Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 3. The Reaction in France. Georg Brandes

The religious reaction in society and in literature may be dated almost from the same hour, from the same fête. In a letter from Joubert to Chateaubriand's friend, Madame de Beaumont, we come upon the remarkable words: "Our friend was created and brought into the world expressly for this occasion."

      The planning and compassing of this same religious solemnity had cost Bonaparte an infinite amount of trouble. But of what avail was it that at every street corner men read that "the example of centuries, as well as reason, bade them appeal to the papal sovereign to reconcile opinions and customs"? Of what avail that the city was illuminated and a state concert given at the Tuileries in honour of the solemn occasion? The feeling inspired was dissatisfaction, a dissatisfaction as great as the joy inspired in its day by the festival in honour of the Supreme Being.

      When Bonaparte, on his return from Notre Dame, turned in the Tuileries to one of his officers, General Delmas, and asked his opinion of the grand religious ceremony, that officer replied: "It was an excellent Capuchin carnival play (Capucinade); there was only one thing wanting—the million of people who have given their lives to break down what you are building up again." And in these words Delmas expressed the general feeling of Napoleon's officers. In November 1801 the exasperation of the army at the idea of a reconciliation with the church had made itself distinctly felt; men who were on such intimate terms with Bonaparte as Lannes and Augereau had plainly expressed their annoyance at the prospect of having to show their uniforms in a church; and it was a common remark among the soldiers that the French flags had never won so many laurels as now, when they were no longer consecrated. When the generals received a direct order to appear at Notre Dame they sent Augereau (in vain, we know) as their spokesman to the Tuileries to implore that they might be excused.

      The army was the element in society which had remained most faithful to the fundamental ideas of the Revolution. When, under the Directory, the royalist reaction seemed on the point of victory, it was foiled because the Republican Government, weak and divided as it was, could rely upon the army. For in the army the true republican principle of equality had been maintained as it had been nowhere else. Before the Revolution, officer and private had been separated by a yawning chasm. The officer was originally the feudal lord, then the landowner, then the nobleman; and no private soldier, however greatly he distinguished himself, could make his way up into this higher caste. During the Revolution these relations had been turned upside down. In the first place there were, amongst the crowds who volunteered as private soldiers, many men of noble birth; and in the second place, the nobility had been deprived of their right to officer the army; the officers were chosen from the ranks. Moreover, the fatigues and hardships shared alike by all during the wars of the Republic had made officers and privates comrades. In spite of regimental discipline, the private soldier felt himself to be the brother-in-arms of his officer, whose equal he might any day become by his bravery and the fortunes of war.

      A return to monarchical government would have been at once fatal to this new constitution of the army; and every mark of favour shown to the church was regarded as a presage or preliminary of such a return. Hence the army still spoke the old revolutionary language—was equally hostile to kings, nobles, and priests. It lived in apprehension of a restoration of the monarchy and of Catholicism, trusted in Bonaparte as the man who was to prevent this, and was prepared, in case of his defection, to appeal to another Jacobin general—Jourdan, Bernadotte, or Augereau—to arrange a counter coup d'état.

      So bitter was the feeling in the army against the Catholic priesthood at the moment when the Concordat was signed, that secret meetings were held and a conspiracy was organised to annul this compact with the church. Many officers of rank, even distinguished generals, were mixed up in the affair. Moreau was in communication with the conspirators, although he never attended their meetings. At one of these meetings they went the length of resolving on the assassination of the First Consul. A certain Donnadieu offered to do the deed. But General Oudinot, who was present, informed Davoust of what was impending, and Donnadieu, who was arrested, confessed everything. The conspirators were dispersed; some were imprisoned, some banished, among the latter being General Monnier, who had commanded one of Desaix's brigades at Marengo.[2]

      All this gives us a sufficiently clear idea of the state of opinion in the army. And the civil authorities were of the same mind. The plan of the Concordat had met with unanimous opposition. Talleyrand, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, had persistently advised against it. The Concordat struck at himself, as a former bishop, and with his political clearsightedness he foresaw its serious consequences for France. The Council of State received the First Consul's announcement that he had signed the compact with cold silence, and yet it was in this assembly that he had his most devoted adherents. Even Thiers, whose admiration for Bonaparte leads him to give an incomplete account of the episode of the Concordat, writes: "The members sat gloomy and dumb, as if they had seen one of the most beneficial achievements of the Revolution undone before their eyes. The icy silence was not broken. They dispersed without expressing an opinion, without saying a word."

      The announcement met with even a worse reception in the Legislative Assembly. That body entered its protest against the re-establishment of the church by electing as its president Dupuis, the author of Origine des cultes, a book then much in repute, which explains Christianity as an astronomical myth (the work parodied in Monod's famous pamphlet on Napoleon as a sun-myth). Bonaparte, although he already felt himself possessed of almost unlimited power, dared not lay the Concordat alone before the Legislative Assembly; along with it he submitted to their approval the so-called Organic Laws, which aimed at establishing the relative independence of the French church. Knowing that they feared papal influence, he hoped by this means to secure their votes. But it was not until all its most energetic members had been expelled that the Assembly sanctioned the Concordat.

      In the Tribune there was a regular revolt, and nothing less than a new breach of the constitution, namely, the reduction of the number of members of that Chamber to eighty, was required to overcome its opposition. To only three classes of men did the Concordat immediately give entire satisfaction. These were (1) the clergy, with the exception of those who had sworn allegiance to the Republican constitution and who were now dismissed; (2) the numerous possessors of church property, who had hitherto felt themselves insecure, but were now confirmed in their ownership; (3) the great, ignorant peasant class, who could neither read nor write, and who longed for their Sunday and their church pageantry.

      Even in the circle of the First Consul's most intimate associates one attempt after another had been made to shake his resolve. The spirit of the eighteenth century was strong in the men whose great or rare gifts made them the most eminent of the day, and it was these men whom Bonaparte chose for his companions. They all belonged to the class of "moderate Revolutionists," and were all disciples of Voltaire. Men like the famous astronomer Laplace, like the mathematicians Lagrange and Monge, told Bonaparte every day that he was on the point of bringing disgrace on his reign and his century. His old companions-in-arms, says Thiers, though they knew how the nation honoured them, dreaded the ridicule which awaited them if they knelt before the altar. Even his own brothers, who associated with the most talented writers of the day, importuned him not to stake his enormous power on a step so utterly at variance with the spirit of the times.

      These strong expressions, like the previously quoted words of Madame Roland, show how certain men were that Christianity was to be regarded as dead.

      It was not religious conviction which induced a man with a mind like Bonaparte's to act, regardless of all considerations and representations, in opposition to the whole of thinking France. Many of his utterances prove that he himself shared the opinions of the men he was opposing, that he did homage to the so-called enlightened deism of the eighteenth century. Certain assertions made by Bonaparte to Monge have been quoted to prove that he was an orthodox believer. "My religion is a very simple one," he said. "I see this great, complex, magnificent universe, and say to myself that it cannot have been produced by chance, but must be the work of an unknown, almighty being, who is as superior to man as the universe is to our cleverest machines." But would not Voltaire have expressed himself exactly thus? Bonaparte continued: "But this truth is too concise, too brief, for man; he wants to know many secrets about himself and his future which the universe does not tell him. Here religion steps