having made peace with the whole world, Bonaparte set about his task of preparing himself and the French people for the return to the God-system. It was ordained by him that money should not be exported from France on any pretext whatever except with the consent of the Government, and that in no circumstances should loans be employed to meet current expenditure whether civil or military.
The object was to withhold from finance the power to embarrass the Government as it had embarrassed the Government of Louis XVI. When a Government, Bonaparte declared, is dependent for money upon bankers, they and not the leaders of that Government control the situation, since “the hand that gives is above the hand that takes”57. He did not allow anyone to forget the shipments of gold to England organized by Barras at the expense of the army of Italy, and at a moment when France was denuded of metallic currency.
“Money,” he declared, “has no motherland ; financiers are without patriotism and without decency : their sole object is gain.”
Money reacted against Bonaparte with all its strength. Necker remained in Switzerland, but his daughter, Madame de Staël, was in Paris. She reopened her salon and entertained nightly the diplomatic corps and the Liberals. She spent the resources of a lively wit in making fun of the “dynasty of Ajaccio”—a particularly deadly form of attack on a man who was about to declare himself the anointed of God. A second line of attack consisted in showing Bonaparte as an ignorant provincial. Madame de Staël and her friend, the beautiful Juliette Recamier, wife of the banker of that name, proclaimed them-selves citizens of Europe, and cried that Bonaparte's methods were shutting France in an “iron cage”. Men, they urged, must be free to follow their own ideas. (This meant that rich men must be free to move their money about.) Men must be free, too, to produce, to buy and to sell where and when they chose. (This meant that bankers must be free to stimulate the export trade by foreign lending.) Madame de Staël committed herself to the shrewd opinion that, had her father's system of loans not been kicked out of court by Mirabeau, the leaders of the Revolution would never have got their paper money (Assignats) and so would not have been able to finance the wars which kept the foreign invaders out of France.
People who did not understand the object of these opponents of Bonaparte were surprised at the way in which he reacted to their opposition. He made no secret of the fact that he feared Madame de Staël's tongue. As he very well knew, she had only to set France laughing and his ascent on the throne would be impossible. He banished her and with her the Liberals who played her game. He established a censorship of the Press, having first shut down all the newspapers which were definitely in the hands of his enemies. He became a journalist himself, and, day after day, preached his own gospel of service to the French people.
These activities awoke anxiety in the City of London, where, as Thiers points out, there was dismay at the refusal of the French Government to contract any loans. The friendly spirit towards France and her new leader was changed to hostility, and the London Press opened a vigorous attack. Bonaparte protested that England and France were at peace; he was told that in England the Press was free. Then he protested that the conditions of the Treaty of Amiens had not been fulfilled in the matter of Malta, which England had contracted to evacuate, and was informed that Malta would be evacuated when he removed his troops from Holland.
The English people, at first, felt no animosity against France and took no part in the campaign, but it was clear, nevertheless, that very soon war would be resumed unless Bonaparte made the trade treaty for which London was clamouring and so abandoned his isolationist policy. His Ambassador in London, Andréossy, warned him that—
“In a country where the main interest is business, and where the merchant class is so prosperous, the Government has to appeal to the merchants for extraordinary funds and they have the right to insist that their interests should be considered in the policy which is adopted.”
In spite of this Bonaparte refused to discuss a trade treaty. War was declared by England, and shortly afterwards the First Consul ascended the throne of France as Napoleon I. He submitted himself to his people to be elected, but insisted that consecration should come from the Church at the hands of the Pope himself. Then, in order that it might not be supposed that Heaven's appointment came indirectly through the Church, he put the crown on his own head. Napoleon's sovereignty, therefore, was by the Grace of God, and it is an error to look upon it in any way different, in its quality, from that of Henry IV, Louis XIV, or Louis XVI. Napoleon himself never ceased to proclaim that he reigned by Grace and not by election, and he considered this distinction fundamental.
Money was face to face now with Kingship. Money proceeded, immediately, to enlist Kingship on its side. This was easy, for the old Monarchies, as has been said, desired nothing so much as the final overthrow of the man they looked upon as the child of the revolution. The doctrine, again, that God's Grace does not necessarily descend from father to son was hateful to people who believed that birthrights cannot in any circumstances be alienated. Add to this that the old Monarchies were bankrupt and so compelled to live by borrowing from the masters of money. Thus the descendants of the coin-sorters and melters of the City of London, once held in contempt as thieves of the King's currency, became kings of kings and lead the forces of European nobility against the man who was upholding spiritual as against material value, the nation as against greed, loyalty as against fear.
They had good hope of compassing his down-fall. None believed that he could finance war on a great scale now that the resource of paper money had been denied him by the destruction of the Assignat. Where would he obtain the indispensable gold and silver to feed and equip a great army ? Pitt counted already on a coalition of England, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and numerous small States. Some 600,000 men would be put into the field. All the resource of England's wealth—that is to say, of the world's wealth—would be placed at the disposal of this overwhelming force. Could the Corsican muster 200,000 ? Could he arm them ? Could he feed them ? If the lead bullets did not destroy him the gold bullets would soon make an end. He would be forced, like his neighbours, to come, hat in hand, for loans and, like them, to accept the banker's terms.
He was far from happy himself. He had just acquired Louisiana from Spain and was about to buy Florida. What ships he possessed were on the high seas as part of an expedition to San Domingo. He saw the seas swept clear of the tricolour flag and France imprisoned within the seas. He could not put his hands on £2,000,000, so empty was the Treasury and so depleted the nation's stock of metallic money. London waited with interest to see how the puzzle would be solved. It was learned with surprise that Napoleon had sold Louisiana to the United States for £3,000,000.
“One has only to consider,” Napoleon remarked, “what loans can lead to in order to realize their danger. Therefore I would never have anything to do with them and have always striven against them. At one time people asserted that I did not issue loans because I possessed no credit and could find nobody who would lend me anything. That is quite false. That surely implies a very scanty knowledge of human nature and an ignorance of stock exchange methods if people imagine that I could find no one ready to lend. It was not part of my system.” (Las Cases, 1816, September 7.)
Note 57.—This was among his favourite quotations.