Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV

CHAPTER LII

Change in Napoleon's Principles of Government – Becomes suspicious of Talleyrand and Fouché – Fouché endeavours, without the knowledge of Napoleon, to ascertain the Views of England with respect to Peace – His Plan is defeated by a singular collision with a similar one of Napoleon – and Fouché is sent away as Governor-General of Rome – His Moral and Political Character – Murmurings of the People against the Austrian Alliance – Continental System – Ignorance of Napoleon of the Actual Political Feelings of Great Britain – The License System – Louis Buonaparte – Endeavours in vain to defend Holland from the Effects of the Continental System – He abdicates the Throne, and retires to Gratz in Styria – Holland is annexed to the French Empire.

Since Buonaparte obtained, in 1804, the absolute rule of the French Republic, a change had been gradually taking place in his principles of government, and in the character of the statesmen whom he employed as his ministers and advisers. For the first two years, and more, he had governed on the principle of a limited monarch, who avails himself of the best talents he can find among his subjects, and shows a deference to those who are distinguished, either for the political part which they have performed, or the share they possess in the good opinion of the public. Among his advisers at this period, we find many of the leading men of the Revolution; persons who, though they had been induced, from various motives, to see the rise of Napoleon with equanimity, and even to aid him, then their equal, in his attempt to climb to supreme power, yet still remembered in what relation he and they had originally stood to each other. In counselling an Emperor, these statesmen did it with the more freedom, that they remembered a period when they were on a level with him, nay, perhaps, when they stood a good deal higher.

This period of his reign, during which Napoleon suffered the wild and powerful flights of his own ambition to be, in some degree, restrained and directed by the judgment of others, formed the most laudable and useful certainly, if not the most brilliant part of his career. But, gradually as his power became augmented and consolidated, the Emperor began to prefer that class of complaisant ministers, who would rather reflect his own opinions, prefaced with additional recommendations and arguments, than less courteously attempt to criticise and refute them.

The history of Napoleon justifies, or at least excuses him, for falling into this natural error. He felt, and justly, that he was the sole projector of his gigantic plans, and also, in a great measure, the agent who carried them through; and he was led to believe, that, because he did so much, he might as well do the whole. The schemes which he had himself originally formed, were executed by his own military genius; and thus it seemed as if the advice of counsellors, so indispensable to other princes, might be unnecessary to a sovereign who had shown himself all-sufficient alike in the cabinet and in the field. Yet this, though a plausible, was a delusive argument, even though it appeared to be borne out by the actual fact. It may be true, that in Buonaparte's councils, few measures of consequence were suggested by his ministers, and that he himself generally took the lead in affairs of importance. But still it was of great consequence that such plans, having been proposed, should be critically weighed, and canvassed by men of too much experience to be deceived by appearances, and too much courage to be prevented from speaking their mind. The advice of such men as Talleyrand and Fouché, operated as a restraint upon schemes hastily adopted, or opinionatively maintained; and their influence, though unseen and unheard, save in the Imperial cabinet, might yet be compared to the keel of a vessel, which, though invisible, serves to steady her among the waves, and regulate the force by which she is propelled by her swelling canvass; or to the pendulum of a time-piece, which checks and controls the mainspring of the machinery. Yet, though Buonaparte must have been sensible of these advantages, he was still more accessible to the feelings of jealousy, which made him suspect that these statesmen were disposed rather to establish separate interests for themselves in the government and nation, than to hold themselves completely dependent on the Imperial authority.

The character of both Talleyrand and Fouché, indeed, authorised some such suspicion. They had been distinguished in the French Revolution before Napoleon's name had been heard of, were intimately acquainted with all the springs which had moved it, and retained, as Buonaparte might suspect, the inclination, and even the power, to interfere at some possible state-crisis more effectually than accorded with his views of policy. He had gorged them indeed with wealth; but, if he consulted his own bosom, he might learn that wealth is but an indifferent compensation for the loss of political power. In a word, he suspected that the great services which Talleyrand rendered him with regard to foreign relations, and Fouché as minister of police, were calculated to raise them into necessary and indispensable agents, who might thus become, to a certain degree, independent of his Authority. He doubted, moreover, that they still kept up relations with a political society called Philadelphes, consisting of old republicans and others, of different political creeds, but who were united in their views of obtaining some degree of freedom, either by availing themselves of such slender means of restraint as the constitution, so carefully purged of every means of opposing the Imperial will, might yet afford, or by waiting for some disaster befalling Napoleon which might render their voice potential.49

The suspicions with which Buonaparte regarded his ministers did not rest on vague conjecture. While he was in Spain, he received information, appearing to indicate that a party was forming itself in the Legislative Assembly, the bond connecting which was opposition to the Imperial will. That body voted, it must be remembered, by ballot; and great was the surprise and alarm of the assembly, when black balls, disapproving a measure suggested to their consideration by government, were counted to the number of an hundred and twenty-five, being a full third of the members present.50

