Vicissitudes in War and Diplomacy.
Signs of Maturity -- The Mission to Genoa -- Course of the
French Republic -- The "Terror" -- Thermidor -- Buonaparte a
Scapegoat -- His Prescience -- Adventures of His Brothers --
Napoleon's Defense of His French Patriotism -- Bloodshedding
for Amusement -- New Expedition Against Corsica --
Buonaparte's Advice for Its Conduct.
[Sidenote: 1794.]
Buonaparte's plan for combining operations against both Genoa and
Sardinia was at first hazy. In his earliest efforts to expand and
clarify it, he wrote a rambling document, still in existence, which
draws a contrast between the opposite policies to be adopted with
reference to Italy and Spain. In it he also calls attention to the
scarcity of officers suitable for concerted action in a great
enterprise, and a remark concerning the course to be pursued in this
particular case contains the germ of his whole military system.
"Combine your forces in a war, as in a siege, on one point. The breach
once made, equilibrium is destroyed, everything else is useless, and
the place is taken. Do not conceal, but concentrate, your attack." In
the matter of politics he sees Germany as the main prop of opposition
to democracy; Spain is to be dealt with on the defensive, Italy on the
offensive. But, contrary to what he actually did in the following
year, he advises against proceeding too far into Piedmont, lest the
adversary should gain the advantage of position. This paper
Robespierre the younger had in his pocket when he left for Paris,
summoned to aid his brother in difficulties which were now pressing
fast upon him.
Ricord was left behind to direct, at least nominally, the movements
both of the armies and of the embassy to Genoa. Buonaparte continued
to be the real power. Military operations having been suspended to
await the result of diplomacy, his instructions from Ricord were drawn
so as to be loose and merely formal. On July eleventh he started from
Nice, reaching his destination three days later. During the week of
his stay--for he left again on the twenty-first--the envoy made his
representations, and laid down his ultimatum that the republic of
Genoa should preserve absolute neutrality, neither permitting troops
to pass over its territories, nor lending aid in the construction of
military roads, as she was charged with doing secretly. His success in
overawing the oligarchy was complete, and a written promise of
compliance to these demands was made by the Doge. Buonaparte arrived
again in Nice on the twenty-eighth. We may imagine that as he traveled
the romantic road between the mountains and the sea, the rising
general and diplomat indulged in many rosy dreams, probably feeling
already on his shoulders the insignia of a commander-in-chief. But he
was returning to disgrace, if not to destruction. A week after his
arrival came the stupefying news that the hour-glass had once again
been reversed, that on the very day of his own exultant return to
Nice, Robespierre's head had fallen, that the Mountain was shattered,
and that the land was again staggering to gain its balance after
another political earthquake.
The shock had been awful, but it was directly traceable to the
accumulated disorders of Jacobin rule. A rude and vigorous but eerie
order of things had been inaugurated on November twenty-fourth, 1793,
by the so-called republic. There was first the new calendar, in which
the year I began on September twenty-second, 1792, the day on which
the republic had been proclaimed. In it were the twelve thirty-day
months, with their names of vintage, fog, and frost; of snow, rain,
and wind; of bud, flower, and meadow; of seed, heat, and harvest: the
whole terminated most unpoetically by the five or six supplementary
days named sansculot-tides,--sansculottes meaning without
knee-breeches, a garment confined to the upper classes; that is, with
long trousers like the common people,--and these days were so named
because they were to be a holiday for the long-trousered populace
which was to use the new reckoning. There was next the new, strange,
and unhallowed spectacle, seen in history for the first time, the
realization of a nightmare--a whole people finally turned into an
army, and at war with nearly all the world. The reforming Girondists
had created the situation, and the Jacobins, with grim humor, were
unflinchingly facing the logical consequences of such audacity. Carnot
had given the watchword of attack in mass and with superior numbers;
the times gave the frenzied courage of sentimental exaltation. Before
the end of 1793 the foreign enemies of France, though not conquered,
had been checked on the frontier; the outbreak of civil war in Vendée
had been temporarily suppressed; both Lyons and Toulon had been
retaken.
Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, and Billaud-Varennes were theorists
after the manner of Rousseau. Their new gospel of social regeneration
embraced democracy, civic virtue, moral institutions, and public
festivals. These were their shibboleths and catch-words. Incidentally
they extolled paternalism in government, general conscription,
compulsory military service, and, on the very eve of the greatest
industrial revival known to history, a return to agricultural society!
