To say that the French were pleased with the consular government, would convey no idea of the facts. France was delighted, France was in raptures. Excepting the inevitable few,—some royalists, some Jacobins and some lineal descendants of the Athenians who grew tired of hearing Aristides called The Just,—all Frenchmen heartily united in praise of Bonaparte.

As proudly as Richelieu, in Bulwer’s play, stands before his king and tells what he has done for France,—a nation found lying in poverty, shame, defeat, deathly decay, and lifted by the magic touch of genius to wealth, pride, victory, and radiant strength,—so the First Consul could have pointed to what France had been and what she had become, and justly claim the love and admiration of his people.

What reward should be given such a magistrate? In 1802 his consulship, which had already been lengthened by ten years, was, by the almost unanimous vote of the people, changed into a life tenure.

Consul for life (August, 1802), with the power to name his own successor, Napoleon was now virtually the king of France.

In St. Domingo, the Revolution in France had borne bitter fruit. The blacks rose against the whites, and a war of extermination ensued. The negroes, immensely superior in numbers, overcame the whites, and established their independence. Toussaint L’Ouverture, the leader of the blacks, and a great man, became president of the black republic, which he patterned somewhat after Napoleon’s consulate.

The rich French planters, who had the ear of Napoleon in Paris, urged him to put down the revolt, or to bring the island back under French dominion. Thus these Bourbon nobles led Napoleon into one of his worst mistakes. He aligned himself with those who wished to reËstablish slavery, put himself at enmity with the trend of liberalism everywhere, and plunged himself into a ruinous war.

Mainly from the army of the Rhine, which was republican and unfriendly to himself, he drew out of France twenty thousand of her best troops, put them under command of Leclerc, his brother-in-law, and despatched them to St. Domingo, to reconquer the island.

Here again it is impossible to escape the conclusion that Napoleon had not duly considered what he was doing. There is evidence of haste, want of investigation, lack of foresight and precaution. The whole plan, from inception to end, bears the marks of that rashness which is forever punishing the man who tries to do everything.

The negroes gave way before Leclerc’s overwhelming numbers; and, by treachery, Toussaint was captured and sent to France to die in a dungeon; but the yellow fever soon came to the rescue of the blacks, and the expedition, after causing great loss of life, ended in shameful failure. Leclerc died, the remnants of the French army were brought back to Europe in English ships, and the negroes established their semi-barbarous Republic of Hayti (1804). This much may be said by way of defence for Napoleon’s treatment of San Domingo: it had been one of the choicest possessions of the French crown, and he wished to regain it for his country, just as he regained Louisiana, and just as he yearned for the lost territories in Hindustan. Visions of a vast colonial empire haunted his imagination, and the spirit which influenced him in his efforts in the West Indies was, perhaps, the same which lured him to Egypt, which caused him to attach such extreme importance to Malta, and which caused him to send men-of-war to South Australia to survey the coast for settlement.

Meantime the Peace of Amiens was becoming a very frail thing, indeed. To all men, war in the near future seemed inevitable. Very positively England had pledged herself to restore Malta to the Knights of St. John; very emphatically she now refused to do so. By way of excuse she alleged that France had violated the spirit of the treaty by her aggressions on the Continent. In reply, Napoleon insisted that France had done nothing which it was not well known she intended at the time peace was made. He also reminded England that she had taken India. And this was true, but truth sometimes cuts a poor figure in debate. In vain such splendid types of English manhood as Charles Fox stood forth boldly in the British Parliament, and defended the First Consul. England was determined not to give up the Mediterranean fortress. France had no navy, no sailor with a spark of Nelson’s genius, and Malta was safe. On the Continent Napoleon might rage and might destroy; but England had proved how easy it was for her to bear the losses inflicted upon Continental Europe, and she was prepared to prove it again. Safe in her sea-girt isle, she was not to be intimidated by armies hurled against her allies.

