The Radiant Republic 110. Joseph Fouché

Since October 1789, every morning, the first thing Joseph Fouché—once a cleric—did upon opening his eyes was no longer a prayer at dawn, but to curl up beneath the covers and think in silence about the past he had lived through, the day that had arrived, and the future he imagined.

A native of Nantes, Fouché ca from a line of sailors and rchant families who made their living at sea. Yet after his birth, his parents gradually realized that this frail, undersized, habitually anemic, and rather ugly little creature was simply not suited to earn his bread on the ocean. Thus, when Fouché reached eleven, his family sent him to a church school, hoping he would beco a man of the cloth.

In France, after the Jesuits were expelled, Catholic education across the kingdom fell under the direction of the French Oratory. Like other clerics, once he ca of age, Fouché wore the black cassock—a common clerical garnt worn from the lowest minor orders up to the Pope of Ro—shaved his crown, and began to observe monastic discipline. From twenty to thirty, for that decade, he remained pale, lacking any healthy flush, fond of solitude, always alone with a thick book in his hands, sitting quietly in a corner.

Fouché voluntarily accepted the assignnt of the abbot of the Nantes monastery. During those years he travelled ceaselessly between Paris, Niort, Arras, Reims, Saumur, and Vendô, teaching physics and mathematics to children in various church-run schools.

To be frank, that life was not easy. Day after day behind silent, towering walls; eating coarse black bread; wearing the sa worn black clothes in endless repetition; surrounded by more than thirty church children who were never truly innocent, lacked laughter, and could hardly be called lovable—he lived the austere, joyless routine of a priest.

At the thought of children, Fouché’s eyes could not help but pass through the clean glass and look hard in the direction of the Marne departntal administrative hall. He faintly rembered that ten years ago—perhaps eleven—when he was on exchange at the Reims church school, he had taught a few weeks of mathematics to the class in which André Franck sat.

He rembered André not because that forr pupil had beco a deputy, and a local autocrat with power in his hands, but because the boy—only sixteen then—had been strikingly similar to himself: he knew how to endure; he possessed the craft of silence. He could conceal his own ideas of liberty, yet read the inner world of others. Even in anger, André could control every muscle of his face. (By that ti European scholars already understood much about muscular function; it could be traced back as far as Greek and Roman antiquity.) André already had many excellent qualities then—qualities that only fully announced themselves to the world not long ago.

In Fouché’s eyes, a cool head, Spartan self-discipline, and an incendiary eloquence were the paths by which great n succeeded. The monastery’s dull, tasteless life had trained André in the first two; as for oratory, he acquired that after coming to Paris, by studying under Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau.

In truth, the revolutionary storm in Paris—borne on Enlightennt ideas—had already swept across more than half of France years before it broke. Even behind monastery walls, in places of seclusion, priests were not absent from discussions of rights and liberty. It was then that Fouché, in Arras, was unexpectedly invited into a circle of local intellectuals.

Within that small Arras group, Fouché felt unbound. He could speak freely and pleasantly; all were equal with one another, whether noble, cleric, or commoner. Poetry and literature were the most popular subjects, yet they were also curious about science and technology—especially when the quiet church teacher of physics described, with relish, the splendour of a hot-air balloon rising into the sky.

During his ti in Arras, Fouché often ca to spend his hours there. He listened to Carnot—an engineer Captain—recite his not particularly brilliant little humorous poems, and he applauded loudly at the bitter, difficult speeches of Maximilien Robespierre. Locally, the blunt Arras n did not much like the pale, thin-lipped courtroom lawyer, nor his exceedingly dry manner of speaking. Thus Robespierre quickly beca intimate friends with his faithful listener, and the two spoke without reserve.

For a ti, when he was still a cleric, Fouché beca acquainted with, grew close to, and fell in love with Robespierre’s sister, Charlotte. Robespierre more than once urged Fouché to renounce the cloth, return to lay life, and marry Charlotte. Yet a week before Robespierre decided to stand in the elections for the Estates-General, Fouché announced that he refused to secularize—and at the sa ti he dissolved his engagent with Charlotte. As for the reason, Fouché refused to answer anyone, burying it forever in the depths of his own heart.

