PARIS, September, 1805.
MY LORD:--The reciprocal jealousy and even interest of Austria, France,
and Russia have hitherto prevented the tottering Turkish Empire from
being partitioned, like Poland, or seized, like Italy; to serve as
indemnities, like the German empire; or to be shared, as reward to the
allies, like the Empire of Mysore.
When we consider the anarchy that prevails, both in the Government and
among the subjects, as well in the capital as in the provinces of the
Ottoman Porte; when we reflect on the mutiny and cowardice of its armies
and navy, the ignorance and incapacity of its officers and military and
naval commanders, it is surprising, indeed, as I have heard Talleyrand
often declare, that more foreign political intrigues should be carried on
at Constantinople alone than in all other capitals of Europe taken
together. These intrigues, however, instead of doing honour to the,
sagacity and patriotism of the members of the Divan, expose only their
corruption and imbecility; and, instead of indicating a dread of the
strength of the Sublime Sultan, show a knowledge of his weakness, of
which the gold of the most wealthy, and the craft of the most subtle, by
turns are striving to profit.
Beyond a doubt the enmity of the Ottoman Porte can do more mischief than
its friendship can do service. Its neutrality is always useful, while
its alliance becomes frequently a burden, and its support of no
advantage. It is, therefore, more from a view of preventing evils than
from expectation of profit, that all other Powers plot, cabal, and bribe.
The map of the Turkish Empire explains what maybe though absurd or
nugatory in this assertion.
As soon as a war with Austria was resolved on by the Brissot faction in
1792, emissaries were despatched to Constantinople to engage the Divan to
invade the provinces of Austria and Russia, thereby to create a diversion
in favour of this country. Our Ambassador in Turkey at that time, Comte
de Choiseul-Gouffier, though an admirer of the Revolution, was not a
republican, and, therefore, secretly counteracted what he officially
seemed to wish to effect. The Imperial Court succeeded, therefore, in
establishing a neutrality of the Ottoman Porte, but Comte de Choiseul was
proscribed by the Convention. As academician, he was, however, at St.
Petersburg, liberally recompensed by Catherine II. for the services the
Ambassador had performed at Constantinople.
In May, 1793, the Committee of Public Safety determined to expedite
another embassy to the Grand. Seignior, at the head of which was the
famous intriguer, De Semonville, whose revolutionary diplomacy had,
within three years, alarmed the Courts of Madrid, Naples, and Turin, as
well as the republican Government of Genoa. His career towards Turkey
was stopped in the Grisons Republic, on the 25th of July following, where
he, with sixteen other persons of his suite, was arrested, and sent a
prisoner, first to Milan, and afterwards to Mantua. He carried with him
presents of immense value, which were all seized by the Austrians. Among
them were four superb coaches, highly finished, varnished, and gilt; what
is iron or brass in common carriages was here gold or silver-gilt. Two
large chests were filled with stuff of gold brocade, India gold muslins,
and shawls and laces of very great value. Eighty thousand louis d’or in
ready money; a service of gold plate of twenty covers, which formerly
belonged to the Kings of France; two small boxes full of diamonds and
brilliants, the intrinsic worth of which was estimated at forty-eight
millions of livres--and a great number of jewels; among others, the crown
diamond, called here the Regents’, and in your country the Pitt Diamond,
fell, with other riches, into the hands of the captors. Notwithstanding
this loss and this disappointment, we contrived in vain to purchase the
hostility of the Turks against our enemies, though with the sacrifice of
no less a sum (according to the report of Saint Just, in June, 1794,)
than seventy millions of livres: These official statements prove the
means which our so often extolled economical and moral republican
Governments have employed in their negotiations.
After the invasion of Egypt, in time of peace, by Bonaparte, the Sultan
became at last convinced of the sincerity of our professions of
friendship, which he returned with a declaration of war. The
preliminaries of peace with your country, in October, 1801, were,
however, soon followed with a renewal of our former friendly intercourse
with the Ottoman Porte. The voyage of Sebastiani into Egypt and Syria, in
the autumn of 1802, showed that our tenderness for the inhabitants of
these countries had not diminished, and that we soon intended to bestow
on them new hugs of fraternity. Your pretensions to Malta impeded our
prospects in the East, and your obstinacy obliged us to postpone our so
well planned schemes of encroachments. It was then that Bonaparte first
selected for his representative to the Grand Seignior, General Brune,
commonly called by Moreau, Macdonald, and other competent judges of
military merit, an intriguer at the head of armies, and a warrior in time
of peace when seated in the Council chamber.
This Brune was, before the Revolution, a journeyman printer, and married
to a washerwoman, whose industry and labour alone prevented him from
starving, for he was as vicious as idle. The money he gained when he
chose to work was generally squandered away in brothels, among
prostitutes. To supply his excesses he had even recourse to dishonest
means, and was shut up in the prison of Bicetre for robbing his master of
types and of paper.
