Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume II.
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Title: Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume II.
Author: Walter Scott
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Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, VOLUME II. ***
LIFE OF NAPOLEON
POCKET EDITION
VOL. II.
LIFE OF
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.
VOL. 2.
[Illustration: Vincennes]
EDINBURGH; A. & C. BLACK.
1876
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP. I.--Corsica--Family of Buonaparte--Napoleon born 15th
August, 1769--His early Habits--Sent to the Royal Military School
at Brienne--His great Progress in Mathematical Science--Deficiency
in Classical Literature--Anecdotes--Removed to the General School
of Paris--When in his Seventeenth Year, appointed Second
Lieutenant of Artillery--His early Politics--Promoted to a
Captaincy--Pascal Paoli--Napoleon sides with the French Government
against Paoli--And is Banished from Corsica--Visits Marseilles,
and Publishes the Souper de Beaucaire, 1
CHAP. II.--Siege of Toulon--Recapitulation--Buonaparte appointed
to the Command of the Artillery at Toulon--Finds every thing in
Disorder--His Plan for obtaining the Surrender of the Place
Adopted--Anecdotes during the Siege--Allied Troops resolve to
evacuate Toulon--Dreadful Particulars of the Evacuation--England
Censured on this occasion--Lord Lynedoch--Fame of Buonaparte
increases, and he is appointed Chief of Battalion in the Army of
Italy--Joins Headquarters at Nice--On the Fall of Robespierre,
Buonaparte superseded in Command--Arrives in Paris in May, 1795,
to solicit Employment--He is unsuccessful--Retrospect of the
Proceedings of the National Assembly--Difficulties in forming a
New Constitution--Appointment of the Directory--Of the Two
Councils of Elders and of Five Hundred--Nation at Large, and Paris
in Particular, Disgusted with their Pretensions--Paris assembles
in Sections--General Danican appointed their
Commander-in-Chief--Menou appointed by the Directory to Disarm the
National Guards--But Suspended for Incapacity--Buonaparte
appointed in his Room--The Day of the Sections--Conflict betwixt
the Troops of the Convention under Buonaparte, and those of the
Sections of Paris under Danican--The latter Defeated with much
Slaughter--Buonaparte appointed Second in Command of the Army of
the Interior--Then General-in-Chief--Marries Madame
Beauharnais--Her Character--Buonaparte immediately afterwards
joins the Army of Italy, 14
CHAP. III.--The Alps--Feelings and Views of Buonaparte on being
appointed to the Command of the Army of Italy--General Account of
his new Principles of Warfare--Mountainous Countries peculiarly
favourable to them--Retrospect of Military Proceedings since
October, 1795--Hostility of the French Government to the
Pope--Massacre of the French Envoy, Basseville, at Rome--Austrian
Army under Beaulieu--Napoleon's Plan for entering Italy--Battle of
Montenotte, and Buonaparte's first Victory--Again defeats the
Austrians at Millesimo--and again under Colli--Takes possession of
Cherasco--King of Sardinia requests an Armistice, which leads to a
Peace, concluded on very severe Terms--Close of the Piedmontese
Campaign--Napoleon's Character at this period, 43
CHAP. IV.--Farther Progress of the French Army under
Buonaparte--He crosses the Po, at Placenza, on 7th May--Battle of
Lodi takes place on the 10th, in which the French are
victorious--Remarks on Napoleon's Tactics in this celebrated
Action--French take possession of Cremona and Pizzighitone--Milan
deserted by the Archduke Ferdinand and his Duchess--Buonaparte
enters Milan on the 15th May--General situation of the Italian
States at this period--Napoleon inflicts fines upon the Neutral
and unoffending States of Parma and Modena, and extorts the
surrender of some of their finest Pictures--Remarks upon this
novel Procedure, 59
CHAP. V.--Directory proposes to divide the Army of Italy betwixt
Buonaparte and Kellermann--Buonaparte resigns, and the Directory
give up the point--Insurrection against the French at
Pavia--Crushed--and the Leaders shot--Also at the Imperial Fiefs,
and Lugo, quelled and punished in the same
way--Reflections--Austrians defeated at Borghetto, and Retreat
behind the Adige--Buonaparte narrowly escapes being made Prisoner
at Valeggio--Mantua blockaded--Verona occupied by the French--King
of Naples secedes from Austria--Armistice purchased by the
Pope--The Neutrality of Tuscany violated, and Leghorn occupied by
the French troops--Views of Buonaparte respecting the
Revolutionizing of Italy--He temporizes--Conduct of the Austrian
Government at this Crisis--Beaulieu displaced, and succeeded by
Wurmser--Buonaparte sits down before Mantua, 79
CHAP. VI.--Campaign on the Rhine--General Plan--Wartensleben and
the Archduke Charles retire before Jourdan and Moreau--The
Archduke forms a Junction with Wartensleben, and defeats Jourdan,
who retires--Moreau, also, makes his celebrated Retreat through
the Black Forest--Buonaparte raises the Siege of Mantua, and
defeats the Austrians at Salo and Lonato--Misbehaviour of the
French General Valette, at Castiglione--Lonato taken, with the
French Artillery, on 3d August--Retaken by Massena and
Augereau--Singular escape of Buonaparte from being captured at
Lonato--Wurmser defeated between Lonato and Castiglione, and
retreats on Trent and Roveredo--Buonaparte resumes his position
before Mantua--Effects of the French Victories on the different
Italian States--Inflexibility of Austria--Wurmser
recruited--Battle of Roveredo--French victorious, and Massena
occupies Trent--Buonaparte defeats Wurmser at Primolano--and at
Bassano, 8th September--Wurmser flies to Vicenza--Battle of
Saint-George--Wurmser finally shut up within the walls of Mantua, 95
CHAP. VII.--Corsica reunited with France--Critical situation of
Buonaparte in Italy at this period--The Austrian General Alvinzi
placed at the head of a new Army--Various Contests, attended with
no decisive result--Want of Concert among the Austrian
Generals--French Army begin to murmur--First Battle of
Arcola--Napoleon in Personal danger--No decisive result--Second
Battle of Arcola--The French victorious--Fresh want of Concert
among the Austrian Generals--General Views of Military and
Political Affairs, after the conclusion of the fourth Italian
Campaign--Austria commences a fifth Campaign--but has not profited
by Experience--Battle of Rivoli, and Victory of the
French--Further successful at La Favorita--French regain their
lost ground in Italy--Surrender of Mantua--Instances of Napoleon's
Generosity, 111
CHAP. VIII.--Situation and Views of Buonaparte at this period--His
politic Conduct towards the Italians--Popularity--Severe terms of
Peace proposed to the Pope--Rejected--Napoleon differs from the
Directory, and Negotiations are renewed--but again Rejected--The
Pope raises his Army to 40,000 men--Napoleon Invades the Papal
Territories--The Papal Troops defeated near Imola--and at
Ancona--which is captured--Loretto taken--Clemency of Buonaparte
to the French recusant Clergy--Peace of Tolentino--Napoleon's
Letter to the Pope--San Marino--View of the situation of the
different Italian States--Rome--Naples--Tuscany--Venice, 130
CHAP. IX.--Archduke Charles--Compared with Napoleon--Fettered by
the Aulic Council--Napoleon, by a stratagem, passes the
Tagliamento, and compels the Archduke to retreat--Gradisca carried
by storm--Chusa-Veneta taken--Trieste and Fiume occupied--Venice
breaks the Neutrality--Terrified on learning that an Armistice had
taken place betwixt France and Austria--The Archduke retreats by
hasty marches on Vienna--The Government irresolute--and the Treaty
of Leoben signed--Venice makes humiliating submissions--Napoleon's
Speech to her Envoys--He declares War against Venice, and evades
obeying the orders of the Directory to spare it--The Great
Council, on 31st May, concede every thing to Buonaparte--Terms
granted, 147
CHAP. X.--Napoleon's Amatory Correspondence with Josephine--His
Court at Montebello--Negotiations and Pleasure mingled
there--Genoa--Revolutionary spirit of the Genoese--They rise in
insurrection, but are quelled by the Government, and the French
plundered and imprisoned--Buonaparte interferes, and appoints the
outlines of a new Government--Sardinia--Naples--The Cispadane,
Transpadane, and Emilian Republics, united under the name of the
Cisalpine Republic--The Valteline--The Grisons--The Valteline
united to Lombardy--Great improvement of Italy, and the Italian
Character, from these changes--Difficulties in the way of
Pacification betwixt France and Austria--The Directory and
Napoleon take Different Views--Treaty of Campo Formio--Buonaparte
takes leave of the Army of Italy, to act as French Plenipotentiary
at Rastadt, 166
CHAP. XI.--Retrospect--The Directory--They become
unpopular--Causes of their unpopularity--Also at enmity among
themselves--State of Public feeling in France--In point of
numbers, favourable to the Bourbons--but the Army and Monied
Interest against them--Pichegru, head of the Royalists, appointed
President of the Council of Five Hundred--Barbé Marbois, another
Royalist, President of the Council of Ancients--Directory throw
themselves upon the succour of Hoche and Buonaparte--Buonaparte's
personal Politics discussed--Pichegru's Correspondence with the
Bourbons--known to Buonaparte--He despatches Augereau to
Paris--Directory arrest their principal Opponents in the Councils
on the 18th Fructidor, and Banish them to Guiana--Narrow and
Impolitic Conduct of the Directory to Buonaparte--Projected
Invasion of England, 178
CHAP. XII.--View of the respective Situations of Great Britain and
France, at the Period of Napoleon's return from
Italy--Negotiations at Lisle--broken off--Army of England decreed,
and Buonaparte named to the Command--He takes up his Residence in
Paris--Public Honours--The real Views of the Directory discovered
to be the expedition to Egypt--Armies of Italy and the Rhine,
compared and contrasted--Napoleon's Objects and Motives in heading
the Egyptian Expedition--Those of the Directory regarding it--Its
actual Impolicy--Curious Statement by Miot--The Armament sails
from Toulon, on 19th May, 1798--Napoleon arrives before Malta on
10th June--Proceeds on his course, and, escaping the British
Squadron, lands at Alexandria on the 1st July--Description of the
various Classes who inhabit Egypt:--1. The Fellahs and
Bedouins--2. The Cophts--3. The Mamelukes--Napoleon issues a
Proclamation against the Mamelukes--Marches against them on the
7th July--Discontent of the French Troops--Battle of the Pyramids
on 21st of July--Cairo surrenders, 192
CHAP. XIII.--French Fleet--Conflicting Statements of Buonaparte
and Admiral Gantheaume--BATTLE OF ABOUKIR on 1st August 1798--The
French Admiral, Brueyes, killed, and his Ship, L'Orient, blown
up--The Victory complete--Effects of this disaster--Means by which
Napoleon proposed to establish himself in Egypt--His
Administration, in many respects, praiseworthy--in others, his
Conduct absurd--He aspires to be regarded an Envoy of the
Deity--His endeavours to propitiate the Porte--The Fort of El
Arish falls into his hands--Massacre of Jaffa--Admitted by
Buonaparte himself--His Arguments in its defence--Replies to
them--General Conclusions--Plague in the French Army--Napoleon's
Humanity and Courage upon this occasion--Proceeds against Acre to
attack Djezzar Pacha--Sir Sidney Smith--His Character--Captures a
French Convoy, and throws himself into Acre--French arrive before
Acre on 17th March, 1799, and effect a breach on the 28th, but are
driven back--Assaulted by an Army of Moslems assembled without the
Walls of Acre, whom they defeat and disperse--Personal
Misunderstanding and Hostility between Napoleon and Sir Sidney
Smith--Explained--Buonaparte is finally compelled to raise the
Siege, 216
CHAP. XIV.--Discussion concerning the alleged Poisoning of the
Sick in the Hospitals at Jaffa--Napoleon acquitted of the
charge--French Army re-enter Cairo on the 14th June--Retrospect of
what had taken place in Upper and Lower Egypt during Napoleon's
Absence--Incursion of Murad Bey--18,000 Turks occupy
Aboukir--Attacked and defeated--This Victory terminates Napoleon's
career in Egypt--Admiral Gantheaume receives Orders to make ready
for Sea--On the 22d August, Napoleon embarks for France--Arrives
in Ajaccio on the 30th September--and lands at Frejus on the 9th
October, 236
CHAP. XV.--Retrospect of Public Events since the Departure of
Napoleon for Egypt--Invasion and Conquest of Switzerland--Seizure
of Turin--Expulsion of the Pope--The Neapolitans declare War
against France--The French enter Naples--Disgraceful Avarice
exhibited by the Directory--Particularly in their Negotiations
with the United States of America--Russia comes forward in the
general Cause--Her Strength and Resources--Reverses of the French
in Italy, and on the Rhine--Insurrections in Belgium and Holland
against the French--Anglo-Russian Expedition sent to Holland--The
Chouans again in the Field--Great and Universal Unpopularity of
the Directory--State of Parties in France--Law of Hostages--Abbé
Siêyes becomes one of the Directory--His Character and
Genius--Description of the Constitution proposed by him for the
Year Three--Ducos, Gohier, and Moulins, also introduced into the
Directory--Family of Napoleon strive to keep him in the
Recollection of the People--Favourable Change in the French
Affairs--Holland evacuated by the Anglo-Russian Army--Korsakow
defeated by Massena--and Suwarrow retreats before Lecourbe, 246
CHAP. XVI.--General rejoicing on the return of
Buonaparte--Advances made to him on all sides--Napoleon Coalesces
with Siêyes--Revolution of the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9)--Clashing
Views of the Councils of Ancients, and the Five Hundred--Barras
and his Colleagues resign--Proceedings of the Councils on the
18th--and 19th--Sittings removed from Paris to St.
Cloud--Commotion in the Council of Five Hundred--Napoleon menaced
and assaulted, and finally extricated by his Grenadiers--Lucien
Buonaparte, the President, retires from the Hall--Declares the
Council dissolved--Provisional Consular Government of Buonaparte,
Siêyes, and Ducos, 260
CHAP. XVII.--Clemency of the New Consulate--Beneficial change in
the Finances--Law of Hostages repealed--Religious liberty
allowed--Improvements in the War Department--Pacification of La
Vendée--Ascendancy of Napoleon--Disappointment of
Siêyes--Committee formed to consider Siêyes' Plan of a
Constitution--Rejected as to essentials--A new one adopted,
monarchical in every thing but form--Siêyes retires from Public
life--General View of the new Government--Despotic Power of the
First Consul, 276
CHAP. XVIII.--Proceedings of Buonaparte in order to consolidate
his power--His great Success--Causes that led to it--Cambacérès
and Le Brun chosen Second and Third Consuls--Talleyrand appointed
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Fouché Minister of Police--Their
Characters--Other Ministers nominated--Various Changes made in
order to mark the Commencement of a new Era--Napoleon addresses a
Letter personally to the King of England--Answered by Lord
Grenville--Negotiation for peace that followed, speedily broken
off--Campaigns in Italy and on the Rhine--Successes of
Moreau--Censured by Napoleon for over-caution--The Charge
considered--The Chief Consul resolves to bring back, in Person,
Victory to the French Standards in Italy--His Measures for that
purpose, 292
CHAP. XIX.--The Chief Consul leaves Paris on 6th May, 1800--Has an
Interview with Necker at Geneva on 8th--Arrives at Lausanne on the
13th--Various Corps put in motion to cross the Alps--Napoleon, at
the head of the Main Army, marches on the 15th, and ascends Mont
St. Bernard--On the 16th, the Vanguard takes possession of
Aosta--Fortress and Town of Bard threaten to baffle the whole
plan--The Town is captured--and Napoleon contrives to send his
Artillery through it, under the fire of the Fort, his Infantry and
Cavalry passing over the Albaredo--Lannes carries
Ivrea--Recapitulation--Operations of the Austrian General
Melas--At the commencement of the Campaign, Melas advances towards
Genoa--Actions betwixt him and Massena--In March, Lord Keith
blockades Genoa--Melas compelled to retreat--Enters Nice--Recalled
from thence by the news of Napoleon's having crossed Mont St.
Bernard--Genoa surrenders--Buonaparte enters Milan--Battle of
Montebello--The Chief Consul is joined by Desaix--Battle of
Marengo on the 14th--Death of Desaix--Capitulation on the 15th, by
which Genoa, &c., are yielded--Napoleon returns to Paris on the 2d
July, 305
CHAP. XX.--Napoleon offers, and the Austrian Envoy accepts, a new
Treaty--The Emperor refuses it, unless England is
included--Negotiations with England--fail--Renewal of the
War--Armistice--Resumption of Hostilities--Battle of
Hohenlinden--Other Battles--The Austrians agree to a separate
Peace--Treaty of Luneville--Convention between France and the
United States--The Queen of Naples repairs to Petersburgh--Paul
receives her with cordiality, and applies in her behalf to
Buonaparte--His Envoy received at Paris with the utmost
distinction, and the Royal Family of Naples saved for the
present--Rome restored to the authority of the Pope--Napoleon
demands of the King of Spain to declare War against
Portugal--Olivenza and Almeida taken--Malta, after a Blockade of
Two Years, obliged to submit to the English, 324
CHAP. XXI.--Internal Government of France--General Attachment to
the Chief Consul--Plot to remove him by
Assassination--Defeated--Vain hopes of the Royalists, that
Napoleon would restore the Bourbons--Infernal Machine--It
fails--Suspicion first falls on the Republicans--The actual
Conspirators executed--Use made by Buonaparte of the Conspiracy to
consolidate Despotism--System of Police--Fouché--His Skill,
Influence, and Power--Apprehension entertained by the Chief Consul
of the effects of Literature--Persecution of Madame de Staël--The
Concordat--Plan for a general System of Jurisprudence--Amnesty
granted to the Emigrants--Plans of Public Education--Hopes of a
General Peace, 337
CHAP. XXII.--Return to the external Relations of France--Her
universal Ascendancy--Napoleon's advances to the Emperor
Paul--Plan of destroying the British Power in India--Right of
Search at Sea--Death of Paul--Its effects on Buonaparte--Affairs
of Egypt--Assassination of Kleber--Menou appointed to succeed
him--British Army lands in Egypt--Battle and Victory of
Alexandria--Death of Sir Ralph Abercromby--General Hutchinson
succeeds him--The French General Belliard capitulates--as does
Menou--War in Egypt brought to a victorious Conclusion, 356
CHAP. XXIII.--Preparations for the Invasion of Britain--Nelson put
in command of the Sea--Attack of the Boulogne Flotilla--Pitt
leaves the Ministry--succeeded by Mr. Addington--Negotiations for
Peace--Just punishment of England, in regard to the conquered
Settlements of the enemy--Forced to restore them all, save Ceylon
and Trinidad--Malta is placed under the guarantee of a Neutral
Power--Preliminaries of Peace signed--Joy of the English Populace,
and doubts of the better classes--Treaty of Amiens signed--The
ambitious projects of Napoleon, nevertheless, proceed without
interruption--Extension of his power in Italy--He is appointed
Consul for life, with the power of naming his Successor--His
Situation at this period, 364
CHAP. XXIV.--Different Views entertained by the English Ministers
and the Chief Consul of the effects of the Treaty of
Amiens--Napoleon, misled by the Shouts of a London Mob,
misunderstands the Feelings of the People of Great Britain--His
continued encroachments on the Independence of Europe--His conduct
to Switzerland--Interferes in their Politics, and sets himself up,
uninvited, as Mediator in their concerns--Ney enters Switzerland
at the head of 40,000 men--The patriot, Reding, disbands his
Forces, and is imprisoned--Switzerland is compelled to furnish
France with a Subsidiary Army of 16,000 Troops--The Chief Consul
adopts the title of Grand Mediator of the Helvetic Republic, 372
APPENDIX--
No. I.--Buonaparte's Letter to General Paoli, 381
No. II.--Letter of Napoleon Buonaparte to M. Matteo Buttafuoco,
Deputy from Corsica to the National Assembly, 382
No. III.--The Supper of Beaucaire, 388
No. IV.--Letters of Napoleon to Josephine, 392
No. V.--Descent of the French in South Wales, under General Tate, 396
No. VI.--Buonaparte's Camp-Library, 397
No. VII.--Buonaparte, Member of the National Institute,
Commander-in-Chief, to the People of Egypt, 398
No. VIII.--Historical Notes on the Eighteenth Brumaire, 399
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I.
