It must have been a sadly disappointed young man who rejoined his
family, now at Marseilles, in the spring of 1795. Gone was the Toulon
glory; gone the prestige of the confidential friend of commissioners
who governed France. Barely escaping with his life from the Robespierre
wreck, here he now was, stranded by the failure, the miserable
collapse, of an expedition from which so much had been expected. Very
gloomy must have been Napoleon’s “yellowish green” face, very sombre
those piercing eyes, as he came back to his seat at the hearth of the
humble home in Marseilles. Ten years had passed since he had donned his
uniform; they had been years of unceasing effort, painful labor, and
repeated failure. A demon of ill-luck had dogged his footsteps, foiled
him at every turn, made null all his well-laid plans. Even success had
come to him only to mock him and then drop him to a harder fall. Not
only had he lost ground, but his brothers had been thrown out of the
places he had obtained for them. In the midst of these discouragements
came another: Lacombe St. Michel, a commissioner who bore him no
good-will, urged the government to remove him from the army of Italy
and to transfer him to the West. An order to that effect had been
issued. This transfer would take him away from an army where he had
made some reputation and some friends, and from a field of operations
with which he was thoroughly familiar. It would put him in La Vendée,
where the war was the worst of all wars,--civil strife, brother against
brother, Frenchman against Frenchman,--and it would put him under the
command of a masterful young man named Hoche.
Absolutely determined not to go to this post, and yet desperately
tenacious in his purpose of keeping his feet upon the ladder, Napoleon
set out for Paris early in May, 1795, to exert himself with the
authorities. In the capital he had some powerful friends, Barras and
Fréron among them. Other friends he could make. In a government where
committees ruled, and where the committees were undergoing continual
changes, everything was possible to one who could work, and wait, and
intrigue. Therefore to Paris he hastened, taking with him his aides
Junot and Marmont, and his brother Louis.
Lodged in a cheap hotel, he set himself to the task of getting the
order of transfer cancelled. A general overhauling of the army list had
been going on recently, and many changes were being made. Napoleon’s
was not an isolated case. The mere transfer from one army to the other,
his rank not being lowered, was, in itself, no disgrace; but Aubrey,
who was now at the head of the war committee, decided upon a step which
became a real grievance. The artillery service was overstocked with
officers; it became necessary to cut down this surplus; and Napoleon,
as a junior officer, was ordered to the army of the West as general of
a brigade of infantry.
Napoleon regarded this as an insult, a serious injury, and he never
forgave the minister who dealt him the blow. Aubrey had been a
Girondin, and was at heart a royalist. He knew Napoleon to be a
Jacobin, if not a Terrorist. Without supposing that there were any
causes for personal ill-will, here were sufficient grounds for positive
dislike in times so hot as those. In vain Napoleon applied in person,
and brought to bear the powerful influence of Barras, Fréron, and the
Bishop of Marboz. Either his advocates were lukewarm, or his cause was
considered weak. Neither from the full committee nor from Aubrey could
any concession be wrung. Aubrey, himself a soldier of the perfunctory,
non-combative sort, believed that Napoleon had been advanced too
rapidly. “You are too young to be commander-in-chief of artillery,” he
said to the little Corsican. “Men age fast on the field of battle,” was
the retort which widened the breach;--for Aubrey had not come by any of
his age on fields of battle.
Foiled in his attempt on the committees as then constituted, Napoleon’s
only hope was to wait until these members should go out and others come
in by the system of rotation.
In the meantime he stuck to Paris with supple tenacity. By producing
certificates of ill-health, he procured and then lengthened leave of
absence from this obnoxious post in the West. He clung to old friends,
and made new ones. Brother Lucien having been cast into prison as a
rabid Jacobin, Napoleon was able to secure his release. Peremptory
orders were issued that Napoleon should go to his post of duty, but he
succeeded, through his friends, in evading the blow. Louis, however,
lost his place as lieutenant, and was sent back to school at Châlons.
