Salicetti, who was now a real power among the leadersat Paris, felt that he must hasten to his department in order to forestall events, if possible, and keep together the remnants of sympathy with France; he was appointed one of a commission to enforce in the island the decrees of the Convention. The commission was well received and the feeling against France was being rapidly allayed when, most unexpectedly, fatal news arrived from Paris. In the preceding November Lucien Buonaparte had made the acquaintance in Ajaccio ofHuguet de Sêmonville, who was on his way to Constantinople as a special envoy of the provisory council then in charge of the Paris administration. In all probability he was sent to test Paoli's attitude. Versatile and insinuating, he displayed great activity among the islanders. On one occasion he addressed the radical club of Ajaccio—but though eloquent, he was no linguist, and his French rhetoric would have fallen flat but for the fervid zeal of Lucien, who at the close stood in his place and rendered the ambassador's speech in Italian to an enthralled audience. This event among others showed the younger brother's mettle; the intimacy thus inaugurated ripened quickly and endured for long. The ambassador was recalled to the mainland on February second, 1793, and took his new-found friend with him as secretary or useful man. Both were firm Jacobins, and the master having failed in making any impression on Paoli during his Corsican sojourn, the man, as the facts stand, took a mean revenge by denouncing the lieutenant-general as a traitor before a political meeting in Toulon. Lucien's friends have thought the words unstudied and unpremeditated, uttered in the heat of unripe oratory. This may be, but he expressed no repentance and the responsibility rests upon his memory. As a result of the denunciation an address calumniating the Corsican leader in the most excited terms was sent by the ToulonJacobins to the deputy of the department in Paris. Of all this Napoleon knew nothing: he and Lucien were slightly alienated because the latter thought his brother but a lukewarm revolutionary. The news of the defection of Dumouriez had just arrived at the capital, public opinion was inflamed, and on April second Paoli, who seemed likely to be a second Dumouriez, was summoned to appear before the Convention. For a moment he became again the most popular man in Corsica. He had always retained many warm personal friends even among the radicals; the royalists were now forever alienated from a government which had killed their king; the church could no longer expect protection when impious men were in power. These three elements united immediately with the Paolists to protest against the arbitrary act of the Convention. Even in that land of confusion there was a degree of chaos hitherto unequaled.[Back to Contents]
The Waning of Corsican Patriotism — Rise of French Radicalism — Alliance with Salicetti — Another Scheme for Leadership — Failure to Seize the Citadel of Ajaccio — Second Plan — Paoli's Attitude Toward the Convention — Buonaparte Finally Discredited in Corsica — Paoli Turns to England — Plans of the Buonaparte Family — Their Arrival in Toulon — Napoleon's Character — His Corsican Career — Lessons of His Failures — His Ability, Situation, and Experience.
1793.
Buonoparte was for an instant among the most zealous of Paoli's supporters, and, taking up his ever-ready pen, he wrote two impassioned papers whose respective tenors it is not easy to reconcile: one an appeal to the Convention in Paoli's behalf, the other a demand addressed to the municipality of Ajaccio that the people should renew their oath of allegiance to France. The explanation is somewhat recondite, perhaps, but not discreditable. Salicetti, as chairman of a committee of the convention on Corsican affairs, had conferred with Paoli on April thirteenth. The result was so satisfactory that on the sixteenth the latter was urged to attend a second meeting at Bastia in the interest of Corsican reconciliation and internal peace. Meantime Lucien's performance at Marseilles had fired the train which led to the Convention's action against Paoli, and on the seventeenth the order for his arrest reached Salicetti, who was of course charged with its execution. For this he was not prepared, nor was Buonaparte. The essential of Corsican annexation toFrance was order. The Corsican folk flocked to protect Paoli in Corte, and the local government declared for him. There was inchoate rebellion and within a few days the districts of Calvi and Bastia were squarely arrayed with Salicetti against Bonifacio and Ajaccio, which supported Paoli and Pozzo di Borgo. The Buonapartes were convinced that the decree of the Convention was precipitate, and pleaded for its recall. At the same time they saw no hope for peace in Corsica, except through incorporation with France. But compromise proved impossible. There was a truce when Paoli on April twenty-sixth wrote to the Convention regretting that he could not obey their summons on account of infirmities, and declaring his loyalty to France. In consequence the Convention withdrew its decree and sent a new commission of which Salicetti was not a member. This was in May, on the eve of the Girondin overthrow. The measures of reconciliation proved unavailing, because the Jacobins of Marseilles, learning that Paoli was Girondist in sentiment, stopped the commission, and forbade their proceeding to Corsica.
