BOOKS.

LANFREY'S HISTOIRE DE NAPOLEON IER.* IT is no easy matter to write the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. The deeds of this extraordinary man are so enveloped in a thick cloud of legend, that it is difficult even for a conscientious and well-informed student to get at the truth concerning them. It is, moreover, a somewhat thankless task for an author to tell the simple truth about a man whose history has been exceptionally tricked with falsehood in order to render it agreeable to mankind, the great majority of whom hold their opinions not because of the evidence on which those opinions rest, but according as their sympathies, interests, or passions decide, and who stoutly deny the best-established historical facts when they perceive that to admit them would make it more difficult to defend some favourite religious or political conviction. Instances will readily occur to our readers, in which grave and learned historians have been induced to maintain perfectly untenable proposi- tions in the supposed interests of religion ; and some of them may perhaps remember how, during the reign of Louis Philippe, it used to be confidently asserted in France that Marshal Souk won or lost the battle of Toulouse, according as he was popular or the reverse. In the case of Napoleon, this

disposition of mankind has been manifested in an extraordinary degree, and it may be safely affirmed that there is no equally well- known personage in history about whom so many men have formed their opinions so irrespective of fact, and so entirely according as their political convictions, interests, and passions dictated.

The Ristoire de Napoleon ler, by M. Lanfrey, the fifth volume of which has recently appeared, is an attempt on the part of a distinguished writer to dissipate the mists of the Napoleonic legend, and to show us Bonaparte as he was, in all his strength

and weakness, with his cool head and his wild heart, with his strong will and his more than Corsican vindictiveness. Although sometimes, especially in the early volumes, M. Lanfrey launches into superfluous invective, and even occasionally falls into declamation, his work is certainly one of the very best which has appeared about Napoleon Bonaparte. As a portrait, it has, how- ever, very considerable artistic defects, and although the likeness is very remarkable, there is a painful absence of appropriate modification in the colouring.

At the outbreak of the Revolution, Bonaparte was a young artillery officer, deeply influenced, like all young men of that day, by the writings of Rousseau, but with elastic opinions, and deter- mined to make his way in the world. It seems to us that this period of his life is passed over much too rapidly by M. Lanfrey. No one can thoroughly understand Napoleon who is not inti- mately acquainted with his political position during the confusion

which followed the events of 1789. The relations which existed between him and the various Revolutionary leaders are exceedingly instructive. Above all, his connection with Robespierre, and his view of the 9th Thermidor, throw considerable light upon his political character and opinions. There is an interesting passage in the memoirs of Marmont, which is, no doubt, well known to M. Lanfrey, in which the Marshal tells US that Napoleon, speaking of the 9th Thermidor, the result of which Bonaparte much regretted,

said to him, shortly after that event :—

"Si Robespierre fat reste an pouvoir, 11 aurait modi66 sa marche, 11 out retabli Pordre et le regne des lois; on serait arrive a ce resultat sans secousses, parcequ'on y serait venu par le pouvoir ; on pretend y marcher par TIlle revolution, et cette revolution en amenem beancoup d'autres." (Marmont Memoires, L, p. 56.) This is substantially the same argument which runs through the Souper de Beaucaire, a pamphlet which he wrote to glorify the Mountain, in which its crimes are defended in the supposed in- Ntstofre de Napoleon ler, Par P.Lanfrey. Paris: Charpentieret Ole., 14brstres- Editeura. 1875. Vole, I., H., IlL, IV., V.

