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NAPOLEON AND THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
"We have finished the romance of the
Revolution, we must
now begin its history, only seeking for what is real
and
practicable in the application of its principles,
and not
what is speculative and hypothetical."
After Brumaire (9-10 Nov. 1799)
--the coup d'etat which first set
Napoleon on the path to becoming the supreme executive of a
French
empire-- Napoleon declared, "The Revolution is made fast on
the
principles on which it began; the Revolution is finished."
Since this
famous utterance came so soon after he gained power, it is clear
that
Napoleon was saying something significant about what the role of
his
new-born regime would be to those which had preceded it.
Like the man
himself, this quote and the one at the head of this page are both
highly
complex and ambiguous. He is declaring that the new regime
was both a
break from the immediate past and part of a continuity with that
past.
What was Napoleon's relationship to the Revolution? To what
extent was
he its heir or its betrayer? Did he save the Revolution or
liquidate
it?
To begin it is necessary to determine what one
means by "the
Revolution". There was not one Revolution, but really
a series of them
which occurred as the French struggled to create a new political
and
social system. By the "Revolution" do we mean
that of Barnave, or of
Mirabeau, or Lafayette, or Brissot, or Danton, or Robespierre, or
Hebert, or Tallien, of Babeuf, or Barras? All of these were
men of the
Revolution, yet they all held differing conceptions of what that
"Revolution" was. I will be considering many of
those fundamental
principles which guided most of these revolutionaries. In
general,
these principles include equal treatment under the law, one
degree or
another of centralization of the government, elimination of
feudal
rights, religious tolerance and careers open to talent not birth.
Georges Lefebvre
wrote that the Emperor was "...a pupil of the
philosophes, he detested feudalism, civil inequality, and
religious
intolerance. Seeing in enlightened despotism a
reconciliation of
authority with political and social reform, he became its last
and most
illustrious representative. In this sense he was the man of
the
Revolution." R. R. Palmer has observed that Napoleon
considered the
Jacobin government of Robespierre and the Committee of Public
Safety the
only serious government of the Revolutionary period. During
the "Reign
of Terror" Napoleon was strongly identified with the
Jacobins. His
dialogue published in 1793, LE SOUPER DE BEAUCAIRE, championed
the
Jacobins over the federalist Girondins. What Napoleon
admired were the
Jacobins' strong centralized government, their commitment to deal
decisively with the problems facing the fledgling republic, and
their
attempt to forge a stron stable France while winning the war
against its
enemies.
Napoleon clearly felt, like the Jacobins, that
an energetic
centralized state was essential to consolidate the advances
achieved by
the Revolution and, at the same time, he wished to bring about
the
stability many French longed for after the upheavals of the past
decade. In his eyes this meant the need for a strong
executive. From
1799 until his death on the South Atlantic island of St. Helena,
Napoleon spoke of himself as the man who had completed the
Revolution.
By this he meant that the basic goals of the Revolution
enumerated above
had been obtained and that now it was time to consolidate and
instituionalize those gains. France, after ten years of
revolution, had
still lacked the proper foundation upon which to institutionalize
the
revolutionary achievements until Napoleon provided it with his
administrative framework.
"Bonaparte came, as he said, 'to close
the Romance of the
Revolution'," H.A.L. Fisher wrote, " to heal the
wounds, to correct the
extravagances, to secure the conquests. It was his boast
that he did
not belong to the race of the 'ideologues', that he saw facts
through
plain glass, and that he came to substitute and age of work for
and age
of talk...he would create a methodical government based upon
popular
consent, and concieved in the interests not of any particular
faction
but of France as a whole." As Napoleon himself
explained to the Council
of State in 1802: "I govern not as a general but
because the nation
believes that I have the civilian qualities necessary to govern.
If I
did not have this opinion, the government could not stand."
Napoleon is generally credited with having
consolidated the gains of
the Revolution ("With the exception of fathering the Civil
Code,
Napoleon perhaps gloried more in his reputation as consolidator
of the
Revolution than in any other one title," Robert B. Holtman
observed).