An official note, dated from Valladolid, 4th December, instantly recalled the presumptuous dissentients to a sense that the power of rejecting the laws laid before them in the Emperor's name, which they had attempted thus boldly to exercise, was only intrusted to them for show, but was meant to contain no really effectual power of control. The words of Napoleon, the friend, as has been pretended, of liberal institutions, are well worthy of remark. "Our evils," he said, "have arisen in part from an exaggeration of ideas, which has tempted the Legislative Body to consider itself as representing the nation; an idea which is chimerical and even criminal, since implying a claim of representation which is vested in the Emperor alone. The Legislative Body ought to be called the Legislative Council – it does not possess the right of making laws, since it has not the right of propounding them. In the constitutional hierarchy, the Emperor, and the ministers his organs, are the first representatives of the nation. If any other pretensions, pretending to be constitutional, should pervert the principles of our monarchical constitution, every thing is undone."51

This is all very intelligible, and shows that in principle, if not in practice, the monarchical constitution of France rested upon the same basis of despotism which supports the monarchical constitution of Constantinople, where the Ulemats, or men of law, have an ostensible title to resist the Grand Signior's edicts, and are only exposed to the penalty of being pounded to death in a mortar, should they presume to exercise it. Yet, a member of the French Legislative Body might have been pardoned for being inquisitive on two subjects. 1st, He might wish to know, if that body, chosen by the people, though indeed not directly, did not represent their electors, whom was it that they did represent? 2dly, What was their real authority in the state, since they were not to enjoy the power of rejecting the overtures which the constitution contended should be laid before them, before they were passed into laws?

Buonaparte entertained strong suspicion that this recalcitrating humour, so suddenly testified by so complaisant an assembly, must have had the countenance of Talleyrand and of Fouché. So soon as he returned to Paris, therefore, he sounded the latter minister on the revolt in the Legislative Body, and desired his opinion on the sort of measures by which he had repressed it. Fouché had been too long a spy upon the private thoughts of others, to be capable of the weakness of betraying his own. He expatiated, in a tone of panegyric, on the decisive tone of the official note, affirmed that this was the only way to govern a kingdom, and added, that if any constitutional body arrogated the right of national representation, the sovereign had no choice but instantly to dissolve it. "If Louis XVI. had acted thus," said the minister, "he might have been alive, and King of France at this day." Astonished at the zeal and promptitude of this reply, Buonaparte looked for an instant with wonder at his minister, who thus avouched sentiments so different from those which had governed the earlier part of his political life. "And yet, Duke of Otranto," said the Emperor to the ex-jacobin, "methinks you were yourself one of those whose voices sent Louis XVI. to the scaffold?" – "I was," answered the supple statesman, without confusion or hesitation; "and it was the first service which I had the honour to render to your Majesty."52– This courtly answer saved the minister for the moment; but Napoleon did not the less continue to see in Fouché an object of suspicion and apprehension, whose power, owing to his having been so long at the head of the police, was immense; whose duplicity was unfathomable, and who evinced many indications of desiring to secure some separate individual authority, either by being too necessary to be dismissed, or too formidable to be offended.

Fouché himself has, indeed, admitted, that he endeavoured to regulate the duties of his office, so as to secure as much power to himself as possible, and was anxious, out of a desire of popularity, as well as from respect for the virtue which he did not himself possess, to execute those duties with the least possible harm to individuals. His mode of transacting business with the Emperor was thus characteristically described by himself. A person of rank, one of the détenus, desirous of escaping from the durance in which he was confined, had been fortunate enough to engage the interest of Fouché in his behalf. He had received more than one intimation from this statesman, that his passport would certainly be granted, but still it never received the Imperial signature; and Fouché, who began to fear that his own sincerity might be called in question, commenced one morning, in the presence of our informer, and of one of the distinguished generals of the empire, the following oblique explanation of the cause of his failure. "You no doubt think yourself a brave man?" said he, addressing the general. – "Bah!" replied the other, entering in to the same vein of raillery – "Brave? brave as an hundred lions." – "But I," continued the statesman, "am much braver than you. Look you, I desire some favour, the liberation of a friend, or the like; I watch the happy moment of access, select the moment of persuasion, am insinuating – eloquent – at length, by argument or importunity, I am successful. Next day, the paper which should ratify the boon which I had requested, is rejected when offered, torn perhaps, or flung beneath a heap of petitions and supplications. Now, herein is displayed my courage, which consists in daring again and again to recommence the unacceptable suit, and, what is perhaps the last verge of audacity, to claim it as a promise, which, being once pledged, can only be redeemed by specific performance." In this confession we read the account of a minister, still possessing influence, but declining in favour, and already become the object of his sovereign's jealousy; to whose personal request a favour cannot be decently refused, although a promise, reluctantly conceded to importunity, is willingly forgotten, or at length tardily and disobligingly granted.

Standing on these terms with a master at once watchful and jealous, we cannot be surprised at the audacity of Fouché, who feared not to affect a sort of independence, by anticipating the desires of Napoleon in the public service, and even in the Imperial family. A striking instance of the last occurred in his intrigue with Josephine on the subject of the divorce;53 and perhaps it was his escape out of that former involvement,54 without loss of power or credit, which urged him to a second interference of a more public and national character, by which he endeavoured to sound the possibility of accomplishing a peace with England.