terests of government, and which clearly shows that its author at the very outset of his career was steeled against every scruple of opinion and disengaged from every generous conviction, and already had no other rule of life but accomplished facts and material force. In the midst of the chaos of French Revolu- tionary politics, his bright intelligence saw clearly that with his transcendent abilities there was no position to which he might not hope to attain ; his imagination was excited by the splendour of the prospect before him, and at a very early period of his public life he determined to seize upon the supreme power. In 1795 the Convention closed its wild career. That remark- able and much misunderstood Assembly elaborated a political system which is known in history by the name of " the Constitution of the Year III.," and which, in spite of great and capital defects, was the best and most liberal constitution ever promulgated in France. Its framers were not, however, free from the general ignorance which prevailed on the Continent as to the real condi- tions of public freedom, and which was the result of the absolu- tism that extended over Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When at last the reaction began to set in against despotism, the eyes of men were naturally turned to England, and de English political system began to be studied. But the twofold mistake was made of regarding Parliament as the main-spring of our unwritten Constitution, and also of considering it solely as a legislative Assembly. Montesquieu was the originator of this fundamentally erroneous view of the English Constitution, which has prevailed and been practically acted upon almost universally in Europe since his time, and which has been the principal cause of the general failure of constitutional government abroad. It is only recently, under the influence of the teaching of Professor Gneist, one of the greatest of the Continental disciples of Burke, that in Germany it is beginning to be understood that the founda- tion of liberty in the State must be a free system of local govern- ment. In England every well-informed man knows quite well that Parliament is much more the result than the source of liberty, and also that it is by no means a purely legislative Assembly. It plays an important part in our whole system of government, and no such marked separation between the Execu- tive and the Legislature as Montesquieu imagined has ever existed in England.

The framers of the Constitution of the Year III. were, however, more deeply influenced by the works of that charming writer and acute thinker than is generally known, or than they themselves were at all aware, and under the influence of his teaching a sharp distinction was drawn between the Legislature and the Executive, the inevitable consequence of which was ultimate antagonism, general confusion, a coup d'etat, and the entire destruction of the Constitution. We have thought it worth while to dwell a little on this point, which has escaped the notice of M. Lanfrey, at least in its full significance, because the same capital error has been one of the principal causes of the destruction of five Liberal constitu- tions in France within the last ninety years, and is, we fear, destined to destroy more in time to come. Another grave fault was committed by the Convention in endeavouring to avoid that into which the authors of the Constitution of 1791 fell. The self-denying ordinance in virtue of which that Constitution was left undefended and unprotected in its first Legislative Assembly, by those who framed it, was doubtless one of the causes of its exceedingly short life. The authors of the Constitution of the Year III. erred in the other extreme, and it was decreed that two-thirds of the Convention must be elected to the new Corps Legislatif. The decrees regulating the new elections were sent to the primary assemblies for ratification, and were generally accepted throughout the country, but they were rejected by Paris, and those who were opposed to them there resolved to appeal to arms. On the 11th Vendemaire, the electors of the different sections met at the Odeon, and on the 12th the section Le Peletier began the revolt by declaring itself in insurrection. The result is well known. The Convention appointed Barras com- mander-in-chief of its forces, and Bonaparte as his second-in- command. On the morning of the 13th the insurgents began to make their preparations for a march upon the Tuileries, but it was late in the afternoon before the fight began. It lasted for a very short time. The Sections were completely defeated. The Convention declared its defenders to have deserved well of their country, and Berms having soon after resigned, Bonaparte found himself alone in command, with the title of General of the Interior.

The 13th Vendemaire was a most fortunate event for the young General Bonaparte, for from that day he began to mount the steps of the Imperial throne. But in the same proportion as it was advan- tageous for him, it was ruinous for the cause of the Constitution

for which he fought. The fight in Paris embittered and increased the antagonism between the Convention and public opinion, and the result was that when the new elections took place, the third of the members chosen to be added to the two-thirds of the Con- vention were entirely selected from the Opposition. Nevertheless, as the party of the Convention still formed the majority in the Legislature, it instantly, by way of reply and defiance, selected as members of the Directory five regicides :—Letourneur, Barras, Carnot, Rewbell, and Lareveillere-Lepaux. Butinasmuch as a third part of the Legislative Assembly was to be chosen every year, and at the same time a fifth part of the Directory, it was plain that an Executive composed of a majority of regicides would at a givem moment find itself in the face of a Legislature containing a majority of moderate men. When that time arrived, the inevitable result was the conffict which brought about the coup d'itat of the 18th Fructidor, and the natural consequence of the 18th Fructidor was the 18th Brumaire, the total destruction of the Constitution of the Year III., and the submission of the French people, disgusted with political theorists and tired of the instability of paper constitutions, to the brilliant General whose military genius had already begun to dazzle mankind, and whose decision of character was af"sure guarantee that his Government would not at least be contemptible or purposeless.

