First French Empire

“ Are France or England for that less the good result of Monarchy? To-day France is the France of French Monarchy, the only difference being that under the First Napoleon the Allies entered Paris on the 6th of July, 1815, and that the fallen Emperor saddled France with the Treaty of Paris (1815) ; the Third Napoleon lost Alsace less Belfort; and that the Third Republic lost a large slice of Lorraine through not coming to terms with Prussia before the capitulation of Metz, French History begins not either from 1870 or 1792; and if men, strangers to History, cannot educate, let them be educated! ”

“ Powerful and great is the French Empire. Greater still is our moderation. We have in a manner conquered Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany. But, in the midst of such unparalleled success, we have listened only to the counsels of moderation. Of so many conquered provinces, we have retained only the one which was necessary to maintain France in the rank among the nations which she has always enjoyed. The partition of Poland, the provinces torn from Turkey, the conquest of India, and of almost all the European colonies, have turned the balance against us. ”

“ The English Empire, both at its best and worse estate, could boast of nothing better than a feeble imitation of the antique, while the French Empire was at least an expression of the conquests and successes of one man. ”

“ The French Revolution was not produced by the jarring interests of two families disputing the possession of the throne; it was a general rising of the mass of the nation against the privileged classes. The French nobility, like that of every country in Europe, dates its origin from the incursion of the barbarians, who divided the Roman Empire among them. In France, nobles represented the Franks, and the Burgundians, and the rest of the nation, the Gauls. The feudal system which was introduced established the principle that all land should have a lord. ”

“ It was well for that sovereign that he could do something to save his name from the obloquy attached to it on account of his base desertion of Joan of Arc, to whom he owed his throne and his kingdom.
From the moment when a French province was attached to the crown of England, the dream of that nation was the conquest of France. Generations came and went, one dynasty replaced another, and still the struggle continued; France sometimes seeming near to dominion over England, and England always believing it was her destiny to bring France under the rule of an English sovereign. ”

“ Thenceforth, from 1804 to 1814, France was an empire, established and maintained by military force. Then it was that the national hero—self-crowned Napoleon I, emperor of the French,—by means of war, conquest, annexation, or alliance, spread the ideas of his country far and wide throughout Europe. Before we review the main activities of the constructive consulate or of the proselyting empire, we should have some notion of the character of the leading actor. ”

“ England in conscious superiority smiles at a nation which has had seven political revolutions in a hundred years. Republic, then Empire, then a return to the Bourbons, then a limited Monarchy under Louis Philippe, then Republic, followed by Empire again, and now for the third time a Republic!
But France, complex, mobile, changeful as the sea, in riotous enjoyment of her newfound liberties, casts off a form of government as she would an ill-fitting garment. She knows the value of tranquillity — she had it for one thousand years! ”

“ It is more than a century since France began to interest herself in this part of the world, dreaming dreams of an Eastern empire to offset the one she had just lost in America. Then came the French Revolution, and the dream went the way of many more substantial things, and it was not until the days of the Second Empire that Napoleon III, looking east and west, again took up the question. ”

“ When in the pre-revolutionary days we read of France making war, it means that the King, or his minister, with more or less deference to the will of a few thousand nobles, did so. They are the France referred to. The real France was not consulted and had nothing to do with it, unless it were to fill the ranks with fathers, sons, and husbands, and then pay the taxes imposed to support them. But times were changed. Under a constitutional monarchy, the King does not govern; he reigns. Louis Philippe was King of the French,—not of France. ”

“ Not only had the empire fallen apart into three grand divisions, but France itself was disintegrating, was in fact a mass of rival states, with counts, princes, marquises, and a score of other petty potentates struggling for supremacy. ”

“ When the nineteenth century opened France was no longer a monarchy, but a republic; and her armies were to occupy in turn every European capital, from Madrid to Moscow. In order to understand the marvelous transformations produced by the French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon, we must consider somewhat carefully the conditions in France which led to a great reform of her institutions in 1789, and to the founding of a republic four years later. ”

“ Within the Empire itself the Code Napoléon, conferring upon the subjects of France the benefits which the French had already won for themselves, had superseded a society resting on class-privilege, on feudal service, and on the despotism of custom, by a society resting on equality before the law, on freedom of contract, and on the unshackled ownership and enjoyment of land, whether the holder possessed an acre or a league. ”

“ It might seem probable that the possessor of so great power would absorb the little monarchy of France. But this was prevented by long-continued discord in England,—discord in the royal family, between the king and the clergy, and, later, between the king and the barons. On the Continent, the king of England required a great and united force to break the feudal bonds which grew stronger between the king of France and the French provinces of England. We shall soon see how France enlarged her territory, and how the English dominion on the Continent was greatly reduced. ”

“ I do not believe that the Revolution has produced any thing more comprehensive and energetic on the governments of the last twenty-five years in France, namely, the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. ”

“ England seems to rely on our own divisions and on the aggressions of France as sufficient to force us into a change of measures, perhaps war with France, without any previous reparation or relaxation on her part. Of the real views of the French Emperor nothing more is known than what appears on the face of his decrees and in his acts ”

“ Considering what France was under her Kings, what she now is, and how many troubles she has had to endure at the hands of intriguers, the conclusion in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, accepted by all men able to read French History, is surely that France always was, is at heart, and should remain what Great Britain is, and rightly wishes to remain, i.e., a Constitutional Monarchy. ”