_Corsica--Family of Buonaparte--Napoleon born 15th August,
1769--His early habits--Sent to the Royal Military School at
Brienne--His great Progress in Mathematical Science--Deficiency
in Classical Literature--Anecdotes--Removed to the General
School of Paris--When in his Seventeenth Year, appointed Second
Lieutenant of Artillery--His early Politics--Promoted to a
Captaincy--Pascal Paoli--Napoleon sides with the French
Government against Paoli--And is banished from Corsica--Visits
Marseilles, and publishes the Souper de Beaucaire._
The island of Corsica was, in ancient times, remarkable as the scene of
Seneca's exile, and in the last century was distinguished by the
memorable stand which the natives made in defence of their liberties
against the Genoese and French, during a war which tended to show the
high and indomitable spirit of the islanders, united as it is with the
fiery and vindictive feelings proper to their country and climate.
In this island, which was destined to derive its future importance
chiefly from the circumstance, NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE, or BONAPARTE,[1] had
his origin. His family was noble, though not of much distinction, and
rather reduced in fortune. Flattery afterwards endeavoured to trace the
name which he had made famous, into remote ages, and researches were
made through ancient records, to discover that there was one Buonaparte
who had written a book,[2] another who had signed a treaty--a female of
the name who had given birth to a pope,[3] with other minute claims of
distinction, which Napoleon justly considered as trivial, and unworthy
of notice. He answered the Emperor of Austria, who had a fancy of
tracing his son-in-law's descent from one of the petty sovereigns of
Treviso, that he was the Rodolph of Hapsbourg of his family; and to a
genealogist, who made a merit of deducing his descent from some ancient
line of Gothic princes, he caused reply to be made, that he dated his
patent of nobility from the battle of Montenotte, that is, from his
first victory.[4]
[Sidenote: CORSICA.]
All that is known with certainty of Napoleon's family may be told in few
words. The Buonapartes were a family of some distinction in the middle
ages;[5] their names are inscribed in the Golden Book at Treviso, and
their armorial bearings are to be seen on several houses in Florence.
But attached, during the civil war, to the party of the Ghibellines,
they of course were persecuted by the Guelphs; and being exiled from
Tuscany, one of the family took refuge in Corsica, and there established
himself and his successors, who were regularly enrolled among the noble
natives of the island, and enjoyed all the privileges of gentle blood.
The father of Napoleon, Charles Buonaparte, was the principal descendant
of this exiled family. He was regularly educated at Pisa, to the study
of the law, and is stated to have possessed a very handsome person, a
talent for eloquence, and a vivacity of intellect, which he transmitted
to his son. He was a patriot also and a soldier, and assisted at the
gallant stand made by Paoli against the French. It is said he would have
emigrated along with Paoli, who was his friend, but was withheld by the
influence of his father's brother, Lucien Buonaparte, who was Archdeacon
of the Cathedral of Ajaccio, and the wealthiest person of the family.
It was in the middle of civil discord, fights, and skirmishes, that
Charles Buonaparte married Lætitia Ramolini, one of the most beautiful
young women of the island, and possessed of a great deal of firmness of
character. She partook the dangers of her husband during the years of
civil war, and is said to have accompanied him on horseback in some
military expeditions, or perhaps hasty flights, shortly before her being
delivered of the future emperor.[6] Though left a widow in the prime of
life, she had already born her husband thirteen children, of whom five
sons and three daughters survived him. I. Joseph, the eldest, who,
though placed by his brother in an obnoxious situation, as intrusive
King of Spain, held the reputation of a good and moderate man. II.
Napoleon himself. III. Lucien, scarce inferior to his brother in
ambition and talent. IV. Louis, the merit of whose character consists in
its unpretending worth, and who renounced a crown rather than consent to
the oppression of his subjects. V. Jerome, whose disposition is said to
have been chiefly marked by a tendency to dissipation. The females were,
I. Maria Anne, afterwards Grand Duchess of Tuscany, by the name of
Eliza.[7] II. Maria Annonciada, who became Maria Pauline, Princess of
Borghese.[8] III. Carlotta, or Caroline, wife of Murat, and Queen of
Naples.
The family of Buonaparte being reconciled to the French government after
the emigration of Paoli, enjoyed the protection of the Count de
Marbœuf, the French Governor of Corsica, by whose interest Charles
was included in a deputation of the nobles of the island, sent to Louis
XVI. in 1779. As a consequence of this mission, he was appointed to a
judicial situation--that of assessor of the Tribunal of Ajaccio--the
income of which aided him to maintain his increasing family, which the
smallness of his patrimony, and some habits of expense, would otherwise
have rendered difficult. Charles Buonaparte, the father of Napoleon,
died at the age of about forty years, of an ulcer in the stomach, on the
24th February 1785.[9] His celebrated son fell a victim to the same
disease. During Napoleon's grandeur, the community of Montpellier
expressed a desire to erect a monument to the memory of Charles
Buonaparte. His answer was both sensible and in good taste. "Had I lost
my father yesterday," he said, "it would be natural to pay his memory
some mark of respect consistent with my present situation. But it is
twenty years since the event, and it is one in which the public can take
no concern. Let us leave the dead in peace."
The subject of our narrative was born upon the 15th day of August 1769,
at his father's house in Ajaccio, forming one side of a court which
leads out of the Rue Charles.[10] We read with interest, that his
mother's good constitution, and bold character of mind, having induced
her to attend mass upon the day of his birth, (being the Festival of the
Assumption,) she was obliged to return home immediately, and as there
was no time to prepare a bed or bedroom, she was delivered of the future
victor upon a temporary couch prepared for her accommodation, and
covered with an ancient piece of tapestry, representing the heroes of
the Iliad. The infant was christened by the name of Napoleon, an obscure
saint, who had dropped to leeward, and fallen altogether out of the
calendar, so that his namesake never knew which day he was to celebrate
as the festival of his patron. When questioned on this subject by the
bishop who confirmed him, he answered smartly, that there were a great
many saints, and only three hundred and sixty-five days to divide
amongst them. The politeness of the Pope promoted the patron in order to
compliment the god-child, and Saint Napoleon des Ursins was accommodated
with a festival. To render this compliment, which no one but a Pope
could have paid, still more flattering, the feast of Saint Napoleon was
fixed for the 15th August, the birthday of the Emperor, and the day on
which he signed the Concordat.[11] So that Napoleon had the rare honour
of promoting his patron saint.
The young Napoleon had, of course, the simple and hardy education proper
to the natives of the mountainous island of his birth, and in his
infancy was not remarkable for more than that animation of temper, and
wilfulness and impatience of inactivity, by which children of quick
parts and lively sensibility are usually distinguished.[12] The winter
of the year was generally passed by the family of his father at Ajaccio,
where they still preserve and exhibit, as the ominous plaything of
Napoleon's boyhood, the model of a brass cannon, weighing about thirty
pounds.[13] We leave it to philosophers to inquire, whether the future
love of war was suggested by the accidental possession of such a toy; or
whether the tendency of the mind dictated the selection of it; or,
lastly, whether the nature of the pastime, corresponding with the taste
which chose it, may not have had each their action and reaction, and
contributed between them to the formation of a character so warlike.
The same traveller who furnishes the above anecdote, gives an
interesting account of the country retreat of the family of Buonaparte,
during the summer.
Going along the sea-shore from Ajaccio towards the Isle Sanguinière,
about a mile from the town, occur two stone pillars, the remains of a
door-way, leading up to a dilapidated villa, once the residence of
Madame Buonaparte's half-brother on the mother's side, whom Napoleon
created Cardinal Fesch.[14] The house is approached by an avenue,
surrounded and overhung by the cactus and other shrubs, which luxuriate
in a warm climate. It has a garden and a lawn, showing amidst neglect,
vestiges of their former beauty, and the house is surrounded by
shrubberies, permitted to run to wilderness. This was the summer
residence of Madame Buonaparte and her family. Almost enclosed by the
wild olive, the cactus, the clematis, and the almond-tree, is a very
singular and isolated granite rock, called Napoleon's grotto, which
seems to have resisted the decomposition which has taken place around.
The remains of a small summer-house are visible beneath the rock, the
entrance to which is nearly closed by a luxuriant fig-tree. This was
Buonaparte's frequent retreat, when the vacations of the school at which
he studied permitted him to visit home.--How the imagination labours to
form an idea of the visions, which, in this sequestered and romantic
spot, must have arisen before the eyes of the future hero of a hundred
battles!
[Sidenote: BRIENNE.]
The Count de Marbœuf, already mentioned as Governor of Corsica,
interested himself in the young Napoleon, so much as to obtain him an
appointment [April, 1779] to the Royal Military School at Brienne, which
was maintained at the royal expense, in order to bring up youths for the
engineer and artillery service. The malignity of contemporary historians
has ascribed a motive of gallantry towards Madame Buonaparte as the
foundation of this kindness; but Count Marbœuf had arrived at a
period of life when such connexions are not to be presumed, nor did the
scandal receive any currency from the natives of Ajaccio.
Nothing could be more suitable to the nature of young Buonaparte's
genius, than the line of study which thus fortunately was opened before
him. His ardour for the abstract sciences amounted to a passion, and was
combined with a singular aptitude for applying them to the purposes of
war, while his attention to pursuits so interesting and exhaustless in
themselves, was stimulated by his natural ambition and desire of
distinction. Almost all the scientific teachers at Brienne, being
accustomed to study the character of their pupils, and obliged by their
duty to make memoranda and occasional reports on the subject, spoke of
the talents of Buonaparte, and the progress of his studies, with
admiration. Circumstances of various kinds, exaggerated or invented,
have been circulated concerning the youth of a person so remarkable.
The following are given upon good authority.[15]
The conduct of Napoleon among his companions, was that of a studious and
reserved youth, addicting himself deeply to the means of improvement,
and rather avoiding than seeking the usual temptations to dissipation of
time. He had few friends, and no intimates; yet at different times when
he chose to exert it, he exhibited considerable influence over his
fellow-students, and when there was any joint plan to be carried into
effect, he was frequently chosen dictator of the little republic.
In the time of winter, Buonaparte upon one occasion engaged his
companions in constructing a fortress out of the snow, regularly
defended by ditches and bastions, according to the rules of
fortification. It was considered as displaying the great powers of the
juvenile engineer in the way of his profession, and was attacked and
defended by the students, who divided into parties for the purpose,
until the battle became so keen that their superiors thought it proper
to proclaim a truce.
The young Buonaparte gave another instance of address and enterprise
upon the following occasion. There was a fair held annually in the
neighbourhood of Brienne, where the pupils of the Military School used
to find a day's amusement; but on account of a quarrel betwixt them and
the country people upon a former occasion, or for some such cause, the
masters of the institution had directed that the students should not, on
the fair day, be permitted to go beyond their own precincts, which were
surrounded with a wall. Under the direction of the young Corsican,
however, the scholars had already laid a plot for securing their usual
day's diversion. They had undermined the wall which encompassed their
exercising ground, with so much skill and secrecy, that their operations
remained entirely unknown till the morning of the fair, when a part of
the boundary unexpectedly fell, and gave a free passage to the
imprisoned students, of which they immediately took the advantage, by
hurrying to the prohibited scene of amusement.
But although on these, and perhaps other occasions, Buonaparte displayed
some of the frolic temper of youth, mixed with the inventive genius and
the talent for commanding others by which he was distinguished in after
time, his life at school was in general that of a recluse and severe
student, acquiring by his judgment, and treasuring in his memory, that
wonderful process of almost unlimited combination, by means of which he
was afterwards able to simplify the most difficult and complicated
undertakings. His mathematical teacher was proud of the young islander,
as the boast of his school, and his other scientific instructors had the
same reason to be satisfied.
In languages Buonaparte was less a proficient, and never acquired the
art of writing or spelling French, far less foreign languages, with
accuracy or correctness; nor had the monks of Brienne any reason to
pride themselves on the classical proficiency of their scholar. The full
energies of his mind being devoted to the scientific pursuits of his
profession, left little time or inclination for other studies.
Though of Italian origin, Buonaparte had not a decided taste for the
fine arts, and his taste in composition seems to have leaned towards the
grotesque and the bombastic. He used always the most exaggerated
phrases; and it is seldom, if ever, that his bulletins present those
touches of sublimity which are founded on dignity and simplicity of
expression.
Notwithstanding the external calmness and reserve of his deportment, he
who was destined for such great things, had, while yet a student at
Brienne, a full share of that ambition for distinction and dread of
disgrace, that restless and irritating love of fame, which is the spur
to extraordinary attempts. Sparkles of this keen temper sometimes showed
themselves. On one occasion, a harsh superintendent imposed on the
future Emperor, for some trifling fault, the disgrace of wearing a
penitential dress, and being excluded from the table of the students,
and obliged to eat his meal apart. His pride felt the indignity so
severely, that it brought on a severe nervous attack; to which, though
otherwise of good constitution, he was subject upon occasions of
extraordinary irritation. Father Petrault,[16] the professor of
mathematics, hastened to deliver his favourite pupil from the punishment
by which he was so much affected.
It is also said that an early disposition to the popular side
distinguished Buonaparte even when at Brienne. Pichegru, afterwards so
celebrated, who acted as his monitor in the military school, (a singular
circumstance,) bore witness to his early principles, and to the peculiar
energy and tenacity of his temper. He was long afterwards consulted
whether means might not be found to engage the commander of the Italian
armies in the royal interest. "It will be but lost time to attempt it,"
said Pichegru. "I knew him in his youth--his character is inflexible--he
has taken his side, and he will not change it."[17]
In October, 1784, Napoleon Buonaparte, then only fifteen years old, was,
though under the usual age, selected by M. de Keralio,[18] the inspector
of the twelve military schools, to be sent to have his education
completed in the general school of Paris. It was a compliment paid to
the precocity of his extraordinary mathematical talent, and the
steadiness of his application. While at Paris he attracted the same
notice as at Brienne; and among other society, frequented that of the
celebrated Abbé Raynal, and was admitted to his literary parties. His
taste did not become correct, but his appetite for study in all
departments was greatly enlarged; and notwithstanding the quantity which
he daily read, his memory was strong enough to retain, and his judgment
sufficiently ripe to arrange and digest, the knowledge which he then
acquired; so that he had it at his command during all the rest of his
busy life. Plutarch was his favourite author; upon the study of whom he
had so modelled his opinions and habits of thought, that Paoli
afterwards pronounced him a young man of an antique caste, and
resembling one of the classical heroes.[19]
Some of his biographers have, about this time, ascribed to him the
anecdote of a certain youthful pupil of the military school, who desired
to ascend in the car of a balloon with the æronaut Blanchard, and was so
mortified at being refused, that he made an attempt to cut the balloon
with his sword.[20] The story has but a flimsy support, and indeed does
not accord well with the character of the hero, which was deep and
reflective, as well as bold and determined, and not likely to suffer its
energies to escape in idle and useless adventure.
A better authenticated anecdote states, that at this time he expressed
himself disrespectfully towards the king in one of his letters to his
family. According to the practice of the school, he was obliged to
submit the letter to the censorship of M. Domairon, the professor of
belles lettres, who, taking notice of the offensive passage, insisted
upon the letter being burnt, and added a severe rebuke. Long afterwards,
in 1802, M. Domairon appeared at Napoleon's levee; when the first consul
reminded his old tutor good-humouredly, that times had changed
considerably since the burning of the letter.
[Sidenote: VALENCE--AUXONNE.]
Napoleon Buonaparte, in his seventeenth year, [September, 1785,]
received his first commission as second lieutenant in the regiment of La
Fère, or first artillery, then quartered at Valence. He mingled with
society when he joined his regiment, more than he had hitherto been
accustomed to do; mixed in public amusements, and exhibited the powers
of pleasing which he possessed in an uncommon degree, when he chose to
exert them. His handsome and intelligent features, with his active and
neat, though slight figure, gave him additional advantages. His manners
could scarcely be called elegant, but made up in vivacity and variety of
expression, and often in great spirit and energy, for what they wanted
in grace and polish.
In 1786, he became an adventurer for the honours of literature also, and
was anonymously a competitor for the prize offered by the Academy of
Lyons on Raynal's question, "What are the principles and institutions,
by application of which mankind can be raised to the highest pitch of
happiness?" The prize was adjudged to the young soldier. It is
impossible to avoid feeling curiosity to know the character of the
juvenile theories respecting government, advocated by one who at length
attained the power of practically making what experiments he pleased.
Probably his early ideas did not exactly coincide with his more mature
practice; for when Talleyrand, many years afterwards, got the Essay out
of the records of the Academy, and returned it to the author, Buonaparte
destroyed it, after he had read a few pages.[21] He also laboured under
the temptation of writing a journey from Valence to Mount Cenis, after
the manner of Sterne, which he was fortunate enough finally to
resist.[22] The affectation which pervades Sterne's peculiar style of
composition, was not likely to be simplified under the pen of
Buonaparte.
In 1789, Buonaparte, then quartered at Auxonne, had composed a work,
which might form two volumes, on the political, civil, and military
history of Corsica. He addressed a letter to General Paoli, then
residing in London, on the subject of the proposed work, and the actual
condition of his countrymen.[23] He also submitted it to the Abbé
Raynal, who recommended the publication of it.[24] With this view,
Buonaparte invited M. Joly, a bookseller of Dole, to visit him at
Auxonne. He came, he says, and found the future Emperor in a naked
barrack room, the sole furniture of which consisted of a wretched bed
without curtains, a table placed in the embrasure of a window, loaded
with books and papers, and two chairs. His brother Louis, whom he was
teaching mathematics, lay on a wretched mattress, in an adjoining
closet. M. Joly and the author agreed on the price of the impression of
the book, but Napoleon was at the time in uncertainty whether he was to
remain at Auxonne or not. The work was never printed, nor has a trace of
it been discovered.[25]
In 1790, Buonaparte, still at Auxonne, composed a political tract in the
form of a letter to M. de Buttafuoco, major-general, and deputy of the
Corsican noblesse in the National Assembly. A hundred copies were
printed and sent to Corsica; where it was adopted and republished by the
patriotic society of Ajaccio,[26] who passed a resolution, attaching the
epithet _infamous_, to the name of their noble deputy.[27]
Sterner times were fast approaching, and the nation was now fully
divided by those factions which produced the Revolution. The officers of
Buonaparte's regiment were also divided into Royalists and Patriots; and
it is easily to be imagined, that the young and the friendless stranger
and adventurer should adopt that side to which he had already shown some
inclination, and which promised to open the most free career to those
who had only their merit to rely upon. "Were I a general officer," he is
alleged to have said, "I would have adhered to the King; being a
subaltern, I join the Patriots."
There was a story current, that in a debate with some brother officers
on the politics of the time, Buonaparte expressed himself so
outrageously, that they were provoked to throw him into the Saone, where
he had nearly perished. But this is an inaccurate account of the
accident which actually befell him. He was seized with the cramp when
bathing in the river. His comrades saved him with difficulty; but his
danger was matter of pure chance.
Napoleon has himself recorded that he was a warm patriot during the
whole sitting of the National Assembly; but that, on the appointment of
the Legislative Assembly, he became shaken in his opinions. If so, his
original sentiments regained force; for we shortly afterwards find him
entertaining such as went to the extreme heights of the Revolution.
Early in the year 1792, Buonaparte became a captain in the artillery by
seniority; and in the same year, being at Paris, he witnessed the two
insurrections of the 20th June and 10th August. He was accustomed to
speak of the insurgents as the most despicable banditti, and to express
with what ease a determined officer could have checked these apparently
formidable, but dastardly and unwieldy masses.[28] But, with what a
different feeling of interest would Napoleon have looked on that
infuriated populace, those still resisting though overpowered Swiss, and
that burning palace, had any seer whispered to him, "Emperor that shall
be, all this blood and massacre is but to secure your future empire!"
Little anticipating the potent effect which the passing events were to
bear on his own fortune, Buonaparte, anxious for the safety of his
mother and family, was now desirous to exchange France for Corsica,
where the same things were acting on a less distinguished stage.
[Sidenote: PAOLI--CORSICA.]
It was a singular feature in the French Revolution, that it brought out
from his retirement the celebrated Pascal Paoli, who, long banished from
Corsica, the freedom and independence of which he had so valiantly
defended, returned from exile with the flattering hope of still
witnessing the progress of liberty in his native land. On visiting
Paris, he was received there with enthusiastic veneration, and the
National Assembly and Royal Family contended which should show him most
distinction. He was created president of the department, and commander
of the national guard of his native island, and used the powers
intrusted to him with great wisdom and patriotism.
But Paoli's views of liberty were different from those which unhappily
began to be popular in France. He was desirous of establishing that
freedom, which is the protector, not the destroyer of property, and
which confers practical happiness, instead of aiming at theoretical
perfection. In a word, he endeavoured to keep Corsica free from the
prevailing infection of Jacobinism; and in reward, he was denounced in
the Assembly. Paoli, summoned to attend for the purpose of standing on
his defence, declined the journey on account of his age, but offered to
withdraw from the island.
