: 
 
 
 
 .1 
 
 illilllii 
 
 K 
 
 
 ■ ♦■ ii 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 1 Tl 
 
 . : 3 ■ 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 V 
 
 ._:_^iiii
 
 3^ 
 
 .^ 
 
 
 ^
 
 
 ^ ^/smm 
 
 I ^ 1 ir^^ 
 
 
 :< «>> 
 
 
 o 
 
 I— 1 UJ t 
 
 is fc 
 
 ""r» 
 
 o 
 
 i I 
 
 -n t_ 
 f 
 
 
 ^,
 
 '^ LES ORIGINES 
 DE LA FRANCE CONTEMPORAINE'' 
 
 THE 
 
 MODERN RfiGIME 
 
 BY 
 
 H. A. TAINE, D.C.L., Oxon., 
 
 AUTHOR OF "a HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE," 
 "notes on ENGLAND," ETC. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY JOHN DURAND 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON, Limited 
 
 St. Dunstan's House, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street, E. C. 
 
 189T
 
 Copyright, 1890, 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY HOLT & CO. 
 
 Robert DRumiOND, 
 
 Electrotyper and Printer, 
 
 New York.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The following third and last part of the Origins of Contem- 
 porary France is to consist of two volumes ; after the present 
 volume, the second is to treat of the Church, the School 
 and the Family, describe the modern milieu and note the 
 facilities and obstacles which a society like our own encoun- 
 ters in this new milieu ; here, the past and the present meet, 
 and the work already done is continued by the work which is 
 going on under our eyes. — The undertaking is hazardous and 
 more difficult than with the two preceding parts. For the 
 Ancient Regime and the Revolution are henceforth complete 
 and finished periods ; we have seen the end of both and are 
 thus able to comprehend their entire course. On the con- 
 trary, the end of the ulterior period is still wanting ; the great 
 institutions which date from the Consulate and the Empire, 
 either consolidation or dissolution, have not yet reached their 
 historic term ; since 1800, the social order of things, notwith- 
 standing eight changes of political form, has remained almost 
 intact. Our children or grandchildren will know whether it 
 will finally succeed or miscarry ; witnesses of the denoue- 
 ment, they will have fuller light by which to judge of the 
 entire drama. Thus far four acts only have been played ; of 
 the fifth act, we have simply a presentiment. — On the other 
 hand, by dint of living under this social system, we have 
 become accustomed to it ; it no longer excites our wonder ; 
 however artificial it may be it seems to us natural ; we can 
 scarcely conceive of another that is healthier ; and what is 
 much worse, it is repugnant to us to do so. For, such a con- 
 ception would soon lead to comparisons, and hence to a judg. 
 
 iii
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 ment and, on many points, to an unfavorable judgment, one 
 which would be a censure, not only of our institutions but of 
 ourselves. The machine of the year viii, applied to us for 
 three generations, has shaped and fixed us as we are, for good 
 or for ill ; if, for a century, it sustains us, it represses us for a 
 century ; we have contracted the infirmities it imports — stop- 
 page of development, instability of internal balance, disorders 
 of the intellect and of the will, fixed ideas and ideas that are 
 false. These ideas are ours ; therefore we hold on to them, 
 or, rather, they have taken hold of us. To get rid of them, 
 to impose the necessary recoil on our mind, to transport us to 
 a distance and place us at a critical point of view, where we 
 can study ourselves, our ideas and our institutions as scien- 
 tific objects, requires a great effort on our part, many precau- 
 tions, and long reflection. — Hence, the delays of this study ; 
 the reader will pardon them on considering that an ordinary 
 opinion, caught on the wing, on such a subject, does not 
 suffice ; in any event, when one presents an opinion on such 
 a subject one is bound to believe it. I can believe in my own 
 only when it has become precise and seems to me proven. 
 
 Menthon Saint-Bernard, 
 September, 1890.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface, m 
 
 BOOK FIRST. 
 
 NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 
 
 Chapter I i 
 
 I. Historical importance of his character and genius. — He is of 
 another race and another century. — Origin of his paternal family. — 
 Transplanted to Corsica. — His maternal family. — Laetitia Ramolino. 
 — Persistence of Corsican souvenirs in Napoleon's mind. — His youth- 
 ful sentiments regarding Corsica and France. — Indications found in 
 his early compositions and in his style. — Current monarchical or 
 democratic ideas have no hold on him. — His impressions of the loth 
 of June and loth of August after the 3Tst of May. — His associations 
 with Robespierre and Barras without committing himself. — His senti- 
 ments and the side he takes Vend6miaire 13th. — The great Coudotticre. 
 — His character and conduct in Italy. — Description of him morally 
 and physically in 1798. — His precocious and sudden ascendency. — 
 Analogi'us in spirit and character to his Italian ancestors of the XVth 
 century. — II. Intelligence during the Italian Renaissance and at the 
 present day. — Integrity of Bonaparte's mental machinery. — Flexibility, 
 force, and tenacity of his attention. — Another difference between 
 Napoleon's intellect and that of his contemporaries. — He thinl«! ob- 
 jects and not words. — His antipathy to Ideology. — Little or no literary 
 or philosophical education. — Self-taught through direct observation 
 and technical instruction. — His fondness for details. — His inward 
 vision of physical objects and places. — His mental portrayal of posi- 
 tions, distances, and quantities. — His psychological faculty and way of 
 getting at the thought and feeling of others. — His self-analysis. — How 
 he imagines a general situation by a particular case, also the invisible 
 inward by the visible outward. — Originality and superiority of his 
 
 V
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 style and discourse. — His adaptation of these to his hearers and to' cir- 
 cumstances. — His notation and calculation of serviceable motives. — 
 His three atlases. — Their scale and completeness. — His constructive 
 imagination. — His projects and dreams. — Manifestation of the master 
 faculty and its excesses. 
 
 Chapter II . . . . . . . . -39 
 
 I. Great men of the Italian Renaissance and of the present 
 TIME. — Intensity of the passions in Bonaparte.— His impulsive sensi- 
 bility. — Violent outbursts. — His impatience, readiness, and need of 
 expressing himself. — His temperament, nervous system, and sinking- 
 fits. — II. Bonaparte's dominant passion. — His lucid, calculating mind. 
 — Source and power of the Will. — Early evidences of an active, ab- 
 sorbing egoism. — His education derived from the lessons of things. — 
 In Corsica. — In France during the Revolution. — In Italy. — In Egypt. 
 — His idea of Society and of Right. — Maturing after the iSth of 
 Brumaire. — His idea of Man. — It conforms to his character. — HI. His 
 mastery of the will of others. — Degree of submission required by him. 
 — His mode of appreciating others and of profiting by them. — Tone 
 of command and of conversation. — IV. His bearing in Society. — His 
 deportment toward women. — His disdain of Politeness. — V. His tone 
 and bearing toward Sovereigns. — His Policy. — His means and ends. 
 — After Sovereigns he sets populations against him. — Final opinion 
 of Europe. — VI. Inward principle of his outward deportment. — The 
 State subordinated to him instead of his subordination to the State. — 
 Effects of this. — His work merely a life-interest. — It is ephemeral. — 
 Injurious. — The number of lives it cost. — The mutilation of France. 
 — Vice of construction in his European edifice. — Analogous vice in his 
 French edifice. 
 
 BOOK SECOND. 
 
 FORMATION AND CHARACTER OF THE NEW STATE. 
 
 Chapter I . . 91 
 
 I, Conditions on which the public power can act. — Two points 
 forgotten by the authors of the preceding constitutions. — Difficulty of 
 the undertaking and poor quality of the available materials. — Hence 
 the insubordination of the local powers, the conflict of the central 
 powers, the suppression of liberal institutions, and the establishment 
 of an unstable despotism. — Evil-doing of the government thus formed. 
 — II. In 1799, the undertaking is more difficult and the materials 
 worse. — III. Motives for suppressing the election of local powers. — 
 The electors. — Their egoism and partiality. —The elected.— Their
 
 CONTENTS. vii 
 
 inertia, corruption, and disobedience. — IV. Reasons for placing the 
 executive central power in one hand. — Sieyes' chimerical combina- 
 tions. — Bonaparte's objections. — V. Difficulty of organizing a legis- 
 lative power. — Fraudulent and violent elections for ten years. — Spirit 
 ■ and diffusion of hatred against the men and dogmas of the Revolution. 
 — Probable composition of a freely elected Assembly. — Its two 
 irreconcilable divisions. — Sentiments of the army. — Proximity and 
 probable meaning of a new coup dViat. — VI. The electoral and legis- 
 lative combinations of Sieyes. — Bonaparte's use of them. — Paralysis 
 and submission of the three legislative bodies. — The Senate as a ruling 
 instrumentality. — Senatus-consultes and Plebiscites. — Final establish- 
 ment of the Dictatorship. — Its dangers and necessity. — Public power 
 now able to do its work. 
 
 Chapter II . . . . . . . . .no 
 
 I. Principal service rendered by the public power. — It is an instru- 
 mentality. — A common law for every instrumentality. — Mechanical 
 instruments. — Physiological instruments. — Social instruments. — The 
 perfection of an instrument increases with the convergence of its 
 effects. — One given purpose excludes all others. — II. Application of 
 this law to the public power. — General effect of its intervention. — III. 
 It acts against its function. — Its encroachments are attacks on persons 
 and property. — IV. It badly fills the office of the bodies it supplants. — 
 Cases in which it usurps their powers and refuses to be their substi- 
 tutes. — Cases in which it violates or profits by their mechanism. — 
 In all cases it is a bad or mediocre substitute. — Reasons derived from 
 its structure compared with that of other bodies. — V^. Other conse- 
 quences. — Suppressed or stunted bodies cease to grow. — Individuals 
 become socially and politically incapable. — The hands into which 
 public power then falls. — Impoverishment and degradation of the 
 social body. 
 
 Chapter III 122 
 
 I. Precedents of the new organization. — In practical operation. — 
 Anterior usurpations of the public povver. — Spontaneous bodies under 
 the Ancient Regime and during the Revolution. — Ruin and discredit of 
 their supports. — The central power their sole surviving dependence. — 
 II. The Theory. — Agreement of speculative ideas with practical ne- 
 cessities. — Public rights under the Ancient Regime. — The King's 
 three original rights. — Labors of the legists in extending royal pre. 
 rogatives. — Historical impediments. — The primitive or ulterior limits 
 of royal power. — The philosophic and revolutionary principle of 
 popular sovereignty. — Unlimited extension of State power. — Applica- 
 tion to spontaneous bodies. — Convergence of ancient and new doc-
 
 via CONTENTS. 
 
 trines, — Corporations considered as creations of the public power.— 
 Centralization through the universal intervention of the State. — III. 
 The Organizer. — Influence of Napoleon's character and mind on his 
 internal and French system. — Exigencies of his external and European 
 role. — Suppression of all centres of combination and concord. — Ex- 
 tension of the public domain and what it embraces. — Reasons for 
 maintaining the private domain. — The part of the individual. — His 
 reserved enclosure. — Outlets for him beyond that. — His talents are 
 enlisted in the service of public power. — Special aptitude and tempo- 
 rary vigor, lack of balance, and doubtful future of the social body thus 
 formed. — IV. General aspect and characteristics of the new State. — 
 Contrast between its structure and that of other contemporary or pre- 
 existing States. — The plurality, complexity, and irregularity of ancient 
 France. — The unity, simplicity, and regularity of modern France. — 
 To what class of works it belongs. — It is the modern masterpiece of 
 the classic spirit in the political and social order of things. — V. Its 
 analogue in the antique world. — The Roman State from Diocletian to 
 Constantine. — Causes and bearing of this analogy. — Survival of the 
 Roman idea in Napoleon's mind. — The new Empire of the West. 
 
 BOOK THIRD. 
 
 OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM, 
 
 Chapter I . . . . . . . . .151 
 
 I. How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people. — 
 His maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of govern- 
 ment. — Two groups of evidently preponderating desires in 1799. — II. 
 Necessities dating from the Revolution. — Lack of security for Per- 
 sons, Property, and Consciences. — Requisite conditions for the 
 establishment of order.— End of Civil war, Brigandage, and Anarchy. 
 ^Universal relief and final security. — III. Lasting effects of revolu- 
 tionary laws. — Condition of the Emigr/s. — Progressive and final 
 amnesty. — They return. — They recover a portion of their possessions. 
 — Many of them enter the new hierarchy. — Indemnities for them in- 
 complete. — IV. Confiscation of collective fortunes. — Ruin of the Hos- 
 pitals and Schools. — V. Complaints of the Poor, of Parents, and of 
 Believers. — Contrast between old and new educational facilities. — 
 Clandestine instruction. — Jacobin teachers.— VI. The Spirit and Minis- 
 istrations of Catholicism. — How the Revolution develops a sense of 
 this. — VII. Reasons for the Concordat. — Napoleon's economical 
 organization of the Church institution. — A good Bargainer. — Com- 
 promise with the old state of things.— VIII. State appropriations 
 very small.— Toleration of educational institutions. — Tne mterest of 
 the public in them invited. — The University. — Its monopoly. — Prac-
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 tically, his restrictions and conditions are effective. — Satisfaction 
 given to the first group of requirements. 
 
 Chapter II 2j8 
 
 I. What people craved previous to the Revolution. — Lack of dis- 
 tributive justice. — Wrongs committed in the allotment of social sac- 
 rifices and benefits. — Under the Ancient Regime. — During the Revo- 
 lution. — Napoleon's personal and public motives in the application of 
 distributive justice. — The circumstances favorable to him. — His prin- 
 ciple of apportionment. — He exacts proportion in what he grants. — 
 n. The apportionment of charges. — New fiscal principle and new 
 fiscal machinery. — HI. Direct real and personal taxation. — In what 
 respect the new machinery is superior to the old. — Full and quick 
 returns. — Relief to taxpayers. — Greater relief to the poor workman 
 and small farmer. — IV. Other direct taxes. — Tax on business licenses. 
 — Tax on real-estate transactions. — The earnings of manual labor 
 almost exempt from direct taxation. — Compensation on another side. 
 — Indirect taxation. — In what respect the new machinery is superior 
 to the old. — Summary effect of the new fiscal regime. — Increased 
 receipts of the public treasury. — Lighter burdens of the taxpayer. — 
 Change in the condition of the small taxpayer. — V. Military service. 
 — Under the Ancient Regime. — The militia and regular troops. — 
 Number of soldiers. — Quality of the recruits. — Advantages of the 
 institution. — Results of the new system. — The obligation universal. — 
 Comparison between the burdens of citizens and subjects. — The 
 Conscription under Napoleon. — He lightens and then increases its 
 burdensomeness. — What it became after him. — The law of 1818. 
 
 Chapter III .... .... 238 
 
 L The assignment of right. — Those out of favor and the preferred 
 under former governments. — Under the Ancient Regime. — During 
 the Revolution. — French conception of Equality and Rights. — Its 
 ingredients and its excesses. — The satisfaction it obtains under the 
 new regime. — Abolition of legal incapacities and equality in the pos- 
 session of rights. — Confiscation of collective action and equality in the 
 deprivation of rights. — Careers in the modern State. — Equal right of 
 all to offices and to promotion. — Napoleon's distribution of employ- 
 ments. — His staff of officials recruited from all classes and parties. — 
 II. The need of success. — Initiation and conditions of promotion 
 under the old monarchy. — Effect on minds. — Ambitions are limited. 
 — The external outlets open to them. — The Revolution provides an 
 internal outlet and an unlimited career. — Effect of this. — Exigencies 
 and pretensions of the modern man. — Theoretical rule of selection 
 among rivals. — Popular suffrage erected into judicial arbitrament. —
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 Consequence of its verdict. — Unworthiness of its choice. — III. Napo- 
 leon as judge of competition. — Security of his seat. — Independence 
 of his decisions. — Suppression of former influences and end of monar- 
 chical or democratic intrigues. — Other influences against which he is 
 on guard. — His favorite rule. — Estimate of candidates according to 
 the kind and amount of their useful labor. — His own competency. — 
 His perspicacity. — His vigilance. — Zeal and labor of his functionaries. 
 — Result of competition thus viewed and of functions thus exercised. 
 — Talents utilized and jealousies disarmed. — IV. Competitions and 
 prizes. — Multitude of offices. — How their number is increased by 
 the extension of central patronage and of the French territory. — 
 Situation of a Frenchman abroad. — It gives him rank. — Rapidity oi 
 promotion. — Constant elimination and multiplicity of vacancies in 
 the army. — Preliminary elimination in the civil service. — Proscription 
 of cultivated men and interruption of education during the Revolution. 
 — General or special instruction rare in 1800. — Small number of 
 competent candidates. — Easy promotion due to the lack of competitors. 
 — Importance and attraction of the prizes offered. — The Legion of 
 Honor. — The imperial nobility. — Dotations and majorities. — Emula- 
 tion. — V. The inward spring from 1789 to 181 5. — Its force. — Its de- 
 cline. — How it ends in breaking the machine down. 
 
 BOOK FOURTH. 
 
 THE DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 Chapter I 284 
 
 Local society. — I. The two mainsprings of human action. — The 
 egoistic instinct and the social instinct. — Motives for noi weakening 
 the social instinct. — Influence on society of the law it prescribes. — The 
 clauses of a statute depend on the legislator who adopts or imposes 
 them. — Conditions of a good statute. — It favors the social instinct. — 
 Different for different societies. — Determined by the peculiar and per 
 manent traits of the society it governs. — Capital defect of the statute 
 under the new regime.— II. Local societies.— Their principal and dis- 
 tinctive character. — Their type on a small scale.— A dwelling-house 
 in Annecy or Grenoble. — Compulsory association of its inmates. — Its 
 object and limits. — Private in character.— III. Analysis of other local 
 societies, commune, department, or province. — Common interests 
 which necessitate local action. — Two objects in view: care of public 
 roads and means of protection against spreading calamities. — Why 
 collaboration is an obligation. — Neighbors involuntaiily subject to a 
 common bond on account of proximity. — Willingly or not each shares 
 in its benefits. — What portion of the expense belongs to each. — Equal 
 advantages for each. — The unequal and proportionate advantages for
 
 CONTENTS. x; 
 
 each in his private expenses, industrial or commercial gains, and in 
 the locative value of his real estate. — Each person's quota of expense 
 according to his equal and proportionate share in advantages. — IV. 
 Local society, thus constituted, is a collective personality. — The 
 sphere of its initiation and action. — Its relation to the State. — Dis- 
 tinction between the private and the public domain. — V. Case in which 
 the State abdicates. — Anarchy during the Revolution. — Case in which 
 the State usurps. — Regime of the year viii. — Remains of local independ- 
 ence under the ancient regime. — Destroyed under the new regime. — 
 Local society after 1800. — VI. Lists of notables. — Scnatus constdtes of 
 the year x. — Liberal institution becomes a reigning instrument. — 
 Mechanism of the system of appointments and candidatures. — Decree 
 of 1806 and suppression of candidatures. — VII. Quality of municipal 
 and general councillors under the Consulate and the Empire. — Object 
 of their meetings. — Limits of their power. — Their real role. — Role of 
 the prefect and of the government. — VIII. The institution remains 
 intact under the Restoration. — Motives of the governors. — Excellence 
 of the machine. — Abdication of the administrator. 
 
 Chapter II ........ . 322 
 
 I. Local society since 1830. — Introduction of a new internal motor. — 
 Subordinate to the external motor. — Advantageous under the system 
 of universal suffrage. — II. Application of universal suffrage to local 
 society. — Two assessments for the expenses of local society. — The 
 fixed amount of one should in equity be equal to the average sum of 
 the other. — Practically, the sum of one is kept too low. — How the new 
 regime provides for local expenditure. — The " additional centimes." 
 — How the small taxpayer is relieved in town and country. — His 
 quota in local expenditure reduced to the minimum. — His quota of 
 local benefits remains intact. — Hence the large or average taxpayer 
 bears, beside his own burden, that of the relieved senate taxpayer. — 
 Number of those relieved. — The extra burden of the large and average 
 taxpayer in alms-giving. — The relief of the small taxpayer is a levy of 
 alms. — III. Possible compensation in the other side of the scale. — 
 What the distribution of rights should be according to the principle of 
 distributive justice. — In every association of stock-owners. — In local 
 society confined to its natural object. — In local society charged with 
 supplementary functions. — The local statute in England and I^russia. 
 — The exchange equitable when burdens are compensated by rights. — 
 IV. How unlimited universal suffrage found its way into local society. 
 — Object and mode of the French legislator. — V. No distinction be- 
 tween the rural and the urban commune. — Effects of the law on the 
 rural commune. — Disproportion between the intelligence of its elected 
 representatives and the work imposed on them. — The mayor and the
 
 w 
 
 Xii CONTENTS. 
 
 municipal council. — Lack of qualified members. — The secretary of the 
 mayoralty. — The chief or under-chief of the prefectorial bureau. — VI. 
 Effects of the law on the urban commune. — Disproportion between 
 the administrative capacity of its elected representatives and the work 
 imposed on them. — Lack of a special and permanent manager. — The 
 municipal council and the mayor. — The general council and the inter- 
 mediary committee. — The prefect. — His dominant rule. — His obliga- 
 tory concessions. — His principal aim. — Bargains between the Central 
 authority and the local Jacobins. — Effect of this on local government, 
 on the officials, and on local finances. — VIL Present state of local 
 society, — Considered as an organism, it is stillborn. — Considered as a 
 mechanism, it gets out of order. — Two successive and false concep- 
 tions of local government. — In theory, one excludes the other. — 
 Practically, their union ends in the actual system. — Powers of the 
 prefect. — Restrictions on these through subsequent changes. — Give 
 and take. — Bargaining. —Supported by the government and cost to 
 the State. — VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy. 
 
 Appendix 357
 
 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK FIRST. 
 
 Napoleon ISonaparte. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Historical importance of his character and genius. — I. He is of another 
 race and another century. — Origin of his paternal family. — Transplanted to 
 Corsica. — His maternal family. — Loetitia Ramolino. — Persistence of Corsi- 
 can souvenirs in Napoleon's mind. — His youthful sentiments regarding 
 Corsica and France. — Indications found in his early compositions and in his 
 style. — Current monarchical or democratic ideas have no hold on him. — 
 His impressions of the loth of June and loth of August after the 31st of 
 May. — His associations with Robespierre and Barras without committing 
 himself. — His sentiments and the side he takes Vendemiaire 13th. — The 
 great Condottiere . — His character and conduct in Italy. — Description of him 
 morally and physically in 1798. — His precocious and sudden ascendency. — 
 Analogous in spirit and character to his Italian ancestors of the XVth cen- 
 tury. — II. Intelligence during the Italian Renaissance and at the present 
 day. — Integrity of Bonaparte's mental machinery. — Flexibility, force, and 
 tenacity of his attention. — Another difference between Napoleon's intellect 
 and that of his contemporaries. — He thinks objects and not words. — His an- 
 tipathy to Ideology. — Little or no literary or philosophical education. — Self- 
 taugiit through direct observation and technical instruction. — His fondness 
 for details. — His inward vision of physical objects and places. — His mental 
 portrayal of positions, distances, and quantities. — His psychological faculty 
 and way of getting at the thought and feeling of others. — His self-analysis. — 
 How he imagines a general situation by a particular case, also the invisible 
 inward by the visible outward. — Originality and superiority of his style and 
 discourse. — His adaptation of these to his hearers and to circumstances. — His 
 notation and calculation of serviceable motives. — His three atlases. — Their 
 scale and completeness. — His constructive imagination. — His projects and 
 dreams — .Manifestation of the master faculty and its excesses. 
 
 In trying to explain to otirselves the meaning of an edifice 
 we must take into account whatever has opposed or favored 
 its construction, the kind and quality of its available materials, 
 the time, the opportunity, and the demand for it ; but, still 
 more important, we mu.st consider the genius and taste of the 
 architect, especially whether he is the proprietor, whether he
 
 2 THE MODERN REGIME. book I. 
 
 built it to live in himself, and, once installed in it, whether 
 he took pains to adapt it to his own way of living, to his 
 own necessities, to his . own use. — Such is the social edi- 
 fice erected by Napoleon Bonaparte, its architect, proprietor, 
 and principal occupant from 1799 to 1814 ; it is he who has 
 made modern France ; never was an individual character so 
 profoundly stamped on any collective work, so that, to com- 
 prehend the work, we must first study the character of the 
 man.' 
 
 Disproportionate in all things, but, stranger still, he is not 
 only out of the common run, but there is no standard of 
 measurement for him ; through his temperament, instincts, 
 faculties, imagination, passions, and moral constitution he 
 seems cast in a special mould, composed of another metal than 
 that which enters into the composition of his fellows and con- 
 temporaries. Evidently he is not a Frenchman, nor a man of 
 the eighteenth century ; he belongs to another race and 
 another epoch ;^ we detect in him, at the first glance, the 
 foreigner, the Italian,' and something more, apart and beyond 
 
 1 The main authority is, of course, the " Correspondance de I'Empereur Napoleon I.," 
 'n thirty-two volumes. This " Correspondance," unfortunately, is still incomplete, while, 
 after the sixth volume, it must not be forgotten that much of it has been purposely stricken 
 out. " In general," say the editors (xvi., p. 4), " we have been governed simply by this plain 
 rule, thit we were required to publish only what the Emperor liimsel/^vould haz'e given to 
 the public had he survived himself, and, anticipating the verdict of time, exposed to pos- 
 terity his own personality and system." — The savant who has the most carefully examined 
 this correspondence, entire in the French archives, estimates that it comprises about 80,000 
 pieces, of which 30,000 have been published in the collection referred to; passages in 20,000 of 
 the others have been stricken out on account of previous publication, and about 30,000 
 more, through considerations of propriety or policy. For example, but little more than one- 
 half of the letters from Napoleon to Bigot de Preameneu on ecclesiastical matters have been 
 published ; many of these omitted letters, all important and characteristic, may be found in 
 " L'Eglise romaine et le Premier Empire," by M. d'Haussonville. 
 
 2 "Memorial de Sainte Helene," by Las Casas(May 29, 1S16).— " In Corsica, Paoli, 
 on a horseback excursion, explained the positions to him, the places where liberty found 
 resistance or triumphed. Estimating tl-.e character of Napoleon by what he saw of it 
 through personal observation, Paoli said to him, " Oh. Napoleon, there is nothing modern 
 in you, you belong wholly to Plutarch ! "— .Antonomarchi, " Memoires," Oct. 25, 1819. 
 The same account, slightly different, is there given : " Oh, Napoleon," said Paoli to me, 
 *' you do not belong to this century ; you talk like one of Plutarch's characters. Courage, 
 you will take flight yet ! " 
 
 3 Ue Segur, " Histoire et Memoires," i., 150. (Narrative by Pontecoulant, member of 
 the Committee in the war, June, 1795.) " Boissy d'Anglas told him that he had seen the
 
 CHAP. 1. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3 
 
 these, surpassing all similitude or analogy. — Italian he was 
 through blood and lineage ; first, through his paternal family, 
 which is Tuscan,' and which we can follow down from the 
 twelfth century, at Florence, then at San Miniato ; next at 
 Sarzana, a small, backward, remote town in the state of Genoa, 
 where, from father to son, it vegetates obscurely in provincial 
 isolation, through along line of notaries and municipal syndics. 
 " My origin," says Napoleon himself,^ " has made all Italians 
 regard me as a compatriot. . . . When the question of the 
 marriage of my sister Pauline with Prince Borghese came up 
 there was but one voice in Rome and in Tuscany, in that 
 family, and with all its connections: * // will do,' said all of 
 them, ' it's amongst ourselves, it's 07ie of our own families' " 
 When the Pope hesitated about coming to Paris to crown 
 Napoleon, "the Italian party in the Conclave prevailed against 
 the Austrian party by supporting political arguments with the 
 following slight tribute to national amour propre : ^ After ally 
 we are imposifig an Italian family on the barbarians, to govern 
 them. We are revenging ourselves on the Gauls." This sig- 
 nificant expression throws light into the depths of the Italian 
 nature, the eldest daughter of modern civilization, imbued 
 with its right of primogeniture, persistent in its grudge against 
 the transalpines, the rancorous inheritor of Roman pride and 
 of antique patriotism.^ 
 
 From Sarzana, a Bonaparte emigrates to Corsica, where he 
 establishes himself and lives after 1529. The following year 
 
 evening before a little Italian, pale, slender, and puny, but singuLarly audacious in his 
 views and in the vigor of his expressions." — The next day, Bonaparte calls on Pontecou- 
 lant, " Attitude rigid through a morbid pride, poor exterior, long visage, hollow and 
 bronzed. . . . He is just from the army and talks like one who knows what he is talking 
 about." 
 
 1 Coston, " Biographic des premiires annees de Napoleon Buonaparte " 2 vols. (1840), 
 passim. — Yung, " Bonaparte et son Temps," i., 300, 302. (Pieces giinealogiqucs.) — King 
 Joseph, " IMcmoires," i., 109, m. (On the various branches and distinguished men of tlie 
 Bonaparte family.) — Miot de .Melito, " Memoires," ii., 30. (Documents on the Bonaparte 
 family, collected on the spot by the author in 1801.) 
 
 2 "Memorial," May 6, 1816.— Miot de Melito, ii., 30. (On the Bonapartes of San 
 Miniato): "The last offshoot of this branch was a canon then still living in this same 
 town of San Miniato, and visited by Bonaparte in the year iv, when he came to 
 Florence." 
 
 3 " Correspondanccde I'Empereur Napoleon I." (I.,etter of Bonaparte, Sept. zg, 1797, in 
 relation to Italy) : " A people at bottom inimical to the French through the prejudices, 
 character, and customs of centuries."
 
 4 THE MODERN R&GIME. book i. 
 
 Florence is taken and completely subjugated ; henceforth, in 
 Tuscany, under Alexander de Medici, then under Cosmo I. and 
 his successors, in all Italy under Spanish rule, municipal inde- 
 pendence, private feuds, the great exploits of political adven- 
 tures and successful usurpations, the system of ephemeral 
 principalities, based on force and fraud, all give way to perma- 
 nent repression, monarchical discipline, external order, and a 
 certain species of public tranquillity. Thus, just at the time 
 when the energy and ambition, the vigorous and free sap of 
 the Middle Ages begins to run down and then dry up in the 
 shriveled trunk,' a small detached branch takes root in an 
 island, not less Italian but almost barbarous, amidst institu- 
 tions, customs, and passions belonging to the primitive mediaeval 
 epoch,'' and in a social atmosphere sufficiently rude for the 
 maintenance of all its vigor and harshness. — Grafted, more- 
 over, by frequent marriages, on the wild stock of the island. 
 Napoleon, on the maternal side, through his grandmother and 
 mother, is wholly indigenous. His grandmother, a Pietra- 
 Santa, belonged to Sartene,' a Corsican canton par excellence 
 where, in 1800, hereditary vendettas still maintained the regime 
 of the eleventh century ; where the permanent strife of inimi- 
 cal families was suspended only by truces ; where, in many 
 villages, nobody stirred out of doors except in armed bodies, 
 and where the houses were crenellated like fortresses. His 
 mother, Laetitia Ramolini, from whom, in character and in 
 will, he derived much more than from his father,^ is a primi- 
 
 1 Miot de Melito. i., 126, (i7q6): '• Florence, for two centuries and a h.alf, had lost that 
 antique energy which, in the stormy times of the Republic, distinguished this city. Indo- 
 lence was the dominant spirit of all classes. . . . Almost everywhere I saw only men 
 lulled to rest by the charms of the most exquisite climate, occupied solely with the details 
 of a monotonous existence, and tranquilly vegetating under its beneficent sky." — (On 
 Milan, in 1796, cf. Stendhal, introduction to the " Chartreuse de Parme.") 
 
 2 " Miot de .Melito, i., 131 : " Having just left one of the most civilized cities in Italy, 
 it was not without some emotion that I found myself suddenly transported to a country 
 (Corsica) which, in its sav.-»ge aspect, its rugged mountains, and its inhabitants uniformly 
 dressed in coarse brown cloth, contrasted so strongly with the rich and smiling landscape 
 of Tuscany, and with the comfort, I should almost say elegance, of costume worn by the 
 happy cultivators of that fertile soil." 
 
 3 Miot de Melito, ii., 30 : " Of a not very important family of Sartene."— ii., 143. (On 
 the canton of Sartene and the Vendettas of 1796).— Coston, i., 4 : " The family of Madame 
 Laetitia, sprung from the counts of Cotalto, came originally from Italy." 
 
 4 His father, Charles Bonaparte, weak and even frivolous, " too fond of pleasure to 
 care ibout his children," and to see to his affairs, tolerably learned and an indifferent
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 5 
 
 tive soul on which civilization has taken no hold ; simple, all 
 of a piece, unsuited to the refinements, charms, and graces of 
 a worldly life ; indifferent to comforts, without literary culture, 
 as parsimonious as any peasant woman, but as energetic as the 
 leader of a band ; powerful, physically and spiritually, accus- 
 tomed to danger, ready in desperate resolutions ; in short, a 
 " rustic Cornelia," who conceived and gave birth to her son 
 amidst the risks of battle and of defeat, in the thickest of the 
 French invasion, amidst mountain rides on horseback, noctur- 
 nal surprises, and volleys of musketry.' " Losses, privations, 
 and fatigue," says Napoleon, " she endured all and braved all. 
 Hers was a man's head on a woman's shoulders." — Thus 
 fashioned and brought into the world, he felt that, from first 
 to the last, he was of his race and country. 
 
 " Everything was better there," said he, at Saint Helena,' 
 " even the very smell of the soil, which he could have detected 
 with his eyes shut ; nowhere had he found the same thing. 
 He imagined himself there again in early infancy, and lived 
 over again the days of his youth, amidst precipices, traversing 
 lofty peaks, deep valleys, and narrow defiles, enjoying the 
 honors and pleasures of hospitality," treated everywhere as a 
 
 head of a family, died at the age of thirty-nine of a cancer in the stomach, which seems to 
 be the only bequest he made to his son Napoleon. — His mother, on the contrary, serious, 
 authoritative, the true head of a family, was, said Napoleon, " hard in her affections : she 
 punished and rewarded without distinction, good or bad ; she made us all feel it." — On be- 
 coming head of the household, " she was too parsimonious — even ridiculously so. This 
 was due to excess of foresight on her part ; she had known want, and her terrible suffer- 
 ings were never out of her mind. . . . Paoli had tried persuasion with her before resorting 
 to force. . . . Madame replied heroically, as a Cornelia would have done. . . . From 
 twelve to fifteen thousand peasants poured down from the mountains of Ajaccio ; our 
 house was pillaged and burnt, our vines destroyed, and our flocks. . . . In other respects, 
 this woman, from whom it would have been so difficult to extract five francs, would have 
 given up everything to secure my return from Elba, and after Waterloo she offered me 
 all she possessed to restore my affairs." ("Memorial," May 29, 1816, and "'Memoires 
 d'Antonomarchi," Nov. 18, iSig. — On the ideas and ways of Bonaparte's mother, read her 
 " Conversation " in " Journal et Memoires," vol. iv., by Stanislas Girardin.) Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes, " Memoires," li., 318, 319. " Avaricious out of all reason except on a few 
 grave occasions. . . . No knowledge whatever of the usages of society. . . . Very igno- 
 rant, not alone of our literature, but of her own."— Stendhal, " Vie de Napoleon ": " The 
 character of her son is to be explained by the perfectly Italian character of Madame 
 La;titia." 
 
 I The French conquest is effected by armed force between July 30, 1768, and May 22, 
 1769. The Bonaparte family submitted May 23, 1769, and Napoleon was born on the fol- 
 lowing 15th of August. 
 
 a Antonomarchi, " Memoires," October 4, 1819, " Memorial," May 29, 1816.
 
 6 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 brother and compatriot, " without any accident or insult ever 
 suggesting to him that his confidence was not well grounded." 
 At Bocognano/ where his mother, pregnant with him, had taken 
 refuge, " where hatred and vengeance extended to the seventh 
 degree of relationship, and where the dowry of a young girl 
 was estimated by the number of her cousins, I was feasted 
 and made welcome, and everybody would have died for me." 
 Forced to become a Frenchman, transplanted to France, edu- 
 cated at the expense of the king in a Fixnch school, he 
 became rigid in his insular patriotism, and loudly extolled 
 Paoli, the liberator, against whom his relations had declared 
 themselves. " Paoli," said he, at the dinner table, ^ " was a 
 great man. He loved his country. My father was his adju- 
 tant, and never will I forgive him for having aided in the 
 union of Corsica with France. He should have followed her 
 fortunes and have succumbed only with her." Throughout 
 his youth he is at heart anti-French, morose, "bitter, lildng 
 very few and very little liked, brooding over resentment," like 
 a vanquished man, always moody and compelled to work 
 against the grain. At Brienne, he keeps aloof from his com- 
 rades, takes no part in their sports, shuts himself in the library, 
 and unbosoms himself only to Bourrienne in explosions of 
 hatred : " I will do you Frenchmen all the harm I can ! " — 
 " Corsican by nation and character," wrote his professor of 
 history in the Military Academy, " he will go far if circum- 
 stances favor him." ' — Leaving the Academy, and in garrison 
 at Valence and Auxonne, he remains always hostile, dena- 
 tionalized ; his old bitterness returns, and, addressing his let- 
 ters to Paoli, he says : " I was born when our country perished, 
 
 1 Miot de Melito, ii., 33 : " The day I arrived at Bocognano two men lost their lives 
 through private vengeance. About eight years before this one of the inhabitants of the 
 canton had killed a neighbor, the father of two children. ... On reaching the age of 
 sixteen or seventeen years these children left the country in order to dog the steps of the 
 murderer, who kept on the watch, not daring to go far from his village. . . . Finding him 
 playing cards under a tree, they fired at and killed him, and besides this accidentally shot 
 another man who was asleep a few paces off. The relatives on both sides pronounced the 
 act justifiable and according to rule." Ibid.yi.. 143: "On reaching Bastia from Ajaccio 
 the two principal families of the place, the Peraldi and the Visuldi, fired at each other, in 
 disputing over the honor of entertaining me." 
 
 2 Bourrienne, " Memoires," i., 18, iq. 
 
 3 De Segur, " Histoire et Memoires," i., 74.
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 7 
 
 Thirty thousand Frenchmen vomited on our shores, drowning 
 the throne of liberty in floods of blood — such was the odious 
 spectacle on which my eyes fust opened ! The groans of the 
 dying, the shrieks of the oppressed, tears of despair, sur- 
 rounded my cradle from my birth. ... I will blacken those 
 who betrayed the common cause with the brush of infamy . . . 
 vile, sordid souls corrupted by gain !"^ A little later, his 
 letter to Buttafuoco, deputy in the Constituent Assembly and 
 principal agent in the annexation to France, is one long 
 strain of renewed, concentrated hatred, which, after at first 
 trying to restrain it within tlie bounds of cold sarcasm, ends in 
 boiling over, like red-hot lava, in a torrent of scorching invec- 
 tive. — From the age of fifteen, at the Academy and afterwards 
 in his regiment, he finds refuge in imagination in the past of 
 his island ; ~ he recounts its history, his mind dwells upon it 
 for many years, and he dedicates his work to Paoli. Unable to 
 get it published, he abridges it, and dedicates the abridgment 
 to Abbe Raynal, recapitulating in a strained style, with warm, 
 vibrating sympathy, the annals of his small community, its 
 revolts and deliverances, its heroic and sanguinary outbreaks, 
 its public and d(Mnestic tragedies, ambuscades, betrayals, re- 
 venges, loves, and murders, — in short, a history similar to that 
 of the Scottish highlanders, while the style, still more than 
 the sympathies, denotes the foreigner. Undoubtedly, in this 
 work, as in other youthful writings, he follows as well as he 
 can the authors in vogue — Rousseau, and especially Raynal ; 
 he gives a schoolboy imitation of their tirades, their sentimen- 
 tal declamation, and their humanitarian grandiloquence. lUit 
 these borrowed clothes, which incommode him, do not lit him ; 
 they are too tight, and the cloth is too fine ; they require too 
 much circumspection in walking ; he does not know how to 
 put them on, and they rip at every seam. Not only has he 
 never learned how to spell, but he does not know the true 
 
 1 Yung, i., 195. (t^etter of Bonaparte to Paoli, June 12, 1789) ; i., 250 (Letter of Bona- 
 parte to Buttafuoco. January 23. 1790). 
 
 2 Yung, i., 107 (Letter of Napoleon to his father, Sept. 12, 1784): i., 163 (Letter of 
 Napoleon to Abbe Raynal, July, 1786); i., 197 (Letter of Napoleon to Paoli, June 12, 
 1789). The three letters on the history of Co-sica are dedicated to Abbe Raynal in a letter 
 «f June 24, 1790, and may be found in Yung, i., 434.
 
 8 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 meaning, connections, and relations of words, the propriety 
 or impropriety of phrases, the exact significance of imagery ;* 
 he strides on impetuously athwart a pell-mell of incongruities, 
 incoherences, Italianisms, and barbarisms, undoubtedly stum- 
 bling along through awkwardness and inexperience, but alsa 
 through excess of ardor and of heat;^ his jerking, eruptive 
 thought, overcharged with passion, indicates the depth and 
 temperature of its source. Already, at the Academy, the pro- 
 fessor of belles-lettres^ notes down that " in the strange and 
 incorrect grandeur of his amplifications he seems to see granite 
 fused in a volcano." However original in mind and in sensi- 
 bility, ill-adapted as he is to the society around him, different 
 from his comrades, it is clear beforehand that the current ideas 
 which take such hold on them will obtain no hold on him. 
 
 Of the two dominant and opposite ideas which clash with 
 each other, it might be supposed that he would lean either to 
 one or to the other, although accepting neither. — Pensioner of 
 the king, who supported him at Brienne, and afterwards in the 
 Military Academy ; who also supported his sister at St. Cyr ; 
 who, for twenty years, is the benefactor of his family ; to 
 whom, at this very time, he addresses entreating or grateful 
 letters over his mother's signature — he does not regard him as 
 his born general ; it does not enter his mind to take sides and 
 
 1 Read especially his essay" On the Truths and Sentiments most important to inculcatfr 
 on Men for their Welfare " (a subject proposed by the Academy of Lyons in 1790). 
 " Some bold men impulsed by genius. . . . Perfection grows out of reason as fruit out of 
 a tree. . . . Reason's eyes guard man from the precipice of the passions. . . . The spec- 
 tacle 0/ the strenxtk 0/ virttie was what the Lacedaemonians principally felt. . . . Must 
 men then be lucky in the means by which they are led on to happiness ? . . . . My rights. 
 (to property) are renewed along with my transpiration, circulate in my blood, are written 
 on my nerves, on my heart. . . . Proclaim to the rich — your wealth is your misfortune, 
 withdrawn ivithin the latitude 0/ your senses. . . . Let the enemies of nature at thy 
 voice keep silence and swallow their rabid serpents' tongues. . . . The wretched shun the 
 society of men, the /rt/('.t/r_v (t/" ^aj't'/y turns to mourning. . . . Such, gentlemen, are the 
 Sentiments which, in animal relations, mankind should have taught it for its welfare." 
 
 2 Yung, i., 252 (Letter to Buttafuoco). " Dripping with the blood of his brethren, sul- 
 lied by every species of crime, he presents himself with confidence under his vest of a 
 general, the sole reward of his criminalities." — i., i'32 (Letter to the Corsican Intendant, 
 April 2, 1879). " Cultivation is what ruins us". — See various manuscript letters, copied by 
 Yung, for innumerable and gross mistakes in French. — Miot de Melito, i., 84 (July, 1796). 
 " He spoke curtly and, at this time, very incorrectly." — Madame de Remusat, i., 104. 
 " Whatever language he spoke it never seemed familiar to him ; he appeared to force him- 
 self in expressing his ideas." 
 
 3 De Segur, i., 174.
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 9 
 
 draw his sword in his patron's behalf ; in vain is he a gentle- 
 man, to whom d'Hozier has certified ; reared in a school of 
 noble cadets, he has no noble or monarchical traditions.^ — Poor 
 and tormented by ambition, a reader of Rousseau, patronized 
 by Raynal, and tacking together sentences of philosophic 
 fustian about equality, if he speaks the jargon of the day, it is 
 without any belief in it ; the phrases in vogue form a decent, 
 academical drapery for his ideas, or serve him as a red cap for 
 the club ; he is not bewildered by democratic illusions, and 
 entertains no other feeling than disgust for the revolution 
 and the sovereignty of the populace. — At Paris, in April, 1792, 
 when the struggle between the monarchists and the revolu- 
 tionists is at its height, he tries to find " some successful spec- 
 ulation,"^ and thinks he will hire and sublet houses at a profit. 
 On the 20th of June he witnesses, only as a matter of curi- 
 osity, the invasion of the Tuileries, and, on seeing the king at 
 a window place the red cap on his head, exclaims, so as to be 
 heard, " Che Coglione ! " Immediately after this : " How 
 could they let that rabble enter ! Mow down four or five 
 hundred of them with cannon-balls and the rest would run 
 away." On August 10, when the tocsin sounds, he regards 
 the people and the king with equal contempt ; he rushes to a 
 friend's house on the Carrousel and there, still as a looker-on, 
 views at his ease all the occurrences of the day ; ^ finally, the 
 •chateau is forced and he strolls through the 1'uileries, looks 
 in at the neighboring cafes, and that is all : he is not disposed 
 to take sides, he has no Jacobin or royalist impulse. His 
 features, even, are so calm as to provoke many hostile remarks, 
 
 1 Cf. the " Mdmoires " of Marshal Marmont, i., 15, for the ordinary sentiments of the 
 young nobility. " In 1792 I had a sentiment for the person of the king, difficult to define, 
 of which I recovered the trace, and to some extent the power, twenty-two years later ; a 
 sentiment of devotion almost religious in character, an innate respect as if due to a being 
 of a superior order. The word King then possessed a magic, a force, which riOthing had 
 changed in pure and honest breasts. . . . This religion of royalty still existed in the mass 
 of the nation, and especially amongst the ivell-born^ who, sufficiently remote from power, 
 were rather struck with its brilliancy than with its imperfections. . . . This love be- 
 came a sort of worship." 
 
 2 Uourrienne, " Momoires," i. 27. — Scgur, i. 445. In 1795, at Paris, Bonaparte, bein;; 
 out of military employment, enters upon several commercial speculations, amongst which 
 is a bookstore, which does not succeed. (Stated by Scbastiani and many others.) 
 
 3 " Memorial," Aug. 3, 1816.
 
 lo THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 •'and distrustful, as if unknown and suspicious." — Similarly, 
 after the 31st of May and the 2d of June, his "Souper de 
 Beaucaire " shows that if he condemns the departmental insur- 
 rection it is mainly because he deems it fruitless; on the side 
 of the insurgents, a defeated army, no position tenable, no 
 cavalry, raw artillerymen, Marseilles reduced to its own troops, 
 full of hostile sans-cnlottes and sore besieged, taken and pil- 
 laged ; chances are against it. " Poor sections of the coun- 
 try, the people of Vivaris, of the Cevennes, of Corsica, may 
 fight to the last extremity, but you lose a battle and the 
 fruit of a thousand years of fatigue, hardship, economy, and 
 happiness become the soldier's prey."^ And this for the 
 conversion of the Girondists ! — None of the political or social 
 convictions which then exercise such control over men's minds 
 have any hold on him. Before the 9th of Thermidor he seemed 
 to be a " republican montagnard," and we follow him for months 
 in Provence " the favorite and confidential adviser of young; 
 Robespierre," "admirer" of the elder Robespierre,^ intimate 
 at Nice with Charlotte Robespierre. After the gth of Ther- 
 midor has passed, he frees himself with bombast from this 
 compromising friendship: "I thought him sincere," says he 
 of the younger Robespierre, in a letter intended to be shown,, 
 "but were he my father and had aimed at tyranny, I would have 
 stabbed him myself." On returning to Paris, after having 
 knocked at several doors, he takes Barras for a patron. Barras, 
 the most brazen of the corrupt, Barras, who has overthrown 
 and contrived the death of his two former protectors.^ Amon;;- 
 the contending parties and fanaticisms which succeed each 
 other he keeps cool and free to dispose of himself as he 
 pleases, indifferent to every cause and concerning himself only 
 
 1 Bourrienne, i., 171. (Original text of the " Souper de Beaucaire.") 
 
 2 Yung, ii., 430, 431. (Woids of Charlotte Robespierre.) Bonaparte, asa souvenir of his 
 acquaintance with her. granted her a pension, under the consulate, of 3600 francs. — Ibid. 
 (Letter of Tilly, charge d'affaires at Genoa, to Buchot, commissioner of foreign affairs.)— 
 Cf. in the " Memorial," Napoleon's favorable judgment of Robespierre. 
 
 3 Yung, ii., 455. (Letter from Bon.npirte to Tilly, Aug. 7, 1794 ) Ibid., iii., 120. 
 (Memoirs of Lucien.) " Barras has charge of Josephine's dowry, which is the command of 
 the army in Italy." Ibid., ii., 477. (Grading of general officers, notes by Scherer on Bona- 
 parte.> " He knows all about artillery, but is rather too ambitious, and too intriguing for 
 promotion."
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. II 
 
 with his own interests. — On the evening of the 12th of Vende- 
 miaire, on leaving the Feydeau theatre, and noticing the 
 preparations of tlie sectionists,^ he said to Junot, "Ah, if the 
 sections would only let me lead them ! I would guarantee to 
 place them in the Tuileries in two hours and have all those 
 Convention rascals driven out ! " Five hours later, denounced 
 by Barras and the Conventionalists, he takes " three minutes " 
 to make up his mind, and, instead of " blowing up the repre- 
 sentatives," he shoots down the Parisians like any other good 
 condoitiere, who, holding himself in reserve, inclines to the first 
 that offers and then to who offers the most, except to back 
 out afterwards, and finally, seizing the opportunity, grabs any- 
 thing. — Likewise, a veritable coiidottiere, that is to say, leader 
 of a band, more and more independent, pretending to submit 
 under the pretext of the public good, looking out solely for 
 his own interest, centering all on himself, general on his own 
 account and for his own advantage in his Italian campaign 
 before and after the i8th of Fructidor,^ but d^condottiere of the 
 first class, already aspiring to the loftiest summits, "with no 
 stopping-place but the throne or the scaffold,"^ "determined* 
 to master France, also Europe through France, ever occupied 
 with his own plans, and without distraction, sleeping three 
 hours during the night," making playthings of ideas, people, 
 religions, and governments, managing mankind with incom- 
 parable dexterity and brutality, in the choice of means as of 
 
 1 De Segur, i.. 162 — La F.iyette, " Memoires," ii., 215. "Memorial" (note dictated 
 by Napoleon). He states the reasons for and against, and adds, speaking of himself: 
 " These sentiments, twenty-five years of age, confidence in his strength, his destiny, de- 
 termined him." Boiirrienne, i., 51: " It is certain that hehas always bemoaned that day ; 
 he has often said to me that he would give years of his life to efface that page of his 
 history." 
 
 2 " Memorial," i.. Sept 6, 1815. " It is only after Lodi that the ide.i came to me that I 
 might, after all, become a decisive actor on our political stage. Tlien the first spark ot lofty 
 ambition gleamed out." On his aim and conduct in the Italian campaign of Sybel, " His- 
 toire de I'Europe pendant la Revolution Fran^aise " (Dosquct translation), vol. iv., books 
 ii.and iii., especially pp. 182, iqg, 334, 335, 406, 420, 475, 489. 
 
 3 Vung, iii., 213. (Letter of M. de Sucy, August 4, 1797.) 
 
 4 Jbid., iii., 214. (Report of d'Entraigues to M. de Mowikinoff, Sept., 1797.) " If there 
 was any king in France which was not himself, he would like to have been his creator, 
 with his rights at the end of his sword, this sword never to be parted with, so that he 
 might plunge it in the king's bosom if he ever ceased to be submissive to him." — Miot de 
 Melito, i., 154. flioiiaparte to Montebello, before Miot and Melzi, June, 1797.) Ibiti,'i., 
 184. (Bonaparte 10 .Miot, Nov. j3, 1797, at Turin.)
 
 12 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 ends, a superior artist, inexhaustible in prestiges, seductions, 
 corruption, and intimidation, wonderful, and yet more terrible 
 than any wild beast suddenly turned in on a herd of browsing 
 cattle. The expression is not too strong and was uttered by 
 an eye-witness, almost at this very date, a friend and a com- 
 petent diplomat : " You know that, while I am very fond of 
 the dear general, I call him to myself the little tiger, so as to 
 properly characterize his figure, tenacity, and courage, the 
 rapidity of his movements, and all that he has in him which 
 may be fairly regarded in that sense." ^ 
 
 At this very date, previous to official adulation and the 
 adoption of a recognized type, we see him face to face in two 
 portraits drawn from life, one physical, by a truthful painter, 
 Guerin, and the other moral, by a superior woman, Madame 
 de Stael, who to the best European culture added tact and 
 worldly perspicacity. Both portraits agree so perfectly that 
 each seems to interpret and complete the other. " I saw him 
 for the first time," ^ says Madame de Stael, " on his return to 
 France after the treaty of Campo-Formio. After recovering 
 from the first excitement of admiration there succeeded to this 
 a decided sentiment of fear." And yet, "at this time he had 
 no power, for it was even then supposed that the Directory 
 looked upon him with a good deal of suspicion." People re- 
 garded him sympathetically, and were even prepossessed in 
 his favor ; " thus the fear he inspired was simply due to the 
 singular effect of his person on almost all who approache4 
 him. I had met men worthy of respect and had likewise met 
 men of ferocious character ; but nothing in the impression 
 which Bonaparte produced on me reminded me of either. I 
 soon found, in the various opportunities I had of meeting him 
 during his stay in Paris, that his character 7vas not to be de- 
 scribed in terms commonly employed; he was neither mild nor 
 
 1 D'Haussonville, "L'Eglise Romaine et la Premier Empire," i., 405. (Words of M. 
 Cacault, signer of the Treaty of Tolentino, and French Secretary of Legation at Rome, at 
 the commencement of negotiations for the Concordat.) M. Cacault says that he used 
 this expression, " After the scenes of Tolentino and of Leghorn, and the fright of Man 
 fredini, and Mate! threatened, and so many other vivacities." 
 
 2 Madame de Stael, " Considerations sur la Revolution Frangaise," 3d part, ch. xxvi.. 
 and 4th part, ch. xviii.
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEOISr BONAPARTE. 13 
 
 violent, nor gentle nor cruel, like certain personages one hap- 
 pens to know. A being like him, wholly unlike anybody else, 
 could neither feel nor excite sympathy ; he was both more and 
 less than a man ; his figure, intellect, and language bore the 
 impress of a foreign nationality .... far from being reassured 
 on seeing Bonaparte oftener, he intimidated me more and 
 more every day. I had a confused impression that he was 
 not to be influenced by any emotion of sympathy or affection. 
 He regards a human being as a fact, aji object, and not as a fel- 
 low-creature. He neither hates nor loves, he exists for himself 
 alone ; the rest of humanity are so many ciphers. The force 
 of his will consists in the imperturbable calculation of his 
 egoism ; he is a skillful player who has the human species for 
 an antagonist, and whom he proposes to checkmate. . . . 
 Every time that I heard him talk I was struck with his superi- 
 ority; it bore no resemblance to that of men informed and 
 cultivated through study and social intercourse, such as we 
 find in France and England ; his conversation indicated the 
 tact of circumstatices, like that of the hunter in pursuit of his 
 prey. His spirit seemed a cold, keen sword-blade, which 
 freezes while it wounds. I felt a profound irony in his mind, 
 which nothing great or beautiful could escape, not even his 
 own fame, for he despised the nation whose suffrages he 
 sought." — "With him, everything was means to ends ; the in- 
 voluntary, whether for good or for evil, was entirely absent." 
 No law, no ideal and abstract rule, existed for him ; " he 
 examined things only with reference to their immediate use- 
 fulness ; a general principle was repugnant to him, either as 
 so much nonsense or as an enemy." 
 
 Now, contemplate in Guerin * the spare body, those narrow 
 shoulders under the uniform wrinkled by sudden movements, 
 that neck swathed in its high twisted cravat, those temples 
 covered by long, smooth, straight hair, exposing only the mask, 
 the hard features intensified through strong contrasts of light 
 and shade, the cheeks hollow up to the inner angle of the eye, 
 the projecting cheek-bones, the massive, protuberant jaw, the 
 
 I Portrait of Bonaparte in the " Cabinet des Etampes," " drawn by Guerin, engraved by 
 Fiesinger, deposited in the National Library, Vend6miaire ag, year vii."
 
 14 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 sinuous, mobile lips, pressed together as if attentive, the large^ 
 clear eyes, deeply sunk under the broad, arched eyebrows, the 
 fixed, oblique look, as penetrating as a rapier, and the two 
 creases which extend from the base of the nose to the brow, as 
 if in a frown of suppressed anger and determined will. Add to 
 this the accounts of his contemporaries^ who saw or heard the 
 curt accent or the sharp, abrupt gesture, the interrogating, 
 imperious, absolute tone of voice, and we comprehend how, 
 the moment they accosted him, they felt the dominating hand 
 which seizes them, presses them down, holds them firmly and 
 never relaxes its grasp. 
 
 Already, at the receptions of the Directory, when conversing 
 with men, or even with ladies, he puts questions " which prove 
 the su[)eriority of the questioner to those who have to answer 
 them." ^ " Are you married ? " says he to this one, and " How 
 many children have you ? " to another. To that one, " When 
 did you come here ? " or, again, " When are you going away ?" 
 He places himself in front of a French lady, well known for 
 her beauty and wit and the vivacity of her opinions, " like the 
 stiffest of German generals, and says : ' Madame, 1 don't like 
 women who meddle with politics!'" Equality, ease, and 
 familiarity — all fellowship vanishes at his approach. Eighteen 
 months before this, on his appointment as commander-in-chief 
 of the army in Italy, Admiral Decres, who had known him well 
 at Paris,'' learns that he is to pass through Toulon : 
 
 " I at once propose to my comrades to introduce them, 
 venturing to do so on my acquaintance with him in Paris. 
 Full of eagerness and joy, I start off. The door opens and I 
 am about to press forwards," he afterwards wrote, " when the 
 attitude, the look, and the tone of voice suffice to arrest me. 
 And yet there was nothing offensive about him ; still, this was 
 enough. I never tried after that to overstep the line thus 
 imposed on me." A few days later, at Alberga,* certain 
 
 1 Madame de Remu^at. " Memoires, " i., 104. — Miot de Melito, i., 84. 
 
 2 Madame de Stael, " Considerations," etc., 3d part,ch. xxv. — Madame de Remusat, ii., 
 77- 
 
 3 Stendhal, "Memcires sur Napoleon," narration of Admiral Decres.— Same narration in 
 the '• Memorial." 
 
 4 De Segur, i., 193.
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 15 
 
 generals of division, and among them Augereau, a vulgar, 
 heroic old soldier, vain of his tall figure and courage, arrive at 
 headquarters, not well disposed toward the little parvenu 
 sent out to them from Paris. Recalling the description of him 
 which had been given to them, Augereau is abusive and insub- 
 ordinate beforehand. " One of Barras's favorites ! The Ven- 
 demiaire general ! A street general ! Never in action ! 
 Hasn't a friend! Looks like a bear because he always thinks 
 for himself ! An insignificant figure ! He is said to be a 
 mathematician and dreamer!"' They enter, and Bonaparte 
 keeps them waiting. At last he appears, with his sword and 
 belt on, explains the disposition of the forces, gives them his 
 orders, and dismisses them. Augereau is thunderstruck. 
 Only when he gets out of doors does he recover himself and 
 fall back'on his accustomed oaths. He agrees with Massena 
 
 that "that little of a general frightened him." He 
 
 cannot comprehend the ascendency." which overawes him at 
 the first glance."^ 
 
 Extraordinary and superior, made for command ' and for 
 conquest, singular and of an unique species, is the feeling of 
 all his contemporaries; those who are most familiar with the 
 histories of other nations, Madame de Stael and, after her, 
 Stendhal, go back to the right sources to comprehend him, to 
 the " petty Italian tyrants of the fourteenth and fifteenth cen- 
 turies," to Castruccio-Castracani, to the Braccio of Mantua, 
 to the Piccinino, the Malatestas of Rimini, and the Sforzas of 
 Milan. In their opinion, however, it is only a chance analogy, 
 a psychological resemblance. Really, however, and histori- 
 
 1 Roederer, " CEiivres Completes," ii., 560. (Conversations with General Lasalle in i8og, 
 and l.asalle's judgment on the debuts of Napoleon). 
 
 2 Another instance of this commanding influence is found in the case of General Vanda- 
 mme, an old revolutionary soldier still more brutal and energetic than Augereau. In 1815, 
 Vandamme said to Marshal d'Ornano, one day, on ascending the staircase of the Tuileries 
 together : " My dear fellow, that devil of a man (speaking of the Emperor) fascinates me 
 in a way I cannot account for. I, who don't fear either God or the devil, when I approach 
 him 1 tremble like a child. He would make me dash through the eye of a needle into the 
 fire ! " (" Le General Vandamme." by du Casse, ii., 385). 
 
 3 Roederer, iii., 356. (Napoleon himself says, February 11, 1809): " I, military ! I am so, 
 because I was born so ; it is my habit, my very existence. Wherever I have been I have 
 always had command. I commanded at twenty-three, at the siege of Toulon ; I commanded 
 at Paris in Vendemiaire ; I won over the soldiers in Italy the moment I presented myself. 
 I was born for that."
 
 1 6 THE MODERN R&GIME. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 cally it is a positive relationship. He is a descendant of the 
 great Italians, the men of action of the year 1400, the military 
 adventurers, usurpers, and founders of life-governments ; he 
 inherits in direct affiliation their blood and inward organiza- 
 tion, mental and moral.' A sprout has been transplanted from 
 their forest, before the age of refinement, impoverishment, and 
 decay, to a similar and remote nursery, vi^here the tragic 
 and militant regime is permanently established ; the primitive 
 germ is preserved there intact and transmitted from one gen- 
 eration to another, renewed and invigorated by interbreeding. 
 Finally, at the last stage of its growth, it springs out of the 
 ground and develops magnificently, blooming the same as 
 ever, and producing the same fruit as on the original stem ; 
 modern cultivation and French gardening have pruned away 
 but very few of its branches and blunted a few of its thorns : 
 its original texture, inmost substance, and spontaneous devel- 
 
 1 Observe various traits of the same mental and moral structure among different members 
 of the family. (Speaking of his brothers and sisters in the " Memorial " Napoleon says): 
 " What family as numerous presents such a splendid combination ?" — " Memoires " (un- 
 published), by M. X , fourteen manuscript volumes, vol. ii., 543. (This author, a 
 
 young magistrate under Louis XVI., a high functionary under the Empire, an important 
 political personage under the restoration and the July monarchy, is probably the best in- 
 formed and most judicious of eye-witnesses during the first half of our century.) " Their 
 vices and virtues surpass ordinary proportions and have a physiognomy of their own. But 
 what especially distinguishes them is a stubborn will, and inflexible resolution. . . . All 
 possessed the instinct of their greatness." They readily accepted " the highest positions; 
 they even got to believing that their elevation was inevitable. . . . Nothing in the in- 
 credible good fortune of Joseph astonished him; often in January, 1814, I heard him say 
 over and over again that if his brother had not meddled with his affairs after the second 
 entry into Madrid, he would still be on the throne of Spain. As to determined obstinacy 
 we have only to refer to the resignation of Louis, the retirement of Lucien, and the resis- 
 tances of Fesch ; they alone could stem the will of Napoleon and sometimes break a lance 
 with him. — Passion, sensuality, the habit of considering themselves outside of rules, and self- 
 confidence combined with talent, superabound among the women, as in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. Elisa, in Tuscany, had a vigorous brain, was high spirited and a genuine sovereign, 
 notwithstanding the disorders of her private life, in which even appearances were not suffi- 
 ciently maintained." Caroline at Naples, "without being more scrupulous than her sis- 
 ters," better observed the proprieties ; none of the others so much resembled the Emperor ; 
 "with her, all tastes succumbed to ambition "; it was she who advised and prevailed upon 
 her husband, Murat, to desert Napoleon in 1824. As to Pauline, the most beautiful woman 
 of her epoch, " no wife, since that of the Emperor Claude, surpassed her in the use she dared 
 make of her charms ; nothing could stop her, not even a malady attributed to her dissipa- 
 tion and for which we have so often seen her borne in a litter."— Jerome, " in spite of the 
 uncommon boldness of his debaucheries, maintained his ascendancy over his wife to the 
 last."— On the "pressing efforts and attempts" of Joseph on Maria Louise in 1814, M. 
 
 X , after Savary's papers and the evidence of M. de Saint-Aignan, gives extraordinary 
 
 details. (Vol. iv., 112.) 
 
 I
 
 CHAP, I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. IJ 
 
 opment have not chan<jed. The soil of France and of Europe, 
 however, broken up by revolutionary tempests, is more favor- 
 able to its roots than the worn-out fields of the Middle Ages ; 
 and there it grows by itself, without being subject, like its 
 Italian ancestors, to rivalry with its own species ; nothing 
 checks the growth; it may absorb all the juices of the ground, 
 all the air and sunshine of the region, and become the Co- 
 lossus which the ancient plants, equally deep-rooted and 
 certainly as absorbent, but born in a less friable soil and 
 more crowded together, could not provide. 
 
 II. 
 
 " The man-plant," says Alfieri, " is in no country born more 
 vigorous than in Italy "; and never, in Italy, was it so vigorous 
 as from 1300 to 1500, from the contemporaries of Dante down 
 to those of Michael Angelo, Caesar Borgia, Julius II., and 
 Macchiavelli.' The first distinguishing mark of a man of 
 those times is i/ie integrity of his itiental instrument. Nowa- 
 days, after three hundred years of service, ours has lost some- 
 what of its temper, sharpness, and suppleness; in general, a 
 compulsory, special application of it has rendered it one-sided ; 
 the multiplication, besides, of ready-made ideas and acquired 
 methods incrusts it and reduces its play to a sort of routine ; 
 finally, it is much worn through excess of cerebral action, 
 weakened by the continuity of sedentary habits. It is just the 
 opposite with those impulsive spirits of new blood and of a 
 new race. 
 
 Roederer, a competent and independent judge, who, at the 
 beginning of the consular government, sees Bonaparte daily 
 at the meetings of the Council of State, and who notes down 
 every evening the impressions of the day, is carried away with 
 admiration.'^ " Punctual at every sitting, prolonging the ses- 
 sion five or si.K hours, discussing before and afterwards the 
 subjects brought forward, always returning to two questions, 
 * Is \.\\7x\.jiist ?' * Is that tiseful ? ' examining each question in 
 
 I Burkhardt, " Die Renaissance in Italien." passim. — Stendhal, " Histoire de la pein- 
 ture en Italic " (introduction), and " Rome, Naples, et Florence," /><ijj/w. 
 3 Roederer, iii., 380 (1802).
 
 1 8 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 itself, under both relations, after having subjected it to a 
 most exact and elaborate analysis ; next, consulting the best 
 authorities, the times, experience, and obtaining information 
 about bygone jurisprudence, the laws of Louis XIV. and of 
 Frederick tiie Great. . . . Never did the council adjourn 
 without its members knowing more than the day before ; if not 
 through knowledge derived from him, at least through the 
 researches he obliged them to make. Never did the members 
 of the Senate and the Corps Legislatif, or of the tribunals, pay 
 their respects to him without being rewarded for their homage 
 by valuable instructions. He cannot be surrounded by public 
 men without being the statesman, all forming for him a coun- 
 cil of state." " What characterizes him above them all," 
 is not alone the penetration and universality of his compre- 
 hension, but likewise and especially "the force, flexibility, and 
 constancy of his attention. He can work eighteen hours at a 
 stretch, on one or on several subjects. I never saw him tired. 
 I never found his mind lacking in inspiration, even when 
 weary in body, nor when violently exercised, nor when angry. 
 I never saw him diverted from one matter by another, turning 
 from that under discussion to one he had just finished or was 
 about to take up. The news, good or bad, he received from 
 Egypt, did not divert his mind from the civil code, nor the 
 civil code from the combinations which the safety of Egypt 
 required. Never did man more wholly devote himself to the 
 work in hand, nor better devote his time to what he had to do. 
 Never did mind more inflexibly set aside the occupation or 
 thought which did not come at the right day or hour, never 
 was one more ardent in seeking it, more alert in its pursuit, 
 more capable of fixing it when the time came to take 
 it up." — He himself said later on : ' " Various subjects 
 and affairs are stowed away in my brain as in a chest of 
 drawers. When I want to take up any special business I 
 shut one drawer and open another. None of them ever 
 get mixed, and never does this incommode me or fatigue 
 me. If I feel sleepy I shut all the drawers and go to sleep." 
 Never has brain so disciplined and under such control been 
 
 I " Memorial."
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 19 
 
 seen, one so ready at all times for any task, so capable of 
 immediate and absolute concentration. Its flexibility ' is won- 
 derful, "in the instant application of every faculty and energy, 
 and bringing them all to bear at once on any object that con- 
 cerns him, on a mite as well as on an elephant, on any given 
 individual as well as on an enemy's army. . . . When spe- 
 cially occupied, other things do not exist for him ; it is a sort 
 of chase from which nothing diverts him." And this hot pur- 
 suit, which nothing arrests save capture, this tenacious hunt, 
 this headlong course by one to whom the goal is never other 
 than a fresh starting-point, is the spontaneous gait, the natural, 
 even pace which his mind prefers. " I am always at work," 
 says he to Roederer.*^ "I meditate a great deal. If I seem 
 always equal to the occasion, ready to face what con.es, it is 
 because I have thought the matter over a long time before 
 undertaking it. I have anticipated whatever might happen". 
 It is no genius which suddenly reveals to me what I ought to 
 do or say in any unlooked-for circumstance, but my own 
 reflection, my own meditation. ... I work all the time, at 
 dmner, in the theatre. I wake up at night in order to resume 
 my work. I got up last night at two o'clock. I stretched 
 myself on my couch before the fire to examine the army 
 reports sent to me by the Minister of War. I found twenty 
 mistakes in them, and made notes which I have this morning 
 sent to the minister, who is now engaged with his clerks in 
 rectifying them." His fellow-workmen bseak down and sink 
 under the burden imposed on them and which he supports 
 without feeling the weight. When Consul,^ "he sometimes 
 presides at special meetings of the section of the interior from 
 ten o'clock in the evening until five o'clock in the morn- 
 ing. . . . Often, at Saint-Cloud, he keeps the counsellors of 
 state from nine o'clock in the morning until five in the even- 
 ing, with fifteen minutes' intermission, and seems no more 
 fatigued at the close of the session than when it began." 
 
 1 De Pradt, " Histoire de TAmbassade dans la gr.Ande-duche de Varsovie en 1812," 
 preface, p. x, and 5. 
 
 2 Roederer, iii., 544 (February 24, 1809). Cf. Meneval, " Napoleon et Marie-Louise, 
 souvenirs historiciues," i., 210-213. 
 
 3 Pelet de la Lozere," Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 8. — Roederer, iii., 380.
 
 20 THE ^MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 During the night sessions " many of the members succumb 
 through lassitude, while the Minister of War falls asleep "; he 
 gives them a shake and wakes them up, " Come, come, citi- 
 zens, let us bestir ourselves, it is only two o'clock and we 
 must earn the money the French people pay us." Consul or 
 Emperor,' "he demands of each minister an account of the 
 smallest details. It is not rare to see them leaving the coun- 
 cil room overcome with fatigue, due to the long interroga- 
 tories to which he has subjected them ; he disdains to take 
 any notice of this, and talks about the day's work simply as a 
 relaxation which has scarcely given his mind exercise." And 
 what is worse, " it often happens that on returning home 
 they find a dozen of his letters requiring immediate answer, 
 for which the whole night scarcely suffices." The quantity of 
 facts he is able to retain and store away, the quantity of ideas 
 he elaborates and produces, seems to surpass human capacity, 
 and this insatiable, inexhaustible, unmovable brain thus keeps 
 on working uninterruptedly for thirty years. 
 
 Through another result of the same mental organization, // 
 demands material to uwrk on; and this, at the present day, is our 
 great danger. For the past three hundred years we have more 
 and more lost sight of the exact and direct meaning of things; 
 subject to the constraints of a domestic, many-sided, and pro- 
 longed education we fix our attention on the symbols of objects 
 rather than on the objects themselves; instead of on the ground 
 
 I Mollien, " Memoires," i., 379 ; ii., 230 — Roederer, iii., 434. " He is at the head of all 
 things. He governs, administrates, negotiates, works eighteen hours a day, with the clear- 
 est and best organized head ; he has governed more in three years than kings in a hundred 
 years." — Lavalette, " Memoires," ii., 75. (The words of Napoleon's secretary on Napo- 
 leon's labor in Paris, after Leipsic) : " He retires at eleven, but gets up at three o'clock in the 
 morning, and until the evening there is not a moment he does not devote to work. It is 
 time this stopped, for he will be used up, and myself before he is." — Gaudin, Due de 
 Oaete, " Memoires," iii. (supplement), p. 75. Account of an evening in which, from eight 
 o'clock to three in the morning. Napoleon examines with Gaudin his general budget, during 
 seven consecutive hours, without stopping a minute.— Sir Neil Campbell, '' Napoleon at 
 Fontainebleau and at Elbe," p. 243. "Journal de Sir Neil Campbell k I'ile d'Elbe " : "I 
 never saw any man, in any station in life, so personally active and so persistent in his 
 activity. He seems to take pleasure in perpetual motion and in seeing those who accom- 
 pany him completely tired out, which frequently happened in my case when I accompanied 
 him. . . . Yesterday, after having been on his legs from eight in the morning to three in 
 the afternoon, visiting the frigates and transports, even to going down to the lower com- 
 oarlments among the horses, he rode on horseback for three hours, and, as he afterwards 
 said to me, to rest htiitsel/y
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 21 
 
 itself, on a map of it ; instead of on animals struggling for 
 existence,^ on nomenclatures and classifications, or, at best, on 
 stuffed specimens displayed in a museum ; instead of on men 
 who feel and act, on statistics, codes, histories, literatures, and 
 philosophies ; in short, on printed words, and, worse still, on 
 abstract terms, which from century to century have become 
 more abstract and therefore further removed from experience, 
 more difficult to understand, less adaptable and more decep- 
 tive, especially in all that relates to human life and society. 
 In this domain, owing to extended governments, to the multi- 
 plication of services, to the entanglement of interests, the 
 object, indefinitely expanded and complex, now eludes our 
 grasp; our vague, incomplete, incorrect idea of it badly cor- 
 responds with it, or does not correspond at all ; in nine minds 
 out of ten, or perhaps ninety-nine out of a hundred, it is but 
 little more than a word; the rest, if they desire some significant 
 indication of what society actually is beyond the teachings of 
 books, require ten or fifteen years of close observation and 
 study to re-think the phrases with which these have filled their 
 memory, to interpret them anew, to make clear their meaning, 
 to get at and verify their sense, to substitute for the more or 
 less empty and indefinite term the fullness and precision of a 
 personal impression. We have seen how ideas of Society, 
 State, Government, Sovereignty, Rights, Liberty, the most 
 important of all ideas, were, at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, curtailed and falsified ; how, in most minds, simple verbal 
 reasoning combined them together in dogmas and axioms; 
 what an offspring these metaphysical simulacra gave birth to, 
 how many lifeless and grotesque abortions, how many mon- 
 strous and destructive chimeras. There is no place for any of 
 
 I The starting-point of the great discoveries of Darwin is the physical, circumstantial 
 fact of which he has made account in his study of animals and plants, as living, during 
 the 'whole course of life, subject to innumerable dilTiculties and to such rude compe- 
 tition ; this study is wholly lacking in the ordinary zoologist or botanist, whose mind is 
 busy only with anatomical preparations or collections of plants. In every science, the 
 difficulty lies in arriving at a reduction in brief of the real object through significant speci- 
 mens, just as it exists before us, and its true history. Claude Bernard one day remarked to 
 me, "We shall know physiology when we are able to follow step by step a molecule of 
 carbon or azote in the body of a dog, give its history, and describe its passage from its. 
 entrance to its exit."
 
 22 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 these chimeras in the mind of Bonaparte ; they cannot arise 
 in it, nor find access to it ; his aversion to the unsubstantial 
 phantoms of political abstraction extends beyond disdain, even 
 to disgust;^ the ideology of that day, as it is called, is his j 
 particular bugbear ; he loathes it not alone through calculation, 1 
 
 but still more through an instinctive demand for what is real, " 
 
 as a practical man and statesman, always keeping in mind, like 
 the great Catherine, " that he is operating, not on paper, but 
 on the human hide, which is ticklish." Every idea entertained 
 by him had its origin in his personal observation, and it was 
 his personal observation which controlled it. 
 
 If books are useful to him it is to suggest questions, which he 
 never answers but through his own experience. He read very 
 little, and hastily ; ^ his classical education was rudimentary ; in 
 the way of Latin, he remained in the lower class. The instruc- 
 tion he got at the Military Academy as well as at Brienne was 
 below mediocrity, while, after Brienne, it is stated that " for 
 the languages and belles-lettres, he had no taste." Next 
 to this, the literature of elegance and refinement, the philoso- 
 phy of the closet and drawing-room, with which his contem- 
 poraries are imbued, glided over his intellect as over a rock ; 
 none but mathematical truths and positive notions about 
 geography and history found their way into his mind and 
 deeply impressed it. Everything else, as with his predecessors 
 of the fifteenth century, comes to him through the original, 
 
 1 Thibaudeau, '■ Memoires sur le Consulat," 204. (Apropos of the tribunate) : " They 
 consist of a dozen or fifteen metaphysicians who ought to be flung into the water ; they 
 crawl all over me like vermin." 
 
 2 Madame de Remusat, i., 113 : " He is really ignorant, having read very little and always 
 hastily." — Stendhal, " Memoires sur Napoleon": '" His education was very defective. . .. 
 He knew nothing of the great principles discovered within the past one hundred years," 
 and just those which concern man or society. "For example, he had not read Montes- 
 quieu as this writer ought to be read, that is to say, in a way to accept or decidedly re- 
 ject each of the thirty-one books of the ' Esprit des lois.' He had not thus read Bayle's 
 Dictionary nor the Essay on the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This ignorance of 
 the Emperor's was not perceptible in conversation, and first, because he led in conversation, 
 and next, because with Italian finesse no question put by him, or careless supposition thrown 
 out, ever betrayed that ignorance."— Bourrienne. i., 19,21 : At Brienne, "unfortunately for 
 us, the monks to whom the education of youth was confided knew nothing, and were too 
 poor to pay good foreign teachers. ... It is inconceivable how any capable man ever 
 graduated from this educational institution." — Yung, i., 125 (Notes made by him on 
 Bonaparte, when he left the Military Academy) : " Very fond of the abstract sciences, 
 indifferent toothers, well grounded in mathematics and geography."
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 23 
 
 direct action of his faculties in contact with men and thinors. 
 through his prompt and sure tact, his indefatigable and minute 
 attention, his indefinitely repeated and rectified divinations 
 during long hours of solitude and silence. Practice, and not 
 speculation, is the source of his instruction, the same as with a 
 mechanic brought up amongst machinery. " There is nothing 
 relating to warfare that I cannot make myself. If nobody 
 knows how to make gunpowder, I do. I can construct gun- 
 carriages. If cannon must be cast, I will see that it is done 
 properly. If tactical details must be taught, I will teach 
 them."' Hence his competency at the outset — general in the 
 artillery, major-general, diplomatist, financier and adminis- 
 trator, all at once and in every direction. Thanks to this 
 fecund apprenticeship, beginning with the Consulate, he shows 
 cabinet clerks and veteran ministers who send in their reports 
 to him what to do. " I am a better administrator than they 
 are ; ^ when one has been obliged to rack his brains to find out 
 how to feed, maintain, control, and animate with the same 
 spirit and will two or three hundred thousand men, a long 
 distance from their country, one soon gets at the secrets of 
 administration." He takes in at a glance every part of the 
 human machine he fashions and manipulates, each in its 
 proper place and function ; the generators of power, the 
 organs of its transmission, the extra working gear, the com- 
 posite action, the speed which ensues, the final result, the 
 complete effect, the net product ; never is he content with a 
 superficial and summary inspection ; he penetrates into obscure 
 corners and to the lowest depths " through the technical pre- 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 544 (March 6. 1809), 26, 563 (Jan. 23, 181 1, and Nov. 12. 1813). 
 
 2 Mollien, i., 348 (a short time before the rupture of the peace of Amiens ), iii., 16: " It 
 was at the end of January, 1809, that he wanted a full report of the financial situation on 
 the 31st of December, 1808. . . . This report was to be ready in two days "—iii., 34 :' 'A 
 complete balance sheet of the public treasury for the fir-it six months of 1812 was under 
 Napoleon's eyes at Witcpsk, the iilh of August, eleven days after the close of these first 
 six months. What is truly wonderful is, that amidst so many different occupations and 
 preoccupations .... he could preserve such an accurate run of the proceedings and methods 
 of the administrative branches about which he wanted to know at any moment. Nobody 
 had any excuse for not answeringhim, for each was questioned in hisown terms : it i^ that 
 singular aptitude of the head of \.\\^'&v.\\.c, ^nA the technical precision 0/ his questions, 
 which alone explains how he co'uld maintain such a remarkable ensemble in an adminis- 
 trative system of which the smallest threads centred in himself."
 
 24 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 cision of his questions," with the lucidity of a specialist, and 
 in this way, borrowing an expression from the philosophers, 
 his idea is found adequate to its object. 
 
 Hence his eagerness for details, for these form the body 
 and substance of the object ; the hand that has not grasped 
 these, or lets them go, retains only the shell, an envelope. 
 With respect to these his curiosity is "insatiable." ' In each 
 ministerial department he knows more than the ministers, and 
 in each bureau he knows as much as the clerks. "On his 
 table ^ lie reports of the positions of his forces on land and on 
 water ; he has furnished the plans of these, and fresh ones are 
 issued every month "; such is the daily reading he likes best. 
 " I have my reports on positions always at hand ; my memory 
 for an Alexandrine is not good, but I never forget a syllable 
 of my reports on positions. I shall find them in my room this 
 evening, and I shall not go to bed until I have read them." 
 He always knows " his position " on land and at sea better 
 than is known in the War and Navy departments ; better even 
 than his staff-officers the number, size, and qualities of his 
 ships in or out of port, the present and future state of vessels 
 under construction, the composition and strength of their 
 crews, the formation, organization, staff of officers, material, 
 stations, and enlistments, past and to come, of each army 
 corps and of each regiment. 
 
 I An expression of Mollien. 
 
 zMeneval, i., 210, 213. — Roederer, iii., 537, 545 CFebruary and March, 1889): Words of 
 Napoleon: "At this moment it was nearly midnight." /6ii/., iv., 55 (November, 1809). 
 Read the admirable examination of Roederer by Napoleon on the Kingdom of Naples. His 
 queries form a vast systematic and concise network, embracing the entire subject, leaving 
 no physical or moral data, no useful circumstance not seized upon. — Segur, ii., 231 : M. de 
 Segur, ordered to inspect every part of the coast-line, had sent in his report : " ' I have 
 seen your reports,' said the First Consul to me, ' and they are exact. Nevertheless, you for- 
 got two cannon at Ostend,' and he pointed out the place. ' in a road behind the town.' I went . 
 out overwhelmed with astonishment that among thousands of cannon distributed among 
 the mounted batteries or light artillery on the coast, two pieces should not have escaped his 
 recollection." — " Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, August 6, 1806: " The admirable 
 condition of my armies is due to this, that I give attention to them every day for an hour or 
 two, and, when the monthly reports come in, to the state of my troops and fleets, all form- 
 ing about twenty large volumes. I leave every oiher occupation to read them over in 
 detail, to see what difference there is between one month and another. I take more pleasure 
 in reading those than any young girl does in a novel."— Cadet de Gassicourt, "Voyage en 
 Autriche " (1809). On his reviews at Schoenbrunn and his verification of the contents of a 
 pontoon-wagon, taken as an example. 
 
 %
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 25 
 
 It is the same in the financial and diplomatic services, in 
 €very branch of the adminstration, laic or ecclesiastical, in the 
 physical order and in the moral order. His topographical 
 memory and his geographical conception of countries, places, 
 ground, and obstacles culminate in an inward vision which he 
 evokes at will, and which, years afterwards, revives as fresh as 
 on the first day. His calculation of distances, marches, and 
 manoeuvres is so rigid a mathematical operation that, fre- 
 quently, at a distance of two or four hundred leagues, his 
 military foresight, calculated two or four months ahead, turns 
 out correct, almost on the day named, and precisely on the 
 spot designated.^ Add to this one other faculty, and the 
 rarest of all ; for, if things turn out as he foresaw they would, 
 it is because, as with famous chess-players, he has accurately 
 measured not alone the mechanical moves of the pieces, but 
 the character and talent of his adversary, " sounded his draft 
 of water," and divined his probable mistakes ; he has added 
 the calculation of physical quantities and probabilities to the 
 ■calculation of moral quantities and probabilities, thus showing 
 himself as great a psychologist as he is an accomplished strate- 
 
 I Bourrienne, ii., 116 ; iv., 238 : " He had not a good memory for propernames, words, 
 and dates, but it was prodigious for /acts and localities. I remember that, on the 
 -way from Paris to Toulon, he called my attention to ten places suitable for giving battle. 
 . . . It was a souvenir of his youthful travels, and he described to me the lay of the ground, 
 -designating the positions he would have taken even before we were on the spot." March 
 17, 1800, puncturing a card with a pin, he shows Bourrienne the place where he intends to 
 beat Melas, at San Juliano. " Four months after this I found myself at San Juiiano with 
 his portfolio and despatches, and, that very evening, at Torrc-di-Gafolo, 11 league off, I wrote 
 the bulletin of the battle under his dictation'' (of Marengo).— De Segur, ii., 30 (Narra- 
 tive of M. Uaru to M. de Segur: Aug. 13, 1805, at the headquarters of La Manche. Napo- 
 leon dictates to M. Darn the complete plan of the campaign against Austria) : " Order of 
 marches, their duration, places of convergence or meeting of the columns, attacks in full 
 force, the various movements and mistakes of the enemy, all, in this rapid dictation, was 
 foreseen two months beforehand and at a distance of two hundred leagues. . . . The bat- 
 tle-field, the victories, and even the very days on which we were to enter Munich and 
 Vienn.i were then announced and written down as it all turned out. . . . Dam saw 
 these oracles fulfilled on the designated days up to our entry into Munich ; if there were any 
 differences of time and not of results between Munich and Vienna, they were all in our 
 favor."— .\I. de La Vallette, " Memoires," ii., p. 35. (He was postm.astcr-general) ; "It 
 ■often happened to me that 1 was not as certain as he was of distances and of many details 
 in my administration on which he was able to set me straight." — On returning from the 
 ■camp at Bologna, Napoleon encounters a squad of soldiers who had got lost, asks what 
 regiment they belong to, calculates the day they left, the ro.ad they took, what distance 
 th<-y should have marched, and then tells them. " You will find your battalion at such a 
 halting place." — At this time, " the army numbered 200,000 men."
 
 26 THE MODERN R&GIME. book i. 
 
 gist. In fact, no one has surpassed him in the art of defin- 
 ing the various states and impulses of one or of many minds, 
 either prolonged or for the time being, which impel or restrain 
 man in general, or this or that individual in particular ; what 
 springs of action may be touched, and the kind and degree of 
 pressure that may be applied to them. This central faculty 
 rules all the others, and in the art of mastering man his genius 
 is found supreme. 
 
 No faculty is more precious for a political engineer ; for the 
 forces he acts upon are never other than human passions. 
 But how, except through divination, can these passions, which 
 grow out of the deepest sentiments, be reached ; and how, save 
 by conjecture, can forces be estimated which seem to defy all 
 measurement? On this dark and uncertain ground, where 
 one has to grope one's way. Napoleon moves with almost 
 absolute certainty ; he moves promptly, and, first of all, he 
 studies himself ; indeed, to find one's way into another's soul 
 requires, preliminarily, that one should dive deep into one's- 
 own.i " I have always delighted in analysis," said he, one day, 
 " and should I ever fall seriously in love I would take my senti- 
 ment to pieces. Why and How are such important questions- 
 one cannot put them to one's self too often." " It is certain," 
 writes an observer, " that he, of all men, is the one who has 
 most meditated on the why which controls human actions." 
 His method, that of the experimental sciences, consists 
 in testing every hypothesis or deduction by some positive 
 fact, observed by him under definite conditions ; a physical 
 force being ascertained and accurately measured through 
 the deviation of a needle, or through the rise and fall 
 of a fluid, this or that invisible moral force can likewise 
 be ascertained and approximately measured through some 
 emotional sign, some decisive manifestation, consisting of a 
 certain word, tone, or gesture. It is these words, tones, 
 and gestures which he dwells on ; he detects inward senti- 
 ments by the outward expression ; he figures to himself the 
 internal by the external, by some physiognomical trait, some 
 striking attitude, some summary and topical circumstance, so 
 
 I Madame de Remusat, i., 103, 268.
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 27 
 
 pertinent and with sucli particulars as will afford a complete 
 indication of the innumerable series of analogous cases. In 
 this way, the vague, fleeting object is suddenly arrested, 
 brought to bear, and then gauged and weighed, like some 
 impalpable gas collected and kept in a graduated transparent 
 glass tube. — Accordingly, at the Council of State, while the 
 others, either legists or administrators, adduce abstractions, 
 articles of the code and precedents, he looks into natures as 
 they are — the Frenchman's, the Italian's, the German's ; that 
 of the peasant, the workman, the bourgeois, the noble, the 
 returned emigre,^ the soldier, the officer and the functionary — 
 everywhere the individual man as he is, the man who ploughs, 
 manufactures, fights, marries, generates, toils, enjoys himself, 
 and dies. 
 
 Nothing is more striking than the contrast between the dull, 
 grave arguments advanced by the wise official editor, and Napo- 
 leon's own words caught on the wing, at the moment, vibrat- 
 ing and teeming with illustrations and imagery.^ Apropos of 
 divorce, the principle of which he wishes to maintain : " Con- 
 sult, now, national manners and customs. Adultery is no phe- 
 nomenon ; it is common enough — uiie affaire de canapi. . . . 
 There must be some curb on women who commit adultery for 
 trinkets, poetry, Apollo, and the muses, etc." But if divorce 
 
 1 Thibaudeau, p. 25, i (on the Jacobin survivors) : " They are nothing but common 
 artisans, painters, etc., with lively imaginations, a little better instructed than the 
 people, living amongst the people and exercising influence over them." — Madame de 
 Rcmusat, i., 271 (on the royalist party): " It is very easy to deceive that party because its 
 starting-point is not what it is.but what it would like to have." — i., 337 : " The Bourbons will 
 never see anything except through x.\\& QLil de Boeuf." — Thibaudeau, p. 46: "Insurrections 
 and emigrations are skin diseases ; terrorism is an internal malady." Ibid., 75 : " What now 
 keeps the spirit of the army up is the idea soldiers have that they occupy the places of 
 former nobles." 
 
 2 Thibaudeau. pp. 419 to 452. (Both texts are given in separate columns.) AnA passim, 
 for instance, p. 84, the following portrayal of the decadal system of worship under the 
 Republic: " It was imagined that citizens could be got together in churches, to freeze with 
 cold and hear, read, and study laws, in which there was already but little fun for those who 
 executed them." Another example of the way in which his ideas expressed themselves 
 through imagery (Pelet de la Lozere, p. 242) : " I am not satisfied with the customs reg- 
 ulations on the Alps. They show no life. We don't hear the rattle 0/ crown pieces pour- 
 ing into the public treasury." To appreciate the vividness of Napoleon's expressions and 
 thought the reader must consult, especially, the five or six long conversations, noted on 
 the very evening of the day they occurred by Roederer ; the two or three conversations 
 likewise noted by Miot de Melito ; the scenes narrated by Beugnot ; the notes of Pelet de 
 la Lozire and by Stanislas de Girardin, and nearly the entire volume by Thibaudeau.
 
 28 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 be allowed for incompatibility of temper you undermine mar- 
 riage ; the fragility of the bond will be apparent the moment 
 the obligation is contracted ; " it is just as if a man said to 
 himself, ' I am going to marry until I feel different.' " Nullity 
 of marriage must not be too often allowed ; once a marriage 
 is made it is a serious matter to undo it. " Suppose that, in 
 marrying my cousin just arrived from the Indies, I wed an 
 adventuress. She bears me children, and I then discover she 
 is not my cousin — is that marriage valid ? Does not public 
 morality demand that it should be so considered ? There has 
 been a mutual exchange of souls, of transpiration." On the 
 right of children to be supported and fed although of age, he 
 says : " Will you allow a father to drive a girl of fifteen out 
 of his house ? A father worth 60,000 francs a year might say 
 to his son, ' You are stout and fat ; go and turn ploughman.' 
 The children of a rich father, or of one in good circumstances, 
 are always entitled to the paternal porridge. Strike out their 
 right to be fed, and you compel children to murder their par- 
 ents." — As to adoption : "You regard this as law-makers 
 and not as statesmen. It is not a civil contract nor a judicial 
 contract. The analysis (of the jurist) leads to vicious results. 
 Man is governed by imagination only ; without imagination 
 he is a brute. It is not for five cents a day, simply to distin- 
 guish himself, that a man consents to be killed ; if you want 
 to electrify him touch his heart. A notary, who is paid a fee 
 of twelve francs for his services, cannot do that. It requires 
 some other process, a legislative act. Adoption, what is that ? 
 An imitation by which society tries to counterfeit nature. It 
 is a new kind of sacrament. . . . Society ordains that the 
 bones and blood of one being shall be changed into the bones 
 and blood of another. It is the greatest of all legal acts. It 
 gives the sentiments of a son to one who never had them, 
 and reciprocally those of a parent. Where ought this to origi- 
 nate ? Above, like a clap of thunder ! " 
 
 All his expressions are bright flashes one after another.^ 
 
 1 Pelet de la Lozere, 63, 64. (On the physiological differences between the English and 
 the French.) — Madame de Remusat, i., 273, 392 : " You, Frenchmen, are not in earnest 
 about anything, except, perhaps, equality, and even here you would gladly give this up if
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 29 
 
 Nobody, since Voltaire and Galiani, has launched forth such 
 a profusion of them ; some of them, like those of Montes- 
 quieu, on society, laws, government, France and the French, 
 penetrate to and suddenly illuminate the darkest recesses ; he 
 does not hammer them out laboriously, but they burst forth, 
 the outpourings of his intellect, its natural, involuntary, con- 
 stant action. And what adds to their value is that, outside of 
 councils and private conversations, he abstains from them, em- 
 ploying them only in the service of thought ; at other times 
 he subordinates them to the end he has in view, which is al- 
 ways the practical effect ; ordinarily, he writes and speaks in 
 a different language, in a language suited to his audience ; 
 he retrenches the singularities, the fits and starts of the im- 
 agination and of improvisation, the outbursts of genius and 
 inspiration. All that he retains and allows himself the use of 
 are merely those which are intended to impress the personage 
 whom he wishes to dazzle with a great idea of himself, a Pius 
 VII., or the Emperor Alexander ; in this case, his conversa- 
 tional tone is that of a caressing, expansive, amiable famili- 
 arity ; he is then before the footlights, and when he acts he 
 can play all parts, tragedy or comedy, with the same life and 
 spirit whether he fulminates, insinuates, or even affects sim- 
 plicity. When with his generals, ministers, and head clerks, 
 
 you were sure of being the foremost. . . . The hope of advancement in the world should 
 be cherished by everybody. . . . Keep your vanity always alive. The severity of the re- 
 publican government would have worried you to death. What started the Revolution ? 
 Vanity. What will end it ? Vanity, again. Liberty is merely a pretext." — iii., 153 : 
 " Liberty is the craving of a small and privileged class by nature, with faculties superior 
 to the common run of men ; this cl.iss, therefore, may be put under restraint with impunity; 
 equality, on the contrary, catches the multitude.'' — Thibaudcau, 99; "What do I care for 
 the opinions and cackle of the drawing-room? I never heed it. I pay attention only to 
 what rude peasants say." His estimates of certain situations are masterpieces of pictur- 
 ■csque concision. "Why did I stop and sign the preliminaries of Leoben ? Because I 
 played vingt-et-un and was satisfied with twenty." His insight into (dramatic) character 
 is that of the most sagacious critic. " The ' Mahomet ' of Vollaire is neither a prophet 
 nor an Arab, on y an impostor graduated out of the tcole Polytechnique." — " Mar.ame de 
 Genlis tries to define virtue as if she were the discoverer of it." — (On Madame de Stael): 
 ■" This woman teaches people to think who never took to it, or have forgotten how." — 
 (On Chateaubriand, one of whose relations had just been shot) : " He will write a few 
 pathetic p.^ges r.nd read them aloud in the faubourg Saint-Germain ; pretty women will 
 shed tears, and that will console him." — (On Abbe DelilleJ : " He is wit in its dotage." — 
 <0n Pasquier and Mole) ; " I make the most of one, and made the other."— Madame de 
 Remusat, ii., 389, 391, 304, 399. 402 ; iii., 67.
 
 30 THE MODERN REGIME. book I. 
 
 he falls back on the concise, positive, technical business style ; 
 any other would interfere with that ; the impassioned soul re- 
 veals itself only through the brevity and imperious strength 
 and rudeness of the accent. For his armies and the common 
 run of men, he has his proclamations and bulletins, that is to 
 say, sonorous phrases composed for effect, a statement of facts 
 purposely simplified and falsified,^ in short, an excellent effer- 
 vescent wine, good for exciting enthusiasm, and an equally 
 excellent narcotic for maintaining credulity,^ a sort of popular 
 mixture retailed out by him just at the proper time, and whose 
 ingredients are so well proportioned that the public drinks it 
 with delight, and becomes at once intoxicated. His style on 
 every occasion, whether affected or spontaneous, shows his 
 wonderful knowledge of the masses and of individuals ; ex- 
 cept in two or three cases, on one exalted domain, of which he 
 always remains ignorant, he has ever hit the mark, applying 
 the appropriate lever, giving just the push, weight, and de- 
 gree of impulsion which best accomplishes his purpose. A 
 series of brief, accurate memoranda, corrected daily, enables 
 him to frame for himself a sort of psychological tablet whereon 
 he notes down and sums up, in almost numerical valuation^ 
 the mental and moral dispositions, characters, faculties, pas- 
 sions, and aptitudes, the strong or weak points, of the innum- 
 erable human beings, near or remote, on whom he acts. 
 
 Let us try for a moment to form some idea of the grasp and 
 capacity of this intellect ; we should probably have to recur to 
 Caesar to find its counterpart ; but, for lack of documents, we 
 have nothing of Caesar but general features — a summary out- 
 line ; of Napoleon we have, besides the perfect outline, the 
 features in detail. Read his correspondence, day by day, then 
 chapter by chapter ; ' for example, in 1806, after the battle of 
 
 1 Bourrienne, ii., 281. 342: " It pained me to write official statements under his dicta- 
 tion, of which each was an imposture." He always answered : " My dear sir, you area 
 simpleton— you understand nothing ! "—Madame de Remusat, ii., 205, 209. 
 
 2 See especially the campaign bulletins for 1807, so insulting to the king and queen of 
 Prussia, but, owing to that fact, so well calculated to excite the contemptuous laughter 
 and jeers of the soldiers. 
 
 3 In " La Correspondance de Napoleon," published in thirty-two volumes, the letters are 
 arranged under dates.— In his "Correspondance avec Eugene, vice-roi d'ltalie," they are 
 arranged under chapters ; also with Joseph, King of Naples and after of Spain. It is easy
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 3' 
 
 Austerlitz, or, still better, in 1809, after his return from Spain, 
 up to the peace of Vienna ; whatever our technical shortcom- 
 ings may be, we shall find that his mind, in its comprehensive- 
 ness and amplitude, largely surpasses all known or even credi- 
 ble proportions. 
 
 He has mentally within him three principal atlases, always 
 at hand, each composed of " about twenty note-books," each 
 distinct and each regularly posted up. — The first one is mili- 
 tary, forming a vast collection of topographical charts as min- 
 ute as those of an etat-major, with detailed plans of every 
 stronghold, also specific indications and the local distribution 
 of all forces on sea and on land — crews, regiments, batteries, 
 arsenals, storehouses, present and future resources in supplies 
 of men, horses, vehicles, arms, munitions, food, and clothing. 
 The second, which is civil, resembles the heavy, thick volumes 
 published every year, in which we now read the state of the 
 budget, and comprehend, first, the innumerable items of ordi- 
 nary and extraordinary receipt and expenditure, internal taxes, 
 foreign contributions, the products of the domains in France 
 and out of France, the fiscal services, pensions, public 
 works, and the rest ; next, all administrative statistics, the hier- 
 archy of functions and of functionaries, senators, deputies, min- 
 isters, prefects, bishops, professors, judges, and those under 
 their orders, each where he resides, with his rank, jurisdiction, 
 and salary. — The third is a vast biographical and moral dic- 
 tionary, in which, as in the pigeon-holes of the Chief of Police, 
 each notable personage and local group, each professional or 
 
 to compose other chapters not less instructive; one on foreign affairs (letters to M. de 
 Champagny, M. de Talleyrand, and M. de Hassano) ; another on the finances (letters to 
 M. Gaudin and to M. Mollien) ; another on the navy (letters to Admiral Decres) ; another 
 on military administration (letters to General Clarke) ; another on the affairs of the 
 Church (letters to M. Portalis and to M. Bigot de Preameneu) ; another on the Police 
 (letters to Kouche), etc. Finally, by dividing and distributing his letters according as they 
 relate to this or that grand enterprise, especially to this or that military compaign, a third 
 cl.issification could be made. In this way we can form a conception of the vastness of his 
 positive information, also of the ordinary play of his intellect. Cf. especially the following 
 letters to Prince Eugene, June 11, 1806 (on the supplies and expenses of the Italian 
 army) ; June i and i8, iSo6 (on the occupation of Dalmatia, and on the miiit.iry situation, 
 offensive and defensive). To Gen. Dejean, April 28, 1806 (on the war supplies) ; June 27, 
 1806 (on the fortifications of Peschiera) ; July 20, 1806 (on the fortifications of Wesel and 
 of Juliers).
 
 32 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 social body, and even each population, has its label, along with 
 a brief note on its situation, needs, and antecedents, and, there- 
 fore, its demonstrated character, eventual disposition, and 
 probable conduct. Each label, card, or strip of paper has 
 its summing-up ; all these partial summaries, methodically 
 classified, terminate in totals, and the totals of the three atlases, 
 combined together, thus furnish their possessor with an esti- 
 mate of his disposable forces. — Now, in 1809, however full 
 these atlases, they are clearly imprinted on Napoleon's mind ; 
 he knows not only the total and the partial summaries, but 
 also the slightest details ; he reads them readily and at every 
 hour ; he comprehends in a mass, and in all particulars, the 
 various nations he governs directly, or through some one else; 
 that is to say, 60,000,000 men, the different countries he has 
 conquered or overrun, consisting of 70,000 square miles ; at 
 first, France increased by the addition of Belgium and Pied- 
 mont ; next Spain, from which he is just returned, and where 
 he has placed his brother Joseph ; southern Italy, where, after 
 Joseph, he has placed Murat ; central Italy, where he occupies 
 Rome ; northern Italy, where Eugene is his delegate ; Dalmatia 
 and Istria, which he has joined to his empire ; Austria, which 
 he invades for the second time ; the Confederation of the 
 Rhine, which he has made and which he directs; Westphalia 
 and Holland, where his brother sare only his lieutenants ; 
 Prussia, which he has subdued and mutilated and which he 
 oppresses, and the strongholds of which he still retains; and, 
 add a last mental tableau, that which represents the northern 
 seas, the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, all the fleets of the 
 continent at sea and in port from Dantzic to Flessingen and 
 Bayonne, from Cadiz to Toulon and Gaeta, from Tarentum to 
 Venice, Corfu, and Constantinople. ^ — On the psychological and 
 
 I Cf. in the " Correspondance " the letters dated at Schoenbrunn near Vienna, during 
 August and September, i8og, and especially : ist, the great number of letters and orders 
 relating to the English expeditions to Walcheren ; 2d, the letters to chief-judge Regnier and 
 to the arch-chancellor Cambaceres on expropriations for public benefit (Aug. 21, Sept. 7 
 and 29) ; 3d, the letters and orders to M. de Champagny to treat with Austria (Aug. 19,^ 
 and Sept. 10, 15, 18, 22, and 23) ; 4th, the letters to Admirable Decres, to despatch naval 
 expeditions to the colonies (Aug. 17 and Sept. 26 ) ; 5th, the letter to MoUien on the budget 
 of expenditure (Aug. 81 ; 6th, the letter to Clarke on the statement of guns in store 
 throughout the empire (Sept. 14). — Other letters, ordering the preparation of two treatises
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 33 
 
 moral atlas, besides a primitive gap which he will never fill up, 
 because this is a characteristic trait, there are some estimates 
 which are wrong, especially with regard to the Pope and to 
 Catholic conscience ; in like manner he rates the energy of 
 national sentiment in Spain and Germany too low ; he rates 
 too high his own prestige in France and in the countries an- 
 nexed to her, the balance of confidence and zeal on which he 
 may rely. But these errors are rather the product of his will 
 than of his intelligence, he recognizes them at intervals; if 
 he has illusions it is because he forges them ; left to himself 
 his good sense would rest infallible, it is only his passions 
 which blurred the lucidity of his intellect. As to the olher 
 two atlases, the topographical and the military, they are as 
 complete and as exact as ever ; it is in vain that the reality 
 which they present to him has become swollen and complex ; 
 however monstrous at this date, they correspond to it in their 
 fulness and precision, trait for trait. 
 
 But this multitude of notations forms only the smallest por- 
 tion of the mental population swarming in this immense brain ; 
 for, on his idea of the real, germinate and swarm his concep- 
 tions of the possible ; without these conceptions there would 
 be no way to handle and transform things, and that he did 
 handle and transform them we all know. Before acting, he has 
 decided on his plan, and if this plan is adopted, it is one 
 among several others,^ after examining, comparing, and giving 
 it the preference ; he has accordingly thought over all the 
 others. Behind each combination adopted by him we detect 
 those he has rejected ; there are dozens of them behind each 
 of his decisions, each manoeuvre effected, each treaty signed, 
 each decree promulgated, each order issued, and 1 venture to 
 say, behind almost every improvised action or word spoken ; 
 for calculation enters into everything he does, even into his 
 
 on military art (Oct. i), two works on the history and encroachments of the Holy See 
 (Oct. 3), prohibiting conferences at Saint-Sulpice (Sept. 15), and forbidding priests to 
 preach outside the churches (Sept. 24). — From S.rhoenbrunn, he watches the details of 
 public works in France and Italy ; for instance, the letters to M. le Montalivct (Sept. 30), 
 to send an auditor post to Parma, to have a dyke repaired at once, and (Oct. 8) to hasten 
 the building of several bridges and quays at Lyons. 
 
 I He says himself : " I pose my theme always in many ways."
 
 34 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 seeming expansiveness, also into his outbursts when in earnest ; 
 if he gives way to these, it is on purpose, foreseeing the 
 effect, with a view to intimidate or to dazzle ; he turns every- 
 thing in others as well as in himself to account — his passion, his 
 vehemence, his weaknesses, his fondness for talking out, and all 
 for the advancement of the edifice he is constructing.' Cer- 
 tainly among his diverse faculties, however great, that of the 
 constructive imagination is the most powerful. At the very be- 
 ginning we feel its heat and boiling intensity beneath the 
 coolness and rigidity of his technical and positive instructions. 
 *' When I plan a battle," said he to Roederer, " no man is more 
 pusillanimous than I am. I magnify to myself all the dangers 
 and all the evils that are possible under the circumstances. I 
 am in a state of agitation that is really painful. But this does 
 not prevent me from appearing quite composed to people 
 around me ; / am like a ivoman giving birth to a child." ^ Pas- 
 sionately, in the throes of the creator, he is thus absorbed 
 with his coming creation ; he already anticipates and enjoys 
 living in his imaginary edifice. " General," said Madame de 
 Clermont-Tonnerre to him, one day, " you are building be- 
 hind a scaffolding which you will take down when you have 
 done with it." " Yes, madame, that's it," replied Bonaparte ; 
 "you are right. I am always living two years in advance."* 
 His response came with "incredible vivacity," as if a sudden 
 inspiration, that of a soul stirred in its innermost fibre. Ac- 
 cordingly, on this side, the power, alertness, fecundity, play, 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, i., 117, 120. " I heard M. de Talleyrand exclaim one day, some 
 what out of humor, ' This devil of a man misleads you in all directions. Even his passion* 
 escape you, for he finds some way to counterfeit them, although they really exist.' " Thut, 
 just as he was about to confer with Lord Whitworth, and the violent scene took place whicll 
 put an end to the treaty of Amiens, he was chatting and amusing himself with the women 
 and the infant Napoleon, his nephew, in the gayest and most unconcerned manner : " lie 
 is suddenly told that the company had assembled. His countenance changes like that of 
 an actor when the scene shifts. He seems to turn pale at will and his features contract "; 
 he rises, steps up precipitately to the English ambassador, and fulminates for two hours be- 
 fore two hundred persons. (Hansard's Parliamentary History, vol. xxvi, despatches of 
 Lord Whitworth, pp. 1798, 1302, 1310.)— " He often observes that the politician should calcu- 
 late every advantage that could be gained by his defects." One day, after an explosion he 
 says to Abbe de Pradt : "You thought me angry! you are mistaken. Anger with ma 
 never mounts higher than here (pointing to his neck)." 
 
