Latest / A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo / 34 - A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson

Transcript

34 - A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo by Agnes Mary Frances Robinson · A Brief History of France From Caesars to Waterloo

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Section thirty four of a short History of France by
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Mary Duclo. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Read by Pamelinagami, Part four, Chapter two, The Coming of Bonaparte,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Part three. Just as Napoleon had made war on Austria
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: in Italy, he determined to engage England in Egypt prior
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: to invading India. It is true that Egypt at that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: date belonged not to perfidious Albion, but to Turkey, with
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: whom France was no longer at war, but that was
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a detail. If the campaign in Italy had been the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: romance of the Revolution, the invasion of Egypt was its mystery,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: its aureole, its great adventure. Bonaparte set out for Alexandria,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: attended not only by a brilliant cohort of generals in
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: thirty eight thousand seasoned troops, but by the first mathematicsicians, geologists,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: chemists and antiquaries of France. One of them, Champoleon, discovered
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the key to the hieroglyphics of that elder world for
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the first time since the Roman Empire, writes Napoleon, a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: civilized nation cultivating the arts and sciences was about to visit,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: measure and explore the superb ruins which for centuries have
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: dazzled the curiosity of science. And he enumerates his aeronauts,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: his poets, his astronomers, and architects capable de tree lesard
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: de la France, emiliu des deser de la Rabille. But
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: when the soldiers of Bonaparte found themselves lost in those
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: sterile wastes of sands with unfriendly Arabs, si les, sie
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: pheros and their women, plus Salancourt for soul inhabitants, loud
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: were their lamentations for the lovely plains of Lombardy. The
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: army was struck by a vague melancholy which nothing could overcome,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: because at every trace of antiquity, the battalions halted, while
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the men of science measured, copied, dug compared notes. The
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: disgusted soldiers supposed that for this alone had they been
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: called away from a fairer conquest, and in their chagrin
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: they dubbed the asses of the transport men of science.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: But the day came when about five leagues from Cairo,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: they saw three vast rocks rise on the flat horizon
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: of the desert, and were told they had been raised
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: by human hands, though these were by far the most
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: imposing monuments of the ancients that the troops had yet encountered.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: The architects and statuaries kept in the rear and left
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the direction of affairs to the military officers. The soldiers
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: were told to prepare for battle, and their next move
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: was the victory of the pyramids. And now what wonderful
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: names blaze like comets in the bulletins of Bonaparte, Alexandria, Jaffa, Nazareth.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: But while the soldiers on land went on from strength
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: to strength, the English at Abukir destroyed all the transport
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: ships of the French, so that the victorious army was
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a prisoner in Egypt. The siege of Saint gen Darche
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: was long and terrible, but even this repulse could be
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: disguised as a triumph. The difficulties overcome, the dangers endured,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the glory gathered, The rapidity of conquests, which adorned the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: annals of France with the most splendid names of antiquity,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: all combined to increase the already dazzling reputation of a
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: general barely thirty. While in France, on all the frontiers,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the government blundered into ruin through defeat. The public said
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to its soul patience when Bonaparte comes home. Sidney Smith,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the English admiral cruising off the coasts of Egypt, was
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: a man endowed with the wisdom of the serpent. He
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: arranged that a budget of newspapers, full of all the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: disasters and defeats of the directory, should run the blockade
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and pass into the hands of General Bonaparte. In fact,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: with a perfidious courtesy, he gave them to a French
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: officer come on board to parley concerning an exchange of prisoners.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Bonaparte had been for three months deprived of news from home.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: When he saw the state of affairs in France, he
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: determined to return at all risks. Rapidly and secretly. He
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: prepared his flight. A missive delivered only after his departure
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: intrusted the army to General Clabet. There were two Venetian
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: frigates in the port of Alexandria. Bonaparte, with several of
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: his generals and two of the inseparable mathematicians, went on board, and,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: after an adventurous voyage of six weeks, gaped the enemy,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: scouring the seas in quest of all French vessels and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: landed off the coast of Provence near Frasius on the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: seventeenth Von de Meyer of the year eight. Two days later,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the Directory at Paris received the news. It spread like wildfire.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: One name was on every lip. Bonaparte, Bonaparte, Bonaparte. Bonaparte