Meantime Captain Buonaparte's French regiment had already been some five months in active service. If his passion had been only for military glory, that was to be found nowhere so certainly as in its ranks, where he should have been. But his passion for political renown was clearly far stronger. Where could it be so easily gratified as in Corsica under the present conditions? The personality of the young adventurer had for a long time been curiously double: but while he had successfully retained the position of a French officer in France, his identity as a Corsican patriot had been nearly obliterated in Corsica by his constant quarrels and repeated failures. Having become a French radical, he had been forced into a certain antagonism toPaoli and had thereby jeopardized both his fortunes and his career as far as they were dependent on Corsican support. But with Paoli under the ban of the Convention, and suspected of connivance with English schemes, there might be a revulsion of feeling and a chance to make French influence paramount once more in the island under the leadership of the Buonapartes and their friends. For the moment Napoleon preserved the outward semblance of the Corsican patriot, but he seems to have been weary at heart of the thankless rôle and entirely ready to exchange it for another. Whatever may have been his plan or the principles of his conduct, it appears as if the decisive step now to be taken had no relation to either plan or principles, but that it was forced upon him by a chance development of events which he could not have foreseen, and which he was utterly unable to control.
It is unknown whether Salicetti or he made the first advances in coming to an understanding for mutual support, or when that understanding was reached, but it existed as early as January, 1793, a fact conclusively shown by a letter of the former dated early in that month. It was April fifth when Salicetti reached Corsica; the news of Paoli's denunciation by the Convention arrived, as has been said, on the seventeenth. Seeing how nicely adjusted the scales of local politics were, the deputy was eager to secure favor from Paris, and wrote on the sixteenth an account of how warmly his commission had been received. Next day the blow of Paoli's condemnation fell, and it became plain that compromise was no longer possible. When even the Buonapartes were supporting Paoli, the reconciliation of the island with France was clearly impracticable. Salicetti did not hesitate, but as between Paoli and Corsica with no career on the one side, and the possibilities of agreat career under France on the other, quickly chose the latter. The same considerations weighed with Buonaparte; he followed his patron, and as a reward was appointed by the French commission inspector-general of artillery for Corsica.
Salicetti had granted what Paoli would not: Buonaparte was free to strike his blow for Corsican leadership. With swift and decisive measures the last scene in his Corsican adventures was arranged. Several great guns which had been saved from a war-ship wrecked in the harbor were lying on the shore unmounted. The inspector-general hypocritically declared that they were a temptation to insurgents and a menace to the public peace; they should be stored in the citadel. His plan was to seize the moment when the heavy pieces were passing the drawbridge, and at the head of his followers to take possession of the stronghold he had so long coveted, and so often failed to capture. If he could hold it for the Convention, a career in Corsica would be at last assured.
But again he was doomed to disappointment. The former garrison had been composed of French soldiers. On the failure of the Sardinian expedition most of these had been landed at Toulon, where they still were. The men in the citadel of Ajaccio were therefore in the main islanders, although some French infantry and the French gunners were still there; the new commander was a Paolist who refused to be hoodwinked, and would not act without an authorization from his general-in-chief. The value of the seizure depended on its promptness. In order to secure a sufficient number of faithful followers, Buonaparte started on foot for Bastia to consult the commission. Learning that he was already a suspect at Corte and in danger of arrest, he turned on his steps only to be confronted at Bocognano by a band of Peraldi's followers. Two shepherds from his ownestate found a place of concealment for him in a house belonging to their friends, and he passed a day in hiding, escaping after nightfall to Ucciani, whence he returned to Ajaccio in safety.[33]Thwarted in one notion, Buonaparte then proposed to the followers he already had two alternatives: to erect a barricade behind which the guns could be mounted and trained on the citadel, or, easier still, to carry one of the pieces to some spot before the main entrance and then batter in the gate. Neither scheme was considered feasible, and it was determined to secure by bribes, if possible, the coöperation of a portion of the garrison. The attempt failed through the integrity of a single man, and is interesting only as having been Napoleon's first lesson in an art which was thenceforward an unfailing resource. Rumors of these proceedings soon reached the friends of Paoli, and Buonaparte was summoned to report immediately at Corte. Such was the intensity of popular bitterness against him in Ajaccio for his desertion of Paoli that after a series of narrow escapes from arrest he was compelled to flee in disguise and by water to Bastia, which he reached on May tenth, 1793. Thwarted in their efforts to seize Napoleon, the hostile party vented its rage on the rest of the family, hunting the mother and children from their town house, which was pillaged and burned, first to Milleli, then through jungle and over hilltops to the lonely tower of Capitello near the sea.
A desire for revenge on his Corsican persecutors would now give an additional stimulus to Buonaparte, and still another device to secure the passionately desired citadel of Ajaccio was proposed by him to the commissioners of the Convention, and adopted by them. The remnants of a Swiss regiment stationed near by were to be marchedinto the city, as if for embarkment; several French war vessels from the harbor ofSt.Florent, including one frigate, with troops, munitions, and artillery on board, were to appear unexpectedly before the city, land their men and guns, and then, with the help of the Switzers and such of the citizens as espoused the French cause, were to overawe the town and seize the citadel. Corsican affairs had now reached a crisis, for this was a virtual declaration of war. Paoli so understood it, and measures of mutual defiance were at once taken by both sides. The French commissioners formally deposed the officials who sympathized with Paoli; they, in turn, took steps to increase the garrison of Ajaccio, and to strengthen the popular sentiment in their favor.
