On March thirty-first, Bonaparte, having received definite and official information that he could expect no immediate support from the Army of the Rhine, addressed from Klagenfurt to the Archduke what he called a "philosophical" letter, calling attention to the fact that it was England which had embroiled France and Austria, powers which had really no grievance one against the other. Would a prince, so far removed by lofty birth from the petty weaknesses of ministers and governments, not intervene as the savior of Germany to end the miseries of a useless war? "As far as I myself am concerned, if the communication I have the honor to be making should save the life of a single man, I should be prouder of that civic crown than of the sad renown which results from military success." At the same time Masséna was pressing forward into the valleyof the Mur, across the passes of Neumarkt; and before the end of the week his seizure ofSt.Michael and Leoben had cut off the last hope of a junction between the forces of Charles and his expected reinforcements from the Rhine. Austria was carrying on her preparations of war with the same proud determination she had always shown, and Charles continued his disastrous hostilities with Masséna. But when Thugut received the "philosophical" letter from Bonaparte, which Charles had promptly forwarded to Vienna, the imperial cabinet did not hesitate, and plenipotentiaries were soon on their way to Leoben.
The situation of Bonaparte at Leoben was by no means what the position of the French forces within ninety miles of Vienna would seem to indicate. The revolutionary movement in Venetia, silently but effectually fostered by the French garrisons, had been successful in Bergamo, Brescia, and Salo. The senate, in despair, sent envoys to Bonaparte at Göritz. His reply was conciliatory, but he declared that he would do nothing unless the city of Venice should make the long-desired concession about inscriptions in the Golden Book. At the same time he demanded a monthly payment of a million francs in lieu of all requisitions on its territory. At Paris the Venetian ambassador had no better success, and with the news of Joubert's withdrawal from the Tyrol a terrible insurrection broke out, which sacrificed many French lives at Verona and elsewhere. Bonaparte's suggestions for the preliminaries of peace with Austria had been drawn up before the news of that event reached him: but with the Tyrol and Venice all aflame in his rear, and threatening his connections; with no prospect of assistance from Moreau in enforcing his demands; and with a growing hostility showing itself among the populations of the hereditarystates of Austria into which he had penetrated, it was not wonderful that his original design was confirmed. "At Leoben," he once said, in a gambler's metaphor, "I was playing twenty-one, and I had only twenty."
When, therefore, Merveldt and Gallo, the duly accredited plenipotentiaries of Austria, and General Bonaparte, representing the French republic, but with no formal powers from its government, met in the castle of Göss at Leoben, they all knew that the situation of the French was very precarious indeed, and that the terms to be made could not be those dictated by a triumphant conqueror in the full tide of victory. Neither party had any scruples about violating the public law of Europe by the destruction of another nationality; but they needed some pretext. While they were in the opening stages of negotiation the pretext came; for on April ninth Bonaparte received news of the murders to which reference has been made, and of an engagement at Salo, provoked by the French, in which the Bergamask mountaineers had captured three hundred of the garrison, mostly Poles. This affair was only a little more serious than numerous other conflicts incident to partisan warfare which were daily occurring; but it was enough. With a feigned fury the French general addressed the Venetian senate as if their land were utterly irreconcilable, and demanded from them impossible acts of reparation. Junot was despatched to Venice with the message, and delivered it from the floor of the senate on April fifteenth, the very day on which his chief was concluding negotiations for the delivery of the Venetian mainland to Austria.
So strong had the peace party in Vienna become, and such was the terror of its inhabitants at seeing the court hide its treasures and prepare to fly into Hungary, that the plenipotentiaries could only accept the offer ofBonaparte, which they did with ill-concealed delight. There was but one point of difference, the grand duchy of Modena, which Francis for the honor of his house was determined to keep, if possible. With Tuscany, Modena, and the Venetian mainland all in their hands, the Austrian authorities felt that time would surely restore to them the lost Milanese. But Bonaparte was obdurate. On the eighteenth the preliminaries were closed and adopted. The Austrians solemnly declared at the time that, when the papers were to be exchanged formally, Bonaparte presented a copy which purported to be a counterpart of what had been mutually arranged. Essential differences were, however, almost immediately marked by the recipients, and when they announced their discovery with violent clamor, the cool, sarcastic general produced without remark another copy, which was found to be a correct reproduction of the preliminary terms agreed upon. This coarse and silly ruse seems to have been a favorite device, for it was tried later in another conspicuous instance, the negotiation of the Concordat. According to the authentic articles, France was to have Belgium, with the "limits of France" as decreed by the laws of the republic, a purposely ambiguous expression. In this preliminary outline the Rhine boundary was not mentioned. The territory of the Empire was also guaranteed. These flat contradictions indicate something like panic on both sides, and duplicity at least on one and probably on both, for Thugut's correspondence indicates his firm purpose to despoil and destroy Venice. In any case Austria obtained the longed-for mainland of Venice as far as the river Oglio, together with Istria and Dalmatia, the Venetian dependencies beyond the Adriatic, while Venice herself was to be nominally indemnified by the receipt of the three papal legations, Bologna, Ferrara, and the Romagna,which had just been erected into the Transpadane Republic! Modena was to be united with Mantua, Reggio, and the Milanese into a great central republic, which would always be dependent on France, and was to be connected with her territory by way of Genoa. Some of the articles were secret, and all were subject to immaterial changes in the final negotiations for definitive peace, which were to be carried on later at Bern, chosen for the purpose as being a neutral city.
Bonaparte explained, in a letter to the Directory, that whatever occurred, the Papal States could never become an integral part of Venice, and would always be under French influences. His sincerity was no greater, as the event showed, concerning the very existence of Venice herself. The terms he had made were considered at Vienna most favorable, and there was great rejoicing in that capital. But it was significant that in the routine negotiations the old-school diplomatists had been sadly shocked by the behavior of their military antagonist, who, though a mere tyro in their art, was very hard to deal with. At the outset, for instance, they had proposed to incorporate, as the first article in the preliminaries, that for which the Directory had long been negotiating with Austria, a recognition of the French republic. "Strike that out," said Bonaparte. "The Republic is like the sun on the horizon—all the worse for him who will not see it." This was but a foretaste of ruder dealings which followed, and of still more violent breaches with tradition in the long negotiations which were to ensue over the definitive treaty.