 2 Roederer, iii. (The first days of Brumaire, year viil.) 
 
 3 Bourrienne, iii., 114.
 
 CHAP, I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 35 
 
 and jet of his thought seem illimitable. What he has accom- 
 plished is astonishing, but what he has undertaken is more 
 so ; and whatever he may have undertaken is far surpassed by 
 what he has imagined. However vigorous his practical faculty, 
 his poetical faculty is stronger ; it is even too vigorous for a 
 statesman ; its grandeur is exaggerated into enormity, and its 
 enormity degenerates into madness. In Italy, after the i8th of 
 Fructidor, he said to Bourrienne : "Europe is a molehill ; never 
 have there been great empires and great revolutions, except 
 in the Orient, with its 600,000,000 of men."^ The following 
 year at St. Jean d'Acre, on the eve of the last assault, he added : 
 " If I succeed I shall find in the town the pacha's treasure 
 and arms for 300,000 men. I stir up and arm all Syria. . . . 
 I march on Damascus and Aleppo ; as I advance in the coun- 
 try my army will increase with the discontented. I proclaim 
 to the people the abolition of slavery, and of the tyrannical 
 government of the pachas. I reach Constantinople with armed 
 masses. I overthrow the Turkish Empire ; I found in the 
 East a new and grand empire, which fixes my place with pos- 
 terity, and perhaps I return to Paris by the way of Adrianople, 
 or by Vienna, after having annihilated the house of Austria."^ 
 Become consul, and then emperor, he often recurs to this 
 happy period, when, " rid of the restraints of a troublesome 
 civilization," he could imagine at will and construct at pleas- 
 ure.' — " I created a religion ; I saw myself on the road to 
 Asia, mounted on an elephant, with a turban on my head, and 
 in my hand a new Koran, which I composed to suit myself." — 
 Confined to Europe, he thinks, after 1804, that he will reorganize 
 Charlemagne's empire. " The French Empire will become the 
 
 J Bourrienne, ii., 228. (Conversation with Roiirrienne in the park at Passeriano.) 
 
 2 Ihiit, ii., 331. (Written down by liourrienne the same evening.) 
 
 3 Madame de Remusat, i., 274. — DeSegur, ii., 459. (Napoleon's own words on the eve 
 of the battle of Austerlitz") : " Yes, if I had taken Acre, I would have assumed the turban, 
 I would have put the army in loose breeches ; I would no longer have exposed it, except at 
 the last extremity; I would have made it my sacred battalion, my immortals. It is with 
 Arabs, Greeks, and Armenians that I would have ended the war against the Turks. In- 
 stead of one battle in Moravia I would have gained a battle of Issus ; I would have made 
 myself emperor of the East, and returned to Paris by the way of Constantinople." — De 
 Pradt, p. iq (Napoleon's own words at Mayence, September. 1804): " Since two hundred 
 years there is nothing more to do in Europe ; it is only in the East that things can be carried 
 out on a grand scale."
 
 36 THE MODERN REGIME. book I. 
 
 mother country of other sovereignties. ... I mean that every 
 king in Europe shall build a grand palace at Paris for his own 
 use ; on the coronation of the Emperor of the French these 
 kings will come and occupy it ; they will grace this imposing 
 ceremony with their presence, and honor it with their saluta- 
 tions." ^ The Pope will come ; he came to the first one ; he 
 must necessarily return to Paris, and fix himself there perma- 
 nently. Where could the Holy See be better off than in the new 
 capital of Christianity, under Napoleon, heir to Charlemagne, 
 and temporal sovereign of the Sovereign Pontiff? Through the 
 temporal the emperor will control the spiritual,^ and through 
 the Pope, consciences." In November, 1811, unusually excited, 
 he says to De Pradt : " In five years I shall be master of the 
 world ; only Russia will remain, but 1 will crush her.' . . . 
 Paris will extend out to St. Cloud." To render Paris the 
 physical capital of Europe is, through his own confession, 
 "one of his constant dreams." "At times," he says,* "I 
 would like to see her a city of two, three, four millions of in- 
 habitants, something fabulous, colossal, unknown down to our 
 day, and its public establishments adequate to its population. 
 . . . Archimedes proposed to lift the world if he could be 
 allowed to place his lever ; for myself, I would have changed it 
 wherever I could have been allowed to exercise my energy, 
 perseverance, and budgets." At all events, he believes so ; for 
 however lofty and badly supported the next story of his 
 structure may be, he has always ready a new story, loftier and 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, i., 407. — Miot de Melito, ii., 214 (a few weeks after his corona- 
 tion) : " There will be no repose in Europe until it is under one head, under an Emperor, 
 whose officers would be kings, who would distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, who 
 would make one of them King of Italy, another King of Bavaria, here a landiiiann of 
 Switzerland, and here a stadtholder of Holland, etc." 
 
 2 " Correspondance de Napoleon I.," vol. xxx., 550, 558. (Memoirs dictated by- 
 Napoleon at Saint Helene.)— Miot de Melito, ii., 290.— D'Haussonville, "I'Eglise Romaine 
 et le Premier Empire," passim.—'' Memorial. " " Paris would become the capital of the 
 Christian world, and I would have governed the religious world as well as the political 
 world.'' 
 
 3 De Pradt, 23. 
 
 4 "Memoires et Meinoria!." " It was essential that Paris should become the unique 
 capital, not to be compared with other capitals. The masterpieces of science and of art, 
 the museums, all that had illustrated past centuries, were to be collected there. Napoleon 
 regretted that he could not transport St. Peter's to Paris ; the meanness of Notre Dame dis- 
 satisfied him."
 
 CHAP. I. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 37 
 
 more unsteady, to put above it. A few months before launch- 
 ing himself, with all Europe at his back, against Russia, he 
 said to Narbonne : ' " After all, my dear sir, this long road is 
 the road to India. Alexander started as far off as Moscow to 
 reach the Ganges ; this has occurred to me since St. Jean 
 d'Acre. . . . To reach England to-day I need the extremity 
 of Europe, from which to take Asia in the rear. . . . Suppose 
 Moscow taken, Russia subdued, the czar reconciled, or dead 
 through some court conspiracy, perhaps another and dependent 
 throne, and tell me whether it is not possible for a French 
 army, with its auxiliaries, setting out from Tiflis, to get as far 
 as the Ganges, where it needs only a thrust of the French 
 sword to bring down the whole of that grand commercial scaf- 
 folding throughout India. It would be the most gigantic ex- 
 pedition, I admit, but practicable in the nineteenth century. 
 Through it France, at one stroke, would secure the indepen- 
 dence of the West and the freedom of the seas." 
 
 While uttering this his eyes shone with strange brilliancy, 
 and he keeps on accumulating motive after motive, in calcu- 
 lating obstacles, means, and chances : the inspiration is under 
 full headway, and he gives himself up to it. The master fac- 
 ulty finds itself suddenly free, and it takes flight ; the artist,* 
 sheathed in the political scabbard, has escaped from it ; he is 
 creating out of the ideal and the impossible. We take him 
 for what he is, a posthumous brother of Dante and Michael 
 
 1 Villemain, " Souvenir contemporaines," i., 175. Napoleon's' statement to M. de Nar- 
 bonne early in March, 1812, and repeated by him to Villemain an hour afterwards. The 
 wording is at second hand and merely a very good imitation, while the ideas are substantially 
 Napoleon's. Cf. his reveries about Italy and the Mediterranean, equally exaggerated ('" Cor- 
 respondance." xxx., 548), and an admirable improvisation on Spain and the colonies at Bay- 
 onne. — De Pradt, '"Mdmoires sur les revolutions d'Espagne," p. 130: "Therefore Napo- 
 leon talked, or rather poetized ; he 0:sianized for a long time, .... like a man full of a 
 sentiment which oppressed him, in an animated, picturesque style, and with the impetuosity, 
 imagery, and originality which werefamiliar to him, . . . . on the vast throne of Mexico and 
 Peru, on the greatness of the sovereigns who should possess them .... and on the results 
 which these great foundations would have on the universe. I had often heard him, but 
 under no circumstances had I ever heard him develop such a wealth and compass of im.igi- 
 nation. Whether it was the richness of his subject, or whether his faculties had become 
 excited by the scene he conjured up, and all the chords of the instrument vibrated at 
 once, he was sublime." 
 
 2 Roederer, iii., 541 (February 2, 1809) : " I love power. But I love it as an artist. 
 .... I love it as a musician loves his violin^ for the tones, chords, and harmonies he cati 
 get out of it."
 
 38 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 Angelo ; in the clear outlines of his vision, in the intensity, 
 coherency, and inward logic of his reverie, in the profundity 
 of his meditations, in the superhuman grandeur of his concep- 
 tions, he is, indeed, their fellow and their equal. His genius 
 is of the same stature and the same structure ; he is one of 
 the three sovereign minds of the Italian Renaissance. Only, 
 while the first two operated on paper and on marble, the latter 
 operates on the living being, on the sensitive and suffering 
 flesh of humanity.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. Great men of the Italian Renaissance and of the present time. — Inten- 
 •sity of the passions in Bonaparte. — His impulsive sensibility. — Violent out- 
 bursts. — His impatience, readiness, and need of expressing himself. — His 
 temperament, nervous system, and sinking-fits. — II. Bonaparte's dominant 
 passion. — His lucid, calculating mind. — Source and power of the Will. — 
 Early evidences of an active, absorbing egoism. — His education derived from 
 the lessons of things. — In Corsica. — In France during the Revolution. — In 
 Italy. — In Egypt. — His idea of Society and of Right. — Maturing after the 
 i8th of Brumaire. — His idea of Man. — It conforms to his character. — III. 
 His mastery of the will of others. — Degree of submission required by him. — 
 His mode of appreciating others and of profiting by them. — Tone of com- 
 mand and of conversation. — IV. His bearing in Society. — His deportment 
 toward Women. — His disdain of Politeness. — V. His tone and bearing 
 toward Sovereigns. — His Policy. — His means and ends. — After Sovereigns 
 he sets populations against him. — Final opinion of Europe. — VI. Inward 
 principle of his outward deportment. — The State subordinated to him instead 
 of his subordination to the State. — Effects of this. — His work merely a life- 
 interest. — It is ephemeral. — Injurious. — The number of lives it cost. — The 
 mutilation of France. — Vice of construction in his European edifice. — Analo- 
 :gous vice in his French edifice. 
 
 On taking a near view of the contemporaries of Dante and 
 Michael Angelo, we find that they differ from us more iti 
 character than in intellect.' With us, three hundred years of 
 
 I See my " Philosophy of Art" for texts and facts. Part II., ch. iv. — Other analogies, 
 which are too long for development here, may be found, especially in all that concerns the 
 imagination and love. " He was disposed to accept the marvellous, presentiments, and 
 even certain mysterious communications between beings. ... 1 have seen him excited by 
 the rustling of the wind, speak enihusi.-xstically of the roar of the sea, and sometimes inclined 
 to believe in nocturnal apparitions; in short. leaning to certain superstitions." (Madame 
 de Remusat, i., 102, and iii., 164.) — Meneval (iii., 114) notes his "crossing himself involun- 
 tarily on the occurrence of some great danger, on the discovery of some important fact." 
 During the consulate, in the evening, in a circle of ladies, he sometimes improvised and 
 declaimed tragic " tales," Italian fashion, iiiiite worthy of the story-tellers of the XVth and 
 XVIth centuries. (I'ourrienne, vi., 387, gives one of his improvisations. Of. Madame de 
 Rcmusat, i., loz.) — As to love, his letters to Josephine during the Italian campaign form 
 one of the best examples of Italian passion and "in most piquant contrast with the temper- 
 .ato and graceful elegance of his predecessor M. de Beauharnais." (Madame de Remusat, i., 
 
 39
 
 4° THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 police and of courts of justice, of social discipline and peace- 
 ful habits, of hereditary civilization, have diminished the force 
 and violence of the passions natural to man ; in Italy, in the 
 Renaissance epoch, they were still intact ; human emotions at 
 that time were keener and more profound than at the pres- 
 ent day ; the appetites were ardent and more unbridled ; 
 man's will was more impetuous and more tenacious ; whatever 
 motive inspired him, whether pride, ambition, jealousy, hatred,, 
 love, envy, or sensuality, the inward spring strained with an 
 energy and relaxed with a violence that has now disappeared. 
 All these energies reappear in this great survivor of the fif- 
 teenth century ; in him the play of the nervous machine is the 
 same as with his Italian ancestors ; never was there, even with 
 the Malatestas and the Borgias, a more sensitive and more 
 impulsive intellect, one capable of such electric shocks and 
 explosions, in which the roar and flashes of the tempest lasted 
 longer and of which the effects were more irresistible. In 
 his mind no idea remains speculative and pure ; none is a 
 simple transcript of the real, or a simple picture of the possi- 
 ble ; each is an internal eruption, which suddenly and 
 spontaneously spends itself in action ; each darts forth 
 to its goal and would reach it without stopping were it 
 not kept back and restrained by force.' Sometimes, the 
 eruption is so sudden that the restraint does not come 
 soon enough. One day, in Egypt,^ on entertaining a num- 
 ber of French ladies at dinner, he has one of them, who 
 was very pretty and whose husband he had just sent off to 
 France, placed alongside of him ; suddenly, as if accidentally, 
 he overturns a pitcher of water on her, and, under the pretence 
 of enabling her to rearrange her wet dress, he leads her into 
 
 143)-— His oiher amours, simply physical, are too difficult to deal with ; I have gathered 
 some details orally on this subject which are almost from first hands and perfectly authen- 
 tic. It is sufficient to cite one text already published : " According to Josephine, he had no- 
 moral principle whatever; did he not seduce his sisters one after the other? " " I am not 
 a man like other men," he said of himself, "and moral laws and those of propriety do not. 
 apply to me." (Madame de Remusat, i., 204, 206.)— Note again (ii., 350) his proposals to. 
 Croisart.— Always the sentiments, customs, and morality of the great Italian personages. 
 of about the year 1500. 
 
 1 De Pradt, " Histoire de Pambassade dans le grand-duche de Varsovie," p. g6. " With 
 the Emperor, desire springs out of thinking ; his idea becomes passion in the act of birth." 
 
 2 Bourrienne, ii., 298. —De Segur, i., 426.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 41 
 
 another room where he remains with her a long time, too 
 long, while the other guests seated at the table wait quietly 
 and exchange glances. Another day, at Paris, toward the 
 €poch of the Concordat,' he says to Senator Volney : " France 
 wants a religion." Volney replies in a frank, sententious way, 
 *'■ France wants the Bourbons." Whereupon he gives Volney 
 a kick in the stomach and he falls unconscious ; on being con- 
 veyed to a friend's house, he remains there ill in bed for 
 several days. — No man is more irritable, so soon in a passion ; 
 and all the more because he purposely gives way to his irrita- 
 tion ; for, doing this just at the right moment, and especially 
 before witnesses, it strikes terror ; it enables him to extort 
 concessions and maintain obedience, while his explosions of 
 anger, half-calculated, half-involuntary, serve him quite as 
 much as they relieve him, in public as well as in private, with 
 strangers as with intimates, before constituted bodies, with 
 the Pope, with cardinals, with ambassadors, with Talleyrand, 
 with Beugnot, with anybody that comes along,^ whenever he 
 wishes to set an example or " keep the people around him on 
 the alert." The public and the army regard him as impassible ; 
 but, apart from the battles in which he wears a mask of bronze, 
 
 1 Bodin, " Recherches sur I'Anjou," ii., 325.— " Souvenirs d'un nonagenaire," by 
 Besnard. — Sainte-Beuve, " Causeriesdii Lundi," article on Volney.— Miot de Melito. i., 297. 
 He wanted to adopt Louis's son, and make him King of Italy. Louis refused, alleging that 
 *'this marked favor would give new life to the reports spread about at one time in relation 
 to this child." Thereupon, Napoleon, exasperated. " seized Prince Louis by the waist and 
 pushed him violently out of the room."— " Memorial," Oct. 10, 1S16. Napoleon relates 
 that at the last conference of Campo-Fermio, 10 put an end to the resistance of the 
 Austrian plenipotentiary, he suddenly arose, seized a set of porcelain on a stand near him 
 and dashed it to the (loor, exclaiming, " Thus will I shatter your monarchy before a month 
 is over!" (Bourrienne questions this story.) 
 
 2 Varnhagen von Ense, " Ausgewahlte Schriften," iii., 77 (public reception of July 22, 
 1810). Napoleon first speaks to the Austrian Ambassador and next to the Russian Ambas- 
 sador with a constrained air, forcing himself to be polite, in which he cannot persist. 
 *' Treating with I do not know what unknown personage, he interrogated him, repri- 
 manded him, threatened him, and kept him for a sufficiently long time in a state of 
 painful dismay. Those who stood by, and not witnessing this outburst without some 
 feeling, afterwards stated that there was nothing to provoke such fury, that the Emperor 
 had only sought an opportunity to vent his ill-humor ; that he did it purposely on some 
 poor devil so as to inspire fear in others and to put down in advance any tendency to 
 opposition." Cf. Beugnot, " Memoires," i., 380.386, 387. — This mixuire of anger and 
 calculation likewise explains his conduct at Sainte Helene with Sir Hudson Lowe, his un- 
 bridled diatribes and insults bestowed on the governor like so many slaps in the face. (W. 
 Forsyth, " History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint Helena, from the letters and 
 journals of Sir Hudson Lowe," iii., 306.)
 
 42 THE MODERN REGIME. book u 
 
 apart from the official ceremonies in which he assumes a nec- 
 essarily dignified air, impression and expression with him are 
 almost always confounded, the inward overflowing in the 
 outward, the action, like a blow, getting the better of him. 
 At Saint Cloud, caught by Josephine in an act of gallantry, he 
 springs after the unlucky interrupter in such a way that " she 
 barely has time to escape";' and again, that evening, keep- 
 ing up his fury so as to put her down completely, " he 
 treats her in the most outrageous manner, smashing every 
 piece of furniture that comes in his way." A little before the 
 Empire, Talleyrand, a great mystifier, tells Berthier that the 
 First Consul wanted to assume the title of king. Berthier, in 
 eager haste, crosses the drawing-room full of company, accosts 
 the master of the house and, with a beaming smile, " congratu- 
 lates him." 2 At the word king, Bonaparte's eyes flash. 
 Grasping Berthier by the throat, he pushes him back against 
 the wall, exclaiming, " You fool ! who told you to come here 
 and stir up my bile in this way ? Another time don't come 
 on such errands." — Such is the first impulse, the instinctive 
 action, to pounce on people and seize them by the throat ; we 
 divine under each sentence, and on every page he writes, out- 
 bursts and assaults of this description, the physiognomy and 
 intonation of a man who rushes forward and knocks people 
 down. Accordingly, when dictating in his cabinet, " he strides 
 up and down the room," and, " if excited," which is often the 
 case, " his language consists of violent imprecations, and even 
 of oaths, which are suppressed in what is written." ^ But these 
 are not always suppressed, for those who have seen the original 
 minutes of his correspondence on ecclesiastical affairs find 
 dozens of them of the coarsest kind.* 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, ii., 46. 
 
 2 " Les Cahiers de Coignat,'" 191. " At Posen, already, I saw him mount his horse in 
 such a fury as to land on the other side and then give his groom a cut of the whip." 
 
 3 Madame de Remusat, i., 222. 
 
 4 Especially the letters addressed to Cardinal Consalvi and to the Prefet of Montenotte 
 (I am indebted to M. d'Haussonville for this information).— Besides, he is lavish of the same 
 expressions in conversation. On a tour through Normandy, he sends for the bishop of Seez 
 and thus publicly addresses him : " Instead of fusing parties together, you distinguish 
 between constitutionalists and non-constitutionalists. Wretch ! . . . You are a base fel- 
 low—hand in your resignation at once ! "—To the grand-vicars he says, " Which of you 
 governs your bishop— who is at best a fool ? "—As M. Legallois is pointed out to him, who
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 43 
 
 Never was there such impatient sensibility. "When dress- 
 ing himself/ he throws on the floor or into the fire any part of 
 his attire which does not suit him. ... On gala-days and on 
 grand ceremonial occasions his valets are obliged to agree 
 together when they shall seize the right moment to put some- 
 thing on him. ... He tears off or breaks whatever causes 
 him the slightest discomfort, while the poor valet who has been 
 the means of it meets with a violent and positive proof of his 
 anger." — No thought was ever more carried away by its own 
 speed. " His handwriting," when he tries to write, " is a mass 
 of disconnected and undecipherable signs ; ^ the words lack 
 one-half of their letters." On reading it over himself, he can- 
 not tell what it means. At last, he becomes almost incapable 
 of writing an autograph letter, while his signature is a mere 
 scrawl. He accordingly dictates, but so fast that his secretaries 
 can scarcely keep pace with him : on their first attempt the per- 
 spiration flows freely and they succeed in noting down only 
 the half of what he says. Bourrienne, de Meneval, and Maret 
 invent a stenography of their own, for he never repeats any of 
 his phrases ; so much the worse for the pen if it lags behind, 
 and so much the better if a volley of exclamations or of oaths 
 gives it a chance to catchup. — Never did speech flow and over- 
 flow in such torrents, often without either discretion or pru- 
 dence, even when the outburst is neither useful nor creditable : 
 the reason is that both spirit and intellect are charged to excess ; 
 subject to this inward pressure the improvisator and polemic, 
 under full headway,' take the place of the man of business and 
 
 had of late been absent. "F , where were you then ? " "With my family." " With a 
 
 bishop who is merely a fool, why are you sooftenaway, etc. ? " (D'Haussonville, iv., 
 
 176, and Roederer, vol. iii.) 
 
 1 Madame dc Remusat, i., loi ; ii.,338. 
 
 2 Ibid., i.. 224. — M. de Meneval, i., 112, 347 ; iii., 120 : " On account of the extraordinary 
 event of his marriage, he sent an autograph letter to his future father-in-law (the Emperor 
 of Austria). It was a grand affair for him. Finally, after agreat effort, he succeeded in pen- 
 ning a letter that wa^^ readable." — Meneval, nevertheless, was obliged " to correct the defec- 
 tive letters without letting the corrections be loo plainly seen." 
 
 3 For example, at liayonne and at Warsaw (De Pradt); the outrageous and never-to-be 
 forgotten scene which, on his return from Spain, occurred with Talleyrand ("Memoires, 
 
 unpublished, of M.X , ii., 365); the gratuitous insult of M. de Metternich, in 1813, the 
 
 last word of their interview (" Souvenirs du feu due de Hroglie," i., 230) . — Cf. his not less 
 gratuitous and hazardous confidential communications to Miot de Melito, in 1797, and his 
 five conversations with Sir Hudson Lowe, immediately recorded by a witness, Major Gorre-- 
 quer. (W. Forsyth, i., 161, 200, 247.)
 
 44 THE MODERN REGIME: book i. 
 
 the statesman. "With him," says a good observer/ " talking 
 is a prime necessity, and, a'ssuredly, among the prerogatives of 
 high rank, he ranks first that of speaking without interruption." 
 Even at the Council of State he allows himself to run on, forget- 
 ting the business before the meeting ; he starts off right and 
 left with some digression or demonstration, some invective or 
 other, for two or three hours at a stretch,'-^ insisting over and 
 over again, bent on convincing or prevailing, and ending in 
 demanding of the others if he is not right, "and, in this case, 
 never failing to find that all have yielded to the force of his 
 arguments." On reflection, he knows the value of an assent 
 thus obtained, and, pointing to his chair, he observes : " It 
 must be admitted that in that seat one thinks with facility !" 
 Nevertheless he has enjoyed his intellectual exercise and given 
 way to his passion, which controls him far more than he con- 
 trols it. 
 
 "My nerves are very irritable," he said of himself, "and 
 when in this state were my pulse not always regular I should 
 risk going crazy." ^ The tension of accumulated impressions 
 
 1 De Pradt, preface x. 
 
 2 Pelet de la Lozere, p. 7. — Mollien, " Memoires," ii.,222. — "Souvjnirs du feu due de 
 Broglie," i., 66, 6q. 
 
 3 ''Madame de Remusat," i., i2t : "I have it from Corvisart that the pulsations of 
 his arteries are fewer than is usual with men. He never experienced what is commonly 
 called giddiness." With him, the nervous apparatus is perfect in all its functions, incom- 
 parable for receiving, recording, registering, combining, and reflecting. Hut other organs 
 suffer a reaction and are very sensitive." (De Segur, vi., 15 and 16, note of Drs. Yvan and 
 Mestivier, his physicians.) " To preserve the equilibrium it was necessary with hira that 
 the skin should always fulfill its functions ; as soon as the tissues were affected by any 
 moral or atmospheric cause .... irritation, cough, ischury.'' Hence his need of fre- 
 quent prolonged and very hot baths. " The spasm was genera'ly shared by the stomach 
 and the bladder. If in the stomach, he had a nervous cough which exhausted his moral 
 and physical energies." Such was the case between the eve of the battle of Aloskowa and 
 the morning after his entry into Moscow : " a constant dry cough, difficult and intermit- 
 tent breathing ; the pulse sluggish, weak, and irregular ; the urine thick and sedimentary, 
 drop by drop and painful ; the lower part of the legs and the feet extremely oedematous." 
 Already, in 1806, at Warsaw, " after violent convulsions in the stomach," he declared to 
 the Count de Loban, " that he bore within him the germs of a premature death, and that 
 he would die of the same disease as his father's." (De Segur, iv., 82.) After the victory of 
 Dresden, having eaten a ragout containing garlic, he is seized with such violent gripings 
 as to make him think he was poisoned, and he makes a retrograde movement, which 
 causes the loss of Vandamme's division, and, consequently, the ruin of 1813. ("Me- 
 •noires," in manuscript of M. X , narrative of Daru, an eye-witness). — This suscepti- 
 bility of the nerves and stomach is hereditary with him and shows itself in early youth. 
 " One day, at Brienne, obliged to drop on his knees, as a punishment, on the sill of the 
 refectory, he is seized with sudden vomiting and a violent nervous attack." De Segur, 
 
 \
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 45 
 
 is often too great, and it ends in a physical break-down. 
 Strangely enough in so great a warrior and with such a states- 
 man, " it is not infrequent, when excited, to see him shed 
 tears." He who has looked upon thousand of dying men, 
 and who has had thousands of men slaughtered, "sobs," after 
 Wagram and after Bautzen,^ at the couch of a dying comrade. 
 " I saw him," says his valet, " weep while eating his break- 
 fast, after coming from Marshal Lannes's bedside ; big tears 
 rolled down his cheeks and fell on his plate." It is not alone 
 the physical sensation, the sight of a bleeding, mangled body, 
 which thus moves him acutely and deeply ; for a word, a sim- 
 ple idea, stings and penetrates almost as far. Before the 
 emotion of Dandolo, who pleads for Venice his country, which 
 is sold to Austria, he is agitated and his eyes moisten.^ Speak- 
 ing of the capitulation of Baylen, at a full meeting of the 
 Council of State,' his voice trembles, and " he gives way to his 
 grief, his eyes even filling with tears." In 1806, setting out 
 for the army and on taking leave of Josephine, he has a ner- 
 vous attack which is so severe as to bring on vomiting.^ " We 
 had to make him sit down," says an eye-witness, " and swal- 
 low some orange water ; he shed tears, and this lasted a quar- 
 ter of an hour." The same nervous and stomachic crisis 
 came on in 1808, on deciding on the divorce ; he tosses about 
 a whole night, and laments like a woman ; he melts, and em- 
 braces Josephine ; he is weaker than she is : " My poor Jose- 
 phine, I can never leave you ! " Folding her in his arms, he 
 declares that she shall not quit him ; he abandons himself 
 wholly to the sensation of the moment ; she must undress at 
 once, sleep alongside of him, and he weeps over her ; " liter- 
 ally," she says, " he soaked the bed with his tears." 
 
 i., 71. — It is well known that he died of a cancer in the stomach, like his father Charles 
 Bonaparte ; his grandfather Joseph Bonaparte, his uncle Fcsch, his brother Liicicn, and his 
 sister Caroline died of the same, or of an analogous disease. 
 
 X Meneval, i., 269. Constant, " Memoires," v., 62. De Segur, vi., 114, 117. 
 
 2 Marshal Marinont, " Memoires," i., 306. Bourrienne, ii., 119: " When off the politi- 
 cal field he was sensitive, kind, open to pity." 
 
 3 Pelet de la Lozere, p. 7. De Champagny, " Souvenirs," p. 103. At first, the emotion 
 was much stronger. " He had the fatal news for nearly three hours ; he had given vent 
 to his despair alone by himself. He summoned me .... plaintive cries involuntarily 
 escaped him." 
 
 4 Madame de Rcmusat, i., 121, 342 ; ii., 50 ; iii., 61, 294, 312.
 
 46 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 Evidently, in such an organism, however powerful the 
 superimposed regulator, there is a risk of the equilibrium be- 
 ing destroyed. He is aware of this, for he knows himself 
 well ; he is afraid of his own nervous sensibility, the same as 
 of an easily frightened horse ; at critical moments, at Bere- 
 zina, he refuses to receive the bad news which might excite 
 this, and, on the informer's insisting on it, he asks him again,' 
 "Why, sir, do you want to disturb me?" — Nevertheless, in 
 spite of his precautions, he is twice taken unawares, at times 
 when the peril was alarming and of a new kind ; he, so clear- 
 headed and so cool under fire, the boldest of military heroes 
 and the most audacious of political adventurers, quails twice 
 in a parliamentary storm and again in a popular crisis. On the 
 i8th of Brumaire, in the Corps Legislatif, " he turned pale, 
 trembled, and seemed to lose his head at the shouts of out- 
 lawry .... they had to drag him out .... they even 
 thought for a moment that he was going to faint."^ After the 
 abdication at Fontainebleau, on encountering the rage and im- 
 precations which greeted him in Provence, beseemed for some 
 days to be morally shattered ; the animal instincts assert their 
 supremacy ; he is afraid and makes no attempt at conceal- 
 ment. * After borrowing the uniform of an Austrian colonel, 
 the casque of a Prussian quartermaster, and the cloak of 
 the Russian quartermaster, he still considers that he is 
 not sufficiently disguised. In the inn at Calade, " he 
 starts and changes color at the slightest noise"; the commis- 
 saries, who repeatedly enter his room, " find him always in 
 tears." "He wearies them with his anxieties and irresolu- 
 
 1 De Segur, v., 348. 
 
 2 Yung, ii., 329, 331. (Narrated by Lucien, and report to Louis XVIII.) 
 
 3 " Nouvelle relation de Tltineraire de Napoleon, de Fontainebleau a I'lle de I'EIbt," 
 by Count Waldberg-Truchsees, Prussian commissioner (1885), pp. 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 34, 
 37-— The violent scenes, probably, of the abdication and the attempt at Fontainebleau to 
 poison himself had already disturbed his balance. On- reaching Elba, he says to the Aus- 
 trian commissioner, Koller. " As to you, my dear general, I have let you .see my bare 
 rump."— Cf. in " Madame de Remusat," i., 108, one of his confessions to Talleyrand : he 
 crudely points out in himself the distance between natural instinct and studied courage. — 
 Here and elsewhere, we obtain a glimpse of the actor and even of the Italian buffoon ; M. 
 de Pradt called him "Jupiter Scapin." Read his reflections before M. de Pradt, on his 
 return from Russia, in which he appears in the light of a comedian who, having played 
 badly and failed in his part, retires behind the scenes, runs down the piece, and criticises 
 the imperfections of the audience. (De Pradt, p. 219.) 
 
 1
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 47 
 
 tion "; he says that the French government would like to 
 have him assassinated on the road, refuses to eat for fear of 
 poison, and thinks that he might escape by jumping out of the 
 window. And yet he gives vent to his feelings and lets his 
 tongue run on about himself without stopping, concerning his 
 past, his character, unreservedly, indelicately, trivially, like a 
 cynic and one who is half-crazy ; his ideas run loose and crowd 
 each other like the anarchical gatherings of a tumultuous mob ; 
 he does not recover his mastery of them until he reaches 
 Frejus, the end of his journey, where he feels himself safe and 
 protected from any highway assault ; then only do they return 
 within ordinary limits and fall back in regular line under the 
 control of the sovereign intellect which, after sinking for a 
 time, revives and resumes its ascendency. 
 
 II. 
 
 There is nothing in him so extraordinary as this almost 
 perpetual domination of the lucid, calculating reason : the 
 power of the will, therefore, is still more formidable than the 
 power of the intellect ; before it can obtain the mastery of 
 others it must be master at home. To measure its power, it does 
 not sufifice to note its fascinations ; to enumerate the millions 
 of souls it captivates, to estimate the vastness of the obstacles 
 it overcomes, we must again, and especially, represent to 
 ourselves the energy and depth of the passions it keeps in 
 check and urges on like a team of prancing, rearing horses ; 
 it is the driver who, bracing his arms, constantly restrains the 
 almost ungovernable steeds, who controls their excitement, 
 who regulates their bounds, who takes advantage even of their 
 viciousness to guide his noisy vehicle over precipices as it 
 rushes on with thundering speed. If the pure ideas of the 
 reasoning brain tlius maintain their daily supremacy it is due to 
 the vital flow which nourishes them ; their roots are deep in his 
 heart and temperament, and those roots which give them their 
 vigorous sap constitute a primordial instinct more powerful 
 than intellect, more powerful even than his will, tlie instinct 
 which leads him to centre everything on himself, in other
 
 48 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 words egoisjfi, ^ one that is not passive, but active and encroach- 
 ing, proportionate to the energy and compass of the faculties 
 developed by education and circumstances, exaggerated by 
 success and omnipotence even to the erection in society of a 
 monstrous colossal /, which unceasingly expands the circle of 
 its tenacious and rapacious grasping, which regards all resis- 
 tance as offensive, which all independence annoys, and which, 
 on the boundless domain it assigns to itself, is intolerant of 
 anybody that does not become either an appendix or a tool. — 
 The germ of this absorbing personality is already apparent in the 
 youth and even in the infant. " Character — dominating, imperi- 
 ous, and stubborn,'' says the record at Brienne;^ " extremely in- 
 clined to egoism," add the notes of the Military Academy ; ^ 
 "possessing a good deal of self-love, ambitious, aspiring in all 
 directions, fond of solitude," undoubtedly because he is not mas- 
 ter in a group of equals and is ill at ease when he cannot rule. 
 " I lived apart from my comrades," he says at a later date. * "' I 
 had selected a little corner in the playgrounds, where I used 
 to go and sit down and indulge my fancies. When my com- 
 rades were disposed to drive me out of this corner I defended 
 it with all my might. My instinct already told me that my 
 will should prevail against other wills, and that whatever 
 pleased me ought to belong to me." Referring lo his early 
 years under the paternal roof at Corsica, he depicts himself as 
 
 1 The reader may find his comprehension of the author's meaning strengthened by the 
 following translation of a passage from his essay on Jouffroy (Philosophes classiques du 
 XlXth Siecle," 3d ed.): 
 
 " What is a man, master of himself ? He is one who, dying with thirst, refrains from 
 swallowing a cooling draft, merely moistening his lips ; who, publicly insulted, remains 
 calm in calculating his most appropriate revenge ; who, in a battle, his nerves excited by a 
 charge, plans a difficult manoeuvre, thinks it out, and writes it down with a lead-pencil 
 while balls are whistling around him, and sends it to his colonels. In other words, it is a 
 man in whom the deliberate and abstract idea of the greatest good is stronger than all 
 other ideas and sensations. The conception of the greatest good once attained, every dis- 
 like, every species of indolence, every fear, every seduction, every agitation, are found 
 weak. The tendency which arises from the idea of the greatest good constantly dominates 
 all others and determines all actions." — Tk. 
 
 2 Bourrienne, i.; 21. 
 
 3 Yung, i., 125. 
 
 4 Madame de Remusat, i., 267. — Yung, ii., 109. On his return to Corsica he takes upon 
 himself the government of the whole family. " Nobody could discuss with him, says 
 his brother Lucien ; he took offence at the slightest observation and got in a passion at the 
 slightest resistance. Joseph (the eldest) dared not even reply to his brother."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 49 
 
 a little mischievous savage, rebelling against every sort of re- 
 straint, and without any conscience.^ " I respected nothing 
 and feared nobody ; I beat one and scratched another ; I 
 made everybody afraid of me. I beat my brother Joseph ; I 
 bit him and complained of him almost before he knew what he 
 was about." A clever trick, and one which he was not slow 
 to repeat. His talent for improvising useful falsehoods is in- 
 nate ; later on, at maturity, he is proud of this ; he makes it 
 the index and measure of " political superiority," and " delights 
 in calling to mind one of his uncles who, in his infancy, prog- 
 nosticated to him that he would govern the world because he 
 was fond of lying." ^ 
 
 Remark this observation of the uncle's — it sums up the expe- 
 riences of a man of his time and of his country ; it is what social 
 life in Corsica inculcated ; morals and manners there adapted 
 themselves to each other through an unfailing connection. The 
 moral law, indeed, is such because similar customs prevail in 
 all countries and at all times where the police is powerless^ 
 where justice cannot be obtained, where public interests are in 
 the hands of whoever can lay hold of them, where private war- 
 fare is pitiless and not repressed, where every man goes armed, 
 where every sort of weapon is fair, and where dissimulation, 
 fraud, and trickery, as well as gun or poniard, are allowed, which 
 was the case in Corsica in the eighteenth century, as in Italy in 
 the fifteenth century. — Hence the early impressions of Bona- 
 parte similar to those of the Borgias and of Machiavelli ; hence, 
 in his case, that first stratum of half-thought which, later on, 
 serves as the basis of complete thought ; hence, the whole 
 foundation of his future mental edifice and of the conceptions 
 he subsequently entertains of human society. Afterwards, on 
 
 1 Memorial, August 27-31, 1815. 
 
 2 " Madame dc Rcmusat," i., 105. — Never was there an abler and more persevering soph- 
 ist, more persuasive, more eloquent, in order to make it appear that he was right. Hence 
 his dictations at St. Helena ; his proclamations, messages, and diplomatic correspondence ; 
 his ascendency in talking as great as through his arms, over his subject and over his adver- 
 saries ; also his posthumous ascendency over posterity. He is as great a lawyer as he is a 
 captain and administrator. The peculiarity of this disposition is never submiliing to truth, 
 but always to speak or write with reference to an audience, to flead a cause. Through 
 this talent one creates phantoms which dupe the audience : on the other hand, as the author 
 himself forms part of the audience, he ends in not .tlone leading others into error but like- 
 wise himself, which is the case with Napoleon.
 
 5© THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 leaving the French schools and every time he returns to them 
 and spends any time in them, the same impressions, often re- 
 newed, intensify in his mind the same final conclusion. In 
 this country, report the French commissioners,' " the people 
 have no idea of principle in the abstract," nor of social interest 
 or justice. "Justice does not exist; one hundred and thirty 
 assassinations have occurred in ten years. . . . The institution 
 of juries has deprived the country of all the means for punishing 
 crime ; never do the strongest proofs, the clearest evidence, 
 lead a jury composed of men of the same party, or of the same 
 family as the accused, to convict him ; and, if the accused is 
 of the opposite party, the juries likewise acquit him, so as not 
 to incur the risk of revenge, " slow perhaps but always sure." 
 *' Public spirit is unknown." There is no social body, except 
 " any number of small parties inimical to each other. , . . 
 One is not a Corsican without belonging to some family, and 
 consequently attached to some party ; he who would serve 
 none, would be detested by all. . . . All the leaders have the 
 same end in view, that of getting money no matter by what 
 means, and their first care is to surround themselves with crea- 
 tures entirely devoted to them and to whom they give all the 
 ofifices. . . . The elections are held under arms, and all with 
 violence. . . . The victorious party uses its authority to avenge 
 itself of that which is beaten, and multiplies vexations and out- 
 rages. . , . The leaders form aristocratic leagues with each 
 other. . . . and mutually tolerate abuses. They impose no 
 assessment or collection (of taxes) to curry favor with electors 
 through party spirit and relationships. . . . Customs-duties 
 serve simply to compensate friends and relatives. . . . Salaries 
 never reach those for whom they are intended. The rural dis- 
 tricts are uninhabitable for lack of security. The peasants carry 
 guns even when at the plough. One cannot take a step with- 
 out an escort ; a detachment of five or six men is often sent 
 to carry a letter from one post-office to another." 
 
 Interpret this general statement by the thousands of facts 
 
 I Yung, ii., III. (Report by Volney, Corsican commissioner, 1791.) — ii., 287. (Memorial, 
 giving a true account of the political and military state of Corsica in December, 1790.)— ii., 
 270. (Despatch of the representative Lacombe Saint-Michel, Sept. 10,1793.^ — Miot de Melito 
 i,, 131, and following pages. (He is peace commissioner in Corsica in 1797 and 1801.)
 
 CHAP. 11. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. SI 
 
 of which it is the summary ; imagine these little daily occur- 
 rences narrated with all their material accompaniments, and 
 with sympathetic or angry comments by interested neighbors, 
 and we have the moral lessons taught to young Bonaparte.' 
 At table, the child has listened to the conversation of his 
 elders, and at a word uttered, for instance, by his uncle, or at 
 a physiognomical expression, a sign of approbation, a shrug of 
 the shoulders, he has divined that the ordinary march of 
 society is not that of peace but of war ; he sees by what ruses 
 one maintains one's-self, by what acts of violence one makes 
 one's way, by what sort of help one mounts upward. Left to 
 himself the rest of the day, to the nurse Ilaria, or to Saveria 
 the housekeeper, or to the common people amongst whom he 
 strays at will, he listens to the conversation of sailors or of 
 shepherds assembled on the public square, and their simple 
 exclamations, their frank admiration of well-planned ambus- 
 cades and lucky surprises, impress more profoundly on him, 
 often repeated with so much energy, the lessons which he has 
 already learned at home. These are the lessons taught by 
 things. At this tender age they sink deep, especially when the 
 disposition is favorable, and in this case the heart sanctions 
 them beforehand, because education finds its confederate in 
 instinct. Accordingly, at the outbreak of the Revolution, on 
 revisiting Corsica, he takes life at once as he finds it there, 
 a combat with any sort of weapon, and, on this small arena, he 
 acts unscrupulously, going farther than anybody.^ If he 
 respects justice and law, it is only in words, and even here 
 
 1 Miot de Melito, ii., 2. " The partisans of the First Consul's family .... regarded me 
 simply as the instrument of their passions, of use only to rid them of their enemies, so as to 
 centre all favors on their proteges." 
 
 2 Yung., i.. 220. (Manifest of October ^i, 1789.) — i., 265. (Loan on the seminary funds 
 obtained by force, June 23, lyqo.) — i., 267, 269. (.Arrest of M. de la Jaille and other ofTicers ; 
 plan for taking the citadel of Ajaccio.")^i., ITS- (letter to Paoli, February 17, 1792.) "Laws 
 are like the statues of certain divinities — veiled on certain occasions." — ii., 125. (Election 
 of Bonaparte as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of volunteers, April i, 1792.) The evening 
 before he had Murati, one of the three departmental commissioners, carried off by an armed 
 band from the ho\ise of thePcraldi, his adversaries, where he lodged. Murati, seized unawares, 
 is brought back by force and locked up in Bonaparte's house, who gravely says to him ; " I 
 wanted you to be free, entirely at liberty ; you were not so with the Peraldi." — His Corsican 
 biographer (Nasica, " Memoires rur la jeunesse et I'enfance de Napoleon,") considers this a 
 very praiseworthy action.
 
 52 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 ironically ; in his eyes, law is a term of the code, justice a 
 book term, while might makes right. 
 
 A second blow of the coining-press gives another impres- 
 sion of the same stamp on this character already so decided, 
 while French anarchy forces maxims into the mind of the 
 young man, already traced in the child's mind by Corsican 
 anarchy ; the lessons of things provided by a society going to 
 pieces are the same as those of a society which is not yet 
 formed. — His sharp eyes, at a very early period, see through 
 the flourish of theory and the parade of phrases ; they detect 
 the real foundation of the Revolution, namely, the sovereignty 
 of unbridled passions and the conquest of the majority by the 
 minority ; conquering or conquered, a choice must be made 
 between these two extreme conditions ; there is no middle 
 course. After the 9th of Thermidor, the last veils are torn 
 away, and the instincts of license and domination, the am- 
 bitions of individuals, fully display themselves ; there is na 
 concern for public interests or for the rights of the people ; 
 it is clear that the rulers form a band, that France is their 
 prey, and that they intend to hold on to it for and against 
 everybody, by every possible means, including bayonets. 
 Under this civil regime, a clean sweep of the broom at the 
 centre makes it necessary to be on the side of numbers. — In 
 the armies, especially in the army of Italy, republican faith 
 and patriotic abnegation, since the territory became free, 
 have given way to natural appetites and military passions.^ 
 Barefoot, in rags, with four ounces of bread a day, paid in 
 assignats which are not current in the markets, both officers 
 and men desire above all things to be relieved of their misery \ 
 " the poor fellows, after three years of longing on the sum- 
 mits of the Alps, reach the promised land, and want to en- 
 joy it." ~ Another spur consists in the pride which is stimu- 
 
 I Cf. on this point, the Memoirs of Marshal Marmont, i., i8o, 196; the Memoirs of 
 Stendhal, on Napoleon ; the Report of d'Antraigues (Yung, iii., 170, 171) ; the " Mercure 
 Britannique " of Mallet-Dupan, and the first chapter of " La Chartreuse de Parme," by 
 Stendhal. 
 
 I " Correspondance de Napoleon," i. (Letter of Napoleon to the Directory, April 26, 
 I7q6.) — Proclamation of the same date : " Vou have made forced marches barefoot, bivou- 
 acked without brandy, and often without bread."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 53 
 
 lated by the imagination and by success ; add to this the 
 necessity for self-expansion, the steam and high pressure of 
 youth ; nearly all are very young men, who regard life, in 
 Gallic or French fashion, as a party of pleasure and as a duel. 
 But to feel brave and to prove that one is so, to face bullets 
 for amusement and defiantly, to abandon a successful adven- 
 ture for a battle and a battle for a ball, to enjoy one's-self and 
 take risks to excess, without dissimulating, and with no other 
 object than the sensation of the moment,^ to revel in ex- 
 citement through emulation and danger, is no longer self- 
 devotion, but giving one's-self up to one's fancies ; and, for 
 all who are not harebrained, to give one's-self up to one's 
 fancies means to make one's way, obtain promotion, pillage so 
 as to become rich, like Massena, and conquer so as to become 
 powerful, like Bonaparte. — All this is understood between the 
 general and his army from the very first,^ and, after one year's 
 experience, the understanding is perfect. One moral is de- 
 rived from their common acts, vague in the army, precise in 
 the general ; what the army only half sees, he sees clearly ; if 
 he urges his comrades on, it is because they follow their own 
 inclination. He simply has the start of them, and quicker 
 makes up his mind that the world is a grand banquet, free to 
 the first-comer, but at which, to be well served, one must 
 have long arms, be the first to get helped, and let the rest 
 take what is left. 
 
 So natural does this seem to him, he says so openly and to 
 men who are not his intimates ; to Miot, a diplomat, and to Mel- 
 
 1 Stendhal, "Vie do Napoleon," p. 151. "The commonest officers were crazy with de- 
 light at having white linen and fine new boots. All were fond of music ; many walked a 
 league in the rain to secure a seat in the La Scala Theatre. ... In the sad plight in which 
 the army found itself before Castiglione and Arcole, everybody, except the knowing offi- 
 cers, was disposed to attempt the impossible so as not to quit Italy." — " Marmont," i.,296: 
 " We were all of us very young, ... all aglow with strength and health, and enthusiastic 
 for glory. . . . This variety of our occupations and pleasures, this excessive employment of 
 body and mind gave value to existence, and made time pass with extr.aordinary rapidity." 
 
 2 " Correspondance de Napoleon," i. Proclamation of March 27, 1796 : " Soldiers, you 
 are naked and poorly fed. The government is vastly indebted to you ; it has nothing to give 
 you. ... I am going to lead you to the most fertile plains in the world ; rich provinces, 
 large cities will be in your power; you will then obtain honor, glory, and wealth." — Pro- 
 clamation of April 26, 1796: "Friends, I guarantee that conquest to you!" — Of. in 
 Marmont's memoirs the way in which Bonaparte plays the part of tempter in offering 
 Marmont, who refuses, an opportunity to rob a treasury chest.
 
 54 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 zi, a foreigner. " Do you suppose," says he to them/ after the 
 preliminaries of Leoben, " that to make great men out of 
 Directory lawyers, the Carnots and the Barras, I triumph in 
 Italy ? Do you suppose also that it is for the establishment of 
 a republic ? What an idea ! A republic of thirty million men ! 
 With our customs, our vices, how is that possible? It is a 
 delusion which the French are infatuated with and which will 
 vanish along with so many others. What they want is glory, 
 the gratification of vanity — they know nothing about liberty. 
 Look at the army ! Our successes just obtained, our triumphs 
 have already brought out the true character of the French 
 soldier. I am all for him. Let the Directory deprive me of 
 the command and it will see if it is master. The nation needs 
 a chief, one who is famous though his exploits, and not theories 
 of government, phrases and speeches by ideologists, which 
 Frenchmen do not comprehend. ... As to your country, 
 Monsieur de Melzi, it has still fewer elements of republicanism 
 than France, and much less ceremony is essential with it than 
 with any other. ... In other respects, I have no idea of 
 coming to terms so promptly with Austria. It is not for my 
 interest to make peace. You see what I am, what I can do in 
 Italy. If peace is brought about, if I am no longer at the 
 head of this army which has become attached to me, I must 
 give up this power, this high position I have reached, and go 
 and pay court to lawyers in the Luxembourg. I should not 
 like to quit Italy for France except to play a part there similar 
 to that which I play here, and the time for that has not yet 
 come — the pear is not ripe." 
 
 To wait until the pear is ripe, but not to allow anybody else 
 to gather it, is the true motive of his political fealty and of his 
 Jacobin proclamations. "A party in favor of the Bourbons 
 is raising its head ; I have no desire to help it along. One of 
 these days I shall weaken the republican party, but I shall do it 
 for my own advantage and not for that of the old dynasty. 
 Meanwhile, it is necessary to march with the Republicans," 
 
 1 Miot de Melito, i., 154. (June, 1797, in the gardens of Montebello.) "Such are sub- 
 stantially the most remarkable expressions in this long discourse which I have recorded 
 and preserved."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 55 
 
 along with the worst, and the scoundrels about to purge the 
 Five Hundred, the Ancients, and the Directory itself, and then 
 re-establish in France the Reign of Terror. — In effect, he con- 
 tributes to the 1 8th of Fructidor, and, the blow struck, he 
 ■explains very clearly why he took part in it : " Do not believe ^ 
 I did it in conformity with the ideas entertained by those with 
 whom I acted. I did not want a return of the Bourbons, and 
 esp^ially if brought back by Moreau's army and by Piche- 
 gru. . . . Finally, I will not take the part of Monk, I will not 
 play it, and 1 will not have others play it. . . . As for myself, 
 my dear Miot, I declare to you that I can no longer obey ; I 
 have tasted command and I cannot give it up. My mind is 
 made up. If I cannot be master I will leave France." 
 
 There is no middle course for him between the two alter- 
 natives. On returning to Paris he thinks of "overthrowing 
 the Directory,^ dissolving the councils and of making himself 
 dictator "; but, having satisfied himself that there was but little 
 chance of succeeding, " he postpones his design " and falls 
 back on the second course. " This is the only motive of his 
 expedition into Egypt." ' — That, in the actual condition of 
 France and of Europe, the expedition is opposed to public 
 interests, that France deprives itself of its bestarmyand offers 
 its best fleet to almost certain destruction, is of little conse- 
 quence provided, in this vast and gratuitous adventure, Bona- 
 parte finds the employment he wants, a large field of action 
 and famous victories which, like the blasts of a trumpet, will 
 
 1 Miot de Melito, i. 184. (Convers.ition with Bonaparte, November 18, 1797, at Turin.) 
 " I remained an hour with the general tete-a-tete. I shall relate the conversation exactly 
 as it occurred, according to my notes, made at the lime." 
 
 2 Mathieu Dumas, " Memoires," iii., 156. "It is certain that he thought of it from this 
 moment and seriously studied the obstacles, means, and chances of success." (Mathieu 
 Dumas cites the testimony of Desaix. who was engaged in the enterprise): " It seems 
 that all was ready, when Bonaparte judged that things were not yet ripe, nor the means 
 sufficient." — Hence his departure. " He wanted to get out of the way of the rule and 
 caprices of these contemptible dictators, while the latter wanted to get rid of him because 
 his military fame and influence in the army were obnoxious to them." 
 
 3 Larevelliere-I.epaux (one of the five directors on duty), " Memoires," ii., 340. " All 
 that is truly grand in this enterprise, as well as all that is bold and extravagant, either in 
 its conception or execution, belongs wliolly to Bonaparte. The idea a/ it never occurred 
 to the Directory nor toapy 0/ its members. . . . His ambition and his pride could not en- 
 dure the alternative of no longer being prominent or of accepting a post which, however 
 eminent, would have always subjected him to the orders of the Directory."
 
 56 THE MODERN REGIME. book I. 
 
 swell beyond the seas and renew his prestige : in his eyes, the 
 fleet, the army, France, and humanity exist only for him and 
 are created only for his service. — If, in confirmation of this 
 persuasion, another lesson in things is still necessary, it will be 
 furnished by Egypt. Here, absolute sovereign, free of ahy 
 restraint, contending with an inferior order of humanity, he 
 acts the sultan and accustoms himself to playing the part.', 
 His last scruples in relation to the human species disappear; 
 "I became disgusted with Rousseau "; he is to say, later on, 
 " After seeing the Orient, the savage man is a dog," ^ and, in 
 the civilized man, the savage is just beneath the skin ; if thre 
 intellect has become somewhat polished, there is no change in 
 his instincts. A master is as necessary to one as to the other — 
 a magician who subjugates his imagination, disciplines him, 
 keeps him from biting without occasion, ties him up, cares 
 for him, and takes him out hunting. He is born to obey, does 
 not deserve any better lot, and has no other right. 
 
 Become consul and afterward emperor, he applies the theory 
 on a grand scale, and, in his hands, experience daily furnishes 
 fresh verifications of the theory. At his first nod the French 
 prostrate themselves obediently, and there remain, as in a 
 natural position ; the lower class, the peasants and the soldiers,, 
 with animal fidelity, and the upper class, the dignitaries and 
 the functionaries, with Byzantine servility. — The republicans, 
 on their side, make no resistance ; on the contrary, among 
 these he has found his best governing instruments — senators, 
 deputies, state councillors, judges, and administrators of every 
 grade.^ He has at once detected behind their sermonizing on 
 liberty and equality, their despotic instincts, their craving for 
 
 1 Madame de Remusal, i., 142. " Josephine laid great stress on the Egyptian expedition 
 as the cause of his change of temper and of the daily despotism which made her suffer so 
 much." 
 
 2 Roedcrer, iii., 461 (Tan. 12, 1803). 
 
 3 Cf. "The Revolution," ii., 381. (Note i., on the situation, in 1806, of the Conven- 
 tionalists who had survived the revolution.) For instance, Fouche is minister ; Jean Bon 
 St. Andre, prefect ; Drouet (de Varennes), sub-prefect ; Chepy (of Grenoble), commissary- 
 general of the police at Brest ; 131 regicides are functionaries, among whom we find twenty- 
 one prefects and forty-two magistrates. Occasionally, a chance document that has been 
 preserved allows one to catch " folly as it flies." (" Bulletins hebdomadaires de la cen- 
 sure, 1810 and 1814," published by M. Thurot, in the Revue Critique, 1871): " Seizure of 
 240 copies of an indecent work printed for account of M. Palloy, the author. This Palloy
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 57 
 
 command, for leadership, even as subordinates ; and, in addi- 
 tion to this, with most of them, the appetite for money or for 
 sensual gratifications. The difference between the delegate 
 of the Committee of Public Safety and the minister, prefect, 
 or subprefect under the Empire is small ; it is the same individ- 
 ual in two costumes ; at first in the carmagnole, and next in the 
 embroidered coat. If a rude, poor Puritan, like Cambon or 
 Baudot, refuses to don the official uniform, if two or three 
 Jacobin generals, like Lecourbe and Delmas, grumble at the 
 •coronation parade, Napoleon, who knows their mental grasp 
 regards them as ignoramuses, limited to and rigid in a fixed 
 idea. — As to the cultivated and intelligeiit liberals of 1789, he 
 consigns them with a word to the place where they belong ; 
 they are "ideologists"; in other words, their pretended 
 knowledge is mere drawing-room prejudice and the imagi- 
 nation of the closet ; " Lafayette is a political ninny," the 
 eternal " dupe of men and of things." ' With Lafayette and 
 some others, one embarrassing detail remains ; namely, proven 
 disinterestedness, constant solicitude for the public good, re- 
 spect for others, the authority of conscience, loyalty, and good 
 faith ; in short, noble and pure motives. Napoleon does not 
 accept the denial thus given to his theory; in addressing 
 people personally, he disputes with them to their faces about 
 their moral nobleness. " General Dumas," ^ said he, abruptly, 
 to Mathieu Dumas, " you were one of the imbeciles who be- 
 lieved in liberty ? " " Yes, sire, and I was and am still one 
 of that class." " And you, like the rest, took part in the 
 Revolution through ambition ? " " No, sire, I should have 
 
 enjoyed some celebrity during the Revolution, being one of the famous patriots of the 
 Faubourg Saint Antoine. The Constituent Assembly had conceded to him the owner- 
 ship of the site of the Bastile, of which he distributed its stones among all the Communes. 
 He is a hon Th'ant, who took it into his head to write out in a very bad style the filthy 
 story of his amours with a prostitute of the Palais-Royal. He was quite willing that the 
 book should be seized on condition that he might retain a few copies of his jovial produc- 
 tion. He professes high admiration for, and strong attachment to His Majesty's person, 
 and expresses his sentiments piquanlly, in the style of 1709." 
 
 1 " Mem rial," June 12, 1816. 
 
 2 Mathieu Dumas, iii., 363 (July 4, 1809, a few days before Wagram).— Madame de 
 R^musat," i., los : " I have never heard him express any admiration or comprehension of a 
 noble action." — i., 179: On Augustus's clemency and his saying, " Let us be friends, 
 Cinna," the following is his interpretation of it : "I understand this action simply as the 
 feint of a tyrant, and approve as calculation what I find puerile as sentiment."
 
 58 THE PRESENT REGIME. book i. 
 
 calculated badly, for I am now precisely where I stood \xx 
 1790." "You were not sufficiently aware of the motives- 
 which prompted you ; you cannot be different from other people; 
 it is all personal interest. Now, take Massena. He has glory 
 and honors enough ; but he is not content. He wants to be 
 a prince, like Murat and like Bernadotte. He would risk 
 being shot to-morrow to be a prince. That is the incentive of 
 Frenchmen." — His system is based on this. The most compe- 
 tent witnesses, and those who were most familiar with him» 
 aver to his fixed idea on this point. " His opinions on men," 
 writes M. de Metternich,' " centred on one idea, which, un- 
 fortunately for him, had acquired in his mind the force of an 
 axiom ; he was persuaded that no man who was induced to 
 appear on the public stage, or who was merely engaged in the 
 active pursuits of life, governed himself, or was governed, 
 otherwise than by his interest." According to him, man is- 
 held through his egoistic passions, fear, cupidity, sensuality, 
 self-esteem, and emulation ; these are the mainsprings whert 
 he is not under excitement, when he reasons. Moreover, it is 
 not difficult to turn the brain of man ; for he is imaginative, 
 credulous, and subject to being carried away ; stimulate his 
 pride or vanity, provide him with an extreme and false opinion 
 of himself and of his fellow-men, and you can start him off 
 head downward wherever you please.^ — None of these motives 
 is entitled to much respect, and beings thus fashioned form 
 the natural material for an absolute government, the mass of 
 clay awaiting the potter's hand to shape it. If parts of this 
 mass are obdurate, the potter has only to crush and pound 
 them and mix them thoroughly. 
 
 Such is the final conception on which Napoleon has anchored 
 himself, and into which he sinks deeper and deeper, no matter 
 how directly and violently he may be contradicted by palpable 
 
 1 M. de Metternich, " Memoires," i., 241. " Madame de Remusat," i., 93 : " That man 
 has been such a tradiicer (.assommateur) of all virtue." Madame de Stael, " Considera- 
 tions sur la Revolution Frangaise, " 4th part, ch. 18. (Napoleon's conduct with M. de 
 Melzi, to destroy him in public opinion in Milan, in 1805.) 
 
 2 Madame de Remusat, i., 106 ; ii., 247, 336 : " His means for governing man were all de- 
 rived from those which tend to debase him. . . . He tolerated virtue only when he could 
 cover it with ridicule."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 59 
 
 facts ; nothing will dislodge him ; neither the stubborn energy 
 of the English, nor the inflexible gentleness of the Pope, nor 
 the declared insurrection of the Spaniards, nor the mute insur- 
 rection of the Germans, nor the resistance of Catholic con- 
 sciences, nor the gradual disaffection of the French ; the rea- 
 son is, that his conception is imposed on him by his char- 
 acter ; * he sees man as he needs to see him. 
 
 III. 
 
 We at last confront his dominant passion, the inward abyss 
 into which instinct, education, reflection, and theory have 
 plunged him, and which is to engulf the proud edifice of his 
 fortune — I mean, his ambition. It is the prime motor of his 
 soul and the permanent substance of his will, so profound that 
 he no longer distinguishes between it and himself, and of which 
 he is sometimes unconscious. "I," said he to Roederer,^ "I 
 have no ambition," and then, recollecting himself, he adds, 
 with his ordinary lucidity, " or, if I have any, it is so natural to 
 me, so innate, so intimately associated with my existence, that 
 it is like the blood which flows in my veins and the atmosphere 
 I breathe." — Still more profoundly, he likens it to that involun- 
 tary, savage, and irresistible sentiment which underlies all feel- 
 ing ; those tremors of the entire animal and moral nature, those 
 keen and terrible transports which compose the passion of love. 
 " I have but one passion,^ one mistress, and that is France. I 
 sleep with her. She has never been false to me. She lavishes 
 her blood and treasures on me ; if I need 500,000 men, she 
 gives them to me." Let no one come between him and her. 
 Let Joseph, in relation to the coronation, abstain from claim- 
 ing his place, even secondary and prospective, in the new em- 
 
 1 Nearly all his false calculations are due to this defect, combined with an excess of con- 
 structive imagination — Cf. De Pradt, p. 94 : " The F.mperor is all system, all illusion, as 
 one cannot fail to be when one is all imagination. Whoever has watched his course has 
 noticed his creating for himself an imaginary Spain, an imaginary Catholicism, an imagi- 
 nary England, an imaginary financial state, an imaginary noblesse, and still more an imagi- 
 nary France, and, in late times, an imaginary congress." 
 
 2 Koederer, iii., 4g5. (March 8. 1804.) 
 
 3 Ibid., iii., 537. (February 11, 1809.)
 
 6o THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 pire ; let him not put forth his fraternal rights.* " It is to wound 
 me in the tenderest spot." This he does, and, " Nothing can 
 efface that from my souvenirs. It is as if he had told an im- 
 passioned lover that he had slept with his mistress, or merely 
 that he hoped to succeed with her. My mistress is power. I 
 have worked too hard to obtain her, to let her be ravished 
 from me, or even suffer anybody to covet her." This ambi- 
 tion, as avid as it is jealous, which becomes exasperated at the 
 very idea of a rival, feels hampered by the mere idea of setting 
 a limit to it ; however vast the acquired power, he would like 
 to have it still more vast ; on quitting the most copious ban- 
 quet, he still remains insatiate. On the day after the corona- 
 tion he said to Decres :^ "I come too late, there is no longer 
 anything great to accomplish. I admit that my career is bril- 
 liant and that I have made my way successfully. But what a 
 difference alongside of antiquity ! Take Alexander ! After 
 having conquered Asia, and proclaimed himself to the people 
 as the son of Jupiter, with the exception of Olympias, who 
 knew what all this meant, and Aristotle, and a few Athenian 
 pedants, the entire Orient believed him. Very well, should I 
 now declare that I was the son of God Almighty, and proclaim 
 that I am going to worship him under this title, there is not an 
 old beldame that would not hoot at me as I walked along the 
 streets. People nowadays know too much. Nothing is left to 
 do." And yet, even on this secluded, elevated domain, and 
 which twenty centuries of civilization keeps inaccessible, he 
 still encroaches, and to the utmost, in a roundabout way, by 
 laying his hand on the Church, and next on the Pope ; here, as 
 elsewhere, he takes all he can get. Nothing in his eyes, is 
 more natural ; he has a right to it, because he is the only capa- 
 ble one. " My Italian people ' must know me well enough not 
 to forget that there is more in my little finger than in all their 
 brains put together." Alongside of him, they are children, 
 " minors," the French also, and likewise the rest of mankind. 
 A diplomat, who often saw him and studied him under all as- 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 514. (November 4, 1804.) 
 
 2 Marmont, ii., 142. 
 
 3 " Correspondance de Napoleon," i. CLetter to Prince Eugene, April 14, 1806.)
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 6 1 
 
 pects, sums up his character in one conclusive phrase : " He 
 considered himself an isolated being in this world, made to 
 govern and direct all minds as he pleased."* 
 
 Hence, whoever has anything to do with him, must abandon 
 his own will and become a governing instrument. " That 
 terrible man," often exclaimed Decres,^ " has subjugated us 
 all ! He holds all our imaginations in his hands, now of steel 
 and now of velvet, but whether one or the other during the day 
 nobody knows, and there is no way to escape from them ; 
 whatever they seize on they never let go ! " Independence of 
 any kind, even eventual and merely possible, puts him out of 
 humor ; intellectual or moral superiority is of this order, and 
 he gradually gets rid of it ; toward the last he no longer tol- 
 erates alongside of him any but subject or captive spirits ; 
 his principal servants are machines or fanatics, a devout wor- 
 shipper, like Maret, a gendarme, like Savary,^ ready to do his 
 bidding. From the outset, he has reduced his ministers to 
 the condition of clerks ; for he is administrator as well as 
 ruler, and in each department he watches details as closely 
 as the entire mass ; accordingly, he requires simply for head 
 men active scribes, mute executors, docile and special hands, 
 no honest and free advisers. " I should not know what to do 
 with them," he said, " if they were not to a certain extent 
 mediocre in mind and character." As to his generals, he 
 admits himself that " he likes to award fame only to those who 
 cannot stand it." In any event, " he must be sole master in 
 making or marring reputations," according to his personal 
 
 1 M. de Metternich, i., 284. 
 
 2 Mollien, iii., 427. 
 
 3 " Memoires inedits de M. X ," ii., 49. (Admirable portraiture of his principal 
 
 agents, Cambaceres, Talleyrand, Maret, Cretet, Real, etc.) Lacuee, director of the con- 
 scription, is a perfect type of the imperial functionary. Having received the broad ribbon 
 of the Legion d'Honneur, he exclaimed, at the height of his enthusiasm : " What will not 
 France become under such a man ? To what degree of happiness and glory will it not 
 ascend, always provided the conscription furnishes him with 200.000 men a year ! And, 
 indeed, that will not be difTicult, considering the extent of the empire." — And likewise with 
 Merlin de Douai : " I never knew a man less endowed with th- sentiment of the just and 
 the unjust ; everything seems to him rlj^ht and good, .as the consequences of a legal text. 
 He was even endowed with a kind of satanic smile which involuntarily rose to his lips .... 
 every time the opportunity occurred, when, in applying his odious science, he reached the 
 conclusion that severity is necessary or some condemnation." — The same with Defcrmon, 
 in fiscal matters.
 
 62 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 requirements ; too brilliant a soldier would become too im- 
 portant ; a subordinate should never be tempted to be less, 
 submissive. To this end he studies what he will omit in his 
 bulletins, what alterations and what changes shall be made in 
 them. *' It is convenient to keep silent about certain victories,. 
 or to convert the defeat of this or that marshal into a success. 
 Sometimes a general learns by a bulletin of an action that he 
 was never in and of a speech that he never made." If he 
 complains, he is notified to keep still, or by way of recom- 
 pense he is allowed to pillage, levy contributions, and en- 
 rich himself. On becoming duke or hereditary prince, with 
 half a million or a million of revenue from his estate, he is not 
 less held in subjection, for the creator has taken precautions 
 against his own creations. "Some people there," ^ said he^ 
 " I have made independent, but I know when to lay my hand 
 on them and keep them from being ungrateful." In effect, if 
 he has endowed them magnificently it is with domains assigned 
 to them in conquered countries, which insures their fortune 
 being his fortune. Besides, in order that they may not enjoy 
 any pecuniary stability, he expressly encourages them and all 
 his grand dignitaries to make extravagant outlays ; thus^ 
 through their financial embarrassments he holds them in a 
 leash. " We have seen most of his marshals, constantly 
 pressed by their creditors, come to him for assistance, which, 
 he has given as he fancied, or as he found it for his interest to- 
 attach some one to him." ^ 
 
 Thus, beyond the universal ascendency which his power and 
 genius have conferred on him, he craves a personal, supple- 
 mentary, and irresistible hold on everybody. Consequently,* 
 " he carefully cultivates all the bad passions .... he is glad 
 to find the bad side in a man, so as to get him in his power"; 
 the thirst for money in Savary, the Jacobin defects of Fouche, 
 the vanity and sensuality of Cambaceres, the careless cynicism 
 and "the easy immorality" of Talleyrand, the "dry blunt- 
 ness " of Duroc, the courtier-like insipidity of Maret, "the 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, ii., 278 ; ii., 175. 
 
 2 Ibid., iii., 275, ii., 45 (Apropos of Savary, his most intimate agent.) " He is a man 
 who must be constantly corrupted." 
 
 ■^Ibid.y i., loq ; ii., 247 ; iii., 366.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 63 
 
 silliness " of Berthier ; he brings this out, diverts himself with 
 it, and profits by it. " Where he sees no vice, he encourages 
 weaknesses, and, in default of anything better, he provokes 
 fear, so that he may be ever and continually the strongest. . . . 
 He dreads ties of affection, and strives to alienate people from 
 each other. . . . He sells his favors only by arousing anxiety ; 
 he thinks that the best way to attach individuals to him is to 
 compromise them, and often, even, to ruin them in public 
 opinion." " If Caulaincourt is compromised," said he, after 
 the murder of the Due d'Enghien, " it is no great matter, he 
 will serve me all the better." 
 
 Once that the creature is in his clutches, let him not imagine 
 that he can escape or withhold anything of his own accord ; 
 all that he has belongs to him. Zeal and success in the per- 
 formance of duty, punctual obedience within limits previously 
 designated, is not enough ; behind the functionary he claims 
 the man. " All that may well be," he replies, to whatever may 
 be said in praise of him,' " but he does not belong to me as I 
 would like." It is devotion which he exacts, and, by devotion, 
 he means the irrevocable and complete surrender "of the 
 entire person, in all his sentiments and opinions." According 
 to him, writes a witness, " one must abandon every old habit, 
 even the most trifling, and be governed by one thought alone, 
 that of his will and interests."* For greater security, his 
 servitors ought to extinguish in themselves the critical sense. 
 " What he fears the most is that, close to him or far off, the 
 faculty of judging should be applied or even preserved." — 
 " His idea is a marble groove," out of which no mind should 
 diverge.' Especially as no two minds could think of diverg- 
 ing at the same time, and on the same side, their concurrence, 
 
 1 " Madame de Remusat," ii., 142, 167, 245. (Napoleon's own words.) " If I ordered 
 Savary to rid himself of his wife and children, I am sure he would not hesitate." — Mar- 
 mont, ii., 194: "We were at Vienna in iRog. Davoust said, speaking of his own and 
 Maret's devotion : " If the Kmpcror should say to us both, ' My political interests require 
 the destruction of Paris without any one escaping,' Maret would keep the secret, I am 
 sure ; but nevertheless he could not help letting it be known by getting his own family out. 
 I, rather than reveal it, would leave my wife and children there." (These are bravado 
 expressions, wordy exaggerations, but significant.) 
 
 2 Madame de Remusat, ii., 37q. 
 
 3" Souvenirs du feu due de Broglie," i., 230. (Words of Maret, at Dresden, in 1813 ; he 
 probably repeats one of Napoleon's figures.)
 
 64 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 even when passive, their common understanding, even if kept 
 to themselves, their whispers, almost inaudible, constitute a 
 league, a faction, and, if they are functionaries, " a conspir- 
 acy." On his return from Spain he declares, with a terrible 
 explosion of wrath and threats,^ " that the ministers and 
 high dignitaries whom he has created must stop express- 
 ing their opinions and thoughts freely, that they cannot 
 be otherwise than his organs, that treason has already 
 begun when they begin to doubt, and that it is under full 
 headway when, from doubt, they proceed to dissent." If, 
 against his constant encroachments, they strive to preserve 
 a last refuge, if they refuse to abandon their conscience to 
 him, their faith as Catholics or their honor as honest men, he 
 is surprised and gets irritated. In reply to the Bishop of 
 Ghent, who, in the most respectful manner, excuses himself 
 for not taking a second oath that is against his conscience, 
 he rudely turns his back, and says, " Very well, sir, your con- 
 science is a blockhead ! " ^ Portalis, director of the publishing 
 office,' having received a papal brief from his cousin, the Abbe 
 d'Astros, respected a confidential communication ; he sim- 
 ply recommended his cousin to keep this document secret, 
 and declared that, if it were made public, he would prohibit 
 its circulation ; by way of extra precaution he notified the pre- 
 fect of police. But he did not specially denounce his cousin, 
 have the man arrested and the document seized. On the 
 strength of this, the Emperor, in full council of state, apos- 
 trophises him to his face, and, "with one of those looks which 
 go straight through one," ' declares that he has committed 
 ** the vilest of perfidies"; he bestows on him for half an 
 hour a hailstorm of reproaches and insults, and then orders 
 him out of the room as if a lackey who had been guilty of a 
 theft. Whether he keeps within his function or not, the 
 functionary must be content to do whatever is demanded of 
 him, and readily anticipate every commission. If his scruples 
 
 I Mollien, ii., 9. 
 
 zD'Haussonville, " L'Eglise Romaine et le premier Empire," iv., 190, and/>ajj/w. 
 
 ■ilbid., iii., 460-473. Cf. on the same scene, " Memoires inedits de M. X ." (He 
 
 was both witness and actor.) 
 
 4 An expression of Cambaceres. M. de Lavalette, ii., 154.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 65 
 
 arrest him, if he alleges personal obligations, if he had rather 
 not fail in delicacy, or even in common loyalty, he incurs the 
 risk of offending or losing the favor of the master, which is 
 the case with M. de Remusat,' who is unwilling to become his 
 spy, reporter, and denunciator for the Faubourg Saint Germain, 
 who does not offer, at Vienna, to pump out of Madame 
 d'Andre the address of her husband so that M. d'Andre 
 may be taken and immediately shot ; Savary, who was the 
 negotiator for his being given up, kept constantly telling M.de 
 Remusat, " You are going against your interest — I must say 
 that I do not comprehend you ! " And yet Savary, himself 
 minister of the police, executor of most important services, 
 head manager of the murder of the Due d'Enghien and of 
 the ambuscade at Bayonne, counterfeiter of Austrian bank- 
 notes for the campaign of 1809 and of Russian banknotes for 
 that of 1812,^ Savary ends in getting weary ; he is charged 
 with too many dirty jobs ; however hardened his conscience 
 it has a tender spot ; he discovers at last that he has scruples. 
 It is with great repugnance that, in February, 18 14, he exe- 
 cutes the order to have a small infernal machine prepared, 
 moving by clock-work, so as to blow up the Bourbons on their 
 return into France.' "Ah," said he, giving himself a blow 
 on the forehead, "it must be admitted that the Emperor is 
 sometimes hard to serve ! " 
 
 If he exacts so much from the human creature, it is because, 
 in playing the game he has to play, he must absorb every- 
 thing; in the situation in which he has placed himself, caution 
 is unnecessary. "Is a statesman," said he, "made to have 
 feeling ? Is he not wholly an eccentric personage, always 
 alone by himself, he on one side and the world on the other ? " * 
 In this duel without truce or mercy, people interest him only 
 as they are useful to him ; their value depends on what he 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, iii., 1S4. 
 
 2 " Mcinoires iiiedits de M. X , iii., 320. Details of the manufacture of counter- 
 feit money, by order of Savary, in an isolated building on the plain of Montrouge. — Metter- 
 tiich, ii., 358. (Words of Napoleon to M. de Metternich) : " I had 300 millions of bank- 
 notes of the Bank of Vienna all ready and was goinR to flood you with them." Ihid.^ 
 Correspondence of M. de Metternich witli M. de Champagny on this subject (June, 1810). 
 
 3 " Memoires incdits de M. X , iv., 11. 
 
 4 Madame de Remusat, ii., 335.
 
 66 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 can make out of them ; his sole business is to squeeze them, 
 to extract to the last drop whatever is available in them. " I 
 find very little satisfaction in useless sentiments," said he 
 again/ "and Berthier is so mediocre that I do not know why 
 I waste my time on him. And yet when I am not set against 
 him, I am not sure that I do not like him." He goes no 
 further. According to him, this indifference is necessary in a 
 statesman. The glass he looks through is that of his own 
 policy;^ he must take care that it does not magnify or 
 diminish objects. — Therefore, outside of explosions of nervous 
 sensibility, "he has no consideration for men other than that 
 of a foreman for his workmen,"^ or, more precisely, for his 
 tools ; once the tool is worn out, little does he care whether it 
 rusts away in a corner or is cast aside on a heap of scrap-iron. 
 " Portalis, Minister of Justice,* enters his room one day with 
 a downcast look and his eyes filled with tears. * What's the 
 matter with you, Portalis?' inquired Napoleon, 'are you ill?' 
 * No, sire, but very wretched. The poor Archbishop of Tours, 
 my old schoolmate — . . .' ' Eh, well, what has happened to 
 him?' ' Alas, sire, he has just died.' ' What do I care? he 
 was no longer good for anything.' " Owning and making the 
 most of men and of things, of bodies and of souls, using and 
 abusing them at discretion, even to exhaustion, without being 
 responsible to any one, he reaches that point after a few years 
 where he can say as glibly and more despotically than Louis 
 XIV. himself, " My armies, my fleets, my cardinals, my coun- 
 cils, my senate, my populations, my empire." ^ Addressing an 
 
 1 Madame de R6musat, i., 231. 
 
 2 Ibid., i., 335. 
 
 3 M. de Metternich. i., 284 . " One of those to whom he seemed the most attached was 
 Duroc. ' He loves me the same as a dog loves his master,' is the phrase he made use of in 
 speaking of him to me. He compared Berthier's sentiment for his person to that of a 
 child's nurse. Far from being opposed to his theory of the motives influencing men these 
 sentiments were its natural consequence ; whenever he came across sentiments to which he 
 could not apply the theory of calculation based on cold interest, he sought the cause of it 
 in a kind of instinct." 
 
 4 Beugnot. " Memoires," ii., 5g. 
 
 5 " Memorial." " If I had returned victorious from Moscow, I would have brought the 
 Pope not to regret temporal power ; I would have converted him into an idol. ... I 
 would have directed the religious world as well as the political world. . . . My councils 
 would have represented Christianity, and the Pope would have only been president 
 of them."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 67 
 
 army corps about to rush into battle : " Soldiers, I need your 
 lives, and you owe them to me." He says to General Dor- 
 senne and to the grenadiers of the guard : ' " I hear that you 
 complain that you want to return to Paris, to your mistresses. 
 Undeceive yourselves. I shall keep you under arms until 
 you are eighty. You were born to the bivouac, and you shall 
 die there." — How he treats his brothers and relations who 
 have become kings ; how he reins them in ; how he applies 
 the spur and the whip and makes them trot and jump fences 
 and ditches, may be found in his correspondence; every ten- 
 dency to take the lead, even when justified by unforeseen 
 urgency and the most evident good intention, is regarded as 
 shying off, and is arrested with a brusque roughness which 
 strains the loins and weakens the knees of the delinquent. The 
 amiable Prince Eugene, so obedient and so loyal,^ is thus warned : 
 " If you want orders or advice from His Majesty in the altera- 
 tion of the ceiling of your room you should wait till you get 
 them ; were Milan burning and you asked orders for putting out 
 the fire, you should let Milan burn until you got them. . , His 
 Majesty is displeased, and very much displeased, with you ; 
 you must never attempt to do his work. Never does he like 
 this, and he will never forgive it." This enables us to judge 
 of his tone with subalterns. The French battalions are 
 refused admission into certain places in Holland : ^ " Declare 
 to the King of Holland, that if his ministers have acted on 
 their own responsibility, I will have them arrested and all 
 their heads cut off." — He says to M. de Segur, member of the 
 Academy commission which had just accepted M. de Chateau- 
 briand's discourse:^ "You, and M. de Fontaines, as state 
 councillor and grand master, I ought to put in Vin- 
 cennes. . . . Tell the second class of the Institute that I. will 
 have no political subjects treated at its meetings. ... If it 
 disobeys, I will break it up as a club nuisance." — Even 
 
 1 De S^gur, ii!., 312. (In Spain, i8oq.) 
 
 2 " Memoires du Prince Eugene." (Letters of Napoleon, August, 1806.) 
 
 3 Letter of Napoleon to Fouche, March 3, 1810. (Left out in the " Correspondance de 
 Napoleon L," and published by M. Thiers in "Histoirc du Consulat et de I'Empire," xii., 
 
 p. I IS-) 
 
 4 De Segur, iii., 459.
 
 68 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 when not angry or scolding, when the claws are drawn in, 
 one feels the clutch.' He says to Beugnot, whom he has just 
 berated, scandalously and unjustly, — conscious of having done 
 him injustice and with a view to produce an effect on the 
 bystanders, — " Well, you great imbecile, you have got back your 
 brains ? " On this, Beugnot, tall as a drum-major, bows very 
 low, while the smaller man, raising his hand, seizes him by the 
 ear, " a transporting mark of favor," says Beugnot, a sign of 
 familiarity and of returning good humor. And better yet, the 
 master deigns to lecture Beugnot on his personal tastes, on his 
 regrets, on his wish to return to France. " What would I 
 want to have? To be his minister in Paris? Judging by 
 what he saw of me the other day I should not be there very 
 long ; I should die of application before the end of the month. 
 He has already killed Portalis, Cretet, and almost Treilhard, 
 who, however, was tough ; he could no longer urmate, nor the 
 others either. The same thing would have happened to me, 
 if not worse. . . . Stay here .... after which you will be 
 old, or rather we all shall be old, and I will send you to the 
 Senate to drivel at your ease."^ Evidently, the nearer one 
 is to his person the more disagreeable life becomes.^ "Ad- 
 mirably served, promptly obeyed to the minute, he still delights 
 in keeping everybody around him in terror concerning the 
 details of all that goes on in his palace." Has any difficult 
 task been accomplished ? He expresses no thanks, never or 
 scarcely ever praises, and, which happens but once, in the 
 case of M. de Champagny, Minister of Foreign Affairs, who is 
 praised for having finished the treaty of Vienna in one night, 
 and with unexpected advantages ; * this time, the Emperor has 
 thought aloud, is taken by surprise ; "ordinarily, he manifests 
 approbation only by his silence." — When M. de Remusat, pre- 
 
 1 Words of Napoleon to Marmont, who, after three months in the hospital, returns to 
 him in Spain with a broken arm and his hand in a black sling: "You hold on to that rag 
 then ? " Sainte-Beuve, who loves the truth as it really is, gives the crude text, which Mar- 
 mont dared not reproduce. (Causeries du Lundi, vi., i6.) " Memoires inedits de M. 
 
 X ": M. de Champagny having been dismissed and replaced, a courageous friend 
 
 defended him and insisted on his merit; "You are right," said the Emperor, "he had 
 some when I took him ; but by cramming him too full, I have made him stupid." 
 
 2 Beugnot, i., 456, 464. 
 
 3 Mme. de Remusat, ii., 272. 
 
 4 M. de Champagny, " Souvenirs," 117,
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 69 
 
 feet of the palace, has arranged " one of those magnificent 
 fetes in which all the arts minister to his enjoyment," eco- 
 nomically, correctly, with splendor and success, his wife 
 never asks her hnsband ' if the Emperor is satisfied, but 
 whether he has scolded more or less. " His leading general 
 principle, which he applies in every way, in great things as 
 well as in small ones, is that a man's zeal depends upon his 
 anxiety." How insupportable the constraint he exercises, 
 with what crushing weight his absolutism bears down on the 
 most tried devotion and on the most pliable characters, with 
 what excess he tramples on and wounds the best dispositions, 
 up to what point he represses and stifles the respiration of the 
 human being, he knows as well as anybody. He was heard to 
 say, " The lucky man is he who hides away from me in the 
 depths of some province." And, another day, having asked 
 M. de Segur what people would say of him after his death, the 
 latter enlarged ow the regrets which would be universally 
 expressed. "Not at all," replied the Emperor; and then, 
 drawing in his breath in a significant manner indicative of 
 universal relief, he replied, "They'll say, 'Ou/.'"'^ 
 
 IV. 
 
 There are very few monarchs, even absolute, who persis- 
 tently, and from morning to night, maintain a despotic attitude; 
 generally, and especially in France, the sovereign makes two 
 divisions of his time, one for business and the other for social 
 duties, and, in the latter case, while always head of the State, he 
 is also head of his house ; for he welcomes visitors, entertains 
 his guests, and, that his guests may not be automatons, he 
 tries to put them at their ease. — Such was the rule with Louis 
 XIV. ^ — polite to everybody, always affable with men, and 
 
 1 Madame de R^miisat, i., 125. 
 
 2 De Sigur, iii., 456. 
 
 3 "The Ancient Regime," p. 125. — " Qiuvres de Louis XIV.," 191; "If there is any 
 peculiar characteristic of this monarchy, it is the free and easy access of the subjects to the 
 king ; it it an eg;alili' de justice between both, and which, so to say, maintains both in a 
 genial and honest covipanionshifi, in spite of the almost infinite distance in birth, rank, 
 and power. This agreeable society, which enables persons of the Court to associatt 
 familiarly with us, impresses them and charms them more than one can tell."
 
 70 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 sometimes gracious, always courteous with women, and some- 
 times gallant, carefully avoiding brusqueness, ostentation, and 
 sarcasms, never allowing himself to use an offensive word, 
 never making people feel their inferiority and dependence, 
 but, on the contrary, encouraging them to express opinions, 
 and even to converse, tolerating in conversation a semblance 
 of equality, smiling at a repartee, playfully telling a story — 
 such was his drawing-room constitution. The drawing-room 
 as well as every human society needs one, and a liberal one : 
 otherwise life dies out. Accordingly, the observance of this 
 constitution in by-gone society is known by the phrase savoir- 
 vivre, and, more rigidly than anybody else, Louis XIV. sub- 
 mitted himself to this code of proprieties. Traditionally, and 
 through education, he had consideration for others, at least 
 for the people around him; his courtiers becoming his guests 
 without ceasing to be his subjects. 
 
 There is nothing of this sort with Napoleon. He preserves 
 nothing of the etiquette he borrows from the old court but 
 its rigid discipline and its pompous parade. " The ceremonial 
 system," says an eye-witness, " was carried out as if it had 
 been regulated by the tap of a drum ; everything was done, in 
 a certain sense, 'double-quick." . . . This air of precipita- 
 tion, this constant anxiety which it inspires," puts an end to 
 all comfort, all ease, all entertainment, all agreeable inter- 
 course ; there is no common bond but that of command and 
 obedience. " The few individuals he singles out, Savary, 
 Duroc, Maret, keep silent and simply transmit orders. . . . 
 We did not appear to them, in doing what we were ordered to 
 do, and we did not appear to ourselves, other than veritable 
 machines, all resembling, or but little short of it, the elegant 
 gilded arm-chairs with which the palaces of St. Cloud and the 
 Tuileries had just been embellished." 
 
 For a machine to work well it is important that the machin- 
 ist should overhaul it frequently, which this one never fails to 
 do, especially after a long absence. Whilst he is on his way 
 from Tilsit, " everybody anxiously examines his conscience to 
 ascertain what he has done that this rigid master will find 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, ii., 32, 39.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 71 
 
 fault with on his return. Whether spouse, family, or grand dig- 
 nitary, each is more or less disturbed ; while the Empress, who 
 knows him better than any one, naively says, ' As the Emperor 
 is so fortunate it is certain that he will do a deal of scolding ! ' " ' 
 In effect, he has scarcely arrived when he gives a rude and 
 ■vigorous wrench of the bolt ; and then, " satisfied at having 
 excited terror all around, he appears to have forgotten what 
 has passed and resumes the usual tenor of his life." " Through 
 calculation as well as from taste,^ he never relaxes in his roy- 
 alty " ; hence, " a mute, frigid court .... more dismal than 
 dignified ; every countenance wears an expression of uneasi- 
 ness .... a silence both dull and constrained." At Fon- 
 tainebleau, "amidst splendors and pleasures," there is no real 
 enjoyment nor anything agreeable, not even for himself. " I 
 pity you," sxiid M. de Talleyrand to M. de Remusat, " you 
 have to amuse the unamusable." At the theatre he is abstracted 
 or yawns. Applause is interdicted ; the court, sitting out 
 "the file of eternal tragedies, is mortally bored .... the 
 young ladies fall asleep, people leave the theatre, gloomy and 
 ■discontented." — There is the same constraint in the drawing- 
 room. *' He did not know how to appear at ease, and I 
 believe that he never wanted anybody else to be so, afraid of 
 •the slightest approach to familiarity, and inspiring each with 
 a fear of saying something offensive to his neighbor before 
 witnesses. . . . During the quadrille, he moves around amongst 
 the rows of ladies, addressing them with some trifling or disa- 
 greeable remark," and never does he accost them otherwise 
 than " awkwardly and ill at his ease." At bottom, he distrusts 
 them and is ill-disposed toward them.' It is because "the 
 power they have acquired in society seems to him an intolera- 
 ble usurpation." — " Never did he utter to a woman a graceful 
 or even a well-turned compliment, although the effort to find 
 one was often apparent on his face and in the tone of his voice. 
 .... He talks to them only of their toilet, of which he de- 
 clares himself a severe and minute judge, and on which he 
 
 1 Madame de Remusat, iii., 160. 
 
 2 Ibid.^ ii., 32, 223, 240, 259 ; iii., 169. 
 
 3 Ibid., i., 112; ii., 77.
 
 72 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 indulges in not very delicate jests ; or again, on the number of 
 their children, demanding of them in rude language whether 
 they nurse them themselves ; or again, lecturing them on 
 their social relations." ' Hence, " there is not one who does, 
 not rejoice when he moves off." ^ He would often amuse him- 
 self by putting them out of countenance, scandalizing and 
 bantering them to their faces, driving them into a corner the 
 same as a colonel worries his canteen women. " Yes, ladies, 
 you furnish the good people of the Faubourg Saint Germain 
 
 with something to talk about. It is said, Madame A ,that 
 
 you are intimate with Monsieur B , and you Madame C 
 
 with Monsieur D ." On any intrigue chancing to appear 
 
 in the police reports, " he loses no time in informing the hus- 
 band of what is going on." He is no less indiscreet in rela- 
 tion to his own freaks ; ' when the affair is over he divulges 
 the fact and gives the name ; furthermore, he informs Jose- 
 phine of its details and will not listen to any reproach : " I 
 have a right to answer all your objections with an eternal 
 fiwi ! 
 
 This term, indeed, answers to everything, and he explains it 
 by adding : " I stand apart from other men. I accept no- 
 body's conditions," nor any species of obligation, no code 
 whatever, not even the common code of outward civility, 
 which, diminishing or dissimulating primitive brutality, allows 
 men to associate together without clashing. He does not com- 
 prehend It, and he repudiates it. "I have little liking,"' he 
 says, " for that vague, leveling word politeness {convenances)^ 
 which you people fling out every chance you get. It is an 
 invention of fools who want to pass for clever men ; a kind of 
 
 1 ^T. de Metternich, i., 286. — " It would be difficult to imagine any greater awkwardness- 
 than that of Napoleon in a drawing-room. — Varnhagen von Ense, " Ausgew.ihlte Schrif- 
 ten," iii., 177. (Audience of July to, 1810) : "I never heard a harsher voice, one so inflex- 
 ible. When he smiled, it was only with the mouth and a portion of the cheeks ; the brow 
 and eyes remained immovably sombre. . . . This compound of a smile with seriousness had 
 in it something terrible and frightful."— On one occasion, at St. Cloud, Varnhagen heard, 
 him exclaim over and over again, twenty times, before a group of ladies, " How hot ! " 
 
 2 Mme. de Remusat, ii., 77, 169. — Thibaudeau, " Memoires sur le Consulat,'" p. 18: 
 " He sometimes pays them left-handed compliments on their toilet or adventures, which 
 was his way of censuring morals." 
 
 3 Madame de Remusat, i., 114, 122, 206 ; ii., 110, 112. 
 
 4 Ibid., i., 277.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 73 
 
 social muzzle which annoys the strong and is useful only to 
 the mediocre. . . . Ah, good taste ! Another classic expres- 
 sion which I do not accept." " It is your personal enemy "; 
 says Talleyrand to him, one day, " if you could have shot it 
 away with bullets, it would have disappeared long ago ! " — It 
 is because good taste is the highest attainment of civilization, 
 the innermost vestment which drapes human nudity, which 
 best fits the person, the last garment retained after the others 
 have been cast off, and which delicate tissue continues to ham- 
 per Napoleon ; he throws it off instinctively, because it inter- 
 feres with his natural gesticulation, with the uncurbed, domi- 
 nating, savage ways of the vanquisher who knocks down his 
 adversary and treats him as he pleases. 
 
 V. 
 
 Ways of this kind render society impossible, especially 
 among the independent and armed personages known as 
 nations or States; hence, in politics and in diplomacy, they are 
 interdicted; every head of a State or representative of a coun- 
 try, carefully and on principle, abstains from them, at least 
 with his compeers. He is bound to treat these as his equals, 
 humor their susceptibilities, and, accordingly, not to give 
 way to the irritation of the moment or to personal feeling ; in 
 short, to exercise self-control and measure his words. To this 
 is due the tone of manifestos, protocols, despatches, and other 
 public documents, the formal language of legations, so cold, 
 dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated 
 and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out 
 mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft 
 wadding or international buffer interposed between contes- 
 tants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irrita- 
 tions between States are already too great ; there are ever too 
 many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes 
 of conflict, the consequences of which are too serious; it is 
 unnecessary to add to the wounds of interest the wounds of 
 imagination and of amour-propre ; and above all, it is unnec- 
 essary to add to these gratuitously, at the risk of increasing
 
 74 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 the resistances of to-day and the resentments of to-morrow. — 
 Just the reverse with Napoleon. His attitude, even at pacific 
 interviews, remains aggressive and militant ; purposely or in- 
 voluntarily, he raises his hand and the blow is felt to be 
 coming, while, in the mean time, he insults. In his corre- 
 spondence with sovereigns, in his official proclamations, 
 in his deliberations with ambassadors, and even at public, 
 audiences,* he provokes, threatens, and defies ;2 he treats 
 his adversary with a lofty air, insults him often to his face, 
 and charges him with the most disgraceful imputations ; * 
 he divulges the secrets of his life in private, of his closet, 
 and of his bed ; he defames or calumniates his ministers, his- 
 court, and his wife ; * he purposely stabs him in the most 
 
 1 "Hansard's Parliamentary History," vol. xxxvi., p. 310. Lord Whitworth's despatch 
 to Lord Hawkesbury, March 14. 1803, and account of the scene with Napoleon. " All 
 this took place loud enough for the two hundred persons present to hear it."— Lord 
 Whitworth (despatch of March 17) complains of this to Talleyrand and informs him that 
 he shall discontinue his visits to the Tuileries unless he is assured that similar scenes shall 
 not occur again.— Lord Hawkesbury approves of this (despatch of March 27), and de- 
 clares that the proceeding is improper and offensive to the King of England.— Similar 
 scenes, the same conceit and intemperate language, with M. de Metternich, at Paris, in 
 1809, also at Dresden, in 1813: again with Prince Korsakof, at Paris, in 1812 ; with Mde. 
 Calachof, at Wilna, in 1812, and with Prince Cardito, at Milan, in 1805. 
 
 2 Before the rupture of the peace of Amiens (" Moniteur," Aug. 8, 1802) : The French 
 government is now more firmly established than the English government."— (" Moniteur" 
 Sept. 10, 1802) : "What a difference between a people which conquers for love of glory 
 and a people of traders who happen to become conquerors !"—(" Moniteur," Feb. 20, 
 1803) : " The government declares with a just pride that England cannot now contend 
 against France."— Campaign of 1805, gth bulletin, words of Napoleon in the presence of 
 Mack's staff : " I recommend my brother the Emperor of Germany to make peace as- 
 quick as he can ! Now is the time to remember that all empires come to an end ; the idea 
 that an end might come to the house of Lorraine ought to alarm him."— Letter to the 
 Queen of Naples, January 2, 1805 : " Let your Majesty listen to what I predict. On the 
 first war breaking out, of which she might be the cause, she and her children will have 
 ceased to reign ; her children would go wandering about among the different countries of 
 Europe begging help from their relations." 
 
 3 37th bulletin, announcing the march of an army on Naples " to punish the Queen's 
 treachery and cast from the throne that criminal woman, who, with such shamelessness, 
 has violated all that men hold sacred."— Proclamation of May 13, 1809: " Vienna, which 
 the princes of the house of Lorraine have abandoned, not as honorable soldiers yielding to 
 circumstances and the chances of war, but as perjurers pursued by remorse. ... In flying 
 from Vienna their adieus to its inhabitants consisted of murder and fire. Like Medea, 
 they have sacrificed their children with their own hands."— 13th bulletin : "The rage of 
 the house of Lorraine against the city of Vienna." 
 
 4 Letter to the King of Spain, Sept. 18. 1803, and a note to the Spanish minister of 
 foreign affairs, on the Prince de la Paix : " This favorite, who has succeeded by the most 
 criminal ways to a degree unheard of in the annals of history. . . . Let Your Majesty put 
 away a man who, maintaining in his rank the low passions of his character, has lived
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 75 
 
 sensitive part ; he tells one that he is a dupe, a betrayed hus- 
 band ; another that he is an abettor of assassination ; he assumes 
 the air of a judge condemning a criminal, or the tone of a 
 superior reprimanding an inferior, or, at best, that of a teacher 
 taking a scholar to task. With a smile of pity, he points out 
 mistakes, weak points, and incapacity, and shows him before- 
 hand that he must be defeated. On receiving the envoy of the 
 Emperor Alexander at Wilna,' he says to him : " Russia does 
 not want this war ; none of the European powers are in favor 
 of it ; England herself does not want it, for she foresees the 
 harm it will do to Russia, and even, perhaps, the greatest. ... I 
 know as well as yourself, and perhaps even better, how many 
 troops you have. Your infantry in all amounts to 120,000 men 
 and your cavalry to about 60,000 or 70,000 ; I have three times 
 as many. . . . The Emperor Alexander is badly advised. How 
 can he tolerate such vile people around him — an Armfeld, an 
 intriguing, depraved, rascally fellow, a ruined debauchee, who 
 is known only by his crimes and who is the enemy of Russia ; 
 a Stein, driven from his country like an outcast, a miscreant 
 with a price on his head ; a Bennigsen, who, it is said, has 
 some military talent, of which I know nothing, but whose 
 hands are steeped in blood ?^ .... Let him surround himself 
 with the Russians and I will say nothing. . . . Have you no 
 Russian gentlemen among you who are certainly more attached 
 to him than these mercenaries? Does he imagine that they 
 are fond of him personally? Let him put Armfeld in com- 
 mand in Finland and I have nothing to say ; but to have him 
 about his person, for shame ! .... What a superb perspective 
 opened out to the Emperor Alexander at Tilsit, and especially 
 at Erfurt ! . . . . He has spoilt the finest reign Russia ever 
 saw. . . . How can he admit to his society such men as a Stein, 
 
 wholly on his vices." — After the battle of Jena, 9th, 17th, i8th, and igth bulletins, com- 
 parison of the Queen of Prussia with Lady Hamilton, open and repealed insinuations, 
 imputing to her an intrigue with the Kmperor Alexander. " Everybody admits that the 
 Queen of Prussia is the author of the evils the Prussian nation suffers. This is heard 
 everywhere. How changed she is since that fatal interview with the Emperor Alexander! 
 .... The portrait of the Emperor Alexander, presented to her by the Prince, was found 
 in the apartment of the Queen at Potsdam." 
 
 1 " La Guerre patriotique " (1812-1815), according to the letters of contemporaries, by 
 L)oubravine Cin Russian). The Report of the Russian envoy, M. de Balachof, is in French» 
 
 2 An allusion to the murder of Paul L
 
 76 ' THE MODERN REGIME. book I. 
 
 an Armfeld, a Vinzingerode ? Say to the Emperor Alexander, 
 that as he gathers around him my personal enemies it means 
 a desire to insult me personally, and, consequently, that I must 
 do the same to him. I will drive all his Baden, Wurtemburg, 
 and Weimar relations out of Germany. Let him provide a 
 refuge for them in Russia ! " 
 
 Note what he means by persotial insult, ' how he intends to 
 avenge himself by reprisals of the worst kind, to what excess 
 he carries his interference, how he enters the cabinets of 
 foreign sovereigns, forcibly and burglariously, to drive out 
 their councillors and control their meetings, the same as the 
 Roman senate with an Antiochus or a Prusias, or the same as 
 an English Resident with the King of Oude or of Lahore. 
 With others as at home, he cannot abstain from acting as 
 master. " The aspiration for universal dominion is in his 
 very nature ; it may be modified, kept in check, but never can 
 it be completely stifled."^ 
 
 It declares itself on the organization of the Consulate. It 
 explains why the peace of Amiens could not last ; apart from 
 the diplomatic discussions and behind his alleged grievances, 
 his character, his exactions, his avowed plans, and the use he 
 intends making of his forces form the real and true causes of 
 the rupture. He tells the English, in the main, and sometimes 
 expressly : Expel the Bourbons from your island and shut the 
 mouths of your journalists. If this is againstyour constitution 
 so much the worse for it, or so much the worse for you ; " there 
 are general principles of international law to which the (special) 
 laws of states must give way." ^ Change your fundamental 
 laws. Suppress the freedom of the press and the right of asy- 
 lum on your soil, the same as I have done. " I have a very 
 
 1 Stanislas de Girardin, " Memoires," iii., 249. (Reception of Nivose 12, year x.) The 
 First Consul addresses the Senate; " Citizens, I warn you that I regard the nomination 
 of Daunou to the senate as a personal insult, and you know that I have never put up with 
 one." — "Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter of ?-ept. 23, 1809, to M. de Champagny): 
 " The Emperor Francis insulted me in writing to me that I cede nothing to him, when, out 
 of consideration for him, I have reduced my demands nearly one-half." (Instead of 
 2,750,000 Austrian subjects he demanded only 1,600,000.) — Roederer, iii., 377. (Jan. 24, 
 1801): "The French people must put up with my defects if they find I am of service to 
 them; it is my fault that I cannot endure insults." 
 
 2 M. de Metternich, ii., 378. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, July 28, 1810.) 
 
 3 Note presented by the French ambassador, Otto, Aug. 17, 1802.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 77 
 
 poor opinion of a government which is not strong enough to 
 interdict things objectionable to foreign governments." ^ As to 
 mine, my interference with my neighbors, my late acquisitions 
 of territory, that does not concern you : " I suppose that you 
 wait to talk about Piedmont and Switzerland? These are 
 irifles."^ " Europe recognizes that Holland, Italy, and Switz- 
 erland are at the disposition of France.* On the other hand, 
 Spain submits to me and through her I hold Portugal. Thus, 
 from Amsterdam to Bordeaux, from Lisbon to Cadiz and 
 Genoa, from Leghorn to Naples and to Tarentum, I can close 
 every port to you : no treaty of commerce between us. Any 
 treaty that I might grant to you would be ridiculous ; for each 
 million of merchandise that you would send into France a 
 million of French merchandise would be exported ; ■* in other 
 words, you would be subject to an open or concealed conti- 
 nental blockade, which would cause you as much distress in 
 peace as if you were at war." Meanwhile, my eyes are fixed 
 on Egypt; "six thousand Frenchmen would now suffice to 
 reconquer it"; ^ forcibly, or otherwise, I shall return there; 
 opportunities will not be lacking, and I shall be on the watch 
 for them ; " sooner or later she will belong to France, either 
 through the dissolution of the Ottoman empire, or through some 
 
 1 Stanislas Girardin, iii., 296. (Words of the First Consul, Floreal 24. year xi.) : " I had 
 proposed to the British minister, for several months, to make an arrangement by which a 
 law should be passed in France and in England prohibiting newspapers and the members of 
 the government from expressing either good or ill of foreign governments. He never would 
 consent to it."— St. Girardin: "He could not."— Bonaparte : " Why ? "— St. Girardin: 
 " Because an agreement of that sort would have been opposed to the fundamental law of 
 the country." Bonaparte : " I have a poor opinion," etc. 
 
 2 Hansard, vol. xxxvi.,p. 1298. (Despatch of Lord Whitworth, Feb. 21, 1803, conversation 
 with the First Consul at the Tuileries.)— Seeley. "'A Short History of Napoleon the First." 
 " TiiHes " is a softened expression, Lord Whitworth adds in a parenthesis which has never 
 been printed ; " the expression he made use of is too insignificant and too low to have a 
 place in a despatch or anywhere else, save in the mouth of a hack-driver." 
 
 3 Lanfrey, " Histoire de Napoleon," ii., 482. (.Words of the First Consul to the Swiss dele- 
 gates, conference of January 29, 1803.) 
 
 4 Sir Neil Campbell, " Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba," p. 201. (The words of 
 Napoleon to Sir Neil Campbell and to the other commissioners.) — The M(Smorial de Sainte- 
 Hclenc mentions the same plan in almost identical terms. — Pelet de la Lozere, " Opinions 
 de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 238 (session of March 4, 1806): " Within forty-eight 
 hours after peace with England, I shall interdict foreign commodities and promulgate a 
 navigation act forbidding any other than French vessels entering our ports, built of French 
 timber, and with the crews two-thirds French. Even coal and English 'milords' shall 
 land only under the French flag." — //"'</., 32. 
 
 5 Moniteur, January 30, 1803 (Scbastiani).
 
 78 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 arrangement with the Porte."' Evacuate Malta so that the 
 Mediterranean ma}' become a French lake; I must rule on 
 sea as on land, and dispose of the Orient as of the Occident. In 
 sum, " with my France, England must naturally end in becom- 
 ing simply an appendix : nature has made her one of our 
 islands, the same as Oleron or Corsica." ^ Naturally, with such 
 a perspective before them, the English keep Malta and recom- 
 mence the war. He has anticipated such an occurrence, and 
 his resolution is taken ; at a glance, he perceives and measures 
 the career open to him ; with h*is usual clearsightedness he 
 has comprehended, and he announces that English resistance 
 " forces him to conquer Europe." ' 
 
 " The Plrst Consul is only thirty-three and has thus far de- 
 stroyed only the second class governments. Who knows how 
 much time he will require to again change the face of Europe 
 and resuscitate the empire of the VVest ?" 
 
 To subjugate the Continent in order to form a coalition 
 against England, such, henceforth, are his means, which are as 
 violent as the end in view, while the means, like the end, are 
 prescribed to him by his character. Too imperious and too 
 impatient to wait or to manage others, he is incapable of yield- 
 ing to their will except through constraint, and his co-workers 
 are never aught else to him than subjects under the name of 
 allies. — Later, at St. Helena, with his indestructible imagina- 
 tive energy and power of illusion, he plays on the public with 
 his humanitarian reveries ; '' but, as he himself avows, the 
 accomplishment of his retrospective dream required beforehand 
 the entire submission of all Europe ; a liberal sovereign and 
 pacificator, "a crowned Washington, yes," he used to say, 
 "but I could not reasonably attain this point, except through 
 a universal dictatorship, which I aimed at." ^ — In vain does 
 common sense demonstrate to him that such an enterprise 
 inevitably rallies the Continent to the side of England, and 
 
 1 Hansard, vol. xx.wi., p. izqS. (Lord Whitworth's despatch, Feb. 21, 1803, the First 
 ConsuPM words to Lord Whitworlh.) 
 
