Citizen Emperor

by Philip Dwyer

  The second was political, was much more subtle and went hand in hand with the regime’s consolidation of power. It consisted of giving the country an overarching narrative the French could believe in. The narrative too was centred on Bonaparte’s person. At the end of their first meeting at the Luxembourg Palace, the provisional consuls adopted a proclamation to the French people that perpetuated the myth of the Directorial government about to collapse into general chaos and the arrival of a new government that was to bring everything back to order.29 A few days later, Bonaparte declared in the Moniteur, ‘I refused to be the man of one faction.’30 He thus portrayed himself as outside the circle of conspirators; they had come to him as a man above the political infighting, a theme Bonaparte had exploited ever since his days in Italy in 1796–7 and which he would constantly hammer home over the coming weeks and months. The formula used to express this – ‘neither red bonnets nor red heels’ (ni bonnet rouge, ni talon rouge)31 – epitomized the Brumairians’ desire to be done once and for all with the bloody power struggles that had characterized the Revolution. At the time, this approach was referred to as the ‘fusion between different parties’.32 Bonaparte was thus portrayed as the man who could restore order after chaos.33

  This was smart politics, although it was not the first time a revolutionary government had attempted to steer a middle course between royalism and Jacobinism. It had been the approach adopted after the fall of Robespierre, but the then government failed to find a balance. The Brumairians represented too narrow a base upon which to construct a new regime and therefore had to appeal to wider sections of French society. Bonaparte was able to do this because he was prepared to work with anybody, no matter what their past, as long as they were willing to support the regime, a radical departure from previous revolutionary governments.34 In the process, he weakened the Jacobin and royalist factions from whence these people came.35 In reality, there were very few regicides and few declared royalists among Bonaparte’s collaborators, but one should not dismiss his willingness to work with all-comers as political opportunism. Behind the rhetoric was a real desire to carry out social and political reforms that would heal the rifts brought about by the Revolution, and to attract to him men whose political opinions had a short time before made them enemies of the state.36

  Anonymous, La France avant le 18 Brumaire de l’an VIII (France before 18 Brumaire in the Year VIII), 1800. The caption reads: ‘Grieving, destitute of everything, driven by despair and discord, France is revived by hope and delivered by Bonaparte into the hands of peace. Time traces that happy day into the annals of history.’

  It is clear what Bonaparte was doing in the weeks after Brumaire, and he appears to have been fully aware of it at the time. He was sending a message – the new regime was different. It was prepared to go a long way to heal the rifts, but at the same time it would no longer tolerate political extremes. In doing so, Bonaparte was saying to the French political elite, ‘despair of relying on yourselves and rely only on me’.37 There were to be no more factions, Jacobins, terrorists or moderates. There were only Frenchmen.38 Bonaparte’s political programme was outlined in a newspaper article, which he probably wrote himself, and which appeared in the Ami des Lois on 6 December 1799. Relying on ‘liberal ideas’, he intended embellishing the Republic, fixing mistakes, relying on political and religious tolerance and overlooking past insults.39

  ‘Do You Want to be King?’

  Sieyès was aware that by bringing Bonaparte into the conspiracy he risked losing control. It had been a risk he was prepared to run. The struggle for supremacy had begun almost as soon as the two men met, and could end only with one being victorious and the other eliminated as a political force.40 Over the coming weeks, power became centred on Bonaparte who, by the strength of his character, gained ground little by little. In the course of the meeting in the Luxembourg Palace between the three provisional consuls the morning after the coup, Bonaparte managed to get himself nominated as president of the provisional Consulate. We do not know exactly how this happened; only much later did Napoleon claim he simply took over the presidency, but one cannot place too much store in that assertion.41 Accounts have the third provisional consul, Roger Ducos, who had been Sieyès’ man up to this point, recognize Bonaparte’s ascendancy by declaring, ‘General, it is pointless voting on the presidency, it belongs to you by right.’42 Sieyès apparently made a grimace but was obliged to concede. In an astute move, however, Bonaparte suggested that each preside for twenty-four hours at a time under the title of ‘Consul of the day’ (Consul du jour).43 Since Bonaparte was first in alphabetical order, his name appeared before the other two consuls on the orders issued that day.

