pointing him president of the Chamber | Austrian war, rendered these resources of Accounts.

totally insufficient; and it became necessary to apply to greater capitalists, who, in anticipation of future payments, could afford to make the great advances required by government. M. de Marbois was thus driven by necessity to M. Ouvrard and the company of the Indies, who were already the contractors for the supplies to almost all the forces, both by land and sea; and thus became invested with the double character of creditor of the state for advances made on exchequer bills, and also for payment of the supplies furnished to the different branches of the public service. Thence the deep implication of this company with the transactions of government, and the necessity of the Bank of France supporting, by extraordinary and lavish discounts, the credit of individuals or associations, from whom alone government derived the funds requisite for its immense engagements. The monetary embarrassments of 1805, therefore, like almost all others, were occasioned by an extravagant expenditure: but they arose not on the part of individuals, but of government; the crisis was not commercial but political.

13. In fact, though it suited the interests of the Emperor to represent this alarming catastrophe as exclusively the result of the imprudent facility of the minister of finances, and the inordinate profusion of discounts by the bank, yet the evil in reality lay a great deal deeper, and the crisis was, in fact occasioned by the vicious system to which the extravagant expenditure of the imperial government had driven the finance ministers. Although the budgets annually presented since Napoleon seized the government had exhibited the most flattering aspect, yet in reality they were in a great degree fictitious, and intended to conceal the distressed condition of the finances. The actual receipts of the treasury for the last five years had been a hundred millions of francs below the annual expenses. In addition to this, the payments of the finance minister required to be almost all made in the course of each year; while the period of his receipts for the same time, according to the established mode of collecting the revenue, extended to eighteen months. Hence arose an indispensable necessity for recourse to money-lenders, who advanced cash to the treasury, and received in return 15. Thence the singular and instrucbills payable when the tardy receipts tive fact, that the whole inordinate of the revenue might be expected to be discounts, of which Napoleon so loudly realised. In this way, while the re- complained, were made not to indiviceipts and expenditure, as exhibited in duals engaged in private undertakings, the budget annually presented to the but to the contractors for the public Chambers, were nearly equal, there service. The root of the evil lay in was in reality a most alarming deficit, the extravagant expenditure of the which was daily increasing; and it was Emperor himself, which rendered the only by largely anticipating, by the anticipation of future revenues indisdiscount of bills accepted by the trea-pensable, to a perilous extent, in every sury, the revenue of succeeding terms branch of government. He often or years, that funds could be provided boasted that he never had, and never for the liquidation of the daily de- would, issue government paper. This mands upon it. was quite true; but it was equally 14. Recourse was at first had to the true, what he passed over, that his exreceivers-general of the departments to penditure of a hundred millions of make these advances: and this system francs annually, beyond his income, succeeded, though with some difficulty, drove all the government contractors during the comparatively economical to that perilous expedient. Consideryears of 1803 and 1804. But the vasted in this view, this financial crisis was expenditure of 1805, occasioned partly not a mere domestic embarrassment, by the equipment of the expedition at but an important event in the progress Boulogne, partly by the cost of the of the contest: it indicated the arrival

tion of the treasury." The difficulty was, that the treasury had to pay every twelve months a hundred and twenty millions of francs (£4,800,000) more than it received, in consequence of the backwardness of all payments to the exchequer. To liquidate part of this debt, sixty millions (£2,400,000) were funded in the five per cents; the capital of the Bank of France was doubled; and deposit banks, under the name of "caisses de service," where the receiv

of the period when France, almost destitute of capital from the confiscations of the Convention, and severely weakened in its national credit by the injustice committed during its rule, was unable from its own resources to obtain the funds requisite for carrying on the gigantic undertakings to which its ruler was driven in defence of its fortunes; and when foreign conquest and extraneous spoliation had become indispensable, not merely to give vent to the vehement passions, but to main-ers-general of the revenue were invited tain the costly government and repair to deposit the sums they had drawn the financial breaches occasioned by the as soon as they were received, and enRevolution. Napoleon, however much couraged to do so by being offered inhe was disposed to lay the fault, ac- terest for all sums so deposited prior cording to his usual system, on others, to the time when they were bound to was in secret perfectly aware of the make them forthcoming. By this perilous pass to which his financial means, the necessity of having recourse affairs had now been brought, and, like to paper credit to raise funds upon anAlexander, he trusted to his sword to ticipated revenues was in a great meacut the Gordian knot. Marbois had sure avoided, and the collection of the long before represented to him the dan- taxes conducted with much greater ger of "having for the bankers of the regularity than formerly. state those to whom its ministers were indebted;" and Napoleon was so sensible of this, that he had expressed his resolution, in military fashion, to have M. Ouvrard arrested, and made to disgorge some of what he called his illgotten wealth, but he had never been able to emancipate himself from his influence.*