A large proportion of the inhabitants took part with the aged champion
of their freedom, while the Convention sent an expedition, at the head
of which were La Combe Saint Michel,[29] and Salicetti,[30] one of the
Corsican deputies to the Convention, with the usual instructions for
bloodshed and pillage issued to their commissaries.[31]
Buonaparte was in Corsica, upon leave of absence from his regiment, when
these events were taking place; and although he himself, and Paoli, had
hitherto been on friendly terms, the young artillery officer did not
hesitate which side to choose. He embraced that of the Convention with
heart and hand; and his first military exploit was in the civil war of
his native island. In the year 1793, he was despatched from Bastia, in
possession of the French party, to surprise his native town Ajaccio,
then occupied by Paoli or his adherents. Buonaparte was acting
provisionally, as commanding a battalion of national guards. He landed
in the gulf of Ajaccio with about fifty men, to take possession of a
tower called the Torre di Capitello, on the opposite side of the gulf,
and almost facing the city. He succeeded in taking the place; but as
there arose a gale of wind which prevented his communicating with the
frigate which had put him ashore, he was besieged in his new conquest by
the opposite faction, and reduced to such distress, that he and his
little garrison were obliged to feed on horse-flesh. After five days he
was relieved by the frigate, and evacuated the tower, having first in
vain attempted to blow it up. The Torre di Capitello still shows marks
of the damage it then sustained, and its remains may be looked on as a
curiosity, as the first scene of _his_ combats, before whom
"Temple and tower
Went to the ground."[32]
The strength of Paoli increasing, and the English preparing to assist
him, Corsica became no longer a safe or convenient residence for the
Buonaparte family. Indeed, both Napoleon and his brother Joseph, who had
distinguished themselves as partisans of the French, were subjected to a
decree of banishment from their native island; and Madame Buonaparte,
with two of her daughters, set sail under their protection, and settled
for a time, first at Nice, and afterwards at Marseilles, where the
family remained in obscurity, until the dawning prospects of Napoleon
afforded him the means of assisting them.
One small fountain at Ajaccio is pointed out as the only ornament which,
in after days, his bounty bestowed on his birth-place.[33] He might
perhaps think it impolitic to do any thing which might remind the
country he ruled that he was not a child of her soil, nay, was in fact
very near having been born an alien, for Corsica was not united to, or
made an integral part of France, until June 1769, a few weeks only
before Napoleon's birth. This stigma was repeatedly cast upon him by
his opponents, some of whom reproached the French with having adopted a
master, from a country from which the ancient Romans were unwilling even
to choose a slave; and Napoleon may have been so far sensible to it, as
to avoid showing any predilection to the place of his birth, which might
bring the circumstance strongly under observation of the great nation,
with which he and his family seemed to be indissolubly united. But as a
traveller already quoted, and who had the best opportunities to become
acquainted with the feelings of the proud islanders, has expressed
it,--"The Corsicans are still highly patriotic, and possess strong local
attachment--in their opinion, contempt for the country of one's birth is
never to be redeemed by any other qualities. Napoleon, therefore,
certainly was not popular in Corsica, nor is his memory cherished
there."[34]
The feelings of the parties were not unnatural on either side. Napoleon,
little interested in the land of his birth, and having such an immense
stake in that of his adoption, in which he had every thing to keep and
lose,[35] observed a policy towards Corsica which his position rendered
advisable; and who can blame the high-spirited islanders, who, seeing
one of their countrymen raised to such exalted eminence, and disposed to
forget his connexion with them, returned with slight and indifference
the disregard with which he treated them?
On his return from Corsica, Buonaparte had arrived at Nice, and was
preparing to join his regiment, when General Degear, who commanded the
artillery of "the army of Italy," then encamped round the city, required
his services, and employed him in several delicate operations. Shortly
after, the insurrection of Marseilles broke out--a movement consequent
upon the arrest of the leaders of the Girondist party in the Convention,
on the first Prairial (31st May;) and which extended with violence into
the departments. The insurgents of Marseilles organized a force of six
thousand men, with which they took possession of Avignon, and thereby
intercepted the communications of the army of Italy. The
general-in-chief being much embarrassed by this circumstance, sent
Buonaparte to the insurgents, to try to induce them to let the convoys
pass. In July he went to Marseilles and Avignon, had interviews with the
leaders, convinced them that it was their own interest not to excite the
resentment of the army of Italy, and in fine secured the transit of the
convoys.
During his residence at Marseilles, when sent to the insurgents, having,
he says, an opportunity of observing all the weakness and incoherence of
their means of resistance, he drew up a little pamphlet, which he called
"_Le Souper de Beaucaire_," and which he published in that city. "He
endeavoured," he says, "to open the eyes of these frantic people, and
predicted that the only result of their revolt would be to furnish a
pretext to the men of blood of the day, for sending the principal
persons amongst them to the scaffold." "It produced," he adds, "a very
powerful effect, and contributed to calm the agitation which
prevailed."[36] During these proceedings Toulon had surrendered to the
English. Buonaparte was ordered on service to the siege of that town,
and joined the army on the 12th of September.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There was an absurd debate about the spelling of the name, which
became, as trifles often do, a sort of party question. Buonaparte had
disused the superfluous _u_, which his father retained in the name, and
adopted a more modern spelling. This was represented on one side as an
attempt to bring his name more nearly to the French idiom; and, as if it
had been a matter of the last moment, the vowel was obstinately replaced
in the name, by a class of writers who deemed it politic not to permit
the successful general to relinquish the slightest mark of his Italian
extraction, which was in every respect impossible for him either to
conceal or to deny, even if he had nourished such an idea. In his
baptismal register, his name is spelled Napoleone Bonaparte, though the
father subscribes, Carlo Buonaparte. The spelling seems to have been
quite indifferent.--S.--"During Napoleon's first campaign in Italy, he
dropped the _u_. In this change he had no other motive than to
assimilate the orthography to the pronunciation, and to abbreviate his
signature."--BOURRIENNE, tom. i., p. 3.
[2] The book alluded to is entitled "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto
l'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco de Roma dell anno 1527, scritto
da Jacopo Buonaparte, gentiluomo Samminiatese, chi vi si trovò
presente." In 1568, a Giuseppe Buonaparte published a comedy, entitled
"La Vedova." Copies of both these works are in the British Museum.
[3] Paul the Fifth.
[4] "I sent Clarke to Florence as ambassador, where he employed himself
in nothing but turning over the old musty records of the place, in
search of proofs of the nobility of my family. He so plagued me with
letters upon the subject, that I was forced to bid him cease from
troubling either his head or mine with this nonsense about
nobility,--that I was the _first_ of my family."--NAPOLEON, _Voice_,
&c., vol. i., p. 401.
[5] "They were of Tuscan origin. In the middle ages they figured as
senators of the republics of Florence, San Miniato, Bologna, Sarzana,
and Treviso, and as prelates attached to the Court of Rome."--NAPOLEON,
_Memoirs_, vol. iii., y. 7.
[6] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 108.
[7] Died at Trieste, 9th August, 1820. "On accidentally reading, at St.
Helena, the account of her death, Napoleon exclaimed, 'Eliza has just
shown us the way; death, which seemed to have overlooked our family, now
begins to strike it. I shall be the next to follow her to the
grave.'"--ANTOMMARCHI, vol. i., p. 384.
[8] She died at the Borghese Palace, near Florence, 9th June, 1825.
[9] "I was quietly pursuing my studies whilst my father was struggling
against the violence of a painful agony. He died, and I had not the
consolation to close his eyes: that sad duty was reserved for Joseph,
who acquitted himself of it with all the zeal of an affectionate
son."--NAPOLEON, Antommarchi, vol. i., p. 240.
[10] "The patrimonial house of Napoleon, at present in the possession of
M. Ramolini, member of the Chamber of Deputies for the department of
Corsica, continues an object of great veneration with travellers and
military men."--BENSON'S _Corsica_, p. 4.
[11] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 120.
[12] "In my infancy I was noisy and quarrelsome, and feared nobody. I
beat one, scratched another, and made myself formidable to
all."--NAPOLEON, Antommarchi, vol. i., p. 327.
[13] Benson's Sketches of Corsica, p. 4.--S.
[14] The mother of Letitia Ramolini, wife of Carlo Buonaparte, married a
Swiss officer in the French service, named Fesch, after the death of
Letitia's father.--S.
[15] They were, many years since, communicated to the author by Messrs.
Joseph and Louis Law, brothers of General Lauriston, Buonaparte's
favourite aide-de-camp. These gentlemen, or at least Joseph, were
educated at Brienne, but at a later period than Napoleon. Their
distinguished brother was his contemporary.--S.
[16] Father Petrault was subsequently secularized, and joined the army
of Italy, where he served his pupil in the capacity of secretary. On
Buonaparte's return from Egypt, he found him a corpulent financier; but
commencing usurer, he was soon reduced to beggary. Napoleon granted him
a pension sufficient for his subsistence.--LAS CASES, vol. i., p. 119.
[17] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 120.
[18] The following is a copy of Keralio's report:--"M. de Buonaparte,
(Napoleon,) born 15th August, 1769, height four feet, ten inches, ten
lines, has finished his fourth course; of good constitution, excellent
health, of submissive character, upright, grateful, and regular in
conduct; has always been distinguished for application to the
mathematics. He is tolerably well acquainted with history and geography;
he is deficient in the ornamental branches, and in Latin, in which he
has only completed his fourth course. He will make an excellent sailor:
he deserves to pass to the military school at Paris."--M. de Keralio, a
highly accomplished man, who had been tutor in the royal family of
Bavaria, died in 1793.
[19] "Paoli often patted me on the head, saying, 'You are one of
Plutarch's men.' He divined that I should be something
extraordinary."--NAPOLEON, _Voice_, &c., vol. i., p. 251.
[20] "This story, though incorrect as to Napoleon, was true as to one of
his comrades, Dupont de Chambon."--ARNOULT, _Vie de Napoleon_, p. 3.
[21] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 129. A copy of the Essay had, however, been
taken by his brother Louis. It was published in 1826 by Gourgaud.
[22] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 135.
[23] A copy of this letter is given in the Appendix, No. I. A few months
after it was written, Paoli, in consequence of Mirabeau's motion for the
recall of the Corsican exiles, left England for Corsica.
[24] Las Cases, vol. ii., p. 345.
[25] "This passage is not correct. I recollect very well, that, on my
account, a larger and more commodious apartment was assigned to my
brother than to the other officers of the same rank. I had a good
chamber and an excellent bed. My brother directed my studies, but I had
proper masters, even in literature."--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 26.
[26] Norvins, tom. i., p. 19.
[27] The letter to Buttafuoco is a diatribe against that Corsican
nobleman, who had been, during the wars with France, a strong opponent
of the liberties of his country. He had been, of course, the enemy of
the family of Paoli, to which Napoleon at this time was warmly attached.
We have preserved the composition entire, because, though the matter be
uninteresting, the rough and vivid style of invective is singularly
characteristic of the fiery youth, whose bosom one of his teachers
compared to a volcano surcharged with molten granite, which it poured
forth in torrents, whenever his passions were excited.--See Appendix,
No. II.
[28] See _ante_, vol. i., p. 163; Las Cases, vol. iii., p. 143; and
Bourrienne, tom. i., p. 48.
[29] La Combe Saint Michel was afterwards employed by Napoleon in Italy,
Spain, and Germany. He died in 1812.
[30] During the reign of Joseph, he was appointed minister of police at
Naples, where he died in 1809.
[31] Napoleon, Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 51.
[32] Such is the report of the Corsicans concerning the alleged first
exploit of their celebrated countryman. See Benson's _Sketches_, p. 4.
But there is room to believe that Buonaparte had been in action so early
as February, 1793. Admiral Truguet, with a strong fleet, and having on
board a large body of troops, had been at anchor for several weeks in
the Corsican harbours, announcing a descent upon Sardinia. At length,
having received on board an additional number of forces, he set sail on
his expedition. Buonaparte is supposed to have accompanied the admiral,
of whose talent and judgment he is made in the Saint Helena MSS., to
speak with great contempt. Buonaparte succeeded in taking some batteries
in the straits of Saint Bonifacio; but the expedition proving
unsuccessful, they were speedily abandoned.--S.--For an account of the
expedition to Sardinia, see _Napoleon's Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 5.
[33] "As you quit the town, the first object that presents itself is a
little fountain on the left, which, except the pavement of the quay, is
the only public work of Buonaparte, for the place of his
birth."--BENSON.
[34] Benson's Sketches of Corsica, p. 121.--S.
[35] Not literally, however; for it is worth mentioning, that when he
was in full-blown possession of his power, an inheritance fell to the
family, situated near Ajaccio, and was divided amongst them. The First
Consul, or Emperor, received an olive garden as his share.--_Sketches of
Corsica._--S.
[36] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 14.--Nothing can be more inaccurate than
to term the _Souper de Beaucaire_ a Jacobin pamphlet, although it is
unquestionably written to urge the Federalists to submit to their
inevitable fate, and avert extremity by doing so in time. The work is
nearly free from the cant language of the day. There is no mention of
liberty, equality, fraternity, or the rights of man, &c.--no abstract
discussion of political principles. The whole merits of the dispute
betwixt Paris and the departments are hurried over with little or no
argument. Buonaparte urges the Marseillois to submission, not because
the principles which dictated their insurrection were erroneous, but
because they had not means to maintain successful resistance; not
because they had been confuted by the Jacobins in argument, but because
they were unequal to the task of contending with them by force. In after
time, however, he called in and destroyed every copy of the _Souper de
Beaucaire_ which could be found, so that only one remained, from which
the recent reprint of Monsieur Pancoucke has been executed.--S.--As
remarkable specimens of Napoleon's easy style and habits of thinking,
the opening and closing parts of this pamphlet are given, translated
into English, in No. III. of the Appendix to this volume.
CHAPTER II.
_Siege of Toulon--Recapitulation--Buonaparte appointed to the
Command of the Artillery at Toulon--Finds every thing in
disorder--His plan for obtaining the Surrender of the
Place--Adopted--Anecdotes during the Siege--Allied troops
resolve to evacuate Toulon--Dreadful Particulars of the
Evacuation--England censured on this occasion--Lord
Lynedoch--Fame of Buonaparte increases, and he is appointed
Chief of Battalion in the Army of Italy--Joins Headquarters at
Nice--On the Fall of Robespierre, Buonaparte superseded in
command--Arrives in Paris in May, 1795, to solicit
employment--He is unsuccessful--Retrospect of the Proceedings of
the National Assembly--Difficulties in forming a new
Constitution--Appointment of the Directory--of the Two Councils
of Elders and of Five Hundred--Nation at large, and Paris in
particular, disgusted with their pretensions--Paris assembles in
Sections--General Danican appointed their
Commander-in-Chief--Menou appointed by the Directory to disarm
the National Guards--but suspended for incapacity--Buonaparte
appointed in his room--The Day of the Sections--Conflict betwixt
the Troops of the Convention under Buonaparte, and those of the
Sections of Paris under Danican--The latter defeated with much
slaughter--Buonaparte appointed Second in Command of the Army of
the Interior--then General-in-Chief--Marries Madame
Beauharnais--Her Character--Buonaparte immediately afterwards
joins the Army of Italy._
[Sidenote: SIEGE OF TOULON.]
The siege of Toulon was the first incident of importance, which enabled
Buonaparte to distinguish himself in the eyes of the French Government,
and of the world at large.
Buonaparte's professional qualifications were still better vouched than
the soundness of his political principles, though these were
sufficiently decided. The notes which the inspectors of the Military
School always preserve concerning their scholars, described his genius
as being of the first order; and to these he owed his promotion to the
rank of a lieutenant-colonel of artillery, with the command of the
artillery during this siege.
We have already mentioned that a general diffidence, and dread of the
proceedings of the Jacobins, joined to the intrigues of the Girondists,
had, after the fall of the latter party, induced several of the
principal towns in France to take arms against the Convention, or rather
against the Jacobin party, who had attained the complete mastery in that
body. We have also said that Toulon, taking a more decided step than
either Marseilles or Lyons, had declared for the King and the
Constitution of 1791, and invited the support of the English and Spanish
squadrons, who were cruising upon the coast. A disembarkation was made,
and a miscellaneous force, hastily collected, of Spaniards, Sardinians,
Neapolitans, and English, was thrown into the place.
This was one of the critical periods when vigorous measures, on the part
of the allies, might have produced marked effects on the result of the
war. Toulon is the arsenal of France, and contained at that time immense
naval stores, besides a fleet of seventeen sail of the line ready for
sea, and thirteen or fourteen more, which stood in need of refitting.
The possession of it was of the last importance, and with a sufficiently
large garrison, or rather an army strong enough to cover the more
exposed points without the town, the English might have maintained their
footing at Toulon, as they did at a later period both at Lisbon and
Cadiz. The sea would, by maintaining the defensive lines necessary to
protect the roadstead, have been entirely at the command of the
besieged; and they could have been supplied with provisions in any
quantity from Sicily, or the Barbary States, while the besiegers would
have experienced great difficulty, such was the dearth in Provence at
the time, in supporting their own army. But to have played this bold
game, the presence of an army, instead of a few battalions, would have
been requisite; and a general of consummate ability must have held the
chief command. This was the more especially necessary, as Toulon, from
the nature of the place, must have been defended by a war of posts,
requiring peculiar alertness, sagacity, and vigilance. On the other
hand, there were circumstances very favourable for the defence, had it
been conducted with talent and vigour. In order to invest Toulon on the
right and left side at once, it was necessary there should be two
distinct blockading armies; and these could scarce communicate with each
other, as a steep ridge of mountains, called Pharon, must interpose
betwixt them. This gave opportunity to the besieged to combine their
force, and choose the object of attack when they sallied; while, on the
other hand, the two bodies of besiegers could not easily connect their
operations, either for attack or defence.
Lord Mulgrave,[37] who commanded personally in the place,
notwithstanding the motley character of the garrison, and other
discouraging circumstances, began the defence with spirit. Sir George
Keith Elphinstone[38] also defeated the Republicans at the mountain
pass, called Ollioules. The English for some time retained possession of
this important gorge, but were finally driven out from it. Cartaux, a
republican general whom we have already mentioned,[39] now advanced on
the west of Toulon, at the head of a very considerable army, while
General Lapoype blockaded the city on the east, with a part of the army
of Italy. It was the object of the French to approach Toulon on both
sides of the mountainous ridge, called Pharon. But on the east the town
was covered by the strong and regular fort of La Malgue, and on the west
side of the road by a less formidable work, called Malbosquet. To
support Malbosquet, and to protect the entrance to the roadstead and
harbour, the English engineers fortified with great skill an eminence,
called Hauteur de Grasse. The height bent into a sort of bay, the two
promontories of which were secured by redoubts, named L'Eguillette and
Balagnier, which communicated with and supported the new fortification,
which the English had termed Fort Mulgrave.
Several sallies and skirmishes took place, in most of which the
Republicans were worsted. Lieutenant-General O'Hara arrived from
Gibraltar with reinforcements, and assumed the chief command.
Little could be said for the union of the commanders within Toulon; yet
their enterprises were so far successful, that the French began to be
alarmed at the slow progress of the siege. The dearth of provisions was
daily increasing, the discontent of the people of Provence was
augmented; the Catholics were numerous in the neighbouring districts of
Vivarais and Lower Languedoc; and Barras and Fréron wrote from
Marseilles [Dec. 1] to the Convention, suggesting that the siege of
Toulon should be raised, and the besieging army withdrawn beyond the
Durance.[40] But while weaker minds were despairing, talents of the
first order were preparing to achieve the conquest of Toulon.
When Napoleon arrived at the scene of action, and had visited the posts
of the besieging army, he found so many marks of incapacity, that he
could not conceal his astonishment. Batteries had been erected for
destroying the English shipping, but they were three gun-shots' distance
from the point which they were designed to command; red-hot balls were
preparing, but they were not heated in furnaces beside the guns, but in
the country-houses in the neighbourhood at the most ridiculous distance,
as if they had been articles of easy and ordinary transportation.
Buonaparte with difficulty obtained General Cartaux's permission to make
a shot or two by way of experiment; and when they fell more than
half-way short of the mark, the general had no excuse but to rail
against the aristocrats, who had, he said, spoiled the quality of the
powder with which he was supplied.[41]
The young officer of artillery, with prudence, and at the same time with
spirit, made his remonstrances to the member of Convention,
Gasparin,[42] who witnessed the experiment, and explained the necessity
of proceeding more systematically, if any successful result was
expected.