The very day on which the signatures were affixed at Leoben, the Austrian arms were humbled by Hoche on the Rhine. Moreau had not been able to move for lack of a paltry sum which he was begging for, but could not obtain, from the Directory. Hoche, chafing atsimilar delays, and anxious to atone for Jourdan's failure of the previous year, finally set forth, and, crossing at Neuwied, advanced to Heddersdorf, where he attacked the Austrians, who had been weakened to strengthen the Archduke Charles. They were routed with a loss of six thousand prisoners. Another considerable force was nearly surrounded when a sudden stop was put to Hoche's career by the arrival of a courier from Leoben. Though, soon after, the ministry of war was offered to him, he declined. It was apparently prescience of the fact that the greatest laurels were still to be won which led him to refuse, and return to his headquarters at Wetzlar. There a mysterious malady, still attributed by many to poison, ended his brief and glorious career on September eighteenth, 1797. His laurels were such as adorn only a character full of promise, serene and generous alike in success and defeat. In the Black Forest, Desaix, having crossed the Rhine with Moreau's army below Strasburg, was likewise driving the Austrians before him. He too was similarly checked, and these brilliant achievements came all too late. No advantage was gained by them in the terms of peace, and the glory of humiliating Austria remained to Bonaparte. Desaix was an Auvergnat, an aristocrat of famous pedigree, carefully trained as a cadet to the military career. He was now twenty-nine, having served on the Rhine as Victor's adjutant, as general of brigade in the Army of the Moselle, and as general of division under Jourdan and Moreau. Transferred to Italy, he became the confidential friend and stanch supporter of Bonaparte. His manner was winning, his courage contagious, his liberal principles unquestioned. No finer figure appears on the battle-fields of the Directory and Consulate.
Throughout all France there was considerable dissatisfactionwith Bonaparte's moderation, and a feeling among extreme republicans, especially in the Directory, that he should have destroyed the Austrian monarchy. Larévellière and Rewbell were altogether of this opinion, and the corrupt Barras to a certain extent, for he had taken a bribe of six hundred thousand francs from the Venetian ambassador at Paris, to compel the repression by Bonaparte of the rebels on the mainland. The correspondence of various emissaries connected with this affair fell into the general's hands at Milan, and put the Directory more completely at his mercy than ever. On April nineteenth, however, he wrote as if in reply to such strictures as might be made: "If at the beginning of the campaign I had persisted in going to Turin, I never should have passed the Po; if I had persisted in going to Rome, I should have lost Milan; if I had persisted in going to Vienna, perhaps I should have overthrown the Republic." He well understood that fear would yield what despair might refuse. It was a matter of course that when the terms of Leoben reached Paris the Directory ratified them: even though they had been irregularly negotiated by an unauthorized agent, they separated England from Austria, and crushed the coalition. One thing, however, the directors notified Bonaparte he must not do; that was, to interfere further in the affairs of Venice. This order reached him on May eighth; but just a week before, Venice, as an independent state, had ceased to exist.
Accident and crafty prearrangement had combined to bring the affairs of that ancient commonwealth to such a crisis. The general insurrection and the fight at Salo had given a pretext for disposing of the Venetian mainland; soon after, the inevitable results of French occupation afforded the opportunity for destroying the oligarchy altogether. The evacuation ofVerona by the garrison of its former masters had been ordered as a part of the general disarmament of Italy. The Veronese were intensely, fiercely indignant on learning that they were to be transferred to a hated allegiance; and on April seventeenth, when a party appeared to reinforce the French troops already there, the citizens rose in a frenzy of indignation, and drove the hated invaders into the citadel. During the following days, three hundred of the French civilians in the town, all who had not been able to find refuge, were massacred; old and young, sick and well. At the same time a detachment of Austrians under Laudon came in from the Tyrol to join Fioravente, the Venetian general, and his Slavs. This of course increased the tumult, for the French began to bombard the city from the citadel. For a moment the combined besiegers, exaggerating the accounts of Joubert's withdrawal and of Moreau's failure to advance, hoped for ultimate success, and the overthrow of the French. But rumors from Leoben caused the Austrians to withdraw up the Adige, and a Lombard regiment came to the assistance of the French. The Venetian forces were captured, and the city was disarmed; so also were Peschiera, Castelnuovo, and many others which had made no resistance.
Two days after this furious outbreak of Veronese resentment,—an event which is known to the French as the Veronese Passover,—occurred another, of vastly less importance in itself, but having perhaps even more value as cumulative evidence that the wound already inflicted by Bonaparte on the Venetian state was mortal. A French vessel, flying before two Austrian cruisers, appeared off the Lido, and anchored under the arsenal. It was contrary to immemorial custom for an armed vessel to enter the harbor of Venice, and the captainwas ordered to weigh anchor. He refused. Thereupon, in stupid zeal, the guns of the Venetian forts opened on the ship. Many of the crew were killed, and the rest were thrown into prison. This was the final stroke, all that was necessary for the justification of Bonaparte's plans. An embassy from the senate had been with him at Gratz when the awful news from Verona came to his headquarters. He had then treated them harshly, demanding not only the liberation of every man confined for political reasons within their prison walls, but the surrender of their inquisitors as well. "I will have no more Inquisition, no more Senate; I shall be an Attila to Venice!... I want not your alliance nor your schemes; I mean to lay down the law." They left his presence with gloomy and accurate forebodings as to what was in those secret articles which had been executed at Leoben. When, two days later, came this news of further conflict with the French in Venice itself, the envoys were dismissed, without another audience, by a note which declared that its writer "could not receive them, dripping as they were with French blood." On May third, having advanced to Palma, Bonaparte declared war against Venice. In accordance with the general license of the age, hostilities had, however, already begun; for as early as April thirtieth the French and their Italian helpers had fortified the lowlands between the Venetian lagoons, and on May first the main army appeared at Fusina, the nearest point on the mainland to the city.[Back to Contents]
Feebleness of the Venetian Oligarchy — Its Overthrow — Bonaparte's Duplicity — Letters of Opposite Purport — Montebello — The Republican Court — England's Proposition for Peace — Plans of the Directory — General Clarke's Diplomatic Career — Conduct ofMme.Bonaparte — Bonaparte's Jealous Tenderness — His Wife's Social Conquests — Relations of the Powers.
