies of the French Empire by an imperial decree of July 21st. The principality of Piombino was bestowed on Napoleon's sister Eliza, wife of the Senator Bacciocchi, but on conditions which retained it under the Emperor's suzerainty: and the little state was increased by the addition of the Republic of Lucca."

T. H. Dyer, History of Modern Europe, book 1, chapter 11 (volume 4).

ALSO IN: C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapters 3-4.

Memoirs dictated by Napoleon to his Generals at St. Helena, volume 6, pages 219-225.

J. Fouché, Memoirs, pages 260-274.

Count Miot de Melito, Memoirs, chapters 16-17.

W. Hazlitt, Life of Napoleon, chapters 38-34 (volume 2).

Madame de Rémusat, Memoirs, book 1, chapters 4-10 (volume 1).

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapters 9-10.

M. de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon, volume 3, chapters 1-12.

FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (January-April). The Third European Coalition.

"In England Pitt returned to office in May, 1804, and this in itself was an evil omen for France. He enjoyed the confidence, not only of his own nation but of Europe, and he at once set to work to resume the threads of that coalition of which England had formerly directed the resources. Alexander I. of Russia had begun to see through the designs of Napoleon; he found that he had been duped in the joint mediation in Germany, he resented the occupation of Hanover and he ordered his court to put on mourning for the duke of Enghien. Before long he broke off diplomatic relations with France (September 1804), and a Russian war was now only a question of time. Austria was the power most closely affected by Napoleon's assumption of the imperial title. … While hastening to acknowledge Napoleon, Austria was busied in military preparations and began to resume its old connection with England. Prussia was the power on which France was accustomed to rely with implicit confidence. But the occupation of Hanover and the interference with the commerce of the Elbe had weakened Frederick William III.'s belief in the advantages of a neutral policy, and, though he could not make up his mind to definite action, he began to open negotiations with Russia in view of a rupture with France. The fluctuations of Prussian policy may be followed in the alternating influence of the two ministers of foreign affairs, Haugwitz and Hardenberg. Meanwhile Napoleon, ignorant or reckless of the growing hostility of the great powers, continued his aggressions at the expense of the lesser states. … These acts gave the final impulse to the hostile powers, and before Napoleon quitted Italy the Coalition had been formed. On the 11th of April, 1805, a final treaty was signed between Russia and England. The two powers pledged themselves to form an European league against France, to conclude no peace without mutual consent, to settle disputed points in a congress at the end of the war, and to form a federal tribunal for the maintenance of the system which should, then be established. The immediate objects of the allies were the abolition of French rule in Italy, Holland, Switzerland, and Hanover; the restoration of Piedmont to the king of Sardinia; the protection of Naples; and the erection of a permanent barrier against France by the union of Holland and Belgium under the House of Orange. The coalition was at once joined by Gustavus IV. of Sweden, who inherited his father's devotion to the cause of legitimate monarchy, and who hoped to recover power in Pomerania. Austria, terrified for its Italian possessions by Bonaparte's evident intention to subdue the whole peninsula, was driven into the league. Prussia, in spite of the attraction of recovering honour and independence, refused to listen to the solicitations of England and Russia, and adhered to its feeble neutrality. Of the other German states Bavaria, Baden, and Wurtemberg were allies of France. As far as effective operations were concerned, the coalition consisted only of Austria and Russia. Sweden and Naples, which had joined secretly, could not make efforts on a great scale, and England was as yet content with providing subsidies and the invaluable services of its fleet. It was arranged that, one Austrian army under the archduke Charles should invade Lombardy, while Mack, with a second army and the aid of Russia, should occupy Bavaria and advance upon the Rhine."

R. Lodge, History of Modern Europe, chapter 24, sections 13-15.

ALSO IN: Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 39 (volume 9).

FRANCE: A. D. 1805 (March-December). Napoleon's plans and preparations for the invasion of England. Nelson's long pursuit of the French fleets. His victory and death at Trafalgar. Napoleon's rapid march to the Danube. Capitulation of Mack at Ulm. The French in Vienna. The great battle of Austerlitz.