On receipt of the news that he had been summoned to Paris and that hostile commissioners had been sent to take his place, Paoli had immediately forwarded, by the hands of two friendly representatives, the temperate letter in which he had declared his loyalty to France. In it he had offered to resign and leave Corsica. His messengers were seized and temporarily detained, but in the end they reached Paris, and were kindly received. On May twenty-ninth they appeared on the floor of the Convention, and won their cause. On June fifth the former decree was revoked, and two days later a new and friendly commission of two members started for Corsica. But at Marseilles they fell into the hands of the Jacobin mob, and were arrested. Ignorant of these favorable events, and the untoward circumstances by which their effect was thwarted, the disheartened statesman had written and forwarded on May fourteenth a second letter, of the same tenor as the first. This measure likewise had failed of effect, for the messenger had been stopped at Bastia, now the focus of Salicetti's influence, and the letter had never reached its destination.
It was probably in this interval that Paoli finally adopted, as a last desperate resort, the hitherto hazy idea of putting the island under English protection, in order to maintain himself in the mission to which he felt that Providence had called him. The actual departure of Napoleon's expedition fromSt.Florent gave the final impulse. That event so inflamed the passions of the conservative party in Ajaccio that the Buonaparte family could no longer think of returning within a reasonable time to their home. Some desperate resolution must be taken, though it should involve leaving their small estates to be ravaged, their slender resources to be destroyed, and abandoning their partizans to proscription and imprisonment. They finally found a temporary asylum with a relative in Calvi. The attacking flotilla had been detained nearly a week by a storm, and reached Ajaccio on May twenty-ninth, in the very height of these turmoils. It was too late for any possibility of success. The few French troops on shore were cowed, and dared not show themselves when a party landed from the ships. On the contrary, Napoleon and his volunteers were received with a fire of musketry, and, after spending two anxious days in an outlying tower which they had seized and held, were glad to reëmbark and sail away. Their leader, after still another narrow escape from seizure, rejoined his family at Calvi. The Jacobin commission held a meeting, and determined to send Salicetti to justify their course at Paris. He carried with him a wordy paper written by Buonaparte in his worst style and spelling, setting forth the military and political situation in Corsica, and containing a bitter tirade against Paoli, which remains to lend some color to the charge that the writer had been, since his leader's return from exile, a spy and an informer, influenced by no high principleof patriotism, but only by a base ambition to supplant the aged president, and then to adopt whichever plan would best further his own interest: ready either to establish a virtual autonomy in his fatherland, or to deliver it entirely into the hands of France.[34]
In this painful document Buonaparte sets forth in fiery phrase the early enthusiasm of republicans for the return of Paoli, and their disillusionment when he surrounded himself with venal men like Pozzo di Borgo, with relatives like his nephew Leonetti, with his vile creatures in general. The misfortunes of the Sardinian expedition, the disgraceful disorders of the island, the failure of the commissioners to secure Ajaccio, are all alike attributed to Paoli. "Can perfidy like this invade the human heart?... What fatal ambition overmasters a graybeard of sixty-eight?... On his face are goodness and gentleness, in his heart hate and vengeance; he has an oily sensibility in his eyes, and gall in his soul, but neither character nor strength." These were the sentiments proper to a radical of the times, and they found acceptance among the leaders of that class in Paris. More moderate men did what they could to avert the impending breach, but in vain. Corsica was far, communication slow, and the misunderstanding which occurred was consequently unavoidable. It was not until July first that Paoli received news of the pacificatory decrees passed by the Convention more than a month before, and then it was too late; groping in the dark, and unable to get news, he had formed his judgment from what was going on in Corsica, and had therefore committed himself to a change of policy. Tohim, as to most thinking men, the entire structure of France, social, financial, and political, seemed rotten. Civil war had broken out in Vendée; in Brittany the wildest excesses passed unpunished; the great cities of Marseilles, Toulon, and Lyons were in a state of anarchy; the revolutionary tribunal had been established in Paris; the Committee of Public Safety had usurped the supreme power; the France to which he had intrusted the fortunes of Corsica was no more. Already an agent was in communication with the English diplomats in Italy. On July tenth Salicetti arrived in Paris; on the seventeenth Paoli was declared a traitor and an outlaw, and his friends were indicted for trial. But the English fleet was already in the Mediterranean, and although the British protectorate over Corsica was not established until the following year, in the interval the French and their few remaining sympathizers on the island were able at best to hold only the three towns of Bastia,St.Florent, and Calvi.
After the last fiasco before the citadel of Ajaccio, the situation of the Buonapartes was momentarily desperate. Lucien says in his memoirs that shortly before his brother had spoken longingly of India, of the English empire as destined to spread with every year, and of the career which its expansion opened to good officers of artillery, who were scarce among the British—scarce enough everywhere, he thought. "If I ever choose that career," said he, "I hope you will hear of me. In a few years I shall return thence a rich nabob, and bring fine dowries for our three sisters." But the scheme was deferred and then abandoned. Salicetti had arranged for his own return to Paris, where he would be safe. Napoleon felt that flight was the only resort for him and his. Accordingly, on June eleventh, three days earlier than his patron, he and Joseph, accompaniedby Fesch, embarked with their mother and the rest of the family to join Lucien, who had remained at Toulon, where they arrived on the thirteenth. The Jacobins of that city had received Lucien, as a sympathetic Corsican, with honor. Doubtless his family, homeless and destitute for their devotion to the republic, would find encouragement and help until some favorable turn in affairs should restore their country to France, and reinstate them not only in their old possessions, but in such new dignities as would fitly reward their long and painful devotion. Such, at least, appears to have been Napoleon's general idea. He was provided with a legal certificate that his family was one of importance and the richest in the department. The Convention had promised compensation to those who had suffered losses.