In this sense he can be credited with having 'saved' the
Revolution by
ending it. Had the Bourbons come back to power in 1799
instead of
Napoleon, they would at that time had less trouble "turning
back the
clock" to the ancient regime than they had in 1814. As
Francois Furet
has put it, "Revolutionary France was indeed under the spell
of the new
sovereign, who was its son and had saved it from the danger of a
restoration...France had finally found the republican monarchy
toward
which it had been groping since 1789." The Code
Napoleon, one of the
Emperor's most enduring achievements, embodied many of the
principles of
the Revolution and made them permanent.
To Prince Eugene, his viceroy in Italy,
Napoleon wrote, "I am
seeking nothing less than a social revolution."
Feaudalism was
suppressed and careers were open to all those with ability
regardless of
birth ("Wherever I found talent and courage I rewarded it."
Napoleon,
1816) Napoleon became the personification of the
revolutionary aims of
the bourgeoisie. He reformed and modernized French
institutions
(historian Jacues Godechot has said that with Napoleon the
medieval era
ended and modern history began). He brought much longed for
order and
stability to France and forged a sense of unity. He
attempted to unite
under his wing both the revolutionaries and the emigres --nobles,
clergy
and others who chose or were forced to live in exile under the
Revolution ("I became the arch of the alliance between the
old and the
new, the natural mediator between the old and the new orders...I
belonged to them both." Napoleon. 1816). The
sales of the lands taken
from the nobles who had emigrated or been declared enemies of the
state,
from the Church, or from the Crown (the "biens nationaux")
--an
important benefit for the middle classes and the peasants of the
Revolution-- were recognized not only in Napoleon's coronation
oath, but
also in the signing of the Concordat with the Pope.
Robert B. Holtman
observed, "This task of consolidation made
Napoleon a conservative in France, desirous of keeping the
gains of the
Revolution, but a revolutionary in acien regime areas abroad."
It has
been said that many of Napoleon's reforms were just continuations
of
reforms begun under the Revolution (just as it has been said that
many
of the reforms of the Revolution were continuations of those
begun
during the ancien regime). It is important to keep in mind
that
Napoleon also brought these reforms to the countries with the
Empire,
where they were truly revolutionary. Owen Connelly has said
that
"Napoleon...was a conscious promoter of Revolution all over
Europe. In
fact, I firmly believe that this was the reason for his demise.
He was,
to the legitimate powers of Europe a crowned Jacobin...[These
powers]
were able to mobilize against him in the end the very people who
stood
to gain the most from the governments which Napoleon installed."
The
principles which Napoleon inherited from the Revolution and
consolidated
in France, he exported to the countries which fell under the
French
imperium. If Napoleon's reforms in France were no longer
revolutionary,
outside of France these same reforms were profoundly
revolutionary
(Goethe described Napoleon as "the Revolution crowned.").
It had been
the goal of many of the Revolution's leaders to "revolutionize"
the rest
of Europe. Napoleon accomplished this.
The principle of equality was recognized in
the destruction of
feudal rights and privileges in the Empire and in the submission
of all
members of socirty to a common sceme of justice, the Napoleonic
Code.
The Legion of Honor was also intended to foster equality, as well
as
reward talent. "...The establishment of the Legion of
Honor, which was
the reward for military, civil, and judicial service, united side
by
side the soldier, the scholar, the artist, the prelate, and the
magistrate; it was the symbol of the reunion of all the estates,
of all
the parties." (LE MEMORIAL DE SAINTE-HELENE, 1821) The
Emperor, as the
supreme executive, was deemed the representative of the general
will.
This powerful executive was a feature also of the relationship
between
the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety, as well as the
Legislature and the Directory. The Revolution, like
Napoleon, bore a
strong authoritarian streak.
"It was Napoleon's fuction in history to
fuse the old France with
the new," H.A.L. Fisher observed. Napoleon
declared that he wanted "to
cement peace at home by anything that could bring the French
together
and provide tranquility within families." Like
Mirabeau, Napoleon
didn't see an incompatibility between the Revolution and monarchy.
