Louis smiled. “Of course, that’s not all of it.”
“Ah. So I had supposed.”
Long silence while Lewis drew on his cigar. “How well do you know the first consul?”
“Don’t know him at all. I’ve spoken to him two, no, three times, at receptions. Awesome every time.”
“Those of us whose careers and sometimes lives depend on his whims, we get to know him quite well.” Even here in America, he added, he had kept up—had a friend well placed on the general staff who kept him abreast of things, all very sub rosa.
“First, understand that when Napoleon seized power four years ago, France was in a desperate condition. Ten years of revolution had demolished almost everything and had led to such violent excesses the people were frantic for relief. There were explosions of joy when he announced the revolution was over.”
“And they got in its place a dictator.”
“Yes … but this is no return to the absolutism of monarchy, no raising of nobles. His Legion of Honor, it alarmed a lot of French democrats, but entry to it was by merit not birth. Countless parts of French society have that same openness to the common man. The national university, the system of lycées he established, every scholar accepted on
merit, the ten thousand special scholarships so no outstanding student can be denied. Even opened national schools for girls, three schools—
everyone
to be educated.” Adams could see that his friend was a little shocked by this outbreak of equality, and it surprised him too.
Louis rushed on in full voice. The man establishes the Banque de France and stabilizes an economy that had been out of control for a decade. He establishes hospitals, medicine open to every citizen. He sets up a new legal code, civil, criminal, regularizes what has been chaotic, unjust, ridden with favoritism in which little men are given the most barbaric sentences and rich men and nobles walk free. Already some of the new code had taken effect; it was promised in full for the next year.
“So you see,” Louis said, “he has brought order, confidence, stability back to France; he has greatly improved the society; he has rejected monarchical forms just as fiercely as the revolution ever did, if not so destructively. In short, he is a great man, no doubt the greatest of the age. He has put his stamp on France, and France has put its stamp on everything from the Atlantic to the Urals. Europe will never be the same, believe me, no matter what happens to Napoleon.”
“But there’s a price for all this, I suppose,” Adams said.
“Of course. The secret police are ever vigilant.” He looked ready to say more and then stopped himself. Well, it didn’t matter. In today’s France loose talk probably was dangerous, even for a diplomat, perhaps especially for a diplomat. The secret police were always the key to despotism, monarchical or otherwise. The torturers of the tzar’s secret police were notorious. Adams already knew that in France everyone guarded his tongue. Open debate was rare, though it had been rare under the revolution too, after the first thrilling days of liberty and equality and fraternity, ironic words today.
As on Napoleon’s bright side, you saw his genius on the dark side as well—the amazing energy, the single-minded focus, the implacable certainty, the capacity to see deeply
into every situation, to leap ahead as needed, to confound his enemies at every turn, on the battlefield and at home.
Napoleon himself was the chief censor. No book could be published in today’s France, no play presented without his approval. He demanded uniformity of ideas—his ideas, the only right ones. Work was for the common good, which he defined. Views different from his own were degenerate, dissent was not tolerated, every block had spies reporting all that was said, fodder for the secret police, the knock in the night, the victim dragged away. History was being rewritten to reflect only French glory, blemishes ironed out. Perhaps that last bothered Adams the student and scholar more than anything. Yes, France was paying a price for the stability given it by Napoleon Bonaparte.
“Still,” Adams said, “you’d think that an overweening pride would hold him to an American empire.”
“But that’s exactly it,” Louis said. “Things weren’t working well in America. Between black rebels and yellow fever, he’d had an army destroyed, so he must send another. Of course he could occupy and hold New Orleans, but he’d forever be fighting a man far different from the masses in Europe, a free man willing to die for his freedom, a man trained in the rough and tumble of the frontier. And while his armies faced this rather ferocious figure, his supply vessels would be under attack by Royal Navy ships. Not a very comfortable picture.
“And then, quite separately, the slavery issue. In today’s republic, hangover from the revolution, you know, slavery is anathema. If he left it intact in Louisiana, he’d have an uproar at home. If he banned it there, he’d have an uproar there.”
“But offsetting that, the great American breadbasket would be his—corn and wheat pouring in from the Mississippi Valley.”
“Yes … but if he had war again, he’d have client states all around that could be milked for the gold to buy American grain … and maybe that was one more attraction.”
“You’re saying he wanted European war?”
Louis shrugged. “You know as well as I do that it had never really stopped. The pause was no more than that, a truce.”
“Agreed.”
“You understand—Napoleon, France itself, always had one great enemy, and it was never little America.”
“Britain the goal, eh?” Adams was smiling.
