Barras, in exile at Grosbois, appealed to Napoleon but foolishly tempered
his appeal by reproaching him with ingratitude, Napoleon sent his police
to make sure Barras moved his place of exile beyond French borders.
When Lafayette opposed the amendment of his consular powers in r8o2,
Napoleon at once removed the name of Lafayette's son and all his in-laws
from the Army promotion list. The enemy he loathed most was Madame
de Stad, whose salon, much visited by Moreau and Bernadotte, became
the focus for the political opposition. When Germaine de Stad
incautiously published Delphine, which contained many obvious coded
criticisms of the First Consul, Napoleon exiled her from Paris and
forbade her to come within 120 miles of the capital. Not even members of
his own family escaped his ruthlessness if they did not act as he wished.
In November r8oo he dismissed Lucien as Minister of the Interior,
replaced him with Chaptal, and sent him as ambassador to Madrid.
Lucien's crime was his tactlessness. On 8 April that year he had become
engaged in an unseemly shouting match with Fouche at the Tuileries.
Faced with Fouche's obvious sympathy for the Left, Napoleon's
inclination was to conceal for the moment his animosity towards the
Jacobins. But Lucien, by arguing for a hardline before his brother had
consolidated his power, came close to ruining Napoleon's chessplaying
strategy.
By r8o2 Napoleon had made peace with France's external enemies,
suppressed the Vendee, come to an agreement with the Catholic Church
and cunningly conciliated the emigres while yielding not a jot over
confiscated property. His supporters felt that his great achievements
merited overt recognition, and a motion calling for the First Consul to be
given lifetime tenure was engineered in the Tribunate on 6 May r8o2.
However, the Senate, usually docile, was on this occasion whipped up by
Fouche and the Jacobins and offered only the premature election of the
First Consul for ten years. Cambaceres, placing an each-way bet,
suggested a plebiscite to solve the problem. Napoleon insisted that the
wording of the referendum should refer to a consulate for life rather than
premature re-election for ten years. The question to be put was: 'Should
Napoleon Bonaparte be consul for life?' This new nomenclature -
hitherto he had always been 'General Bonaparte' or 'citizen Bonaparte' -
was significant, and it has been pointed out that thereafter he was
generally known as Napoleon rather than Bonaparte.
The plebiscite on the issue of a consulate for life returned 3,6oo,ooo
'yes' votes and 8,374 'noes'. The Senate ratified the result on 2 August
r8o2. Naturally, there was some iregularity in the voting, but the result
was probably a reasonable reflection of the First Consul's popularity:
marcin
(Marcin)
#1