Further Attempts at Authorship.
Straits of the Buonaparte Family -- Napoleon's Efforts to
Relieve Them -- Home Studies -- His History and Short
Stories -- Visit to Paris -- Renewed Petitions to Government
-- More Authorship -- Secures Extension of his Leave -- The
Family Fortunes Desperate -- The History of Corsica
Completed -- Its Style, Opinions, and Value -- Failure to
Find a Publisher -- Sentiments Expressed in his Short
Stories -- Napoleon's Irregularities as a French Officer --
His Life at Auxonne -- His Vain Appeal to Paoli -- The
History Dedicated to Necker.
[Sidenote: 1787-89.]
When Napoleon arrived at Ajaccio, and, after an absence of eight
years, was again with his family, he found their affairs in a serious
condition. Not one of the old French officials remained; the
diplomatic leniency of occupation was giving place to the official
stringency of a permanent possession; proportionately the disaffection
of the patriot remnant among the people was slowly developing into a
wide-spread discontent. Joseph, the hereditary head of a family which
had been thoroughly French in conduct, and was supposed to be so in
sentiment, which at least looked to the King for further favors, was
still a stanch royalist. Having been unsuccessful in every other
direction, he was now seeking to establish a mercantile connection
with Florence which would enable him to engage in the oil-trade. A
modest beginning was, he hoped, about to be made. It was high time,
for the only support of his mother and her children, in the failure to
secure the promised subsidy for her mulberry plantations, was the
income of the old archdeacon, who was now confined to his room, and
growing feebler every day under attacks of gout. Unfortunately,
Joseph's well-meant efforts again came to naught.
The behavior of the pale, feverish, masterful young lieutenant was not
altogether praiseworthy. He filled the house with his new-fangled
philosophy, and assumed a self-important air. Among his papers and in
his own handwriting is a blank form for engaging and binding recruits.
Clearly he had a tacit understanding either with himself or with
others to secure some of the fine Corsican youth for the regiment of
La Fère. But there is no record of any success in the enterprise.
Among the letters which he wrote was one dated April first, 1787, to
the renowned Dr. Tissot of Lausanne, referring to his correspondent's
interest in Paoli, and asking advice concerning the treatment of the
canon's gout. The physician never replied, and the epistle was found
among his papers marked "unanswered and of little interest." The old
ecclesiastic listened to his nephew's patriotic tirades, and even
approved; Mme. de Buonaparte coldly disapproved. She would have
preferred calmer, more efficient common sense. Not that her son was
inactive in her behalf; on the contrary, he began a series of busy
representations to the provincial officials which secured some
good-will and even trifling favor to the family. But the results were
otherwise unsatisfactory, for the mulberry money was not paid.
Napoleon's zeal for study was not in the least abated in the
atmosphere of home. Joseph in his memoirs says the reunited family was
happy in spite of troubles. There was reciprocal joy in their
companionship and his long absent brother was glad in the pleasures
both of home and of nature so congenial to his feelings and his
tastes. The most important part of Napoleon's baggage appears to have
been the books, documents, and papers he brought with him. That he had
collections on Corsica has been told. Joseph says he had also the
classics of both French and Latin literature as well as the
philosophical writings of Plato; likewise, he thinks, Ossian and
Homer. In the "Discourse" presented not many years later to the Lyons
Academy and in the talks at St. Helena, Napoleon refers to his
enjoyment of nature at this time; to the hours spent in the grotto, or
under the majestic oak, or in the shade of the olive groves, all parts
of the sadly neglected garden of Milleli some distance from the house
and belonging to his mother; to his walks on the meadows among the
lowing herds; to his wanderings on the shore at sunset, his return by
moonlight, and the gentle melancholy which unbidden enveloped him in
spite of himself. He savored the air of Corsica, the smell of its
earth, the spicy breezes of its thickets, he would have known his home
with his eyes shut, and with them open he found it the earthly
paradise. Yet all the while he was busy, very busy, partly with good
reading, partly in the study of history, and in large measure with the
practical conduct of the family affairs.