The sanction of all this was not moral suasion: essential to the
system was Spartan simplicity and severity, compulsion was the means
to their utopia.[40] The Jacobins were nothing if not thorough; and
here was another new and awful thing--the "Terror"--which had broken
loose with its foul furies of party against party through all the
land. It seemed at last as if it were exhausting itself, though for a
time it had grown in intensity as it spread in extent. It had created
three factions in the Mountain. Early in 1794 there remained but a
little handful of avowed and still eager terrorists in the
Convention--Hébert and his friends. These were the atheists who had
abolished religion and the past, bowing down before the fetish which
they dubbed Reason. They were seized and put to death on March
twenty-fourth. There then remained the cliques of Danton and
Robespierre; the former claiming the name of moderates, and telling
men to be calm, the latter with no principle but devotion to a person
who claimed to be the regenerator of society. These hero-worshipers
were for a time victorious. Danton, like Hébert, was foully murdered,
and Robespierre remained alone, virtually dictator. But his theatrical
conduct in decreeing by law the existence of a Supreme Being and the
immortality of the soul, and in organizing tawdry festivals to supply
the place of worship, utterly embittered against him both atheists and
pious people. In disappointed rage at his failure, he laid aside the
characters of prophet and mild saint to give vent to his natural
wickedness and to become a devil.
[Footnote 40: In Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire,
XXXI, pp. 268-290, 415-427; XXXII, pp. 335-381 _et
seq._, and in OEuvres de St. Just, pp. 360-420, will be
found a few examples of their views in their own words.]
During the long days of June and July there raged again a carnival of
blood, known to history as the "Great Terror." In less than seven
weeks upward of twelve hundred victims were immolated. The unbridled
license of the guillotine broadened as it ran. First the aristocrats
had fallen, then royalty, then their sympathizers, then the hated
rich, then the merely well-to-do, and lastly anybody not cringing to
existing power. The reaction against Robespierre was one of universal
fear. Its inception was the work of Tallien, Fouché, Barras, Carrier,
Fréron, and the like, men of vile character, who knew that if
Robespierre could maintain his pose of the "Incorruptible" their doom
was sealed. In this sense Robespierre was what Napoleon called him at
St. Helena, "the scapegoat of the Revolution." The uprising of these
accomplices was, however, the opportunity long desired by the better
elements in Parisian society, and the two antipodal classes made
common cause. Dictator as Robespierre wished to be, he was formed of
other stuff, for when the reckoning came his brutal violence was
cowed. On July twenty-seventh (the ninth of Thermidor), the Convention
turned on him in rebellion, extreme radicals and moderate
conservatives combining for the effort. Terrible scenes were enacted.
The sections of Paris were divided, some for the Convention, some for
Robespierre. The artillerymen who were ordered by the latter to batter
down the part of the Tuileries where his enemies were sitting
hesitated and disobeyed; at once all resistance to the decrees of the
Convention died out. The dictator would have been his own executioner,
but his faltering terrors stopped him midway in his half-committed
suicide. He and his brother, with their friends, were seized, and
beheaded on the morrow. With the downfall of Robespierre went the last
vestige of social or political authority; for the Convention was no
longer trusted by the nation--the only organized power with popular
support which was left was the army.
This was the news which, traveling southward, finally reached Toulon,
Marseilles, and Nice, cities where Robespierre's stanchest adherents
were flaunting their newly gained importance. No wonder if the brains
of common men reeled. The recent so-called parties had disappeared for
the moment like wraiths. The victorious group in the Convention, now
known as the Thermidorians, was compounded of elements from them both,
and claimed to represent the whole of France as the wretched factions
who had so long controlled the government had never done. Where now
should those who had been active supporters of the late administration
turn for refuge? The Corsicans who had escaped from the island at the
same time with Salicetti and the Buonapartes were nearly all with the
Army of Italy. Employment had been given to them, but, having failed
to keep Corsica for France, they were not in favor. It had already
been remarked in the Committee of Public Safety that their patriotism
was less manifest than their disposition to enrich themselves. This
too was the opinion of many among their own countrymen, especially of
their own partisans shut up in Bastia or Calvi and deserted.
Salicetti, ever ready for emergencies, was not disconcerted by this
one; and with adroit baseness turned informer, denouncing as a
suspicious schemer his former protégé and lieutenant, of whose budding
greatness he was now well aware. He was apparently both jealous and
alarmed. Possibly, however, the whole procedure was a ruse; in the
critical juncture the apparent traitor was by this conduct able
efficiently to succor and save his compatriot.
Buonaparte's mission to Genoa had been openly political; secretly it
was also a military reconnaissance, and his confidential instructions,
virtually dictated by himself, had unfortunately leaked out. They had
directed him to examine the fortifications in and about both Savona
and Genoa, to investigate the state of the Genoese artillery, to
inform himself as to the behavior of the French envoy to the republic,
to learn as much as possible of the intentions of the oligarchy--in
short, to gather all information useful for the conduct of a war "the
result of which it is impossible to foresee." Buonaparte, knowing now
that he had trodden dangerous ground in his unauthorized and secret
dealings with the younger Robespierre, and probably foreseeing the
coming storm, began to shorten sail immediately upon reaching Nice.