In spite of all his courage and his resources, Napoleon became, at
times, very despondent. He wrote his brother Joseph that “if this
continues, I shall not care to get out of the way of the carriages
as they pass.” The faithful Junot shared with his chief the money he
received from home, and also his winnings at the gaming table;--for
Junot was a reckless gambler, and, being young, sometimes had good
luck. Bourrienne and Talma may also have made loans to Napoleon in
these days of distress, but this is not so certain. There is a letter
which purports to have been from Napoleon to Talma, asking the loan
of a few crowns, and offering repayment “out of the first kingdom I
win with my sword.” But Napoleon himself declared that he did not meet
Talma before the time of the consulate.
Idle, unhappy, out of pocket, Napoleon became morose and unsocial. If
he seemed gay, the merriment struck his friends as forced and hollow.
At the theatre, while the audience might be convulsed with laughter,
Napoleon was solemn and silent. If he was with a party of friends,
their chatter seemed to fret him, and he would steal away, to be seen
later sitting alone in some box of an upper tier, and “looking rather
sulky.”
Pacing the streets from day to day, gloomy, empty of pocket, his career
seemingly closed, his thoughts were bitter. He envied and hated the
young men who dashed by him on their fine horses, and he railed out at
them and at fate. He envied his brother Joseph, who had married the
daughter of a man who had got rich in the business of soap-making and
soap-selling. “Ah, that lucky rogue, Joseph!” But might not Napoleon
marry Désirée, the other daughter of the soap man? It would appear
that he wished it, and that she was not unwilling, but the soap-boiler
objected. “One Bonaparte in the family is enough.”
Napoleon traced his misfortunes back to the date of his arrest:
“Salicetti has cast a cloud over the bright dawn of my youth. He has
blighted my hopes of glory.” At another time he said mournfully,
striking his forehead, “Yet I am only twenty-six.” Ruined by a
fellow-Corsican! Yet to all outward appearance Salicetti and Napoleon
continued to be good friends. They met at Madame Permon’s from time to
time, and Salicetti was often in Napoleon’s room. Bourrienne states
that the two men had much to say to each other in secret. It was as
though they were concerned in some conspiracy.
On May 20, 1795 (1st of Prairial), there was a riot, formidable and
ferocious, directed by the extreme democrats against the Convention
and its moderates. The Tuileries was forced by the mob, and a deputy
killed. Intending to kill Fréron, the crowd slew Ferraud. The head of
the deputy was cut off, stuck on a pike, and pushed into the face of
Boissy d’Anglas, the president. Gravely the president took off his hat
and bowed to the dead. The Convention troops arrived, cleared the hall,
and put down the riot.
Napoleon was a witness to this frightful scene. After it was over, he
dropped in at Madame Permon’s to get something to eat. The restaurants
were all closed, and he had tasted nothing since morning. While eating,
he related what had happened at the Tuileries. Suddenly he inquired,
“Have you seen Salicetti?” He then went on to complain of the injury
Salicetti had done him. “But I bear him no ill-will.” Salicetti was
implicated in the revolt, and the conspiracy which preceded it may have
been the subject of those private conversations he had been having at
Napoleon’s room--conversations which, according to Bourrienne, left
Napoleon “pensive, melancholy, and anxious.”
The conspiracy had ripened, had burst into riot, and the riot had
been crushed. “Have you seen Salicetti?” A very pertinent inquiry
was this, for Salicetti was being hunted, and in a few days would be
proscribed. If caught, he would probably be executed. Madame Junot says
that while Napoleon spoke of Salicetti he “appeared very abstracted.”
Briefly to conclude this curious episode, Salicetti was proscribed,
fled for refuge to Madame Permon’s house, was hidden by her, and was
finally smuggled out of Paris disguised as her valet. Napoleon had
known where Salicetti lay concealed, but did not betray him. Was his
conduct dictated by prudence or by generosity? There was something
generous in it, no doubt; but the conclusion is almost unavoidable that
there was policy, too. If driven to the wall, Salicetti could have
disclosed matters hurtful to Napoleon. Those private interviews, secret
conferences, daily visits to Napoleon’s room on the days the conspiracy
was being formed--would they not look bad for a young officer who
was known to have a grievance, and who had been heard frequently and
publicly to denounce the government? This may have been what was on
Napoleon’s mind while he was so much buried in thought at Madame
Permon’s.
