by 'rounding up' the individual figures for the departments, and then
proceeded to add soo,ooo notional votes from the Army, which had not
in fact been polled, on the ground that they 'must be' in favour of
Napoleon. In fact only one-sixth of the electorate (about one and a half
million) voted for the constitution.
Napoleon now had dictatorial power in all but name. The people of
France had agreed to one-man rule as they desperately wanted peace,
stability, consolidation and an end to uncertainty. The royalist resistance,
backed by the British, was degenerating into chronic banditry. The
Catholic Church was in schism, with anti-revolutionary priests regarded
as enemies of the people and pro-revolutionary clerics regarded as traitors
by the faithful. The army was badly equipped even while shady military
suppliers made fortunes. The Directory had scotched the snake of
Jacobinism but not killed it, and seemed violently opposed to liberty,
equality and fraternity despite all the blood that had been spilled since
- General relief was palpable when a man on horseback appeared
with clear-cut goals, a man wedded to authority, hierarchy and order, a
realist and a reconciler. The people of France - or enough of them to
make the difference- were impressed by Napoleon's sureness of touch
and cared little if he flouted constitutional niceties. Historical necessity, it
seemed, had produced Napoleon. No one yet realized that his genius was
of the kind that needed constant warfare to fuel it and that all the hopes
vested in him were illusory.