"While the coalition was forming, and Napoleon seemed wantonly to be insulting Europe and ignoring the danger of exciting fresh enemies, he was in fact urging on with all rapidity his schemes for the invasion of England, which he probably hoped might be so successful as to paralyse all action on the part of the European powers. The constantly repeated representations of his naval officers had forced him, much against his will, to believe that his descent upon England would be impracticable unless secured by the presence of his fleet. In spite of the general voice of those who knew the condition of the French navy, he determined to act with his fleet on the same principles as he would have acted with his army; a gigantic combination of various squadrons was to be effected, and a fleet great enough to destroy all hope of opposition to sweep the Channel. For this purpose the 18 ships of the line at Brest under Admiral Gantheaume, the squadron at Rochefort under Villeneuve, and the Toulon fleet under Latouche-Tréville, were to unite. The last mentioned admiral was intrusted with the chief command. Sailing up the coast of France, he was to liberate from their blockade the squadrons of Rochefort and Brest, and with their combined fleets appear before Boulogne. But Latouche-Tréville died, and Napoleon intrusted his plans to Villeneuve. {1343} Those plans, all of them arranged without regard to the bad condition of the French ships, or to the uncertainty of the weather, were frequently changed; at one time Villeneuve from Toulon, and Missiessy, his successor, at Rochefort, were to proceed to the West Indies, drawing the English fleet thither; then Gantheaume was to appear from Brest, throw troops into Ireland, and thus cover the flotilla. At another time, all the fleets were to assemble at the West Indies, and, joining with the Spanish fleet at Ferrol, appear in the Straits of Calais. To complete this last measure Villeneuve set sail from Toulon on the 30th of March 1805, joined Gravina at Cadiz, and reached Martinique on the 13th of May with 20 ships of the line, and 7 frigates. His voyage was so slow that Missiessy had returned from the West Indies to France, and the junction failed. In hot pursuit of Villeneuve, Nelson, who had at length found out his destination, had hurried. At Martinique Gantheaume, with the Brest fleet, should have joined Villeneuve; unfortunately for him, Admiral Cornwallis blockaded his fleet. Villeneuve therefore had to return to Europe alone, sailing for Ferrol to pick up a squadron of 15 ships. He was then, at the head of 35 ships, ordered to appear before Brest, liberate Gantheaume, and appear in the Channel. Back again in pursuit of him Nelson sailed, but supposed that he would return to the Mediterranean and not to Ferrol; he therefore again missed him; but as he had found means to inform the English Government that Villeneuve was returning to Europe, Calder, with a fleet of 15 ships, was sent to intercept him. The fleets encountered off Cape Finisterre [Northwest corner of Spain]. The French had 27 vessels, Calder but 18, and after an indecisive battle, in which two Spanish ships were taken, he was afraid to renew the engagement; and Villeneuve was thus enabled to reach Ferrol in safety. However, all the operations towards concentration had led to absolutely nothing, and the English fleets, which the movements towards the West Indies were to have decoyed from the Channel, were either still off the coast of France or in immediate pursuit of the fleet of Villeneuve. Nelson returned to Gibralter, and as soon as he found out where Villeneuve was, he joined his fleet to that of Cornwallis before Brest, and himself returned to England. … Meanwhile Villeneuve had not been able to get ready for sea till the 11th of August. … He was afraid to venture northwards, and with the full approbation of his Spanish colleague Gravina, determined to avail himself of a last alternative which Napoleon had suggested, and sailed to Cadiz. This was a fatal blow to the gigantic schemes of Napoleon. Up till the 22nd of August he still believed that Villeneuve would make his appearance, and in fact wrote to him that day at Brest, closing his letter with the words, 'England is ours.' As the time for his great stroke drew near he grew nervously anxious, constantly watching the Channel for the approach of the fleet, and at last, when his Minister of Marine, Decrès, told him that the fleet had gone to Cadiz, he broke forth in bitter wrath against both his Minister and Villeneuve, whom he accused of the most shameful weakness. But Napoleon was not a man who let his success be staked upon one plan alone. Though studiously hiding from his people the existence of the coalition, and not scrupling to have recourse to forged letters and fabricated news for the purpose, he was fully aware of its existence. … Without much difficulty, therefore, he at once resigned his great plans upon England, and directed his army towards the eastern frontier."