As had been hoped, on their arrival the Buonapartes were treated with every mark of distinction, and ample provision was made for their comfort. By act of the Convention, women and old men in such circumstances received seventy-five livres a month, infants forty-five livres. Lads received simply a present of twenty-five livres. With the preliminary payment of one hundred and fifty livres, which they promptly received, the Buonapartes were better off than they had been at home. Lucien had appropriated Napoleon's certificate of birth in order to appear older than he was, and, having now developed into a fluent demagogue, was soon earning a small salary in the commissary department of the army. Fesch also found a comfortable berth in the same department. Joseph calmly displayed Napoleon's commission in the National Guard as his own, and received a higher place with a better salary. The sovereignty of the Convention was everywhere acknowledged, their revolutionary courts were establishedfar and wide, and their legations, clothed with dictatorial power, were acknowledged in every camp of the land as supreme, superior even to the commanders-in-chief. It was not exactly a time for further military irregularities, and Napoleon, armed with a certificate from Salicetti that his presence in Corsica for the past six months had been necessary, betook himself to the army headquarters at Nice, where a detachment of his regiment was now stationed. When he arrived, no awkward questions were asked by the authorities. The town had but recently been captured, men were needed to hold it, and the Corsican refugee was promptly appointed captain of the shore battery. To casual observers he appeared perfectly content in this subordinate position. He still cherished the hope, it seems, that he might find some opportunity to lead a successful expedition against the little citadel of Ajaccio. Such a scheme, at all events, occupied him intermittently for nearly two years, or until it was banished forever by visions of a European control far transcending the limits of his island home.
Not that the outcast Buonaparte was any longer exclusively a Corsican. It is impossible to conceive of a lot more pitiful or a fate more obdurate than his so far had been. There was little hereditary morality in his nature, and none had been inculcated by training; he had nothing of what is called vital piety, nor even sincere superstition. A butt and an outcast at a French school under the old régime, he had imbibed a bitter hatred for the land indelibly associated with such haughty privileges for the rich and such contemptuous disdain for the poor. He had not even the consolation of having received an education. His nature revolted at the religious formalism of priestcraft; his mind turned in disgust from the scholastic husks of its superficialknowledge. What he had learned came from inborn capacity, from desultory reading, and from the untutored imaginings of his garden at Brienne, his cave at Ajaccio, or his barrack chambers. What more plausible than that he should first turn to the land of his birth with some hope of happiness, usefulness, or even glory! What more mortifying than the revelation that in manhood he was too French for Corsica, as in boyhood he had been too Corsican for France!
The story of his sojourns and adventures in Corsica has no fascination; it is neither heroic nor satanic, but belongs to the dull and mediocre realism which makes up so much of commonplace life. It is difficult to find even a thread of continuity in it: there may be one as to purpose; there is none as to either conduct or theory. There is the passionate admiration of a southern nature for a hero as represented by the ideal Paoli. There is the equally southern quality of quick but transient hatred. The love of dramatic effect is shown at every turn, in the perfervid style of his writings, in the mock dignity of an edict issued from the grotto at Milleli, in the empty honors of a lieutenant-colonel without a real command, in the paltry style of an artillery inspector with no artillery but a few dismantled guns.
But the most prominent characteristic of the young man was his shiftiness, in both the good and bad senses of the word. He would perish with mortification rather than fail in devising some expedient to meet every emergency; he felt no hesitation in changing his point of view as experience destroyed an ideal or an unforeseen chance was to be seized and improved. Moreover, repeated failure did not dishearten him. Detesting garrison life, he neglected its duties, and endured punishment, but he secured regular promotion; defeated again and again before the citadel of Ajaccio, each timehe returned undismayed to make a fresh trial under new auspices or in a new way.
He was no spendthrift, but he had no scruples about money. He was proud in the headship of his family, and reckless as to how he should support them, or should secure their promotion. Solitary in his boyhood, he had become in his youth a companion and leader; but his true friendships were not with his social equals, whom he despised, but with the lowly, whom he understood. Finally, here was a citizen of the world, a man without a country; his birthright was gone, for Corsica repelled him; France he hated, for she had never adopted him. He was almost without a profession, for he had neglected that of a soldier, and had failed both as an author and as a politician. He was apparently, too, without a single guiding principle; the world had been a harsh stepmother, at whose knee he had neither learned the truth nor experienced kindness. He appears consistent in nothing but in making the best of events as they occurred. So far he was a man neither much better nor much worse than the world into which he was born. He was quite as unscrupulous as those about him, but he was far greater than they in perspicacity, adroitness, adaptability, and persistence. During the period before his expulsion from Corsica these qualities of leadership were scarcely recognizable, but they existed. As yet, to all outward appearance, the little captain of artillery was the same slim, ill-proportioned, and rather insignificant youth; but at twenty-three he had had the experience of a much greater age. Conscious of his powers, he had dreamed many day-dreams, and had acquired a habit of boastful conversation in the family circle; but, fully cognizant of the dangers incident to his place, and the unsettled conditions about him, he was cautious and reserved in the outside world.[Back to Contents]
Revolutionary Madness — Uprising of the Girondists — Convention Forces Before Avignon — Bonaparte's First Success in Arms — Its Effect upon His Career — His Political Pamphlet — The Genius it Displays — Accepted and Published by Authority — Seizure of Toulon by the Allies.