1797.
Since the days of Carthage no government like that of the Venetian oligarchy had existed on the earth. At its best it was dark and remorseless; with the disappearance of its vigor its despotism had become somewhat milder, but even yet no common man might draw the veil from its mysterious, irresponsible councils and live. A few hundred families administered the country as they did their private estates. All intelligence, all liberty, all personal independence, were repressed by such a system. The more enlightened Venetians of the mainland, many even in the city, feeling the influences of the time, had long been uneasy under their government, smoothly as it seemed to run in time of peace. Now that the earth was quaking under the march of Bonaparte's troops, this government was not only helpless, but in its panic it actually grew contemptible, displaying by its conduct how urgent was the necessity for a change. The senate had a powerful fleet, three thousand native troops, and eleven thousand mercenaries; but they struck only a single futile blow on their own account, permitting a rash captain to open fire from the gunboats against the French vanguardwhen it appeared. But immediately, as if in fear of their own temerity, they despatched an embassy to learn the will of the approaching general. That his dealings might be merciful, they tried the plan of Modena, and offered him a bribe of seven million francs; but, as in the case of Modena, he refused. Next day the Great Council having been summoned, it was determined by a nearly unanimous vote of the patricians—six hundred and ninety to twenty-one—that they would remodel their institutions on democratic lines. The pale and terrified Doge thought that in such a surrender lay the last hope of safety.
Not for a moment did Lallemant and Villetard, the two French agents, intermit their revolutionary agitation in the town. Disorders grew more frequent, while uncertainty both paralyzed and disintegrated the patrician party. A week later the government virtually abdicated. Two utter strangers appeared in a theatrical way at its doors, and suggested in writing to the Great Council that to appease the spirit of the times they should plant the liberty-tree on the Place ofSt.Mark, and speedily accede to all the propositions for liberalizing Venice which the popular temper seemed to demand. Such were the terror and disorganization of the aristocracy that instead of punishing the intrusion of the unknown reformers by death, according to the traditions of their merciless procedure, they took measures to carry out the suggestions made in a way as dark and significant as any of their own. The fleet was dismantled, and the army disbanded. By the end of the month the revolution was virtually accomplished; a rising of their supporters having been mistaken by the Great Council, in its pusillanimous terror, for a rebellion of their antagonists, they decreed the abolition of all existing institutions, and, after hastily organizing a provisional government,disbanded. Four thousand French soldiers occupied the town, and an ostensible treaty was made between the new republic of Venice and that of France.
This treaty was really nothing but a pronunciamento of Bonaparte. He decreed a general amnesty to all offenders except the commander of Fort Luco, who had recently fired on the French vessel. He also guaranteed the public debt, and promised to occupy the city only as long as the public order required it. By a series of secret articles, vaguely expressed, Venice was bound to accept the stipulations of Leoben in regard to territory, pay an indemnity of one million two hundred thousand dollars, and furnish three ships of the line with two frigates, while, in pursuance of the general policy of the French republic, experts were to select twenty pictures from her galleries, and five hundred manuscripts from her libraries. Whatever was the understanding of those who signed these crushing conditions, the city was never again treated by any European power as an independent state. To this dismemberment the Directory made itself an accessory after the fact, having issued a declaration of war on Venice which only reached Milan to be suppressed, when already Venice was no more. Whether the oligarchy or its assassin was the more loathsome still remains an academic question, debatable only in an idle hour. Soon afterward a French expedition was despatched to occupy her island possessions in the Levant. The arrangements had been carefully prepared during the very time when the provisional government believed itself to be paying the price of its new liberties. And earlier still, on May twenty-seventh, three days before the abdication of the aristocracy, Bonaparte had already offered to Austria the entire republic in its proposed form as an exchange for the German lands on the left bank of the Rhine.
Writing to the Directory on that day, he declared that Venice, which had been in a decline ever since the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope and the rise of Triest and Ancona, could with difficulty survive the blows just given her. "This miserable, cowardly people, unfit for liberty, and without land or water—it seems natural to me that we should hand them over to those who have received their mainland from us. We shall take all their ships, we shall despoil their arsenal, we shall remove all their cannon, we shall wreck their rank, we shall keep Corfu and Ancona for ourselves." On the twenty-sixth, only the day previous, a letter to his "friends" of the Venetian provisional government had assured them that he would do all in his power to confirm their liberties, and that he earnestly desired that Italy, "now covered with glory, and free from every foreign influence, should again appear on the world's stage, and assert among the great powers that station to which by nature, position, and destiny it was entitled." Ordinary minds cannot grasp the guile and daring which seem to have foreseen and prearranged all the conditions necessary to plans which for double-dealing transcended the conceptions of men even in that age of duplicity and selfishness.
Not far from Milan, on a gentle rise, stands the famous villa, or country-seat, of Montebello. Its windows command a scene of rare beauty: on one side, in the distance, the mighty Alps, with their peaks of never-melting ice and snow; on the other three, the almost voluptuous beauty of the fertile plains; while in the near foreground lies the great capital of Lombardy, with its splendid industries, its stores of art, and its crowded spires hoary with antiquity. Within easy reach are the exquisite scenes of an enchanted region—that of the Italian lakes. To this lordly residence Bonaparte withdrew.His summer's task was to be the pacification of Europe, and the consolidation of his own power in Italy, in France, and northward beyond the Alps. The two objects went hand in hand. From Austria, from Rome, from Naples, from Turin, from Parma, from Switzerland, and even from the minor German principalities whose fate hung on the rearrangement of German lands to be made by the Diet of the Empire, agents of every kind, both military and diplomatic, both secret and accredited, flocked to the seat of power. Expresses came and went in all directions, while humble suitors vied with one another in homage to the risen sun.