We may discover more than one motive for Fouché's proceeding in this most important business without either the knowledge or consent of Napoleon. He was aware that his master might have rendered it, in his way of treating, impossible even at starting, to discover on what terms Great Britain would conclude peace, by stating as preliminaries certain concessions which it was probable would not be granted, but from which, once stated, Napoleon could not himself recede. If, therefore, Fouché could find some secret mode of ascertaining upon what terms a treaty with England might really be obtained, he was doing a service to France, to Britain, to Napoleon himself, and to the world. It is not the Duke of Otranto, however, in particular, whom we would expect to incur disgrace, and even personal hazard, on mere public grounds. But, besides the pleasure which those who have long engaged in political intrigues find in carrying them on, until the habit becomes as inveterate as that of the gambler, we can see that Fouché might reasonably propose to himself an important accession of influence by the success of such a negotiation. If he could once acquire a knowledge of the price at which Napoleon might obtain that peace for which the world sighed in vain, he would become possessed of an influence over public opinion, both at home and abroad, which could not but render him a person of extreme importance; and if he was able to become the agent in turning such knowledge to advantage, and negotiating such an important treaty, he might fix himself even on Napoleon, as one of those ministers frequently met with in history, whom their sovereign may have disliked, but could not find means to dismiss.

Acting upon such motives, or on others which we can less easily penetrate, Fouché anxiously looked around, to consider what concessions France might afford to make, to soothe the jealousy of England; trusting it would be possible to come to some understanding with the British Ministry, weakened by the loss of Mr. Canning, and disheartened by the defeats sustained by the Spanish patriots, and the sinister event of the Walcheren expedition. The terms which he would have been willing to have granted, comprehended an assurance of the independence of the two kingdoms of Holland and Spain (as if such a guarantee could have availed any thing while these kingdoms had for sovereigns the brothers of Napoleon, men reigning as his prefects, and, we shall presently see, subject to removal at his pleasure,) together with the acknowledgment of the Sicilian monarchy in the present King, and that of Portugal in the House of Braganza. M. Ouvrard, a gentleman who had been permitted to go to London on commercial business, was employed by Fouché to open this delicate and furtive negotiation with the Marquis of Wellesley. But the negotiation was disconcerted by a singular circumstance.55

The idea of endeavouring to know on what terms peace could be obtained, had occurred to Napoleon as well as to Fouché; and the sovereign, on his part, unsuccessful as he had been on two occasions in his attempt to open a personal correspondence with the King of England, had followed the steps of his minister, in making M. Labouchère, a commercial person, agent of a great Dutch mercantile establishment, the medium of communication with the British Government. The consequence was, that Ouvrard, and the agent of the Emperor, neither of whom knew of the other's mission, entered about the same time into correspondence with the Marquis Wellesley, who, returned from his Spanish mission, was now secretary at war. The British statesman, surprised at this double application, became naturally suspicious of some intended deception, and broke off all correspondence both with Ouvrard and his competitor for the office of negotiator.56

Napoleon must naturally have been so highly incensed with Fouché for tampering without his consent57 in a matter of such vital consequence, that one is almost surprised to find him limiting the effects of his resentment to disgracing the minister. He sent for Fouché [June 2,] and having extorted from him an avowal of his secret negotiation, he remarked, "So, then, you make peace or war without my leave?"58 The consequence was, that the Duke of Otranto was deprived of his office of minister of police, in which he was succeeded by Savary; and he was shortly after sent into a species of honourable exile, in the character of Governor-general of Rome.59 It cost Buonaparte no little trouble to redeem from the clutches of his late minister the confidential notes which he had himself written to him upon affairs of police. For a long time Fouché pretended that he had consigned these important documents to the flames; and it was not until he had before his eyes the alternative of submission or a dungeon, that he at length delivered up the Imperial warrants, containing, no doubt, much that would have been precious to history. Dismissed at present from the stage, we shall again meet with this bold statesman at other periods of our history, when, as is observed of some kinds of sea-fowl, his appearance seldom failed to announce danger and tempest.

The character of Fouché, in point of principle or morality, could scarcely be accounted even tolerable; but he had high talents, and in many points the soundness of his judgment led him to pursue and recommend moderate and beneficent measures, out of policy, if not from a higher motive. On other accounts, also, many of the French had some partiality to him; especially those who cast their eyes backward upon their national history, and regretted the total loss of that freedom, so eagerly longed for, so briefly possessed, and which they could never be properly said to have enjoyed; and to the recovery of which, in part at least, Fouché was understood to be favourable as far as he could or dared. The remnant of the sterner Republicans might despise him as a time server, yet they respected him, at the same time, as a relic of the Revolution, and on different occasions experienced his protection. To the Royalists also he had been courteous, and so decidedly so, as encouraged one of the boldest agents of the Bourbons to penetrate to his presence, and endeavour to bring him over to the cause of the exiled family. Fouché dismissed him, indeed, with a peremptory refusal to listen to his proposal; but he did not deliver him to the police, and he allowed him twenty-four hours to leave the kingdom. These various feelings occasioned to many, alarm and regret at the dismissal of the Duke of Otranto.