1793.
It was a tempestuous time in Provence when on June thirteenth the Buonapartes arrived at Toulon. Their movements during the first few months cannot be determined; we only know that, after a very short residence there, the family fled to Marseilles.[35]Much, too, is obscure in regard even to Napoleon, soldier as he was. It seems as if this period of their history had been wilfully confused to conceal how intimate were the connections of the entire family with the Jacobins. But the obscurity may also be due to the character of the times. Fleeing before the storms of Corsican revolution, they were caught in the whirlwind of French anarchy. The Girondists, after involving the country in a desperate foreign warfare, had shown themselves incompetent to carry it on. In Paris, therefore, they had to give way before the Jacobins, who, by the exercise of a reckless despotism, were able to display an unparalleled energy in its prosecution. Against theirtyranny the moderate republicans and the royalists outside of Paris now made common cause, and civil war broke out in many places, including Vendée, the Rhone valley, and the southeast of France. Montesquieu declares that honor is the distinguishing characteristic of aristocracy: the emigrant aristocrats had been the first in France to throw honor and patriotism to the winds; many of their class who remained went further, displaying in Vendée and elsewhere a satanic vindictiveness. This shameful policy colored the entire civil war, and the bitterness in attack and retaliation that was shown in Marseilles, Lyons, Toulon, and elsewhere would have disgraced savages in a prehistoric age.
The westward slopes of the Alps were occupied by a French army under the command of Kellermann, designated by the name of its situation; farther south and east lay the Army of Italy, under Brunet. Both these armies were expected to draw their supplies from the fertile country behind them, and to coöperate against the troops of Savoy and Austria, which had occupied the passes of lower Piedmont, and blocked the way into Lombardy. By this time the law for compulsory enlistment had been enacted, but the general excitement and topsy-turvy management incident to such rapid changes in government and society, having caused the failure of the Sardinian expedition, had also prevented recruiting or equipment in either of these two divisions of the army. The outbreak of open hostilities in all the lands immediately to the westward momentarily paralyzed their operations; and when, shortly afterward, the Girondists overpowered the Jacobins in Marseilles, the defection of that city made it difficult for the so-called regulars, the soldiers of the Convention, even to obtain subsistence and hold the territory they already occupied.
The next move of the insurgent Girondists of Marseilles was in the direction of Paris, and by the first week of July they had reached Avignon on their way to join forces with their equally successful friends at Lyons. With characteristic zeal, the Convention had created an army to meet them. The new force was put under the command of Carteaux, a civilian, but a man of energy. According to directions received from Paris, he quickly advanced to cut the enemy in two by occupying the strategic point of Valence. This move was successfully made, Lyons was left to fight its own battle, and by the middle of July the general of the Convention was encamped before the walls of Avignon.
Napoleon Buonaparte had hastened to Nice, where five companies of his regiment were stationed, and rejoining the French army, never faltered again in his allegiance to the tricolor. Jean Duteil, brother of the young man's former patron, was in the Savoy capital, high in command. He promptly set the young artillerist at the work of completing the shore batteries. On July third and eighth, respectively, the new captain made written reports to the secretary for war at Paris, and to the director of artillery in the arsenal of Toulon. Both these papers are succinct and well written. Almost immediately Buonaparte was intrusted with a mission, probably confidential, since its exact nature is unknown, and set out for Avignon. He reached his destination almost in the moment when Carteaux began the investment of the city. It was about July sixteenth when he entered the republican camp, having arrived by devious ways, and after narrow escapes from the enemy's hands. This time he was absent from his post on duty. The works and guns at Nice being inadequate and almost worthless, he was probably sent to secure supplies from the stores of Avignon when it should be conquered.Such were the straits of the needy republican general that he immediately appointed his visitor to the command of a strong body of flying artillery. In the first attack on the town Carteaux received a check. But the insurgents were raw volunteers and seem to have felt more and more dismayed by the menacing attitude of the surrounding population: on the twenty-fifth, in the very hour of victory, they began their retreat.[36]The road to Marseilles was thus clear, and the commander unwisely opened his lines to occupy the evacuated towns on his front. Carteaux entered Avignon on the twenty-sixth; on the twenty-seventh he collected his force and departed, reaching Tarascon on the twenty-eighth, and on the twenty-ninth Beaucaire. Buonaparte, whose battery had done excellent service, advanced for some distance with the main army, but was ordered back to protect the rear by reorganizing and reconstructing the artillery park which had been dismantled in the assault on Avignon.
