On November 6, 1804, the French plebeians voted to adopt the Twelve-Year Constitution of the Republic (also known as the Napoleonic Constitution), transforming the French Republic into the French Empire, and Napoleon Bonaparte, a warlord-turned-French emperor. On December 2, Pope Pius VII held a solemn coronation ceremony for him at Notre Dame Cathedral, napoleon took the crown from the pope and personally carried it on his head, and since then his signature on the official government documents has changed from Bonaparte to Napoleon. At this point, the French people, who had endured the baptism of the Revolution, seemed to have forgotten that they had overthrown the absolute Bourbon monarchy and sent King Louis XVI to the guillotine. This is a very worthy of scrutiny, chanting the slogan of "freedom, equality, fraternity", and vowing to overthrow the tyrant, why would the French people tolerate or even support a coronation Napoleon?
To know why the French supported Napoleon, we must first understand the birth of the French Republic and the death of Louis XVI. After the outbreak of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century, the European feudal countries, mainly Austria and Prussia, refused to recognize the legitimacy of the revolution. In 1792, the Duke of Brunswick, in the name of the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Prussia, issued a declaration (in fact a threat) against France, which stated that the mob had usurped power in France, disturbed the normal order of France, and desecrated the authority of the Bourbon royal family, so that the monarchs of the European countries could not stand idly by and warn the French National Guard and the National Convention to restore the dignity and freedom of the king immediately, otherwise Paris would be attacked by the Allies and would restore peace at the cost of blood. However, instead of succumbing to the Allied threat, the French revolutionaries launched an august uprising, storming the palace and fleeing to the National Convention to seek refuge. On 20 September, the French army led by Di Mourière defeated the Allied Forces of Aupu at the Battle of Valmy, and on 22 September, the historic Bourbon dynasty was finally overthrown, and the First French Republic was officially proclaimed. On 21 January of the following year, Louis XVI was guillotined by the National Convention on charges of treason.
Although the above events have nothing to do with Napoleon, we can see from them that the French people at that time had awakened their national consciousness, they resolutely did not allow any other country to interfere in the internal affairs of France, and the threat of the great powers only accelerated the demise of the French feudal monarchy and strengthened the determination of the revolutionaries to establish a republic. Therefore, people longed for a heroic and great figure to become the new ruler, to maintain the sovereignty of France through strong diplomatic and military means, to consolidate the achievements of the Revolution, although they opposed the tyrant, but they could not tolerate France becoming a puppet of the great powers. As the saying goes, the times make heroes, and Napoleon, who had super political wisdom and military talent, met the expectations of all levels of society at that time.
There is no doubt that the French Revolution was extremely destructive to people's social life, especially when France was disturbed by external factors. On August 30, 1792, when the Prussian army, which had crossed the French border, besieged the fortress of Verdun and captured the gateway to Paris in just one day, the Commune of voters of the third class of Paris received the news of the fall of Verdun, and they were momentarily panicked and overwhelmed, thinking that they had been betrayed by the enemy within, and took extremely cruel measures, sending an execution team of more than three hundred people to Carmer Prison, Abée Prison, Fors Prison and the prison attached to the Paris Inquisition In just three days, almost all the criminals were slaughtered, and a total of 1,400 people died in the atrocity known as the "September Massacre", most of them criminals who had nothing to do with politics.
Events such as the "September Massacre" were a constant occurrence during the French Revolution. During the 10 years between 1789 and 1798, the Girondins, Jacobins, the Thermidorians, and the Governor took turns in power, and almost every change of ruling party turned into a political killing. For example, during Robespierre's reign of terror, a total of 16,594 people were sentenced to death in France, of which 2,639 were in Paris, but in fact the number of deaths in France was much higher than this number. It can be said that the French society at that time was already in a state of complete loss of control, and at this time someone needed to stand up and correct the chaos and re-establish a stable social order. Before his death, Napoleon said in his will: "My dictatorship is a last resort, many powers I do not want, but people will always impose on me..." I think this may not be entirely justifying myself, in such a chaotic anarchy, the separation of powers may have a counterproductive effect on the re-establishment of social order. In order to end the turbulent political situation as soon as possible, the people can only choose to give power to Napoleon, who is most likely to lead France out of the predicament.
