lay one night at San Miniato at the house of an old Abbe Buonaparte...."
(_Memorial of St. Helena_, by the Count de Las Cases--reprint of 1823,
1824, Vol. I, p. 149.)]
[Footnote 3: "I stayed for the night at San Miniato. I had a relative
living there, an old Canon...." (_Memoirs of Dr. F. Antommarchi on the
Last Moments of Napoleon_, 1825, vol. I, p. 155.)]
After occupying Leghorn and closing that port against the English
men-of-war, General Bonaparte proceeded to Florence to visit the Grand
Duke of Tuscany, Ferdinand, who alone of all the princes of Europe had
honestly and honourably fulfilled his engagements with the French
Republic. In token of esteem and confidence, he went there without
escort, accompanied only by the officers of his Staff. Amongst other
sights he was shown the arms of the Buonapartes carved over the gateway
of an old house. He was already aware that a branch of his family had
been fruitful and multiplied at Florence in days of yore, and that a
last descendant of this the ancient race was still alive. This was a
certain Canon of San Miniato, now eighty years of age. In spite of all
the pressing affairs he had to attend to, he made a point of paying him
a visit. Napoleon Bonaparte was always strongly moved by feelings of
natural affection.
On the eve of his departure from Florence, he made his way with some of
his officers to the hill of San Miniato, which crowned with its walls
and towers, rises from the plain at half a league's distance from the
city.
Old Canon Buonaparte welcomed with agreeable and dignified politeness
his young kinsman and the French officers who accompanied him--Berthier,
Junot, Orderly Officer in Chief Chauvet and Lieutenant Thezard. He
regaled them with a supper _a l'italienne_, which lacked neither the
cranes of Peretola nor the little sucking-pig scented with aromatic
herbs, nor the best vintages of Tuscany, Naples and Sicily.
Uncompromising Republicans as Brutus himself, they drank to France and
Freedom. Their host acknowledged the toast; then turning to the General
whom he had seated on his right hand;
"Nephew!" said he, "are you not curious to examine the genealogical tree
painted on the wall yonder? You will be gratified to see from it that we
are descended from the Lombard Cadolingians, who from the tenth to the
twelfth centuries covered themselves with glory by their fidelity to the
German Emperors, and from whom sprung, prior to the year 1100, the
Buonapartes of Treviso and the Buonapartes of Florence, the latter stock
proving by far the more illustrious."
At this the officers began to whisper together and laugh. Orderly
Officer Chauvet asked Berthier behind his hand if the Republican General
felt flattered to possess amongst his ancestors a lot of slaves serving
the Two-headed Eagle, while Lieutenant Thezard was ready to take his
oath the General owed his birth to good _sans-culottes_ and nobody else.
Meanwhile the Canon went on with a long string of boasts concerning the
nobility of his house and lineage.
"Know this, nephew," he finished by saying, "our Florentine ancestors
well deserved their name. They were ever of the _bon parti_, and
steadfast defenders of Mother Church."
At these words, which the old fellow had uttered in a high, clear voice,
the General, who so far had been scarcely listening, gathered his
wandering wits together, and raising his pale, thin face, with its
classically moulded features, threw a piercing look at his interlocutor,
which closed his lips instantly.
"Nay! uncle," he cried, "let us have done with these follies! the rats
of your garret are very welcome to these moth-eaten parchments for me."
Then he added in a voice of brass:
"The only nobility I vaunt is in my deeds. It dates from the 13th
Vendemiaire of Year IV, the day I swept the Royalist Sections with
cannon-shot from the steps of St. Roch. Come, let us drink to the
Republic! 'Tis the arrow of Evander, which falls not to earth again, and
is transformed into a star!"
The officers answered the appeal with a shout of enthusiasm. It was a
moment when Berthier himself felt a Republican's and a Patriot's fire.
Junot exclaimed: "Napoleon had no need for ancestors; 'twas enough for
him his soldiers had acclaimed him Corporal at the Bridge of Lodi."
The wines had the dry smack of gunflint and the bouquet of powder, and
the company imbibed freely. Lieutenant Thezard was soon in a condition
that rendered him incapable of concealing his sentiments. Proud of the
wounds and the kisses of women he had enjoyed in lavish abundance in
this campaign, at once so heroic and so gallant and gay, he informed the
Canon without more ado, that following in the steps of Bonaparte, the
French were going to march round the world, upsetting Thrones and Altars
in every land, giving the girls bastards and ripping up the bellies of
all fanatics.
The old Priest only went on smiling, and replied he was willing enough
to sacrifice to their noble rage, not indeed the pretty girls, whom he
besought them rather to treat cannily, but the Fanatics, the chiefest
foes, he said, of Holy Church.