  Whatever happened, in the struggle between Sieyès and Bonaparte for pre-eminence Bonaparte won the first round. Rotating the presidency was a feint that signalled his determination to be seen as humble, as someone upon whom power had been thrust, as a reluctant leader who assumed the mantle of office only because of the grave dangers confronting France.44 Besides, there were a number of advantages in being president that first day. His signature appeared foremost on the proclamations issued that very evening, giving the impression that he was in charge. More importantly, he presided over the meeting that decided on the new ministers.45 Despite the image one may have of a Bonaparte presiding alone over the reforming period that was the Consulate, he was in fact surrounded by talented men without whom neither the nature nor the extent of his reforms would have been as impressive.

  The most pressing issue was a new constitution. When the conspirators had become involved in the coup, many believed Sieyès already had one in his pocket. Antoine Boulay de la Meurthe, another prominent Brumairian, claimed that when he approached Sieyès the morning after the coup and said to him, ‘I have reason to believe, and it is the general opinion, that you have a constitution all ready,’ Sieyès replied, ‘I have a few ideas in my mind, but nothing is written, and I have neither the time nor the patience to write one.’46 As the self-flaunted expert on constitutions he was nevertheless expected to produce one. Sieyès set to work over the coming days, dictating his ideas to Boulay de la Meurthe.47 In one of his drafts, there was a Senate, a Tribunate and a Legislative Corps, as well as two consuls, one for domestic and one for foreign affairs, over which a Grand Elector would preside, a pet idea that he had been harbouring since 1795. The Grand Elector, a position earmarked for Bonaparte, was meant to oversee the executive branch but without real power; he would intervene only if a conflict arose within the executive. When Bonaparte was presented with this plan in what proved to be a stormy meeting on 1 December, he turned to Sieyès and said, ‘Have I heard you correctly? Are you proposing a position where I will name those who are given something to do, while I am allowed to do nothing?’48 For practical as well as personal reasons, Bonaparte rejected the whole idea, calling the Grand Elector ‘a pig fattened by a few millions’, a reference to the wealth the Elector was meant to avail himself of as representative of the nation.49 Sieyès is supposed to have shot back at Bonaparte, ‘Do you want to be king, then?’50 The quip was more prescient than Sieyès could ever have imagined.

  ‘Blood will Flow Up to your Knees’

  Bonaparte naturally wanted a strong executive. Sieyès was very wary of giving him one. We can pass over the turgid details of their struggle around the Constitution,51 except to say that the meetings that took place over this two-week period were a learning process for Bonaparte in which he observed and studied those about him. On balance, he was in a world with which he was not familiar and in which he was still ill at ease. He was pitting himself against men more politically experienced and more articulate than he.

  We have a number of different but not incompatible accounts of Bonaparte’s behaviour during this period. According to one, when people resisted his idea of a strong executive, he got angry, stamped his feet and even accused the legislators of wanting to start a civil war. ‘Blood will flow up to your knees!’ he is supposed to have said.
52 This sort of bullying tactic was in keeping with Bonaparte’s character, although he was for the moment restrained, especially in comparison with later years. When he did lose his temper, however, he would almost immediately manage to control himself and become more conciliatory.53 Another depiction has him listening at meetings without saying much, expressing his frustration and boredom either by vandalizing the arm of his chair with a pocketknife or doodling on pieces of paper that he would scrunch up and throw away.54 Another portrayal has him wearing down Sieyès and his faction by drawing things out. What Bonaparte could not win through force of argument and logic, he won through physical stamina. After several nights’ discussion, the fifty commissioners who had been assembled to debate the Constitution would succumb to tiredness in the face of a young, determined and indefatigable Bonaparte.