 2 " .Memorial." ("^'apoleon's own words, March 24, 1S06.) 
 
 3 Lanfrey, ii , 476. (> ote to (Jtto, October 23, 1S02.) — Thiers, iv., 249. 
 
 4 Letter to Clarke, Minister of War, Jan. 18, 1814. " If, at Leipsic, I had had 30000 
 cannon balls to fire off on the evening of the i8th, I should to-day be master of the world." 
 
 5 " Memorial," Nov. 30, 1815.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 79 
 
 that his means divert him from the end. In vain is it repeatedly 
 represented to him that he needs one sure great ally on the 
 Continent ; ^ that to obtain this he must conciliate Austria ; 
 that he must not drive her to despair, but rather win her over 
 and compensate her on the side of the Orient ; place her in 
 permanent conflict with Russia, and attach her to the new 
 French Empire by a community of vital interests. In vain 
 does he, after Tilsit, make a bargain of this kind with Russia. 
 This bargain cannot hold, because in this arrangement Napo- 
 leon, as usual with him, always encroaching, threatening, and 
 attacking, wants to reduce Alexander to the role of a subordi- 
 nate and a dupe.^ No clear-sighted witness can doubt this. 
 In 1809, a diplomat writes : " The French system, which is 
 now triumphant, is directed against the whole body of great 
 states," ^ not alone against England, Prussia, and Austria, but 
 against Russia, against every power capable of maintaining 
 its independence ; for, if she remains independent, she may 
 become hostile, and as a precautionary step Napoleon crushes 
 in her a probable enemy. 
 
 All the more so because this course once entered upon he 
 cannot stop ; at the same time his character and the situation 
 in which he has placed himself impels him on while his past 
 hurries him along to his future.* — At the moment of the rupture 
 of the treaty of Amiens he is already so strong and so aggres- 
 sive that his neighbors are obliged, for their own security, to 
 
 1 Lanfrey, iii., 339, 399. Letters of Talleyrand, October 11 and 27, 1805, and memorial 
 addressed to Napoleon. 
 
 2 At the council held in relation to the future marriage of Napoleon. Cambaceres vainly sup- 
 ported an alliance with the Russians. The following week, he says to M. X : " When 
 
 one has only one good reason to give and it cannot possibly be given, it is natural that one 
 should be beaten. . . . Vou will see that it is so good that one phrase sufTiccs to make its force 
 fully understood. / am vwral/y certain that in two years we shall haTC a war with the 
 power 0/ which the Emperor does not espouse the daughter. Now a war with Austria 
 does not cause me any uneasiness, and I tremble at a war with Russia. The consequences 
 are incalculable." (" Mcmoires," manuscript, of M. X , ii., 463.) 
 
 3 M. de Metternich, ii., 305. (Letter to the Emperor of Austria, Aug. 10, 1809.) — Ibid., 
 403. (Letter of Jan. 11, /8ii.) "My appreciation of Napoleon's plans and projects, at 
 bottom, has never varied. The monstrous purpose of the complete subjection of the con- 
 tinent under one head was, and is still, his object." 
 
 4 " Correspondance de Napoleon L" (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 1814): 
 "The war will take place in spite of him (the Emperor Alexander), in spite of me, in spite 
 of the interests of 1'" ranee and those of Russia. Having already seen this so often, it is my 
 past experience whicii enables mc tn unveil tic future."
 
 8o THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 form an alliance with England ; this leads him to break down 
 all the old monarchies that are still intact, to conquer Naples, to 
 mutilate Austria the first time, to dismember and cut up Prussia, 
 to mutilate Austria the second time, to manufacture kingdoms for 
 his brothers at Naples, in Holland and in Westphalia. — At this 
 same date, all the ports of his empire are closed against the 
 English, which leads him to close against them all the ports of the 
 Continent, to organize against them the continental blockade, to 
 proclaim against them an European crusade, to prevent the 
 neutrality of sovereigns like the Pope, of lukewarm subalterns 
 like his brother Louis, of doubtful collaborators or inadequate, 
 like the Braganzas of Portugal and the Bourbons of Spain, 
 and therefore to get hold of Portugal, Spain, the Pontifical 
 States, and Holland, and next of the Hanseatic towns and the 
 duchy of Oldenburg, to extending along the entire coast, from 
 the mouths of the Cattaro and Trieste to Hamburg and 
 Dantzic, his cordon of military chiefs, prefects, and custom- 
 houses, a sort of net of which he draws the meshes tighter and 
 tighter every day, even stifling not alone his home consumer, 
 but the producer and the merchant.* — And all this some- 
 times by a simple decree, with no other alleged motive than 
 his interest, his convenience, or his pleasure," brusquely 
 and arbitrarily, and with violations of international law, hu- 
 manity, and hospitality, with what abuses of power, by what a 
 tissue of brutalities and knaveries,^ with what oppression of the 
 
 1 Mollien, iii., 135, 190. — In 1810 "prices have increased 400 percent, on sugar, and 100 
 per cent, on cotton and dye stuffs." — "More than 20,000 custom-house officers were em- 
 ployed on the frontier against more than 100,000 smugglers, in constant activity and favored 
 
 by the population." — "Memoires," unpublished, of M. X , iii., 284. — There were licenses 
 
 for importing colonial products, but on condition of exporting a proportionate quantity of 
 French manufactures ; now, England refused to receive them. Consequently, " not being 
 allowed to bring these articles back to France, they were thrown overboard."— " They be- 
 gan at first by devoting the refuse of manufactures to this trade, and then ended by manu- 
 facturing articles without other destination ; for example, at Lyons, taffetas and satins." 
 
 2 Proclamation of Dec. 27, 1805 : " The Naples dynasty has ceased to reign. Its exis- 
 tence is incompatible with the repose of Europe and the honor of my crown." — Message 
 to the Senate, r)ec. 10, 1810: "Fresh guarantees having become necessary, the annexa- 
 tion to the Empire of the mouths of the Escaut, the Meuse, the Rhine, the Ems, the 
 Weser, and the Elbe, seemed to me to be \h^ first and most important. . . . The annexa- 
 tion of the Valais is an anticipated result of the vast works I have undertaken for the past 
 ten years in that section of the Alps." 
 
 3 We are familiar with the Spanish affair. His treatment of Portugal is anterior and of 
 the same order. — " Correspondance." (Letter to Junot, Oct. 31, 1807) : " I have already
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 8l 
 
 ally and despoiling of the vanquished, by what military brigan- 
 dage exercised over populations in time of war, by what sys- 
 tematic exactions practiced on them in times of peace,^ it 
 would take volumes to describe. 
 
 Accordingly, after 1808, these populations rise against him. 
 He has so deeply injured them in their interests, and hurt 
 their feelings to such an extent.^he has so trodden them down, 
 ransomed, and forced them into his service, he has destroyed, 
 
 informed you, that in authorizing you to enter as an auxiliary, it was to enable you to pos- 
 sess yourself of the (Portuguese) fleet, but my mind was made up to take Portugal." — 
 (Letter to Junot, V)^c. 23, 1807) : " Disarm the country. Send all the Portuguese troops to 
 France. ... I want them out of the country. Have all princes, ministers, and other men 
 who serve as rallying points, sent to France." — (Decree of Dec. 23, 1807) : " An extra 
 contribution of 100 million francs shall be imposed on the kingdom of Portugal, to redeem 
 all property., 0/ ivliatever denotninatioHy belongittg to pri7iaie parties. . . . All property 
 belonging to the Queen of Portugal, to the prince-regent, and to princes in appanage ; . . . 
 all the possessions of the nobles who have followed the king, on his abandoning the country, 
 and who had not returned to the kingdom before February i, shall be put under seques- 
 tration." — Cf. M. d'Haussonville. " L'iSglise Romaine et le premier Empire," 5 vols, (espec- 
 ially the last volume). No other work enables one to see into Napoleon's object and pro- 
 ceedings better nor more closely. 
 
 1 " Souvenirs du feu due de Broglie," p. 143. (.'\s a specimen of steps taken in time of 
 war, see the register of Marshal Bessieres's orders, commandant at Valladolid from April 11 
 to July 15, 181 1.) — " Correspondance du Roi Jerome," letter of Jerome to Napoleon, Dec. 
 5, 181 1. (Showing the situation of a vanquished people in limes of peace): "If war 
 should break out, all countries between the Rhine and the Oder will become the centre of a 
 vast and active insurrection. The mighty cause of this dangerous movement is not merely 
 hatred of the French, and impatience of a foreign yoke, but rather in the m sfortunes of the 
 day, in the total ruin 0/ all classes, in over-taxation, consisting of war levies, the main- 
 tenance of troops, soldiers traversing the country, and every sort of constantly renewed 
 vexation. ... At Hanover, Magdebourg, and in the principal towns of my kingdom, 
 owners 0/ property are abandoning their dwellings and vainly trying to dispose o_f 
 them at the lowest prices. . . . Misery everywhere presses on families ; capital is ex- 
 hausted ; the noble, the peasant^ the bourgeois, are crushed with debt and want. . . . 
 The despair 0/ populations no longer having a nyth i)ig to lose, because all has been taken 
 aivay, is to be /eared." — De Pradt, p. 73. (Specimen of military proceedings in allied 
 countries.) At VVolburch, in the Bishop of Cujavie's chateau, " I found his secretary, 
 canon of Cujavie, decorated wilh the ribbon and cross of his order, who showed me his 
 jaw, broken by the vigorous blows administered to him the previous evening by (icneral 
 Count Vandamme, because he had refused to serve Tokay wine, imperiously demanded by 
 the general ; he w.is told that the King of Westphalia had lodged in the castle the day 
 before, and had carted away all this wine." 
 
 2 Fiev^e, " Correspondance et relations avec Bonaparte, de 1802 i 1813," iii., 82. (Dec. 
 i8ii), (On the populations annexed or conquered) : "There is no hesitation in depriving 
 them of their patrimony, their language, their legislatures, in disturbing all their habits, 
 and that without any warrant but throwing a bulletin des his at their heads (inapplic- 
 able). . . . How could they be expected to recognize this, or even become resigned to 
 it ? ... Is it possible not to feel that one no longer has a country, that one is under con- 
 straint, wounded in feeling and humiliated ? . . . Prussia, and a large part of (Jcrmany, 
 has been so impoverished that there is more to gain by taking a pitchfork to kill a man 
 than to stir up a pile of manure."
 
 82 
 
 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 apart from French lives, so many Spanish, Itahan, Austrian, 
 Prussian, Swiss, Bavarian, Saxon, and Dutch lives, he has 
 slain so many men as enemies, he has enlisted such numbers 
 at home, and slain so many under his own banners as auxili- 
 aries, that nations are still more hostile to him than sovereigns 
 Unquestionably, with such a character nobody can live ; his 
 genius is too vast, too baneful, and all the more because it is 
 so vast. War will last as long as he reigns ; it is in vain to 
 reduce him, to confine him at home, to drive him back within 
 the ancient frontiers of France ; no barrier will restrain him; 
 no treaty will bind him ; peace with him will never be other 
 than a truce ; he will use it simply to recover himself, and, as 
 soon as he has done this, he will begin again ; ^ he is in his 
 very essence anti-social. The mind of Europe in this respect 
 is made up definitely and unshakably. One petty detail alone 
 shows how unanimous and profound this conviction was. On 
 the 7th of March the news reached Vienna that he had escaped 
 from the island of Elba, without its being yet known where he 
 would land. M. de Metternich 2 brings the news to the Em- 
 peror of Austria before eight o'clock in the morning, who 
 says to him, " Lose no time in finding the King of Prussia 
 and the Emperor of Russia, and tell them that I am ready to 
 order my army to march at once for France." At a quarter 
 past eight M. de Metternich is with the Czar, and at half-past 
 eight, with the King of Prussia ; both of them reply instantly 
 in the same manner. " At nine o'clock," says M. de Metter- 
 nich, " I was back. At ten o'clock aids flew in every direc- 
 tion countermanding army orders. . . . Thus was war de- 
 clared in less than an hour." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Other heads of states have thus passed their lives in doing 
 violence to mankind ; but it was for something that was likely 
 
 1 " Correspondance," letter to King Joseph, Feb. i8, 1814. " If I had signed the treaty 
 reducing France to its ancient limits, I should have gone to war two years after — Mar- 
 mont, v., 133 (1813) : " Napoleon, in the last years of his reign, always preferred to lose 
 all than yield anything." 
 
 2 M. de Metternich, ii., 205.
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 83 
 
 to last, and for a national interest. What they deemed the 
 public good was not a phantom of the brain, a chimerical poem 
 due to a caprice of the imagination, to personal passions, to 
 their own peculiar ambition and pride. Outside of themselves 
 and the coinage of their brain a real and substantial object of 
 prime importance existed, namely, the State, the great body 
 of society, the vast organism which lasts indefinitely through 
 the long series of interlinked and responsible generations. If 
 they drew blood from the passing generation it was for the 
 benefit of coming generations, to preserve them from civil war 
 or from foreign domination.' They have acted generally like 
 able surgeons, if not through virtue, at least through dynastic 
 sentiment and family traditions ; having practiced from father 
 to son, they had acquired the professional conscience ; their 
 first and only aim was the safety and health of their patient. 
 It is for this reason that they have not recklessly undertaken 
 extravagant, bloody, and over-risky operations ; rarely have 
 they given way to temptation through a desire to display their 
 skill, through the need of dazzling and astonishing the world, 
 through the novelty, keenness, and success of their saws and 
 scalpels. They felt that a longer and superior existence to 
 their own was imposed upon them ; they looked beyond them- 
 selves as far as their sight would reach, and so took measures 
 that the State after them might do without them, live on 
 intact, remain independent, vigorous, and respected athwart 
 the vicissitudes of European conflict and the uncertain prob- 
 lems of coining history. Such, under the ancient regime, was 
 what were called reasons of state ; these had prevailed in the 
 councils of princes for eight hundred years ; along with una- 
 voidable failures and after temporary deviations, these had 
 become for the time being and remained the preponderating 
 motive. Undoubtedly they excused or authorized many 
 breaches of faitii, many outrages, and, to come to the word, 
 many crimes ; but, in the political order of things, especially 
 in the management of external affairs, they furnished a gov- 
 
 I Words of Richelieu on his dcath-bcd : " I'ehold my judge," said he, pointing to the 
 Host, " the judge who will soon pronounce his verdict. I pray that he will condemn me, if, 
 during my ministry, I have proposed to myself aught else than the good of religion and of 
 the State."
 
 84 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 erning and a salutary principle. Under its constant influence 
 thirty monarchs had labored, and it is thus that, province after 
 province, they had solidly and enduringly built up France, by 
 ways and means beyond the reach of individuals but available 
 to the heads of States. 
 
 Now, this principle is lacking with their improvised succes- 
 sor. On the throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, 
 or emperor, he remains the military adventurer, and cares only 
 for his own advancement. Owing to the great defect in the 
 education of both conscience and sentiments, instead of subor- 
 dinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State to him ; 
 he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to 
 the nation which is to survive him ; consequently, he sacri- 
 fices the future to the present, and his work is not to be endur- 
 ing. After him the deluge ! Little does he care who utters 
 this terrible phrase ; and worse still, he earnestly wishes, from 
 the bottom of his heart that everybody should utter it. " My 
 brother," said Joseph, in 1803,' " desires that the necessity of 
 his existence should be so strongly felt, and the benefit of this 
 considered so great, that nobody could look beyond it without 
 shuddering." He knows, and he feels it, that he reigns 
 through this idea rather than through force or gratitude. If 
 to-morrow, or on any day, it could be said, ' Here is a tran- 
 quil, established order of things, here is a known successor; 
 Bonaparte might die without fear of change or disturbance,* 
 my brother would no longer think himself secure. . . . Such 
 is the principle which governs him." In vain do years glide 
 by — never does he think of putting France in a way to subsist 
 without him ; on the contrary, he jeopardizes lasting acquisi- 
 tions by exaggerated annexations, and it is evident from the 
 very first day that the Empire will end with the Emperor. In 
 1805, tlie five per cents being at eighty, his Minister of the 
 Fmances, Gaudin, observes to him that this is a reasonable 
 rate.^ " No complaint can now be made, since these funds are 
 an annuity on Your Majesty's life." "What do you mean by 
 that? " " I mean that the Empire has become so great as to 
 
 I Miot de Melito, " Memoires," ii., 48, 152. 
 
 a " Souvenirs," by Gaudin, due de Gaete Cad vol. of the " Memoires," p. 67).
 
 CHAi'. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 85 
 
 be ungovernable without you." " If my successor is a fool so 
 much the worse for him ! " " Yes, but so much the worse for 
 France ! " Two years later, M. de Metternich, by way of a 
 political summing up, expresses his general opinion: "It is 
 remarkable that Napoleon, constantly disturbing and modify- 
 ing the relations of all Europe, has not yet taken a single step 
 toward ensuring the maintenance of his successors." ' In 
 1809, adds the same diplomat :- " His death will be the signal 
 for a new and frightful upheaval ; so many divided elements 
 all tend to combine. Deposed sovereigns will be recalled by 
 former subjects ; new princes will have new crowns to defend. 
 A veritable civil war will rage for half a century over the vast 
 empire of the continent the day when the iron arms shall be 
 turned into dust." In 1811, "everybody is convinced' that 
 on the disappearance of Napoleon, the master in whose hands 
 all power is concentrated, the first inevitable consequence will 
 be a revolution." At home, in France, at this same date, his 
 own servitors begin to comprehend that his empire is not 
 merely a life-interest and will not last after he is gone, but 
 that the Empire is ephemeral and will not last during his life ; 
 for he is constantly raising his edifice higher and higher, while 
 all that his building gains in elevation it loses in stability. 
 "The Emperor is crazy," said Decres to Marmont/ " com- 
 pletely crazy. He will ruin us all, numerous as we are, and all 
 will end in some frightful catastrophe." In effect, he is push- 
 ing France on to the abyss, forcibly and by deceiving her, 
 
 1 M. de Metternich, ii., 120. (Letter to Stadion, July 26, 1807.) 
 
 2 Ibid., ii., 291. (Letter of April ii, 1809.) 
 
 3 Ibid., ii., 400. (Letter of Jan. 17, i8ii.) In lucid moments, Napoleon takes the same 
 view. Cf Pelet de la Lozere, " Opinions de Napoleon au conseil d'etat," p. 15: "That 
 will last as long as I do. After me, however, my son will deem himself fortunate if he has 
 40,000 francs a year."— (Do Scgur, " Histoire et Mcmoires," iii., 155) : " How often at this 
 time(i8rv) was he heard to foretell that the weight of his empire would crush his heir ! " 
 " Poor child," said he, regarding the King of Rome, " what an entanglement I shall leave to 
 you ! " From the heginning he frequently passed judgment on himself and foresaw the 
 effect of his action in history. " On reaching the isle of Poplars, the First Consul stopped 
 at Rousseau's grave, and said : ' It would have been better for the repose of France, if that 
 man had never existed.' ' And why, citizen Consul ?' 'He is the man who made the 
 French revolution.' ' It seems to me that you need not complain of the French revolu- 
 tion ! ' 'Well, the future must decide whether it would not have been better for the 
 repose of the whole world if neither myself nor Rousseau had ever lived.' He then 
 resumed his promenade in a revery." 
 
 4 Marmont, " Mcmoires," iii., 337. (On returning from Wagram.~)
 
 86 THE MODERN R&GIME. book i. 
 
 through a breach of trust which willfully, and by his fault, 
 grows worse and worse just as his own interests, as he com- 
 prehends these, diverge from those of the public from year to 
 year. 
 
 At the treaty of Luneville and before the rupture of the 
 peace of Amiens,' this variance was already considerable. It 
 becomes manifest at the treaty of Presbourg and still more 
 evident at the treaty of Tilsit. It is glaring in 1808, after the 
 deposition of the Spanish Bourbons ; it becomes scandalous 
 and monstrous in 181 2, when the war with Russia took place. 
 Napoleon himself admits that this war is against the interests 
 of France and yet he undertakes it.'* Later, at St. Helena, 
 he falls into a melting mood over " the French people whom 
 he loved so dearly." ' The truth is, he loves it as a rider loves 
 his horse ; as he makes it rear and prance and show off its 
 paces, when he flatters and caresses it ; it is not for the ad- 
 vantage of the animal but for his own purposes, on account 
 of its usefulness to him ; to be spurred on until exhausted, to 
 jump ditches growing wider and wider, and leap fences growing 
 higher and higher ; one ditch more, and still another fence, 
 the last obstacle which seems to be the last, succeeded by 
 others, while, in any event, the horse remains forcibly and for- 
 ever, what it already is, namely, a beast of burden and broken 
 down. — For, on this Russian expedition, instead of frightful 
 disasters, suppose a brilliant success, a victory at Smolensk 
 equal to that of Friedland, a treaty of Moscow more advan- 
 tageous than that of Tilsit, the Czar put down, and see what 
 follows, — the Czar probably strangled or dethroned, a patri- 
 otic insurrection in Russia as in Spain, two lasting wars, at the 
 two extremities of the Continent, against religious fanaticism, 
 more irreconcilable than positive interests, and against a scat- 
 tered barbarism more indomitable than a concentrated civili- 
 zation ; at best, a European empire secretly mined by Euro- 
 
 1 On this Initial discord, cf. Annand Lefevre, " Histoire des Cabinets de I'Europe," 
 vol. iv. 
 
 2 " Correspondance de Napoleon I." (Letter to the King of Wurtemberg, April 2, 
 1811.) 
 
 3 Testament of April 25, 1821 : " It is my desire that my remains rest on the banks of 
 the Seine, amidst that French people I have so dearly loved."
 
 CHAP. II. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE. 87 
 
 pean resistance ; an exterior France forcibly superposed on the 
 enslaved Continent ; ' French residents and commanders at 
 St. Petersburg and Riga as at Dantzic, Hamburg, Amsterdam, 
 Lisbon, Barcelona, and Trieste ; every able-bodied Frenchman 
 that can be employed from Cadiz to Moscow in maintaining 
 and administering the conquest all the able-bodied youth 
 annually seized by the conscription, and, if they have escaped 
 this, recaught by decrees ; ^ the entire male population de- 
 voted to vi^orks of constraint, nothing else in prospect for 
 either the cultivated or the uncultivated, no military or civil 
 career other than a prolonged faction, threatened and threat- 
 ening, as soldier, customs-inspector, or gendarme, as prefect^* 
 sub-prefect, or commissioner of police, that is to say, as sub- 
 altern myrmidons and petty tyrants for restraining subjects 
 and raising contributions, confiscating and burning merchan- 
 dise, seizing grumblers, and making the refractory toe the 
 mark.' In 1810, one hundred and sixty thousand of the 
 
 1 " Correspondance de Napoleon I.," xxii., 119. (Note by Napoleon, April, 1811.) 
 "There will always be at Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck from 8000 to 10,000 Frenchmen, 
 «ither as employees or as gendarmes, in the custom-houses and warehouses-" 
 
 2 " Memoires," unpublished, by M. X , iii., 571, and following pages : " During the 
 
 year 1813, from Jan. 11 to Oct. 7, 840,000 men had already been drafted from imperial 
 France and they had to be furnished."— Other decrees in December, placing at the dis- 
 position of the government 300 000 conscripts for the years 1806 to 1814 inclusive.— Another 
 decree in November organizing 140,000 men of the national guard in cohorts, intended for 
 the defence of strongholds. — In all, 1,300,000 men summoned in one year. " Never has any 
 nation been thus asked to let itself be voluntarily led in a mass to the slaughterhouse. — 
 Ibid., iii., 480. Senatus-consulte, and order of council for raising io,coo young men, 
 «xempt or redeemed from conscription, as the prefects might choose, arbitrarily, from 
 amongst the highest classes in society. The purpose was plainly " to secure hostages in 
 «very family of doubtful loyalty. No measure created for Napoleon more irreconcilable 
 «nemies." — Cf. De Segur, ii., 34. (He was charged with organizing and commanding a 
 division of young men.) Many were sons of Vendeans or of Conventionalists, some torn 
 from their wives the day after their marriage, or from the bedside of a wife in her confine- 
 ment, of a dying father, or of a sick son; "some looked so feeble that they seemed dying." 
 One half perished in the campaign of 1814. — " Correspondance," letter to Clarke, .Minister 
 of War. Oct. 23, 1813 (in relation to the new levies): " I rely on 100,000 refr.ictory con- 
 scripts." 
 
 3 " Archives nationales," A F.. iv., 1297. (Documents 206 to 210.) (Report to the Em- 
 peror by Count Dum.-is, April 10, iSio ) Besides the 170 millions of penalties 1,675,457 
 francs of penalty were inflicted on 2335 individuals, " abettors or accomplices." — Ibid., 
 A F., iv., 1051. (Report of Gen. Lacoste on the department of Haute-Loire, Oct. 13, 1808.) 
 " He always calculated in this department on the desertion of one-half of the conscripts. 
 .... In most of the cantons the gendarmes traffic with the conscription shamefully ; cer- 
 tain conscripts pension them to show them favors." — Ibid., A F., iv.. 1052. (Report by 
 Pelet, Jan. 12, 1812.) " The operation of the conscription has improved (in the Herault); 
 the contingents of 1811 have been furnished. There remained 1800 refractory, or desert-
 
 88 THE MODERN REGIME. book f. 
 
 refractory were already condemned by name, and, moreover, 
 penalties were imposed on their families to the amount of one 
 hundred and seventy millions of francs. In iBii and 1812 
 the roving columns which tracked fugitives gathered sixty 
 thousand of them, and drove them along the coast from the 
 Adour to the Niemen ; on reaching the frontier, they were en- 
 rolled in the grand army ; but they desert the very first month, 
 they and their chained companions, at the rate of four or five 
 thousand a day.' Should England be conquered, garrisons 
 would have to be maintained there, and of soldiers equally 
 zealous. Such is the dark future which this system opens to 
 the French, even with the best of good luck. It turns out 
 that the luck is bad, and at the end of 181 2 the grand army 
 is freezing in the snow ; Napoleon's horse has let him tumble. 
 Fortunately, the animal has simply foundered ; " His Majes- 
 ty's health was never better "; - nothing has happened to the 
 rider ; he gets up g\\ his legs, and what concerns him at this 
 moment is not the sufferings of his broken-down steed, but his 
 own mishap ; his reputation as a horseman is compromised ; 
 the effect on the public, the hootings of the audience, is what 
 troubles him, the comedy of a perilous leap, announced with 
 such a flourish of trumpets and ending in such a disgraceful 
 fall. On reaching Warsaw^ he says to himself, ten times 
 over: "Only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous." 
 
 ers of the previous classes ; 1600 have been arrested or made to surrender by the flying^ 
 column ; 200 have still to be pursued." Faber, " Notice (1S07) sur I'interieur de la 
 France," p. 141 : " Desertion, especially on the frontiers, is occasionally frightful ; So- 
 deserters out of 160 have sometimes been arrested." — Ibid., p. 149 : " It has been stated in 
 the public journals that in 1801 the court in session at Lille had condemned 135 refractory 
 out of the annual conscription, and that which holds its sittings at Ghent had condemned 
 70. Now, 200 conscripts form the maximum of what an arrondissement in a department 
 could furnish." — Ibid., p. 145. " France resembles a vast house of detention where every- 
 body is suspicious of his neighbor, where each avoids the other. . . . One often sees a 
 young man with a gendarme at his heels ; oftentimes, on looking closely, this young man's 
 hands are found tied, or he is handcuffed." — Malhien Dumas, iii., 507 (After the battle 
 of Dresden, in the Dresden hospitals) : " I observed, with sorrow, that many of these men 
 were slightly wounded ; most of them, young conscripts just arrived in the army, had not 
 been wounded by the enemy's fire, but they had mutilated each other's feet and hands. 
 Antecedents of this kind, of equally bad augury, had already been remarked in the cam- 
 paign of 1809." 
 
 1 De Segur, iii., 474. — Thiers, xiv., 159. (One month after crossing the Niemen one 
 hundred and fifty thousand men had dropped out of the ranks.) 
 
 2 Bulletin 29 (December 3, 1812). 
 
 3 De Pradt, " Histoire de I'Ambassade de Varsovie," p. 21Q.
 
 CHAP. 11. NAPOLEON- BONAPARTE. 89 
 
 The following year, at Dresden, he exposes still more shame- 
 fully, openly, and nakedly his master passion, the motives 
 which determine him, the immensity and ferocity of his piti- 
 less self-love. " What do they want of me ? " said he to M. de 
 Metternich.' " Do they want me to dishonor myself ? Never ! 
 I can die, but never will I yield an inch of territory! Your 
 sovereigns, born on the throne, may be beaten twenty times 
 over and yet return to their capitals : I cannot do this, because 
 I am di parvenu soldier. My domination will not survive the 
 day when I shall have ceased to be strong, and, consequently, 
 feared." In effect, his despotism in France is founded on his 
 European omnipotence ; if he does not remain master of the 
 Continent, ** he must settle with the corps legislatt/."^ Rather 
 than descend to an inferior position, rather than be a consti- 
 tutional monarch, controlled by parliamentary chambers, he 
 plays double or quits, and will risk losing everything. " I 
 have seen your soldiers," says Metternich to him, " they are 
 ■children. When this army of boys is gone, what will you do 
 then ? " At these words, which touch his heart, he grows pale, 
 his features contract, and his rage overcomes him ; like a 
 wounded man who has made a false step and exposes himself, 
 he says violently to Metternich : " You are not a soldier ! 
 You do not know the impulses of a soldier's breast I I have 
 grown up on the battle-field, and a man like me does not care 
 a for the lives of a million men ! " ' His imperial chi- 
 
 1 M. de Metternich, i., 147. — Fain, " Manuscript," of 1813, ii., 26. (Napoleon's address 
 to his generals.) " What we want is a complete triumph. To abandon this or thit prov- 
 ince is not the question ; our political superiority and our existence depend on it." — ii., 
 41, 42. (Words of Napoleon to Metternich.) " And it is my father-in-law who favors 
 such a project ! And he sends you ! In what attitude does he wish to place me before 
 the F'rench people ? He is strangely deluded if he thinks that a mutilated throne can offer 
 an .asylum to his daughter and grandson. . . . Ah, Metternich, how much has England 
 given you to make you play this part against me ? " (This last phrase, omitted in Mct- 
 ternich's narrative, is a characteristic trait ; Napoleon at this decisive moment, remains 
 insulting .and aggressive, gratuitously and even to his own destruction.) 
 
 2 "Souvenirs du feu due dc I'roglie," i., 235. 
 
 3 Ibid., i., 230. Some days before Napoleon had said to M. de Narbonnc, who told me 
 that very evening : " After all, what has this (the Russian campaign) cost me? 300,000 
 men. among whom, again, were a good many Germans."- " Memoires," unpublished, by 
 
 M. X , v., 615. (Apropos of the Krankfurt basis, and accepted by Napoleon when too 
 
 late.) "What characterizes this mistake is that it was committed much more again.st the 
 interests of France than against his own. . . . He sacrificed her to the perplexities of his 
 personal situation, to the inauvaise honie of his own ambition, to the difficulty he finds in
 
 9° THE MODERN REGIME. book i, 
 
 mera has devoured many more. Between 1804 and 1815 he has 
 had slaughtered 1,700,000 Frenchmen, born within the bound- 
 aries of ancient France,' to which must be added, probably, 
 2,000,000 of men born outside of these limits, and slain for 
 him, under the title of allies, or slain by him under the title of 
 enemies. All that the poor, enthusiastic, and credulous Gauls 
 have gained by entrusting their public welfare to him is two 
 invasions ; all that he bequeaths to them as a reward for their 
 devotion, after this prodigious waste of their blood and the 
 blood of others, is a France shorn of fifteen departments ac- 
 quired by the republic, deprived of Savoy, of the left bank of 
 the Rhine and of Belgium, despoiled of the northeast angle by 
 which it completed its boundaries, fortified its most vulnerable 
 point, and, using the words of Vauban, " made its field square," 
 separated from 4,000,000 of new Frenchmen which it had 
 assimilated after twenty years of life in common, and, worse 
 still, thrown back within the frontiers of 1789, alone, dimin- 
 ished in the midst of its aggrandized neighbors, suspected by 
 all Europe, and lastingly surrounded by a threatening circle 
 of distrust and rancor. 
 
 Such is the political work of Napoleon, the work of egoism 
 served by genius. In his European structure as in his French 
 structure this sovereign egoism has introduced a vice of con- 
 struction. This fundamental vice is manifest at the outset in 
 the European edifice, and, at the expiration of fifteen years, 
 it brings about a sudden downfall : in the French edifice it is 
 equally serious but not so apparent ; only at the end of half a 
 century, or even a whole century, is it to be made clearly visi- 
 ble ; but its gradual and slow effects will be equally pernicious 
 and they are no less sure. 
 
 standing alone to a certain extent before a nation which had done everything for him and 
 which could justly reproach him with having sacrificed so much treasure and spilled so- 
 much blood on enterprises proved to have been foolish and impracticable." 
 
 I Leonce de Lavergne, " Economie rurale de la France," p. 40. C-* "^^ording to the former 
 director of the conscription under the Empire.) 
 
 1 
 
 I
 
 BOOK SECOND. 
 ^Formation anti tCljaiarter of ttjc NrU) ^tatt. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I. Conditions on which the public power can act. — Two points forgotten 
 by the authors of the preceding constitutions. — Difficulty of the under- 
 taking and poor quality of the available materials. — II. Results. -y-Insub- 
 ordination of the local powers, conflict of the central powers, sup- 
 pression of liberal institutions, and the establishment of an unstable 
 despotism. — Evil doing of the government thus formed. — III. In 1799, 
 the undertaking is more diflicult and the materials worse. — IV. Motives 
 for suppressing the election of local powers. — The Electors. — Their ego- 
 ism and partiality. — The Elected. — Their inertia, corruption, and disobe- 
 dience. — V. Reasons for placing the executive central power in one hand. 
 — Sieyes' chimerical combinations. — Bonaparte's objections. — VI. Diffi- 
 culty of organizing a legislative power. — Fraudulent and violent elec- 
 tions for ten years. — Spirit and diffusion of hatred against the men and 
 dogmas of the Revolution. — Probable composition of a freely elected 
 Assembly. — Its two irreconcilable divisions. — Sentiments of the army. — 
 Proximity and probable meaning of a new coKp cTelat. — VII. The electoral 
 and legislative combinations of Sieyes. — Bonaparte's use of them. — Paral- 
 ysis and submission of the three legislative bodies. — The Senate as a 
 ruling instrumentality. — Senatus-consultes and Plebiscites. — Final estab- 
 lishment of the Dictatorship. — Its dangers and necessity. — Public power 
 now able to do its work. 
 
 I. 
 
 In every human society a government is necessary, or, in 
 other words, an organization of the power of the community. 
 No other machine is so useful. But a machine is useful only 
 as it is adapted to its purpose; otherwise it does not work 
 well, or it works adversely to that purpose. Hence, in its 
 construction, the prime necessity of calculating what work it 
 has to do, also the quality of the materials one has at one's 
 disposal. It is very important to know beforehand whether 
 it will raise a mass of 1000 or of 10,000 pounds, whether the 
 
 91
 
 92 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 pieces fitted together will be of iron or of steel, of sound or of 
 unsound timber. 
 
 Legislators for ten years had never taken this into consid- 
 eration; they had constituted things as theorists, and likewise 
 as optimists, without closely studying them, or else regarding 
 them as they wished to have them. In the national assem- 
 blies, as well as with the public, the task was deemed easy 
 and ordinary, whereas it was extraordinary and immense, for 
 the matter in hand consisted in effecting a social revolution 
 and in carrying on an European war. The materials were sup- 
 posed to be excellent, as manageable as they were substantial, 
 while, in fact, they were very poor, being both refractory and 
 brittle, for these human materials consisted of the Frenchmen 
 of 1789 and of the following years; that is to say, of exceed- 
 ingly sensitive men doing each other all possible harm, inex- 
 perienced in political business, Utopians, impatient, intract- 
 able, and over-excited. Calculations had been made on these 
 prodigiously false data; consequently, although the calcula- 
 tions were very exact, the results obtained were found absurd. 
 Relying on these data, the machine had been planned, adjusted, 
 superposed, and set in operation. Hence, although irreproach- 
 able in theory, it turned out practically a failure; the more 
 imposing it seemed on paper the quicker it broke down when 
 set up on the ground. 
 
 II. 
 
 A capital defect at once declared itself in the two principal 
 combinations, in the working gear of the superposed powers 
 and in the balance of the motor powers. — In the first place, 
 the hold given to the central government on its local subor- 
 dinates was evidently too feeble; with no right to appoint 
 these, it could not select them as it pleased, according to the 
 requirements of the service. Department, district, canton, 
 and commune administrators, civil and criminal judges, 
 assessors, appraisers, and collectors of taxes, officers of the 
 national-guard and even of the gendarmerie, police-commis- 
 sioners, and other agents who had to enforce laws on the spot, 
 were nearly all recruited elsewhere, either in popular assem-
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 93 
 
 blies or furnished ready-made by elected bodies.' They were 
 for it merely borrowed instruments; thus originating, they 
 escaped its control; it could not make them work as it wanted 
 them to work. On most occasions they would shirk their 
 duties; at other times, on receiving orders, they would stand 
 inert; or, again, they would act outside of or beyond their 
 special function, either going too far or acting in a contrary 
 sense; never did they act with moderation and strictness, 
 steadily, and with unanimity. For this reason any desire of 
 the government to do its work faithfully proved unsuccessful. 
 Its legal subordinates — incapable, timid, lukewarm, unman- 
 ageable, or even hostile — obeyed badly, did not obey at all, or 
 wilfully disobeyed. The blade of the executive instrument, 
 loose in the handle, glanced or broke off when the thrust had 
 to be made. 
 
 In the second place, never could the two or three motor 
 forces thrusting the handle act in harmony, owing to the 
 clashing of so many of them; one always ended in breaking 
 down the other. The Constituent Assembly had set aside 
 the King, the Legislative Assembly had deposed him, the 
 Convention had decapitated him. Afterward each fraction 
 of the sovereign body in the Convention had proscribed the 
 other; the Montagnards had guillotined the Girondists, and 
 the Thermidorians had guillotined the Montagnards. Later, 
 under the Constitution of the year iii, the Fructidorians had 
 transported the Constitutionalists, the Directory had purged 
 the Councils, and the Councils had purged the Directory. — 
 Not only did the democratic and parliamentary institution 
 fail in its work and break down on trial, but, again, through 
 its own action, it became transformed into its opposite. In a 
 year or two a coi4p d'etat in Paris took place; a faction seized 
 on the central power and converted it into an absolute power 
 in the hands of five or six ringleaders. The new government 
 at once reforged the executive instrument for its own advan- 
 
 I " The Revolution," p. 193 and followinsr papes, also p. 224 and following- pages. 
 The provisions of the constitution of the year iii, somewhat less anarchical, are anal- 
 ogous ; those of the " Mountain" constitutioa (year 11) are so anarchical that nobody 
 thought of enforcing them.
 
 94 THE MODERN' REGIME. book ii. 
 
 tage and refastened the blade firmly on the handle; in the 
 provinces it dismissed those elected by the people and de- 
 prived the governed of the right to choose their own rulers; 
 henceforth, through its proconsuls on mission, or through its 
 resident commissioners, it alone appointed, superintended, 
 and regulated on the spot all local authorities,' 
 
 Thus the liberal constitution, at its close, gave birth to a 
 centralized despotism, and this was the worst of its species, 
 at once formless and monstrous; for it was born out of a 
 civil crime, while the government which used it had no sup- 
 port but a band of bigoted fanatics or political adventurers; 
 without any legal authority over the nation, or any moral hold 
 on the army, detested, threatened, discordant, exposed to the 
 resistance of its own upholders, to the treacher]^ of its own 
 members, and living only from day to day, it could maintain 
 itself only through a brutal absolutism and permanent terror, 
 while the public power of which the first care is the protec- 
 tion of property, consciences, and lives, became in its hands 
 the worst of persecutors, robbers, and murderers. 
 
 III. 
 
 Twice in succession had the experiment been tried, the 
 monarchical constitution of 1791, and the republican constitu- 
 tion of 1795; twice in succession had the same events fol- 
 lowed the same course to attain the same end; twice in suc- 
 cession had the theoretical, cunningly-devised machine for 
 universal protection changed into an efficient and brutal ma 
 chine for universal oppression. It is evident that if the 
 same machine were started the third time under analogous 
 conditions, one might expect to see it work in the same man- 
 ner; that is to say, contrary to its purpose. 
 
 Now, in 1799, ^^'^^ conditions were analogous, and even 
 worse, for the work which the machine had to do was not 
 less, while the human materials available for its construction 
 were not so good. — Externally, the country was constantly 
 at war with Europe; peace could not be secured except by 
 
 I " The Revolution," vol. iii., pp. 446, 450, 476.
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 95 
 
 great military effort, and peace was as difficult to preserve as 
 to win. The European equilibrium had been too greatly dis- 
 turbed; neighboring or rival States had suffered too much; 
 the rancor and distrust provoked by the invading revolution- 
 ary republic were too active; these would have lasted a long 
 time against pacified France even after she had concluded 
 reasonable treaties. Although she might abandon a policy 
 of propagandism and interference, brilliant acquisitions, domi- 
 neering protectorates, and the disguised annexation of Italy, 
 Holland, and Switzerland, the nation was bound to keep 
 watch under arms; a government able to concentrate all its 
 forces — that is to say, placed above and beyond all dispute 
 and promptly obeyed — was indispensable, if only to remain 
 intact and complete, to keep Belgium and the frontier of the 
 Rhine. — Likewise internally, and for no other purpose than 
 to restore civil order; for here, too, the outrages of the Revo- 
 lution had been too great; there had been too much spoli- 
 ation, too many imprisonments, exiles, and murders, too 
 many violations of every kind, too many invasions of the 
 rights of property and of persons, public and private. To in- 
 sure respect for persons and all private and public possessions, 
 to restrain at once both Royalists and Jacobins, to restore 
 140,000 emigres to their country and yet satisfy 1,200,000 pos- 
 sessors of national property; to give back to 25,000,000 of or- 
 thodox Catholics the right, faculty, and means for worship- 
 ping, and yet not allow the schismatic clergy to be mal- 
 treated; to bring face to face in the same commune the dis- 
 possessed seigneur and the peasant holders of his domain; to 
 compel the delegates of the Committee of Public Safety and 
 their victims, the shooters and the shot of -Vendemiaire, the 
 Fructidorians and the Fructidorized, the Whites and the Blues 
 of La Vendee and Brittany, to live in peace side by side, — was 
 so much the less easy because the future laborers in this im- 
 mense work, from the village mayor to the state-senator and 
 state-councillor, had borne a part in the Revolution, either in 
 effecting it or under subjection to it — Monarchists, Feuillant- 
 ists, Girondists, Montagnards, Thermidorians, moderate 
 Jacobins or desperate Jacobins, all oppressed in turn and
 
 g6 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 disappointed in their calculations. Their passions, under 
 this regime, had become embittered; each brought per- 
 sonal bias and resentment into the performance of his du- 
 ties; to prevent him from being unjust and mischievous 
 demanded a tightened curb.' All sense of conviction, under 
 this regime, had died out; nobody would serve gratis as in 
 1789;" nobody would work without pay; disinterestedness 
 had lost all charm; ostentatious zeal seemed hypocrisy; gen- 
 uine zeal seemed self-dupery; each looked out for himself and 
 not for the community; public spirit had yielded to indiffer- 
 ence, to egotism, and to the need of security, of enjoyment, 
 and of self-advancement. Human materials, deteriorated by 
 the Revolution, were less than ever suited to providing citizens 
 — they simply afforded functionaries. With such wheels com- 
 bined together according to formulae current between 1791 
 and 1795, the requisite work could not possibly be done; both 
 the great liberal mechanisms were definitely and for a long 
 time condemned as worthless. So long as such poor wheels 
 lasted and such heavy work was imperative, the election of 
 local powers and the division of the central power had to be 
 abandoned. 
 
 IV. 
 
 All were agreed on the first point. If any still doubted, 
 they had only to open their eyes, fix them on the local au- 
 
 1 Sauzay, " Histoire de la persecution rdvolutionnaire dans le ddpartement du 
 Doubs," X., 472 (Speech of Briot to the five-hundred, Aug. 29, 1799): "The country seeks 
 in vain for its children; it finds the chouans, the Jacobins, the moderates, and the con- 
 stitutionalists of '91 and '93, clubDists, the amnestied, fanatics, scissionists and anti- 
 scissionists; in vain does it call for republicans." 
 
 2 "The Revolution,'.' iii., 427, 474.— Rocquain, " L'etat de la France au 18 Bru- 
 maire,"' 360, 362 :" Inertia or absence of the national agents . . . . It would be painful 
 to think that a lack of salary was one of the causes of the difficulty in establishing mu- 
 nicipal administrations. In 1790, 1791, and 1792, we found our fellow-citizens emulously 
 striving after these gratuitous offices and even proud of the disinterestedness which 
 the law prescribed." (Report of the Directory, end of 1795.) After this date public 
 spirit is extinguished, stifled by the Reign of Terror.— /i5/V., 368, 369 : "Deplorable 
 indifference for public offices .... Out of seven town officials appointed in the com- 
 mune of Laval, only one accepted, and that one the least capable. It is the same in 
 the other communes."— /^;V/., 380 (Report of the year vn): "General decline of public 
 spirit."— /<5/V/., 287 (Report by Lacude, on the ist military division, Aisne, Eure-et- 
 Loire, Loiret, Oise, Seine, Seine-et-Marne, (year ix): "Public spirit is dying out 
 and is even gone."
 
 CHAP. 1. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 97 
 
 thorities, watch them as soon as born, and follow them 
 throughout the exercise of their functions. — Naturally, in fill- 
 ing each ofhce, the electors had chosen a man of their own 
 species and calibre; their fixed and dominant disposition was 
 accordingly well known; they were indifferent to public mat- 
 ters and therefore their candidate was as indifferent as them- 
 selves. Too great zeal for the State would have prevented 
 his election; the State to them was a troublesome moralist 
 and remote creditor; their candidate must choose between 
 them and this interloper, side with them against it, and not 
 act as a pedagogue in its name or as bailiff in its behalf. 
 When power is born on the spot and conferred to-day by con- 
 stituents who are to submit to it to-morrow as subordinates, 
 they do not put the whip in the hands of one who will flog 
 them; they demand sentiments of him in conformity with 
 their inclinations; in any event they will not tolerate in him 
 the opposite ones. From the beginning, this resemblance be- 
 tween them and him is great, and it goes on increasing from 
 day to day because the creature is always in the hands of his 
 creators; subject to their daily pressure, he at last becomes as 
 they are; after a certain period they have shaped him in their 
 image. — Thus the candidate-elect, from the start or very soon 
 after, became a confederate with his electors. At one time, 
 and this occurred fretjuently, especially in the towns, he had 
 been elected by a violent sectarian minority; he then subor- 
 dinated general interests to the interests of a clique. At an- 
 other, and especially in the rural districts, he had been elected 
 by an ignorant and brutal majority, when he accordingly sub- 
 ordinated general interests to those of a village. — If he 
 chanced to be conscientious and somewhat intelligent and was 
 anxious to do his duty, he could not; he felt himself weak and 
 was felt to be weak; * both authority and the means for exer- 
 
 1 Rocquain, Ibid., p. 27 (Report of Frangois de Nantes, on the 8th military divi- 
 sion, Vaucluse, Bouchcs-du-Rhonc, Var, Basses-Alpes, and Alpes-Maratimes, year ix): 
 "Witnesses, in some communes, did not dare furnish testimony, and, in all, the jus- 
 tices of the peace were afraid of making enemies and of not bcinp re-elected. It was 
 the same with the town officials charged with prosecutions and whom their quality 
 as elected and temporary officials always rendered timid."— /*;</.. 48: "All the customs 
 directors complained of the partiality of the courts. I have myself examined several 
 cases in which the courts of Marseilles and Toulon decided against the plain text oi
 
 9^ THE MODERN REGIME. book h 
 
 cising it were wanting in him. He had not the force which a 
 power above communicates to its delegates below; nobody 
 saw behind him the government and the army; his only re- 
 source was a national-guard, which either shirked or refused 
 to do its duty, and which often did not exist at all. — On the 
 contrary, he could prevaricate, pillage, and persecute for his 
 own advantage and that of his clique with impunity; for there 
 was no restraint on him from above; the Paris Jacobins would 
 not be disposed to alienate the Jacobins of the province: they 
 were partisans and allies, and the government had few others-, 
 it was bound to retain them, to let them intrigue and embez- 
 zle at v,^ill. 
 
 Suppose an extensive domain of which the steward is ap- 
 pointed, not by the absent owner, but by his tenants, debtors,- 
 farmers, and dependents: the reader may imagine whether 
 rents will be paid and debts collected, whether road-taxes will 
 be worked out, what care will be taken of the property, what its 
 annual income will be to the owner, how abuses of commission 
 and omission will be multiplied indefinitely, how great the dis- 
 order will be, the neglect, the waste, the fraud, the injustice, and 
 the license. — The same in France,' and for the same reason: 
 every public service disorganized, destroyed, or perverted; no 
 justice, no police; authorities abstaining from prosecution, 
 
 the law and with criminal partiality. — Archives nationales, series F'', Reports " on 
 the situation, on the spirit of the public," in many hundreds of towns, cantons, and de- 
 partments, from the year in to the year viii and after. 
 
 I Cf. "The Revolution," iii., book ix., ch. i. — Rocquain, pnssini. — Schmidt, " Ta- 
 bleau.x de la Revolution fran^aise," iii., partsg and lo. — Archives nationales, F', 3250 
 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive directory, Fructidor 23, 5-ear vn): 
 " Armed mobs on the road between Saint-Omer and Arras have dared fire on the 
 diligences and rescue from the gendarmerie the drawn conscripts." — //»/</., F', 6565. 
 Only on Seine-inferieure, of which the following are some of the reports of the gen- 
 darmerie for one year. — Messidor, year vii, seditious mobs of conscripts and others 
 in the cantons of Motteville and Doudeville. " What shows the perverted spirit of the 
 communes of Gremonville and of Hdronville is that none of the inhabitants will make 
 any declaration, while it is impossible that they should not have been in the rebels' se- 
 crets." — Similar mobs in the communes of Guerville.Millebose,and in the forest of Eu: 
 " It is stated that they have leaders, and that drilling goes on under their orders." 
 —(Venddmiarie 27, year VIII.) "Twenty-five armed brigands or drafted men in the 
 cantons of R^aut^ and Bolbec have put cultivators to ransom." — (Nivose 12, year 
 VIII.) In the canton of Cuny another band of brigands do the same thing.— (Ger- 
 minal 14, year viii.) Twelve brigands stop the diligence between Neufchatel and 
 Rouen; a few days after, the diligence between Rouen and Paris is stopped and three 
 of the escort are killed. — Analogous scenes and mobs in the other departments. 
 
 \
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 99 
 
 magistrates not daring to condemn; a gendarmerie which re- 
 ceives no orders or which stands still; rural marauding become a 
 habit; roving bands of brigands in forty-five departments; 
 mail wagons and coaches stopped and pillaged even up to the 
 environs of Paris; highways broken up and rendered impass- 
 able; open smuggling, customs yielding nothing, national for- 
 ests devastated, the public treasury empty,' its revenues inter- 
 cepted and expended before being deposited; taxes decreed 
 and not collected, arbitrary assessments of real and personal 
 estate, no less wicked exemptions than overcharges, no tax- 
 lists made out in many places, communes which here and 
 there, under pretext of defending the republic against neigh- 
 boring consumers, exempt themselves from both tax and con- 
 scription; conscripts to whom their mayor gives false certifi- 
 cates of infirmity and marriage, who do not turn out when 
 ordered out, who desert by hundreds on the way to headquar- 
 ters, who form mobs and use guns in defending themselves 
 against the troops, — such were the fruits of the system. The 
 government, with agents provided through the egotism and 
 folly of rural majorities, could not constrain rural majorities. 
 With agents furnished through the partiality and corruption 
 of urban minorities it could not repress urban minorities. 
 Hands are necessary, and hands as firm as tenacious, to seize 
 conscripts by the collar, to rummage the pockets of taxpayers, 
 and the State had no hands. These must be procured and 
 immediately, if only to prepare and provide for urgent needs. 
 Tf the western departments had to be subdued and tranquil- 
 ized, relief furnished to Massena besieged in Genoa, Melas 
 prevented from invading Provence, Moreau's army trans- 
 ported over the Rhine, the first thing was to restore to the 
 central government the appointment of local authorities. 
 
 I " Mdmoires " (unpublished) of M. X , i., 260. Under the Directory, " one day, 
 
 in order to despatcli a special courier, the receipts of the Opera had to be taken be- 
 cause they were in coin. Another day. i' was on the point of sending' every g'old 
 piece in the mus^e of medals to be melted down (worth in the crucible from 5000 to 
 6000 francs)."
 
 loo THE MODERN REGIME. book il 
 
 On this second point, the evidence was scarcely less. — And 
 clearly, the moment the local powers owed their appointment 
 to the central powers, it is plain that the central executive power, 
 on which they depend, should be unique. For, this great team 
 of functionaries, driven from aloft, could not have aloft sev- 
 eral distinct drivers, being several and distinct, the drivers 
 would each pull his own way, while the horses, pulling in oppo- 
 site directions, would do nothing but prance. In this respect 
 the combinations of Sieyes do not bear examination. A mere 
 theorist and charged with preparing the plan of a new consti- 
 tution, he had reasoned as if the drivers on the box were not 
 men, but automatons: perched above all, a grand-elector, a 
 show sovereign, with two places to dispose of and always pas- 
 sive, except to appoint or revoke two active sovereigns, the 
 two governing consuls ; one, a peace-consul, appointing all civil 
 officers, and the other a war-consul, making all military and 
 diplomatic appointments; each with his own ministers, his 
 own council of state, his own court of judicature; all these 
 functionaries, ministers, consuls, and the grand-elector him- 
 self, revocable at the will of a senate which from day to day 
 could absorb them, that is to say, make them senators with 
 a salary of 30,000 francs and an embroidered dress-coat.* 
 Sieyes evidently had not taken into account either the work 
 to be done or the men who would have to do it, while Bona- 
 parte, who was doing the work at this very time, who under- 
 stood men and who understood himself, at once put his fin- 
 ger on the weak spot of this complex mechanism, so badly 
 adjusted and so frail. Two consuls, " one controlling the 
 ministers of justice, of the interior, of the police, of the treas- 
 ury, and the other the ministers of war, of the navy, and of 
 foreign affairs."' The conflict between them is certain; look 
 at them facing each other, subject to contrary influences and 
 
 i"Thdorie constitutionnelle de Sieyfes." (Extract from unpublished memoirs by 
 Boulay de la Meurthe.) Pans, 1866, Renouarcl. 
 
 2 " Correspondance de Napoleon 1",'" xxx.. 345. (" Mdmoires.")—" Memorial de 
 Sainte-H^lene.
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. lOi 
 
 suggestions: around the former "only judges, administrators, 
 financiers, and men in long robes," and round the latter "only 
 epaulets and men of the sword." Certainly " one will need 
 money and recruits for his army which the other will not 
 grant." — And it is not your grand-elector who will make them 
 agree. " If he conforms strictly to the functions which you 
 assign to him he will be the mere ghost, the fleshless phantom 
 of a roi famcant. Do you know any man vile enough to take 
 part in such contrivances? How can you imagine any man of 
 talent or at all honorable contentedly playing the part of a 
 hog fattening himself on a few millions?" — And all the more 
 because if he wants to abandon his part the door stands open. 
 " Were I the grand-elector I would say to the war-consul and 
 to the peace-consul on appointing them, If you put in a min- 
 ister or sign a bill I don't like I'll put you out." Thus does 
 the grand-elector become an active, absolute monarch. 
 
 " But," you may say, " the senate in its turn will absorb the 
 grand-elector." — "The remedy is worse than the disease; no- 
 body, according to this plan, has any guarantees," and each, 
 therefore, will try to secure them to himself, the grand-elector 
 against the senate, the consuls against the grand-elector, and 
 the senate against the grand-elector and consuls combined, 
 each uneasy, alarmed, threatened, threatening, and usurping 
 to protect himself; these are the wheels which work the wrong 
 way, in a machine constantly getting out of order, stopping, 
 and finally breaking down entirely. 
 
 Thereupon, and as Bonaparte, moreover, was already mas- 
 ter, all the executive powers were reduced to one, and this 
 power was vested in him.' In reality, " to humor republi- 
 can opinion" " they gave him two associates with the same 
 title as his own; but they were appointed only for show, sim- 
 ply as consulting, inferior, and docile registrars, with no rights 
 
 1 " Extrait des M^moires" de Boulay de la Meurthe, p. 50. (Words of Bonaparte 
 to Roederer about Siey&s, who raised objections and wanted to retire.) " If Siey&s 
 goes into the country, draw up for me at once the plan of a constitution. I will sum- 
 mon the primary assemblies m a week and make them accept it after discharging the 
 (Constituatu) committees." 
 
 2 " Correspondance de Napoldon pf " xxx., 345, 346. (" Mdmoires.") " Circum- 
 stances were such as to still make it necessary to dispuise the unique magistracy of 
 the president."
 
 I02 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 save that of signing their names after his and putting their 
 signatures to \.\\q. proch verbal declaring his orders; he alone 
 commanded, " he alone had the say, he alone appointed to all 
 offices," so that they were already subjects as he alone was 
 already the sovereign. 
 
 VI. 
 
 It remained to frame a legislative power as a counterpoise 
 to this executive power, so concentrated and so strong. — In 
 organized and tolerably sound communities this point is 
 reached through an elective parliament which represents the 
 public will; it represents this because it is a copy, a faithful 
 reduction of that will on a small scale; it is so organized as 
 to present a loyal and proportionate expression of diverse 
 controlling opinions. In this case, the electoral selection has 
 worked well; one superior right, that of election, has been 
 respected, or, in other words, the passions excited have not 
 proved too strong, which is owing to the most important inter- 
 ests not having proved too divergent. — Unfortunately, in 
 France, rent asunder and discordant, all the most important 
 interests were in sharp antagonism; the passions brought into 
 play, consequently, were furious; no right was respected, and 
 least of all that of election; hence the electoral test worked 
 badly, and no elected parliament was or could be a veritable 
 expression of the public will. Since 1791, the elections, vio- 
 lated and deserted, had brought intruders only to the legisla- 
 tive benches, under the name of mandatories. These were 
 endured for lack of better; but nobody had any confidence in 
 them, and nobody showed them any deference. People knew 
 how they had been elected and how little their title was worth. 
 Through inertness, fear, or disgust, the great majority of elec- 
 tors had not voted, while the voters at the polls fought among 
 themselves, the strongest or least scrupulous expelling or con- 
 straining the rest. During the last three years of the Direc- 
 tory the electoral assembly was often divided; each faction 
 elected its own deputy and protested against the election of 
 the other. The government then chose between the two 
 candidates elected, arbitrarily and always with barefaced ])ar-
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 103 
 
 tiality; and again, if but one candidate was elected, and that 
 -one an adversary, his election was invalidated. In sum, for 
 nine years, the legislative body, imposed on the nation by a 
 faction, was scarcely more legitimate than the executive 
 power, another usurper, and which, later on, filled up or 
 purged its ranks. Any remedy for this defect in the electoral 
 machine was impossible; it was due to its internal structure, 
 to the very quality of its materials. At this date, even under 
 an impartial and strong government, the machine could not 
 have answered its purpose, that of deriving from the nation a 
 body of sober-minded and respected delegates, providing 
 France with a parliament capable of playing its own part, or 
 any part whatever, in the conduct of public business. 
 
 For, suppose that the new governors show uncommon loy- 
 alty, energy, and vigilance, remarkable political abnegation 
 and administrative omnipresence, factions kept down without 
 •suppression of discussion, the central powers neutral yet ac- 
 tive, no official candidature, no pressure from above, no con- 
 straint from below, police-commissioners respectful and gen- 
 darmes protecting the entrance to every electoral assembly, 
 •all proceedings regular, no disturbance inside, voting perfectly 
 free, the electors numerous, five or six millions of Frenchmen 
 gathered at the polls, and see what choice they will make. 
 After Fructidor, there is a renewal of religious persecution 
 and of excessive civil oppression; the brutality and unworthi- 
 ness of the rulers have doubled and diffused hatred against 
 the men and the ideas of the Revolution. — In Belgium, re- 
 cently annexed, the regular and secular clergy had just been 
 proscribed in a mass,' and a great rural insurrection had 
 broken out. The uprisal had spread from the Waes country 
 and the ancient seignory of Malines, around Louvain as far 
 as Tirlemont, and afterward to Brussels, to Campine, to South 
 
 1 " The Revolution," iii., 458, 417. — " Mercure britannique," nos. for November 
 1798 and January 1799. (Letters from Belgium.) — " More than 300 millions have been 
 seized by force in these desolated provinces; there is not a landowner whose fortune 
 has not been ruined, or sequestrated, or fatally sapped by forced levies and the flood of 
 taxes which followed these, by robberies of movable property and the bankruptcy due 
 to France having discredited claims on the emperor and on the governments, in short 
 through confiscation." — The insurrection breaks out, as in Vendde, on account of the 
 conscription ; the war-cry of the insurgents is, " Belter die here than elsewhere."
 
 104 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 Brabant, to Flanders, to Luxembourg, in the Ardennes, and 
 even to the frontiers of Liege; many villages had to be burned, 
 and many of their inhabitants killed, and the survivors keep 
 this in mind. In the twelve western departments,' at the be- 
 ginning of the year 1800, the royalists were masters of nearly 
 the whole country and had control of forty thousand armed 
 men in regimental order; undoubtedly these were to be over- 
 come and disarmed, but they were not to be deprived of their 
 opinions, as of their guns. — In the month of August, 1799,* 
 sixteen thousand insurgents in Haute Garonne and the six 
 neighboring departments, led by Count de Paulo, had un- 
 furled the white flag; one of the cantons, Cadours, " had risen 
 almost entirely;" a certain town, Muret, sent all its able- 
 bodied men. They had penetrated even to the faubourgs of 
 Toulouse, and several engagements, including a pitched battle, 
 were necessary to subdue them. On one occasion, at Montre- 
 jean, 2000 were slain or drowned. The peasants fought with 
 fury, " a fury that bordered on frenzy;" " some were heard to 
 exclaim with their last breath, ' Vive le Roi! ' and others were 
 cut to pieces rather than shout, 'Vive la Republique! ' " From 
 Marseilles to Lyons the revolt lasted five years on both banks 
 of the Rhone, under the form of brigandage; the royalist 
 bands, increased by refractory conscripts and favored by the 
 
 1 De Mattel, " Les Historiens fantaisistes," part 2 (on the Pacification of the West, 
 according to reports of the royalist leaders and of the republican generals). 
 
 2 Archives nationales, F', 3218. (Summary of despatches arranged according to 
 dates — Letters of Adjutant-General Vicose, Fructidor 3, year vii. — Letters of 
 Lamagdelaine, commissioner of the executive Directory, Thermidor 26 and Fructi- 
 dor 3, year vii.) — " The rascals who led the people astray had promised them, in the 
 King's name, that they should not be called on for further taxes, that the conscripts 
 and requisitionnaires should not leave, and, finally, that they should have the priests- 
 they wanted."— Near Montrejean " the carnage was frightful, nearly 2000 men slain or 
 drowned and 1000 prisoners." — (Letter of M. Alquier to the first consul, Pluviose 18, 
 year VIII.) "The insurrection of Thermidor caused the loss of 3000 cultivators." — 
 (Letters of the department administrators and of the government commissioners, 
 Nivose 25 and 27, Pluviose 13, 15, 25, 27, and 30, year viii.)— The insurrection is pro- 
 longed through a vast number of isolated outrages, with sabres or guns, against re- 
 publican functionaries and partisans, justices of the peace, mayors, etc. In the 
 commune of Balbfeze, fifty conscripts, armed deserters with their knapsacks, impose 
 requisitions, give balls on Sunday, and make patriots give up their arms. Elsewhere, 
 this or that known patriot is assaulted in his house by a band of ten or a dozen young 
 folks who make him pay a ransom, shout " Vive le Roi ! " etc, — Cf. " Histoire de 
 r insurrection royaliste de I'an vii," by B. Lavigne, 1887.
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 105 
 
 inhabitants whom they spared, killed or pillaged the agents of 
 the republic and the buyers of national possessions.' There 
 were thus, in more than thirty departments, intermittent and 
 scattered Vendees. In all the Catholic departments there was 
 a latent Vendee. Had the elections been free during this 
 state of exasperation it is probable that one-half of France 
 would have voted for men of the ancient regime — Catholics, 
 Royalists, or, at least, the Monarchists of 1790. 
 
 Let the reader imagine facing this party, in the same cham- 
 ber, about an equal number of representatives elected by the 
 other party ; the only ones it could select, its notables, that is 
 to say, the survivors of preceding assemblies, probably Con- 
 stitutionalists of the year iv and the year v, Convention- 
 alists of the Plain and of the Feuillants of 1792, from La- 
 fayette and Dumolard to Daunou, Thibaudeau and Gregoire, 
 among them Girondists and a few Montagnards, Barere,^ with 
 others, all of them wedded to the theory the same as their 
 adversaries to traditions. To one who is familiar with the 
 two groups, behold two inimical doctrines confronting each 
 other; two irreconcilable systems of opinions and passions, 
 two contradictory modes of conceiving sovereignty, law, so- 
 ciety, the State, property, religion, the Church, the ancient 
 regime, the Revolution, the present and the past; it is civil war 
 
 1 Archives nationales, F'', 3273 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive Di- 
 rectory, Vaucluse, Fructidor 6, year vii.): " Eighty armed royalists have carried off, 
 ne.Tr the forest of Suze, the cash-box of the collector, Bouchet. in the name of Louis 
 XVIIL These rascals, it must be noted, did not take any of the money belonpinp; to 
 the collector himself."— (/iJ/V/., Thermidor 3, ye.nr vii ) " On looking: around among- 
 our communes I find all of them under the control of royalist or town-councillors. 
 That is the spirit of the peasants generally. . . . Public spirit it so perverted, so op- 
 posed to the constitutional regime, that a miracle only will bring them within the pale 
 of freedom." — Ibitl., F'. 3199. (Similar documents on the department of Bouches-du- 
 Rhone.) Outrages continue here far down into the consulate, in spite of the vigor 
 and multitude of military executions. — (Letter of the sub-prefect of Tarascon, Ger- 
 minal 15, year ix.") "In the commune of Eyragucs, yesterday, at eight o'clock, a 
 band of masked brigands surrounded the mayor's house, while some of them entered 
 it and shot this public functionary without anybody daring to render him any assist- 
 ance. . . . Three-quarters of the inhabitants of Eyraguesare royalists " — In series F', 
 7x52 and those following may be found an enumeration of political crimes classified 
 by department and by the month, especially for Messidor, year vii. 
 
 2 Bartre, representative of Hautes Pyrdnees, had preserved a good deal of credit 
 in this remote department, especially in the district of Arg51es, with populations 
 which knew nothing about the " Mountain." In 1805, the electors presented him as 
 a candidate for the legislative body and the senate; in 1815, they elected him deputy.
 
 io6 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK IK 
 
 transferred from the nation to the parliament. Certainly the 
 " Right" would like to see the First Consul a Monk, which would 
 lead to his becoming a Cromwell; for his power depends en- 
 tirely on his credit with the army, then the sovereign force; at 
 this date the army is still republican, at least in feeling if not 
 intelligently, imbued with Jacobin prejudices, attached to 
 revolutionary interests, and hence blindly hostile to aristo- 
 crats, kings, and priests.* At the first threat of a monarchical 
 and Catholic restoration it will demand of him an eighteenth 
 Fructidor; otherwise, some Jacobin general, Jourdan, Berna- 
 dotto, or Augereau, will make one without him, against him, 
 and they fall back into the rut from which they wished to 
 escape, into the fatal circle of revolutions and coups d'etat. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Sieyes comprehended this: he detects on the horizon the 
 two spectres which, for ten years, have haunted all the gov- 
 ernments of France, legal anarchy and unstable despotism; 
 he has found a magic formula with which to exorcise these 
 two phantoms; henceforth "power is to come from above and 
 confidence from below." "^ — Consequently, the new constitu- 
 tional act withdraws from the nation the right to elect its 
 deputies; it will simply elect candidates to the deputation 
 and through three degrees of election, one above the other; 
 thus, it is to take part in the choice of its candidates only 
 through " an illusory and metaphysical participation."^ The 
 right of the electors of the first degree is wholly reduced to 
 
 1 " Memoires" (unpublished) of M. X , i., 366. At the time the Concordat was 
 
 under consideration the aversion to " priest rule" was very great in the army; there 
 were secret meetings held against it. Many of the superior officers took part in 
 them, and even some of the leading generals. Moreau was aware of them although 
 he did not attend them. In one of these gatherings, things were carried far enough 
 to resolve upon the assassination of the first consul. A certain Donnadieu, then of a 
 low rank in the army, offered to strike the blow. General Oudinot.who was present, 
 informed Davoust, and Donnadieu, imprisoned in the Temple, made revelations. 
 Measures were at once taken to scatter the conspirators, who were all sent away more 
 or less farther oflE; some were arrested and others exiled, among them General 
 Mourner, who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at Marengo. General Le- 
 courbe was also one of the conspirators. 
 
 2 " Extraitdes Memoires de Boulay de la Meurthe," p. 10. 
 
 3 Napoleon's words. (" Correspondance," xxx., 343, memoirs dictated at Saint 
 Helena.)
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 107 
 
 designating one-tenth among themselves; the right of those 
 of the second degree is also reduced to designating one-tenth 
 among themselves; the right of those of the third degree is 
 finally reduced to designating one-tenth of their number, 
 about six thousand candidates. On this list, the government 
 itself, by right and by way of increasing the number, inscribes 
 its own high functionaries; evidently, on such a long list, it 
 will have no difficulty in finding men devoted to it, its crea- 
 tures. Through another excess of precaution, the government, 
 on its sole authority, in the absence of any list, alone names 
 the first legislature. Last of all, it is careful to attach hand- 
 some salaries to these legislative offices, io,ooof., i5,ooof., and 
 3o,ooof. a year; parties canvass with it for these places the very 
 first day, the future depositaries of legislative power being, to 
 begin with, solicitors of the antechamber. — To render their do- 
 cility complete, there is a dismemberment of this legislative 
 power in advance; it is divided among three bodies, born feeble 
 and passive by institution. Neither of these has any initiative; 
 their deliberations are confined to laws proposed by the gov- 
 ernment. Each possesses only a fragment of function ; the 
 *' Tribunal" discusses without passing laws, the " Corps Le- 
 gislatif " decrees without discussion, the conservative " Senat" 
 is to maintain this general paralysis. " What do you want ?" 
 said Bonaparte to Lafayette.' " Sieyes everywhere put noth- 
 ing but phantoms, the phantom of a legislative power, the 
 phantom of a judiciary, the phantom of a government. Some- 
 thing substantial had to be put in their place. Ma foi, I put 
 it there," in the executive power. 
 
 There it is, completely in his hands; other authorities to 
 him are merely for show or as instruments.' The mutes of 
 
 1 Lafayette, " M<5moires,'" ii., 192. 
 
 2 Pelet de la Lozfcrc, " Opinions dc Napoldon au conseil d'etat," p. 63": "The sen- 
 ate is mistaken if it thinks it possesses a national and representative chamber. It is 
 merely a constituted authority emanating from the government like the others." 
 (1804.) — Tbid., p. 147: " It must not be in the power of a legislative body to im- 
 pede government by refusing taxes; once the taxes arc established they should 
 be levied by simple decrees. The court of cassation regards my decrees as laws; 
 otherwise, there would be no government." (January 9, 1808.) — Un'ii., p. 149 : " If I 
 ever had any fear of the senate I had only to put fifty young state-councillors into it." 
 (December i, 1803.)— /liiV/., p. 150 : " If an opposition should spring up in the legisla-.
 
 I08 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 the Corps Legislatif come annually to Paris to keep silent for 
 four months; one day he will forget to convoke them, and 
 nobody will remark their absence. — As to the Tribunat, which 
 talks too much, he will at first reduce its words to a minimum 
 " by putting it on the diet of laws ;" afterward, through the 
 interposition of the senate, which designates retiring members, 
 he gets rid of troublesome babblers; finally, and always 
 through the interposition of the senate, titular interpreter, 
 guardian, and reformer of the constitution, he ventilates and 
 then suppresses the Tribunat itself. — The senate is the grand 
 instrument by which he reigns; he commands it to furnish 
 the senatiis-constdtes of which he has need. Through this 
 comedy played by him above, and through another comple- 
 mentary comedy which he plays below, the plebiscite, he 
 transforms his ten-year consulate into a consulate for life, and 
 then into an empire, that is to say, into a permanent, legal, 
 full, and perfect dictatorship. In this way the nation is 
 handed over to the absolutism of a man who, being a man, 
 cannot fail to think of his own interest before all others. It 
 remains to be seen how far and for how long a time this inter- 
 est, as he comprehends it, or imagines it, will accord with the 
 interest of the public. All the better for France should this 
 accord prove complete and permanent; all the worse for 
 France should it prove partial and temporary. It is a terrible 
 risk, but inevitable. There is no escape from anarchy except 
 through despotism, with the chance of encountering in one 
 man, at first a savior and then a destroyer, with the certainty 
 
 live corps I would fall back on the senate to prorogue, change it, or break it up." 
 (March 29, 1806.) — Ibid.^ p. 151 : " Sixty legislators go out every year which one does 
 not know what to do with; those who do not get places go and grumble in the de- 
 partments. I should like to have old land-owners married, in a certain sense, to the 
 state through their family or profession, attached by some tie to the commonwealth. 
 Such men would come to Paris annually, converse with the emperor in his own circle, 
 and be contented with this little bit of vanity relieving the monotony of their exist- 
 ence." (Same date.) — Cf. Thibaudeau, " M^moires sur le Consulat," ch. xiii., and M. 
 de Metternich, " Mdmoires," i., 120 (Words of Napoleon at Dresden, in the spring of 
 1812): "I shall give the senate and the council of state a new organization. The 
 former will take the place of the upper chamber, the latter that of the chamber of 
 deputies. I shall continue to appoint the senators ; I shall have the state councillors 
 elected one-third at a time on triple lists ; the rest I will appoint. Here will the 
 budget be prepared and the laws elaborated." — We see the corps ligislati/, docile as 
 it is, still worrying him, and very justly ; he foresaw the session of 1813.
 
 CHAP. I. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 109 
 
 of henceforth belonging to an unknown will fashioned by 
 genius and good sense, or by imagination and egoism, in a 
 soul fiery and disturbed by the temptations of absolute power, 
 by success and universal adulation, in a despot responsible to 
 no one but himself, in a conqueror condemned by the im- 
 pulses of conquest to regard himself and the world under a 
 light growing falser and falser. 
 
 Such are the bitter fruits of social dissolution. Public force 
 perishes or becomes perverted; each uses it for his own pur- 
 poses, and nobody is disposed to intrust it to a third party. 
 The usurpers who possess themselves of it remain its deposi- 
 taries only on condition that they may abuse it; when it 
 works in their hands it is only to work against its office. The 
 risk must be taken for better or for worse, when, through a 
 final usurpation, it falls into the only hands able to restore it, 
 organize it, and apply it at last to the service of the public.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. Principal service rendered by the public power. — It is an instrumen- 
 tality. — A common law for every instrumentality. — Mechanical instru- 
 ments. — Physiological instruments. — Social instruments. — The perfection 
 of an instrument increases with the convergence of its effects. — One given 
 purpose excludes all others. — II. Application of this law to the public 
 power. — General effect of its intervention. — III. It acts against its func- 
 tion. Its encroachments are attacks on persons and property. — IV. It 
 badly fills the office of the bodies it supplant. — Cases in which it usurps 
 their powers and refuses to be their substitute. — Cases in which it vio- 
 lates or profits by their mechanism. — In all cases it is a bad or mediocre 
 substitute. — Reasons derived from its structure compared with that of 
 other bodies. — V. Other consequences. — Suppressed or stunted bodies 
 cease to grow. — Individuals become socially and politically incapable. — The 
 hands into which public power then falls. — Impoverishment and degrada- 
 tion of the social body. 
 
 What is the service which the public power renders to the 
 public ? — The principal one is the protection of the commun- 
 ity against the foreigner, and of private individuals against 
 each other. — Evidently, to do this, it must in all cases be pro- 
 vided with indispensable means, namely: diplomats, an army, 
 a fleet, arsenals, civil and criminal courts, prisons, a police, 
 taxation and tax-collectors, a hierarchy of agents and local 
 supervisors, who, each in his place and attending to his spe- 
 cial duty, will co-operate in securing the desired effect. — Evi- 
 dently, again, to apply all these instruments, the public power j| 
 must have, according to the case, this or that form or constitu- 
 tion, this or that degree of impulse and energy; according to 
 the nature and gravity of external or internal danger, it is 
 proper that it should be concentrated or divided, emancipated 
 from control or under control, authoritative or liberal. No 
 indignation need be cherished beforehand against its mechan- 
 
 IIO
 
 CHAP. II. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. , m 
 
 ism, whatever this may be. Properly speaking, it is a vast 
 engine in the human community like any given industrial ma- 
 chine in a factory, or any set of organs belonging to the living 
 body. If the work cannot be done without the engine, let us 
 accept the engine and its structure: whoever wants the end 
 wants the means. All we can ask is that the means shall be 
 adapted to the end ; in other terms, that the myriads of large 
 or small local or central pieces shall be determined, adjusted, 
 and co-ordinated in view of the final and total effect to 
 which they co-operate nearly or remotely. 
 
 But, whether simple or compound, every engine which does 
 any work is subject to one condition ; the better it is suited 
 to any distinct purpose the less it is suited to other pur- 
 poses; as its perfection increases, so does its application 
 become limited. — Accordingly, if there are two distinct in- 
 struments applied to two distinct objects, the more perfect 
 they are, each of its kind, the more do their domains become 
 circumscribed and opposed to each other; as one of them be- 
 comes more capable of doing its own work it becomes more 
 incapable of doing the work of the other; finally, neither can 
 take the place of the other, and this is true whatever the in- 
 strument may be, mechanical, physiological, or social. 
 
 At the very lowest grade of human industry the savage pos- 
 sesses but one tool; with his cutting or pointed bit of stone 
 he kills, breaks, splits, bores, saws, and carves; the same in- 
 strument suffices, in the main, for all sorts of services. After 
 this come the lance, the hatchet, the hammer, the punch, the 
 saw, the knife, each adapted to a distinct purpose and less 
 efficacious outside of that purpose: one cannot saw well with 
 a knife, and one cuts badly with a saw. Later, highly-per- 
 fected engines appear, and, wholly special, the sewing-machine 
 and the typewriter: it is impossible to sew with the typewriter 
 or write with the sewing-machine. — In like manner, when at 
 the lowest round of the organic ladder the animal is simply a 
 shapeless jelly, homogeneous and viscous, all parts of it are 
 equally suited to all functions; the amoeba, indifferently and 
 by all the cells of its body, can walk, seize, swallow, digest, 
 breathe, and circulate all its fluids, expel its waste, and prop-
 
 112. THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 agate its species. A little higher up, in the fresh-water polyp, 
 the internal sac which digests and the outer skin which 
 serves to envelop it can, if absolutely necessary, change their 
 functions; if you turn the animal inside out like a glove it 
 continues to live; its skin, become internal, fulfils the office 
 of a stomach; its stomach, become external, fulfils the office 
 of an envelope. But, the higher we ascend, the more do the 
 organs, complicated by the division and subdivision of labor, 
 diverge, each to its own side, and refuse to take each other's 
 place. The heart, with the mammal, is only good for impel- 
 ling the blood, while the lungs only furnish the blood with 
 oxygen; one cannot possibly do the work of the other; be- 
 tween the two domains the special structure of the former and 
 the special structure of the latter interpose an impassable bar- 
 rier. — In like manner, finally, at the very bottom of the social 
 scale — lower down than the Andamans and the Fuegians — we 
 find a primitive stage of humanity in which society consists 
 wholly of a herd. In this herd there is no distinct association 
 in view of a distinct purpose; there is not even a family — no 
 permanent tie between male and female; there is simply a 
 contact of the sexes. Gradually, in this herd of individuals, 
 all equal and all alike, particular groups define themselves, 
 take shape, and separate: we see appearing more and more 
 precise relationships, more and more distinct habitations, 
 more and more hereditary homesteads, fishing, hunting, and 
 war groups, and small workshops; if the people is a conquer- 
 ing people, castes establish themselves. At length, we find in 
 this expanded and solidly-organized social body provinces, 
 communes, churches, hospitals, schools, corporate bodies and 
 associations of every species and dimension, temporary or per- 
 manent, voluntary or involuntary, in brief, a multitude of so- 
 cial engines constructed out of human beings who, on account 
 of personal interest, habit, and constraint, or through inclina- 
 tion, conscience, and generosity, co-operate according to a 
 public or tacit statute in effecting in the material or spiritual 
 order of things this or that determinate undertaking: in 
 France, to-day, there are, besides the State, eighty-six depart- 
 ments, thirty-six thousand communes, four church bodies,
 
 CHAP. II. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 113 
 
 forty thousand parishes, seven or eight millions of families, 
 millions of agricultural, industrial, and commercial establish- 
 ments, hundreds of institutions of science and art, thousands 
 of educational and charitable institutions, benevolent and mu- 
 tual-aid societies, and others for business or for pleasure by 
 tens and hundreds of thousands, in short, innumerable associa- 
 tions of every kind, each with a purpose of its own, and, like 
 a tool or a special organ, carrying out a distinct work. 
 
 Now, each of these associations so far as it is a tool or an 
 organ is subject to a common law; the better it is in one di- 
 rection, the more mediocre it is in other directions; its special 
 competency constitutes its general incompetency. Hence, 
 with a civilized people, no particular one can well supply the 
 place of the others. "An academy of painting which should 
 also be a bank would, in all probability, exhibit very bad pic- 
 tures and discount very bad bills. A gas company which 
 should also be an infant-school society would, we apprehend, 
 light the streets ill and teach the children ill." ' And the rea- 
 son is that an instrument, whatever it may be, a mechanical 
 tool, or physiological organ, or human association, is always a 
 system of pieces whose effects converge to a given end; 
 it matters little whether the pieces are bits of wood and 
 metal, as in the tool, cells and fibres, as in the organ, souls and 
 understandings, as in the association; the essential thing is 
 the convergence of their effects; for the more convergent 
 these effects, the more efficient is the instrument in the real- 
 ization of its end. But, throu^:^h this convero^ence, it takes one 
 direction exclusively and cannot take anv other; it cannot operate 
 at once in two different senses; it cannot possibly turn to the 
 right and at the same time turn to the left. If any social in- 
 strument devised for a special service is made to act addition- 
 
 I Macaulay, "Essays: Gladstone on Church and State."— This principle, of capital 
 impnrtance and of remarkable fecundity, may be called the f>rivcif>le 0/ sf>ecialties. 
 Adam Smith first applied it to machines and to workmen. Macaul.ny extended it to 
 hnm.Tn as<;nciations Milne-Rdwards .ipplied it to the entire series of animal orpans. 
 Herbert Spencer larsjelv develops it in connection with phviinlogfical organs and 
 human societies in his " Principles of Biolofrv" and "Principles of Sociology." I 
 have attempted here to show the three parallel branches of its consequences, and, 
 again, their common root, a constitutive and primordial property inherent in everf 
 instrumentality.
 
 Jfl4 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii, 
 
 ally for another, it will perform its own office badly as well as 
 the one it usurps. Of the two works executed by it, the first 
 injures the second and the second injures the first one. The 
 end, ordinarily, is the sacrifice of one to the other, and, most 
 frequently, the failure of both. 
 
 II. 
 
 Let us follow out the effects of this law when it is the public 
 power which, beyond its principal and peculiar task, under- 
 takes a different task and puts itself in the place of corporate 
 bodies to do their work; when the State, not content with 
 protecting the community and individuals against external or 
 internal oppression, takes upon itself additionally the govern- 
 ment of churches, education, or charity, the direction of art, 
 science, and of commerical, agricultural, municipal, or domes- 
 tic affairs. — Undoubtedly, it can intervene in all corporate 
 bodies other than itself; it has both the right and the duty to 
 interfere; it is bound to do this through its very office as 
 defender of persons and property, to repress in these bodies 
 spoliation and oppression, to compel in them the observance 
 of the primordial statute, charter, or contract, to maintain in 
 them the rights of each member fixed by this statute, to decide 
 according to this statute all conflicts which may arise between 
 administrators and the administrated, between directors and 
 stockholders, between pastors and parishioners, between 
 deceased founders and their living successors. In doing this, 
 it affords them its tribunals, its constables, and its gendarmes, 
 and it affords these to them only with full consent after having 
 looked into and accepted the statute. This, too, is one of the 
 obligations of its office: its mandate hinders it from placing 
 the public power at the service of despoiling and oppressive 
 enterprises; it is interdicted from authorizing a contract for 
 prostitution or slavery, and above all, for the best of reasons, 
 a society for brigandage and insurrections, an armed league, 
 or ready to arm itself, against the community, or a part of the 
 community, or against itself. — But, between this legitimate in- 
 tervention which enables it to maintain rights, and the abusive 
 interference by which it usurps rights, the limit is visible, and
 
 CHAP. II. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 115 
 
 it oversteps this limit when, to its function of justiciary, it 
 adds a second, that of governing or supporting another corpo- 
 ration. In this case two series of abuses unfold themselves; 
 on the one side, the State acts contrary to its primary office, 
 and, on the other, it discharges the duties of its superadded 
 office badly.* 
 
 III. 
 
 For, in the first place, to govern another corporate body, 
 for example the Church, the State at one time appoints its 
 ecclesiastical heads, as under the old monarchy after the 
 abolition of the Pragmatic Sanction by the Concordat of 
 15 16; at another, as with the Constituent Assembly in 1791, 
 without appointing its heads, it invents anew mode of appoint- 
 ment by imposing on the Church a discipline contrary to its 
 spirit and even to its dogmas. Sometimes it goes further still 
 and reduces a special body into a mere administrative branch, 
 transforming its heads into revocable functionaries whose acts 
 it orders and directs; such under the Empire as well as under 
 the Restoration, were the mayor and common-councillors in 
 a commune, and the professors and head-masters of the Uni- 
 versity. One step more and the invasion is complete: nat- 
 urally, either through ambition or precaution, or through 
 theory or prejudice, on undertaking a new service it is 
 tempted to reserve to itself or delegate its monopoly. Be- 
 fore 1789 there existed one of these monopolies to the 
 advantage of the Catholic Church, through the interdiction of 
 other cults, also another to the advantage of each cor- 
 poration of " Arts ct MctierSy' through the interdiction of 
 free labor; after 1800, there existed one for the benefit of the 
 University through all sorts of shackles and constraints im- 
 posed on the establishment and maintenance of private schools. 
 — Now, through each of these constraints the State encroaches 
 on the domain of the individual; the more extended its en- 
 
 I Cf. "The Revolution," iii., book vi., ch. 2. The encroachments of ihe State and 
 their effect on individuals is there treated. Mere, the question is their effects on corpo- 
 rations. Read, on the same subject, " Gladstone on Church and State," by Macaulay, 
 and " The Man versus the State," by Herbert Spencer, two essays in which the close 
 reasoning and abundance of illustrations are admirable.
 
 Il6 THE MODERN REGIME. book II. 
 
 croachments the more does it prey upon and reduce the circle 
 of spontaneous initiation and of independent action, which 
 constitute the true life of the individual; if, in conformity with 
 the Jacobin programme, it pushes its interference to the end, 
 it absorbs in itself all other lives;' henceforth, the community 
 consists only of automata manoeuvred from above, infinitely 
 small residues of men, passive, multilated, and, so to say, dead 
 souls; the State, instituted to preserve persons, has reduced 
 them to nonentities. 
 
 The effect is the same with property when the State supports 
 other organizations than its own. For, to maintain these, it has 
 no other funds than those of the taxpayers; consequently, 
 using its collectors, it takes the money out of their pockets; 
 all, indiscriminately, willingly or not, pay supplementary taxes 
 for supplementary services, whether this service benefits them 
 or is repugnant to them. If I am a Protestant in a Catholic 
 State, or a Catholic in a Protestant State, I pay for a religion 
 which seems wrong to me and for a Church which seems to me 
 mischievous. If I am a skeptic, a free-thinker, indifferent 
 or hostile to positive religions in France, I pay to-day for 
 the support of four cults which I regard as useless or 
 pernicious. If I am a provincial or a peasant, I pay for main- 
 taining an " Opera" which I never attend and for a " Sevres'* 
 and " Gobelins" of which I never see a vase or a piece 
 of tapestry. — In times of tranquillity the extortion is covered 
 up, but in troublous times it is nakedly apparent. Under 
 the revolutionary government, bands of collectors armed 
 with pikes made raids on villages as in conquered coun- 
 tries;* the cultivator, collared and kept down by blows 
 from the butt end of a musket, sees his grain taken from his 
 barn and his cattle from their stable; "all scampered off on 
 the road to the town;" while around Paris, within a radius of 
 forty leagues, the departments fasted in order that the capital 
 might be fed. With gentler formalities, under a regular govern- 
 ment, a similar extortion occurs when the State, employing a 
 respectable collector in uniform, takes from our purse a crown 
 
 1 "The Revolution," iii., 346. 
 
 2 Ibid.y iii., 284.
 
 CHAP. II. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. II7 
 
 too much for an office outside of its competency. If, as with 
 the Jacobin State, it claims all offices, it empties the purse 
 entirely; instituted for the conservation of property, it confis- 
 cates the whole of it. — Thus, with property as with persons, 
 when the public power proposes to itself another purpose than 
 the preservation of these, not only does it overstep its man- 
 date but it acts contrary to its mandate. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let us consider the other series of abuses, and the way in 
 which the State performs the service of the corporate bodies 
 it supplants. 
 
 In the first place there is a chance that, sooner or later, it 
 will shirk this work, for this new service is more or less costly, 
 and, sooner or later, it seems too costly. — Undoubtedly the 
 State has promised to defray expenses ; sometimes even, like 
 the Constituent and Legislative assemblies, the revenues for 
 this having been confiscated, it has to furnish an equivalent ; 
 it is bound by contract to make good the local or special 
 sources of revenue which it has appropriated or dried up, to 
 furnish in exchange a supply of water from the grand central 
 reservoir, the public treasury. — But if the water becomes low 
 in this reservoir, if the taxes in arrears stoj) the regular supply, 
 if a war happens to effect a large breach in it, if the prodi- 
 gality and incapacity of the rulers multiply its fissures and 
 leaks, there is no money on hand for accessory and sec- 
 ondary services ; the State, which has adopted this service, 
 drops it : we have seen under the Convention and the Direc- 
 tory how, having taken the property of all corporations, prov- 
 inces, and communes, of institutions of education, art, and 
 science, of churches, hospitals, and asylums, it performed 
 their functions ; how, after having been a despoiler and a 
 robber, it became insolvent and bankrupt ; how its usurpation 
 and bankruptcy ruined and then destroyed all other services ; 
 how, through the double effect of its intervention and deser- 
 tion, it annihilated in France education, worship, and charity ; 
 why the streets in the towns were no longer lighted nor swept ; 
 ■why, in the provinces, roads went to decay, and dikes
 
 Il8 THE MODERN REGIME. book II. 
 
 crumbled ; why schools and churches stood empty or were 
 closed ; why, in the asylum and in the hospital, foundlings 
 died for lack of milk, the infirm for lack of clothing and food, 
 and the sick for lack of broth, medicines, and beds." 
 
 In the second place, even when the State respects a service 
 or provides the means for it, there is a chance that it will 
 pervert this simply because it comes under its direction. — 
 When rulers lay their hands on an institution it is almost 
 always for the purpose of making something out of it for their 
 own advantage and to its detriment : they render everything 
 subordinate to their interests or theories, they put some essen- 
 tial piece or wheel out of shape or place ; they derange its 
 action and put the mechanism out of order ; they make use 
 of it as a fiscal, electoral, or doctrinal engine, as a reigning 
 or sectarian instrument. — Such, in the eighteenth century, was 
 the ecclesiastical staff with which we are familiar,^ court 
 bishops, drawing-room abbes imposed from above on their 
 diocese or their abbey, non-residents, charged with functions 
 which they do not fulfil, largely-paid idlers, parasites of the 
 Church, and, besides all this, worldly, gallant, often unbeliev- 
 ers, strange leaders of a Christian clergy and which, one would 
 say, were expressly selected to undermine Catholic faith in the 
 minds of their flocks, or monastic discipline in their convents. 
 — Such, in 1791,^ is the new constitutional clergy, schismatic, 
 excommunicated, interlopers, imposed on the orthodox major- 
 ity to say masses which they deem sacrilegious and to admin- 
 ister sacraments which they refuse to accept. 
 
 In the last place, even when the rulers do not subordinate 
 the interests of the institution to their passions, to their theo- 
 ries, or to their own interests, even when they avoid mutilat- 
 ing it and changing its nature, even when they loyally fulfil, 
 and as well as they know how, the supererogatory mandate 
 which they have adjudged to themselves, they infallibly fulfil 
 it badly, at least worse than the special and spontaneous 
 bodies for which they substitute themselves, for the structure 
 
 1 " The Revolution," in., 353, 416. 
 
 2 " The Ancient Regime," 64, 65, 76, 77, 120, 121, 292. 
 
 3 " The Revolution," i., 177 and following pages.
 
 CHAP. II. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 1 19 
 
 of these bodies and the structure of the state are different. — 
 Unique of its kind, alone wielding the sword, acting from 
 above and afar by authority and constraints, the State acts 
 over the entire territory through uniform laws, through im- 
 perative and minute regulations, by a hierarchy of obedient 
 functionaries, which it maintains under strict instructions. 
 Hence, it is not adapted to business which, to be well done, 
 needs springs and processes of another species. Its springs, 
 wholly exterior, are insufficient, too weak to support and push 
 undertakings which require an internal motor like private in- 
 terest, local patriotism, family affections, scientific curiosity, 
 charitable instincts, and religious faith. Its wholly mechanical 
 processes, too rigid and too limited, cannot urge on enterprises 
 which demand of whoever undertakes them delicate and safe 
 handling, supple manipulation, appreciation of circumstances, 
 ready adaptation of means to ends, constant contrivance, the 
 initiative, and perfect independence. On this account the 
 State is a poor head of a family, a poor commercial or agri- 
 cultural leader, a bad distributor of labor and of subsistences, 
 a bad regulator of production, exchanges, and consumption, a 
 mediocre administrator of the province and the commune, an 
 undiscerning philanthropist, an incompetent director of the fine 
 arts, of science, of instruction, and of worship.' In all these 
 offices its action is either dilatory or bungling, according to 
 routine or oppressive, always expensive, of little effect and 
 feeble in returns, and always beyond or apart from the real 
 wants it pretends to satisfy. And because it starts from too 
 high a point and extends over too vast a field. Transmitted by 
 hierarchical procedures, it lags along in formalism, and loses 
 itself in "red-tape." On attaining its end and object it ap- 
 plies the same programme to all territories alike — a programme 
 devised beforehand in the Cabinet, all of a piece, without ex- 
 perimental groping and the necessary corrections ; a programme 
 which, calculated approximatively according to the avernge 
 and the customary, is not exactly suited to any particular case; 
 
 I The essays of Herbert Spencer furnish examples for England tinder the title of 
 " Over-lepislation and Representative Government." Rx.implcs for France may be 
 found in " Libert^ du Travail," by Charles Dunoycr (184:;^ This work anticipates 
 most of the ideas of Herbert Spencer, lacking only the physiological " illustrations."
 
 »20 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 a programme which imposes its fixed uniformity on things in- 
 stead of adjusting itself to their diversity and change ; a sort 
 of model coat, obligatory in pattern and stuff, which the 
 government dispatches by thousands from the centre to the 
 provinces, to be worn, willingly or not, by figures of all sizes 
 and at all seasons. 
 
 V. 
 
 And much worse. Not only does the State do the work 
 badly on a domain not its own, bunglingly, at greater cost, and 
 with less fruit than spontaneous organizations, but, again, 
 through the legal monopoly which it deems its prerogative, or 
 through the overwhelming competition which it exercises, it 
 kills or paralyzes these natural organizations or prevents their 
 birth; and hence so many precious organs, which, absorbed, 
 atropic or abortive, are lost to the great social body. — And 
 still worse, if this system lasts, and continues to crush them 
 out, the human community loses the faculty of reproducing 
 them ; entirely extirpated, they do not grow again ; even their 
 germ has perished. Individuals no longer know how to form 
 associations, how to co-operate under their own impulses, 
 through their own initiative, free of outside and superior con- 
 straint, all together and for a long time in view of a definite 
 purpose, according to regular forms under freely-chosen chiefs, 
 frankly accepted and faithfully followed. Mutual confidence, 
 respect for the law, loyalty, voluntary subordination, foresight, 
 moderation, patience, preseverance, practical good sense, every 
 disposition of head and heart, without which no association of 
 any kind is efficacious or even viable, have died out for lack 
 of exercise. Henceforth spontaneous, pacific, and fruitful 
 co-operation, as practised by a free people, is unattainable ; 
 men have arrived at social incapacity and, consequently, at 
 political incapacity. — In fact, they no longer choose their own 
 constitution or their own rulers; they put up with these, will- 
 ingly or not, according as accident or usurpation furnishes 
 them ; the public power with them belongs to the man, the 
 faction, or the party sufficiently unscrupulous, sufficiently dar- 
 ing, sufficiently violent, to seize and hold on to it by force, to
 
 CHAP. n. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 121 
 
 make the most of it as an egotist or charlatan, aided by parades 
 and prestiges, along with bravura songs and the usual din of 
 ready-made phrases on the rights of man and on the public 
 salvation. — This central power itself has nothing in its 
 hands to receive impulsions but an impoverished, inert, or 
 languid social body, solely capable of intermittent spasms or 
 of artificial rigidity according to order, an organism deprived 
 of its secondary organs, simplified to excess, of an inferior or 
 degraded kind, a people no longer anything but an arith- 
 metical sum of separate, juxtaposed units, in brief, human dust 
 or mud. 
 
 This is what the intervention of the State leads to. There 
 are laws in the social and moral world as in the physiological 
 and physical world ; we may misunderstand them, but we can- 
 not elude them ; they operate now against us, now for us, as 
 we please, but always alike and without heeding us ; it is for 
 us to heed them ; for the two conditions they couple together 
 are inseparable ; the moment the first appears the second in- 
 evitably follows.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I. Precedents of the new organization. — In practical operation. — An- 
 terior usurpations of the public power. — Spontaneous bodies under the 
 Ancient Regime and during the Revolution. — Ruin and discredit of their 
 supports. — The central power their sole surviving dependence. — II. The 
 Theory. — Agreement of speculative ideas with practical necessities. — Pub- 
 lic rights under the Ancient Regime. — The King's three original rights. — 
 Labors of the legists in extending royal prerogatives. — Historical impedi- 
 ments. — The primitive or ulterior limits of royal power. — The philosophic 
 and revolutionary principle of popular sovereignty. — Unlimited extension 
 of State power. — Application to spontaneous bodies. — Convergence of 
 ancient and new doctrines. — Corporations considered as creations of the 
 public power. — Centralization through the universal intervention of the 
 State. — III. The Organizer. — Influence of Napoleon's character and mind 
 on his internal and French system. — Exigencies of his external and Euro- 
 pean role. — Suppression of all centres of combination and concord. — •. 
 Extension of the public domain and what it embraces. — Reasons for main- 
 taining the private domain. — The part of the individual. — His reserved 
 enclosure. — Outlets for him beyond that. — His talents are enlisted in the 
 service of public power. — Special aptitude and temporary vigor, lack of 
 balance, and doubtful future of the social body thus formed. — IV. Gen- 
 eral aspect and characteristics of the new State. — Contrast between its 
 structure and that of other contemporary or pre-existing States. — The 
 plurality, complexity, and irregularity of ancient France. — The unity, 
 simplicity, and regularity of modern France. — To what class of works it 
 belongs. — It is the modern masterpiece of the classic spirit in the political 
 and social order of things. — V. Its analogue in the antique world. — The 
 Roman State from Diocletian to Constantine. — Causes and bearing of this 
 analogy. — Survival of the Roman idea in Napoleon's mind. — The new 
 Empire of the West. 
 
 Unfortunately, in France at the end of the eighteenth 
 century the bent was taken and the wrong bent. For three 
 centuries and more the public power had unceasingly violated 
 and discredited spontaneous bodies. — At one time it had 
 mutilated them and decapitated them; for example, it had 
 suppressed provincial governments (e'tats) over three-quarters- 
 
 122
 
 CHAP. 111. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 123 
 
 of the territory, in all the electoral districts; nothing remained 
 of the old province but its name and an administrative cir- 
 cumscription. — At another time, without mutilating the cor- 
 porate body it had enervated and deformed it, or dislocated 
 and disjointed it. For instance, in the towns, through changes 
 made in old democratic constitutions, through restrictions put 
 upon electoral rights and repeated sales of municipal offices,' 
 it had handed over municipal authority to a narrow oligarchy 
 of bourgeois families, piivileged at the expense of the tax- 
 payer, half separated from the main body of the public, dis- 
 liked by the commonalty, and no longer supported by the con- 
 fidence or deference of the community. ° Thus, in the parish 
 and in the rural canton, it had taken away from the seigneur 
 his office of resident protector and hereditary patron, reducing 
 him to the odious position of a mere creditor, and, if he were 
 a man of the court, to the yet worse position of an absentee 
 creditor.' Thus, as to the clergy, it had almost separated the 
 head from the trunk by superposing (through the Concordat) 
 a staff of gentleman prelates, rich, ostentatious, unemployed, 
 and skeptical, upon an army of plain, poor, laborious, and 
 believing curates.^ — In fine, again, through a protection as 
 untimely as it was aggressive, it had conferred on the corpo- 
 ration oppressive privileges which rendered it offensive and 
 mischievous, or else petrified through some obsolete form 
 which paralyzed its action or corrupted its service. Such was 
 the case with the corporations of arts and industries to which, 
 in consideration of financial aid, it had conceded monopolies 
 onerous to the consumer and a clog on industrial enterprises. 
 Such was the case with the Catholic Church to which, every 
 five years, it granted, in excnange for its voluntary gift (of 
 money), cruel favors or obnoxious prerogatives, the prolonged 
 persecution of Protestants, the censorship of intellectual spec- 
 ulation, and the right of controlling schools and education." 
 
 1 De TocqueviHe, " ''Ancien regime et la Rdvolution." p. 64 and following pages, 
 also p. 354 .ind following pages. — " The Ancient Rugitne,"' p. 368 
 
 2 "The Revolution," i., book i.. especially pp. 16, 17, 55. 61. 62-65. 
 
 3 " The Ancient Rdgime," pp. 36-59. 
 
 4 Ibid., pp. 7--:7. 
 
 5 Ibid., pp. 7S-32.
 
 124 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 Such was the case with the universities benumbed by routine; 
 with the latest provincial " Etats," constituted in 1789, as 
 in 1489; with noble families subjected by law to the antique 
 system of substitutions and of primogeniture, that is to say, to 
 a social constraint which, devised for private as well as for 
 public interests in order to secure the transmission of local 
 patronage and political power, became useless and corrupting, 
 fecund in pernicious vanities,' in detestable calculations, 
 domestic tyrannies, forced vocations, and private bicker- 
 ings, from the time when the nobles, become frequenters 
 of the court, had lost political power and renounced local 
 patronage. 
 
 Corporate bodies, thus deprived of, or diverted from, their 
 purpose, had become unrecognizable under the crust of the 
 abuses which disfigured them; nobody, except a Montesquieu, 
 could comprehend why they should exist; on the approach of 
 the Revolution, they seemed, not organs, but excrescences, de- 
 formities, and, so to say, superannuated monstrosities. Their 
 historical and natural roots, their living germs far below the 
 surface, their social necessity, their fundamental utility, their 
 possible usefulness, were no longer visible. Only their pres- 
 ent inconvenience was felt; people suffered by their friction 
 and burdensomeness; their incongruities and incoherencies 
 excited dissatisfaction; annoyances due to their degeneracy 
 were attributed to radical defects; they were judged to be 
 naturally unsound and were condemned, in principle, because 
 of the deviations and laws which the public power had imposed 
 on their development. 
 
 Suddenly, the public power, which had produced the evil 
 by its intervention, pretended to remove it by a still greater 
 intervention: in 1789 it again intruded itself on corporate 
 bodies, not to reform them, not to restore each to its proper 
 channel, not to confine each within proper limits, but to 
 destroy them outright. Through a radical, universal, and 
 extraordinary amputation, the like of which is not mentioned 
 in history, with the rashness of the theorist and the brutality 
 of the butcher, the legislator extirpated them all, as far as he 
 
 I Cf. Fr^d^ric Masson, " Le Marquis de Grignan," vol. i.
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 125 
 
 could, even including the family, while his fury extended be- 
 yond the present into the future. To legal abolition and total 
 confiscation, he added the systematic hostility of his preventive 
 laws, together with a fresh obstacle in the shape of his new 
 constructions; during three successive legislatures* he pro- 
 vided against their future regeneration, against the perma- 
 nent instincts and necessities which might one day resuscitate 
 stable families, distinct provinces, and an orthodox church, 
 against artistic, industrial, financial, charitable, and educa- 
 tional corporations, against every spontaneous and organized 
 group, and against every collective, local, or special enterprise. 
 In place of these he installed factitious institutions, a Church 
 without believers, schools without pupils, hospitals without 
 incomes, a geometrical hierarchy of improvised powers in the 
 commune, district, and department, all badly organized, badly 
 recruited, badly adjusted, out of gear at the start, overweighted 
 with political functions, as incapable of performing their proper 
 duties as their supplementary duties, and, from the very be- 
 ginning, either powerless or mischievous." Changes repeatedly 
 marred by arbitrariness from above or from below, set aside 
 or perverted now by the mob and again by the government, 
 inert in the country, oppressive in the towns, we have seen 
 the state into which they had fallen at the end of the Direc- 
 tory; how, instead of a refuge for liberty, they had become 
 haunts for tyranny or sinks for egoism; why, in 1800, they 
 were as much decried as their predecessors in 1788, why their 
 two successive props, the old one and the most recent, historic 
 custom and popular election, were now discredited and no 
 longer resorted to. — After the disastrous experience of the 
 monarchy and the still worse experience of the republic, 
 another prop had to be sought for; but one remained, that of 
 the central power, the only one visible and which seemed 
 substantial; in default of others they had recourse to this.' 
 
 1 " The Revolution," i., p. 161 and following pages; ii., book vi., ch. i., especially p. 
 80 and following pages. 
 
 2 Ibid., i., p. igi and following pages, and p. 226 and following pages. 
 
 3 " Mdmoires" (in manuscript) of M. X , i., 340 (in relation to the institution of 
 
 prefects and sub-prefects) : "The perceptible good resulting from this change was 
 the satisfaction arising from being delivered in one day from a herd of insignificant
 
 126 THE MODERN r£.GIME. book ik 
 
 In any event, no protestation, even secret and moral, longer 
 hindered the State from superadding corporate bodies to itself 
 by way of self-extension, in order to use them for its own pur- 
 poses as instruments or appendages. 
 
 II. 
 
 The theory in this respect was in accordance with the ne- 
 cessity of the case, and not alone the recent theory, but again 
 the ancient theory. Long before 1789, public right had ele- 
 vated the prerogative of centralized power into a dogma and 
 exaggerated it beyond measure. 
 
 There are three titles under which this power was con- 
 ferred. — Feudal seignior, and suzerain, that is to say, com- 
 mander-in-chief of the great resident army whose willing 
 forces had served to reconstruct society in the ninth century, 
 the King, through the remotest of his origins — that is to say, 
 through the immemorial confusion of sovereignty with prop- 
 erty — was the owner of France, the same as an individual 
 owns his private domain.' — Married, moreover, to the Church 
 since the first Capets, consecrated and crowned at Rheims,. 
 anointed by God like a second David, ^ not only was he be- 
 lieved to be authorized from on high, like other monarchs,. 
 but, from Louis le Gros, and especially after the time of St. 
 Louis, he appeared as the delegate from on high, invested 
 Avith a laic sacerdotalism, clothed with moral power, minister 
 of eternal justice, redresser of wrongs, protector of the weak., 
 benefactor of the humble— in short, " His Most Christian 
 Majesty." — At length, after the thirteenth century, the recent 
 
 men, mostly without any merit or shadow of capacity and to whom the administra- 
 tion of department and nrromiisseinent had been surrendered for the past ten years. 
 As nearly all of them sprung from the lowest ranks in society, they were only the 
 more disposed to make the weight of their authority felt." 
 