At a council of war, where Gasparin presided, the instructions of the
Committee of Public Safety were read, directing that the siege of Toulon
should be commenced according to the usual forms, by investing the body
of the place, in other words, the city itself. The orders of the
Committee of Public Safety were no safe subject of discussion or
criticism for those who were to act under them; yet Buonaparte ventured
to recommend their being departed from on this important occasion. His
comprehensive genius had at once discovered a less direct, yet more
certain manner, of obtaining the surrender of the place. He advised,
that, neglecting the body of the town, the attention of the besiegers
should be turned to attain possession of the promontory called Hauteur
de Grasse, by driving the besiegers from the strong work of fort
Mulgrave, and the two redoubts of L'Eguillette and Balagnier, by means
of which the English had established the line of defence necessary to
protect the fleet and harbour. The fortress of Malbosquet, on the same
point, he also recommended as a principal object of attack. He argued,
that if the besiegers succeeded in possessing themselves of these
fortifications, they must obtain a complete command of the roads where
the English fleet lay, and oblige them to put to sea. They would, in the
same manner, effectually command the entrance of the bay, and prevent
supplies or provisions from being thrown into the city. If the garrison
were thus in danger of being totally cut off from supplies by their
vessels being driven from their anchorage, it was natural to suppose
that the English troops would rather evacuate Toulon, than remain within
the place, blockaded on all sides, until they might be compelled to
surrender by famine.
The plan was adopted by the council of war after much hesitation, and
the young officer by whom it was projected received full powers to carry
it on. He rallied round him a number of excellent artillery officers and
soldiers; assembled against Toulon more than two hundred pieces of
cannon, well served; and stationed them so advantageously, that he
annoyed considerably the English vessels in the roads, even before he
had constructed those batteries on which he depended for reducing forts
Mulgrave and Malbosquet, by which they were in a great measure
protected.
In the meanwhile, General Doppet, formerly a physician, had superseded
Cartaux, whose incapacity could no longer be concealed by his
rhodomontading language; and, wonderful to tell, it had nearly been the
fate of the ex-doctor to take Toulon, at a time when such an event
seemed least within his calculation. A tumultuary attack of some of the
young French Carmagnoles on a body of Spanish troops which garrisoned
fort Mulgrave, had very nearly been successful. Buonaparte galloped to
the spot, hurrying his reluctant commander along with him, and succours
were ordered to advance to support the attack, when an aide-de-camp was
shot by Doppet's side; on which the medical general, considering this as
a bad symptom, pronounced the case desperate, and, to Buonaparte's great
indignation, ordered a retreat to be commenced. Doppet being found as
incapable as Cartaux, was in his turn superseded by Dugommier, a veteran
who had served for fifty years, was covered with scars, and as fearless
as the weapon he wore.
From this time the commandant of artillery, having the complete
concurrence of his general, had no doubt of success. To ensure it,
however, he used the utmost vigilance and exertion, and exposed his
person to every risk.
One of the dangers which he incurred was of a singular character. An
artilleryman being shot at the gun which he was serving, while Napoleon
was visiting a battery, he took up the dead man's rammer, and, to give
encouragement to the soldiers, charged the gun repeatedly with his own
hands. In consequence of using this implement he caught an infectious
cutaneous complaint, which, being injudiciously treated and thrown
inward, was of great prejudice to his health until after his Italian
campaigns, when he was completely cured by Dr. Corvissart; after which,
for the first time, he showed that tendency to _embonpoint_ which marked
the latter part of his life.[43]
Upon another occasion, while Napoleon was overlooking the construction
of a battery, which the enemy endeavoured to interrupt by their fire, he
called for some person who could write, that he might dictate an order.
A young soldier stepped out of the ranks, and resting the paper on the
breast-work, began to write accordingly. A shot from the enemy's battery
covered the letter with earth the instant it was finished. "Thank
you--we shall have no occasion for sand this bout," said the military
secretary. The gaiety and courage of the remark drew Buonaparte's
attention on the young man, who was the celebrated General Junot,
afterwards created Duke D'Abrantes.[44] During this siege, also, he
discovered the talents of Duroc, afterwards one of his most faithful
adherents. In these and many other instances, Buonaparte showed his
extensive knowledge of mankind, by the deep sagacity which enabled him
to discover and attach to him those whose talents were most capable of
rendering him service.
Notwithstanding the influence which the commandant of artillery had
acquired, he found himself occasionally thwarted by the members of the
Convention upon mission to the siege of Toulon, who latterly were
Fréron, Ricord, Salicetti, and the younger Robespierre. These
representatives of the people, knowing that their commission gave them
supreme power over generals and armies, never seem to have paused to
consider whether nature or education had qualified them to exercise it,
with advantage to the public and credit to themselves. They criticized
Buonaparte's plan of attack, finding it impossible to conceive how his
operations, being directed against detached fortifications at a distance
from Toulon, could be eventually the means of placing the town itself
with facility in their hands. But Napoleon was patient and temporizing;
and having the good opinion of Salicetti, and some intimacy with young
Robespierre, he contrived to have the works conducted according to his
own plan.
The presumption of these dignitaries became the means of precipitating
his operations. It was his intention to complete his proposed works
against fort Mulgrave before opening a large and powerful battery, which
he had constructed with great silence and secrecy against Malbosquet, so
that the whole of his meditated assault might confound the enemy by
commencing at the same time. The operations being shrouded by an olive
plantation, had been completed without being observed by the English,
whom Buonaparte proposed to attack on the whole line of defence
simultaneously. Messrs. Fréron and Robespierre, however, in visiting the
military posts, stumbled upon this masked battery; and having no notion
why four mortars and eight twenty-four pounders should remain inactive,
they commanded the fire to be opened on Malbosquet without any farther
delay.
General O'Hara, confounded at finding this important post exposed to a
fire so formidable and unexpected, determined by a strong effort to
carry the French battery at once. Three thousand men[45] were employed
in this sally; and the general himself, rather contrary to what is
considered the duty of the governor of a place of importance, resolved
to put himself at their head. The sally was at first completely
successful; but while the English pursued the enemy too far, in all the
confidence of what they considered as assured victory, Buonaparte
availed himself of some broken ground and a covered way, to rally a
strong body of troops, bring up reserves, and attack the scattered
English both in flank and rear. There was a warm skirmish, in which
Napoleon himself received a bayonet wound in the thigh, by which, though
a serious injury, he was not, however, disabled. The English were thrown
into irretrievable confusion, and retreated, leaving their general
wounded, and a prisoner in the hands of the enemy. It is singular, that
during his long warfare, Buonaparte was never personally engaged with
the British, except in his first, and at Waterloo, his last and fatal
battle. The attack upon Acre can scarce be termed an exception, as far
as his own person was concerned.
The loss of their commandant, added to the discouragement which began to
prevail among the defenders of Toulon, together with the vivacity of the
attack which ensued, seem finally to have disheartened the garrison.
Five batteries were opened on fort Mulgrave, the possession of which
Buonaparte considered as ensuring success. After a fire of twenty-four
hours, Dugommier and Napoleon resolved to try the fate of a general
attack, for which the representatives of the people showed no particular
zeal. The attacking columns advanced before day, during a heavy shower
of rain. They were at first driven back on every point by the most
determined opposition; and Dugommier, as he saw the troops fly in
confusion, exclaimed, well knowing the consequences of bad success to a
general of the Republic, "I am a lost man!"[46] Renewed efforts,
however, at last prevailed; the Spanish artillerymen giving way on one
point, the fort fell [Dec. 18] into the possession of the French, who
showed no mercy to its defenders.[47]
Three hours, according to Buonaparte, after the fort was taken, the
representatives of the people appeared in the trenches, with drawn
swords, to congratulate the soldiers on their successful valour, and
hear from their commandant of artillery, the reiterated assurance, that,
this distant fort being gained, Toulon was now their own. In their
letter to the Convention, the deputies gave a more favourable account of
their own exploits, and failed not to represent Ducos, Salicetti, and
young Robespierre, as leading the attack with sabre in hand, and, to use
their own phrase, showing the troops the road to victory.[48] On the
other hand, they ungraciously forgot, in their despatches, to mention
so much as the name of Buonaparte, to whom the victory was entirely to
be ascribed.[49]
[Sidenote: EVACUATION OF TOULON.]
In the meantime, Napoleon's sagacity was not deceived in the event. The
officers of the allied troops, after a hurried council of war, resolved
to evacuate Toulon, since the posts gained by the French must drive the
English ships from their anchorage, and deprive them of a future
opportunity of retreating, if they neglected the passing moment. Lord
Hood alone urged a bolder resolution, and recommended the making a
desperate effort to regain fort Mulgrave, and the heights which it
commanded. But his spirited counsel was rejected, and the evacuation
resolved on;[50] which the panic of the foreign troops, especially the
Neapolitans, would have rendered still more horrible than it proved, but
for the steadiness of the British seamen.
The safety of the unfortunate citizens, who had invoked their
protection, was not neglected even amid the confusion of the retreat.
The numerous merchant vessels and other craft, offered means of
transportation to all, who, having to fear the resentment of the
Republicans, might be desirous of quitting Toulon. Such was the dread of
the victors' cruelty, that upwards of fourteen thousand persons accepted
this melancholy refuge.[51] Meantime there was other work to do.
It had been resolved, that the arsenal and naval stores, with such of
the French ships as were not ready for sea, should be destroyed; and
they were set on fire accordingly. This task was in a great measure
intrusted to the dauntless intrepidity of Sir Sydney Smith, who carried
it through with a degree of order, which, everything considered, was
almost marvellous. The assistance of the Spaniards was offered and
accepted; and they undertook the duty of scuttling and sinking two
vessels used as powder magazines, and destroying some part of the
disabled shipping. The rising conflagration growing redder and redder,
seemed at length a great volcano, amid which were long distinctly seen
the masts and yards of the burning vessels, and which rendered obscurely
visible the advancing bodies of Republican troops, who attempted on
different points to push their way into the place. The Jacobins began to
rise in the town upon the flying Royalists;--horrid screams and yells of
vengeance, and revolutionary chorusses, were heard to mingle with the
cries and plaintive entreaties of the remaining fugitives, who had not
yet found means of embarkation. The guns from Malbosquet, now possessed
by the French, and turned on the bulwarks of the town, increased the
uproar. At once a shock, like that of an earthquake, occasioned by the
explosion of many hundred barrels of gunpowder, silenced all noise save
its own, and threw high into the midnight heaven a thousand blazing
fragments, which descended, threatening ruin wherever they fell. A
second explosion took place, as the other magazine blew up, with the
same dreadful effects.
This tremendous addition to the terrors of the scene, so dreadful in
itself, was owing to the Spaniards setting fire to those vessels used as
magazines, instead of sinking them, according to the plan which had been
agreed upon. Either from ill-will, carelessness, or timidity, they were
equally awkward in their attempts to destroy the dismantled ships
intrusted to their charge, which fell into the hands of the French but
little damaged. The British fleet, with the flotilla crowded with
fugitives which it escorted, left Toulon without loss, notwithstanding
an ill-directed fire maintained on them from the batteries which the
French had taken.
It was upon this night of terror, conflagration, tears, and blood, that
the star of Napoleon first ascended the horizon; and though it gleamed
over many a scene of horror ere it set, it may be doubtful whether its
light was ever blended with those of one more dreadful.
The capture of Toulon crushed all the hopes of resistance to the
Jacobins, which had been cherished in the south of France. There was a
strong distrust excited against England, who was judged only desirous to
avail herself of the insurrection of these unhappy citizens to cripple
and destroy the naval power of France, without the wish of effectually
assisting the Royalists. This was an unjust belief, but it cannot be
denied that there were specious grounds for the accusation. The
undertaking the protection of a city in such a situation as that of
Toulon, if the measure was embraced at all, should have been supported
by efforts worthy of the country whose assistance was implored and
granted. Such efforts were not made, and the assistance actually
afforded was not directed by talent, and was squandered by disunion. The
troops showed gallantry; but the leaders, excepting the naval officers,
evinced little military skill, or united purpose of defence. One
gentleman, then in private life, chancing to be in Toulon at the time,
distinguished himself as a volunteer,[52] and has since achieved a proud
career in the British army. Had he, or such as he, been at the head of
the garrison, the walls of Toulon might have seen a battle like that of
Barossa, and a very different result of the siege might probably have
ensued.
So many of the citizens of Toulon concerned in the late resistance had
escaped, by the means provided by the English, that Republican vengeance
could not collect its victims in the usual numbers.[53] Many were shot,
however, and it has been said that Buonaparte commanded the artillery,
by which, as at Lyons, they were exterminated; and also that he wrote a
letter to Fréron and the younger Robespierre, congratulating them and
himself on the execution of these aristocrats, and signed Brutus
Buonaparte, Sans-Culotte. If he actually commanded at this execution, he
had the poor apology, that he must do so or himself perish; but, had the
fact and the letter been genuine, there has been enough of time since
his downfall to prove the truth of the accusation, and certainly enough
of writers disposed to give these proofs publicity. He himself
positively denied the charge; and alleged that the victims were shot by
a detachment of what was called the Revolutionary Army, and not by
troops of the line.[54] This we think highly probable. Buonaparte has
besides affirmed, that far from desiring to sharpen the vengeance of the
Jacobins, or act as their agent, he hazarded the displeasure of those
whose frown was death, by interposing his protection to save the
unfortunate family of Chabrillan, emigrants and aristocrats, who, being
thrown by a storm on the coast of France, shortly after the siege of
Toulon, became liable to punishment by the guillotine, but whom he saved
by procuring them the means of escape by sea.[55]
In the meanwhile, the young general of artillery was rapidly rising in
reputation. The praises which were suppressed by the representatives of
the people, were willingly conferred and promulgated by the frank old
veteran, Dugommier. Buonaparte's name was placed on the list of those
whom he recommended for promotion, with the pointed addition, that if
neglected, he would be sure to force his own way.[56] He was accordingly
confirmed in his provisional situation of chief of battalion, and
appointed [March] to hold that rank in the army of Italy. Before joining
that army, the genius of Napoleon was employed by the Convention in
surveying and fortifying the sea-coast of the Mediterranean; a very
troublesome task, as it involved many disputes with the local
authorities of small towns and villages, and even hamlets, all of whom
wished to have batteries erected for their own special protection,
without regard to the general safety. It involved him, moreover, as we
shall presently see, in some risk with the Convention at home.
The chief of battalion discharged his task scientifically. He divided
the necessary fortifications into three classes, distinguishing those
designed to protect harbours and roadsteads, from such as were intended
to defend anchorages of less consequence, and both from the third class,
which were to be placed on proper situations, to prevent insults and
partial descents on the coast by an enemy superior at sea. Napoleon
dictated to General Gourgaud[57] hints on this subject, which must be of
consequence to the sea-coasts which need such military defences.[58]
Having made his report to the Convention, Buonaparte proceeded to join
the headquarters of the French army, then lying at Nice, straitened
considerably and hemmed in by the Sardinians and Austrians, who, after
some vain attempts of General Brunet[59] to dislodge them, had remained
masters of the Col de Tende, and lower passes of the Alps, together with
the road leading from Turin to Nice by Saorgio.
[Sidenote: SAORGIO.]
Buonaparte had influence enough to recommend with success to the
general, Dumerbion,[60] and the representatives of the people, Ricord
and Robespierre, a plan for driving the enemy out of this position,
forcing them to retreat beyond the higher Alps, and taking Saorgio; all
which measures succeeded as he had predicted.[61] Saorgio surrendered,
[April 29,] with much stores and baggage, and the French army obtained
possession of the chain of the higher Alps, which, being tenable by
defending few and difficult passes, placed a great part of the army of
Italy, (as it was already termed, though only upon the frontier,) at
disposal for actual service.[62]
While directing the means of attaining these successes, Buonaparte, at
the same time, acquired a complete acquaintance with that Alpine
country, in which he was shortly to obtain victories in his own name,
not in that of others, who obtained reputation by acting on his
suggestions. But, while he was thus employed, he was involved in an
accusation before the Convention, which, had his reputation been less
for approved patriotism, might have cost him dear.
In his plans for the defence of the Mediterranean, Napoleon had proposed
repairing an old state prison at Marseilles, called fort Saint Nicholas,
that it might serve as a powder Magazine. This plan his successor on the
station proceeded to execute, and by doing so, gave umbrage to the
patriots, who charged the commandant of artillery then at Marseilles,
and superintending the work, with an intention to rebuild this fort, to
serve as a Bastile for controlling the good citizens. The officer being
summoned to the bar of the Convention, proved that the plan was not his
own, but drawn out by Buonaparte. The representatives of the army in
Italy, however, not being able to dispense with his services, wrote to
the Convention in his behalf, and gave such an account of the origin and
purpose of the undertaking, as divested it of all shade of suspicion
even in the suspicious eye of the Committee of Public Safety.[63]
In the remainder of the year 1794, there was little service of
consequence in the army of Italy, and the 9th and 10th Thermidor (27th
and 28th July) of that year, brought the downfall of Robespierre, and
threatened unfavourable consequences to Buonaparte, who had been in
close communication with the tyrant's brother, and was understood to
have participated in the tone of exaggerated patriotism affected by his
party. He endeavoured to shelter himself under his ignorance of the real
tendency of the proceedings of those who had fallen,--an apology which
resolves itself into the ordinary excuse, that he found his late friends
had not been the persons he took them for. According to this line of
defence, he made all haste to disclaim accession to the political
schemes of which they were accused. "I am somewhat affected," he wrote
to a correspondent,[64] "at the fate of the younger Robespierre; but,
had he been my brother, I would have poniarded him with my own hand, had
I been aware that he was forming schemes of tyranny."
Buonaparte's disclamations do not seem at first to have been favourably
received. His situation was now precarious; and when those members were
restored to the Convention, who had been expelled and proscribed by the
Jacobins, it became still more so. The reaction of the moderate party,
accompanied by horrible recollections of the past, and fears for the
future, began now to be more strongly felt, as their numbers in the
Convention acquired strength. Those officers who had attached themselves
to the Jacobin party, were the objects of their animosity; and, besides,
they were desirous to purify the armies, as far as possible, of those
whom they considered as their own enemies, and those of good order; the
rather, that the Jacobinical principles still continued to be more
favoured in the armies than in the interior. To the causes of this we
have before alluded; but it may not be unnecessary to repeat, that the
soldiers had experienced all the advantages of the fierce energies of a
government which sent them out to conquest, and offered them the means
of achieving it; and they had not been witnesses to the atrocities of
their tyranny in the interior.
Before the downfall of Robespierre took place, Buonaparte had received
regular but secret instructions to examine the fortifications of Genoa.
M. Ricord, by whom these instructions had been signed, having now been
superseded, and the younger Robespierre guillotined, Albitte, Salicetti,
and Laporte, the new superintendents of the army of Italy, were pleased
to suspect that Buonaparte had engaged in some plot of betraying Genoa
to the enemy: he was arrested accordingly early in August; but his
papers effectually established his innocence, and after the lapse of a
fortnight he was released.[65]
In March 1795, he was sent to Toulon to take the command of the
artillery in an expedition destined against Rome; but this scheme was
not persevered in. During his visit to Toulon, however, he had the
opportunity of saving from the violence of the populace, a party of
unfortunate emigrants, including the noble family of Chabrillant, who
had been landed from a Spanish prize. His influence with some cannoneers
who had served under him during the siege, enabled him to rescue these
individuals; and he unhesitatingly did so, though at considerable risk
to himself. On his rejoining the troops in the Maritime Alps, near the
end of March, he found the army about to be altered in some parts of its
organization, and placed under the command of General Kellermann. A
recent arrangement had recalled to the service many officers of high
rank who had of late been unemployed; and he, as the youngest on the
list of generals, could not only not be allowed to retain his command of
the artillery in the army of Kellermann, but was removed to the
infantry. He repaired therefore to Paris, with the view of soliciting
professional employment elsewhere, and especially of remonstrating
against his permanent removal from the branch of the service in which he
had spent so many years. On his way to the capital he visited his mother
at Marseilles, and found his brother Joseph respectably married in that
city.
On reaching Paris in May, he found his pretensions thwarted by Aubry,
the President of the Military Committee, who was disposed to treat with
little attention his statement respecting the siege of Toulon, and his
two years of successful service in the army of Italy. When, in the heat
of discussion, Aubry objected his youth, Buonaparte replied, that
presence in the field of battle ought to anticipate the claim of years.