Almost immediately after Napoleon became the head of the Government in France, he began to think seriously of re-establish- ing relations between the French State and the Roman See, and there is no act of his political life for which he is so personally responsible as for the Concordat. It was by his will and authority alone that it was brought about, in opposition to almost all the leading men in France, and to the members of his own family and to his personal friends. It must be confessed that M. Lanfrey, in his account of the negotiations which ended in the publication of the Concordat, does not show the same acquaintance with ecclesi- astical as he does throughout his work with secular politics. his account of the religious state of France in the first days of the century is exceedingly imperfect, and it is hardly too much to say that he shows little power in discerning the different shades of religious opinion at that time. Nevertheless, we agree with him in his general conclusions, and believe that had Napoleon been content to leave things alone, the religious question would have settled itself, and relations between a free Church and the French. State would have ultimately been established, on a basis far more advantageous for both than that of the Concordat of the Consular Government.

In forming a judgment upon Napoleon's ecclesiastical policy, its must first of all be borne in mind that by the Concordat he did not further the end he had himself in view. The Abbe' de Pradt assures us in the Quatro Concordats that he often heard. Napoleon say that, in his opinion, that treaty with Rome was the greatest fault of his reign, and there are many reasons for believing De Pradt, notwithstanding the vehemence with which Bonaparte, at St. Helena, denied his assertion. From the point of view of Napoleon, beyond all question the Concordat was a failure, for his object in making it was simply and solely to find a way to use the Church as an instrument of government. But in his calcula- tions he under-rated the power of Rome, and utterly disbelieved in the possibility of even a partial reaction in favour of the Curia On the 18th of February, 1797, the day before the signature of the treaty of Tolentino, he wrote to the Directory, "Mon opinion est, que Rome, une fois privee de Bologne, de Ferrare, de la. Romagne, et des trente millions que nous Jul Citons, ne pent plus exister : cette vieille machine se detraquera toute seule." This was also his opinion at the time of the Concordat. He was convinced that the Court of Rome was too feeble and contemptible to be in a position to offer him at any time serious resistance,. and he therefore did not scruple to sacrifice to the Papacy the old constitution of the Gallican Church, and the solid guarantees of Galilean liberties, and to establish the Papal power in France as it never existed there before. This he did, although theoretically, and so far as he was a Catholic at all, he held the Gallican doctrines of his early teacher, the Abbe Dupuy, because he could not resist the temptation of trying to work the whole machinery of the Catholic Church through the Pope. In this he failed, and he deserved to fail. But his Concordat regulates to this hour the relations between the French State and the Roman See, and certainly not in accordance either with Napoleon's wishes or anticipations, has been one of the principal causes which in our time have reinvigorated the power of the Papacy in the Church.

M. Lanfrey commences his third volume with the *rupture of the peace of Amiens and the decimation of war with England.

He describes in his most brilliant style the French national move- ment of 1803, the progress of Bonaparte through the provinces, and the excitement and enthusiasm with which men looked for- ward to a glorious triumph over the ancient rival of France. No one dared to express a doubt as to the success of the enterprise, and the authorities of Amiens placed over the gate of the town through which the great General, who was considered destined to avenge so many bitter humiliations, was to pass on his way to the North, this inscription, " Chemin de l'Angleterre " :—

" C'dtait bien lit en effet," says M. Lanfrey, "le chemin que remit de prendre Bonaparte en declarant cette queue funesto ; cc chemin qu'il no devait plus quitter, ce chemin gull continuant it suivre h son insrt lorsqu'il entrait en conquerant it Vienne, h Berlin, a Moscou, allait etre h la foie plus long Till no le supposait, et illustre par miracles sans nombre ; ma's a l'extremite do cette avenue trioruphal, Si son coil ent pu percer lee tenebres de l'avenir, ii cut apercu avec epouvante non la victoire qu'il )evait, mais to Bellerophon immobile at attendant sou hole." (Vol. 111., p. 20.)

