The cry for liberty which, in the year 1790, resounded from France, and which made the whole world tremble, brought him back from England to Corsica, and he took the oath of allegiance to free, democratic France. But the blood of the king had annulled this oath, the Convention's reign of terror had filled his soul with horror; and, after solemnly separating himself from France, he had, in the year 1793, convoked a Consulta, to decide whether Corsica was to submit to the despotism of the French republic, or if it was to be a free and independent state. The Consulta chose the latter position, and named Paoli for president as well as for general-in-chief of the Corsicans.

The National Convention at once called the culprit to its bar, and ordered him to Paris to justify his conduct, or to receive the punishment due. But General Paoli paid no attention to the imperious orders of the Convention, which, as the chief appeared not at its bar, declared him, on the 15th of May, 1793, a traitor to his country, and sent commissioners to Corsica to arrest the criminal.

This traitor to the state, the General Pascal Paoli, was then at the head of the Moderate party in Corsica, and he loudly and solemnly declared that, in case of absolute necessity, it would be preferable to call England to their assistance than to accept the yoke of the French republic, which had desecrated her liberty, since she had soiled it with the blood of so many innocent victims.

But in opposition to General Paoli rose up with wild clamor the other party, the party of young, enthusiastic heads, who were intoxicated with the democratic ideas which had obtained the sway in France, and which they imagined, so great was their impassioned devotedness to them, possessed the power and the ability to conquer the whole world.

At the head of this second party, which claimed unconditional adherence to France, to the members of the Convention—at the head of this fanatical, Corsican, republican, and Jacobin party, stood the Bonaparte family, and above them all the two brothers Joseph and Napoleon.

Joseph was now, in the year 1793, chief justice of the tribunal of Ajaccio; Napoleon, who was captain of artillery in the French army of Italy, had then obtained leave of absence to visit his family. Both brothers had been hitherto the most affectionate and intimate admirers of Paoli, and especially Napoleon, who, from his earliest childhood, had cherished the most unbounded admiration for the patriot who preferred exile to a dependent grandeur in Corsica. Even now, since Paoli's return to Corsica, and Napoleon had had many opportunities to see him, his admiration. for the great chief had lost nothing of its force or vitality. Paoli seemed sincerely to return this inclination of Napoleon and of his brother, and in the long evening walks, which both brothers made with him, Napoleon's mind opened itself, before his old, experienced companion, the great general, the noble republican, with a freedom and a candor such as he had never manifested to others. With subdued admiration Paoli listened to his short, energetic explanations, to his descriptions, to his war-schemes, to his warm enthusiasm for the republic; and one day, carried away by the warmth of the young captain of artillery, the general, fixing his glowing eyes upon him, exclaimed: "Young man, you are modelled after the antique; you belong to Plutarch!"

"And to General Paoli!" replied Napoleon, eagerly, as he pressed his friend's hand affectionately in his own.

But now this harmonious concord between General Paoli and the young men was destroyed by the passion of party views. Joseph as well as Napoleon belonged to the French party; they soon became its leaders; they were at the head of the club which they had organized according to the maxims and principles of the Jacobin Club in Paris, and to which they gave the same name.

In this Jacobin Club at Ajaccio Napoleon made speeches full of glowing enthusiasm for the French republic, for the ideas of freedom; in this club he enjoined on the people of Corsica to adhere loyally to France, to keep fast and to defend with life and blood the acquired liberty of republican France, to regard and drive away as traitors to their country all those who dared guide the Corsican people on another track.

But the Corsican people were not there to hear the enthusiastic speeches about liberty and to follow them. Only a few hundred ardent republicans of the same sentiment applauded the republican Napoleon, and cried aloud that the republic must be defended with blood and life. The majority of the Corsican people flocked to Paoli, and the commissioners sent by the Convention from Paris to Corsica, to depose and arrest Paoli, found co-operation and assistance only among the inhabitants of the cities and among the French troops. Paoli, the president of the Consulta, was located at Corte; the messengers of the Convention gathered in Bastia the adherents of France, and excited them to strenuous efforts against the rebellious Consulta and the insurgent Paoli.

