To be honest, Lafayette's first reaction to hearing about Carnot and Joseph's introduction to Joseph's brother Napoleon was also, "Joseph wants to use his power for personal gain." But Lafayette wasn't angry about it at all. It was even a little bit happy.
This is first of all because, in this era, it would have been a very common thing to do. On the contrary, it would be somewhat unusual if someone did not. Moreover, Joseph was willing to go through his door, and that was, in a sense, at least in Lafayette's mind, a clear move toward him. Of course, Joseph was too slow and hesitant to lean on him. He leans in only now that the big picture is settled (at least in Lafayette's view). But Lafayette still felt that he should receive his submission with enthusiasm. Because this guy Joseph is really talented. People are generally a little more generous to people with talent.
As for Joseph and that brother of his, whether or not they would spoil this, Lafayette wasn't particularly worried. First, he felt that Joseph's abilities were still trustworthy. Even if he really wasn't very good at the military, he couldn't have been less good at it than the hordes of mixed-qualification gilded aristocratic officers in the French army. Besides, it's just a small army thing, so even if it's taken out to gild the Bonaparte brothers, it's not really a big deal. And so the matter was settled.
Having approved the matter, Lafayette put it behind him, for nowadays, there were some more important matters before him.
Lafayette's first and most important thing was reorganizing the French army. Lafayette was very prestigious in the French army, but being prestigious did not mean the army would follow as well. How prestigious Feng Yuxiang was in the Northwest Army in the latter days, yet as soon as he encountered Marshal Chang's 'shining pillows', his men followed Marshal Chang one by one. This Northwest Army is still pulled up by Feng Yuxiang single-handedly.
The French army today is in a very strange state; the royal party does not trust the army, the parliament does not trust the army, and, what is worse, the army itself does not trust the army. The middle and senior officers in the French army were all aristocrats, but the lower officers and soldiers were all third estate. Today, they also distrust each other.
Lafayette knew that if this situation developed, the army would split. The division of the army would cause the foundation of his rule to collapse completely, and with it, civil war and chaos.
'This will completely ruin France.' Lafayette thought so.
However, there are those who would rather destroy France than contribute to this division. Because this France of today, in their opinion, is not their France at all.
Some of the nobles of the past were dissatisfied with present-day France, including some of those who had joined the ranks of the third estate in the Estate General, and when the assembly, at the instance of the Bishop of Talleyrand, had confiscated the wealth belonging to the Church, some of the clergy, who had originally joined the revolutionary ranks, and who, at the time of the Estate General, had taken the side of the third estate in the flag, had come to the opposite side to that of the present-day France.
A group of clergy and aristocrats, including Bishop Myriel, Senator Catsanes, and others, organized a club called the "Black Party" (because of the large number of black-robed clergy in the club) to oppose the revolution as much as possible. They created newspapers such as L'Ami du Roi, L'Actes, and L'Petit Gautier, which were full of insults against the "rulers", including Lafayette, and attributed the difficulties faced by France to the "perverse and ambitious" in the assembly. They even propagandize those at the bottom, acting as if they don't care about their interests but rather in a compassionate relationship with the people at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Such a ploy is not very useful, but it cannot be said to be totally useless either because it is true that the new regime did not take much care of the people at the bottom. Both in the cities and the countryside, there are people everywhere whose living conditions are not as good as before the revolution. Many of them are asking the question, "If you don't have enough to eat before the revolution and you still don't have enough to eat after the revolution, isn't the revolution for nothing?"
These people answered this question: that the revolution was better than no revolution at all and that if they could go back to the time of the king's rule, there would be peace in the world. This argument doesn't go down too well in Paris, but it's a good way to fool some people in some rural areas in the provinces.
On top of that, some of the middle and senior officers in the army were in frequent contact with these people, and the fact that they might be up to some kind of conspiracy was worrying Lafayette.
On the other side, some of the comrades who used to be on the same side as Lafayette have changed. Perhaps it was because they felt that Lafayette was overshadowing all their glory, so some of them pulled away from Lafayette as well. Perhaps in an effort to catch the eye, all of these people have also become more aggressive than ever. Some of his old friends from the past, like Dubois and Lamer, are starting to become more radicalized. And certain new friends are more radicalized than old ones. Well, the main one here is Bishop Talleyrand.