In the beginning of the Revolution, his very crimes made him an
acceptable associate of Marat, who, with the money advanced by the
Orleans faction, bought him a printing-office, and he printed the so
dreadfully well-known journal, called ‘L’Amie du Peuple’. From the
principles of this atrocious paper, and from those of his sanguinary
patron, he formed his own political creed. He distinguished himself
frequently at the clubs of the Cordeliers, and of the Jacobins, by his
extravagant motions, and by provoking laws of proscription against a
wealth he did not possess, and against a rank he would have dishonoured,
but did not see without envy. On the 30th of June, 1791, he said, in the
former of these clubs:
“We hear everywhere complaints of poverty; were not our eyes so often
disgusted with the sight of unnatural riches, our hearts would not so
often be shocked at the unnatural sufferings of humanity. The blessings
of our Revolution will never be felt by the world, until we in France are
on a level, with regard to rank as well as to fortune. I, for my part,
know too well the dignity of human nature ever to bow to a superior; but,
brothers and friends, it is not enough that we are all politically equal,
we must also be all equally rich or equally poor--we must either all
strive to become men of property, or reduce men of property to become
sans-culottes. Believe me, the aristocracy of property is more dangerous
than the aristocracy of prerogative or fanaticism, because it is more
common. Here is a list sent to ‘L’ Amie du People’, but of which
prudence yet prohibits the publication. It contains the names of all the
men of property of Paris, and of the Department of the Seine, the amount
of their fortunes, and a proposal how to reduce and divide it among our
patriots. Of its great utility in the moment when we have been striking
our grand blows, nobody dares doubt; I, therefore, move that a brotherly
letter be sent to every society of our brothers and friends in the
provinces, inviting each of them to compose one of similar contents and
of similar tendency, in their own districts, with what remarks they think
proper to affix, and to forward them to us, to be deposited, in the
mother club, after taking copies of them for the archives of their own
society.”
His motion was decreed.
Two days afterwards, he again ascended the tribune. “You approved,” said
he, “of the measures I lately proposed against the aristocracy of
property; I will now tell you of another aristocracy which we must also
crush--I mean that of religion, and of the clergy. Their supports are
folly, cowardice, and ignorance. All priests are to be proscribed as
criminals, and despised as impostors or idiots; and all altars must be
reduced to dust as unnecessary. To prepare the public mind for such
events, we must enlighten it; which can only be done by disseminating
extracts from ‘L’ Amie du People’, and other philosophical publications.
I have here some ballads of my own composition, which have been sung in
my quarter; where all superstitious persons have already trembled, and
all fanatics are raving. If you think proper, I will, for a mere trifle,
print twenty thousand copies of them, to be distributed and disseminated
gratis all over France.”
After some discussion, the treasurer of the club was ordered to advance
Citizen Brune the sum required, and the secretary to transmit the ballads
to the fraternal societies in the provinces.
Brune put on his first regimentals as an aide-decamp to General Santerre
in December, 1792, after having given proofs of his military prowess the
preceding September, in the massacre of the prisoners in the Abbey. In
1793 he was appointed a colonel in the revolutionary army, which, during
the Reign of Terror, laid waste the departments of the Gironde, where he
was often seen commanding his corps, with a human head fixed on his
sword. On the day when he entered Bordeaux with his troops, a new-born
child occupied the same place, to the great horror of the inhabitants.
During this brilliant expedition he laid the first foundation of his
present fortune, having pillaged in a most unmerciful manner, and
arrested or shot every suspected person who could not, or would not,
exchange property for life. On his return to Paris, his patriotism was
recompensed with a commission of a general of brigade. On the death of
Robespierre, he was arrested as a terrorist, but, after some months’
imprisonment, again released.
In October, 1795, he assisted Napoleon Bonaparte in the massacre of the
Parisians, and obtained for it, from the director Barras, the rank of a
general of division. Though occupying, in time of war, such a high
military rank, he had hitherto never seen an enemy, or witnessed an
engagement.
After Bonaparte had planned the invasion and pillage of Switzerland,
Brune was charged to execute this unjust outrage against the law of
nations. His capacity to intrigue procured him this distinction, and he
did honour to the choice of his employers. You have no doubt read that,
after lulling the Government of Berne into security by repeated proposals
of accommodation, he attacked the Swiss and Bernese troops during a
truce, and obtained by treachery successes which his valour did not
promise him. The pillage, robberies, and devastations in Helvetia added
several more millions to his previously great riches.
It was after his campaign in Holland, during the autumn of 1799, that he
first began to claim some military glory. He owed, however, his
successes to the superior number of his troops, and to the talents of the
generals and officers serving under him. Being made a Counsellor of
State by Bonaparte, he was entrusted with the command of the army against
the Chouans. Here he again seduced by his promises, and duped by his
intrigues, acted infamously--but was successful.