In this crisis, when conciliatory measures might have availed to avert war, Lord Whitworth was sent to Paris as British ambassador. With his coming all hope of accommodation vanished. He was a typical English aristocrat, the very worst man who could have been sent if peace was desired. From the first, his letters to his government show that he was intensely hostile to Napoleon and to the consular government. To his superiors at home he misrepresented the situation in France, and where he did not misrepresent, he exaggerated. Finally, when Napoleon went out of his way to have a long conference with him, and to urge that England should keep her contract, he showed himself coldly irresponsive, and hinted that Malta would not be given up. Following this private and urgent conference came the public reception, in which Napoleon, with some natural display of temper and with the frankness of a soldier, asked Whitworth why England wanted war, and why she would not respect treaties. Whereupon Whitworth represented to his court that he had been grossly insulted, and all England rang with indignation. A falser statement never caused more woe to the human race. Bismarck cynically confessed that he it was who changed the form, the wording, and the tone of “the Ems telegram” which caused the Franco-German War of 1870–1. It is not too much to say that Whitworth’s exaggerated report, and the changes for the worse which the British ministry made in it when making it public, was one of the controlling causes of the wars, the bloodshed, and the misery which followed the year 1804.

During all this while the English newspapers were filled with the bitterest abuse of Napoleon. The most shameful lies that were ever published against a human being were constantly repeated against him in the British journals. That he should be subjected to such treatment during years of peace, and while he was giving most cordial welcome to the thousands of Englishmen who were now visiting France, filled Napoleon with wrath. He knew that by law the press of Great Britain was free; but he also knew that these papers, especially the ministerial papers, would not be filled with scurrilous personal abuse of him unless the government encouraged it. He knew that the political press reflects the views of the political party, and that when ministerial journals hounded him with libels, the ministers had given the signal. In vain he protested to the English ministry; he was told that in England the press was free. Then, as all his admirers must regret, he, also, stooped to libels and began to fill the official organs in France with outrageous attacks upon England.

Another grievance Napoleon had against Great Britain—she harbored men who openly declared their intention of assassinating him. English protection, English ships, English money, were ever at the command of the royalists who wished to stir up revolt in France, or to land assassins who wished to creep to Paris. On this subject, also, the English government would give no satisfaction. It coldly denied the accusation, disavowed the assassins, and continued to encourage assassination.

While relations were thus strained, a report of General SÉbastiani on the eastern situation was published. In the paper, SÉbastiani had ventured to say that six thousand French troops might reconquer Egypt. Here was another insult to England. Here was another excuse for editorial thunder, another provocative of parliamentary eloquence. England did not choose to remember that Sir Robert Wilson had just published a book, also on the eastern situation, and that in this publication Napoleon had been represented as the murderer of prisoners at Jaffa, and the poisoner of his own sick in the hospitals. This book had been dedicated to the Duke of York by permission, and had been presented by the author to George III., at a public levee.

England was bent on war; no explanations or remonstrances would soothe her, and on May 18 war was declared. But she had already seized, without the slightest warning, hundreds of French ships laden with millions of merchandise—ships which had come to English harbors trusting to her faith pledged in the treaty. This capture and confiscation excited almost no comment, but when Napoleon retaliated by throwing into prison thousands of Englishmen who were travelling in France, England could find no words harsh enough to condemn the outrage. Even so intelligent a historian as Lockhart is aghast at Napoleon’s perfidy. For, mark you, England had always seized what she could of the enemy’s property previous to a declaration of war, whereas Napoleon’s counterstroke was a novelty. It had never been done before, therefore it was an unspeakable atrocity—“It moved universal sympathy, indignation, and disgust.” So says Lockhart, repeating dutifully what his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, had already said. And the most recent British historian, J.H. Rose, writing of that period, falls into the well-worn path of Tory prejudice, and ambles along composedly in the hallowed footprints of Lockhart and Sir Walter.

Their style of putting the case is like this: It was wrong to seize an enemy’s ships and sailors previous to a declaration of war, but Great Britain had always done it, and, consequently, she had a right to do it again. It was right for France to retaliate, but France had never retaliated, and, consequently, she had no right to do it now. Thus England’s hoary wrong had become a saintly precedent, while Napoleon’s novelty of retaliation was a damnable innovation. In this neat manner, entirely satisfactory to itself, Tory logic makes mesmeric passes over facts, and wrongs become rights while rights become wrongs.