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: had returned from Egypt to seize the reigns of power.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: He meant to suppress the garrulous imbeciles of the Directory,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: but the country was still republican. He could not declare
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: himself king. He was too young to be a director.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Had he aspired to a fraction of authority, and in
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: seventeen ninety nine the form the superstition of a plurality
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: of rulers appeared, the very sign and symbol of a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: democratic government. Bonaparte did not profit immediately by the wild
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: enthusiasm that greeted his return. Below frequented the sessions of
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the Institute affected the character of the archaeologist, the pensive
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: and traveling antiquary. Meanwhile, he studied the public. The great
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: majority of Frenchmen were weary of the Revolution's perpetual misrule,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: and yet, as I have said, remained attached to its benefits.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: There was little desire for the king to come to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: his own again. The situation of the poor, especially in
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: country places, was on the whole immensely improved. We have
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: it on the testimony of the Duke of Laroche Fuco Leoncour,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: among others, a witness the more disinterested that he was
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a man whom the revolution had ruined. In his letters
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: to his friend Arthur Young, he notes the social changes
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: brought about by the new state of things. Large estates
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: have given place to very small ones, which yield at
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: least one fourth more harvest and produced than the agriculture
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: is everywhere more intelligent. The homes of the peasants are improved,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: more spacious and cleaner. The laborers themselves are less ignorant
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: than their fathers. Il Saint pluqueur on Eta de re
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: Flechier de combinat en poumins aloignier de tute inovasion. The
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: sale of the church lands and of the estates confiscated
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: from the emegree had enriched a world of thrifty peasants
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: who dreaded any change in the government lest they should
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: be ordered to disgorge the love of property and not
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the love of liberty rivetted them to the revolution. It
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: seems a paradox to say that the French are no
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: great lovers of liberty, but they are enthusiasts for equality.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Justice and not freedom is really their national idol. The
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: whole country would have risen in revolt rather than permit
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: the re establishment of the three orders and the privileges
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: of aristocracy. They were ready to obey a master should
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: he be just, should he maintain equality among his subordinates,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and confirm their possession of the fields and farms they
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: had bought so cheap with their assigna. Bonaparte saw his
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: way clear, the most absolute of mortals, prepared to consolidate
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a great democracy. He knew that he had a party
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: in the state, the army at least, the younger generals,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the Senate, all that stood for authority and discipline, all
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: that dreaded a threatening revival of the reign of terror.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: And in fact only the terror or a caesar could
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: have saved France at that juncture. But the chamber, the
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: sangson was against a dictator, was for the greater part
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: violently Jacobin appearances must be preserved. It was not as
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: yet a question of mounting a horse, leading a charge
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: and issuing a pronunciamento. At last the plan was evolved.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: The Senate suddenly informed the nation of a vast conspiracy
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: against the Republic. The two chambers were transferred to Saint Clux,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a few miles outside Paris, to deliberate in peaceful seclusion,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: and Bonaparte was named General in chief, protecting the menaced
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: legislators in the suburbs with a girdle of regiments and cannon.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Three of the five directors resigned more or less spontaneously.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: The Sangson and the ancients were requested to decide on
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: a reform of the government. The day was fixed the
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: ninth of November seventeen ninety nine, but history knows the
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: date as the deizwhet Brumeer. It was fine all Paris,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: at least all political Paris, set out for Saint Clux.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: One might have supposed that in the course of the
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: last ten years the Parisians had been surfitted with changes
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: in the constitution, But in that case too, its seems
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: that appetite grows by what it feeds. On the palace
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and the gardens were crammed on the first floor. The
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Senate was assembled on a raised ground floor in the arrangerie,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: the five hundred held council, draped in their red robes
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: of office. Everyone guessed that something momentous was about to happen.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: No one, not even Bonaparte, knew exactly what was in