As the time for return to service drew near it was clear that the
mother with her family of four helpless little children, all a serious
charge on her time and purse, could not be left without the support of
one older son, at least; and Joseph was now about to seek his fortune
in Pisa. Accordingly Napoleon with methodical care drew up two papers
still existing, a memorandum of how an application for renewed leave
on the ground of sickness was to be made and also the form of
application itself, which no doubt he copied. At any rate he applied,
on the ground of ill health, for a renewal of leave to last five and a
half months. It was granted, and the regular round of family cares
went on; but the days and weeks brought no relief. Ill health there
was, and perhaps sufficient to justify that plea, but the physical
fever was intensified by the checks which want set upon ambition. The
passion for authorship reasserted itself with undiminished violence.
The history of Corsica was resumed, recast, and vigorously continued,
while at the same time the writer completed a short story entitled
"The Count of Essex,"--with an English setting, of course,--and wrote
a Corsican novel. The latter abounds in bitterness against France, the
most potent force in the development of the plot being the dagger. The
author's use of French, though easier, is still very imperfect. A
slight essay, or rather story, in the style of Voltaire, entitled "The
Masked Prophet," was also completed.
It was reported early in the autumn that many regiments were to be
mobilized for special service, among them that of La Fère. This gave
Napoleon exactly the opening he desired, and he left Corsica at once,
without reference to the end of his furlough. He reached Paris in
October, a fortnight before he was due. His regiment was still at
Douay: he may have spent a few days with it in that city. But this is
not certain, and soon after it was transferred to St. Denis, now
almost a suburb of Paris; it was destined for service in western
France, where incipient tumults were presaging the coming storm.
Eventually its destination was changed and it was ordered to Auxonne.
The Estates-General of France were about to meet for the first time in
one hundred and seventy-five years; they had last met in 1614, and had
broken up in disorder. They were now called as a desperate remedy, not
understood, but at least untried, for ever-increasing embarrassments;
and the government, fearing still greater disorders, was making ready
to repress any that might break out in districts known to be specially
disaffected. All this was apparently of secondary importance to young
Buonaparte; he had a scheme to use the crisis for the benefit of his
family. Compelled by their utter destitution at the time of his
father's death, he had temporarily and for that occasion assumed his
father's rôle of suppliant. Now for a second time he sent in a
petition. It was written in Paris, dated November ninth, 1787, and
addressed, in his mother's behalf, to the intendant for Corsica
resident at the French capital. His name and position must have
carried some weight, it could not have been the mere effrontery of an
adventurer which secured him a hearing at Versailles, an interview
with the prime minister, Loménie de Brienne, and admission to all the
minor officials who might deal with his mother's claim. All these
privileges he declares that he had enjoyed and the statements must
have been true. The petition was prefaced by a personal letter
containing them. Though a supplication in form, the request is unlike
his father's humble and almost cringing papers, being rather a demand
for justice than a petition for favor; it is unlike them in another
respect, because it contains a falsehood, or at least an utterly
misleading half-truth: a statement that he had shortened his leave
because of his mother's urgent necessities.
The paper was not handed in until after the expiration of his leave,
and his true object was not to rejoin his regiment, as was hinted in
it, but to secure a second extension of leave. Such was the slackness
of discipline that he spent all of November and the first half of
December in Paris. During this period he made acquaintance with the
darker side of Paris life. The papers numbered four, five, and six in
the Fesch collection give a fairly detailed account of one adventure
and his bitter repentance. The second suggests the writing of history
as an antidote for unhappiness, and the last is a long, rambling
effusion in denunciation of pleasure, passion, and license; of
gallantry as utterly incompatible with patriotism. His acquaintance
with history is ransacked for examples. Still another short effusion
which may belong to the same period is in the form of an imaginary
letter, saturated likewise with the Corsican spirit, addressed by King
Theodore to Walpole. It has little value or meaning, except as it may
possibly foreshadow the influence on Napoleon's imagination of
England's boundless hospitality to political fugitives like Theodore
and Paoli.