“Exactly. Gone on for six hundred years, that rivalry …”
And then, Adams thought, that pride that seemed to underlie all that Napoleon did. How can you be the power if there is another power? And Britain with its dominating fleet was very much another power. Napoleon had conquered Europe essentially, all but Russia, and there was Albion on its little island defying him. And see: Europe at peace gave him subservient allies; Europe at war meant client states that could be bled for treasure and troops. For Napoleon Bonaparte, war was natural: He was first of all a soldier.
“Apparently he was hungry for Egypt again,” Adams said. “The Sebastiani article—they say it had huge influence.”
Louis gave him a skeptical look and didn’t answer.
“Who is Sebastiani, anyway?”
“An old diplomat cum soldier or soldier cum diplomat. Deeply involved in Egypt when the British trapped Napoleon there and he had to duck out and abandon his men.”
Adams smiled. “I understand when he came home from that debacle, he seized power in the coup that gave him his office today. An odd reward for losing an army in Egypt.”
Louis’s eyebrows rose. “A subject I don’t discuss.”
“Of course. I shouldn’t have yielded to temptation.” He heard Louis’s soft chuckle. “But the Sebastiani article arguing that Egypt is ripe and the road to India clear—it’s a chance to avenge Britain ejecting France from India so long ago.”
Louis smiled. “But where did it run? In Le
Moniteur—
Napoleon’s paper. Nothing goes in it without his approval. Sebastiani influencing Napoleon? No, I think the first consul told him what to write.”
“But Napoleon told Ambassador Whitworth that France would have Malta or it would have war—that’s well documented.”
“Quite son.”
“And Malta is a way station to Egypt. There’d be no chance of conquering there with Malta in enemy hands. And Britain will fight to hold it for just that reason.”
“Makes a perfect case for war, doesn’t it?”
Adams gazed at his friend. “You’re saying—”
Louis shook his head. “I’m not saying.”
“No, of course. But one could surmise that the man wanted war for another reason, and Malta was a handy excuse.”
“I suppose one could so surmise.”
“Now, see here, Louis. You’ve brought me this far, you can’t just leave me here.”
Louis gave him a long, level look. He went noiselessly to the door and opened it suddenly. The hall was dark and empty. He left the door open but drew his chair close to Adams. “The servants are asleep.” He was whispering. His voice sank further. Adams could scarcely hear. “He intends to invade Britain directly. Across the channel.”
“My God! Against the Royal Navy?” Adams whispered too.
“He wants to mount a fleet of a couple thousand small boats and send them over in a storm. That or build the French fleet till it can keep the British busy. He needs war to rally all the forces and extract plunder from client states and drain the national treasury for so extraordinary a plan. Finally, war lets him stitch together a continental syndicate or system to destroy Britain economically. Deny it all trade.”
Yes, Adams could see that that could be devastating. Britain lived on the value added to the raw material she imported to make the finished goods she exported. If Napoleon could make such a scheme work, he could weaken Britain until she was gasping and then some dark night two thousand boats would start across a channel only twenty-four miles wide at its narrow point. And Napoleon would be ruler
of all he saw. Knowing the man even from a distance, it was easy to imagine him so dreaming.
“There’s a story,” Louis said, “perhaps apocryphal, perhaps not, that the first consul told his secretary rather sadly that for all his accomplishments, if he stopped now world history would give him half a page. And he wants a chapter.”
“Then Mr. Madison was wrong. The decision really had little to do with us.”
“No, no, no, John—you draw the wrong conclusion. The first consul’s decision resulted directly from the campaign Mr. Madison waged, just as I said. He made Napoleon see that America was more trouble—would cost him more of his real interest—than he could afford. He could never have realized his dream of conquering England if he were in a slogging match in America. In short, Mr. Madison won the battle that he was waging.”
There was a long silence. Louis emptied his glass and said, “Yes, perhaps the first consul’s interests were larger. But Mr. Madison fought his own war, and he did it brilliantly. And very successfully.”
Adams stood to go. “Thank you, Louis,” he said.
NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON, LATE FALL 1803
For Aaron Burr the French offer to sell Louisiana was the worst possible news. He remembered as in a sick nightmare the day the page galloped into the senate chamber waving a communication from the president. Burr was on the dais, eyelids sagging as Sam Smith of Maryland droned on about something the point of which the senate president already had forgotten. He was struggling not to disgrace himself by
falling asleep with his head flopping on the desk, and he was scarcely aware as he unfolded the message.
But the contents jerked him wide awake. France to
sell
Louisiana to the United States, settling the whole issue in a stroke! So completely did this ruin his hopes and plans that he felt a wave of nausea and feared he would vomit on the desk. In a croaking voice, he summoned the majority leader. “I believe you’ll want to present this to your colleagues.” And he’d sat there, contemplating the death of dreams.
