A Journal for Western Man-- Issue IV
Part IV
G. Stolyarov II
The Second Italian Campaign continued into 1801, during which the armies of Massenat and Soult managed to obtain from Melas the control of a vast region of Italy ranging from Genoa to Naples. The following year, Austria affirmed in the Treaty of Luneville the French gains from Campoformio five years earlier. "In 1802 the English and German states were tired of fighting and signed the Peace Treaty of Amiens. It was the first time since 1792 that France was at peace with the whole world." ("A Paper on Napoleon." Norfolk Academy, VA, 3). The First Consul was now free to concentrate on bringing about an era of prosperity that would affect the world for ages to come. "'It was Napoleon's function in history to fuse the old France with the new,' H.A.L. Fisher observed. Napoleon declared that he wanted 'to cement peace at home by anything that could bring the French together and provide tranquility within families.' Like Mirabeau, Napoleon didn't see an incompatibility between the Revolution and monarchy. Napoleon did what the Bourbon King could not-- reconcile the elements of the monarchy with the elements of the Revolution-- which was the failed goal of Mirabeau in 1790. Napoleon was largely successful in attracting men from all parties-- from ex-Jacobins to ci-devant nobles-- to his government. Signing the Concordat (15 July 1801) allowed Napoleon to reconcile the religious differences which had torn France apart during the Revolution. (At the same time the Concordat insured religious freedom. It recognized Catholicism as the religion of the majority of the French, but it did not make it an 'established' religion as the Church of England was in Britain. Protestants and Jews were allowed to practice their religions and retain their civic rights.) A general amnesty signed by Napoleon (26 April 1802) allowed all but one thousand of the most notorious émigrés to return to France. These two actions helped to bring relative tranquility to those areas of France which had long been at war with the Revolution." (Holmberg, 4). Napoleon also abolished slavery in all territories under French control as a result of a slave rebellion in Haiti, which threatened French possessions in the Caribbean. However, even when the rebels were granted the civil rights of French citizens, a radical clique, led by the power-hungry Haitian governor, Toussaint L'Overture, refused to lay down their arms. Napoleon was forced to send a military expedition to the island that captured the subversive and imprisoned him (which was rather lenient, considering the atrocities that L'Overture committed against white Frenchmen who resided in Haiti). L'Overture died behind bars in 1804, this episode having concluded the last internal resistance to Napoleon's abolition of slavery. As was mentioned earlier by Tom Holmberg, Napoleon detested civil inequalities and pledged to ban forced servitude in any nation that came under his control. The Ancien Regime (i.e. Ancient Regime) in the remainder of Europe had bound millions of peasants to their land in intolerable servitude to a wealthy luxury class born into their positions. Of Napoleon Tom Holmberg writes, "...he promoted equality and opened all careers to those with talent.’Risen to the throne,' Chateaubriand wrote, 'he seated the people there beside him. A proletarian king, he humiliated kings and nobles in his antechamber. He leveled ranks not by lowering but by raising them.'" This he wished to occur in all European nations. Although he was practically oriented, he used his realistic insight to materialize goals of tolerance and meritocracy outlined for him by the writings of his philosophical idol, Voltaire. To celebrate his subjects' talents, he founded the Legion of Honor. To ensure that more of them became talented he transformed education into a "free, compulsory, and secular" institution. (Internal Achievements of Napoleon [http://www.csi.cc.id.us/Support/itc/102/tsld025.htm]). He also permitted the former French serfs to gain ownership of the land they cultivated. Napoleon abolished the draft, as he despised the concept of forced servitude. Due to the nearly divine standing to which the populace had elevated him, he never had the need to worry about troop shortages in his Grande Armée. He also reformed measurements and currency so as to achieve his dream of a universal standard by which those two concepts could be approached. The new franc was established and with it, the National Bank of France to assist in proliferating this monetary unit over the varying and inconsistent provincial systems. The Système Internationale (metric system) was also devised to abandon the Medieval methods of measuring relative to the bodily dimensions of King Henry II (of Britain!). The SI, a symbol of the new meritocracy, was spread to all the lands under Napoleon's control, his subjects becoming grateful for obtaining a coherent method of measurement. The First Consul