Perhaps to make ands for the tension between himself and Robespierre, when Robespierre entered the contest for the Estates-General, Fouché subsidized him with 200 livres. Two months later, when Robespierre departed for Paris, Fouché gave another 300 livres. In Arras in 1789, 500 livres in silver was not a trivial sum—roughly equivalent to a year’s inco for a local middle-class household.

Yet in Robespierre’s cold gaze Fouché still saw no sign of reconciliation, and it made him uneasy. Not long after, he left Arras and returned to his hotown, Nantes.

Back in the Nantes church world, Fouché had already grasped—keenly—that the Estates-General at Versailles had brought, and would bring, profound changes to French society. He therefore committed a mistake that was neither too great nor too small on purpose: he stepped out from within the well-lubricated, profitable interior of the Church, and chose instead to beco headmaster of a local church school.

When, in October 1789, Louis XVI and his family were brought from Versailles back to Paris and beca the prisoners of 600,000 people, Fouché confird the fact that a new France had co into being.

In March 1790, invoking the rights granted by the Declaration of the Rights of Man, Fouché could hardly wait to strip off the black clerical garb he had long loathed. He joined a group of local import-export rchants to found a club promoting free trade. Then, twelve months later, as president of the club, he reshaped that narrow rchants’ association into the Nantes branch of the Jacobins—an influential local centre of political power.

As if to force himself to integrate rapidly into the rchants’ circle, Fouché, newly thirty-one, married—at his family’s urging—the daughter of a great rchant: plain in appearance, but rich in dowry.

In politics, Fouché wrote to the highly influential Brissot, and to the National Assembly deputy he knew, Robespierre. Brissot’s reply urged Fouché to oppose the slave trade firmly; Fouché refused outright, because fully half of Nantes’ urban economy depended on the slave trade to drive it. Thus Fouché, isolated and lacking strength, could not defy the comrcial interests of his friends, his family, and those who backed him. Before long, Brissot wrote to condemn the double-dealing Fouché and declared a clean break; the correspondence between them ended.

Perhaps because Robespierre, newly adjusting to his political environnt, needed support in the provinces, he chose to forgive what Fouché had done to him and to his sister. In his letter to Fouché, Robespierre advised him to turn his club into a political club and—using Robespierre’s absolute power within the Correspondence Committee—have the Nantes club absorbed as a local branch of the Jacobins’ central club in Paris.

During that ti, Fouché also noticed that his forr student, André Franck, was flourishing in Paris. In less than a year, he had leapt from an unknown young lawyer to beco the much-discussed prosecutor of the Special Fiscal Court. A few months earlier, already holding a post in the Loire-Inférieure grain administration, Fouché had still been hesitating over whether to write a congratulatory letter to that newly risen National Assembly deputy.

One day in late November, after work, Fouché discovered a stranger seated in his parlour. The young visitor was dressed like a lawyer and was impeccably polite; yet the master of the house, sharp-eyed, instinctively suspected that an unusual identity lay behind him.

The visitor said he had co from Paris, specially to deliver a private letter to Monsieur Joseph Fouché. As for the writer, he did not say; the seal on the envelope bore no identifying mark.

Out of caution, Fouché invited the courier into his study. There he took the letter and unfolded it: it was from André. The newly elected deputy, a young magnate of Paris, invited his forr mathematics teacher to et in Châlons-en-Champagne, in the capacity of an official of the Loire-Inférieure grain administration. Enclosed with the letter, André also sent 800 livres in assignats as travel expenses for Fouché.

The young courier—still refusing to give any na—waited until Fouché had read it twice, then politely took back both letter and envelope. Before the master of the house, he struck a light and burned them to ash.

