Quite Apart From Peron's Statement, However, There Are Three Official
Declarations To The Like Effect.
First there is the announcement in the
Moniteur* (* 23rd Floreal, Revolutionary Year 8; "L'Institut national a
demande au premier consul, et a obtenu.) that it was the Institute which
requested Bonaparte to sanction the expedition.
Secondly, when
Vice-Admiral Rosily reported to the Minister of Marine on Freycinet's
charts in 1813,* (* Moniteur, January 15, 1813.) he commenced by
observing that the expedition "had for its object the completion of the
knowledge of the coasts of New Holland which were not hitherto entirely
known." Thirdly, Henri de Freycinet, writing in 1808,* (* Ibid July 2,
1808.) said that it was the high interest stimulated by the voyages of La
Perouse and Dentrecasteaux that made the Institute eagerly desirous of a
new enterprise devoted to the reconnaissance of Australia. The last two
statements were, it will be observed, published by Napoleon's official
organ when the Empire was at its height.
There is no positive evidence as to what members of the Institute were
chiefly instrumental in formulating the proposal for Napoleon's
consideration. We do not know whether leading members explained their
scheme to him orally, or laid before him a written statement. If there
was a plan in manuscript, the text of it has never been published.* (*
"Probably it was suppressed or destroyed," says Dr. Holland Rose (Life of
Napoleon 1 379). But why should it have been? There is no reason to
suppose that it contained anything which it was to anybody's interest to
destroy or suppress. Indeed, it is by no means clear that there was such
a document. It is quite likely that the scheme of the Institute was
explained verbally to the First Consul. Why manufacture mysteries?) There
is only one document relating to the expedition in the collected
correspondence of Napoleon;* (* Edition of 1861.) and that concerned an
incident to which reference will be made in the next chapter. The reason
for the absence of letters concerning the matter among Napoleon's papers
is presumably that he left the carrying out of the project to the
Institute; for he was not wont to restrain his directing hand in affairs
in which he was personally concerned.
But there were two leading members of the Institute who had already
concerned themselves with Australasian discovery, and who may safely be
assumed to have taken the initiative in this matter. They were
Bougainville the explorer, who had commanded the expedition of 1766 to
1771, and Charles Pierre Claret de Fleurieu, who had been Minister of
Marine in 1790, and had written a book on the Decouvertes des Francais
dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinee (Paris, 1790), in which he
maintained the prior claims of the French navigators Bougainville and
Surville to discoveries to which later English explorers had in ignorance
given fresh names. Fleurieu had also intended to write the history of the
voyages of La Perouse, but was prevented by pressure of official and
other occupations, and handed the work over to Milet-Mureau.* (* Voyage
de la Perouse, Preface 1 page 3.) He stood high in the esteem of
Napoleon, was a counsellor of State during the Consulate, became
intendant-general of the Emperor's household, governor of the palace of
Versailles, senator, and comte. Both Fleurieu and Bougainville had
abundant opportunities for explaining the utility of a fresh voyage of
exploration to Napoleon.
It was, too, quite natural that these men should desire to promote a new
French voyage of discovery. None knew better what might be hoped to be
achieved. We are fairly safe in assuming that they moved the Institute to
submit a proposition to the First Consul; and it is not improbable that
they personally interviewed him on the subject.
Bonaparte, at any rate, received the proposal "with interest," and we
learn from Peron* (* Voyage de Decouvertes 1 4.) that he definitely
authorised the expedition at the very time when his army of reserve was
about to move from Geneva to cross the Alps in that astonishing campaign
which conduced, by swift, toilsome, and surprising manoeuvres, to the
crushing victory of Marengo. The plan of the Institute was therefore
ratified in May 1800. The Austrians at that time were holding French arms
severely in check in Savoy and northern Italy. Suchet, Massena, Oudinot,
and Soult were, with fluctuating fortunes but always with stubborn
valour, clinging desperately to their positions or yielding ground to
superior strength, awaiting with confidence the hour when the supreme
master would strike the shattering blow that, while relieving the
pressure on them, would completely change the aspect of the war. It was
while pondering his masterstroke, and deliberating on the choice of the
path across the Alps that was to lead to it, that Bonaparte gave his
approval; while elaborating a scheme to overwhelm the armies of Austria
in an abyss of carnage, that he expressed the wish that, as the
expedition would come in contact with ignorant savages, care should be
taken to make it appear that the French met them as "friends and
benefactors."
It may here be parenthetically remarked that it does not make us think
more favourably of Freycinet that when, in 1824, he issued a new edition
of the Voyage de Decouvertes, he omitted all Peron's references to
Napoleon's interest in the expedition, and his direction that when
savages were met the French should appear among them "comme des amis et
des bienfaiteurs."* (* Peron, 1 10.) While Peron tells us that this
laudable wish was personally expressed by the First Consul, Freycinet* (*
1 74, in the 1824 edition.) altered the phrase to "le gouvernement
voulut," etc. He had absolutely no justification for doing so. The reader
of the second edition of the book had a right to expect that he was in
possession of the original text, save for the correction of incidental
errors. But in 1824 Napoleon was dead, a Bourbon reigned in France, and
Freycinet was the servant of the monarchy to which he owed the command of
the expedition of 1817.
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