J. F. Bright, History of England, period 3, pages 1261-1264.

"In the first days of September, 1805, Napoleon's great army was in full march across France and Germany, to attain the Danube. … The Allies … had projected four separate and ill-combined attacks; the first on Hanover and Holland by a Russian and British force; the second, on Lower Italy by a similar body; the third, by a great Austrian army on Upper Italy; and the fourth, by a United Austrian and Russian army, moving across Southern Germany to the Rhine. … By this time, the Austrian Mack had drawn close to the Inn, in order to compel Bavaria to join the Allies, and was even making his way to the Iller, but his army was far distant from that of the Russian chief, Kutusoff, and still further from that of Buxhöwden, the one in Galicia, the other in Poland. … Napoleon had seized this position of affairs, with the comprehensive knowledge of the theatre of war, and the skill of arranging armies upon it, in which he has no equals among modern captains. He opposed Masséna to the Archdukes, with a much weaker force, confident that his great lieutenant could hold them in check. He neglected the attacks from the North Sea, and the South; but he resolved to strike down Mack, in overwhelming strength, should he advance without his Russian supports. … The great mass of the Grand Army had reached the Main and Rhine by the last week of September. The left wing, joined by the Bavarian forces, and commanded by Bernadotte and Marmont, had marched from Hanover and Holland, and was around Würtzburg; the centre, the corps of Soult, and Davoust, moved from the channel, was at Spire and Mannheim, and the right wing, formed of the corps of Ney and Lannes, with the Imperial Guard, and the horse of Murat, filled the region between Carlsruhe and Strasburg, the extreme right under Augereau, which had advanced from Brittany, being still behind but drawing towards Huningen. By this time Mack was upon the Iller, holding the fortress of Ulm on the upper Danube, and extending his forces thence to Memmingen. … By the first days of October the great French masses … were in full march from the Rhine to the Main, across Würtemberg and the Franconian plains; and cavalry filled the approaches to the Black Forest, in order to deceive and perplex Mack. … The Danube ere long was reached and crossed, at Donauwörth, Ingolstadt, and other points; and Napoleon already stood on the rear of his enemy, interposing between him and Vienna, and cut him off from the Russians, even now distant. The net was quickly drawn round the ill-fated Mack. … By the third week of October, the Grand Army had encompassed the Austrians on every side, and Napoleon held his quarry in his grasp. Mack … had not the heart to strike a desperate stroke, and to risk a battle; and he capitulated at Ulm on the 19th of October. Two divisions of his army had contrived to break out; but one was pursued and nearly destroyed by Murat, and the other was compelled by Augereau to lay down its arms, as it was on its way to the hills of the Tyrol. An army of 85,000 men had thus, so to speak, been well-nigh effaced; and not 20,000 had effected their escape. France meanwhile had met a crushing disaster on the element which England had made her own. {1344} We have seen how Villeneuve had put into Cadiz, afraid to face the hostile fleets off Brest; and how this had baffled the project of the descent. Napoleon was indignant with his ill-fated admiral. … At a hint of disgrace the susceptible Frenchman made up his mind, at any risk, to fight. By this time Nelson had left England, and was off Cadiz with a powerful fleet; and he actually weakened his force by four sail-of-the-line, in order to lure his adversary out. On the 20th of October, 1805, the allied fleet was in the open sea; it had been declared at a council of war, that a lost battle was almost certain, so bad was the condition of many of the crews; but Villeneuve was bent on challenging Fate; and almost courted defeat, in his despair. … On the morning of the 21st, the allied fleet, 33 war ships, and a number of frigates, was off Cape Trafalgar [25 miles west of Gibraltar on the coast of Spain], making for the Straits. … Nelson advanced slowly against his doomed enemy, with 27 ships and their attendant frigates; the famous signal floated from his mast, 'England expects every man to do his duty'; and, at about noon, Collingwood pierced Villeneuve's centre; nearly destroying the Santa Anna with a single broadside. Ere long Nelson had, broken Villeneuve's line, with the Victory, causing frightful destruction; and as other British ships came up by degrees they relieved the leading ships from the pressure of their foes, and completed the ruin already begun. At about one, Nelson met his death wound, struck by a shot from the tops of the Redoutable. … Pierced through and