The president, who had not been much in action, considered his reply as
a personal insult; and Napoleon, disdaining farther answer, tendered his
resignation.[66] It was not, however, accepted; and he still remained in
the rank of expectants, but among those whose hopes were entirely
dependent upon their merits.[67]
It may be observed that, at a subsequent period, Aubry, being among
those belonging to Pichegru's party who were banished to Cayenne, was
excepted from the decree which permitted the return of those unfortunate
exiles, and died at Demerara.
Meantime, his situation becoming daily more unpleasant, Buonaparte
solicited Barras and Fréron, who, as Thermidoriens, had preserved their
credit, for occupation in almost any line of his profession, and even
negotiated for permission to go into the Turkish service, to train the
Mussulmans to the use of artillery. A fanciful imagination may pursue
him to the rank of pacha, or higher; for, go where he would, he could
not have remained in mediocrity. His own ideas had a similar tendency.
"How strange," he said, "it would be, if a little Corsican officer of
artillery were to become King of Jerusalem!" He was offered a command in
La Vendée, which he declined to accept, and was finally named to command
a brigade of artillery in Holland. But it was in a land where there
still existed so many separate and conflicting factions, as in France,
that he was doomed to be raised, amid the struggles of his contending
countrymen, and upon their shoulders and over their heads, to the very
highest eminence to which fortune can exalt an individual. The times
required such talents as his, and the opportunity for exercising them
soon arose.
[Sidenote: RETROSPECT.]
The French nation were in general tired of the National Convention,
which successive proscriptions had drained of all the talent, eloquence,
and energy it had once possessed; and that Assembly had become hateful
and contemptible to all men, by suffering itself to be the passive tool
of the Terrorists for two years, when, if they had shown proper
firmness, the revolution of the 9th Thermidor might as well have been
achieved at the beginning of that frightful anarchy, as after that long
period of unheard-of suffering. The Convention was not greatly improved
in point of talent, even by the return of their banished brethren; and,
in a word, they had lost the confidence of the public entirely. They
therefore prepared to gratify the general wish by dissolving themselves.
But before they resigned their ostensible authority, it was necessary to
prepare some mode of carrying on the government in future.
The Jacobin constitution of 1793 still existed on paper; but although
there was an unrepealed law, menacing with death any one who should
propose to alter that form of government, no one appeared disposed to
consider it as actually in exercise; and, notwithstanding the solemnity
with which it had been received and ratified by the sanction of the
national voice, it was actually passed over and abrogated as a matter of
course, by a tacit but unanimous consent. Neither was there any
disposition to adopt the Girondist constitution of 1791, or to revert to
the democratic monarchy of 1792, the only one of these models which
could be said to have had even the dubious endurance of a few months. As
at the general change of the world, all former things were to be done
away--all was to be made anew.
Each of these forms of government had been solemnized by the national
oaths and processions customary on such occasions; but the opinion was
now universally entertained, that not one of them was founded on just
principles, or contained the power of defending itself against
aggression, and protecting the lives and rights of the subject. On the
other hand, every one not deeply interested in the late anarchy, and
implicated in the horrid course of bloodshed and tyranny which was its
very essence, was frightened at the idea of reviving a government which
was a professed continuation of the despotism ever attendant upon a
revolution, and which, in all civilized countries, ought to terminate
with the extraordinary circumstances by which revolution has been
rendered necessary. To have continued the revolutionary government,
indeed, longer than this, would have been to have imitated the conduct
of an ignorant empiric, who should persist in subjecting a convalescent
patient to the same course of exhausting and dangerous medicines, which
a regular physician would discontinue as soon as the disease had been
brought to a favourable crisis.
It seems to have been in general felt and admitted, that the blending of
the executive and legislative power together, as both had been exercised
by the existing Convention, opened the road to the most afflicting
tyranny; and that to constitute a stable government, the power of
executing the laws, and administering the ministerial functions, must be
vested in some separate individuals, or number of individuals, who
should, indeed, be responsible to the national legislature for the
exercise of this power, but neither subject to their direct control, nor
enjoying it as emanating immediately from their body. With these
reflections arose others, on the utility of dividing the legislative
body itself into two assemblies, one of which might form a check on the
other, tending, by some exercise of an intermediate authority, to
qualify the rash rapidity of a single chamber, and obstruct the
progress of any individual, who might, like Robespierre, obtain a
dictatorship in such a body, and become, in doing so, an arbitrary
tyrant over the whole authorities of the state. Thus, loth and late, the
French began to cast an eye on the British constitution, and the system
of checks and balances upon which it is founded, as the best means of
uniting the protection of liberty with the preservation of order.
Thinking men had come gradually to be aware, that in hopes of getting
something better than a system which had been sanctioned by the
experience of ages, they had only produced a set of models, which were
successively wondered at, applauded, neglected, and broken to pieces,
instead of a simple machine, capable, in mechanical phrase, of working
well.
Had such a feeling prevailed during the commencement of the Revolution,
as was advocated by Mounier and others,[68] France and Europe might have
been spared the bloodshed and distress which afflicted them during a
period of more than twenty years of war, with all the various evils
which accompanied that great convulsion. France had then a king; nobles,
out of whom a senate might have been selected; and abundance of able men
to have formed a lower house, or house of commons. But the golden
opportunity was passed over; and when the architects might, perhaps,
have been disposed to execute the new fabric which they meditated, on
the plan of a limited monarchy, the materials for the structure were no
longer to be found.
The legitimate King of France no doubt existed, but he was an exile in a
foreign country; and the race of gentry, from whom a house of peers, or
hereditary senate, might have been chiefly selected, were to be found
only in foreign service, too much exasperated by their sufferings to
admit a rational hope that they would ever make any compromise with
those who had forced them from their native land, and confiscated their
family property. Saving for these circumstances, and the combinations
which arose out of them, it seems very likely, that at the period at
which we have now arrived, the tide, which began to set strongly against
the Jacobins, might have been adroitly turned in favour of the Bourbons.
But, though there was a general feeling of melancholy regret, which
naturally arose from comparing the peaceful days of the monarchy with
those of the Reign of Terror,--the rule of Louis the XVI. with that of
Robespierre,--the memory of former quiet and security with the more
recent recollections of blood and plunder,--still it seems to have
existed rather in the state of a predisposition to form a royal party,
than as the principle of one already existing. Fuel was lying ready to
catch the flame of loyalty, but the match had not yet been applied; and
to counteract this general tendency, there existed the most formidable
obstacles.
In the first place, we have shown already the circumstances by which
the French armies were strongly attached to the name of the Republic, in
whose cause all their wars had been waged, and all their glory won; by
whose expeditious and energetic administration the military profession
was benefited, while they neither saw nor felt the misery entailed on
the nation at large. But the French soldier had not only fought in
favour of democracy, but actively and directly against royalty. As _Vive
la République_ was his war-cry, he was in La Vendée, on the Rhine, and
elsewhere, met, encountered, and sometimes defeated and driven back, by
those who used the opposite signal-word, _Vive le Roi_. The Royalists
were, indeed, the most formidable opponents of the military part of the
French nation; and such was the animosity of the latter at this period
to the idea of returning to the ancient system, that if a general could
have been found capable of playing the part of Monk, he would probably
have experienced the fate of La Fayette and Dumouriez.
A second and almost insuperable objection to the restoration of the
Bourbons, occurred in the extensive change of property that had taken
place. If the exiled family had been recalled, they could not, at this
very recent period, but have made stipulations for their devoted
followers, and insisted that the estates forfeited in their cause,
should have been compensated or restored; and such a resumption would
have inferred ruin to all the purchasers of national demesnes, and, in
consequence, a general shock to the security of property through the
kingdom.
The same argument applied to the Church lands. The Most Christian King
could not resume his throne, without restoring the ecclesiastical
establishment in part, if not in whole. It was impossible to calculate
the mass of persons of property and wealth, with their various
connexions, who, as possessors of national demesnes, that is, of the
property of the Church, or of the emigrants, were bound by their own
interest to oppose the restoration of the Bourbon family. The
revolutionary government had followed the coarse, but striking and
deeply politic, admonition of the Scottish Reformer--"Pull down the
nests," said Knox, when he urged the multitude to destroy churches and
abbeys, "and the rooks will fly off." The French government, by
dilapidating and disposing of the property of the emigrants and clergy,
had established an almost insurmountable barrier against the return of
the original owners. The cavaliers in the great Civil War of England had
been indeed fined, sequestrated, impoverished; but their estates were
still, generally speaking, in their possession; and they retained,
though under oppression and poverty, the influence of a national
aristocracy, diminished, but not annihilated. In France, that influence
of resident proprietors had all been transferred to other hands,
tenacious in holding what property they had acquired, and determined to
make good the defence of it against those who claimed a prior right.
Lastly, the fears and conscious recollections of those who held the
chief power in France for the time, induced them to view their own
safety as deeply compromised by any proposition of restoring the exiled
royal family. This present sitting and ruling Convention had put to
death Louis XVI.,--with what hope of safety could they install his
brother on the throne? They had formally, and in full conclave,
renounced belief in the existence of a Deity--with what consistence
could they be accessory to restore a national church? Some remained
Republicans from their heart and upon conviction; and a great many more
of the deputies could not abjure democracy, without confessing at the
same time, that all the violent measures which they had carried through
for the support of that system, were so many great and treasonable
crimes.
These fears of a retributive reaction were very generally felt in the
Convention. The Thermidoriens, in particular, who had killed
Robespierre, and now reigned in his stead, had more substantial grounds
of apprehension from any counter-revolutionary movement, than even the
body of the representatives at large, many of whom had been merely
passive in scenes where Barras and Tallien had been active agents. The
timid party of The Plain might be overawed by the returning prince; and
the members of the Girondists, who could indeed scarce be said to exist
as a party, might be safely despised. But the Thermidoriens themselves
stood in a different predicament. They were of importance enough to
attract both detestation and jealousy; they held power, which must be an
object of distrust to the restored monarch; and they stood on precarious
ground, betwixt the hatred of the moderate party, who remembered them as
colleagues of Robespierre and Danton, and that of the Jacobins, who saw
in Tallien and Barras deserters of that party, and the destroyers of the
power of the Sans-Culottes. They had, therefore, just reason to fear,
that, stripped of the power which they at present possessed, they might
become the unpitied and unaided scapegoats, to expiate all the offences
of the Revolution.
Thus each favourable sentiment towards the cause of the Bourbons was
opposed; I. By their unpopularity with the armies; II. By the
apprehensions of the confusion and distress which must arise from a
general change of property; and III. By the conscious fears of those
influential persons, who conceived their own safety concerned in
sustaining the republican model.
Still, the idea of monarchy was so generally received as the simplest
and best mode of once more re-establishing good order and a fixed
government, that some statesmen proposed to resume the form, but change
the dynasty. With this view, divers persons were suggested by those, who
supposed that by passing over the legitimate heir to the crown, the
dangers annexed to his rights and claims might be avoided, and the
apprehended measures of resumption and reaction might be guarded
against. The son of the Duke of Orleans was named, but the infamy of his
father clung to him. In another wild hypothesis the Duke of York, or
the Duke of Brunswick, were suggested as fit to be named constitutional
Kings of France. The Abbé Siêyes is said to have expressed himself in
favour of the prince last named.[69]
But without regarding the wishes or opinions of the people without
doors, the Convention resolved to establish such a model of government
as should be most likely to infuse into a republic something of the
stability of a monarchical establishment; and thus repair at once former
errors, and preserve an appearance of consistency in the eyes of Europe.
[Sidenote: NEW CONSTITUTION.]
For this purpose eleven commissioners, chiefly selected amongst the
former Girondists, were appointed [April] to draw up a new Constitution
upon a new principle, which was again to receive the universal adhesion
of the French by acclamation and oath, and to fall, in a short time,
under the same neglect which had attended every preceding model. This,
it was understood, was to be so constructed, as to unite the consistency
of a monarchical government with the name and forms of a democracy.
That the system now adopted by the French commissioners might bear a
form corresponding to the destinies of the nation, and flattering to its
vanity, it was borrowed from that of the Roman republic, an attempt to
imitate which had already introduced many of the blunders and many of
the crimes of the Revolution. The executive power was lodged in a
council of five persons, termed Directors, to whom were to be consigned
the conduct of peace and war, the execution of the laws, and the general
administration of the government. They were permitted no share of the
legislative authority.
This arrangement was adopted to comply with the jealousy of those, who,
in the individual person of a single Director, holding a situation
similar to that of the Stadtholder in Holland, or the President of the
United States, saw something too closely approaching to a monarchical
government. Indeed, it is said, Louvet warned them against establishing
such an office, by assuring them, that when they referred the choice of
the individual who was to hold it, to the nation at large, they would
see the Bourbon heir elected.[70] But the inconvenience of this
pentarchy could not be disguised; and it seemed to follow as a necessary
consequence of such a numerous executive council, either that there
would be a schism, and a minority and majority established in that
pre-eminent body of the state, where unity and vigour were chiefly
requisite, or else that some one or two of the ablest and most crafty
among the Directors would establish a supremacy over the others, and use
them less as their colleagues than their dependents. The legislators,
however, though they knew that the whole Roman empire was found
insufficient to satiate the ambition of three men, yet appeared to hope
that the concord and unanimity of their five directors might continue
unbroken, though they had but one nation to govern; and they decided
accordingly.
The executive power being thus provided for, the legislative body was to
consist of two councils; one of Elders, as it was called, serving as a
House of Lords; another of Youngers, which they termed, from its number,
the Council of Five Hundred. Both were elective, and the difference of
age was the only circumstance which placed a distinction betwixt the two
bodies. The members of the Council of Five Hundred were to be at least
twenty-five years old, a qualification which, after the seventh year of
the Republic, was to rise to thirty years complete. In this assembly
laws were to be first proposed; and, having received its approbation,
they were to be referred to the Council of Ancients. The requisites to
sit in the latter senate, were the age of forty years complete, and the
being a married man or a widower. Bachelors, though above that age, were
deemed unfit for legislation, perhaps from want of domestic experience.
The Council of Ancients had the power of rejecting the propositions laid
before them by the Council of Five Hundred, or, by adopting and
approving them, that of passing them into laws. These regulations
certainly gained one great point, in submitting each proposed
legislative enactment to two separate bodies, and of course, to mature
and deliberate consideration. It is true, that neither of the councils
had any especial character, or separate interest which could enable or
induce the Ancients, as a body, to suggest to the Five Hundred a
different principle of considering any proposed measure, from that which
was likely to occur to them in their own previous deliberation. No such
varied views, therefore, were to be expected, as must arise between
assemblies composed of persons who differ in rank or fortune, and
consequently view the same question in various and opposite lights.
Still, delay and reconsideration were attained, before the irrevocable
fiat was imposed upon any measure of consequence; and so far much was
gained. An orator was supposed to answer all objections to the system of
the two councils thus constituted, when he described that of the Juniors
as being the imagination, that of the Ancients as being the judgment of
the nation; the one designed to invent and suggest national measures,
the other to deliberate and decide upon them. This was, though liable to
many objections, an ingenious illustration indeed; but an illustration
is not an argument, though often passing current as such.
On the whole, the form of the Constitution[71] of the year Three, _i.
e._ 1795, showed a greater degree of practical efficacy, sense, and
consistency, than any of those previously suggested; and in the
introduction, though there was the usual proclamation of the rights of
man, his duties to the laws and to the social system were for the first
time enumerated in manly and forcible language, intimating the desire of
the framers of these institutions to put a stop to the continuation of
revolutionary violence in future.
But the constitution, now promulgated, had a blemish common to all its
predecessors; it was totally new, and unsanctioned by the experience
either of France or any other country; a mere experiment in politics,
the result of which could not be known until it had been put in
exercise, and which, for many years at least, must be necessarily less
the object of respect than of criticism. Wise legislators, even when
lapse of time, alteration of manners, or increased liberality of
sentiment, require corresponding alterations in the institutions of
their fathers, are careful, as far as possible, to preserve the ancient
form and character of those laws, into which they are endeavouring to
infuse principles and a spirit accommodated to the altered exigencies
and temper of the age. There is an enthusiasm in patriotism as well as
in religion. We value institutions, not only because they are ours, but
because they have been those of our fathers; and if a new constitution
were to be presented to us, although perhaps theoretically showing more
symmetry than that by which the nation had been long governed, it would
be as difficult to transfer to it the allegiance of the people, as it
would be to substitute the worship of a Madonna, the work of modern art,
for the devotion paid by the natives of Saragossa to their ancient
Palladium, Our Lady of the Pillar.
But the constitution of the year Three, with all its defects, would have
been willingly received by the nation in general, as affording some
security from the revolutionary storm, had it not been for a selfish and
usurping device of the Thermidoriens to mutilate and render it nugatory
at the very outset, by engrafting upon it the means of continuing the
exercise of their own arbitrary authority. It must never be forgotten,
that these conquerors of Robespierre had shared all the excesses of his
party before they became his personal enemies; and that when deprived of
their official situations and influence, which they were likely to be by
a representative body freely and fairly elected, they were certain to be
exposed to great individual danger.
Determined, therefore, to retain the power in their own hands, the
Thermidoriens suffered, with an indifference amounting almost to
contempt, the constitution to pass through, and be approved of by, the
Convention. But, under pretence that it would be highly impolitic to
deprive the nation of the services of men accustomed to public business,
they procured [Aug. 22] two decrees to be passed; the first ordaining
the electoral bodies of France to choose, as representatives to the two
councils under the new constitution, at least two-thirds of the members
presently sitting in Convention; and the second declaring, that in
default of a return of two-thirds of the present deputies, as
prescribed, the Convention themselves should fill up the vacancies out
of their own body; in other words, should name a large proportion of
themselves their own successors in legislative power.[72]
These decrees were sent down to the Primary Assemblies of the people,
and every art was used to render them acceptable.
But the nation, and particularly the city of Paris, generally revolted
at this stretch of arbitrary authority. They recollected, that all the
members who had sat in the first National Assembly, so remarkable for
talent, had been declared ineligible, on that single account, for the
second legislative body; and now, men so infinitely the inferiors of
those who were the colleagues of Mirabeau, Mounier, and other great
names, presumed not only to declare themselves eligible by re-election,
but dared to establish two-thirds of their number as indispensable
ingredients of the legislative assemblies, which, according to the words
alike and spirit of the constitution, ought to be chosen by the free
voice of the people. The electors, and particularly those of the
sections of Paris, angrily demanded to know, upon what public services
the deputies of the Convention founded their title to a privilege so
unjust and anomalous. Among the more active part of them, to whom the
measure was chiefly to be ascribed, they saw but a few reformed
Terrorists, who wished to retain the power of tyranny, though disposed
to exercise it with some degree of moderation, and the loss of whose
places might be possibly followed by that of their heads; in the others,
they only beheld a flock of timid and discountenanced Helots, willing to
purchase personal security at the sacrifice of personal honour and duty
to the public; while in the Convention as a body, who pronounced so
large a proportion of their number as indispensable to the service of
the state, judging from their conduct hitherto, they could but discover
an image composed partly of iron, partly of clay, deluged with the blood
of many thousand victims--a pageant without a will of its own, and which
had been capable of giving its countenance to the worst of actions, at
the instigation of the worst of men--a sort of Moloch, whose name had
been used by its priests to compel the most barbarous sacrifices. To sum
up the whole, these experienced men of public business, without whose
intermediation it was pretended the national affairs could not be
carried on, could only shelter themselves from the charge of unbounded
wickedness, by pleading their unlimited cowardice, and by poorly
alleging that for two years they had sat, voted, and deliberated under a
system of compulsion and terror. So much meanness rendered those who
were degraded by it unfit, not merely to rule, but to live; and yet
two-thirds of their number were, according to their own decrees, to be
intruded on the nation as an indispensable portion of its
representatives.
[Sidenote: THE SECTIONS.]
Such was the language held in the assemblies of the sections of Paris,
who were the more irritated against the domineering and engrossing
spirit exhibited in these usurping enactments, because it was impossible
to forget that it was their interference, and the protection afforded by
their national guard, which had saved the Convention from massacre on
more occasions than one.