Either he was prescient and felt the new influences in the air, or
else a letter now in the war office at Paris, and purporting to have
been written on August seventh to Tilly, the French agent at Genoa, is
an antedated fabrication written later for Salicetti's use.[41]
Speaking, in this paper, of Robespierre the younger, he said: "I was a
little touched by the catastrophe, for I loved him and thought him
spotless. But were it my own father, I would stab him to the heart if
he aspired to become a tyrant." If the letter be genuine, as is
probable, the writer was very far-sighted. He knew that its contents
would speedily reach Paris in the despatches of Tilly, so that it was
virtually a public renunciation of Jacobinism at the earliest possible
date, an anchor to windward in the approaching tempest. But
momentarily the trick was of no avail; he was first superseded in his
command, then arrested on August tenth, and, fortunately for himself,
imprisoned two days later in Fort Carré, near Antibes, instead of
being sent direct to Paris as some of his friends were. This temporary
shelter from the devastating blast he owed to Salicetti, who would, no
doubt, without hesitation have destroyed a friend for his own safety,
but was willing enough to spare him if not driven to extremity.
[Footnote 41: Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, II, 455.]
As the true state of things in Corsica began to be known in France,
there was a general disposition to blame and punish the influential
men who had brought things to such a desperate pass and made the loss
of the island probable, if not certain. Salicetti, Multedo, and the
rest quickly unloaded the whole blame on Buonaparte's shoulders, so
that he had many enemies in Paris. Thus by apparent harshness to one
whom he still considered a subordinate, the real culprit escaped
suspicion. Assured of immunity from punishment himself, Salicetti was
content with his rival's humiliation, and felt no real rancor toward
the family. This is clear from his treatment of Louis Buonaparte, who
had fallen from place and favor along with his brother, but was by
Salicetti's influence soon afterward made an officer of the home guard
at Nice. Joseph had rendered himself conspicuous in the very height of
the storm by a brilliant marriage; but neither he nor Fesch was
arrested, and both managed to pull through with whole skins. The noisy
Lucien was also married, but to a girl who, though respectable, was
poor; and in consequence he was thoroughly frightened at the thought
of losing his means of support. But though menaced with arrest, he was
sufficiently insignificant to escape for the time.
Napoleon was kept in captivity but thirteen days. Salicetti apparently
found it easier than he had supposed to exculpate himself from the
charge either of participating in Robespierre's conspiracy or of
having brought about the Corsican insurrection. More than this, he
found himself firm in the good graces of the Thermidorians, among whom
his old friends Barras and Fréron were held in high esteem. It would
therefore be a simple thing to liberate General Buonaparte, if only a
proper expression of opinion could be secured from him. The clever
prisoner had it ready before it was needed. To the faithful Junot he
wrote a kindly note declining to be rescued by a body of friends
organized to storm the prison or scale its walls.[42] Such a course
would have compromised him further. But to the "representatives of the
people" he wrote in language which finally committed him for life. He
explained that in a revolutionary epoch there are but two classes of
men, patriots and suspects. It could easily be seen to which class a
man belonged who had fought both intestine and foreign foes. "I have
sacrificed residence in my department, I have abandoned all my goods,
I have lost all for the republic. Since then I have served at Toulon
with some distinction, and I have deserved a share with the Army of
Italy in the laurels it earned at the taking of Saorgio, Oneglia, and
Tanaro. On the discovery of Robespierre's conspiracy, my conduct was
that of a man accustomed to regard nothing but principle." The letter
concludes with a passionate appeal to each one of the controlling
officials separately and by name, that is, to both Salicetti and
Albitte, for justice and restoration. "An hour later, if the wicked
want my life, I will gladly give it to them, I care so little for it,
I weary so often of it! Yes; the idea that it may be still useful to
my country is all that makes me bear the burden with courage." The
word for country which he employed, _patrie_, could only be
interpreted as referring to France.
[Footnote 42: Correspondance de Napoléon, I, No. 35.]
