Lefebvre Georges. Napoleon
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the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 114
to check the poverty-stricken elements that despair might otherwise have
driven to riot, as in 1789. ‘Decent’, law-abiding citizens drew no distinction
between starving mobs and felons, nor did the law of Year IX. Such must
have been Bonaparte’s wish surely, for according to Chaptal, he feared
nothing quite so much as a bread riot.
The establishment of the special courts, coming on the heels of the
proscription of the Jacobins, caused a good deal of concern among the
republicans in the assemblies. Debate in the Tribunate became very heated,
and a vote in the Corps Législatif resulted in eighty-eight ‘nays’ as against
192 ‘ayes’. No longer bearing any illusions about Bonaparte, the republicans
did not miss this opportunity to remonstrate. Nevertheless, one must do
them justice: these notables had favoured strong government, but not an
arbitrary one, and they were unable to regard these exceptional measures as
being any more consonant with principles under the Consulate than at the
time of the Convention under the Mountain. Bonaparte, however, would not
be blocked by any law, not even a constitutional one. Speaking before the
Conseil d’État in Year X, he came straight to the point: ‘A constitution must
not interfere with the process of government, nor be written in a way that
would force the government to violate it . . . Every day brings the necessity
to violate constitutional laws; it is the only way, otherwise progress would
be impossible.’ ‘Government does not have to be tyrannical . . . but it cannot
avoid committing certain arbitrary acts.’ Briefl y then, the Constitution was a
screen for enlightened despotism. Debates in the Tribunate also aroused
Bonaparte’s fury. ‘In the Tribunate are a dozen or so metaphysicians only fi t
for the garbage heap. They are vermin on my clothes. I am a soldier, a son of
the Revolution, and I will not tolerate being insulted like a king.’ The crisis
of Year IX thus rendered offi cial the breach between Bonaparte and the
republican bourgeoisie, which had carried him to power. But now he
wanted them to ratify the Concordat, and of all his projects, it was precisely
this one that they least approved.
This parliamentary opposition found no support in the rest of the country.
The various interest groups were satisfi ed, and peace and public order
favoured a resumption of business. A new bank of issue was created in Paris:
a commercial bank known as the Caisse Jabach. Notes issued by the Bank of
France and its rivals permitted speculators to dispose of currency in the
provinces where it stimulated the economy. A series of bad harvests brought
about an unprecedented increase in the price of agricultural products, and
so strengthened the buying power of the landowning peasantry or farmers.
After the defl ation, which had made them so unhappy under the Directory,
they were delighted with this windfall. They were grateful to the First Consul
115bonaparte consul for life
who exhibited, moreover, an avid interest in the national output, and so
they spared him no encouragements. An amelioration in the condition of
public fi nance was also becoming noticeable. The military conquests had
helped to lighten the burden on the budget, since the French armies were
now able to maintain themselves outside France. Taxes were being collected
regularly, and in Year X the budget actually revealed a small surplus of
receipts over expenditures. In large towns the tax on movable personal
property was gradually being replaced by municipal tolls ( octrois ), to the
satisfaction of the rich. As for taxes on landed property, a study was being
conducted to determine ways of arriving at a more equitable distribution of
the burden among the communes. Later, in Year XI, cadastral surveys of the
extent of cultivations, land boundaries and valuations of soil productivity
were undertaken in a number of communes in every département.
The state of the treasury continued to be a matter of concern. An attempt
was made to eliminate some of the middlemen ( faiseurs de services ) in the
ministry’s operations by creating, on 18 August 1802 (30 Thermidor,
Year X), an association or syndicate of receveurs généraux . The idea was to force
them to discount their own obligations, but the attempt failed. The notes
continued to be negotiated at a loss. For the public, however, the major
event was the liquidation of the debt. As in the time of the Directory, it was
achieved by means of bankruptcy. The highly depreciated ‘two-thirds’ bonds
issued in 1797 were freely exchangeable at one-twentieth of their face value
for consolidated government annuities bearing fi ve per cent interest, unless
the bearer chose to redeem them, as before, for payments in biens nationaux .