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the air. The general's brother, Lucien Bonaparte, was president of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the Sangson. But as time dragged on and nothing happened, Napoleon,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: always of a nervous temperament, chafed at the suspense and
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: felt he must act himself. Suddenly he entered the arrangerie.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: He was greeted by a storm of abuse. Red sleeves
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: flapped and struck him, half stifled him, for he was small.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: One giant of a deputy nearly knocked him down, and
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: violent voices shrieked down with the tyrrene and down with
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: the dictator. For one long moment, he must have thought
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: that all was lost. The grenadiers rushed in to save
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: their general and carried him off, while still in angry
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: tumult that Jacobin shouted outlaw him, outlaw him, h la lois.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: But the day was not yet done. Soldiers, can I
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: count on you, cried Bonaparte. Despite their cries of affirmation.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Neither master nor men knew at this juncture what to
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: do next. There was a long moment of hesitation, and
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: then Lucien Bonaparte appeared. He was, as I have said,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: the President of the five hundred, and seemed to incarnate
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the assembly. By this time, General Bonaparte was on horseback.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: In a twinkling, his brother was mounted and riding at
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: his side. Soldiers said, Lucian, the President of the Council
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: of the five hundred, assures you that the great majority
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: of the Council is tyrannized and terrorized by a handful
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: of dangerous assassins. Will you deliver the representatives of France.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: Those brigands in the arrangerie are not the deputies of
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: the nation, but the deputies of the dagger. On this occasion,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: it must be owned that the younger of the Corsican
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: brothers was the more eloquent. He gave the army what
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: it wanted, an excuse for its intervention. The drums beat,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: A column was formed in a tumult of cries, as
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: if by magic, The daredevil Muhrah appeared and marched them
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: up the shallow stairs leading to the Arraingerie, down with
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: the Jacobins, down with ninety three. The spirit of Termidor
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: was in the air. In the Arroingerie. The beat of
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: the drums had struck a sudden terror. The door opened,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Murrah entered in a crowd of soldiers with fixed bayonets.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: This apparition had a very different effect from that of
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: the solitary bonap In one instant the windows were open,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: they were but a few feet above the soft earth
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: of the flower beds underneath, and the red togas were
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: lost to view in the gloom of a November twilight.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Tags and tatters of them were found on the morrow,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: clinging to the thickets of the forest of Saint Clux,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and even in the woods of Midon. The people of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Paris only laughed and said, the deputies have added another
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: to the famous cascades of Saint Cluke. And on the
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: very morrow a new government was formed, and the long
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: reign of the Jacobins was brought to an end. There
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: were no longer five directors, but three consuls. The first Consul,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: during the ten years of his office, was to rule
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the state. He named the ministers, controlled the administration, and
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: called the policy and the first consul, of course, was Bonaparte.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: His colleagues were neither rivals of his power nor critics
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: of his policy, but they were very useful underling, men
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: of capacity and experience, well chosen, for he chose them
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: himself to support and enlighten a man of genius in
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a strange position. They were Napoleon's books of reference, indispensable,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: humble auxiliaries. Buonaparte was now the master of France. Too
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: proud to owe his elevation to a November night's dream,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: he determined to make broad the basis of his power.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: He referred his new Constitution to the nation. The people
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: were asked to vote an approbation or repudiation of the
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: new regime. Three millions answered yes. There were only fifteen
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: hundred nays. We hear of no revolt against the violent
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: establishment of the new government. The republic had entered into
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: being with the thunderclap of a coup d'ettas, and it
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: was an axiom of the revolution that only by such
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: means could the state in its distress be saved. The
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: right of insurrection. The direct appeal to popular force was
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: in the eyes of Buonaparte's contemporaries the supreme safeguard against tyranny,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: or mismanagement or corruption. In such circumstances, the nation not
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: only excused, but required a coup d'etas, or, as they said,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: ajourney a day's work. And soon, in the opinion of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the majority, Bruemire was classed as a good day's work.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: No one regretted the effete and miserable government of the Directory.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: This state now was in affirm hand. Napoleon begins to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: bud In Bonaparte end of Section thirty four