  These discussions culminated in a meeting on 12 December in Bonaparte’s apartments at the Luxembourg Palace, during which the final draft was read out and adopted. Many of the principles embodied in Sieyès’ draft Constitution were approved. The Constitution of the Year VIII, as it was called, divided the French legislature into three bodies – the Tribunate (100 members), the Legislative Corps (300 members) and the Senate (80 members), to be housed in the Luxembourg Palace. There were no elections; deputies were simply appointed from the existing Council of Five Hundred and Council of Elders. There was a conscious effort to take the people out of the political process so that the ‘ignorant classes’ could no longer exercise any influence.55 The Tribunate was meant to be a forum in which bills, referred to it by a Council of State (an advisory body that more or less filled the same role as the Royal Council), were discussed but not voted on. It was the task of the Legislative Corps to vote on the bills, but without discussion. The Senate acted as a kind of Supreme Court and nominated the members of the two lower houses, a third force, controlling the other two legislative bodies.56 Anyone familiar with Roman history could see the parallels, and certainly some did not believe Bonaparte would be content for long with the role of consul.57

  That same day, the election of the executive took place. Three new consuls were to reign for a period of ten years, but one would have more power than the other two. The story goes that a large urn was placed on a table and slips of paper were given to each of the fifty commissioners who wrote down the names of their choice. During the vote, Bonaparte leant against a fireplace for warmth. The counting was just about to begin when Bonaparte approached the table, turned towards Sieyès and said: ‘Instead of counting them, let us give a new testimony of gratitude to Citizen Sieyès by giving him the right to designate the three first public officers of the Republic, and agree that those he designates would have been the same as those we have just nominated.’58

  It was an incredible development. Bonaparte probably did not fear the surprises a secret ballot may have hidden. The public expected him to become First Consul, and nothing suggests that the commissioners would have voted otherwise.59 Possibly a number of commissioners had intended, as a form of protest, to direct their votes for Third Consul to a liberal by the name of Pierre Daunou. Bonaparte, on the other hand, wanted a show of unanimity and offered Sieyès the semblance of political primacy by allowing him to nominate the three consuls. Sieyès consequently declared that Bonaparte should be First Consul, and that Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun, both Bonaparte’s choices, should be Second and Third.60 Bonaparte had consulted widely that day about the choice of Second and Third Consuls and had settled on these two men, the first a revolutionary who had voted for the death of the king and the second a representative of the ancien régime.61 At eleven o’clock that evening, he tossed the unopened voting slips into the fireplace.62

  The choice of the other two consuls falls within Bonaparte’s desire to appear above factions. The most important was the forty-seven-year-old minister of justice, Cambacérès, a small man who stammered and made ‘singular’ movements of his head when talking,63 a charismatic lawyer with a revolutionary past who can be seen with his chin jutting out bearing the hand of justice in Jacques-Louis David’s later painting of Napoleon’s coronation as emperor. He was, however, one of those loyal bureaucrats upon whom the Empire would later be founded, widely respected for his competence and hard work, and for his knowledge of judicial matters. As a member of the National Convention, he had voted for the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 and was, consequently, one of the rare regicides to occupy high office in the Consulate, eventually becoming arch-chancellor and the second most important person in the Empire. The appointment of someone with such a strong revolutionary past was a concession to the republicans, but Bonaparte also considered him a ‘consummate businessman’ full of experience and moderation.64 Cambacérès, greatly neglected by history, was going to play a considerable role in consolidating Bonaparte’s hold on power.65

  The choice of the Third Consul was a little more difficult. After talking to a number of people, Bonaparte decided on the sixty-year-old Lebrun, a specialist in finance whose reputation predated the Revolution. As a member of the Estates General in 1789, he had been a constitutional monarchist. What Cambacérès was to the republicans, Lebrun was to the royalists. ‘A grand and noble old man’ was how one contemporary described him, with ‘abundant thick white hair artistically curled, a pale, uniform complexion, a long face, obstinate, eyes sunken and covered, a false expression’.66 Like Cambacérès, he was an efficient bureaucrat, discreet and honest, who played an important role in the financial recovery of France under the Consulate.