The uses of rigid etiquette were well understood by Bonaparte. He appreciated the dazzling power of ceremony, the fascination of condescension, and the influence of woman in the conduct of affairs. All such influences he lavished with a profusion which could have been conceived only by an Oriental imagination. As if to overpower the senses by an impressive contrast, and symbolize the triumph of that dominant Third Estate of which he claimed to be the champion against aristocrats, princes, kings, and emperors, the simplicity of the Revolution was personified and emphasized in his own person. His ostentatious frugality, his disdain for dress, his contempt for personal wealth and its outward signs, were all heightened by the setting which inclosed them, as a frame of brilliants often heightens the character in the portrait of a homely face.
Meantime England, grimly determined to save herself and the Europe essential to her well-being, was not a passive spectator of events in Italy. To understand the political situation certain facts must be reiterated in orderly connection. At the close of 1796, Pitt's administration was still in great straits, for the Tories who supported him were angered by his lack of success, whilethe Whig opposition was correspondingly jubilant and daily growing stronger. The navy had been able barely to preserve appearances, but that was all. There was urgent need for reform in tactics, in administration, and in equipment. France had made some progress in all these directions, and, in spite of English assistance, both the Vendean and the Chouan insurrections had, to all appearance, been utterly crushed. Subsequently the powerful expedition under Hoche, equipped and held in readiness to sail for Ireland, there to organize rebellion, and give England a draught from her own cup, though destined to disaster, wrought powerfully on the British imagination. It was clear that the Whigs would score a triumph at the coming elections if something were not done. Accordingly, as has been told, Pitt determined to open negotiations for peace with the Directory. As his agent he unwisely chose a representative aristocrat, who had distinguished himself as a diplomatist in Holland by organizing the Orange party to sustain the Prussian arms against the rising democracy of that country. Moreover, the envoy was an ultra-conservative in his views of the French Revolution, and, believing that there was no room in western Europe for his own country and her great rival, thought there could be no peace until France was destroyed. Burke sneered that he had gone to Paris on his knees. He had been received with suspicion and distrust, many believing his real errand to be the reorganization of a royalist party in France. Then, too, Delacroix, minister of foreign affairs, was a narrow, shallow, and conceited man, unable either to meet an adroit and experienced negotiator on his own ground, or to prepare new forms of diplomatic combat, as Bonaparte had done. The English proposition, it is well to recall, was that Great Britain would give up all the French colonial possessions she had seizedduring the war, provided the French republic would abandon Belgium. It is essential to an understanding of Bonaparte's attitude in 1797, to recall also in this connection that the navigation of the Scheldt has ever been an object of the highest importance to England: the establishment of a strong, hostile maritime power in harbors like those of the Netherlands would menace, if not destroy, the British carrying-trade with central and northern Europe. The reply of the Directory had been that their fundamental law forbade the consideration of such a point; and when Malmesbury persisted in his offer, he was allowed forty-eight hours to leave the country. The negotiation was a fiasco as far as Austria was concerned, although useful in consolidating British patriotism. Hoche, having been despatched to Ireland, found wind and waves adverse, and then returned to replace Jourdan in command of one of the Rhine armies, the latter having been displaced for his failures in Germany and relegated to the career of politics. Bonaparte's victories left his most conspicuous rival nothing to do and he gracefully congratulated his Italian colleague on having forestalled him. His sad and suspicious death in September had no influence on the terms of Bonaparte's treaty, but emphasized the need of its ratification.
The Directory, with an eye single to the consolidation of the republic, cared little for Lombardy, and much for Belgium; for the prestige of the government, even for its stability, Belgium with the Rhine frontier must be secured. The Austrian minister cared little for the distant provinces of the empire, and everything for a compact territorial consolidation. The successes of 1796 had secured to France treaties with Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and the two circles of Swabia and Franconia, whereby these powers consentedto abandon the control of all lands on the left bank of the Rhine hitherto belonging to them or to the Germanic body. As a consequence the goal of the Directory could be reached by Austria's consent, and Austria appeared to be willing. The only question was, Would France restore the Milanese? Carnot was emphatic in the expression of his opinion that for the sake of peace with honor, a speedy, enduring peace, she must, and his colleagues assented. Accordingly, Bonaparte was warned that no expectations of emancipation must be awakened in the Italian peoples. But such a warning was absurd. The directors, having been able neither to support their general with adequate reinforcements, nor to pay his troops, it had been only in the rôle of a liberator that Bonaparte was successful in cajoling and conquering Italy, in sustaining and arming his men, and in pouring treasures into Paris. It was for this reason that, enormous and outrageous as was the ruin and spoliation of a neutral state, he saw himself compelled to overthrow Venice, and hold it as a substitute for Lombardy in the coming trade with Austria. But the directors either could not or would not at that time enter into his plans, and refused to comprehend the situation.
With doubtful good sense they had therefore determined in November, 1796, to send Clarke, their own chosen agent, to Vienna. It was for this that they selected a man of polished manners and honest purpose, but, contrary to their estimate, of very moderate ability. He must of course have a previous understanding with Bonaparte, and to that end he had journeyed by way of Italy. Being kindly welcomed, he was entirely befooled by his subtle host, who detained him with idle suggestions until after the fall of Mantua, when to his amazement he received the instructions from Paris already stated: to make no proposition of any kind withoutBonaparte's consent. Then followed the death of the Czarina Catherine, which left Austria with no ally, and all the subsequent events to the eve of Leoben. Thugut, of course, wanted no Jacobin agitator at Vienna, such as he supposed Clarke to be, and informed him that he must not come thither, but might reach a diplomatic understanding with the Austrian minister at Turin, if he could. He was thus comfortably banished from the seat of war during the closing scenes of the campaign, and to Bonaparte's satisfaction could not of course reach Leoben in time to conclude the preliminaries as the accredited agent of the republic. But, to save the self-respect of the Directory, he was henceforth to be associated with Bonaparte in arranging the final terms of peace; and to that end he came of course to Milan. Representing as he did the conviction of the government that the Rhine frontier must be a condition of peace, and necessarily emphasizing its scheme of territorial compensations, he had to be either managed or disregarded. It was the versatility of the envoy at Montebello which assured him his subsequent career under the consulate and empire.