Following André’s instructions, the courier repeated, “Out of prudence, your relationship with Commander André cannot be made public for the mont. Therefore, I must trouble you to apply, in your private capacity, to participate in the Northern Fifteen-Departnt Grain Work Conference. I believe Deputy Lindet—who does not know the truth—will be very happy to approve such an application.”

After the courier left, Fouché sank into deep thought. His pregnant wife ca twice to the door of the study to call him to eat, and he remained unmoved.

“Why?” “Why?” “Why?” Fouché turned over countless questions in his mind.

But when he returned to the Nantes club and listened carefully to the rumours and news drifting in from Paris, he settled on one basic fact: Deputy André—who supported Brissot’s war—did not trust the Legislative Assembly at all, and did not crave the towering power lying ready to hand in Paris. He was bent, with a single-minded will, on ruling his two domains as a dictator—Marne and Ardennes—and perhaps now the northern thirteen departnts as well.

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The student from Reims had given his forr mathematics teacher a single-choice question that must be answered: co to Châlons-en-Champagne and follow André—or never speak to one another again to the end of their days.

Fouché was not André. He did not possess any peculiar gift for seeing through political mist. He could only analyse and judge from scattered traces whether following André served his own interests.

After breaking with Brissot, Fouché had once placed his political hopes in Robespierre. Yet in the depths of his heart, the secularized priest did not trust the man from Arras with the green spectacles; he knew too well his vengeful temperant, and above all the cold, rciless gaze that shone from his eyes.

As for André, no one doubted his ruthless cruelty toward enemies—Paris, Bordeaux, Reims, Châlons-en-Champagne: the evidence was everywhere, repeated so often it had beco iron fact. Yet even those who hated André had to admit one virtue: he kept his promises. Even against his mortal foes—the tax farrs—he knew, after his triumph in Paris, how to leave one side open, honouring a pledge of past offences forgiven.

On that point alone, broad-minded André was far more trustworthy than the lawyer of Arras. And besides—Fouché and André had never had any quarrel, any grievance; André had no reason to harm him.

At that, Fouché had his answer. Yet that evening he still sought his wife’s opinion.

“Joseph, of course you must go!” his wife cried, throwing her arms around him in excitent. “Best of all, let your good student appoint you tax officer of Nantes—then my family will pay much less tax.”

For that, Fouché’s mouth almost twitched for the whole night.

The Northern Fifteen-Departnt Grain Work Conference offered only four or five brief days of concentrated training for departntal administrators, but the specialized training for more than thirty grain-bureau officials and technical experts continued until the morning of December thirtieth, after Christmas.

On Christmas Day of 1791, André, in a stroke of ingenuity, sent the experts who remained in Châlons-en-Champagne a very special gift: Christmas cards. Two days earlier he had learned from the dormitory administrator that, because the training was so long, the agricultural experts stranded in Marne had no ti to accompany their families and friends, nor even leisure to write holiday greetings; their spirits were low.

So André devised a plan. He had soone procure stiff white paper and cut it into sheets five tis the size of an assignat. Then he invited several oil painters to paint on them—either scenes of a family celebrating Christmas together, or religious images commorating the birth of Jesus. In the centre was written a twin-holiday greeting: “rry Christmas, and Happy New Year!”

More than a hundred of these cards—called by André “Christmas cards”—were distributed at the rate of three per trainee. After each man signed his na, the cards would be posted through the relay-station post office to their friends and family. The gesture won instant praise, and the technical officials’ enthusiasm for study rose to an unprecedented height.

Not long after, among those who received the cards, so quick-witted rchants imdiately saw a business opportunity. They hired painters to cooperate, reproduced thousands upon thousands in the sa style, and sold them at the high price of 1 livre per card. And thus, beginning on December twenty-fifth, 1791, whenever French people—and indeed Europeans—gathered as families to celebrate Christmas, they never forgot to send a Christmas card invented by André to their friends and relatives. Many years later, after “Terrible Lucifer” and “The God-Favoured,” André gained yet another nickna: “the Christmas Angel.”

