Napoleon: A Biography

and Ceylon was a bitter pill for the English leadership to swallow. Pitt
consoled himself with the thought that British finances would soon make
a speedy recovery, putting the country on a sound footing for further
wars and that disappointments arising from the peace would soon make a
renewal of hostilities acceptable to public opinion. But it is utterly
mistaken to assume, as some have, that by the peace of Amiens Britain
genuinely gave up the Continent as a lost cause and concentrated on the
extra-European position.
For Napoleon, too, the peace was always only a truce, enabling him to
strengthen his internal position, to consolidate his mastery of Germany
and Italy and in general to gain time. Public opinion in France was the
most important consideration. The peace of Amiens was particularly
welcomed in Atlantic coast towns like Bordeaux, which had been ruined
by the British naval blockade. Economic and social forces meant that
Napoleon was never entirely master in his own house. This is an aspect of
the important general truth that Napoleon made history but never in
circumstances of his own choosing. As he said on St Helena: 'I may have
conceived a good many plans, but I was never free to execute one of
them. For all that I held the rudder, and with so strong a hand, the waves
were a good deal stronger. I never was in truth my own master; I was
always governed by circumstances.'
The debate about whether Napoleon was the master or the puppet of
circumstances goes to the heart of the much-discussed issue of his foreign
policy and his aims. Could Napoleon at any time have abandoned the
global struggle with England or the continental one with Austria, or was
he in thrall to forces over which he had limited control? One view is that
the peace of Luneville was a wasted opportunity, that Napoleon should
have headed off any future four-power coalition by concluding a lasting
peace with Austria. The argument is that Britain could never be
reconciled since her economic imperative of worldwide empire dictated a
meddling 'divide and rule' policy in Europe; anything less than economic
surrender by France would be unacceptable to Britain.
To make a lasting peace with Austria would have meant that France let
her have a free hand in Italy and accepted that Germany east of the Rhine
was an Austrian sphere of influence. Such a policy was not inherently
implausible, even though 'natural frontiers' meant that renouncing the
Rhineland seemed not really to be on the agenda. It is often said that
'natural frontiers' was a revolutionary legacy that Napoleon could not
jettison. But he jettisoned many other parts of the legacy in 18oo and was
to rid himself of even more as the years went by. The real barrier to a
lasting accord with Austria was fourfold. Napoleon had won fame and