The court at Montebello was not a mere levee of men. There was as well an assemblage of brilliant women, of whom the presiding genius wasMme.Bonaparte. Love, doubt, decision, marriage, separation, had been the rapidly succeeding incidents of her connection with Bonaparte in Paris. Though she had made ardent professions of devotion to her husband, the marriage vow sat but lightly on her in the early days of their separation. Her husband appears to have been for a short time more constant, but, convinced of her fickleness, to have become as unfaithful as she. And yet the complexity of emotions—ambition, self-interest, and physical attraction—which seems to have been present inboth, although in widely different degree, sustained something like genuine ardor in him, and an affection sincere enough often to awaken jealousy in her. The news of Bonaparte's successive victories in Italy made his wife a heroine in Paris. In all the salons of the capital, from that of the directors at the Luxembourg downward through those of her more aristocratic but less powerful acquaintances, she was fêted and caressed. As early as April, 1796, came the first summons of her husband to join him in Italy. Friends explained to her willing ears that it was not a French custom for the wives of generals to join the camp-train, and she refused. Resistance but served to rouse the passions of the young conqueror, and his fiery love-letters reached Paris by every courier. Josephine, however, remained unmoved; for the traditions of her admirers, to whom she showed them, made light of a conjugal affection such as that. She was flattered, but, during the courtship, slightly frightened by such addresses.
In due time there were symptoms which appeared to be those of pregnancy. On receipt of this news the prospective father could not contain himself for joy. The letter which he sent has been preserved. It was written from Tortona, on June fifteenth, 1796. Life is but a vain show because at such an hour he is absent from her. His passion had clouded his faculties, but if she is in pain he will leave at any hazard for her side. Without appetite, and sleepless; without thought of friends, glory, or country, all the world is annihilated for him except herself. "I care for honor because you do, for victory because it gratifies you, otherwise I would have left all else to throw myself at your feet. Dear friend, be sure and say you are persuaded that I love you above all that can be imagined—persuaded that every moment of my time is consecrated to you;that never an hour passes without thought of you; that it never occurred to me to think of another woman; that they are all in my eyes without grace, without beauty, without wit; that you—you alone as I see you, as you are—could please and absorb all the faculties of my soul; that you have fathomed all its depths; that my heart has no fold unopened to you, no thoughts which are not attendant upon you; that my strength, my arms, my mind, are all yours; that my soul is in your form, and that the day you change, or the day you cease to live, will be that of my death; that nature, the earth, is lovely in my eyes, only because you dwell within it. If you do not believe all this, if your soul is not persuaded, saturated, you distress me, you do not love me. Between those who love is a magnetic bond. You know that I could never see you with a lover, much less endure your having one: to see him and to tear out his heart would for me be one and the same thing; and then, could I, I would lay violent hands on your sacred person.... No, I would never dare, but I would leave a world where that which is most virtuous had deceived me. I am confident and proud of your love. Misfortunes are trials which mutually develop the strength of our passion. A child lovely as its mother is to see the light in your arms. Wretched man that I am, a single day would satisfy me! A thousand kisses on your eyes, on your lips. Adorable woman! what a power you have! I am sick with your disease: besides, I have a burning fever. Keep the courier but six hours, and let him return at once, bringing to me the darling letter of my queen."
At length, in June, when the first great victories had been won, when the symptoms of motherhood proved to be spurious and disappeared, when honors like those of a sovereign were awaiting her in Italy,Mme.Bonaparte decided to tear herself away from the circle of herfriends in Paris, and to yield to the ever more urgent pleadings of her husband. Traveling under Junot's care, she reached Milan early in July, to find the general no longer an adventurer, but the successful dictator of a people, courted by princes and kings, adored by the masses, and the arbiter of nations. Rising, apparently without an effort, to the height of the occasion, she began and continued throughout the year to rival in her social conquests the victories of her husband in the field. Where he was Caius, she was Caia. High-born dames sought her favor, and nobles bowed low to win her support. At times she actually braved the dangers of insurrection and the battle-field. Her presence in their capital was used to soothe the exasperated Venetians. To gratify her spouse's ardor, she journeyed to many cities, and by a show of mild sympathy moderated somewhat the wild ambitions which the scenes and character of his successes awakened in his mind. The heroes and poets of Rome had moved upon that same stage. To his consort the new Cæsar unveiled the visions of his heated imagination, explained the sensations aroused in him by their shadowy presence, and unfolded his schemes of emulation. Of such purposes the court held during the summer at Montebello was but the natural outcome. Its historic influence was incalculable: on one hand, by the prestige it gave in negotiation to the central figure, and by the chance it afforded to fix and crystallize the indefinite visions of the hour; on the other, by rendering memorable the celebration of the national fête on July fourteenth, 1797, an event arranged for political purposes, and so dazzling as to fix in the army the intense and complete devotion to their leader which made possible the next epoch in his career.