This first successful feat of arms made a profound impression on Buonaparte's mind, and led to the decision which settled his career. His spirits were still low, for he was suffering from a return of his old malarial trouble. Moreover, his family seems already to havebeen driven from Toulon by the uprising of the hostile party: in any case they were now dependent on charity; the Corsican revolt against the Convention was virtually successful, and it was said that in the island the name of Buonaparte was considered as little less execrable than that of Buttafuoco. What must he do to get a decisive share in the surging, rolling tumult about him? The visionary boy was transformed into the practical man. Frenchmen were fighting and winning glory everywhere, and among the men who were reaping laurels were some whom he had known and even despised at Brienne—Sergeant Pichegru, for instance. Ideas which he had momentarily entertained,—enlistment in the Russian army,[37]service with England, a career in the Indies, the return of the nabob,—all such visions were set aside forever, and an application was sent for a transfer from the Army of Italy to that of the Rhine. The suppression of the southern revolt would soon be accomplished, and inactivity ensue; but on the frontier of the north there was a warfare worthy of his powers, in which, if he could only attract the attention of the authorities, long service, rapid advancement, and lasting glory might all be secured.
But what must be the first step to secure notoriety here and now? How could that end be gained? The old instinct of authorship returned irresistibly, and in the long intervals of easy duty at Avignon, where, as is most probable, he remained to complete the task assigned to him, Buonaparte wrote the "Supper of Beaucaire," his first literary work of real ability. As if by magic his style is utterly changed, being now concise, correct,and lucid. The reader would be tempted to think it had enjoyed a thorough revision from some capable hand. But this is improbable when we note that it is the permanent style of the future. Moreover, the opinions expressed are quite as thoroughly transformed, and display not only a clear political judgment, but an almost startling military insight. The setting of this notable repast is possibly, though by no means certainly, based on an actual experience, and is as follows: Five wayfarers—a native of Nîmes, a manufacturer from Montpellier, two merchants of Marseilles, and a soldier from Avignon—find themselves accidentally thrown together as table companions at an inn of Beaucaire, a little city round about which the civil war is raging. The conversation at supper turns on the events occurring in the neighborhood. The soldier explains the circumstances connected with the recent capture of Avignon, attributing the flight of the insurgents to the inability of any except veteran troops to endure the uncertainties of a siege. One of the travelers from Marseilles thinks the success but temporary, and recapitulates the resources of the moderates. The soldier retorts in a long refutation of that opinion. As a politician he shows how the insurgents have placed themselves in a false position by adopting extreme measures and alienating republican sympathy, being cautious and diplomatic in not censuring their persons nor their principles; on the other side there is a marked effort to emphasize the professional attitude; as a military man he explains the strategic weakness of their position, and the futility of their operations, uttering many sententious phrases: "Self-conceit is the worst adviser"; "Good four-and eight-pound cannon are as effective for field work as pieces of larger caliber, and are in many respects preferable to them"; "It is an axiom of militaryscience that the army which remains behind its intrenchments is beaten: experience and theory agree on this point."
The conclusion of the conversation is a triumphant demonstration that the cause of the insurgents is already lost, an argument convicting them of really desiring not moderation, but a counter-revolution in their own interest, and of displaying a willingness to imitate the Vendeans, and call in foreign aid if necessary. In one remarkable passage the soldier grants that the Girondists may have been outlawed, imprisoned, and calumniated by the Mountain in its own selfish interest, but adds that the former "were lost without a civil war by means of which they could lay down the law to their enemies. It was for them your war was really useful. Had they merited their early reputation, they would have thrown down their arms before the constitution and sacrificed their own interests to the public welfare. It is easier to cite Decius than to imitate him. To-day they have shown themselves guilty of the worst possible crimes; have, by their behavior, justified their proscription. The blood they have caused to flow has effaced the true services they had rendered." The Montpellier manufacturer is of opinion that, whether this be true or no, the Convention now represents the nation, and to refuse obedience to it is rebellion and counter-revolution. History knows no plainer statement than this of the"de facto, de jure"principle, the conviction that "might makes right."
At last, then, the leader had shown himself in seizing the salient elements of a complicated situation, and the man of affairs had found a style in which to express his clear-cut ideas. When the tide turns it rises without interruption. Buonaparte's pamphlet was scarcely written before its value was discerned; for at that momentarrived one of those legations now representing the sovereignty of the Convention in every field of operations. This one was a most influential committee of three—Escudier, Ricord, and the younger brother of Robespierre. Accompanying them was a commission charged to renew the commissary stores in Corsica for the few troops still holding out in that island. Salicetti was at its head; the other member was Gasparin. Buonaparte, we may infer, found easy access to the favor of his compatriot Salicetti, and "The Supper of Beaucaire" was heard by the plenipotentiaries with attention. Its merit was immediately recognized, as is said, both by Gasparin and by the younger Robespierre; in a few days the pamphlet was published at the expense of the state.[38]Of Buonaparte's life between July twenty-ninth and September twelfth, 1793, there are the most conflicting accounts. Some say he was at Marseilles, others deny it. His brother Joseph thought he was occupied in collecting munitions and supplies for the Army of Italy. His earliest biographer declares that he traveled by way of Lyons and Auxonne to Paris, returning by the same route to Avignon, and thence journeying to Ollioules near Toulon. From the army headquarters before that city Salicetti wrote on September twenty-sixth that while Buonaparte was passing on his way to rejoin the Army of Italy, the authorities in charge of the siege changed his destination and put him in command of the heavy artillery to replace Dommartin, incapacitated for service by a wound. It has been hinted by both the suspicious and the credulous writerson the period that the young man was employed on some secret mission. This might be expected from those who attribute demonic qualities to the child of destiny from earliest infancy, but there is no slightest evidence to sustain the claim. Quite possibly the lad relapsed into the queer restless ways of earlier life. It is evident he was thwarted in his hope of transfer to the Army of the Rhine. Unwilling as he was to serve in Italy, he finally turned his lagging footsteps thither. Perhaps, as high authorities declare, it was at Marseilles that his compatriot Cervoni persuaded him to go as far at least as Toulon, though Salicetti and Buonaparte himself declared later that they met and arranged the matter at Nice.
