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Toussaint Had Followed with Interest Ple the Military Spirit Must Prevaii

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Toussaint Had Followed with Interest Ple the Military Spirit Must Prevaii Ir_: : ' 1 789_1 800 The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte treated from a further expedition in S5rria. But the French occupation Toussaint of Egrpt lasted had followed with interest long enough for that la,rgely Muslim countryr Napoleon's rise to power in France; he once to experience the same kinds of Enlighten_ wrote to Bonaparte, "From the First of the ment-inspired legal reforms that had been Blacks to the Fi¡st of the Whites." He was not introduced in Europe: the French alone in his abolished fascination, for the rise of torture, introduced equality before the law, Napoleon Bonaparte (l76g-Ig2f) is one of eliminated religious taxes, and proclaimed the most remarkable stories in Western his_ religious toleration. tory. It would have seemed astonishing in Even the failures of the Eg,ptian 1795 that cam_ the twenty-six-year-old son óf a paign did not dull Bonaparte's luster. noble farnily from the island of Corsica off tlle Bonaparte had taken France's leading sci_ Italis¡l coast would within four years become entists with him on the expedition, and his the supreme ruler of France and one of the soldiers had discovered a slab of blackbasatt greatest military leaders in world history. In dating from 196 e.c.e. written in both hi_ 1795, he was a penniless artillery officer, eroglyphic and Greek. Called the Rosetta only recently released from prison as a pre_ stone after a nearby town, it enabled schol_ sumed Robespierrist. Thanks to some early a¡s to finally decipher the hieroglyphs used military successes parisian and links to by the ancient Eglrptians. When his army politicians, he was named commander of the was pinned down after its initial successes, French army in Italy in 1796. Bonaparte slipped out of Egpt and made his Bonaparte's astounding success in the way secretly across the Mediterranean to Itaharr campaigns of IZS}-LTSZ launched his southern Fra¡tce. meteoric ca.reer. With a¡ army of fewer than In OctoLrer IZ9g, Bonaparte arrived fifty thousand pied_ men, he defeated the home at just the right moment. The war montese in and ttre Austrians. In quick order Europe was going badly. The depariments he established client republics dependent of the former Austrian Netherlands had on his own authority; he negotiated with the revolted against new conscription laws; Austrians himself; and he molded the army deserters swelled the ranks of the rebels in into his personal force by payrng the sol_ western France; a royalist army had tried to diers in cash taken as tribute from the newly take the city of Toulouse in the southwest; conquered territories. He mollfìed the Direc_ and many government leaders wanted tory government to by sending home wagon_ revise the Constitution of 17g5. Amid loads great in_ of Italian masterpieces ofãrt, creasing political instability, generals which parisian in were added to museum col_ the fìeld had become virtually lections independent, {most are still there) after being and the troops felt more loyal to their units paraded in victory festivals. and generals than to the republic. As one In 1798, the Directory set aside its plans army captain wrote, "In a conquering peo_ to invade England, gave Bonaparte com_ ple the military spirit must prevaii ãver mand of the army raised for that purpose, other social conditions," Its victories had and sent him across the Mediterra¡rean Sea made the army a parallel and rival force to to ESæt, away from the parisian centers of the state. power-. The Directory government hoped Disillusioned members of the govern_ that French occupation of Egypt would ment saw in Bonaparte's return an occa_ strike a blow at British trade by cutting sion to overtu¡n t'lle Constitution of I7g5. the route to India On and thus compensate November 9,1799 (tB Brumaire, yearVIII, by France for losses its there years before. the revolutionary calendar), the conspira_ Once the army disembarked in Egpt, how_ tors persuaded the legislature to move out of ever, the British admiral Lord Horatio Nelson Paris to avoid an imaginary Jacobin plot. destroyed the French fleet while it was an- Butwhen Bonaparte stomped into the meet_ chored in Aboukir Bay, In the face of deter- inghall the next da¡r a¡rd dernanded changes mined ièsisaánCe ând an outbréak oi tfr" in the Constitution, he was greeted by bubonic plague, cries Bonaparte's armies re_ of "Down with the dictator.', His quick_ i:! B.¿.vü¡t o¡¿. rr, rlti.,l.¡(+*:.l. S¡ç 1 800 ¡ia. rted ttry en- )en red tw, Led Tr- lr. li- ris út ri- _a I- d v i, S l I I Bonaparte in Egypt Antoine Jean cros's painting Nopoleon visiting the victims of the plogue ot loffo (1804) to glorify js 1ea¡rt Bonaparte's courage: he is not afraid to touch the victims of the plague. Yet it also signals a terrible problem in Bonaparte's campaign for dominatíon in the west- ern Mediterranean. He has won many battles at this moment in I 799, but he is losing the war through attritíon, disease, and mounting resistance. Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ Art Resource, NY thinking brother Lucien, president of the He promised to be a man above party and to Council of Five Hundred (the lower house), restore order to the republic. A new consti- saved Bonaparte's coup by summoning tution was submitted to the voters. Millions troops guarding the hall and claiming that abstained from voting, and the government the deputies had tried to assassinati the falsified the results to give an appearance of popular general. The soldiers ejected the even greater support to the ne\M regime. In- deputies, and a hastily assembled rump leg- side France, political apathy had overtaken islature voted to abolish the Directory and es- the original enthusiasm for revolutionary tablish a new three-man executive called the ideals. Altogether it was an unpromising be- consulate. ginning; yet within five years Bonaparte Bonapar:te became F.irst Consul, a title would crown himsêlf Nápoldon I; èmþéror of revived from the ancient Roman republic. the French. A new order would rise from the z0 . THe iiiV"¡ìi,;íiìj::'::'.ì.Ëj¡prrn cnr¡crysm or Rrvorur¡o¡r ..i:': r::rr,:r;irr..r rr:ì: ':: :;- l::r: :¡::itrì:::::::: tl: 'I 789-1800 17 A9 wh< bas min mot den cas( the resJ hel< mer are aci futl its c Rev casl Fre. was beli sho luti den but eve. Je'* use ins¡ ples reli¡ tici¡ tion pen The MAPPING Natr THE WEST Europe¡nIB00 his France's expansion during the revolutionary wars threatened to upset the balance of power in Europe. tol n cgntyr¡r earlier the English and Dutch had allied and formed a Ëurope-wide coalition to check the fOPt tenitorial ambitions of Louis Xlv. Thwarting French ambitions after lebo would prove to be even more of a challenge to the other European po*ãrs. The Dutch had been reduced to satellite status, as had most of the ltalian states. After lB0o. even Austria and Prussia would suffer devastating losses to the French on the battlefield. only a new coalition of European powers coufd stop France in the future. Su ashes of the republic, and the French a¡mies The would Conclusion recover from their reverses of l79g to In tl push the frontiers of French influence even herr In 1799, no one knew what course Napo_ farther eastward. shor leon Bonaparte would follow. Everyône sensed, pher however, that the political land_ Pah Review: Why did some groups oulside of France scape in Ðurope had been permanently mea embrace the French Revolution while others re_ altered by the revolutionary cataclysm. Be_ clas sistecl -'' it? tween 1789 and 1790, monáiòht ás á fo.- the of government had given way to a republic cenl ,¡í i::i t..i:.{.::i;:ìrij lÌii.,:;;i*.:rtì:rl!',r*'1¡1$-lÈê!,¡r-ro:.:¡!,iql.É¡eit 7.83 tCenser, whose leaders were elected. Aristocracy Jack R., and Llmn Hunt. Líbertg, Equalítg, Flaternttg: Dxplorí.ng tlrc trrencLt based on rank and birth had been under- in favor of civil equality and the pro- Reuolutton.2OOl. (Includes a CD-ROM with mined images, songs, and documents.) See also the of merit. 1'he people who marched in molron accompanying Web site: http:/,/www.chnm met in clubs, and, in the demonstrations, .gmu.edu/revolution. case of men, voted in national elections for The Coming oJ the F-rench first time had insisted that government I-efebwe, Georges. the Trans. with a new preface, R. R. to them. Thousands of men had ReuoLutktn. respond Falmer. 1989. held elective office. A revolutionary govern- had tried to teach new values with Palmer, R.. R. ?he Age oJ the Democratic ReuoLu' ment tíon: A PotítícaL Htstory oJ Europe and America, calendar, state festivals, and a refashioned 1760-1800. Vol. 2, The Struggle. 1964. a civic religion. Its example would inspire L. Reuolution ín BrtLssels, 7787- future revolutionaries. Potasþ, Janet But the Flench Revolution also had 1793. 1987. Wayne. Regents andRebels: The Reuo' its darker side . The divisions created by the Te Brake, Lutionary World oJ an Eighteenth-Centurg Revolution within France enduled in many DutcÍt"Citg. 1989. cases until after World War II. Even now, French public-opinion surveys ask if it Tocqueville, Alexis de. The OLd Regime and the FterrhReuoluhon. Trans. Stuart Gilbeft. 1955. was right to execute the king in 1793 (most Originally published 1856. believe Louis XVI was guilty of treason but should not have been executed). The revo- lutionaries proclaimed human rights and From Monarchy t0 Republic, 1789*'1793 democratic government as a universal goal, From I78g onward, commentators on the but they also explicitly excluded women, French Revolulion have differed over its mean- even though they admitted Protestant, ing: Was it a r,evolution for human rights and Jewish, and eventually black men.
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