through, the shattered allied centre was soon a collection of captured wrecks. … Only 11 ships out of 33 escaped; and the burning Achille, like the Orient at the Nile, added to the grandeur and horrors of an appalling scene. Villeneuve, who had fought most honourably in the Bucentaure, was compelled to strike his flag before the death of Nelson. The van of the allies that had fled at Trafalgar, was soon afterwards captured by a British squadron. Though dearly bought by the death of Nelson, the victory may be compared to Lepanto; and it blotted France out as a great Power on the ocean; Napoleon … never tried afterwards to meet England at sea. … His success, at this moment, had been so wonderful, that what he called 'the loss of a few ships at sea,' seemed a trifling and passing rebuff of fortune. … He had discomfitted the whole plan of the Allies; and the failure of the attack on the main scene of the theatre had caused all the secondary attacks to fail. … Napoleon, throwing out detachments to protect his flanks, had entered Vienna on the 14th of November. … The House of Hapsburg and its chief had fled. … Extraordinary as his success had been, the position of the Emperor had, in a few days, become grave. … Napoleon had not one hundred thousand men in hand—apart from the bodies that covered his flanks—to make head against his converging enemies. Always daring, however, he resolved to attack the Allies before they could receive aid from Prussia; and he marched from Vienna towards the close of November; having taken careful precautions to guard his rear. … By this time the Allies were around Olmütz, the Archdukes were not many marches away, and a Prussian army was nearly ready to move. Had the Russians and Austrians fallen back from Olmütz and effected their junction with the Archdukes, they could, therefore, have. opposed the French with a force more than two-fold in numbers. … But the folly and presumption which reigned among the young nobles surrounding the Czar—Alexander was now at the head of his army—brought on the Coalition deserved punishment, and pedantry had its part in an immense disaster. The force of Napoleon appeared small, his natural line of retreat was exposed, and a theorist in the Austrian camp persuaded the Czar and the Austrian Emperor, who was at the head of his troops at Olmütz, to consent to a magnificent plan of assailing Napoleon by the well-known method of Frederick the Great, in the Seven Years' War, of turning his right wing, by an attack made, in the oblique order, in great force, and of cutting him off from his base at Vienna, and driving him, routed, into, Bohemia. This grand project on paper, which involved a march across the front of the hostile army within reach of the greatest of masters of war, was hailed with exultation. … The Allies were soon in full march from Olmütz, and preparations were made for the decisive movement in the night of the 1st December, 1805. Napoleon had watched the reckless false step being made by his foes with unfeigned delight; 'that army is mine,' he proudly exclaimed. … The sun of Austerlitz rose on the 2nd, the light of victory often invoked by Napoleon. … The dawn of the winter's day revealed three large columns, succeeded by a fourth at no great distance, toiling through a tract of marshes and frozen lakes, to outflank Napoleon's right on the Goldbach, the allied centre, on the tableland of Prätzen, immediately before the French front, having been dangerously weakened by this great turning movement. The assailants were opposed by a small force only, under Davoust, one of the best of the marshals. … Ere long Napoleon, who, like a beast of prey, had reserved his strength until it was time to spring, launched Soult in force against the Russian and Austrian centre, enfeebled by the detachment against the French right and exposed to the whole weight of Napoleon's attacks; and Prätzen was stormed after a fierce struggle, in which Bernadotte gave the required aid to Soult. The allied centre was thus rent asunder. Lannes meanwhile had defeated the allied right. … Napoleon now turned with terrible energy and in overwhelming strength against the four columns, that had assailed his right, but had begun to retreat. His victorious centre was aided by his right, now set free; the Russians and Austrians were struck with panic, a horrible scene of destruction followed, the flying troops were slain or captured in thousands; and multitudes perished, engulfed in the lakes, the French artillery shattering their icy surface. The rout was decisive, complete, and appalling; about 80,000 of the Allies were engaged; they lost all their guns and nearly half their numbers, and the remains of their army were a worthless wreck. Napoleon had only 60,000 men in the fight. … The memorable campaign of 1805 is, perhaps, the grandest of Napoleon's exploits in war."