Junot promised him to deal leniently with the Nuns; he could heartily
commend some of them, having found them to possess tender hearts and the
whitest of skins.
Orderly Officer Chauvet maintained we should take account of the
influence exercised by the cloistered life on the complexion of young
women; you see, he was a student of natural philosophy.
"Between Genoa and Milan," he went on, "we tasted largely of this sort
of forbidden fruit. One may profess to be without prejudices; still, a
pretty bosom does look prettier half hid by the Veil. I set no value on
religious vows, yet I am free to confess I attach a very special value
to a fine leg if it belongs to a Nun. Strange contradictions of the
human heart!"
"Fie! fie!" put in Berthier; "what pleasure can you find in upsetting
the wits and troubling the senses of these unhappy victims of
fanaticism? What! are there no women of condition in Italy, to whom you
could offer your vows at fetes, under the Venetian cloak that favours
little intrigues so admirably? Is it nothing that Pietra Grua Mariani,
Madame Lambert, Signora Monti, Signora Gherardi of Brescia, are fair and
gallant dames?"
As he ran over the names of these Italian toasts, he was thinking of the
Princess Visconti. This great lady, finding herself unable to enthral
Bonaparte, had given herself to his Chief of the Staff, whom she loved
with a fire of wantonness and a refined sensuality which left their mark
on the weak-kneed Berthier for the rest of his days.
"For my own part," interrupted Lieutenant Thezard, "I shall never
forget a little water-melon seller on the steps of the Duomo, who...."
The General rose from his chair with a gesture of impatience. A bare
three hours was left them for sleep, as they were to start at dawn.
"Never trouble, kinsman, about our sleeping accommodation," he said,
addressing the Canon. "We are soldiers; a bundle of hay is good enough
for us."
But their excellent host had had beds prepared. His house was bare and
unornamented, but of vast proportions. He conducted the French officers,
one after the other, to the rooms assigned them, and wished them a good
night.
Left alone in his chamber, Bonaparte threw off his coat and sword, and
proceeded to scrawl a pencil note to Josephine--twenty illegible lines,
in which his violent, yet calculating, spirit spoke loudly. Then,
folding the letter, he abruptly drove the woman's image from his mind,
as you push-to a drawer. He unrolled a plan of Mantua, and selected the
point on which he should concentrate his fire.
He was still absorbed in his calculations when he heard a knock at the
door. He thought it was Berthier; but it proved to be the Canon, who
came to ask him for a few minutes' conversation. Under his arm he
carried two or three parchment-covered portfolios. The General looked
at these documents with something of a quizzical air. He felt certain
they contained the genealogy of the Buonapartes, and anticipated their
leading to a never-ending talk. However, he suffered no trace of his
impatience to appear.
He was never morose or angry but when he deliberately made up his mind
to be so. Now he had no sort of wish to offend his worthy kinsman; on
the contrary, he was anxious to make himself agreeable to him. Moreover,
he was not really sorry to learn the nobility of his race, now his
Jacobin officers were no longer there to laugh or take umbrage at the
matter. He begged the Canon to take a seat, who did so, and, laying his
registers on the table, said:
"I made a beginning during supper, nephew, of telling you about the
Buonapartes of Florence; but I gathered by the look you gave me, it was
not then the place or time to enlarge on such a subject. I broke off
therefore, reserving the essential part of what I have to say for the
present moment. I beg of you, kinsman, to hear me with great attention.
"The Tuscan branch of our family produced some excellent
representatives, among whom should be named Jacopo di Buonaparte, who
witnessed the sack of Rome in 1527 and wrote an account of that event,
also Niccolo, author of a Comedy entitled _La Vedova_ that was declared
the work of another Terence. However, it is not of these two famous
ancestors I now wish to speak, but rather of a third, who eclipses them
as much in glory as the sun outshines the stars. Know then that your
family counts amongst its members a man of saintly life, deemed worthy
of Beatification and the title of blessed, Fra Bonaventura, disciple of
the reformed Order of St. Francis, who died in 1593 in the odour of
Sanctity."
The old man bent his head reverently as he pronounced the name. Then he
resumed with a fire scarcely to have been expected from one of his years
and easy character:
"Fra Bonaventura! Ah, kinsman! 'tis to him, to this good Father, you owe
the success of your arms. He was beside you, doubt it not, when you
annihilated, as you told us at supper, the enemies of your party on the
steps of St. Roch. This Capuchin Friar has been your helper 'mid the
smoke of battles. But for him, be assured, you would not have been
victorious, whether at Montenotte or Millesimo or Lodi. The marks of his
patronage are too striking and self-evident to be ignored, and in your
success I plainly discern a miracle of the good Fra Bonaventura. But
what is most important you should know, is this; the holy man had a
purpose of his own in view when, giving you the advantage even over
Beaulieu himself, he led you from victory to victory to this antique
roof under which you rest to-night with an old man's blessing to keep
you. I am here for the very purpose of revealing his intentions to you.