It was fine proof of Napoleon’s judgment that he did not allow himself
to be drawn into the conspiracy. Angered against the government,
despising many of the men who composed it, restlessly ambitious, and
intensely yearning for action, the wonder is that he came within the
secrets of the leaders of the revolt and yet kept his skirts clear.
Napoleon at this period was sallow and thin; his chestnut hair hung
long and badly powdered. His speech was generally terse and abrupt.
He had not yet developed grace of speech and manner. When he came to
present Madame Permon a bunch of violets, he did it awkwardly--so much
so that his ungainly manner provoked smiles. His dress was plain. A
gray overcoat buttoned to the chin; a round hat pulled over his eyes,
or stuck on the back of his head; no gloves, and a black cravat, badly
tied; boots coarse, and generally unclean. When the weather was bad,
these boots would be muddy and wet, and Napoleon would put them on
the fender to dry, to the irritation of those who had exacting noses.
Madame Permon’s being a nose of that class, her handkerchief rose to
her nose whenever the Bonaparte boots rose to the fender. Napoleon, an
observant man, took the hint, and got into the habit of stopping in
the area for the chambermaid to clean his boots with her broom. His
clothes had become threadbare, his hat dilapidated. The bootmaker who
gave him credit in this dark hour was never forgotten. The Emperor
Napoleon persisted in patronizing the clumsy cobbler whose heart had
not hardened itself against the forlorn brigadier.
One night at St. Helena, when Napoleon, unable to sleep, was trying
to rob time of its tedium by recalling the vicissitudes of his past,
he related this incident: “I was at this period, on one occasion,
suffering from that extreme depression of spirits which renders life
a burden too great to be borne. I had just received a letter from
my mother, revealing to me the utter destitution into which she was
plunged. My own salary had been cut off, and I had but five francs
in my pocket. I wandered along the banks of the river, tempted to
commit suicide. In a few moments I should have thrown myself into the
water, when I ran against a man dressed like a mechanic. ‘Is that you,
Napoleon?’ and he threw himself upon my neck. It was my old friend, Des
Mazis, who had emigrated, and who had now returned in disguise to visit
his mother. ‘But what is the matter, Napoleon? You do not listen to me!
You do not seem to hear me!’
“I confessed everything to him.
“‘Is that all?’ said he, and unbuttoning his coarse waistcoat and
taking off a belt which he handed me, ‘Here are 30,000 francs which I
can spare; take them and relieve your mother.’”
Napoleon told how he was so overjoyed that he rushed away to send the
money to his mother, without having waited to thank his friend. Ashamed
of his conduct, he soon went back to seek Des Mazis, but failed to find
him anywhere. It was under the Empire that the two again met. Napoleon
forced ten times the amount of the loan upon Des Mazis, and appointed
him to a position which paid him 30,000 francs per year.
Low as he was in purse and spirit, Napoleon was too young, too strong,
too self-reliant to yield to despair for any length of time. His active
brain teemed with schemes for the future. His airy fancy soared all
the way from plans which involved a book store, and a leasing and
sub-letting of apartment houses, to service in Turkey and an empire in
the East. Sometimes his friends thought him almost crazy. Going with
Bourrienne, who was looking about for a suitable house, Napoleon took
a fancy to the house opposite, and thought of hiring it for himself,
Uncle Fesch, and his old Brienne teacher, Patrault: “With that house,
my friends in it, and a horse and cabriolet, I should be the happiest
fellow in the world.”
Junot relates that one evening when the two were walking in Jardin
des Plantes, Napoleon appeared to be overcome by the beauties of
his surroundings and the charms of the night. He made Junot his
confidant--he was in love, and his affection was not returned.
Junot listened, sympathized, condoled, and then made Napoleon _his_
confidant. Junot was also in love--he loved Pauline Bonaparte,
and wished to wed her. At once Napoleon recovered himself. Firmly
he rejected the proposition: Junot had no fortune, Pauline had
none--marriage was out of the question.
“You must wait. We shall see better days, my friend.--Yes! We shall
have them even should I go to seek them in another quarter of the
world!”
But where should he go? This question he put to himself and to the
few friends who felt interest in his fate. One of his former teachers
at Brienne, D’Harved, met him at this time in Paris, and was struck
by his dejected appearance. “Chagrin and discontent were vividly
painted on his face. He broke out into abuse of the government.”