W. O'C. Morris, Napoleon, chapter 7.

ALSO IN: A. Thiers, History of the Consulate and Empire, book 22 (volume 2).

R. Southey, Life of Nelson, chapters 8-9 (volume 2).

W. C. Russell, Nelson and the Naval Supremacy of England, chapters 17-20.

Lord Nelson, Dispatches and Letters, volumes 6-7.

Capt. E. J. de la Gravière, Sketches of the last Naval War, part 6 (volume 2).

C. Adams, Great Campaigns in Europe, from 1796 to 1870, chapter 3.

Baron de Marbot, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 20-23.

A. T. Mahan, Influences of Sea Power upon the French Revolution, chapters 15-16 (volume 2).

{1345}

FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-August). The Peace of Presburg. Humiliation of Austria. Formation of the Confederation of the Rhine. Extinction of the Holy Roman Empire. The goading of Prussia to war.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1805-1806; and 1806 (JANUARY-AUGUST).

FRANCE: A. D. 1805-1806 (December-September). Dethronement of the dynasty of Naples. Bestowal of the crown upon Joseph Bonaparte.

The treaty of Presburg was "immediately followed by a measure hitherto unprecedented in European history—the pronouncing a sentence of dethronement against an independent, sovereign, for no other cause than his having contemplated hostilities against the French Emperor; On the 26th December [1805] a menacing proclamation proceeded from Presburg … which evidently bore marks of Napoleon's composition, against the house of Naples. The conqueror announced that Marshal St. Cyr would advance by rapid strides to Naples, 'to punish the treason of a criminal queen, and precipitate her from the throne. We have pardoned that infatuated king, who thrice has done everything to ruin himself. Shall we pardon him a fourth time? … No! The dynasty of Naples has ceased to reign—its existence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honour of my crown.' … The ominous announcement, made from the depths of Moravia, that the dynasty of Naples had ceased to reign, was not long allowed to remain a dead letter. Massena was busily employed, in January, in collecting his forces in the centre of Italy, and before the end of that month 50,000 men, under the command of Joseph Buonaparte, had crossed the Pontifical States and entered the Neapolitan territory in three columns, which marched on Gaeta, Capua, and Itri. Resistance was impossible; the feeble Russian and English forces which had disembarked to support the Italian levies, finding the whole weight of the war likely to be directed against them, withdrew to Sicily; the court, thunderstruck by the menacing proclamation of 27th December, speedily followed their example. … In vain the intrepid Queen Caroline, who still remained at Naples, armed the lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the troops a portion of her own indomitable courage; she was seconded by none; Capua opened its gates; Gaeta was invested; the Campagna filled with the invaders; she, vanquished but not subdued, compelled to yield to necessity, followed her timid consort to Sicily; and, on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign, Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls. … During the first tumult of invasion, the peasantry of Calabria … submitted to the enemy. … But the protraction of the siege of Gaeta, which occupied Massena with the principal army of the French, gave them time to recover from their consternation. … A general insurrection took place in the beginning of March, and the peasants stood firm in more than one position; but they were unable to withstand the shock of the veterans of France, and in a decisive action in the plain of Campo-Tenese their tumultuary levies, though 15,000 strong, were entirely dispersed. The victorious Reynier penetrated even to Reggio, and the standards of Napoleon waved on its towers, in sight of the English videtts on the shores of Sicily. When hostilities had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war. … He received at Savigliano, the principal town of the province, the decree, by which Napoleon created him king of the two Sicilies. By so doing, however, he was declared not to lose his contingent right of succession to the throne of France; but the two crowns were never to be united."

Sir A. Alison, History of Europe, 1789-1815, chapter 40, section 150, and chapter 42, sections 21-23,(volume 9).

