SieyÈs comprehended this: he detects on the horizon the two specters which, for ten years, have haunted all the governments 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."2119—Consequently, the new constitutional 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."2120 The right of the electors of the first degree is wholly reduced to 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 who, as simple tools, will be devoted to it. 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 handsome salaries to these legislative offices, 10,000 f., 15,000 f., and 30,000 f. 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 docility 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 government. Each possesses only a fragment of function; the "Tribunat" discusses without passing laws, the "Corps LÉgislatif" decrees without discussion, the conservative" SÉnat" is to maintain this general paralysis. "What do you want?" said Bonaparte to Lafayette.2121 "SieyÈs everywhere put nothing but ghosts, the ghost of a legislative power, the ghost of a judiciary, the ghost of a government. Something 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.2122 The mutes of the Corps LÉgislatif 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 senatus-consultes of which he has need. Through this comedy played by him above, and through another complementary 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 interest, 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 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 impulses of conquest to regard himself and the world under a light growing falser and falser.

Such are the bitter fruits of social dissolution: the authority of the state will either perish or become perverted; each uses it for his own purposes, and nobody is disposed to entrust it to an external arbitrator, and the usurpers who seize it only remain trustee on condition that they abuse it; when it works in their hands it is only to work against its office. It must be accepted when, for want of better or fear of worse, 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.

2101 (return)
[ "The Revolution," P.193 and following pages, also p.224 and following pages. The provisions of the constitution of the year III, somewhat less anarchical, are analogous; those of the "Mountain" constitution (year II) are so anarchical that nobody thought of enforcing them.]

2102 (return)
[ "The Revolution," vol. III., pp.446, 450, 476.]

2103 (return)
[ Sauzay, "Histoire de la persecution rÉvolutionnaire dans le dÉpartement 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 constitutionalists of '91 and '93, clubbists, the amnestied, fanatics, scissionists and antiscissionists; in vain does it call for republicans."]

2104 (return)
[ "The Revolution," III., 427, 474.—Rocquain, "L'État de la France au 18 Brumaire," 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 municipal 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.—Ibid., 368, 369: "Deplorable indifference for public offices.... Out of seven town officials appointed in the commune of Laval, only one accepted, and that one the least capable. It is the same in the other communes."—Ibid., 380 (Report of the year VII): "General decline of public spirit."—Ibid., 287 (Report by LacuÉe, on the 1st military division, Aisne, Eure-et-Loire, Loiret, Oise, Seine, Seine-et-Marne, (year IX): "Public spirit is dying out and is even gone."]

2105 (return)
[ Rocquain, Ibid., p.27 (Report of FranÇois de Nantes, on the 8th military division,Vaucluse, Bouches-du-RhÔne, Var, Basses-Alpes, and Alpes-Maratimes, year IX): "Witnesses, in some communes, did not dare furnish testimony, and, in all, the justices of the peace were afraid of making enemies and of not being 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."—Ibid., 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 the law and with criminal partiality.—Archives nationales, series F7, Reports "on the situation, on the spirit of the public," in many hundreds of towns, cantons, and departments, from the year III to the year VIII and after.]

2106 (return)
[ Cf. "The Revolution," III., book IX., ch. I.—Rocquain, passim.—Schmidt, "Tableaux de la RÉvolution franÇaise," III., parts 9 and 10.—Archives nationales, F7, 3250 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive directory, Fructidor 23, year VII): "Armed mobs on the road between Saint-Omer and Arras have dared fire on the diligences and rescue from the gendarmerie the drawn conscripts."—Ibid., F7, 6565. Only on Seine-inferiure, of which the following are some of the reports of the gendarmerie 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 HÉronville is that none of the inhabitants will make any declaration, while it is impossible that they should not have been in the rebels' secrets."—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.—VendÉmiarie 27, year VIII.) "Twenty-five armed brigands or drafted men in the cantons of RÉautÉ and Bolbec have put farmers to ransom."—(NivÔse 12~ year VIII.) In the canton of Cuny another band of brigands do the same thing.—(Germinal 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.]

2107 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 260. Under the Directory," one day, in order to dispatch a special courier, the receipts of the Opera had to be taken because they were in coin. Another day, it was on the point of sending every gold piece in the musÉe of medals to be melted down (worth in the crucible from 5000 to 6000 francs)."]