In the meanwhile, reports continued to be made from the Primary
Assemblies, of their adhesion to the constitution, in which they were
almost unanimous, and of their sentiments concerning the two decrees,
authorizing and commanding the re-election of two-thirds of the
Convention, on which there existed a strong difference of opinion. The
Convention, determined, at all rates, to carry through with a high hand
the iniquitous and arbitrary measure which they proposed, failed not to
make these reports such as they desired them to be, and announced that
the two decrees had been accepted by a majority of the Primary
Assemblies. The citizens of Paris challenged the accuracy of the
returns--alleged that the reports were falsified--demanded a scrutiny,
and openly bid defiance to the Convention. Their power of meeting
together in their sections, on account of the appeal to the people, gave
them an opportunity of feeling their own strength, and encouraging each
other by speeches and applauses. They were further emboldened and
animated by men of literary talent, whose power was restored with the
liberty of the press.[73] Finally, they declared their sittings
permanent, and that they had the right to protect the liberties of
France. The greater part of the national guards were united on this
occasion against the existing government; and nothing less was talked
of, than that they should avail themselves of their arms and numbers,
march down to the Tuileries, and dictate law to the Convention with
their muskets, as the revolutionary mob of the suburbs used to do with
their pikes.
The Convention, unpopular themselves, and embarked in an unpopular
cause, began to look anxiously around for assistance. They chiefly
relied on the aid of about five thousand regular troops, who were
assembled in and around Paris. These declared for government with the
greater readiness, that the insurrection was of a character decidedly
aristocratical, and that the French armies, as already repeatedly
noticed, were attached to the Republic. But besides, these professional
troops entertained the usual degree of contempt for the national guards,
and on this account alone were quite ready to correct the insolence of
the _pekins_,[74] or _muscadins_,[75] who usurped the dress and
character of soldiers. The Convention had also the assistance of
several hundred artillerymen, who, since the taking of the Bastile, had
been always zealous democrats. Still apprehensive of the result, they
added to this force another of a more ominous description. It was a body
of volunteers, consisting of about fifteen hundred men, whom they chose
to denominate the Sacred Band, or the Patriots of 1789. They were
gleaned out of the suburbs, and from the jails, the remnants of the
insurrectional battalions which had formed the body-guard of Hébert and
Robespierre, and had been the instruments by which they executed their
atrocities. The Convention proclaimed them men of the 10th of
August--undoubtedly, they were also men of the massacres of September.
It was conceived that the beholding such a pack of blood-hounds, ready
to be let loose, might inspire horror into the citizens of Paris, to
whom their very aspect brought so many fearful recollections. It did so,
but it also inspired hatred; and the number and zeal of the citizens,
compensating for the fury of the Terrorists, and for the superior
discipline of the regular troops to be employed against them, promised
an arduous and doubtful conflict.
Much, it was obvious, must depend on the courage and conduct of the
leaders.
The sections employed, as their commander-in-chief, General Danican, an
old officer of no high reputation for military skill, but otherwise a
worthy and sincere man. The Convention at first made choice of Menou,
and directed him, supported by a strong military force, to march into
the section Le Pelletier, and disarm the national guards of that
district. This section is one of the most wealthy, and of course most
aristocratic, in Paris, being inhabited by bankers, merchants, the
wealthiest class of tradesmen, and the better orders in general. Its
inhabitants had formerly composed the battalion of national guards des
Filles Saint Thomas, the only one which, taking part in the defence of
the Tuileries, shared the fate of the Swiss Guards upon the memorable
10th of August. The section continued to entertain sentiments of the
same character, and when Menou appeared at the head of his forces,
accompanied by La Porte, a member of the Convention, he found the
citizens under arms, and exhibiting such a show of resistance, as
induced him, after a parley, to retreat without venturing an attack upon
them.
Menou's indecision showed that he was not a man suited to the times, and
he was suspended from his command by the Convention, and placed under
arrest. The general management of affairs and the direction of the
Conventional forces, was then committed to Barras; but the utmost
anxiety prevailed among the members of the committees by whom government
was administered, to find a general of nerve and decision enough to act
under Barras, in the actual command of the military force, in a service
so delicate, and times so menacing. It was then that a few words from
Barras, addressed to his colleagues, Carnot and Tallien, decided the
fate of Europe for wellnigh twenty years, "I have the man," he said,
"whom you want, a little Corsican officer, who will not stand upon
ceremony."[76]
The acquaintance of Barras and Buonaparte had been, as we have already
said, formed at the siege of Toulon, and the former had not forgotten
the inventive and decisive genius of the young officer to whom the
conquest of that city was to be ascribed. On the recommendation of
Barras, Buonaparte was sent for. He had witnessed the retreat of Menou,
and explained with much simplicity the causes of that check, and the
modes of resistance which ought to be adopted in case of the apprehended
attack. His explanations gave satisfaction. Buonaparte was placed at the
head of the Conventional forces, and took all the necessary precautions
to defend the same palace which he had seen attacked and carried by a
body of insurgents on the 10th of August. But he possessed far more
formidable means of defence than were in the power of the unfortunate
Louis. He had two hundred pieces of cannon, which his high military
skill enabled him to distribute to the utmost advantage. He had more
than five thousand regular forces, and about fifteen hundred volunteers.
He was thus enabled to defend the whole circuit of the Tuileries; to
establish posts in all the avenues by which it could be approached; to
possess himself of the bridges, so as to prevent co-operation between
the sections which lay on the opposite banks of the river; and finally,
to establish a strong reserve in the Place Louis Quinze, or, as it was
then called, Place de la Révolution. Buonaparte had only a few hours to
make all these arrangements, for he was named in place of Menou late on
the night before the conflict.
A merely civic army, having no cannon, (for the field-pieces, of which
each section possessed two, had been almost all given up to the
Convention after the disarming the suburb of Saint Antoine,) ought to
have respected so strong a position as the Tuileries, when so formidably
defended. Their policy should have been, as in the days of Henry II., to
have barricaded the streets at every point, and cooped up the
Conventional troops within the defensive position they had assumed, till
want of provisions obliged them to sally at disadvantage, or to
surrender. But a popular force is generally impatient of delay. The
retreat of Menou had given them spirit, and they apprehended, with some
show of reason, that the sections, if they did not unite their forces,
might be attacked and disarmed separately. They therefore resolved to
invest the Convention in a hostile manner, require of the members to
recall the obnoxious decrees, and allow the nation to make a free and
undictated election of its representatives.
On the thirteenth Vendemaire, corresponding to the 4th October, the
civil affray, commonly called the Day of the Sections, took place. The
national guards assembled, to the number of thirty thousand men and
upwards, but having no artillery. They advanced by different avenues, in
close columns, but everywhere found the most formidable resistance. One
large force occupied the quays on the left bank of the Seine,
threatening the palace from that side of the river. Another strong
division advanced on the Tuileries, through the Rue St. Honoré,
designing to debouche on the palace, where the Convention was sitting,
by the Rue de Echelle. They did so, without duly reflecting that they
were flanked on most points by strong posts in the lanes and crossings,
defended by artillery.
The contest began in the Rue St. Honoré. Buonaparte had established a
strong post with two guns at the cul-de-sac Dauphine, opposite to the
church of St. Roche. He permitted the imprudent Parisians to involve
their long and dense columns in the narrow street without interruption,
until they established a body of grenadiers in the front of the church,
and opposite to the position at the cul-de-sac. Each party, as usual,
throws on the other the blame of commencing the civil contest for which
both were prepared. But all agree the firing commenced with musketry. It
was instantly followed by discharges of grape-shot and cannister, which,
pointed as the guns were, upon thick columns of the national guards,
arranged on the quays and in the narrow streets, made an astounding
carnage. The national guards offered a brave resistance, and even
attempted to rush on the artillery, and carry the guns by main force.
But a measure which is desperate enough in the open field, becomes
impossible when the road to assault lies through narrow streets, which
are swept by the cannon at every discharge. The citizens were compelled
to give way. By a more judicious arrangement of their respective forces,
different results might have been hoped; but how could Danican, in any
circumstances have competed with Buonaparte? The affair, in which
several hundred men were killed and wounded, was terminated as a general
action in about an hour; and the victorious troops of the Convention,
marching into the different sections, completed the dispersion and
disarming of their opponents, an operation which lasted till late at
night.
The Convention used this victory with the moderation which recollection
of the Reign of Terror had inspired. Only two persons suffered death for
the Day of the Sections. One of them, La Fond, had been a garde de
corps, was distinguished for his intrepidity, and repeatedly rallied the
national guard under the storm of grape shot. Several other persons
having fled, were in their absence capitally condemned, but were not
strictly looked after; and deportation was the punishment inflicted upon
others. The accused were indebted for this clemency chiefly to the
interference of those members of the Convention, who, themselves exiled
on the 31st of May, had suffered persecution and learned mercy.
The Convention showed themselves at the same time liberal to their
protectors. General Berruyer,[77] who commanded the volunteers of 1789,
and other general officers employed on the Day of the Sections, were
loaded with praises and preferment. But a separate triumph was destined
to Buonaparte, as the hero of the day. Five days after the battle,
Barras solicited the attention of the Convention to the young officer,
by whose prompt and skilful dispositions the Tuileries had been
protected on the 13th Vendemaire, and proposed that they should approve
of General Buonaparte's appointment as second in command of the army of
the interior, Barras himself still remaining commander-in-chief. The
proposal was adopted by acclamation. The Convention retained their
resentment against Menou, whom they suspected of treachery; but
Buonaparte interfering as a mediator, they were content to look over his
offence.
After this decided triumph over their opponents, the Convention
ostensibly laid down their authority, and retiring from the scene in
their present character, appeared upon it anew in that of a Primary
Assembly, in order to make choice of such of their members as, by virtue
of the decrees of two-thirds, as they were called, were to remain on the
stage, as members of the Legislative Councils of Elders and Five
Hundred.
After this change of names and dresses, resembling the shifts of a
strolling company of players, the two-thirds of the old Convention, with
one-third of members newly elected, took upon them the administration of
the new constitution. The two re-elected thirds formed a large
proportion of the councils, and were, in some respects, much like those
unfortunate women, who, gathered from jails and from the streets of the
metropolis, have been sometimes sent out to foreign settlements; and,
however profligate their former lives may have been, often regain
character, and become tolerable members of society, in a change of scene
and situation.
[Sidenote: THE DIRECTORY.]
The Directory consisted of Barras, Siêyes, Reubel, Latourneur de la
Manche, and Reveillière-Lepaux, to the exclusion of Tallien, who was
deeply offended. Four of these directors were reformed Jacobins, or
Thermidoriens; the fifth, Reveillière-Lepaux, was esteemed a Girondist.
Siêyes, whose taste was rather for speculating in politics than acting
in them, declined what he considered a hazardous office, and was
replaced by Carnot.
The nature of the insurrection of the Sections was not ostensibly
royalist, but several of its leaders were of that party in secret, and,
if successful, it would most certainly have assumed that complexion.
Thus, the first step of Napoleon's rise commenced by the destruction of
the hopes of the House of Bourbon, under the reviving influence of
which, twenty years afterwards, he himself was obliged to succumb. But
the long path which closed so darkly, was now opening upon him in light
and joy. Buonaparte's high services, and the rank which he had obtained,
rendered him now a young man of the first hope and expectation, mingling
on terms of consideration among the rulers of the state, instead of
being regarded as a neglected stranger, supporting himself with
difficulty, and haunting public offices and bureaux in vain, to obtain
some chance of preferment, or even employment.
From second in command, the new general soon became general-in-chief of
the army of the interior, Barras having found his duties as a director
incompatible with those of military command. He employed his genius,
equally prompt and profound, in improving the state of the military
forces; and, in order to prevent the recurrence of such insurrections as
that of the 13th Vendemaire, or Day of the Sections, and as the many
others by which it was preceded, he appointed and organized a guard for
the protection of the representative body.
As the dearth of bread, and other causes of disaffection, continued to
produce commotions in Paris, the general of the interior was sometimes
obliged to oppose them with a military force. On one occasion, it is
said, that when Buonaparte was anxiously admonishing the multitude to
disperse, a very bulky woman exhorted them to keep their ground. "Never
mind these coxcombs with the epaulets," she said; "they do not care if
we are all starved, so they themselves feed and get fat."--"Look at me,
good woman," said Buonaparte, who was then as thin as a shadow, "and
tell me which is the fatter of us two." This turned the laugh against
the Amazon, and the rabble dispersed in good-humour.[78] If not among
the most distinguished of Napoleon's victories, this is certainly worthy
of record, as achieved at the least cost.
Meantime, circumstances, which we will relate, according to his own
statement, introduced Buonaparte to an acquaintance, which was destined
to have much influence on his future fate. A fine boy of ten or twelve
years old, presented himself at the levee of the general of the
interior, with a request of a nature unusually interesting. He stated
his name to be Eugene Beauharnais, son of the ci-devant Vicomte de
Beauharnais, who, adhering to the revolutionary party, had been a
general in the Republican service upon the Rhine, and falling under the
causeless suspicion of the Committee of Public Safety, was delivered to
the Revolutionary Tribunal, and fell by its sentence just four days
before the overthrow of Robespierre. Eugene was come to request of
Buonaparte, as general of the interior, that his father's sword might be
restored to him. The prayer of the young supplicant was as interesting
as his manners were engaging, and Napoleon felt so much interest in him,
that he was induced to cultivate the acquaintance of Eugene's mother,
afterwards the Empress Josephine.[79]
[Sidenote: JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS.]
This lady was a Creolian, the daughter of a planter in St. Domingo. Her
name at full length was Marie-Joseph Rose Detacher de la Pagérie. She
had suffered her share of revolutionary miseries. After her husband,
General Beauharnais, had been deprived of his command, she was arrested
as a suspected person, and detained in prison till the general
liberation, which succeeded the revolution of 9th Thermidor. While in
confinement, Madame Beauharnais had formed an intimacy with a companion
in distress, Madame Fontenai, now Madame Tallien,[80] from which she
derived great advantages after her friend's marriage. With a remarkably
graceful person, amiable manners, and an inexhaustible fund of good
humour, Madame Beauharnais was formed to be an ornament to society.
Barras, the Thermidorien hero, himself an ex-noble, was fond of society,
desirous of enjoying it on an agreeable scale, and of washing away the
dregs which Jacobinism had mingled with all the dearest interests of
life. He loved show, too, and pleasure, and might now indulge both
without the risk of falling under the suspicion of incivism, which, in
the Reign of Terror, would have been incurred by any attempt to
intermingle elegance with the enjoyments of social intercourse. At the
apartments which he occupied as one of the directory, in the Luxemburg
palace, he gave its free course to his natural taste, and assembled an
agreeable society of both sexes. Madame Tallien and her friend formed
the soul of these assemblies, and it was supposed that Barras was not
insensible to the charms of Madame Beauharnais,--a rumour which was
likely to arise, whether with or without foundation.
When Madame Beauharnais and General Buonaparte became intimate, the
latter assures us, and we see no reason to doubt him, that although the
lady was two or three years older than himself,[81] yet being still in
the full bloom of beauty, and extremely agreeable in her manners, he was
induced, solely by her personal charms, to make her an offer of his
hand, heart, and fortunes,--little supposing, of course, to what a pitch
the latter were to arise.
Although he himself is said to have been a fatalist, believing in
destiny and in the influence of his star, he knew nothing, probably, of
the prediction of a negro sorceress, who, while Marie-Joseph was but a
child, prophesied she should rise to a dignity greater than that of a
queen, yet fall from it before her death.[82] This was one of those
vague auguries, delivered at random by fools or imposters, which the
caprice of Fortune sometimes matches with a corresponding and conforming
event. But without trusting to the African sibyl's prediction,
Buonaparte may have formed his match under the auspices of ambition as
well as love. The marrying Madame Beauharnais was a mean of uniting his
fortune with those of Barras and Tallien, the first of whom governed
France as one of the directors; and the last, from talents and political
connexions, had scarcely inferior influence. He had already deserved
well of them for his conduct on the Day of the Sections, but he required
their countenance to rise still higher; and without derogating from the
bride's merits, we may suppose her influence in their society
corresponded with the views of her lover. It is, however, certain, that
he always regarded her with peculiar affection; that he relied on her
fate, which he considered as linked with and strengthening his own; and
reposed, besides, considerable confidence in Josephine's tact and
address in political business. She had at all times the art of
mitigating his temper, and turning aside the hasty determinations of his
angry moments, not by directly opposing, but by gradually parrying and
disarming them. It must be added, to her great praise, that she was
always a willing, and often a successful advocate, in the cause of
humanity.
They were married 9th March 1796; and the dowery of the bride was the
chief command of the Italian armies, a scene which opened a full career
to the ambition of the youthful general. Buonaparte remained with his
wife only three days after his marriage, hastened to see his family, who
were still at Marseilles, and having enjoyed the pleasure of exhibiting
himself as a favourite of Fortune in the city which he had lately left
in a very subordinate capacity, proceeded rapidly to commence the career
to which Fate called him, by placing himself at the head of the Italian
army.[83]
FOOTNOTES:
[37] His lordship died the 7th of April, 1831.
[38] In 1797 created Baron Keith. He died in 1823.
[39] See _ante_, vol. i., p. 300.
[40] This letter appeared in the _Moniteur_, 10th December, 1793. But as
the town of Toulon was taken a few days afterwards, the Convention voted
the letter a fabrication.--S.--"This was unfair; for it was genuine, and
gave a just idea of the opinion that prevailed when it was written,
respecting the issue of the siege, and of the difficulties that
prevailed in Provence."--NAPOLEON, _Memoirs_, vol. i., p. 22.
[41] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 140.
[42] It was to Gasparin that Napoleon was indebted for the triumph of
his plan over the objections of the committees of the Convention. He
preserved a grateful recollection of this circumstance, as appears by
his will. It was Gasparin, he used to say, who had first opened his
career.--LAS CASES, vol. i., p. 144.
[43] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 147.
[44] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 154.
[45] Napoleon says six thousand.--GOURGAUD, tom. i., p. 17.
[46] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 24.
[47] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 223; Toulongeon, tom. iv., p. 88; Napoleon's
Memoirs, vol. i., p. 25; Rivington's Annual Register, 1793, p. 415.
[48] Moniteur, 28th December.
[49] "Amongst those who chiefly distinguished themselves are the
citizens Buonaparte, commandant of the artillery, Arena, and
Gervoni."--DUGOMMIER _to the Minister of War_.
[50] Rivington's Annual Register, 1793, p. 415.
[51] James's Naval History, vol. i., p. 115; Thiers, tom. vi., p.
59.--"The total number borne away amounted to 14,877."--_Mémoires de
Joubert_, p. 75.
[52] Mr. Graham of Balgowan, now Lord Lynedoch. He marched out on one of
the sorties, and when the affair became hot, seized the musket and
cartouch-box of a fallen soldier, and afforded such an example to the
troops, as contributed greatly to their gaining the object desired.--S.
[53] Jomini, tom. iv., p. 226; Lacretelle, tom. xi., p. 189.
[54] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 13; Jomini, tom. iv., p. 226; Las Cases,
vol. i., p. 153.
[55] Las Cases, vol. i., p. 152.
[56] "Dugommier wrote to the Committee of Public Safety, soliciting the
rank of brigadier-general for him, and concluded with these words,
'Reward this young man, and promote him, for should he be ungratefully
treated, he will promote himself.'"--NAPOLEON, _Montholon_, tom. iii.,
p. 15.
Dugommier was killed on the following November, by the bursting of a
field-piece. Napoleon bequeathed to his descendant 100,000 francs, "as a
testimonial of gratitude for the esteem, affection, and friendship of
that brave and intrepid general."
[57] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 30.
[58] An Englishman will probably remember the sublime passage in "The
Mariners of England:"--
"Britannia needs no bulwark,
No towers along the steep;
Her march is on the mountain-wave,
Her home is on the deep."
[59] "Brunet being unjustly accused of favouring the insurrection at
Marseilles, was delivered up to the Revolutionary Tribunal at Paris, and
perished on the scaffold."--NAPOLEON, _Montholon_, tom. iii., p. 21.
[60] "An old and brave officer. His military knowledge was considerable,
but he was confined to his bed by the gout half his time."--NAPOLEON,
_Gourgaud_, tom. i., p. 42.
"Happily, he allowed himself to be directed entirely by the young
Buonaparte."--THIERS, tom. vi., p. 288.
[61] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 42.
[62] Jomini, tom. v., p. 204; Thiers, tom. vi., p. 283; Montholon, tom.
iii., p. 30; Botta, tom. i., p. 190. General Dumerbion, in his despatch
to the government, describing his successes, says, "It is to the talent
of General Buonaparte that I am indebted for the skilful plans which
have assured our victory."
[63] Gourgaud, tom. i., p. 48.
[64] General Tilly. See _Nouvelle Biog. de Bruxelles_, 1822.
[65] "In the despatch of Salicetti and Albitte to the Government, dated
24th August, they declare, that there existed no foundation for the
charges made against him."--JOMINI, tom. vi., p. 114; _Bourrienne et ses
Erreurs_, tom. i., p. 27.