Lieutenant Buonaparte remained in Paris until he succeeded in
procuring permission to spend the next six months in Corsica, at his
own charges. He was quite as disingenuous in his request to the
Minister of War as in his memorial to the intendant for Corsica,
representing that the estates of Corsica were about to meet, and that
his presence was essential to safeguard important interests which in
his absence would be seriously compromised. Whatever such a plea may
have meant, his serious cares as the real head of the family were ever
uppermost, and never neglected. Louis had, as was feared, lost his
appointment, and though not past the legal age, was really too old to
await another vacancy; Lucien was determined to leave Brienne in any
case, and to stay at Aix in order to seize the first chance which
might arise of entering the seminary. Napoleon made some
provision--what it was is not known--for Louis's further temporary
stay at Brienne, and then took Lucien with him as far as their route
lay together. He reached his home again on the first of January, 1788.
The affairs of the family were at last utterly desperate, and were
likely, moreover, to grow worse before they grew better. The old
archdeacon was failing daily, and, although known to have means, he
declared himself destitute of ready money. With his death would
disappear a portion of his income; his patrimony and savings, which
the Buonapartes hoped of course to inherit, were an uncertain
quantity, probably insufficient for the needs of such a family. The
mulberry money was still unpaid; all hope of wresting the ancestral
estates from the government authorities was buried; Joseph was without
employment, and, as a last expedient, was studying in Pisa for
admission to the bar. Louis and Lucien were each a heavy charge;
Napoleon's income was insufficient even for his own modest wants,
regulated though they were by the strictest economy. Who shall cast a
stone at the shiftiness of a boy not yet nineteen, charged with such
cares, yet consumed with ambition, and saturated with the romantic
sentimentalism of his times? Some notion of his embarrassments and
despair can be obtained from a rapid survey of his mental states and
the corresponding facts. An ardent republican and revolutionary, he
was tied by the strongest bonds to the most despotic monarchy in
Europe. A patriotic Corsican, he was the servant of his country's
oppressor. Conscious of great ability, he was seeking an outlet in the
pursuit of literature, a line of work entirely unsuited to his powers.
The head and support of a large family, he was almost penniless; if he
should follow his convictions, he and they might be altogether so. In
the period of choice and requiring room for experiment, he saw himself
doomed to a fixed, inglorious career, and caged in a framework of
unpropitious circumstance. Whatever the moral obliquity in his feeble
expedients, there is the pathos of human limitations in their
character.
Whether the resolution had long before been taken, or was of recent
formation, Napoleon now intended to make fame and profit go hand in
hand. The meeting of the Corsican estates was, as far as is known,
entirely forgotten, and authorship was resumed, not merely with the
ardor of one who writes from inclination, but with the regular
drudgery of a craftsman. In spite of all discouragements, he appeared
to a visitor in his family, still considered the most devoted in the
island to the French monarchy because so favored by it, as being "full
of vivacity, quick in his speech and motions, his mind apparently hard
at work in digesting schemes and forming plans and proudly rejecting
every other suggestion but that of his own fancy. For this intolerable
ambition he was often reproved by the elder Lucien, his uncle, a
dignitary of the church. Yet these admonitions seemed to make no
impression upon the mind of Napoleon, who received them with a grin of
pity, if not of contempt."[15] The amusements of the versatile and
headstrong boy would have been sufficient occupation for most men.
Regulating, as far as possible, his mother's complicated affairs, he
journeyed frequently to Bastia, probably to collect money due for
young mulberry-trees which had been sold, possibly to get material for
his history. On these visits he met and dined with the artillery
officers of the company stationed there. One of them, M. de Roman, a
very pronounced royalist, has given in his memoirs a striking portrait
of his guest.[16] "His face was not pleasing to me at all, his
character still less; and he was so dry and sententious for a youth of
his age, a French officer too, that I never for a moment entertained
the thought of making him my friend. My knowledge of governments,
ancient and modern, was not sufficiently extended to discuss with him
his favorite subject of conversation. So when in my turn I gave the
dinner, which happened three or four times that year, I retired after
the coffee, leaving him to the hands of a captain of ours, far better
able than I was to lock arms with such a valiant antagonist. My
comrades, like myself, saw nothing in this but absurd pedantry. We
even believed that this magisterial tone which he assumed was
meaningless until one day when he reasoned so forcibly on the rights
of nations in general, his own in particular, _Stupete gentes!_ that
we could not recover from our amazement, especially when in speaking
of a meeting of their Estates, about calling which there was some
deliberation, and which M. de Barrin sought to delay, following in
that the blunders of his predecessor, he said: 'that it was very
surprising that M. de Barrin thought to prevent them from deliberating
about their interests,' adding in a threatening tone, 'M. de Barrin
does not know the Corsicans; he will see what they can do.' This
expression gave the measure of his character. One of our comrades
replied: 'Would you draw your sword against the King's representative?'