 1 Guyot, " Repertoire de jurisprudence " (1785), article King: "It is a maxim of 
 feudal law that the veritable ownership of lands, the domain, directuvi dominium, 
 is vested in the dominant seignior or suzerain. The domain in use. belonging to the 
 vassal or tenant, affords him really no right except to its produce. 
 
 2 Luchaire, " Histoire des institutions monarchiques de la France sous les premiers 
 Capetiens," i., 28, 46. (Texts of Henry I., Philip I., Louis VI., and Louis VII.) " A 
 divine minister." — (Kings are) " servants of the kingdom of God." — " Gird on the 
 ecclesiastical sword for the punishment of the wicked." — " Kings and priests alone, 
 by ecclesiastical ordination, are made sacred by the anointing of holy oils."
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 1 27 
 
 discovery and diligent study of the ancient codes of Justin- 
 ian had shown in his person the successor of the Caesars of 
 Rome and of the Emperors of Constantinople. According 
 to these codes the people in a body had transferred its rights 
 to the prince; now, in antique cities, all rights were vested in 
 the community, and the individual had none;' accordingly, 
 through this transfer, all rights, public or private, passed into 
 the hands of the prince; henceforth he could exercise them 
 as he pleased, under no restriction and no control. He was 
 above the law, since he made it; his powers were illimitable 
 and his decision absolute.^ 
 
 On this triple frame the legists, like State spiders, had, from 
 Philippe le Bel down, spun their web, and the instinctive con- 
 cordance of their hereditary efforts had attached all its 
 threads to the omnipotence of the King. — Being jurisconsults 
 — that is to say, logicians — they were obliged to deduce, and 
 their minds naturally recurred to the unicpie and rigid princi- 
 ple to which they might attach their arguments. — As advo- 
 cates and councillors of the crown they espoused the case of 
 their client and, through j)rofessional zeal, derived or forced 
 precedents and te.xts to his advantage. — By virtue of being 
 administrators and judges the grandeur of their master consti- 
 tuted their grandeur, and personal interest counselled them to 
 expand a prerogative in which, through delegation, they took 
 part. — Hence, during four centuries, they had spun the tissue 
 of " regalian rights," the great net in the meshes of which, 
 since Louis XIV., all lives found themselves caught.' 
 
 1 " The Revolution," iii., p. 94. 
 
 2 Janssen, " L'Allemafjne i la fin du moyen age" (French translation), i., 457. 
 (On the introduction of Roman law into Germany.) — Declaration of the legists at the 
 Diet of Roncaglia: " yuod principi placuit, legis h..bet vigorem." Edict of Freder- 
 ick I., 1165 : " Vestigia praedecessorum suorum, divorum imperatorum, m^gni Con- 
 stantini scilicet et Justiniani et Valentini, . . . sacras eorum leges, . . . divina ora- 
 cula. . . . Quodcumque imperator constituerit, vel cognoscens decreverit, vel edicto 
 praeceperit, legem esse constat." — Frederick II. : " Princeps legibus solutus est." — 
 Louis of Bavaria : " Nos qui sumus supra jus." 
 
 3 Guyot, /(*/(/., article Regales: "The great ' rdgales,' WfT/'orrt r<"i><i///2. are those 
 which belong to the \^\v\\i,Jure sittgjilari et propria, ?iV\A which are incommunicable 
 to another, considering that they cannot be divorced from the sceptre, being the at- 
 tributes of sovereignty, such as . . . the making of laws, the interpretation or change 
 of these, the last appeal from the decisions of magistrates, the creation of offices, the 
 declaration of war or of peace, . . . the coining of money, the augmentation of titles
 
 128 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 Nevertheless, however close this network, there were open- 
 ings in it, or, at least, very weak spots. — And first, of the 
 consequences flowing from these three principles in their 
 hands, two of them had hindered the third from unwinding 
 its skein to the end: owing to the fact that the King was for- 
 merly Count de Paris and Abbot of St. Denis, he could not 
 become a veritable Augustus, an authentic Diocletian: his two 
 French titles limited his Roman title. Without regard to the 
 laws, so-called fundamental, which imposed his heir on him 
 beforehand, also the entire line of his successive heirs, the 
 tutor, male or female, of his minor heir, and who, if he dero- 
 gated from immemorial usage, broke his will like that of a 
 private individual, his quality of suzerain and that of Most 
 Christian, were for him a double impediment. As hereditary 
 general of the feudal army he was bound to consider and re- 
 spect the hereditary officers of the same army, his old peers 
 and companions in arms — that is to say, the nobles. As out- 
 side bishop, he owed to the Church not alone his spiritual 
 orthodoxy, but, again, his temporal esteem, his active zeal, 
 and the aid furnished him by his secular arm. Hence, in 
 applied right, the numerous privileges of the nobles and the 
 Church, so many immunities and even liberties, so many re- 
 mains of antique local independence, and even of antique lo- 
 cal sovereignty,' so many prerogatives, honorific or service- 
 able, maintained by the law and by the tribunals. On this 
 
 or of values, the imposition of taxes on the subjects, . . . the exemption of certain per- 
 sons from these, the award of pardon for crimes, . . . the creation of nobles, the 
 foundation of universities, . . . the assembling of the etats-generaux or proTinciaux, 
 etc." — Bossuet, "Politique tir^e de I'Ecriture sainte :" "The entire state exists in 
 the person of the prince." — Louis XIV., " CEuvres," i., 50 (to his son) : " You should 
 be aware that kings can naturally dispose fully and freely of all possessions belong- 
 ing as well to persons of the church as to laymen, to make use of at all times with 
 wise economy, that is to say, according to the general requirements of their govern- 
 ment." — Sorel, " L'Europe et la Revolution fran^aise," i., 231 (Letter of the "in- 
 tendant " Foucault): " It is an illusion, which cannot proceed from anything but 
 blind preoccupation, that of making any distinction between obligations of con- 
 science and the obedience which is due to the King." 
 
 I " The Ancient Regime," p. 9 and following pages. — " Correspondance de Mira- 
 beau et du Comte de le Marck," ii., 74 (Note by Mirabeau, July 3, 1790): " Previous 
 to the present revolution, royal authority was incomplete : the king was compelled 
 to humor his nobles, to treat with the parliaments, to be prodigal of favors to the 
 court."
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 129 
 
 side, the meshes of the monarchical netting had not been well 
 knit or remained loose; and the same elsewhere, with open- 
 ings more or less wide, in the five provincial governments 
 {^tats), in the Pyrenees districts, in Alsace, at Strasbourg, but 
 especially in Languedoc and in Brittany, where the pact of 
 incorporation, through a sort of bilateral contract, associated 
 together on the same parchment and under the same seal the 
 franchises of the province and the sovereignty of the King. 
 
 Add to these original lacunae the hole made by the Prince 
 himself in his net already woven: he had with his own hand 
 torn away its meshes, and by thousands. Extravagant to ex- 
 cess and always needy, he converted everything into money, 
 even his own rights, and, in the military order, in the civil 
 order, in commerce and in industry, in the administration, in 
 the judicature, and in the finances, from one end of the terri- 
 tory to the other, he had sold innumerable offices, imposts, 
 dignities, honors, monopolies, exemptions, survivorships, ex- 
 pectancies — in brief, privileges which, once conferred for a 
 money consideration, became legal property,' often hereditary 
 and transmissible by the individual or corporation which had 
 paid for them; in this way the King alienated a portion of 
 his royalty for the benefit of the buyer. Now, in 1789, he 
 had alienated a great many of these i)ortions; accordingly, 
 his present authority was everywhere restricted by the use he 
 had previously made of it. — Sovereignty, thus, in his hands 
 had suffered from the double effect of its historic origins and 
 its historic exercise; the public power had not become, or 
 had ceased to be, omnipotency. On the one hand it had not 
 reached its plenitude, and on the other hand it had deprived 
 itself of a portion of its own completeness. 
 
 The philosophers were disposed to remedy this double in- 
 firmity, innate and acquired, and, to this end, had transported 
 sovereignty out of history into the ideal and abstract world, 
 with an imaginary city of mankind reduced to the minimum 
 of man, infinitely simplified, all alike, equal, separate from 
 
 I " The Revolution," iii., p. 318.— "The Ancient Regime," p. 70.— Speech by the 
 Chancellor Siguier, 1775 : " Our kings have tliemselves declared that they are fortu- 
 nately powerless to attack property."
 
 13° THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 their surroundings and from their past, veritable puppets, all 
 lifting their hands in common rectangular motion to vote 
 unanimously for the coiitrat social. In this contract " all 
 classes are reduced to one,' the complete surrender of each 
 associate, with all his rights, to the community, each giving 
 himself up entirely, just as he actually is, himself and all his 
 forces, of which whatever he possesses forms a part," each 
 becoming with respect to himself and every act of his private 
 life a delegate of the State, a responsible clerk, in short, a 
 functionary, a functionary of the people, henceforth the 
 unique, the absolute, and the universal sovereign. A terrible 
 principle, proclaimed and applied for ten years, below by the 
 mob and above by the government! Popular opinion had 
 adopted it; accordingly the passage from the sovereignty of 
 the King to the sovereignty of the people was easy, smooth,* 
 and to the novice in reasoning, the old-fashioned taxable and 
 workable subject, to whom the principle conferred a portion 
 of the sovereignty, the temptation was too great. At once, 
 according to their custom, the legists put themselves at the 
 service of the new reign; besides this no dogma better suited 
 their authoritative instinct; no axiom furnished them so con- 
 
 1 Rousseau's text in the " Contrat Social." — On the meaning and effect of this 
 principle cf. " The Revolution," i., 217 and following pages, and iii., book vi., ch. i. 
 
 2 The opinion, or rather resignation, through which omnipotence was conferred on 
 the central power, goes back to the second half of the fifteenth century, after the 
 Hundred Years' war, and is due to that war ; the omnipotence of the king was then the 
 only refuge against the English invaders, and the ravages of the Ecorcheurs. — Cf. 
 Fortescue, " In leges Anglise," and " The Difference between an Absolute and a Lim- 
 ited Monarchy " (end of the fifteenth century), on the difference at this date between 
 the English and the French government. — The same decision is found in the despatches 
 of the Venetian embassadors of this date: " In France everything is based on the will 
 of the king. Nobody, whatever might be his conscientious scruples, would dare ex- 
 press an opinion opposed to his. The French respect their king to such an extent 
 that they would not only sacrifice their property for him, but again their souls." 
 (Janssen, " L' Allemagne i la fin du moyen age," i. 484.) — As to the passage of the mo- 
 narchical to the democratic idea, we see it plainly in the following quotations from 
 Restif de la Bretonne : " I entertained no doubt that the king could legally oblige 
 any man to give me his wife or his daughter, and everybody in my village (Sacy in 
 Burgundy) thought so too." (" Monsieur Nicolas," i., 443.) — In relation to the Sep- 
 tember massiicres: "No, I do not pity them, those fanatical priests. . . When a 
 community or its majority wants anything, it is right. The minority is always culpa- 
 ble, even when right morally. Comnton-sense is all that is needed to appreciate that 
 truth. It is indisputable that the nation has the power to sacrifice even an innocent 
 person." (" Nuits de Paris," XVth, p. 377.)
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 131 
 
 venient a fulcrum on which to set up and turn their logical 
 wheel. This wheel, which they had latterly managed with 
 care and caution under the ancient regime, had suddenly in 
 their hands turned with frightful speed and effect in order to 
 convert into practical, rigid, universal, and applied laws the 
 intermittent processes, the theoretical pretensions, and the 
 worst precedents of the monarchy; that is to say, the use of 
 extraordinary commissions, accusations of Icse majestc, the 
 suppression of legal formalities, the persecution of religious 
 beliefs and of personal opinions, the right of condemning pub- 
 lications and of coercing thought, the right of instruction and 
 education, the rights of pre-emption, of requisition, of confis- 
 cation, and of proscription, in short, pure and perfect despot- 
 ism. The result is visible in the deeds of Treilhard, of Ber- 
 lier, of Merlin de Douai, of Cambaceres, in those of the Con- 
 stituant and Legislative Assemblies, in the Convention, under 
 the Directory, in their Jacobin zeal or hypocrisy, in their tal- 
 ent for combining despotic tradition with tyrannic innovation, 
 in their professional skill in fabricating on all occasions a 
 snare of plausible arguments with which to decently strangle 
 the individual, their adversary, to the profit of the State, their 
 eternal patron. 
 
 In effect, not only had they almost strangled their adversary, 
 but likewise, through reaction, their patron : France, after four- 
 teen months of suffocation, was approaching physical suicide.' 
 Such success, too great, had obliged them to stop; they had 
 abandoned one-half of their destructive creed, retaining only 
 the other half, the effect of which, less imminent, was less ap- 
 parent. If they no longer dared paralyze individual acts in 
 the man, they persisted in paralyzing in the individual all col- 
 lective acts. — There must be no special associations in gen- 
 eral society; no corporations within the State, especially no 
 spontaneous bodies endowed with the initiative, proprietary 
 and permanent; such is Article II. of the revolutionary creed, 
 and the direct consequence of the previous one which posits 
 axiomatically the sovereignty of the people and the omnipo- 
 
 I " The Revolution," iii., 393.
 
 132 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 tence of the State. Rousseau,' inventor of the first, had like- 
 wise enunciated the second; the constituent assembly had 
 solemnly decreed it and applied it on a grand scale," and suc- 
 cessive assemblies had applied it on a still grander scale ;^ it 
 was a faith with the Jacobins, and, besides, in conformity with 
 the spirit of Roman imperial right and with the leading maxim 
 of French monarchical right. On this point the three known 
 jurisprudential systems were in accord, while their converg- 
 ence brought together around the same table, the legists of 
 the three doctrines in a common task, ex-parliamentarians and 
 ex-members of the Committee of Public Safety, former pro- 
 scribers and the proscribed, the purveyors of Sinamari with 
 Treilhard and Merlin de Douai, returned from Guiana, along- 
 side of Simeon, Portalis, and Barbe-Marbois. There was no- 
 body in this conclave to maintain the rights of spontane- 
 ous bodies; the theory, on all three sides, no matter from 
 whom it proceeded, refused to recognize them for what they 
 are originally and essentially, that is to say, distinct organisms 
 equally natural with the State, equally indispensable in their 
 way, and, therefore, as legitimate as itself; it allowed them 
 only a life on trust, derived from above and from the centre. 
 But, since the State created them, it might and ought to treat 
 them as its creatures, keep them indefinitely under its thumb, 
 use them for its purposes, act through them as through other 
 agencies, and transform their chiefs into functionaries of the 
 central power, 
 
 III. 
 
 A new France, not the chimerical, communistic, equalized, 
 and Spartan France of Robespierre and St. Just, but a possi- 
 ble, real, durable, and yet levelled and uniform France, logi- 
 cally struck out at one blow, all of a piece, according to one 
 general principle, a France, centralized, administrative, and, 
 
 1 " Contrat Social," book ist, ch. lii.: "It is accordingly essential that, for the 
 enunciation of the general will, no special organization should exist in the Slate, and 
 that the opinion of each citizen should accord with that. Such was the unique and 
 sublime law of the great Lycurgus." 
 
 2 " The Revolution," i., 170. 
 
 3 Ibid., ii., 93; iii., 78-S2.
 
 CHAP. 111. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. I33 
 
 save the petty egoistic play of individuals, managed in one 
 entire body from top to bottom, — in short, the France which 
 Richelieu and Louis XIV. had longed for, which Mirabeau 
 after 1790' had foreseen, is now the work which the theories 
 of the monarchy and of the Revolution had prepared, and 
 toward which the final concurrence of events, that is to say, 
 " the alliance of philosophy and the sabre," led the sovereign 
 hands of the First Consul. 
 
 Accordingly, considering his well-kribwn character, the 
 promptitude, the activity, the reach, the universality, and the 
 cast of his intellect, he could not have proposed to himself a 
 different work nor reduced himself to one of a lower standard. 
 His need of governing and of administrating was too great ; 
 his capacity for governing and administrating was too great ; 
 his genius was absorbing. — Moreover, for the outward task 
 that he undertook he required internally, not only uncontested 
 possession of all executive and legislative powers, not only 
 perfect obedience from all legal authorities, but, again, the 
 entire subversion of all moral authority but his own, that is to 
 say, the silence of public opinion and the isolation of each 
 individual, and therefore the abolition, preventive and sys- 
 tematic, of any religious, ecclesiastic, pedagogic, charitable, 
 literary, departmental, or communal initiative that might at 
 
 I " Correspondance de Mirabeau et du Comte de la Marck," ii., 74 (Letter of 
 Mirabeau to the King, July 3, 1790): " Compare the new state of things with the an- 
 cient regime .... One portion of the acts of the national assembly (and that the 
 largest) is evidently favorable to monarchical government. Is it to have nothing, 
 then, to have no parliaments, no provincial governments, no privileged classes, no 
 clerical bodies, no nobility? The idea of forming one body of citizens would have 
 pleased Richelieu: this equalised surface facilitates the exercise of power. Many 
 years o_f absolute rule could not have done so much /or royal authority as this one 
 year of resolution. ''^ — Sainte-Beuve, " Port-Royal," v., 25 (M. Harlay conversing with 
 \.\\e.superieure of Port-Royal): "People are constantly talking about Port-Royal, about 
 these Port-Royal gentlemen: the King dislikes whatever excites talk. Only lately he 
 caused M. Arnaud to be informed that he did not approve of the meetings at his house ; 
 that there is no objection to his seeing all sorts of people indifferently like everybody 
 else, but why should certain persons always be found in his rooms and such an inti- 
 mate association among these gentlemen ? . . . The King does not want any »-<i//)'/«^- 
 point: a headless asseinldag^e in a .State is always dangerous.'' — ll>id., p. 33 : " The 
 reputation of this est:iblishment was too great. People were anxious to put their 
 children in it. Persons of rank sent theirs there. Everybody expressed satisfaction 
 with it. This provided it with friends who joined those of the establishment and 
 who together formed a platoon against the State. The King would not consent to 
 this: he regarded such unions as dangerous in a State."
 
 134 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 present or in the future group men against him or alongside of 
 him. Like a good general he provides for his retreat. At 
 strife with all Europe, he so arranges it as not to allow in the 
 France he drags along after him refractory souls or bodies 
 which might form platoons in his rear. Consequently, and 
 through precaution, he suppresses in advance all eventual 
 rallying points or centres of combination. Henceforth, every 
 wire which can stir up and bring a company of men together 
 for the same object terminates in his hands ; he holds in his 
 firm grasp all these combined wires, guards them with jealous 
 care, in order to strain them to the utmost. Let no one 
 attempt to loosen them, and, above all, let no one entertain a 
 thought of getting hold of them ; they belong to him and to 
 him alone, and compose the public domain, which is his 
 domain proper. *♦ 
 
 But, alongside of his proper domain, he recognizes another 
 in which he himself assigns a limit to the complete absorption 
 of all wills by his own ; he does not admit, of course in his 
 own interest, that the public power, at least in the civil order 
 of things and in common practice, should be illimitable 
 nor, especially, arbitrary.' — This is due to his not being an 
 Utopian or a theorist, like his predecessors of the Convention, 
 but a perspicacious statesman, who is in the habit of using his 
 own eyes. He sees things directly, in themselves ; he does not 
 imagine them through book formulse or club phrases, by a pro- 
 
 I " Napoleon I" et ses lois civiles," by Honord Perouse, 280 : "I have for a long 
 time given a great deal of thought and calculation to the re-establi'.hment of the social 
 edifice. I am to-day obliged to watch over the maintenance of public liberty. I have 
 no idea of the French people becoming serfs." — " The prefects are wrong in straining 
 their authority." — " The repose and freedom of citizens should not depend on the ex- 
 aggeration or arbitrariness of a mere administrator." — " Let authority be ft It by the 
 people as little as possible and not bear down on them needlessly." — (Letters of 
 January 15, 1806, March 6, 1807, January 12, 1809, to Fouchd, and of March 6, 1807, to 
 Regnault.) — Thibaudeau, " Memoires sur le Consulat," p. 178 (Words of the first 
 consul before the council of state): " True civil liberty depends on the security of prop- 
 erty. In no country can the rate of the ta.x-payer be changed every year. A man 
 with 3000 francs income does not know how much he will have left to live on the fol- 
 lowing year ; his entire income may be absorbed by the assessment on it. . . . A mere 
 clerk, with a dash of his pen, may overcharge you thousands of francs. . . . Nothing 
 has ever been done in France in behalf of real property. Whoever has a good law 
 passed on the cadastre (an official valuation of all the land in France) will deserve a 
 statue."
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 135 
 
 cess of verbal reasoning, employing the gratuitous suppositions 
 of humanitarian optimism or the dogmatic prejudices of Jaco- 
 bin imbecility. He sees man just as he is, not man in him- 
 self, the abstract citizen, the philosophic manikin of the 
 Contrat Social, but the real individual, the entire living man, 
 with his profound instincts, his tenacious necessities, which, 
 whether tolerated or not by legislation, still subsist and oper- 
 ate infallibly, and which the legislator must take into consid- 
 eration if he wants to turn them to account. — This individual, 
 a civilized European and a modern Frenchman, constituted as 
 he is by several centuries of tolerable police discipline, of re- 
 spected rights and hereditary property, must have a private 
 domain, an inclosed area, large or small, which belongs and is 
 reserved to him personally, to which the public power inter- 
 dicts access and before which it mounts guard to prevent 
 other individuals from intruding on it. Otherwise his condi- 
 tion seems intolerable to him ; he is no longer disposed to 
 exert himself, to set his wits to work, or co enter on any enter- 
 prise. Let us be careful not to mar or relax in him this power- 
 ful and precious spring of action ; let him continue to work, to 
 produce, to economize, if only that he may be in a condition 
 to pay taxes ; let him continue to marry, to bring forth and 
 raise up sons, if only to serve the conscription. Let us ease 
 his mind with regard to his inclosure ; ' let him exercise full 
 
 I Honore Pdrouse, Ilnd.. 274 (Speech of Napoleon to the council of state on the law 
 on mines): " Myself, with many armies at my disposition. I could not take possession 
 of any one's field, for the violation of the right of property in ore case would be vio- 
 lating!^ it in all. The secret is to have mines become actual property, and hence sacred 
 in fact and by law." — l!ii</.. 279: " What is the right of property ? It is not only the 
 right of using but, again, of abusing it. . . . One must always keep in mind tlie advan- 
 tage of owning property. The best protection to the owner of property is the interest 
 of the individual ; one may always rely on his activity. . . . Legislation should favor 
 the proprietor. . . . He must be allowed great freedom of action, because whatever 
 interferes with the use of property displeases the citizen. ... A government makes a 
 great mistake in trying to be too paternal ; liberty and property arc both ruined by 
 over-solicitude." — " If the government prescribes the way in which pro()erty shall be 
 used it no longer exists." — Ibid., 284 (Letters of Aug. 21 and Sept. 7, i8oq, on expropria- 
 tions by public authority) : " It is indispensable that the courts should supervise, stop 
 expropriation, receive complaints of and guarantee property-owners against the en- 
 terprises of our prefects, our prefecture councils and all other agents. . . . E.xpropria- 
 tion is a judicial proceeding. ... I cannot conceive how France can have proprieto'S 
 if anybody can be deprived of his field simply by an administrative decision." — In re- 
 lation to the ownership of mines, to the cadastre, to expropriation, and to the portion
 
 136 THE MODERN REGIME. book il. 
 
 proprietorship over it and enjoy it exclusively ; let him feel 
 himself at home in his own house in perpetuity, safe from any 
 intrusion, protected by the code and by the courts, not alone 
 against his enemies, but against the administration itself. Let 
 him in this well-defined, circumscribed abode be free to turn 
 round and range as he pleases, free to browse at will, and, if 
 he chooses, to consume all his hay himself. It is not essen- 
 tial that his meadows should be very extensive : most men live 
 with their nose to the ground ; very few look beyond a very 
 narrow' circle ; men are not much troubled by being penned 
 up ; the egoism and urgent needs of daily life are already for 
 them ready-made limits ; within these natural barriers they ask 
 for nothing but to be allowed to graze in security. Let us give 
 them this assurance and leave them free to consult their own 
 welfare. — As to the rest, in very small number, more or less 
 imaginative, energetic, and ardent, there is, outside the inclos- 
 ure, an issue expressly provided for them ; the new administra- 
 tive and military professions offer an outlet to their ambitior^ 
 and to their self-love which, from the start, keeps on expand- 
 ing until, suddenly, the First Consul points to an infinite per- 
 spective on the horizon.' According to an expression attrib- 
 uted to him, henceforth, " the field is open to all talents," and 
 henceforth all talents, gathered into the central current and 
 precipitated headlong through emulation, swell with their 
 afflux the immensity of the public power. 
 
 This done, the principal features of modern France are 
 traced ; a creature of a new and strange type arises, defines 
 itself, and issues forth, its structure determining its destiny, 
 
 of property which a man might bequeath, Napoleon was more liberal than his legists. 
 — Madame de Stael, " Dix annees d'exil," ch. xviii. (Napoleon conversing with the 
 tribune Gallois) : " Liberty consists of a good civil code, while modern nations care 
 for nothing but property." — " Correspondance," letter to Fouch^, Jan. 15, 1805. 
 (This letter gives a good summary of his ideas on government.) " In France, what- 
 ever IS not forbidden is allowed, and nothing can be forbidden except by the laws, by 
 the courts, or hy police measures in all matters relatingto piiblic order and titorality." 
 I Rcederer, " (Euvres completes," iii., 339 (Speech by the First Consul, October 21, 
 1800) : " Rank, now, is a recompense for every faithful service— the great advantage of 
 equality, which has converted 20.000 lieutenancies, formerly useless in relation to 
 emulation, into the legitimate ambition and honorable reward of 400,000 soldiers." — 
 Lafayette, " M^moires," v., 350: "Under Napoleon, the soldiers said, he has beertL 
 /iromoted King 0/ Naples, of Holland, 0/ Sweden, or 0/ Spain, as formerly it was said 
 that a man had ti^^Vi promoted sergeant in this or that company."
 
 CHAP, III. FOKMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 137 
 
 It consists of a social body organized by a despot and for a 
 despot, calculated for the use of one man, excellent for action 
 under the impulsion of a unique will, with a superior intelli- 
 gence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains lucid 
 and this will remains healthy ; adapted to a military life and 
 not to civil life, and therefore badly balanced, hampered 
 (ge'n^) in its development, exposed to periodical crises, con- 
 demned to precocious debility, but viable for a long time, and, 
 for the present, robust, alone able to bear the weight of the 
 new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive years the 
 crushing labor, the conquering obedience, the superhuman, 
 murderous, insensate effort which its master exacts. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let us take a nearer view of the master's idea and of the 
 way in which, at this moment, he figures to himself the society 
 which is assuming new shape in his hands. All the leading 
 features of the plan are fixed beforehand in his mind : they 
 are already deeply graven on it through his education and 
 through his instinct. By virtue of this instinct, which is 
 despotic, by virtue of this education, which is classic and 
 Latin, he conceives human associations not in the modern 
 fashion, Germanic and Christian, as a concert of initiations 
 starting from below, but in the antique fashion, pagan and 
 Roman, as a hierarchy of authorities imposed from above. 
 He puts his own spirit into his civil institutions, the military 
 spirit ; consequently, he constructs a huge barracks wherein, 
 to begin with, he lodges thirty million men, women, and chil- 
 dren, and, later on, forty-two million, all the way from Ham- 
 burg to Rome. 
 
 The edifice is, of course, superb and of a new style. On 
 comparing it with other societies in surrounding Europe, and 
 particularly France as she was previous to 1789, the contrast 
 is striking. — Everywhere else the social edifice is a composi- 
 tion of many distinct structures — provinces, cities, seignories, 
 churches, universities, and corporations. Each has begun by 
 being a more or less isolated block of buildings where, on an 
 inclosed area, a population has lived apart. Little by little the
 
 13^ THE MODERN REGIME. book u. 
 
 barriers have given way ; either they have been broken in or 
 have tumbled down of their own accord ; passages have been 
 made between one and the other and new additions have been 
 put up ; at last, these scattered buildings have all become con- 
 nected and soldered on as annexes to the central pile. But 
 they combine with it only through a visible and clumsy jux- 
 taposition, through incomplete and bizarre communications : 
 the vestiges of their former independence are still apparent 
 athwart their actual dependence. Each still rests on its own 
 primitive and appropriate foundations ; its grand lines subsist ; 
 its main work is often almost intact. In France, on the eve 
 of 1789, it is easily recognized what she formerly was ; for 
 example, it is clear that Languedoc and Brittany were once 
 sovereign States, Strasbourg a sovereign town, the Bishop of 
 Mende and the Abbess of Remiremont, sovereign princes ; ' 
 every seignior, laic, or ecclesiastic, was so in his own domain, 
 and he still possessed some remnants of public power. In 
 brief, we see thousands of states within the State, absorbed, 
 but not assimilated, each with its own statutes, its own legal cus- 
 toms, its own civil law, its own weights and measures ; several 
 with special privileges and immunities ; some with their own 
 jurisdiction and their own peculiar administration, with their 
 own imposts and tariffs like so many more or less dismantled 
 fortresses, but whose old feudal, municipal, or provincial walls 
 still rose lofty and thick on the soil comprehended within the 
 national enclosure. 
 
 Nothing could be more irregular than this total aggregate 
 thus formed ; it is not really an entire whole, but an agglom- 
 eration. No plan, good or bad, has been followed out ; the 
 architecture is of ten different styles and of ten different 
 epochs. That of the dioceses is Roman and of the fourth 
 century ; that of the seignories is Gothic and of the ninth 
 century ; one structure dates from the Capetians, another 
 from the Valois, and each bears the character of its date. Be- 
 cause each has been built for itself and with no regard to the 
 others, adapted to an urgent service according to the exigen- 
 cies or requirements of time, place, and circumstance ; after- 
 
 I " The Ancient Regime," book i., ch. 2, the Structure of Society, especially pp. 19-21. 
 
 i 
 
 II
 
 CHAP. 111. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 139 
 
 ward, when circumstances changed, it had to adapt itself to 
 other services, and this constantly from century to century, 
 under Philippe le Bel, under Louis XL, under Francis L, 
 under Richelieu, under Louis XIV., through constant revision 
 which never consists of entire destruction, through a series of 
 partial demolitions and of partial reconstructions, in such a 
 way as to maintain itself, during the transformation, in con- 
 ciliating, well or ill, new demands and rooted habits, in 
 reconciling the work of the passing generation with the works 
 of generations gone before. — The central seignory itself is 
 merely a donjon of the tenth century, a military tower of 
 which the inclosure has extended so as to embrace the entire 
 territory, and of which the other buildings, more or less in- 
 corporated with it, have become prolongations. — A similar 
 medley of constructions — disfigured by such mutilations, ad- 
 juncts, and patches, a pell-mell so complicated with such 
 incongruous bits and fragments — can be comprehended only 
 by antiquaries and historians ; ordinary spectators — the public 
 — pronounce it absurd ; it finds no favor with that class of 
 reasoners who, in social architecture as in physical architec- 
 ture, repudiate disorder, posit theories, deduce consequences, 
 and require that every work shall proceed from the applica- 
 tion of a simple idea. 
 
 And worse still, not only is good taste offended but, again, 
 good sense often murmurs. Practically, the edifice fails in its 
 object, for, erected for men to dwell in, it is in many places 
 scarcely habitable. Because it endures it is found superannu- 
 ated, ill-adapted to prevailing customs ; it formerly suited, 
 and still suits, the feudal, scattered, and militant way of liv- 
 ing ; hence it no longer suits the unity and repose of modern 
 life. New-born rights obtain no place in it alongside of estab- 
 lished rights ; it is either not sufficiently transformed or it 
 has been transformed in an opposite sense, in such a way as 
 to be inconvenient or unhealthy, badly accommodating people 
 who are useful and giving good accommodations to useless 
 people, costing too much to keep up and causing discomfort 
 and discontent to nearly all its occupants. — In France, in 
 particular, the best apartments, especially that of the King,
 
 14° THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 are for a century past too high and too large, too sumptuous 
 and too expensive. Since Louis XIV. these have impercep- 
 tibly ceased to be government and business bureaus ; they 
 have become in their disposition, decoration, and furnishing, 
 saloons for pomp and conversation, the occupants of which 
 for lack of other employment, delight in discussing architec- 
 ture and in tracing plans on paper for an imaginary edifice in 
 which everybody will find himself comfortable. Now, under- 
 neath these, everybody finds himself uncomfortable, the bour- 
 geoisie in its small scanty lodgings on the ground-floor and 
 the people in their holes in the cellar, which are low and 
 damp, wherein light and air never penetrate. Innumerable 
 vagabonds and vagrants are still worse off, for, with no shelter 
 or fireside, they sleep under the stars, and as they are without 
 anything to care for, they are disposed to pull everything 
 down. — Under the double pressure of insurrection and theory 
 the demolition begins, while the fury of destruction goes on 
 increasing until nothing is left of the overthrown edince but 
 the soil it stood on. 
 
 The new one rises on this cleared ground and, historically 
 as well as structurally, it differs from all the others. — In less 
 than ten years it springs up and is finished according to a 
 plan which, from the first day, is definite and complete. It 
 forms one unique, vast, monumental block, in which all 
 branches of the service are lodged under one roof ; in addi- 
 tion to the national and general services belonging to the 
 public power, we find here others also, local and special, which 
 do not belong to it, such as worship, education, charity, fine 
 arts, literature, departmental and communal interests, each 
 installed in a distinct compartment. All the compartments 
 are ordered and arranged alike, forming a circle around the 
 magnificent central apartment, with which each is in communi- 
 cation by a bell ; as soon as the bell rings and the sound 
 spreads from division to sub-division, the entire service, from 
 the chief clerk down to the lowest employee, is instantly in 
 motion ; in this respect the arrangement, as regards despatch, 
 co-ordination, exactitude, and working facilities, is admirable.' 
 
 I " Memorial de Sainte-Hel^ne."— Napoleon, speaking of his imperial organization,
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 141 
 
 On the other hand, its advantages and attractions for 
 employees and aspirants of every kind and degree are not 
 mediocre. There is no separation between the stories, no 
 insurmountable barrier or inclosure between large and small 
 apartments ; all, from the least to the finest, from the outside as 
 well as from the inside, have free access. Spacious entrances 
 around the exterior terminate in broad, well-lighted staircases 
 open to the public ; everybody can clamber up that pleases, 
 and to mount these one must clamber ; from top to bottom 
 there is no other communication than that which they present. 
 There is no concealed and privileged passage, no private stair- 
 way or false door ; glancing along the whole rectilinear, uniform 
 flight, we behold the innumerable body of clerks, functionaries, 
 supernumeraries, and postulants, an entire multitude, ranged 
 tier beyond tier and attentive ; nobody advances except at 
 the word and in his turn. — Nowhere in Europe are human 
 lives so well regulated, within lines of demarcation so univer- 
 sal, so simple, and so satisfactory to the eye and to logic : the 
 edifice in which Frenchmen are henceforth to move and act 
 is regular from top to bottom, in its entirety as well as in its 
 details, outside as well as inside ; its stories, one above the 
 other, are adjusted with exact symmetry ; its juxtaposed masses 
 form pendants and counterpoise ; all its lines and forms, 
 every dimension and proportion, all its props and buttresses 
 combine, through their mutual dependencies, to compose a 
 harmony and to maintain an equilibrium. In this respect 
 the structure is classic, belonging to the same family of pro- 
 ductions which the same spirit, guided by the same method, 
 had produced in Europe for the previous one hundred and 
 fifty years.' Its analogues, in the physical order of things, are 
 the architectural productions of Mansard, Le Notre, and their 
 successors, from the structures and gardens of Versailles down 
 
 said that he had made the most compact goTernment, one with the quickest circula- 
 tion and the most nervous energy, that ever existed. And. he remarked, nothing but 
 this would have answered in overcoming the immense difficulties around us. and for 
 effecting the wonderful things we accomplished. The organization of prefectures, 
 their action, their results, were admirable and prodigious. The same impulsion affected 
 at the same time more than forty millions of men, and, aided by centres of local activity, 
 the action was as rapid at every extremity as at the heart." 
 I "The Ancient Rdgime," book lii., chs. 2 and 3.
 
 142 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 to and embracing the Madeleine and the Rue de Rivoli. In 
 the intellectual order, its analogues consist of the literary 
 forms of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the superb 
 oratorical prose and correct, eloquent poetry, especially epics 
 and tragedies, including those still manufactured according to 
 rule about the year 1810. It corresponds to these and forms 
 their pendant in the political and social order of things, be- 
 cause it emanates from the same deliberate purpose. Four 
 constitutions, in the same style, preceded it ; but these were 
 good only on paper, while this one stands firm on the ground. 
 For the first time in modern history we see a society due 
 to ratiocination and, at the same time, substantial ; the new 
 France, under these two heads, is the masterpiece of the classic 
 spirit. 
 
 V. 
 
 Nevertheless, on going back beyond modern times, beyond 
 the Middle Ages, as far as the antique world, we encounter in 
 the age of Diocletian and Constantine another monument 
 whose architecture, equally regular, is developed on a still 
 grander scale, and because, in that remote era, we breathe the 
 natal atmosphere and stand on the natal soil of the classic 
 spirit. — At this date, human materials, much more thoroughly 
 broken up and better prepared than in France, existed like- 
 wise in the requisite condition. At this date, we likewise 
 see at work the prearranging reasoning faculty which sim- 
 plifies in order to deduce, which leaves out historic cus- 
 toms and local diversities, which fixes attention on man as 
 he is, which treats individuals as units and the people as 
 totals, which forcibly applies its general outlines to all special 
 lives, and which glories in constituting, legislating, and ad- 
 ministering by rule according to the measurements of square 
 and compass. — At this date, in effect, the turn of mind, the 
 talent, the ways of the Roman architect, his object, his 
 resources and his means of execution, are already those of his 
 French successor ; the conditions around him in the Roman 
 world are equivalent ; behind him in Roman history the 
 precedents, ancient and recent, are almost the same.
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 143 
 
 In the first place, there is, since Augustus, the absolute 
 monarchy, and, since the Antonines, administrative centraliza- 
 tion;' after this, all the old national and municipal communi- 
 ties broken up or crushed out, all collective existences chilled 
 or extinguished, the slow wearing away of local patriotism, the 
 increasing diminution of individual initiative, and, under the in- 
 vasive interference, direction, and providence of the State, one 
 hundred millions of men more and more separated from each 
 other and passive ;' consequently, in full enjoyment of peace 
 and internal prosperity under the appearances of union, force, 
 and health, latent feebleness, and, as in France on the approach 
 of 1789, a coming dissolution. — There is next, as after 1789 
 in France, the total collapse, not from below and among the 
 people, but from above and through the army, a worse collapse 
 than in France, prolonged for fifty years of anarchy, civil wars, 
 local usurpations, ephemeral tyrannies, urban seditions, rural 
 jacqueries, brigandage, famines, and invasions along the whole 
 frontier, with such a ruin of agriculture and other useful activ- 
 ities, with such a diminution of public and private capital, 
 with such a destruction of human lives that, in twenty years, 
 the number of the population seems to have diminished one- 
 half.' There is, finally, as after 1799, in France, the re-estab- 
 lishment of order brought about more slowly, but by the same 
 means, the army and a dictatorship, in the rude hands of three 
 or four great military parvenus, Pannonians or Dalmatians, 
 Bonapartes of Sirmium or of Scutari, they too, of a new race 
 or of intact energy, adventurers and children of their own 
 deeds, the last Diocletian, like Napoleon, a restorer and an 
 innovator; around them, as around Napoleon, to aid them in 
 their civil undertakings, is a crowd of expert administrators 
 
 1 Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," chs. i, 2, 3, and 13. — Duruy, 
 •' Histoire des Rnmains" (illustrated edition), tenth period, chs. 82, 83, 84, and 85 ; 
 twelfth period, chs. 95 and gg ; fourtcnth period, ch. 104. — (The reader will find in these 
 two excellent works the texts and monuments indicated to which it is necessary to 
 resort for a direct and satisfactory impression.) 
 
 2 See in Plutarch (Principles of Political Government) the situation of a Greek city 
 under the Antonines. 
 
 3 Gibbon, ch. 10. — Duruy, ch. 95. (Decrease of the population of Alexandria under 
 Gallien, according to the registers of the alimentary institution, letter of the bishop 
 Dionysius.)
 
 144 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 and eminent jurisconsults, all practitioners, statesmen, and 
 business men, and yet men of culture, logicians, and philos- 
 ophers, imbued with the double governmental and humanita- 
 rian idea, which for three centuries Greek speculation and 
 Roman practice had introduced into minds and imaginations, 
 at once levelling and authoritative, tending to exaggerate the 
 attributes of the State and the supreme power of the prince,' 
 no less inclined to putting natural right in the place of positive 
 law,^ to preferring equity and logic to antiquity and to custom, 
 to restoring the dignity of manhood to every human being, to 
 raising the condition of the slave, of the provincial, of the 
 debtor, of the bastard, of woman, of the child, and to forcing 
 into human community all its inferior members, foreign or 
 degraded, which the ancient constitution of the family and of 
 the city had excluded from it. 
 
 Accordingly, in the political, legislative, and judicial organ- 
 izations which extend from Diocletian to Constantine, and 
 beyond these down to Theodosius, Napoleon found the grand 
 lines of his own work traced back, and, at the base, popular 
 sovereignty ; ^ the powers of the people delegated uncondition- 
 ally to one man; this omnipotence, conferred, theoretically 
 or apparently, through the free choice of citizens, but really 
 through the will of the army; no protection against the Prince's 
 arbitrary edict, otherwise than a no less arbitrary rescript from 
 the same hand ; his successor designated, adopted, and qualified 
 by himself; a senate for show, a council of state for business ; 
 
 1 " Dig^est," i., 4, I.: "Quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem, utpote, cum lejre 
 regia, quae de imperio ejus lata est, populus ei et in eum omne suum imperium et po- 
 testatem conferat. Quodcumque igitur imperator per epistolam et subscriptionem 
 staluit, vel cognoscens decrevit, vel de piano interlocutus est, vel edicto prsecepit, legis 
 habet vigorem." (Extracts from Ulpian.) — GTixas, Institutes, \., z: "Quod imperator 
 constituit, non dubium est quin id vicem legis obtineat, quum ipse imperator per legem 
 imperium obtineat." 
 
 2 "Digest," i., 2 (Extracts from Ulpian): "Jus est a justitia appellatum ; nam, ut 
 eleganter Celsus definit, jus est ars boni et aequi. Cujus merito quis nos sacerdotes 
 appellat : justitiam namque colimus, et boni et sequi nolitiam profitemur. sequum ab 
 iniquo separantes, licitum ab illicito discernentes, . . . veram. nisi fallor, fihilo- 
 sophiam, non sivmlatavt affectantes. . . . Juris praecepta sunt haec : 4ioneste vivere, 
 alterum non laedere, suum cuique tribuere." — Cf. Duruy, 12th period, ch. 87. 
 
 3 Cf., on this immemorial principle of the entire body of Roman public law, " Histoire 
 des institutions politiques et priveesde Pancienne France," vol. i.,book ii., ch. i, p. 66 
 and following pages.
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 145 
 
 all local powers conferred from above ; cities under tutelage ; 
 all subjects endowed with the showy title of citizen, and all 
 citizens reduced to the humble condition of taxpayers and of 
 people under control ; an administration of a hundred thousand 
 arms which takes all services into its hands, comprising public 
 instruction, public succor, and public supplies of food, together 
 with systems of worship, at first pagan cults, and afterward, 
 after Constantine, the Christian cult ; all these services classi- 
 fied, ranked, co-ordinated, carefully defined in such a way as 
 not to encroach on each other, and carefully combined in such 
 a way as to complete each other; an immense hierarchy of 
 transferable functionaries kept at work from above on one 
 hundred and eighty square leagues of territory; thirty popu- 
 lations of different race and language — Syrians, Egyptians, 
 Numidians, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, Germans, Greeks, Ital- 
 ians — subject to the same uniform regime; the territory 
 divided like a checker-board, on arithmetical and geomet- 
 rical principles, into one hundred or one hundred and twenty 
 small provinces; old nations or States dismembered and pur- 
 posely cut up so as to put an end forever to natural, sponta- 
 neous, and viable groups; a minute and verified census every 
 fifteen years to correctly assign land taxes; an official and 
 universal language; a State system of worship, and, very soon, 
 a Church and State orthodoxy; a systematic code, full and 
 precise, admirable for the rule of private life, a sort of moral 
 geometry in which the theorems, rigorously linked together, 
 are attached to the definitions and axioms of abstract justice; 
 a scale of grades, one above the other, which everybody may 
 ascend from the first to the last; titles of nobility more and 
 more advanced, suited to more and more advanced functions; 
 spedabiles, illustres, clarissimi, perfectisshtii, analogous to Napo- 
 leon's Barons, Counts, Dukes, and Princes; a programme of 
 promotion once exhibiting, and on which are still seen, com- 
 mon soldiers, peasants, a shepherd, a barbarian, the son of a 
 cultivator {colon), the grandson of a slave, mounting gradually 
 upward to the highest dignities, becoming patrician. Count, 
 Duke, commander of the cavalry, Ctesar, Augustus, and don- 
 ning the imperial purple, enthroned amid ihe most sumptuous
 
 146 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 magnificence and the most elaborate ceremonial prostrations, 
 a being called God during his lifetime, and after death adored 
 as a divinity, and dead or alive, a complete divinity on earth.' 
 So colossal an edifice, so admirably adjusted, so mathe- 
 matical, could not wholly perish; its hewn stones were too 
 massive, too nicely squared, too exactly fitted, and the demol- 
 isher's hammer could not reach down to its deepest founda- 
 tions. — This one, through its shaping and its structure, through 
 its history and its duration, resembles the stone edifices which 
 the same people at the same epoch elevated on the same soil, 
 the aqueducts, amphitheatres, and triumphal arches, the Coli- 
 seum, the baths of Diocletian and of Caracalla; the mediaeval 
 man, using their intact foundations and their shattered frag- 
 ments, built here and there, haphazard, according to the neces- 
 sities of the moment, planting his Gothic towers between Corin- 
 thian columns against the panels of walls still standing/ 
 But, under his incoherent masonry, he observed the beautiful 
 forms, the precious marbles, the architectural combinations, 
 the symmetrical taste of an anterior and superior art; he felt 
 that his own work was rude; the new world, to all thinking 
 minds, was miserable compared with the old one ; its lan- 
 guages seemed a patois, its literature mere stammering or 
 drivelling, its law a mass of abuses or a mere routine, its feu- 
 dality anarchy, and its social arrangements, disorder. — In vain 
 had the mediaeval man striven to escape through all issues, by 
 the temporal road and by the spiritual road, by the universal 
 and absolute monarchy of the German Caesars, and by the 
 universal and absolute monarchy of the Roman pontiffs. At 
 the end of the fifteenth century the Emperor still possessed 
 the golden globe, the golden crown, the sceptre of Charle- 
 magne and of Otho the Great, but, after the death of Fred- 
 erick TI., he was nothing more than a majesty for show; the 
 Pope still wore the tiara, still held the pastoral staff and the 
 keys of Gregory VII. and of Innocent III., but, after the death 
 
 I Read the "Notitia dignitatum tam civiliura quam militariutn in partibus orienlis 
 et occidentis." It is the imperial almanac for the beginning of the fifth century. 
 There are eleven ministers at the centre, each with his bureaux, divisions, subdivisions 
 and squads of superposed functionaries. 
 
 a Cf. Piranesi's engravings. 
 
 ^
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 147 
 
 of Boniface VIII., he was nothing more than a majesty of the 
 Church. Both abortive restorations had merely added ruins 
 to ruins, while the phantom of the ancient empire alone re- 
 mained erect amid so many fragments. Grand in its outlines 
 and decorations, it stood there, august, dazzling, in a halo, 
 the unique masterpiece of art and of reason, as the ideal form 
 of human society. For ten centuries this spectre haunted the 
 mediaeval epoch, and nowhere to such an extent as in Italy. 
 
 It reappears the last time in 1800, starting up in and taking 
 firm hold of the magnificent, benighted imagination of the 
 great Italian,' to whom the opportunity afforded the means 
 
 I We can trace in Napoleon's brain and date the formation of this leading idea. At 
 first, it is simply a classic reminiscence, as with his contemporaries ; but suddenly it 
 takes a turn and has an environment in his mind which is lacking in theirs, and which 
 prevents the idea from reraaining a purely literary phrase. From the beginning he 
 speaks of Rome in the fashion of a Rienzi. (Proclamation of May 20, 1796.) '• Wc are 
 the friends of every people, and especially of the Brutuses, the Scipios, and of the great 
 men whom we have chosen as models. To re-establish the Capitol, to place there with 
 honor the statues of heroes who render it famous, to arouse the Roman people benumbed 
 by centuries of slavery, such will be the fruit of our victories."— Fifteen months after- 
 wards, on becoming master of Italy, his historic meditations turn into positive ambition: 
 henceforth, the possession of Italy and of the Mediterranean Is to be with him a central 
 and preponderant idea. (Letter to the Directory, Aug. 16, 1797, and correspondence 
 on the subject of Corsica, Sardinia, Naples, and Genoa; letters to the pacha of 
 Scutari, to the Maniotes, etc.) " The islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cephalonia are of 
 more interest to us than all Italy put together. . . . The Turkish empire is daily totter- 
 ing; the possession of these islands will enable us to support it as long as possible, or 
 to take our portion of it. The time is not remote when we shall feel that, for the real 
 destruction of England, we must get possession of Egypt." Formerly, the Mediter- 
 ranean was a Roman lake ; it must become a French lake. (Cf. " Souvenirs d'un 
 Sexag^naire," by Arnault, vol. iv., p. 102, on his dream, in 1798, of making Paris a colos- 
 sal Rome.)— At this same date, his conception of the State is fi.xed and wholly Roman. 
 (Conversations with Miot, June 1797, and letter to Talleyrand, Septem. 19, 1797.) '" I 
 do not sec but one thing in fifty years well defined, and that is the sovereignty of the 
 people. . . . The organization of the French nation is still only sketched out. . . . 
 The power of the government, with the full latitude I give to it, should be considered 
 as really representing the nation." In this government, " the legislative power, witli- 
 out rank in the republic, deaf and blind to all around it, would not be ambitious and 
 would no longer inundate us with a thousand chance laws, worthless on account of 
 their absurdity." It is evident that he describes in anticipation his future senate and 
 legislative corps.— Repeatedly, the following year, and during the expedition into 
 Egypt, he presents the Romans as an example to his soldiers, and views himself as a 
 successor to Scipio and Caesar. — (Proclamation of June 22, 1798.) " Be as tolerant to 
 the ceremonies enjoined by the Koran as you are for the religion of Moses and Jesus. 
 The Roman legions protected all r<-//i'/V)«j."—( Proclamation of May lo, 1798.) " The 
 Roman legions that you ha-e often imitated hut not yet equalled fought Carthage m 
 turn on this wall and in the vicinity of Zama."— Carthage at this time is England: his 
 hatred of this community of merchants which destroys his tleet at Aboukir, which 
 forces him to raise the siege of Saint-Jean d'Acre, which holds on to Malta, which robs
 
 148 THE MODERN REGIME. book ii. 
 
 for executing the grand Italian dream of the Middle Ages; it 
 is according to this retrospective vision that the Diocletian of 
 Ajaccio, the Constantine of the Concordat, the Justinian of 
 the Civil Code, the Theodosius of the Tuileries and of St. 
 Cloud reconstructed France. 
 
 This does not mean that he copies — he restores; his con- 
 ception is not plagiarism, but a case of atavism; it comes to 
 him through the nature of his intellect and through racial 
 traditions. In the way of social and political conceptions, as 
 in literature and in art, his spontaneous taste is ultra-classic. 
 We detect this in his mode of comprehending the history of 
 France; State historians, " encouraged by the police," must 
 make it to order; they must trace it " from the end of Louis 
 XIV. to the year viii," and their object must be to show- 
 how superior the new architecture is to the old one.' " The 
 constant disturbance of the finances must be noted, the chaos 
 of the provincial assemblies, . . . the pretensions of the 
 parliaments, the lack of energy and order in the administra- 
 tion, that parti-colored France zvith no unity of laws or of ad- 
 ministration, being rather a union of twenty kingdoms than 
 one single State, so that one breathes on reaching the epoch in 
 which people enjoy the benefits of the unity of the laws, of 
 the administration, and of the territory." In effect, he 
 breathes ; in thus passing from the former to the latter spec- 
 tacle, he finds real intellectual pleasure; his eyes, offended 
 with Gothic disorder, turn with relief and satisfaction to ma- 
 jestic simplicity and classic regularity; his eyes are those of a 
 Latin architect brought up in the " Ecole de Rome." 
 
 This is so true that, outside of this style, he admits of no 
 
 him of his substance, his patrimony, his Mediterranean, is that of a Roman Consul 
 against Carthage ; it leads him to conquer all western Europe apainst her and to " re- 
 suscitate the empire 0/ the Occident.''^ (Note to Otto, his ambassador at London, Octo. 
 23, 1802.) — Emperor of the French king of Italy, master of Rome, suzerain of the Pope, 
 protector of the confederation of the Rhine, he succeeds the German emperors, the 
 titularies of the Holy Roman Empire which has just ended in 1806 ; he is accordingly 
 the heir of Charlemagne and, through Charlemagne, the heir of the ancient Caesars. — 
 In fact, he reproduces the work of the ancient Caesars by analogies of imagination, 
 situation and character, but in a different Europe, and where this posthumous repro- 
 duction can be only an anachronism. 
 
 ' ' Correspondance," note for M. Cretet, minister of the interior, April 12, 1808.
 
 CHAP. III. FORMATION OF THE NEW STATE. 149 
 
 Other. Societies of a different type seem to him absurd. He 
 misconceives their local propriety and the historical reasons 
 for their existence. He takes no account of their solidity. 
 He is going to dash himself against Spain and against Rus- 
 sia, and he has no comprehension whatever of England.' — 
 This is so true that, wherever he places his hand he applies 
 his own social system ; he imposes on annexed territories and 
 on vassal^ countries the same uniform arrangements, his own 
 administrative hierarchy, his own territorial divisions and sub- 
 
 1 Metternich, " Mdmoires," i., 107 (Conversations with Napoleon, 1810): "I was 
 surprised to find tliat this man. so wonderfully endowed, had such completely false 
 ideas concerning England, its vital forces and intellectual progress. He would not 
 admit any ideas contrary to his own, and sought to explain these by prejudices which 
 he condemned."— Cf. Forsyth, " History of the Captivity of Napoleon at Saint- 
 Helena," ill., 306, (False calculations of Napoleon at Saint-Helena based on his igno- 
 rance of the English parliamentary system,) and Stanislas Girardin, iii., 296, (Words 
 of the First Consul, Floreal 24, year xi, quoted above.) 
 
 2 Cf., amongst other documents, his letter to Jerome, King of Westphalia, October 
 15, 1807, and the constitution he gives to that kingdom on that date, and especially 
 titles 4 to J2 : " The welfare of your people concerns me, not only through the influ- 
 ence It may exercise on your fame and my own, but likewise from the point of view of 
 the generai Euro/>ea ft system. . . . Individuals who have talent and are not noble 
 must enjoy equal consideration and employment from you. . . . Lei e^eyy species 0/ 
 serfage and 0/ intermediary lien between the soiereign and the lowest class 0/ people 
 be abolished. The benefits of the code Napoleon, the publicity of proceedings, the 
 establishment of juries, will form so many distinctive characieristics of your mon- 
 archy." — His leading object is the suppression of feudalism, that is to say, of the 
 great families and old historic authorities. He relies for this especially on his civil 
 code: "That is the great advantage of the code; ... it is what has induced me 
 to preach a civil code and made me decide on establishing it." (Letter to Joseph, 
 King of Naples, June 5. 1806.)— " The code Napoleon is adopted throughout Italy. 
 Florence has it, and Rome will soon have it." (Letter to Joachim, King of the Two 
 Sicilies. Nov. 27, 1808.)—" My intention is to have the Hanseatic towns adopt the code 
 Napoleon and be governed by it from and after the ist of January."— The same 
 with Dantzic : "Insinuate gently and not by writing to the King of Bavaria, the- 
 Prince-primate, the grand-dukes of Hesse-Darmstadt and of Raden. that the civil 
 code should be established in their states by suppressing all customary law and con- 
 fining themselves wholly to the code Napoleon." (Letter to M. de Champagny, Oct. 
 .•?!, 1807.)—" The Roiiinns gaTe their laws to their allies. Why should not France 
 have lis laws adopted in Holland ? ... It is equally essential that you should adopt 
 the French monetary system." (Letter to Louis, King of Holland, Nov. 13, 1807.) 
 —To the Spaniards : " Your nephews will honor me as their regenerator." (Allocution 
 addressed to Madrid Dec. 9, 1808.)— '•Sp:iin must be French. The country must be 
 French and the government must be French." (Roederer, iii., 529, 5^6, words of 
 Napoleon. Feb. 11, 1809.)— In short, following the example of Rome, which had Latin- 
 ized the entire Mediterranean coast, he w.nnted to render all western Europe Ftench. 
 The object was, as he declared, " to establish and consecrate at last the empire 0/ 
 reason and thc/ull exercise, the complete enjoyment 0/ every human /acuity." (Afd- 
 morial.)
 
 150 THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK ll. 
 
 divisions, his own conscription, his civil code, his constitu- 
 tional and ecclesiastical system, his university, his system of 
 equality and promotion, the entire French system, and, as far 
 as possible, the language, literature, drama, and even the 
 spirit of his France, — in brief, civilization as he conceives it, 
 so that conquest becomes propagandism, and, as with his pre- 
 decessors, the Caesars of Rome, he sometimes really fancies 
 that the establishment of his universal monarchy is a great 
 benefit to Europe. 
 
 I
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 (Ji^h\tct anti Mttits of tf)e Sptem. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I. How Napoleon comprehends the sovereignty of the people. — His 
 maxim on the will of the majority and on the office of government. — Two 
 groups of evidently preponderating desires in 1799. — II. Necessities dat- 
 ing from the Revolution. — Lack of security for Persons, Property, and 
 Consciences. — Requisite conditions for the establishment of order. — End 
 of Civil war, Brigandage, and Anarchy. — Universal relief and final secu- 
 rity. — III. Lasting effects of revolutionary laws. — Condition of the £mi- 
 grh. — Progressive and final amnesty. — They return. — They recover a 
 portion of their possessions. — Many of them enter the new hierarchy. — 
 Indemnities for them incomplete. — IV. Confiscation of collective for- 
 tunes. — Ruin of the Hospitals and Schools. — V. Complaints of the Poor, 
 of Parents, and of Believers. — Contrast between old and new educational 
 facilities. — Clandestine instruction. — Jacobin teachers. — VI. The Spirit 
 and Ministrations of Catholicism. — How the Revolution develops a sense 
 of this — VII Reasons for the Concordat. — Napoleon's economical organi- 
 zation of the Church institution. — A good Bargainer. — Compromise with 
 the old state of things. — VIII. State appropriations very small. — Tolera' 
 tion of educational institutions. — The interest of the public in them invited. 
 — The University. — Its monopoly. — Practically, his restrictions and con- 
 ditions are effective. — Satisfaction given to the first group of require- 
 ments. 
 
 I. 
 
 However clear and energetic his artistic convictions may be, 
 his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations of the sovereign; 
 it is not enough for him that his edifice should be monumen- 
 tal, symmetrical, and beautiful; first of all, as he lives in it 
 and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, 
 and habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequent- 
 ly, he takes into account the habits and dispositions of his 
 tenants, the pressing and permanent wants for which the new 
 structure is to provide; these wants, however, must not be 
 theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for he is a cal- 
 culator as close as he is profound, and deals only with positive 
 
 151
 
 152 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 facts. " My political system," says he to the Council of State,' 
 " is to rule men as the mass want to be ruled. ... By constitut- 
 ing myself a Catholic I put an end to the war in La Vendee; 
 by turning Mahometan I established myself in Egypt: by turn- 
 ing ultramontane I gained over the priests in Italy. Were I 
 to govern a population of Jews, I would restore the temple of 
 Solomon. I shall speak just in this fashion about liberty in 
 the free part of St. Domingo; I shall confirm slavery in the 
 Ile-de-France and even in the slave section of St. Domingo, 
 with the reservation of diminishing and limiting slavery where 
 I maintain it, and of restoring order and keeping up discipline 
 where I maintain freedom. / think that is the tvay to recognize 
 the sovereignty of the peopled Now, in France, at this epoch, 
 there are two groups of preponderant desires which evidently 
 outweigh all others, one dating back the past ten years, and 
 the other for a century and more: the question is how to sat- 
 isfy these, and the sagacious constructor, who estimates them 
 for what they are worth, combines the proportions, plan, ar- 
 rangement, and entire interior economy of his edifice to meet 
 this requirement. 
 
 ' 11. 
 
 Of these two desires the first is urgent, almost a physical 
 necessity. For the last ten years, the government has no 
 longer answered its purpose, or has ruled in a contrary sense; 
 its impotence and injustice, in turn or both at once, have been 
 deplorable; it has committed or allowed too many outrages 
 on persons, property, and consciences; in sum, the Revolu- 
 tion did nothing else, and it is time that this should stop. 
 Safety and security for consciences, property, and persons is 
 the loud and unanimous outcry in all directions.'' 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 334 (August 6, 1800). 
 
 2 Stanislas Girardin, " M^moires," i., 273 (22 Thermidor, year x): " The only crav- 
 ing, the only sentiment in France, disturbed for so many years, is repose. Whatever 
 secures this will grain iis assent. Its inhabitants, accustomed to take an active part in 
 all political questions, now seem to take no interest in them." — Roederer, iii., 484 
 (Report on the Senatorerie of Caen, Dec. i, 1803) : "The people of the rural districts, 
 busy with its nevir affairs, . . . are perfectly submissive, because they now find 
 security for persons and property. . . . They show no enthusiasm for the monarch, 
 but are full of respect for and trust in a gendarme; they stop and salute him on 
 passing him on the roads."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 153 
 
 To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. 
 And first, the political and administrative concentration just 
 decreed, a centralization of all powers in one hand, local pow- 
 ers conferred by the central power, and this supreme power in 
 the hands of a resolute chief equal in intelligence to his high 
 position; next, a regularly paid army,' carefully equipped, 
 properly clothed and fed, strictly disciplined and therefore 
 obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or falter- 
 ing, like any other instrument of precision; an active police- 
 force and gendarmerie held in check; administrators inde- 
 pendent of those subject to them, and judges independent of 
 those under their jurisdiction — all appointed, maintained, 
 watched, and restrained from above, as impartial as possible, 
 sufficiently competent, and, in their official spheres, capable 
 functionaries; finally, freedom of w'orship, and, accordingly, a 
 treaty with Rome and the restoration of the Catholic Church, 
 that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox hierarchy 
 and of the only clergy which the faithful may acccept as legit- 
 imate, in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, 
 and of priests by the bishops. 
 
 This done, the rest is easily accomplished. A well-led army 
 corps marches along and tramples out the embers of the con- 
 flagration now kindling in the West, while religious tolera- 
 tion extinguishes the smouldering fires of popular insurrec- 
 tion. Henceforth, there is an end to civil war." Regiments 
 ready to act in harmony with the military commissions' purge 
 the South and the valley of the Rhone; thenceforth, there are 
 
 1 Rocquain, " rfilat de la France au 18 Brumaire." (Report by Barbd-Marbois, p. 
 72, 81.) Cash-boxes broken open and e.xclamations by the officers : " Money and for- 
 tune belong 'o the brave. Let us help ourselves. Our accounts will be settled at the 
 cannon's mouth."— " The subordinates," adds Barbd-Marbois, " fully aware of their 
 superior's drafts on the public treasury, stipulate for their share of the booty ; accus- 
 tomed to exacting contributions from outside enemies, they are not averse to treating 
 
 as conquered enemies the departments they were called upon to defend." 
 
 2 Ibid. (Reports of Barbe-Marbois and Fourcroy while on their missions in the 
 i2th and 13th military divisions, year ix., p. 158, on the tranquillity of La Vend(?e.) 
 " I could have gone anywhere without an escort. During my stay in some of the 
 villages I was not disturbed by any fear or suspicion whatever. . . . The tranquillity 
 they now enjoy and the cessation of persecutions keep them from insurrection." 
 
 3 Archives nationales, F^, 3273 (Reports by Gen. Ferino, Pluviose, year ix, with 
 a table of verdicts by the military commission since Flortfal, year viii.l The commis- 
 sion mentions 53 assassinations, 3 rapes, 44 pillagings of houses, by brigands in Vau- 
 close. Drome, and the Lower Alps; 66 brigands taken in the act arc shot, 87 after
 
 154 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 no more roving bands in the rural districts, while brigandage 
 on a grand scale, constantly repressed, ceases, and after this,, 
 that on a small scale. No more chojiatis, chauffeurs, or bar- 
 bets;^ the mail-coach travels without a guard, and the high- 
 ways are safe.^ 
 
 There is no longer any class or category of citizens op- 
 pressed or excluded from the common law: the latest Jacobin 
 decrees and the forced loan have been at once revoked: no- 
 ble or plebeian, ecclesiastic or layman, rich or poor, former 
 emigre or former terrorist, every man, whatever his past, his 
 condition, or his opinions, now enjoys his private property 
 and his legal rights; he has no longer to fear the violence of 
 the opposite party; he may rely on the protection of the au- 
 thorities,^ and on the equity of the magistrates." So long as 
 
 condemnation, and 6, who are wounded, die in the hospital. — Rocquain, ibid., p. 17, 
 (Reports of Fran^ais, from Nantes, on his mission in the 8lh military division.) "The 
 South may be considered as purged by the destruction of about 200 brigands who 
 have been shot. There remains only three or four bands of 7 or 8 men each." 
 
 1 Three classes of insurrectionary peasants or marauders. — Tr. 
 
 2 Archives Nationales, F', 7152 (on the prolongation of brigandage). Letter from 
 Lhoste, agent, to the minister of justice, Lyons, Pluviose 8, year viii. "The dili- 
 gences are robbed every week." — Ibid., V , 3267, (Seine-et-Oise, bulletins of the mil- 
 itary police and correspondence of the gendarmerie). Brumaire 25, year viii. attack 
 on the Paris mail near Arpajon by 5 brigands armed with guns. Fructidor, year viii, 
 at three o'clock p.m., a cart loaded with 10,860 francs sent by the collector at Mantes 
 to the collector at Versailles is stopped near the Marly water-works, by 8 or 10 armed 
 brigands on horseback. — Similar facts abound. It is evident that more than a year is. 
 required to put an end to brigandage. — It is always done by employing an impartial 
 military force. (Rocquain, Ibid., p. 10.) " There are at Marseilles three companies, 
 of paid national guards, 60 men each, at a franc per man. The fund for this guard is 
 supplied by a contribution of 5 francs a month paid by every man subject to this duty 
 who wishes to be exempt. The officers . . . are all strangers in the country. Rob- 
 beries, murders, and conflicts have ceased in Marseilles since the establishment of 
 this guard." 
 
 3 Archives Nationales, 3144 and 3145, N0.T004. (Reports of the councillors of State on 
 mission during the year ix, published by Rocquain, with omissions, among which is 
 the following, in the report of Franfois de Nantes.) " The steps taken by the mayors 
 of Marseilles are sufficiently effective to enable an Emigre under surveillance and 
 just landed, to walkabout Marseilles without being knocked down or knocking any- 
 body else down, an alternative to which they have been thus far subject. And yet 
 there are in this town nearly 500 men who have slaughtered with their own hands, or 
 been the accomplices of slaughterers, at different times during the Revolution. . . . 
 The inhabitants of this town are so accustomed to being annoyed and despoiled, and 
 to being treated like those of a rebellious town or colony, that arbitrary power no 
 longer frightens them, and they simply ask that their lives and property be protected 
 against murderers and pillagers, and that things be entrusted to sure and impartial 
 hands." 
 
 4 RcEderer, iii., 481. (Report on the S^natorerie of Caen, Germinal a, year xiii.)—
 
 CHAP. 1. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 155 
 
 - he respects the law he can go bed at night and sleep tran- 
 quilly with the certainty of awaking in freedom on the mor- 
 row, and with the certainty of doing as he pleases the entire 
 day; with the privilege of working, buying, selling, thinking, 
 amusing himself,' going and coming at his pleasure, and es- 
 pecially of going to mass or of staying away if he chooses. 
 No more jacqueries either rural or urban, no more proscrip- 
 tions or persecutions and legal or illegal spoliations, no more 
 intestine and social wars waged with pikes or by decrees, no 
 more conquests and confiscations made by Frenchmen against 
 each other. With universal and unutterable relief people 
 emerge from the barbarous and anarchical regime which re- 
 duced them to living from one day to another, and return to 
 the pacific and regular regime which permits them to count 
 on the morrow and make provision for it. After ten years of 
 harassing subjection to the incoherent absolutism of unstable 
 despotisms, here, for the first time, they find a rational and 
 stable government, or, at least, a reasonable, tolerable, and 
 fixed degree of it. The First Consul is carrying out his dec- 
 larations and he has declared that " The Revolution has 
 ended.'" 
 
 III. 
 
 The main thing now is to dress the severe wounds it has 
 made and which are still bleeding, with as little torture as 
 possible, for it has cut down to the quick, and its amputations, 
 whether foolish or outrageous, have left sharp pains or mute 
 suffering in the social organism. 
 
 One hundred and ninety-two thousand names have been 
 inscribed on the list of emigres? By the terms of the law, 
 every e'viigre is " civilly dead, and his possessions have become 
 
 Faber, "Notice sur I'lnt^neur de la France" (1807), p. no, 112. "Justice is one of 
 
 the brifjht sides of France of to-day. It is costly, but it cannot be called venal.'" 
 
 1 Rocquain, ibid., 19. (Report of Francois de Nantes on the 8th military division., 
 " For the past eighteen months a calm has prevailed here equal to that which existed 
 l>f fore the Revolution. Balls and parties have been resumed in the towns, while the 
 • ilii dances of Provence, suspended for ten years, now gladden the p?ople of il'e 
 country." 
 
 2 Proclamation to the French people, Dec. 15, lygq. 
 
 3 See "The Revo'ution." vol. 111., p. 292. (Notes )
 
 156 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 the property of the Republic;" if he dared return to France, 
 the same law condemned him to death; there could be no 
 appeal, petition, or respite; it sufficed to prove identity 
 and the squad of executioners was at once ordered out. 
 Now, at the beginning of the Consulate, this murderous law 
 is still in force; summary proceedings are always applicable,' 
 and one hundred and forty-six thousand names still appear 
 on the mortuary list. This constitutes a loss to France of 
 146,000 Frenchmen, and not those of the least importance — 
 gentlemen, army and navy officers, members of parliaments, 
 priests, prominent men of all classes, conscientious catholics, 
 liberals of 1789, Feuillantists of the Legislative assembly, and 
 Constitutionalists of the years in and v; and worse still, 
 through their poverty or hostility abroad, they are a discredit 
 or even a danger for France, as formerly with the Protestants 
 driven out of the country by Louis XIV.^ — To these 146,000 
 exiled Frenchmen add 200,000 or 300,000 others, residents, 
 but semi-proscribed;' first, those nearly related and allied to 
 each emigre, excluded by the law from " every legislative, 
 administrative, municipal and judicial function," and even 
 deprived of the elective vote, and next, all former nobles or 
 ennobled, deprived by the law of their status as Frenchmen 
 and obliged to re-naturalize themselves according to the for- 
 malities. 
 
 It is, accordingly, almost the entire e'lite of old France which 
 is wanting in the new France, like a limb violently wrenched 
 and half-detached by the unskilful and brutal scalpel of the 
 revolutionary " sawbones"; for both the organ and the body are 
 not only living, but they are still feverish and extremely sensi- 
 tive; it is important to avoid too great irritation; inflammation 
 of any kind would be dangerous. A skilful surgeon, there- 
 fore, must mark the places for the stitches, not force the junc- 
 tures, but anticipate and prepare for the final healing process, 
 and await the gradual and slow results of vital effort and spon- 
 
 1 Decision of the Council of State, Pluviose 5, year viii (Jan. 25, 1800). 
 
 2 Forneron, " Histoire generale des ^migrds," 11., 374. In 1800, the army of Cond^ 
 still comprised 1007 officers and 5840 volunteers. 
 
 3 Decrees of Brumaire 3, year IV, and of Frimaire g, year vi. (Cf. " The Revolu- 
 tion," pp. 433, 460.)
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 157 
 
 taneous renewal. Above all he must not alarm the patient. 
 The First Consul is far from doing this; on the contrary his 
 expressions are all encouraging. Let the patient keep cjuiet, 
 there shall be no re-stitching, the wound shall not be touched. 
 The constitution solemnly declares that the French people 
 shall never allow the return of the emigres,^ and, on this point, 
 the hands of future legislators are already tied fast; it pro- 
 hibits any exception being added to the old ones. — But, first, 
 by virtue of the same constitution, every Frenchman not an 
 e'luigre or transported has the right to vote, to be elected, to 
 exercise every species of public function; consequently, twelve 
 days later,^ a mere order of the Council of State restores civil 
 and political rights to former nobles and the ennobled, to the 
 kinsmen and relations of emigres, to all who have been dubbed 
 Emigre's of the interior and whom Jacobin intolerance had ex- 
 cluded, if not from the territory, at least from the civic body: 
 here are 200,000 or 300,000 Frenchmen already brought back 
 into political communion if not to the soil. — They had suc- 
 cumbed to the coup-d'etat of Fructidor; naturally, the leading 
 fugitives or those transported, suffering under the same coup- 
 d'ctat, were restored to political rights along with them and 
 thus to the territory — Carnot, Barthelemy, Lafont-Ladebat, 
 Simeon, Boissy d'Anglas, Mathieu Dumas, in all thirty-nine, des- 
 ignated by name;' very soon after, through a simple extension 
 of the same resolution, others of the Fructidor victims, a crowd 
 of priests huddled together and pining away on the Ile-de-Re, 
 the most unfortunate and most inoffensive of all.* — Two 
 months later, a law declares that the list of emigre's is definitely 
 closed;^ a resolution orders immediate investigation into the 
 claims of those who are to be struck off the list; a second 
 
 1 Constitution of Frimaire 22, year viii. (December 13, 1799), article 93. "The 
 French nation decl.ires that in no case will it suffer the return of the Frenchmen who, 
 having abandoned thoir country since the i4tli of July 178 i, are not comprised in the 
 exceptions made to the laws rendered apamst emigres. It interdicts every ne%v ex- 
 ce/>tion in Ihis rfsfiect.''^ 
 
 3 Opinion of the Council of State, Decern. 25, 1799. 
 
 3 Resolution of Decern. 26, 1799. — Two ultra-Jacobins, e.xiled aftei Thermidor, are 
 added to the list, Bartrc and Vadicr, undoubtedly by way of compensation and not to 
 let It appear that the scales inclined too much on one side. 
 
 4 Resolution of Decern. 30, 1799. 
 
 5 Resolutions of February 26, March 2, and March 3, 1800
 
 158 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 resolution strikes off the first founders of the new order of 
 things, the members of the National Assembly " who voted for 
 the establishment of equality and the abolition of nobility;" 
 and, day after day, new erasures succeed each other, all specific 
 and by name, under cover of toleration, pardon, and exception :' 
 on the 19th of October 1800, there are already 1200 of them. 
 Bonaparte, at this date, had gained the battle of Marengo; 
 the surgical restorer feels that his hands are more free ; he can 
 operate on a larger scale and take in whole bodies collectively. 
 On the 20th of October 1800, a resolution strikes off entire 
 categories from the list, all whose condemnation is too grossly 
 unjust or malicious,^ at first, minors under sixteen and the 
 wives of emigres; next, plowmen, artisans, workmen, journey- 
 men and servants with their wives and children; in fine, 
 18,000 ecclesiastics who, banished by law, left the country 
 only in obedience to the law; besides these, " all individuals 
 inscribed collectively and without individual denomination," 
 those already struck off, but provisionally, by local administra-^ 
 tions; also still other classes. Moreover, a good many emi- 
 grants, yet standing on the lists, steal back one by one into 
 France, and the government tolerates them." Finally, 
 eighteen months later, after the peace of Amiens and the 
 Concordat,' a sniatus-consulte ends the great operation; an 
 amnesty relieves all who are not yet struck off, except the 
 declared leaders of the militant emigration, its notables, and 
 who are not to exceed one thousand; the rest may come back 
 and enjoy their civic rights; only, they must promise " loyalty 
 to the government established under the constitution and not 
 
 T Thibaudeau, " McSmoires sur le Consulat," igg. (Stated by the First Consul at 
 Regnault at a meeting of the council of state, Augf. 12, 1801.) " I am glad to hear the 
 denunciation of strikinsr off names. How many have you yourselves not asked for? 
 It could not be otherwise. Everybody has some relation or friend on the lists.'' 
 
 2 Thibaudeau. ibid. (Speech by the Fiist Consul.) " Never have there been lists of 
 /;«?;^7-/.r/" there are only lists of absentees. The proof of this is that names have 
 always been struck off. I have seen members of the Convention and even generals 
 on the lists. Citizen Monge was inscribed." 
 
 3 Thibaudeau, ibid.. 97.—" The minister of police made a great hue and cry over the 
 arrest and sending back of a few emigres who returned without permission, or who 
 annoyed the buyers of their property, while, at the same time, it eranted surveil- 
 lance to all who asked for it, paying no attention to the distinction made by ihe res- 
 olution of Vendemiaire 28." 
 
 4 S^natus-consulte of April 26, 1802.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 159 
 
 maintain directly or indirectly any connection or correspond- 
 ence with the enemies of the State." On this condition the 
 doors of France are thrown open to them and they return in 
 crowds. 
 
 But their bodily presence is not of itself sufficient; it is 
 moreover essential that they should not be absent in feeling, 
 as strangers and merely domiciliated in the new society. Were 
 these mutilated fragments of old France, these human shreds 
 put back in their old places, simply attached or placed in jux- 
 taposition to modern France, they would prove useless, trou- 
 blesome and even mischievous; let us strive, then, to have 
 them grafted on afresh through adherence or complete fusion; 
 and first, to effect this, they must not be allowed to die of in- 
 anition; they must take root physically and be able to live. 
 In private life, how can former proprietors, the noblesse, th.e 
 parliamentarians, the upper bourgeoisie, support themselves, 
 especially those without a profession or pursuit, and who, be- 
 fore 1789, maintained themselves, not by their labor, but by 
 their income ? Once at home, they can no longer earn their 
 living as they did abroad; they can no longer give lessons in 
 French, in dancing, or in fencing. — There is no doubt but 
 that the scnatiis-consulte which amnesties them restores to 
 them a part of their unsold possessions; ' but most of these 
 are sold and, on the other hand, the First Consul, who is not 
 disposed to re-establish large fortunes for royalists,* retains 
 and maintains the largest ])ortion of what they have been de- 
 spoiled of in the national domain, all woods and forests of 300 
 arpens^ and over, their stock and property rights in the great 
 canals, and their personal property already devoted to the pub- 
 lic service. The effective restitution is therefore only mod- 
 
 1 S^Tiatus-cnnsuIte of April 26, 1802, title li., articles 16 and 17. — Gaudin, Due de 
 Gaete, " Mi?moires," 1., 183. (Report on the administration of the Finances in 1803.) 
 " The old proprietors have been reinstated in more than 20,000 hcrtari-s of forests." 
 
 2 Thibaudeau, ibid., p. 98. (Speech of the F"irst Consul, Thermidor 24, year ix.) 
 " Some of the dmigr^s who have been pardoned are cuttinp down their forests, either 
 from necessity or to send money abroad. I will not allow the worst enemies of the 
 republic, the defenders of ancient prejudices, to recover their fortunes and despoil 
 France. I am glad to welcome them back ; but it is important that the nation should 
 preserve its forests; the navy needs them." 
 
 3 An arpen measures about an acre and a half.
 
 i6o THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 erate; the emigre's who return recover but little more than 
 one-twentieth of their patrimony, one hundred millions ' out 
 of more than two milliards. Observe, besides, that by virtue 
 even of the law and as admitted by the First Consul,^ this 
 alms is badly distributed; the most needy and the greatest 
 number remain empty-handed, consisting of the lesser and 
 medium class of rural proprietors, especially of country gentle- 
 men whose domain, worth less than 50,000 francs, brings in 
 only 2000 or 3000 francs income; ^ a domain of this size came 
 within reach of a great many purses, and hence found purchas- 
 ers more readily and with greater facility than a large holding; 
 the State was almost always the seller, and thenceforth the 
 old proprietor could make no further claim or pretension. — 
 Thus, for many of the emigres, "the senatus-consulte of the 
 year x is simply a permit to starve to death in France " and,* 
 four years later,^ Napoleon himself estimates that "40,000 are 
 without the means of subsistence." They manage to keep life 
 and soul together and nothing more; ° many, taken in and cared 
 for by their friends or relations, are supported as guests or para- 
 sites, somewhat through compassion and again on humanita- 
 rian grounds. One recovers his silver plate, buried in a cellar; 
 another finds notes payable to bearer, forgotten in an old chest. 
 
 1 Stourm, " Les Finances de I'ancien regime et de la revolution," ii., 459 to 461.— 
 (According to the figures appended to the projected law of 1825.) — This relates only 
 to their patrimony in real estate ; their personal estate was wholly swept away, at first 
 through the abolition, without indemnity, of their available feudal rights under the 
 Constituent and Legislative assemblies, and afterwards through the legal and forced 
 transformation of their personal capital into national bonds {titres sur le grand-livre, 
 rentes) which the final bankruptcy of the Directory reduced to almost nothing. 
 
 2 Pelet de la Lozfere, "Opinions de Napoldon au conseil d'etat" (March 15th and 
 July ist, 1806) : " One of the most unjust effects of the revolution was to let an emigre, 
 whose property was found to be sold, starve to death, and give back 100,000 crowns of 
 rente to another whose property happened to be still in the hands of the government. 
 How odd, again, to have returned unsold fields and to have kept the woods ! It would 
 have been better, starting from the legal forfeiture of all property, to return only 6000 
 francs of rente to one alone and distribute what remained among the rest." 
 
 3 Ldonce de Lavergne, " Economic rurale de la France," p. 26. (According to the 
 table of names with indemnities awarded by the law of 1825.) — Due de Rovigo, " M^- 
 moires," iv., 400. 
 
 4 De Puymaigre, " Souvenirs de I'emigration de I'empire et de la restauration," p. 94. 
 
 5 Pelet de la Lozere, ibid., p. 272. 
 
 6 De Puymaigre, ibid., passim. — Alexandrine des Echerolles, " Une famille noble 
 pendant la Terreur," pp. 328, 402, 408.— I add to published documents personal souve- 
 nirs and family narrations.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. i6i 
 
 Sometimes, the purchaser of a piece of property, an honest 
 man, gives it back at the price he paid for it, or even gratis, 
 if, during the time he had held it, he had derived sufficient 
 profit from it. Occasionally, when the adjudication happens 
 to have been fraudulent, or the sale too irregular, and subject 
 to legal proceedings, the dishonest purchaser does not refuse 
 a compromise. But these cases are rare, and the evicted 
 owner, if he desires to dine regularly, will wisely seek a small 
 remunerative position and serve as clerk, book-keeper or ac- 
 countant. M. des Echerolles, formerly a major-general, keeps 
 the office of the new line of diligences at Lyons, and earns 1200 
 francs a year. M. de Puymaigre, who, in 1789, was worth 
 two millions, becomes a controleur des droits rcunis at Briey 
 with a salary of 2400 francs. 
 
 Some royalist or other applies for employment in every 
 branch of the new administration; ' however slightly recom- 
 mended, he obtains the place. Sometimes he even receives 
 one without having asked for it; M. de VitroUes ^ thus be- 
 comes, in spite of himself, inspector of the imperial sheep- 
 folds; this fixes his position and makes it appear as if he had 
 given in his adhesion to the government. — Naturally, the 
 great political recruiter singles out the tallest and most impos- 
 ing subjects, that is to say, belonging to the first families of 
 the ancient monarchy, and, like one who knows his business, 
 he brings to bear every means, constraint and seduction, 
 threats and cajoleries, supplies in ready money, promises of 
 promotion with the influence of a uniform and gold-lace em- 
 broidery.^ It matters little whether the enlistment is volun- 
 tary or extorted; the moment a man becomes a functionary 
 and is enrolled in the hierarchy, he loses the best portion of 
 his independence; once a dignitary and placed at the top of the 
 
 1 Due de Rovigo, " Mdraoires," iv., 399. (On the provincial noblesse which had 
 emigrated and returned.) " The First Consul quietly gave orders that none of the 
 applications made by the large number of those who asked for minor situations in 
 various branches of the administration should be rejected on account of emigration." 
 
 2 M. de V'itrolles, " Memoires." — M. d'Haussonvillc, " Ma jeunesse," p. 60 : " One 
 morning, my father learns that he has been appointed chamberlain, with a certain num- 
 ber of other persons belonging to the greatest families of the faubourg Sainl-Germain." 
 
 3 Madame de Rdniusat, " Memoires," ii., 312, 315 and following pages, 373. — Ma- 
 dame de Stacl, " Considdrations sur la revolution fran9aise,'" 4th part, ch iv.
 
 1 62 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 hierarchy, he alienates his entire individuality, for henceforth 
 he lives under the eye of the master, feels the daily and direct 
 pressure of the terrible hand which grasps him, and he forci- 
 bly becomes a mere tool.* These historic names, moreover, 
 contribute to the embellishment of the reign. Napoleon hauls 
 in a good many of them, and the most illustrious among the 
 old noblesse, of the court of the robe and of the sword. He 
 can enumerate among his magistrates, M. Pasquier, M. Seguier, 
 M. Mole; among his prelates, M. de Boisgelin, M. du Barral, 
 M. du Belley, M. de Roquelaure, M. de Broglie ; among his 
 military officers, M. de Fezensac, M. de Segur, M. de Morte- 
 mar, M. de Narbonne;^ among the dignitaries of his palace, 
 chaplains, chamberlains and ladies of honor — Rohan, Croy, 
 Chevreuse, Montmorency, Chabot, Montesquiou, Noailles, 
 Brancas, Gontaut, Grammont, Beauvau, Saint-Aignan, Monta- 
 lembert, Haussonville, Choiseul-Praslin, Mercy d'Argenteau, 
 Aubusson de la Feuillade, and many others, recorded in the 
 imperial almanac as formerly in the royal almanac. 
 
 But they are only with him nominally and in the alma- 
 nac. Except certain individuals, M. de las Cases and M. 
 Philippe de Segur, who gave themselves up body and soul, 
 even to following him to Saint Helena, to glorifying, admir- 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 459. (Speech by Napoleon, December 30, 1802.) — " Very well, I do 
 protect the nobles of France ; but they must see that they need protection. ... I 
 give places to many of them ; I restore them to public distinction and even to the 
 honors of the drawing-room ; but tliey feel that it is alone through my goodwill. — 
 Ibid.^ iii., 558 (January 1809) : " I repent daily of a mistake I have made in my govern- 
 ment ; the tnost serious one I ever made, and I perceive its bad effects every day. It 
 was the giving back to the dmigres the totality of their possessions. I ought to have 
 massed them in common and given each one simply the chance of an income of 6000 
 francs. As soon as I saw my mistake I withdrew from thirty to forty millions of for- 
 ests ; but far too many are still in the hands of a great number of them." — We here 
 see the attitude he would impose on them, that of clients and grateful pensioners. 
 They do not stand in this attitude. (Roederer, iii., 472. Report on the Senatorerie of 
 Caen, 1803.) — " The returned ^migrds are not friendly nor even satisfied; their enjoy- 
 ment of what they have recovered is less than their indignation at what they have 
 lost. They speak of the amnesty without gratitude, and as only partial justice. 
 ... In other respects they appear submissive." 
 
 2 Due de Rovigo, " Memoires," v.. 297. Towards the end, large numbers of the 
 young nobles went into the army. " In 1812, there was not a marshal, or even a gen- 
 eral, who had not some of th.-se on his staff, or as aids-de-camp. Nearly all the cav- 
 alry regiments in the army were commanded by officers belonging to these families. 
 They had already attracted notice in the infantry. All these young nobles had openly 
 joined the emperor because they were easily influenced by love of glory."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 163 
 
 ing, and loving him beyond the grave, the others are submis- 
 sive conscripts and who remain more or less refractory spirits. 
 He does nothing to win them over. His court is not, like 
 the old court, a conversational ball-room, but a hall of inspec- 
 tion, the most sumptuous apartment in his vast barracks; the 
 civil parade is a continuation of the military parade; one 
 finds one's self constrained, stiff, mute and uncomfortable.' 
 
 He does not know how to enter*^ain as the head of his 
 household, how to welcome guests and be gracious or even 
 polite to his pretended courtiers; he himself declares that' 
 *' they go two years without speaking to him, and six month:; 
 without seeing him; he does not like them, their conversation 
 displeases him." When he addresses them it is to browbeat 
 them; his familiarities with their wives are those of the gen- 
 darme or the pedagogue, while the little attentions he inflicts 
 upon them are indecorous criticisms or compliments in bad 
 taste. They know that they are under espionage in their own 
 homes and responsible for whatever is said there; " the up- 
 per police is constantly hovering over all drawing-rooms." * 
 For every word uttered in privacy, for any lack of compli- 
 ance, every individual, man or woman, runs the risk of exile 
 
 1 Madame de Rdmusit n.. 299(1806). "He began to surround himself about this 
 time with so much ceremony that none of us had scarcely any intimate relations 
 with him . . . The court became more and more crowded and monotonous, each 
 doing on the minute what he had to do. Nobody thought of venturing outside the 
 brief series of ideas which are generated within the restricted circle of the same du- 
 ties. . . . Increasing despotism, . . . fear of a reproof if one failed in the slightest 
 particular, silence kept by us all. . . . There was no opportunity to indulge emotion 
 or interchange any observation of the slightest importance.'' 
 
 2 Roederer, 111.. 558 (January 1809). — " The Modern Rdgime," avte, book i., ch. ii. 
 
 3 Madame de R^musat, 111., 75, 155 : " When the minister of police learned that 
 jesting or malicious remarks had been made m one of the Pans drawing-rooms he at 
 once notified the master or mistress of the house to be more watchful of their com- 
 pany."— /(J/V/., p. 187(1807); "The emperor censured M. Fouchd for not having ex- 
 ercised stricter watchfulness. He exiled women, caused distinguished persons to be 
 warned, and insinuated that, to avoid the consequences of his anger, steps must be 
 taken to show that his power was recognized in atonement for the faults committed. 
 Inconsequence of these hints many thought themselves obliged 10 be presented." — 
 Ibiti., li., 170, 2T2, 303. — Due de Rovigo, " M(?moires," iv , 311 and 393. "Appointed 
 minister of police," said he, " I inspired everybody with fear; each packed up his 
 things; nothing was talked about but exiles, imprisonment and worse still." — He look 
 advantage of all this to recommend " everybody on his list who was inscribed as an 
 enemy of the government" to be presented at court, and all, in fact, except stubborn 
 "grandmothers" were presented.
 
 164 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 or of being relegated to the interior at a distance of forty 
 leagues.' And the same with the resident gentry in the 
 provinces; they are obliged to pay court to the prefect, to be 
 on good terms with him, or at least attend his receptions; it 
 is important that their cards should be seen on his mantel- 
 piece.' Otherwise, let them take heed, for it is he who re-^ 
 ports on their conduct to Fouche or to Savary. In vain do 
 they live circumspectly and confine themselves to a private 
 life; a refusal to accept an office is unpardonable; there is a 
 grudge against them if they do not employ their local influence 
 in behalf of the reign.^ Accordingly, they are, under the em- 
 pire as under the republic, in law as in fact, in the provinces 
 as well as at Paris, privileged persons the wrong way, a sus- 
 picious class under "a special surveillance" and subject to 
 exceptional rigor.' In 1808,' Napoleon orders Fouche " to 
 draw up ... . among the old and wealthy families who are 
 
 1 Madame de Stael, "Considerations sur la revolution frangaise" and " Dix ans 
 d'exil." Exile of Madame de Balbi, of Madame de Chevreuse, of Madame de Du- 
 ras, of Madame d'Aveaux, of Madame de Stael, of Madame de Recamier, etc. — Due 
 de Rovigo, Ibid., iv., 389: "The first exiles dated from 1805; I think there were four- 
 teen." 
 
 2 Roederer, iii., 472. (Repurt on the Sihiatorerie of Caen, 1803 ) The nobles " have 
 no social relations either with citizens or with the public functionaries, except with 
 the prefect of Caen and the general in command. . . . Their association with the 
 prefect intimates their belief that they might need him. All pay their respects to 
 the general of division; his mantelpiece is strewed with visiting-cards." 
 
 3 Madame de la Rochejaquelein, " Mdmoires," 423: "We lived exposed to a tyr- 
 anny which left us neither calm nor contentment. At one time a spy was placed 
 amongst our servants, at another some of our relations would be exiled far from their 
 homes, accused of exercising a charity which secured them too much affection from 
 their neighbors. Sometimes, my husband would be obliged to go to Paris to explain 
 his conduct. Again, a hunting-party would be represented as a meeting of Ven- 
 ddans. Occasionally, we were blamed for going into Poitou because our influence 
 was regarded as too dangerous; again, we were reproached for not living there and 
 not exercising our influence in behalf of the conscription."— Her brother-in-law, 
 Auguste de la Rochejaquelein, im^ited to take service in the army. com_es to Paris to 
 present his objections. He is arrested, and at the end of two months " the minister 
 signifies to him that he must remain a prisoner so long as he refuses to be a second- 
 lieutenant " 
 
 4 Sdnatus-consulte of April 26, 1802 : " Considering that this measure is merely 
 one of pardon to the large number who are always more led astray than criminal . . . 
 the amnestied will remain for ten years under a special government surveillance." 
 It may oblige each one " to leave his usual residence and go to a distance of twenty 
 leagues, and even farther if circumstances demand it." 
 
 5 Thiers, x., 41. (Letter to Fouche. Dec. 31, 1808, not inserted in the correspond- 
 ence.) — "'The Modern Regime," book i., ch. ii.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 165 
 
 not in the system ... a list of ten in each department, and 
 of fifty for Paris," of which the sons from sixteen to eighteen 
 years of age shall be forced to enter Saint-Cyr and from 
 thence go into the army as second lieutenants. In 1813, still 
 "in the highest classes of society," and arbitrarily selected by 
 the prefects, he takes ten thousand other persons, exempt or 
 redeemed from the conscription, even the married, even 
 fathers of families, who, under the title of guards of honor, 
 become soldiers, at first to be slaughtered in his service, and 
 next, and in the mean time, to answer for the fidelity of their 
 relatives. It is the old law of hostages, a resumption of the 
 worst proceedings of the Directory for his account and aggra- 
 vated for his profit. — Decidedly, the imperial regime, for the 
 old royalists, resembles too much the Jacobin regime; they 
 are about as repugnant to one as to the other, and their aver- 
 sion naturally extends to the whole of the new society. — As 
 they comprehend it, they are more or less robbed and op- 
 pressed for a quarter of a century. In order that their hos- 
 tility may cease, the indemnity of 1825 is essential, fifty years 
 of gradual adaptation, the slow elimination of two or three 
 generations of fathers and the slow elimination of two or 
 three generations of sons. 
 
 Nothing is so difficult as the reparation of great social 
 wrongs. In this case the incomplete reparation did not prove 
 sufficient; the treatment which began with gentleness ended 
 with violence, and, as a whole, the operation only half suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Other wounds are not less deep, and their cure is not less 
 urgent; for they cause suffering, not only to one class, but to 
 the whole people — that vast majority which tlie government 
 strives to satisfy. Along with the property of the emigre's, the 
 Revolution has confiscated that of all local or special societies, 
 ecclesiastic or laic, of churches and congregations, universities 
 and academies, schools and colleges, asylums and hospitals, 
 and even the property of the communes. All these fortunes 
 have been swallowed up by the public treasury, which is a
 
 1 66 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 bottomless pit, and are gone forever. — Consequently, all ser- 
 vices thus maintained, especially charitable institutions, pub- 
 lic worship and education, die or languish for lack of suste- 
 nance; the State, which has no money for itself, has none for 
 them. And what is worse, it hinders private parties from 
 taking them in charge; being Jacobin, that is to say intolerant 
 and partisan, it has proscribed worship, driven nuns out of the 
 hospitals, closed Christian schools, and, with its vast po^kver, it 
 prevents others from carrying out at their own expense the 
 social enterprises which it no longer cares for. 
 
 And yet the cravings for which this work provides have 
 never been so great nor so imperative. In ten years' the 
 number of foundlings increased from 23,000 to 62,000; it is, 
 as the reports state, a deluge: there are 1097 instead of 400 
 in Aisne, 1500 in Lot-et-Garonne, 2035 in la Manche, 2043 
 in Bouches-du-Rhone, 2673 in Calvados. From 3000 to 4000 
 beggars are enumerated in each department and about 300,- 
 000 in all France.^ As to the sick, the infirm, the mutilated, 
 unable to earn their living, it suffices, for an idea of their multi- 
 tude, to consider the regime to which the political doctors 
 have just subjected France, the regime of fasting and blood- 
 letting. Two millions of Frenchmen have marched under the 
 national flag, and eight hundred thousand have died under it;^ 
 among the survivors, how many cripples, how many with 
 
 1 Rocquain, " Etat de la France au 18 brumaire," pp. 33, i8g, 790. (Reports of Fran- 
 9ais de Nantes and of Fourcroy.) — " Statistique elementaire de la France," by Peu- 
 chet (according to a statement published by the minister of the interior, year ix), p. 
 260.— "Statistiques des prefets," Aube, by Aubray, p. 23; Aisne, by Dauchet. p. 87; 
 Lot-et-Garonne, by Pieyre, p. 45: " It is during the Revolution that the number of 
 foundlings increased to this extraordinary extent by the too easy admission in the 
 asylums of girls who had become mothers, along with their infants; through the passing 
 sojourn of soldiers in their houses; through the subversion of every principle of relig- 
 ion and morality."— Gers, by Balguerie: "Many defenders of the country became 
 fathers before their departure. . . . The soldiers, on their return, maintained the habits 
 of their conquests. . . . Many of the girls, besides, for lack of a husband took a lover." — 
 Moselle, by Colchen, p. 91: " Morals are more lax. In 1789, at Metz, there are 524 
 illegitimate births; in the year ix, 646; in 1789. 70 prostitutes; in the year ix, 260. There 
 is the same increase of kept women "—Peuchet, '" Essai d'une statistique generate de 
 la France," year ix, p. 28. " The number of illegitimate births, from one forty-seventh 
 in 1780, increased to nearly one eleventh of the total births, according to the compara- 
 tive estimates of M. Necker and M. Mourgue." 
 
 2 Rocquain, ibid., p. 93. (Report of Barbe-Marbois.) 
 
 3 " The Revolution," iii., p. 416 (note), p. 471 (note).
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 167 
 
 one arm and with wooden legs ! All Frenchmen have eaten 
 dog-bread for three years and often have not had enough of 
 that to live on; over a million have died of starvation and 
 poverty; all the wealthy and well-to-do Frenchmen have been 
 ruined and have lived in constant fear of the guillotine; four 
 hundred thousand have wasted away in prisons; of the sur- 
 vivors, how many shattered constitutions, how many bodies 
 and brains disordered by an excess of suffering and anxiety, 
 by physical and moral wear and tear! ' 
 
 Now, in 1800, assistance is lacking for this crowd of civil 
 and military invalids, the charitable establishments being no 
 longer in a condition to furnish it. Under the Constituent 
 Assembly, through the suppression of ecclesiastical property 
 and the abolition of octrois, a large portion of their revenue 
 had been cut off, that assigned to them out of octrois and the 
 tithes. Under the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, 
 through the dispersion and persecution of nuns and monks, 
 they were deprived of a body of able male and female volun- 
 teer servants who, instituted for centuries, gave their labor 
 without stint. Under the Convention, all their possessions, 
 the real-estate and the debts due them, had been confiscated; * 
 and, in the restitution to them of the remainder at the end of 
 three years, a portion of their real-estate is found to have been 
 sold, while their claims, settled by assignats or converted into 
 state securities, had died out or dwindled to such an extent 
 that, in 1800, after the final bankruptcy of the assignats and 
 of the state debt, the ancient patrimony of the poor is two- 
 thirds or one-half reduced.^ It is for this reason that the eight 
 
 1 " Statistiques des prdfets." Denx-Sevres, by Diipin, p. 174: " Venereal diseases 
 which, thanks to good habits, were siill unknown in the country in 1789, are now 
 spread throughout the Bocage and in all places where the troops have sojuirned." — 
 " Dr. Delahay, at Parthenay. observes that the number of maniacs increased fright- 
 fully in the Reijin of Terror." 
 
 2 Decrees of March 19. 1793, and Messidor 23, ye.ir 11. — Decrees of Rrumaire 2, year 
 IV, and Venddmiairc 16. year v. 
 
 3 " Stati'itiques des pr^fels," Rhone, by Verminac. year x. Income of the Lyons 
 Asylums in 1789, i. 510.827 francs; to-day, 459.371 francs. — Tndre, by Dalphonse, year 
 XII. The principal asylum of Issoudun, founded in the twelfth century, had 27.939 
 francs revenue, on which it loses 16.232. Another asylum, that of the Incurables, 
 loses, on an income of 12,062 francs. 7457 francs. — Eure, by Ma^son Saint-Amand, 
 year xiii: " 14 asylums and 3 small charity eslablishmenis in the department, with 
 -about 100,000 francs income in 1789, have lost at least 60,000 francs of it. — Vosges, by
 
 1 68 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 hundred charitable institutions which, in 1789, had one hun- 
 dred thousand or one hundred and ten thousand occupants,, 
 could not support more than one-third or one-half of them; 
 on the other hand, it may be estimated that the number of 
 applicants tripled; from which it follows that, in 1800, there is 
 less than one bed in the hospitals and asylums for six children, 
 either sick or infirm. 
 
 Under this wail of the wretched who vainly appeal for help,. 
 for nursing and for beds, another moan is heard, not so loud, 
 but more extensive, that of parents unable to educate their 
 children, boys or girls, and give them any species of instruc- 
 tion either primary or secondary. — Previous to the Revolution 
 "small schools " were innumerable: ' in Normandy, Picardy,. 
 Artois, French Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, in the Ile-de- 
 France, in Burgundy and Franche-Comte, in the Dombes,. 
 Dauphiny and Lyonnais, in theComtat, in the Cevennes and 
 in Beam,' almost as many schools could be counted as^ 
 there were parishes, in all probably twenty or twenty-five 
 thousand for the thirty-seven thousand parishes in France, 
 and all frequented and serviceable; for, in 1789, forty-seven 
 men out of a hundred, and twenty-six girls or women out 
 of a hundred, could read and write or, at least, sign their 
 
 Desgouttes, year x : " lo asylums in the department. Most of these have been stripped 
 of nearly the whole of their property and capital on account of the law of Messidor 
 23, year ii; on the suspension of the execution of this law, the property had been sold 
 and the capital returned. — Cher, by Lufay: " 15 asylums before the revolution; they re- 
 main almost wholly without resources through the loss of their possessions. — Lozere, by 
 Jerphaniou, year x: " The property belonging to the asylums, either in real estate or 
 state securities, has passed into other hands."— Doubs, analysis by Ferrieres: "Situa- 
 tion of the asylums much inferior to that of 1780. because they cou'd not have property 
 restored to them in proportion to the value of that which had been alienated. The 
 asylum of Pontarlier lost one-half of its revenue through reimbursements in paper- 
 money. All the property of the Ornans asylum has been sold," etc. — Rocquain, p. 
 187. (Report by Fourcroy.) Asylums of Orne: their revenue, instead of 123,189 francs, 
 is no more than (^8.239 — Asylums of Calvados: they have lost 173,648 francs of income, 
 there remains of this only 85,955 francs. — Passim^ heart-rending details on the destitu- 
 tion of the asylums and their inmates, children, the sick and the infirm. — The figures 
 by which I have tried to show the disproportion between requirements and resources 
 are a minimum. 
 
 I Abbe Allain, " I'lnstruction primaire en France avant la Revolution," and 
 Albert Duruy, " I'lnstruction publique et la Revolution, "/««/;«.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 169 
 
 names.' — And these schools cost the treasury nothing, next 
 to nothing to the tax-payer, and very little to parents. In 
 many places, the congregations, supported by their own prop- 
 erty, furnished male or female teachers, — Freres de la Doc- 
 trine Chretienne, Freres de Saint-Antoine, Ursulines, Visitan- 
 dines, Filles de la Charite, Soeurs de Saint-Charles, Soeurs de 
 la Providence, Soeurs de la Sagesse, Soeurs de Notre-Dame 
 de la Croix, Vatelottes, Miramiones, Manettes du Tiers Ordre, 
 and many others. Elsewhere, the curate of the parish was 
 obliged through a parish regulation to teach himself, or to 
 see that his vicar taught. A very large number of factories 
 or of communes had received legacies for maintaining a 
 school; the instructor often enjoyed, through an endowment, 
 a metayer farm or a piece of ground; he was generally pro- 
 vided with a lodging; if he was a layman he was exempt, be- 
 sides, from the most onerous taxes; as sexton, beadle, choris- 
 ter or bell-ringer, he had small perquisites; finally, he was 
 paid for each child four or five sous a month; sometimes, es- 
 pecially in poor districts, he taught only from All Saints' day 
 down to the spring, and followed another occupation during 
 the summer. In short, his salary and his comfort were about 
 those of a rural vicar or of a suitably paid curate. 
 
 Higher education {education secondaire) was provided for 
 in the same manner, and still better by local and private 
 enterprise. More than one hundred and eight establish- 
 ments furnished it completely, and more than four Inin- 
 dred and fifty-four partially.''' Like the others, and not 
 
 1 " Statistique de I'enseignement primaire " (1880), ii., cciv. The proportion of in- 
 structed and uninstructed people has been ascertained in 79 departments, and at 
 various periods, from 1680 down to the year 1876, according to ihe signatures on 
 i,6qQ.98s marriage-records.— In the " Dictionnaire de pedagogie et d'inslruction pri- 
 maire," published by M. Ruisson, M. Maggiolo, director of tlicse vast statistics, has 
 given the proportion of literate and illiterate people for the different departments; 
 now, from department to department, the fipurcs furnished by the signatures on 
 marriage-records correspond with sufficient exactness 10 the number of schools, veri- 
 fied moreover by pastoral visits and by other documents. The most illiterate de- 
 partments are Cantil, Puy-de-Dome, Nicvre, Allier, Vienne, Haute- Vienne, Dcux- 
 Sivres, Vcnd(?e and the departments of Hrittany. 
 
 2 Albert Duruy. ;V'/V/., p. 25. (According to the report of M. Villemain on common- 
 school education in 1843.)— Al)b^ Allain, '• la Question d'cnseignement en 1789," p. SB. 
 — A. Silvy, " les Collfeges en France avant la Rdvolution," p. 5. The researches of 
 M. Silvy show that the number of high-schools (colliges) given by M. Villemain is
 
 17° THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 less liberally than the smaller schools, these were sup- 
 ported by endowments, some of which were very ample 
 and even magnificent; a certain upper school in the 
 provinces, Rodez,' possessed twenty-seven thousand livres 
 income, and one in Paris, Louis-le-Grand, an income of four 
 hundred and fifty thousand livres, each of these, large or 
 small, having its own distinct endowment, in real property, 
 lands and houses, and in revenues on privileges derived from 
 the hotel-de-ville, the octroi and from transportation lines. — 
 And, in each of them, the scholarships, or half-scholarships,, 
 were numercus — six hundred alone in Louis-le-Grand. In 
 total, out of the seventy-two thousand scholars in the king- 
 dom, there were forty thousand for whom a high-school edu- 
 cation was gratuitous or half-gratuitous; nowadays, it is less 
 than five thousand out of seventy-nine thousand.'' The rea- 
 son why is that, before 1789, the revenues were not only large,, 
 but the expenses were small. The salary of a head-master, 
 teacher, or assistant-teacher was not large, say four hundred 
 and fifty, six hundred, nine hundred, or twelve hundred 
 livres per annum at most, just enough for a single man to 
 live on; in effect, most of the teachers were priests or monks, 
 Benedictines, regular canons, Oratorians, the latter alone of- 
 ficiating in thirty colleges. Not subject to the expenses and 
 necessities which a family imposes, they were abstemious 
 through piety, or at least through discipline, habit, and respect 
 for persons; frequently, the statutes of the school obliged 
 them to live in common,' which was much cheaper than liv- 
 ing apart. — The same economical accord is found with all the 
 wheels, in the arrangement and working of the entire system. 
 
 much too low: "The number of these schools under the ancient regime cannot be 
 estimated at less than about goo. ... I have ascertained 800. ... I must add that 
 my search is not yet finished and that I find new institutions every day." 
 