In this interval, while Buonaparte remained, according to the best authority, within reach of Avignon, securing artillery supplies and writing a political pamphlet in support of the Jacobins, Carteaux had, on August twenty-fifth, 1793, taken Marseilles. The capture was celebrated by one of the bloodiest orgies of that horrible year. The Girondists of Toulon saw in the fate of those at Marseilles the lot apportioned to themselves. If the high contracting powers now banded against France had shown a sincere desire to quell Jacobin bestiality, they could on the first formation of the coalition easily have seized Paris. Instead, Austria and Prussia had shown the most selfish apathy in that respect, bargaining with each other and with Russia for their respective shares of Poland, the booty they were about to seize. The intensity of the Jacobin movement did not rouse them until the majority of the French people, vaguely grasping the elements of permanent value in the Revolution, and stung by foreign interference, rallied around the only standard which was firmly upheld,—that of the Convention,—and enabled that body within anincredibly short space of time to put forth tremendous energy. Then England, terrified into panic, drove Pitt to take effective measures, and displayed her resources in raising subsidies for her Continental allies, in goading the German powers to activity, in scouring every sea with her fleets. One of these was cruising off the French coast in the Mediterranean, and it was easy for the Girondists of Toulon to induce its commander to seize not only their splendid arsenals, but the fleet in their harbor as well—the only effective one, in fact, which at that time the French possessed. Without delay or hesitation, Hood, the English admiral, grasped the easy prize, and before long war-ships of the Spaniards, Neapolitans, and Sardinians were gathered to share in the defense of the town against the Convention forces. Soon the Girondist fugitives from Marseilles arrived, and were received with kindness. The place was provisioned, the gates were shut, and every preparation for desperate resistance was completed. The fate of the republic was at stake. The crisis was acute. No wonder that in view of his wonderful career, Napoleon long after, and his friends in accord, declared that in the hour appeared the man. There, said the inspired memorialist ofSt.Helena, history found him, never to leave him; there began his immortality. Though this language is truer ideally than in sober reality, yet the Emperor had a certain justification for his claim.[Back to Contents]
The Jacobin Power Threatened — Buonaparte's Fate — His Appointment at Toulon — His Ability as an Artillerist — His Name Mentioned with Distinction — His Plan of Operations — The Fall of Toulon — Buonaparte a General of Brigade — Behavior of the Jacobin Victors — A Corsican Plot — Horrors of the French Revolution — Influence of Toulon on Buonaparte's Career.[39]
1793.
Coupled as it was with other discouraging circumstances, the "treason of Toulon" struck a staggering blow at the Convention. The siege of Lyons was still in progress; the Piedmontese were entering Savoy, or the department of Mont Blanc, as it had been designated after its recent capture by France; the great city of Bordeaux was ominously silent and inactive; the royalists of Vendée were temporarily victorious; there was unrest in Normandy, and further violence in Brittany; the towns of Mainz, Valenciennes, and Condé had been evacuated, and Dunkirk was besieged by the Duke of York. The loss of Toulon would put a climax to such disasters, destroy the credit of the republic abroad andat home, perhaps bring back the Bourbons. Carnot had in the meantime come to the assistance of the Committee of Safety. Great as a military organizer and influential as a politician, he had already awakened the whole land to a still higher fervor, and had consolidated public sentiment in favor of his plans. InDubois de Crancéhe had an able lieutenant. Fourteen armies were soon to move and fight, directed by a single mind; discipline was about to be effectively strengthened because it was to be the discipline of the people by itself; the envoys of the Convention were to go to and fro, successfully laboring for common action and common enthusiasm in the executive, in both the fighting services, and in the nation. But as yet none of these miracles had been wrought, and, with Toulon lost, they might be forever impossible.