Napoleon did what the Bourbon King could not --reconcile the
elements of
the monarchy with elements of the Revolution-- which was the
failed goal
of Mirabeau in 1790. Napoleon was largely successful in
attracting men
from all parties --from ex-Jacobins to ci-devant nobles-- to his
government. Signing the Concordat (15 July 1801) allowed
Napoleon to
reconcile the religious differences which had torn France apart
during
the Revolution. (At the same time, the Concordat insured
religious
freedom. It recognized Catholicism as the religion of the
majority of
the French, but did not make it an "established"
religion as the Church
of England was in Britain. Protestants an Jews were allowed
to practice
their religion and retain their civic rights.) A general
amnesty signed
by Napoleon (26 April 1802) allowed all but about one thousand of
the
most notorious emigres to return to France. These two
actions helped to
bring relative tranquility to those areas of France which had
long been
at war with the Revolution. Albert Sobould has wrtten that
"stabilizing
socirty on the fundamental base of the Revolution, [Napoleon]
integrated
the returned emigres into a new social hierachy; and, while
reinforcing
the principle of authority, he merged these emigres into a new
order
which at first had been constructed against them."
What of liberty? Of the three key principles of the
Revolution
--liberty, equality, and fraternity-- it was liberty which
suffered
most under Napoleon. Historian Albert Vandal has observed
that
"Bonaparte can be reproached for not having established
liberty; he
cannot be accused of having destroyed it, for the excellent
reason that
on his return from Egypt he did not find it anywhere in France."
The
French desiring to safeguard what thet had acquired during the
Revolution, be it rights or property, wanted these guaranteed.
Many
felt that guarantee could come only with the restoration and
preservation of order. They were willing to sacrifice their
liberties
for that guarantee, for that order. "In the absence of
political
liberty, he would assure Frenchmen of their individual rights.
In the
Napoleonic Code, he would sanctify equality, their dearest
possession.
He would keep most of the revolutionary institutions while at
times
amalgamating then with those of the Old Regime, which were
restored but
adapted. His work would prove so solid that it made any
total
restoration of the past impossible," wrote Albert Mathiez.
Napoleon was most of all a pragmatist, willing
to adapt "what
worked", whether it was borrowed from the Revolution or from
the ancien
regime. He delt with the problems facing France in
practical terms, not
in the abstract ("To pursue a different course today would
be to
philosophize, not to govern." Napoleon, 1800)
The solutions Napoleon
came up with leave little doubt that he was the heir and
preserver of
the Revolution. Francois Furet has written that "...he
was chosed by
the Revolution, from which he received his strange power not only
to
embody the new nation (a power that others before him, most
notably
Mirabeau and Robespierre, had possessed) but also to fulfill its
destiny." Napoleon had undoubtedly felt a revolution
had been
necessary. When it had achieved its purpose he felt that it
was
necessary to end the Revolution and begin the work of governing.
He
exported to those countries under French hegemony many of the
achievements of the Revolution. He embodied these
achievements in the
Code Napoleon. Without the Revolution Napoleon, despite his
talents,
would have been no more than an obscure provincial military
officer. He
unified a country torn apart by ten years of political and
religious
strife ("All titles were forgotten; there were no
londer aristocrats or
Jacobins..." LE MEMORIAL DE SAINTE-HELENE, 1821).
While liberty
languished, he promoted equality and opened all careers to those
with
talent. "Risen to the throne," Chateaubriand
wrote, "he seated the
people there beside him. A proletarian king, he humiliated
kings and
nobles in his antechamber. He leveled ranks not by lowering
but by
raising them." He insured religious tolerance.
He cosolidated and
preserved the gains of the Revolution. Alexis de
Tocqueville wrote that
Napoleon "fell, but what was really substantial in his work
lasted; his
government died, but his administration continued to live..."
The
Bourbon Prince de Conde summed up Napoleon as "One-third
philosophe,
one-third Jacobin, and one-third aristocrat."
Tom Holmberg © 1998
Suggested
Readings:
NAPOLEON: WAS HE THE HEIR OF THE REVOLUTION? David Lloyd
Dowd.
(Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Pr,. 1957)
NAPOLEON: FOR AND AGAINST. Pieter Geyl. (New Haven,
CT: Yale
University, 1963)
THE NAPOLEONIC REVOLUTION. Robert B. Holtman. (Baton
Rouge: Louisana
State Univ., 1981)
NAPOLEON BONAPATRE AND THE LEGACY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Martyn
Lyons (N.Y.: St. Martin's, 1994)
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