Civil war with all its horrors was there; the raging conflicts of the parties tore apart the holy bonds of family, friendship, and love. Brother fought and argued against brother, friend rose up against friend, and whole families were destroyed, rent asunder by the impassioned rivalries of sentiment and partisanship. Denunciations and accusations, suspicions and enmities, followed. Every one trembled at his own shadow; and, to turn aside the peril of death, it was necessary to strike. [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 51.]

The Bonaparte brothers opposed General Paoli with violent bitterness; bloody conflicts took place, in which the national Corsican party remained victorious. Irritated and embittered by the opposition which some of the natives themselves were making to his patriotic efforts, Paoli persecuted with zealous activity the conquered, whom he resolved to destroy, that they might not imperil the young Corsican independence. Joseph and Napoleon Bonaparte were the leaders of this party, and Paoli knew too well the energy and the intellectual superiority of Napoleon not to dread his influence. Him, above all things, him and his family, must he render harmless, so as to weaken and to intimidate the French party. He sent agents to Ajaccio, to arrest the whole Bonaparte family, and at the same time his troops approached the town to occupy it and make the French commissioners prisoners. But these latter, informed in time of the danger, had gained time and saved themselves on board the French frigate lying in the harbor, and with them the whole Bonaparte family had embarked. Napoleon, on whom the attention of Paoli's agents had been specially directed, was more than once in danger of being seized by them, and it was due to the advice of a friend that, disguised as a sailor, he saved himself in time on board the French frigate and joined his family. [Footnote: "Memoires de la Duchess d'Abrantes," vol. i.] The commissioners of the Convention at once ordered the anchor to be weighed, and to steer toward France.

This frigate, on board of which the Bonaparte family in its flight had embarked, carried to France the future emperor and his fortune.

The house, the possessions of the Bonaparte family, fell a prey to the conquerors, and on them they gave vent to their vengeance for the successful escape of the fugitives. A witness of these facts is a certificate which Joseph Bonaparte a few months later procured from Corsica, and which ran as follows:

"I, the undersigned, Louis Conti, procurator-syndic of the district of Ajaccio, department of Corsica, declare and certify: in the month of May of this year, when General Paoli and the administration of the department had sent into the city of Ajaccio armed troops, in concert with other traitors in the city, took possession of the fortress, drove away the administration of the district, incarcerated a large portion of the patriots, disarmed the republican forces, and, when these refused to give up the commissioners of the National Convention, Paoli's troops fired upon the vessel which carried these commissioners:

"That these rebels endeavored to seize the Bonaparte family, which had the good fortune to elude their pursuit:

"That they destroyed, plundered, and burnt everything which belonged to this family, whose sole crime consisted in their unswerving fidelity to the republicans, and in their refusal to take any part in the scheme of isolation, rebellion, and disloyalty, of which Paoli and the administration of the department had become guilty.

"I moreover declare and certify that this family, consisting of ten individuals, and who stood high in the esteem of the people of the island, possessed the largest property in the whole department, and that now they are on the continent of the republic.

"(Signed) CONTI, Proc.-Synd. Delivered on the 5th of September, 1793, Year II. of the republic." [Footnote: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i., p. 52.]

Paoli, the conqueror of the French republic, the patriotic enemy of the Bonaparte family, drove Napoleon Bonaparte from his native soil! The cannon of the Corsican patriots fired upon the ship on which the future emperor of the French was steering toward his future empire!

But this future lay still in an invisible, cloudy distance—of one thing, however, was the young captain of artillery fully conscious: from this hour he had broken with the past, and, by his dangers and conflicts, by the sacrifice of his family's property, by his flight from Corsica, given to the world a solemn testimony that he recognized no other country, that he owed allegiance to no other nation than to France. He had proved that his feelings were not Corsican, but French.

