The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1873-09-05
The First Consul.

Mr., Parton, in an article on Presi-
dent Jefferson's chief measures, in the
September Atlantic, gives a very inter
esting account of the diplomacy and in
fuences bv which Louisiana was secured
to the United States, incidentally gives
a glimpse of Napoleon's way of con-
Quoting affairs.
"There never was, he wrote to Mr..
Madison, September 1, 1902, ga gov
ernment in which less could be done by
negotiation than here. There is no
people, no legislature, no counsellors.
One man is everything. He seldom
asks advice, and never hears it unasked.
His ministers are mere clerks and his
! legislature and cOunsellors are parade
officers. Though the sense of every re-
hecting man about him is against this
wild expedition, no one dares to tell
him so"
The whole twenty-eight volumes of
the correspondence of Napoleon, re-
Gently given to the world, might be
cited in proof of Mr.. Livingston's re-
marks, but the man never appears to
have lived in quite such a tumult of
business and passion as during that
year and half of "peace." In turn
ing over the other volumes, the reader
hears from first to last, the steady roll
of the drum, the rattle of musketry,
the thunder of cannOnade, the short,
sharp word of command and he marks
everywhere an assumption that fighting
is the chief end of man, to which all
otherpursuits areimmeasurably inferior.
But in these two volumes of the year
X, vulgarly styled 1902, there is such
rush of projects and topics demanding
notice of the head of the nation, that we
cannot discover gap large enough to
admit modest and polite old gentle
man, hard of hearing, with a request
that the first consul would please be so
good as to relinquish his Louisiana
scheme. and cede all those uncounted
and unknown square miles to a country
which, according to Talleyrand, was of
no more account in general politics than
Genoa. Suppose it was on the 4th of
May that Mr.. Livingstone desired a
hearing. That day, in the lingo of the
revolution, which Bonaparte still en-
ployed, was called FlOreal IA, An X.
It was a busy day, indeed, with the
first consul for he was dispOsing the
minds of men to view his next step to-
ward an imperial throne, without an un-
manageable excess of CONSERVATION.
How sweetly this great histrionic genius
| discoursed to the council of state that
morning "In all lands, force yields
to civic qualities. Bayonets fall before
| the priest who speaks in the name of
| heaven, and before the man whose learn
ing inspires respect. have said to mill
| tary men who had scruples, that militia
ry government could never prevail in
! France until the nation had become
brutalized by fifty years of ignorance.
| Soldiers are only the children of the
| citizens. The army, it is the nation.
| Turn over a few leaves, and you catch
| him scolding Bertheir for not pushing
/ the consumption vigorously enough.
Recruiting, he adds, els the first and
most important concern of the nation. F"
Meanwhile we see him thanking the
senate for a new proof of their conf
| dence, in having made him first consul
for ten years longer. "You judge that
| owe a new sacrifice to the people. /
shall make it if the will of the people
commands that which your suffrage
authorizes.
This new lease of absolute power
brought with it world of urgent bust
ness, in the intervals of which there
was nothing too high for him to medi-
tate and no detail too trifiing for him to
rule. It was case of one mind trying
to govern country, instead of all the
mind in it, which alone is competent to
the task. IF a general fights a duel, it
is the first consul who exiles him to
that dread Siberia of the French of that
age, "thirty leagues from Paris. A
soldier kills himself for love; it is the
first consul who issues an order of the
day on the subject GA soldier should
know how to bear up under the grief
and melancholy of the passions; there
is as much true courage in enduring
anguish of mind with constancy as in
standing firm under the steady fire of a
battery" A young lady is attentive to
the poor during an epidemic; and it is
/ still the first consul who sends her
| twenty thousand francs, and note tell
| ing her what good girl she is.