2108 (return)
[ "ThÉorie constitutionnelle de SieyÈs." (Extract from unpublished memoirs by Boulay de la Meurthe.) Paris, 1866, Renouard.]

2109 (return)
[ "Correspondance de Napoleon 1er," XXX.. 345. ("MÉmoires.")—"MÉmorial de Sainte-HÉlÈne"]

2110 (return)
[ "Extrait des MÉmoires" de Boulay de la Meurthe, p.50. (Words of Bonaparte to Roederer about SieyÈs, who raised objections and wanted to retire.) "If SieyÈs goes into the country, draw up for me at once the plan of a constitution. I will summon the primary assemblies in a week and make them accept it after discharging the (Constituant) committees."]

2111 (return)
[ "Correspondance de NapolÉon ler" XXX., 345, 346. ("MÉmoires.") "Circumstances were such as to still make it necessary to disguise the unique magistracy of the president."]

2112 (return)
[ 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 VendÉe, on account of the conscription; the war-cry of the insurgents is, "Better die here than elsewhere."]

2113 (return)
[ De Martel, "Les Historiens fantaisistes," part 2 (on the Pacification of the West, according to reports of the royalist leaders and of the republican generals).]

2114 (return)
[ Archives nationales, F7, 3218. (Summary of dispatches arranged according to dates.-Letters of Adjutant-General Vicose, Fructidor 3, year VII.—Letters of Lamagdelaine, commissioner of the executive Directory, Thermidor 26 and Fructidor 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 MontrÉjean "the carnage was frightful, nearly 2000 men slain or drowned and 1000 prisoners."—(Letter of M. Alquier to the first consul, PluviÔse 18, year VIII.) "The insurrection of Thermidor caused the loss of 3000 cultivators.—(Letters of the department administrators and of the government commissioners, NivÔse 25 and 27, PluviÔse 13, 15, 25, 27, and 30, year VIII.)—The insurrection is prolonged through a vast number of isolated outrages, with sabers or guns, against republican functionaries and partisans, justices of the peace, mayors, etc. In the commune of BalbÈze, 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 I' insurrection royaliste de l'an VII," by B. Lavigne, 1887.]

2115 (return)
[ Archives nationales, F7, 3273 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive Directory, Vaucluse, Fructidor 6, year VII.): "Eighty armed royalists have carried off, near the forest of Suze, the cash-box of the collector, Bouchet, in the name of Louis XVIII. These rascals, it must be noted, did not take any of the money belonging to the collector himself."—(Ibid., Thermidor 3, year 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 opposed to the constitutional regime, that a miracle only will bring them within the pale of freedom."—Ibid., F7, 3199. (Similar documents on the department of Bouches-du-RhÔne.) 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, Germinal 15, year IX.) "In the commune of Eyragues, 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 assistance.... Three-quarters of the inhabitants of Eyragues are royalists."—In series F7, 7152 and those following may be found an enumeration of political crimes classified by department and by the month, especially for Messidor, year VII.]

2116 (return)
[ BarÈre, representative of Hautes PyrÉnÉes, had preserved a good deal of credit in this remote department, especially in the district of Argeles, 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.]

2117 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 158. 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 off; some were arrested and others exiled, among them General Mounier, who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at Marengo. General Lecourbe was also one of the conspirators.]

2118 (return)
[ On the 18th Fructidor NapolÉon used grape-shot and artillery to sweep the royalists off the streets of Paris. (SR.)]

2119 (return)
[ "Extrait des MÉmoires de Boulay de la Meurthe," p.10.]

2120 (return)
[ Napoleon's words. ("Correspondance," XXX., 343, memoirs dictated at Saint Helena.)]

2121 (return)
[ Lafayette, "MÉmoires," II., 192.]

2122 (return)
[ Pelet de la LozÈre, "Opinions de NapolÉon au conseil d'État," p. 63 "The senate 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."—Ibid., P.147: "It must not be in the power of a legislative body to impede government by refusing taxes; once the taxes are 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.)—Ibid., p. 147:" If I ever had any fear of the senate I had only to put fifty young state-councillors into it." (December 1, 1803.)—Ibid., p.150: "If an opposition should spring up in the legislative 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 departments. 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 existence." (Same date.)—Cf. Thibaudeau, "MÉmoires sur le Consulat," ch. XIII., and M. de Metternich, "MÉmoires," 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 lÉgislatif, docile as it is, still worrying him, and very justly; he foresaw the session of 1813.]