Various - Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIV, May 1852, Vol. IV

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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. XXIV, May 1852, Vol. IV: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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The Directory had tyrannically seized, as hostages, any relatives of the emigrants upon whom they could lay their hands. Wives, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, children, were imprisoned and held responsible, with their lives, for the conduct of their emigrant relatives. Napoleon immediately abolished this iniquitous edict, and released the prisoners. Couriers, without delay, were dispatched all over France to throw open the prison doors to these unfortunate captives.

Napoleon even went himself to the Temple, where many of these innocent victims were imprisoned, that he might, with his own hand break their fetters. On Napoleon's return from this visit to the prison he exclaimed, "What fools these Directors were! To what a state have they brought our public institutions. The prisoners are in a shocking condition. I questioned them, as well as the jailers, for nothing is to be learned from the superiors. When in the prison I could not help thinking of the unfortunate Louis XVI. He was an excellent man, but too amiable to deal with mankind. And Sir Sydney Smith, I made them show me his apartments. If he had not escaped I should have taken Acre. There are too many painful associations connected with that prison. I shall have it pulled down one day or other. I ordered the jailer's books to be brought, and finding the list of the hostages, immediately liberated them. I told them that an unjust law had placed them under restraint, and that it was my first duty to restore them to liberty."

The priests had been mercilessly persecuted. They could only escape imprisonment by taking an oath which many considered hostile to their religious vows. Large numbers of them were immured in dungeons. Others, in dismay and poverty, had fled, and were wandering fugitives in other lands. Napoleon redressed their wrongs, and spread over them the shield of his powerful protection. The captives were liberated, and the exiles invited to return. The principle was immediately established that the rights of conscience were to be respected. By this one act, twenty thousand grief-stricken exiles were restored to France, proclaiming through city and village the clemency of the First Consul. In the rural districts of France, where the sentiment of veneration for Christianity still lingered, the priests were received with the warmest welcome. And in the hut of the peasant the name of Napoleon was breathed with prayers and tears of gratitude.

Some French emigrants, furnished with arms by England, were returning to France, to join the royalists in La Vendee, in extending the ravages of civil war. The ship was wrecked on the coast of Calais, and they were all made prisoners. As they were taken with arms in their hands, to fight against their country, rigorous laws doomed them, as traitors, to the guillotine. Napoleon interposed to save them. Magnanimously he asserted – "No matter what their intentions were. They were driven on our soil by the tempest. They are shipwrecked men. As such they are entitled to the laws of hospitality. Their persons must be held inviolable." Unharmed they were all permitted to re-embark and leave France. Among these emigrants were many men of illustrious name. These acts of generosity on the part of Napoleon did much to disarm their hostility, and many of them became subsequently firm supporters of his power.

The Revolutionary tribunals had closed the churches, and prohibited the observance of the Sabbath. To efface, if possible, all traces of that sacred day, they had appointed every tenth day, for cessation from labor and festivity. A heavy fine was inflicted upon any one who should close his shop on the Sabbath, or manifest any reverence for the discarded institution. Napoleon, who had already resolved to reinstate Christianity in paganized France, but who found it necessary to move with the utmost caution, ordered that no man should be molested for his religious principles or practices. This step excited hostility. Paris was filled with unbelief. Generals, statesmen, philosophers, scouted the idea of religion. They remonstrated. Napoleon was firm. The mass of the common people were with him, and he triumphed over aristocratic infidelity.

With singular tact he selected the most skillful and efficient men to fill all the infinitely varied departments of state. "I want more head," said he, "and less tongue." Every one was kept busy. Every one was under the constant vigilance of his eagle eye. He appeared to have an instinctive acquaintance with every branch of legislation, and with the whole science of government. Three times a week the minister of finance appeared before him, and past corruption was dragged to light and abolished. The treasury was bankrupt. Napoleon immediately replenished it. The army was starving, and almost in a state of mutiny. Napoleon addressed to them a few of his glowing words of encouragement and sympathy, and the emaciate soldiers in their rags, enthusiastically rallied again around their colors, and in a few days, from all parts of France, baggage wagons were trundling toward them, laden with clothing and provisions. The navy was dilapidated and blockaded. At the voice of Napoleon in every port of France the sound of the ship hammer was heard, and a large armament was prepared to convey succor to his comrades in Egypt. Such vigor mortal man never exhibited before. All France felt an immediate impulse. At the same time in which Napoleon was accomplishing all these duties, and innumerable others, any one of which would have engrossed the whole energies of any common man, he was almost daily meeting his colleagues and the two committees to discuss the new Constitution.

Sieyes was greatly alarmed at the generosity of some of Napoleon's acts. "The emigrants," said he, "will return in crowds. The royalists will again raise their heads, and the republicans will be massacred." His imagination was so excited with apprehensions of conspiracies and assassinations, that he once awoke Napoleon at three o'clock in the morning, to inform him of a fearful conspiracy, which had just been discovered by the police. Napoleon quietly listened to his story, and then, raising his head from his pillow, inquired, "Have they corrupted our guard?" "No!" Sieyes replied. "Then go to bed," said Napoleon, "and let them alone. It will be time enough to be alarmed, when our six hundred men are attacked." Napoleon was so powerful, that he could afford to be generous. His magnanimity was his most effectual safeguard.

In less than six weeks, the new Constitution was ready to be presented to the nation for their acceptance. In the original draft, drawn up by Sieyes, the supreme power was to be vested in a Grand Elector, to be chosen for life, to possess a revenue of one million of dollars, and to reside in the utmost possible magnificence in the palaces of Versailles. He was to be a mock king, with all the pomp and pageantry of royalty, but without its power. This was the office which Sieyes hoped would satisfy the ambition of Napoleon. Napoleon exploded it as with a bomb-shell. "Can you conceive," he exclaimed, "that a man of the least talent or honor, would humble himself to accept an office, the duties of which are merely to fatten like a pig on so many millions a year?" The Grand Elector was annihilated. The following was the Constitution adopted. The sovereign power was to be invested in Napoleon as First Consul. Two subordinate consuls, Cambaceres and Lebrun, were to be his counselors, with deliberative voices only. The Consuls proposed laws to a body called the Tribunate, who thoroughly discussed them, and either rejected, or, if they approved, recommended the law to a third body, called the Legislature. The Legislature heard the report in silence, having no deliberative voice. Three were appointed from the Tribunate to present the arguments in favor of the law, and three those against it. Without further debate, the Legislature, as judges, voted. The Senate also was a silent body. It received the law from the Legislature, and approved or condemned. Here were the forms of an ample supply of checks and balances. Every act proposed by Napoleon, must be sanctioned by the Tribunate, the Legislature, and the Senate before it could become a law.

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