The eminent J.H. Rose, Master of Arts, and “Late Scholar of Christ’s College, Cambridge,” remarks:

“Napoleon showed his rancour by ordering some eight or ten thousand English travellers in France to be kept prisoners.” Why the eminent Master of Arts and “Late Scholar of Christ’s College” did so studiously omit to state that England had already seized French ships and sailors before Napoleon seized the travellers, can be explained by no one but a master of the art of writing partisan history.

“Napoleon showed his rancour”—by hitting back when Britain dealt him a sudden unprovoked and dastardly blow. Showed his rancour! “Sir, the phrase is neat,” as Mirabeau said to Mounier upon a certain historic occasion.

Napoleon hastened to put Louisiana beyond England’s reach. This imperial, but undeveloped, province had been lost to France by the Bourbon, Louis XV. and had only recently been recovered. Napoleon profoundly regretted the necessity which compelled him to sell it to the United States, for he realized its value.

The war recommenced with vigor on both sides. Great Britain seized again upon all the colonies which she had released by treaty, and French armies in Italy or Germany added territory to France.

Spain refusing to join the league against Napoleon, Great Britain made war upon her, captured her treasure ships upon the high seas, and thus forced her into the arms of France. She not only put her fleet at Napoleon’s disposal, but agreed to furnish him a monthly subsidy of more than $1,000,000.

Definitely threatening to invade Great Britain, Napoleon made preparations for that purpose on a scale equal to the mighty task. Along the French and Dutch coasts 160,000 men were assembled, and vast flotillas built to take them across the Channel. So great was the alarm felt in England that her coasts were watched by every available ship, and almost the entire manhood of the island enrolled itself in the militia, and prepared for a desperate struggle.

So prominently did Napoleon stand forth as the embodiment of all that monarchical Europe detested, so completely did he represent all that England and the Bourbons most dreaded, that a mad determination to kill him took possession of his enemies. The head of the conspiracy was the Count of Artois, afterward king of France under the name of Charles X. The meetings of the conspirators were held in London. The plan adopted was that Pichegru (who had escaped from South America) and Moreau should be brought together to head the malcontents in the army; Georges Cadoudal, and a band of royalists equally resolute, should be landed on the Norman coast, should proceed to Paris, and should kill the First Consul; a royalist revolt should follow, and the Count of Artois should then himself land on the Norman coast to head the insurrection. The English minister to Bavaria, Mr. Drake, was actively at work in the plot, and in one of his letters to a correspondent, wrote: “All plots against the First Consul must be forwarded; for it is a matter of little consequence by whom the animal be stricken down, provided you are all in the hunt.” Among others who were in the background and winding sonorous horns to those who were “in the hunt,” were certain British agents,—Spencer Smith at Stuttgard, Taylor at Cassel, and Wickham at Berne. Directly in communication with the heads of the conspiracy in London was the under secretary of state, Hammond, the same who was so intolerably insolent to the United States during the second term of President Jefferson.

Lavishly supplied with money by the English government, a ship of the royal navy was put at their service,—Captain Wright, an officer of that navy, being in command.

The assassins were landed at the foot of a sea-washed cliff on the coast of Normandy in the night. Using a secret path and the rope-ladder of smugglers, they climbed the precipice and made their way secretly to Paris. Here they spent some weeks in organizing the conspiracy. The danger to Napoleon became so urgent that those who had the care of his personal safety felt that no precautions could be too great. De SÉgur, captain of the body-guard, relates how Caulaincourt, Grand Marshal of the palace pro tem, woke him up after twelve o’clock at night toward the end of January, 1804, with: “Get up! Change the parole and the countersign immediately. There is not an instant to lose. The duties must be carried out as if in the presence of the enemy!”

Napoleon himself remained cool, but gradually became very stern. Asked by one of his councillors if he were afraid, he replied: “I, afraid! Ah, if I were afraid, it would be a bad day for France.”

The first great object of the conspirators was to bring Pichegru and Moreau together. It was hoped and believed that this could be readily done. It was remembered that Moreau had concealed the treasonable correspondence of Pichegru which had fallen into his hands in 1796. It was known that Moreau heartily disliked Napoleon. It was known that Moreau, sulking in his tent, and bitterly regretting his share in Napoleon’s elevation to power, was in that frame of mind which leads men into desperate enterprises.

