The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History
History
The World's Greatest Books — Volume 12 — Modern History
History, Modern
Corporations, and local bodies being thus emasculated, by the end of the
eighteenth century the principal features of modern France are traced; a
creature of a new and strange type arises, defines itself, and issues
forth its structure determining its destiny. It consists of a social
body organised by a despot and for a despot, calculated for the use of
one man, excellent for action under the impulsion of a unique will, with
a superior intelligence, admirable so long as this intelligence remains
lucid and this will remain healthy; adapted to a military life and not
to civil life and therefore badly balanced, hampered in its development,
exposed to periodical crises, condemned to precocious debility, but able
to live for a long time, and for the present, robust, alone able to bear
the weight of the new dominion and to furnish for fifteen successive
years the crushing labour, the conquering obedience, the superhuman,
murderous, insensate effort which its master, Napoleon, exacts.
However clear and energetic the ideas of Napoleon are when he sets to
work to make the New Régime, his mind is absorbed by the preoccupations
of the sovereign. It is not enough for him that his edifice should be
monumental, symmetrical, and beautiful. First of all, as he lives in it
and derives the greatest benefit from it, he wants it habitable, and
habitable for Frenchmen of the year 1800. Consequently, he takes into
account the habits and dispositions of his tenants, the pressing and
permanent wants for which the new structure is to provide. These wants,
however, must not be theoretic and vague, but verified and defined; for
he is a calculator as close as he is profound, and deals only with
positive facts.
To restore tranquillity, many novel measures are essential. And first,
the political and administrative concentration just decreed, a
centralisation of all powers in one hand, local powers conferred by the
central power, and this supreme power in the hands of a resolute chief
equal in intelligence to his high position; next, a regularly paid army,
carefully equipped, properly clothed, and fed, strictly disciplined, and
therefore obedient and able to do its duty without wavering or
faltering, like any other instrument of precision; an active police
force and _gendarmerie_ held in check; administrators independent of
those under their jurisdiction--all appointed, maintained, watched and
restrained from above, as impartial as possible, sufficiently competent,
and, in their official spheres, capable functionaries; finally, freedom
of worship, and, accordingly, a treaty with Rome and the restoration of
the Catholic Church--that is to say, a legal recognition of the orthodox
hierarchy, and of the only clergy which the faithful may accept as
legitimate--in other words, the institution of bishops by the Pope, and
of priests by the bishops. This done, the rest is easily accomplished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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