 J Lunet, " Histoire du collfege de Rodez," p. no.— Edmond. " Histoire du coll&ge 
 de Louis-le-Grand," p. 238. — " Statistiques des pr^fets," Moselle. (Analysis by 
 Ferrifere, year xii.) Before 1789. 4 high-schools at Metz, very complete, conducted 
 by regular canons, Benedictines, with 33 professors, 38 assistant teachers, 63 servants, 
 259 day-scholars and 217 boarders. All this was broken up. In the year ix there is 
 only one central school, very inadequate, with 9 professors, 5 assistants, 3 servants 
 and 233 day-scholars. 
 
 2 Albert Duruy, ihid., p. 25. 
 
 3 Lunet, ibid.^ p. 110.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 171 
 
 A family, even a rural one, never lived far away from a high- 
 school, for there were high-schools in nearly all the small 
 towns, seven or eight in each department, fifteen in Ain, sev- 
 enteen in Aisne.' The child or youth, from eight to eighteen, 
 had not to endure the solitude and promiscuity of a civil bar- 
 racks; he remained within reach of his parents. If they were 
 too poor to pay the three hundred francs board required by 
 the school, they placed their son in a respectable family, in 
 that of some artisan or acquaintance in the town; there, with 
 three or four others, he was lodged, had his washing done, 
 was cared for and watched, had a seat at the family table and 
 by the fireside, and was provided with light; every week, he 
 received from the country his supply of bread and other pro- 
 visions; the mistress of the house cooked for him and mended 
 his clothes, the whole for two or three livres a month." — Thus 
 do institutions flourish that arise spontaneously on the spot; 
 they adapt themselves to circumstances, conform to necessi- 
 ties, utilize resources and afford the maximum of returns for 
 the minimum of expense. 
 
 This great organization disappears entirely, bodily and with 
 all its possessions, like a ship that sinks beneath the waves ; 
 the teachers are dismissed, exiled, transported, and proscribed ; 
 
 1 "Statistiques des pr^fcts," Ain. by Bossi, p. 368. At Rourg, before the revolu- 
 tion, 220 pupils, of which 70 were boarders, 8000 livres income in real property confis- 
 cated during the revolution.— At Belley, the teachers consist of the congregationists 
 of Saint-Joseph : 250 pupils, 9950 francs revenue from capital invested in Ihn />ays 
 d'etat, swept away by the revolution.— At Thoissy, 8000 francs rental of real proper- 
 ty sold, etc.— Deux-Stvres, by Dupin. year ix. and "analyse" by Ferritre, p. 48: 
 " Previous to the revolution, each department town had its hif.'hschool.— At Thouars, 
 60 boarders at 300 livres per annum, and 40 day-scholars. At Niort, 80 b'^arders at 
 450 livres per annum, and 100 day-scholars"— Aisne, by Dauchy, p. 88. Before 1789, 
 nearly all the small hieh-schools were gratuitous, and, in the large ones, there were 
 scholarships open to competition. All their possessions, except large buildings, were 
 alienated and sold, as well as those of the 60 communities in which girls were taught 
 gratuitously.— Eiire, by Masson Saint-.Amand. Before 1789. 8 high-schnnls were 
 suppressed and destroyed. — Drome, by Collin, p. 66. Before the revolution, each 
 town had its high-school," etc. 
 
 2 Cf. Marmontel, " Memoires," i., 16, for details of these customs ; M. Jules Simon 
 found the same customs afterwards and describes them in the souvenirs of his youth. 
 —La Chalotais, at the end of the reign of Louis XV., had already borne wimfss to the 
 efficiency of the institution. "The people even want to study. Agriculturists and 
 mechanics send their children to the schools in these small towns where living is 
 cheap." — This rapid spread of higher education contributed a good deal towards 
 bringing on the revolution.
 
 172 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 its property is confiscated, sold and destroyed, and the re- 
 mainder in the hands of the State is not restored and again 
 applied to its former service ; public education, worse treated 
 than public charity, does not recover a shred of its former en- 
 dowment. Consequently, in the last years of the Directory, and 
 even early in the Consulate,' there is scarcely any instruction 
 given in France ; in fact, for the past eight or nine years it 
 has ceased,* or become private and clandestine. Here and 
 there, a few returned priests, in spite of the intolerant law and 
 with the connivance of the local authorities, also a few scat- 
 tered nuns, teach in a contraband fashion a few small groups 
 of Catholic children ; five or six little girls around a disguised 
 Ursuline nun spell out the alphabet ia a back room ; ■* a priest 
 without tonsure or cassock secretly receives in the evening 
 two or three youths whom he makes translate the De Viris. — 
 During the intervals, indeed, of the Reign of Terror, before the 
 13th of Vendemiaire and the i8th of Fructidor, sundry schools 
 spring up again like tufts of grass in a mowed pasture-ground, 
 but only in certain spots and meagrely; moreover, as soon as the 
 Jacobin returns to power he stamps them out pertinaciously ;* 
 
 I " Statistiques dcs prc'fets," I-^ Ire, by Dalphonse, year xii, p. 104: "The universi- 
 ties, the colleges, the seminaries, the reli; lus establishments, the free schools are all 
 destroyed ; vast plans only remain for ^i new system of education raised on their ruins. 
 Nearly all of tliese rest unexecuted. . . . Primary schools have nowhere, one may 
 say, been organized, and those which have been are so poor they had better not have 
 been organized at all. With a pompous and costly system of public instruction, ten 
 years have been lost for instruction." 
 
 a Moniteur, x.xi., 644. (Session of Fructidor ig, year 11.) One of the members says: 
 " It is very certain, and my colleagues see it with pain, that public instrCiction is null." — 
 Fourcroy: "Reading and writing are no longer taught." — Albert Duruy, p. 208. 
 (Report to the Directory executive. Germinal 13. year iv.) " For nearly six years no 
 public instruction exists." — De LaSicotiere, " Histoire du college d'.'\len9on." p. 33: 
 " In 1794. there were only two pupils in the college." — Lunet, " Histoire du coll&ge de 
 Rodez," p. 157 : " The recitation-rooms remained empty of pupils and teachers from 
 March 1793 to May 16. 1796." — "Statistiques des pr^fets," Eure, by Masson Saint- 
 \mand. year xiii : " In the larger section of the department, school-houses existed 
 with special endowments for teachers of both sexes. The school-houses have been 
 alienated like other national domains ; the endowments due to religious corporations or 
 establishments have been extinguished. — As to girls, that portion of society has suffered 
 an immense loss, relatively to its education, in the suppression of religious commu- 
 nities which provided them with an almost gratuitous and sufficiently steady instruc- 
 tion." 
 
 3 My maternal grandmother learned how to read from a nun concealed in the cellar 
 of the house. 
 
 4 Albert Duruy, ibid., 349. (Decree of the Directory, Pluviose 17, year v, and circu-
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 173 
 
 he wants to have teaching all to himself. — Now the institu- 
 tion by which the State pretends to replace the old and free 
 establishments makes a figure only on paper. One e'cole cen- 
 trale in each department is installed or decreed, making eighty- 
 eight on the territory of ancient France ; this hardly supplies 
 the place of the eight or nine hundred high-schools {coireges)^ 
 especially as these new schools scarcely live, being in ruin at the 
 very start," poorly maintained, badly furnished, with no pre- 
 paratory schools nor contiguous boarding-houses,^ the pro- 
 gramme of studies being badly arranged and parents suspicious 
 of the spirit of the studies.^ Thus, there is little or no attend- 
 ance at most of the courses of lectures ; only those on mathe- 
 matics are followed, particularly on drawing, and especially 
 mechanical and geometrical drawing, probably by the future 
 surveyors and engineers of roads and bridges, by building 
 contractors and a few aspirants to the Ecole Polytechnique. 
 As to the other courses, on literature, history, and the moral 
 sciences, as comprehended by the Republic and imposed by 
 it, these obtain not over a thousand auditors in all France ; 
 instead of seventy-two thousand pupils, only seven or eight 
 thousand seek superior education, while six out seven, instead 
 
 lar of the minister Letourneur against free schools which are "dens of rnyalism and 
 superstition."— Hence the decrees of tho authorities in the departments of Eure, Pas- 
 de-Calais, Drome, Mayennc and La Manche, closing these dens ) " From Thermidor 
 27, year vi, to Messidor 2. year vii, say the authorities of La Manche, we have revoked 
 fifty-eight teachers on their denunciation by the municipalities and liy popular clubs." 
 
 1 Archives nationales, cartons 3144 to 3145, No. 104. (Reports of the Councillor'; of 
 State on mission in the year ix.) Report by Lacude on the first military division. 
 Three central schools at Paris, one called the Qiiatre-Nations. " This school must 
 be visited in order to form any idea of the state of destruction and dilapidation which 
 all the national buildings are in. No repairs have been made since the reopening of the 
 schools; everything is going to ruin. . . . Walls are down and the floors fallen in. 
 To preserve t)ie pupils from the risks which the occupation of these buildings hourly 
 presents, it is necessary to give lessons in rooms which are very unhealthy on account 
 of their small dimensions and dampness. In the drawing-cla.ss the papers and models 
 in the portfolios become mouldy." 
 
 2 Albert Duruy, i/'ui., 484. (" Procfesverbaux des conseils-g^ndraux," year ix, 
 passim.) 
 
 3 //'/(/., 476. ("Statistiqucs des pr^fets." Sarthe, year x.) " Prejudices which it is 
 difficult to overcome, as well on the stability of this school as on the morality of some 
 of the teachers, prevented its being frequented for a time."— 48^. (Proci^s-verbaux 
 des conseils-g^neraux," B.is-Rhin.) "The overthrow of religion has ex( itcd preju- 
 dices against the central schools."— 482. (//</>/., Lot.) " Most of the teachers in the 
 central school took part in the revolution in a not very honorable way. Their repu- 
 tation aflects the success of their teaching. Their schools are deserted."
 
 174 THE MODERN REGIME. book iu. 
 
 of seeking self-culture, simply prepare themselves for some 
 practical pursuit.' 
 
 It is much worse with primary instruction. The provision 
 for this is enjoined on the local authorities. But, as they have 
 no money, they generally shirk this duty, and, if the^ do set 
 up a school, are unable to maintain it.'' On the other hand, 
 as instruction must be laic and Jacobin, " almost everywhere," ^ 
 the teacher is an outcast layman, a dethroned Jacobin, some 
 old, starving clubbist without a situation, foul-mouthed and of 
 ill-repute. Families, naturally, refuse to trust "their children 
 with him; even when honorable, they avoid him; and the rea- 
 son is that, in 1800, Jacobin and scamp have become synony- 
 mous terms. Henceforth, parents desire that their children 
 should learn to read in the catechism and not in the declara- 
 
 1 Albert Duruy, ibid.^ 194. (According to the reports of 15 central schools, from the 
 year vi 10 the year viii.) The average for each central school is for drawing, 89 pupils; 
 for mathematics, 28; for the classics, 24; for physics, chemistry and natural history, 
 19; for general grammar, 5 ; for history, 10; for legislation, 8: for belles-lettres, 6. — 
 Rocquain, ibid . p. 29. (Reports of Fran9ais de Nantes, on the departments of the 
 South-east.) "There, as elsewhere, the courses on general grammar, on belles-lettres, 
 history and legislation, are unfrequented. Those on mathematics, chemistry, Latin, 
 and drawing are oetter attended, because these sciences open up lucrative careers."— 
 Ibid.^ p. 108. (Report by Barbe-Marboi on the Brittany departments.) 
 
 2 " Siatistiques des prefets," Meurihe, by Marquis, year xiii, p. 120. " In the com- 
 munal schools of the rural districts, the fee was so small that the poorest families 
 could contribute to the (teacher's) salary. Assessments on the communal property, 
 besides, helped almost everywhere in providing the teacher with a satisfactory salary, 
 so that these functions were sought after and commonly well fulfilled. . . . Most of 
 the villages had Sisters of Saint-Vincent de Paul for instructors, or others well known 
 under the name of Vatelottes." — '" The partition of communal property, and the sale 
 of that assigned to old endowments, had deprived the communes of resources which 
 afforded a fair compensation to schoolmasters and schoolmistresses. The product 
 of the additional <-<■«// «/f.r scarcely sufficed for administrative expenses.— Thus, there is 
 but little else now than people without means, who take poorly compensated places ; 
 again, they neglect their schools just as soon as they see an opportunity to earn some- 
 thing elsewhere." — Archives nationales. No. itxn, cartotis 3044 and 3145. (Report of 
 the councillors of state on mission in the year ix.— First military division. Report of 
 Lacude.) Aisne : " There is now no primary school according to legal institution." 
 — The situation is the same in Oise, also in Seine for the districts of Sceaux and Saint- 
 Denis. 
 
 3 Albert Duruy, 178. (Report drawn up in the bureaux of the ministry of the inte- 
 rior, year viii.) " A detestable selection of those called instructors; almost eTerywhere, 
 they are men without morals or education, who owe their nomination solely to a pre- 
 tended civism, consisting of nothing but an insensibility to morality and propriety. 
 . . . They affect an insolent contempt for the (old) religious opinions." — Ibid., p. 497. 
 ^Procfes-verbaux des conseils-gendraux.) On primary school-teachers, Hdrault: "Most 
 are blockheads and vagabonds."— Pas-de-Calais: "Most are blockheads or ignora- 
 muses,"
 
 CHAP. I. OBJhCT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. ITS 
 
 tion of rights:' as they view it, the old manual formed polished 
 youths and respectful sons; the new one forms only insolent 
 profligates and precocious, slovenly blackguards/ Conse- 
 quently, the few primary schools in which the Republic has 
 placed its creatures and imposed its educational system re- 
 main three-quarters empty; in vain does she close the doors 
 of those in which other masters teach with other books; fa- 
 thers persist in their repugnance and distaste; they prefer for 
 their sons utter ignorance to unsound instruction/ — A secular 
 establishment, created and provided for by twenty generations 
 of benefactors, gave gratis, or at a much lower rate, the first 
 crumbs of intellectual food to more than 1,200,000 children/ 
 It was demolished; in its place, a few improvised and wretched 
 
 1 Rocquain, 194. (Report by Fourcroy on the 14th military division, Manclie, Orne, 
 Calvados.) " Besides bad conduct, drunkenness, and the immorality of many of these 
 teachers, it seems certain that th2 lack of instruction in religion is the principal mo- 
 tive which prevents parents from sending their children to these schools." — Archives 
 rationales, /^;V/. (Report by Lacude on the ist military division.) "The teachers, 
 male and female, who desired to conform to the law of Brumaire 3 and to the differ- 
 ent rules prescribed by the central administration, on placing the constitution and the 
 rights of man in the hands of their pupils, found their schools abandoned one after 
 the other. The schools the best attended are those where the Testament, the cate- 
 chism, and the life of Christ are used. . . . The instructors, obliged to pursue the 
 line marked out by the government, could not do otherwise than carry out the prin- 
 ciples which opposed the prejudices and habits of the parents; hence their loss of 
 credit, and tli:; almost total desertion of the pupils." 
 
 2 "The Revolution," vol. iii., p. 81, note 2. 
 
 3 " Statistiqucs des prdfets," Mo<;clIe. (Analysis by Ferriere.) At Metz, in lySij, 
 there were five free schools for young children, of which one was for boys and four for 
 girls, kept by monks or nuns ; in the year xii there were none : " An entire genera- 
 tion was given up to ignorance." /i;V/., Ain, by Bossi. 1808: "In 1800. there were 
 scarcely any primary schools in the department, as in the rest of France." In 1808, 
 there are scarcely thirty.— Albert Duruy, p. 480, 496. (Proces-verbau.x des conseils- 
 geni^raux, year ix ) Vosges : "Scarcely any primary instruction."— Sarthe : "Pri- 
 mary instruction, none." — Meuse-Inferieure : " It is feared that in fifteen years or so 
 there will not be one man in a hundred able to write," etc. 
 
 4 These are the minimum figures, and they are arrived at through the following cal- 
 culation. Before 1789, 47 men out of loo, and 26 women out of 100, that is to say ^6 or 
 37 persons in 100, received primary instruction. Now, according to the census from 
 1876 to 188 1 (official statistics of primary instruction, iii., xvi.), children from six to 
 thirteen number about twelve per cent of the entire population. Accordingly, in 1789, 
 out of a population of 26 millions, the children from 6 to 13 numbered 3,120,000. of 
 whom 1.138,000 learned to read and write. It must be noted that, in 1800, the adult 
 population had greatly diminished, and that the infantine population had largely in- 
 creased. France, moreover, is enlarged by 12 departments (Belgium, Savoy, Com- 
 tat, Nice), where the old schools had equally perished. — If all the old schools had been 
 kept up, it is probable that the children who would have had primary instruction 
 would have numbered nearly 1,400,000.
 
 176 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 barracks distributed here and there a small ration of mouldy 
 and indigestible bread. Thereupon, one long, low murmur, a 
 longtime suppressed, breaks out and keeps on increasing, that 
 of parents whose children are condemned to go hungry; in 
 any event, they demand that their sons and daughters be no 
 longer forced, under penalty of fasting, to consume the patent 
 flour of the State, that is to say a nauseous, unsatisfactory, 
 badly-kneaded, badly-baked paste which, on trial, proves offen- 
 sive to the palate and ruinous to the stomach. 
 
 * 
 
 VI. 
 
 Another plaint is heard, deeper and more universal, that 
 of all souls in which regret for their established church and 
 forms of worship still subsists or is revived. 
 
 In every religious system discipline and rites depend upon 
 faith, for it is faith alone which suggests or prescribes these; 
 they are the outcome and expansion of this; it attains its 
 ends through these, and manifests itself by them; they are 
 the exterior of which it is the interior; thus, let these be at- 
 tacked and it is in distress; the living, palpitating flesh suffers 
 through the sensitive epiderm. — In Catholicism, this epiderm 
 is more sensitive than elsewhere, for it clings to the flesh, not 
 alone through ordinary adhesiveness, the effect of adaptation 
 and custom, but again through a special organic attachment, 
 consisting of dogmatic doctrine; theology, in its articles of 
 belief, has here set up the absolute necessity of the sacra- 
 ments and of the priesthood ; consequently, between the 
 superficial and central divisions of religion the union is com- 
 plete. The Catholic sacraments, therefore, are not merely 
 symbols; they possess in themselves "an efficacious power, a 
 sanctifying virtue." " That which they represent, they really 
 work out." ' If I am denied access to them, I am cut off from 
 the fountains to which my soul resorts to drink in grace, par- 
 
 I Saint Thomas, " Summa theologica," pars iii., questio 60 usque ad 85 : " Sacra- 
 menta efficiunt quod figurant. . . . Sant necessaria ad salutem hominum. . . . Ab 
 ipso verbo incarnata efficaciam habent. Ex sua institutione habent quod conferant 
 gratiam . . . Sacramentum est causa gratix, causa agens, principalis et instrumen- 
 talis."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 177 
 
 don, purity, health and salvation. If my children cannot be 
 regularly baptized, they are not Christians; if extreme unction 
 cannot be administered to my dying mother, she sets out on 
 the long journey without the viaticum; if I am married by 
 the mayor only, my wife and I live in concubinage; if I cannot 
 confess my sins, I am not absolved from them, and my burdened 
 conscience seeks in vain for the helping hand which will ease 
 the too heavy load; if I cannot perform my Easter duties, 
 my spiritual life is a failure; the supreme and sublime act by 
 which it perfects itself through the mystic union of my body 
 and soul with the body, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ, is 
 wanting. — Now, none of these sacraments are valid if they 
 have not been conferred by a priest, one who bears the stamp 
 of a superior, unique, ineffaceable character, through a final 
 sacrament consisting of ordination and which is conferred 
 only on certain conditions; among other conditions, it is es- 
 sential that this priest should have been ordained by a bishop; 
 among other conditions, it is essential that this bishop' should 
 have been installed by the Pope. Consequently, without the 
 Pope there are no bishops; without bishops no priests; with- 
 out priests no sacraments; without the sacraments no salva- 
 tion. The ecclesiastical institution is therefore indispensa- 
 ble to the believer. The canonical sacerdoce, the canonical 
 hierarchy is necessary to him for the exercise of his faith. — 
 He must have yet more, if fervent and animated with true old 
 Christian sentiment, ascetic and mystic, which separates the 
 soul from this world and ever maintains it in the presence of 
 God. Several things are requisite to this end; and first, vows 
 of chastity, poverty and obedience, that is to say, the steady 
 and voluntary repression of the most powerful animal instinct 
 and of the strongest worldly appetites; next, unceasing prayer, 
 especially prayer in common, where the emotion of the pros- 
 trate soul increases througli the emotion of the souls that sur- 
 round it; in the same degree, active piety, meaning by this 
 the doing of good works, education and charity, especially the 
 accomplishment of repulsive tasks, such as attending the sick, 
 
 I Except priests ordained by a bishop of the Greek church.
 
 178 THE MODERN REGIME book hi. 
 
 the infirm, the incurable, idiots, maniacs and repentant pros- 
 titutes; finally, the strict daily rule which, a sort of rigorous 
 and minute countersign, enjoining and compelUng the repeti- 
 tion of the same acts at the same hours, renders habit the 
 auxiliary of will, adds mechanical enthusiasm to a serious de- 
 termination, and ends in making the task easy. Hence, com- 
 munities of men and of women, congregations and convents, 
 these likewise, the same as the sacraments, the sacerdoce and 
 the hierarchy, form a body along with belief and thus con- 
 stitute the inseparable organs of faith. 
 
 Before 1789, the ignorant or indifferent Catholic, the peas- 
 ant at his plow, the mechanic at his U'ork-bench, the good 
 wife attending to her household, were unconscious of thir. in- 
 nermost suture; thanks to the Revolution, they have acquired 
 the sentiment of it and even the physical sensation. They 
 had never asked themselves in what respect orthodoxy dif- 
 fered from schism, nor how positive religion was opposed to 
 natural religion; it is the civil organization of the clergy 
 which has led them to distinguish the difference between the 
 unsworn cure and the interloper, between the right mass and 
 the wrong mass; it is the prohibition of the mass which has 
 led them to comprehend its importance; it is the revolution- 
 ary government which has transformed them into theologians 
 and canonists.' Compelled, under the Reign of Terror, to sing 
 
 I "The Revolution,"!. i6i.— Archives nalionales. ( Reports of the Directory com- 
 missioners from the cantons and departments.— There are hundreds of these reports, 
 of which the following are specimens )—F', 7108. (Canton of Passavent, Doubs, 
 Ventose 7, year iv.) "The sway of rehgious opinions is much more extensive here 
 than before the revolution, because the mass of the people did not concern them- 
 selves about them, while nowadays they form among- the generality the subject of 
 conversation and complaint."— F', 7127. (Canton of Gou.x, Doubs, Pluviose 13, year 
 IV.) "The hunting down of unsworn priests, coupled with the dilapidation and 
 destruction of the temples, displeased the people, who want a religion and a cult ; 
 the government became hateful to them."— //'?"(/. (Dordogne, canton of Livrac, Ven- 
 tose 13, year iv.) " The demolition of altars, the closing of the churches, had ren- 
 dered the people furious under the Tyranny."— F', 7129. (Seine-Inferieure, canton 
 of Canteleu, Pluviose 12, year iv.) "I knew enlightened men who, in the ancient 
 reo-ime, never went near a church, and yet who harbored refractory priests."— Ar- 
 chives nationales, cartons 3144- 3145, No. 1004. (Missions of the councillors of state 
 in the year ix.) At this date, worship was everywhere established and spontaneously. 
 <Report by Lacuee.) In Eure-et-Loire, " nearly every village has its church and 
 minister; the temples are open in the towns and are well attended."— In Seine-et
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 179 
 
 and dance before the goddess Reason, and next, in the tem- 
 ple of the " Etre Supreme," subjected, under the Directory, 
 to the new-fangled republican calendar, and to the insipidity 
 of the decade festivals, they have measured, with their own 
 eyes, the distance which separates a present, personal, incar- 
 nate deity, redeemer and savior, from a deity without form or 
 substance, or, in any event, absent ; a living, revealed, and 
 time-honored religion, and an abstract, manufactured, impro- 
 vised religion; their spontaneous worship, which is an act of 
 faith, and a worship imposed on them which is only frigid 
 parade; their priest, in a surplice, sworn to continence, dele- 
 gated from on high to open out to them the infinite perspec- 
 tives of heaven or hell beyond the grave, and the republican 
 substitute, officiating in a municipal scarf, Peter or Paul, a lay- 
 man like themselves, more or less married and convivialist, 
 sent from Paris to preach a course of Jacobin morality.' — 
 Their attachment to their clergy, to the entire body regular 
 and secular, is due to this contrast. Previously, they were 
 not always well-disposed to it; the peasantry, nowhere, were 
 content to pay tithes, and the artisan, as well as the peasant, 
 regarded the idle, well-endowed, meditative monks as but lit- 
 tle more than so many fat drones. The man of the people in 
 France, by virtue of being a Gaul, has a dry, limited imagina- 
 tion; he is not inclined to veneration, but is rather shrewd, 
 critical and a railler at the powers above him, with a hereditary 
 undertone of distrust and envy at every man who wears a 
 cloth suit and who eats and drinks without doing manual la- 
 bor. — At this time, his clergy do not excite his envy, but his 
 pity; monks and nuns, cures and prelates, roofless, without 
 bread, imprisoned, transported, guillotined, or, at best, fugi- 
 tives, hunted down and more unfortunate than wild beasts — 
 it is he who, during the persecutions of the years 11, iv and vi, 
 
 Oise, " the Roman Catholic cult prevails in all the communes of the department." — 
 In Oise, " worship is earned on in all the communes of the department." — In Loiret, 
 "the churches are attended by the multitude ^ilmost as reijularly as before 1788. 
 One-sixth of the communes (only ) have neither worship nor minister and, in these 
 communes, both are strongrly desired." 
 
 1 Archives nationales, F', 7129. (Tarn, canton of Vielmur, Germinal 10, yea.- iv.) 
 "The ignorant now regard patriot and brigand as synonymous."
 
 iSo THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK ill. 
 
 harbors them, conceals them, lodges them and feeds them. 
 He sees them suffering for their faith, which is his faith, and^ 
 before their constancy, equal to that of the legendary m^irtyrs, 
 his indifference changes into respect and next into zeaL 
 From the year iv,' the orthodox priests have again recovered 
 their place and ascendency in his soul which the creed assigns 
 to them: they have again become his serviceable guides, his 
 accepted directors, the only warranted interpreters of Christian 
 truth, the only authorized dispensers and ministers of divine 
 grace. He attends their mass immediately on their return 
 and will put up with no other. Brutalized as he may be, or 
 indifferent and dull, and his mind filled with nothing but ani- 
 mal concerns, he needs them;" he misses their solemnities, the 
 
 1 Arcliives nationales, F', 7108. (Doubs, canton of Vercel, Pluviose 20, year iv.> 
 " Under the law of Prairial 11, the unsworn priests were all recalled by their former 
 parishioners. Their hold on the people is so strong that there is no sacrifice that they 
 will not make, no ruse nor measures that they will not employ to keep them and 
 elude the rigor of the laws bearing on them " — {Ibitl.y canton of Pontarliet, Pluviose 
 3, year iv.) "In the primary assemblies, the aristocracy, together with spite, have 
 induced the ignorant people not to accept the constitution except on condition of the 
 recall of their transported or emigrant priests for the exercise of their worship." — 
 (//^/</., canton of Labergement, Pluviose 14, year iv.) "The cultivators adore 
 them. ... I am the only citizen of my canton who, along with m.' family, offers up 
 prayers to the Eternal without any intermediary." — F', 7127. (C Jte-d'Or, canton of 
 Beaune, Ventose 5, year IV.) "Fanaticism is a power of great influence." — {Ibid.y 
 canton of Frolois, Pluviose 9, year iv.) " Two unsworn priests returned eighteen 
 months ago ; fney are hidden away and hold nocturnal meetings. . . . They have se- 
 duced and corrupted at least three-quarters of the people of bjth sexes."— (//'/(A, can- 
 ton of Ivry, Pluviose i, year iv.) " Fanaticism and popery have perverted tlie public 
 mind."— F', 7119. (Puy-de-Dome, canton of Ambert, Ventose 15, year iv.) '• Five re- 
 turned priests have celebrated the mass here, and each time were followed by 3000 or 
 4000 persons." — F', 7127. (Dordngne, canton of Carlux, Pluviose t8, year iv.) "The 
 people are so attached to the Catholic faith, they walk fully two leagues to attend 
 mass."— F', 71 19. (Ardeche, canton of Saiiit-Barih^lemy, Pluviose 15, year iv.) 
 "The unsubmissive piiestshave become absolute masters of popular opinion." — 
 (Orne, canton of Alenjon, Ventose 22, year iv.) " Presidents, members of the mu- 
 nicipal c<"uncils, instead of arresting the refractory priests and bringing them into 
 court, admit them to their table, lodge them and impart to them the secrets of the 
 government." — F', 7129 (Seine-et-Oise, canton of Jouy. Pluviose 8, year iv.) " Forty- 
 nine out of fifty citizens seem to h^ve the greatest desire to profess the Catholic 
 faith."— //'/V., cnnton of Dammartin, Pluviose 7, year iv.) "The Catholic religion 
 has full sway ; those who do not accept it are frowned upon " — At the same date 
 (Pluviose 9, year iv), the commissioner at Chamarande writes: " I see persons giving 
 what they call blessed bread and yet having nothing to eat." 
 
 2 Ihid.^ cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004, missions of the councillors of state, year 
 ,x. — (Report of Barb^-Marbois on Brittany.) " At Vannes, I entered the cathedral 
 on \\\^ jour lies /\ois, where the constitutional mass was being celebrated; there were 
 only one priest and two or three poor people there. A little farther on 1 found a
 
 CHAP. 1, OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. i8i 
 
 great festivals, the Sunday; and this privation is a periodical 
 want both for eyes and ears; he regrets the ceremonial, the 
 lights, the chants, the ringing of the bells, the morning and 
 evening Angelus. — Thus, whether he knows it or not, his heart 
 and senses are Catholic' and he demands the old church back 
 again. Before the Revolution, this church lived on its own 
 revenues; seventy thousand priests, thirty -seven thousand 
 nuns, twenty-three thousand monks, supported by endow- 
 ments, cost the State nothing, and scarcely anything to the 
 tax-payer; at any rate, they cost nothing to the actual, exist- 
 ing tax-payer, not even the tithes, for, established many cen- 
 turies, the tithes were a tax on the soil, not on the owner in 
 possession, nor on the farmer who tilled the ground, who has 
 purchased or hired it with this tax deducted. In any case, the 
 real property of the Church belonged to it, without prejudice 
 to anybody, through the strongest legal and most legitimate 
 of property titles, the last will and testament of thousands of 
 the dead, its founders and benefactors. All is taken from it, 
 even the houses of prayer which, in their use, disposition and 
 architecture, were, in the most manifest manner. Christian 
 works and ecclesiastical objects, thirty-eight thousand parson- 
 ages, four thousand convents, over forty thousand parochial 
 churches, cathedrals and chapels. Every morning, the man 
 
 large crowd barring the way in the street; these people could not enter a chapel 
 which was already full and where the mass called for by the Catholics was being 
 celebrated.— Elsewhere, the churches in the town were likewise deserted, and tlie 
 people went to hear mass by a priest just arrived from England." — (Report by 
 Franfals de Nantes on Vaucluse and Provence.) One tenth of the population fol- 
 lows the constitutional priests ; the rest follow the returned emigre priests; the lat- 
 ter have on their side the rich and influential portion of society."— (Report of Lacude 
 on Paris and the seven surrounding departments.) " The situation of the unsubmis- 
 sive priests is more advantageous than that of the submissive priests. . . . The latter 
 are neglected and abandoned ; it is not fashionable to join them. . . . (The former) 
 are venerated by their adherents as martyrs; they excite tender interest, especially 
 from the women." 
 
 I Archives nationales. cartons 3144 and 3145, No. 1004. missions of the councillors of 
 slate, year IX — (Report by Lacu^e.) " The wants of the people in this way seem at 
 this moment to be confined. . . to a vain spectacle, to ceremonies : going to mass, the 
 sermon and vespers, which is all very well ; but confession, the communion, fasting, 
 doing without meat, is not common anywhere. ... In the country, where there are 
 no priests, the village schoolmaster officiates, and people are content ; they would 
 prefer bells without priests rather than priests without bells,"' — This regret for bells 
 is very frequent and survives even in the cantons which are lukewarm — (Creuse, 
 Pluviose 10, year iv.) " They persist in replanting the crosses which the priests have 
 dug up ; they put back the ropes to the bells which the magistrate has taken away."
 
 1 82 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 or woman of the people, in whom the need of worship has re- 
 vived, passes in front of one of these buildings robbed of its 
 cult; these declare aloud to them through their form and name 
 what they have been and what they should be to-day. This 
 voice is heard by incredulous philosophers and former Con- 
 ventionalists;' all Catholics hear it, and out of thirty-five mil- 
 lions of Frenchmen,' thirty-two millions are Catholics. 
 
 VII. 
 
 How withstand such a just complaint, the universal com- 
 plaint of the indigent, of parents, and of believers ? — The capi- 
 tal difficulty here reappears, the nearly insurmountable dilem- 
 ma into which the Revolution has plunged every steady 
 government, that is to say the lasting effect of revolutionary 
 confiscations and the conflict which sets two rights on the 
 same domain in opposition to one another, the right of the 
 dispoiled owner and the right of the owner in possession. This 
 time, again the fault is on the side of the State, which has 
 converted itself from a gendarme into a brigand and violently 
 appropriated to itself the fortune of the hospitals, schools, and 
 churches ; the State must return this in money or in kind. In 
 kind, it is no longer able ; everything has passed out of its 
 hands ; it has alienated what it could, and now holds on only 
 to the leavings. In money, nothing more can be done ; it is 
 itself ruined, has just become bankrupt, lives on expedients 
 from day to day and has neither funds nor credit. Nobody 
 
 1 Archives nationales, cnrfotts 3144 and 3145, No. 1004, missions of the councillors of 
 state, year ix.— (Report by Fourcroy.) " The keeping of Sunday and the attendance 
 on the churches, which is seen everywhere, shows that the mass of Frenchmen desire 
 a return to ancient usages, and that the time has gone by for resisting this national 
 tendency. . . . The mass of mankind require a religion, a system of worship and a 
 priesthood. It is an error 0/ certain modern philosophers., into ivhich I haTt my- 
 self been led, to believe in the possibility of any instruction sufficiently widespread to 
 destroy religious prejudices ; they are a source of consolation for the vast number 
 of the unfortunate. . . . Priests, altars and worship must accordingly be left to the 
 mass of the people." 
 
 2 Peuchet, " Statistique dl^mentaire de la France" (published in 1805), p. 228. 
 According to statements furnished by prefects in the years ix and x, the popula- 
 tion is 33,111,962 persons; the annexation of the island of Elbe and of Piedmont adds 
 1,864.350. Total, 34,976,313.— Pelet de la Lozfere, p. 203. (Speech by Napoleon to the 
 council of state, February 4, 1804, on the Protestant seminaries of Geneva and Stras- 
 bourg, and on the number of Protestants in his states.) " Their population numbers 
 only 3 millions."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. i8 
 
 J 
 
 <ireams of taking back property that is sold ; nothing is more 
 opposed to the spirit of the new regime : not only would this 
 be a robbery as before, since its buyers have paid for it and 
 got their receipts, but again, in disputing their title the gov- 
 ernment would invalidate its own, for its authority is derived 
 from the same source as their property : it is established on 
 the same principle as their rights of possession and by virtue 
 of the same accomplished facts — because things are as they are 
 and could not be different, because ten years of revolution and 
 eight years of war bear down on the present with too heavy a 
 weight, because too many and too deep interests are involved 
 and enlisted on the same side, because the interests of 
 twelve hundred thousand purchasers are incorporated with 
 those of the thirty thousand officers to whom the Revolution 
 has provided a rank, along with that of all the new functionaries 
 and dignitaries, including the First Consul himself, who, in this 
 universal transposition of fortunes and ranks, is the greatest 
 of parvenus and who must maintain the others if he wants 
 to be maintained by them. Naturally, he protects everybody, 
 through calculation as well as sympathy, in the civil as in the 
 military order of things, particularly the new property-owners, 
 especially the smaller and the average ones, his best clients, 
 attached to his reign and to his person through love of prop- 
 erty, the strongest passion of the ordinary man, and through 
 love of the soil, the strongest passion of the peasant." Their 
 loyalty depends on their security, and consequently he is lavish 
 of guarantees. In his constitution of the yearviii," he declares 
 in the name " of the French nation that after a legally 
 consummated sale of national property, ivhatcver its origin, the 
 legitimate purchaser cannot be divested of it." Through the 
 institution of the Legion of Honor he obliges each member 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 330 (July 1800) : "The First Consul spoke to me about the steps 
 necessary to be taken to prevent the (emigrds) who had been struck off from petting 
 back their possessions, in view of maintaining the interest in the revolution of about 
 1,200,000 purchasers of national domains." — Rocquain. " fitat de la France au 18 
 Brumaire." (Report by Barb^-Marbois on Morbihan, Finistcrre, Ile-et-Vilaine, and 
 C6tes-du-Nord. year ix.) " In every place I have just passed throuRh the proprietors 
 recognize that their existence is attached to that of the First Consul." 
 
 2 Constitution of Frimaire 22, year viii, art. 94. — Article 93, moreover, declares 
 that " the possessions of the Emigrds are irrevocably acquired by the republic."
 
 J 84 THE MODERN REGIME. book iir. 
 
 " to swear, on his honor, to devote himself to the conservation 
 of property sanctioned by the laws of the republic."' Accord- 
 ing to the terms of the imperial constitution * " he swears " him- 
 self " to respect and to enforce respect for the irrevocability 
 of the sale of national possessions." 
 
 Unfortunately, a cannon-ball on the battle-field, an infernal 
 machine in the street, an illness at home, may carry off the 
 guarantor and the guarantees." On the other hand, confis- 
 cated goods preserve their original taint. Rarely is the pur- 
 chaser regarded favorably in his commune; the bargain he 
 has made excites envy; he is not alone in his enjoyment of it, 
 but the rest suffer from it. Formerly, this or that field of 
 which he reaps the produce, this or that domain of which he 
 enjoys the rental, once provided for the parsonage, the asylum 
 and the school; now the school, the asylum and the parson- 
 age die through inanition for his advantage; he fattens on 
 their fasting. In his own house, his wife and mother often 
 look melancholy, especially during Easter week; if he is old, 
 or becomes ill, his conscience disturbs him; this conscience, 
 through habit and heredity, is Catholic: he craves absolution 
 at the last moment at the priest's hands, and says to himself 
 that, at the last moment, he may not probably be absolved.* 
 In other respects, he would find it difficult to satisfy himself 
 that his legal property is legitimate property; for, not only is 
 it not so rightfully before the tribunal of conscience, but 
 again it is not so in fact on the market; the figures, in this 
 particular, are convincing, daily and notorious. A patrimonial 
 
 1 Law of Flor^al 29, year x. title ist, article 8. The member also swears " to com- 
 bat with all the means which justice, reason and the law authorize, every enterprise 
 tending? to restore the feudal regime," and, consequently, feudal rights and tithes. 
 
 2 Organic S^natus-consulte, Flor^al 28, year xii (18th May 1804). Title vii., 
 art. 53. 
 
 3 Roederer.iii, 430-432 (April 4, 1802, Mayi, 1802): " Defermon remarked to me yes- 
 terday, ' This will all goon well as long as the First Consul lives; the day after his, 
 death we shall all emigrate.' "— " Every one, from the sailor to the mechanic, says to 
 himself, 'All this is very well, but will it last ? . . . — This work we undertake, this cap, 
 ital we risk, this house we build, these trees we plant, what will become of them if he 
 dies .?" 
 
 4 Ibid., 340. (Words of the First Consul, November 4, 1800.) " Who is the rich man 
 to-day ? The buyer of national domains, the contractor, the robber.'''' — These details, 
 above, are provided for me by family narrations and souvenirs. 
 
 I
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 185 
 
 domain which brings in three thousand francs finds a pur- 
 chaser at one hundred thousand francs; alongside of this a 
 national domain which brings in just as much, finds a pur- 
 chaser only at sixty thousand francs; after several sales and 
 resales, the depreciation continues and forty per cent of the 
 value of the confiscated property is lost/ A low, indistinct 
 murmur is heard, and reverberates fromsah to sale, the mut- 
 tering of private probity protesting against public probity, 
 declaring to the new proprietor that his title is defective; it 
 lacks one clause and a capital one, that of the surrender and 
 cession, the formal renunciation, the authentic desistance, of 
 the former owner. The State, the first seller, owes this 
 voucher to the purchasers; let it procure this and negotiate 
 accordingly; let it apply for this to the rightful party, to the 
 owners whom it has dispossessed, to the immemorial and le- 
 gitimate titularies, I mean to the ancient corporations. These 
 have been dissolved by revolutionary law and have no longer 
 a representative who can sign for them. Nevertheless, in 
 spite of revolutionary law, one of these corporations, with 
 more vitality than the rest, still subsists with its proper, if not 
 legal, representative, its regular and undisputed chief. This 
 
 I N;ipokon, " Correspondance," letterof September 5, 1795. " National and emigri 
 property 'S not dear; patrimonies are priceless." — Archives natinnales, cirtons 3144 
 to 3145, No. 1004, missions of ihe councillors of state, year ix. TReport by T,aciiee on 
 the seven departments of the division of the Seine.) "The proportion of value, in 
 Seine, between national and pntrimonial properties is from 8 to 15 " — In Eiire, 
 national property of every kind is sold about to per cent, off, and patrimonial at 
 about 4 percent, off. There are two sorts of national property, one of first origin 
 (that of the clergy), and the other of second orijrin fthat of the e'nn'e^res). The 
 latter is much more depreciated than the former. Compared with patrimonial prop- 
 erty, in Aisne, the former loses a fifth or a quarter of its value and the latter a third ; 
 in I.oirct, the former loses a quarter and the latter one-half ; in Seine-et-Oise the 
 former loses one-third and the latter three-fifths; in Oise the former is at about 
 par, the latter loses a quarter. — Rcederer, iii., 472 fDecember 1803). Depreciation 
 of national property in Normandy : " Rut Utile is bousrht above 7 per cent, off ; this, 
 however, is the fate of this sort of property throughout France." — Ihid.. iii. , 534 (Jan- 
 uary 1800) : " In Normandy, investments on patrimonial property brinir only 3 per 
 cent , while Slate property bring-s 5 per cent." — MnniteurC^^rwiTwy 4, 182s). Report of 
 M. de Martignac : "The confiscated property of the dniigres^nA^ its purchasers with 
 diflficulty, and its commercial value is not in proportion to its real value."— Duclo- 
 songe. former inspector of domains, " \foypns de porter les domaines nationau.x ;\ la 
 valeur dcs biens patrimoniaux," p. 7. " Since 1815. national property has generally 
 been bought at a rate of income of 3 per cent, or, at the most. 4 per cent. The differ- 
 ence for this epoch is accordingly one-fifth, and even two-fifths."
 
 1 86 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 chief is qualified and authorized to bind the body; for, institu- 
 tionally, he is supreme, and the conscience of all its members 
 is in his hand. His signature is of the highest value; it is very 
 important to obtain this, and the First Consul concludes the 
 Concordat with the Pope. 
 
 By this Concordat, the Pope " declares that neither himself 
 nor his successors shall in any manner disturb the purchasers 
 of alienated ecclesiastical property, and that the ownership of 
 the said property, the rights and revenues derived therefrom, 
 shall consequently remain incommutable in their hands or in 
 those of their assigns." ' Henceforth the possession of this- 
 property is no longer a sin; at least, it is not condemned by 
 the spiritual authority, by that external conscience which, in 
 Catholic countries, governs the inward conscience and often, 
 supplies its place; the Church, the moral head, removes with 
 its own hands the moral scruple, the last small stone, trou- 
 blesome and dangerous, which, lying underneath the corner- 
 stone of lay society, breaks the level of the entire structure 
 and compromises the equilibrium of the new government. — In 
 exchange, the State endows the Church. By the same Con- 
 cordat, and by the decrees which follow it, " the government' 
 ensures a suitable salary to bishops and cures," fifteen thou- 
 sand francs to each archbishop, ten thousand francs to each 
 bishop, fifteen hundred francs to each cure of the first 
 class and one thousand francs to each cure of the second 
 class,' also, later on,* a maximum of five hundred francs and 
 a minimum of three hundred francs to each assistant-priest or 
 vicar. ** If circumstances require it,^ the co?iseils-generaux of 
 the large communes may grant to prelates or to cures an in- 
 crease of salary out of their rural possessions or octrois'' In 
 all cases, archbishops, bishops, cures and priests shall be 
 lodged, or receive a lodging indemnity. So much for the sup- 
 
 1 Treaty between the Pope and the French g-overnment, July 15, 1801. Ratifica- 
 tions exchanged September i, 1801, and published with its articles April 8, 1802. — 
 Article 13. 
 
 2 Hid., article 14. 
 
 3 Articles organiques, 64, 65, 66. 
 
 4 Law of November 30, 1809, and opinion of the Council of State, May 19, i8ii. 
 ,S Articles organiques, 68.
 
 CHAP. 1. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 187 
 
 port of persons. — As to real property/ " all the metropolitan 
 churches, cathedrals, parochial buildings and others, not 
 alienated, and needed for the purposes of worship, shall be 
 subject to the disposition of the bishops." — The parsonages 
 and gardens attached to these, not alienated, shall be given up 
 to the cures and assistant-priests." — "The possessions of the 
 fabriques^ not alienated, as well as the rentals they enjoyed, 
 and which have not been transferred, shall be restored to their 
 destination. — As to the outlay and expenditure for worship,' 
 for the parochial fabriqiie or cathedral, if its revenue is not 
 sufficient, this shall receive aid from its commune, or from 
 its department; besides, " an assessment of ten per cent.^ shall 
 be laid on the revenues of all the real estate of the communes, 
 such as houses, woods, and rural possessions, for the forma- 
 tion of a common '"und of subsidy," a general sum with which 
 to provide for " acquisitions, reconstructions or repairs of 
 churches, . . . seminaries and parsonages." Moreover,^ the 
 government allows " the French Catholics to make endow- 
 ments, if so disposed, in favor of churches . . . for the sup- 
 port of ministers and the exercise of worship," that is to say 
 to bequeath or make gifts to l\\t fabriqiies or seminaries; in 
 fine, it exempts seminarists, the future cures, from the con- 
 scription. 
 
 It also exempts the " Ignorantins," or brethren of the Chris- 
 tian schools, who are the instructors of the common people. 
 With respect to these and in relation to every other Catholic 
 institution, it follows the same utilitarian principle, the funda- 
 mental maxim of laic and practical good sense : when religious 
 vocations make their appearance and serve the public, it wel- 
 comes and makes use of them ; it grants them facilities, dis- 
 pensations and favors, its protection, its donations, or at least 
 its tolerance. Not only does it turn their zeal to account, but 
 
 1 Articles orgraniques, 71, 72 —Concordat, article 12. — Law passed July 26, 1803. 
 
 2 Councils of laymen entrusted with the administration of parish incomes. 
 
 3 Law of December 30, i8og, articles 39, 92 and following articles, 105 and follow- 
 ing articles. 
 
 4 Law of September 15. 1807, title ix. 
 
 5 Concordat, article 15. — Articles organiques, 73.
 
 1 88 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 it authorizes their association.' Numerous societies of men 
 or of women again spring up with the assent of the public 
 authorities — the " Ignorantins," the " Filles de la Charite," the 
 " Sceurs Hospitalieres," the " Scaurs de Saint-Thomas," the 
 " Sceurs de Saint-Charles," the " Sceurs Vatelottes." The 
 Council of State accepts and approves of their statutes, vows, 
 hierarchy, and internal regulations. They again become 
 proprietors ; they may accept donations and legacies. The 
 State frequently makes presents to them. In 1808,^ thirty- 
 one communities of Sisters of Charity, and mostly educational, 
 thus obtain the buildings and furniture they ask for, in full 
 possession and gratuitously. The State, also, frequently sup- 
 ports them ;' it repeatedly decides that in this asylum, or in 
 that school, the "sisters" designated by the ancient founda- 
 tion shall resume their work and be paid out of the income of 
 the asylum or school. Better still, and notwithstanding com- 
 minatory decrees,^ Napoleon, between 1804 and 1814, allows 
 fifty-four communities to arise and exist, outside of the con- 
 gregations authorized by him, which do not submit their 
 statutes to him and which dispense with his permission to 
 exist ; he lets them live and does not disturb them ; he judges'* 
 " that there is every sort of character and imagination, that 
 eccentricities even should not be repressed when they do no 
 harm," that, for certain people, an ascetic life in common is 
 the only refuge ; if that is all they desire they should not be 
 
 1 Alexis Chevalier, "les Frferes des ^coles chr^tiennes et TEnseignement primaire 
 aprfes la revolution," /''-s^-f"- (Act of Venddmiare 24 and Prairial 28, year xi, and 
 Fnmiaire 11, year xii; laws of May 14, 1806, March 7, 1808, February 17, 1809, Decern. 
 36, 1810.) 
 
 2 Alexis Chevalier, iHti., i8g. 
 
 3 Il'iei., p. 185 sequitur. (Decision of Aug. 8, 1803, of March 25, 7805, of May 30, 1806.') 
 
 4 Decree of June 22, 1804 (articles i and 4). — "Consultation sur les decrets du 29 
 Mars 1880," by Edmond Rousse, p. 32. (Out of 54 communities, there were two of 
 men, the " Pferes du tiers-ordre de Saint-Fran9ois" and the priests of " la Misdricorde," 
 one founded in 1806 and the other in 1808.) 
 
 5 " Memorial de Sainte-Helene." Napoleon adds " that an empire like France may 
 and must have some refuge for maniacs called Trappists." — Pelet de la Lozfere, p. 208. 
 (Session of the council of state. May 22, 1804.) " My intention is to have the house of 
 foreign missions restored ; these monks will be of great use to me in Asia, Africa, and 
 America. ... I will give them a capital of 15,000 francs a year to begin with. ... I shall 
 also re-establish the ' Sisters of Charity ;' I have already had them put in possession 
 of their old buildings. I think it necessary also, whatever may be said of it, to re- 
 establish the ' Ignorantins.'' "
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 189 
 
 disturbed, and it is easy to feign ignorance of them ; but let 
 them remain quiet and be sufficient unto themselves ! — Such 
 is the new growth of the regular clergy alongside of the secu- 
 lar clergy, the two main branches of the Catholic trunk. 
 Owing to the help, or to the authorization, or to the conni- 
 vance of the State, inside or outside of its limitations, both 
 clerical bodies, legally or in reality, recover a civil existence, 
 and thus obtain, or at least nearly so, their physical mainte- 
 nance.' 
 
 And nothing more. Nobody, better than Napoleon, knows 
 how to make a good bargain, that is to say, to give a little in 
 order to gain a great deal. In this treaty with the Church he 
 tightens his purse-strings and especially avoids parting with his 
 ready money. Six hundred and fifty thousand francs for fifty 
 bishops and ten archbishops, a little more than four million 
 francs for the three or four thousand cantonal cures, .in all 
 five million francs per annum, is all that the State promises to 
 the new clergy ; later on,'" he takes it on himself to pay those 
 who officiate in the branch chapels ; nevertheless, in 1807, 
 the entire appropriation for public worship costs the State 
 only twelve million francs a year;' the rest, as a rule, and 
 especially the salaries of the forty thousand assistant-priests 
 and vicars, must be provided by i\\Q fabriques and the com- 
 munes." Let the clergy benefit by occasional contributions ;^ 
 let it appeal to the piety of believers for its monstrances, 
 chalices, albs and chasubles, for decorations and the other 
 
 1 Roederer. iii.,481. {St'nntorerie of Caen, Germinal i7.year xiii.) Constant lamenta- 
 tions of bishops and most of the priests he has met. " A poor cure, mi uti/ortunate cure. 
 . . . The bishop invites you to dinner, to partake of the poor cheer of a>i unfortunate 
 bishop on 12,000 francs salary."— The episcopal palaces are superb, but their furniiure 
 is that of a village curd; one can scarcely find a chair in the finest room. — " The offi- 
 ciating priests have not yet found a fixed salary in any commune. . . . The peasants 
 ardently longed for their usual mass and Sunday service as in the past, but to pay for 
 this is another thing." 
 
 2 Decrees of May 31 and Dccem. 26, 1804, assigning to the Treasury the salaries of 
 24,000 and then 30,000 assistant-priests. 
 
 3 Charles Nicolas, "le Budget de la France depuis Ic commencement du XIX* 
 siiicle ;"' appropriation in 1807, 12,341,537 francs. 
 
 4 Decrees of Prairial 2, year xii, Nivosc 5. year xin, and Sep. 30, 1807. -Decree of 
 Decem. 30, 1809 (.irticles 37, 39,40, 49 and ch. iv.)— Opinion of the council of state, 
 May 19, 1811. 
 
 5 These are limited (articles organiques, 5) : " All ecclesiastical functions are gratui- 
 tous except the authorized oblations fixed by the regulations."
 
 190 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 expenses of worship ; they are not prohibited from being 
 liberal to it, not only during the services, on making col- 
 lections, but in their houses, within closed doors, from 
 hand to hand. Moreover, they have the right of making 
 gifts or bequests before a notary, of establishing foundations 
 in favor of seminaries and churches ; the foundation, after 
 verification and approval by the Council of State, becomes 
 operative ; only,' it must consist of state securities, because, 
 in this shape, it helps maintain their value and the credit of 
 the government ; in no case must it be composed of real 
 estate \'' should the clergy become land-owners it would enjoy 
 too much local influence ; no bishop, no cure must feel him- 
 self independent ; he must be and always remain a mere func- 
 tionary, a hired workman for whom the State provides work in 
 a shop with a roof overhead, a suitable and indispensable 
 atelier, in other words, the house of prayer well known in each 
 parish as "one of the edifices formerly assigned to worship." 
 This edifice is not restored to the Christian community, nor to 
 its representatives ; it is simply " placed at the disposition of 
 the bishop." ^ The State retains the ownership of it, or trans- 
 fers this to the communes ; it concedes to the clergy merely 
 the right of using it, and, in that, loses but little. Parish and 
 cathedral churches in its hands are, for the most part, dead 
 capital, nearly useless and almost valueless; through their struc- 
 ture, they are not fitted for civil offices ; it does not know what 
 to do with them except to make barns of them ; if it sells them 
 it is to demolishers for their value as building material, and 
 then at great scandal. Among the parsonages and gardens that 
 have been surrendered, several have become communal prop- 
 
 1 Articles organiques, 73. 
 
 2 Ibi'ii., 74 : " Real properly other than dwellings with their adjoining gardens, shall 
 not be held under ecclesiastical titles or possessed by ministers of worship by reason 
 of their functions." 
 
 3 Opinion of the Council of State, January 22, 1805, on the question whether the com- 
 munes have become owners of the churches and parsonages abandoned to them by the 
 law of Germinal 18, year x (articles organiques). — The Council of State is of the 
 opinion that "the said churches and parsonages must be considered as communal 
 property." If the State renounces ownership in these liuildings it is not in favor of 
 thc/abrigue. curd or bishop, but in favor of the commune.
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 191 
 
 erty,* and, in this case, it is not the State which loses its title 
 but the commune which is deprived of its investment. In 
 short, in the matter of available real estate, land or buildings, 
 from which the State might derive a rent, that which it sets off 
 from its domain and hands over to the clergy is of very little 
 account. As to military service, it makes no greater conces- 
 sions. Neither the Concordat nor the organic articles stipu- 
 late any exemption for the clergy ; the dispensation granted is 
 simply a favor ; this is provisional for the seminarians and only 
 becomes permanent under ordination ; now, the government 
 fixes the number of the ordained, and it keeps this down as 
 much as possible ;^ for the diocese of Grenoble, it allows only 
 eight in seven years.'' In this way, it not only saves conscripts, 
 but again, for lack of young priests, it forces the bishops to 
 appoint old priests, even constitutionalists, nearly all pension- 
 ers on the treasury, and which either relieves the treasury 
 of a pension or the commune of a subsidy.^ — Thus, in the re- 
 construction of the ecclesiastical fortune the State spares it- 
 self and the portion it contributes remains scanty ; it furnishes 
 but little more than the architectural plan, a few of the larger 
 stones and the permission or injunction to Iniild ; the rest con- 
 cerns the communes and private individuals. They must 
 
 1 In 1790 and 1791 a mimher of communes had made offers for national property with 
 a view to re-sell it afterwards, and much of this, remaining unsold, was on their hands. 
 
 2 .Articles organiques, 26. " The bishops will make no ordination before submitting 
 the number of persons to the government for its acceptance." 
 
 3 " Archives de Grenoble." (Documents communicated by Mdlle. de Franclieu.) 
 Letter of the bishop, Monseigncur Claude Simon, to the Mini>-ter of Worship, April 
 18, :8o9. " For seven years that I have been bishop of (Jrenoble, I have ordained thus 
 far only eight priests; during this period I have lost at least one hundred and fifty. 
 The survivors threaten me with a more rapid gap ; either they are infirm, bent with 
 the weight of years, or wearied or overworked. It is therefore urgent that I be 
 authorized to confer sacred orders on those who are old enough and have the neces- 
 sary instruction. Meanwhile, you are limited to asking authorization for the first eight 
 on the aforesaid list, of whom the youngest is twenty-four. ... I beg Your Excellency 
 lo present the others on this list for the authorization of His Imperial Majesty."— 
 fill/., October 6, 1811. "I have only one deacon and one subdeacon, whilst I am 
 losing three or four priests monthly." 
 
 4 Articles organiques, 68, fig. "' The pensions enjoyed by the curds by virtue of the 
 laws of the constituent assembly shall be deducted from their salary. The vicars and 
 assistants shall be taken from the pensioned ecclesiastics according to the laws of the 
 constituent assembly. The amount of these pensions and the product of oblations 
 'hall constitute their salary."
 
 192 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 exert themselves, continue and complete it, by order or spon- 
 taneously and under its permanent direction. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Such is its steady course, and which it applies to the re- 
 organization of the other two collective fortunes. — As to chari- 
 table institutions, under the Directory, the asylums and hospi- 
 tals had their unsold property restored to them, and in the 
 place of what had been sold they were promised national 
 property of equal value.' But this was a complicated opera- 
 tion; things had dragged along in the universal disorder and, 
 to carry it out, the First Consul reduced and simplified it. 
 He at once sets aside a portion of the national domain, several 
 distinct morsels in each district or department, amounting in 
 all to four millions of annual income derived from productive 
 real-estate,^ which he distributes among the asylums, pro rata, 
 according to their losses; he assigns to them, moreover, all 
 the rents, in money or in kind, due for foundations to par- 
 ishes, cures, /a^r/^//^^ and corporations; finally, " he applies 
 to their wants " various outstanding claims, all national do- 
 mains which have been usurped by individuals or communes 
 and which may be subsequently recovered, " all rentals be- 
 longing to the Republic, the recognition and payment of which 
 have been interrupted."^ In short, he rummages every corner 
 and picks out the scraps which may help them along; then, 
 resuming and extending another undertaking of the Directory, 
 he assigns to them, not merely in Paris, but in many other 
 towns, a portion of the product derived from theatres and 
 octrois." — Having thus increased their income, he applies him- 
 
 1 Laws of Venddmiaire 16, year v, and Ventose 20, year v. 
 
 2 Decree of Novem. 6, 1800. 
 
 3 Decisions of February 23, 1801, and June 26, 1801. (We find, through subsequent 
 decisions, that these recoveries were frequently effected.) 
 
 4 Law of Frimaire 7, year v (imposing^ one decime per franc above the cost of a 
 ticket in every theatre for the benefit of the poor not in the asylums). — Also the de- 
 cree of Decern. 9, 1809. — Decisions of Vendemiaire 27, year vii, and the restoration of 
 the Paris octroi, "considering that the distress of the civil asylums and the inter- 
 ruption of succor at domiciles admit of no further deiay." — Also the law of Frimaire 
 19, year viii, with tlie addition of 2 decimes per franc to the octroi duties, established 
 for the support of the asylums of the commune of Paris.— Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, 
 *' Traite de la science des finances," i., 685. Many towns follow this example: " Two 
 years had scarcely passed when there were 293 octrois in France."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 193 
 
 self to diminishing their expenses. On the one hand, he gives 
 them back their special servants, those who cost the least and 
 work the best, I mean the Sisters of Charity. On the other 
 hand, he binds them down rigidly to exact accounts; he sub- 
 jects them to strict supervision; he selects for them competent 
 and suitable administrators; he stops, here as everywhere else, 
 waste and peculation. Henceforth, the public reservoir to 
 which the poor come to quench their thirst is repaired and 
 cleaned; the water remains pure and no longer oozes out; 
 private charity may therefore pour into it its fresh streams 
 with full security; on this side, they flow in naturally, and, at 
 this moment, with more force than usual, for, in the reservoir, 
 half-emptied by revolutionary confiscations, the level is always 
 low. 
 
 There remain the institutions for instruction. With respect 
 to these, the restoration seems more difficult, for their ancient 
 endowment is almost entirely wasted ; the government has 
 nothing to give back but dilapidated buildings, a few scattered 
 investments formerly intended for the maintenance of a col- 
 lege scholarship,' or for a village schoolhouse. And to whom 
 should these be returned since the college and the school- 
 house no longer exist ? — Fortunately, instruction is an article 
 of such necessity that a father almost always tries to procure 
 it for his children; even if poor, he is willing to pay for it, if 
 not too dear; only, he wants that which pleases him in kind 
 and in quality and, therefore, from a particular source, bearing 
 this or that factory stamp or label. If you want him to buy 
 it do not drive the purveyors of it from the market who en- 
 joy his confidence and who sell it cheaply; on the contrary, 
 welcome them and allow them to display their wares. This 
 is the first step, an act of toleration; the coiiseils-ge'nc'raux de- 
 mand it and the government yields.' It permits the return 
 
 1 Law of Mcssidor 25, year v. — Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 185. (Decisions of Ther- 
 midor 20, year xi, and Germinal 4. year xiii ) — I,aw of Decern 11, 1808 (article ist.) 
 
 2 Albert Duruy, " Tlnstruction publique ct la RC-voIution," p. 480 et seq. (" Procfs- 
 verbaux des conseils pdneraux de Tan ix;" amongf others, the petitions from Gi- 
 ronde, Ile-et-Vilaine. Maine-ct-Loire, Puy-de-Dome. Haute-Saone, Haute Vienna, 
 la Manche, Lot-ct-Garonnc. Sarthc, Aisne, Aude, Cote-d'Or, Pasde-Calais, Basse- 
 Pyrenees, Pyrenees-Oricnlalcs, and Lot.)
 
 194 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 of the Ignorantin brethren, allows them to teach and author- 
 izes the towns to employ them; later on, it graduates them at 
 its University: in 1810, they already possess forty-one school- 
 houses and eight thousand four hundred pupils.* Still more 
 liberally, it auchorizes and favors female educational congre- 
 gations; down to the end of the empire and afterwards, nuns 
 are about the only instructors of young girls, especially in 
 primary education.— Owing to the same toleration, the upper 
 schools are likewise reorganized, and not less spontaneously, 
 through the initiative of private individuals, communes, 
 bishops, colleges or pennsionnats, at Reims, Fontainebleau, 
 Metz, Evreux, Sorreze, Juilly, La Fleche and elsewhere, small 
 seminaries in all the dioceses. Offer and demand have come 
 together; instructors meet the children half-way, and educa- 
 tion begins on all sides. ^ 
 
 Thought can now be given to its endowment, and the State 
 invites everybody, the communes as well as private persons, 
 to the undertaking. It is on their liberality that it relies for 
 replacing the ancient foundations; it solicits gifts and legacies 
 in favor of new establishments, and it promises " to surround 
 these donations with the most invariable respect." ' Mean- 
 while, and as a precautionary measure, it assigns to each its 
 eventual duty;* if the commune establishes a primary school 
 for itself, it must provide the tutor with a lodging and the 
 parents must compensate him; if the commune founds a col- 
 lege or accepts a lyc'e, it must pay for the annual support 
 of the building,^ while the pupils, either day -scholars or 
 
 1 Alexis Chevalier, ibid., p. 182. (.According to statistical returns of the parent- 
 establishment, rue Oudinot. — These figures are probably t'->o Inw.) 
 
 2 "Recueil des lois et reglemens sur I'enseignement sup^rieur." by A. de Beau- 
 champ, i., 65. (Report by Fourcroy, April 20, 1802.) " Old schools, since the sup- 
 pression of upper schools and universities, have taken a new extension, and a pretty 
 large number of private institutions have been formed for the literary education of 
 the young." 
 
 3 Ibid.^ 65 and 71. (Report by Fourcroy.) " As to the primary schools, the zeal of 
 the municipalities must be aroused, the emalation of the functionaries excited, and 
 charitable tendencies revived, so natural to the French heart and which will so 
 promptly spring up when the religious respect of the government for local endow- 
 ments becomes known." 
 
 4 Ibid.y p. 81. (Decree of May ist, 1802, titles 2 and 9.— Decree of Septem. 17, 1808, 
 article 23.) 
 
 5 " Histoire du college des Bons-Enfans de I'universitd de Reims," by abbd Cauly,
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 195 
 
 boarders, pay accordingly. In this way, the heavy expenses 
 are already met, and the State, the manager-general of the 
 service, furnishes simply a very small quota; and this quota, 
 mediocre as a rule, is found almost null in fact, for its main 
 largess consists in six thousand four hundred scholarships 
 which it establishes and engages to support; but it confers 
 only about three thousand of them,' and it distributes nearly 
 all of these among the children of its military or civil em- 
 ployees, so that the son's scholarship becomes additional pay 
 or an increased salary for the father; thus, the two millions 
 which the State seems, under this head, to assign to the lycces 
 are actually gratifications which it distributes among its func- 
 tionaries and officials: it takes back with one hand what it be- 
 stows with the other. This being granted, it organizes the 
 University and maintains it, not at its own expense, however, 
 but at the expense of others, at the expense of private persons 
 and parents, of the communes, and above all at the expense 
 of rival schools and private boarding-schools, of the free 
 institutions, and all this in favor of the University monopoly 
 which subjects these to special taxation as ingenious as it is 
 multifarious.' — Whoever is privileged to carry on a private 
 school mu^t pay from two to three hundred francs to the 
 University; likewise, every person obtaining permission to lec- 
 ture on literature or on science. Every person or faculty ob- 
 taining a diploma for a public institution must pay from four 
 to six hundred francs to the University; likewise every person 
 
 p 641. — The lyc^e of Reims, decreed May 6. 1802. was not opened until the 24th of 
 September. 1803. The town was to furnish accommodations for 150 pupils. It spent 
 nearly 200,000 francs to put buildingrs in order. . . . This sum was provided, on the 
 one hand, by a voluntary subscription which realized 45,000 francs and, on the other 
 hand, by an additional tax. 
 
 I Law of May i, 1802, articles 32, 33, and 34.— Guizot, " Essai sur IMnstruction pub- 
 lique, i.. 59. " Bonaparte maintained and brought up in the lyct!es, at his own ex- 
 pense and for his own ad vantag-e, about 3000 children . . . commonly selected from 
 the sons of soldiers or from pnor families."— Fabry, " M^moires pour scrvir i I'his- 
 toire de I'instruction publique," iii., 802. " Children of soldiers whose wives lived in 
 Paris, the sons of office holders who were prevented by luxury from bringing up their 
 families— such were the scholarships of Paris."—" In the provinces, the employees in 
 the tax- and post-offices, with other nom.adic functionaries— such were the communal 
 scholarships."— I, unet, " Histoire du coll^jjede Rodez," aig, 224. Out of 150 scholar- 
 ships. 87 are filled, on the averafje. 
 
 1 '* Recueil," etc., by A. de Beauchamp, i, 171, 187, 192. (Law of September 17, 1808, 
 article 27, and decision of April 7, 1809.)
 
 196 THE MODERN REGIME. book 111. 
 
 obtaining permission to lecture on law or on medicine.' 
 Every student, boarder, half-boarder or day-scholar in any 
 school, institution, seminary, college or lyce'e, must pay to the 
 University one-twentieth of the sum which the establishment 
 to which he belongs demands of each of its pupils. In the 
 higher schools, in the faculties of law, medicine, science and 
 literature, the students pay entrance and examination fees 
 and for diplomas, so that the day comes when superior in- 
 struction provides for its expenditures out of its receipts and 
 even shows on its budget a net surplus of profit. The new 
 University, with its expenses thus defrayed, will support itself 
 alone; accordingly, all that the State really grants to it, as a 
 veritable gift, in ready cash, is four hundred thousand francs 
 annual income on the public ledger, a little less than the do- 
 tation of one single college, Louis-le-Grand, in 1789;^ it may 
 even be said that it is exactly the fortune of the old college 
 which, after being made use of in many ways, turned aside 
 and with other mischances, becomes the patrimony of the new 
 University.^ From high-school to University, the State has 
 effected the transfer. Such is its munificence. This is es- 
 pecially apparent in connection with primary instruction; in 
 181 2, for the first time, it allows twenty-five thousand francs 
 for this purpose, of which only four thousand five hundred 
 are received.^ 
 
 Such is the final liquidation of the great collective fortunes. 
 A settlement of account's, an express or tacit bargain, inter- 
 venes between the State and all institutions for instruction, 
 
 1 Ibid. Masters of private schools and hesds of institutions must pay additionally 
 every year one-quarter of the sums above fixed. (Law of Spp. 17, 1808, article 25. 
 Law of March 17, 1808, title 17. — Law of February 17, 1809.) 
 
 2 Ibid.^ i., 189. (Decree of March 24, 1808, on the endowment of the University.) 
 
 3 Emond, " Histoire du college Louis-le-Grand," p. 238. (This college, previous to 
 1789, enjoyed an income of 450,000 livres.) — (iuizot, ?7'/V/ , i., 62. — This college was 
 maintained during the revolution under the name of the " Prytande fran9ais " and re- 
 ceived in 1800 the property of the University of Louvain. Many of its pupils en- 
 listed in 1792, and were promised that their scholarships should be retained for them 
 on their return; hence the military spirit of the " Prytan^e."— By virtue of a decree, 
 March 5. 1806, a perpetual incoine of 400.000 francs was transferred to the Prytande de 
 Saint-Cyr. It is this income which, by the decree of March 24, 1818, becomes the en- 
 dowment of the imperial University. Henceforth, the expenses of the Prytande de 
 SaintCyr are assigned to the war department. 
 
 4 Alexis Chevalier, ibid.^ p. 265. Allocution to the " Ignorantin " brethren.
 
 CHAP. 1. OBJI^XT AA'D MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 197 
 
 worship and charity. It has taken from the poor, from the 
 young and from believers, five milliards of capital and two 
 hundred and seventy millions of revenue;' it gives back to 
 them, in public income and treasury interest, about seventeen 
 millions per annum. As it possesses the power and makes 
 the law it has no difficulty in obtaining or in giving itself its 
 own discharge; it is a bankrupt who, ha\ ing spent his credit- 
 ors' money, bestows on these si.x per cent, of their claim by 
 way of alms. 
 
 Naturally, it turns to account the opportunity for bringing 
 them under its strict and permanent dependence, in adding 
 other claims to those with which the old monarchy had al- 
 ready burdened the corporations that administered collective 
 fortunes. Napoleon increases the weight of these chains and 
 screws them tighter; not only does he take it upon himself to 
 impose order, probity, and economy on the administrators, 
 but, again, he appoints them, dismisses them, and prescribes 
 or authorizes each of their acts; he puts words in their 
 mouths; he wants to be the great bishop, the universal genius, 
 the sole tutor and professor, in short, the dictator of opinion, 
 the creator and director of every political, social and moral 
 idea throughout his empire. With what rigidity and pertina- 
 cious intent, with what variety and convergency of means, 
 with what i)lenitude and certainty of execution, with what 
 detriment and with what danger, present and to come, for 
 corporations, for the i)ublic, for the State, for himself, we 
 shall see presently; he himself, living and reigning, is to real- 
 ize this. For his interference, pushed to extremes, is to end 
 in encountering resistance in a liodv which he considers as his 
 own creature, the Churcli: here, forgetting that she has roots 
 of her own, deep down and out of his reach, he carries off the 
 Pope, holds him captive, sends cardinals into the interior, im- 
 
 I "The .Ancient Rdpime," pp. 13-15 —"The Revolution," iii., p. 54— Alexis Cheva- 
 lier, " Les Kieres des ^coles chr^tiennes," p. 341. " Before the revolution, the revc- 
 nu-s of public instruction exceeded 30 millions."— Peuchet, " Stalistique el<?mcnt,iiie 
 <le 1 1 France " 1 published in 1805), p. 256. Revenue of the nsvlums and hospitals in 
 the time of MecUur, 40 millions, of wliicli 23 are the annual incime from real-eslate 
 and T7 provided by pcisonal property, contracts, the public funis, and a potion 
 from octrois, etc.
 
 19S THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 prisons bishops, transports priests, and incorporates seminari- 
 ans in his regiments; ' he decrees the closing of all small semi- 
 naries,'' alienates forever the Catholic clergy like the royalist 
 nobility, precisely at the same moment and through the same 
 absolutism, through the same abuse of power, through the 
 same recurrence to revolutionary tradition, to Jacobin infatua- 
 tion and brutality, even to the frustration of his Concordat of 
 1802 as with his amnesty of 1802, even to compromising his 
 capital work of the attempted reconciliation and reunion of 
 old France with the new France. His work, nevertheless, 
 although incomplete, even interrupted and marred by himself, 
 remains substantial and salutary. The three grand machines 
 which the Revolution had demolished with so little foresight, 
 and which he had reconstructed at so little cost, are in work- 
 ing order, and, with deviations or shortcomings in result, they 
 render to the public the required services, each its own, 
 worship, charity and instruction. Full toleration and legal 
 protection to the three leading Christian cults, and even to 
 Judaism, would of itself already satisfy the most sensitive of 
 religious demands; owing to the dotation furnished by the 
 State and communes and by' private individuals, the necessary 
 complement is not wanting; the Catholic community, in par- 
 ticular, the most numerous of all, exercises and celebrates its 
 system of worship in conformity with its faith, according to 
 ecclesiastical canons under its own orthodox hierarchy; in 
 each parish, or within reach of each parish, dwells one author- 
 ized priest who administers valid sacraments; in his stole he 
 says mass publicly in a consecrated edifice, plainly decorated 
 at first but gradually beautified; not less publicly, various 
 
 1 D'Haussonville, " I'Eglise romaine et )e premier Empire," vol. iv. et v., passim 
 —Ibid., iii., 370, 375. (13 Italian cardinals and 19 bisliops of the Roman states are 
 transported and assigned places in France, as well as many of their grand-vicars and 
 chanoines; about the same date over 200 Italian priests are banished to Corsica).— v., 
 181. (July 12, 1811, the bishops of Troyes, Tournay and Ghent are sent to Vincennes.) 
 —v., 286. (236 pupils in the Ghent seminary are enrolled in an artillery brigade and 
 sentoff toWesel, where about fifty of them die in the hospital.)—" Memoires," by M. 
 X , iv., 358. (Numbers of Belgian priests confined in the castles of Ham, Bouil- 
 lon and Pierre-Chatel were set free after the Restoration.) 
 
 2 Decree of November 15. 1811, art 28, 29, and 30. (Owing to M. de Fontanes, the 
 small seminaries were not all closed, many of them, 41, still existing in 1815.)
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. "99 
 
 congregations of monks and nuns, the former in black robes 
 and the " sisters " in wimples and white caps, serve in the 
 schools and asylums. On the other hand, in these well- 
 equipped and well-governed asylums and hospitals, in the 
 bureaux of charity, their resources are no longer inferior to 
 their needs, while Christian charity and philanthropic gener- 
 osity are constantly operating in all directions to fill the empty 
 drawers; legacies and private donations, after 1802, authorized 
 by the Council of State, multiply; we see them swelling the 
 pages of the " Bulletin des Lois." * From 1800 to 1845, ^^e 
 hospitals and asylums are thus to receive more than seventy- 
 two millions, and the charity bureaux over forty-nine millions; 
 from 1800 to 1878, all together will thus receive more than 
 four hundred and fifteen millions.'' The old patrimony of 
 the poor is again reconstituted piece by piece; and on Janu- 
 ary I, 1833, asylums and hospitals, with their fifty-one millions 
 •of revenue, are able to support one hundred and fifty-four 
 thousand old men and the sickly.' — Like public charity, pub- 
 lic education again becomes effective; Fourcroy, after 1806,* 
 ■enumerates twenty-nine organized and full lycc'es; besides 
 these, three hundred and seventy communal secondary schools 
 and three hundred and seventy-seven private secondary 
 schools are open and receive fifty thousand two hundred pu- 
 pils; there are twenty-five thousand children in the four 
 thousand five hundred primary schools. Finally, in i8i5,Sve 
 find in France, restored to its ancient boundaries, twelve fac- 
 ulties of Law or Medicine with six thousand three hundred 
 and twenty-nine students, thirty-six lycc'es with nine thousand 
 
 1 Collection of laws and decrees, /«.«//«, after 1802. 
 
 2 Documents fuini>-hed by M. Alexis Chevalier, former director of public chari- 
 ties. The total amount of Icf^facifS and bequests is as follows : ist. Asylums and hos- 
 pitals, from January i, 1800, to December 31, 1845. 72,593.360 francs; from January i, 
 1846, to December 31, 1855, 37,107,812; from Janua^ry i, 1856, to December 31. 1877,121,- 
 197,774— in all, 230,898.346 francs — 2d. Charity bureaux. From January i, 1800, to 
 December 31, 1845. 49.911,090; from January i, 1846, to December 31, 1873, 115,629.925; 
 from January i, 1874, to December 31, 1877, 19,261,065— in all, 184,802,080 francs. Sum 
 total, 4i;,7ni,o:!A francs. 
 
 3 According to the statements of M. de Watteville and M. dc Gasparin. 
 
 4 Report by Fourcroy, annexed to the* exposition of the empire and presented to 
 the Corps I,dg-islatif, March 5, 1806. 
 
 5 "Coup d'ocil gt'ndral sur I'education et rinstrnction publique en France," by 
 Basset, censor of studies at Charlemagne college (1816),— p. 21.
 
 200 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 pupils, three hundred and sixty-eight colleges with twenty- 
 eight thousand pupils, forty-one small seminaries with five 
 thousand two hundred and thirty-three pupils, one thousand 
 two hundred and fifty-five boarding-schools and private insti- 
 tutions with thirty-nine thousand six hundred and twenty- 
 three pupils, and twenty-two thousand three hundred and 
 forty-eight primary schools with seven hundred and thirty- 
 seven thousand three hundred and sixty-nine scholars; as far 
 as can be gathered, the proportion of men and women able to 
 read and to sign their name is raised under the empire up to 
 and beyond the figures it had reached previous to 1789.' 
 
 Thus are the greatest dilapidations repaired. The three 
 new machines, with a different mechanism, do the service of 
 the old ones and, at the expiration of twenty-five years, give 
 an almost equal return. — In sum, the new proprietor of the 
 great structure sacked by the Revolution has again set up the 
 indispensable apparatus for warming, lighting and ventilation; 
 as he knows his own interests perfectly, and is poorly off in 
 ready money, he contributes only a minimum of the expense; 
 in other respects, he has grouped together his tenants into- 
 syndicates, into messes in apartments, and, voluntarily or in- 
 voluntarily, he has put upon them the burden of cost; in the 
 mean time, he has kept the three keys of the three engines in 
 his own cabinet, in his own hands, for himself alone; hence- 
 forth, it is he who distributes throughout the building, on each 
 story and in every room, light, air and heat; if he does not 
 distribute the same quantity as formerly he at least distributes 
 whatever is necessary; the tenants can, at length, breathe com- 
 fortably, see clearly and not shiver; after ten years of suffoca- 
 tion, darkness and cold they are too well satisfied to wrangle 
 with the proprietor, discuss his ways, and dispute over the 
 monopoly by which he has constituted himself the arbitrator 
 of their wants. — The same thing is done in the material order 
 
 I " Statistique de I'enseignement primaire." ii.. cciv. (From 1786 to 1789, 47 out of 
 100 married men and 26 married women out of a hundrfd signed iheir marriage con- 
 tract. From 1816 to 1820, the figures show 54 husbands and 34 wives. t — Morris Bir- 
 beck, "Notes of a Journey through France in July, August and September 1814." p. 3; 
 (London, 1815). " I am told that all the children of the laboring classes learn to* 
 read, and are generally instructed by their parents."
 
 CHAP. I. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 20I 
 
 of things, in relation to the highways, dikes, canals, and struc- 
 tures useful to the people: here also he repairs or creates, 
 through the same despotic initiative, with the same economy,' 
 the same apportionment of expense," the same spontaneous or 
 forced aid to those interested, the same piactical cffiCacy/ 
 In short, if we take things as a whole, and if wc olTset the 
 worse with the better, it may be said that the French people 
 have recovered possessions of which they had stood in need 
 since 1789— internal peace, public tranquillity, administrative 
 regularity, impartial justice, a strict police, security of persons, 
 property and consciences, liberty in private life, enjoyment of 
 one's native land, and, on leaving it, the privilege of coming 
 back; the satisfactory endowment, gratuitous celebration and 
 full exercise of worship; schools and instruction for the 
 young; beds, nursing and assistance for the sick, the indigent 
 and for foundlings; the maintenance of roads and public 
 buildings. Of the two groups of cravings which troubled men 
 in 1800, the first one, that which dated from the Revolution, 
 has, towards 1808 or 1810, obtained reasonable satisfaction. 
 
 1 Madame de Rdmusa'., i., 243. (Journey in the north of France and in Belgium 
 with tlie First Consul, 1803.) " On journeys of this kind he was in the habit, after 
 obtaining- information about the public buildings a town needed, to order them 
 as he psissed along, and, for this munificence, he bore away the bUssings of the peo- 
 ple." — Some time after this a letter came from the minister of the interior : " In con- 
 formity with the favor extended to you by the First Consul (later, emperor) you are 
 required, citizen mayor, to order the construction of this or th,it building, taking care 
 to charge the expenses on the funds of your commune," and which the prefect of the 
 department obliges him to do, even when available funds are exhausted or otherwise 
 applied. 
 
 2 Thiers, viii., 117 (August 1807) and 124. 13.400 leagues of highways were under- 
 taken or repaired; 10 canals were undertaken or continued, at the expense of the 
 public treasury; 32 dcp.Mrimcnts contribute to the expense of these through the extra 
 centimes tax. which is imposed on them. The State and the department, on the aver- 
 age, contribute each one-half. — Among the material evils caused by the Revolution, 
 the most striking and the most seriously felt was the abandonment and running down 
 of roads which had become impracticable, also the still more formidable degeneracy of 
 the dikes and barriers against rivers and the sea. (Cf. in Rocquain. " Etat dc la 
 France au 18 Brumaire," the reports of Fran9ais de Nantes, Fourcroy, Barbed- Mar- 
 bois. etc.) — The Directory had imagined barrriers with toll-gates on each road to pro- 
 vide expenses, which brought in scarcely 16 millions to offset 30 and 35 millions of 
 expenditure. Napoleon substitutes for these tolls the product of the s,ilt-lax. (De- 
 cree of April 24, 1806, art. 59.) 
 
 3 "Mdmoircs." by M. X . i., 380. "Scarcely two or three highways re- 
 mained in decent order. . . . Navigation on the rivers and canals became impossible. 
 Public buildincs and monuments were everywhere falling to ruin. . . . If the ra. 
 pidity of destruction was prodigious, that of restoration was no less so."
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 I, What people craved previous to the Revolution. — Lack of distribu- 
 tive justice. — Wrongs committed in the allotment of social sacrifices and 
 benefits. — Under the Ancient Regime. — During the Revolution. — Napo- 
 leon's personal and public motives in the application of distributive justice. 
 — The circumstances favorable to him. — His principle of apportionment. 
 — He exacts proportion in what he grants. — H. The apportionment of 
 charges. — New fiscal principle and new fiscal machinery. — HI. Direct real 
 and personal taxation. — In what respect the new machinery is superior to- 
 the old. — Full and quick returns.— Relief to taxpayers. — Greater relief 
 to the poor workman and small farmer. — IV. Other direct taxes. — Tax 
 on business licenses. — Tax on real-estate transactions. — The earnings of 
 manual labor almost exempt from direct taxation. — Compensation on 
 another side. — Indirect taxation. — In what respect the new machinery is 
 superior to the old. — Summary effect of the new fiscal regime. — Increased 
 receipts of the public treasury. — Lighter burdens of the taxpayer. — 
 Change in the condition of the small taxpayer. — V. Military service. — 
 Under the Ancient Regime. — The militia and regular troops. — Number of 
 soldiers. — Quality of the recruits. — Advantages of the institution. — Results 
 of the new system. — The obligation universal. — Comparison between the 
 burdens of citizens and subjects. — The Conscription under Napoleon. — 
 He lightens and then increases its burdensomeness. — What it became after 
 him. — The law of 1818. 
 
 The other group, long before 1789, comprises the cravings 
 which survive the Revolution, because the Revolution has not 
 satisfied these, and first, the most tenacious, the most profound, 
 the most inveterate, the most frustrated of all, namely the crav- 
 ing for distributive justice. — In political society, as in every 
 other society, there are burdens and benefits to be allotted, and 
 when the apportionment of these is equitable, it takes place 
 According to a very simple, self-evident principle : it is neces- 
 sary, that for each individual the burdens should be propor- 
 tionate to the benefits and the benefits to the burdens, so 
 
 202
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 203 
 
 that, for each one, the final expense and the final receipt may 
 exactly compensate each other, the larger or smaller quota of 
 expense being always equal to the larger or smaller quota of 
 benefit. Now, in France, this proportion had been want- 
 ing for many centuries ; it had even given way to the inverse 
 proportion. If, towards the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 two sum-totals of the budget, material and moral, had been 
 calculated, assets on one side and liabilities on the other, on 
 the one hand the sum of the apportionments exacted by the 
 State, taxes in ready money, enforced labor, military service, 
 civil subordination, every species of obedience and subjection, 
 in short, every sacrifice of leisure, comfort and self-love ; on 
 the other hand the sum of dividends distributed by the State 
 of whatever kind or shape, security for persons and property, 
 use and convenience of roads, delegations of public authority 
 and liens on the public treasury, dignities, ranks, grades, hon- 
 ors, lucrative salaries, sinecures, pensions, and the like, that is 
 to say, every gratification belonging to leisure, comfort, or self- 
 love — one might have calculated that the more a man con- 
 tributed to the receipts the less would his dividend be, and the 
 greater his dividend the less would he furnish to the general 
 contribution. Consequently, every social or local group con- 
 sisted of two other groups : a majority which suffered for the 
 benefit of the minority, and a minority which benefited at 
 the expense of the majority, to such an extent that the priva- 
 tions of the greatest number defrayed the luxury of the small 
 number, this being the case in all compartments as on every 
 story, owing to the multitude, enormity and diversity of honorific 
 or useful privileges, owing to the legal prerogatives and effec- 
 tive preferences by which the court nobles benefited at the 
 expense of the provincial nobility, the noblesse at the expense 
 of plebeians, prelates and beneficiaries at the expense of poorly- 
 paid cures and vicars, the two higliest orders of the clergy 
 at the expense of the third, the bourgeoisie at the expense 
 of the people, the towns at the expense of the rural districts, 
 this or that town or province at the expense of the rest, the 
 artisan member of a corporation at the expense of the free 
 workman, and, in general, the strong, more or less well-to-do.
 
 204 THE MODERN R&GIME. book hi. 
 
 in league and protected, at the expense of the weak, more or 
 less needy, isolated and unprotected {ind'fendus)} 
 
 One hundred years before tlie Revolution a few clairvoyant, 
 open-hearted and generous spirits had already been aroused by 
 this scandalous disproportion;" finally, everybody is shocked by 
 it, for, in each local or social group, nearly everybody is a suf- 
 ferer, not alone the rustic, the peasant, the artisan, and the 
 plebeian, not alone the citizen, the cure and tlie bourgeois 
 "notable," but again the gentleman, the grand seignior, the 
 prelate and the King himself,' each denouncing the privileges 
 of all others that affect his interests, each striving to diminish 
 another's share in the public cake and to keep his own, all con- 
 curring in citing natural right and in claiming or accepting as 
 a principle liberty and equality, but all concurring in miscon- 
 ception and solely unanimous in destroying and in allowing 
 destruction,^ to such an extent that, at last, the attack being 
 universal and no defence anywhere, social order itself per- 
 ishes, entirely owing to the abuses of it. 
 
 1 " The Ancient Regime," bonk ii., ch. 2, 3, 4, and hook v. 
 
 2 La Rruyfere is, I believe, the first of these precursors. Cf. his chapters on ''The 
 Great." on '" Personal Merit," on '' The Sovereign and the Republic," and his chapter 
 on" Man," his pass:iges on "The Peasants," on " Provincial Notes," etc. These ap- 
 peals, later on, excite the applause given to the "' Marriage of Figaro." But, in the 
 anticipatory indictment, they strike deeper ; there is no gayety in them, the dominant 
 sentiment being one of sadness, resignation, and bitterness. 
 
 3 " Discours prononc^ par I'ordre du roi et en sa presence, le 22 f^vrier 1787," by 
 M. de Calonne, controleur-g^n^ral, p. 22 " What remains then to fill this fearful 
 void (in the finances)? Abuses. The abuses now demanding suppression for the 
 public weal are the most considerable and the best protected, those that are the 
 deepest rooted and which send out the most branches. They are the abuses which 
 weigh most heavily on the working and producing classes, the abuses of financial 
 privileges, the exceptions 10 the common law and to so many unjust exemptions which 
 relieve only a portion of the taxpayers by aggravating the lot of the others ; general 
 inequality in the distribution of subsidies and the enormous disproportion which exists 
 in the taxation of different provinces and among the offices filled by subjects of the 
 same sovereign ; severity and arbitrariness in the collection of the taille ; bureaux of 
 internal transportation, and obstacles that render different parts of the same kingdom 
 strangers to each other; rights that discourage industry; those of which the collection 
 requires excessive expenditure and innumerable collectors." 
 
 4 De S^gur, " Memoires," iii.. 591. In 1791, in his return from Russia, his brother 
 says to him, speaking of the Revolution : " Everybody, at first, wanted it. . . . From 
 the king down to the most insignificant man in the kingdom, everybody did some- 
 thing to help Italonj; one let it come on up to his shoe-buckle, another up to his garter, 
 another to his waist, another to his breast, and some will not be content until their 
 head is attacked !"
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 205 
 
 On the reappearance of the same abuses, the lack of dis- 
 tributive justice in revolutionary France became still more ap- 
 parent than in monarchical France. Through a sudden trans- 
 position, the preferred of the former regime had become the 
 disgraced, while the disgraced of the former regime had be- 
 come the preferred; unjust favor and unjust disfavor still 
 subsisted, but with a change of object. Before 1789, the 
 nation was subject to an oligarchy of nobles and notables; after 
 1789, it became subject to an oligarchy of Jacobins big or 
 little. Before the Revolution, there were in France 
 three or four hundred thousand privileged individuals, 
 recognizable by their red heels or silver shoe-buckles ; 
 after the Revolution, there were three or four hundred 
 thousand of the privileged, recognizable by their red caps 
 or \\\t\\ carmagnoles. Most privileged of all, the three or four 
 thousand verified nobles, presented at court and of racial an- 
 tiquity, who, by virtue of their parchments, rode in the royal 
 carriages, were succeeded by three or four thousand Jacobins 
 of a fresh sprout, no less verified and accepted, who, by virtue 
 of their civic patent, sat in the club of the rue Saint-Honore ; 
 and the latter coterie was still more dominant, more exclusive, 
 more partial than the former one. — Consequently, before the 
 Revolution, the burden of taxation was light for the rich or 
 the well-to-do, crushing for the peasants or the common 
 people ; after the Revolution, on the contrary, the peasants, 
 the common people, paid no more taxes,' while from the rich 
 and the well-to-do the government took all, not alone their 
 income but their capital. — On the other hand, after having 
 fed the court of Versailles, the public treasury had to feed 
 the rabble of Paris, still more voracious ; and, from 1793 
 to 1796, the maintenance of this rabble cost it twenty-five 
 times as much as, from 1783 to 1786, the maintenance 
 
 I " The Revolution," pp. 27i-27g. Stourm. " Les Finances de I'ancien rdcfime et 
 de la Revolution," i., 171 to T77.— (Report by Ramel. January 31. 1796.) " One would 
 scarcely believeit — the holders of real-estate now owe the public treasury over 13 
 milliards " — (Report by Gaudin, Germinal, year x. on the asspssment .nnd rollection of 
 direct taxes.) " This state of things constituted a permanent, annual deficit of 200 
 millions."
 
 2o6 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 of the court' Finally, al Paris as at Versailles, the subor- 
 dinates who lived on the favored spot, close to the central 
 manger, seized on all they could get and ate much more 
 than their allowance. Under the ancient regime, " the ladies 
 of honor, every time they travel from one royal country-house 
 to another, gain eighty per cent, on the cost of the journey," 
 while the queen's first chambermaid gains, over and above 
 her wages, thirty-eight thousand francs a year out of the sales 
 of half-burnt candles." Under the new regime, in the distri- 
 bution of food, " the matadors of the quarter," the patriots of 
 the revolutionary committees, deduct their portions in advance, 
 and a very ample portion, to the prejudice of the hungry who 
 await their turn, one taking seven rations and another twenty.* 
 Thus did the iniquity subsist; in suppressing it, they had 
 simply made matters worse; and had they wished to build per- 
 manently, now was the time to stop it entirely; for, in every 
 social edifice such a defect puts things out of the perpen- 
 dicular. Whether the plumb-line deflects right or left is of 
 little consequence; sooner or later the building falls in, and 
 thus had the French edifice already fallen twice, the first time 
 in 1789, through imminent bankruptcy and hatred of the 
 ancient regime, and the second time in 1799, through real 
 bankruptcy and hatred of the Revolution. 
 
 An architect like the French Consul is on his guard against 
 a financial, social and moral danger of this sort. He is aware 
 that, in a well-organized society, there must be neither sur- 
 charge nor discharge, no favors, no exemptions and no 
 exclusions. Moreover, '' VEtat cest luiT ' thus is the public 
 
 1 " The Ancient R^g-ime," p. 90, and " The Revolution," p. 407. (About 1,200 mil- 
 lions per annum in bread for Paris, instead of 45 millions for the civil and military 
 household of the Kins: at Versailles ) 
 
 2 "Th- Ancient R(i!rime," p. 68 —Madame Campan, " Mdmoires," i., 291, 292. 
 
 3 "The Revolution." ii., 151, and iii., 500. 
 
 4 "Mdmori.-d " fNapoleon's own words.) " Vhe day when, adopting the unity 
 and concentration of power, which could'alone save us, . . . the destinies of France 
 depended solely on the character, measures and conscience of him who had been 
 clothed with this accidental dictatorship— beginninj^ with that day, f>tihlic ci;ff'ntrs, 
 that is to sny the State, was myself. ... I was the keystone of an entirely new 
 bnildinsr. and how sligflit the foundation! Its destiny depended on each of my battles. 
 Had I been defeated at Marengo you would have then had a complete 1814 and 1815."
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 207 
 
 interest confounded with his personal interest, and, in the 
 management of this double interest, his hands are free. Pro- 
 prietor and first inhabitant of France in the fashion of its 
 former kings, he is not tied down and incommoded as they were 
 by immemorial precedents, by the concessions they have sanc- 
 tioned or the rights they have acquired. At the public table 
 over which he presides and which is his table, he does not, 
 like Louis XV. or Louis XVL, encounter messmates already 
 installed there, the heirs or purchasers of the seats they 
 occupy,' extending in long rows from one end of the room to 
 the other, each in his place according to rank, in an arm-chair, 
 or common chair, or on a footstool, all being the legitimate 
 and recognized owners of their seats, all of them the King's 
 messmates and all authorized by law, tradition and custom 
 to eat a free dinner or pay for it at less than cost, to find 
 fault with the dishes passed around, to reach out for those 
 not near by, to help themselves to what they want and to 
 carry off the dessert in their pockets. At the new table 
 there are no places secured beforehand. It is Napoleon him- 
 self who arranges the table, and on sitting down, he is the 
 master who has invited whomsoever he pleases, who assigns to 
 each his portion, who regulates meals as he thinks best for 
 his own and the common interest, and who introduces into 
 the entire service order, watchfulness and economy. Instead 
 of a prodigal and negligent grand-seignior, here at last is a 
 modern administrator who orders supplies, distributes portions 
 and limits consumption, a contractor who feels his responsi- 
 bility, a man of business able to calculate. Henceforth, each 
 is to pay for his ])ortion, estimated according to his ration, 
 and each is to enjoy his ration according to his quota. — Judge 
 of this by one example. There must be no more parasites in 
 his house, at the centre of abuses and sinecures. From the 
 grooms and scullions of his palace up to its grand officials, 
 
 I Reucrnot, " Mt'moires," ii., 317. " To be dressed, taxed, and ordered to take up 
 arms, like most folks, seemed a punishment as soon as one had found a privilege with- 
 in reach," such, for example, as the title of " d^chireur de bateaux''^ (one who con- 
 demns unseaworthy craft and profits by it^ or inspector of fresh butter (using his fin- 
 gers in tasting it), or tide-waiter and inspector of salt fish. These tiiles raised a 
 man above the common level, and there were over twenty thousand of them.
 
 2o8 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 even to the chamberlains and ladies of honor, all his domes- 
 tics, with or without titles, work and perform their daily tasks 
 in person, administrative or decorative, day or night, at the 
 appointed time, for exact compensation, without pickings or 
 stealings and without waste. His train and his parades, as 
 pompous as under the old monarchy, admit of the same ordi- 
 nal y and extraordinary expenses — stables, chapel, food, hunts, 
 journeys, private theatricals, renewals of plate and furniture, 
 and the maintenance of twelve palaces or chateaux. While, 
 under Louis XV., it was estimated that " coffee with one roll 
 for each lady of honor cost the King 2,000 livres a year," and 
 under Louis XVL, " the grand broth night and day" which 
 Madame Royale, aged two years, sometimes drank and which 
 figured in the annual accounts at five thousand two hundred and 
 one livres," under Napoleon " in the pantries, in the kitchens, 
 the smallest dish, a mere plate of soup, a glass of sugared 
 water, would not have been served without the authorization 
 or check of grand-marshal Duroc. Every abuse is watched; 
 the gains of each are calculated aud regulated beforehand." * 
 Consequently, this or that journey to Fontainebleau which 
 had cost Louis XVL nearly two million livres, cost Napo- 
 leon, with the same series of fetes, only one hundred and fifty 
 thousand francs, while the total expense of his civil house- 
 hold, instead of amounting to twenty-five million livres, re- 
 mains under three million francs.' The pomp is thus equal, 
 but the expense is ten times less; the new master is able 
 to derive a tenfold return from persons and money, because 
 he squeezes the full value out of every man he employs and 
 every crown he spends. Nobody has surpassed him in the 
 ait of turning money and men to account, and he is as 
 shrewd, as careful, as sharp in procuring them as he is in 
 profiting by them. 
 
 1 See " The Ancient Regime," p. 129. 
 
 2 Madame de R^musat, " M^moires," iii . 316, 317. 
 
 3 De Beausset, " Ini^rieur du palais de Napoleon " i., p. 9 et seq. For the year 1805 
 the total expense is 2,338.167 francs; for the year 1806 it reaches 2,770.861 francs, be- 
 cause funds were assigned " for the annual ausfinentation of plate, i.roo silver plates 
 and other objects."-" Napoleon knew, every New Year's day. what he expended (for 
 his household) and nobody ever dared overpass the credits he allowed."
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 209 
 
 II. 
 
 To this end, in the assignment of public burdens and of 
 public offices, he applies the maxims of the new system of 
 rights, while his practice conforms to his theory; social order, 
 which, according to the philosophers, is the only just one in 
 itseif, hajjpens, singularly, to square with his advantage for the 
 time being ; he adds ecpiity because ecpiity is profitable to 
 him. — And first, in the matter of public burdens, there shall 
 be no more exemptions. To relieve any category of taxpayers 
 or of conscripts from taxation or from military service would 
 annually impoverish the treasury by so many millions of crowns, 
 and diminish the army by so many thousands of soldiers. 
 Napoleon is not the man to deprive himself gratuitously of 
 either a soldier or a franc ; above all things, he wants his army 
 complete and his treasury full ; to supply their deficits he 
 seizes whatever he can lay his hands on, both taxable material 
 as well as recruitable material. But all material is limited ; 
 if he took too little on the one hand he would be obliged to 
 take too much on the other; it is impossible to relieve these 
 without oppressing those, and oppression, especially in the mat- 
 ter of taxation, is what, in 1789, excited the \\x\\\QX?>di\ jacquerie, 
 perverted the Revolution, and broke France to pieces. — At 
 present, in the matter of taxation, distributive justice lays down 
 a universal and fixed law ; whatever the property may be, 
 large or small, and of wliatever kind or form, whether lands, 
 buildings, indebtedness, ready money, jirofits, incomes or sal- 
 aries, it is the State which, through its laws, tribunals, police, 
 gendarmes and army, preserves it from ever-ready aggression 
 within and without ; the State guarantees, procures and ensures 
 the enjoyment of it; consequently, property of every species 
 owes the State its premium of assurance, so many centimes 
 on the franc. Tlie quality, the fortune, the age or the sex of 
 the owner is of little importance ; each franc assured, no 
 matter in whose hands, must jxay tlie same number of cen- 
 times, not one too much, not one too little. — Such is the new- 
 principle. To announce it is easy enough ; all that is necessary
 
 2IO 
 
 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK in. 
 
 is to combine speculative ideas, and any Academy can do that. 
 The National Assembly of 1789 had proclaimed it with the 
 rattling of drums, but merely as a right and with no practical 
 effect. Napoleon turns it into a reality, and henceforth the 
 ideal rule is applied as strictly as is possible with human material, 
 thanks to two pieces of fiscal machinery of a new type, superior 
 of their kind, and which, compared with those of the ancient 
 regime, or with those of the Revolution, are masterpieces. 
 
 III. 
 
 The collection of a direct tax is a surgical operation per- 
 formed on the taxpayer, one which removes a piece of his 
 substance; he suffers on account of this and submits to it only 
 because he is obliged to. If the operation is performed on 
 him by other hands he submits to it voluntarily or not ; but, 
 if he has to do it himself, spontaneously and with his own 
 hands, it is not to be thought of. On the other hand, the 
 collection of a direct tax according to the prescriptions of 
 distributive justice, is a subjection of each taxpayer to an 
 amputation proportionate to his bulk or, at least, to his sur- 
 face; this requires delicate calculation and is not to be en- 
 trusted to the patients themselves, for, not only are they surg- 
 ical novices and poor calculators, but, again, they are inter- 
 ested in calculating falsely. They have been ordered to assess 
 their group with a certain total weight of human substance, 
 and to apportion to each individual in their group the lighter 
 or heavier portion he must provide; consequently, each very 
 soon comprehends that, the more that is cut from the others, 
 the less will be required of him: now, as each is more sensitive 
 to his own suffering, although moderate, than to another's suf- 
 fering, even excessive, each, therefore, be his neighbor little or 
 big, is inclined, in order to unjustly diminish his own sacrifice 
 by an ounce, to add a pound unjustly to that of his neighbor. — 
 Up to this time, in the construction of the fiscal machine, 
 nobody knew or had been disposed to take into account such 
 natural and powerful sentiments ; through negligence or 
 through optimism, the taxpayer had been introduced into the
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 211 
 
 mechanism in the quality of first agent; before 1789, in the 
 quality of a responsible and constrained agent; after 1789, in 
 the quality of a voluntary and philanthropic agent. Hence, 
 before 1789, the machine had proved mischievous, and after 
 1789, impotent ; before 1789, its working had been almost 
 fatal,' and after 1789 its returns scarcely amounted to any- 
 thing.* Finally, there are independent, special and competent 
 operators, enlightened by local reporters, but withdrawn from 
 local influences, all of them appointed, paid and supported by 
 the central government, forced to act impartially by the appeal 
 of the taxpayer to the council of the prefecture, forced to 
 keep correct accounts by the final auditing of a special court 
 {cour dcs comptes), interested, through the security they have 
 given as well as by commissions, in the integral recovery of 
 unpaid arrears and in the prompt returns of collected taxes, 
 all, assessors, auditors, directors, inspectors and collectors, 
 being good accountants watched by good accountants, kept 
 to their duties by fear, made aware that embezzlements, 
 lucrative under the Directory,' are punished under the Con- 
 sulate," soon led to considering necessity a virtue, to prid- 
 ing themselves inwardly on compulsory rectitude, to im- 
 
 X "The Ancient Regime," pp. 350-357. 
 
 2 "The Revohition," pp. 276-281. — Stourm, ibid., 168-171. (Speech 'by Bdnard- 
 Lagrave to the Five Hundred, PluviOse 11, year iv.) " It cannot be concealed that, 
 for many years, people were willingly accustoming themselves to the non-payment of 
 taxes." 
 
 3 Stourm, ibid., ii., 365. (Speech of Oianam to the Five Hundred, PluviOse 14, 
 year vn.) " Scandalous traffic. . . . Most of the (tax) collectors in the republic are 
 heads and managers of banks." — (Circular of the minister of the finances, Flordal 25 
 year vii.) "Stock-jobbing of the worst kind to which many collectors give themselves, 
 up, using bonds and oilier public securities received in payment of la.xes."— (Report 
 by Gros-Cassaud Florimond, Sep. 19, 1799.) " Among the corruptible and corrupting 
 agents there are only too many public functionaries." — Mollien, " M^moires," i., 272. 
 (In 1800, he had just been appointed director of the sinking-fund.) " The common- 
 place compliment which was everywhere paid to me (and even by statesmen who 
 affected the sternest morality) was as follows— you are very fortunate to have an 
 office in which one may lt\i;itiiiiatclY accumulate the largest fortune in France."— Cf. 
 Rocquain, " Elat de la France au iS Brumaire." (Reports by Lacude, Fourcroy and 
 Barbc-Marbois.) 
 
 4 Charlotte de Sohr, " Napoldon en Belgique et en Hollande," 1811, vol. i., 243. 
 (On a high functionary condemned for forgery and vvhnm Napoleon kept in prison 
 in spue of every solicitation.) " Never will I pardon those who squander the public 
 funds. . . . Ah ! f>arbleu ! We should have the good old limes of the contractors 
 worse than ever if I did not show myself inexorable for odious crimes."
 
 212 THE MODERN REGIME. book ill. 
 
 agining they had a conscience and hence to acquiring one, 
 in short, to voluntarily imposing on themselves probity and 
 exactitude through amour-propre and honorable scruples. — 
 For the first time in ten years lists of taxes are prepared and 
 their collection begun at the beginning of the year.' Pre- 
 vious to 1789, the taxpayer was always in arrears, while the 
 treasury received only three-fifths of that which was due in 
 the current year;^ after 1800, direct taxes are nearly always 
 fully returned before the end of the current year, and half a 
 century later, the taxpayers, instead of being in arrears, are 
 often in advance.^ To do this work required, before 1789, 
 about two hundred thousand collectors, besides the adminis- 
 trative corps,* occupied one half of their time for two succes- 
 sive years in running from door to door, miserable and de- 
 tested, ruined by their ruinous office, fleecers and the fleeced, 
 and always escorted by bailiffs and constables; since 1800, 
 from five thousand to six thousand collectors, and other fiscal 
 agents, honorable and respected, have only to do their office- 
 work at home and make regular rounds on given days, in order 
 to collect more than double the amount without any vexation 
 and using very little constraint; before 1780, direct taxation 
 brought in about one hundred and seventy millions;'' after 
 the year xi, it brought in three hundred and sixty millions.* 
 
 1 Stourm, ihid..\., 177. (Report byGaudin, Sep. 15, 1799.) "A few (tax) rolls for the 
 year v, and one-third of those for the year \ 11, are behindhand."'— (Report by the 
 same, Germinal i, year x.) " Everything remained to do. on the advent of the con- 
 sulate, for the assessment and collection of direct taxes ; 35.000 rolls for the year vii 
 still remamed to be drawn up. With the help of the new office, the rolls for the year 
 VII have been completed ; those of the year viii were made out as promptly as could 
 be expected, and those of the year ix have been prepared with a despatch which, 
 for the first time since the revolution, enables the collections to be begun in the very- 
 year to which they belong." 
 