…

Unlike the rigid classroom syllabus, the specialized training was concentrated in fields and on seed-breeding sites. As usual, the morning lessons were led by Fourcroy. This agronomist, chemist, and botanist—born a commoner—had beco a scientific treasure of Marne: he not only successfully promoted high-yield potatoes, but also discovered phosphate fertilizer (superphosphate from phosphate rock) and potash fertilizer (potassium sulfate from calcined alum), thereby, without intending it, giving birth to modern chemical fertilizer.

Even so, André did not fully trust him; two gendars guarded him closely every day. To outsiders, this looked like protection for a genius.

But in André’s eyes, Fourcroy—like many gifted n—was full of intellect and thin on character. In simple terms: he loved to write little denunciations to display his righteousness. During his ti in Marne, Fourcroy once wrote a report to the Constituent Assembly, trying to expose how Deputy Prosecutor André and Mother Superior Sophia were, openly and covertly, sheltering several hundred nuns who refused to swear the oath.

That report never reached the gates of Reims. The gendars, long prepared, intercepted it in advance. Perhaps out of love of talent—or for other political calculations—André could not punish Fourcroy directly. Instead he had a carriage “invite” all of Fourcroy’s family to Marne. André personally warned the famous botanist, agronomist, and chemist of the Académie des Sciences, with savage nace: “If I ever see another denunciation letter appear before , I will kill your entire family—old and young—leave not one alive!”

Of course, André did not intend to detain Fourcroy and his family for life. The dictator promised that after three years—after August 1794—their freedom would be restored. In addition, Fourcroy could take the money he had earned in Marne with him, though the Champagne estate would be redeed by the departntal hall.

Thus Fourcroy had no choice but to obey André’s arrangents. For himself, and for his family, he threw all his strength into research, no longer paying attention—indeed, no longer daring to pay attention—to political currents from Paris.

The Marne potato breeding and cultivation centre was a white, semi-circular building. Under normal conditions it remained a closed environnt; all who entered or left were required to undergo routine disinfection.

Before the centre’s test plots, Fourcroy held in his palm a nearly perfect, oval large potato harvested in the sumr, and explained professional knowledge to the assembled trainees: safe sowing windows in different regions and zones; selecting potato varieties suited to local conditions; how to stimulate sprouts by scientific thods; and the operational environnt before cutting seed pieces, as well as disinfecting tools and the surface of the buds, and so on.

Although relevant materials were distributed to every trainee, Fouché still used his fountain pen to record, in detail, the key points and core principles explained by the academician. This was not an affectation but a habit. Those who knew Fouché well understood: he did not, in truth, enjoy the tedious affairs of agriculture. Yet work was work; once he took it in hand, it had to be carried through with full effort—no abandoning it halfway, no discounting it.

As Fourcroy neared the end of his explanation, a young officer in a major’s uniform approached, politely asked Fouché to step out from the centre, and led him to a carriage nearby.

“Hello, Teacher Fouché!” A familiar voice—and a familiar smiling face—appeared before the secularized priest again after ten years.

“Hello, Deputy André.” Before taking his seat in the carriage, Fouché removed his hat in respect from a man of lower station toward one above him. Though everyone had abandoned aristocratic forms of address, he used no elaborate honorifics.

André shifted his slightly stiffened, half-frozen body, and said with an apologetic look, “I originally planned to reserve half a day after the training ends to speak with you properly. However, half an hour ago I received an urgent dispatch from Paris, and I must go to Ardennes tomorrow. So our private eting must be conducted hastily in a carriage—please do not take it ill.”

Fouché smiled and shook his head, waiting for André to continue. But André did not. Instead he turned, and asked, “Teacher—what do you suppose the urgent business is?”

