Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume V.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Buonaparte, now master of the ancient capital of the Gauls, and at the
head of 7000 men, was acknowledged by Maçon, Chalons, Dijon, and almost
all Burgundy. Marseilles, on the contrary, and all Provence, declared
against the invader, and the former city set a price upon his head.
Napoleon found it necessary to halt at Lyons for the refreshment of his
forces; and, being joined by some of the civilians of his party, he
needed time also to organise his government and administration.
Hitherto, the addresses which he had published had been of a military
character, abounding with the Oriental imagery which Buonaparte regarded
as essential to eloquence, promising that victory should move at the
charging step, and that the eagle should fly with the national colours
from steeple to steeple, till she perched on the towers of Notre Dame.
The present decrees were of a different character, and related to the
internal arrangement of his projected administration.
[Sidenote: DECREES--AUXERRE.]
Cambacérès was named his minister of justice; Fouché, that of police (a
boon to the revolutionists;) Davoust was made minister of war. Decrees
upon decrees issued forth, with a rapidity which showed how Buonaparte
had employed those studious hours at Elba, which he was supposed to have
dedicated to the composition of his Memoirs. They ran in the name of
Napoleon, by the grace of God, Emperor of the French, and were dated on
the 13th of March, although not promulgated until the 21st of that
month. The first of these decrees abrogated all changes in the courts of
justice and tribunals which had taken place during the absence of
Napoleon. The second displaced all officers belonging to the class of
emigrants, and introduced into the army by the King. The third
suppressed the order of St. Louis, the white flag and cockade, and other
royal emblems, and restored the three-coloured banner and the imperial
symbols of Buonaparte's authority. The same decree abolished the Swiss
Guard, and the household troops of the King. The fourth sequestered the
effects of the Bourbons. A similar ordinance sequestered the restored
property of emigrant families, and was so artfully worded as to
represent great changes of property having taken place in this manner.
The fifth decree of Lyons suppressed the ancient nobility and feudal
titles, and formally confirmed proprietors of national domains in their
possessions. The sixth, declared sentence of banishment against all
emigrants not erased from the list previous to the accession of the
Bourbons, to which was added confiscation of their property. The seventh
restored the Legion of Honour, in every respect as it had existed under
the Emperor, uniting to its funds the confiscated revenues of the order
of St. Louis. The eighth and last decree was the most important of all.
Under pretence that emigrants who had borne arms against France, had
been introduced into the body of the Peers, and that the Chamber of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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