Bonds issued in Year VI and paper obligations in arrears were consolidated
into government bonds at three per cent and fi ve per cent interest with
extreme slowness. Still, creditors were happy that this enactment of
30 Ventôse, Year IX (21 March 1801), had at least brought them something;
but the main impression resulted from the resumption, at the end of Year
VIII, of the cash payments of government salaries and annuities. Purveyors
to the state continued to be paid at Bonaparte’s pleasure.
This is not to say that confi dence in French fi nances was fully restored. In
spite of manoeuvres on the part of the Sinking Fund, the value of govern-
ment bonds on the Bourse remained weak. After the Peace of Amiens, the
fi ve per cent French consolidated government bonds were quoted at forty-
eight to fi fty-three francs, while the three per cent British Consols fl uctuated
between sixty-six and seventy-nine. Still, if the bourgeoisie felt itself at the
mercy of any new crisis that might have arisen, it did not wish to precipitate
one by creating diffi culties for Bonaparte. The lower classes alone suffered.
After the harvest of Year VIII, the price of a four-pound loaf of bread rose to
the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 116
thirteen sous (sixty-fi ve centimes ) in Paris, and by 1801 the rise in prices
affected all commodities and so lessened the good feeling brought about by
the Treaty of Lunéville. The harvest of Year XI was quite poor, even in areas
of large-scale farming; during the course of that winter, bread rose to
eighteen sous in Paris, and as high as seven sous per pound in small towns and
the countryside – as much as in England. Brittany, no longer able to export,
remained the only exception.
In order to meet the crisis, Bonaparte turned to methods which had been
used by the ancien régime . The prefect of police reorganised the bakers along
corporate lines, and compelled them to set up a reserve granary. This resulted
in driving many small bakers out of business. On 17 November 1801
Chaptal was instructed to purchase grain abroad, but since the government
was short of money, it again became necessary to approach the bankers: fi ve
were commissioned to procure fi fty thousand quintals monthly. This turned
out to be insuffi cient, and in Floréal, Year X, Bonaparte brought the fi nancial
wizard Ouvrard out of disgrace and obtained his promise to do what was
necessary to relieve the situation. Success was such that Paris was kept
supplied, and the price of bread was maintained at eighteen sous . A million
quintals of grain and more were needed to do this, at a cost of over twenty-
two million francs; the grain was then resold at a loss of 15½ million francs
to the state. Outside the capital, the countryside was once again dotted with
familiar scenes: bands of beggars, requisitions on farmers, incendiarism and
raids on markets. That this agitation did not become so menacing as in
1789, when bread was almost as expensive, was due only to the absence of
political and social troubles and to the effi cient reorganisation of the repres-
sion that had just been introduced. Here, then, were the fruits of the law of
18 Pluviôse, Year IX. In any event, popular disturbances could only have
brought about a still closer attachment of the propertied classes to Bonaparte.
He became the bulwark of society. The crisis attained its height during the
summer of Year X, at the very moment that Bonaparte was preparing to
assume the Consulate for Life, and so served his purposes well.
THE CONCORDAT
In order to re-establish order once and for all, it was still essential that the
counter-revolution in France be disarmed, and Bonaparte had long consid-
ered that this could be done only through a reconciliation with the Roman
Church. The refractory clergy continued to be intractable. ‘Peace with the
non-juring clergy is not to be expected,’ wrote de Redon, one of the Consul’s
special commissioners.
117bonaparte consul for life
One might well ask what the future of France would have been had
Church and State remained separate? The Roman Catholics would not have
recognised the secular character of the state or liberty of conscience; at best,
they would have resigned themselves to tolerance at the price of a privileged
position. Only on these terms would they have agreed to disarm, at least
temporarily. And so Bonaparte decided to make the best of it. On 30
Thermidor, Year VIII (17 August 1800), in the presence of Roederer, he
began reproving those who ‘believe that the priests should be ignored as
long as they keep still, and arrested whenever they step out of line. It is as if
one were to say: You see these men with torches camped around your house?
Leave them be. If they set fi re to it, arrest them.’ What was to be done? ‘Win
the leaders over by appealing to their interests,’ but fi rst and foremost,
choose them well. ‘Fifty émigré bishops subsidised by England’, he would
later say to Thibaudeau, ‘are now running the French clergy. Their infl uence
must be destroyed, and to accomplish this requires the pope’s authority.’