17. But these financial improvements, great as they were, did not strike at the root of the evil, which was a permanent expenditure by government greatly beyond its income. To cure this by means of loans, the well-known practice in Great Britain, was impossible in a country so ruined in its commercial relations and interests as France then was. The vic

16. The crisis of 1805, however, made decisive measures necessary. "Itories of Ulm and Austerlitz provided will have no alliance," said he, "be- the means of solving the difficulty. tween the bank and the treasury. If From the moment the grand army such existed, a simple movement of the crossed the Rhine, it was fed, clothed, funds might reveal the most impor- lodged, and paid at the expense of tant state secrets. We cannot too Germany. On the 18th November, soon sign a decree for the emancipa- an edict of the Emperor directed the of the North to cease; and on the 18th transmission of all funds to the Army of December a similar order was given in regard to the Army of Italy. Thus

* "Bourrienne," said he, in 1800, ❝my part is taken: I will cause M. Ouvrard to be arrested."-" General," replied the secretary, "have you any proofs against him?". "Proofs? What are required? He is a contractor, a scoundrel. He must be made to disgorge. All of his tribe are villains. How do they make their fortunes? At the public expense. They have millions, and display an insolent extravagance when the soldiers are without shoes or bread. I will have no more of this." He was accordingly arrested and thrown into prison; but as there was no evidence whatever against him, he was speedily liberated, and soon, from his great capital, regained all his former influence with the government.-BOUR. vii. 94, 95.

From the castle of Louisberg in Würtemberg, Napoleon wrote, so early as 4th October 1805, to the minister of finances at Paris"The army maintains the most exact discipline; the country hardly feels the presence of the troops. We live here on Bons: I have no need of money from you." These Bons were treasury bills, which were discharged by the French government out of the contributions levied on the inhabitants, or the sums extracted from the conquered countries.BIGNON, v. 100.

the three principal armies of the Empire ceased to be any longer a charge upon its finances, and the tributary or conquered states bore the burden of the greater part of that enormous military force by which they were overawed or retained in subjection. This system continued without intermission during the whole remainder of the reign of Napoleon; and the budgets annually presented to the Chambers were in consequence, as the Duke de Gaeta, their principal compiler, himself confesses, no true statement of the imperial expenses. They were delusive even in what concerned the domestic finances of France, by always exaggerating the income and diminishing the expenditure; and, as concealing the greater part of the enormous contributions levied by the army in the conquered states, totally fallacious.

an expenditure of 666,000,000 francs (£26,600,000), and an income of only 589,000,000 francs (£23,600,000), the balance being made out by contributions levied from foreign states. But although Napoleon knew as well as any one the perilous nature of the crisis which the government had recently experienced, it was no part of his policy to permit his subjects to share his disquietude, and he resolved to dazzle the world by a splendid exposition of the state of the Empire. The report drawn up by Champagny, minister of the interior, contained a picture of the imperial dominions, which, from the magnitude of the victories it recounted, and the splendour of the undertakings it commemorated, might well bear a comparison with Pliny's panegyric of Trajan. It represented the navigation of the Seine and the Saone as essentially improved; Alessandria as surrounded with impregnable fortifications; Genoa furnishing its sailors and naval resources to France; Italy delivered from the presence of the English; the sciences, the arts, encouraged; the capital about to be adorned by the most splendid monuments; the Alps and the Apennines yielding to the force of scientific enterprise, and the noble routes of the Simplon, Mont Cenis, the Corniche, and the Mont Genèvre, opening to loaded chariots a path amidst heretofore impassable snows; numberless bridges established over the Rhine, the Meuse, the Loire, the Saone, and the Rhone; harbours and wet-docks in a 4,000,000 state of rapid construction in five-andthirty maritime cities; the works of 28,800,000 Antwerp and Cherbourg promising soon to rival the greatest naval establishments of England.