In fact, the French Revolution broke out because the contradiction between the commoners of the third class and the noble monks had reached a white-hot stage, and Louis XVI did not have the ability and courage to break this situation, which eventually led to his own tragedy. After Napoleon came to power, he often let those old nobles participate in the foreign affairs of the country, and he found that when dealing with the governments of European countries, if the ambassadors sent were the old nobles, then the success rate of negotiations would be higher, because many of the old nobles had personal relations with the ambassadors of European countries, which also made people mistakenly think that Napoleon had a special plot for the old nobles. In addition, he would give a handsome pension to the old nobles who did not oppose his rule and were idle at home, such as the Count of Rochambeau and the Marquis of Lafayette, who had participated in the North American War of Independence. In addition, the father of the Count of Segui, Marshal Séju the Elder, held an important position in the former dynasty, and after retirement, he lost all his savings due to the failure of the investment, and Napoleon paid him a pension and received him.
Napoleon, on the other hand, was a bourgeois revolutionary who founded the Bank of France, established a stable financial system, promoted the development of the capitalist economy, adopted liberal policies on agriculture and trade, and promoted the progress of industry through state support and incentives. Considering that England adopted the tactic of sea blockade against France at that time, Napoleon took reciprocal measures and also implemented a policy of continental blockade against Britain, which was tantamount to protecting the dominant position of the French big bourgeoisie in essence, and it is not an exaggeration to say that napoleon is regarded as the representative of the interests of the French big bourgeoisie.
For the former third-class commoners and the vast number of peasants, Napoleon respected their freedom of religious belief, established the principle of inviolability of property ownership, allowed the commoners to enter the government through their own efforts, became the builders of the state, and abolished the peasants' subrogation rent, servitude labor and other feudal tributes, all of which earned the French emperor a vote of confidence. He enabled all social strata, including the old nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie, citizens and peasants, to live in stability, so that they could live and work in peace and contentment, to make a difference, and to alleviate the already fierce social contradictions, and whether such a ruler was the first ruler of the republic or the emperor of the empire made no essential difference to people.
Since the reign of louis XIV, the sun king, the French have always regarded the motherland as the center of Europe, and the struggle for European hegemony is regarded by many as the glory of the country, and even Napoleon himself has said: "The French are only sensitive to one thing, that is, honor!" ”。 In March 1796, Napoleon became commander-in-chief of the French Front in Italy, leading this exhausted division with little food and clothing and low morale to one brilliant victory after another, whether it was Wilmze, Alvinzi or Bolieu, who became his subordinates, forcing Austria to sign the Treaty of Campofomio, ceding most of Austria's territory to France. This made Napoleon immediately a hero in the hearts of the French people, and the newspapers spared no effort to publicize his exploits. But during Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, his successor, General Schererer, lost almost entirely Italian territory, putting the Governor's government, led by Barras, on the cusp of another storm, with the populace denouncing the corruption and incompetence of the Governors.
Napoleon, who was far away in Egypt, also learned of the defeat of the French army in Italy through the newspapers, which prompted him to finally make up his mind to return to France. After learning the news of Napoleon's return, the French newspaper once hailed the hero's return with enthusiastic words:
"Everyone can't wait to cheer him on because he gives us new hope, and everyone believes that glory, peace and happiness will surely come with him." - "The Biography of Napoleon"
We will find in the text published in this newspaper that glory precedes peace and happiness. Yes, the French at the time were no less thirsty for honor than they were for equality, and they believed that Napoleon was the leader who had the best hope of making France great again and dominating Europe.
In Madame Remiza's memoirs, it was revealed that Napoleon had shown Mr. Remiza his intentions to become emperor and talked about his evaluation of the French, which I think is basically accurate.
