Emperor and legislators
Douglas Johnson
Napoleon and his Parliaments 1800-1815 Irene Collins (Edward Arnold E9.50)
At first sight it is strange to associate Napoleon with parliamentary government. Most people picture him as the essential one-man government. Perhaps a mixture of an enlightened despot and a modern dictator, but certainly at the centre of a power system which stretched from the smallest commune of France, through a series of mayors, sub-prefects, prefects and ministers, until it reached the Imperial desk. According to this legend Napoleon's unique energy was such that he was able to control everything. 'God made Bonaparte and then rested', remarked one admirer. (`He should have rested a little earlier' was the retort of the emigre Comte de Narbonne.) Mrs Collins has written a book which must modify this picture. It is short and succinct, but in its direct and shrewd manner it changes some of the fundamental assumptions which have long been current in text-books and in some of the many biographies of Napoleon. It is not that there is a history of France which is filled with the ferment of politics until 1799, when the political divisions and conflicts are removed by a practical and dynamic man, only to start up again after Waterloo. It is rather that there is a long continuity of political and constitutional activity, which unites the Revolution, the Consulate, the Empire and the Restoration.
Mrs Collins does not suggest that Napoleon had any fixed idea about parliamentary government, and does not attach any importance to his early writings on English history, when he approved of Simon de Montfort and of parliament's victory over the Stuarts. Nor does she believe in his many statements, made in exile, that he adopted various forms of representative government only because he had to give way to popular feeling. She prefers to see him acting in order to win the support of politicians and adopting a deliberate policy of trying to involve the French political elite in his seizure and exercise of power. It is obvious that the two crucial moments were in 1799 when Napoleon organised his coup d'etat, and 1815 when he escaped from Elba and returned for the Hundred Days.
In 1799 he realised that he could not rule the country alone. He never wished to rule by and through the army. He understood the importance of organising a government which at least appeared to be legal. He possessed no basis of power in any of the provinces. Therefore it was natural that he should turn to the political elite that was present in Paris and make a series of alliances. It was through these alliances that the strangely complicated Constitution of Year VIII was promulgated. Because this in no way resembled the British parliamentary system (there was one chamber which could vote and not speak, whilst the other could speak but not vote) it has been ridiculed (usually by Anglo-Saxon historians). It is also true (and here Mrs Collins might have written at greater length) that there was much jockeying for position in the early years, and both the politicians and Bonaparte often expressed discontent. But the system embodied many of the essential ideas of the Revolution, especially financial accountability and the idea of legislation on fundamentals which embodied the general will for the general good. In 1815, after some hesitation and much bickering, Napoleon dissolved the Chambers which had been created by Louis XVIII and turned to the well-known liberal, Benjamin Constant and asked him to draft a new constitution. As Mrs Collins described it, there seems to have been a real and useful exchange of ideas between Napoleon and Constant, in spite of the speed at which they were necessarily working, Constant, in his admiration for England wanted to imitate the complicated franchises that existed before the first Reform Act. Napoleon insisted upon the system of indirect election, which was probably more democratic. Constant wanted a chamber of peers which would become like the House of Lords. But Napoleon rejected 'mushroom peers' who would only be soldiers or chamberlains. What is remarkable is that even when war was clearly inevitable, he did not put the new constitution into cold storage, but tried to put it into operation. As was always the case with Napoleon there was a certain amount of ambiguity and confusion about his governmental actions (did he not say once that he admired constitutions which were short and obscure?) Pronouncements followed each other so rapidly that often the most sensible thing for administrators to do was to ignore them. Particularly confusing was the convocation of a special Assembly at the Champ de Mai, and Prefects were inundated with enquiries from electors as to whether they should wear ceremonial dress for the occasion (Napoleon himself wore white satin robes embroidered with gold). It seems that the number of legitimate electors was completely outnumbered by thousands of people who had acquired tickets on a black market. But as the official delegation from each department approached the steps of the throne and received from the Emperor's hands a flag which was to be taken back home, they did not lose the opportunity of requesting personal or local awards and favours. The Empire was back in the days of the Directory, with a representative system which inspired patronage and corruption. Napoleon never became, like George III as described by Namier, the first of the borough-mongering, electioneering gentlemen of France. But he responded to the demands for rewards and for rights which came from below. And like the Directory which he had supposedly abolished in 1815, he was attempting to establish a normal political system in a situation which, as war developed, had become thoroughly abnormal.
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