[66] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 50; Las Cases, vol. i., p. 155; Louis
Buonaparte, p. 14.
[67] Buonaparte is represented by some writers as having at this period
found his situation extremely embarrassing, even as regarded pecuniary
means, in the capital of which he was at no distant period to be the
ruler. Among others who are said to have assisted him was the celebrated
actor Talma; and such may have been the case; but the story of Talma's
having been acquainted with Napoleon at the Academy of Brienne, and at
that early period predicting the greatness of "_le petit Buonaparte_,"
has been expressly contradicted by Louis, the ex-King of Holland, who
was at this epoch in Paris along with his brother.
[68] See _ante_, vol. i., p. 164.
[69] The Memoirs published under the name of Fouché make this assertion.
But although that work shows great intimacy with the secret history of
the times, it is not to be implicitly relied upon.--S.
[70] "Peut-être un jour, on vous nommerait un Bourbon."--THIERS, tom.
viii., p. 10.
[71] "Its authors were Lesage, Daunou, Boissy d'Anglas,
Creuzée-Latouche, Berlier, Louvet, Lareveillèire-Lepaux, Languinais,
Durand-Maillanne, Baudin des Ardennes, and Thibaudeau."--THIERS, tom.
viii., p. 9.
[72] Thiers, tom. viii., p. 13.
[73] "La Harpe, Lacretelle, jun., Suard, Morellet, Vaublanc, Pastoret,
Dupont de Nemours, Quatremère de Quincy, Delalot, Marchenna, and General
Miranda, all either published pamphlets or made speeches in the
sections."--THIERS, tom. viii., p. 15.
[74] _Pekins_, a word of contempt, by which the soldiers distinguished
those who did not belong to their profession.--S.
[75] _Muscadins_, fops--a phrase applied to the better class of
_Sans-Culottes_.--S.
[76] "For several months, Napoleon, not being actively employed,
laboured in the military committee, and was well acquainted with Carnot
and Tallien, whom he saw daily. How, then, could Barras make them the
proposal attributed to him?"--LOUIS BUONAPARTE, p. 17.
[77] In 1796, the Directory appointed Berruyer commander of the Hôpital
des Invalides, which situation he held till his death, in 1804.
[78] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 161.
[79] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 82.
[80] See vol. i., p. 355.
[81] Buonaparte was then in his twenty-sixth year. Josephine gave
herself in the marriage contract for twenty-eight.--S.
[82] A lady of high rank, who happened to live for some time in the same
convent at Paris, where Josephine was also a pensioner or boarder, heard
her mention the prophecy, and told it herself to the author, just about
the time of the Italian expedition, when Buonaparte was beginning to
attract notice. Another clause is usually added to the prediction--that
the party whom it concerned should die in an hospital, which was
afterwards explained as referring to Malmaison. This the author did not
hear from the same authority. The lady mentioned used to speak in the
highest terms of the simple manners and great kindness of Madame
Beauharnais.--S.
[83] "It was I who proposed Buonaparte for the command of the army of
Italy, not Barras."--CARNOT, _Réponse à Bailleul_.
"Napoleon owed the appointment to the command of the army of Italy to
his signal services under Dumerbion."--JOMINI, tom. viii., p. 49.
CHAPTER III.
_The Alps--Feelings and Views of Buonaparte on being appointed
to the Command of the Army of Italy--General Account of his new
Principles of Warfare--Mountainous Countries peculiarly
favourable to them--Retrospect of Military Proceedings since
October 1795--Hostility of the French Government to the
Pope--Massacre of the French Envoy Basseville, at Rome--Austrian
Army under Beaulieu--Napoleon's Plan for entering Italy--Battle
of Montenotte, and Buonaparte's first Victory--Again defeats the
Austrians at Millesimo--and again under Colli--Takes possession
of Cherasco--King of Sardinia requests an Armistice, which leads
to a Peace, concluded on very severe Terms--Close of the
Piedmontese Campaign--Napoleon's Character at this period._
Napoleon has himself observed, that no country in the world is more
distinctly marked out by its natural boundaries than Italy.[84] The Alps
seem a barrier erected by Nature herself, on which she has inscribed in
gigantic characters, "Here let ambition be staid." Yet this tremendous
circumvallation of mountains, as it could not prevent the ancient Romans
from breaking out to desolate the world, so it has been in like manner
found, ever since the days of Hannibal, unequal to protect Italy herself
from invasion. The French nation, in the times of which we treat, spoke
indeed of the Alps as a natural boundary, so far as to authorise them to
claim all which lay on the western side of these mountains, as naturally
pertaining to their dominions; but they never deigned to respect them as
such, when the question respected their invading, on their own part, the
territories of other states, which lay on or beyond the formidable
frontier. They assumed the law of natural limits as an unchallengeable
rule when it made in favour of France, but never allowed it to be quoted
against her interest.
[Sidenote: COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.]
During the Revolutionary War, the general fortune of battle had varied
from time to time in the neighbourhood of these mighty boundaries. The
King of Sardinia[85] possessed almost all the fortresses which command
the passes on these mountains, and had therefore been said to wear the
keys of the Alps at his girdle. He had indeed lost his Dukedom of Savoy,
and the County of Nice, in the late campaigns; but he still maintained a
very considerable army, and was supported by his powerful ally the
Emperor of Austria, always vigilant regarding that rich and beautiful
portion of his dominions which lies in the north of Italy. The frontiers
of Piedmont were therefore covered by a strong Austro-Sardinian army,
opposed to the French, of which Napoleon had been just named
commander-in-chief. A strong Neapolitan force[86] was also to be added,
so that in general numbers their opponents were much superior to the
French; but a great part of this force was cooped up in garrisons which
could not be abandoned.
It may be imagined with what delight the general, scarce aged
twenty-six, advanced to an independent field of glory and conquest,
confident in his own powers, and in the perfect knowledge of the
country, which he had acquired when by his scientific plans of the
campaign, he had enabled General Dumerbion to drive the Austrians back,
and obtain possession of the Col di Tende, Saorgio, and the gorges of
the higher Alps.[87] Buonaparte's achievements had hitherto been under
the auspices of others. He made the dispositions before Toulon, but it
was Dugommier who had the credit of taking the place. Dumerbion, as we
have just said, obtained the merit of the advantages in Piedmont. Even
in the civil turmoil of the 13th Vendemaire, his actual services had
been overshadowed by the official dignity of Barras as commander-in-chief.
But if he reaped honour in Italy, the success would be exclusively his
own; and that proud heart must have throbbed to meet danger upon such
terms; that keen spirit have toiled to discover the means of success.
For victory he relied chiefly upon a system of tactics hitherto
unpractised in war, or at least upon any considerable or uniform scale.
It may not be unnecessary to pause, to take a general view of the
principles which he now called into action.
Nations in the savage state, being constantly engaged in war, always
form for themselves some peculiar mode of fighting, suited to the
country they inhabit, and to the mode in which they are armed. The
North-American Indian becomes formidable as a rifleman or sharpshooter,
lays ambuscades in his pathless forests, and practises all the arts of
irregular war. The Arab, or Scythian, manœuvres his clouds of
cavalry, so as to envelope and destroy his enemy in his deserts by
sudden onsets, rapid retreats, and unexpected rallies; desolating the
country around, cutting off his antagonist's supplies, and practising,
in short, the species of war proper to a people superior in light
cavalry.
The first stage of civilisation is less favourable to success in war. As
a nation advances in the peaceful arts, and the character of the soldier
begins to be less familiarly united with that of the citizen, this
system of natural tactics falls out of practice; and when foreign
invasion, or civil broils, call the inhabitants to arms, they have no
idea save that of finding out the enemy, rushing upon him, and
committing the event to superior strength, bravery, or numbers. An
example may be seen in the great Civil War of England, where men fought
on both sides, in almost every county of the kingdom, without any
combination, or exact idea of uniting in mutual support, or
manœuvring so as to form their insulated bands into an army of
preponderating force. At least, what was attempted for that purpose must
have been on the rudest plan possible, where, even in actual fight, that
part of an army which obtained any advantage, pursued it as far as they
could, instead of using their success for the support of their
companions; so that the main body was often defeated when a victorious
wing was in pursuit of those whom their first onset had broken.
But--as war becomes a profession, and a subject of deep study--it is
gradually discovered, that the principles of tactics depend upon
mathematical and arithmetical science; and that the commander will be
victorious who can assemble the greatest number of forces upon the same
point at the same moment, notwithstanding an inferiority of numbers to
the enemy when the general force is computed on both sides. No man ever
possessed in a greater degree than Buonaparte, the power of calculation
and combination necessary for directing such decisive manœuvres. It
constituted, indeed, his _secret_--as it was for some time called--and
that secret consisted in an imagination fertile in expedients which
would never have occurred to others; clearness and precision in forming
his plans; a mode of directing with certainty the separate moving
columns which were to execute them, by arranging so, that each division
should arrive on the destined position at the exact time when their
service was necessary; and above all, in the knowledge which enabled
such a master-spirit to choose the most fitting subordinate implements,
to attach them to his person, and, by explaining to them so much of his
plan as it was necessary each should execute, to secure the exertion of
their utmost ability in carrying it into effect.
Thus, not only were his manœuvres, however daring, executed with a
precision which warlike operations had not attained before his time; but
they were also performed with a celerity which gave them almost always
the effect of surprise. Napoleon was like lightning in the eyes of his
enemies; and when repeated experience had taught them to expect this
portentous rapidity of movement, it sometimes induced his opponents to
wait, in a dubious and hesitating posture, for attacks, which, with less
apprehension of their antagonist, they would have thought it more
prudent to frustrate and to anticipate.
Great sacrifices were necessary to enable the French troops to move with
that degree of celerity which Buonaparte's combinations required. He
made no allowance for impediments or unexpected obstacles; the time
which he had calculated for execution of manœuvres prescribed, was on
no account to be exceeded--every sacrifice was to be made of baggage,
stragglers, even artillery, rather than the column should arrive too
late at the point of its destination. Hence, all that had hitherto been
considered as essential not only to the health, but to the very
existence of an army, was in a great measure dispensed with in the
French service; and, for the first time, troops were seen to take the
field without tents, without camp-equipage, without magazines of
provisions, without military hospitals;--the soldiers eating as they
could, sleeping where they could, dying where they could; but still
advancing, still combating, and still victorious.
It is true that the abandonment of every object, save success in the
field, augmented frightfully all the usual horrors of war. The soldier,
with arms in his hands, and wanting bread, became a marauder in
self-defence; and, in supplying his wants by rapine, did mischief to the
inhabitants, in a degree infinitely beyond the benefit he himself
received; for it may be said of military requisition, as truly as of
despotism, that it resembles the proceedings of a savage, who cuts down
a tree to come at the fruit. Still, though purchased at a high rate,
that advantage was gained by this rapid system of tactics, which in a
slower progress, during which the soldier was regularly maintained, and
kept under the restraint of discipline, might have been rendered
doubtful. It wasted the army through disease, fatigue, and all the
consequences of want and toil; but still the victory was attained, and
that was enough to make the survivors forget their hardships, and to
draw forth new recruits to replace the fallen. Patient of labours, light
of heart and temper, and elated by success beyond all painful
recollections, the French soldiers were the very men calculated to
execute this desperate species of service under a chief, who, their
sagacity soon discovered, was sure to lead to victory all those who
could sustain the hardships by which it was to be won.
[Sidenote: SYSTEM OF TACTICS.]
The character of the mountainous countries, among which he was, for the
first time, to exercise his system, was highly favourable to
Buonaparte's views. Presenting many lines and defensible positions, it
induced the Austrian generals to become stationary, and occupy a
considerable extent of ground, according to their old system of tactics.
But though abounding in such positions as might at first sight seem
absolutely impregnable, and were too often trusted to as such, the
mountains also exhibited to the sagacious eye of a great captain,
gorges, defiles, and difficult and unsuspected points of access, by
which he could turn the positions that appeared in front so formidable;
and, by threatening them on the flank and on the rear, compel the enemy
to a battle at disadvantage, or to a retreat with loss.
The forces which Buonaparte had under his command were between fifty and
sixty thousand good troops, having, many of them, been brought from the
Spanish campaign, in consequence of the peace with that country; but
very indifferently provided with clothing, and suffering from the
hardships they had endured in those mountainous, barren, and cold
regions.[88] The cavalry, in particular, were in very poor order; but
the nature of their new field of action not admitting of their being
much employed, rendered this of less consequence. The misery of the
French army, until these Alpine campaigns were victoriously closed by
the armistice of Cherasco, could, according to Buonaparte's
authority,[89] scarce bear description. The officers for several years
had received no more than eight livres a-month (twenty pence sterling
a-week) in name of pay, and staff-officers had not amongst them a single
horse. Berthier preserved, as a curiosity, an order of the day, dated
Albenga, directing an advance of four Louis d'or to every general of
division, to enable them to enter on the campaign.[90] Among the
generals to whom this paltry supply was rendered acceptable by their
wants, were, or might have been, many whose names became afterwards the
praise and dread of war.[91] Augereau, Massena,[92] Serrurier, Joubert,
Lasnes, and Murat, all generals of the first consideration, served under
Buonaparte in his first Italian campaign.
The position of the French army had repeatedly varied since October
1795, after the skirmish at Cairo. At that time the extreme left of the
line, which extended from south to north, rested upon the Col
d'Argentine, and communicated with the higher Alps--the centre was on
the Col di Tende and Mount Bertrand--the left occupied the heights of
Saint Bertrand, Saint Jacques, and other ridges running in the same
direction, which terminated on the Mediterranean shore, near Finale.
The Austrians, strongly reinforced, attacked this line, and carried the
heights of Mont Saint Jacques; and Kellermann, after a vain attempt to
regain that point of his position, retreated to the line of defence more
westward, which rests on Borghetto. Kellermann, an active and good
brigade officer, but without sufficient talent to act as
commander-in-chief, was superseded, and Scherer was placed in command of
the army of Italy. He risked a battle with the Austrians near Loana, in
which the talents of Massena and Augereau were conspicuous; and by the
victory which ensued, the French regained the line of Saint Jacques and
Finale, which Kellermann had been forced to abandon; so that in a
general point of view, the relative position of the two opposed armies
was not very different from that in which they had been left by
Buonaparte.[93]
[Sidenote: THE POPE.]
But though Scherer had been thus far victorious, he was not the person
to whom the Directory desired to intrust the daring plan of assuming the
offensive on a grand scale upon the Alpine frontier, and, by carrying
their arms into Italy, compelling the Austrians to defend themselves in
that quarter, and to diminish the gigantic efforts which that power had
hitherto continued with varied success, but unabated vigour, upon the
Rhine. The rulers of France had a farther object in this bold scheme.
They desired to intimidate, or annihilate and dethrone the Pope. He was
odious to them as head of the Church, because the attachment of the
French clergy to the Roman See, and the points of conscience which
rested upon that dependence, had occasioned the recusancy of the
priests, especially of those who were most esteemed by the people, to
take the constitutional oath. To the Pope, and his claims of supremacy,
were therefore laid the charge of the great civil war in La Vendée, and
the general disaffection of the Catholics in the south of France.
But this was not the only cause of the animosity entertained by the
Directory against the head of the Catholic Church. They had, three years
before, sustained an actual injury from the See of Rome, which was yet
unavenged. The people of Rome were extremely provoked that the French
residing there, and particularly the young artists, had displayed the
three-coloured cockade, and were proposing to exhibit the scutcheon
containing the emblems of the Republic, over the door of the French
consul. The Pope, through his minister, had intimated his desire that
this should not be attempted, as he had not acknowledged the Republic as
a legitimate government. The French, however, pursued their purpose; and
the consequence was, that a popular commotion arose, which the papal
troops did not greatly exert themselves to suppress. The carriage of the
French envoy, or chargé des affaires, named Basseville, was attacked in
the streets, and chased home; his house was broken into by the mob, and
he himself, unarmed and unresisting, was cruelly assassinated. The
French Government considered this very naturally as a gross insult, and
were the more desirous of avenging it, that by doing so they would
approach nearer to the dignified conduct of the Roman Republic, which,
in good or evil, seems always to have been their model. The affair
happened in 1793, but was not forgotten in 1796.[94]
The original idea entertained by the French Government for prosecuting
their resentment, had been by a proposed landing at Civita Vecchia with
an army of ten thousand men, marching to Rome, and exacting from the
pontiff complete atonement for the murder of Basseville. But as the
English fleet rode unopposed in the Mediterranean, it became a matter of
very doubtful success to transport such a body of troops to Civita
Vecchia by sea, not to mention the chance that, even if safely landed,
they would have found themselves in the centre of Italy, cut off from
supplies and succours, assaulted on all hands, and most probably
blockaded by the British fleet. Buonaparte, who was consulted,
recommended that the north of Italy should be first conquered, in order
that Rome might be with safety approached and chastised; and this
scheme, though in appearance scarce a less bold measure, was a much
safer one than the Directory had at first inclined to, since Buonaparte
would only approach Rome in the event of his being able to preserve his
communications with Lombardy and Tuscany, which he must conquer in the
first place.[95]
The plan of crossing the Alps and marching into Italy, suited in every
respect the ambitious and self-confident character of the general to
whom it was now intrusted. It gave him a separate and independent
authority, and the power of acting on his own judgment and
responsibility; for his countryman Salicetti, the deputy who accompanied
him as a commissioner of the Government, was not probably much disposed
to intrude his opinions. He had been Buonaparte's patron, and was still
his friend.[96] The young general's mind was made up to the alternative
of conquest or ruin, as may be judged from his words to a friend at
taking leave of him. "In three months," he said, "I will be either at
Milan or at Paris;" intimating at once his desperate resolution to
succeed, and his sense that the disappointment of all his prospects must
be the consequence of a failure.
On the 27th of March Buonaparte reached Nice. The picture of the army
which General Scherer[97] laid before him, was even worse than he had
formed any idea of. The supply of bread was very uncertain;
distributions of meat had long ceased; and for means of conveyance there
were only mules, and not above five hundred of these could be reckoned
upon.
The headquarters had never been removed from Nice, since the
commencement of the war: they were instantly ordered to be transferred
to Albenga. On the march thither, along the rugged and precipitous shore
of the Mediterranean, the staff, broken with the rear and baggage of the
army, were exposed to the cannonade of Nelson's squadron; but the young
commander-in-chief would not allow the columns to halt, for the purpose
either of avoiding or of returning it.[98] On the 3d of April, the army
reached port Maunie, near Oneglia, and on the 4th arrived at Albenga;
where, with the view of animating his followers to ambitious hopes, he
addressed the army of Italy to the following purpose:--"Soldiers, you
are hungry and naked.--The Republic owes you much, but she has not the
means to acquit herself of her debts. The patience with which you
support your hardships among these barren rocks is admirable, but it
cannot procure you glory. I am come to lead you into the most fertile
plains that the sun beholds--Rich provinces, opulent towns, all shall be
at your disposal--Soldiers, with such a prospect before you, can you
fail in courage and constancy?" This was showing the deer to the hound
when the leash is about to be slipped.
The Austro-Sardinian army, to which Buonaparte was opposed, was
commanded by Beaulieu, an Austrian general of great experience and some
talent, but no less than seventy-five years old; accustomed all his life
to the ancient rules of tactics, and unlikely to suspect, anticipate, or
frustrate, those plans, formed by a genius so fertile as that of
Napoleon.
Buonaparte's plan for entering Italy differed from that of former
conquerors and invaders, who had approached that fine country by
penetrating or surmounting at some point or other her Alpine barriers.
This inventive warrior resolved to attain the same object, by turning
round the southern extremity of the Alpine range, keeping as close as
possible to the shores of the Mediterranean, and passing through the
Genoese territory by the narrow pass called the Boccheta leading around
the extremity of the mountains, and betwixt these and the sea. Thus he
proposed to penetrate into Italy, by the lowest level which the surface
of the country presented, which must be of course where the range of the
Alps unites with that of the Apennines. The point of junction where
these two immense ranges of mountains touch upon each other, is at the
heights of Mount Saint Jacques, above Genoa, where the Alps, running
north-westward, ascend to Mont Blanc, their highest peak, and the
Apennines, running to the south-east, gradually elevate themselves to
Monte Velino, the tallest mountain of the range.
To attain his object of turning the Alps in the manner proposed, it was
necessary that Buonaparte should totally change the situation of his
army; those occupying a defensive line, running north and south, being
to assume an offensive position, extending east and west. Speaking of an
army as of a battalion, he was to form into column upon the right of the
line which he had hitherto occupied. This was an extremely delicate
operation, to be undertaken in presence of an active enemy, his superior
in numbers; nor was he permitted to execute it uninterrupted.