The summer was a season of enforced idleness, outwardlyand as far as international relations were concerned, but in reality Bonaparte was never more active nor more successful. In February the Bank of England had suspended specie payments, and in March the price of English consols was fifty-one, the lowest it ever reached. The battle of CapeSt.Vincent, fought on February fourteenth, destroyed the Spanish naval power, and freed Great Britain from the fear of a combination between the French and Spanish fleets for an invasion. But, on the other hand, sedition was wide-spread in the navy; the British sailors were mutinous to the danger-point, hoisting the red flag and threatening piracy. The risings, though numerous, were eventually quelled, but the effect on the English people was magical. Left without an ally by the death of Catherine, the temporizing of Paul, and his leaning to the Prussian policy of neutrality, facts mirrored in the preliminaries of Leoben, their government made overtures for peace. There was a crisis in the affairs of the Directory and, as a sort of shelter from the stormy menace of popular disapproval, Delacroix consented to receive Malmesbury again and renew negotiations at Lille. As expected, the arrangement was a second theatrical fencing-bout from the beginning. Canning feared his country would meet with an accident in the sword-play, for the terms proposed were a weak yielding to French pride by laying the Netherlands at her feet. Probably the offer was not serious in any case, the farce was quickly ended, and when their feint was met the British nation had recuperated and was not dismayed. It required the utmost diligence in the use of personal influence, on the part both of the French general and of his wife, to thwart among the European diplomats assembled at Montebello the prestige of English naval victory and the swift adaptations of their policy to changingconditions. But they succeeded, and the evidence was ultimately given not merely in great matters like the success of Fructidor or the peace of Campo Formio, but in small ones—such, for example, as the speedy liberation of Lafayette from his Austrian prison.[Back to Contents]
Footnote 1:The indispensable authority for the youth of Napoleon is the collection of his own papers edited, not always judiciously, by Frédéric Masson and published by him in coöperation with G. Biagi under the titleNapoléon inconnu. The originals are now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. They were intrusted by the Emperor to Cardinal Fesch as a safe depositary, probably in the hope that they would eventually be destroyed. What the cardinal actually did with them remains obscure. Some time early in the nineteenth century they came into possession of a certain Libri, one of the French government library inspectors, an unscrupulous collector and dealer. From them he excerpted enough matter for an article which, before his disgrace, was published in an early number of theRevue des Deux Mondes, but in the publication there was no statement of authority and the article was forgotten, important as it was. The originals were not found or known until in the sale catalogue of Lord Ashburnham's library appeared a lot entitled merely Napoleon Papers. This fact was brought to the author's attention by a friend, and when after a smart competition between agents of the French and Italian governments the manuscripts were deposited at Florence, he sought permission immediately to examine and study them. This was promptly granted, they proved to be the lost Fesch papers, and for the first time it was possible to obtain a clear account of Napoleon's early years. The standard authorities hitherto had been the works of Nasica, Coston, and Jung: while they still have a certain value, it is slight in view of the reliable deductions to be drawn from the original boy papers of Napoleon Bonaparte. Later on and after the publication of the corresponding portion of this Life, they were edited, printed, and published. In the main there is no room for difference with the transcript of M. Masson, but in some places where the writing is uncommonly bad the author's own transcript presents the facts as stated in these pages. Within a few years M. Chuquet has summed up admirably all our authentic knowledge of the subject—in a book entitled:La jeunesse de Napoléon. His own researches have brought to light some further valuable material. I have not hesitated in this revision to make the freest use of the latest authorities, but it is a gratification that no substantial changes, except by way of slight additions, have been found necessary.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 2:The authorities for the period are Masson:Napoléon inconnu. Chuquet:La jeunesse de Napoléon. Jung:Bonaparte et son temps. Böhtlingk: Napoleon Bonaparte:seine Jugend und sein Emporkommen. Las Cases:Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. Antommarchi:Mémoires. Coston:Premières années de Napoléon, Nasica:Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 3:The sources of these statements are two letters of 5 April, 1781, and 8 October, 1783; first printed in theMémoires sur la vie de Bonaparte, etc., etc.,par le comte Charles d'Og.... This pseudonym covers a still unknown author; the documents have been for the most part considered genuine and have been reprinted as such by many authorities, including Jung. Though this author was an official in the ministry of war and had its archives at his disposal, he gives one letter without any authority and the other as in the"Archives de la guerre."Many searchers, including the writer, have sought them there without result. Latterly their authenticity has been denied on the ground of inherent improbability, since pocket money was by rule almost unknown in the royal colleges, and Corsican homesickness is as common as that of the Swiss. But rules prove nothing and the letters seem inherently genuine.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 4:Du Casse,Supplément à la Correspondence de Napoléon Ier,Vol.X, p. 50. Masson, I, 79-84.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 5:This letter, which is without date, is printed in Coston, as taken from the newspapers; again in a revised form in Nasica:Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon, p. 71, who claimed to have collated it with the original; and again in Jung:Bonaparte et son temps, who gives as his reference,Archives de la guerre, preserving exactly the form given by Nasica. The Napoleon papers of the War Department were freely, and I believe entirely, put into my hands for examination. This letter was not among them; in fact, my efforts to confirm the references of Jung were sadly ineffectual.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 6:Authorities as before for this and the five chapters following.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 7:This is the date given by himself on the slip of paper headed"Époques de ma vie"and contained in the Fesch papers, now deposited in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Here and there the text is very difficult to decipher, but the line"Parti pour l'école de Paris, le 30 Octobre 1784"is perfectly legible. Las Cases, in theMémorial,Vol.I, p. 160, represents Napoleon as quoting Keralio in declaring that it was not for his birth or his attainments but for the qualities he discerned in the boy that he sent him with imperfect preparation to Paris.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 8:Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, 29.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 9:The examiner in mathematics was the great Laplace.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 10:Taken from the apocryphal Memoirs of the Count d'Og ... previously mentioned. See Masson:Napoléon inconnu, I, 123; Chuquet, I, 260; Jung, I, 125.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 11:Las Cases, I, 112. Napoleon confessed his inability to learn German, but prided himself on his historical knowledge.