He made no answer. We separated coldly and that was the last time this
former comrade did me the honor to dine with me." Making all
allowance, this incident exhibits the feeling and purpose of Napoleon.
During these days he also completed a plan for the defense of St.
Florent, of La Mortilla, and of the Gulf of Ajaccio; drew up a report
on the organization of the Corsican militia; and wrote a paper on the
strategic importance of the Madeleine Islands. This was his play; his
work was the history of Corsica. It was finished sooner than he had
expected; anxious to reap the pecuniary harvest of his labors and
resume his duties, he was ready for the printer when he left for
France in the latter part of May to secure its publication. Although
dedicated in its first form to a powerful patron, Monseigneur
Marbeuf, then Bishop of Sens, like many works from the pen of genius
it remained at the author's death in manuscript.
[Footnote 15: Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I,
47.]
[Footnote 16: Souvenirs d'un officier royaliste, par M.
de R..., Vol. I, p. 117.]
The book was of moderate size, and of moderate merit.[17] Its form,
repeatedly changed from motives of expediency, was at first that of
letters addressed to the Abbé Raynal. Its contents display little
research and no scholarship. The style is intended to be popular, and
is dramatic rather than narrative. There is exhibited, as everywhere
in these early writings, an intense hatred of France, a glowing
affection for Corsica and her heroes. A very short account of one
chapter will sufficiently characterize the whole work. Having outlined
in perhaps the most effective passage the career of Sampiero, and
sketched his diplomatic failures at all the European courts except
that of Constantinople, where at last he had secured sympathy and was
promised aid, the author depicts the patriot's bitterness when
recalled by the news of his wife's treachery. Confronting his guilty
spouse, deaf to every plea for pity, hardened against the tender
caresses of his children, the Corsican hero utters judgment. "Madam,"
he sternly says, "in the face of crime and disgrace, there is no other
resort but death." Vannina at first falls unconscious, but, regaining
her senses, she clasps her children to her breast and begs life for
their sake. But feeling that the petition is futile, she then recalls
the memory of her earlier virtue, and, facing her fate, begs as a last
favor that no base executioner shall lay his soiled hands on the wife
of Sampiero, but that he himself shall execute the sentence. Vannina's
behavior moves her husband, but does not touch his heart. "The pity
and tenderness," says Buonaparte, "which she should have awakened
found a soul thenceforward closed to the power of sentiment. Vannina
died. She died by the hands of Sampiero."
[Footnote 17: Printed in Napoléon inconnu, Vol. II, p.
167.]
Neither the publishers of Valence, nor those of Dôle, nor those of
Auxonne, would accept the work. At Paris one was finally found who was
willing to take a half risk. The author, disillusioned but sanguine,
was on the point of accepting the proposition, and was occupied with
considering ways and means, when his friend the Bishop of Sens was
suddenly disgraced. The manuscript was immediately copied and revised,
with the result, probably, of making its tone more intensely Corsican;
for it was now to be dedicated to Paoli. The literary aspirant must
have foreseen the coming crash, and must have felt that the exile was
to be again the liberator, and perhaps the master, of his native land.
At any rate, he abandoned the idea of immediate publication, possibly
in the dawning hope that as Paoli's lieutenant he could make Corsican
history better than he could write it. It is this copy which has been
preserved; the original was probably destroyed.