Salicetti in person went through the form of examining the papers
offered in proof of Buonaparte's statements; found them, as a matter
of course, satisfactory; and the commissioners restored the suppliant
to partial liberty, but not to his post. He was to remain at army
headquarters, and the still terrible Committee of Safety was to
receive regular reports of his doings. This, too, was but a
subterfuge; on August twentieth he was restored to his rank. A few
weeks later commissioners from the Thermidorians arrived, with orders
that for the present all offensive operations in Italy were to be
suspended in order to put the strength of the district into a maritime
expedition against Rome and ultimately against Corsica, which was now
in the hands of England. Buonaparte immediately sought, and by
Salicetti's favor obtained, the important charge of equipping and
inspecting the artillery destined for the enterprise. He no doubt
hoped to make the venture tell in his personal interest against the
English party now triumphant in his home. This was the middle of
September. Before beginning to prepare for the Corsican expedition,
the army made a final demonstration to secure its lines. It was during
the preparatory days of this short campaign that a dreadful incident
occurred. Buonaparte had long since learned the power of women, and
had been ardently attentive in turn both to Mme. Robespierre and to
Mme. Ricord. "It was a great advantage to please them," he said; "for
in a lawless time a representative of the people is a real power."
Mme. Turreau, wife of one of the new commissioners, was now the
ascendant star in his attentions. One day, while walking arm in arm
with her near the top of the Tenda pass, Buonaparte took a sudden
freak to show her what war was like, and ordered the advance-guard to
charge the Austrian pickets. The attack was not only useless, but it
endangered the safety of the army; yet it was made according to
command, and human blood was shed. The story was told by Napoleon
himself, at the close of his life, in a tone of repentance, but with
evident relish.[43]
[Footnote 43: Las Cases: Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, I,
141.]
Buonaparte was present at the ensuing victories, but only as a
well-informed spectator and adviser, for he was yet in nominal
disgrace. Within five days the enemies' lines were driven back so as
to leave open the two most important roads into Italy--that by the
valley of the Bormida to Alessandria, and that by the shore to Genoa.
The difficult pass of Tenda fell entirely into French hands. The
English could not disembark their troops to strengthen the Allies. The
commerce of Genoa with Marseilles was reëstablished by land. "We have
celebrated the fifth sansculottide of the year II (September
twenty-first, 1794) in a manner worthy of the republic and the
National Convention," wrote the commissioners to their colleagues in
Paris. On the twenty-fourth, General Buonaparte was released by them
from attendance at headquarters, thus becoming once again a free man
and his own master. He proceeded immediately to Toulon in order to
prepare for the Corsican expedition. Once more the power of a great
nation was, he hoped, to be directed against the land of his birth,
and he was an important agent in the plan.
To regain, if possible, some of his lost influence in the island,
Buonaparte had already renewed communication with former acquaintances
in Ajaccio. In a letter written immediately after his release in
September, 1794, to the Corsican deputy Multedo, he informed his
correspondent that his birthplace was the weakest spot on the island,
and open to attack. The information was correct. Paoli had made an
effort to strengthen it, but without success. "To drive the English,"
said the writer of the letter, "from a position which makes them
masters of the Mediterranean, ... to emancipate a large number of good
patriots still to be found in that department, and to restore to their
firesides the good republicans who have deserved the care of their
country by the generous manner in which they have suffered for
it,--this, my friend, is the expedition which should occupy the
attention of the government." His fortune was in a sense dependent on
success: the important position of artillery inspector could not be
held by an absentee and it was soon filled by the appointment of a
rival compatriot, Casabianca. In the event of failure Buonaparte would
be destitute. Perhaps the old vista of becoming a Corsican hero opened
up once again to a sore and disappointed man, but it is not probable:
the horizon of his life had expanded too far to be again contracted,
and the present task was probably considered but as a bridge to cross
once more the waters of bitterness. On success or failure hung his
fate. Two fellow-adventurers were Junot and Marmont. The former was
the child of plain French burghers, twenty-three years old, a daring,
swaggering youth, indifferent to danger, already an intimate of
Napoleon's, having been his secretary at Toulon. His chequered destiny
was interwoven with that of his friend and he came to high position.
But though faithful to the end, he was always erratic and troublesome;
and in an attack of morbid chagrin he came to a violent end in 1813.
The other comrade was but a boy of twenty, the son of an officer who,
though of the lower nobility, was a convinced revolutionary. The boys
had met several years earlier at Dijon and again as young men at
Toulon, where the friendship was knitted which grew closer and closer
for twenty years. At Wagram, Marmont became a marshal. Already he had
acquired habits of luxurious ease and the doubtful fortunes of his
Emperor exasperated him into critical impatience. He so magnified his
own importance that at last he deserted. The labored memoirs he wrote
are the apology for his life and for his treachery. Though without
great genius, he was an able man and an industrious recorder of
valuable impressions. Not one of the three accomplished anything
during the Corsican expedition; their common humiliation probably
commended both of his junior comrades to Buonaparte's tenderness, and
thereafter both enjoyed much of his confidence, especially Marmont, in
whom it was utterly misplaced.