Fouché straightened his posture and answered without hesitation, “If I am not mistaken, it is the King’s agreent to a war warning against the Electors of Trier and Mainz. The day before yesterday I read in a newspaper that the executive secretary of the Legislative Assembly’s Military Committee, together with the Minister of War of the cabinet, had jointly submitted a declaration to the Tuileries, demanding that Trier and Mainz suppress all unlawful groups hostile to France—otherwise reprisals would follow, not excluding military asures.”

“Clap—clap—clap!” The words had barely fallen when André began applauding Fouché’s attentiveness.

By André’s rules, trainees lived and studied in a closed environnt throughout the program. Their only contact with outside political news was, perhaps, the crumpled scrap newspaper the dormitory administrator deliberately left, mangled and discarded, in a filthy bin. Since the course began, only Fouché persisted in rummaging through the bin each night to find that old paper, which concealed precious information.

André went on, “Correct. My task is to inspect the defensive situation in Ardennes. January fifteenth of next year will be France’s final deadline to the Electors of Trier and Mainz.”

“Do you think war will break out?” André asked again.

Fouché answered decisively, “It should not. The Austrian Emperor, representing the Holy Roman Empire, is not yet ready for war. Besides, that warlike Prussian prince—Duc de Brunswick—is said to be ill.”

A faint, nearly imperceptible smile appeared at the corner of André’s mouth—a look he wore only when he was very satisfied. He asked nothing more, only studied the forr priest before him: thirty-two, lean to the point of sharpness, cheeks like a knife’s edge with scarcely any flesh; his face was ugly, because he seed almost skin stretched over bone.

Yet André knew that Fouché possessed a mind cool to the point of terror, a mask no ordinary man could read, and a hidden reservoir of intelligence. Through careful analysis and bold inference, he could judge the direction of history correctly—unlike André, who held in his hand the great weapon of future knowledge and continually played the role of “The God-Favoured.”

In the history books, Fouché was often portrayed as one of the most shaless, most base, most despised figures of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Empire. Yet Talleyrand—an intriguer through multiple eras as well—was frequently praised for foresight, for knowing how to preserve himself, for quietly righting the course of history.

The reason was simple: Fouché commanded the hateful national police, controlling public speech through inforrs of many kinds… and that, in truth, was only his instrunt for serving the n in power and climbing higher. A commoner, Fouché lacked Talleyrand’s illustrious birth and could not match the wide networks Sieyès had cultivated for years.

Thus, when resentful Frenchn needed an object upon whom they could heap humiliation, Joseph Fouché—already infamous—beca the perfect target for historians. Across the literature of the nineteenth century, only Balzac spoke loudly in defence of the secularized priest’s intelligence.

Back to the present: André attempted to fulfil Balzac’s wish and give Fouché a chance to change his own history.

He said frankly, “I have had two teachers: Prieur and Thuriot. The first was the longest-serving rotating president of the Constituent Assembly; the second currently serves in the Foreign Affairs Committee. As for you, Teacher Fouché, I too would be very willing to help you gain a seat in the next National Assembly—or to beco prefect of Loire-Inférieure. But for now, I need you to do a favour…”

As he spoke, André glanced at him. Fouché’s hands were held upright, his eyes lowered, as if awaiting instructions from the man above.

“As a forr cleric, you know well that Vendée, which borders Loire-Inférieure to the south, contains priests and peasants who loathe the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the Decree on the Clerical Oath. Violence occurs without end. Every sign confirms my earlier fears: a rebellion of unprecedented scale is about to erupt in Vendée.

“So—after you return to Nantes—watch Vendée closely, and cooperate with the intelligence officers in their operations…”

The conversation between student and teacher lasted nearly half an hour. Only after repeated reminders from the intelligence officer did André finally bid Fouché farewell for the last ti in 1791.

Watching the carriage disappear into the woods, Fouché understood that his forr pupil had already drafted his future goal: “a seat in the next National Assembly—or the prefect’s chair of Loire-Inférieure.”

Although André repeatedly hinted that the teacher should choose the second, Fouché himself leaned more toward the honoured status of a National Assembly deputy.