  A Regime of ‘Servitude and Silence’

  Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve, the provisional consuls held their last meeting, and the three new consuls were officially recognized. The situation had radically changed for Bonaparte over the last month. As First Consul, he now had extensive powers. He could propose laws, direct finances and undertake the necessary measures to protect the state if it were threatened, and he was in charge of foreign affairs and the army. No deliberation with the other two consuls was necessary. He could name and dismiss his ministers, something which he took advantage of immediately.

  He made his brother Lucien minister of the interior, a reward for playing a key role during the coup. Lazare Carnot, dubbed the Organizer of Victory during the early years of the revolutionary wars, was named minister of war. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, apostate bishop, nicknamed the diable boiteux (‘lame devil’) because of a clubfoot, and the man most responsible for the nationalization of Church lands during the Revolution, was put in charge of foreign affairs, a post he had held during the Directory. The other ministers were maintained in office, but entirely subordinated to the will of the First Consul, something Lucien would learn painfully over the coming months. If Bonaparte was the military genius, Lucien saw himself as the civilian genius. The problem was, however, that while not without talent and a certain charm he had an inflated sense of self-importance and lacked a consistency in his views and his approach that quickly made him a liability to his brother.

  Almost immediately the legislature had been formed, a clash of wills occurred between Bonaparte and a clique within the Tribunate, alarmed at the amount of power he had managed to acquire.67 The first session of the Tribunate, held at the Palais Royal on 1 January 1800, is interesting for what it tells us about the men who had been chosen to fill the positions. The Palais Royal had once belonged to Louis XVI’s cousin, the Duc d’Orléans, and had been a site of political agitation in the early days of the Revolution, the place from which the crowds marched on the Bastille. In those surroundings, a deputy by the name of Honoré Duveyrier evoked the memory of the revolutionary journalist and politician Camille Desmoulins, warning Bonaparte that ‘If people talk of a fifteen-day idol, we should not forget that we have overthrown idols that have lasted fifteen centuries [a reference to the Bourbon monarchy].’68 Similarly, a few days later, the first bill presented to the legislature regulating the procedures by which laws were to be passed created alarm
among some of the deputies. The deputy, thinker and writer Benjamin Constant, for example, who already had a reputation for liberal ideas, was worried by the time limits that had been set the Tribunate to discuss laws and declared, ‘Without the independence of the Tribunate, there will be no harmony, no constitution, there will be nothing but servitude and silence; a silence that the whole of Europe will hear and judge.’69

  This kind of criticism found little echo either within the legislature or among the public. On the contrary, the day after Constant’s speech, a number of tribunes rose to defend the structure of the legislature. The rest of the country, carried on the swell of mounting popular support for Bonaparte, appeared outraged by the opposition. There was a social and political movement, characterized by an anti-democratic current, in favour of a strong executive. After all, Brumaire had been a conservative coup made up of politicians who were sympathetic to the idea.70 This includes the members of the Senate, where a much more vigorous voice in opposition could have developed, perhaps even an independent power capable of standing up to Bonaparte. As we shall see, however, the Senate was to become complicit in the personalization of Bonaparte’s power.

  A normal politician would have been content with majority support in the Tribunate and the press, but not Bonaparte. He had none of the skills traditionally associated with modern political leaders – parliamentary manoeuvring, a talent for oratory, a willingness to work behind the scenes – and was less than patient with the minority opposition. In the context of war abroad, and the social and political divisions brought about by the Revolution, there was no tolerance for politicians who did not rally. Bonaparte counter-attacked. Newspapers favourable to the government were used to print articles condemning the chambers and went so far as to suggest that the troublemakers be dismissed.71