This, then, was the reasoning behind the Concordat.
To call upon the pope to dismiss the French bishops, as Louis XIV had
once thought of doing, was tantamount to dealing a death blow to ecclesi-
astical Gallicanism, one of the oldest of French traditions. This tradition was
totally foreign to Bonaparte, whose sole interest was monarchical, not cler-
ical, Gallicanism. The only argument which might have moved him had
been Thibaudeau’s remark: ‘You will never truly win them over to the
Revolution.’ Bonaparte overrode this judgement. Like all others who had
invoked the assistance of the Roman Church, he believed himself strong
enough to keep it under his control.
Disarming the royalists by denying them the support of the clergy was
not the only advantage to be gained from the Concordat. Although there
was no issue of counter-revolutionary affection for the Bourbon cause, in
such newly acquired provinces as Belgium and the Rhineland, the support
of the local clergy was still much to be desired. These people had no national
political institutions, and their primary loyalties lay with their priesthood.
Consequently, to win over the priests was to win over their fl ocks. Another
point that did not escape Bonaparte’s attention was that even among
ardent supporters of the Revolution, there were many who retained
their ties with traditional religion and who deeply regretted the schism.
Would they not have covered with gratitude the man who would effect a
reconciliation, even an apparent one, between the Church and the principles
of 1789? And what possessor of Church lands would not have been
overjoyed to hear that the clergy had for ever renounced its attempts to
reclaim them?
the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 118
Bonaparte also foresaw an advantage to be reaped in the future. Wishing
to win the aristocracy and counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie to his side, he
could hardly ignore the religious renaissance they were now experiencing.
At the beginning of 1801 Father Delpuits-Bordier founded the Congrégation
de la Vierge, which was to acquire much renown; it was not long in attracting
such personages as Mathieu de Montmorency and his brother, as well as
Laënnec. Charitable congregations also began to reappear; they were readily
patronised by Chaptal in Paris, and certain prefects such as J.-A. de Bry in
Besançon. Religion was once again considered good form in society, and it
was refl ected in the literature of the day. Writers were delighted at the
opportunity to renew religious themes and give direction to the intellectual
fashion. Madame de Genlis, the self-styled ‘mother of the Church’, was
prolifi cally turning out her novels of virtue; Chateaubriand, sensing the
trend, was in the process of writing Le Génie du Christianisme , which would
appear on the eve of the Easter Te Deum of 1802 celebrating the conclusion
of the Concordat, and would prove the truth of Catholicism by its aesthetic
merits. Writers like Fontanes, who were more political in their thinking, saw
a good deal more deeply into the situation: restoration of the cult was
socially signifi cant in that it would support the new class division. And since
it was precisely Bonaparte’s intention to consolidate this class division, he
fully agreed with them. As he told Roederer and would later repeat to Molé,
‘There can be no society without material inequality, and there can be no
material inequality without religion. A starving man watching another stuff
himself cannot accede to their differences if there is no authority to tell him
“God wills it so”; the world must consist of rich and poor alike; but there
will come a day when for all eternity, man’s lot shall be decided differently.’
Fontanes, too, sharply observed that the government would also benefi t
from an agreement. ‘No religion, no government,’ he wrote to Lucien on
18 April 1801. ‘Successful conquerors have never quarrelled with priests.
They can be kept in check and made use of . . . One may laugh at the augurs
but it would be impolitic not to join them in eating the sacrifi cial birds.’
Although winning over the pope did not seem to be the most diffi cult of
tasks, it was really not an easy thing to do. While passing through Vercelli on
25 June 1800, Bonaparte had made overtures to Bishop Martiniana, who in
turn transmitted them to the pope in Rome. Pius VII was not the fi ghting
pope that his predecessor had been; he was a gentle soul and somewhat
weak-willed. Still, he baulked at making peace with the Revolution and
especially at abandoning the old episcopate who proclaimed that they had
sacrifi ced themselves for the pontiff. Then, too, there was the risk of alien-
ating Louis XVIII and the Catholic powers. In August 1800 the cardinals,
119bonaparte consul for life
who regarded the prospect of a concordat with little favour, declared the
oath of fi delity to the constitution illicit. It was a decision that Pius VI had
never dared to make, and which Pius VII wisely kept secret. On the other
hand, it seemed impossible to reject an offer so advantageous to the Church
and so profi table to the papacy. This last consideration was most assuredly a
weighty factor in its favour. In the fi rst place, the French army could still
come to Rome, and Pius VII distrusted both the Neapolitans who occupied
his capital and the Austrians who were still in possession of the Legations.