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 12:For an amusing caricature by a comrade at Paris, see Chuquet:La jeunesse de Napoléon, I, 262. The legend is:"Buonaparte, cours, vole au secours de Paoli pour le tirer des mains de ses ennemis."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 13:Masson (Napoléon inconnu,Vol.I, p. 160) denies all the statements of this paragraph. He likewise proves to his own satisfaction that Bonaparte was neither in Lyons nor in Douay at this time. The narrative here given is based on Coston and on Jung, who follows the former in his reprint of the documents, giving the very dubious reference, Mss.Archives de la guerre. Although these manuscripts could not be found by me, I am not willing to discard Jung's authority completely nor to impugn his good faith. Men in office frequently play strange pranks with official papers, and these may yet be found. Moreover, there is some slight collateral evidence. See Vieux:Napoleon à Lyon, p. 4, andSouvenirs à l'usage des habitants de Douay. Douay, 1822.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 14:The volumes ofNapoléon inconnucontain the text of these papers as deciphered for M. Masson and revised by him. My own examination, which antedated his transcription by more than a year (1891), led me to trust their authenticity absolutely, as far as the writer's memory and good faith are concerned. I cannot rely as positively as Masson does on theÉpoques de ma vie, which has the appearance of a casual scribbling done in an idle moment on the first scrap that came to hand.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 15:Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 16:Souvenirs d'un officier royaliste, par M. de R...,Vol.I, p. 117.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 17:Printed inNapoléon inconnu,Vol.II, p. 167.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 18:Similar instances of repeated and lengthened absence from duty among the young officers are numerous and easily found in the archives. Nevertheless, Buonaparte's case is a very extraordinary example of how a clever person could work the system. The facts are bad enough, but as many cities claimed Homer, so in the Napoleonic legend events of a sojourn at Strasburg about this time were given in great detail. He was in relations with a famous actress and wrote verses which are printed. Even Metternich records that the young Napoleon Bonaparte had just left the Alsatian capital when he himself arrived there in 1788. Later, in 1806, a fencing-master claimed that he had instructed both these great men in the earlier year at Strasburg. Yet the whole tale is impossible. SeeNapoléon inconnu,Vol.I, p. 204.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 19:Printed in Coston,II, 94.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 20:Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 21:For the text seeNapoléon inconnu,II, 92.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 22:These phrases may nearly all be found in the notes which he had taken or jottings he had made while reading Voltaire and Rousseau:Napoléon inconnu,II, 209-292.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 23:"I am in the cabin of a poor man whence I like to write you after long conversation with these good people." Nasica, p. 161.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 24:Napoléon inconnu,II, 108et seq.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 25:Buonaparte to Naudin, 27 July, 1791, in Buchez et Roux,Histoire Parlementaire,XVII, 56.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 26:It is not entirely clear whether he arrived late in September or early in October, 1791. He remained until May, 1792.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 27:The rare and curious pamphlet entitled"Manuscrit de l'ÃŽle d'Elbe,"attributed to Montholon and probably published by Edward O'Meara, contains headings for ten chapters which were dictated by Napoleon at Elba on February twenty-second, 1815. The argument is: The Bourbons ascended the throne, in the person of HenryIV, by conquering the so-called Holy League against the Protestants, and by the consent of the people; a third dynasty thus followed the second; then came the republic, and its succession was legitimated by victory, by the will of the people, and by the recognition of all the powers of Europe. The republic made a new France by emancipating the Gauls from the rule of the Franks. The people had raised their leader to the imperial throne in order to consolidate their new interests: this was the fourth dynasty, etc., etc. The contemplated book was to work out in detail this very conception of a nation as passing through successive phases: at the close of each it is worn out, but a new rule regenerates it, throwing off the incrustations and giving room to the life within. It is interesting to note the genesis of Napoleon's ideas and the pertinacity with which he held them.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 28:Las Cases:Mémorial de Sainte Hélène,V, 170.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 29:Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 30:Napoléon inconnu,II, 408.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 31:Reported by Arrighi and Renucci and given inNapoléon inconnu,II, 418.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 32:For the original of this protest seeNapoléon inconnu,II, 439.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 33:Both these men were generously remembered in the secret codicils of Napoleon's will.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 34:For this paper, seeNapoléon inconnu,II, 462. Jung: Bonaparte et son temps,II, 266 and 498. There appear to have been an official portion intended to be filed, and a free, carelessly written running commentary on men and things. The passage quoted is taken from the latter.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 35:The memoirs of Joseph and Lucien, supported by Coston and the anonymous local historian of Marseilles, all unite in declaring that the Buonaparte family landed there; on the other hand, Louis, in theDocuments historiques sur la Hollande, I, 34, asserts categorically in detail that they took up their abode in La Valette, a suburb of Toulon, where they had landed.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 36:These are the most probable reasons for the retreat. Several local chroniclers, Soullier, Audri, and Joudou, writing all three about 1844, declare each and all that Buonaparte with his battery followed the right bank of the Rhone as far as theRocher de Justicewhere he mounted his guns and opened fire on the walls of the city. His fire was so accurate that he destroyed one cannon and killed several gunners. The besieged garrison of federalists were thrown into panic and decamped. Neither the contemporary authorities nor Napoleon himself ever mentioned any such remarkable circumstances. In fact, a passage of the"Souper de Beaucaire"attributes the retreat to the inability of any except veteran troops to withstand a siege. Finally, Buonaparte would surely have been promoted for such an exploit. Dommartin, a comrade, was thus rewarded for a much smaller service.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 37:TheArchive Russefor 1866 states that in 1788 Napoleon Buonaparte applied for an engagement to Zaborowski, Potemkin's lieutenant, who was then with a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. The statement may be true, and probably is, but there is no corroborative evidence to sustain it.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 38:The very first impression appears to have been a reprint from the Courier d'Avignon: it was a cheap pamphlet of sixteen pages in the same type and on the paper as that used by the journal. The second impression was in twenty pages, printed by the public printer as a tract for the times, to be distributed throughout the near and remote neighborhood.