For now the Virginian would be unbeatable. Whatever the mad and foolish reason behind the French decision to sell, Jefferson would get the credit. Had Napoleon stuck to his plans and put troops on the Mississippi, the sick weakness of this politician manqué would have been instantly exposed and the people would have driven him from office at the next election and might have tarred and feathered him as well. The whole world would have learned of his imbecility, and by the very force of nature the man Jefferson had reviled and abused, the New York alternative to the Virginian, would have been lifted to the heights.
He hammered the gavel, declared the senate in recess “to digest this momentous news,” and hurried off to his rooms where he threw himself down on his couch with an arm across his eyes. He awakened an hour later calm and clearheaded. Yes, it was distressing, but all it meant was that his plans must change. Jefferson could not be deposed in 1804; so be it. But 1808? All his political instincts told him the story would be utterly different by then. This bit of good fortune the Virginian had encountered through no effort of his own would soon be forgotten and the man’s ineptness would be clear. Democrats would turn readily to the powerful governor who controlled the second largest state, the only man, indeed, who could draw votes from both sides of the spectrum for overwhelming totals!
He had counted too much on the Louisiana loss, that was all. That in itself was disturbing. He wouldn’t want to think
of himself as a man who lived on dreams. He prided himself on realism, which he regarded as the sine qua non of politics. But actually, this news meant very little. It said he must do immediately what he long had been planning—hie himself back to New York and prepare to take up the reins again. What he had expected in 1804 would come in 1808, and for the sheer unadulterated pleasure of taking the office from the sainted Tom, he could readily wait four more years. Nourish himself on anticipation. He would make travel plans tomorrow. And he slept again, sweat slowly staining his linen.
“Know why Governor Clinton ain’t standing for another term in New York?” Senator Pickering asked.
He had proposed the dinner in a private room at Stelle’s and the Federalist powers were there, Hillhouse and Tracy of Connecticut, Plumer of New Hampshire from the Senate, Roger Griswold and Samuel Baker of Connecticut from the House.
“You tell me,” Burr said.
“’Cause he’s going on the national ticket next year with Jefferson.” When Burr didn’t respond, Pickering added, prodding him, “In your spot, Vice President, cutting you out.”
Burr chuckled and said, “You called a meeting to tell me something so obvious?”
Pickering colored and Hillhouse said smoothly, “We were reflecting our own surprise—and the sense of opportunity it opened to our hopes and, we believe, to yours.”
Ah, now they were coming to it. Pickering was clumsy as always, backing into the point. Burr had accepted the reality—or so it now seemed to him that he had done—when the Virginians began courting the old governor and his sycophant nephew, DeWitt. Now DeWitt had given up his Senate seat and gone back to become New York City’s mayor. The Clintons supposed that gave them the city, but Burr knew better.
Peter Van Ness had established a new paper, the
Chronicle Express
, to counter the poison in the Clinton attacks on Burr. He’d written a series of scathing articles signed Aristides after the famous Greek who’d been known as “the Just,” which was exactly how Peter saw his patron and himself. He’d written a book too, putting a permanent cap on what had come to be called the Pamphlet War, throwing Clinton slime back in their faces. So the Burr forces had not been asleep. He had been slow to acknowledge the governor’s attacks, yes, because he didn’t want to elevate them from the gutter. But when they did answer they were ferocious, battering Clinton hip and thigh. Of course these Federalist leaders knew all this.
Burr was enjoying himself, subtly dominating a dinner that the blustering Pickering supposed was all his. The food was good, the wine excellent, though he continued to take it sparingly, and the scene was radically different from the humiliation the last Federalist dinner at this same hotel had worked on him.
“Do you have any idea how disastrous this Louisiana madness really is?” Pickering asked. Hillhouse raised a hand. “I’m sure so astute an observer as Mr. Burr is fully aware, Timothy,” he said. “A slavocracy in the making, endless territory to be carved into states that must in no great time overwhelm the original states. What happens then to the fine blood stock that made this country great, the ideals and genius and nobility that mark the true American? All to be overrun by men who traffic in human chattel, a party and a people led by a man who beds his own slaves and breeds his own slave stock. Oh, sir, you know and I know this is not what the people of New York intended when they gave this Virginia mountebank their votes. Isn’t this the final straw? Isn’t it the ultimate signal that says New England and New York must look to their own interests and prepare to stand alone?”
Burr saw a mad cast in his eyes and realized he was just as wild as Pickering, with somewhat smoother mien. But the texture of confederates doesn’t really matter, only what they
can do for you. On the other hand, there was no need to commit to anything nor, most certainly, to respond to rhetorical questions. He kept his silence, allowing a faint smile on his face, waiting.