Secondly, by deposing the Gallican bishops, the pope would gain an unprec-
edented victory over Gallicanism.
This point having already been granted by Bonaparte for his own reasons,
Cardinal Spina left for Paris with instructions to demand, as a preliminary,
the restoration of Catholicism as the ‘dominant religion’. Arriving on
6 November, he immediately met with Abbé Bernier, Bonaparte’s negotiator.
The former spiritual leader of the Vendéans, Bernier had just crossed over to
Bonaparte’s camp in the fi rm hope of becoming archbishop of Paris and
being elevated to the offi ce of cardinal. Naturally the French proposals made
no mention of a state religion, but at Spina’s insistence, Bernier gave way
and Bonaparte saw no harm in it. There was a misunderstanding, however,
for Bonaparte had failed to realise the technical implications of such an
avowal. By calling Catholicism the state or dominant religion, he only
intended to confer on the Church an endowment and a privileged position
over all other sects. Talleyrand and Hauterive quickly opened Bonaparte’s
eyes to the fact that this would do away with such basic revolutionary gains
as the liberty of conscience and the secular character of the state. From then
on Bonaparte recognised Catholicism only as the religion of the majority of
Frenchmen, a position from which he refused to budge.
The other point of contention was that the non-juring French prelates
were to be forced to resign their dioceses. The pope, despite his scruples,
had too much at stake for Spina not to have fi nally ceded to Bonaparte’s
demands. If the negotiations dragged on, it was because the Curia was
awaiting the outcome of the war; but the occupation by the French armies
of the Legations and of Rome itself left no alternative but to yield. At the end
of February 1801 the tempo of the negotiations increased, and Bonaparte
sent Cacault to Rome to pursue the matter. Since the Curia procrastinated,
Bonaparte directed Cacault on 19 May to demand an unreserved acceptance
of the French terms and to break off negotiations in case of a refusal. The
cardinals had already rejected the French proposals, however, and Pius VII
had just sent the First Consul a letter suggesting certain modifi cations when
Cacault, returning to Paris, took it upon himself to bring Cardinal Consalvi,
the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 120
the papal secretary of state, back with him. Arriving on 2 June, Consalvi
proceeded to dispute the treaty article by article, but fi nally signed it on
16 July 1801 at two o’clock in the morning.
According to the terms of the Concordat, Catholicism was declared the
religion of the majority of the French people as well as that of the consuls.
It was further stipulated that should a non-Catholic accede to the head of the
government, negotiations would have to be opened for a new concordat.
The Church was to enjoy freedom of public worship, subject to certain
police restrictions which the temporal authority might deem necessary in
the interest of public safety. The state, for its part, agreed to pay salaries to
bishops and to as many parish priests as there were justices of the peace
(3,000–3,500 by the law of 8 Pluviôse, Year XI – 28 January 1801); it
authorised the restoration of cathedral chapters and diocesan seminaries,
without, however, being obliged to endow them; and it granted Catholics
permission to make pious foundations. The pope undertook to exhort
refractory bishops to renounce their sees, failing which he would dismiss
them. Bonaparte was to make identical demands of the constitutional clergy,
thus putting an end to the schisms. No mention was made of the monastic
orders, which, therefore, remained completely under the direct authority of
the pope. The power of the bishops was also considerably increased, in the
spirit of the Edict of 1695: they were given the right to appoint parish and
chapel priests – a privilege which they had not enjoyed under the ancien
régime . In return, Bonaparte obtained a new episcopate of his own choosing,
an oath of fi delity to be taken by the clergy, public prayers for the Republic
to be recited at the end of divine services, the promise of the Church not to
contest the sale of its confi scated lands, and to accept a redrawing of eccle-
siastical boundaries. Bishops were to be nominated by the First Consul and
canonically instituted by the pope. This was the essence of the matter for
Bonaparte: he believed that by controlling the bishops he would be control-
ling their priests and, fearing the refractory element, he preferred placing
the parish clergy under the thumb of the episcopate rather than watching
over them himself. As for the monastics, he intended to tolerate their inde-
pendence only to the extent that it would prove profi table for him to do so.