18. The budget of France, for 1805, presented to the Chambers in February 1806, accordingly exhibited a most deceptive picture of the national finances ;* but even as it was, it showed

* The receipts and expenditure exhibited

were as follows:

Total from France, 588,998,705 or £23,600,000 from Italy, 30,000,000,, 1,200,000

from Germany

and Holland, 100,000,000

666,155,139 or £26,600,000

19. The exposition concluded with a rapid view of the advantages which France had derived from the successive coalitions which had been formed

against its existence. "The first coalition, concluded by the treaty of Campo Formio, gave the Republic the frontier of the Rhine, and the states which now form the kingdom of Italy;

-See DUC DE GAETA, 304; BIGNON, v. 102; the second invested it with Piedmont; PEUCHET, 560.

the third united to its federal system

A

and English forces which had disem- | in his occupation of the principal strongbarked to support the Italian levies, holds of the country. But the protracfinding the whole weight of the war tion of the siege of Gaeta, which occulikely to be directed against them, pied Massena with the principal army withdrew to Sicily; the court, thunder- of the French, gave them time to restruck by the menacing proclamation cover from their consternation; and of 27th December, speedily followed the cruelty of the invaders, who put to their example; the governors of the death without mercy all the peasants cities first exposed to invasion hast- who were found with arms in their ened to appease the conqueror by sub- hands, on the pretence that they were mission; a futile attempt at negotia- brigands, drove them to despair. tion by means of Prince St Theodore general insurrection took place in the did not suspend for an instant the beginning of March, and the peasants march of the victorious troops. In stood firm in more than one position. vain the intrepid Queen Caroline, who But they were unable to withstand the still remained at Naples, armed the shock of the veterans of France, and in lazzaroni, and sought to infuse into the a decisive action in the plain of Campotroops a portion of her own indomit- Tenese their tumultuary levies, though able courage; she was seconded by none. fifteen thousand strong, were entirely Capua opened its gates; Gaeta was in- dispersed. The victorious Reynier vested; the Campagna filled with the penetrated even to Reggio, and the invaders; she, vanquished but not sub-standards of Napoleon waved on its dued, compelled to yield to necessity, towers, in sight of the English videttes followed her timid consort to Sicily, on the shores of Sicily. and, on the 15th February, Naples beheld its future sovereign, Joseph Buonaparte, enter its walls.

23. When hostilities had subsided, Joseph repaired in person to the theatre of war, and sought, by deeds of charity, 22. But although the capital was thus to alleviate its distresses, while his beoccupied by the invaders, and the reign- neficent mind contemplated great and ing family had taken refuge in the sea- important public works to ameliorate girt shores of Sicily, the elements of that savage and neglected district. He resistance still existed in the Neapolitan visited the towers of Reggio, admired dominions. The prince of Hesse-Phil- the magnificent harbour of Tarentum, ipsthal had the command of Gaeta, and and had already formed the design of he had inspired the garrison of eight canals and roads to open up the sethousand men which he commanded questered mountains of Calabria. In with a share of his own heroic resolu- the midst of these truly princely protion. When summoned to capitulate, jects he received at Savigliano, the this gallant officer replied, that his principal town of the province, the dehonour would not permit him to lower cree by which Napoleon created him his colours till the last extremity; and king of the Two Sicilies. By so doing, the long resistance which he made, however, he was declared not to lose coupled with the natural strength of his contingent right of succession to the place, which could be approached, the throne of France; but the two like Gibraltar, only by a neck of land crowns were never to be united. At strongly fortified, inspired the Sicilian the same time the states of Venice cabinet with the hope that something were definitely annexed to the kingmight yet be done for the deliverance dom of Italy, and that capital was to of its Continental dominions. During give his title to the eldest son of its the first tumult of invasion, the pea- sovereign. The beautiful Pauline, now santry of Calabria, in despair at the married to Prince Borghese, received universal desertion of the kingdom, both the duchy of Guastalla, subsequently by their government and its allies, sub- united to the same dominions; the mitted to the enemy; and General Princess Eliza was created Princess of Reynier, with a considerable corps, in Lucca Piombino; Murat was made the outset experienced little resistance | Grand-duke of Berg, with a consider