Nevertheless, the conspirators found him very shy. By nature he was irresolute and weak, strong only when in command of an army. He consented to meet Pichegru, and did meet him at night, and have a few words with him in the street. Afterward Pichegru visited Moreau’s house, but the proof that Moreau agreed to take any part in the conspiracy is not satisfactory. It seems that Moreau had no objection to the “removal” of Napoleon and the overthrow of the government. He even spoke vaguely of the support which he and his friends in authority might bring to those who were conspiring; but Moreau was a republican,—one of those ardent young men of 1789 who had left school to fight for the Republic, and he was not ready to aid in the restoration of the Bourbons. Willing to countenance the overthrow of Napoleon, he was not willing to undo the work of the Revolution. According to one account, he himself aspired to succeed Bonaparte. This disgusted Cadoudal, who in scornful anger declared that he preferred Napoleon “to this brainless, heartless Moreau.” Inasmuch as Moreau had already become disgusted with Cadoudal, the conspiracy could not knit itself together.

Meanwhile, repeated conferences were held between the assassins and various royalists of Paris who were in the plot, the most prominent of these being the brothers Polignac and De La RiviÈre. Napoleon knew in a general way that his life was being threatened, knowing just enough to be convinced that he must learn more or perish. His police seemed powerless, and as a last resort he tried a plan of his own. Causing a list of the suspected persons to be brought to him, his attention became fixed upon the name of a surgeon, Querel. In the belief that this man must be less of a fanatic than the others, he ordered that the surgeon should be brought to trial, and the attempt made to wring a confession from him. Tried accordingly, condemned, sentenced, and about to be shot, Querel broke down and confessed.

Learning from him that the most dangerous of the conspirators were even then in Paris, a cordon of troops was thrown around the city, and a vigilant search begun. Pichegu, after dodging from house to house, was at length betrayed by an old friend with whom he had sought shelter. Georges was taken after a desperate fight in the street. Captain Wright was seized at the coast and sent to Paris. Moreau had already been arrested. Many other of the Georges band were in prison. Napoleon’s fury was extreme, and not unnatural. He had been lenient, liberal, conciliatory to his political foes. He had pushed to the verge of imprudence the policy of reconciliation. Vendeans, royalists, priests—all had felt his kindness. Some of the very men who were now threatening him with assassination were ÉmigrÉs whom he had relieved from sentence of death and had restored to fortune. What had he done to England or to the Bourbons that they should put him beyond the pale of humanity? Had he not almost gone upon his knees in his efforts to secure peace? Had he ever lifted his hand against a Bourbon save in open war which they themselves had commenced? And now what was he to do to put a stop to these plots hatched in London? To what court could he appeal? With the Bourbons safely housed in England and supplied with British money, ever ready to arm against him the fanatics of royalism, what was he to do to protect his life? Was he to await the attack, living in constant apprehension, never knowing when the blow would fall, uncertain how the attack would be made, ignorant who the assassin might be, and in eternal doubt as to whether he could escape the peril? Can mortal man be placed in a position more trying than that of one who knows that sworn murderers are upon his track, and that some one moment of every day and every night may give the opportunity to the unsleeping vigilance of the assassin?

Roused as he had never been, Napoleon determined not to wait, not to stand upon literal self-defence. He would strike back, would anticipate his enemies, would paralyze their plans by carrying terror into their own ranks. The head of the conspiracy, Artois, could not be reached. Expected on the French coast, he had not come. But his cousin, the Duke d’Enghien was at Ettenheim, close to the French border.

What was he doing there? He had borne arms against France, a crime which under the law of nations is treason, and which under the law of all lands is punishable with death. By French law, existing at the time, he had forfeited his life as a traitor. He was in the pay of England, the enemy of France. He was closely related by blood and by interest to the two brothers, Provence and Artois, who were making desperate efforts to recover the crown for the Bourbon family. What was the young Bourbon duke doing so near to the French border at this particular time?

Royalist authors say that he was there to enjoy the pleasures of the chase; also to enjoy the society of the Princess de Rohan, to whom they now say, without evidence, that he was secretly married.