The other literary efforts of this feverish time were not as
successful even as those in historical writing. The stories are wild
and crude; one only, "The Masked Prophet," has any merit or interest
whatsoever. Though more finished than the others, its style is also
abrupt and full of surprises; the scene and characters are Oriental;
the plot is a feeble invention. An ambitious and rebellious Ameer is
struck with blindness, and has recourse to a silver mask to deceive
his followers. Unsuccessful, he poisons them all, throws their corpses
into pits of quicklime, then leaps in himself, to deceive the world
and leave no trace of mortality behind. His enemies believe, as he
desired, that he and his people have been taken up into heaven. The
whole, however, is dimly prescient, and the concluding lines of the
fable have been thought by believers in augury to be prophetic.
"Incredible instance! How far can the passion for fame go!" Among the
papers of this period are also a constitution for the "calotte," a
secret society of his regiment organized to keep its members up to the
mark of conduct expected from gentlemen and officers, and many
political notes. One of these rough drafts is a project for an essay
on royal power, intended to treat of its origin and to display its
usurpations, and which closes with these words: "There are but few
kings who do not deserve to be dethroned."
The various absences of Buonaparte from his regiment up to this time
are antagonistic to our modern ideas of military duty. The subsequent
ones seem simply inexplicable, even in a service so lax as that of the
crumbling Bourbon dynasty. Almost immediately after Joseph's return,
on the first of June he sailed for France. He did not reach Auxonne,
where the artillery regiment La Fère was now stationed, until early in
that month, 1788. He remained there less than a year and a half, and
then actually obtained another leave of absence, from September tenth,
1789, to February, 1791, which he fully intended should end in his
retirement from the French service.[18] The incidents of this second
term of garrison life are not numerous, but from the considerable
body of his notes and exercises which dates from the period we know
that he suddenly developed great zeal in the study of artillery,
theoretical and practical, and that he redoubled his industry in the
pursuit of historical and political science. In the former line he
worked diligently and became expert. With his instructor Duteil he
grew intimate and the friendship was close throughout life. He
associated on the best of terms with his old friend des Mazis and
began a pleasant acquaintance with Gassendi. So faithful was he to the
minutest details of his profession that he received marks of the
highest distinction. Not yet twenty and only a second lieutenant, he
was appointed, with six officers of higher rank, a member of the
regimental commission to study the best disposal of mortars and cannon
in firing shells. Either at this time or later (the date is
uncertain), he had sole charge of important manoeuvers held in honor
of the Prince of Condé. These honors he recounted with honest pride in
a letter dated August twenty-second to his great-uncle. Among the
Fesch papers are considerable fragments of his writing on the theory,
practice, and history of artillery. Antiquated as are their contents,
they show how patient and thorough was the work of the student, and
some of their ideas adapted to new conditions were his permanent
possession, as the greatest master of artillery at the height of his
fame. In the study of politics he read Plato and examined the
constitutions of antiquity, devouring with avidity what literature he
could find concerning Venice, Turkey, Tartary, and Arabia. At the same
time he carefully read the history of England, and made some accurate
observations on the condition of contemporaneous politics in France.
[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. See Napoléon inconnu,
Vol. I, p. 204.]
His last disappointment had rendered him more taciturn and
misanthropic than ever; it seems clear that he was working to become
an expert, not for the benefit of France, but for that of Corsica.
Charged with the oversight of some slight works on the fortifications,
he displayed such incompetence that he was actually punished by a
short arrest. Misfortune still pursued the family. The youth who had
been appointed to Brienne when Louis was expecting a scholarship
suddenly died. Mme. de Buonaparte was true to the family tradition,
and immediately forwarded a petition for the place, but was, as
before, unsuccessful. Lucien was not yet admitted to Aix; Joseph was a
barrister, to be sure, but briefless. Napoleon once again, but for the
last time,--and with marked impatience, even with impertinence,--took
up the task of solicitation. The only result was a good-humored,
non-committal reply. Meantime the first mutterings of the
revolutionary outbreak were heard, and spasmodic disorders, trifling
but portentous, were breaking out, not only among the people, but even
among the royal troops. One of these, at Seurre, was occasioned by the
news that the hated and notorious syndicate existing under the
scandalous agreement with the King known as the "Bargain of Famine"
had been making additional purchases of grain from two merchants of
that town. This was in April, 1789. Buonaparte was put in command of a
company and sent to aid in suppressing the riot. But it was ended
before he arrived; on May first he returned to Auxonne.