D’Harved was afraid that such talk would endanger listener as well
as speaker, and at his instance they retired into the garden of the
Palais Royal, accompanied by an Englishman named Blinkam or Blencowe.
Napoleon continued to complain of the manner in which the authorities
had treated him, and he declared his purpose of leaving the country.
The Englishman proposed that they enter a restaurant. There the
conversation was resumed. Napoleon did not favor D’Harved’s suggestion,
that he offer his services to England. Nor did Germany attract him.
Spain might do, for “there is not a single warrior in that country.”
Then the Englishman proposed Turkey, promising to write letters which
would favorably dispose certain influential persons in Constantinople
to the luckless adventurer. Napoleon jumped at the idea. “His
countenance beamed with delight and hope.” He exclaimed, “I shall at
once solicit permission to depart to Constantinople.” And he did so.
At the end of July, Aubrey went out of office, and was succeeded in
the war committee by Doulcet de Pontécoulant. One of the first matters
which engaged his attention was the condition of the army of Italy.
It had been losing ground. Doulcet needed the advice of some one who
was familiar with the situation there; and Boissy d’Anglas recommended
Napoleon. Summoned to the war office, Napoleon answered all questions
promptly, and made suggestions as to what ought to be done, which so
dazzled the minister that he said to Napoleon, “General, take time
and write out what you propose, so that it may be laid before the
Committee.”
“Time!” cried Napoleon, “give me a couple of sheets of paper and a pen.
In half an hour I will have the plan of campaign ready.” He sat down
and wrote, but who could read that awful writing? Taking it home with
him, he made Junot copy it, and the plan was submitted to the full
committee, which sent it on to the army. Doulcet, favorably impressed
by Napoleon, retained him in the topographical bureau, where he and
three others drew up plans and directions for all the armies.
On the 16th of August the order was issued peremptorily, that Napoleon
should proceed to the post assigned him in the army of the West.
He did not obey, and powerful friends screened him. On August 30 he
applied to be sent to Turkey to increase the military resources of the
Sultan. On September 15 or 25 (for authorities differ painfully on the
date), a report signed by Cambacérès and others decreed that his name
be stricken from the list of generals in active service.
One reason given for the sudden harshness of the Committee in striking
his name off the list is that he had pressed for payment of fraudulent
accounts. He had claimed and received mileage from Nice to Paris, when
he had come from Marseilles only. He had also claimed pay for horses
sold by him according to orders, when he set forth on the Corsican
expedition. The authorities had no faith in these horses, considered
them purely imaginary; and, in consequence, Napoleon was spoken of very
harshly by government officials. Letourneur, who had succeeded Doulcet
on the Committee, was one of those who disliked and opposed him.
On September 15 a subcommittee reported to the full committee in favor
of the proposition, that Napoleon be sent, with officers of his suite,
to reorganize the military system of the Turks. Only in government by
committee could such a contradictory series of orders and resolutions
be possible. Napoleon had seriously canvassed the officers who were
to compose his suite on the mission to Turkey, when symptoms of
another revolutionary convulsion attracted his notice and halted his
preparations.
The Convention, which had reeled and rocked along for three years, was
now about to adjourn. It felt that it must, and yet it did not wish to
do so. They therefore decreed that two-thirds of the next legislature
should be composed of themselves. The other third, the people might
elect. One reason for this strange law was that the royalist reaction
had become extremely threatening. The Count of Artois was said to be
hovering on the coast, ready to land an expedition from England, and to
march on Paris. The army of Condé was expecting to coöperate from the
Rhine. Paris was to give the signal by a revolt which should upset the
Convention.
Besides the royalists, there were other formidable malcontents. There
were the poorer classes, who had been deprived of their votes by the
property qualification of the new constitution. In the revolt which
ensued, however, the royalists were the soul of the movement. The
extreme democrats, though hotly opposed to the property qualification,
hated royalism worse. Santerre was ready to sustain the Convention,
and did so. The very prisoners who had been lying in chains since the
democratic revolt of May (1st of Prairial) were now willing to fight
for the Convention, and did fight for it.