"Joseph's tenure of his new dominion was yet incomplete. The fortress of Gaeta still held out, … and the British in Sicily (who had already taken the Isle of Capri, close to the capital) sent 5,000 men to their aid under Sir John Stuart, who encountered at Maida (July 6) a French corps of 7.500, under Reynier. The battle presented one of the rare instances in which French and British troops have actually crossed bayonets; but French enthusiasm sank before British intrepidity, and the enemy were driven from the field with the loss of half their number. The victory of Maida had a prodigious moral effect in raising the spirits and self-confidence of the British soldiery; but its immediate results were less considerable. The French were indeed driven from Calabria, but the fall of Gaeta (July 18th), after the loss of its brave governor, the Prince of Hesse-Philipsthal, released the main army under Massena: the British exposed to be attacked by overwhelming numbers, re-embarked (September 5) for Palermo, and the Calabrian insurrection was suppressed with great bloodshed. But an amnesty was at length … published by Joseph, who devoted himself with great zeal and admirable judgment to heal the wounds of his distracted kingdom."

Epitome of Alison's History of Europe, section 398.

ALSO IN: P. Colletta, History of the Kingdom of Naples, book 5, chapter 4, and book 6, chapters 1-3.

C. Botta, Italy during the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon, chapter 4.

FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (January-October). Napoleon's triumphant return to Paris. Death of Pitt. Peace negotiations with England. King making and prince making by the Corsican Cæsar.

ON the 27th of December, the day after the signing of the Treaty of Presburg, Napoleon left Vienna for Paris. "En route for Paris he remained a week at Munich to be present at the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to the Princess Augusta, daughter of the King of Bavaria. Josephine joined him, and the whole time was passed in fêtes and rejoicings. On this occasion he proclaimed Eugene his adopted son, and, in default of issue of his own, his successor in the kingdom of Italy. Accompanied by Josephine, Napoleon re-entered Paris on the 26th of January, 1806, amidst the most enthusiastic acclamations. The national vanity was raised to the highest pitch by the glory and extent of territory he had acquired. The Senate at a solemn audience besought him to accept the title of 'the Great'; and public rejoicings lasting many days attested his popularity. An important political event in England opened new views of security and peace to the empire, William Pitt, the implacable enemy of the Revolution, had died on the 23rd of January, at the early age of 47; and the Government was entrusted to the hands of his great opponent, Charles James Fox. {1346} The disastrous results of the war of which Pitt had been the mainstay probably hastened his death. After the capitulation of Ulm he never rallied. The well-known friendship of Fox for Napoleon, added to his avowed principles, afforded the strongest hopes that England and France were at length destined to cement the peace of the world by entering into friendly relations. Aided by Talleyrand, who earnestly counselled peace, Napoleon made overtures to the English Government through Lord Yarmouth, who was among the détenus. He offered to yield the long-contested point of Malta—consenting to the continued possession of that island, the Cape of Good Hope, and other conquests in the East and West Indies by Great Britain, and proposing generally that the treaty should be conducted on the uti possidetis principle: that is, allowing each party to retain whatever it had acquired in the course of the war. Turkey acknowledged Napoleon as Emperor and entered into amicable relations with the French nation; and what was still more important, Russia signed a treaty of peace in July, influenced by the pacific inclinations of the English Minister. Napoleon resolved to surround his throne with an order of nobles, and to place members of his family on the thrones of the conquered countries adjoining France in order that they might become parts of his system and co-operate in his plans. Two decrees of the 31st of March declared Joseph Bonaparte King of Naples, and Murat Grand Duke of Berg and Cleves. Louis Bonaparte was made King of Holland a few months afterwards, and Jerome King of Westphalia in the following year. The Princess Pauline received the principality of Guastalla, and Talleyrand, Bernadotte, and Berthier those of Benevento, Ponte-Corvo, and Neufchâtel. Fifteen dukedoms were created and bestowed on the most distinguished statesmen and generals of the empire, each with an income amounting to a fifteenth part of the revenue of the province attached to it. These became grand fiefs of the empire. Cambacérès and Lebrun were made Dukes of Parma and Placenza; Savary, Duke of Rovigo; Junot, of Abrantes; Lannes, of Montebello, &c. The manners of some of these Republican soldiers were ill adapted to courtly forms, and afforded amusement to the members of the ancient and legitimate order. … Napoleon's desire to conciliate and form alliances with the established dynasties and aristocracies of Europe kept pace with his daring encroachments on their hitherto exclusive dignity. Besides the marriage of Eugene Beauharnais to a Princess of Bavaria, an alliance was concluded between the hereditary Prince of Baden and Mademoiselle Stephanie Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress. The old French noblesse were also encouraged to appear at the Tuileries. During the Emperor's visit at Munich the Republican calendar was abolished and the usual mode of computing time restored in France. … The negotiations with England went on tardily, and the news of Fox's alarming state of health excited the gravest fears in the French Government. Lord Lauderdale arrived in Paris, on the part of England, in the month of August; but difficulties were continually started, and before anything was decided the death of Fox gave the finishing blow to all hope of peace. Lord Lauderdale demanded his passports and left Paris in October. Napoleon wished to add Sicily to his brother's new kingdom of Naples; but British ships were able to protect the King and Queen of Naples in that insular position, and the English Government refused to desert their allies on this occasion or to consent to any compensation or adjustment offered. On this point principally turned the failure of the attempt at peace as far as can be discovered from the account of the negotiations."