[Illustration: From the collection of W. C. Crane. Engraved by Huot.
Charles Bonaparte, Father of the Emperor Napoleon, 1785.
Painted by Girodet.]
Four days later the Estates met at Versailles. What was passing in the
mind of the restless, bitter, disappointed Corsican is again plainly
revealed. A famous letter to Paoli, to which reference has already
been made, is dated June twelfth. It is a justification of his
cherished work as the only means open to a poor man, the slave of
circumstances, for summoning the French administration to the bar
of public opinion; viz., by comparing it with Paoli's. Willing to face
the consequences, the writer asks for documentary materials and for
moral support, ending with ardent assurances of devotion from his
family, his mother, and himself. But there is a ring of false coin in
many of its words and sentences. The "infamy" of those who betrayed
Corsica was the infamy of his own father; the "devotion" of the
Buonaparte family had been to the French interest, in order to secure
free education, with support for their children, in France. The
"enthusiasm" of Napoleon was a cold, unsentimental determination to
push their fortunes, which, with opposite principles, would have been
honorable enough. In later years Lucien said that he had made two
copies of the history. It was probably one of these which has been
preserved. Whether or not Paoli read the book does not appear. Be that
as it may, his reply to Buonaparte's letter, written some months
later, was not calculated to encourage the would-be historian. Without
absolutely refusing the documents asked for by the aspiring writer, he
explained that he had no time to search for them, and that, besides,
Corsican history was only important in any sense by reason of the men
who had made it, not by reason of its achievements. Among other bits
of fatherly counsel was this: "You are too young to write history.
Make ready for such an enterprise slowly. Patiently collect your
anecdotes and facts. Accept the opinions of other writers with
reserve." As if to soften the severity of his advice, there follows a
strain of modest self-depreciation: "Would that others had known less
of me and I more of myself. _Probe diu vivimus_; may our descendants
so live that they shall speak of me merely as one who had good
intentions."
Buonaparte's last shift in the treatment of his book was most
undignified and petty. With the unprincipled resentment of despair, in
want of money, not of advice, he entirely remodeled it for the third
time, its chapters being now put as fragmentary traditions into the
mouth of a Corsican mountaineer. In this form it was dedicated to
Necker, the famous Swiss, who as French minister of finance was vainly
struggling with the problem of how to distribute taxation equally, and
to collect from the privileged classes their share. A copy was first
sent to a former teacher for criticism. His judgment was extremely
severe both as to expression and style. In particular, attention was
called to the disadvantage of indulging in so much rhetoric for the
benefit of an overworked public servant like Necker, and to the
inappropriateness of putting his own metaphysical generalizations and
captious criticism of French royalty into the mouth of a peasant
mountaineer. Before the correspondence ended, Napoleon's student life
was over. Necker had fled, the French Revolution was rushing on with
ever-increasing speed, and the young adventurer, despairing of success
as a writer, seized the proffered opening to become a man of action.
In a letter dated January twelfth, 1789, and written at Auxonne to his
mother, the young officer gives a dreary account of himself. The
swamps of the neighborhood and their malarious exhalations rendered
the place, he thought, utterly unwholesome. At all events, he had
contracted a low fever which undermined his strength and depressed his
spirits. There was no immediate hope of a favorable response to the
petition for the moneys due on the mulberry plantation because "this
unhappy period in French finance delays furiously (_sic_) the
discussion of our affair. Let us hope, however, that we may be
compensated for our long and weary waiting and that we shall receive
complete restitution." He writes further a terse sketch of public
affairs in France and Europe, speaks despairingly of what the council
of war has in store for the engineers by the proposed reorganization,
and closes with tender remembrances to Joseph and Lucien, begging for
news and reminding them that he had received no home letter since the
preceding October. The reader feels that matters have come to a climax
and that the scholar is soon to enter the arena of revolutionary
activity. Curiously enough, the language used is French; this is
probably due to the fact that it was intended for the family, rather
than for the neighborhood circle.