even acted to such an extent as to standardize road traffic (for that time, horse-drawn carriages and other wheeled vehicles) by mandating driving on the right side of the road. During the Ancien Regime, it was customary that the nobility would travel along the left while the pedestrian sans-culottes were bombarded with dust from the carriage wheels while walking on the right. The old system was ludicrous, since it did not permit for two-way traffic in addition to augmenting social differences. The new standard, however, was well-received by nobles and middle-classmen alike. It soon spread to all the nations of the world with the sole exception of Britain, Napoleon's archenemy. But to check Britain Napoleon devised another solution that simultaneously assisted him in gaining much-needed money for the war effort (Britain renewed hostilities in the fall of 1803). To his ally, the United States (Napoleon was a close friend of President Thomas Jefferson, a former ambassador to France and a fellow disciple of Voltaire), the First Consul sold the Louisiana Purchase, which granted him the funds that sustained the Grande Armée for the next ten years while bestowing upon the U.S.A. territory without which subsequent American expansion, exploration, and technological developments would not have taken place. The Americans did not forget the generosity of their ideological partner overseas. Following one decade, during the War of 1812, they provided for a second front to occupy the crack British troops while Napoleon beat back the Allies in Europe (As a matter of fact, the Coalition was only able to defeat France after the conflict in North America ended).
However, Napoleon's greatest reform of the Consulate Period was the creation of a universal system of laws that replaced contradictory and antiquated provincial policies. The Code Civil (more commonly known as the Code Napoleon) was compiled, ratified, and signed under the First Consul's direction. From 1800 to 1804 a commission of jurors worked tirelessly on this project. Finally, in March of 1804, the new laws went into effect. Finally the Reign of Terror had truly come to an end since Frenchmen were now granted the ability to locate and learn all the government's policies and thus ensure that they were not acting contrary to them. "The Code Napoleon represented a compromise between the customary law of northern France and Roman law of the South. It also compromised both the ideas of the French Revolution and older ideas from the south of France that used the old Roman Law. This new code gave liberty to the people, but kept such ideas as the system of inheritance." (Code Napoleon [http://www.cp.duluth.mn.us/~tmcs/CODENAPo.htm]). It was this consolidation of concepts that helped secure the progress made by the Revolution without collapsing the structures needed to maintain order and stability. Thus it seemed optimal for Napoleon to spread this change so that it would benefit his non-French subjects.
The people, realizing that they have at last fallen under the control of a benefactor instead of a tyrant, wished to prolong their Age of Enlightenment (for Napoleon's system closely mirrored the dreams of earlier philosophers). They elected Napoleon to be First Consul for life in 1802, but their gratitude extended even further. On May 19, 1804, the Senate called for a popular election to decide whether to reward Napoleon's accomplishments by granting him the title, Emperor of the French. Once again, the decision was nearly unanimous. Soldiers, civilians, nobles, bourgeoisie, and proletarians alike selected the best as their sovereign ruler. In a grand ceremony in the Notre Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804, the First Consul was crowned Emperor Napoleon I. He lifted his headdress of power off the Pope's hands and onto his head, afterward proceeding to crown his wife, Josephine. Thus the French Empire came into existence.
Having obtained a hold on such tremendous power, Napoleon I possessed the wisdom to entrust some of it to his most devoted followers. He established the rank "Marshal of France" and rewarded with it the most highly distinguished generals in the Grande Armée. Ney, Murat, Davoust, Berthier, Soult, Grouchy, Jourdain, Massenat, and others provided the competence necessary to implement Napoleon's ingenious tactics on the battlefield. The Emperor also divided his domain into manageable districts, each of them controlled by a trusted relative. For example, Joseph Bonaparte became King of Spain, Louis was crowned King of Holland, Jerome-- the King of Westphalia, Eliza-- the Duchess of Tuscany. Joachim Murat, who was married to Napoleon's sister, Caroline, became the King of Naples, having subsequently acquired fame for leading his courageous Neapolitan dragoons and hussars into daring cavalry attacks. Napoleon's new order would soon face baptism by fire. Austria and Russia entered the war in early 1805, and Prussia was on the verge of siding with them.