The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ida Minerva Tarbell

was the condition of the taxes. The assessments were as arbitrary as before the Revolution, and they were collected with greater difficulty.

      To select an honest, capable, and well known financier was Napoleon’s first act. The choice he made was wise—a Monsieur Gaudin, afterward the Duke de Gaëte, a quiet man, who had the confidence of the people. Under his management credit was restored, the government was able to make the loans necessary, and the department of finance was reorganized in a thorough fashion. Napoleon’s gratitude to Monsieur Gaudin was lasting. Once when asked to change him for a more brilliant man, he said:

      “I fully acknowledge all your protégé is worth; but it might easily happen that, with all his intelligence, he would give me nothing but fresh water, whilst with my good Gaudin I can always rely on having good crown pieces.”

      The famous Bank of France dates from this time. It was founded under Napoleon’s personal direction, and he never ceased to watch over it jealously.

      Most important of all the financial measures was the reorganization of the system of taxation. The First Consul insisted that the taxes must meet the whole expense of the nation, save war, which must pay for itself; and he so ordered affairs that never, after his administration was fairly begun, was a deficit known or a loan made. This was done, too, without the people feeling the burden of taxation. Indeed, that burden was so much lighter under his administration that it had been under the old régime, that peasant and workman, in most cases, probably did not know they were being taxed.

      “BUONAPARTE.”

      “Before 1789,” says Taine, “out of one hundred francs of net revenue, the workman gave fourteen to his seignor, fourteen to the clergy, fifty-three to the state, and kept only eighteen or nineteen for himself. Since 1800, from one hundred francs income he pays nothing to the seignor or the Church, and he pays to the state, the department, and the commune but twenty-one francs, leaving seventy-nine in his pocket.” And such was the method and care with which this system was administered, that the state received more than twice as much as it had before. The enormous sums which the police and tax-collectors had appropriated now went to the state. Here is but one example of numbers which show how minutely Napoleon guarded this part of the finances. It is found in a letter to Fouché, the chief of police:

      “What happens at Bordeaux happens at Turin, at Spa, at Marseilles, etc. The police commissioners derive immense profits from the gaming-tables. My intention is that the towns shall reap the benefit of the tables. I shall employ the two hundred thousand francs paid by the tables of Bordeaux in building a bridge or a canal....”

      A great improvement was that the taxes became fixed and regular. Napoleon wished that each man should know what he had to pay out each year. “True civil liberty depends on the safety of property,” he told his Council of State. “There is none in a country where the rate of taxation is changed every year. A man who has three thousand francs income does not know how much he will have to live on the next year. His whole substance may be swallowed up by the taxes.”

      Nearly the whole revenue came from indirect taxes applied to a great number of articles. In case of a war which did not pay its way, Napoleon proposed to raise each of these a few centimes. The nation would surely prefer this, to paying it to the Russians or Austrians. When possible the taxes were reduced. “Better leave the money in the hands of the citizens than lock it up in a cellar, as they do in Prussia.”

      He was cautious that extra taxes should not come on the very poor, if it could be avoided. A suggestion to charge the vegetable and fish sellers for their stalls came before him. “The public square, like water, ought to be free. It is quite enough that we tax salt and wine.... It would become the city of Paris much more to think of restoring the corn market.”

      An important part of his financial policy was the rigid economy which was insisted on in all departments. If a thing was bought, it must be worth what was paid for it. If a man held a position, he must do its duties. Neither purchases nor positions could be made unless reasonable and useful. This was in direct opposition to the old régime, of which waste, idleness, and parasites were the chief characteristics. The saving in expenditure was almost incredible. A trip to Fontainebleau, which cost Louis XVI. four hundred thousand dollars, Napoleon would make, in no less state, for thirty thousand dollars.

      The expenses of the civil household, which amounted to five million dollars under the old régime, were now cut down to six hundred thousand dollars, though the elegance was no less.

      A master who gave such strict attention to the prosperity of his kingdom would not, of course, overlook its industries. In fact, they were one of Napoleon’s chief cares. His policy was one of protection. He would have France make everything she wanted, and sell to her neighbors, but never buy from them. To simulate the manufactories, which in 1799 were as nearly bankrupt as the public treasury, he visited the factories himself to learn their needs. He gave liberal orders, and urged, even commanded, his associates to do the same. At one time, anxious to aid the batiste factories of Flanders, he tried to force Josephine to give up cotton goods and to set the fashion in favor of the batistes; but she made such an outcry that he was obliged to abandon the idea. For the same reason he wrote to his sister Eliza: “I beg that you will allow your court to wear nothing but silks and cambrics, and that you will exclude all cottons and muslins, in order to favor French industry.”

      Frequently he would take goods on consignment, to help a struggling factory. Rather than allow a manufactory to be idle, he would advance a large sum of money, and a quantity of its products would be put under government control. After the battle of Eylau, Napoleon sent one million six hundred thousand francs to Paris, to be used in this way.

      To introduce cotton-making into the country was one of his chief industrial ambitions. At the beginning of the century it was printed in all the factories of France, but nothing more. He proposed to the Council of State to prohibit the importation of cotton thread and the woven goods. There was a strong opposition, but he carried his point.

      “As a result,” said Napoleon to Las Cases complacently, “we possess the three branches, to the immense advantage of our population and to the detriment and sorrow of the English; which proves that, in administration as in war, one must exercise character.... I occupied myself no less in encouraging silks. As Emperor, and King of Italy, I counted one hundred and twenty millions of income from the silk harvest.”

      In a similar way he encouraged agriculture; especially was he anxious that France should raise all her own articles of diet. He had Berthollet look into maple and turnip sugar, and he did at last succeed in persuading the people to use beet sugar; though he never convinced them that Swiss tea equalled Chinese, or that chicory was as good as coffee.

      BONAPARTE, FIRST CONSUL.

      The works he insisted should be carried on in regard to roads and public buildings were of great importance. There was need that something be done.

      “It is impossible to conceive, if one had not been a witness of it before and after the 18th Brumaire [said the chancellor Pasquier], of the widespread ruin wrought by the Revolution.... There were hardly two or three main roads [in France] in a fit condition for traffic; not a single one was there, perhaps, wherein was not found some obstacle that could not be surmounted without peril. With regard to the ways of internal communication, they had been indefinitely suspended. The navigation of rivers and canals was no longer feasible.

      “In all directions, public buildings, and those monuments which represent the splendor of the state, were falling into decay. It must fain be admitted that if the work of destruction had been prodigious, that of restoration was no less so. Everything was taken hold of at one and the same time, and everything progressed with a like rapidity. Not only was it resolved to restore all that required restoring in various parts of the country, in all parts of the public service, but new, grand, beautiful and useful works were decided upon, and many were brought to a happy termination. This certainly constitutes one of the most brilliant sides