Sir Walter Scott, a most unfriendly witness for Napoleon, admits that d’Enghien “fixed himself on the frontier for the purpose of being ready to put himself at the head of the royalists in East France, or Paris itself.”

That he was on the Rhine awaiting some event, some change in France in which he would have “a part to play,” was confessed, and cannot be denied.

What was the movement at whose head he was waiting to place himself? What other plan did the royalists have in progress at the time other than the Georges-Pichegru plot? If d’Enghien was waiting on the Rhine until they should have dealt the blow in Paris, was he not an accomplice, a principal in the second degree? It does not matter whether he knew the details of the Georges-Pichegru conspiracy or not. If he had been instructed to hold himself in readiness on the French frontier to enter the country and “act a part” therein, his common sense told him that a plot was on foot, and if he did not wish to be treated as an accomplice, he should not have acted as one. The cowardly d’Artois had not left London, and the Duke d’Enghien was to enter France as representative of the Bourbon family after the First Consul should have been killed.

The rule in law and equity is that where one is put upon notice of a transaction, he is to be held as knowing all that he could have learned by reasonable inquiry. The instructions issued to d’Enghien put him upon notice that something unusual was in progress, that it concerned him, and that he had a part to play. Prudent inquiry made by him of his Bourbon relatives in London would have put him in possession of the facts. This inquiry he either made or he did not: if he made it, he learned of the plot; if he did not make it, his was the negligence of being ignorant of the plan in which he was to “act a part.”

It is very improbable that the Count of Artois, who had sent word to the Count of Provence at Warsaw asking his adhesion to the conspiracy, should have given his cousin, d’Enghien, a “part to act” in it without informing him of the nature of the drama itself.

The police reports made to Napoleon led him to believe that the young duke was privy to the plot, and was waiting at Ettenheim ready to take part in it. Here was a Bourbon he could reach. Through this one, he would strike terror into the others. “Neither is my blood ditchwater! I will teach these Bourbons a lesson they will not soon forget. Am I a dog to be shot down in the street?”

After deliberating with his councillors, Talleyrand and all the rest, the First Consul issued his orders. A French squadron rode rapidly to the Rhine, crossed over to Ettenheim, seized the Duke, who had been warned in vain, and hurried him to Paris. Stopped at the barrier, he was sent to Vincennes, tried by court-martial that night, condemned upon his own confession, sentenced to death, shot at daybreak, and buried in the moat of the castle.

This harsh act of retaliation had met the approval of Talleyrand—an approval given in a written paper which he was quick to seize and destroy upon Napoleon’s fall in 1814. During the day upon which the Duke was being taken to Vincennes, Talleyrand was asked, “What is to be done with the Duke d’Enghien?” and had replied to the questioner, “He is to be shot.”

The Consul CambacÉrÈs, who had voted for death at the trial of Louis XVI., opposed the arrest, giving his reasons at length. Napoleon replied: “I know your motive for speaking—your devotion to me. I thank you for it; but I will not allow myself put to death without defending myself. I will make these people tremble, and teach them to keep quiet for all time to come.”

Poor Josephine, who could never meet a member of the old noblesse without a collapse of spirit, a gush of adulation, and a yielding sensation at the knees, made a feeble effort to turn her husband from his purpose; but when Napoleon reminded her that she was a mere child in politics, and had better attend to her own small affairs, she dried her tears, and went into the garden to amuse herself with her flower-beds. Napoleon himself made a thorough study of the papers, taken with the Duke at Ettenheim, and drew up a series of questions which were to be put to the prisoner by RÉal, state councillor. The messenger sent by the First Consul did not see RÉal, and the paper was not handed him till five o’clock next morning. Worn out by continuous toil, the councillor had gone to bed the evening before, leaving instructions with his household that he was not to be disturbed. Next morning when he was posting along the highway to Vincennes, he met Savary on his way back to Paris. Savary had already carried out the death-sentence, and the victim was in his grave.

It seems that the young Duke had not realized his danger. A term of imprisonment, at most, was all he feared. In vain the court-martial endeavored to hint at the fatal consequence of the admissions he was making. Unconscious of the fact that he was convicting himself, he repeated the statements that he had borne arms against France, that he had been in the pay of England, that he had tampered with French soldiers on the Rhine, that he had been instructed to place himself near the Rhine where he could enter France, arms in hand, and be ready for the part he was to play; and that he intended to continue to bear arms against the government of France which he regarded as a usurpation.