R. H. Horne, History of Napoleon, chapter 26.

ALSO IN: Madame de Rémusat, Memoirs, chapters 16-21 (volume 2).

Duke of Rovigo, Memoirs, volume 1, part 2, chapters 18-21.

P. Lanfrey, History of Napoleon, volume 2, chapter 15.

FRANCE: A. D. 1806 (October). The subjugation of Prussia at Jena.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806 (OCTOBER).

FRANCE: A. D. 1806-1807. Napoleon's campaign against the Russians. Eylau and Friedland.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1806-1807; and 1807 (FEBRUARY-JUNE).

FRANCE: A.D. 1806-1810. Commercial warfare with England. British Orders in Council and Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees. The "Continental System."

"As the war advanced, after the Peace of Amiens, the neutrals became bolder and more aggressive. "American ships were constantly arriving at Dutch and French ports with sugar, coffee, and other productions of the French and Spanish West Indies. And East India goods were imported by them into Spain, Holland, and France. … By the rivers and canals of Germany and Flanders goods were floated into the warehouses of the enemy, or circulated far the supply of his customers in neutral countries. … It was a general complaint, therefore, that the enemy carried on colonial commerce under the neutral flag, cheaply as well as safely; that he was enabled not only to elude British hostilities, but to rival British merchants and planters in the European markets; that by the same means the hostile treasuries were filled with a copious stream of revenue; and that by this licentious use of the neutral flag, the enemy was enabled to employ his whole military marine for purposes of offensive war, without being obliged to maintain a squadron or a ship for the defence of his colonial ports. … Such complaints made against neutral states found a powerful exposition in a work entitled 'War in Disguise and the Frauds of the Neutral Flag,' supposed to have been written by Mr. James Stephen, the real author of the orders in Council. The British Government did not see its way at once to proceed in the direction of prohibiting to neutral ships the colonial trade, which they had enjoyed for a considerable time; but the first step was taken to paralyse the resources of the enemy, and to restrict the trade of neutrals, by the issue of an order in Council in May 1806, declaring that all the coasts, ports, and rivers from the Elbe to Brest should be considered blockaded, though the only portion of those coasts rigorously blockaded was that included between the Ostend and the mouth of the Seine, in the ports of which preparations were made for the invasion of England. The northern ports of Germany and Holland were left partly open, and the navigation of the Baltic altogether free. Napoleon, then in the zenith of his power, saw, in this order in Council, a fresh act of wantonness, and he met it by the issue of the Berlin decree of November 21, 1806. In that document, remarkable for its boldness and vigour, Napoleon charged England with having set at nought the dictates of international law, with having made prisoners of war of private individuals, and with having taken the crews out of merchant ships. {1347} He charged this country with having captured private property at sea extended to commercial parts the restrictions of blockade applicable only to fortified places, declared as blockaded places which were not invested by naval forces, and abused the right of blockade in order to benefit her own trade at the expense of the commerce of Continental states. He asserted the right of combating the enemy with the same arms used against himself, especially when such enemy ignored all ideas of justice and every liberal sentiment which civilisation imposes. He announced his resolution to apply to England the same usages which she had established in her maritime legislation. He laid dawn the principles which France was resolved to act upon until England should recognise that the rights of war are the same on land as on sea. … And upon these premises the decree ordered,