Fra Bonaventura wished you should be informed of his merits, that you
should hear of his fasts and austerities and the whole year's silence he
once condemned himself to endure. He would have you touch his hair-shirt
and scourge, and his knees stiffened so at the altar-steps that he
walked bent double like the letter Z. For this it was he has brought you
into Italy, where he was for contriving you an opportunity of returning
him benefit for benefit. For you must know, good kinsman, if the Friar
has helped you greatly, in your turn, you can be of the greatest use to
him."
With these words, the Canon laid his hands on the heavy portfolios that
loaded the table, and drew a deep breath.
Bonaparte said nothing, but waited quietly for the Canon to go on with
his remarks, which diverted him greatly. Never was any one easier to
amuse than Napoleon.
After recovering breath, the old man resumed:
"Why, yes! kinsman, you can be of the greatest use to Fra Bonaventura,
who in his present situation needs your help. He was beatified many
years ago, but is still waiting his admission to the Calendar of Saints.
He is thinking long, is the good Father Bonaventura. Yet what can I, a
poor Canon of San Miniato, do for him to secure him the honour he has
earned? His enrolment demands an outlay that goes far beyond my fortune
and even the resources of the Bishopric! Poor Canon! Poor Diocese! Poor
Duchy of Tuscany! Poor Italy! they are all poor together. It is you,
kinsman, must ask the Pope to recognize Fra Bonaventura's claim. He will
certainly grant you so much. His Holiness will never refuse, for your
sake, to add another Saint to the Calendar. Great honour will accrue to
yourself and your family, and the good Friar will always be ready to
afford you his patronage. Do you not realize the advantages of having a
Saint in the family?"
And the Canon, pointing to the portfolios, urged the General to put them
in his valise and take them with him. Their contents consisted of the
memorial relating to the Canonization of the Blessed Friar Bonaventura,
together with documents in corroboration of his claim.
"Promise me," he added, "that you will see to this matter, the most
important that can concern you."
Bonaparte restrained his strong inclination to laugh.
"I am unfortunately situated," he objected, "for undertaking a case for
Canonization. You are aware that the French Republic is taking measures
to exact compensation from the Court of Rome for the murder of her
Ambassador Bassville, foully assassinated."
The Canon protested eagerly:
"Corpo di Bacco! the Court of Rome will find excuses enough; all due
compensation will be accorded, and our kinsman will be placed on the
Calendar, never fear."
"The negotiations are far from being concluded at present," replied the
Republican General. "The Roman Curia has yet to recognize the civil
constitution of the French clergy and to break up and abolish the
Inquisition, which is an offence to humanity and an unjustifiable
encroachment on the rights of Nations."
The old man only smiled and said:
"Mio caro figliuolo Napoleone, the Pope knows perfectly well folk must
both give and take. He will be reasonable, and yield a point where
necessary. He is for all time, long-suffering and a man of peace."
Bonaparte pondered deeply awhile, as though a series of quite new ideas
were taking muster in his powerful brain. Then suddenly breaking
silence,
"You do not realize," he said, "the spirit of the age. We are highly
irreligious in France; impiety is deeply rooted in our soil. You do not
know the progress achieved by the ideas of Montesquieu, Raynal and
Rousseau. Public worship is abolished; veneration is a thing of the
past. You must have seen this from the scandalous talk my officers
indulged in just now at your own table."
The good Canon shook his head:
"Ah, yes! those fine young men, they are wild fellows enough, dissipated
and reckless! It is only a passing phase. Ten years more, and they will
be thinking less of the girls and more of going to Mass. The Carnival is
a matter of a few days, and even this mad one of your French Revolution
will not last for long. The Church is eternal."
Napoleon declared bluntly he cared too little about Religion himself to
meddle in a purely ecclesiastical matter like this.
Thereupon the Canon looked him in the eyes and told him:
"My son, I understand men. I can divine your nature; you are no sceptic.
Take up this case, the Blessed Father Bonaventura's case. He will repay
you the services you may render him. For myself, I am over old to
witness the success of this noble enterprise. I must die soon; but
knowing it to be in your hands, I shall die happy. Above all, never
forget, my kinsman, that all power comes of God by the instrumentality
of his priests."
He rose to his feet, raised his arms to bless his young kinsman and
withdrew.
Left alone, Bonaparte turned over the leaves of the ponderous Memorial
by the smoky light of his candle, as he pondered over the power of the
Church, and told himself the Papacy was a more enduring institution than
ever the Constitution of the Year III was likely to be.
A knock was heard at the door. It was Berthier, come to inform the
General that all was ready for their departure.
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Well of Saint Clare, by Anatole France