The pope ratifi ed the Concordat and sent Cardinal Caprara to Paris as his
legate to supervise the practical details of its application. Meanwhile, on
7 October, Bonaparte appointed to the post of minister of public worship his
councillor of state, Portalis – a man whose fervent piety was combined with
defi nite Gallican leanings, but who nevertheless lost no time making
numerous further concessions. The constitutional bishops, who had held a
council in 1801, submitted without resistance despite the severe criticism of
121bonaparte consul for life
the Concordat by their most illustrious representative, Abbé Grégoire. Such,
however, was not the case with the non-juring bishops: thirty-six of the
eighty-two refused to submit, as did one of the thirteen bishops from the
newly annexed territories ( pays réunis ). These recalcitrants protested against
the dispossession of their sees, and in this they were followed by a number
of their faithful. The result was that in several dioceses there continued to
exist, and does to our own day, a Church opposed to the Concordat – the
so-called Petite Église – although its adherents were never numerous.
In spite of the opposition, a list of new bishops was immediately prepared.
Since the provisions of the Concordat did not specify any specially reserved
places for the constitutional bishops, Rome claimed the right to refuse their
institution, and it took all of Bonaparte’s fi rmness to carry through the appoint-
ment of twelve ex-constitutionals, among whom Grégoire was noticeably
absent. Also appointed were sixteen of the former refractory bishops who had
sent in their resignations, which included Champion de Cicé at Aix, Boisgelin
at Tours and d’Aviau at Bordeaux. To these were added thirty-two new bishops
drawn largely from among the priests who accepted the agreement. The entire
settlement was imperilled at the last moment by Caprara’s insistence that
newly appointed ex-constitutional bishops retract their late errors and by the
latter’s staunch refusal to make amends. Bernier, who was negotiating for the
French government, managed to save the situation by making use of an equiv-
ocation, as had been done in 1668 to reconcile the pope with the Jansenist
prelates: he simply assured Caprara that the schismatics had made a satisfactory
oral declaration of their errors. It should be added that this over-cunning indi-
vidual only received the bishopric of Orléans for his services.
All that remained now was to have the treaty ratifi ed by the assemblies.
The Conseil d’État was frankly hostile to it, and its session on 12 October
was very stormy. Bonaparte had just prohibited all gatherings of theophilan-
thropists, a move hardly calculated to assuage feelings. On 22 November the
Corps Législatif elected as its president Dupuis, author of the anti-religious
book L’Origine de tous les cultes ; on 30 November the Senate chose the constitu-
tional bishop Grégoire to fi ll a vacancy. In the Tribunate, opposition to the
Concordat was fairly unanimous, and the Idéologue Volney was subjected to a
celebrated dressing-down by Bonaparte. Opposition in the government
found two opportunities to manifest its annoyance: in the peace treaty with
Russia which the opposition criticised roundly because the text made
mention of ‘French subjects’ rather than ‘French citizens’, and in the Civil
Code, of which the fi rst ‘Titles’ were voted down on 28 December, except
for the one dealing with the public registry, because it explicitly excluded
any state religion. There was not the least doubt as to the sentiments of the
the pacification of france and europe (1799–1802) 122
army, and on 20 July, the morrow of the signing of the Concordat, Fouché
directed that recalcitrant priests were to be sought out and arrested;
Bonaparte had to make him withdraw the order. It seemed as if the Concordat
was headed for certain defeat.