“ The rulers assuredly take note of all this danger. They understand that their enemy in France is not France itself, but the Revolution.
The German Empire rekindles the fears that Louis XIV. inspired and Napoleon made us realize. Owing to a remnant of feudalism, it is founded on a much more solid basis than the French Empire was. When it attains its utmost limit, there will really be only one power in Europe. Even now, no one would think of denying its preponderance. The balance of power can only be preserved by the alliance of the secondary powers—France, Russia, Austria, and England. ”

“ The successful establishment of the French Republic would very probably have driven every King in Europe from his throne. England was agitated through all her countries. From the mud cabins of Ireland, from the dark and miry mines, from the thronged streets of the city, and the crowded workshops all over the kingdom, there was a clamorous cry ascending for liberty and equality. The spirit of democracy, radiating from its soul in Paris, was assailing every throne in Europe. ”

“ These facts, and the harmony with which the inexperienced multitude took this first great step toward national regeneration, excited throughout aristocratic Europe amazement and alarm. Kings and nobles alike trembled. All the states of Europe, like France, were oppressed by feudal despotism. All the people of Europe might, like the French, demand reform. ”

“ It was, in reality, a plot, under cover of Catholicism, to introduce absolute monarchy, and to make England a dependency of France, not only by the acceptance of French money, but by submission to a French army. ”

“ The civilisation of Europe, he held, was most intelligibly exhibited in that of France, where, more than in other countries, intellectual and social development have moved hand in hand, where general ideas and doctrines have always accompanied great events and public revolutions. The key to the meaning of French history he found in the tendency towards national and political unity. From the tenth to the fourteenth century four great forces met in co-operation or in conflict—royalty, the feudal system, the communes, the Church. Feudalism fell; a great monarchy arose upon its ruins. ”

“ But in that same century, in France, the protective spirit assumed a new form; the power of the aristocracy was, in a great measure, succeeded by the power of the crown; and there began that tendency to centralization which, having been pushed still further, first under Louis XIV., and afterwards under Napoleon, has become the bane of the French people. [309] For by it the feudal ideas of superiority and submission have long survived that barbarous age to which alone they were suited. Indeed, by their transmigration, they seemed [123] to have gained fresh strength. ”

“ And what could patriotism mean, when the French fatherland meant the land of Louis Napoleon, Morny, Maupas, Persigny, and their unspeakable underlings? The new Empire gave France what is called a strong government, by which commercially she throve. Tradesmen, seeing business improve and their hoards grow, chafed less at the loss of political freedom. The working classes were propitiated by public works—the favorite nostrum of socialists and tyrants—organized on a vast scale. ”

“ The great French Empire, as under Napoleon, with his military despotic power, where is it? The great Mogul Empire, with its despotic grinding power, where is it? They none of them [584] trusted or looked to the strong arm of the Great I AM. We would point out that our glorious empire is larger, stronger, and better than them all. Larger in area, and with a population exceeding three hundred millions; stronger, in doing battle for the right; for when Britain draws the sword in a just cause, woe be to the enemy. ”

“ Caught in the midst of prosperity undreamed of, the Napoleonic Dynasty fell of its own accord into an abyss of blood and shame, dragging France down with it. That wonderful military star which arose at Areola and Rivoli and shone on the fields of Marengo and Austerlitz to set at Sedan; that great nation, as the French dearly loved to be called, defeated, disgraced, disarmed in six months; that French army, oft victorious, even when hampered by the carelessness and incapacity of its Officers ”

“ War is the thing to give solidity to empire and to reputation! Neither France nor Europe can withstand the magic of military renown. And so, upon a quickly improvised pretext, the French Emperor started, amid the booming of cannon and the wild acclamations of a delighted people, upon a new career of conquest. ”

“ The tenth and eleventh centuries saw the consolidation of the provincial nationalities of France, the growing up of those strong local states which play so conspicuous a part in later mediæval French history, and which, centuries after their absorption into the royal domain, continued to be centres of keen local feeling, and are not 83crushed out of existence even by modern patriotism and the levelling-up of the Revolution. Equally important with their political influence was their influence on arts, language, and literature. ”

“ France had not won the leadership of European civilization.
In the coming reign, new forces, new conditions, were to widen the field of national ambitions. And it was the nation across the channel which would grasp these forces and distance her rivals in an advance along the untried paths of commerce and a world-wide expansion.
With a strange apathy France had seen herself mistress of a large part of the American Continent, won for her by adventurous Frenchmen and Catholic missionaries. She did practically nothing to develop this magnificent colonial empire. ”

“ The powers confirm the French Empire in the possession of an extent of territory which France has never attained under her kings, since a generous nation should not be punished because it has experienced reverses in a bloody and well-contested struggle in which it has fought with its accustomed bravery. But the powers themselves also wish to be happy and peaceful. ”

“ It seems designed as a lesson for the human race in the transitory nature of power applied from without.
The vast fabric passed with himself; was gone like a shadow when he was gone. The unity of the Empire was buried in the grave of its founder. In twenty-nine years (by the treaty of Verdun) three kingdoms emerged from the crumbling mass. France, Italy, Germany, already separated by race repulsions, had taken up each a distinct national existence, the Imperial crown remaining with Germany. ”