书城公版The Origins of Contemporary France
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第932章

[15] Archives nationales, F7, 3273 (Letter of the commissioner of the executive Directory, Vaucluse, Fructidor 6, year VII.): "Eighty armed royalists have carried off, near the forest of Suze, the cash-box of the collector, Bouchet, in the name of Louis XVIII. These rascals, it must be noted, did not take any of the money belonging to the collector himself." - (Ibid., Thermidor 3, year VII.) "On looking around among our communes I find all of them under the control of royalist or town-councillors. That is the spirit of the peasants generally. . . . Public spirit it so perverted, so opposed to the constitutional regime, that a miracle only will bring them within the pale of freedom." - Ibid., F7, 3199. (Similar documents on the department of Bouches-du-Rh?ne.) Outrages continue here far down into the consulate, in spite of the vigor and multitude of military executions. - (Letter of the sub-prefect of Tarascon, Germinal 15, year IX.) "In the commune of Eyragues, yesterday, at eight o'clock, a band of masked brigands surrounded the mayor's house, while some of them entered it and shot this public functionary without anybody daring to render him any assistance. .. . Three-quarters of the inhabitants of Eyragues are royalists."- In series F7, 7152 and those following may be found an enumeration of political crimes classified by department and by the month, especially for Messidor, year VII.

[16] Barère, representative of Hautes Pyrénées, had preserved a good deal of credit in this remote department, especially in the district of Argeles, with populations which knew nothing about the "Mountain."In 1805, the electors presented him as a candidate for the legislative body and the senate; in 1815, they elected him deputy.

[17] "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893. I., 158. At the time the concordat was under consideration the aversion to " priest rule" was very great in the army; there were secret meetings held against it. Many of the superior officers took part in them, and even some of the leading generals. Moreau was aware of them although he did not attend them. In one of these gatherings, things were carried far enough to resolve upon the assassination of the first consul. Acertain Donnadieu, then of a low rank in the army, offered to strike the blow. General Oudinot, who was present, informed Davoust, and Donnadieu, imprisoned in the Temple, made revelations. Measures were at once taken to scatter the conspirators, who were all sent away more or less farther off; some were arrested and others exiled, among them General Mounier, who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at Marengo. General Lecourbe was also one of the conspirators.

[18] On the 18th Fructidor Napoléon used grape-shot and artillery to sweep the royalists off the streets of Paris. (SR.)[19] "Extrait des Mémoires de Boulay de la Meurthe," p.10.

[20] Napoleon's words. ("Correspondance," XXX., 343, memoirs dictated at Saint Helena.)[21] Lafayette, " Mémoires,"II., 192.

[22] Pelet de la Lozère, " Opinions de Napoléon au conseil d'état," p.

63 "The senate is mistaken if it thinks it possesses a national and representative chamber. It is merely a constituted authority emanating from the government like the others." - Ibid., P.147: " It must not be in the power of a legislative body to impede government by refusing taxes; once the taxes are established they should be levied by simple decrees. The court of cassation regards my decrees as laws; otherwise, there would be no government." (January 9, 1808.) - Ibid., p. 147: "If I ever had any fear of the senate I had only to put fifty young state-councillors into it." (December 1, 1803.) - Ibid., p.150: "If an opposition should spring up in the legislative corps I would fall back on the senate to prorogue, change it, or break it up." (March 29, 1806.) - Ibid., p.151: "Sixty legislators go out every year which one does not know what to do with; those who do not get places go and grumble in the departments. I should like to have old land-owners married, in a certain sense, to the state through their family or profession, attached by some tie to the commonwealth. Such men would come to Paris annually, converse with the emperor in his own circle, and be contented with this little bit of vanity relieving the monotony of their existence." (Same date.) - Cf. Thibaudeau, "Mémoires sur le Consulat," ch. XIII., and M. de Metternich, "Mémoires," I., 120 (Words of Napoleon at Dresden, in the spring of 1812): "I shall give the senate and the council of state a new organization. The former will take the place of the upper chamber, the latter that of the chamber of deputies. I shall continue to appoint the senators; I shall have the state councillors elected one-third at a time on triple lists ; the rest I will appoint. Here will the budget be prepared and the laws elaborated." - We see the corps législatif, docile as it is, still worrying him, and very justly; he foresaw the session of 1813.