Your vanity cannot bear to be snubbed, and the harshness of the Republic will make you bored to the extreme.... Freedom is just an excuse, and equality is what you are concerned about. If the princes of Gongsun were promoted from soldiers, the people would be more satisfied... Now the army and the people are on my side. If someone cannot rule the country under such unique conditions, he is a fool. - "Memoirs of Madame Remiza"
Here we see a keyword "equality", in fact, the French people's desire for equality is far more than freedom, Louis XVI has never understood, the people are not intolerant of the nobles to enjoy privileges, they can not accept that there is no equal promotion channel to change their destiny. Napoleon knew this clearly, and when he established the Legion of Honor, some people objected that this was a re-establishment of the hierarchical privilege system, but the Emperor did not care at all, because the Medal of honor was not only awarded to members of high society, but also to reward talents who made outstanding contributions to all walks of life, in other words, as long as you have the ability to get this medal.
In addition, Napoleon practiced almost absolute equality in the army, once he found that a soldier was very good and brave in battle when he inspected the army and was praised by everyone, but his colonel never dared to promote him, Napoleon asked for specific reasons, the colonel replied: "Your Majesty, he is illiterate", but the emperor said without hesitation: "It does not matter, let him be an officer." This seemed inconceivable to many at the time, but Napoleon felt that as long as you have the ability to contribute to the country, you can become an officer no matter what your origin.
"If Napoleon had been only a temporary consul, then he might have been attacked; if he had been a consul all his life, then he would certainly have been assassinated. So he felt that hereditary system was a shield to protect himself... If the hereditary system began, it would be useless to kill him. Therefore, in order to protect France, hereditary system is certainly necessary at this stage. —Joseph Bonaparte
The above passage is the content of a letter written by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte, which, although it has some meaning to defend Napoleon, also reflects the dilemma he faced at that time. During napoleon's reign in France for more than a decade, his assassinations occurred dozens of times, the most famous of which occurred on Christmas Night in 1800, when Napoleon took Josephine and her daughter to the Paris Opera, only to be hit by a bomb in a small alley in their carriage, thanks to the competitive coachman driving at a rapid pace, saving them by mistake, but the attack still killed 20 innocent passers-by. It was later found that this was an assassination attempt conspired by the royalists and the British.
Based on this background, we will find that what Joseph Bonaparte said is not entirely unreasonable, and that this is exactly what we mean Chinese to say that politics is dead, and that if a ruler is not in his position, it will be difficult for him to continue to implement his political measures. At that time, Napoleon was facing this situation, and only by restoring the hereditary system could the stability of France be maintained relatively, because even if Napoleon died, his successors could still promote the development of the country driven by the system, and also made the assassination of Napoleon meaningless.
The famous German biographer Emil Ludwig once regarded Napoleon as an imaginative and calculating Roman hero. His becoming a Caesar-like figure seems to be an inevitable consequence of historical development. However, the First French Empire established by Napoleon is still fundamentally different from the traditional monarchical feudal state. At that time, the French people were not opposed to the monarch, but to the feudal hierarchy represented by the monarch, under this dark and decaying system, such as freedom and equality, the universal values of human beings were ruthlessly despised, and society was like a pool of stagnant water, so that people could not see any opportunity for development. Napoleon's empire, on the other hand, was a monarchy of a bourgeois character, and his dictatorship had both its own subjective factors and the shackles imposed on him by the times. This regime ended more than ten years of turmoil, established a capitalist legal system, stabilized the social order, pushed the country on the road of industry, accelerated the development of the national economy, let the people feel glory and equality again, compared with the backward and closed old system has obvious progressive significance of the times, more importantly, at that time, the French people have awakened a strong national consciousness in their hearts, they are eager to safeguard national sovereignty, reject the interference of the great powers in domestic affairs, and make France a great country again. And Napoleon happened to be the one who had the ability to lead them to do this, which is a very important reason why the people supported him.
bibliography:
Menival's Battle with Napoleon
Ludwig's Biography of Napoleon
Chateaubriand's Memories of Napoleon
Fouché's Napoleon and the First French Empire
Minnes's Proposition: A History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814
Text: Lantai Lingjun
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