The centre of the insurrection against the Convention, its new
constitution, and its decrees was the Section Lepelletier, the home
of the rich men of the middle class. The National Guards from this
section, it will be remembered, had fought in defence of the King on
the famous 10th of August. It was now ready to fight for royalty again.
On the 4th of October (12th of Vendémiaire) the Section Lepelletier
declared itself in insurrection, and it became the rallying-point for
insurgents from all the sections of Paris. The National Guard, forty
thousand strong, had been so reorganized that it was now with the
insurgents. To the royalists the situation seemed full of promise,
for the Convention had but seven or eight thousand troops upon which
it could rely. General Dumas was selected by the Convention to take
command of its forces, but he had left town three days before.
General Menou, in command of the Convention forces, was ordered to
go and disarm and disperse the insurgents. For some reason, either
because he failed to realize the gravity of the crisis, or because he
was unnerved by it, he did the worst thing possible. He parleyed, and
compromised. He agreed to withdraw his troops on the promise of the
insurgents to withdraw theirs. He then retreated, and the insurgents
held their ground and their arms, loudly proclaiming their triumph.
As the nerveless and witless Menou was drawing off his men, a young
officer, on the steps of the Feydau Theatre, exclaimed to his
companion, “Where can that fellow be going?” It was Napoleon speaking
to Junot. And he continued: “Ah, if the sections would only let me lead
them, I would guarantee to place them in the Tuileries in two hours,
and have all those Convention rascals driven out!” Then he hurried to
the Tuileries to see what the Convention would do next.
It was evident that on the morrow the insurgents would attack. They
proclaimed their intention of doing so, and they were confident of
success.
The Convention removed Menou from command, and placed him under arrest.
They then chose Barras commander-in-chief, remembering his vigor and
success in July, 1794, when Robespierre fell. Napoleon was made second
in command.
Just how this appointment came to be made, will always be a matter of
dispute. It is certain that Barras suggested Bonaparte’s name to the
Committee in the words: “I have precisely the man we want. It is a
little Corsican officer, who will not stand on ceremony.” Baron Fain
states that Napoleon was at this time in the topographical office, that
he was sent for, and sworn in by the Committee in the committee-room.
Napoleon himself, in one of his different versions, relates that he was
at the Feydau Theatre, was told what was happening at the Lepelletier
section, left the theatre, witnessed Menou’s retreat, and then hurried
to the Convention to see how the news would be received. Arrived at the
Tuileries, he mixed with the crowd in the galleries, and heard his name
called. Announcement was made that he had been appointed as aide to
Barras.
Barras, in his turn, says that on this fateful evening Bonaparte could
not be found at any of his usual haunts, that he came to the Tuileries
late, looking confused, and that in answer to sharp questions he
admitted that he had come from the section Lepelletier, where he had
been reconnoitring the enemy. Barras charges that he had been dickering
with the other side.
By whatever means it came about, Napoleon Bonaparte was acting chief in
the famous 13th of Vendémiaire (5th of October, 1795). It was he whose
genius converted the Tuileries, which the Parisian mobs had time and
again stormed, into a fortress an army could not have taken. Cannon
were at Sablons, cannon he must have, and Murat at the head of three
hundred horse went in a gallop to bring the guns. In the nick of time
the order was given, for the insurgents had sent also. Murat’s mounted
men reached Sablons in advance of the unmounted insurgents, and the
cannon were whirled away to the Tuileries. Planted so as to command
all avenues of approach, they made the position invulnerable, for the
insurgents had no cannon.
General Thiébault says: “From the first, his activity was astonishing:
he seemed to be everywhere at once, or rather he only vanished at
one point to reappear instantly. He surprised people further by his
laconic, clear, and prompt orders, imperative to the last degree.
Everybody was struck also by the vigor of his arrangements, and passed
from admiration to confidence, and from confidence to enthusiasm.”
Morning came, and with it the insurgents; but at sight of the
formidable defences which had been the work of the night, they halted.
Hour after hour passed away in hoots, yells, threats, negotiation.
Toward evening it seemed that the Convention troops might be brought
to fraternize with the insurgents. Suddenly a musket was fired, and
the battle opened; or rather the cannonade commenced, for battle it
could not be called. The insurgents showed courage, but had no chance
of success whatever. It was cannon against muskets, an army intrenched
against a packed mob in the streets. The firing commenced at about four
in the evening. By six all was over.