 2 "Archives parlementaires," viii., p. 11. (Report by Necker to the States-General, 
 M^y 5, 1789.) '' These two-fifths, although legitimately due to the king, are always 
 in arrears. . . . (To-day) these arrears amount in full to about 80 millions." 
 
 3 De Foville, "la France ^conomique," p. 354. 
 
 4 " The Ancient Rei;ime," p. 354. 
 
 5 Necker, " De I'administration des finances." i., 164, and " Rapport aux etats-gdnd- 
 raux," May sth, 1789. (We arrive at these figures, 179 millions, by combining these 
 documents, on both sides, with the observation that the 3d vingtieme is suppressed in 
 1789) 
 
 6 Charles Nicolas, " les Budgets de la France depuis le commencement du xix&me 
 siecle " (in tabular form).— De Foville, ibid., 356.— In the year ix, the sum-total of di-
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 213 
 
 By the same measure, an extraordinary counter-measure, the 
 taxable party, especially the peasant-proprietor, the small in- 
 drfendu farmer, the privileged the wrong way, the drudge of 
 the monarchy, is relieved of three-fourths of his immemorial 
 burden.' At first, through the abolition of tithes and of feu- 
 dal privileges, he gets back one-quarter of his net income, the 
 quarter which he paid to the seignior and to the clergy; next, 
 through the application of direct taxation to all lands and to 
 all persons, his quota is reduced one-half. Before 1789, he 
 paid over, on one hundred francs net income, fourteen to the 
 seignior, fourteen to the clergy, fifty-three to the State, and 
 kept only eighteen or nineteen for himself; after 1800, he pays 
 nothing out of one hundred francs of income to the seignior 
 or to the clergy; he pays but little to the State, only twenty- 
 one francs to the commune and department, and keeps sev- 
 enty-nine francs in his pocket.* 
 
 rect taxes is 308 millions ; in the year xi. 360, and in the year xii, 376. The total in- 
 come from real-estate in France towards 1800 is 1,500 millions. 
 
 1 It is only after 1816 that ihe total of each of the four direct taxes can be got at 
 (land, individual, personal, doors and windows). In 1821, the land tax amounts to 
 265 millions, and the three others together to 67 millions. Taking the sum of 1,580 
 millions, estimated by the government as the ret revenue at this date in France, we 
 find that, out of ihis revenue, 16.77 Per cent, is deducted for land, and that, with the 
 other three, it then abstracts from the same revenue 21 per cent.— On the contrary, 
 before 1789, the five corresponding direct taxes, added to tithes and leudal privileges, 
 abstracted 81.71 per cent, from the net income of the taxable party. (Cf. "The An- 
 cient Rdgime," pp. 346, 347, 351 et seg.) 
 
 2 These figures are capital, and measure the distance which separates the old from 
 the new condition of the laboring and poor class, especially in the rural districts; 
 hence the tenacious sentiments and judgments of the people with respect to the An- 
 cient Rdgime, the Revolution and the Em|)ire —All local information converges in 
 this sense. I have verified the above figures as well as I could : ist, by the '• Statis- 
 tiques des prdfets," of the year ix and year xiii and afterwards (printed); 2d, by the 
 reports of the councillors of state on mission during the year ix (published by Roc- 
 quain.andin manuscript in the Archives nationaies); ^d, by the reports of thesenators 
 on their sdnatnreries and by the prefects on their departments, in i8q6. 1809. 1812. 1814 
 and iBi5,and from 1818 to 1823 (in manuscript in the Archives nationales); 4tl), by the 
 observations of foreigners tr.ivelling in France from 1802 to 1815. — For example ("A 
 Tour through several of the Middle and Western Departments of France," 1802. p. 23): 
 " There are no tithes, no church taxes, no taxanon of the poor. . . . All the taxes to- 
 gether do not go beyond one-sixth of a man's reni-roll, that is to say. three shillings 
 and sixpence on the pound sterling."— (" Travels in the South of France, 1807 and 
 1808," by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney, citizen of the Uniied States, p. 162 ) At 
 Tours a two-story house, with six or eight windows on the front, a stable, carriage- 
 house, garden and orchard, rents »\. £,1° sterling per annum, with the taxes wliich 
 are from ^1,10, to /;2, for the state and about ten shillings for the commune.— 
 ("Notes on a Journey through July, August and September, 1814,'" by Morris Birk-
 
 214 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 If each franc insured pays so many centimes insurance pre- 
 mium, each franc of manual gain and of salary should pay as 
 many centimes as each franc of industrial or commercial gain, 
 also as each franc of personal or land revenue; that is to say, 
 more than one-fifth of a franc, or twenty-one centimes. — At 
 this rate, the workman who lives on his own labor, the day- 
 laborer, the journeyman who earns one franc fifteen centimes 
 per diem and who works three hundred days of the year, 
 ought to pay out of his three hundred and forty-five francs 
 wages sixty-nine francs to the public treasury. At this rate, 
 the ordinary peasant or cultivator of his own field, owner of a 
 cottage and a small tract of ground which he might rent at one 
 hundred francs a year, should pay into the public treasury, out 
 of his land income and from manual labor, eighty-nine francs.' 
 The deduction, accordingly, on such small earnings would be 
 enormous ; for this gain, earned from day to day, is just enough 
 to live on, and very poorly, for a man and his family; were 
 it cut down one-fifth he and his family would be obliged to 
 fast ; he would be nothing but a serf or half-serf, made the 
 most of by the exchequer, his seignior and proprietor ; for the 
 exchequer, as formerly the proprietary seigniors, would appro- 
 
 beck, p. 28.) Near Cosne (Orldanais), an estate of 1,000 acres of tillable land and 500 
 acres of woods is rented for nine years, for about 9,000 francs a year, together with 
 the taxes, about 1,600 francs more. — {Ibid., p. gi.) " Visited the Brie. Well cultivated on 
 the old system, of wheat, oats and fallow. Average rent 16 francs the acre with taxes, 
 which are about one-fifth of the rent.'' — Roederer, iii., 474 (on \\\e.senatorerie of Caen, 
 Decern, i, 1803) : "The direct ta.x is here in very moderate proportion to the in- 
 come, it being paid without much inconvenience.'" — The travellers above quoted and 
 many others are unanimous in stating the new prosperity of the peasant, the cultiva- 
 tion of the entire soil and the abundance and cheapness of provisions. (Morris Birk- 
 beck, p. II.) " Everybody assures me that the riches and comfort of the cultivators 
 of the soil have been doubled since twenty-five years /" {Ibid,, p. 43. at Tournon-sur- 
 le-Rhone.) " I had no conception of a country so entirely cultivated as we have 
 found from Dieppe to this place." — {Ibid., p. 51, at Montpellier.) " From Dieppe to 
 this place we have not seen among the laboring people one such famished, worn-out, 
 wretched object as may be met in every parish of England, I had almost said on 
 almost every farm. ... A really rich country, and yet there are fe v rich individuals." 
 — Robert, " De I'lnfluence de la revolution sur la population, 1802," p. 41. "Since 
 the Revolution I have noticed in the little village of Sainte-Tulle that the consumption 
 of meat has doubled ; the peasants who formerly lived on salt pork and ate beef 
 only at Easter and at Christmas, frequently enjoy ^pot-a-feu during the week, and 
 have given up rye-bread for wheat-bread." 
 
 I The sum of i fr. 15 for a day's manual labor is an average, derived from the sta- 
 tistics furnished by the prefects of the year ix to the yearxiii, especially for Charente, 
 Deux-Sevres, Meurthe, Moselle and Doubs.
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 215 
 
 priate to itself sixty days of labor out of the three hundred. 
 Such was the condition of many millions of men, the great 
 majority of Frenchmen, under the ancient regime. Indeed, 
 the five direct taxes, the taille, its accessories, the road-tax, 
 the capitatim and the vingiiemes, were a tax on the taxpayer, 
 not only according to the net revenue of his property, if he had 
 any, but again and especially " of his faculties " and presumed 
 resources whatever these might be, comprising his manual earn- 
 ings or daily wages.— Consequently, "a poor laborer owning 
 nothing," ' who earned nineteen sous a day, or two hundred and 
 seventy livres a year,' was taxed eighteen or twenty livres. 
 Out of three hundred days' work there were twenty or twenty- 
 two which belonged beforehand to the public treasury. Con- 
 sequently, the taxable man of the rural districts, owner of a 
 few roods of ground which he might let for one hundred 
 livres and which he cultivated himself, was taxed fifty-three 
 livres; thus out of three hundred days of labor, fifty-nine be- 
 longed in advance to the exchequer. — Three-fifths' of the 
 French people were in this situation, and the inevitable con- 
 sequences of such a fiscal system have been seen — the excess 
 of extortions and of suffering, the spoliation, privations and 
 deep-seated resentment of the humble and the poor. Every 
 government is bound to care for these, if not on the score of 
 humanity, at least through prudential considerations, and this 
 one more than any other, since it is founded on the will of the 
 greatest number, on the repeated votes of majorities counted 
 by heads. 
 
 To this end, it establishes two divisions of direct taxation: 
 one, the real-estate tax, which has no bearing on the taxpayer 
 without any property ; and the other, the personal tax, which 
 
 1 " Tlie Ancient R^fjime." p. 353. 
 
 2 Arthur Young, li., 259. (Average rate for a day's work throughout France in 
 1789) 
 
 3 About 15 millions out of 26 millions, in the opinion of Mallet-Dupan and other 
 observers —Towards the middle of the i8th century, in a population estimaied at 
 ao millions. Voltaire reckons that " many inhabitants possess onlj; the value of 10 
 cro-.vns rental, that ethers have only 4 or 5. and that more than 6 millions of inhabi- 
 tants have nothing." (" LMiomme aux quarante dcus.")— A little Liter, Chamfort 
 (i., T78) adds; " It is an incontestable truth that, in I'rance, 7 millions of men beg, and 
 12 millions of men are incapable of giving anything."
 
 2i6 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 does affect him, but lightly: calculated on the rate of rent, 
 it is insignificant on an attic, furnished lodging, hut or any 
 other hovel belonging to a laborer or peasant ; again, when 
 very poor or indigent, if the octroi is burdensome, the ex- 
 chequer sooner or later relieves them; add to this the poll- 
 tax which takes from them one and a half francs up to four 
 and a half francs per annum, also a very small tax on doors 
 and windows, say sixty centimes per annum in the villages 
 on a tenement with only one door and one window, and, in 
 the towns, from sixty to seventy-five centimes per annum for 
 one room above the second story with but one window/ In 
 this way, the old tax which was crushing becomes light: in- 
 stead of paying eighteen or twenty livres for his taille, capi- 
 tatim and the rest, the journeyman or the artisan with no 
 property pays no more than six or seven francs ;" instead of 
 paying fifty-three livres for his vingtiemes for his poll, real and 
 industrial tax, his capiiatim and the rest, the small cultivator 
 and owner pays no more than twenty-one francs. Through 
 this reduction of their fiscal charges {corvc'e) and through the 
 augmentation of their day wages, poor people, or those badly 
 off, who depended on the hard and steady labor of their hands, 
 the plowmen, masons, carpenters, weavers, blacksmiths, wheel- 
 wrights and porters, every hired man and mechanic, in short, 
 all the laborious and tough hands, again became almost free ; 
 these formerly owed, out of their three hundred working days, 
 from twenty to fifty-nine to the exchequer ; they now owe only 
 from six to nineteen, and thus gain from fourteen to forty free 
 days during which, instead of working for the exchequer, they 
 work for themselves. — The reader may estimate the value to a 
 
 1 Law of Flor^al ^, year x, title ii. articles 13, 14. § 3 and 4. 
 
 2 Charles Nicolas, ibid. — In 1821. the personal and poll lax yields 46 millions; the tax 
 on doors and windows. 21 millions: total, 67 millions. According to these sums we 
 see tnat, if the recipient of 100 francs income from real-estate pays 16 fr. 77 real- 
 estate tax, he pays only 4 fr 01 for his three other direct taxes.— These figures. 6 to 7 
 francs, can nowadays be arrived at through direct observation. — To omit nothing, the 
 assessment in kind, renewed in principle after 1802 on all parish and departmental 
 roads, should be added ; this tax, demanded by rural interests, laid by local authori- 
 ties, adapted to the accommodation of the taxpayer, and at once accepted by the 
 inhabitants, has nothing in common with the former cofv^e, save in appearance ; m 
 fact, It is as easy as the corvtfe was burdensome. (Stourra, 1., 122.)
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 217 
 
 small household of such an alleviation of the burden of dis- 
 comfort and care. 
 
 IV. 
 
 This is in favor of the poor, in other words, it is an infrac- 
 tion of the principle of distributive justice: through the al- 
 most complete exemption of those wlio have no property the 
 burden of direct taxation falls almost entirely on those who own 
 property. If they are manufacturers, or in commerce, they 
 support still another burden, that of the license tax, which is 
 a supplementary impost proportioned to their probable gains.' 
 Finally, to all these annual and extra taxes, levied on the 
 probable or certain income derived from invested or floating 
 capital, the exchequer adds an eventual tax on capital itself, 
 consisting of the midation tax, assessed on property every time 
 it changes hands through gift, inheritance or by contract, 
 obtaining its title under free donation or by sale, and which 
 tax, aggravated by the timbrel^' is enormous^ since, in most 
 
 1 Charles Nicolas, "' Les Budtrcts de la. France depuis le commencement du xix« 
 Siecle," and de Foville. " La Fr.mce economique," p. 365, 373.— Reiuriis of licenses 
 in 1816, 40 millions ; in 1820, 22 millions ; in tS6o, 80 millions ; in 1887, 171 millions. 
 
 2 The tiiutatioii tax is that levied in France on all property transmitted by inheri- 
 tance, or which changes hands through formal sale (other than in ordinary business 
 transactions), as in the case of transfers of real-estate, effected through purchase or 
 sale. Timbre designates stamp duties imposed on the various kinds of legal docu- 
 ments. — Tr. 
 
 3 Ibid. Returns of the «/?<j'rt//o« tax (registration a.\\Atitnbre). Registration in 1820, 
 127 millions ; in i860, 306 millions ; in 1886, 518 millions. — Timbre, in 1820. 26 millions; 
 in i860, 56 millions ; in 1886, 156 millions. Sum-total in 1886, 674 millions. — The rate of 
 corresponding taxes under the ancient regime (coiiird/e, insinuation centiime denier, 
 J'or>iiule) was very much lower; the principal one, or tax of centiime denier^ look 
 
 only I per 100, and on the mutations of real-estate. This mutation tax is the only one 
 rendered worse ; it was immediately aggravated by the Constituant Assembly, and it 
 IS rendered all the more exorbitant on successions in which liabilities are not deducted 
 from assets. (That is to say, the inheritor of an indebted estate in France must 
 pay a mutation tax on 11s full value. He has the privilege, however, of renouncing 
 the (State if he does not choose to accept it along with its indebtedness.) — The tax- 
 payer's resignation to this tax is exp'ained by the exchequer collecting it at a unique 
 vciovacnx.^ when propiietorshif' just comes into being or is just at the /'oint 0/ birth. 
 In effect, if property changes hands under inheritance or through free donation it is 
 probable that the new owner, suddenly enriched, will be only loo glad to enter into 
 possession of it, and nut object to an impost which, althnugh taking about a tenth, 
 still leaves liim only a little less wealthy. When property is transferred by coniract 
 or sale, neither of the contracting parties, probably, sees clearly which pays the fiscal 
 tax ; the seller may think that it is the buyer, and the buyer that it is the seller. 
 Owing to this illumon both are less sensible of the shearing, each offering his own 
 back in the belief that it is the back of the other.
 
 2l8 
 
 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III> 
 
 cases, it takes five, seven, nine, and up to ten and one-half 
 per cent on the capital transmitted, that is to say, in the case 
 of real-estate, two, three and even four years' income from it. 
 Thus, in the first shearing of the sheep the exchequer cuts 
 deep, as deep as possible; but it has sheared only the sheep 
 whose fleece is more or less ample; its scissors have scarcely 
 touched the others, much more numerous, whose wool, short, 
 thin and scant, is maintained only by day-wages, the petty 
 gains of manual labor. — Compensation is to come when the 
 exchequer, resuming its scissors, shears the second time: it is 
 the indirect tax which, although properly levied and properly 
 collected, is, in its nature, more burdensome for the poor than 
 for the rich and well-off. 
 
 Through this tax, and owing to the previous operation of its 
 customs-duties, tolls, octrois or monopolies, the State collects a 
 certain percentage on the price of various kinds of merchandise 
 sold. In this way it participates in trade and commerce and 
 itself becomes a merchant. It knows, therefore, like all able 
 merchants, that, to obtain large profits, it must sell large quan- 
 tities, that it must have a very large body of customers, that 
 the largest body is that which ensures to it and embraces all 
 its subjects, in short, that its customers must consist not only 
 of the rich, who number merely tens of thousands, not only 
 the well-to-do, who number merely hundreds of thousands, 
 but likewise the poor and the half-poor, who number millions 
 and tens of millions. Hence, in the merchandise by the sale 
 of which it is to profit, it takes care to include staple articles 
 which everybody needs, for example, salt, sugar, tobacco and 
 beverages in universal and popular use. This accomplished, 
 let us follow out the consequences, and look in at the shops 
 over the whole surface of the territory, in the towns or in the 
 villages, where these articles are disposed of. Daily and all 
 dnv long, consumers abound; their large coppers and small 
 change constantly rattle on the counter; and out of every 
 large copper and every small piece of silver the national treas- 
 ury gets so many centimes: that is its share, and it is very sure 
 of it, for it is already in hand, having received it in advance. 
 At the end of the year, these countless centimes fill its cash-
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 219 
 
 box with millions, as many and more millions thau it gathers 
 through direct taxation. 
 
 And this second crop causes less trouble than the first one ; 
 for the taxpayer who is subject to it has less trouble and like- 
 wise the State which collects it. — In the first place, the tax- 
 payer suffers less. In relation to the exchequer, he is no 
 longer a mere debtor, obliged to pay over a particular sum at 
 a particular date ; his payments are optional ; neither the date 
 nor the sum are fixed ; he pays on buying and in proportion to 
 what he buys, that is to say, when he pleases and as little as 
 he wants. He is free to choose his time, to wait until his 
 purse is not so empty ; there is nothing to hinder him from 
 thinking before he enters the shop, from counting his coppers 
 and small change, from giving the preference to more urgent 
 expenditure, from reducing his consumption. If he is not a 
 frequenter of the cabaret, his quota, in the hundreds of 
 millions of francs obtained from beverages, is almost nothing ; 
 if he does not smoke or snuff, his quota, in the hundreds of 
 millions derived from the tax on tobacco, is nothing at all ; 
 because he is economical, prudent, a good provider for his 
 family and capable of self-sacrifice for those belonging to him, 
 he escapes the shearing of the exchequer. Moreover, when 
 he does come under the scissors, these hardly graze his skin ; 
 so long as tariff regulations and monopolies levy nothing on 
 articles which are physically indispensable to him, as on bread 
 in France, indirect taxation does not touch his flesh ; in gen- 
 eral, fiscal or protective duties, especially those which increase 
 the price of tobacco, coffee, sugar, and beverages, do not 
 affect his daily life, but merely deprive him of some of its 
 pleasures and comforts. And, on the other hand, in the col- 
 lection of these duties, the exchequer may not show its hand ; 
 if it does its business properly, the anterior and partial opera- 
 tion is lost sight of in the total operation which completes 
 and covers this u]) ; it screens itself behind the merchant. 
 The shears are invisible to the buyer who presents himself to 
 be sheared ; in any event, he has no distinct sensation of 
 them. Now, with the man of the people, the common run of 
 sheep, it is the positive, actual, animal sensation which makes
 
 220 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 him vociferate, which provokes the violent capers, the rash- 
 ness, the contagious scare and the general scampering. If he 
 escapes this dangerous sensation he remains tranquil ; at the 
 utmost, he grumbles at the hard times ; the high prices from 
 which he suffers are not imputed to the government ; he does 
 not know how to reckon, check off and consider for himself 
 the surplus price which the fiscal impost extorts from him. 
 Even at the present day, one might tell a peasant in vain 
 that the State takes fifteen out of the forty sous which he 
 pays for a pound of coffee, and five centimes out of every two 
 sous, the cost of a pound of salt ; for him, this is simply a 
 barren notion, a vague calculation at random ; the impression 
 on his mind would be very different if, standing before the 
 grocer who weighs out his coffee and salt, he saw with his own 
 eyes, right before him, the clerk .of the customs and of the 
 salt-tax actually taking the fifteen sous and the five centimes 
 off the counter. 
 
 Such are the proper indirect taxes : in order that they may 
 be proper, that is to say, tolerable and tolerated, three condi- 
 tions, as we see, are requisite. In the first place, the taxpayer, 
 in his own interest, must be free to buy or not to buy the 
 merchandise taxed. Next, in the interest of the taxpayer 
 and of the exchequer, the merchandise must not be so taxed 
 as to be rendered too dear. After that, in the interest of the 
 exchequer, its interference must not be perceptible. Owing 
 to these precautions, indirect taxes can be levied, even on the 
 smaller taxpayers, without either fleecing or irritating them. 
 It is for lack of these precautions before 1789, when people 
 were fleeced in such a bungling manner,' that, in 1789, they 
 first rebelled against indirect taxation," against the meal-tax, 
 the salt-tax, the tax on liquors, the internal tariffs, and the 
 town octrois, against fiscal officers, bureaux and registries, by 
 murdering, pillaging, and burning, beginning in the month of 
 March in Provence and after the 13th of July in Paris, and 
 then throughout France, with such a universal, determined 
 and persistent hostility that the National Assembly, after hav- 
 
 I See " Tbe Anrient R^cime." pp. 35S-362. 
 3 bee '"'I'lie Revolution," vol. i., pp. 16, 38.
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 221 
 
 ing vainly attempted to restore the suspended tax-levies and 
 enforce the law on the populace, ended in subjecting the law 
 to the populace and in decreeing the suppression of indirect 
 taxation entirely.' 
 
 Such, in the matter of taxation, is the work of the Revolu- 
 tion. Of the two sources which, through their regular afflux, 
 fill the public Treasury, and of which the ancient regime took 
 possession and managed badly, violently, through loose and 
 bungling measures, it has nearly dried up the first one, direct 
 taxation, and completely exhausted the second one, indirect 
 taxation. At present, as the empty Treasury must be filled, 
 the latter must be taken in hand the same as the former, its 
 waters newly gathered in and gently conducted without loss ; 
 and the new government sets about this, not like the old one, 
 in a rude, conventional manner, but as an engineer and calcu- 
 lator who knows the ground, its inclination and other obstacles, 
 in short, who comprehends human sensibility and the popular 
 imagination.^ And first there is to be no more farming-out (of 
 the revenues): the State no longer sells its duties on salt or on 
 beverages to a company of speculators, mere contractors, who 
 care for nothing but their temporary lease and annual incomes, 
 solely concerned with coming dividends, bleeding the tax- 
 payer like so many leeches and invited to suck him freely, 
 interested in multiplying affidavits by the fines they get, and 
 creating infractions, authorized by a needy government which, 
 supporting itself on their advances, places the public force at 
 their disposal and surrenders the people to their exactions. 
 Henceforth, the exchequer collects for itself and for its own 
 
 1 Decree of Oct. ^t-Nov. 5, 1789. abolishing the boundary taxes between the prov- 
 inces and siippressing all the collection offices in the kingdom.— Decree of 21-30 
 March 1790, abolishing the salt-tax. Decree of 1-17 March 1791, abolishing all taxes 
 on liquors, and decree of iq-25 Frb. 1791, abolishing all or/r<>/ taxes.— Decree of 20-27 
 March T791, in relation to freedom of growing, manufacturing and selling tobacco; 
 customs-duties on the importation of leaf-tobacco alone are maintained, and give but 
 an insignificant revenue, from 1,500.000 to 1,800.000 francs in the year v. 
 
 2 Gaudin, Due dcGaete, " M^moircs," i.. 215-217 —The advantages of indirect tax- 
 ation are well explained by Gaudin. "The taxpayer pays only when he is willing 
 and has the means. On the other hand, the duties imposed by the exchequer being 
 confounded with the price of the article, the taxpayer, in paying, his debt, thinks only 
 of satisfying a want or of procuring an enjoyment "—Decrees of March 16 and 27, 
 and May 4, 1806 (on salt), of February 25, 1804. April 24, 1806, Novem. 25. 1808 (OQ 
 liquors), May 19, 1802, March 6, 1804, April 24, 1806, Decern. 29, 1810 (on tobacco).
 
 222 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 account ; it is the same as a proprietor who, instead of hiring 
 out, improves his property and becomes his own farmer; there- 
 fore, it considers the future in its own interest ; it limits the 
 receipts of the current year so as not to compromise the re- 
 ceipts of coming years ; it avoids ruining the present tax- 
 payer who is also the future taxpayer ; it does not indulge in 
 gratuitous chicanery, in expensive lawsuits, in warrants of exe- 
 cution and imprisonment ; it is averse to converting a profit- 
 able laborer into a mendicant who brings in nothing, or into a 
 prisoner for debt who costs it something. Through this course, 
 the relief is immense ; ten years previous to the Revolution,' 
 it was estimated that, in principal and in accessories, especially 
 in costs of collection and in fines, indirect taxation cost the 
 nation twice as much the king derived from it, that it paid three 
 hundred and seventy-one millions to enable him to receive 
 one hundred and eighty-four millions, that the salt-tax alone 
 took out of the pockets of the taxpayer one hundred millions 
 for forty-five millions deposited in his coffers. Under the new 
 regime, fines became rarer; seizures, executions and sales of per- 
 sonal property still rarer, while the costs of collection, reduced 
 by increasing consumption, are not to exceed one-twentieth in- 
 stead of one-fifth of the receipts.^ — In the second place, the con- 
 sumer becomes free again, in law as in fact, not to purchase 
 taxed goods. He is no longer constrained, as formerly, in the 
 provinces subject to high salt-tax, to accept, consume, and pay 
 for duty-salt, seven pounds per head at thirteen sous the pound. 
 Provincial, town or seignorial taxes on the commodity which 
 he cannot do without, on bread, no longer exist ; there is no 
 meal-tax, or duty on flour, as in Provence,^ no duties on the sale 
 or of grinding wheat, no impediments to the circulation or 
 
 1 Letrosne, " De radministration des finances et de la r^forme de Timpot " (1779), 
 pp. 148, 162. — Laboulaye, " De I'administration fr.inpaise sous Louis XVI." {Rei'ue 
 des cours litter/iires, 1864-1865, p. 677). " 1 believe that, under Louis XIIL, they took 
 at least five and, under Louis XIV, four to get two." 
 
 2 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Traite de la science des finances," i., 261. (In 1875, these 
 costs amount to 5.20 per cent.) — De Foville, ihid. (Cost of customs and salt-tax, in 1828, 
 16,2 per cent; in 1876, 10.2 per cent. — Cost of indirect taxation, in 1828, 14. qo per cent; 
 in 1876, 3.7 per cent.)— De Calonnd, "Collection des m^moires prdsent^s \ I'assembl^e 
 des notables," 1787, p. 63. 
 
 3 See " The Ancient Regime," p. 23, 370.—" The Revolution," i., 10, 16, 17.
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 223 
 
 commerce of grain. Again, on the other hand, other com- 
 modities, besides bread and those which a tax reaches, fall 
 now within range of small means through the lowering of fiscal 
 charges, in the suppression of internal duties, and the abolition 
 of multitudinous tolls. Salt, instead of costing thirteen sous 
 and over, no longer costs more than two sous the pound. A 
 cask of Bordeaux wine no longer pays two hundred livres 
 before it is retailed by the tavern-keeper at Rennes.' Except 
 in Paris, and even at Paris, so long as the extravagance of 
 municipal expenditure does not increase the octroi, the total 
 tax on wine, cider and beer does not add, even at retail, more 
 than eighteen percent to their selling price,^ while, throughout 
 France, the vine-grower, or the wine-maker, who gathers in 
 and manufactures his own wine, drinks this and even his 
 brandy, without paying one cent of tax under this heading.^ — 
 Consequently, consumption increases, and, as there are no 
 longer any exempt or half-exempt provinces, no more free salt 
 {franc sah')* no more privileges arising from birth, condition, 
 profession or residence, the Treasury, with fewer duties, col- 
 lected or gained as much as before the Revolution : in 1809 
 and 1810, twenty millions on tobacco, fifty-four millions on 
 salt, one hundred millions on liquors, and then, as the tax- 
 payer became richer and spent more, still larger and larger 
 sums : in 1884, three hundred and five millions on tobacco : 
 in 1885, four hundred and twenty-nine millions on liquors,* 
 without counting another one hundred millions again raised 
 on liquors through town octrois. — At length, the exchequer, 
 with extreme prudence, keeps out of sight and succeeds in 
 almost saving the taxpayer from contact with, or the presence 
 of, its agents. There is an end to a domestic inquisition. 
 The exciseman no longer pounces in on the housewife to 
 taste the pickle, to find out whether the ham has been cured 
 with bogus salt, to certify that all the dutiable salt has been 
 
 1 See ' The Ancient Rf'gime," p. 361. 
 
 2 Leroy-Beaulieu, il'iii., i., 643. 
 
 3 Decrees of November 25, 1808, and December 8, 1824. 
 
 4 Certain persons under the ancient regime enjoyed an exemption from the tax on 
 salt. 
 
 5 Stourm, i., 360, 389.— De Fo villa, 3S2, 385, 398.
 
 224 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 used in " the pot and the salt-cellar." The wine-inspector 
 no longer comes suddenly on the wine-grower, or even on the 
 consumer, to gauge his casks, to demand an account of what 
 he drinks, to make an affidavit in case of deficit or over-con- 
 sumption, to impose a fine should a bottle have been given to 
 a sick person or to a poor one. The fifty thousand customs 
 officers or clerks of the ferine, the twenty-three thousand 
 soldiers without a uniform who, posted in the interior along a 
 line of twelve hundred leagues, guarded the heavily taxed salt 
 districts against the provinces which were less taxed, redeemed 
 or free; the innumerable employes at the barriers, forming a 
 confused and complicated band around each province, town, 
 district or canton, levying on twenty or thirty different sorts of 
 merchandise ; forty-five principal duties, general, provincial, 
 or municipal, and nearly sixteen hundred tolls, in short, the 
 entire body of officials of the old system of indirect taxation 
 has almost wholly disappeared. Save at the entrance of towns, 
 and for the octroi, the eye no longer encounters an official clerk ; 
 the carters who, from Roussillon or Languedoc, transport a cask 
 of wine to Paris, are no longer subject to his levies, vexations 
 and convenience in twenty different places, nor to impute to 
 him the dozen or fifteen days' useless extension of their trip 
 due to his predecessor, and during which they had to wait in 
 his office until he wrote a receipt or a permit; there is scarcely 
 any one now but the inn-keeper who sees his green uniform on 
 his premises ; after the abolition of the house-inventory, nearly 
 two millions of proprietors and wine metayers are forever free of 
 his visits;' thenceforth, for consumers especially the people, he 
 is absent and seems a nullity. In effect, he has been transferred 
 one or two hundred leagues off, to the salt-establishments in 
 the interior and on the coasts, and on the frontier. There 
 only is the system at fault, nakedly exposing its vice, — a war 
 against exchanges, the proscription of international com- 
 merce, prohibition pushed to extreme, the continental block- 
 ade, an inquisition of twenty-thousand customs officials, the hos- 
 tility of one hundred thousand defrauders, the brutal destruc- 
 
 I These figures are given by Gaudin.
 
 CHAP. 11. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 225 
 
 tion of seized goods, an augmentation in price of one hundred 
 per cent on cottons and four hundred per cent on sugar, a 
 dearth of colonial articles, privation to the consumer, the 
 ruin of the manufacturer and trader, and accumulated fail- 
 ures one on top of the other in 181 1 in all the large towns 
 from Hamburg to Rome.' This vice, however, belongs to 
 the militant policy and personal character of the master ; the 
 error that vitiates the external side of his fiscal system 
 does not reach the internal side. After him, under pacific 
 reigns, it is gradually modified ; prohibition gives way to pro- 
 tection and then changes from excessive protection to limited 
 protection. Inside, along with secondary improvements and 
 partial amendments, the course marked out by the Consulate 
 and the Empire is to be obtained ; this course, in all its main 
 lines, is clearly traced, straight, and yet adapted to all things, 
 by the plurality, establishment, distribution, rate of taxation 
 and returns of the various direct and indirect taxes, nearly in 
 conformity with the new principles of political economy, as 
 well as in conformity with the ancient maxims of distributive 
 justice, carefully directed between the two important interests 
 that have to be cared for, between the interest of the taxpayer 
 and the interest of the State which collects taxes. 
 
 Consider, in effect, what both gain. — In 1789, the State had 
 a revenue of only four hundred and seventy-five millions; 
 afterwards, during the Revolution, it scarcely collected any 
 of its revenues; it lived on the capital it stole, like a genuine 
 brigand, or on the debts it contracted, like a dishonest and 
 insolvent bankrupt. Under the Consulate and during the first 
 years of the Empire, its revenue amounts to seven hundred 
 and fifty or eight hundred millions, its subjects being no 
 longer robbed of their capital, while it no longer runs in debt. 
 — In 1789, the ordinary taxpayer paid a direct tax to his three 
 former or late sovereigns, namely, to the King, the clergy and 
 the seigniors, more than three-cpiarters of his net income. 
 After 1800, he pays to the State less tlian one-quarter, the 
 one sovereign alone who replaces the other three. We have 
 
 I Thiers, xiii., pp. 20 to 25.
 
 226 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 seen how relief came to the old taxable subject, to the 
 rustic, to the small proprietor, to the man without any 
 property, who lived on the labor of his own hands; the 
 lightening of the direct tax restored to him from fourteen to 
 forty free days, during which, instead of working for the ex- 
 chequer, he worked for himself. If married, and the father of 
 two children over seven years of age, the alleviation of one 
 direct tax alone, that of the salt-tax, again restores to him 
 twelve days more, in all from one to two complete months 
 each year during which he is no longer, as formerly, a man 
 doing statute-work, but the free proprietor, the absolute mas- 
 ter of his time and of his own hands. — At the same time, 
 through the re-casting of other taxes and owing to the in- 
 creasing price of labor, his physical privations decrease. He 
 is no longer reduced to consuming only the refuse of his crop, 
 the wheat of poor quality, the damaged rye, the badly-bolted 
 flour mixed with bran, nor to drink water poured over the lees 
 of his grapes, nor to sell his pigs before Christmas because 
 the salt he needs is too dear.' He salts his pork and eats it, 
 and likewise butcher's meat ; he enjoys his boiled beef and 
 broth on Sunday; he drinks wine; his bread is more nutritious, 
 not so black and healthier ; he no longer lacks it an'd has no 
 fear of lacking it. Formerly, he entertained a lugubrious 
 phantom, the fatal image of famine which haunted him day 
 and night for centuries, an almost periodical famine under the 
 monarchy, a chronic famine and then severe and excruciating 
 during the Revolution, a famine which, under the republic, 
 had in three years destroyed over a million of lives.'' The 
 immemorial spectre recedes and vanishes; after two accidental 
 and local recurrences, in 1812 and i8i7,it never again appears 
 in France.^ 
 
 1 Lafayette, " M^moires.'" (Letter of October 17, 1779, and notes made in Auvergne, 
 August 1800.) " You know how many beggars there were, people dying of hunger in 
 our country. We see no more of them. The pe<isants are richer, the land better 
 tilled and the women better clad."— " The Ancient Regime," 340, 341, 342.— " The 
 Revolution," iii., p 366,402. 
 
 2 " The Ancient Regime," p. 340. — " The Revolution," iii., 212. 
 
 3 These two famines were due to inclement seasons and were aggravated, the last 
 one by the 'consequences of invasion and the necessity of supporting 150,000 foreign 
 troops, and the former by the course taken by Xapolton who applies the maximum
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 227 
 
 V. 
 
 One tax remains, and the last, that by which the State takes, 
 no longer money, but the person himself, the entire man, soul 
 and body, and for the best years of his life, namely military 
 service. It is the Revolution which has rendered this so 
 burdensome ; formerly, it was light, for, in principle, it was 
 voluntary. The militia, alone, was raised by force, and, in 
 general, among the country people; the peasants furnished men 
 for it by casting lots.' But it was simply a supplement to the 
 active army, a territorial and provincial reserve, a distinct, sed- 
 entary body of reinforcements and of inferior rank which, ex- 
 cept in case of war, never marched; it turned out but nine days 
 of the year, and, after 1778, never turned out again. In 1789, it 
 comprised in all seventy-five thousand two hundred and sixty 
 men, and for eleven years their names, inscribed on the regis- 
 ters, alone constituted their presence in the ranks. ^ There 
 were no other conscripts under the monarchy; in this matter, 
 its exactions were not great, ten times less than those of the 
 Republic and of the Empire, since both the Republic and 
 the Empire, using the same constraint, were to levy more than 
 ten times the number of drafted men or conscripts.' 
 
 afresh, with the same intermeddlingf, the same despotism and the same failure as 
 
 under the Convention. (" Mdmoires," by M. X , iii., 251-335 ) " I do not exagf- 
 
 gerate in stating that our operations in the purcliaseand transport (of grain) required 
 a full quarter of the time, and often one-third, more than would have been required 
 in commerce.'" — Prolongation of the famine in Normandy. " Rands of famished 
 beggars overran the country. . . . Riots and pillaging around Caen ; several mills 
 burnt. . . . Suppression of these by the imperial guard. In the executions which 
 resulted from these even women were not spared." — The two principal guarantees 
 at the present day against this public danger are, first, easier circumstances, and next 
 the multiplication of good roads and of railroads, the despatch and cheapness of trans- 
 portation, and the superabundant crops of Russia and the United States. 
 
 1 J. Gebelin, " Histoire des milices provinciales " (1882), p. 87, 143, 157, z8S. — Most 
 of the texts and details may be found in this excellent work. — Many towns, Paris, 
 Lyons, Reims, Rouen, Bordeaux, Tours, Agen, Sedan and the two generalities of 
 Flanders and Hainault are examples of drawing by lot ; ihcy furnished their con- 
 tingent by volunteers enlisted at their own expense ; the merchants and artisans, or 
 the community itself, paying the bounty for enlistment. Besides this there were 
 many exemptions in the lower class. (Cf. " The Ancient R(!gime," p. 390.) 
 
 2 J. Gebelin, //■;>/., 239, 279, 288. (Except the eiyht regiments of royal grenadiers in 
 the militia who turned out for one month in the year.) 
 
 3 Example afforded by one dc|)artmcnt. ("Statistics of Ain," by Rossi, prefect, 
 1808.) Number of soldiers on duty in the department, in 1789, 323 ; in 1801, 6,729; in
 
 228 THE MODERN e£GIME. book in. 
 
 Alongside of this militia body, the entire army properly so 
 called, the " regular " troops were, under, the ancient regime, 
 all recruited by free enlistment, not only the twenty-five 
 foreign regiments, Swiss, Irish, Germans, and Liegeois, but 
 again the hundred and forty-five French regiments, one 
 hundred and seventy-seven thousand men.' The enlistment, 
 indeed, was not free enough ; frequently, through the 
 manoeuvres of the recruiting-agent, it was tainted with in- 
 veigling and surprises, and sometimes with fraud or violence; 
 but, owing to the remonstrances due to the prevailing philan- 
 thropic spirit, these abuses had diminished ; the law of 178& 
 had suppressed the most serious of them and, even with its 
 abuses, the institution had two great advantages. — The army,, 
 in the first place, served as an issue: through it the social body 
 purged itself of its bad humors, of its overheated or vitiated 
 blood. At this date, although the profession of soldier was 
 one of the lowest and least esteemed, a barren career, without 
 promotion and almost without escape, a recruit was obtain- 
 able for about one hundred francs bounty and a "tip" ; add 
 to this two or three days and nights of revel in the grog-shop, 
 which indicates the kind and quality of the recruits ; in 
 fact, very few could be obtained except among men more or 
 less disqualified for civil and domestic life, incapable of spon- 
 taneous discipline and of steady labor, adventurers and out- 
 casts, half-savage or half-blackguard, some of them sons of 
 respectable parents thrown into the army in an angry fit, and 
 others again, regular vagabonds picked up in beggars' haunts, 
 mostly stray workmen and loafers, in short, " the most de- 
 bauched, the most hot-brained, the most turbulent people in 
 
 1806, 6.764.—" The department of Ain furnished nearly 30.000 men to the armies, con- 
 scripts and those under requisition." — It is noticeable, consequently, that in the popu- 
 lation of i8ot, there is a sensible diminution of persons between twenty and thirty 
 and, in the population of 1806, of those between twenty-five and thirty-five years of 
 age. The number between twenty and thirty is as follows : in 1789, 39,828 ; in 1801, 
 35,648 ; in j8o6, 34,083. 
 
 I De Dammartin. " Ev^nemens qui se sont passes sous mes yeux pendant la revo- 
 lution francjaise," v. ii. (State of the French army, Jan. i, 1789.) Total on a peace 
 footing, 177. 8qo men. — This is the nominal force ; the real force under arms was 
 154.000; in March 1791. it had fallen to 115,000. through the multitude of desertions 
 and the scarcity of enlistments. (Yung, " Dubois-Crance et la Revolution," i., 158. 
 Speech by Dubois-Cranc^.)
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 229 
 
 an ardent, turbulent and somewhat debauched community." ' 
 In this way, the anti-social class was utilized for the public 
 good. Let the reader imagine an ill-kept domain overrun by 
 a lot of stray curs that might prove dangerous: they are en- 
 ticed and caught ; a collar, with a chain attached to it, is 
 put on their necks and they become good watch-dogs. In the 
 second place, this institution preserved to the subject the first 
 and most precious of all liberties, the full possession and the 
 unrestricted management of one's own person, the complete 
 mastery of body and being ; this was assured to him, guaran- 
 teed to him against the encroachments of the State; better guar- 
 anteed than by the wisest constitution, for the institution was 
 a recognized custom accepted by every body; in other words, 
 a tacit, immemorial convention,* between the subject and 
 the State, proclaiming that, if the State had a right to draw on 
 purses it had no right to draft persons: in reality and in fact, 
 the King, in his principal function, was merely a contractor 
 like any other; he undertook natural defence and public 
 secuiity the same as others undertook cleaning the streets or 
 the maintenance of a dike ; it was his business to hire military 
 workmen as they hired their civil workmen, by mutual agree- 
 ment, at an understood price and at current market rates. 
 Accordingly, the sub-contractors with whom he treated, the 
 colonel and captains of each regiment, were subject as he was 
 to the law of supply and demand; he allowed them so much 
 for each recruit,^ to replace those dropped out, and they 
 
 1 "The Ancient RdKime," p. 390, 391.— "The Revolution," p. 328-330. — Albert 
 Babeau, " le Recrutement militaire sous Tancien regime." (In " la Rdforme sociale " 
 of Sept. I, 1888, p. 229, 238 )— An officer says, "only the rabble are enlisted because 
 it is cheaper."— YunjT, ibid., !., 32. (Speech by M. de Liancourt in the tribune.) 
 "The soldier is classed apart and Is too little esteemed."— //^/V.. p. 39. ("Vices 
 et abus de la constitution actuelle fran9aise," memorial signed by officers in most of 
 the regiments Sept. 6, 1789.) "The majority of soldiers are derived from the off- 
 scouniiifsof the large towns and are men without occupation." 
 
 2 Gebelin, p. 270. Almost all the cahiers of the third-estate in 1789 demand the 
 abolition of drafting by lot. and nearly all of those of the three orders are for volun- 
 teer service, as opposed to obligatory service ; most of these demand, for the army, a 
 volunteer militia enlisted throuch a bounty ; this bounty or security in money to be 
 furnished by communities of inhabitants which, in fact, was already the case ia 
 several towns. 
 
 3 Albert Babeau, ibiii., 238. "Colonels were allowed only 100 francs per man; 
 this sum, however, being insufficient, the balance was assessed on the pay of thfr 
 officers."
 
 83° THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK lU. 
 
 agreed to keep their companies full. They were obliged to 
 procure men at their own risk and at their own expense, while 
 the recruiting-agent whom they despatched with a bag of 
 money among the taverns, enlisted artillerymen, horsemen or 
 foot-soldiers, after bargaining with them, the same as one would 
 •hire men to sweep or pave the streets and to clean the 
 sewers. 
 
 Against this practice and this principle comes the theory of 
 the Contrat- Social. It declares that the people are sovereign. 
 Now, in this divided Europe, where a conflict between rival 
 States is always imminent, sovereigns are military men ; they 
 are such by birth, education, and profession, and by necessity ; 
 the title carries along with it and involves the function. Conse- 
 quently, the subject, in assuming their rights, imposes upon 
 himself their duties ; in his quota (of responsibility) he, in his 
 turn, is sovereign ; but, in his turn and in his person, he is a 
 soldier.' Henceforth, if he is born an elector, he is born a con- 
 script ; he has contracted an obligation of a new species and 
 of infinite reach ; the State, which formerly had a claim only 
 on his possessions, now has one on his entire body ; never does 
 a creditor let his claims rest and the State always finds reasons 
 or pretexts to enforce its claims. Under the threats or trials 
 of invasion the people, at first, had consented to pay this one ; 
 they regarded it as accidental and temporary. After victory 
 and when peace came, its government continues to enforce the 
 claim ; it becomes settled and permanent. After the treaties 
 of Luneville and Amiens, Napoleon maintains it in France ; 
 after the treaties of Paris and Vienna, the Prussian govern- 
 ment is to maintain it in Prussia. One war after another and 
 the institution becomes worse and worse ; like a contagion, it 
 has spread from State to State ; at the present time, it has 
 overspread the whole of continental Europe and here it reigns 
 
 iThis principle was at once adopted by the Jacobins. (Yung, ibid., 19. 22, 145. 
 Speech by Dubois-Cranc^ at the session held Dec. 12, 1789.) " Every citizen will be- 
 conie a soldier of the Constitution." No more casting lots nor substitution. "Each 
 citizen must be a soldier and each soldier a citizen." — The first application of the prin- 
 ciple is a call for 300,000 men (Feb. 26, 1793), then through a levy on the masses which 
 brings 500,000 men under the flag, nominally volunteers, but conscripts in reality. 
 (Baron Poisson, "I'Armee et la Garde Nalionale," iii, 475.)
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 231 
 
 along with its natural companion which always precedes or 
 follows it, its twin-brother, universal suffrage, each more or 
 less conspicuously " trotted out " and dragging the other along, 
 more or less incomplete and disguised, both being the blind 
 and formidable leaders or regulators of future history : one 
 thrusting a ballot into the hands of every adult, and the other 
 putting a soldier's knapsack on every adult's back : with 
 what promises of massacre and bankruptcy for the twentieth 
 century, with what exasperation of international rancor and 
 distrust, with what waste of human labor, through what per- 
 version of productive discoveries, through what perfection of 
 destructive appliances, through what a recoil to the lower and 
 most unwholesome forms of old militant societies, through 
 what retrograde steps towards brutal and selfish instincts, 
 towards the sentiments, habits and morality of the antique 
 city and of the barbarous tribe — we know and more beside. 
 It is sufficient for us to place the two military systems face to 
 face, that of former times and that of to-day : formerly, in 
 Europe, a few soldiers, some hundreds of thousands ; to-day, 
 in Europe, eighteen millions of actual or eventual soldiers, all 
 the adults, even the married, even fathers of families sum- 
 moned or subject to call for twenty-five years of their life, 
 that is to say, as long as they continue able-bodied men ; 
 formerly, for the heaviest part of the service in France, no 
 lives ar-e confiscated by decree, only those bought by con- 
 tract, and lives suited to this business and elsewhere idle or 
 mischievous ; about one hundred and fifty thousand lives of 
 inferior quality, of mediocre value, which the State could 
 expend with less regret than others, and the sacrifice of which 
 is not a serious injury to society or to civilization. To-day, 
 for the same service in France, four millions of lives are taken 
 by authority, and, if they attempt to escape, taken by force ; 
 all of them, from the twentieth year onward, employed in the 
 same manual and murderous pursuit, including the least suited 
 to the purpose and the best adapted to other purposes, includ- 
 ing the most inventive and the most fecund, the most delicate 
 and the most cultivated, those remarkable for superior talent
 
 232 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 who are of almost infinite social value, and whose forced col- 
 lapse, or precocious end, is a calamity for the human species. 
 
 Such is the terminal fruit of the new regime ; military duty 
 is here the counterpart, and as it were, the ransom of political 
 right ; the modern citizen may balance one with the other 
 like two weights in the scale. On the one side, he may place 
 his prerogative as sovereign, that is to say, in point of fact,, 
 the faculty every four years of giving one vote among ten 
 thousand for the election or non-election of one deputy among 
 six hundred and fifty ; on the other side, he may place his posi- 
 tive, active service, three, four or five years of barrack life and 
 of passive obedience, and then twenty-eight days more, then a 
 thirteen-days' summons in honor of the flag, and, for twenty 
 years, at each rumor of war, anxiously waiting for the word 
 of command which obliges him to shoulder his gun and slay 
 with his own hand, or be slain. He will probably end by dis- 
 covering that the two sides of the scales do not balance and 
 that a right so hollow is poor compensation for so heavy a 
 burden. 
 
 Of course, in 1789, he foresaw nothing like that; he was 
 optimistic, pacific, liberal, humanitarian ; he knew nothing of 
 Europe nor of history, nothing of the past nor of the present ; 
 when the Constituent Assembly constituted him a sovereign,, 
 he let things go on ; he did not know what he engaged to 
 do, he had no idea of having allowed such a heavy claim 
 against him. But, in signing the social contract, he made 
 himself responsible ; in 1793, the note came due and the 
 Convention collected it ; ' and then comes Napoleon who put 
 things in order. Henceforth, every male, able-bodied adult 
 must pay the debt of blood ; no more exemptions in the way 
 
 I Baron Poisson, " TArmee et la Garde nationale," iii., 475. (Summing up.) "Popu- 
 lar tradition has converted the volunteer of the Republic into a conventional per- 
 sonage which history cannot accept. . . . ist. The first contingent of volunteers 
 demanded of the country consisted of 97.000 men (1791). 60.000 enthusiasts responded 
 to the call, enlisted for a year and fulfilled their engagement ; but for no considera- 
 tion would they remain longer. 2d. Second call for volunteers in April 1792. Only 
 mixed levies, partial, raised by money, most of them even without occupation, outcasts 
 and unable to withstand the enemy. 3d. 300,000 men recruited, which measure 
 partly fails ; the recruit can always get off by furnishing a substitute. 4. Levy in mass 
 of 500,000 men, called volunteers, but really conscripts." 
 
 \ 
 1
 
 •CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 233 
 
 of military service : ' all young men who had reached the 
 required age drew lots in the conscription and set out in turn 
 according to the order fixed by their drafted number." But 
 Napoleon is an intelligent creditor ; he knows that this debt 
 is " most frightful and most detestable for families," that his 
 •debtors are real, living men and therefore different in kind, 
 that the head of the State should keep these differences in 
 mind, that is to say their condition, their education, their 
 sensibility and their vocation ; that, not only in their private 
 interest, but again in the interest of the public, not merely 
 through prudence but also through equity, all should not be 
 
 1 " Memorial " (Speech by Napoleon before the Council of State). " I am inflexible 
 on exemptions ; they would be crimes ; how relieve one's conscience of having caused 
 one man to die in the place of another ?"—" The conscription was an unprivileged 
 militia : it was an eminently national mstitution and already far advanced in our cus- 
 toms ; only mothers were still afflicted by it, while the time was coming when a girl 
 •would riot have a man who had not paid his debt to his country." 
 
 2 Law of Fructidor 8, year xiii, article 10.— Pelet de La Loztre, 229. (Speech by 
 Napoleon, Council of State, May 29, 1804.)— Pelet adds : " The duration of the service 
 was not fixed. ... As a fact in itself, the man was exiled from his fireside for the rest 
 of his life, regarding it as adesolating, permanent exile. . . . Entire sacrifice of exist- 
 ence. . . . An annual crop of young men torn from their families and sent to death." 
 — .Archives nationales, F', 3014. (Reports of prefects, 1806.) After this date, and even 
 from the beginning, there is extreme repugnance which is only overcome by severe 
 means. . . . (Ardeche.) " If the state of the country were to be judged of by the 
 results of the conscription one would have a poor idea of it." — (Arii!gc.) " .At Rrussac, 
 district of Foix, four or five individuals arm themselves with stones and knives to 
 help a conscript escape, arrested by the gendarmes. ... A garrison was ordered to 
 this commune." — At Massat, district of Saint-Girons, on a few brigades of gendarmes 
 entering this commune to establish a garrison, in order to hasten the departure of 
 refractory conscripts, they were stoned ; a shot even was fired at this troop. ... A 
 garrison was placed In these hamlets as in the rest of the commune. — During the 
 night of Frimaire 16-17 '^st, six strange men presented themselves before the prison of 
 Saint-Girons and loudly demanded Gouazd, a deserter and condemned. On the 
 jailor coming down they seized him and struck him down." — (Haute-Loire.) "The 
 flying column Is under constant orders simultaneously against the refractory and dis- 
 obedient among the classes of the years ix, x, xi, xii, and xiii, and against the lacre^irds 
 of that of year iv, of which 134 men yet remain to be supplied." — (Bouches-du-Rhone.) 
 " 50 deserter sailors and 84 deserters or conscripts of different classes have been 
 arrested." — fDordogne.') "Out of i3i;3 conscripts. 134 have failed to reach their des- 
 tination ; 124 refractory or deserters from the country and 41 others have been ar- 
 rested ; 81 conscripts have surrendered as a result of placing a garrison amongst 
 them ; 186 have not surrendered. Out of 802 conscripts of the yeai xiv on the march, 
 101 deserted on the road." — (Gard.) "76 refractory or deserters arrested." — (Landes.) 
 "Out of 406 men who left, 51 deserted on the way." etc. — This repugnance becomes 
 more and more aggravated. (Cf. analogous reports of 1812 and 1813, F', 3018 and 
 3019. in "Journal d"un bourgeois d'Evreux," p. 150 to 214, and " Histoirede 1814," by 
 Henry Houssayc, p. 8 to 24.)
 
 234 THE MODERN REGIME. book iiu 
 
 indistinguishably restricted to the same mechanical pursuit^ 
 to the same manual labor, to the same prolonged and indefi- 
 nite servitude of soul and body. Already, under the Direc- 
 tory, the law had exempted young married men and widowers 
 or divorced persons who were fathers ; ' Napoleon also ex- 
 empts the conscript who has a brother in the active army, the 
 only son of a widow, the eldest of three orphans the son of a 
 father seventy-one years old dependent on his labor, all of 
 whom are family supports. ° He joins with these all young 
 men who enlist in one of his civil militias, in his ecclesiastical 
 militia or in his university militia, pupils of the Ecole Nor- 
 male, ignorantm brothers, seminarians for the priesthood, on 
 condition that they shall engage to do service in their voca- 
 tion and do it effectively, some for ten years, others for 
 life, subject to a discipline more rigid, or nearly as rigid,, 
 as military discipline.^ Finally, he sanctions or institutes' 
 volunteer substitutes, through private agreement between 
 a conscript and the able-bodied, certified volunteer substi- 
 tute for whom the conscript is responsible.* If such a bar- 
 gain is made between them it is done freely, knowing what 
 they are about, and because each man finds the exchange to 
 his advantage ; the State has no right to deprive either of 
 them uselessly of this advantage, and oppose an exchange by 
 which it does not suffer. So far from suffering it often gains- 
 by it. For, what it needs is not this or that man, Peter or 
 Paul, but a man as capable as Peter or Paul of firing a gun, of 
 marching long distances, of resisting inclemencies, and such 
 are the substitutes it accepts. They must all be ^ " of sound 
 health and robust constitution," and sufficiently tall ; as a 
 matter of fact, being poorer than those replaced, they are 
 more accustomed to privation and fatigue ; most of them,, 
 
 1 Law of Fructidor, year vi. 
 
 2 Law of Floreal 6, year xi, article 13. — Law of Fructidor 8, year xiii, article 18. 
 
 3 Decree of July 29, 1811 (on the exemption of pupils in the Ecole Normale).— De- 
 cree of March 30, 1810, title ii., articles 2, 4. 5, 6 (on the police and system of the 
 Ecole Normale). — Decree on the organization of the University, titles 6 and 13, March 
 7, 1808. 
 
 4 Law of Ventose 17, year viii, title iii., articles i and 13.— Law of Fructidor 8, year 
 3C1II, articles 50, 54, and 55. 
 
 5 Law of Fructidor 8, year xiii, article 51.
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 235 
 
 having reached maturity, are worth more for the service than 
 youths who have been recruited by anticipation and too 
 young ; some are old soldiers : and in this case the substitute 
 is worth twice as much as the new conscript who has never 
 donned the knapsack or bivouacked in the open air. Conse- 
 quently, those who are allowed to obtain substitutes are " the 
 drafted and conscripts of all classes, . . . unable to endure 
 the fatigues of war, and those who shall be recognized of 
 greater use to the State by continuing their labors and studies 
 than in forming a part of the army. . ." ' 
 
 Napoleon had too much sense to be led by the blind ex- 
 istences of democratic formulae ; his eyes, which penetrated 
 beyond mere words, at once perceived that the condition of a 
 simple soldier, between a young man well brought up and a 
 peasant or day-laborer, is unequal, that a tolerable bed, suf- 
 ficient clothing, good shoes, certainty of daily bread, a piece 
 of meat regularly, are novelties for the latter but not for the 
 former, and, consequently, enjoyments; that the promiscuity 
 and odor of the barrack chamber, the corporal's cursing and 
 swearing and rude orders, the mess-dish and camp-bread, 
 physical hardships all day and every other day, are for the 
 former, but not for the latter, novelties and, consequently, 
 sufferings ; from which it follows that, if literal equality is 
 ai)plied, positive inequality is established, and that by -virtue 
 even of the new creed, it is necessary, in the name of true 
 equality as in the name of true liberty, to allow the former, 
 who would suffer most, to treat fairly and squarely with the 
 latter, who will suffer less. And all the more because, by this 
 arrangement, the civil staff preserves for itself its future re- 
 cruits; it is from nineteen to twenty-six that the future chiefs 
 and under-chiefs of the great work of peaceful and fruitful 
 labor, the savants, artists or scholars, the jurisconsults, 
 engineers or physicians, tlie enterprising men of commerce or 
 of industry, receive and undertake for themselves a special 
 and superior education, discover or acquire their leading ideas, 
 and elaborate their originality or their competency; if talent 
 
 I Law of Ventose 17, year viii, title 3, article i.
 
 236 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 is to be deprived of these productive years their growth is 
 arrested in full vegetation, and civil capacities, not less precious 
 for the State than military capacities, are rendered abortive.' 
 — Towards 1804,^^ owing to substitution, one conscript out of 
 five in the rural districts, one conscript out of seven in the 
 towns, and, on the average, one conscript out of ten in France, 
 escapes this forced abortive condition; in 1806, the price of a 
 substitute varies from eighteen hundred to four thousand 
 francs,' and as capital is scarce, and ready money still more so, 
 a sum like this is sufficiently large. Accordingly, it is the rich 
 or well-to-do class, in other words the more or less cultivated 
 class, which buys off its sons: reliance may be placed on their 
 giving them more or less complete culture. In this way, it 
 prevents the State from mowing down all its sprouting wheat 
 and preserves a nursery of subjects among which society is to 
 find its future elite. — Thus attenuated, the military law is still 
 rigid enough: nevertheless it remains endurable; it is only 
 towards 1807 ^ that it becomes monstrous and grows worse and 
 worse from year to year until it becomes the sepulchre of all 
 French youth, even to taking the adolescent under age as food 
 
 1 Thibaudeau, p. io8. (Speech of the First Consul before the Council of State.") 
 " Art, science and the professions must be thought of. We are not Spartans. ... As 
 to substitution, it must be allowed. In a nation where fortunes are equal each indi- 
 vidual should serve personally; but, with a people whose existence depends on the 
 inequality of fortunes, the rich must be allowed the right of substitution ; only we must 
 take care that the substitutes be good, and that conscripts pay some of the money 
 serving to defray the expense of a part of the equipment of the army of reserve." 
 
 2 Pelet de La Lozere, 228. 
 
 3 Archives nationales, F', 3014. (Reports of prefects, 1806.) Average price of a 
 substitute: Basses Alpes, from 2,000 to 2.500 francs ; Bouches-du-Rhone, from 1,800 to 
 3,000; Dordogne, 2.400; Gard, 3,000; Gers, 4,000; Haute-Garonne, from 2,000 to 3,000 ; 
 Hdrault, 4,000; Vaucluse, 2,500; Landes, 4,000. — Average rate of interest (Ardeche): 
 " Money, which was from \\ to 15 per cent, has declined; it is now at ^\ per cent a 
 month or 10 per cent per annum." — (Basses Alpes) : " The rate of money has varied in 
 commerce from i to f per cent per month." — (Gard): " Interest is at i per cent a month 
 in commerce ; proprietors can readily borrow at 9 or 10 per cent per annum." — (H^- 
 rault) : " The interest on money is i| per month."— (Vaucluse) : " Money is from \ to 
 ij per cent per month." 
 
 4 Thiers, vii., p. 23 and 467. In November 1806, Napoleon orders the conscription 
 of 1807; in March 1807, he orders the conscription of 1808, and so on, always from 
 worse to worse. — Decrees of 1808 and 1813 against young men of family already 
 bought off or exempted. — " Journal d'un Bourgeois d'Evreux," 214. Dtsolate stale of 
 things in 1813, "general depression and discouragement." — Miot de Melito, iii., 304. 
 (Report of Miot to the Emperor after a tour in the departments in 1815.) " Every- 
 where, almost, the women are your declared enemies." 
 
 I
 
 CHAP. II. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 237 
 
 for powder, and men already exempt or free by purchase. But, 
 as before these excesses, it may still be maintained with certain 
 modifications ; it sufifices almost to retouch it, to establish ex- 
 emptions and the privilege of substitution as rights, which were 
 once simply favors,' reduce the annual contingent, limit the 
 term of service, guarantee their lasting freedom to those liber- 
 ated, and thus secure in 1818 a recruiting law satisfactory and 
 efficacious which, for more than half a century, will attain its 
 ends without being too detrimental or too odious, and which, 
 among so many laws of the same sort, all mischievous, is 
 perhaps the least pernicious. 
 
 I Law of Ventose 17, year viii, title 3, articles 6, 7, 8, g. — Exemption is granted as a 
 favor only to the ienorantin brothers and to seminarians assigned to the priesthood. 
 — Cf. the law of March 10, 1818, articles 15 and 18.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I. The assignment of right.— Those out of favor and the preferred 
 under former governments. — Under the Ancient Regime. — During the 
 Revolution. — French conception of Equality and Rights. — Its ingredients 
 and its excesses. — The satisfaction it obtains under the new regime. — 
 Abolition of legal incapacities and equality in the possession of rights. — 
 Confiscation of collective action and equality in the deprivation of rights. — 
 Careers in the modern State. — Equal right of all to offices and to promo- 
 tion.— Napoleon's distribution of employments. — His staff of officials 
 recruited from all classes and parties. — II. The need of success. — Initia- 
 tion and conditions of promotion under the old monarchy. — Effect on 
 minds. — Ambitions are limited. — The external outlets open to them. — 
 The Revolution provides an internal outlet and an unlimited career. — Ef- 
 fect of this. — Exigencies and pretensions of the modern man. — Theoreti- 
 cal rule of selection among rivals. — Popular suffrage erected into judicial 
 arbitrament.— Consequence of its verdict. — Unworthiness of its choice.^ 
 III. Napoleon as judge of competition.— Security of his seat.— Indepen- 
 dence of his decisions.— Suppression of former influences and end of 
 monarchical or democratic intrigues.— Other influences against which he 
 is on guard.— His favorite rule. — Estimate of candidates according to the 
 kind and amount of their useful labor. — His own competency. — His pers- 
 picacity. — His vigilance. — Zeal and labor of his functionaries. — Result of 
 competition thus viewed and of functions thus exercised. — Talents utilized 
 and. jealousies disarmed. — IV. Competitions and prizes. — Multitude of 
 offices. — How their number is increased by the extension of central 
 patronage and of the French territory. — Situation of a Frenchman abroad. — 
 It gives him rank.— Rapidity of promotion.— Constant elimination and 
 multiplicity of vacancies in the army. — Preliminary elimination in the 
 civil service. — Proscription of cultivated men and interruption of education 
 during the Revolution. — General or special instruction rare in 1800. — 
 Small number of competent candidates. — Easy promotion due to the lack 
 of competitors. — Importance and attraction of the prizes offered. — The 
 Legion of Honor. — The imperial nobility. — Dotations and majorities. — 
 Emulation. — V. The inward spring from 1789 to 1815. — Its force. — Its 
 decline. — How it ends in breaking the machine down. 
 
 Now that the State has just made a new allotment of the 
 burdens and duties which it imposes it must make a new as- 
 
 238
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 239 
 
 signment of the rights and benefits it confers. — Distributive 
 justice, on both sides, long before 1789, was defective, and, 
 under the monarchy, exclusions had become as obnoxious as 
 exemptions ; all the more because, through a double iniquity, 
 the ancient regime in each group distinguished two other 
 groups, one to which it granted every exemption, and the 
 other which it made subject to every exclusion. The reason 
 is that, from the first, the king, in the formation and govern- 
 ment of the kingdom, in order to secure the services, money, 
 collaboration or connivance which he needed, was obliged to 
 negotiate always with corporations, orders, provinces, seignories, 
 the clergy, churches, monasteries, universities, parliaments, 
 professional bodies or industrial guilds and families, that is to 
 say with constituted powers, more or less difficult to bring 
 under subjection and which, to be kept in subjection, stipu- 
 lated conditions. Hence, in France, so many different condi- 
 tions : each distinct body had yielded through one or sev- 
 eral distinct capitulations and possessed its own separate 
 statute. Hence, again, such diversely unequal conditions 
 the bodies, the best able to protect themselves, had, of course, 
 defended themselves the best, and their statutes, written or 
 unwritten, guaranteed to them precious privileges which the 
 other bodies, much weaker, could neither acquire nor pre- 
 serve, not merely immunities but likewise prerogatives, not 
 alone alleviations of taxation and militia dispensations, but 
 likewise political and administrative liberties, remnants of 
 their primitive sovereignty, with many other positive advan- 
 tages, the very least being precedences, preferences, social 
 priority, with an incontestable right to rank, honors, offices, and 
 favors. Such, notably, were the provinces possessing their own 
 government {pays a'c'tats), compared with those which elected 
 the magistrates who apportioned taxation {pays d' election),^ 
 
 1 " Most of the French provinces down to ihe time of Richelieu still possessed a 
 special representative body which consented to and levied the taxes; most of these 
 bodies were supported by the all-powerful minister and replaced by intendants who, 
 from that time on. administered, or rather exhausted, the country, divided into 
 thirty-two generalities. A few provinces, however, Brittany, Rurfjundy, T.angue- 
 doc, a part of Provence, Flanders, Artois, and some small districts in the Pyrenees 
 kept their old representative body and were called pays d'etat, whilst other provinces 
 were desifjnated, by a stranfje abuse of language, under the name ol pays d^ election,'''' 
 (Translated from " Madame de Stael et son Temps," vol. i., p. 38.)
 
 240 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi 
 
 the two highest orders, the clergy and the nobles, compared 
 with the third-estate, and the bourgeoisie, and the town 
 corporations compared with the rest of the inhabitants. 
 On the other hand, opposed to these historical favorites 
 were the historical disinherited, the latter much more numer- 
 ous and counting by millions — the taxable commons, all sub- 
 jects without rank or quality, in short, the ordinary run of 
 meo, especially the common herd of the towns and particu- 
 larly of the country, all the more ground down on account 
 of their lower status, along with the Jews lower yet, a sort 
 of foreign class scarcely tolerated, with the Calvinists, not 
 only deprived of the humblest rights but, again, persecuted by 
 the State for the past one hundred years. 
 
 All these people, who have been transported far outside of 
 civic relationships by historic right, are brought back, in 
 1789, by philosophic right. After the declarations of the 
 Constituent Assembly, there are no longer in France either 
 Bretons, Provencals, Burgundians or Alsatians, Catholics, 
 Protestants or Israelites, nobles or plebeians, bourgeois or rus- 
 tics, but simply Frenchmen, all with the one title of citizens, 
 all endowed with the same civil, religious and political rights, 
 all equal before the State, all introduced by law into every 
 career, collectively, on an equal footing and without fear or 
 favor from anybody ; all free to follow this out to the end 
 without distinction of rank, birth, faith or fortune ; all, if 
 they are good runners, to receive the highest prizes at the end 
 of the race, any office or rank, especially the leading honors 
 and positions which, thus far reserved to a class or coterie, had 
 not been allowed previously to the great multitude. Hence- 
 forth, all Frenchmen, in theory, enjoy rights in common; 
 unfortunately, there is only the theory. In reality, in all state 
 relationships {dans la cite), the new-comers appropriate to 
 themselves the offices, the pretensions, and more than the 
 privileges of their predecessors ; the latter, consisting of large 
 and small land-owners, gentlemen, parliamentarians, officials, 
 ecclesiastics, notables of every kind and degree, are imme- 
 diately deprived of the rights of man. Surrendered to rural 
 iacqueries and to town mobs, they undergo, first, the abandon-
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 241 
 
 ment and, next, the hostility of the State : the public gen- 
 darme has ceased to protect them and refuses his services ; 
 afterwards, on becoming a Jacobin, he declares himself their 
 enemy, treats them as enemies, plunders them, imprisons them, 
 murders them, expels or transports them, inflicts on them 
 civil death, and shoots them if they dare return; he deprives 
 their friends or kindred who remain in France of their civil 
 rights ; he deprives the nobles or the ennobled of their quality 
 as Frenchmen, and compels them to naturalize themselves 
 afresh according to prescribed formalities ; he renews against 
 the Catholics the interdictions, persecutions and brutalities 
 which the old government had practised against the Calvin- 
 ist minority. — Thus, in 1799 as in 1789, there are two classes 
 of Frenchmen, two kinds of unequal men, the first one supe- 
 rior, installed in the civic fold, and the second, inferior and ex- 
 cluded from it ; only, in 1799, the greatest inequality consigned 
 the inferior and excluded class to a still lower, more remote, 
 and much worse condition. 
 
 The principle, nevertheless, subsists ; since 1789 it is in- 
 scribed at the top of every constitution ; it is still proclaimed 
 in the new constitution. It has remained popular, although 
 perverted and disfigured by the Jacobins ; their false and gross 
 interpretation of it could not bring it into discredit ; athwart 
 the hideous grotes(]ue caricature, all minds and sentiments ever 
 recur to the ideal form of the ci'fc', to the veritable social con- 
 tract, to the impartial, active, and permanent reign of dis- 
 tributive justice. Their entire education, all the literature, 
 philosophy and culture of the eighteenth century, leads them 
 onward to this conception of society and of rights ; more pro- 
 foundly still, they are predisposed to it by the inner structure 
 of their intelligence, by the original cast of their sensibility, 
 by the hereditary defects and qualities of their nature and of 
 their race. — The Frenchman easily and quickly grasps some 
 general trait of objects and persons, some characteristic in 
 common ; here, this characteristic is the inherent quality of 
 man which he dexterously makes prominent, clearly isolates, 
 and then, stepping along briskly and confidently, rushes ahead
 
 242 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 on the high-road to consequences/ He has forgotten that his 
 summary notion merely corresponds to an extract, and a very 
 brief one, of man in his completeness ; his decisive, precipitate 
 process hinders him from seeing the largest portion of the real 
 individual ; he has overlooked numerous traits, the most im- 
 portant and most efficacious, those which geography, his- 
 tory, habit, condition, manual labor, or a liberal education, 
 stamp on intellect, soul and body and which, through their 
 differences, constitute different local or social groups. Not 
 only does he overlook all these characteristics, but he sets them 
 aside ; they are too numerous and too complex ; they would 
 interfere with and disturb his thoughts ; however fitted for 
 clear and comprehensive logic he is so much the less fitted for 
 complex and comprehensive ideas ; consequently, he avoids 
 them and, through an innate operation of which he is uncon- 
 scious, he involuntarily condenses, simplifies and curtails ; 
 henceforth, his idea, partial and superficial as it is, seems to 
 him adequate and complete ; in his eyes the abstract quality 
 of man takes precedence of and absorbs all others ; not only 
 has this a value, but the sole value. One man, therefore, 
 is as good as another and the law should treat all alike. — Here, 
 amour-propre, so vivacious in France, and so readily excited, 
 comes in to interpret and apply the formula.' Since all men 
 equal each other, I am as good as any man; if the law confers a 
 right on people of this or that condition, fortune or birth, it 
 must confer the same right on me. Every door that is open 
 to them must be open to me ; every door that is closed to me 
 must be closed to them. Otherwise, I am treated as an in- 
 ferior and wounded in my deepest feelings. When the legis- 
 lator places a ballot in their hands he is bound to place 
 another just like it in my hands, even if they know how to 
 use it and I do not, even if a limited suffrage is of use to the 
 
 1 Cf. on the antiquity of this sort of mind, evident from the beginning of society 
 and of French literature, my " History of English Literature," vol. i., and " La 
 Fontaine et ses fables," pp. lo to 13. 
 
 2 In relation to this sentiment, read La Fontaine's fable of " The Rat and the 
 Elephant." La Fontaine fully comprehended its social and psychological bearing. 
 "To believe one's self an important personage is very common in France. ... A 
 childish vanity is peculiar to us. The Spaniards are vain, but in another way. It is 
 specially a French weakness."
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 243 
 
 community and universal suffrage is not. So much the worse 
 if I am sovereign only in name, and through the imagination; 
 J consent to my sovereignty being illusory, but with the under- 
 standing that the sovereignty of others is regarded likewise; so 
 I prefer servitude and privation for all, rather than liberties 
 and advantages for a few, and, provided the same level is 
 passed over all heads, I submit to the yoke for all heads, in- 
 cluding my own." 
 
 Such is the internal composition of the instinct of equality, 
 and such is the natural instinct of Frenchmen. It is beneficial 
 or mischievous according as one or the other of its ingredients 
 predominates, at one time the noble sentiment of equity and 
 at another time the low envy of foolish vanity;' healthy or 
 unhealthy, however, its power in France is enormous, and the 
 new regime gratifies it in every possible way, good or bad. 
 No more legal disqualifications! On the one hand, the repub- 
 lican laws of proscription or of exception were all repealed: 
 .we have seen an amnesty and the return of the emigres, the 
 Concordat, the restoration of Catholic worship, the compulsory 
 reconciliation of the constitutionalists with the orthodox; the 
 First Consul admits no difference between them; his new 
 clergy are recruited from both groups and, in this respect, he 
 forces the Pope to yield." He gives twelve of the sixty epis- 
 copal thrones to former schismatics; he wants them to take 
 their places boldly; he relieves them from ecclesiastical peni- 
 tence and from any humiliating recantation; he takes care 
 that, in the other forty-eight dioceses, the priests who formerly 
 took the civic oath shall be employed and well treated by 
 their superiors who, at the same epoch, refused to take the 
 civic oath. On the other hand, all the exclusions, inequalities 
 and distinctions of the monarchy remain abolished. Not only 
 are the Calvinist and even Israelite cults legally authorized, the 
 same as the Catholic cult, but, again, the Protestant consisto- 
 
 I Beupnot, " M(?moires,'''' i., 317. " This equnlily which is now our dominant pas- 
 sion is not the noble kindly scntitncnt that affords delitrht by honoring one's self in hon- 
 oring one's fellow, and 111 fcelinc at ease in all social rclaiionships ; no, it is an aversion 
 to every kind of superiority, a fear lest a prominent position may be lost ; ihis equality 
 tends in no way to raise up what is kept down, but to prevent any elevation whatever." 
 
 a D'Haussonville, " I'Eglise romaine ct le Premier Empire," i., chs x. and xi.
 
 244 THE MODERN R^GIAfE. book hi. 
 
 ries and Jewish synagogues' are constituted and organized on 
 the same footing as the Catholic churches; pastors and rabbis 
 likewise become functionaries under the same title as bishops 
 and cures; all are recognized or sanctioned by the government 
 and all equally benefit by its patronage : it is an unique 
 thing in Europe to find the small churches of the minority 
 obtaining the same measure of indifference and good will from 
 the State as the great church of the majority, and, henceforth, 
 in fact as in law, the ministers of the three cults, formerly ig- 
 nored, tolerated or proscribed, enjoy their rank, titles and 
 honors in the social as well as in the legal hierarchy, equally 
 with the ministers of that cult which was once the only one 
 dominant or allowed. 
 
 In like manner, in the civil order of things, no inferiority 
 or discredit must legally attach to any condition whatever, 
 either to plebeian, villager, peasant or poor man as such, as 
 formerly under the monarchy; nor to noble, bourgeois, citizen, 
 notable or rich man, as recently under the Republic; each of 
 these two classes is relieved of its degradation; no class is bur- 
 dened by taxation or by the conscription beyond its due; all 
 persons and all property find in the government, in the ad- 
 ministration, in the tribunals, in the gendarme, the same reli- 
 able protection, — all of which stands for equity and the true 
 spirit of equality. — We have now to consider equ^.lity in a bad 
 and envious spirit. The plebiscite, undoubtedly, as well as 
 the election of deputies to the Corps Legislatif are simply 
 comedies; but, in these comedies, one role is as good as an- 
 other and the duke of the old or new pattern, a mere figurant 
 among hundreds and thousands of others, votes only once like 
 the corner-grocer. Undoubtedly, the private individual of the 
 commune or department, in institutions of charity, worship or 
 education, is deprived of any independence, of any initiation, 
 of any control, as the State has confiscated for itself all col- 
 
 I Decree of March 17, 1808, on the organization of the Israelite cult. The mem- 
 bers of the Israelite consistories and the rabbis must be accepted by the government 
 the same as the ministers of the other cults ; but their salary, which is fixed, must be 
 provided by the Israelites of the conscription ; the State does not pay this, the same 
 as with cures or pastors. This is not done until under the monarchy of July, when 
 the assimilation of the Israelite with the other Christian culls is effected.
 
 ChAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 245 
 
 lective action; but the classes deprived of this are especially 
 the upper classes, alone sufficiently enlightened and wealthy 
 to take the lead, form projects and provide for expenditure: 
 in this usurpation, the State has encroached upon and eaten 
 deeper into the large body of superior existences scattered 
 about than into the limited circle where humbler lives clamber 
 and crawl along ; nearly the entire loss, all perceptible priva- 
 tion, is for the large landed proprietor and not for his hired 
 hands, for the large manufacturer or city merchant and not 
 for their workmen or clerks,' while the clerk, the workman, 
 the journeyman, the handicraftsman, who grumble at being 
 the groundlings, find themselves less badly off since their mas- 
 ters or patrons, fallen from a higher point, are where they are 
 and they can elbow them. 
 
 Now that men are born on the ground, all on the same level, 
 and are confined within universal and uniform limits, social 
 life no longer appears to them other than ^. competition, a rivalry 
 instituted and proclaimed by the State, and of which it is the 
 umpire; for, through its interference, all are comprised within 
 its enclosure and shut up and kept there; no other field is 
 open to run on; on the contrary, every career within these 
 bounds, indicated and staked out beforehand, offers an oppor- 
 tunity for all runners: the government has laid out and lev- 
 elled the ground, established compartments, divided off and 
 prepared rectilinear lists which converge to the goal ; there, it 
 presides, the unicjue arbiter of the race, exposing to all com- 
 petitors the innumerable prizes which it proposes for them. — 
 These prizes consist of offices, the various employments of the 
 State, political, military, ecclesiastical, judiciary, administra- 
 tive and university, all the honors and dignities which it dis- 
 penses, all the grades of its hierarchy from the lowest to the 
 highest, from that of corporal, college-regent, alderman, office- 
 
 I ""Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815 " (Edinburgh. 1806) i., 176. "The 
 nobility, the great landed proprietors, the yeomanry, the lesser farmers, all of the 
 intermediate ranlcs who migln oppose a check to the power of a tyrannical prince, are 
 nearly annihilated." — Ibid., 236. " Scarcely an intermediate rank was to be found in 
 the nation between the sovereign and the peasant." — Ibid., ii. 239. " The better class 
 of the inhabitants of the cities, whether traders and manufacturers or the bourgeoisie 
 of France, are those who were the most decided enemies of Bonaparte."
 
 246 THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK li^. 
 
 supernumerary, assistant priest up to that of senator, marshal 
 of France, grand master of the university, cardinal, and min- 
 ister of State. It confers on its possessor, according to the 
 greater or lesser importance of the place, a greater or lesser 
 portion of the advantages which all men crave and seek for — 
 money, power, patronage, influence, consideration, irriportance 
 and social pre-eminence; thus, according to the rank one at- 
 tains in the hierarchy, one is something, or of some account; 
 outside of the hierarchy, one is nothing. 
 
 Consequently, the faculty forgetting in and advancing one's 
 self in these lists is the most precious of all; in the new regime 
 it is guaranteed by the law as a common right and is open to 
 all Frenchmen. As no other outlet for them is allowed by 
 the State it owes them this one; since it invites them and re- 
 duces everybody to competing under its direction it is bound 
 to bean impartial arbiter; since the quality of citizen, in itself 
 and through it alone, confers the right to make one's way, all 
 citizens indifferently must enjoy the right of succeeding in any 
 employment, the very highest, and without any distinction as 
 to birth, fortune, cult or party. There must be no more prelim- 
 inary exclusions, no more gratuitous preferences, undeserved 
 favors, anticipated promotions, no more undue partiality. Such 
 is the rule of the modern State: constituted as it is, that is to 
 say, monopolizer and omnipresent, it cannot violate this rule for 
 any length of time with impunity. In France, at least, the 
 good and bad spirits of equality agree in exacting adherence 
 to it: on this point, the French are unanimous; no article of 
 their social code is more cherished by them; this one flatters 
 their amour-propre and tickles their imagination; it exalts 
 hope, nourishes illusion, intensifies the energy and enjoyment 
 of life. Thus far, the principle has remained inert, powerless, 
 held in suspension in the air, in the great void of speculative 
 declarations and of constitutional promises; Napoleon brings 
 it down to the ground and renders it practical; that which 
 the assemblies had decreed in vain for ten years he brings 
 about for the first time and in his own interest. To exclude 
 a class or category of men from offices and promotion would 
 be equivalent to depriving one's self gratuitously of all the tal-
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 247 
 
 ents it contains, and, moreover, to incurring, besides the inevi- 
 table rancor of these frustrated talents, the sullen and lasting 
 discontent of the entire class or category. The First Consul 
 ■would do himself a wrong were he to curb his right to choose: 
 he needs every available capacity, and he takes them where he 
 finds them, to the right, to the left, above or below, in order 
 to keep his regiments full and enroll in his service every legiti- 
 mate ambition and every justifiable pretension. 
 
 Under the monarchy, an obscure birth debarred even the 
 best endowed men from the principal offices: under the Con- 
 sulate and the Empire the two leading personages of the 
 State are Maupeou's old secretary, a fecund translator,' for- 
 merly councillor in a provincial court of justice, Lebrun and 
 Cambaceres, one, third-consul, then Due de Plaisance and 
 arch-chancellor of the Empire, and the other, second-consul, 
 then Due de Parme and arch-chancellor of the Empire, both 
 of them being princes; similarly, the marshals are new men 
 and soldiers of fortune, a few of them born in the class of 
 inferior nobles or in the ordinary bourgeois class, mostly 
 among the people or even amongst the populace, and, in its 
 lowest ranks, Massena, the son of a wine-dealer, once a 
 cabin-boy and then common soldier and non-commissioned 
 officer for fourteen years; Ney, son of a cooper, Lefebvre, son 
 of a miller, Murat, son of a tavern-keeper, Lannes, son of an 
 ostler, and Augereau, son of a mason and a female dealer in 
 fruit and vegetables. — Under the Republic, noble birth con- 
 signed, or confined, the ablest and best qualified men for 
 their posts to a voluntary obscurity, only too glad when their 
 names did not condemn them to exile, imprisonment or to the 
 guillotine. Under the Empire, M. de Talleyrand is prince of 
 Benevento, minister of foreign affairs and vice-grand-elector 
 with a salary of five hundred thousand francs. We see 
 personages of old race figuring in the first ranks : among 
 the clergy M. de Roquelaure, M. de Boisdgelin, M. de 
 Broglie, M. Ferdinand de Rohan ; in the magistracy, M. 
 
 1 Napoleon, desirous of forming an,opinion of him, said to Rcederer, "Send me 
 his books." " But," said Rcederer, " he is only a translator." "No matter," replied 
 Napoleon, " I will read his prefaces."
 
 248 THE MODERN REGIME. book iiu 
 
 Seguier, M. Pasquier, M. Mole; on the domestic and decora- 
 tive staff of the palace, Comte de Segur, grand-master of 
 ceremonies, Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac, grand-cham- 
 berlain, also as chamberlains, Comtes d'Aubusson de la 
 Feuillade, de Brigode, de Croy, de Coutades, de Louvois, de 
 Brancas, de Gontaut, de Grammont, de Beauvau, de Lur- 
 Saluces, d'Haussonville, de Noailles, de Chabot, de Turenne,' 
 and other bearers of historic names. — During the Revolution, 
 at each new parliamentarian, popular or military coup d'etat 
 the notabilities of the vanquished party were always excluded 
 from office and generally outlawed. After the coup d'etat of 
 Brumaire, not only are the vanquished of the old parties all 
 brought back under the protection of 'the law, but, again, 
 their notables are promoted to the highest offices. Among 
 the monarchists of the Constituent Assembly Malouet is made 
 councillor of State, and Maury archbishop of Paris; forty- 
 seven other ecclesiastics who, like himself, refused to take the 
 oath to the civil constitution of the clergy, are appointed, like 
 him, to episcopal thrones. Among the Feuillants oi the Legis- 
 lative Assembly, Vaublanc is made prefect, Beugnot a coun- 
 cillor of State and minister of the finances in the grand-duchy 
 of Berg, Matthieu Dumas a brigadier-general and director of 
 reviews, Narbonne becomes the aid-de-camp and the intimate 
 interlocutor of Napoleon, and then ambassador to Vienna; if 
 Lafayette had been willing, not to ask for but to accept the 
 post, he would have been made a marshal of France. — Among 
 the few Girondists or Federalists who did not perish after the 
 2d June, Riouffe is prefect and baron, Lanjuinais is senator 
 and count; among others proscribed, or half proscribed, the 
 new regime restores to and places at the head of affairs the 
 superior and special employes whom the Reign of Terror had 
 driven away, or singled out for slaughter, particularly the heads 
 of the financial and diplomatic services who, denounced by 
 Robespierre on the 8th Thermidor, or arrested on the morn- 
 
 I Cf. the " Dictionnaire biographique," published at Leipsic, 1806-1808 (by Eymory) 
 4 vols., and the " Almanach imperial " for 1807 to 1812; many other historic names are 
 found there, and amonjif these the ladies of the pUace. In 1810, Comte de la Roche- 
 foucauld is ambassador to Holland and Comte de Mercy-Argenteau ambassador to 
 Bavaria. 
 
 I
 
 -CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 249 
 
 ing of the 9th already felt their necks under the blade of the 
 guillotine; Reinhart and Otto are ambassadors, Mollien is count 
 and treasury minister, Miot becomes councillor of state, Comte 
 de Melito minister of finances at Naples, while Gaudin is made 
 minister of finances in France and Due de Gaete. Among 
 the transported or fugitives of Fructidor, Barthelemy becomes 
 senator, Barbe-Marbois director of the Treasury and first 
 president of the Cour des Comptes; Simeon, councillor of 
 State and then minister of justice in Westphalia; Portalis is 
 made minister of worship, and Fontanes grand-master of the 
 University. The First Consul passes the sponge over all 
 political antecedents: not only does he summon to his side 
 the moderates and half-moderates of the Constituent and 
 Legislative Assemblies, of the Convention and of the Direc- 
 tory, but again he seeks recruits among pure royalists and pure 
 Jacobins, among the men the most devoted to the ancient 
 regime and amongst those most compromised by the Revolu- 
 tion, at both extremities of the most extreme opinions. We 
 have just seen, on the one side, what hereditary favorites of a 
 venerable royalty, what born supporters of the deposed 
 dynasty, are elevated by him to the first of his magisterial, 
 clerical and court dignities. On the other hand, apart from 
 Chasset, Rcederer and Gregoire, apart from Fourcroy, Berber 
 and Real, apart from Treilhard and Boulay de La Meurthe, 
 he employs others branded or noted for terrible acts, Ba- 
 rere himself, at least for a certain period, and in the sole ofiice 
 he was fitted for, that of a denunciator, gazetteer and stimu- 
 lator of public opinion; everybody has a place according to 
 his faculties, and each has rank according to his usefulness 
 and merit. Barere, consequently, becomes a paid spy and 
 pamphleteer; Drouet, the postmaster, who arrested the royal 
 family at Varennes, becomes sub-prefect at Sainte-Menehould; 
 Jean-Bon Saint-Andre, one of the Committee of Public Safety, 
 is made prefect at Mayence; Merlin de Douai, reporter of 
 the law against suspects, is prosecuting attorney in the court 
 of cassation; Fouche, whose name tells all, becomes minister 
 of state and Duke of Otranto; nearly all of the survivors of 
 the Convention are made judges of premiere instance or of
 
 250 THE MODERN REGIME. book iik 
 
 appeal, revenue-collectors, deputies, prefects, foreign consuls, 
 police commissioners, inspectors of reviews, head-clerks in the 
 post-offices, custom-houses and tax-offices, while, in 1808, among, 
 these functionaries, one hundred and thirty were regicides.* 
 
 II. 
 To make one's way, get ahead, and succeed in the world is 
 now the dominant thought in the minds of men. Before 1789, 
 this thought had not acquired sovereign control in their 
 minds ; it found that there were rival ideas to contend with, 
 and it had only half-developed itself ; its roots had not sunk 
 down deep enough to monopolize the activity 01 the imagina- 
 tion, to absorb the will and possess the mind entirely ; and the 
 reason is that it lacked both air and aliment. Promotion, 
 under the old monarchy, was slow, and in the first place, be- 
 cause the monarchy was old and because in every order which 
 is not new each new generation finds that every office is filled, 
 and next, because, in this old order founded on tradition and 
 heredity, future vacancies were supplied long beforehand. 
 The great social staircase led to several stories ; each man 
 could ascend every step of his own flight, but he could not 
 mount above it ; the landing reached, he found closed doors 
 and nearly insurmountable barriers. The story above was re- 
 served to its own inhabitants ; they occupied it now and were 
 still to occupy it in time to come ; the inevitable successors 
 of the titular possessor were seen around him on each step, 
 his equals, peers and neighbors, one or the other often desig- 
 nated by name as his legal heir, the purchaser of his sur- 
 vivorship. In those days, not only was the individual himself 
 considered, his merits and his services, but likewise his family 
 and ancestry, his state and condition, the society he entered 
 into, the "salon" he maintained, his fortune and his fol- 
 lowers ; these antecedents and surroundings composed the 
 quality of the personage ; without this requisite quality, he 
 could not go beyond the landing-place. Strictly speaking, 
 a personage born on the upper steps of one story might some- 
 times succeed in mounting the lowest steps of the next story, 
 
 T " The Revolution," U., 343.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 251 
 
 but there he stopped. In fine, it was always considered by 
 those on the lower story that the upper story was inaccessible 
 and, moreover, uninhabitable. 
 
 Accordingly, most of the public offices, in the finances, in 
 the administration, in the judiciary, in the parliaments, in the 
 army, at court, were private property as is now the case with 
 the places of advocates, notaries and brokers ; they had to be 
 bought to enable one to follow these pursuits, and were very 
 dear ; one had to possess a large capital and be content before- 
 hand to derive only a mediocre revenue from it, ten, five and 
 sometimes three per cent on the purchase-money.' The place 
 once acc^uired, especially if an important one, involved official 
 parade, receptions, an open table, a large annual outlay -^ it 
 often ran the purchaL-er in debt ; he knew that his acquisition 
 would bring him more consideration than crowns. On the 
 other hand, to obtain possession of it, he had to secure the 
 good-will of the body of which he became a member, or of the 
 patron who bestowed the office, that is to say, he must be re- 
 garded by his future colleagues as acceptable, or by the patron 
 as a guest, invited, and possibly to live with him on terms of 
 familiarity, in other words, provide sponsors for himself, fur- 
 nish guarantees, prove that he was well-off and well-educated, 
 that his ways and manners qualified him for the post, and that, 
 in the society he was about to enter, he would not turn out 
 unsuitable. To maintain one's self in office at court one was 
 obliged to possess the tone of Versailles, cpiite different from 
 that of Paris and the provinces.^ To maintain one's self in a 
 high parliamentary position, one was expected to j)ossess local 
 alliances, moral authority, the traditions and deportment 
 handed down from father to son in the old magistrate fami- 
 lies, and which a mere advocate, an ordinary pleader, could 
 not arrive at.* In short, on this staircase, each distinct story 
 imposed on its inmates a sort of distinct costume, more or less 
 
 I "The Revolution," vol. iii., pp. 318-3^2. 
 ■J "The Ancient Rt!gime," pp. 116-119, 128. 
 
 3 De Tilly, " Mt^moircs," I., 153. "The drffercnce between the tone and language 
 of the court and that of the city was about as great as that between Paris and the 
 provinces." 
 
 4 Hence the lack of success of the Maupeou parliament.
 
 252 THE MODERN REGIME. book in, 
 
 costly, embroidered and gilded, I mean a sum of outward and 
 inward habits and connections, all obligatory and indispen- 
 sable, comprising title, particle and name : the announcement 
 of any bourgeois name by a lackey in the ante-chamber 
 would be considered a discord ; consequently, one had one's 
 self ennobled in the current coin, or assumed a noble name 
 gratis. Caron, son of a watchmaker, became Beaumarchais ; 
 Nicolas, a foundling, called himself M. de Champfort ; Dan- 
 ton, in public documents, signed himself d'Anton ; in the 
 same way, a man without a dress-coat hires or borrows one, 
 no matter how, on going out to dine ; all this was tolerated 
 and accepted as a sign of good behavior and of final con- 
 formity with custom, as in testimony of respect for the usages 
 of good society. 
 
 Through this visible separation of stories, people had ac- 
 quired the habit of remaining in the condition in which they 
 were placed ; they were not irritated by being obliged to stay 
 in it ; the soldier who enlisted did not aspire to become an 
 officer ; the young officer of the lower noblesse and of small 
 means did not aspire to the post of colonel or lieutenant- 
 general ; a limited perspective kept hopes and the imagination 
 from fruitlessly launching forth into a boundless future : am- 
 bition, humbled to the ground at the start, walked instead of 
 flying ; it recognized at the outset that the summits were 
 beyond its reach ; to be able to mount upward one or two 
 steps was enough. — In general, a man obtained promotion on 
 the spot, in his town, corporation or parliament. The as- 
 sistant-counsellor who pleaded his first case in the court of 
 Grenoble or of Rennes calculated that, in twenty years, he 
 would become first judge at Grenoble or at Rennes, rest 
 twenty years or more in office, and he aimed at nothing better. 
 Alongside of the counsellor of a (court) presidency, or of an 
 "election " magistrate, of a clerk in the salt-tax bureau, or in 
 the frontier custom-house, or in the bureau of " rivers and 
 forests," alongside of a clerk in the treasury or ministry 
 of foreign affairs, or of a lawyer or prosecuting attorney, there 
 was always some son, son-in-law or nephew, fitted by domestic 
 training, by a technical apprenticeship, by moral adaptation,
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 253 
 
 not only to perform the duties of the office, but to be con- 
 tented in it, pretend to nothing beyond it, not to look above 
 himself with regret or envy, satisfied with the society around 
 him, and feel, moreover, that elsewhere he would be out 
 of his element and uncomfortable. 
 
 Life, thus restricted and circumscribed, was more cheerful 
 then than at the present day ; souls, less disturbed and less 
 strained, less exhausted and less burdened with cares, were 
 healthier. The Frenchman, exempt from modern preoccupa- 
 tions, followed amiable and social instincts, inclined to take 
 things easily, and of a playful disposition owing to his natural 
 talent for amusing himself by amusing others, in mutual en- 
 joyment of each other's company and without calculation, 
 through easy and considerate intercourse, smiling or laugh- 
 ing, in short, in a constant flow of inspiration, good-humor and 
 gayety.' It is probable that, if the Revolution had not inter- 
 vened, the great parvenus of the time and of the Empire would, 
 like their forerunners, have sul)mitted to circumambient 
 necessities and readily accommodated themselves to the dis- 
 cipline of the established regime. Cambaceres, who had suc- 
 ceeded to his father as counsellor at the bar of Montpellier, 
 would have become president (of the tribunal) in his turn ; 
 meanwhile, he would have composed able jurisprudential 
 
 1 See the collections of songs previous to the Revolution, especially military songs 
 such as " Malgrd la bataille,'" " Dans les gardes franjaises," etc. — At the time of the 
 Restoration, the pastoral or gallant songs of Florian, BoufHers and Berqiiin were still 
 sung in bourgeois families, each person, young or old, man or woman, singing one at 
 the dessert. This undercurrent of gayety. geniality and amiability lasted throughout 
 the Revolution and the Empire. ("Travels through the South of France, 1807 and 
 1808," p. 132, by Lieutenant-Colonel Pinkney, of the United States.) "I must once for 
 all say that ihe Memoirs of Marmontel are founded in nature." He cites a great many 
 facts in proof of this, and testifies in all classes to "a prompt and social nature, a 
 natural benevolence or habitual civility which leads them instinctively, and n-^t un- 
 frequently impertinently, into acts of kindness and consideration."— The s.ime im- 
 pression IS produced on comparing the engravings, fashion-pUtes, light subjects and 
 caricatun s of this period with those of the present epoch. The malicious seniiment 
 begins only with Reranger ; and yet his early pieces (" Le Roi d'Vvetot," " le Sena- 
 teur") display the light air, accent and happy, instead of venomous, malice of the old 
 song. Nobody now sings in the lower bourgeoisie or in gatherings of clerks or stu- 
 dents, while, along with the song, we have seen the other traits which impre«-sed 
 foreigners disappear, the gallantry, the jesting humor, the determination to regard 
 life as so many hours {une sdtie de quarts d''/ieures\, each of which may be separated 
 from the others, be ample in themselves and agreeable to him who talks and to him or 
 her who listens.
 
 254 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 treatises and invented some new pdt^ de becfigues ; Lebrun, 
 former collaborator with Maupeou, might have become coun- 
 sellor in the court of excise at Paris, or chief-clerk in the 
 Treasury department ; he would have kept up a philosophical 
 salon, with fashionable ladies and polished men of letters ta 
 praise his elegant and incorrect translations. Amongst the 
 future marshals, some of them, pure plebeians, Massena, Au- 
 gereau, Lannes, Ney, Lefebvre, might have succeeded through 
 brilliant actions and have become " officers of fortune," while 
 others, taking in hand specially difficult services, like com- 
 mandant Fischer who undertook the destruction of Mandrin's 
 band, and again, like the hero Chevert, and the veteran Liick- 
 ner, might have become lieutenant-generals. Rough as these 
 men were, they would have found, even in the lower ranks, if 
 not full employment for their superior faculties, at least suf- 
 ficient food for their strong and coarse appetites ; they would 
 have uttered just the same oaths, at just as extravagant sup- 
 pers, with mistresses of just the same calibre.' Had their 
 temperament, character and genius been indomitable, had 
 they reared and pranced to escape bridle and harness and 
 been driven like ordinary men, they need not have broken out 
 of the traces for all that ; there were plenty of openings and 
 issues for them on either side of the highway on which others 
 were trotting along. Many families often contained, among 
 numerous children, some hot-headed, imaginative youth, some 
 independent nature rebellious in advance, in short, a refractory- 
 spirit, unwilling or incapable of being disciplined; a regular 
 life, mediocrity, even the certainty of getting ahead, were dis- 
 tasteful to him ; he would abandon the hereditary homestead 
 or purchased office to the docile elder brother, son-in-law or 
 nephew, by which the domain or the post remained in the 
 family ; as for himself, tempted by illimitable prospects, he 
 would leave France and go abroad ; Voltaire says' that 
 " Frenchmen were found everywhere," in Canada, in Louisi- 
 ana, as surgeons, fencing-masters, riding-masters, officers,. 
 
 1 Read the novels of Pigault-Lebrun, books of the epoch the best adapted to the 
 men of the epoch, the dashingr, free, jolly, military parvenus of limited natures. 
 
 2 Candide (R^cit de la Veille).
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 255 
 
 engineers, adventurers especially, and even filibusters, trap- 
 pers and backwoodsmen, the supplest, most sympathetic and 
 boldest of colonizers and civilizers, alone capable of bringing 
 the natives under assimilation by assimilating with them, by 
 adopting their customs and by marrying their women, mixing 
 bloods, and forming new and intermediary races, like Dumas 
 de La Pailleterie, whose descendants have furnished original 
 and superior men for the past three generations, and like the 
 Canada half-breeds by which the aboriginal race succeeds in 
 transforming itself and in surviving. They were the first ex- 
 plorers of the great lakes, the first to trace the Mississippi to 
 its mouth, and found colonial empires with Champlain and 
 Lasalle in North America and with Dupleix and La Bour- 
 donnais in Hindoostan. Such was the outlet for daring, un- 
 controllable spirits, restive temperaments under constraint and 
 subject to the routine of an old civilization, souls astray and 
 unclassed from their birth, in which the primitive instincts of 
 the nomad and barbarian sprouted afresh, in which insubor- 
 dination was innate, and in which energy and capacity to take 
 the initiative remained intact. — Mirabeau, having compromised 
 his family by scandals, was on the point of being despatched 
 by his father to the Dutch Indies, where deaths were common; 
 it might happen that he would be hanged or become governor 
 of some large district in Java or Sumatra, the venerated and 
 adored sovereign of five hundred thousand Malays, both ends 
 being within the compass of his merits. Had Danton been 
 well advised, instead of borrowing the money with which to buy 
 an advocate's place in the Council at about seventy thousand 
 livres, which brought him only three cases in four years and 
 obliged him to hang on to the skirts of his father-in-law, he 
 would have gone to Pondicherry or to the palace of some in- 
 digenous rajah or king as agent, councillor or companion of 
 his pleasures ; he might have become prime-minister to Tippoo 
 Saib, or other potentate, lived in a palace, kept a harem and 
 had lacs of rupees ; undoubtedly, he would have filled his 
 prisons and occasionally emptied them by a massacre, as at 
 Paris in September, but it would have been according to local 
 custom, and operating only on the lives of Sheikhs and Mah-
 
 256 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 rattas. Bonaparte, after the fall of his protectors, the two 
 Robespierres, finding his career arrested, wanted to enter the 
 Sultan's service ; accompanied by Junot, Muiron, Marmont 
 and other comrades, he could have carried to Constantinople 
 rarer commodities, much better compensated in the Orient 
 than in the Occident, namely military honor and administra- 
 tive talent ; he would have dealt in these two products, as he 
 did in Egypt, at the right time and in the right place, at the 
 highest price, without our conscientious scruples and without 
 our European refinements of probity and humanity. No im- 
 agination can picture what he would have become there ; 
 certainly some pasha, like Djezzar in Syria, or a khedive like 
 Mahomet-Ali, afterwards at Cairo ; he already saw himself in 
 the light of a conqueror, like Ghengis-Khan,' a founder like 
 Alexander or Baber, a prophet like Mahomet ; as he himself 
 declares, " one could work only on a grand scale in the 
 Orient," and there he would have worked on a grand scale ; 
 Europe, perhaps, would have gained by it, and especially 
 France. 
 
 But the Revolution came on and the ambitions which, under 
 the ancient regime, found a field abroad or cooled down at 
 home, arose on the natal soil and suddenly expanded beyond 
 all calculation. After 1789, France resembles a hive in a state 
 of excitement ; in a few hours, in the brief interval of an 
 August morning, each insect puts forth two huge wings, soars 
 aloft and "all whirl together pell-mell; " many fall to the 
 ground half cut to pieces and begin to crawl upward as before; 
 others, with more strength or with better luck, ascend and 
 glitter on the highways of the atmosphere. — Every great high- 
 way and every other road is open to everybody through the 
 decrees of the Constituent-Assembly, not only for the future, 
 but even immediately. The entire ruling staff, directive or 
 influential, political, administrative, provincial, municipal, 
 ecclesiastical, educational, military, judicial and financial, is 
 brusquely dismissed; all are summoned to take office who 
 covet it and who have a good opinion of themselves ; all 
 
 1 " Metnoires," by M. X , i., 374. " I am sure that his imagination was more 
 
 taken with Ghengis-Khan than with Caesar."
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 257 
 
 previously existing conditions, biith, fortune, education, old 
 family and all apprenticeships, customs and ways which retard 
 and limit advancement, are abolished; there are no longer any 
 guarantees or sponsors; all Frenchmen are eligible to all em- 
 ployments; all grades of the legal and social hierarchy are con- 
 ferred by a more or less direct election, a suffrage becoming 
 more and more popular, by a mere numerical majority ; con- 
 sequently, in all branches of the government under central or 
 local authority and patronage, there is the installation of anew 
 staff of officials; the transposition which everywhere substitutes 
 the old inferior to the old superior, is universal;' "lawyers for 
 judges, bourgeois for statesmen, former plebeians for former 
 nobles, soldiers for officers, officers for generals, cures for 
 bishops, vicars for cures, monks for vicars, stock-jobbers for 
 financiers, empirics for administrators, journalists for publicists, 
 rhetoricians for legislators, and the poor for the rich;" a sud- 
 den jump from the bottom to the top of the social ladder by 
 a few, from the lowest to the highest rung, from the rank of 
 sergeant to that of major-general, from the condition of a 
 pettifogger or starving newspaper-hack to the possession of 
 supreme authority, even to the effective exercise of omnipo- 
 tence and dictatorship — such is the capital, positive, striking 
 work of the Revolution. 
 
 At the same time, and in a counter-sense, a revolution is 
 going on in minds and the moral effect of the spectacle be- 
 comes grander and more lasting than the spectacle itself; souls 
 have been stirred to their very depths ; torpid passions and 
 slumbering pretensions are aroused. The multitude of offices 
 presented and expected vacancies "has excited the thirst for 
 power, stimulated amour-propre, and fired the hopes of men 
 the most inept. An ardent, barbarous presumption has ren- 
 dered the ignorant and the foolish unconscious of their nullity; 
 they have deemed themselves capable of everything because 
 the law has awarded public functions to cleverness alone. 
 
 I "The Revolution," ii.. 12, 22. (Articles by Mallet-Dupan, " Mercure de France," 
 Dec. 30, 1701, and April 7, 1792.)— Napoleon, " M<?morial" (Sept. 3, 1816), thinks so too 
 and states the essential characteristic of the Revolution. This consisted in " bidding 
 everybody who held office to leave, every one who had a place or a fortune."
 
 258 THE MODERN REGIME. book ul 
 
 Everybody had a perspective glimpse of gratified ambition; 
 the soldier dreamt only of displacing the officer, the officer 
 of becoming general, the clerk of supplanting the head ad- 
 ministrator, the lawyer of yesterday of donning the purple, 
 the cure of becoming bishop, the most frivolous litterateur of 
 seating himself on the legislative bench. Places and positions, 
 vacant through the appointment of so many parvenus, provided 
 in their turn a vast career to the lower classes. Seeing a public 
 functionary issue out of nothingness, where is the shoeblack 
 whose soul would not stir with emulation?" — This new senti- 
 ment must be taken into account: for, whether reasonable or 
 not, it is going to last, maintain its energy, stimulate men with 
 extraordinary force ' and become one of the great mainsprings 
 of will and action. Henceforth, government and administra- 
 tion are to become difficult matters; the forms and plans of 
 the old social architecture are no longer applicable; like con- 
 struction is not possible with materials of a different kind, with 
 stable and unstable materials, with men who do not dream of 
 quitting their condition and with men who think of nothing 
 but that. 
 