Such was the setting of the stage in the great national theater of France when Napoleon Buonaparte entered on the scene. The records of his boyhood and youth by his own hand afford the proof of what he was at twenty-four. It has required no searching analysis to discern the man, nor trace the influences of his education. Except for short and unimportant periods, the story is complete and accurate. It is, moreover, absolutely unsophisticated. What does it show? A well-born Corsican child, of a family with some fortune, glad to use every resource of a disordered time for securing education and money, patriotic at heart but willing to profit from France, or indeed from Russia, England, the Orient; wherever material advantage was to be found. This boy was both idealist and realist, each in the high degree corresponding to his great abilities. He shone neither as a scholar nor as an officer, being obdurate to all training,—but by independent exertions and desultory reading of a high class he formedan ideal of society in which there prevailed equality of station and purse, purity of life and manners, religion without clericalism, free speech and honorable administration of just laws. His native land untrammeled by French control would realize this ideal, he had fondly hoped: but the Revolution emancipated it completely, entirely; and what occurred? A reversion to every vicious practice of medievalism, he himself being sucked into the vortex and degraded into a common adventurer. Disenchanted and bitter, he then turned to France. Abandoning his double rôle, his interest in Corsica was thenceforth sentimental; his fine faculties when focused on the realities of a great world suddenly exhibit themselves in keen observation, fair conclusions, a more than academic interest, and a skill in the conduct of life hitherto obscured by unfavorable conditions. Already he had found play for all his powers both with gun and pen. He was not only eager but ready to deploy them in a higher service.
The city of Toulon was now formally and nominally invested—that is, according to the then accepted general rules for such operations, but with no regard to those peculiarities of its site which only master minds could mark and use to the best advantage. The large double bay is protected from the southwest by a broad peninsula joined to the mainland by a very narrow isthmus, and thus opens southeastward to the Mediterranean. The great fortified city, then regarded as one of the strongest places in the world, lies far within on the eastern shore of the inner harbor. Excellent authorities considered it impregnable. It is protected on the landward side by an amphitheater of high hills, which leave to the right and left a narrow strip of rolling country between their lower slopes and the sea. On the east Lapoype commanded the left wing of thebesieging revolutionary force. The westward pass is commanded by Ollioules, which Carteaux had selected for his headquarters. On August twenty-ninth his vanguard seized the place, but they were almost immediately attacked and driven out by the allied armies, chiefly English troops brought in from Gibraltar. On September seventh the place was retaken. The two wings were in touch and to landward the communications of the town were completely cut off. In the assault only a single French officer fell seriously wounded, but that one was a captain of artillery. Salicetti and his colleagues had received from the minister of war a charge to look out for the citizen Buonaparte who wanted service on the Rhine. This and their own attachment determined them in the pregnant step they now took. The still unattached captain of artillery, Napoleon Buonaparte, was appointed to the vacant place. As far as history is concerned, this is a very important fact; it is really a matter of slight import whether Cervoni or Salicetti gave the impulse. At the same time his mother received a grant of money, and while favors were going, there were enough needy Buonapartes to receive them. Salicetti and Gasparin, being the legates of the Convention, were all-powerful. The latter took a great fancy to Salicetti's friend and there was no opposition when the former exercised his power. Fesch and Lucien were both provided with places, being made storekeepers in the commissary department. Barras, who was the recruiting-officer of the Convention at Toulon, claims to have been the first to recognize Buonaparte's ability. He declares that the young Corsican was daily at his table, and that it was he himself who irregularly but efficiently secured the appointment of his new friend to active duty. But he also asserts what we know to be untrue, that Buonapartewas still lieutenant when they first met, and that he created him captain. It is likely, in view of their subsequent intimacy at Paris, that they were also intimate at Toulon; the rest of Barras's story is a fabrication.
But although the investment of Toulon was complete, it was weak. On September eighteenth the total force of the assailants was ten thousand men. From time to time reinforcements came in and the various seasoned battalions exhibited on occasion great gallantry and courage. But the munitions and arms were never sufficient, and under civilian officers both regulars and recruits were impatient of severe discipline. The artillery in particular was scarcely more than nominal. There were a few field-pieces, two large and efficient guns only, and two mortars. By a mistake of the war department the general officer detailed to organize the artillery did not receive his orders in time and remained on his station in the eastern Pyrenees until after the place fell. Manifestly some one was required to grasp the situation and supply a crying deficiency. It was with no trembling hand that Buonaparte laid hold of his task. For an efficient artillery service artillery officers were essential, and there were almost none. In the ebb and flow of popular enthusiasm many republicans who had fallen back before the storms of factional excesses were now willing to come forward, and Napoleon, not publicly committed to the Jacobins, was able to win many capable assistants from among men of his class. His nervous restlessness found an outlet in erecting buttresses, mounting guns, and invigorating the whole service until a zealous activity of the most promising kind was displayed by officers and men alike. By September twenty-ninth fourteen guns were mounted and four mortars, the essential material was gathered, and by sheer self-assertionBuonaparte was in complete charge. The only check was in the ignorant meddling of Carteaux, who, though energetic and zealous, though born and bred in camp, being the son of a soldier, was, after all, not a soldier, but a very fair artist (painter). For his battle-pieces and portraits of military celebrities he had received large prices, and was as vain of his artistic as of his military talent, though both were mediocre. Strange characters rose to the top in those troublous times: the painter's opponent at Avignon, the leader of the insurgents, had been a tailor; his successor was one Lapoype, a physician. Buonaparte's ready pen stood him again in good stead, and he sent up a memorial to the ministry, explaining the situation, and asking for the appointment of an artillery general with full powers. The commissioners transmitted the paper to Paris, and appointed the memorialist to the higher rank of acting commander.