Talleyrand advised making some concessions to the opposition, and he
himself pointed the way, observing that the literal execution of the Concordat
would necessitate certain supervisory regulations. Appearing as Articles orga-
niques du culte catholique , these regulations were then added to the Concordat
without the knowledge of the pope, who, upon hearing of their inclusion,
did not dare protest. The articles made Gallicanism a general law of the state:
seminarists were to be taught the four Gallican articles of 1682; and the
publication of bulls, the holding of general councils, the ordination of
priests, the creation of seminaries and the editing of catechisms were all
made subject to the approval of the government. The temporal authority
further arrogated to itself the right to regulate bell-ringing, processions and
priestly dress. The articles also fi xed the new ecclesiastical divisions and the
salaries, from which pensions granted by revolutionary laws were to be
deducted. Communes were permitted to grant lodgings or to pay chapel
and parish priests if they so desired.
This was not all. In order to ensure that Catholicism would not again
become the state religion, provisions for Protestants were drafted under the
title of Articles organiques des cultes protestants . Reformed and Lutheran ministers
were also to be salaried; Calvinists were to be administered by local consis-
tories comprising the most heavily taxed members of the congregation and
placed under the presidency of the oldest pastor; Lutheran Churches were to
be provided with general consistories. This Protestant charter was joined to
the Concordat, framed by the ‘Organic Articles’, and so constituted a single
and unique law. It was not certain that even so modifi ed, the agreement with
the papacy would have found favour in the assemblies. But Bonaparte had
taken precautions, especially since he harboured other designs which were
sure to encounter opposition. A new coup d’état suffi ced to bring about the
capitulation of the assemblies.
THE TRIBUNATE PURGED AND THE LIFE
CONSULATE ESTABLISHED
On 4 January 1802 Bonaparte withdrew all the bills that had been submitted
to the assemblies, and put them, as Portalis had predicted, on a ‘law-making
starvation diet’. Three days later the Conseil d’État declared that the session
of the assemblies should therefore be considered terminated, and that it
123bonaparte consul for life
would now be possible to proceed with the fi rst renewal of a fi fth of its
representatives, which had been scheduled for Year X. Since the method of
selecting the outgoing members had not been defi ned in the Constitution,
the matter was referred to the Senate. Clearly, these members should have
been chosen by lot, and one might well have thought that the Senate would
have acted accordingly since it, no less than the other assemblies, enter-
tained certain qualms. But the Senate was probably threatened with force,
and it may have been promised new advantages as an inducement to submit.
In any event, the Senate itself decided, by a vote of 46 to 13, to designate the
members who were to be retired, and in so doing, it removed the most
prominent Idéologues in the Tribunate, to wit: Benjamin Constant, Marie-
Joseph Chénier, Daunou, Ginguené, Laromiguière and Jean-Baptiste Say.
They were replaced by men of lesser consequence, offi cers and civil serv-
ants. Carnot alone remained. Lucien Bonaparte became a tribune, and so
re-entered politics to play the same role as at Brumaire. He presented to the
Tribunate a measure which was adopted on 11 Germinal, Year X (1 April
1802), dividing that body into three sections which were henceforth to
deliberate in camera on laws and articles of the Civil Code. This was soon
followed by a consular decree which ruled that the laws under preparation
were to be examined fi rst by competent section heads and state councillors
in special councils presided over by the First Consul. Thus it was highly
improbable that any disagreement would ever be aired at an open session.
‘There must not be any opposition,’ said Bonaparte. ‘What is government?
Nothing, if it does not have public opinion on its side. How can it hope to
counterbalance the infl uence of a tribune if it is always open to attack?’ The
Conseil d’État, likewise suspect, was also affected by these changes since it
no longer exercised control over the fi nal drafting of laws; in short, it was
in the specially created councils composed of his trusted appointees that
Bonaparte now set about preparing his ambitious programme, the results of
which were only submitted to the Conseil d’État as a mere formality.
The assemblies having been subdued, there remained only the danger of a
military revolt. Advantage had been taken of the peace to scatter and purge the
dangerous elements of the several armies; a corps destined for Portugal had
been supplied by the Army of Italy; troops sent to San Domingo had been
provided by the Army of the Rhine. Nevertheless, a good deal of discontent
persisted, for the army’s pay was not being met regularly, and soldiers, espe-
cially in these times of scarcity, longed for the profi table adventurous life
which was so much a part of every campaign. Paris was literally swarming
with idle generals who envied their chief. They were the men who least
believed in his military genius and would only admit to the workings of