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 39:The authorities for this important epoch are, primarily, Jung:Bonaparte et son temps; Masson:Napoléon inconnu; but above all, Chuquet:La jeunesse de Napoléon,Vol.III, Toulon. TheMémoiresof Barras are utterly worthless, the references in Las Cases, Marmont, and elsewhere have value, but must be controlled. The archives of the war department have been thoroughly examined by several investigators, the author among the number. The results have been printed in many volumes to which the above-mentioned authors refer, and many of the original papers are printed in whole or in part by them.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 40:In Buchez et Roux,Histoire Parlementaire,XXXI, pp. 268-290, 415-427;XXXII, pp. 335-381et seq., and inÅ’uvres deSt.Just, pp. 360-420, will be found a few examples of their views in their own words.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 41:Jung: Bonaparte et son temps,II, 455.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 42:Correspondance de Napoléon, I, No. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 43:Las Cases:Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, I, 141.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 44:For a full account of these important operations see Mahan: Life of Nelson, I, 123et seq.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 45:Marmont:Mémoires, I, 77-78.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 46:Inspection report in Jung,II, 477. "Too much ambition and intrigue for his advancement."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 47:He was far down the list, one hundred and thirty-ninth in the line of promotion.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 48:Possibly the twelfth. See Jung,III,I.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 49:Correspondance, I, No. 40.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 50:For this chapter theMémoires du roi Joseph, I, and Böhtlingk: Napoleon Bonaparte, etc., I, are valuable references, in addition to those already given. The memoirs of Barras are particularly misleading except for comparison. For social conditions, cf. Goncourt,Histoire de la Société Française sous le Directoire, and in particular Adolph Schmidt:Tableaux de la Révolution Française;Pariser Zustände während der Revolutionszeit.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 51:Napoleon to Joseph, July, 1795; in Du Casse:Les rois frères de Napoléon, 8, and in Jung,III, 41.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 52:Chaptal:Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon, p. 198.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 53:My account of this momentous crisis in Buonaparte's life was written after a careful study of all the authorities and accounts as far as known. The reader will find in the monograph, Zivy: Le treize Vendémiaire, many reprints of documents and certain conclusions drawn from them. The result is good as far as it goes, but, like all history written from public papers solely, it is incomplete. Buonaparte was only one of seven generals appointed to serve under Barras. It seems likewise true that his exploits did not bring him into general notice, for Mallet du Pan speaks of him as a "Corsican terrorist" and Rémusat records her mother's amazement that a man so little known should have made so good a marriage. But, on the other hand, Thiébault declares that Buonaparte's activities impressed every one, Barras's labored effort is suspicious, and then, as at Toulon, there are the results. Some people in power gave him credit, for they bestowed on him an extraordinary reward. Then, too, why should we utterly discard Buonaparte's own evidence, which corroborates, at least as far as the text goes, the evidence drawn from other sources?[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 54:Mémorial de Sainte Hélène,II, 246.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 55:This important exploit has been questioned. But see the American edition of Martin's History of France,II, 16. Babœuf reopened at the Panthéon the club which had been closed at the Évêché by the Convention and reorganized a secret society in connection with it. This Panthéon club was shut by Napoleon in person on February 26, 1796. See likewise theMémorial,II, 257, 258.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 56:The best references for the history of Josephinede Beauharnaisare Masson:Joséphine de Beauharnais, 1763-1796, andJoséphine, impératrice et reine; Hall: Napoleon's letters to Josephine; Lévy:Napoléon intime; together with the memoirs of Joseph, Bourrienne, Ducrest,Dufort de Cheverney, and Rémusat.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 57:See Hochschild:Désirée, reine de Suède.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 58:The authorities for this chapter are as for the last.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 59:See Pulitzer:Une idylle sous NapoléonI.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 60:Mémorial,II, 258;III, 402.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 61:Given in Aubenas:Histoire de l'impératrice Joséphine, I, 293. This writer is frankly not an historian but an apologist.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 62:Coston:Premières années de Napoléon Bonaparte.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 63:Carnot thoroughly understood and appreciated the genius shown in Buonaparte's plan for an Italian campaign, and converted the Directorate to his opinion. They sent a copy to Schérer, then in command at Nice, and he returned it in a temper, declaring that the man who made such a plan had better come and work it. The Directory took him at his word.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 64:For this and the succeeding chapters we have the memoirs of Thibaudeau, Marmont,Doulcet de Pontécoulant, Hyde de Neuville, and the duchess of Abrantès—Madame Junot. Among the histories, the most important are those of Blanc, Taine, Sybel, Sorel, and Mortimer-Ternaux. Special studies: C. Rousset,Les Volontaires de1791-1794. Chassin:Pacifications de l'Ouest and Dictature de Hoche. Mallet du Pan:Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne. Also the Correspondence of Sandoz. Many original papers are printed in Hüffer:Oesterreich und Preussen; Bailleu:Preussen und Frankreich, 1795-1797; and in theAmtliche Sammlung von Akten aus der Zeit der Helvetischen Republik.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 65:See the author's French Revolution and Religious Reform.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 66:The state of Europe may be studied in the Correspondence of Mallet du Pan and in the Archives Woronzoff; in Vivenot: Thugut and Clerfayt; Daudet:Les Bourbons et la Russie;La Conspiration de Pichegru; Sorel:L'Europe et la Révolution Française; Lecky: England in theXVIIIcentury; Stanhope's Life of Pitt; the memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski; also the diplomatic papers of Thugut, Clerfayt, Hermann, and Sandoz.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 67:The latest important authorities on this campaign and its results are, in addition to those already given, Sargent: Napoleon Bonaparte's First Campaign. Sorel:Bonaparte et Hoche en1797.Bonaparte et le Directoire,Vol.Vof his large work. Colin:Études sur la Campagne de 1796 en Italie. Fabry:Histoire de l'armée d'Italie, 1796-1797. Bouvier:Bonaparte en Italie, 1796. Graham's Despatches, edited by Rose, in English Historical Review,Vol.XIV.Tivaroni:Storia del risorgimento italiano. The Dropmore Papers. Of primary value are Napoleon's"Correspondance,"official edition, and the unofficial edited by Beauvais. Hueffer:Ungedruckte Briefe Napoleon's in the Archiv für Oest. Geschichte,Vol.XLIX. Of value are also the memoirs of Marmont, Masséna, and Desgenettes, of Landrieux inRevue du Cercle Militaire, 1887. Yorck von Wartenberg:Napoleon als Feldherr, almost supersedes the older authority of Clausewitz, Jomini, Ruestow, and Lossau. There are also Malachowski:Entwickelung der leitenden Gedanken zur ersten Campagne Bonaparte's, and Delbrueck:Unterschied der Strategie Friederich's des Grossen und Napoleon's.[Back to Main Text]