Bishop Talleyrand and some of his religious friends introduced another Civil Constitution of the Clergy in the Assembly. Under this decree are 83 bishoprics in France (one in each province), organized into ten archdioceses. Under the dioceses, there are parishes. Like state officials, clergy, bishops, and archbishops are elected by citizens. Those elected shall be ordained by the next higher level of the hierarchy, and the Archbishop shall ordain bishops. Newly appointed bishops and above are only required to write to the Pope to indicate that they belong to the same faith and do not need to go back to Rome to acquire a vestment from the Pope, nor do they need papal authorization to do so. In addition, the decree abolished the "first year's donation" (i.e., the first year's income of a newly appointed clergyman was to be paid to Rome) and provided that clerical salaries were to be paid by the state and that the diocesan synods were to replace the previously privileged synods and participate in the ecclesiastical administration of the dioceses.
This amounted to a complete severance of the vast majority of Catholic and Papal ties in France, a huge schism against Catholicism. The Pope reacted almost immediately by condemning the bill and declaring Talleyrand excommunicated. But Talleyrand disdained this and continued to wear the archbishop's vestments and engage in all sorts of religious activities. Even as a counter to the Pope's behavior, the assembly was ready to pass a new bill once again requiring all clergy in France to take an oath of allegiance to the French homeland. Any clergyman who refuses to take the Oath of Allegiance will be defrocked.
This is a requirement that is completely contrary to Catholic tradition. It was almost as if he had turned the Catholic clergy into ordinary state employees. And doctrinally, the clergy's only allegiance can be to God. This decree further inflamed the conflict between the Church and the Assembly.
At one point, Lafayette tried to get the assembly to show some moderation and not be overly aggressive on such matters. But legislators need such bills to show their "firmness," and the clergy, who have turned against it, need such opportunities to control the church. (When am I going to be a bishop if I don't get those guys down?)
So Lafayette's efforts were fruitless, and the bill was passed anyway. Things have pretty much gotten out of hand since then, with most of the bishops and archbishops in the country insisting that they won't swear allegiance to the government and the Constitution. Thus, they have been forcibly removed from the priesthood. In contrast, most of those priests and whatnot of this church at the bottom chose to swear allegiance to the government and the Constitution and then were elevated to the position of bishop and archbishop.
However, the orders of appointments and removals issued by the assembly simply went unheeded in many parishes outside of Paris. On the contrary, many diocesan bishops outside of Paris publicly accused the assembly of blasphemy and encouraged their faithful to fight these "Antichrists".
The addition of these ecclesiastical forces also increased the power of the Black Party, and in places such as Lyon, where they de facto controlled the localities and organized their own militias, the local garrisons fell back on them, and civil war was almost imminent.
The key today, according to Lafayette, lies with the king. If the King is willing to stand firmly on his side and firmly support the Constitution, then those activities of the King's party won't even come to fruition. On the contrary, if the king faltered and fell to the side of the king's party, that would be a problem.
For this reason, Lafayette constantly visited the king in an effort to convince him to sincerely support a constitutional monarchy. He tried to make the king and queen understand that times had changed and that the "I am the state" rule of Louis XIV was no longer possible. And a British-style constitutional monarchy is what's best for the country but also for the crown. The king's party, on the other hand, is not really loyal to the king, and what they are doing, in fact, is fundamentally just for their own benefit, and the king is just a plaque they use to call their followers. Even, in a sense, the King's Party, like the Radical Republicans, were the ones who wanted nothing more than for something to happen to the King.
In all fairness, Lafayette's point was very valid indeed. And he also felt that he had succeeded in convincing the king.
"Our king, in fact, is still a very rational and learned man." On emerging from the Château de Saint-Cloud, Lafayette said this to his adjutant Pierre.
That's not a bad assessment, and King Louis XVI had refrained from harsh repression until then precisely because he knew that times were not the same as they had been in his grandfather's time. But does reason always triumph over emotion and desire? What's more, the Queen is not that learned.
But Lafayette failed to notice that shortly after he left the Château de Saint-Cloud, a messenger left the palace with a secret letter from the queen and the recipient, the rather radical-looking assemblyman Mirabeau.