Nothing new in a sense. They were talking secession, outrage over Louisiana just another string in a harp they long had been plucking.
Sep-ar-ray-shuuun
… Was he interested in secession? Who knew? He was interested in a commanding position in 1808, interested in demolishing Jefferson and Madison, in being president of the United States. But if that didn’t come to pass, then command of a new country—small, compact, rich—that might be considerable compensation.
Actually, it was Plumer and Griswold, practical men, who took over when the talk came to cases. They assumed Burr would run for the governor’s chair that Clinton was vacating, which was so obvious he didn’t bother to nod. Therefore they wanted to put real money behind him. They wanted him to stage a couple of big steer roasts in every county with barrels of whiskey and kegs of beer and all the trimmings that go with savory beef and roast hog and lamb, with red-blooded speakers to present the benefits of Governor Burr in the statehouse and local leaders to add their endorsements, and then a separate doing for the ladies, with sewing bees and canning contests and preaching for those who sought it because ladies don’t vote but you’d be surprised how many tell their husbands how to vote. You’d just be surprised.
Wanted him to put on half a dozen such extravaganzas down on the Battery in New York City and have emissaries wandering Peck’s Slip with a bucket of beer in each hand, walking into taverns and shouting, “On the house and vote for Burr!”
All this would take money, real money, and what they wanted to do, they wanted to put the resources of New England commerce and banking and manufacture and shipping behind him.
“And,” Pickering growled, “when you’re elected—”
Hillhouse cut him off. “I think Mr. Burr knows our interests, Timothy. Mr. Burr is a great modern gentleman; I think he’ll remember us at the appropriate time.”
Burr smiled. Didn’t say a word, just smiled, and that was all it took. A very satisfactory dinner.
Burr knew how to wait. It was one of his great strengths and he guarded it carefully, ready to squelch impatience the moment it reared its head. He kept his people going slowly, talking up a Burr candidacy now and again but always with an indefinite air. The Democrats were looking over candidates to replace their titular leader, who was going on to the vice presidency. Of course, DeWitt was the real leader.
Meanwhile several local Democratic groups met and nominated Burr. It wouldn’t mean much after the DeWitt machinery took hold, but it told him he was still strong among garden variety Democrats, the folks whose votes told the story in the end. Then the DeWitt Democrats fixed on John Lansing. That disturbed Burr. Lansing was a good man, serving as chancellor, the post Robert R. Livingston held before he went off to Paris to buy Louisiana. He worried a bit. Lansing might prove a difficult man to unseat. Still, he reined in impatience.
A half-dozen different Federalists called quietly on Burr. Was he interested? He told one after another to show some patience, wait, lie low. Then, so the talk around the state went, Lansing was told he could be governor in name, but DeWitt would wield the power. Lansing was too big a man for that. He withdrew, and the DeWitt forces centered on Morgan Lewis, an old-line judge of no great dash noted for being quick to do exactly what he was told.
Burr relaxed. Morgan Lewis should be downright easy to take.
When it was too late for the Democrats to shift to a stronger candidate, the Federalists met. Their disadvantage in numbers was offset by the Democratic votes Burr could
expect to draw. Alexander Hamilton mounted a battle against nominating Burr, which certainly was galling. Burr lodged it carefully in memory, but held his peace. For now.
Numerous convention speakers sang to a single tune: Yes, yes, Alex was the father of the party and must be reckoned with, and yes, he certainly didn’t like Burr but this time the aim was not niceties of ideology—they wanted to
win
and Burr was the man who could add Democratic votes to his total. They refused to nominate a Federalist candidate for governor of New York and made it clear that Federalists should vote for Burr, standing as an independent.
The virtues of patience. He stood against a rival he couldn’t help but beat, being more popular with Democrats even as an independent than was Morgan Lewis, the Democratic candidate. He had ample wherewithal to make sure that every voter in New York was courted with beef and booze, the essence of political campaigning. Keep ’em well fed and well-likkered and in his view you could hardly go wrong.
Pleased and relaxed, he returned to Washington for the final weeks presiding over the Senate. He felt his future was as assured as it can be in politics. As governor of New York he would wield the state as a club in national politics. By 1808, the Virginia cabal would have shot its bolt and exposed its emptiness to everyone, and it would be New York’s turn on the carrousel. The beaten Virginian would step down; the New Yorker would step up. He would say something about his old rival in his inaugural remarks, something gracious but neatly condescending—he would have to craft the remark with careful thought, but he had plenty of time to work out something brilliant.
And should perchance something go awry in all this, there was always Senator Pickering and his friends waiting in the wings. All told, Burr had every reason to feel at the top of his form.