No sooner did Beaulieu learn that the French general was concentrating
his forces, and about to change his position, than he hastened to
preserve Genoa, without possession of which, or at least of the adjacent
territory, Buonaparte's scheme of advance could scarce have been
accomplished. The Austrian divided his army into three bodies. Colli, at
the head of a Sardinian division, he stationed on the extreme right at
Ceva; his centre division, under D'Argenteau, having its head at
Sasiello, had directions to march on a mountain called Montenotte, with
two villages of the same name, near to which was a strong position at a
place called Montelegino, which the French had occupied in order to
cover their flank during their march towards the east. At the head of
his left wing, Beaulieu himself moved from Novi upon Voltri, a small
town within ten miles of Genoa, for the protection of that ancient city,
whose independence and neutrality were like to be held in little
reverence. Thus it appears, that while the French were endeavouring to
penetrate into Italy by an advance from Sardinia by the way of Genoa,
their line of march was threatened by three armies of Austro-Sardinians,
descending from the skirts of the Alps, and menacing to attack their
flank. But though a skilful disposition, Beaulieu's had, from the very
mountainous character of the country, the great disadvantage of wanting
connexion between the three separate divisions; neither, if needful,
could they be easily united on any point desired, while the lower line,
on which the French moved, permitted constant communication and
co-operation.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF MONTENOTTE.]
On the 10th of April, D'Argenteau, with the central division of the
Austro-Sardinian army, marched on Montenotte, while Beaulieu on the left
attacked the van of the French army, which had come as far as Voltri.
General Cervoni, commanding the French division which sustained the
attack of Beaulieu, was compelled to fall back on the main body of his
countrymen; and had the assault of D'Argenteau been equally animated, or
equally successful, the fame of Buonaparte might have been stifled in
the birth. But Colonel Rampon, a French officer, who commanded the
redoubts near Montelegino, stopped the progress of D'Argenteau by the
most determined resistance. At the head of not more than fifteen hundred
men, whom he inspired with his own courage, and caused to swear either
to maintain their post or die there,[99] he continued to defend the
redoubts, during the whole of the 11th, until D'Argenteau, whose conduct
was afterwards greatly blamed for not making more determined efforts to
carry them, drew off his forces for the evening, intending to renew the
attack next morning.
But, on the morning of the 12th, the Austrian general found himself
surrounded with enemies. Cervoni, who retreated before Beaulieu, had
united himself with La Harpe, and both advancing northward during the
night of the 11th, established themselves in the rear of the redoubts of
Montelegino, which Rampon had so gallantly defended. This was not all.
The divisions of Augereau and Massena had marched, by different routes,
on the flank and on the rear of D'Argenteau's column; so that next
morning, instead of renewing his attack on the redoubts, the Austrian
general was obliged to extricate himself by a disastrous retreat,
leaving behind him colours and cannon, a thousand slain, and two
thousand prisoners.[100]
Such was the battle of Montenotte, the first of Buonaparte's victories;
eminently displaying that truth and mathematical certainty of
combination,[101] which enabled him on many more memorable occasions,
even when his forces were inferior in numbers, and apparently disunited
in position, suddenly to concentrate them and defeat his enemy, by
overpowering him on the very point where he thought himself strongest.
He had accumulated a superior force on the Austrian centre, and
destroyed it, while Colli, on the right, and Beaulieu himself, on the
left, each at the head of numerous forces, did not even hear of the
action till it was fought and won.[102]
In consequence of the success at Montenotte, and the close pursuit of
the defeated Austrians, the French obtained possession of Cairo, which
placed them on that side of the Alps which slopes towards Lombardy, and
where the streams from these mountains run to join the Po.
Beaulieu had advanced to Voltri, while the French withdrew to unite
themselves in the attack upon D'Argenteau. He had now to retreat
northward with all haste to Dego, in the valley of the river Bormida, in
order to resume communication with the right wing of his army,
consisting chiefly of Sardinians, from which he was now nearly separated
by the defeat of the centre. General Colli, by a corresponding movement
on the right, occupied Millesimo, a small town about nine miles from
Dego, with which he resumed and maintained communication by a brigade
stationed on the heights of Biastro. From the strength of this position,
though his forces were scarce sufficiently concentrated, Beaulieu hoped
to maintain his ground till he should receive supplies from Lombardy,
and recover the consequences of the defeat at Montenotte. But the
antagonist whom he had in front had no purpose of permitting him such
respite.
[Sidenote: BATTLE OF MILLESIMO.]
Determined upon a general attack on all points of the Austrian position,
the French army advanced in three bodies upon a space of four leagues in
extent. Augereau, at the head of the division which had not fought at
Montenotte, advanced on the left against Millesimo; the centre, under
Massena, directed themselves upon Dego, by the vale of the Bormida; the
right wing, commanded by La Harpe, proceeded by the heights of Cairo,
for the purpose of turning Beaulieu's left flank. Augereau, whose
division had not engaged at the battle of Montenotte, was the first who
came in contact with the enemy. He attacked General Colli on the 13th
April. His troops, emulous of the honour acquired by their companions,
behaved with great bravery, rushed upon the outposts of the Sardinian
army at Millesimo, forced, and retained possession of the gorge by which
it was defended, and thus separated from the Sardinian army a body of
about two thousand men, under the Austrian General Provera, who occupied
a detached eminence called Cossaria, which covered the extreme left of
General Colli's position. But the Austrian showed the most obstinate
courage. Although surrounded by the enemy, he threw himself into the
ruinous castle of Cossaria, which crowned the eminence, and showed a
disposition to maintain the place to the last; the rather that, as he
could see from the turrets of his stronghold the Sardinian troops, from
whom he had been separated, preparing to fight on the ensuing day, he
might reasonably hope to be disengaged.[103]
Buonaparte in person came up; and seeing the necessity of dislodging the
enemy from this strong post, ordered three successive attacks to be made
on the castle. Joubert, at the head of one of the attacking columns, had
actually, with six or seven others, made his way into the outworks, when
he was struck down by a wound in the head. General Banel, and
Adjutant-general Quénin fell, each at the head of the column which he
commanded; and Buonaparte was compelled to leave the obstinate Provera
in possession of the castle for the night. The morning of the 14th
brought a different scene. Contenting himself with blockading the castle
of Cossaria, Buonaparte now gave battle to General Colli, who made every
effort to relieve it. These attempts were all in vain. He was defeated
and cut off from Beaulieu; he retired as well as he could upon Ceva,
leaving to his fate the brave General Provera, who was compelled to
surrender at discretion.
[Sidenote: ACTION OF DEGO.]
On the same day, Massena, with the centre, attacked the heights of
Biastro, being the point of communication betwixt Beaulieu and Colli,
while La Harpe, having crossed the Bormida, where the stream came up to
the soldiers' middle, attacked in front and in flank the village of
Dego, where the Austrian commander-in-chief was stationed. The first
attack was completely successful,--the heights of Biastro were carried,
and the Piedmontese routed. The assault of Dego was not less so,
although after a harder struggle. Beaulieu was compelled to retreat, and
was entirely separated from the Sardinians, who had hitherto acted in
combination with him. The defenders of Italy now retreated in different
directions, Colli moving westward towards Ceva, while Beaulieu, closely
pursued through a difficult country, retired upon D'Aqui.[104]
Even the morning after the victory, it was nearly wrested out of the
hands of the conquerors. A fresh division of Austrians, who had
evacuated Voltri later than the others, and were approaching to form a
junction with their general, found the enemy in possession of Beaulieu's
position. They arrived at Dego like men who had been led astray, and
were no doubt surprised at finding it in the hands of the French. Yet
they did not hesitate to assume the offensive, and by a brisk attack
drove out the enemy, and replaced the Austrian eagles in the village.
Great alarm was occasioned by this sudden apparition; for no one among
the French could conceive the meaning of an alarm beginning on the
opposite quarter to that on which the enemy had retreated, and without
its being announced from the outposts towards D'Aqui.
Buonaparte hastily marched on the village. The Austrians repelled two
attacks; at the third, General Lanusse, afterwards killed in Egypt, put
his hat upon the point of his sword, and advancing to the charge,
penetrated into the place. Lannes also, afterwards Duke of Montebello,
distinguished himself on the same occasion by courage and military
skill, and was recommended by Buonaparte to the Directory for promotion.
In this battle of Dego, more commonly called of Millesimo, the
Austro-Sardinian army lost five or six thousand men, thirty pieces of
cannon, with a great quantity of baggage. Besides, the Austrians were
divided from the Sardinians; and the two generals began to show, not
only that their forces were disunited, but that they themselves were
acting upon separate motives; the Sardinians desiring to protect Turin,
whereas the movements of Beaulieu seemed still directed to prevent the
French from entering the Milanese territory.[105]
Leaving a sufficient force on the Bormida to keep in check Beaulieu,
Buonaparte now turned his strength against Colli, who, overpowered, and
without hopes of succour, abandoned his line of defence near Ceva, and
retreated to the line of the Tanaro.
Napoleon, in the meantime, fixed his head-quarters at Ceva, and enjoyed
from the heights of Montezemoto, the splendid view of the fertile fields
of Piedmont stretching in boundless perspective beneath his feet,
watered by the Po, the Tanaro, and a thousand other streams which
descend from the Alps. Before the eyes of the delighted army of victors
lay this rich expanse like a promised land; behind them was the
wilderness they had passed;--not indeed, a desert of barren sand,
similar to that in which the Israelites wandered, but a huge tract of
rocks and inaccessible mountains, crested with ice and snow, seeming by
nature designed as the barrier and rampart of the blessed regions which
stretched eastward beneath them. We can sympathize with the
self-congratulation of the general who had surmounted such tremendous
obstacles in a way so unusual. He said to the officers around him, as
they gazed upon this magnificent scene, "Hannibal took the Alps by
storm. We have succeeded as well by taming their flank."[106]
The dispirited army of Colli was attacked at Mondovi during his retreat,
by two corps of Buonaparte's army, from two different points, commanded
by Massena and Serrurier. The last general, the Sardinian repulsed with
loss; but when he found Massena, in the meantime, was turning the left
of his line, and that he was thus pressed on both flanks, his situation
became almost desperate.[107] The cavalry of the Piedmontese made an
effort to renew the combat. For a time they overpowered and drove back
those of the French; and General Stengel, who commanded the latter, was
slain in attempting to get them into order.[108] But the desperate
valour of Murat, unrivalled perhaps in the heady charge of cavalry
combat, renewed the fortune of the field; and the horse, as well as the
infantry of Colli's army, were compelled to a disastrous retreat. The
defeat was decisive; and the Sardinians, after the loss of the best of
their troops, their cannon, baggage, and appointments, and being now
totally divided from their Austrian allies, and liable to be overpowered
by the united forces of the French army, had no longer hopes of
effectually covering Turin. Buonaparte, pursuing his victory, took
possession of Cherasco, within ten leagues of the Piedmontese
capital.[109]
Thus Fortune, in the course of a campaign of scarce a month, placed her
favourite in full possession of the desired road to Italy by command of
the mountain-passes, which had been invaded and conquered with so much
military skill. He had gained three battles over forces far superior to
his own; inflicted on the enemy a loss of twenty-five thousand men in
killed, wounded, and prisoners; taken eighty pieces of cannon, and
twenty-one stand of colours;[110] reduced to inaction the Austrian army;
almost annihilated that of Sardinia; and stood in full communication
with France upon the eastern side of the Alps, with Italy lying open
before him, as if to invite his invasion. But it was not even with such
laurels, and with facilities which now presented themselves for the
accomplishment of new and more important victories upon a larger scale,
and with more magnificent results, that the career of Buonaparte's
earliest campaign was to be closed. The head of the royal house of
Savoy, if not one of the most powerful, still one of the most
distinguished in Europe, was to have the melancholy experience, that he
had encountered with the Man of Destiny, as he was afterwards proudly
called, who, for a time, had power, in the emphatic phrase of Scripture,
"to bind kings with chains, and nobles with fetters of iron."
The shattered relics of the Sardinian army had fallen back, or rather
fled, to within two leagues of Turin, without hope of being again able
to make an effectual stand. The Sovereign of Sardinia, Savoy, and
Piedmont, had no means of preserving his capital, nay, his existence on
the continent, excepting by an almost total submission to the will of
the victor. Let it be remembered, that Victor Amadeus the Third was the
descendant of a race of heroes, who, from the peculiar situation of
their territories, as constituting a neutral ground of great strength
betwixt France and the Italian possessions of Austria, had often been
called on to play a part in the general affairs of Europe, of importance
far superior to that which their condition as a second-rate power could
otherwise have demanded. In general, they had compensated their
inferiority of force by an ability and gallantry which did them the
highest credit, both as generals and as politicians; and now Piedmont
was at the feet, in her turn, of an enemy weaker in numbers than her
own. Besides the reflections on the past fame of his country, the
present humiliating situation of the King was rendered more mortifying
by the state of his family connexions. Victor Amadeus was the
father-in-law of Monsieur (Louis XVIII.,) and of the Comte d'Artois,
(afterwards Charles X.) He had received his sons-in-law at his court at
Turin, had afforded them an opportunity of assembling around them their
forces, consisting of the emigrant noblesse, and had strained all the
power he possessed, and in many instances successfully, to withstand
both the artifices and the arms of the French Republicans. And now, so
born, so connected, and with such principles, he was condemned to sue
for peace, on any terms which might be dictated, from a General of
France, aged twenty-six years, who, a few months before, was desirous of
an appointment in the artillery service of the Grand Signior.
[Sidenote: ARMISTICE OF CHERASCO.]
Under these afflicting circumstances, a suspension of hostilities was
requested by the King of Sardinia; and, on the 24th April, conferences
were held at Carru, the headquarters of the French, but an armistice
could only be purchased by placing two of the King's strongest
fortresses--Coni and Tortona, in the hands of the French, and thus
acknowledging that he surrendered at discretion. The armistice was
agreed on [April 28] at Cherasco, but commissioners were sent by the
King to Paris, to arrange with the Directory the final terms of peace.
These were such as victors give to the vanquished.
Besides the fortresses already surrendered, the King of Sardinia was to
place in the hands of the French five others of the first importance.
The road from France to Italy was to be at all times open to the French
armies; and indeed the King, by surrender of the places mentioned, had
lost the power of interrupting their progress. He was to break off every
species of alliance and connexion with the combined powers at war with
France, and become bound not to entertain at his court, or in his
service, any French emigrants whatever, or any of their connexions; nor
was an exception even made in favour of his own two daughters. In short,
the surrender was absolute.[111] Victor Amadeus exhibited the utmost
reluctance to subscribe this treaty, and did not long survive it.[112]
His son succeeded in name to the kingdom of Piedmont; but the fortresses
and passes, which had rendered him a prince of some importance, were,
excepting Turin, and one or two of minor consequence, all surrendered
into the hands of the French.
Viewing this treaty with Sardinia as the close of the Piedmontese
campaign, we pause to consider the character which Buonaparte displayed
at that period. The talents as a general which he had exhibited were of
the very first order. There was no disconnexion in his objects; they
were all attained by the very means he proposed, and the success was
improved to the utmost. A different conduct usually characterises those
who stumble unexpectedly on victory, either by good fortune or by the
valour of their troops. When the favourable opportunity occurs to such
leaders, they are nearly as much embarrassed by it as by a defeat. But
Buonaparte, who had foreseen the result of each operation by his
sagacity, stood also prepared to make the most of the advantages which
might be derived from it.
His style in addressing the Convention was, at this period, more modest
and simple, and therefore more impressive, than the figurative and
bombastic style which he afterwards used in his bulletins. His
self-opinion, perhaps, was not risen so high as to permit him to use the
sesquipedalian words and violent metaphors, to which he afterwards seems
to have given a preference. We may remark also, that the young victor
was honourably anxious to secure for such officers as distinguished
themselves, the preferment which their services entitled them to.[113]
He urges the promotion of his brethren in arms in almost every one of
his despatches,--a conduct not only just and generous, but also highly
politic. Were his recommendations successful, their general had the
gratitude due for the benefit; were they overlooked, thanks equally
belonged to him for his good wishes, and the resentment for the slight
attached itself to the government, who did not give effect to them.
If Buonaparte spoke simply and modestly on his own achievements, the
bombast which he spared was liberally dealt out to the Convention by an
orator named Daubermesnil, who invokes all bards, from Tyrtæus and
Ossian down to the author of the Marseillois Hymn--all painters, from
Apelles to David--all musicians, from Orpheus to the author of the
_Chant du départ_, to sing, paint, and compose music, upon the
achievements of the General and Army of Italy.[114]
With better taste, a medal of Buonaparte was struck in the character of
the Conqueror of the battle of Montenotte. The face is extremely thin,
with lank hair, a striking contrast to the fleshy square countenance
exhibited on his later coins. On the reverse, Victory, bearing a palm
branch, a wreath of laurel, and a naked sword, is seen flying over the
Alps. This medal we notice as the first of the splendid series which
records the victories and honours of Napoleon, and which was designed by
Denon as a tribute to the genius of his patron.
FOOTNOTES:
[84] Napoleon, Memoirs, tom. iii., p. 91.
[85] Victor Amadeus III. He was born in 1726, and died in 1796.
[86] "The Neapolitan army was 60,000 strong; the cavalry was
excellent."--NAPOLEON, _Memoirs_, tom. iii., p. 134.
[87] Viz. in April, 1794.--See Napoleon, Memoirs, tom. iii., p. 28.
[88] Napoleon states his fighting force, fit for duty, at about 30,000
men.--Montholon, tom. iii., p. 140; Jomini, tom. viii., p. 59, at
42,400.
[89] Las Cases, tom. i., p. 162.
[90] This reminds us of the liberality of the Kings of Brentford to
their Knightsbridge forces--
_First King._ Here, take five guineas to these warlike men.
_Second King._ And here, five more, which makes the sum just ten.
_Herald._ We have not seen so much the Lord knows when!--S.
[91] "The state of the finances was such, that the government, with all
its efforts, could only furnish the chest of the army, at the opening of
the campaign, with 2000 louis in specie, and a million in drafts, part
of which were protested."--NAPOLEON, _Montholon_, tom. iii., p. 140;
Thiers, tom. viii., p. 174.
[92] "An idea of the penury of the army may be collected from the
correspondence of the commander-in-chief, who appears to have once sent
Massena a supply of twenty-four francs to provide for his official
expenses."--JOMINI, tom. viii., p. 96.
[93] Napoleon, Memoirs, tom. iii., p. 54.
[94] "He received a thrust of a bayonet in the abdomen: he was dragged
into the streets, holding his bowels in his hands, and at length left on
a field-bed in a guard-house, where he expired."--MONTHOLON, tom. iii.,
p. 41; Botta, Storia d'Italia, tom. i., p. 271. Basseville, in 1789, was
editor of the _Mercure National_. He published _Elémens de Mythologie_,
&c.
[95] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 43; Thibaudeau, Hist. Gen. de Napoleon,
tom. i., p. 139; Jomini, tom. viii., p. 49.
[96] "Salicetti was never the personal friend of Napoleon, but of his
brother Joseph; with whom, in 1792 and 1793, he had been member for the
department of Corsica."--JOSEPH BUONAPARTE, _Notes sur les Mémoires de
Bourrienne_, tom. i., p. 238.
[97] "I am particularly gratified with my reception by General Scherer;
who, by his honourable deportment and readiness to supply me with all
useful information, has acquired a right to my gratitude. To great
facility in expressing himself, he unites an extent of general and
military knowledge, which may probably induce you to deem his services
useful in some important station."--NAPOLEON _to the Directory, March
30_.
[98] Jomini, tom. viii., p. 62; Thiers, tom. viii., p. 329.
[99] Thiers, tom. viii., p. 178; Lacretelle, tom. xiii., p. 153.
[100] Napoleon, Memoirs, tom. iii., p. 145; Jomini, tom. viii., p. 70;
Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 187.
[101] "Napoleon placed himself on a ridge in the centre of his
divisions, the better to judge of the turn of affairs, and to prescribe
the manœuvres which might become necessary."--JOMINI, tom. viii., p.
72.
[102] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 145; Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 190; Thiers,
tom. viii., p. 178.
[103] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 146; Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 192; Jomini,
tom. viii., p. 76.
[104] Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 193; Montholon, tom. iii., p. 148; Thiers,
tom. viii., p. 181.
[105] Montholon, tom. iii., p. 148; Las Cases, tom. ii., p. 193;
Lacretelle, tom. xiii., p. 59.
[106] "Annabal a forcé les Alpes; nous
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