 In effect, whatever vacancy may occur, each aspirant thinks 
 himself fit for it, and only one of the aspirants can obtain it. 
 Accordingly some rule of preference must be adopted outside 
 of the opinion that each candidate entertains of himself; ac- 
 cordingly, at a very early date, one was established, and there 
 could be no better one, namely, that, among the competitors 
 for the place, the most competent to fill it should be chosen. 
 Unfortunately, the judge, ordinary, extraordinary and supreme, 
 instituted to decide in this case, was the plurality of male, adult 
 Frenchmen, counted by heads, that is to say a collective be- 
 ing in which the small intelligent, elite body is drowned in 
 the great rude mass; of all juries, the most incompetent, the 
 easiest duped and misled, the least able to comprehend the 
 questions laid before it and the consequences of its answer; 
 
 I Rcederer, iii., 534 (January 1809, on Normandy). "Children in every situation 
 think of becoming soldiers to get the cross (legion of honor), and the cross secures the 
 chevalier. The desire of distinction, of passing ahead of some one else, is a national 
 sentiment."
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 259 
 
 the worst informed, the most inattentive, the most blinded by 
 preconceived sympathies or antipathies, the most willingly ab- 
 sent, a mere flock of enlisted sheep always robbed or cheated 
 out of their vote, and whose verdict, forced or simulated, de- 
 pended on politicians beforehand, above and below, through 
 the clubs as well as through the revolutionary government, the 
 latter, consequently, manoeuvring in such a way as to impose 
 itself along with their favorites on the choice of the French 
 people. Between 1792 and 1799, the republican official staff 
 just described is thus obtained. — It is only in the army where 
 the daily and keen sense of a common physical and mortal 
 danger ends in dictating the choice of the best, and raises 
 tried merit to the highest rank; and yet it must be noted that 
 Jacobin infatuation bore down as rigorously on the army as 
 elsewhere and on two occasions: at the outset through the 
 election of a superior officer conferred on subordinates, which 
 handed rank over to the noisy disputants and intemperate in- 
 triguers of the mess-room; and again during the Reign of 
 Terror, and even later,' in the persecution or dismissal of so 
 many patriotic and deserving officers, which led Gouvion St. 
 Cyr and his comrades, through disgust, to avoid or decline 
 accepting high rank, in the scandalous promotion of club 
 brawlers and docile nullities, in the military dictatorship of 
 the civil proconsuls, in the supremacy conferred on Lechelle 
 and Rossignol, in the subordination forced on Kleber and 
 Marceau, in the absurd plans of a demagogue with huge epau- 
 lettes like Cartaux," in the grotesque orders of the day is- 
 sued by a swaggering inebriate like Henriot,'' in the disgrace 
 of Bonaparte, and in the detention of Hoche. — In the civil 
 order of things, it was worse. The rule of regulating promo- 
 tion by merit was not only not recognized but it was applied 
 in an inverse sense. In the central government as in the local 
 government, and from top to bottom of the hierarchy, 
 from the post of minister of foreign affairs down to that of 
 
 1 " The Revolution," ii., 248. 
 
 2 Napoleon, " M^moires " (edited by M. de Montholon, iii., ii-ig), on the extraor- 
 dinary ignorance of C;iriaux. —/*»</., 23, on Doppet's incapacity, the successor of Car- 
 taux. 
 
 3 "The Revolution," iii., 310.
 
 26o THE MODERN REGIME. book in. 
 
 president of a petty revolutionary committee, all offices were 
 for the unworthy; their unfitness kept on increasing inas- 
 much as incessant weeding out worked against them, the 
 functionary, degraded by his work, growing worse along with 
 his function: thus the constitutional rights of merit and capac- 
 ity ended in the practical privilege cf incapacity and de- 
 merit; in the allotment of grades and social advantages, 
 distributive justice had given way to distributive injustice, 
 while practice, contrary to theory, instituted permanently, on 
 the one hand, the exclusion or retirement of competent, in- 
 structed, expert, well-bred, honorable and respected men 
 and, on the other hand, brought forward illiterate, inept and 
 rude novices, coarse and vulgar brutes, common blackguards, 
 men used up or of tarnished reputations, rogues ready for 
 anything, fugitives from justice, in short the adventurers and 
 outcasts of every kind and degree;' the latter, owing their suc- 
 cess to perversion or lack of conscientiousness, derived their 
 principal title from their vigorous fists and a fixed determina- 
 tion to hold on cO their places as they had obtained them, that 
 is to say by main force and by the murder or exile of their riv- 
 als. — Evidently, the staff of officials which the Declaration of 
 Rights had promised was not the staff on duty ten years later; 
 there was a lack of experience. In 1789, careers were open 
 to every ambition; down to 1799, the rivalry of ambitions had 
 simply produced a wild uproar and a brutal conquest. The 
 great modern difficulty still existed; it remained to discipline 
 the competition and to find an impartial judge, an undisputed 
 arbitrator of the competition. 
 
 N 
 
 III. 
 
 Behold him, at last, this judge-arbitrator. On the 8th No- 
 vember, 1799, he appears and takes his seat, and that very 
 evening he goes to work, makes his selections among the com- 
 petitors and gives them their commissions. He is a military 
 chieftain and has installed himself; consequently he is not 
 
 1 They called themselves cj-r/aj/Vvj under the Directory.— Cf. "The Revolution," 
 ii., 23, 187, 196, 245, 297-303, 340-351, 334 ; book lii., ch. 2 and 3, and book iv.
 
 CHAP. 111. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 261 
 
 dependent on a parliamentary majority, and any insurrection 
 or gathering of a mob is at once rendered abortive by his 
 troops before it is born; street sovereignty is at an end; Paris- 
 ians are long to remember the 13th of Vendemiaire and the 
 way General Bonaparte shot them down on the steps of Saint- 
 Roch. All his precautions against them are taken the first 
 day and against all agitators whatever, against all opponents 
 disposed to dispute his jurisdiction; his arm-chair as First Con- 
 sul and afterwards his throne as Emperor are firmly fixed; 
 nobDdy but himself can undermine them; he is seated defini- 
 tively and will stay there. Profound silence reigns in the 
 public crowd around him; some among them dare whisper, 
 but his police has its eye on them; instead of conforming to 
 opinion he rules it, masters it and, if need be, he manufac- 
 tures it; alone by himself from his seat on high, in perfect in 
 dependence and security, he announces the verdicts of dis- 
 tributive justice. Nevertheless, he is on his guard against the 
 temptations and influences which have warped the decisions 
 of his predecessors; in his tribunal, the schemes and intrigues 
 which formerly obtained credit with the people, or with the 
 king, are no longer in vogue; henceforth, the profession of 
 courtier or of demagogue is a poor one. — On the one hand, 
 there is no success, as formerly under the monarchy, through 
 the assiduities of the ante-chamber, through elegant manners, 
 delicate flattery, fashionable drawing-rooms, or valets and 
 women on an intimate footing ; mistresses here enjoy no 
 credit and there are neither favorites nor the favored; a valet 
 is regarded as a useful implement; great c^urt personages are 
 i/Ot considered as extra-ornamental and human furniture for 
 the palace. Not one among them dare ask for a place for a 
 protege which he is incapable of filling, an advancement 
 which would derange the list of promotions, a pass over the 
 heads of others; if they obtain any favors, these are insignifi- 
 cant or political; the master grants them as an after-thought, 
 to rally somebody, or a party, to his side; they personally, their 
 ornamental culture, their high-bred tone, their wit, their con- 
 versational powers, their smiles and bows — all this is lost on 
 him, or charged to account; he has no liking for their insinu-
 
 262 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 ating and discreet ways;' he regards them as merely good do- 
 mestics for parade; all he esteems in them is their ceremonial 
 significance, that innate suppleness which permits them to be 
 at once servile and dignified, the hereditary tact which teaches 
 them how to present a letter, not from hand to hand, but on 
 the rim of a hat, or on a silver salver, and these faculties he es- 
 timates at their just value. — On the other hand, nobody suc- 
 ceeds, as lately under the Republic, through tribunal or club 
 verbosity, through appeals to principles, through eloquent or 
 declamatory tirades; "glittering generalities," hollow abstrac- 
 tions and phrases for effect now have no effect; and what is 
 better, political ideology, with a solicitor or pleader, is a bad 
 note. The positive, practical mind of the judge has taken 
 in at a glance and penetrated to the bottom of arguments, 
 means and valid pretensions; he submits impatiently to meta- 
 physics and pettifoggery, to the argumentative force and men- 
 dacity of words. — This goes so far that he distrusts oratorical 
 or literary talent; in any event, he takes no account of it on 
 assigning to active positions or to a part in public business. 
 According to him, " the men who write well and are eloquent 
 have no solidity of judgment; they are illogical and very poor 
 in discussion," ' they are mere artists like others, so many 
 word-musicians, a kind of special, narrow-minded instrument, 
 some of them good solo players, like Fontanes, and whom 
 the head of a State can use, but only in official music for 
 grand cantatas and the decoration of his reign. Wit in it- 
 self, not alone the wit which gives birth to brilliant expres- 
 sions and which w^s considered a prime accomplishment un- 
 der the old regime, but general intelligence, has for him only 
 a semi-value.^ "lam more intelligent, you may say ? Eh, 
 what do I care for your intelligence ? What I care for is the 
 spirit of the matter. There is no fool that is not good for 
 something — there is no intelligence equal to everything." In 
 
 1 Madame de Rdtnusat, /«jj/w/. — Rcederer, iii., 538 (January i8og). " I took a few 
 of the old court into my household. They remained two years without speaking to 
 me and six months without seeing me. ... I don't like them — they are not good for 
 anything — their conversation is disagreeable to me." 
 
 2 Napoleon " Mdmoires." 
 
 3 Rcederer, " Memoires."
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 263 
 
 fact, on bestowing an office it is the function which he dele- 
 gates; the proper execution of the function is the prime mo- 
 tive in determining his choice; the candidate appointed is 
 always the one who will best do the work assigned him. No 
 factitious, party popularity or unpopularity, no superficial ad- 
 miration or disparagement of a clique, of a salon, or of a bureau, 
 makes him swerve from his standard of preference.' He val- 
 ues men according to the quality and quantity of their work, 
 according to their net returns, and he estimates them directly, 
 personally, with superior perspicacity and universal compe- 
 tency. He is special in all branches of civil or military ac- 
 tivity, and even in technical detail; his memory for facts, 
 actions, antecedents and circumstances, is prodigious; his dis- 
 cernment, his critical analysis, his calculating insight into the 
 resources and shortcomings of a mind or of a soul, his faculty 
 ior gauging men, I?, extraordinary; through constant verifica- 
 tions and rectifications his internal repertory, his biographical 
 and moral dictionary, is kept daily posted; his attention never 
 flags; he works eighteen hours a day; his personal intervention 
 and his hand are visible even in the appointment of subordi- 
 nates. " Every man called to take part in affairs was selected 
 by him;"" it is through him that they retain their place; he con- 
 trols their promotion and by sponsors whom he knows. " A 
 minister could not have dismissed a functionary without con- 
 sulting the emperor, while the ministers could all change with- 
 out bringing about two secondary changes throughout the 
 empire. A minister did not appoint even a second-class 
 clerk without presenting a list of several candidates to the 
 •emperor and, opposite to it, the name of the person recom- 
 mending him." All, even at a distance, felt that the master's 
 eyes were on them. "I worked," says Beugnot,' "from night 
 to morning, with singular ardor; the natives of the country 
 
 1 RcEderer, iii., 281. " Men, under his government, who had hitherto been consid- 
 ered incapable are made useful ; men hitherto considered distintruished found them- 
 selves mixed in with the crowd ; men hitherto regarded as the pillars of the State 
 found themselves useless. . . . An ass or a knave need never be ambitious to ap- 
 proach Bonaparte, they will make nothing out of him." 
 
 2 Fievee, " Correspondance," iii., 33. — Roederer, iii.. 3S1. 
 
 3 Beugnot, " Mdmoires," ii., 372.
 
 264 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 who did not know the influence which the emperor exercised 
 over his servitors, however far from him they might be, the 
 miracle of the real presence, were astonished at it; I thought I 
 saw him standing over me as I worked shut up in my cabi- 
 net." — " Under him," writes Roederer, " there is no man of any 
 merit who, as a reward for long and difficult labor, does not 
 feel himself better compensated by a new task than by the 
 most honorable leisure." Never did offices less resemble 
 sinecures. Never was the success of fortunate candidates or 
 the failure of unsuccessful candidates better justified. Never 
 were severe application or the difficulties and risks of the la- 
 bor demanded more exactly compensated by the gratifications 
 of the reward obtained, nor the bitterness of disappointed 
 hopes attenuated to the same degree.' Never were public 
 functions assigned or fulfilled in a way to better satisfy the 
 legitimate craving for advancement, the dominant desire of 
 democracy and of the century, and in a way to better disarm 
 the bad passions of democracy and of the century, consisting 
 of an envious levelling, anti-social rancor and the inconsola- 
 ble regrets of the man who has failed. Never did human 
 competition encounter a similar judge, so painstaking, so- 
 expert and so well authorized. 
 
 He is himself conscious of the unique part he plays. His 
 own ambition, the highest and most insatiate of all, enables 
 him to comprehend the ambition of others ; to place every- 
 where the man who suits the post in the post which suits the 
 man — this is what he has done for himself and what he does 
 for others. He knows that in this lies his power, his deep- 
 
 I Lefebvre, a former sergeant in the French guards, who became marshal of the 
 empire and Due de Dantzig, with 150,000 francs a year, received the visit of a comrade- 
 who, instead of having mounted the ladder as he had done, had remained at the bot- 
 tom of it. The marshal, a fine fellow, welcomed his comrade heartily, and showed 
 him over his hotel. The visitor's face gradually grew sombre, and bitter words es- 
 caped from his lips ; he often murmured, " Ah, how lucky you are !" At last, thfr 
 marshal, impatient, said to him, " Well, I will make all this over to you on one condi- 
 tion." " What is it?" "You must go down into the court. I will post two grena- 
 diers at the window with their guns, and they shall fire at you. If they miss, you- 
 shall have the hotel and everything in it." "Ah, no, thanks!" "My friend, more- 
 shots than these have been fired at me and nearer by !" 
 
 1
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 265 
 
 seated popularity, his social utility. " Nobody," says he,' " is 
 interested in overthrowing a government in which all the 
 deserving are employed." — Then, again, comes his significant 
 exclamation at the end, his summary of modern society, a 
 solemn grandiose figure of speech found in the legendary 
 souvenirs of a glorious antiquity, a classic reminiscence of the 
 noble Olympian games, " Henceforth, all careers are open to 
 talent !" 
 
 IV. 
 
 Let us now consider the career which he thus opens to them 
 and the prizes he offers. These prizes are in full view, ranged 
 along each race-ground, graduated according to distances and 
 more and more striking and magnificent ; every ambition is 
 provided for, the highest as well as the lowest, and these are 
 countless ; for they consist of offices of every grade in the 
 civil and military hierarchies of a great centralized State 
 whose intervention is universal, under a government which 
 systematically tolerates no authority or influence outside of 
 itself and which monopolizes every species of social impor- 
 tance for its own functionaries.^ — All these prizes, even the 
 smallest and most insignificant, are awarded by it. In the 
 first place. Napoleon has two or three times as many offices 
 to bestow, on the soil of old France alone, as the former kings ; 
 for, even in the choice of their staff of officials, the latter were 
 
 1 Roederer, iii., 332 (Aug. 2, 1800). 
 
 2 Papers of Maine deBiran. (Note communicated by M. Naville.) Letter of B-tron 
 Maurice, prefect of Dordogne, to M. Maine de Biran. sub-prefect of Rergerac, trans- 
 mitting to him by order of the minister of the interior a blank form to be filled up by 
 him presenting the " Statistics 0/ youn? ladies bcloniiin^ to the most notahle f.imilies 
 o/the arrondissetiienty The form annexed contained several columns, one for names 
 and given names, others for the future inheritance of real and personal estate, etc. 
 A clever or energetic prefect, provided with this list, was able and was expected to 
 take an active part in marriages and see that all the large dowries were appropriifd 
 
 on the right side.—" Mdmoires de Madame de ," part 3d, ch. viii., p. 154. (These 
 
 very instructive memoirs by a very sincere and judicious person are still unpub- 
 lished. I am not authorized to give the name of the author.) " It was at this time that 
 the emperor took it into his head to marry as he saw fit the young girls who had more 
 than 50,000 livres rental." A rich heiress of Lyons, intended for M. Jules de Polignac, 
 is thus wedded to M. de Marboeuf. M. d"Aligre, by dint of address and celerity, de- 
 prives M. de Caulaincourt of his daughter, and then M. de Faudoas, brother-in-lavr 
 to Savary, and weds her to M. de Pommereux.
 
 266 THE MODERN REGIME. book in. 
 
 not always free ; in many places they did not have, or no longer 
 had, the right of appointment. At one time, this right be- 
 longed from time immemorial to provincial or municipal cor- 
 porations, laic or ecclesiastic, to a certain chapter, abbey or 
 collegiate church, to a bishop in his diocese, to the seignior 
 in his seignory ; at another time the king, once possessing 
 the right, had surrendered or alienated it, in whole or in part, 
 through gratuitous favor and the concession of a survivorship, 
 or for money and through the sale of an office ; in brief, his 
 hands were tied fast by hereditary or acquired privileges. 
 There are no privileges now to fetter the hands of the First 
 Consul. The entire civil organization dates from him. The 
 whole body of officials is thus of his own selection, and under 
 him it is much more numerous than that of the ancient 
 regime ; for he has extended the attributions of the State be- 
 yond all former bounds ; directly or indirectly, he appoints by 
 hundreds of thousands the mayors and councillors of munici- 
 palities and the members of general councils, the entire staff 
 of the administration, of the finances, of the judicature, of the 
 clergy, of the University, of public works and of public charity,, 
 and besides all this, myriads of ministerial and notarial officials, 
 lawyers, ushers, auctioneers, and by way of surplus, or as a 
 natural result, the members of every great private association 
 since no collective enterprise, from the Bank of France and 
 the press to stage-lines and tontines, may be established with- 
 out his permission, nor exist without his tolerance. Not 
 counting the latter, and after deducting likewise the military on 
 active duty and the functionaries who draw pay, the prefects 
 from the earliest years report that, since 1789, the number of 
 people " employed or under government pay " has more than 
 doubled ; in Doubs, in the year ix, instead of nine hundred and 
 sixteen there are eighteen hundred and twenty ; in Meurthe, 
 in the year xiii, instead of eighteen hundred and twenty-eight 
 there are three thousand and ninety-one ; in Ain, in 1806, 
 instead of nine hundred and fifty-five there are seventeen hun- 
 dred and seventy-one.' As to the army, it has tripled, and 
 
 I " Statistiques des Pr^fets." (Doubs, by Debry, p. 60; Meurthe, by Marquis, p. 115 ; 
 Ain, by Bossi, p. 240.)
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 267 
 
 according to the First Consul's own calculations, instead of 
 nine thousand and ten thousand officers as in 1789, there are 
 more than twenty thousand. — These figures go on increasing 
 on the did territory through the very development of the new 
 organization, through the enormous increase of the army, 
 through the re-establishment of religious worship, through 
 the installation of droits re'unis, through the institution of the 
 University, owing to the increasing number of officials, cures 
 and assistant-priests, of professors and school-teachers, and 
 of retired and pensioned invalids. ' 
 
 And these figures, which already swell of themselves, are to 
 swell an additional half through the extension of the ancient 
 territory. Instead of eighty-six departments with a popula- 
 tion of twenty-six millions, France ends in comprising one 
 hundred and thirty departments with forty-two million in- 
 habitants — Belgium and Piedmont, then Hanover, Tuscany, 
 Central Italy, Illyria, Holland and the Hanseatic provinces, 
 that is to say forty-four departments and sixteen millions 
 of annexed Frenchmen ; " affording another large outlet for 
 little and big ambitions. — Add still another, as a surplus 
 and not less extensive outlet, outside of France : for the 
 subject princes and the vassal kings, Eugene, Louis, Jerome, 
 Murat, and Joseph, each with their governments, import 
 into their realms a more or less numerous body of French 
 officials, familiars, court dignitaries, generals, ministers, ad- 
 ministrators, even clerks and other indispensable subalterns, 
 if for no other purpose than to bring the natives within 
 the military and civil compartments of the new regime and 
 teach them on the spot the conscription, the administration, 
 the civil code, and systems of accounts like those of Paris. 
 Even in the independent or allied States, in Prussia, in Poland, 
 in the confederation of the Rhine, there are, at intervals or 
 permanently, Frenchmen in position and in authority to com- 
 
 1 " Statistique de I'Ain," by Bossi, p. 1808. From 1140 in 1801, the number of em- 
 ployes and others under state pay amounts to 1771 in 1806. This augmentation is. 
 attributed by the prefect to causes just stated. 
 
 2 Napoleon, '• Correspondance." (Note of April 11, 1811.) " There will always beat 
 Hamburg, Bremen and Lubcck from 8,000 to 10,000 French, either employds or gen- 
 d'armes, in the customs and depots."
 
 268 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 mand contingent forces, to garrison fortresses, to receive sup- 
 plies and secure the payment of war contributions. Even 
 with the corporal and custom-house inspector on duty on the 
 coast at Dantzig and at Reggio, the sentiment of victorious 
 priority equals the possession of rank ; in their eyes the natives 
 of the country are semi-barbarians or semi-savages, a back- 
 ward or prejudiced lot, not even knowing how to speak their 
 language ; they feel themselves superior, as formerly the seilor 
 soldado of the sixteenth century, or the civis romanus. Never, 
 since the great Spanish monarchy and the old Roman empire, 
 has a conquering State and propagator of a new regime afforded 
 its subjects such gratifications of amour-propre, nor opened 
 so vast a career to their ambitions. 
 
 For, having once adopted their career, they know better than 
 the Spaniards under Charles V. or the Romans under Augus- 
 tus, how far they can go and how fast they can get ahead. 
 No obstacle impedes them; nobody feels himself confined to 
 his post; each considers the one he occupies as provisional; 
 each takes it only to await a better one, anticipating another 
 at a very early date; he dashes onward, springs aloft and oc- 
 cupies in advance the superior post which he means to secure 
 on the first vacancy, and, under this regime, the vacancies are 
 numerous. — These vacancies, in the military service and in the 
 grade of officers, may be estimated at nearly four thousand per 
 annum; ' after 1808 and 1809, but especially after the disasters 
 of 1812 and 1813, places are no longer lacking but subjects to 
 fill them; Napoleon is obliged to accept youths for officers 
 as beardless as his conscripts, eighteen-year-old apprentices 
 who, after a year or six months in the military academy, must 
 finish their apprenticeship on the battle-field, pupils taken from 
 the philosophy or rhetoric classes, youths who are enthusiastic 
 
 I One officer may be counted to every fifty men in the infantry; in the cavalry one 
 officer to every twenty-five or thirty men, and these are the maximum figures.— This 
 ratio of one officer to every fifty men indicates that, among the 1,700,000 men who per- 
 ished between 1804 and 1815, there were 24.000 officers, which givesabout 3,000 vacancies 
 per annum, to which must be added the vacancies due to the wounded, incapacity 
 for service and retirement. It must be noted, moreover, that the death or retirement 
 of an officer above the grade of second-lieutenant makes several vacancies and 
 vacancies which are more numerous according to the superiority of the rank. On the 
 loss of a captain there are three promotions and so on.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 269 
 
 {de bonne volo7ite)-^ on the 13th of December 1808, he draws 
 for fifty on his lycc'es who don the gold-lace of under-officers at 
 once; in 1809, he calls out two hundred and fifty, to serve in 
 the depot battalions; in 18 10, he calls out one hundred and 
 fifty of the age of nineteen who " know the drill," and who are 
 to be sent on distant expeditions with the commission of sec- 
 ond-lieutenant; in 181 1, four hundred for the school of non- 
 commissioned officers at Fontainebleau, twenty for the 
 Ile-de-Re and eighty-four who are to be quartermasters; and, 
 in 181 2, one hundred and twelve more and so on. Naturally, 
 thanks to annually increasing gaps made by cannon and bay- 
 onet, the survivors in this body of youth mount the faster; in 
 1813 and 1814, there are colonels and lieutenant-colonels of 
 the age of twenty-five. 
 
 In the civil service, if fewer are killed everybody is almost 
 equally overtasked. Under this reign one is soon used up, 
 physically and morally, even in pacific employments, and this 
 also supplies vacancies. Besides, in default of deaths, wounds 
 and violent elimination, there is another elimination, not less 
 efficacious, operating in this direction, and for a long time, in 
 favor of men of ability, preparing places for them and acceler- 
 ating their advancement. Napoleon accepts none but com- 
 petent candidates; now, in 1800, there is a dearth of acceptable 
 candidates for places in the civil service and not, as in 1789, or 
 at the present time, a superabundance and even too great a 
 crowd. — In the military service especially, capacity is innate; 
 natural endowments, courage, coolness, quick perception, 
 physical activity, moral ascendency, topographical imagination 
 form its principal elements; men just able to read, write and 
 cipher became, in three or four years, during the Revolution, 
 admirable officers and conquering generals. — It is not the same 
 in relation to civil capacity; this requires long and continuous 
 study. To become a priest, magistrate, engineer, professor, 
 prefect or school-teacher, one must have studied theology or 
 law, mathematics or Latin, administration or the finances; 
 otherwise, the functionary is not qualified to serve: he must, 
 
 I Lunet, " Histoire du Collfege de Rodez" (ministerial circular), p. 228.
 
 2 70 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 at the very least, know how to spell, be able to write French, 
 examine a law-case, draw up a report, keep accounts, and if 
 necessity calls for it, comprehend a plan, make an estimate, 
 and read off a map. Men of this stamp are rare at the begin- 
 ning of the Consulate. As notables, the Revolution has 
 mowed them down^ out of preference. Among all their sons 
 and so many well-bred youth who have become soldiers 
 through patriotism, or who have left their families to prevent 
 these from becoming suspect^ one half repose on the battle- 
 field or have left the hospital only for the cemetery; "the 
 muscadin broke down the first campaign." In any event, 
 of education for them and their younger brothers, for children 
 beginning to learn Latin and mathematics, for all aspirants 
 to liberal pursuits, for the entire generation about to receive 
 either a superior or a common education, or even of primary in- 
 struction, to furnish suitably prepared brains for intellectual 
 work, there was a lack of this for ten years. Not only were 
 the endowments which provided for instruction confiscated, 
 but the educational staff, nearly all ecclesiastic, was one of 
 the most proscribed among those proscribed. Whilst military 
 requisition and the closing of the schools suppressed the pupils, 
 massacres, banishment, imprisonment, suffering and the scaf- 
 fold suppressed the masters. Whilst the ruin of universities and 
 colleges did away with theoretical apprenticeship, the ruin of 
 manufactures and of trade abolished practical apprenticeship, 
 and, through the long interruption of all studies, general in- 
 struction as well as special competency became rare products 
 in the market. — Hence it is that, in 1800, and during the three 
 or four following years, whoever brought to market either one 
 or the other of these commodities was sure of soon getting a 
 place; ^ the new government needed them more than anybody; 
 the moment the seller gives in his adhesion he is bought, and 
 
 1 " The Revolution," iii., 335. — Already, in 1795, the need of competent and special 
 men was so great that the government sought, even among royalists, for financial and 
 diplomatic heads of these services; it made offers to M. Dufresne and to M. de Ray- 
 neval. — Ibid.. 311. — (Cf. "M^moires" by Gaudin, Mint and Mollien.) 
 
 2 Words of Bouquier, reporter of the law on education (session of the Convention, 
 Frimaire 22, year 11). 
 
 3 The reader is recommended to do as I have done and consult biographies on this 
 point, also the souvenirs of his grandparents.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 271 
 
 whatever he may be, a former Jacobin or a former e'migr(f, he 
 is employed. If he brings both commodities and is zealous, 
 he is promptly promoted; if, on trial, he is found of superior 
 capacity, he will, like MoUien, Gaudin, Tronchet, Pasquier and 
 Mole, attain to the highest posts, for he finds scarcely any 
 competitors. These he would have had had things followed 
 their usual course; it is the Revolution which has cleared the 
 ground around him; without that the road would have been 
 obstructed ; competent candidates would have swarmed; 
 enumerate, if possible, all the men of talent, royalists, mon- 
 archists, feuillans, Girondists and even Jacobins, who have 
 perished, consisting of the elite of the noblesse, of the clergy, 
 of the bourgeoisie, of the youth and those of riper age. Thus 
 rid of their most formidable rivals the survivors pursue their 
 way at race speed; the guillotine has wrought for them in 
 advance; it has effected openings in their own ranks, made by 
 bullets in every battle in the ranks of the army, and, in the 
 civil hierarchy as in the military hierarchy, merit, if demon- 
 strated by services, or not arrested by death, reaches the high- 
 est summit in very few years. 
 
 The prizes offered on these summits are splendid; no attrac- 
 tion is lacking. The great trainer who displays them has omit- 
 ted none of the seductions which excite and stimulate an ordi- 
 nary mind ; he has associated with the positive values of power 
 and wealth every value incident to imagination and o{)inion ; 
 hence his institution of decorations and the Legion of Honor.' 
 " They call it a plaything," ' said he, " but men are led by 
 playthings. . . . Frenchmen are not changed by ten years of 
 revolution. . . . See how the people prostrate themselves be- 
 fore foreign decorations : they have been surprised by them 
 
 1 Thibaudeau, "M^moires sur l:i Consulat." p. 88. (Exposiiion of motives by 
 Roederer to the Corps Ldsrisla'if, Flnrdal 25, year x.) " After all, it is the creation of 
 a new currency of quite different value from that which issues from the public treas- 
 ury, a currency of unchan},'eable worth and of an inexhaustible mine, since it lies in 
 French honor; a currency which can solely reward actions regarded as above any 
 recompense.'' 
 
 2 Ibid . 83. (Address to the Council of State, Flordal \\. year x.)— Also " Memorial ": 
 "Old and corrupt nations are not coverned the same as you ngr and virtuous ones; 
 sacrifices have to be made to interest, to enjoyments, to vanitv. This is the secret of 
 the return to monarchical forms, to titles, crosses, ribbons, harmless baubles suited to 
 exciting the respect of the multitude while at the same time enforcing self-respecl.'"
 
 272 THE MODERN R&GIME. book in. 
 
 and accordingly do not fail to wear them. . . . The French 
 cherish but one sentiment, honor: that sentiment, then, re- 
 quires nourishing — they must have distinctions." A very 
 few are satisfied with their own deserts ; ordinary men are 
 not even content with the approbation they perceive in the 
 eyes of others : it is too intermittent, too reserved, too mute ; 
 they need fame that is brilliant and noisy ; they want to hear 
 the constant hum of admiration and respect whenever they 
 appear or whenever their name is mentioned. Even this does 
 not suffice ; they are unwilling that their merit should rest in 
 men's minds in the vague state of undefined greatness, but 
 that it should be publicly estimated, have its current value, 
 enjoy undisputed and measured rank on the scale above all 
 other lesser merits. — The new institution affords complete 
 satisfaction to all these exigencies of human and French nature. 
 On the 14th of July, 1804,' the anniversary of the taking of the 
 Bastille, Napoleon administers the oath to the legionaries and, 
 after a solemn mass, distributes the insignia under the dome 
 of the Invalides in the presence of the empress and the court ; 
 and again one month later, August 16, 1804, on the anniver- 
 sary of the Emperor's birth, in the camp at Boulogne, facing 
 the ocean and in full view of the flotilla assembled to conquer 
 England, before one hundred thousand spectators and the en- 
 tire army, to the roll of eighteen hundred drums. No cere- 
 mony, probably, was ever more exciting. The eminent sur- 
 geon, Larrey, then decorated, a man of austere virtue, spoke 
 of it with emotion to the end of his life and never alluded to 
 that unique day but with a trembling voice. On that day, 
 nearly all the men of superior and tried merit and talent in 
 France " are proclaimed, each with the title proportionate to 
 his degree of eminence — chevaliers, officers, commanders, 
 grand-officers, and, later on, grand-eagles ; each on the same 
 
 1 " La Legion d'honneur," by M. Mazas, /^j^/w. Details on the nominations and 
 ceremonials. "The veritable date was July 15th, as the T4th was Sunday. Auge- 
 reau and about sixty officers, " bad fellows " who disliked the mass, refused to enter 
 the chapel and remained outside in the court. 
 
 2 Several generals, Lecourbe, Souham .etc., being: too republican ox suspect and hos^ 
 tile, were left out. Lemercier, Ducis. Delille, and Laf.Tyette refused. Admiral Tru 
 guet, through pique and discontent, had at first declined the grade of grand-officer, 
 but finally changed his mind and became at first commander and then grand-officer. 
 
 1
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 273 
 
 plane with his equals of a different class, ecclesiastics along- 
 side of laymen, civilians alongside of soldiers ; each honored 
 by the company of his peers, Berthollet, Laplace and Lagrange 
 alongside of Kellermann, Jourdan and Lefebvre, Otto and 
 Tronchet alongside of Massena, Augereau, Ney, Lannes, 
 Soult and Davout ; four cardinals side by side with eighteen 
 marshals, and likewise even down to corporal, and to Egyp- 
 tian veterans blinded by ophthalmia on the banks of the 
 Nile, comprising common soldiers who, through some brilliant 
 achievement, had won a sword or a gun of honor, as, for in- 
 stance, Coignet,' who, dashing ahead with fixed bayonet, 
 kills five Austrian artillerymen and takes their cannon him- 
 self alone ; six years before this he was a stable-boy on a 
 farm and could neither read nor write ; he is now mentioned 
 among the first of those promoted, a colleague and almost a 
 comrade of Monge, the inventor of descriptive geometry, of 
 de Fontanes, grand-master of the university, of marshals, ad- 
 mirals, and the highest dignitaries, all sharing in common an 
 inestimable treasure, the legitimate heirs of twelve years' ac- 
 cumulated glory by the sacrifice of so many heroic lives and 
 all the more glorified because so few,^ and because, in these 
 days, a man did not obtain the cross by twenty years of plodding 
 in a bureau, on account of routine punctuality, but by won- 
 derful strokes of energy and audacity, by wounds, by braving 
 death a hundred times and looking it in the face daily. 
 
 Henceforth, legally as well as in public opinion, they form 
 the staff of the new society, its declared, verified notables, 
 enjoying precedences and even privileges. On passing along 
 
 1 " I,es C.iliicrs du Capit.iine Coifjnet,"/rt.r,v//;/ and pp. 95, 145. " When the cere- 
 mony was over, handsome women who could get at me to examine my cross, asked 
 me if they mipht give me a kiss." — At the Palais Royal the proprietor of a caf^ says 
 to him : " Order whatever you want, the Lefjion of Honor is welcome to any- 
 thing " 
 
 2 Mazas. ihiii., p. 413.— Rdmond Rlanc, " Napoleon, ses institutions civiles et admin- 
 istrativcs." p. 279. — The number of decnr.tt'd, at first, was to be 6,000. In 1806, the em- 
 peror had nominated 14.500, and taking his entire reign, until his fall, about 48,000. 
 The real force of legionaries, however, then living does not surpass at this time 
 30.000, of which only 1,200 are in civil careers. At the present time. December i, 1888 
 (documents furnished by the records of the I.^gion d'honncur), there are 52.915 deco- 
 rated persons, of which 31,757 are soldiers and 21,158 civilians. Under the empire 
 there was in all i cross to every 750 Frenchmen ; at that time, out of 50 crosses there 
 were 2 for civil services, while in our day there are nearly 20.
 
 2 74 THE MODERN REGIME. book hi 
 
 the street the sentinel presents arms; a company of twenty-five 
 soldiers attends their funeral; in the electoral colleges of the 
 department or arrondissement they are electors by right and 
 without being balloted for, simply by virtue of their rank; 
 their sons are entitled to scholarships in La Fleche, at Saint- 
 Cyr, and in the lycees, and their daughters at Ecouen or at 
 Saint-Denis. With the exception of a title, as formerly, they 
 lack nothing for filling the place of the old nobility, and 
 Napoleon re-creates this title for their benefit. The title in 
 itself of chevalier, count, duke or prince carries along with it 
 an idea of social superiority; when announced in a drawing 
 room, when it precedes the first sentence of an address, those 
 who are present do not remain inattentive; an immemorial 
 prejudice inclines them to award consideration or even 
 deference. The Revolution tried in vain to destroy this power 
 of words and of history; Napoleon does better: he confiscates 
 it ; he arrogates to himself the monopoly of it, he steals its 
 trade-mark from the ancient regime; he himself creates forty- 
 eight thousand chevaliers, one thousand barons, three hundred 
 and eighty-eight counts, thirty-one dukes and four princes; 
 furthermore, he stamps with his own mark the old nobles 
 whom he introduces into his nobility: he coins them anew, 
 and often with an inferior title; this or that duke is lowered a 
 notch and becomes simply a count: taken at par or at a dis- 
 count the feudal coin must, in order to pass, receive the im- 
 perial stamp which gives it its recognized value in modern 
 figures. 
 
 But, let the old-fashioned metal be what it may, whether 
 gold, silver or copper, even crude and plebeian, the new coin is 
 of good alloy and very handsome. Frequently, like the old cur- 
 rency, it displays coats of arms in high relief, a heraldic crown 
 and the name of a locality; it no longer bears the name of a 
 territory, and it does not call to mind a primitive sovereignty; 
 on the contrary, it bears the name of a victory or of a con- 
 quest and reminds one of recent exploits. Due de Montebello 
 or Prince de la Moskowa is equivalent in the imagination of 
 contemporaries to a Due de Montmorency or a Prince de 
 Rohan; for, if the prince or duke of the empire is without
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 275 
 
 ancestors, he is or will be an ancestor himself. To these 
 prizes coveted by vanity Napoleon tacks on every substantial 
 and pecuniary advantage, in ready money or landed property, 
 not alone large salaries, contiguous sc'natoreries, occasional 
 munificent gifts, a million at one time to General Lasalle, 
 but likewise vast revenues from the extraordinary domain,' 
 thirty-two million four hundred and sixty-three thousand eight 
 hundred and seventeen francs a year divided amongst four 
 thousand nine hundred and seventy persons, pensions from 
 two hundred and fifty to five thousand francs for all legionaries 
 hotels, large estates, investments in public funds, distinct and 
 superb endowments for those of the highest rank, fortunes 
 of one hundred thousand livres income and more to thirty- 
 four of these, a fortune of four hundred and fifty thousand 
 livres in the public funds to Cambaceres, of six hundred and 
 eighty-three thousand livres in the public funds to Massena, 
 of seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand livres in the 
 public funds to Ney, of nine hundred and ten thousand livres 
 in the public funds to Davout, of one million three hundred 
 and fifty-four thousand livres in the public funds to Berthier, 
 and besides all this, three " sovereign principalities," Neufcha- 
 tel to Berthier, Benevento to Talleyrand, and Ponte-Corvo to 
 Bernadotte. The last of all temptations, in these times of 
 violent and premature death, is of no little account. Napoleon 
 opens out hereditary and undefined prospects beyond the per- 
 pectives of life and of inferior interests. Each of the titles 
 conferred by him, that of prince, duke, count, baron, and even 
 that of chevalier, is transmissible in direct descent, according 
 to primogeniture from father to son, and sometimes from uncle 
 to nephew, under specified conditions which are very accept- 
 able, and of which the first is the institution of an inalienable 
 majority, inattackable, consisting of this or that income or 
 real property, of bank stock or state securities, from three 
 thousand francs for common chevaliers up to two hundred 
 thousand francs for the dukes, that is to say, a certain fortune 
 in perpetuity due to the sovereign's liberality, or to the pru- 
 
 I Edmond Rlanc, i/iid., 276 299, 325 and 326. (List of titles of prince and duke con- 
 ferred by the emperor, and of gifts of ickj.ooo francs rental or of above that sum.)
 
 276 THE MODERN REGIME. book m. 
 
 dence of the founder, and intended to support the dignity of 
 the title from male to male and from link to link throughout the 
 future chain of successive inheritors. Through this supreme 
 reward, the subtle tempter has a hold on the men who care 
 not alone for themselves but for their family: henceforth, they 
 work as he does, eighteen hours a day, stand fire, and say to 
 themselves, while sinking at their desks or facing cannon-balls, 
 that their pre-eminence survives them in their posterity: " In 
 any event my son will succeed me and even become greater 
 by my death." 
 
 Thus made use of, all the temptations which serve to over- 
 come the natural inertia of human matter are combined to- 
 gether and work in concert; with the exception of conscience 
 itself and the craving for personal independence, no other in- 
 ternal spring remains that is not strained to the utmost; while, 
 beyond this extremity, one unique circumstance gives to eager 
 ambitions a further increase of energy, impulse and enthu- 
 siasm. — All these successful or parvenu men are contempora- 
 ries: all have started alike on the same line and from the same 
 average or low condition in life; each sees old comrades superior 
 to himself on the upper steps; he considers himself as good as 
 they are, suffers because he is not on their level, and strives 
 and takes risks so as to mount up to them. But, however 
 high he mounts, he still sees higher yet others who were for- 
 merly his equals ; consequently, no rank obtained by them 
 seems to him above his deserts, and no rank that he obtains 
 suffices for his pretensions. " See that Massena," exclaimed 
 Napoleon,' a few days before the battle of Wagram ; "he has 
 honors and fame enough, but he is not satisfied ; he wants to 
 be a prince like Murat and Bernadotte : he will risk getting 
 shot to-morrow simply to be a prince." — Above these princes, 
 who have only the rank, the title and the money, come the 
 grand-dukes and reigning viceroys like Murat, grand-duke 
 of Berg, and Eugene, viceroy of Italy. Above Eugene and 
 Murat are the vassal-kings, Louis, Joseph, Jerome, then Murat 
 himself, who, among these, is in a better place, and Bernadotte, 
 
 * Maihieu Dumas, " M^moires," iii., 363.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 277 
 
 the only sovereign that is independent ; all more or less envied 
 by the marshals, all more or less rivals of each other, the 
 inferior aspiring to the superior throne, Murat inconsolable at 
 being sent to Naples and not to Spain, and at having only 
 five millions of subjects instead of thirteen millions. From 
 top to bottom of the hierarchy and even to the loftiest places, 
 comprising thrones, the steps rise regularly above each other 
 in continuous file, so that each leads to the following one, with 
 nothing to hinder the first-comer, provided he is lucky, has 
 good legs and does not fall on the way, from reaching the 
 top of the staircase in twenty or thirty years. " It was com- 
 monly reported in the army — he has got to be king in Naples, in 
 Holland, in Spain, in Siueden, as formerly 7vas said of the same 
 sort of man, tvho had got to be sergeant in this or that company." 
 Such is the total and final impression which rises to the 
 surface in all imaginations; it is in this sense that the people 
 interpret the new regime, and Napoleon devotes himself to 
 confirming the popular interpretation. Accordingly, the first 
 duchy he creates is for Marshal Lefebvre " purposely," as he 
 says,' because " this marshal had been a common soldier and 
 everybody in Paris had known him as a sergeant in the French 
 guards." — With such an example before them, and so many 
 others like it, not less striking, there is no ambition that does 
 not become exalted, and often to delirium. " At this time," 
 says Stendhal, who seized the master-idea of the reign, " there 
 was no apothecary's apprentice in his back shop, surrounded 
 by his drugs and bottles, filtering and pounding away in 
 his mortar, who did not say to himself that, if he chanced 
 to make some great discovery, he would be made a count with 
 fifty thousand francs a year." In those days there was no 
 under-clerk who, in his labored penmanship, inscribed names 
 on a piece of parchment, that did not imagine his own name 
 appearing some day on a senatorial or ministerial diploma. 
 At this time the youthful corporal who dons his first "stripes of 
 gold braid already fancies that he hears the beating of the 
 drums, the blast of the trumpet, and the salvos of artillery 
 which proclaim him marshal of the Empire. 
 
 I Napoleon, " Mdmoires."
 
 iyS THE MODERN REGIME. book hi. 
 
 V. 
 
 A new force, extraordinary, is just apparent in history, a 
 spiritual force analogous to that which formerly stimulated 
 souls in Spain in the sixteenth century, in Europe at the time 
 of the crusades, and in Arabia in the time of Mahomet. It 
 stimulates the faculties to excess, increases energy tenfold, 
 transports man beyond or above himself, creates enthusiasts 
 and heroes, blinding or rendering men crazy, and hence the 
 irresistible conquerors and rulers. It stamps its imprint and 
 leaves its memorials in ineffaceable characters on men and 
 things from Cadiz to Moscow. It overrides all natural 
 barriers and transcends all ordinary limits. " The French 
 soldiers," writes a Prussian officer after Jena, " are small and 
 puny. One of our Germans could whip any four of them. But, 
 under fire, they become supernatural beings. They are swept 
 along by an indescribable ardor of which there is not a trace 
 among our soldiers. . . . What can you do with peasants 
 whom nobles lead into battle, but whose danger they share 
 without having any interest in their passions or recompenses!" ' 
 — Coupled with the physical craving which requires a certain 
 amount of ease and of daily food, and which, if too strenuously 
 opposed, produces '^z.'s,^\x\g jacqueries, there is a still more potent 
 craving which, on suddenly encountering its food, seizes on it, 
 clings to it, gorges it, and produces revolutions that last: 
 this craving is the contemplation of one's self with satisfac- 
 tion and complacency, forming of one's self a pleasing, flatter- 
 ing image, and of trying to impress and plant this image in the 
 minds of others; in short, the craving of great self-esteem 
 and of becoming greatly esteemed by others.* This sentiment, 
 
 1 Thiers, " Histoire du Consulat et de TEmpire," v. iii., p. 210. 
 
 2 Thiers, ibid., p. 195 (October 1806). Napoleon, in one of his bulletins, had men- 
 tioned Murat's cavalry alone, omitting to mention the infantry of Lannes. which be- 
 haved as well. Lannes, disappointed, did not dare read this bulletin to his men, and 
 spoke to the emperor about it. ' What reward can they look for if they don't find their 
 names published by the hundred-tongued voice of Fame which is under your control !" 
 Napoleon replies : " You and your men are children — glory enough for all ! . . . One 
 of these days your turn will come in the bulletins of the grand army." Lannes reads 
 this to his troops on the great square of Stettin and it is received with transports of 
 enthusiasm.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 279 
 
 according to the quality of the soul and according to circum- 
 stances, gives birth at one time to the noblest virtues and the 
 most sublime devotion, at another, to the worst misdeeds and 
 the most dangerous delirium: the man becomes transfigured; 
 the sleeping god or demon which both live within him is sud- 
 denly arojsed. After 1789, both appear and both together; 
 from this date onward, says an eye-witness, ' and, during one 
 quarter of a century, " for most Frenchmen and in whatever 
 class," the object of life is displaced; each has put it outside 
 of himself; henceforth, the essential thing for everybody is 
 " to have lived," or " to have died for something," for an idea. 
 A man becomes the slave of his idea, gives himself up to it; 
 consequently, he has experienced the intense satisfaction of 
 considering himself a noble being, of superior essence, fore- 
 most among the first, and of seeing himself regarded in that 
 light and proclaimed and glorified as such. — This keen, pro- 
 found and intense pleasure was first enjoyed by the French on 
 listening to the Declaration of the Rights of Man; thenceforth, 
 and in good faith, they felt themselves citizens, philosophers, 
 the destroyers of prejudices and wrongs, zealots in behalf of 
 truth, liberty and equality, and then, when the war of 1792 
 came, the defenders of the country, missionaries and propaga- 
 tors of every grand principle.^ — Towards 1796, i)rinciples be- 
 gan to recede in the background; ° in the ideal portrait which 
 man makes of himself the liberator and benefactor of mankind 
 gradually gives way to the admirable and admired hero 
 capable of great achievements. This inner portrait of him- 
 self suffices for his happiness for some years to come: * vanity 
 
 1 M.^(1ame de Rdrausat. iii.. 129. 
 
 2 ' The Revolution," pp. 356-3S8.— Marmont, " Mdmoires." i., 122. (Letter to his 
 mother, January 12, 1795.) " Behold your son zealously fulfilling his duties, deserving 
 of his country and serving the republic. . . . We should not be worthy of liberty if 
 we did noUiing to obtain it." 
 
 3 Compare the "Journal du sergent Fricasse," and " les Cahiers du capilainc 
 Coignet " Fricasse is a volunteer who enlists in the defence of the country ; 
 Coignet is a conscript ambitious of distinguishing himself, and he says to his masters: 
 *' I promise to come back with X.\\t. fusil d^ltonneur or I shall be dead." 
 
 4 Marmont, i., 186,282,296 (In Italy, 1796.) "At this epoch, our ambition was 
 quite secondary ; we were solely concerned about our duties and amusements. The 
 frankest and most cordial union existed amongst us all. . . . No sentiment of envy, no 
 low passion found room in our breasts. (Then) what excitement, what grandeur, what
 
 2 So THE MODERN REGIME. book iil 
 
 properly so called and a calculating ambition are not the 
 mainsprings of action ; if he obtains promotion, it is without 
 asking for it; his aspiration is simply to display himself, to be 
 lavish of himself and live or die courageously and gayly ' along 
 with his comrades ; to being considered, outside the service, 
 the equal, friend and brother of his subordinates and of his 
 chiefs. Pillage, nevertheless, has begun ; for, a long con- 
 tinuance of war depraves the conqueror ; brutality, indiffer- 
 ence to property and to life grows on him ; if callous, or he 
 wishes to become so, he eats, drinks and enjoys the passing 
 hour; if provident and wary, he scrapes together what he can 
 or levies contributions and hoards money. — Under the Empire,, 
 and especially towards 1808 and 1809, the ideal figure degen- 
 erates still more; henceforth, it is the successful or the coming 
 officer, with his rank and its accoutrements, his gold-embroi- 
 dered uniform and badges, exercising authority over so many 
 hundreds and thousands of men and enjoying a certain no- 
 table sum of regular salaries, besides other gratifications be- 
 stowed on him by the master, along with the profits he can 
 make out of the vanquished.^ All that he now cares for 
 is rapid promotion, and in any way, noble or ignoble, at first, 
 of course, on the main road, that is to say, at a risk of his life 
 and in uncalculating self-devotion, but likewise on a new road,. 
 
 hopes and what gayety ! . . . Each had a presentiment of an inimitable future and yet 
 entertained no idea of personal ambition or calculation." — George Sand, " Histoire 
 de ma vie." (Correspondence of her father. Commander Dupin.) — Stendhal, " Vie de 
 NapoMon." " At this epoch (1796), nobody in the army had any ambition. I have 
 known officers to refuse promotion so as not to quit their regiment or their mistress." 
 
 1 Roederer, iii , 556. (Burgos, April 9, T809, conversation with General Lasalle writ- 
 ten down the s;ime evening ) "You paPS through Paris?" " Yes, it's the shortest 
 way. I shall get there at five in the morning ; I shall order a pair of boots, get my 
 wife with child and then leave for Germany." — Rcederer remarks to him that one 
 risks one's life and fights for the sake of promotion and to profit by rising in the 
 world. " No, not at all. One takes pleasure in it. One enjoys fighting; it is pleas- 
 ure enough in itself to fight ! You are in the midst of the uproar, of the action, of the 
 smoke. And then, on acquiring reputation you have had the fun of making it ! 
 When you have got your fortune you know that your wife and children won't suffer ! 
 That is enough As for myself, I could die to-morrow." (The details of this con- 
 versation are admirable ; no document gives a better idea of the officer of the epoch.) 
 
 2 B;ilzac has closely studied and admirably portrayed this type in a " Menage de 
 Garpon." — See other similar characters in Merimee (" Les Mecontens," and " les 
 Rspagnolsen Danemark") ; in Stendhal (" le Chasseur vert"). I knew five or six of 
 them in my youth.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 281 
 
 in an affectation of zeal, in practising and professing blind 
 obedience, in abandoning all political ideas, in devoting him- 
 self no longer to France, but to the sovereign : sympathy for 
 his comrades gives way to harsh emulation ; soldierly friend- 
 ships, under the anticipation of advancement, die out. A 
 vacancy due to death is for the benefit of survivors and they 
 know it. " At Talavera," says Stendhal, " two officers stood 
 together at their battery, while a ball comes and the captain 
 falls. ' Good,' says Frangois, ' now I shall be captain.' 
 * Not yet,' says Francois, who was only stunned and who gets 
 up on his feet. These two men were neither unfriendly nor 
 inimical, only the lieutenant wanted to rise a step higher in 
 rank." And this sagacious observer adds: " Such was the 
 furious egoism then styled love of glory and which, under this 
 title, the Emperor had communicated to the French." 
 
 The descent on this slope is rapid and low down. Each, at 
 first, thinks of himself; the individual makes of himself a cen- 
 tre. The example, moreover, comes from above. Is it for 
 France or for himself that Napoleon works ? ' So many meas- 
 ureless enterprises, the conquest of Spain, the expedition into 
 Russia, the installation of his brothers and relations on new 
 thrones, the constant partition and rearrangement of Europe, 
 all those incessant and more and more distant wars, is it for the 
 public good and common safety that he accumulates them ? 
 What does he himself desire if not to ])ush his fortunes still 
 farther? — He is too much ambitious {trop ambitioiinaire), say his 
 own soldiers;^ and yet they follow him to the last. "We al- 
 ways marched along with him," replied the old grenadiers,' 
 who had traversed Poland to penetrate into Russia; " we 
 couldn't abandon him this time and lea\e him alone by him- 
 self." — But others who see him nearer by, those who stand 
 first and next to him, do as he does; and, however high these 
 have mounted, they want to mount still higher, or, otherwise, 
 
 1 Words of Marshal Marmont : " So long as he declared ' Every thing- /or France,^ 
 I served him enthusiastically ; when he said, ' France and tnysrl/,'' I served him zeal 
 ously ; when he said, ' Mys,-l/ atui France ' I served him with devotion. J' i"* "nly 
 when he said, ' Myself without France," that I left him." 
 
 2 An expression found by Joseph de Maistre. 
 
 3 An expression heard by Mickiewicz in his childhood.
 
 282 THE MODERN REGIME. book III. 
 
 to keep their places, or, at least, provide for themselves and hold 
 on to something substantial. Massena has accumulated forty- 
 millions and Talleyrand sixty;' in case of a political crash 
 the money remains. Soult tried to have himself elected king 
 of Portugal,'' and Bernadotte finds means to have himself 
 elected king of Sweden. After Leipsic, Murat bargains with 
 the allies, and, to retain his Neapolitan kingdom, he agrees to 
 furnish a contingent against France; before the battle of Leip- 
 sic, Bernadotte is with the allies and fights with them against 
 France. In 1814, Bernadotte and Joseph, each caring for 
 himself, the former by intrigues and with the intriguers of the 
 interior, also by feeling his way with the foreign sovereigns; 
 while the latter, in the absence of Napoleon, by " singular 
 efforts " and " assiduities " beforehand with Marie Louise, 
 thinks of taking the place of the falling emperor.^ Prince 
 Eugene alone, or almost alone, among the great personages of 
 the reign, is really loyal, his loyalty remaining always intact, 
 exempt from concealed motives and above suspicion. Every- 
 where else, the coming crash or sinister rumors are heard or 
 anticipated; alarm descends from high places, spreads through 
 the army and echoes along the lines of the lowest ranks. In 
 1815, the soldier has full confidence in himself and in Napo- 
 leon; "but he is moody, distrustful of his other leaders. . . . 
 Every march incomprehensible to him makes him uneasy and 
 he thinks himself betrayed." ' At Waterloo, dragoons that 
 pass him with their swords drawn and old corporals shout to 
 the Emperor that Soult and Vandamme, who are at this mo- 
 ment about going into battle, are haranguing their troops against 
 him or deserting him; that General Dhenin, who has repulsed 
 a charge of the enemy and whose thigh is fractured by a can- 
 
 1 
 
 1 These sums are given, the former by Mdriraee and the latter by Sainte-Beuve. 
 
 2 M. de Champagny "[Souvenirs," iii., 183. Napoleon, passing his marshals in re- 
 view, said to him (i8u) : " None of them can take my place in the command of my 
 armies; some are without the talent, and others -would carry on war /or their oivn 
 benefit. Didn't that burly Soult want to be king of Portugal?" "Well, sire, war 
 need not be carried on any longer." " Yes, but how maintain my army ? And I must 
 have an army." 
 
 3' " M^moires," by M. X , iv., 112. (According to the papers of Savary, many of 
 
 Napoleon's letters and statements by M. de Saint-Aignan.) 
 4 " Mtoorial," Aug. 26, 1816.
 
 CHAP. III. OBJECT AND MERITS OF THE SYSTEM. 283 
 
 non-ball, has just passed over to the enemy. The mechanism 
 which, for fifteen years, has worked so well, breaks down of 
 itself through its own action; its cog-wheels have got out of 
 gear; cracks show themselves in the metal which seemed so 
 sound; the divinations of popular instinct verify this; the ex- 
 aggerations of the popular imagination expand it and suddenly 
 the whole machine rattles down to the ground. 
 
 All this is due to Napoleon having introduced into it the 
 craving for success as central motor, as the universal main- 
 spring, unscrupulous ambition, in short, a crude egoism, and 
 in the first place his own egoism, and this mainspring, strained 
 to excess,' puts the machine out of order and then ruins it. 
 After him, under his successors, the same machinery is to work 
 in the same manner, and break down in the same way, at the 
 expiration of a more or less lengthened period. Thus far, the 
 longest of these periods has lasted less than twenty years. 
 
 I " Travels in France during the years 1814 and 1815." (Edinburgh, 1816, 2 vols.) 
 —The author, a very good observer, thus sums up the principle of the system : " To 
 give active employment to all men of talent and enterprise." There is no other con 
 dition : " Birth, education, moral character were completely set aside." — Hence the 
 general defect of the system. "The French have literally no idea of any duties 
 which they must voluntarily, without the prospect of reward, undertake for their 
 country. It never enters their heads that a man may be responsible for the neglect 
 of those public duties for the performance of which he receives no regular salary."
 
 BOOK FOURTH. 
 
 Cte BtUtt anh iSffects of ti)c System. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LOCAL SOCIETY. 
 
 I. The two mainsprings of human action. — The egoistic instinct and the 
 social instinct. — Motives for not weakening the social instinct. — Influence 
 on society of the law it prescribes. — The clauses of a statute depend on the 
 legislator who adopts or imposes them. — Conditions of a good statute. — It 
 favors the social instinct. — Different for different societies. — Determined by 
 the peculiar and permanent traits of the society it governs. — Capital defect 
 of the statute under the new regime. — II. Local societies. — Their principal 
 and distinctive character. — Their type on a small scale. — A dwelling-house 
 in Annecy or Grenoble. — Compulsory association of its inmates. — Its object 
 and limits. — Private in character. — III. Analysis of other local societies, 
 commune, department, or province. — Common interests which necessitate 
 local aclion. — Two objects in view : care of public roads and means of pro- 
 tection against spreading calamities. — Why collaboration is an obligation. — 
 Neighbors involuntarily subject to a common bond on account of proximity. 
 — Willingly or not each shares in its benefits. — What portion of the e.xpense 
 belongs to each. — Equal advantages for each. — The unequal and propor- 
 tionate advantages for each in his private expenses, industrial or commercial 
 gains, and in the locative value of his real estate. — Each person's quota of 
 expense according to his equal and proportionate share in advantages. — IV. 
 Local society, thus constituted, is a collective personality. — The sphere of 
 its initiation and action. — Its relation to the State. — Distinction between the 
 private and tiie public domain. — V. Case in which the State abdicates. — 
 Anarchy during the Revolution. — Case in which the State usurps. — Regime 
 of the year viii. — Remains of local independence under the ancient regime. 
 — Destroyed under the new regime. — local society after iSoo. — VI. Lists 
 of notables. — Senatus-cousultcs of the year X. — Liberal institution becomes a 
 reigning instrument. — Mechanism of the system of appointments and candi- 
 datures. — Decree of 1806 and suppression of candidatures. — VII. Quality 
 of municipal and general councilors under the Consulate and the Empire. — 
 Object of their meetings. — Limits of their power. — Their real role. — Role of 
 
 284
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 285 
 
 the prefect and of the government. — VIII. The institution remains intact 
 under the Restoration. — Motives of the governors. — Excellence of the ma- 
 chine. — Abdication of the administrator. 
 
 I. 
 
 So long as a man takes an interest only in himself, in his 
 own fortune, in his own advancement, in his own success, he 
 is not interested in anything of much account : all that is of 
 little importance and of short duration, like himself. Along- 
 side of that bark which he steers so carefully there are thou- 
 sands and millions of others of similar build and of about the 
 same dimensions ; none of them are worth much, and his own 
 is not worth more. However well he may have provisioned 
 and maneuvered it, it will always remain what it is, slight and 
 fragile ; in vain will he hoist his flags, decorate it, and shove 
 ahead to get the first place ; in three steps he has reached its 
 length. In vain will he repair it and handle it carefully ; in a 
 few years it leaks ; sooner or later it settles down and is about 
 to sink, and with it goes all the labor it has cost him. Is it 
 reasonable to work so hard for this, and is so slight an object 
 worth so great an effort ? 
 
 Fortunately, for the better direction of his effort, man has 
 other more vast and more substantial objects : a family, a com- 
 mune, a church, a patrimony, all the associations of which he 
 is or becomes a member, all collective undertakings in behalf 
 of science, education, and charity, of local or general utility, 
 most of them under legal statutes and organized as corpora- 
 tions or even as civil personalities, equally well defined and 
 protected as himself, but more precious and more viable : for 
 they are of service to a large number of men and last indefi- 
 nitely ; some, even, have a secular history, and the length of 
 their past is a presage of the length of their future. In the 
 innumerable fleet of boats which so constantly sink, and 
 which are so constantly replaced by others, they last like 
 the great three-deckers : each man of the flotilla goes on 
 board these large vessels, from time to time, to work them, 
 and the result of his labor is not, as it is at home, futile 
 or ephemeral ; it will remain above the surface after he and
 
 286 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 his bark have disappeared ; it has entered into the common 
 mass of work which owes its protection to its mass ; undoubt- 
 edly the portion he contributes may be worked over again 
 later on ; but its substance remains, and often also its form : 
 this or that precept of Jesus, this or that problem of Archime- 
 des rests a definite acquisition, intact and permanently fixed 
 for two thousand years, immortal from the first day. — Con- 
 sequently, the individual may take an interest, no longer 
 merely in his own bark, but again in some ship, in this or that 
 particular one, in this or that association or community, 
 according to his preferences and his aptitudes, according to 
 attractiveness, proximity, and convenience of access, all of 
 which is a new spring of action, antagonistic to the first one. 
 Powerful as the first one may be, the second sometimes pre- 
 vails, owing to a soul being very generous or qualified by long 
 and special discipline : out of this issues every sacrifice, the 
 surrender of one's-self to one's work or to a cause, the devo- 
 tion of the sister of charity or of the missionary, the abnega- 
 tion of the savant who buries himself for twenty years in the 
 minutiae of a thankless task, the heroism of the explorer who 
 risks himself on a desert or among savages, the courage of the 
 soldier who stakes his life in defense of his flag. But these 
 cases are rare ; with the mass of men, and in most of their 
 actions, personal interest prevails against common interest, 
 while against the egoistic instinct the social instinct is feeble. 
 Hence the danger of weakening this. The temptation of the 
 individual to prefer his own bark to the large vessel is only too 
 great ; if it is desirable tor him to go aboard and work there, 
 he must be provided with the facilities and motives which 
 prompt him to go aboard and do the work ; at the very least, 
 he must not be deprived of them. Now, that depends on the 
 State, a sort of central flag-ship, the only one that is armed, 
 and which has all subordinate vessels under its guns; for, 
 whatever the society may be, provincial or municipal, educa- 
 tional or charitable, religious or laic, it is the State which 
 sanctions or adopts its statutes, good or bad, and which, by its 
 laws, tribunals, and police, insures their execution, whether 
 rigidly or carelessly. Therefore, on this point, it is responsible;
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 287 
 
 it must adopt oi" impose the proper statute, the most suitable 
 social form for strengthening the social instinct, for maintain- 
 ing disinterested zeal, for the encouragement of voluntary and 
 gratuitous labor. 
 
 This form, of course, differs according to different socie- 
 ties ; tbe same constitution is not proper for a church system 
 and a commune, nor for a Protestant church and a Catholic 
 church, nor for a town of one hundred thousand inhabitants 
 and a village of five hundred. Each association has its own 
 peculiar and distinctive characteristics, which grade it accord- 
 ing to its kind, according to its spiritual or temporal aims, 
 according to its liberal or authoritative spirit, according to its 
 small or large dimensions, according to the simplicity or com- 
 plexity of its affairs, according to the capacity or incapacity 
 of its members. These, with it, are efficient and permanent 
 characteristics ; whatever the legislator may do, these will 
 remain and will control action. Thus let him, in each case, 
 keep this in mind. But in all cases his office is the same ; 
 always, on drawing up or countersigning a statute, he inter- 
 venes in the coming conflict between the social instinct and 
 the egoistic instinct ; every provision which he enacts will 
 contribute, nearly or remotely, to the final ascendency of the 
 former or of the latter. Now, he is the natural ally of the 
 former, for the former is his indispensable auxiliary. In every 
 work or enterprise of public utility, if the legislator is the 
 external promoter, social instinct is the internal promoter ; 
 and on the lower spring becoming weak or breaking, the im- 
 pulsion from above remains without effect. Hence it is that, 
 if the legislator would accomplish anything, otherwise than on 
 paper, he must, before any other object or interest, concern 
 himself with the social instinct ; preserve it, therefore, and 
 humor it ; find room for it and its usefulness; let it have full 
 play ; derive from it all the service it is capable of rendering, 
 and especially not slacken it or misguide it. — In this respect, 
 any blunder might prove disastrous ; and in every statute for 
 each society, for each of the human vessels which gather to- 
 gether and serve as a retinue of individual barks, there are 
 two capital errors. On the one hand, if the statute, in fact
 
 288 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 and practically, is or becomes too grossly unjust, if the rights 
 and benefits which it confers are not compensated by the 
 duties and obligations it imposes ; if it multiplies excessive 
 burdens for some and sinecures for others; if, at last, the 
 burdened individual discovers that he is overweighted beyond 
 his due, — thenceforward he refuses to add to his load volun- 
 tarily and with his own consent. Let others, the favored by 
 the statute, the privileged, bear the gratuitous, extra weight. 
 Far from stepping forward and offering his shoulders, he gets 
 out of the way, hides himself, and lightens his load as much 
 as he can ; he even rebels when he has a chance, and vio- 
 lently casts off every legal burden, be it tax or due of any 
 kind. Thus did the ancient regime perish. On the other 
 hand, if the statute withdraws the management of the ship 
 from those who are interested in it ; if, on this vessel, which 
 belongs to them, it permanently installs a foreign crew, which 
 assumes and exercises all command, then does the owner of a 
 bark, reduced to the humble condition of a mere subject and 
 quiescent taxpayer, no longer feel at home, but in the house 
 of another. Since the intruders exercise all authority, let 
 them have all the trouble ; the working of the ship concerns 
 them and not him ; he looks on as a spectator, without any 
 wish or idea of lending a hand ; he folds his arms, remains 
 idle, and becomes critical. — Against the first defect, the new 
 regime is on its guard. There must be neither the preferred 
 nor the disgraced, neither favors nor exemptions, neither ex- 
 clusions nor releases, no more malversation, peculation, or 
 robbery, not alone in the State, but elsewhere in any direc- 
 tion, — in the department, in the commune, in the Church, or 
 in educational and benevolent institutions. It excels in prac- 
 ticing distributive justice. The second defect consists in its 
 most secret vice : the legislator having introduced this into all 
 local and special statutes, its effects differ according to different 
 societies ; but all these effects converge to paralyzing in the 
 nation the best half of the soul, and, worse still, to leading the 
 will astray and perverting the public mind, transforming gen- 
 erous impulses into evil outbursts, and organizing lasting 
 inertia, ennui, discontent, discord, feebleness, and sterility.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 289 
 
 II. 
 
 Let us first consider local society in the province, the de- 
 partment, and the commune ; the legislator, for the past ten 
 years, has treated it with violence and disfigured it. On his 
 side, he refuses to open his eyes; preoccupied with theories, 
 he will not recognize it for what it is in reality, a society of a 
 distinct species, different from the State, with its own peculiar 
 aims, its limits marked out, its members prescribed, its statutes 
 drawn up, everything formed and defined beforehand. As it 
 is local, it is founded on the greater or less proximity of its 
 habitations. Thus, to comprehend it, we must take a case 
 in which this proximity is greatest, that of certain houses in 
 some of our southeastern towns, as, for example, Grenoble and 
 Annecy. Here, a house often belongs to several distinct 
 owners, each possessing his story, or apartment on a story, one 
 owning the cellar and another the attic, each enjoying all the 
 rights of property over his portion, the right of renting it, 
 selling it, bequeathing it, and mortgaging it, but all holding it 
 in common for the maintenance of the roof anil the main 
 walls. — Evidently, their association is not a free one ; willingly 
 or not, each forms a member of it, for, willingly or not, each 
 benefits or suffers through the good or bad state of the roof 
 and the principal walls : therefore, all must furnish their quota 
 of the indispensable expenses ; even a majority of votes 
 would not rid them of these ; one claimant alone would 
 suffice to hold them responsible ; they have no right to impose 
 on him the danger which they accept for themselves, nor to 
 shirk expenses by which they profit as well as himself. Con- 
 sequently, on the report of an expert, the magistrate interferes, 
 and, willingly or not, the repairs are made ; then, willingly or 
 not, both by custom and in law, each pays his quota, calcu- 
 lated according to the locative value of the portion belonging 
 to him. — But here his obligations cease. In fact as in law, 
 the community (of property) is restricted ; the associates take 
 good care not to extend this, not to pursue other aims at the 
 same time, not to add to their primitive and natural purpose a 
 different and supplementary purpose, not to devote one room
 
 290 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 to a Christian chapel for the inmates of the house, another 
 room to an infant school for the children that live in it, and 
 a side room to a small hospital for those who fall ill ; espe- 
 cially, they do not admit that a tax may be imposed for these 
 purposes and each of them be subject to a proportional increase 
 of assessment at so many additional centimes per franc. For, 
 if the proprietor of the ground-floor is an Israelite, the proprie- 
 tor of a room on the second story is a bachelor, the proprietor 
 of the fine suite of rooms on the first story is rich, and has a 
 doctor visit him at the house, these must pay for a service 
 for which they get no return. — For the same reason, their 
 copartnership remains private ; it does not form part of the 
 public domain ; they alone are interested in it ; if the State 
 lends to it its tribunals and officials, it is the same as it is with 
 ordinary private individuals. The State would derange its 
 action and violate it by excluding it or exempting it from 
 common right, by putting it on the administrative rolls, by 
 encroaching on its independence, by adding to its functions or 
 to its obligations : it is not under its tutelage, obliged to sub- 
 mit its accounts to the prefect ; it delegates no powers and 
 confers no right of justice, or police ; in short, it is neither its 
 pupil nor its agent. Such is the lien which permanent prox- 
 imity establishes between men ; we see that it is of a singular 
 species : neither in fact, nor in law, can the associates free 
 themselves from it ; solely because they are neighbors, they 
 form a community for certain indivisible or undividable things, 
 an involuntary and obligatory community. To make amends, 
 and even owing to this, I mean through institution and in 
 the natural order of things, their community is limited, and 
 limited in two ways, restricted to its object and restricted to 
 its members, reduced to matters of which proprietorship or 
 enjoyment is forcibly in common, and reserved to inhabitants 
 who, on account of situation and fixed residence, possess this 
 enjoyment or this property. 
 
 III. 
 
 All local societies are of this kind, each limited to a certain 
 territory and comprised with others like itself in a more exten-
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 291 
 
 sive circumscription, each possessing two budgets according 
 as it is a distinct body or member of a larger corporation, each, 
 from the commune to the department or province, instituted 
 on a basis of interests which are involuntarily consolidate. — 
 There are two of these important interests which, as in the 
 Annecy building, do not come within the pale of arbitrary 
 arrangement, which force common action and a distribution of 
 the entire expense, because, as in the Annecy building, they 
 are the inevitable results of physical proximity. — First, comes 
 care for the public highways, by land or by water, river navi- 
 gation, canals, towing-paths, bridges, streets, public squares, 
 by-roads, along with the more or less optional and gradual 
 improvements which public roads demand or prescribe, such as 
 their laying-out, sidewalks, paving, sweeping, lighting, drain- 
 age, sewers, rolling, ditches, leveling, embankments, and other 
 engineering works, which establish or increase safety and con- 
 venience in circulation, with facilities for and dispatch in 
 transportation. Next, comes protection against the spread of 
 calamities, such as fires, inundations, contagious diseases, epi- 
 demics, along with the more or less optional and remote pre- 
 cautions which this protection exacts or recommends, night- 
 watchers in Russia, dikes in Holland, levees in the valleys of 
 the Po and the Loire, cemeteries and regulations for inter- 
 ment, cleanliness of the streets, ventilation of holes and cor- 
 ners, drainage of marshes, hydrants, and supplies of drinkable 
 water, disinfection of sinks, and other hygienic measures which 
 remove or prevent insalubrity growing out of neighborhood or 
 contact. 
 
 All this has to be provided for, and the enterprise, if not 
 wholly and in its developments, at least in itself and in what is 
 necessary, imposes itself, collectively, on all the inhabitants of 
 the conscription, from the highest to the lowest. For, in the 
 absence of a public road, none of them can do his daily work, 
 travel about, or even leave his premises ; while transportation 
 ceases and trade is suspended ; hence, commerce and other pur- 
 suits languish, industry is arrested, agriculture becomes imprac- 
 ticable or fruitless ; the fields are no longer cultivated ; while
 
 292 THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 provisions, food, including bread,' everything is wanting ; the 
 dwellings becoming uninhabitable, more so than the Annecy 
 houses when the roofs fall in and let in the rain. — On the 
 other hand, for lack of protection against calamities, these 
 obtain full headway : the day arrives when an equinoctial tide 
 submerges the flat ground, when the river overflows and dev- 
 astates the country to a vast extent, when the conflagration 
 spreads, when small-pox and the cholera reach a contagious 
 point, and life is in danger, far more seriously imperiled than 
 in the Annecy domicile, when its main walls threaten to tumble 
 down.^ 
 
 Undoubtedly, I can personally accept this miserable condi- 
 tion of things, resign myself to it, and consent, as far as I am 
 concerned, to shut myself up within my own walls, to fast 
 there, and run the risk, more or less imminent, of being 
 drowned, burnt, or poisoned ; but I have no right to condemn 
 another to do this, nor to refuse my contribution to a protec- 
 tion by which I am to profit. As to my share of the expense, 
 it is fixed beforehand, and fixed through my share in the 
 benefit : Whoever receives^ oives, and in proportioji io ^vJiat he 
 receives ; such is an equitable exchange ; no society is pros- 
 perous and healthy without this ; it is essential that, for each 
 member of it, the duties should exactly compensate the advan- 
 tages, and that the two sides of the scale should balance. In 
 the local community, the care taken of public roads and the 
 
 1 Rocquain, " L'Etat de la France au 18 Brumaire (leport by Fourcroy, pp. 138, 166) : 
 "A lot of wheat worth 18 francs at Nantes costs an equal sum for its cartage to Brest. I 
 have seen carters plodding along, seven or eight in a line, each with six or eight strong 
 horses dragging their vehicles and alternately helping each other, their horses hauling their 
 
 carts out of ruts into which they had got stuck In many places, I saw with sorrow, 
 
 carts and wagons leaving the high-road and traversing, in spaces from 100 to 200 yards 
 wide, the plowed ground, when each made his own road .... The carters sometimes 
 make only three or four leagues from morning to night." — Hence, a dearth of provisions at 
 Brest. " We are assured that the people have long been on half-rations, or even quarter 
 rations."— And yet, " There is now in the river, at Nantes, from four to five hundred boats 
 loaded with grain ; they have been there for months, and their number increases daily. 
 Their cargoes are deteriorating and becoming damaged." 
 
 2 Ibid., preface and summary, p. 41 (on the dikes and works of protection against inun- 
 dations at Dol in Brittany, at Frejus, in Camargue, in Lower Rhine, in Nord. in Pas-de- 
 Calais, at Ostende and Blankenberg, at Rochefort, at La Rochelle, etc.). At Blankenberg, 
 a gale sufficed to carry away the dike and let in the sea. "The dre.id of some disaster 
 which would ruin a large portion of the departments of the Lys and of the Escaut kept 
 the inhabitants constantly in a state of frightful anxiety." 
 
 \
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 293 
 
 precautions taken against natural calamities are of utility in 
 two ways : one, which especially improves the condition of 
 persons, and the other, which especially improves the condi- 
 tion of things. The first is equal and the same for all. The 
 poor man, quite as much as the rich one, needs to go and 
 come and to look after his affairs ; he uses the street, pavement, 
 sidewalks, bridges, highways, and public fountains quite as 
 much ; he equally benefits by the sweeping and lighting of the 
 public gardens. It may be claimed that, in certain respects, 
 he derives more benefits from all this ; for he suffers sooner 
 and more keenly when bad roads stop transportation, arrest 
 labor, and increase the cost of food ; he is more subject to 
 contagion, to epidemics, to all physical ills ; in case of a fire, 
 the risks of a workman in his garret, at the top of steep, 
 narrow stairs, are greater than those of the opulent proprietor 
 on the first story, in a mansion provided with a broad range 
 of steps ; in case of inundation, the danger is more suddenly 
 mortal for the humble villager, in his fragile tenement, than 
 for the gentleman farmer in his massive constructions. Ac- 
 cordingly, under this heading, the poor man owes as much as 
 the rich one ; the rich man, at least, owes no more than the 
 poor one ; if, each year, the poor man cannot pay but one 
 franc, the rich one, each year, should not pay more than that 
 sum likewise. — The second advantage, on the contrary, is not 
 equal for all, but more or less great for each, according to 
 what he spends on the spot, according to his industrial or 
 commercial gains, and according to his local income. Indeed, 
 the more perfect the public highway is, the more are the 
 necessities and conveniences of life ; whatever is agreeable and 
 useful, even distant and remote, more within reach, and at 
 my disposition, in my very hands, I enjoy it to the utmost, 
 tlie measure of my enjoyment of it being the importance of 
 my purchases, everything I consume, in short, my home ex- 
 penditure.* If I am, besides, industrial or in commerce, the 
 
 I Hence the additional centimes to the tax on doors and windows, the number of which 
 indicates about the rate of rent. Hence also the additional centimes to the personal t.ox, 
 which is proportionate to the rent, this being considered as the most exact indication of 
 domestic expenditure.
 
 294 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 State of the public highway affects me more nearly ; for my 
 transportation, more or less costly, difficult and slow, depends 
 on that, and next, the receipt of my raw materials and goods, 
 the sale of my manufactures, the dispatch of my merchandise, 
 bought and sold, while the measure of this special interest, so 
 direct and so intense, is the annual sum-total of my business, 
 or, more strictly speaking, the probable sum of my profits.' 
 If, finally, I own real estate, a house or land, its locative 
 value increases or diminishes according to the salubrity and 
 convenience of its site, together with its facilities for culti- 
 vating, selling, and distributing its crops, for its various out- 
 lets, for its security against floods and fires, and, after this, to 
 improvements in public transit, and to the collective works 
 which protect both soil and buildings against natural calami, 
 ties.' Thus, under this heading, the inhabitant who receives 
 through these services, owes a second contribution, greater or 
 lesser according to the greater or lesser benefits which he 
 derives from them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Such is local society, with or without the legislator's permis- 
 sion in itself, and we find it to be a private syndicate, analogous 
 to many others.' Whether communal or departmental, it con- 
 cerns, combines, and serves none but the inhabitants of one 
 circumscription ; its success or failure does not interest the 
 
 1 Hence the communal " additional centimes " to the tax on business licenses. 
 
 2 Hence the " additional centimes " to the land tax. 
 
 3 Syndicates of this kind are instituted by the law of June 25, 1865, " between pro- 
 prietors interested in the execution and maintenance of public works: ist, Protection 
 against the sea, inundations, torrents, and navigable or non-navigable rivers; 2d, Works in 
 deepening, repairing, and regulating canals and non-navigable water-courses, and ditches 
 for draining and irrigation ; 3d, Works for the drainage of marshes ; 4th, Locks and other 
 provisions necessary in working salt marshes ; sth. Drainage of wet and unhealthy 
 ground."—" Proprietors interested in the execution of the above-mentioned works may 
 unite in an authorized syndical company, either on the demand of one or of several among 
 them, or on the iniiiative 0/ the prefect."— (Jumi^^,^ of authorized, we must Xfta^A/orced, 
 and we then find that the association may be imposed on all interested parties, on the 
 demand of one alone, or even without any one's demand.)— Like the Annecy building, these 
 syndicates enable one to reach the fundamental element of local society. Of. the law of 
 September 26, 1807 (on the drainage of marshes), and the law of April 21, 1810 (on mines 
 and the two owners of the mine, one of the surface and the other of the subsoil, both like- 
 wise partners, and no less forcibly so through physical solidarity.)
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 295 
 
 nation, unless indirectly, and through a remote reaction, simi- 
 lar to the slight effect which, for good or for ill, the health or 
 sickness of one Frenchman produces on the mass of French- 
 men. That which directly and fully affects a local society is 
 felt only by that society, the same as that which affects a pri- 
 vate individual is felt only by him ; it is a close corporation, 
 and belongs to itself within its physical limits, the same as he, 
 in his, belongs to himself ; like him, then, it is an individuality, 
 less simple, but no less real, a human combination, endowed 
 with reason and will, responsible for its acts, capable of wrong- 
 ing and being wronged ; in brief, a moxd\ personality. Such, in 
 fact, it is, and, through the explicit declaration of the legislator 
 who constitutes it a civil personality, capable of possessing, 
 acquiring, and contracting, and of prosecuting in the courts of 
 law : he likewise confers on the eighty-six departments and on 
 the thirty-six thousand communes all the legal capacities and 
 cbligationsof an ordinary individual. The State, consequently, 
 with respect to them and to all collective persons, is what it is 
 with respect to a private individual, neither more nor less ; its 
 title to intervene between them is not different. As justiciary, 
 it owes them justice the same as to private persons, nothing 
 more nor less ; only, to render this to them, it has more to do, 
 for they are composite and complex ; by virtue even of its 
 mandate, it is bound to enter their domiciles in the perfor- 
 mance of its duty, to maintain probity and to prevent disorder, 
 to protect there not alone the governed against the governors 
 and the governors against the governed, but again the com- 
 munity, which is lasting, against its directors, who are tem- 
 porary, to assign to each member his quota of dues or of 
 charges, and his quota of influence or of authority, to regulate 
 the way in which the society shall support and govern itself, 
 to decide upon and sanction the equitable statute, to oversee 
 and impose its execution, that is to say, in sum to maintain the 
 rigiit of each person and oblige each to pay what he owes. — 
 This is difficult and delicate. But, being done, the collective 
 personality is, as much as any individual, complete and defined, 
 independent and distinct from the State ; by the same title as 
 that of the individual, it has its own circle of initiation and of
 
 296 THE MODERN R&GIME. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 action, its separate domain, which is its private affair. The State^ 
 on its side, has its own affairs too, which are those of the pub- 
 lic ; and thus, in the nature of things, both circles are distinct * 
 
 neither of them should prey upon or encroach on the other. 
 
 Undoubtedly, local societies and the State may help each 
 other, lend each other their agents, and thus avoid employing 
 two for one ; may reduce their official staff, diminish their ex- 
 penses, and, through this interchange of secondary offices, do 
 their work better and more economically. For example, the 
 commune and the department may let the State collect and 
 deposit their "additional centimes," borrow from it for this 
 purpose its assessors and other accountants, and thus receive 
 their revenues with no drawback, almost gratis, on the ap- 
 pointed day. In like manner, the State has very good reason 
 for intrusting the departmental council with the apportionment 
 of its direct taxes among the arrondissevients, and the arron- 
 disseinent council with the same apportionment of direct taxa- 
 tion during the communes : in this way it saves trouble for 
 itself, and there is no other more effectual mode of enduring 
 an equitable assignment; in like manner, again, it does well 
 to have the mayor, rather than anybody else, execute petty- 
 public undertakings, which nobody else could do as readily 
 and as surely, with less trouble, expense, and mistakes, with 
 fewer legal documents, registers of civil status, advertisements 
 of laws and regulations, transmissions by the orders of public 
 authorities to interested parties, and of local information to 
 the public authorities which they need, the preparation and 
 revision of the electoral lists and of conscripts, and co-opera- 
 tion in measures of general security. Similar collaboration is 
 imposed on the captain of a merchant vessel, on the adminis- 
 trators of a railway, on the director of a hotel or even of a factory, 
 and this does not prevent the company which runs the ship,, 
 the railway, the hotel, or the factory, from enjoying full owner- 
 ship and the free disposition of its capital ; from holding meet- 
 ings, passing resolutions, electing directors, appointing its 
 managers, and regulating its own affairs, preserving intact that 
 precious faculty of possessing, of willing, and of acting, which 
 cannot be lost or alienated without ceasing to be a personality.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 297 
 
 To remain a personality, such is the main interest and right of 
 all persons, singly or collectively, and therefore of local com- 
 munities and of the State itself ; it must be careful not to 
 abdicate and be careful not to usurp. — It abdicates in favor of 
 local societies when, through optimism or weakness, it sur- 
 renders to them a portion of the public domain ; when it 
 throws on them the collection of its taxes, the appointment of 
 its judges and police-commissioners, the employment of its 
 armed forces, when it delegates local functions to them which 
 it should exercise itself, because it is the special and respon- 
 sible director, the only one who is in a suitable position, 
 competent, well provided, and qualified to carry them out. 
 On the other side, it usurps to the prejudice of local societies 
 when it appropriates to itself a portion of their private domain, 
 when itwconfiscates their possessions, when it disposes of their 
 capital or income arbitrarily, when it imposes on them ex- 
 cessive expenses for worship, charity, education, and any 
 other service which properly belongs to a different association ; 
 when it refuses to recognize in the mayor the representative 
 of the commune and the public functionary, when it subordi- 
 nates the first of these two titles to the second, when it claims 
 the right of giving or taking away, along with the second 
 which belongs to it, the first which does not belong to it, when 
 in practice and in its grasp the commune and department 
 cease to be private companies in order to become administra- 
 tive compartments. — According to the opportunity and the 
 temptation, it glides down one declivity or the other, now 
 toward the relinquishment which denotes the resignation of a 
 post, and now toward the meddlesome interference which de- 
 notes the interloper. 
 
 V. 
 
 From and after 1789, the State, passing through intermit- 
 tent fits and starts of brutal despotism, had resigned its com- 
 mission. Under its almost nominal sovereignty, there were in 
 France forty-four thousand small States enjoying nearly sov- 
 ereign power, and, most frequently, sovereignty in reality.* 
 
 I See " The Revolution," vol. \.,fustitn.
 
 298 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 Not only did the local community manage its private affairs^ 
 but again, in the circumscription, each exercised the highest 
 public functions, disposed of the national guard, of the police 
 force, and even of the army, appointed civil and criminal 
 judges, police commissioners," the assessors and collectors of 
 taxes, in brief, the central State handed over, or allowed the 
 seizure of the powers of which it ought never to deprive itself, 
 the last of its means by which alone it acts effectively and on 
 the spot, its sword, which it alone should wield, its scales of 
 justice, which it alone should hold, its purse, for it to fill, 
 and we have seen with what harm to individuals, to the com- 
 munes, and to itself, with what a lamentable series of disas- 
 trous results : universal, incurable, persistent anarchy, im- 
 potence of the government, violation of the laws, com.plete 
 stoppage of revenue, an empty treasury, despotism of the 
 strong, oppression of the weak, street riots, rural brig, 
 andage, extortions and waste at the town halls, munici- 
 pal usurpations and abdications, ruin of the highways, 
 and all useful public works and buildings, and the ruin 
 and distress of the communes.' In contrast with this, and 
 through disgust, the new regime takes the other side, and goes 
 even to the other extreme ; the central State, in 1800, no 
 longer a party that has resigned, as formerly, becomes the 
 interloper. Not only does it take back from local communi- 
 ties the portion of the public domain which had been impru- 
 dently conceded to them, but, again, it lays its hand on their 
 private domain ; it attaches them to it by way of appendices, 
 while its systematic, uniform usurpation, accomplished at one 
 blow, spread over the whole territory, again plunges them all, 
 communes and departments alike, into a chaos in which, under 
 the old monarchy, they would never have fallen. 
 
 2 Two kinds of police must be distinguished one from the other. The first is general and 
 belongs to the State : its business is to repress and prevent, outside and inside, all aggres- 
 sion against private and public property. The second is municipal, and belongs to the local 
 society : its business is to see to the proper use of the public roads, and other matters, 
 which, like water, air, and light, are enjoyed in common ; it undertakes, also, to forestall 
 the risks and dangers of imprudence, negligence, and filth, which any aggregation of 
 men never fails to engender. The provinces of these two police forces join and penetrate 
 each other at many points ; hence, each of the two is the auxiliary, and, if need be, the 
 substitute of the other. 
 
 I Rocquain, "I'Etat de la France au i8 Brumaire," /ajj:>«.
 
 CHAP. 1. DI:FECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYS JEM. 299 
 
 Before 1789, collective personalities, provincial and com- 
 munal, still existed. On the one hand, five or six great local 
 bodies, represented by elective assemblies, full of life and 
 spontaneously active, among others those of Languedoc and 
 Brittany, still provided for and governed themselves ; the other 
 provinces, which the central power had reduced to administra- 
 tive circumscriptions, retained, at least, their historic cohesion, 
 their time-honored name, the lament for, or at least the sou- 
 venir of, their former autonomy, and, here and there, a few 
 vestiges or fragments of their lost independence ; and, better 
 yet, these old, paralyzed, but not mutilated bodies, had just 
 assumed new life, and under their renewed organism were 
 striving to give the blood in their veins a fresh start ; twenty- 
 one provincial assemblies, instituted over the entire territory, 
 between 1778 and 1787, and provided with powers of consid- 
 erable importance, undertook, each in its own sphere, to direct 
 provincial interests. Communal interest, also, had its repre- 
 sentatives in the urban or rural communes. In the towns, a 
 deliberative assembly, composed of the leading notables and 
 of delegates elected by all the corporations and communities 
 in the place, formed an intermittent municipal council the 
 same as to-day, but much more ample, which voted and passed 
 resolutions on important occasions ; there was a board of man- 
 agement at the head of it, " the town corps," comprising the 
 various municipal officials, the mayor, his lieutenant, sheriffs, 
 prosecuting attorney, treasurer, and clerk,' now elected by the 
 deliberative assembly, now the legal purchasers, heirs, and 
 
 I Raynouard, " Histoire du droit municipal," ii., 356, and Dareste, " Histoire de I'ad- 
 ministration en France," i., 209, 222. (Creation of the posts of municipal mayor and 
 assessors by the king, in 1692, for a money consideration.) " These offices were obtained by 
 individuals, along with hereditary title, now attaclied to communities, that is to say, bought 
 in by these," which put in their possession ihe right of election. — The king frequently took 
 back these offices which he had sold, and sold them over again. In 1771, especially, he 
 takes them back, and, it seems, to keep them forever; but he always reserves the right of 
 alienating them for money. Forexample (Augustin Thierry, " Documens sur I'histoire 
 du tiers Ktat," iii., 319), an act of the royal council, dated October i, 1772, accepts 70000 
 francs from the town of Amiens for the repurchase t f the instalment of its magistracies, 
 defining these magistracies, as well as the mode of election according to which the future 
 incumbents shall be appointed. Provence frequently bought back its municipal liberties in 
 the same fashion, and, for a hundred years, expended for this purpose 12,500,000 livres. In 
 X772, the king once more established the venality of the municipal offices: but, on the
 
 300 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 proprietors of their office, the same as a notary or advocate of 
 to-day owns his office, protected against administrative ca- 
 prices by a royal acquittance, and, for a money consideration, 
 titulary in their towns, the same as a parliamentarian in his 
 parliament, and hence planted in, or grafted upon, the com- 
 mune like a parliamentarian among his peers, and, like him, 
 defenders of local interests against the central power. — In the 
 village, the heads of families met together on the public square, 
 deliberated in common over common affairs, elected the syn- 
 dic, likewise the collectors of the taille, and deputies to the 
 intendant ; of their own accord, and except with his approval, 
 they taxed themselves for the support of the school, for repairs 
 to the church or fountain, and for beginning or carrying on a 
 suit in court. All these remains of the ancient provincial and 
 communal initiative, respected or tolerated by monarchical 
 centralization, are crushed out and extinguished ; the First 
 Consul very soon falls upon these local societies and seizes 
 them in his claws ; in the eyes of the new legislator they 
 scarcely seem to exist ; there must not be any local personali- 
 ties for him ; the commune and department, in his eyes, are 
 merely territorial circumscriptions, physical portions of the 
 public domain, provincial workshops to which the central State 
 transfers and uses its tools, in order to work efficaciously and 
 on the spot. Here, as elsewhere, he takes the business 
 entirely in his own hands ; if he employs interested parties it 
 is only as auxiliaries, at odd times, for a few days, to operate 
 with more discernment and more economy, to listen to com- 
 plaints and promises, to become better informed and the better 
 to apportion changes ; but, except this occasional and subordi- 
 nate help, the members of the local society must remain pas- 
 sive in the local society ; they are to pay and obey, and nothing 
 more. Their community no longer belongs to them, but to the 
 government ; its chiefs are functionaries who depend on him, 
 and not on it; it no longer issues its mandate ; all its legal 
 mandatories, all its representatives and directors, municipal or 
 
 Parliament of Aix remonstrating, in 1774, he returned their old rights and franchises to 
 the communities — Cf. Guyot, "Repertoire de jurisprudence" (1784), articles, Echevins, 
 Capitouh, Conseiilers.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 301 
 
 general councilors, mayors, sub-prefects or prefects, are im- 
 posed on it from above, by a foreign hand, and, willingly or 
 not, instead of choosing them, it has to put up with them. 
 
 VI. 
 
 At the beginning, an effort was made to put in practice the 
 constitutional principle proposed by Sieyes : power in future, 
 according to the accepted formula, must come from above and 
 confidence from below. To this end, in the year ix, the 
 assembled citizens appointed one-tenth of their number, about 
 500,000 communal notables, and these, likewise assembled, 
 appointed also one-tenth of their number, about 50,000 depart- 
 mental notables; the government selected from this list the 
 municipal councilors of each commune, and, from this second 
 list, the general councilors of each department. The machine, 
 however, is clumsy, difficult to set going, still more difficult 
 to manage, and too unreliable in its operation. According to 
 the First Consul, " It is an absurd system, mere child's play, 
 ideology ; a great nation is not organized in this fashion." ' 
 At bottom,'' " he does not want notables accepted by the nation. 
 In his system, he is to declare who the notables of the nation 
 shall be and stamp them with the seal of the State ; it is not 
 for the nation to present them to the head of the State stamped 
 with the national seal." Consequently, at the end of a year, 
 he becomes, through the establishment of electoral colleges, 
 the veritable grand-elector of all the notables ; he has trans- 
 formed, with his usual address, a liberal institution into a 
 reigning instrumentality. Provisionally, he holds on to the 
 list of communal notables, "because it is the work of the 
 people, the result of a grand movement which must not prove 
 useless, and because, moreover, it contains a large number of 
 names . . . offering a wide margin from which to make good 
 
 1 Thibaudeaii, p. 72 (words of the First Consul at a meeting of the Council of State, 
 Pluviosc 14, year x). 
 
 a Roederer, iii., 439 (^Note of Pluviose 28, year viii), 26, 443. " The pretended organic 
 Unatus consulte of Aug. 4, 1802, put an end to notability by instituting electoral colleges. 
 .... The First Consul w.-is really recognized as the grand-elector of the notability."
 
 302 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 selections." ' He brings together these notables in each canton, 
 and invites them to designate their trusty men, the candidates 
 from which he will choose municipal councilors. But, as there 
 are very few cultivated men in the rural districts, " nearly 
 always it is the old seignior who would get himself desig- 
 nated ";'' It is essential that the hand of the government 
 should not be forced, that its faculty of choosing should not 
 be restricted ; thus, the presentation of municipal councilors 
 of that category must cease, there must no longer be any pre- 
 liminary candidates ; now, according to the senatus-consulte, 
 this category is a large one, for it comprises all communes of 
 less than five thousand souls, and therefore over thirty-five 
 thousand municipal councils out of thirty-six thousand, whose 
 members are appointed arbitrarily, without the citizens whom 
 they represent taking any part in their nomination. Four or 
 five hundred average or large communes still remain, in which, 
 for each municipal post, the cantonal assembly designates two 
 candidates between whjom the government chooses. Let us 
 see this assembly duly installed and at work. 
 
 Its president, as a precautionary step, is imposed upon it, 
 appointed in advance by the government, and well informed as 
 to what the government wants ; he alone controls the police 
 of the chamber and the order of all deliberations. On open- 
 ing the session, he draws a list from his pocket, which list, fur- 
 nished by the government, contains the names of one hundred 
 of the heaviest taxpayers of the canton, from whom the 
 assembly must select its candidates ; the list lies spread out on 
 the table, and the electors advance in turn, spell the names, 
 and try to read it over. The president would not be very 
 adroit and show but little zeal did he not help them in read- 
 ing it, and if he did not point out by some sign, a tone of the 
 voice, or even a direct word, what names were agreeable to 
 the government. Now, this government, which has five hun- 
 dred thousand bayonets at command, dislikes opposition : the 
 
 I Thibaudeau, 72, 289 (words of the First Consul at a meeting of the Council of State, 
 Thermidor 16, year x). 
 
 • 2 Ilnd., p. 293. Senatus-consulte of Thermidor 16, year x, and act of Fructidor 19, 
 year X.
 
 CHAi'. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 303 
 
 electors know it, and look twice before expressing any counter 
 opinion ; it is very probable that most of the names suggested 
 by the government are found on their ballots ; were only one- 
 half of them there, these would suffice ; of the two candidates 
 proposed for each place, if one is acceptable that one will be 
 elected ; after making him a candidate the government insures 
 his becoming titulary. The first act of the electoral comedy 
 is played, and it is not long before no trouble whatever is 
 taken to play it. After January, 1806, by virtue of a decree 
 which he has passed himself, Napoleon is the only one ' who 
 will directly fill every vacancy that occurs in the municipal 
 councils ; henceforth these councils are to owe their exis- 
 tence wholly to him. The two qualities which constitute them, 
 and which, according to Sieyes, are derived from two distinct 
 sources, are now derived from only one source. Only the 
 Emperor can confer upon them both public confidence and legal 
 power. 
 
 The second act of the comedy begins ; this act is more com- 
 plicated, and comprises several scenes which end, some of 
 them, in the appointment of the arrondissement councils, and 
 others in that of the council-general of the department. We 
 will take only the latter, the most important ;^ there are two, 
 one following the other, and in different places. The first 
 one* is played in the cantonal assembly above described ; the 
 president, who has just directed the choice of municipal can- 
 didates, draws from his portfolio another list, likewise fur- 
 nished to him by the prefect, and on which six hundred names 
 of those who pay the heaviest taxes in the department are 
 printed ; it is from among these six hundred that the cantonal 
 assembly must elect ten or twelve members who, with their fel- 
 lows, chosen in the same way by the other cantonal assemblies, 
 will form the electoral college of the department, and take 
 their seats at the chief town of the prefecture. This time 
 
 1 Decree of January 17, 1806, article 40. 
 
 2 Aucoc. '■ Conference sur P.aciministration et Ic droit administratif," §§ loi, 162, 165. In 
 our legislative system the council of the arr()«^//jMv;«f«/ has not become a civil personality, 
 while it h.is scarcely any other object than to apportion direct taxes among the com- 
 munes of the arrondissement. 
 
 3 Stfnat us-consu//e ot ThermidoT 16, year x.
 
 304 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 again, the president, who is the responsible leader of the can- 
 tonal flock, takes care to conduct it ; his finger on the list 
 indicates to the electors which names the government prefers ; 
 if need be, he adds a word to the sign he makes, and, probably, 
 the voters will be as docile as before ; and all the more because 
 the composition of the electoral college only half interests 
 them ; this college, unlike the municipal council, does not 
 touch or hold any of them on their sensitive side ; it is not 
 obliged to tighten or loosen their purse-strings ; it does not 
 vote the " additional centimes "; it does not meddle with their 
 business ; it is there only for show, for simulating to their eyes 
 the absent people, for presenting them with candidates, thus 
 playing the second electoral scene just the same as the first 
 one, but at the chief town of the prefecture by new actors. 
 They too, these figurants, are led by a head conductor, ap- 
 pointed by the government, and who is responsible for their 
 behavior, "a president who has in sole charge the police of 
 their assembled college," and must direct their voting. For 
 each vacancy in the council-general of the department, they 
 present two names ; certainly, almost without any help, or 
 the slightest suggestion, they will divine the suitable names. 
 For they are quicker of comprehension, more open minded, 
 than the backward and rustic members of a cantonal assembly ; 
 they are better informed and better " posted," they have vis- 
 ited the prefect and know his opinion, the opinion of the gov- 
 ernment, and they vote accordingly. It is certain that one- 
 half, at least, of the candidates whom they present on this list 
 are good, and that suffices, since the candidates who are nomi- 
 nated are double the number of the vacancies. And yet, 
 in Napoleon's eye, this is not sufficient. For the nomination 
 of general councilors,' as well as that of municipal councilors, 
 he suppresses preliminary candidature, the last remnant of pop- 
 ular representation or delegation. According to his theory, 
 he is himself the sole representative and delegate of the peo- 
 ple, invested with full powers, not alone in the State, but 
 again in the department and commune, the prime and the uni- 
 
 I Decree of May 13, 1806, title iii., article 32.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 305 
 
 versal motor of the entire machine, not merely at the center, 
 but again at the extremities, dispenser of ail public employ- 
 ments, not merely to suggest the candidate for these and make 
 him titulary, but again to create directly and at once, both 
 titulary and candidate. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Observe the selections which he imposes on himself before- 
 hand ; these selections are those to which he has tied down 
 the electoral bodies. Being the substitute of these bodies, he 
 takes, as they do, general councilors from those in the depart- 
 ment who pay the most taxes, and municipal councilors from 
 those most taxed in the canton. On the other hand, by virtue 
 of the municipal law, it is from the municipal councilors that 
 he chooses the mayor. Thus the local auxiliaries and agents 
 he employs are all notables of the place, the leading land- 
 owners and largest manufacturers and merchants. He syste- 
 matically enrolls the distributors of labor on his side, all who, 
 through their wealth and residence, through their enterprises 
 and expenditure on the spot, exercise local influence and 
 authority. In order not to omit any of these, and be able to 
 introduce into the general council this or that rich veteran of 
 the old regime, or this or that parvenu of the new regime who 
 is not rich, he has reserved to himself the right of adding 
 twenty eligible members to the list, "ten of which must be 
 taken from among citizens belonging to the Legion of Honor, 
 or having rendered important services, and ten taken from 
 among the thirty in the department who pay the most taxes." 
 In this way none of the notables escape him ; he recruits 
 them in his own fashion and according to his necessities, 
 now among men of the Revolution whom he does not want 
 to see discredited or isolated,' now among men of the old 
 
 I Thibaudeau, ibid., 294 (Speech of the First Consul to the Council of State, Thermi- 
 dor 16, year x). " What has become of the men of the Revolution? Once out of place, 
 they have been entirely neglected : they have nothing left ; they have no support, no 
 natural refuge. Look at Barras, Rcwbcll, etc." The electoral colleges are to furnish 
 them with the asylum they lack. " Now is the time to elect the largest number of men of 
 
 the Revolution ; the longer we wait, the fewer there will be With the exception of 
 
 some of them, who have appeared on a grand stage, .... who have signed some treaty of 
 peace, .... the rest arc all isolated and in obscurity. That is an important gap which 
 must be filled up It is for this reason that I have instituted the Legion of Honor."
 
 306 THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 monarchy whom he wants to rally to himself by favor or by 
 force. Such is the Baron de Vitrolles/ who, without asking 
 for the place, becomes mayor of Versailles and councilor- 
 general in Basses-Alps, and then, a little later, at his peril, 
 inspector of the imperial sheepfolds. Such is the Count de 
 Villele, who, on returning to his estate of Morville, after an 
 absence of fourteen years, suddenly, "before having deter- 
 mined where he would live, either in town or in the country," 
 finds himself mayor of Morville. 'J'o make room for him, his 
 predecessor is removed and the latter, " who, since the com- 
 mencement of the Revolution, has performed the functions of 
 mayor," is let down to the post of assistant. Shortly after 
 this the government appoints M. de Villele president of the 
 cantonal assembly. Naturally the assembly, advised under- 
 handedly, presents him as a candidate for the general council 
 of Haute-Garonne, and the government places him in that 
 office. — " All the notable land-owners of the department 
 formed part of this council, and the Restoration still found us 
 there seven years afterwards. General orders evidently ex- 
 isted, enjoining the prefects to give preference in their choice 
 to the most important land-owners m the country." Like- 
 wise, " Napoleon everywhere takes the mayors from the rich 
 and well-to-do class"; in the large towns he appoints only 
 "people with carriages."' Many of them in the country and 
 several in the towns are legitimists, at least at heart, and 
 Napoleon knows it ; but, as he says, " these folks do not want 
 an earthquake"; they are too much interested, and too per- 
 sonally, in the maintenance of order.' Moreover, to insure 
 
 1 Baron de Vitrolles, " Memoires," preface, xxi. Comte de Villele, " Memoires et 
 Correspondance," i., 189 (Aiigu&l, 1807). 
 
 2 Faber, " Notice sur I'interieur de la France" C1807), p. 25. 
 
 3 The following document shows the sense and aim of the change, which goes on after 
 the year vm, also the contrast between both administrative staffs. (Archives Nationales, 
 F 7, 32ig; letter of M. Alquier to the First Consul, Pluviose 18, year viii.) M. Alquier, 
 on his way to Madrid, stops at Toulouse and sends a report to the authorities of Haute- 
 Garonne : " I was desirous of seeing the central administration. I found there the ideas 
 and language of 1793. Two personages, Citizens Barreau and Desbarreaux, play an active 
 part then. Up to 1792, the first was a shoemaker, and owed his political fortune simply to 
 his audacity and revolutionary frenzy. The second, Desbarreaux, was a comedian of 
 Toulouse, his principal role being that of valets. In the month of Prairial. year iii, he 
 was compelled to go down on his knees on the stage and ask pardon for having madeincen-
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 307 
 
 his government appearing to advantage, he needs people that 
 are decorative ; now it is only these who can be so gratis, 
 make a figure without salaries, at their own expense, in them- 
 selves and on the spot. Besides, they are the most intelligent, 
 the best able to supervise accounts, to examine article by arti- 
 cle the budgets of the department and commune, to compre- 
 hend the necessity of a road and the utility of a canal, to offer 
 pertinent observations, to proclaim wise decisions, to obey 
 orders as discreet and useful collaborators. All this they will 
 not refuse to do if they are sensible people. In every regime 
 it is better to be with the governors than with the governed, 
 and in this case, when the broom is wielded from above and 
 applied so vigorously and with such minutiae to everybody 
 and everything, it is well to be as near the handle as possible. 
 And what is still better, they will volunteer, especially at the 
 beginning, if they have any feeling; for, at least during the 
 first years, one great object of the new government is the re- 
 establishment of order ; in the local as well as in the general 
 administration, it is well-disposed and desires to mend matters ; 
 it undertakes the suppression of robbery, peculation, waste, 
 calculated or involuntary usurpations, fanciful ideas and proj- 
 ects, negligence, and bankruptcy. "Since 1790,"^ says the 
 First Consul to the minister of the interior, " the 36,000 com- 
 munes represent, in France, 36,000 orphans .... girls aban- 
 doned or plundered for ten years by their municipal guardians, 
 appointed by the Convention and the Directory. In chang- 
 ing the mayors, assistants, and councilors of the commune, 
 
 diary speeches at some previous period in the decadal temple. The public, not deeming 
 his apology sufficient, drove him out of the theater. He now combines with his function 
 of departmental administrator the post of cashier for the actors, which thus brings him in 
 
 1200 francs The municipal councilors are not charged with lack of probity . but they 
 
 arc derived from too low a class and liave too little regard for themselves to obtain consid- 
 eration from the public The commune of Toulouse is very impatient at being 
 
 governed by weak, ignorant men, formerly mixed in with the crowd, and whom, probably, 
 
 it is urgent to send back to it It is remarkable that, in a city of such importance, 
 
 which provides so large a numljer of worthy citizens of our sort of capacity and education, 
 only men are selected for public duties who, with respect to instruction, attainments, and 
 breeding, oJTcr tio guarantee whatever to the governiiietit and no inducement to win 
 public consideration." 
 
 I " Correspondance de Napoleon," No. 4474, note dictated to Lucien, minister of the 
 interior, year viii.
 