In this passage, which is also a specimen of his best style, M. Lanfrey perfectly sums up the international career of Napoleon Bonaparte. The whole end and object of his foreign policy was the destruction of England. It was a desire to wrest from Great Britain her preponderating influence in the destinies of Asia that prompted the expedition to Egypt. The Blocus Continental, that wild and ridiculoas attempt to override the laws of nature, and the whole commercial policy of Napoleon, which made it simply impossible for Europe to submit to his preponderance, the inter- vention with Spain, and the war with Russia in 1812, were all necessary and connected parts of a scheme to break down and destroy the English power. The interesting and intricate story of the events from 1803 to 1809 is told by M. Lanfrey in his third and fourth volumes with great lucidity, with much condensed thought, with diction not unfrequently lofty, and always elegant and correct. The fourth volume, which contains the history of Napoleon's Spanish policy, closes with the entrance of Wellington upon the stage of European history, who, at the moment when the eyes of men were turned to the obscure isle in the Danube, where Napoleon was held for a moment in check by Archduke Charles, suddenly appeared with his little army, driving before him out of Portugal the legions of Marshal Soult.

The fifth volume, which is remarkable for the gravity of its tone, begins with the history of the events of 1809. Considerable space is necessarily devoted to the account of the war in the Pen- insula, and the masterly analysis of the moral causes which led to the defeat of the French armies in Spain shows in the strongest light M. Lanfrey's powers as a writer. Full justice is done to the moral and military character of Wellington. The extraordinary difficulties with which he had to contend, the presumptuous folly, ignorance, and obstinacy of the Spanish Generals, the utterly undisciplined condition of the Spanish army, the insufficiency of the British force for the work it had to do, and above all, the feeble and paltry spirit in which the Tory Govern- ment and the English Parliament and public dealt with their great soldier, are faithfully recorded. It was only in May, 1811, after the retreat of Massena, the victory of Fuentes d'Odoro, and the fall of Almeida, events small in comparison to some of his former brilliant services, that Wellington began slowly to win the con- fidence of the English and of foreign Governments, and to conquer the admiration of mankind. It seems to us, however, that the Iron Duke never showed himself so great at any period of his honoured life as during the dreary autumn and whiter of 1810, when he stood at Torres Vedras, literally himself alone, in defiance of the whole power of Napoleon, and never for an instant wavered in his faith that he would ultimately overthrow the master of Europe :—

" Mais," says M. Lanfrey &Oleg, lui qui representait la force morale centre la brutalite du nombre et de la toute-puissance. II await de son cote non-seulement la bonte et la justice de la cause, mais la superi- °rite des efforts, des previsions, de In prudence, du discernement, des grands resultats obtenus avec de petits moyens, de la resolution la plus calare et la plus inflexible, et c'est par lit avant tout qu'on obtient la victoire. Par la aussi Wellington a meritd la gloire d'avoir porte le coup le plus decisif a la puissance ecrasante de Napoleon. La guerre de Russia fut sans dente la cause determinante de sa chute, mais sans tee coin de far, qui des 1810 penetra si profondement dans les flancs du colosse at paralyse ses mouvements, qui oserait affirmer que la guerre de Russia anrait jamais en lieu." (Vol. V., p. 378.)

This volume contains also some admirable pages on the Blocus Continental and the general financial system of Napoleon, and as far as we are aware, no historian has hitherto explained with the same clearness how considerable a part the commercial policy of the First Empire played in determining the causes of its downfall. In his treatment of this subject M. Lanfrey shows an acquaintance with political economy such as historians have not often possessed, and the want of which, as the late Professor Cairues pointed out in his interesting and valuable essay on Comte, has often caused them to ignore precious indications which to an economist would have explained many a crisis in history. The manner in which Napoleon's commercial policy has been sometimes treated by dis- tinguished writers is a striking instance in point. It has been passed over as a matter of secondary importance by really gifted historians, who were ignorant of the conditions and effects of inter- national trade, and did not thoroughly realise the many subtle ways in which the material interests of men determine their opinions and conduct.

M. Lanfrey has brought down his work in this volume to the outbreak of the Russian war. We shall look forward with great interest to its continuation, and we take the liberty of saying that we sincerely trust that the author will not allow the distractions of political life to prevent him from bestowing due care and atten- tion on the great events which he has still to record.