A few attempts to rally the insurgents were made, but were easily
frustrated. The Convention forces carried out the orders Menou had
received by disarming the turbulent sections. A few of the ringleaders
of the revolt were tried and punished, but only one, Lafond, was
executed.
During this disarmament, which recent writers say never happened, but
which Menou had been officially instructed to effect, and which both
Napoleon and Barras say they _did_ effect, the victorious conventionals
made one of those mistakes incident to the prevailing darkness and
confusion. The house of Madame de Beauharnais was entered, the sword of
her late husband, the Viscount Beauharnais, was carried off. In a day
or so the son of the widow Beauharnais went to Napoleon and asked for
the return of his dead father’s sword. His request immediately granted,
and the sacred relic being placed in his hands, the boy covered the
handle of the weapon with kisses, and burst in tears. Napoleon’s
interest was deeply aroused, and he treated the lad with that winning
kindness which fascinated all who came within its influence. Such
report did Eugène Beauharnais carry home that his mother felt bound
to call upon the General, and thank him in person; and it was thus,
perhaps, that these two first met.
Later biographers scout this story as a romance fashioned by Napoleon
himself, and they say that (1) no disarmament took place; and (2)
that if such disarmament did take place, Madame Beauharnais, a friend
of Barras, would not have been molested. To say nothing of further
proof, the contemporaneous letter of Napoleon to Joseph shows that the
sections _were_ disarmed; and as to Madame Beauharnais being screened
by her friendly relations with Barras, _that_ presupposes every soldier
in the Convention army to have known all about Barras’s private
affairs. How could the thousands of Convention troops, fifteen hundred
of whom were democrats just out of jail, know who was or was not a
personal friend of Barras? The Convention was in the minority; it had
less than eight thousand troops: would it have left arms in the hands
of the majority and the forty thousand National Guards?
Captious critics call attention to the fact that Napoleon elsewhere
stated that he met his future wife at the house of Barras. This
assertion does not necessarily conflict with the other. A call at
the office of an official does not constitute a social meeting. When
Napoleon said he met Madame Beauharnais at the house of Barras, his
meaning probably was that he there first knew her socially. And why
should a man like Napoleon, who could lie so superbly when he tried,
invent so bungling a hoax as one which involved a disarmament of Paris
which did not take place, and the return of a sword which had never
been seized?
General Thiébault says: “A few days after the 13 of Vendémiaire
I happened to be at the office of the general staff when General
Bonaparte came in. I can still see his little hat surmounted by a
chance plume badly fastened on, his tricolor sash more than carelessly
tied, his coat cut anyhow, and a sword which did not seem the kind of
weapon to make his fortune. Flinging his hat on a large table in the
middle of the room, he went up to an old general, named Krieg, a man
of wonderful knowledge of military detail and author of a soldier’s
manual. He made him take a seat beside him at the table, and began
questioning him, pen in hand, about a host of facts connected with the
service and discipline. Some of his questions showed such complete
ignorance of some of the most ordinary things that several of my
comrades smiled. I was myself struck by the number of his questions,
their order, and their rapidity, no less than by the way in which the
answers were caught up, and often found to resolve themselves into
new questions, which he deduced as consequences from them. But what
struck me still more was the sight of a commander-in-chief perfectly
indifferent about showing his subordinates how completely ignorant
he was of various points of the business which the junior of them was
supposed to know perfectly, and this raised him a hundred cubits in my
eyes.”
Here we see Napoleon drawn to the life. Instead of sitting down to
gloat over his recent brilliant success, he had gone to work with the
devouring zeal of a man who had done just enough to encourage him to
do more. He did not idle away any time listening to congratulations.
His cannon having opened one door in his advance, his eager eyes were
already fixed far ahead on another, and his restless feet were in
the path. In his garrison days he had not loved the details of his
profession. Dull routine had been hateful, keeping him away from his
books and his solitary musings. Now it was different. He saw the need
of mastering everything which related to war, and, before he had even
arrayed himself in new uniform, he had sought the old officer, Krieg,
and was exhausting that source of information. In such direct, honest,
practical way he came by that knowledge of war which justified him in
saying in later years: “I know my profession thoroughly. Everything
which enters into war I can do. If there is no powder, I can make
it. If there are no cannon, I will cast them.” He knew better how to
construct a road or a bridge than any engineer in the army. He had the
best eye for ground, could best estimate distances, could best tell
what men could do on the march or in the field. Down to the pettiest
details, he studied it all. “Do you know how the shirts which come in
from the wash should be placed in the drawer? No? Then I will tell you.