 3o8 THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK iv. 
 
 scarcely more has been done than to change the mode of steal- 
 ing ; they have stolen the communal highway, the by-roads 
 the trees, and have robbed the Church ; ^ they have stolen 
 the furniture belonging to the commune and are still stealing 
 under the flabby municipal system of the year viii." All these 
 abuses are followed up and punished ; ^ the robbers are obliged 
 to restore and will steal no more. The budget of the com- 
 mune must be annually prepared,^ like that of the State, with 
 the same method, precision, and clearness, receipts on one 
 side and expenses on the other, each section divided into 
 chapters and each chapter into articles, the state of the debits 
 and date of each debt, the state of the assets and a tabular 
 enumeration of distinct resources, available capital and unpaid 
 claims, fixed income and variable income, certain revenue and 
 possible revenue ; in no case must " the calculation of pre- 
 sumable expenditure exceed the amount of presumable in- 
 come." In no case must " the commune demand or obtain an 
 extra tax for its ordinary expenses." Exact accounts and 
 rigid economy, such are everywhere indispensable, as well as 
 preliminary reforms, when a badly kept house has to be trans- 
 formed into one which is kept in good order ; the First Con- 
 sul has at heart these two reforms and he adheres to them. 
 Above all there must be no more indebtedness ; now, more 
 than one-half of the communes are in debt. " Under penalty 
 of dismissal, the prefect is to visit the communes at least twice 
 a year, and the sub-prefect four times a year." A reward must 
 be given to mayors who free their commune of debt in two 
 years, and the government will appoint a special commis- 
 sioner to take charge of the administration of a commune 
 which, after a delay of five years, shall not be liberated. 
 
 1 Cf. " Proces-verbaux des conseils generaux " of the year viii, and especially of the- 
 year ix. " Many of the cross-roads have entirely disappeared at the hands of the neigh- 
 boring owners of the land. The paved roads are so much booty." (For example, Vosges, 
 p. 429, year ix.) " The roads of the department are in such a bad state that the land- 
 owners alongside carry off the stones to build their houses and inclose what they fall heir 
 to. They encroach on the roads daily ; the ditches are cultivated by them the same a& 
 their own property." 
 
 2 Laws of February 39, March 9, 1804, and of February 28, March 10, 1805. 
 
 3 Laws of July 23, 1802, and of February 27. iSii. 
 
 4 ' Correspondance de Napoleon/' No. 4474 (note dictated to Lucien).
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 309 
 
 The fifty mayors who, each year, shall have most contributed 
 to bringing their commune into a liberated condition, or into 
 one of the available resources, shall be summoned to Paris at 
 the expense of the State, and presented in solemn session to 
 the three consuls. A column, raised at the expense of the gov- 
 ernment and placed at the principal entrance of the town or 
 village, will transmit to posterity the mayor's name, and, 
 besides, this inscription : ' To the guardian of the commune, 
 a grateful country.' " 
 
 Instead of these semi-poetic honors adapted to the imagina- 
 tions of the year viii, take the positive honors adapted to the 
 imaginations of the year xii, and the following years, brevets 
 and grades, decorations of the Legion d'Honneur, the titles of 
 chevalier, baron, and count,' presents and endowments, — the 
 rewards offered to the representatives of local society, the same 
 as to the other functionaries, but on the same condition that 
 they will likewise be functionaries, that is to say, tools in the 
 hands of the government. In this respect, every precaution is 
 taken, especially against those who, forming a collective body, 
 may be tempted to consider themselves a deliberative assembly, 
 such as municipal and general councils, less easily handled 
 than single individuals and, at times, capable of not beingquite 
 so docile ; none of these can hold sessions of more than fifteen 
 days in the year ; each must accept its budget of receipts and 
 expenses, almost complete and ready made, from the prefec- 
 ture ; in the way of receipts, its powers consist wholly in voting 
 certain additional and optional centimes, more or less numer- 
 ous, at will, "within the limits established by law";' again, 
 even within these limits, its decision can be carried out only 
 after an examination and approval at the prefecture. There is 
 the same regulation in regard to expenses ; the council, indeed, 
 municipal or general, is simply consultative ; the government 
 
 I Decree of March i, 1808 : " Are counts by right, a.\\ ministers, senators, councilors o£ 
 state for life, presidents of the Corps Legislatif, and archbishops. Are barons by riRht, all 
 bishops. May become barons, after ten years of service, all first presidents and attorney- 
 generals, the mayors of the thirty-six principal towns. (In 1811, instead of 36, there are 
 52 principal towns.) May also become barons, the presidents and members of the depart* 
 ment electoral colleges who have attended three sessions of these colleges." 
 
 3 Decree of Thermidor 4, year x.
 
 3IO THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 delegates the mayor, sub-prefect, or prefect, who prescribes 
 what must be done ; as the preliminary steps are taken by him, 
 and he has constant direction of the local council for two 
 weeks, and finally the right of confirmation, he controls it, and 
 then, for eleven months and a half, having sole charge of the 
 daily and consecutive execution of its acts, he reigns in the 
 local community. Undoubtedly, having received and expended 
 money for the community, he is accountable and will present 
 his yearly accounts at the following session ; the law says' 
 that in the commune, " the municipal council shall listen to 
 and may discuss the account of municipal receipts and 
 expenses." But read the text through to the end, and note the 
 part which the law, in this case, assigns to the municipal coun- 
 cil. It is the part of the chorus in the antique tragedy : it 
 belongs to the piece and listens, approves, or blames, in the 
 background and as subaltern ; whether indorsed or blamed 
 by it, the principal personages in the piece remain principals, 
 and act as they please ; they grant or dispute over its head, 
 independently, just as it suits them. In effect, it is not to the 
 ■ municipal council that the mayor renders his accounts, but 
 "to the sub-prefect, who finally passes them," and gives him 
 his discharge ; whatever the council may say, the acquittance 
 is valid ; for greater security, the prefect, if any councilor 
 proves refractory, " may suspend from his functions " a stub- 
 born fellow like him, and restore in the council the unanimity 
 which has been partially disturbed. 
 
 In the department, the council-general must likewise "lis- 
 ten " to the accounts for the year ; the law, owing to a signifi- 
 cant omission, does not say that it may discuss them. Never- 
 theless, a circular of the year ix requests it "to make every 
 observation on the use of the additional centimes " which the 
 importance of the subject demands, to verify whether each 
 sum debited to expenses has been used for the purpose assigned 
 to it, and even " to reject expenses, stating the reasons for 
 this decision, which have not been sufficiently justified." And 
 better still, the minister, who is liberal, addresses a systematic 
 
 I Law of Pluviose 28, year viii.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 311 
 
 series of questions to the general councils, on all important 
 matters,' " agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, asylums 
 and public charities, public roads and other works, public 
 instruction, administration properly so called, state of the juim- 
 ber of population, public spirit and opinions," collecting and 
 printing their observations and desires. After the year ix, 
 however, this publication stops ; it renders the general councils 
 too important; it might rally the entire population of the 
 department to them and even of all France that could read ; 
 it might hamper the prefect and diminish his ascendency. 
 Henceforth, it is the prefect alone who replies to these ques- 
 tions, and of which the government gives an analysis or tables 
 of statistics ;^ then, the publication of these ceases ; decidedly, 
 printing always has its drawbacks — manuscript reports are 
 much better ; local affairs are no longer transacted outside the 
 bureaux, and are managed with closed doors ; any report that 
 might spread outside the prefect's cabinet or that of the minis- 
 ter, is carefully toned down or purposely stifled, and, under 
 the prefect's thumb, the general council becomes an automa- 
 ton. 
 
 Treating directly with the direct representatives of the 
 Emperor, it regards itself as with the Emperor himself. 
 Weigh these few words — m presence of the Emperor ; they are 
 of incalculable weight in the scales of contemporaries. For 
 them, he has every attribute of Divinity, not only omnipotence 
 and omnipresence, but again omniscience, and, if he speaks to 
 them, what they feel far surpasses what they imagine. When 
 he visits a town and confers with the authorities of the place 
 on the interests of the commune or department, his interlocu- 
 tors are bewildered ; they find him as well informed as them- 
 selves, and more clear-sighted ; it is he who explains their 
 affairs to them. On arriving the evening before, he calls for 
 the summaries of facts and figures, every positive and techni- 
 cal detail of information, reduced and classified according to 
 
 1 " Procis-verbaux des conseils generaux " of the years viii and x. (The second series, 
 drawn up after those propounded by the minister Chaptal, is much more complete and fur- 
 nishes an historical document of the highest importance.) 
 
 2 " Statistiques des prOfcts (.from the years ix to xill, about 40 volumes).
 
 312 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 the method taught by himself and prescribed to his adminis- 
 trators ; ' during the night he has read all this over and mas- 
 tered it ; in the morning, at dawn, he has taken his ride on 
 horseback ; with extraordinary promptness and accuracy, his 
 topographical glance has discerned " the best direction for 
 the projected canal, the best site for the construction of a 
 factory, a harbor, or a dike."* To the difficulties which con- 
 fuse the best brains in the country, to controverted questions 
 which seem insoluble, he at once presents the sole practical 
 solution ; there it is, ready at hand, and the members of the 
 local council had not seen it ; he makes them touch it with 
 their fingers. They stand confounded and agape before the 
 universal competence of this wonderful genius. " He's more 
 than a man," exclaimed the administrators of Dusseldorf to 
 Beugnot.' " Yes," replied Beugnot, " he's a devil ! " In 
 effect, he adds to mental ascendency the ascendency of 
 force ; we always see beyond the great man in him the 
 terror-striking dominator ; admiration begins or ends in 
 fear ; the soul is completely subjugated ; enthusiasm and 
 servility, under his eye, melt together into one sentiment 
 of impassioned obedience and unreserved submission." Vol- 
 untarily and involuntarily, through conviction, trembling, 
 and fascinated, men abdicate their freedom of will to his 
 advantage. The magical impression remains in their minds 
 after he has departed. Even absent, even with those who 
 have never seen him, he maintains his prestige and commu- 
 nicates it to all who command in his name. Before the pre- 
 fect, the baron, the count, the councilor of state, the senator 
 in embroidered uniform, gilded and garnished with decora- 
 tions, every municipal or general council loses the faculty of 
 willing and becomes incapable of saying no, only too glad if 
 
 1 Beugnot, " Memoires," i., 363. 
 
 2 Faber, ibid., 127.— Cf. Charlotte de Sohr, "Napoleon en 1811" (details and anecdotes 
 on Napoleon's journey through Belgium and Holland). 
 
 3 Beugnot, i., 380, 384. " He struck the good Germans dumb with admiration, unable to 
 comprehend how it was that their interests had become so familiar to him and with what 
 superiority he treated them." 
 
 4 Beugnot, ibid., i., 395. Everywhere, on the Emperor's passage (1811), the impression 
 experienced was " a kind of shock as at the sight of a wonderful apparition," 
 
 1
 
 <CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 313 
 
 not obliged to say yes " against the grain," to enter upon 
 -odious and disagreeable undertakings, to simulate at one's 
 ■own expense, and that of others, excessive zeal and spon- 
 taneous abnegation, to vote for and hurrah at patriotic sub- 
 iscriptions of which it must contribute the greatest portion and 
 for supplementary conscriptions ' which seize their sons that 
 are exempt or bought out of service.^ It allows itself to be 
 managed ; it is simply one of the many wheels of our immense 
 machine, one which receives its impulsion elsewhere, and 
 from above, through the interposition of the prefect. — But, 
 ■except in rare cases, when the interference of the government 
 applies it to violent and oppressive schemes, it is serviceable ; 
 fixed in position, and confining itself to turning regularly and 
 noiselessly in its little circle, it may, in general, still render the 
 double service demanded of it in the year ix, by a patriotic 
 minister ; according as Chaptal then defined the general 
 ■councils, fixing their powers and competency, they exist for 
 two purposes and only two :' they must first ''insure to the 
 
 1 Thiers, " Histoire du Consulat et rEmpire." xvi., 246 (January, 1813). " A word to 
 the prefect, who transmitted tliis to one of the municipal councilors of his town, was 
 enough to insure an offer from some large town and have this imitated throughout the 
 
 ■empire. Napoleon had an idea that he could get towns and cantons to offer him troops of 
 horse, armed and equipped." — In fact, this offer was voted with shouts by the Paris 
 municipal council and, through contagion, in the provinces. As to voting this freely it 
 sufTices to remark how the annexed towns voted, which, six months later, are to rebel. 
 Their offers are not the least. For instance, Amsterdam offers 100 horsemen, Hamburg 
 100, Rotterdam 50, the Hague 40, Leyden 24, Utrecht 20, Dusseldorf 12.— The horsemen 
 furnished are men enlisted for money ; 16,000 are obtained, and the sum voted suffices to 
 purchase additionally 22.000 horses and 22,000 equipments. — To obtain this money, the pre- 
 fect himself apportions the requisite sum among those in his department who pay the most 
 taxes, at the rate of from 600 to 1000 francs per head. On these arbitrary requisitions and 
 a great many others, either in money or in produce, and on the sentiments of the farmers 
 and landed proprietors in the South, especially after 1813, cf. the " Memoires de M. Vil- 
 lele,'' vol. \., /lassim. 
 
 2 Comte Joseph d'F.stourmel, "Souvenirs de France et d'ltalie," 240. The general 
 council of Rouen was the first to suggest the vote for guards of honor. Assembled spon- 
 taneously (meetings are always spontaneous), its members pass an enthusiastic address. 
 " The example was found to be excellent ; the address was published in the Moiiiteur, and 
 sent to all the prefects The councils were obliged to meet, which generously dis- 
 posed of other people's children, and very worthy persons, myself first of all. thought that 
 they might join in this shameful purpose, to such an extent had imperial fanaticism fas- 
 cinated them and perverted consciences ! " 
 
 3 Archives nationales (state of accounts of the prefects and reports of the gener.^il police 
 •commissioners, F 7. 5014 and following records.— Reports of senators on their senatotertes, 
 
 AK, iv., 1051, and following records;.— These papers disclose at different dates the state of
 
 314 THE MODERN REGIME. - book iv. 
 
 governed impartiality in the assespment of taxes along with, 
 the verification of the use of the latest levies in the payment 
 of local expenses," and next, they must, with discretion and 
 modesty, " obtain for the government the information which 
 alone enables it to provide for the necessities of each depart- 
 ment and ameliorate the entire working of the public admin- 
 istration." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Such is the spirit of the institution and such is its form. 
 After 1814 and 1815, after the fall of the Empire and the 
 Restoration, the institution subsists and remains as it was- 
 before in form and in spirit : it is always the government 
 which appoints and directs all the representatives of local 
 society, in the department, in the commune, and in the inter- 
 mediate circumscriptions, the prefect, sub-prefects, mayors and 
 assistants, the councilors of the department, of the arrondisse- 
 ment, and of the commune. Whatever the ruling power may 
 be it is repugnant to any change ; never does it voluntarily^ 
 restrict itself in its faculty of bestowing or withholding offices^ 
 authority, consideration, influence, or salaries, every desirable 
 and every desired good thing ; as far as it can, it retains these 
 in its own hands to distribute them as it pleases, and in its own 
 interest to bestow them on its partisans and to deprive its ad- 
 versaries of them, to attract clients and create minions. The 
 four thousand offices of prefect, sub-prefect, and councilors 
 of the prefecture, department, and arrondissement, the four 
 hundred thousand offices of mayor, assistants, and municipal 
 councilors, and added to these, the innumerable salaried em- 
 ployments of auxiliary or secondary agents, from the secretary- 
 general of the prefecture down to the secretary of the mayor^ 
 from the scribes and clerks of the prefecture and sub-prefec- 
 ture down to the staff of the municipal police and of \\\& octroi 
 in the towns, from the city or department architect down to 
 the lowest road-surveyor, from the watchmen and superintend 
 
 minds and of things in the provinces. Of all these reports, that of Roederer on the sena-. 
 torerie of Caen is the most instructive, and gives the most details on the three departments- 
 composing it. (Printed in his " CEuvres completes," vol. iii.)
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 315 
 
 dents of a canal or harbor down to the field-guards aiid stone- 
 breakers or the highway, directly or indirectly, the constitu- 
 tional government disposes of them in the same fashion as the 
 imperial government, with the same interference in the most 
 trifling details and in the most trifling affair. Commune or de- 
 partment, such local society remains under the second regime 
 what it was under the first one, an extension of the central 
 society, an appendix of the State, an adjunct of the great 
 establishment of which the seat is at Paris. In these adjuncts, 
 controlled from above, nothing is changed, neither the extent 
 and limits of the circumscription, nor the source and hierarchy 
 of powers, nor the theoretic framework, nor the practical 
 mechanism, not even the names.' After the prefects of the 
 Empire come the prefects of the Restoration, the same in 
 title and uniform, installed in the same hotel, to do the same 
 work, with equal zeal, that is to say, with dangerous zeal, 
 to such an extent that, on taking leave of their final audi- 
 ence, on setting out for their department, M. de Talleyrand, 
 who knows men and institutions profoundly, gives them, 
 as his last injunction, the following admirable order : "And, 
 especially, no zeal ! "—According to the recommendation 
 of Fouche, "the Bourbons slept in the bed of Napoleon," 
 the bed of Louis XIV., but larger and more comfortable, 
 widened by the Revolution and the Empire, adapted to the 
 figure of its latest occupant, and enlarged by him so as to 
 spread over the whole of France. When, after twenty-five 
 years of exile, one returns home, it is pleasant to find such a 
 bed in the house ready made, taking down and remaking the 
 old one would give double trouble ; moreover, in the old one, 
 one was less at his ease ; let us profit by all that rebels and 
 the usurper have done that was good. In this particular, 
 
 I The reader will find in the Archives tiationa/es, the fullest and most precise informa- 
 tion concerning local administration and the sentiments of the different classes of society, 
 in the correspondence of the prefects of the first Restoration, of the hundred days, and of 
 the second Restoration from 1814 to 1823 (Cf. especially those of Haute-( laronne, the 
 Rhine, Cote d'Or, Ain, Loiret, Indre-et-Loire, Indre. Loire-Infiirieurc and Aisnc.) The 
 letters of several prefects, M. de Chabroe, M. de Tocqueville, M. de Rcmusat, M. de 
 Barante, are often worth publishing ; occasionally, the minister of the interior has noted 
 with a pencil in the margin, " To be shown to the King."
 
 3^6 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 not alone the king, but again the most antiquated of the 
 Bourbons are revolutionists and Bonapartists ; despotic 
 traditionally, and monopolists through their situation, they 
 accept with no regrets the systematic demolition effected by 
 the Constituent Assembly, and the systematic centralization 
 instituted by the First Consul. The Due d'Angouleme, when, 
 in 1815, he was paraded about the country, among the bridges, 
 canals, and splendid roads of Languedoc, on being reminded 
 that these fine works were formerly executed by the " Etats " 
 of the province, dryly replied : " We prefer the departments 
 to the provinces."' 
 
 With the exception of a few antiquarian and half-rustic 
 royalists, nobody objects ; there is no thought of reconstruct- 
 ing the machine on another plan ; in sum, nobody is dissatis- 
 fied with the way it works. It works well, most effectively ; 
 under the Restoration as under the Empire, it renders to those 
 who are interested the service demanded of it ; it goes on 
 providing better and better for the two grand objects of local 
 society, care for the public highways and protection against 
 natural calamities. In 1814, its net results are already admir- 
 able and do it credit — reparation of the ruins accumulated by 
 the Revolution,^ the continuation and completion of former 
 projects, new and striking enterprises, dikes against the sea 
 and the rivers, basins, moles, and jetties in the harbors, quays, 
 and bridges, locks and canals, public edifices, 27,200 kilometres 
 of national roads and 18,600 kilometres of departmental roads,' 
 without counting the district roads just laid out ; all this done 
 regularly, exactly, and economically,^ by competent function- 
 aries, employed and superintended, who at first through fear 
 are compelled to be prudent, and then through habit and 
 honor have become honest accountants ; there is no waste, no 
 
 1 M. de Villele, ibid., i., 248. 
 
 2 Rocquain, " I'Etat de la France au 18 Brumaire," reports of the councilors of state sent 
 on missions, p. 40. 
 
 3 De Feville, " La France economique," 248 and 249. 
 
 4 Charles Nicolas, " Les Budgets de la France depuis le commencement du xix^ siecle." 
 In 1816, the four direct contributions returned, in principal, 249 millions, and. in additional 
 centimes, 89 millions only. For a long time the additional centimes applied to the local 
 service and voted by the department or by the commune are not many and do not exceed 
 5 per cent, of the principal.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 317 
 
 underhand stealings, no arbitrary charges ; no sum is turned 
 aside between receipts and expenses to disappear and be lost 
 on the road, or flow out of its channel in another direction. 
 The sensitive taxpayer, large or small, no longer smarts under 
 the painful goad which formerly pricked him and made him 
 jump ; local taxation, annexed to the general tax, is found to 
 be reformed, lightened, and duly proportioned ; like the prin- 
 cipal, the "additional centimes" are an equitable charge, 
 graduated according to the sum of net revenue ; like the prin- 
 cipal, they are assessed according to the assumed sum of this 
 net revenue by the councils of the arrondissanoits among the 
 communes, and by the communal assessors among the inhabi- 
 tants ; they are collected by the same collector, with the same 
 formalities, and every taxpayer who thinks himself taxed too 
 heavily finds a court of appeal in the council of the prefecture, 
 before which he can make his claim and obtain the release or 
 reduction of his quota. Thus no crying iniquity exists, nor 
 keen suffering ; on the other hand, there are the infinite con- 
 veniences and daily enjoyment of possessions, the privation of 
 which, to the modern man, is equal to the lack of fresh, pure 
 air, physical security and protection against contagion, facili- 
 ties for circulation and transport, pavements, light, the salu- 
 brity of healthy streets purged of their filth, and the presence 
 and vigilance of the municipal and rural police ; all these 
 benefits, the objects of local society, are due to the machine 
 which works with little cost, without breaking down or stop- 
 ping for any long time, as lately under the Republic, and with- 
 out any extortion and clashing, as in the times of the ancient 
 regime. It works by itself, almost without the help of the 
 parties interested, and which, in their eyes, is not its least 
 merit ; with it, there is no bother, no responsibility, no elec- 
 tions to attend to, no discussions to maintain, no resolutions 
 to pass ; there is only one bill to be settled, not even a specified 
 bill, but a surplus of centimes added to each franc, and in- 
 cluded with the principal in the annual quota. Such is the 
 lazy proprietor whose formalistic, exact, and somewhat slow 
 intendants, but punctual and capable, relieve of the care of 
 his property; he may dismiss the head steward of his domain
 
 3i8 THE MODERN REGIME. book IV. 
 
 in a fit of ill-humor, but, if he changes his stewards, he does not 
 change the system ; he is too accustomed to it, and his indolence 
 demands it ; he is not tempted to take care and trouble on 
 himself, nor is he qualified to become his own intendant. 
 
 And what is worse, in the present case the master has for- 
 gotten that he is the owner of his domain, he hardly remem- 
 bers that he is a personality. Whether large or small, depart- 
 ment or commune, local society has no longer the conscious- 
 ness of being a natural body, composed of involuntarily united 
 members with common interests ; this sentiment, already 
 weakened and arooping at the end of the ancient regime, is 
 lost under the multiplied attacks of the Revolution and under 
 the prolonged compression of the Empire ; during twenty-five 
 years it has suffered too much ; it has been too arbitrarily 
 manufactured or mutilated, too frequently recast, and made 
 and unmade. — In the commune, everything has been upset 
 over and over again, the territorial circumscription, the internal 
 and external system, all collective property. To the forty- 
 four thousand municipalities improvised by the Constituent 
 Assembly, there succeeded under the Directory six or seven 
 thousand cantonal municipalities, a sort of local syndicate^ 
 represented in each commune by a subaltern agent, and then, 
 under the Consulate, thirty-six thousand distinct and per- 
 manent communes. Sovereign at the start, through the 
 improvidence and abdication of the Constituent Assembly, 
 the communes become, in the hands of the Convention, so many 
 timorous subjects surrendered to the brutality of perambu- 
 lating pachas and resident agas, imposed upon them by 
 Jacobin tyranny ; then, under the Empire, a docile herd gov- 
 erned in a correct way from above, but possessing no authority 
 of their own, and therefore indifferent to their own affairs and 
 utterly wanting in public spirit. Other more serious blows 
 affect them still more deeply and acutely. Through a 
 decree of the Legislative Assembly, in every commune where 
 a third of the inhabitants demand a partition of the com- 
 munal property, the commune is stripped, and its time-honored 
 patrimony is set off in equal lots, in portions according to 
 families or per head, and converted into small private hold- 
 
 (
 
 CH^i^. I Dt^FECT AND EFFECTS oF THE SYSUEM. 319 
 
 ings. Through a decree of the Convention, the whole of the 
 communal fortune, its debts and assets, are swallowed up by 
 the public fortune and engulfed along with that in the sale of 
 real property, in the discredit of the assignats, and in the final 
 bankruptcy. After this prolonged process, communal prop- 
 erty, even when disgorged and restored by the exchequer, is 
 not what it was before ; once out of the monster's stomach, 
 the remains of it, dismembered, spoilt, half-digested, are no 
 longer held sacred and inviolable ; a settlement of accounts 
 intervenes; "there are a good many communes," says Napo- 
 leon,' " whose debts have been paid and whose property was 
 not sold ; there are many others whose property has been 
 
 sold and whose debts are not paid The result is that 
 
 many pieces of property in certain communes are not consid- 
 ered reputable." Consequently, he first deprives these of one- 
 tenth of their income from land, and then one-quarter of the pro- 
 duce of their extra cuttings of timber,^ and finally, their capi- 
 tal, the whole of their real property,^ estimated at three hun- 
 dred and seventy millions ; in exchange, he gives them one 
 hundred and thirty-eight millions in the rentes ; the loss to 
 them as well as the gain to him, is thus two hundred and thirty 
 two millions, while the sale of communal properties at auction, 
 begun in 1813, continues under the Restoration in 1814, 1815, 
 and even in 1816. A human community treated in this way 
 for one quarter of a century,. ceases to be a personality, and 
 becomes a mere material object ; on the strength of this, its 
 members have come to believing that things are as they are 
 and cannot be otherwise. 
 
 1 Pelet de la Lozere, " Opinions de Napoleon au Conseil d'Etat," p. 277 (Session of 
 March 15, \%oS). — Decree of March 16, 1806, and of September 15, 1807. 
 
 2 Ibid., -276. " To those who objected that a tax could only be made according to law, 
 Napoleon replied that it was not a tax, since there were no other taxes than those which 
 the law established, and that this one (the extra assessment of a quarter of the produce of 
 timber) was established by decree. It is only a master, and an absolute master, who could 
 reason in this way." 
 
 3 Law of March 20, 1813. (Woods, meadows, and pasture-grounds used by the popula- 
 tion in common are excepted, also buildings devoted to public use, promenades, and public 
 gardens.) — The law takes rur.al possessions, houses and factories, rented and producing an 
 income. — Thiers, xvi., 27q. The five per cents at this time were worth 75 fnncs. and 138 
 millions of these gave a revenue of g millions, about tlic annual income derived by the com- 
 munes from their confiscated tea! property.
 
 320 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 Above the commune, nearly dead, is the department, com- 
 pletely dead ; here local patriotism is stamped out at the 
 beginning by the destruction of the provinces. Among so 
 many political crimes and other outrages committed by the 
 Revolution against France, this is one of the worst ; the Con- 
 stituent Assembly has broken up perfected groupings, the accu- 
 mulated work of ten centuries, historic and powerful names, 
 each of which aroused enthusiasm in thousands of breasts and 
 cemented together thousands of wills, centers of spontaneous 
 co-operation, firesides warm with generous feeling, zeal, and 
 devotion, a practical school of high political education, an 
 admirable theater for available talent, noble careers open to 
 legitimate ambition, in short, the small patrimony whose 
 instinctive cult forms the first step out of egoism and a march 
 onward toward thoughtful devotion to the large patrimony. 
 Cut apart by geometrical shears, and designated by an entirely 
 new geographical term, small sections of the province became 
 so many factitious agglomerations of juxtaposed inhabitants, 
 human assemblages without any soul ; and, for twenty years, 
 the legislator fails to commun-icate to them that semblance of 
 one, the judicial quality of which it disposes ; it is only after 
 1811 that the departments arrive at civil proprietorship and 
 personality : this dignity, besides, the State confers only to 
 disburden itself and to burden them, to impose expenses on 
 them which hardly concern them but which do concern it, to 
 compel them in its place to support the costly maintenance of 
 its prisons, police quarters, courts of justice, and prefectorial 
 mansions ; even at this late date, they are not yet, in the eyes 
 of jurisconsults or before the Council of State, incontestable 
 proprietors and complete personalities ; ' they are not to be 
 fully qualified in this sense until the law of 1838. 
 
 Local society, accordingly, proves abortive over the whole 
 twenty-six thousand square leagues of territory ; it is simply 
 a legal figment, an artificial grouping together of neighbors 
 who do not find themselves bound and incorporated together 
 by neighborhood ; in order that their society might become 
 
 I Aucoc, ibid., §§ 55 and 135.
 
 CHAP. I. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 321 
 
 viable and stimulative would require both commune and 
 department to have in mind and at heart the following idea, 
 which they no longer entertained : " We are all here together 
 in the same vessel, which vessel belongs to us and we form its 
 crew. We are here to manage it ourselves, with our own 
 hands, each according to his rank and position, each taking 
 his part, little or big, in doing his own work."
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. Local society since 1830. — Introduction of a new internal motor. — 
 Subordinate to tlie external motor. — Advantageous under the system of 
 universal suffrage. — II. Application of universal suffrage to local society. — 
 Two assessments for the expenses of local society. — The fixed amount of 
 one should in equity be equal to the average sum of the other. — Practically, 
 the sum of one is kept too low. — How the new regime provides for local 
 expenditure. — The "additional centimes." — How the small taxpayer is 
 relieved in town and country. — His quota in local expenditure reduced to 
 the minimum. — His quota of local benefits remains intact. — Hence the large 
 or average taxpayer bears, beside his own burden, that of the relieved senate 
 taxpayer. — Number of those relieved. — The extra burden of the large and 
 average taxpayer is alms-giving. — The relief of the small taxpayer is a levy 
 of aims. — III. Possible compensation in the other side of the scale. — What 
 the distribution of rights should be according to the principle of distributive 
 justice.— In every association of stock-owners. — In local society confined to 
 its natural object. — In local society charged with supplementary functions. — 
 The local statute in England and Prussia. — The exchange equitable when 
 burdens are compensated by rights. — IV. How unlimited universal suffrage 
 found its way into local society. — Object and mode of the French legisla- 
 tor. — V. No distinction between the rural and the urban commune. — 
 Effects of the law on the rural commune. — Disproportion between the intel- 
 ligence of its elected representatives and the work imposed on them. — The 
 mayor and the municipal council. — Lack of qualified members. — The secre- 
 tary of the mayoralty. — The chief or under chief of the prefectorial bureau. — 
 VI. Effects of the law on the urban commune. — Disproportion between the 
 administrative capacity of its elected representatives and the work imposed 
 on them. — Lack of a special and permanent manager. — The municipal 
 council and the mayor. — The general council and the intermediary com- 
 mittee. — The prefect. — His dominant rule. — His obligatory concessions. — 
 His principal aim. — Bargains between the central authority and the local 
 Jacobins. — Effect of this on local government, on the officials, and in local 
 finances. — VII. Present state of local society. — Considered as an organism, 
 it is stillborn. — Considered as a mechanism, it gets out of order. — Two 
 successive and false conceptions of local government. — In theory, one 
 excludes the other. — Practically, their union ends in the actual system. — 
 Powers of the prefect. — Restrictions on these through subsequent changes. — 
 Give and take. — Bargaining. — Supported by the government and cost to the 
 State. — VIII. Final result in a tendency to bankruptcy. 
 
 322
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 323 
 
 I. 
 
 After thirty years of silence, neither feeling nor thought 
 are any longer capable of uttering this vivifying and decisive 
 phrase : those who ought to be interested in local society as a 
 private association care but little for it, while the State does 
 not admit of it. Indeed, after the year viii, the State intro- 
 duces into the machine a new mainspring. After the revolu- 
 tion of 1830,' the municipal and general councilors become 
 elective and are appointed by a limited suffrage ; after the 
 revolution of 1848,^ they are elected by universal suffrage. 
 After the revolution of 1870,' each municipal council elects its 
 own mayor, while the council-general, whose powers are en- 
 larged, leaves in its place, during its vacations, a standing com- 
 niittee who arrange with, and govern along with, the prefect. 
 Here, in local society, is a superadded internal motor, working 
 from below, whilst the first one is external. and works from 
 above ; henceforth, both are to work together and in accord. — 
 But, in reality, the second remains subordinate ; moreover, it 
 does not suit the machine and the machine does not suit it ; 
 "it was not made for the machine, nor the machine for it ; it is 
 only a superfetation, an inconvenient and cumbersome intru- 
 der, nearly always useless, and often mischievous. Its impulse 
 is feeble and of little effect ; too many brakes are attached to 
 it ; its force diminishes through the complexity of its nume- 
 rous wheels ; it fails in giving action ; it cannot but little more 
 than impede or moderate other impulsions, those of the exter- 
 nal motor, sometimes as it should, and sometimes the con- 
 trary. Most frequently, even nowadays, it is of no efficiency 
 
 I Laws of March 21, 1831, and July 18, 1837, June 22, 1833, and May 10, 1838. The 
 municipal electors number about 7,250,000 and form the superior third of the adult mascu- 
 line population ; in the choice of its notables and semi-notables, the law takes into .ac- 
 count not only wealth and direct taxation, but likewise education and services rendered to 
 the public. — The department electors number about 200.000, about as many as the politi- 
 cal electors. The reporter observes that "'an almost complete analogy exists between the 
 choice of a deputy and the choice of a department councilor, and that it is natural to con- 
 fide the election to the same electoral body otherwise divided, since the object is to afford 
 representation to another order of interests." 
 
 a Law of July 3, 1848. 
 
 3 Laws of Aug. 12, 1876, March 28, 1882, and April 5, 1884 ; law of Aug. 10, 1871.
 
 324 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 whatever. Three-quarters of the municipal councils, for three- 
 fourths of their business, hold sessions only to give signatures. 
 Their pretended deliberations are simply a parade formality ; 
 the impulsion and direction continue to come from without, 
 and from above ; under the third Republic, as under the Res- 
 toration and the first Empire, it is always the central State 
 which governs the local society ; amid all the wranglings and 
 disputes, in spite of passing conflicts it is, and remains, the 
 initiator, proposer, leader, controller, accountant, and executor 
 of every undertaking, the preponderating power in the depart- 
 ment as well as in the commune, and with what deplorable 
 results we all know. — There is still another and more serious 
 result. Nowadays, its interference is an advantage, for should 
 it renounce its preponderance this would pass over to the other 
 power which, since this has become vested in a numerical ma- 
 jority, is mere blind and brutal force ; abandoned to itself and 
 without any counter-weight, its ascendency would be disas- 
 trous ; we would see reappearing along with the blunders of 
 1789, the outrages, usurpations, and distress of 1790, 1791, and 
 1792.' — In any event, there is this advantage in despotic cen- 
 tralization, that it still preserves us from democratic anatomy. 
 In the present state of institutions and minds, the former sys- 
 tem, objectionable as it may be, is our last retreat against 
 the greater evil of the latter. 
 
 n. 
 
 In effect, direct universal suffrage, counted by heads, is in 
 local society an incongruous element, a monstrous contrivance, 
 to which it is adverse. Constituted as this is, not by human 
 arbitrament, but by physical conditions, its mechanism is deter- 
 mined beforehand ; it excludes certain wheels and connec- 
 tions ; the legislator must write out in the law what is written 
 out by things, or, at least, translate this as closely as he can, 
 without any gross contradiction. Nature herself presents him 
 with ready-made statutes. His business is to read these prop- 
 
 I "The Revolution," vol. i., book viii.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECl- AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 325 
 
 erly ; he has already transcribed the apportionment of bur- 
 dens ; he can now transcribe the apportionment of rights. 
 
 So we have seen, local society renders two distinct services, 
 which, that the expenses of both may be met, require two dis- 
 tinct assessments, one personal and the other real, one levied 
 on everybody and of which the amount is alike for all, and the 
 other levied only on those whose amount is based on what he 
 spends, on the importance of his business, and on the income 
 from his real property. — In strict equity, the amount of the 
 former should be equal to the average amount of the latter ; 
 in effect, as has been shown, the services defrayed by the for- 
 mer are as many, as diverse, and as precious, still more vital, 
 and not less costly than those of which the latter is the price. 
 Of the two interests which they represent, each, did it stand 
 alone, would be obliged to secure the same services, to take 
 upon itself the whole of the work ; neither would obtain more 
 in the dividend, and each would have to pay the whole of the 
 expense. Accordingly, each gains as much as the other in 
 the physical solidarity which binds them together. Hence, in 
 the legal bond which unites them they enter into it on an equal 
 footing, on condition that each is burdened or relieved as 
 much as the other, on condition that if the latter assumes one- 
 half of the expense the former shall assume the other half, on 
 condition that if the latter quota on each one hundred francs 
 expended against calamities and for public roads is fifty francs, 
 the former quota shall also be fifty francs. — Practically, how- 
 ever, this is impossible. 'I'hree times out of four the former 
 levy with this apportionment would not be returned ; through 
 prudence as well as humanity, the legislator is bound not to 
 overburden the poor. Recently, in organizing the general tax 
 and the revenue of the State, he has looked out for them ; 
 now, in organizing the local tax and the revenue of the depart- 
 ment or of the commune, he looks out for them to a still 
 greater extent. 
 
 In the new financial scheme, so many centimes, added to 
 each franc of direct tax, form the principal resource of the 
 department and commune, and it is through this extra charge 
 that each taxpayer pays his quota of local expenditure. Now,
 
 326 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv, 
 
 there is no surcharge on the personal tax, no additional cen- 
 times. Under this heading, the laborer without any property 
 or income, the workman who lives in lodgings, on his wages, 
 and from day to diiy, contributes nothing to the expenses of 
 his commune or department. In vain do "additional cen- 
 times " pour down on other branches of direct taxation ; they 
 are not grafted on this one, and do not suck away the sub- 
 stance of the poor.' — There is the same regard for the half 
 poor, in relation to the artisan v,?ho furnishes his own room, 
 but who lodges in an upper story, and in relation to the 
 peasant whose hovel or cottage has but one door and one win- 
 dow.^ Their rate of taxation on doors and windows is very 
 low, purposely reduced, kept below one franc a year, while the 
 rate of their personal tax is scarcely higher. "Additional 
 centimes" maybe imposed on so small a principal and be 
 multiplied in vain, never will they reach more than an insig- 
 nificant sum. — Not only are the indigent relieved of both 
 principal and "additional centimes'," the verified indigent, 
 those who are registered and are helped, or should be, that is 
 to say 2,470,000 persons ; ' but, again, others, by hundreds of 
 thousands, whom the municipal council judges incapable of 
 paying.— Even when people possess but a small piece of land, 
 they are also relieved of the land tax and of the numerous addi- 
 tional centimes which increase it. Such is the case with those 
 who are infirm or burdened with a family. The exchequer, 
 so as not to convert them into beggars and vagabonds, avoids 
 expropriation, selling out their concrete hovel, vegetable gar- 
 
 1 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Traite de la science des finances," 4th edition, i., p. 303: 
 " The personal tax, levied only as principal, oscillates between the minimum of i fr. so 
 and the maximum of 4 fr. 50 per annum, according to the communes.— 7(5 /rf., 304 ; " In 
 1806 the personal tax produced in France about sixteen millions of francs, a little less than 
 o fr. 50 per head of the inhabitants." 
 
 2 lliiJ.^ i., 367 (on the tax on doors and windows). According to the population of the 
 commune, this is from o fr. 30 to i fr. for each opening, from o fr. 45 to i fr. 50 for two 
 -openings, from o fr. go to 4 fr. 50 for three openings, from i fr. 60 to 6 fr. 40 for four 
 openings, and from 2 fr. 50 to 8 fr. 50 for five openings. The first of these rates is applied 
 to all communes of less than 5000 -^ouls. We see that the poor man, especially the poor 
 peasant, is considered ; the tax on him is progressive in an inverse sense. 
 
 3 De Foville, •• La France Economique " (1887), p. 59 : " Our 14.500 charity bureaux 
 gave assistance in 1883 to 1,405,500 persons; .... as, in reality, the population of the 
 communes aided (by them) is only 22,000,000, the proportion of the registered poor 
 amounts to over six per cent."
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 327 
 
 •den, and small field of potatoes or cabbages ; it gives them 
 receipts gratis, or, at least, refrains from prosecuting them.' * 
 In this way the poor peasant, although a land-owner, again 
 exempts himself, or is exempted from his local indebtedness. 
 In truth, he pays nothing, or nearly nothing, otherwise than 
 hy prestations in money or in kind ; that is to say, by three days' 
 work on the district roads, which, if he pays in kind, are not 
 worth more than fifty sous.^ Add to this his portion, very 
 small and often null, of the additional centimes on the tax on 
 doors and windows, on the personal tax, and on the tax on real 
 ■estate, in all four or five francs a year. Such is the amount 
 by which the poor or half-poor taxpayer in the villages libe- 
 rates himself toward his department and commune. — In the 
 towns, he apparently pays more, owing to the octroi. But, at 
 first, there are only one thousand five hundred and twenty- 
 five communes out of thirty-six thousand in which the 
 .octroi^ has been established; while in the beginning, under 
 the Directory and Consulate, it was revived only on his 
 account, for his benefit, in behalf of public charity, to defray 
 the expenses of asylums and hospitals ruined by revolutionary 
 confiscation. It was then " an octroi for charity," in fact as 
 well as in name, like the surplus tax on theater seats and 
 tickets, established at the same time and for the same pur- 
 pose ; it still to-day preserves the stamp of its first institution. 
 Bread, the indispensable provision for the poor, is not subjected 
 to the octroi, nor the materials for making it, either grain or 
 flour, nor milk, fruits, vegetables, or codfish, while there is 
 only a light tax on butcher's meat. Even on beverages, wliere 
 the octroi is heavier, it remains, like all indirect taxes, nearly 
 proportional and semi-optional. In effect, it is simply an in- 
 crease of the tax on beverages, so many additional centimes 
 per franc on the sum of indirect taxation, as warrantable as 
 
 1 P.iul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Essai sur la repartition des richesses," p. 174, et scg. — In 1851, 
 ithe number of land-owners in France was estimated at 7,800,000. Out of these, three 
 
 millions were relieved of the land tax, as indigent, and their quotas were considered as 
 irrecoverable. 
 
 2 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Traite de la science des finances," p. 721. 
 
 3 De Fovillc, p. 419. (In 1889.)
 
 328 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 the impost itself, as tolerable, and for the same motives.' For 
 the greater the sobriety of the taxpayer, the less is he affected 
 by this tax. At Paris, where the increase is excessive, and 
 adds to the six centimes paid to the state, on each quart of 
 wine, twelve centimes paid to the city ; if he drinks but one 
 quart a day, he pays, under this heading, into the city treasury 
 forty three francs eighty centimes per annum; but, as com- 
 pensation for this, he is free of personal tax of eleven and 
 three-quarters per centum, which this adds to the amount of 
 each rental of the eleven and three-quarters per centum, 
 whereby this would have added to his rent, and therefore 
 forty-seven francs per annum as a rent of four hundred francs. 
 Thus what he has paid with one hand he gets back with the 
 other. Now, at Paris, all rentals under four hundred francs^ 
 are thus free of any personal tax ; all rentals between four 
 hundred and one thousand francs are more or less free, and, 
 in the other octroi towns, an analogous discharge reimburses 
 to the small taxpayers a portion more or less great of the sum 
 they pay to the octroi. — Accordingly, in the towns as in the 
 country, they are favored at one time through fiscal relief and 
 at another through administrative favor, now through com- 
 pulsory deduction and now through total or partial reimburse- 
 ment. Always, and very wisely, the legislator apportions the 
 burden according to the strength of the shoulders ; he relieves 
 them as much as he can, at first, of the general tax, and next, 
 which is still better, of the local tax. Hence, in local expen- 
 diture, their quota diminishes out of all proportion and is 
 reduced to the minimum. Nevertheless, cheir quota of local 
 benefit remains full and entire ; at this insignificant price 
 they enjoy the public highways and profit by all the precau- 
 tions taken against physical ills ; each profits by this person- 
 ally, equally with any millionaire. Each personally receives 
 as much in the great dividend of security, health, and con- 
 venience, in the fruit of the vast works of utility and enjoy- 
 ment due to improved communications, which preserve health, 
 
 1 Cf. ante^ on the characteristics of indirect taxation. 
 
 2 Here it is the estimated rent, which stands to the real rent as four to five ; an esti- 
 mated rent of 400 francs indicates a real rent of 50 francs.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 329 
 
 promote intercourse, and beautify the locality, and without 
 which, in town as well as in the country, life would be impos- 
 sible or intolerable. 
 
 But these works which cost so much, these defensive opera- 
 tions and apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and 
 contagions, these 500,000 kilometres of district and department 
 roads, these dikes, quays, bridges, public gardens, and prome- 
 nades, this paving, drainage, sweeping and lighting, these 
 aqueducts and supplies of drinkable water, all this is paid for 
 by somebody, and, since it is not done by the small taxpayer, 
 it is the large or average taxpayer who pays for it. The 
 latter then, bears, besides his obligatory weight, a gratuitous 
 surplus burden, consisting of the weight of which the other is 
 relieved. 
 
 Evidently the greater thenumber of the relieved, the heavier 
 will be this overweight, and the relieved count by millions. 
 Two millions and a half of declared poor' are relieved of any 
 direct tax, and, therefore, of all the centimes which have just 
 increased the burden. Out of eight millions of real estate 
 owners,' three millions, considered as insolvent, pay neither 
 the real estate tax nor the centimes which it comprises. In 
 the octroi towns, it is not the minority but the majority of the 
 inhabitants who are relieved in the way just described ; in 
 Paris,' out of 685,000 rentals, 625,000, in other terms twelve 
 out of thirteen lodgings, are exempt, wholly or in part, from 
 the personal tax, the principal and " additional centimes." On 
 
 1 De Foville, p. 57. 
 
 2 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Essai sur la repartition de richesses," p. 174. 
 
 3 Ibid.y p. 209: In 1878, in Paris, 74,000 houses with 1,022,530 rentals, 337,587 being for 
 trade and commerce, and 684,952 for dwelling purp ses. Among the latter, 468,641 have a 
 locative value interior to 300 francs a year ; 74,360 are between 500 and 750 francs ; 21,147 
 are between 750 and 1000 francs. All these lodgings arc more or less exempt from the per- 
 sonal tax : those between 1000 and 400 francs pay it wit'i a more or less great reduction : 
 those under 400 francs pay nothing. Above 1000 francs, we find 17,202 apartments from 
 between 1000 and 1250 francs ; 6198 from between 1250 and 1500 francs ; 21,453 from 1500 to 
 3000 francs. These apartments are occupied by more or less well-to-do people. — 14,858 
 apartments above 3000 francs are occupied by the richer or the wealthy cl.-»ss. Among the 
 latter 9985 are from 3000106000; 3040 are from 6000 to jo,ooo; 1443 .ire from 10,000 to 
 30,000 ; 421 are under 20,000 francs. These two latter categories are occupied by the really 
 opulent class.— According to the latest statistics, instead of 684,952 dwelling rent.ils there 
 ar": 806,187, of which 727,419 are wholly or partly free of the personal tax. (" Situation au 
 « Janvier, 1888," report by M. Lamouroux, conseiller-municipal.)
 
 33*^ THE MODERN REGIME. book iv^ 
 
 each f rianc of this princfpal there are ninety-six of these supers- 
 added centimes for the benefit of the town and department ; 
 and because the department and the town expend a good deal,- 
 and because receipts are essential for the settlement of these 
 accounts, this or that sum is noted beforehand in every chap- 
 ter of receipts, and the main thing now is to have this paid in, 
 and it must be paid by somebody ; it matters little whether 
 the peasants are few or numerous ; if among thirteen taxable 
 persons there is only one that pays, so much the worse for him, 
 for he must pay for himself and the other twelve. Such is^ 
 the case in Paris, which accounts for the " additional centimes " 
 here being so numerous,' owing to there being less than 60, coo- 
 rentals for the acquittance of the entire tax, and, besides pay- 
 ing their own debt, they must discharge the indebtedness of 
 six hundred and twenty-five thousand other rentals, the tax on 
 which is reduced or null. — Frequently, before the Revolution, 
 some rich convent or philanthropic seignior would pay the 
 taxes of his poor neighbors out of his own pocket; willingly" 
 or not, sixty thousand Parisians, more or less well lodged, now 
 hand over the same sum, bestow the same charity, on six 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand badly or only tolerably 
 lodged Parisians ; among these sixty thousand benefactors 
 whom the exchequer obliges to be benevolent, thirty-four 
 thousand eight hundred who pay from one thousand to three 
 thousand francs rent, bestow, under this heading, a pretty 
 large sum for charitable purposes, while fourteen thousand 
 eight hundred, who pay more than three thousand francs 
 rent, pay a very large one. Other branches of direct taxa- 
 tion, in the country as well as in the city, present the same spec- 
 tacle : it is always the rich or the well-to-do taxpayers who,' 
 through their over-tax. more or less completely relieve the 
 poor or straitened taxpayers ; it is always the owners of large" 
 or small properties, those who pay heavy or average licenses,, 
 
 I The following appropriations for 1889 are printed on my tax-bill : " To the State, 51 
 per cent.; to the Department, 21 per cent ; to the Commune, 25 per cent." On business 
 permits ; " To the State, 64 per cent.; to the Department, 12 per cent.; to the Commune, 
 20 per cent. The surplus of taxes is appropriated to the benevolent fund and for remission' 
 of taxes."
 
 CHAP. 11. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 33-1 
 
 the occupants of lodgings with more than five openings/ and 
 whose locative value surpasses 1000 francs, who in local ex- 
 penditure pay besides their own dues the dues of others and, 
 through their additional centimes, almost entirely defray the 
 expenses of the department and commune. — This is nearly 
 always the case in a local society, except when it chances to 
 possess an abundant income, arising from productive real 
 estate, and is able to provide for its wants without taxing its 
 members ; apart from this rare exception, it is forced to tax 
 some in order to relieve others. In other words, the same as 
 with other enterprises, it manufactures and sells its product ; 
 but, just the reverse of other enterprises, it sells the product, 
 an equal quantity of the same product, that is to say, equal 
 protection against the same calamities, and the equal enjoy- 
 ment of the same public highway, at unequal prices, very dear 
 to a few, moderately dear to many, at cost price to a large 
 number, and with a discount to the mass ; to this last class of 
 consumers the discount goes on increasing like the emptiness 
 of their purse ; to the last of all, extremely numerous, the 
 goods are delivered almost gratis, or even for nothing. 
 
 But to this inequality of prices may correspond the in- 
 equality of rights, and compensation will come, the balance* 
 may be restored, distributive justice may be applied, if, in the 
 government of the enterprise, tlie parts assigned are not equal, 
 if each member sees his portion of influence growing or 
 diminishing along with the weight of his charge, if the statute, 
 graduating authority according to the scale of the levies, 
 assigns few votes to those who pay the lowest quotas of ex- 
 pense and receive alms, and many votes to those who give 
 alms and pay the largest quotas of the expenditure. 
 
 I Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " Traite de la science dcs linanccs," i., pp. 367-368: " In com- 
 munes under 5000 inhabitants the principal of the tax on doors and windows iis, for 
 houses with one opening, o fr. 30 per annum ; for those with four openings, i fr. 60." Now, 
 " a house with five openings pays nearly nine times as much as a house with one opening.'-' 
 The small taxpayers are accordingly largely relieved at the expense of those who pay he.ivy 
 and average taxes, the magnitude of this relief being appreciable by the following figures ; 
 In 1885, out of 8,975,166 houses, 248,352 bad one opening, 1,827,104 two openings, 1,624,516 
 three openings, and 1,165,002 four openings. More than one-half of the houses, all of 
 those belonging to the poor or straitened, are thus relieved, while the other half, since the 
 tax is an impost, not one aliquot part, but an apportionment, is overcharged .as much.
 
 332 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 III. 
 
 Such is the rule in every association of interests, even in 
 stock companies in which the distribution of charges allows of 
 no favor or disfavor to any associate. It must be noted that, 
 in these companies, co-operation is not compulsory, but volun- 
 tary ; the associates are not, as in the local society, conscripts 
 enlisted under the constraint of physical solidarity, but sub- 
 scribers bound together under the impulsion of a deliberate 
 preference, each remaining in it of his own free will just as he 
 entered it ; if he wishes to leave it he has only to sell his 
 stock ; the fact of his keeping this confirms his subscription, 
 and, thus holding on to it, he daily subscribes anew to the 
 statute. Here, then, is a perfectly free association ; it is 
 accordingly perfectly equitable, and its statute serves as a 
 model for others. 
 
 Now this statute always makes a distinction between the 
 small and the large stockholders ; it always attributes a greater 
 share of authority and influence to those who share most 
 largely in the risks and expenses ; in principle, the number of 
 votes it confers on each associate is proportionate to the num- 
 ber of shares of which he is the owner or bearer. — All the 
 stronger is the reason why this principle should be embodied 
 in the statutes of a society which, like the local community, 
 diminishes the burden of the small taxpayer through its 
 reductions, and increases by its extra taxation the burden of 
 the large or average taxpayer ; when the appointment of 
 managers is handed over to universal suffrage, counted by 
 heads, the large and average taxpayers are defrauded of their 
 dues and deprived of their rights, more so by far and more 
 deeply wronged than the bearer or owner of a thousand shares 
 in an omnibus or gas company if, on voting at a meeting of 
 stockholders, his vote did not count for more than that of the 
 owner or bearer of a single share. — How is it then when a 
 local society adds to its natural and unavoidable purpose an 
 optional and supplementary purpose ; when, increasing its 
 load, it undertakes to defray the cost of public charity and of 
 primary education ; when, to support this additional cost, it 
 
 1
 
 CHAP. 11. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. ZZZ 
 
 multiplies the additional centimes ; when the large or average 
 taxpayer pays alone, or nearly alone, for this benevolent work 
 by which he does not benefit ; when the small taxpayer pays 
 nothing, or next to nothing, to this benevolent work by which 
 he does benefit ; when, in voting for the expense thus appor- 
 tioned, each taxpayer, whatever the amount of his contribution, 
 has one vote and only one? In this case, powers, benefits, 
 reductions, and exemptions, all the advantages are on one side, 
 that of the poor and half-poor forming the majority and who, 
 if not restrained from above, will persistently abuse their 
 numerical force to augment their advantages, at the increasing 
 expense of the rich or well-to-do minority. Thenceforth, in 
 the local society, the average or large taxpayer is no longer 
 an associate but a victim ; were he free to choose he would not 
 enter into it ; he would like to leave it and establish himself 
 elsewhere ; but were he to enter others, near or remote, 
 his condition would be no better. He remains, accordingly, 
 where he is, physically present, but absent in feeling; he takes 
 no part in deliberative meetings ; his zeal has died out ; he 
 withholds from public affairs that surplus of vigilant attention, 
 that spontaneous and ready collaboration which he would have 
 contributed gratis ; he lets matters go along without him, just 
 as it happens ; he remains there just what he is, a workable, 
 taxable individual in capricious hands, in short, a passive sub- 
 ject who gives up and has become resigned. — For this reason, 
 in countries where an encroaching democracy has not yet 
 abolished or perverted the notion of equity, the local statute 
 applies the fundamental rule of an equitable exchange ; it lays 
 down the principle that he who pays commands, and in propor- 
 tion to the sum he pays} In England, a surplus of votes is 
 
 I One result of this principle is, that the indigent who are exempt from taxation or who 
 are on the poor li.st have no vote, which is the case in England and in Prussia. — Though 
 another result of the same principle, the law of May 15, 1818, in France, summoned the 
 heaviest taxpayers, in equal number with the members of the municipal council, to deliberate 
 with it every time that "a really urgent expenditure " obliged the commune to raise extra 
 additional centimes beyond the usual o fr. 05. " Thus," says Henrion de Tancey (" Du 
 pouvoir municipal," p. 109), " che members of the municipal councils belonging to the 
 class of small land-owners, at least in a large number of communes, voted the charges 
 without examination which only affected them insensibly."— This last refuge of distribu- 
 tive justice was abolished by the law of April s, 1882.
 
 334 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 awarded to those most heavily taxed, even six votes to one 
 voter ; in Prussia, local taxation is divided into thirds, and, 
 accordingly, the taxpayers into three groups, the first one 
 composed of heavy taxpayers, few in number, and who pay 
 the first third, the second composed of average taxpayers, 
 average in number, and who pay the second third, and the 
 third composed of the great number of small taxpayers, who 
 pay the last third.' To each of these groups is assigned the 
 same number of suffrages in the commune election, or the same 
 number of representatives in the commune representation. 
 Though this approximative balance of legal burdens and of 
 legal rights, the two sides of the scales are nearly at their level, 
 the level which distributive justice demands, and the level 
 which the state, special interpreter, sole arbiter and universal 
 minister of distributive justice, should establish when, in the 
 local community, it imposes, rectifies, or maintains the statute 
 according to which it derives its income and governs. 
 
 IV. 
 
 If the state, in France, does just the contrary, it is at the 
 height of a violent and sudden revolution, under the dictation 
 of the master faction and of popular prejudice, logically, and 
 through contagion. According to revolutionary and French 
 usage, the legislator was bound to institute uniformity and to 
 make things symmetrical ; having placed universal suffrage in 
 political society, he was likewise determined to place it in local 
 society. He had been ordered to apply an abstract principle, 
 that is to say, to legislate according to a summary, superficial, 
 and verbal notion which, purposely curtailed and simplified to 
 excess, did not correspond with its object. He obeyed and 
 ilid nothing more ; he made no effort outside of his instruc- 
 tions. He did not propose to himself to restore local society 
 to its members, to revive it, to make it a living body, capable 
 
 1 Max Leclerc, " La Vie miinicipale en Prusse." (Extrait des " Annales de I'Ecole 
 libre des sciences politique," 1889, a study on the town of Bonn.) At Bonn, which has a 
 population of 35,810 inhabitants, the first group is composed of 167 electors : the second, of 
 471 ; the third, of 2607, and each group elects 8 municipal councilors out of 24.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. li% 
 
 of spontaneous, co-ordinate, voluntary action, and, to this end, 
 provided with indispensable organs ; he did not even take the 
 trouble to figure it to himself mentally, as it is effectively, I 
 mean by this, complex and diverse ; inversely to his predeces- 
 sors in France before 1789, and adversely to legislators before 
 and after 1789 outside of France, against all the teachings of 
 experience, against the evidence of nature, he refused to rec- 
 ognize the fact that, in France, mankind are of two species, 
 the people of the towns and the people of the country, and 
 that, therefore, there are two types of local society, the urban 
 commune and the rurc.l commune ; he was not disposed to take 
 this capital difference into consideration ; he issued decrees 
 for the Frenchman in general, for the citizen in himself, for 
 fictive men, so reduced that the statute which suits them can 
 nowhere suit the actual and complete man. At one stroke, the 
 legislative shears cut out of the same stuff, according to the 
 same pattern, thirty-six thousand examples of the same coat, 
 one coat indifferently for every commune, whatever its shape, 
 a coat too small for the city and too large for the village, dis- 
 proportionate in both cases, and useless beforehand, because 
 it could not fit very large bodies, nor very small ones. Never- 
 theless, once dispatched from Paris, people had to put the coat 
 on and wear it ; it must answer for good or for ill, each don- 
 ning his own for lack of another better adjusted ; hence the 
 strangest attitudes for each, and, in the long run, a combina- 
 tion of consequences which neither governors nor the governed 
 had foreseen. 
 
 V. 
 
 Let us consider these results in turn in the small and in the 
 great communes ; clear enough and distinct at the two ex- 
 tremities of the scale, they blend into each at intermediate 
 degrees, because here they combine together, but in different 
 proportions, according as the commune, higher or lower in the 
 scale, comes nearer to the village or to the city. — On this 
 territory, too, subdivided since 1789, and, so to say, crumbled 
 to pieces by the Constituent Assembly, the small communes 
 are enormous in number ; among thirty-six thousand, more
 
 33^ THE MODERN REGIME. 
 
 BOOK IV. 
 
 than twenty-seven thousand have less than one thousand 
 inhabitants, and of these, more than sixteen thousand have 
 less than five hundred inhabitants.' Whoever has traveled 
 over France, or lived in this country, sees at once what 
 sort of men compose such purely rustic groups ; he has 
 only to recall physiognomies and attitudes to know to what 
 extent in these rude brains, rendered torpid by the rou- 
 tine of manual labor and oppressed by the cares of daily 
 life, how narrow and obstructed are the inlets to the mind ; 
 how limited is their information in the way of facts; how, in 
 the way of ideas, the acquisition of them is slow ; what heredi- 
 tary distrust separates the illiterate mass from the lettered 
 class ; what an almost insurmountable wall the difference of 
 education, of habits, and of manners interposes in France 
 between the blouse and the dress-coat ; why, if each commune 
 contains a few cultivated individuals and a few notable pro- 
 prietors, universal suffrage sets them aside, or at least does 
 not seek them out for the municipal council or the mayoralty. — 
 Before 1830, when the prefect appointed the municipal coun- 
 cilors and the mayor, these were always on hand ; under the 
 monarchy of July and a limited suffrage, they were still on 
 hand, at least for the most part; under the second Empire, 
 whatever the elected municipal council might be, the mayor, 
 who was appointed by the prefect, and even outside of this 
 council, might be one of the least ignorant and least stupid 
 even in the commune. At the present day, it is only acci- 
 dentally and by chance that a noble or bourgeois, in a few 
 provinces and in certain communes, can become mayor or 
 municipal councilor ; and yet more is it essential that he 
 should be born on the soil, long established there, resident 
 and popular. Everywhere else the numerical majority, being 
 sovereign, tends to selecting its candidates from among its 
 
 I De Foville, " La France economique," p. i6 (Census of 1881).— Number of communes, 
 36.097; number below 1000 inhabilants, 27,503; number below 500 inhabitants, 16,870.— 
 What is stated applies partly to the two following categories : ist, communes from 1000 to 
 1500 inhabitants, 2982; 2d, communes from 1500 to 2000 inhabitants, 1Q17.— All the com- 
 munes below 2000 inhabitants are counted as rural in the statistics of population, and they 
 number :j3,402. 
 
 I
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYS7EM. 337 
 
 own set ; in the village, he is a man of average rural intelli- 
 gence, and, more frequently, the village municipal councilor^ 
 as narrow-minded as his electors, elects a m.ayor equally as 
 narrow-minded as himself. Such are, henceforth, the represen- 
 tatives and directors of communal interests ; except when they 
 themselves are affected by personal interests in which they 
 are sensitive, their inertia is only equaled by their incapacity.' 
 Four times a year a bundle of elaborately drawn papers, 
 prepared in the prefecture bureaux, are submitted to these 
 paralytics, born blind, large sheets divided into columns from 
 top to bottom, with tabular headings from right to left, and 
 covered with printed texts and figures in writing — details of 
 receipts and expenses, general centimes, special centimes, ob- 
 ligatory centimes, optional centimes, ordinary centimes, extra 
 centimes, with their sources and employment ; preliminary 
 budget, final budget, corrected budget, along with legal refer- 
 ences, regulations, and decisions bearing on each article ; in 
 short, a methodical table as specific as possible and highly in- 
 structive to a legist or accountant, but perfect jargon to peasants, 
 most of whom can scarcely write their name and who, on Sun- 
 days, are seen standing before the advertisement board ^ trying 
 to spell out the Journal Officiel, whose abstract phrases, be- 
 yond their reach, pass over their heads in aerial and transient 
 flight, like some confused rustling of vague and unknown 
 forms. To guide them in political life, much more difficult 
 than in private life, they require a similar guide to the one 
 they take in the difficult matters of their individual life, a 
 
 1 See Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L'^tat moderne et ses fonctions," p. 169. "The various 
 groups of iiihahit.ints, especially in the country, do not know how to undertake or agree 
 upon anything of themselves. I have seen villages of two or three hundred people belong- 
 ing to a large scattered commune wait patiently for years and humbly petition for aid in 
 Constructing an indispensable fountain, which required only a contribution of 200 or 300- 
 francs, 5 francs per head, to put up. I have seen others possessing only one road on which 
 to send off their produce and unable to act in concert, when, with an outlay of ?ooo francs, 
 and 200 or 300 francs a year to keep it in order, it would easily suflice for all their require- 
 ments. I speak of regions relatively rich, much better off than the generality of communes 
 in France." 
 
 2 In French vill.-iges, on one of the walls of a public building on the square are notices of all 
 kinds, of interest to the inhabitants, and among these, in a frame behind a wire retting, the 
 latest copy of the government official newspaper, giving authentic political items, those- 
 which it thinks best for the people to read. (Tr.)
 
 S3^ THE MODERN REGIME. book i. 
 
 legal or business adviser, one that is qualified and competent, 
 able to understand the prefecture documents, sitting alongside 
 of them to explain their budget, rights and limits of their 
 rights, the financial resources, legal expedients, and conse- 
 quences of a law ; one who can arrange their debates, make 
 up their accounts, watch daily files of bills, attend to their 
 business at the county town, throughout the entire series of 
 legal formalities and attendance on the bureaux, — in short, 
 some trusty person, familiar with technicalities, whom they 
 might choose to select. — Such a person was found in Savoy, 
 before the annexation to France, a notary or lawyer who, 
 practicing in the neighborhood or at the principal town, and 
 with five or six communes for clients, visited them in turn, 
 helped them with his knowledge and intelligence, attended 
 their meetings and, besides, served them as scribe, like the 
 present secretary of the mayoralty, for about the same pay, 
 amounting in all to about the same total of fees or salaries.'— 
 At the present time, there is nobody in the municipal council 
 to advise and give information to its members; the school- 
 master is their secretary, and he cannot be, and should not be, 
 other than a scribe. He reads in a monotonous tone of voice 
 the long financial enigma which French public book-keeping, 
 too perfect, offers to their divinations, and which nobody, save 
 one who is educated to it, can clearly comprehend until after 
 weeks of study. They listen all agog. Some, adjusting their 
 spectacles, try to pick out among so many articles the one 
 they want, the amount of taxes they have to pay. The sum is 
 too large, the assessments are excessive ; it is important that 
 the number of additional centimes should be reduced, and 
 
 I On the communal system in France, and on the reforms which, following the example 
 •of other nations, might be introduced into it, cf. Joseph Ferrand ("formerly a prefect), " Les 
 Institutions administratives en France et a I'etranger"; Rudolph Gneist, '' Les Reformes 
 administratives en Prusse accomplies par la legislation de 1872," (especially the institution 
 of Aints-vorsteher , for the union of communes or circumscriptions of about 1500 souls) ; 
 the Due de Broglie, " Vues sur le gouvernement de la France " (especially on the reforms 
 that should be made in the administration of the commune and canton), p. 21. — "Deprive 
 communal magistrates of their quality as government agents ; separate the two orders of 
 functions ; have the public functionary whose duty it is to see that the laws are executed 
 in the communes, the execution of general laws and the decisions of the superior authority 
 carried out, placed at the county town."
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT. AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 339 
 
 therefore that less money should be expended. Hence, if 
 there is any special item of expense which can be got rid of 
 by a refusal, they set it aside by voting No, until some new 
 law or decree from above obliges them to say Yes. But, as 
 things go, nearly all the expenses designated on the paper are 
 obligatory ; willingly or not, these must be met, and there is 
 no way to pay them outside of the additional centimes ; how- 
 ever numerous these are, vote them they must and sanction 
 the centimes inscribed. They accordingly affix their signa- 
 tures, not with trust but with mistrust, with resignation, and out 
 of pure necessity. Abandoned to their natural ignorance, the 
 twenty-seven thousand petty municipal councilors of the coun- 
 try are now more passive, more inert, more constrained than 
 ever ; deprived of the light which, formerly, the choice of the 
 prefect or a restricted suffrage could still throw into the dark- 
 ness around them, there remains to them only one safe tutor 
 or conductor ; and this final guide is the official staff of the 
 bureaux, especially this or that old, permanent chief, or under 
 clerk, who is perfectly familiar with his files of papers. With 
 about four hundred municipal councilors to lead, one may 
 imagine what he will do with them — nothing except to drive 
 them like a flock of sheep into a pen of printed regulations, or 
 urge them on mechanically, in lots, according to his instruc- 
 tions, he himself being as automatic and as much in a rut as 
 
 they are. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Let us now look at the other side of the scale, on the side 
 of the large urban communes, of which there are two hundred 
 and twenty-three, with above ten thousand inhabitants, ninety 
 of these above twenty thousand inhabitants, nine of the latter 
 above one hundred thousand inhabitants, and Paris, which has 
 two million three hundred thousand.' We see at the first 
 glance bestowed on an average specimen of these human ant- 
 hills, a town containing from forty to fifty thousand souls, how 
 
 I De Foville, ibid., p. i6.— The remarks here made apply to towns of the foregoing cate- 
 gory (from 5000 to 10,000 souls), numbering 312. A last category comprises towns from 
 sooo to 5000 souls, numbering 2160, and forming the List cl.ass of urban populations ; these, 
 through their mixed char.icter, assimilate to the 1817 communes containing from 1500 to 
 2000 inhabitants, forming the first category of the >-«>•«/ populations.
 
 34° THE MODERN REGIME. BOOK IV, 
 
 vast and complex the collective undertaking becomes, how many 
 principal and accessory services the communal society must 
 co-ordinate and unite together in order to secure to its mem- 
 bers the advantages of public roads and insure their protection 
 against spreading calamities, — the maintenance and repairs 
 of these roads, the straightening, laying-out, paving, and drain- 
 age, the constructions and expense for sewers, quays, and 
 rivers, and often for a commercial harbor ; the negotiations 
 and arrangements with departments and with the state for 
 this or that harbor, canal, dyke, or insane asylum ; the con- 
 tracts with cab, omnibus, and tramway companies and with 
 telephone and house-lighting companies ; the street-lighting, 
 artesian wells and aqueducts ; the city police, superintendence 
 and rules for using public highways, and orders and agents for 
 preventing men from injuring each other when collected to- 
 gether in large assemblies in the streets, in the markets, at the 
 theater, in any public place, whether coffee-houses or taverns ; 
 the firemen and machinery for conflagrations ; the sanitary- 
 measures against contagions, and precautions, long beforehand, 
 to insure salubrity during epidemics ; and, as extra burdens 
 and abuses, the establishment, direction and support of pri- 
 mary schools, colleges, public lectures, libraries, theaters, hos- 
 pitals, and other institutions which should be supported and 
 governed by different associations ; at the very least, the ap- 
 propriations to these establishments and therefore a more or 
 less legitimate and more or less imperative intervention in 
 their internal management — such are the great undertakings 
 which form a whole, which bear alike on the present, past, and 
 future budget of the commune, and which, as so many distinct 
 branches of every considerable enterprise, require, for proper 
 execution, to have their continuity and connection always 
 present in the thoughtful and directing mind which has them 
 in charge.' Experience shows that, in the great industrial or 
 
 I Max Leclerc, " La Vie municipale en Prusse," p. 17.— In Prussia, this directing mind 
 is called '■ the magistrate," as in our northern and northeastern communes. In eastern 
 Prussia, the "magistrate" is a collective body ; for example, at Derlin, it comprises 34 
 persons, of which 17 are specialists, paid and engaged for twelve years, and 17 without pay. 
 In western Prussia, the municipal management consists generally of an individual, the 
 burgomaster, salaried and engaged for twelve years.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. l\\ 
 
 financial companies, in the Bank of France, in the Credit Ly- 
 onnais, and in the Societe Generale, at Creusot, at Saint Go- 
 bin, in the insurance, navigation, and railroad companies, 
 the best way to accomplish this end is a permanent manager 
 or director, always present, engaged or accepted by the admin- 
 istrative board on understood conditions, a special, tried man 
 who, sure of his place for a long period, and with a reputation 
 to maintain, gives his whole time, faculties, and zeal to the 
 work, and who, alone, possessing at every moment a coherent 
 and detailed conception of the entire undertaking, can alone 
 give it the proper stimulus, and bring to bear the most eco- 
 nomical and the most perfect practical improvements. Such is 
 also the municipal regime in the Prussian towns on the Rhine. 
 Then, in Bonn, for instance,' the municipal council, elected by 
 the inhabitants " goes in quest " of some eminent specialist 
 whose ability is well known. It must be noted that he is taken 
 wherever he can be found, outside the city, in some remote 
 province ; they bargain with him, the same as with some famous 
 musician, for the management of a series of concerts; under 
 the title of burgomaster, with a salary of ten thousand francs 
 per annum, he becomes for twelve years the director of all 
 municipal services, leader of the civic orchestra, solely in- 
 trusted with executive power, wielding the magisterial baton 
 whicli the various instruments oljey, many of these being sal- 
 aried functionaries and other benevolent amateurs,^ all in har- 
 mony and through him, because they know that he is watch- 
 
 1 Max Leclerc, ibid., p. 20. — "The present burgomaster in Bonn was burgomaster at 
 Munchens-Stadbach, before being called to Bonn. The present burgomaster of Crefeld 
 came from Silesia A jurist, well known for his works on public law, occupying a gov- 
 ernment position at Magdeburg," was recently called " to the lucrative position of burgo- 
 master " in the town of Munster. At Bonn, a town of 30.000 inhabitants, " everything 
 rests on his shoulders ; he exercises a great many of the functions which, with us, belong 
 to the prefect." 
 
 2 Max Leclerc, ibiii., p. 25. — Alongside of the paid town officers and the municip.il coun- 
 cilors, there are special committees composed of benevolent members and electors "cither 
 to administer or superintend some branch of communal business, or to study some particu- 
 lar question." " These committees, subject, moreover, in all respects to the burgomaster, 
 are elected by the municipal council." — There are twelve of these in Bonn and over a 
 hundred in Berlin. This institution serves admirably for rendering those who are well- 
 disposed useful, as well as for the development of local patriotism, a practic.1l sense and 
 public spirit.
 
 342 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 ful, competent, and superior, constantly occupied with the 
 general combination, responsible, and for his own interest, as 
 a point of honor, wholly devoted to his work which is likewise 
 their work, that is to say, to the complete success of the 
 concert. 
 
 Nothing in a French town corresponds to this admirable 
 type of a municipal institution ; here, also, and to a much 
 greater extent than in the village, the effect of universal suf- 
 frage has been to discredit the true notables and to insure the 
 abdication or exclusion of men who, by their education, the 
 large proportion of the taxes they pay, and still greater influ- 
 ence or production on labor and on business, are social 
 authorities, and who should become legal authorities; in every 
 country where conditions are unequal, the preponderance of a 
 numerical majority necessarily ends in the nearly general 
 abstention or almost certain defeat of the candidates most 
 deserving of election. But here the case is different ; the 
 elected, being towns-people {citadins) and not rustics, are not 
 of the same species as in the village. They read a daily news- 
 paper, and believe that they understand not only local mat- 
 ters but all subjects of national and general importance, 
 that is to say, the highest formulae of political economy, of 
 philosophic history, and of public right ; somewhat resembling 
 the schoolmaster who, being familiar with the rules of arith- 
 metic, thinks that he can teach the differential calculus, and 
 the theory of functions. At any rate, they talk loud and argue 
 on every subject with confidence, according to Jacobin tradi- 
 tions, being, indeed, so many fresh Jacobins, the heirs and 
 continuators of the old sectarians, issuing from the same stock 
 and of the same stamp, a few in good faith, but mainly nar- 
 row-minded, excited, and bewildered by the smoke of the glit- 
 tering generalities they utter, most of them mere politicians, 
 charlatans, and intriguers, third-class lawyers and doctors, lit- 
 erary failures, semi-educated stump-speakers, bar-room, club, 
 or clique orators, and of low ambition, who, left behind in 
 private careers, in which one is closely watched and accepted 
 for what he is worth, launch out on a public career because, 
 in these lists, popular suffrage at once ignorant, indifferent,
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 343 
 
 and badly informed, a prejudiced and passionate judge, a 
 moralist of easy conscience, instead of demanding unsullied 
 integrity and proven competency, asks for nothing from can- 
 didates but oratorical "buncombe," self-pushing and self- 
 display in public, gross flattery, a parade of zeal and promises 
 to place the power about to be conferred on them by the peo- 
 ple in the hands of those who will serve its antipathies and 
 prejudices. Thus introduced into the municipal council, they 
 constitute its majority and appoint a mayor who is their cory- 
 phaeus or creature, now the bold leader and again the docile 
 instrument of their spite, their favors, and their headlong 
 action, of their blunders and presumption, and of their med- 
 dlesome disposition and encroachments. — In the department, 
 the council general, also elected by universal suffrage, also 
 savors of its origin ; its quality, without falling so low, still 
 descends in a certain degree, and through changes which keep 
 on increasing : politicians install themselves there and make 
 use of their place as a stepping-stone to mount higher ; it 
 also, with larger powers and prolonged during its vacations by 
 its committee, is tempted to regard itself as the legitimate 
 sovereign of the extensive and scattered communitv which it 
 represents. — Thus recruited and composed, enlarged and dete- 
 riorated, the local authorities become difficult to manage, and 
 henceforth, to carry on the administration, the prefect must 
 come to some understanding with them. 
 
 XV. 
 
 Before 1870, when he appointed the mayors and when the 
 council general held its sessions only fifteen days in the year, 
 this prefect was almost omnipotent ; still, at the present day, 
 " his powers are immense," ' and his power remains prepon- 
 derant. He has the right to suspend the municipal council 
 and the mayor, and to propose their dismissal to the head of 
 the state. Without resorting to this extremity, he holds them 
 with a strong hand, and always uplifted over the commune, for 
 he can veto the acts of the municipal police and of the road 
 
 X Aucoc, p. 283.
 
 344 THE MODERN REGIME. book iV. 
 
 committee, annul the regulations of the mayor, and, through a. 
 skillful use of his prerogative, impose his own. He holds in 
 hand, removes, appoints or helps appoint, not alone the clerks 
 in his office, but likewise every kind and degree of clerk who, 
 outside his office, serves the commune or department,' from 
 the archivist, keeper of the museum, architect, director, and 
 teachers of the municipal drawing-schools, from the directors 
 and collectors of charity establishments, directors and account- 
 ants of almshouses, doctors of the mineral springs, doctors and 
 accountants of the insane asylums and for epidemics, head- 
 overseers of octrois, wolf-bounty guards, commissioners of the 
 urban police, inspectors of weights and measures, town col- 
 lectors, whose receipts do not exceed thirty thousand francs, 
 down to and comprising the lowest employes, such as forest- 
 guards of the department and commune, lock-keepers and 
 navigation guards, overseers of the quays and of commercial 
 ports, toll-gatherers on bridges and highways, field-guards of 
 the smallest village, policemen posted at the corner of a street, 
 and stone-breakers on the public highway. When things and 
 not persons are concerned, it is he, again, who, in every proj- 
 ect, enterprise, or proceeding, is charged with the preliminary 
 examination and final execution of it, who proposes the depart- 
 ment budget and presents it, regularly drawn up, to the council 
 general, who draws up the communal budget and presents that 
 to the municipal council, and who, after the council general or 
 municipal council have voted on it, remains on the spot the 
 sole executor, director, and master of the operation to which 
 they have assented. Their total, effective part in this opera- 
 tion is very insignificant, it being reduced to a bare act of the 
 will ; in reaching a vote they have had in their hands scarcely 
 any other documents than those furnished and arranged by 
 him ; in gradually reaching their decision step by step, they 
 have had no help but his, that of an independent collaborator 
 who, governed by his own views and interests, never becomes 
 the mere instrument. They lack for their decision direct, per- 
 
 I Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " L'administrateur locale en France et en Angletcrre," pp. 26, z8, 
 92. (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13, 1861.)
 
 -CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 345 
 
 sonal, and full information, and, beyond this, complete, effi- 
 cient power ; it is simply a dry, Yes, interposed between 
 insufficient resources, or else cut off, and the fruit of which is 
 •abortive or only half ripens. The persistent will of the prefect 
 alone, informed, and who acts, must and does generally prevail 
 against this ill-supported and ill-furnished will. At bottom, 
 and as he stands, he is, in his mental and official capacity, 
 always the prefect of the year viii. 
 
 Nevertheless, after the laws lately passed, his hands are not 
 so free. The competency of local assemblies is extended and 
 comprises not only new cases but, again, of a new species, 
 while the number of their executive decisions has increased 
 five-fold. The municipal council, instead of holding one ses- 
 sion a year, holds four, and of longer duration. The council 
 general, instead of one session a year, holds two, and maintain 
 itself in the interim by its delegation, which meets every 
 month. With these increased authorities more generally pres- 
 ent, the prefect has to reckon, and what is still more serious, 
 he must reckon with local opinion ; he can no longer rule with 
 -closed doors; the proceedings of the municipal council, the 
 smallest one, are duly posted ; in the towns, they are published 
 and commented on by the newspapers of the locality ; the 
 general council furnishes reports of its deliberations. — Thus, 
 -behind elected powers, and weighing with them on the same 
 side of the scales, here is a new power, opinioti, as this grows 
 in a country leveled by equalized centralization, in a heaving 
 or stagnant crowd of disintegrated individuals lacking any 
 spontaneous, central, rallying point, and who, failing natural 
 leaders, simply push and jostle each other or stand still, each 
 according to personal, blind, and haphazard impressions — a 
 hasty, improvident, inconsequent, superficial opinion, caught 
 on the wing, based on vague rumors, on four or five minutes 
 of attention given each week, and chiefly to big words imper- 
 fectly understood, two or three sonorous, commonplace phrases, 
 of which the listeners fail to catch the sense, but the sound of 
 which, by dint of frequent repetition, becomes for them a 
 recognized signal, the blast of a horn or a shrieking whistle, 
 which assembles the herd and arrests or drives it on. No
 
 346 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 opposition can make head against this herd as it rushes along 
 in too compact and too heavy masses. — The prefect, on the 
 contrary, is obliged to cajole it, yield to it, and satisfy it ; for, 
 under the system of universal suffrage, this same herd, besides 
 local representatives, elects the central powers, the deputies, 
 the government ; and when the government sends a prefect 
 from Paris into the provinces, it is after the fashion of a large 
 commercial establishment, with a view to keep and increase 
 the number of its customers, to stay there, maintain its credit, 
 and act permanently as its traveling-clerk, or, in other terms, 
 as its electoral agent, and, still more precisely, as the head- 
 manager of coming elections for the dominant party and for 
 the ministers in office, who have commissioned and appointed 
 him, and who, from top to bottom, constantly stimulate him to 
 hold on to the voters already secured and to gain fresh ones. — 
 Undoubtedly, the interests of the state, department, and com- 
 mune must be seriously considered, but, first and above all, he 
 is the recruiting officer for voters. By virtue of this position 
 and on this point he treats with the council general and the 
 standing committee, with the municipal councilors and mayors^ 
 with influential electors, but especially with the small active 
 committee which, in each commune, supports the prevailing 
 policy and offers its zeal to the government. 
 
 Give and take. These indispensable auxiliaries must obtain 
 nearly all they ask for, and they ask for a great deal. In- 
 stinctively, as well as by doctrine and tradition, the Jacobins 
 are exacting, disposed to regard themselves as the representa- 
 tives of the real and the ideal people, that is to say, as sov- 
 ereigns by right, above the law, entitled to make it and there- 
 fore to unmake it, or, at least, strain it and interpret it as they 
 please. Always in the general council, in the municipal coun- 
 cil, and in the mayoralty, they are tempted to usurp it ; the 
 prefect has as much as he can do to keep them within the local 
 bounds, to keep them from meddling with state matters and 
 the general policy ; he is often obliged to pocket their want of 
 respect, to be patient with them, to talk to them mildly ; for 
 they talk loud and want the administration to reckon with 
 them as a clerk with his master ; if they vote money for any
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 347 
 
 service it is on condition that they take part \\\ the use of the 
 funds and in the details of the service, in the choice of contrac- 
 tors and in hiring the workmen ; on condition that ilieir 
 authority be extended and their hands applied to the consecu- 
 tive execution of what does not belong to them but which 
 belongs to the prefect.' Bargaining, consequently, goes on 
 between them incessantly and they come to terms. — The pre- 
 fect, it must be noted, who is bound to pay, can do so without 
 violating the letter of the law. The stern page on which the 
 legislator has p'rinted his imperative text is always provided 
 with an ample margin where the administrator, charged with 
 its execution, can write down the decisions that he is free to 
 make. In relation to each departmental or communal affair, 
 the prefect can with his own hand write out what suits him on 
 the white margin, which, as we have already seen, is ample 
 enough ; but the margin at his disposition is wider still and 
 continues, beyond anything we have seen, on other pages ; for 
 he is charge d'affaires not only of the department and commune, 
 but again of the State. Titular conductor or overseer of all 
 general services, he is, in his circumscription, head inquisitor 
 of the republican faith,' even in relation to private life and 
 
 1 J. Ferrand, ibid., p. 170 (Paris, 177Q), and 169 : " In many cases, general tutelage and 
 
 local tutelage are paralyzed Since 1870— 1876 the mayors, to lessen the difficulties 
 
 of their task, are frequently forced to abandon any rightful authority ; the prefects are 
 induced to tolerate, to approve of these infractions of the law. . . . For many years one 
 cannot read the minutes of a session of the council general or of the municipal council 
 
 without findnig numerous examples of the illegality we report In another order of 
 
 facts, for example in that which relates to the official staff, do we not see every day agents of 
 the state, even conscientious, yield to the will of all-powerful political notabilities and 
 entirely abandon the interests of the service ? "' — These abuses have largely increased 
 within the past ten years. 
 
 2 See " La Ucpublique et les conservateurs," in the Revue des Deux Mondes of March i, 
 1890, p. io3. — " 1 speak of this de visu : 1 take my own arrondissement. It is in one of 
 the eastern departments, lately represented by radicals. This time it was carried by a 
 conservative. An attempt was first made to annul the election, which had to be given up 
 as the votes in dispute were too many. Revenge was taken on the electors. Gendarmes, 
 in the communes, investigated the conduct of the cures, forest-guard, and storekeeper. 
 The hospital doctor, a conservator, was replaced by an opportunist. The tax-comptroller, 
 a man of the district, and of suspicious zeal, was sent far into the west. Every functionary 
 who, on the eve of the election, did not have a contrite look, was threatened with dismissal. 
 .K road-surveyor was regarded as having been lukewarm, and accordingly put on the 
 retired list. There is no petty vexation that was not resorted to, no insignificant person, 
 whom they disdained to strike. Stone breakers were denounced for saying that they ought 
 not to have had their wages reduced. Sisters of charity, in a certain commune, dispensed
 
 348 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 inner sentiments, the responsible director of orthodox or hereti- 
 cal acts or opinions, which are laudable or blaniable in the 
 innumerable army of functionaries by which the central state 
 now undertakes the complete mastery of human life, the twenty 
 distinct regiments of its vast hierarchy — with the staff of the 
 clergy, of the magistracy, of the preventive and repressive 
 police, of public education, of public charities, of direct taxa- 
 tion, of mdirect taxation, of registration, and of the customs ; 
 with the officials of bridges and highways, forest domains, 
 stock-breeding establishments, postal and telegraph depart- 
 ments, tobacco and other monopolies ; with those of every nat- 
 ional enterprise which ought to be private, Sevres and Gobelins, 
 deaf and dumb and blind asylums, and every auxiliary and 
 special workshop for war and navigation purposes, which the 
 state supports and manages. I pass some of them and all too 
 many. Only remark this, that the indulgence or severity of 
 the prefecture in the way of fiscal violations or irregularities is 
 an advantage or danger of the highest importance to three 
 hundred and seventy-seven thousand dealers in wines and 
 liquors ; that an accusation brought before and admitted in 
 the prefecture may deprive thirty-eight thousand clergymen 
 of their bread,' forty-three thousand letter-carriers and tele- 
 gragh messengers, forty-five thousand sellers of tobacco and 
 collecting-clerks, seventy-five thousand stone-breakers, and 
 one hundred and twenty thousand male and female teachers ;^ 
 directly or indirectly, the good or ill favor of the prefecture is 
 
 medicine to the poor ; they were forbidden to do this, to annoy the mayor living in Paris. 
 The custodians of mortgages had an errand-boy who was guilty of distributing, not voting- 
 tickets, but family notices (of a marriage) on the part of the new deputy ; a few days after 
 this, a letter from the prefecture gave the custodian notice that the criminal must be 
 replaced in twenty-four hours. A notary, in a public meeting, dared to interrupt the radi- 
 cal candidate ; he was prosecuted in the court for a violation of professional duties, and the 
 judges of judiciary reforms condemned him to three months' suspension." This took 
 place, " not in Languedoc, or in Provence, in the south among excited brains where every- 
 thing is allowable, but under the dull skies of Champagne. And when I interrogate the 
 conservators of the West and of the Center, they reply : " We have seen many beside these, 
 but it is long since we have ceased to be astonished ! " 
 
 1 Ibid., p. 105 : " Each cantonal chief town has its office of informers. The Minister of 
 Public Worship has himself told that on the first of January, iSqo, there were ;:5oo cures 
 deprived of their salary, about three or four times as many as on the first of January, i88g." 
 
 2 These figures are taken from the latest statistical reports. Some of them are furnished 
 by the chief or directors of special services.
 
 1 
 i 
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 349 
 
 of consequence, since recent military laws, to all adults between 
 twenty and forty-five years, and, since recent school laws, to 
 all children between six and thirteen years of age. According 
 to these figures, which go on increasing from year to year, 
 calculate the breadth of the margin on which, alongside of 
 the legal text which states the law for persons and things in 
 general, the prefect in his turn gives the law for persons and 
 things in particular. On this margin, which belongs to him, 
 he writes as he pleases, at one time permissions and favors, 
 exemptions, dispensations, leaves of absence, relief of taxes or 
 discharges, help and subventions, preferences and gratuities, 
 appointments and promotions, and at another time destitutions, 
 severities, prosecutions, wrongs, and injuries. To guide his 
 hand in each case, that is to say, to endure all the favors on 
 one side and all the disfavors on the other, he has special 
 informers and imperious solicitors belonging to the local set of 
 Jacobins. If not restrained by a very strong sentiment of dis- 
 tributive justice and very great solicitude for the public good 
 he can hardly resist them, and in general when he takes up 
 his pen it is to write under the dictation of his Jacobin collab- 
 orators. 
 
 Thus has the institution of the year viii deviated, no longer 
 attaining its object. The prefect, formerly appointed to a 
 department, like a pacier of the Middle Ages, imposed on it 
 from above, ignorant of local passions, independent, qualified 
 and fitted for the office, was able to remain, in general, for 
 fifty years, the impartial minister of the law and of equity, 
 maintaining the rights of each, and exacting from each his 
 due, without heeding opinions and without respect to persons. 
 Now he is obliged to become an accomplice of the ruling fac- 
 tion, govern for the advantage of some to the detriment of 
 others, and to put into his scales, as a preponderating weight, 
 every time he weighs judgment, a consideration for persons 
 and opinions. At the same time, the entire administrative 
 staff in his hands, and under his eye, deteriorates ; each year, 
 on the recommendation of a senator or deputy, he adds to it, or 
 sees, intruders there, whose previous services are null, feeble 
 in capacity and of weak integrity, who do poor work or none
 
 35 o THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 at all, and who, to hold their post or get promoted, count not 
 on their merits but on their patrons. The rest, able and 
 faithful functionaries of the old school, who are poor and to 
 whom no path is open, become weary and lose their energy ; 
 they are no longer even certain of keeping their place ; if 
 they stay, it is for the dispatch of current business and 
 because they cannot be dispensed with ; perhaps to-morrow, 
 however, they will cease to be considered indispensable ; some 
 political renunciation, or to give a political favorite a place, 
 will put them by anticipation on the retired list. Henceforth 
 they have two powers to consult, one, legitimate and natural, 
 the authority of their administrative chiefs, and the other ille- 
 gitimate and parasite, consisting of democratic influence from 
 both above and below ; for them, as for the prefect, public 
 good descends to the second rank and the electoral interest 
 mounts upward to the first rank. With them as with him, 
 self-respect, professional honor, the conscientious performance 
 of duty, reciprocal loyalty go down ; discipline relaxes, punc- 
 tuality falters, and, as the saying goes, the great administra- 
 tive edifice is no longer a well-kept house, but a barracks. 
 
 Naturally, under the democratic regime, the maintenance 
 and service of this house becomes more and more costly ; for, 
 owin£ to the additional centimes, it is the rich or well-to-do 
 minority which defrays the larger portion of the expense ; 
 owing to universal suffrage, it is the poor or half poor major- 
 ity which preponderates in voting, while the larger number 
 who vote can overtax the small paying number with impunity. 
 At Paris, the parliament and the government, elected by this 
 numerical majority, contrive demands in its behalf, force ex- 
 penditure, augment public works, schools, endowments, gra- 
 tuities, prizes, a multiplication of offices to increase the number 
 of their clients, while it never tires in decreeing, in the name 
 of principles, works for show, theatrical, ruinous, and danger- 
 ous, the cost of which they do not care to know, and of which 
 the social import escapes them. Democracy, above as well as 
 below, is short-sighted ; it seizes whatever food it comes 
 across, like an animal, with open jaws and head down ; it re- 
 fuses to anticipate and to calculate ; it burdens the future and
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 35 1 
 
 wastes every fortune it undertakes to manage, not alone that 
 of the central state, but, again, those of all local societies. 
 Up to the advent of universal suffrage, the administrators ap- 
 pointed above or elected below, in the department or in the 
 commune, kept tight hold of the purse-strings; since 1848, 
 especially since 1870, and still later, since the passage of the 
 laws of 1882, which, in suppressing the obligatory consent of 
 the heaviest taxed, let slip the last of these strings, this purse, 
 wide open, is emptied into the street.' In 185 1, the depart- 
 ments, all together, expended ninety seven millions ; in 1869, 
 one hundred and ninety-two millions ; in 1881, three hundred 
 and fourteen millions. In 1836, the communes, all together, 
 save Paris, expended one hundred and seventeen millions, in 
 1862, four hundred and fifty millions, in 1877, six hundred and 
 seventy-six millions. If we examine the receipts covering this 
 expenditure, we find that the additional centimes which sup- 
 pHed the local budgets, ill 1820, with eighty millions, and, in 
 1850, with one hundred and thirty-one millions, supplied them, 
 in 1870, with two hundred and forty-nine millions, in 1880, 
 witli three hundred and eighteen millions, and, in 1887, with 
 three htmdred and sixty-four millions. The annual increase, 
 therefore, of these superadded centimes to the principal of the 
 direct taxes is enormous, and finally ends in an overflow. In 
 1874,^ there were already twenty-four departments in which 
 the sum of additional centimes reached or surpassed the sum 
 (^f the principal. "In a very few years," says an eminent 
 economist,^ "it is probable that, for nearly all of the depart- 
 ments," the overcharge will be similar. Already, for a long 
 time, in the total of personal taxation,* the local budgets raised 
 
 1 De Foville, pp. 412, 416, 425, 455 ; Paul Lcroy-Beaulieu, " Traite de la science dcs fin- 
 ances," i., p. 717. 
 
 2 " Statistiques financieresdes communes en i88g": — 3539 communes pay less than i; com- 
 mon centimes ; 2597 pay from o fr. 15 to o fr. 30 ; 9652 pay from o fr. 31 to o fr. 50; 11,095 
 from o fr. 51 to i franc, and 4248 over i franc. — Here this relates only to the common cen- 
 times ; to have the sum total of the additional local teritiiiu-s o( each commune would re- 
 quire the addition of the department centimes, which the statistics do not furnish. 
 
 3 Paul I.eroy-Bcaulieu, ibid., i., pp. 690, 717. 
 
 tflbid.: '• If the personal lax were deducted from the amount of pcrson.-il and house tax 
 combined we would find that the assessment of the state in the product of the house tax, 
 that is to say the product of the tax on rentals, amounts to 41 or 42 millions, and that the
 
 352 THE MODERN REGIME. book iv. 
 
 more than the state, and, in 1888, the principal of the tax on 
 real property, one hundred and eighty-three miUions, is less 
 than the total of centimes joined with it, one hundred and 
 ninety-six millions. Coming generations are burdened over 
 and beyond the present generation, while the sum of loans 
 constantly increases, like that of taxation. The communes 
 with debts, all together save Paris, owed, in 1868, five hundred 
 and twenty-four millions, in 187 1, seven hundred and eleven 
 millions, in 1878, thirteen hundred and twenty-two millions. 
 Paris, in 1868, already owed thirteen hundred and seventy-six 
 millions, March 30, 1878, it owed nineteen hundred and eighty- 
 eight millions.' In this same Paris, the annual contribution of 
 each inhabitant for local expenses was, at the end of the first 
 Empire, in 1813, thirty-seven francs per head, at the end of 
 the Restoration, 45 francs, after the July monarchy, in 1848, 
 43 francs, and, at the end of the second Empire, in 1869, 94 
 francs. In 1887, it is no francs per head.^ 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Such, in brief, is the history of local society from 1789 
 down to 1889. After the philosophic demolitions of the 
 Revolution, and the practical constructions of the Consulate, 
 it could no longer be a small patrimony, something to take 
 pride in, an object of affection and devotion to its inhabitants. 
 The departments and communes have become more or less 
 vast lodging-houses, all built on the same plan and managed 
 according to the same regulations, one as passable as the 
 other, with apartments in them which, more or less good, are 
 more or less dear, but at rates which, higher or lower, are 
 
 share of localities in the product of this tax surpasses that of the state hy 8 or 9 millions." 
 (Year 1877.) 
 
 I " Situation financiere des department et des communes," published in iS8g by the Min- 
 ister of the Interior. Loans and indebtedness of the departments at the end of the fiscal 
 year in 1S86, six hundred and thirty million, sixty-six thousand, one hundred and two 
 francs. Loans and indebtedness of the communes Dec. ^o. 1886, three billion, twenty mil- 
 lion, four hundred and fifty thousand, five hundred and twenty-eight francs. 
 
 aDe Foville, p. 148 ; Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, " L'Etat moderne et ses fonctions," p. 21.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 353 
 
 fixed at a uniform tariff over the entire territory, so that the 
 thirty-six thousand communal buildings and the eighty-six 
 department hotels are about equal, it making but little differ- 
 ence whether one lodges in the latter rather than in the 
 former. The permanent taxpayers of both sexes who have 
 made these premises their home, have not obtained recogni- 
 tion for what they are, invincibly and by nature, a syndicate 
 of neighbors, an involuntary, obligatory and private associa- 
 tion, in which physical solidarity engenders moral solidarity, a 
 natural, limited society whose members own the building in 
 common, and each possesses a property right more or less 
 great, according to the greater or lesser contribution he 
 makes to the expenses of the establishment. Up to this time 
 no room has yet been found, either in the law or in minds, for 
 this very plam truth ; its place is taken and occupied in ad- 
 vance by the two errors which, in turn or both at once, have 
 led the legislator and opinion astray. 
 
 Taking things as a whole, it is admitted up to 1830 that the 
 legitimate proprietor of the local building is the central state, 
 that it may install its delegate therein, the prefect, with full 
 powers ; that, for better government, he consents to be in- 
 structed by the leading interested and most capable parties on 
 the spot ; that he should fix the petty rights he concedes to 
 them within the narrowest limits ; that he should appoint 
 them ; that, if he calls them together for consultation, it is 
 from time to time and generally for form's sake, to add the 
 authority of their assent to the authority of his omnipotence, 
 on the implied condition that he shall not give heed to their 
 objections if he does not like them, and not follow their advice 
 if he does not choose to accept it. — Taking things as a whole, 
 it is admitted that, since 1848, the legitimate proprietors of the 
 building are its adult male inhabitants, counted by heads, all 
 equal and all with an equal part in the common properly, 
 comprising those who contribute nothing or nearly nothing to 
 the common expenditure of the house, the numerous body of 
 semi-poor who lodge in it at half price, and the not less 
 numerous body to whom administrative philanthropy furnishes 
 house comforts, shelter, light, and frequently provisions, gratui-
 
 354 THE MODERN REGIME. book IV. 
 
 tously. — Between both these contradictory and false concep- 
 tions, between the prefect of the year viii, and the democracy 
 of 1792, a compromise has been effected ; undoubtedly, the 
 prefect, sent from Paris, is and remains the titular director, 
 the active and responsible manager of the departmental or 
 communal building ; but, in his management of it he is bound 
 to keep in view the coming elections, and in such a way as 
 will maintain the parliamentary majority in the seats they 
 occupy in parliament; consequently, he must conciliate the 
 local leaders of universal suffrage, rule with their help, put up 
 with the intrusion of their bias and cupidity, take their advice 
 daily, follow it often, even in small matters, even in payments 
 day by day of sums already voted, in appointing an office- 
 clerk, in the appointment of an unpaid underling, who may 
 some day or other take this clerk's place.^ — Hence the spec- 
 tacle before our eyes : a badly kept establishment in which 
 profusion and waste render each other worse and worse, 
 where sinecures multiply and where corruption enters in ; a 
 staff of officials becoming more and more numerous and less 
 and less serviceable, harassed between two different authori- 
 ties, obliged to possess or to simulate political zeal and to 
 neutralize an impartial law by partiality, and, besides perform- 
 ing their regular duties, to do dirty work ; in this staff, there 
 are two sorts of employes, the new-comers who are greedy 
 and who, through favor, get the best places, and the old ones 
 who are patient and pretend no more, but who suffer and 
 grow disheartened ; in the building itself, there is great 
 demolition and reconstruction, architectural fronts in monu- 
 mental style for parade and to excite attention, entirely new 
 decorative and extremely tiresome structures at extravagant 
 cost ; consequently, loans and debts, heavier bills at the end 
 of each year for each occupant, low rents, but still high, for 
 favorites in the small rooms and garrets, and extravagant 
 rents for the larger and more sumptuous apartments ; in sum, 
 
 1 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, "L' Administration locale en France et en Angleterre," p. 28. 
 (Decrees of March 25, 1852, and April 13, 1861.) List of offices directly appointed by the 
 prefect and on the recommendation of the heads of the service, among others the super- 
 ■numeraries of telegraph, lines and of the tax offices.
 
 CHAP. II. DEFECT AND EFFECTS OF THE SYSTEM. 355 
 
 forced receipts which do not offset the expenses ; liabiUties 
 which exceed assets ; a budget which shows only a stable 
 balance on paper —in short, an establishment with which 
 the public is not content, and which is on the road to 
 bankruptcy.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The following notes, added by the author after the foregoing 
 translation had been made, were not received in time to incor- 
 porate with the text before it was put in the printer's hands. 
 They are given with the indications that enable the reader to 
 refer to them in their proper places. 
 
 BOOK FIRST, 
 ■fflapoleon asonapartc. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 2, Note i. 
 
 Continue by adding : — The above-mentioned savant estimates the number of im- 
 portant letters not yet published at 2,000. 
 
 Page 8, Note 2. 
 Continue by adding: — " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " (unpublished), councillor of 
 state and afterwards minister of the interior under the Consulate : " At this time, 
 Bonaparte did not blush at the slight knowledge of administrative details which he 
 possessed; he asked a good many questions and demanded definitions and the mean- 
 ing of the commonest words in use. As it very often happened with him not to clearly 
 comprehend words which he heard for the first time, he always repeated these after- 
 wards as he understood them ; for example, he constantly used section for session, 
 armistice for am nesty, _/<«/»« iV/a/Zw^ point for culminatmg point, rentes voyagires for 
 'rentes vfageres,' etc." 
 
 Page 16, Note i. 
 
 Continue by adding: — "Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "Every member of this 
 numerous family (Jerome, I.ouis, Joseph, Bonaparte's sisters), mounted thrones as if 
 they had recovered so much property." 
 
 Page 17, Note i. 
 Continue by adding : — " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " : When these notes are pub- 
 lished, many details will be found in them in support of the judgment expressed in 
 this and the following chapters. The psychology of Napoleon as here given is largely 
 confirmed by them. 
 
 357
 
 358 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Page 30, Note 3. 
 
 Continue by adding :—" Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "One day, the Emperor 
 said to me that he would like to organize a military school at Fontainebleau ; he then 
 explained to me the principal features of the establishment, and ordered me to draw 
 up the necessary articles and bring them to him the next day. I worked all night and 
 they were ready at the appointed hour. He read them over and pronounced them cor- 
 rect, but not complete. He bade me take a seat and then dictated to me for two or 
 three hours a plan which consisted ol Jive hundred and seventeen articles. Nothing 
 more perfect, in my opinion, ever issued from a man's brain.— At another time, the 
 Empress Josephine was to take the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the Emperor sum- 
 moned me. ' The Empress,' said he, ' is to leave to-morrow morning. She is a good- 
 natured, easy-going woman and must have her route and behavior marked out for 
 her. Write it down.' He then dictated instructions to me on twenty-one large sheets 
 oy paper, in which everything she was to say and to do was designated, even the ques- 
 tions and replies she was to make to the authorities on the way." 
 
 Pa^e 35, Note 3. 
 
 Continue by adding : — " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " : " After the treaty of Tilsit 
 one of his ministers congratulated him and remarked that this treaty made him master 
 of Europe. Napoleon replied: ' And you too, you are like other people ! I shall not 
 be its master until I have signed a treaty at Constantinople, and this treaty delays me 
 a year.' " 
 
 Pi^g^ 37, Note 2. 
 Continue by adding :— Here is another significant utterance (Rcederer, iii., 353, 
 December i, 1800): " If I were to die within the next three or four years, of a fever, 
 in my bed, and, in order to complete my romance, I should make a will, I would say 
 to the nation, avoid a military government. I would tell it to appoint a civil magis. 
 trate." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Page 56, Note i. 
 
 Continue by adding : — " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " (Napoleon's own words to the 
 poet Lemercier, who might have accompanied him to the Orient and have learned a 
 good deal more of human nature) : " You would have seen a country where the 
 sovereign takes no account of the lives of his subjects, and where the subject himself 
 takes no account of his own life. You would have got rid of your philanthropic no- 
 tions." 
 
 Page S7, Note 2. 
 Continue by adding :—" Notes par le Comte Chaptal": "He believed neither in 
 virtue nor in probity, often calling these two words nothing but abstractions ; this is 
 what rendered him so distrustful and so immoral. . . . He never experienced a gen- 
 erous sentiment ; this is why he was so cold in company, and why he never had a 
 friend. He regarded men as so much counterfeit coin or as mere instruments." 
 
 Page 61. 
 
 The following note belongs on this page to the phrase, " intellectual or moral supe- 
 riority is of this order and he gradually gets rid of it." 
 
 " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " : During the Consulate, " his opinion not being yet 
 formed on many points, he allowed discussion and it was then possible to enlighten 
 him and enforce an opinion one expressed in his presence. But, from the moment 
 that he possessed ideas of his own, either true or false, on administrative subjects, he 
 consulted no one; ... he treated everybody who differed from him in opinion con-
 
 APPENDIX. 359 
 
 tetnptuously, tried to make them appear ridiculous, and often exclaimed, giving his 
 forehead a slap, that here was an instrument far more useful than the counsels of men 
 who were commonly supposed to be instructed and experienced. . . . For four years, 
 he sought to gather around him the able men of both parties. After this, the choice of 
 his agents began to be indifferent to him. Regard. n^ himself as strong enough to 
 rule and carry on the administration himself, the talents or character of those who 
 stood in his way were discarded. What he wanted was valets and not councillors. . . . 
 The ministers were simply head-clerks of the bureaux. The Council of State served 
 only to give form to the decrees emanating from him ; he ruled even in petty details. 
 Everybody around him was timid and passive; his will was regarded as that of an 
 oracle and executed without reflection. . . Self-isolated from other men, having con- 
 centrated in his own hands all powers and all actico, thoroughly convinced that an 
 other's light and experience could be of no use to him, he thought that arms and hands 
 were all that he required." 
 
 Page 72, Note 2. 
 Continue by adding :— " Notes par le Comte Chaptal " : " At a f^te, in the HStel de 
 Ville, he exclaimed to Madame — ^, who had just given her name to him : ' Good God, 
 they told me you were pretty ! ' To some old persons: ' You haven't long to live! ' 
 To another lady : ' It is a tine time for you, now your husband is on his campaigns ! ' 
 In general, the tone of Bonaparte was that of an ill-bred lieutenant. He often in- 
 vited a dozen or fifteen persons to dinner and rose from the table before the soup was 
 finished. . . The court was a regular galley where each rowed according to command." 
 
 Page 85, Note 3. 
 Continue by adding : — Stanislas Girardin ; " Journal et Mdmoires," iii., Visit of th« 
 French Consul to Ermenonville.
 
 a 
 
 ^ 
 
 f 
 
 0- 
 
 /!
 
 i 
 
 i
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 
 w^^^ 
 
 -;ji 
 c-^ 
 
 % 
 
 # 
 
 %l 
 
 ■.«'! 
 
 SI 
 
 cr 
 
 Off 
 
 so 
 
 315 
 
 
 ' /\^ ^ uue J .4 • 
 
 k£- /^..^d^^fft
 
 
 %oim:i^ 
 
 ^OF-CA11FO% 
 
 
 9. 
 
 
 .if^ 
 
 iJniV'fSily ■.)! '.alilofnij Li.'-, Ar',].'!. 
 
 L 005 485 248 8 
 
 ^lOSANCF' 
 
 P 
 
 s'<t 
 
 
 AA 000 457 603 9 
 
 i /;C' uTri" if.--