It must not be forgotten that in sending the Duke d’Enghien before a court-martial, Napoleon had before him certain documentary evidence which we do not now possess. The Duke’s own papers, Talleyrand’s opinion, and the reports of certain officials disappeared from the archives after the Bourbons returned in 1814—just as the documentary evidence against Marie Antoinette was destroyed, and the letters which crowned heads of Europe had written Napoleon stolen and carried away.

Peculiarly awful must have been the vision of sudden death to this youthful prince of the blood-royal, as he was dragged from bed in the dismal darkness of early morning, and hurried to face a file of silent soldiers beside an open grave. After the first shock and outcry of amazement, the courage in which his race has rarely been wanting came to the condemned, and he met his fate with a soldier’s nerve.

In 1805, during the march upon Vienna, Napoleon received at his bivouac M. de Thiard, who had known d’Enghien well. For a long while the Emperor sat talking with this officer, asking many questions about the Duke, and listening with interest to all that was told him.

“He was really a man, then, that prince?” he asked, and this casual remark was his sole comment.

Among all those who believe that the life of a prince is more sacred than that of a plebeian, among aristocrats of all countries, and among the crowned heads of Europe, there was a burst of grief and rage when it became known that Napoleon had shot a Bourbon duke. Thousands of pages were written then, thousands have been written since, in denunciation of this so-called murder. Men who had never uttered a word in condemnation of Lord Nelson’s treatment of Carraccioli, could find no words harsh enough for Napoleon’s usage of d’Enghien. Alexander of Russia, who had whimpered in the palace while his father was being stamped, choked, and smothered to death in the adjoining room, and who had promoted the assassins to high trusts in his own service, took Napoleon’s conduct more to heart than did any of the royal fraternity. Assuming the lofty moral attitude of one who is missioned to rebuke sin, he broke off diplomatic relations with France and put the Russian court in mourning. Napoleon launched at the Czar a crushing reminder on the subject of Paul’s death, and Alexander suffered the subject to drop.

Paris, stunned at first by the tragedy, recovered itself immediately; and when Napoleon appeared at the theatre a few nights afterward, he was acclaimed as usual. Talleyrand gave a ball, and society was there with the same old stereotyped smile upon its vacuous face.

Nevertheless, it is certain that the death of this young Duke injured Napoleon in public esteem, was of no political service to him, armed his enemies with a terrible weapon against him, and gave to the exiled Bourbons a sympathy they had not enjoyed since the Revolution. Said FouchÉ, “It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder.” But there is no evidence that Napoleon ever regretted it. It is true that he became enraged when Talleyrand denied his share in the transaction, and that he always maintained that Talleyrand had advised it; but he never shirked his own responsibility.

When he lay upon his death-bed at St. Helena, an attendant read to him from an English publication a bitter attack upon those guilty of the alleged murder of d’Enghien. The dying Emperor had already made his will; but he roused himself, had the paper brought, and interlined with his own hands these final words in which he assumed full responsibility:—

“I had the Duke d’Enghien arrested and tried because it was necessary to do so for the safety, the honor, and the interest of the French people at a time when the Count of Artois openly admitted that he had sixty paid assassins in Paris. Under similar circumstances I would do so again.”

The trials of Moreau, Georges, and the other conspirators did not take place until Napoleon had become emperor. The prosecution was clumsily managed; and as to Moreau, public opinion was divided. His services, so recent and so great, gave some color to the story that Napoleon was actuated by jealousy in having him classed with criminals. However, Moreau weakened his defence by an exculpatory letter he wrote Napoleon, and this together with such proofs as the government could furnish, and such influence as it could bring to bear on the court, resulted in a conviction and a sentence of two years in confinement. This penalty Napoleon changed into one of banishment. Georges and a number of others were shot. Pichegru and Wright committed suicide. The Polignacs and RiviÈre, as guilty as the guiltiest, were pardoned—they being of gentle birth, and being fortunate in having the friendship of some who stood near Napoleon.