Put them always at the bottom of the drawer, else the same shirts will
be constantly in use.” This advice he volunteered to the astonished
matron who had charge of the soldiers’ linen at the Invalides.
On October 12, 1795, Napoleon was restored to his grade in the
artillery, and was named second commandant in the Army of the Interior.
Ten days later, Barras having resigned his generalship, Napoleon became
general of division and commander-in-chief of the Army of the Interior.
On October 26, 1795, the Convention finally adjourned; and on the next
day it began to govern the country again with its two-thirds of the
new legislatures (councils of Ancients and of Five Hundred) and its
five regicide directors,--Barras, Carnot, Rewbell, Letourneur, and
Larévellière-Lépaux.
Napoleon had become one of the dominant men of the State. In his every
movement was the sense of his power. His position good, he lost no
time in making it better. He took up suitable quarters in the _Rue
des Capuchines_, surrounded himself with a brilliant staff, donned a
handsome uniform, sported carriages and fine horses, and appeared in
society.
He did not narrow himself to any clique or faction, but sought friends
in all parties. He protected and conciliated royalists, called back to
the service officers who had been retired, found good places for his
friends, sent bread and wood to famishing families in the districts of
the poor. At the same time he held down lawless outbreaks with a hand
of iron, and went in person to close the great club of the Panthéon,
the hot-bed of political agitation. He thoroughly reorganized the
Army of the Interior and the National Guard, formed guards for the
legislative councils and for the Directory, acting almost always on
his own responsibility, and consulting his superiors but little.
Uncle Fesch came to town to be nominally Napoleon’s secretary. Joseph
received money and the promise of a consulship. Lucien was reinstalled
in the fruitful commissary. Louis was once more lieutenant, and Jerome
was placed in school in Paris. Of course Madame Letitia and the sisters
basked in the sunshine also; for Napoleon could never do too much
for his family. Nor did he overlook the Permons. According to Madame
Junot, he had always liked them in the days of his poverty. Now that
prosperity had come, he loved them better than ever: so much so indeed
that he proposed that the Bonapartes should matrimonially absorb the
entire Permon family. Jerome was to be married to Laura Permon, Pauline
to Albert Permon, and Napoleon, himself, was to wed the widow Permon.
According to Laura (afterward Madame Junot), this proposition was
formally made by Napoleon, and laughed out of court by Madame Permon.
The baffled matchmaker continued his visits, however, and frequently
came to the house, accompanied by members of his staff.
One day as he stepped from his carriage, a poor woman held out toward
him a dead child in her arms--the youngest of her six children. It had
died of starvation, and the others would die if she could not get help.
Napoleon was deeply moved, gave the woman kind words and money, and
followed the matter up by getting her pensioned.
There was widespread squalor and misery in Paris during the winter
of 1795, and Napoleon showed tact as well as kindness and firmness
in preventing tumult. Consider that little picture which is usually
passed over so lightly: an angry mob of the unemployed, hungry,
desperate, threatening, and on the brink of violence. They suffer,
their wives starve, their children die in the garrets. Of course they
blame the government. How could such misery exist where there was
so much wealth and food, if the government was treating all fairly?
Furious women stir about in the crowd lashing the upper classes with
bitter tongues, and goading the men on to the point of rioting.
Napoleon and his escort arrive. One fat fisherwoman bustles and
bawls: “Don’t mind these dandies in uniform with epaulettes on their
shoulders! Don’t disperse! They care not if the poor people starve, if
they can but eat well and grow fat.”
Think of Napoleon, the leanest of all lean men, “the thinnest and
oddest object I ever laid eyes on,” sitting there on his horse
representing the unpopular “they”! “Madame, pray look at me: tell us
which of us two is the fatter.” The paunchy fisherwoman was stunned;
the crowd laughed, and fell to pieces.