The days of his childhood and youth sank away behind him, with the deepening shadows of the island of Corsica, and the shores which rose before him on the horizon were the shores of France. There lay his future—his empire!



CHAPTER XVII.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BEFORE TOULON.

Whilst Paris, yet trembling, bowed under the bloody rule of the Convention, a spirit of opposition and horror began to stir in the provinces; fear of the terrorists, of the Convention, began to kindle the courage, to make defiance to these men of horror, and to put an end to terrorism. The province of Vendee, in her faithfulness and loyalty to the royal family, arose in deadly conflict against the republicans; the large cities of the south, with Toulon at their head, had shielded themselves from the horrors which the home government would have brought them, by uniting with the enemies who now from all sides pressed upon France.

Toulon gave itself up to the combined fleet of England and Spain. Marseilles, Lyons, and Nismes, contracted an alliance together, and declared their independence of the Convention and of the terrorists. Everywhere in all the cities and communities of the south the people rose up, and seditions and rebellions took place. Everywhere the Convention had to send its troops to re-establish peace by force, and to compel the people to submit to its rule. Whole army corps had to be raised to win back to the republic the rebellious cities, and only after hard fighting did General Carteaux subdue Marseilles.

But Toulon held out still, and within its protecting walls had the majority of the inhabitants of Marseilles taken refuge before the wrath of the Convention, which had already sent to the latter some of its representatives, to establish there the destructive work of the guillotine. Toulon offered them safety; it seemed impregnable, as much by its situation as by the number and strength of its defenders. It could also defy any siege, since the sea was open, and it could by this channel be provisioned through the English and Spanish fleet.

No one trembled before the little army of seventeen thousand men which, under General Carteaux, had invested Toulon.

But in this little army of the republicans was a young soldier whom yet none knew, none feared, but whose fame was soon to resound throughout the world, and before whom all Europe was soon tremblingly to bow.

This young man was Napoleon Bonaparte, the captain of artillery. He had come from Italy (where his regiment was) to France, to make there, by order of his general, some purchases for the park of artillery of the Italian army. But some of the people's representatives had had an opportunity of recognizing the sharp eye and the military acquirements of the young captain of artillery; they interceded in his favor, and he was promoted to the army corps which was before Toulon, and at once sent in the capacity of assistant to General Carteaux, with whom also was Napoleon's brother Joseph, as chief of the general's staff.

From this moment the siege, which until now had not progressed favorably, was pushed on with renewed energy, and it was due to the cautious activity, the daring spirit of the captain of artillery, that marked advantages were gained over the English, and that from them many redoubts were taken, and the lines of the French drawn closer and closer to the besieged city.

But yet, after many months of siege, Toulon held out still. From the sea came provisions and ammunition, and on the land-side Toulon was protected against capture by a fort occupied by English troops, and which, on account of its impregnable position, was called "Little Gibraltar." From this position hot-balls and howitzers had free range all over the seaboard, for this fort stood between the two harbors of the city and immediately opposite Toulon. The English, fully appreciating the importance of the position, had occupied it with six thousand men, and surrounded it with intrenchments.

It came to this, as Napoleon in a council of war declared to the general, that the English must be driven out of their position; then, when this fort was taken, in two days Toulon must yield.

The plan was decided upon, and from this moment the besiegers directed all their strength no more against Toulon, but against the important fort, "Little Gibraltar," "for there," as Napoleon said, "there was the key to Toulon."

All Europe now watched with intense anxiety the events near Toulon; all France, which hitherto with divided sentiments had wished the victory to side now with the besieged, now with the besiegers, forgot its differences of opinion, and was united in the one wish to expel the hated enemy and rival, the English, from the French city, and to crown the efforts of the French army with victory.

The Convention, irritated that its orders should not have been immediately carried out, had in its despotic power recalled from his command General Carteaux, who could not succeed in capturing Toulon, and had appointed as chief of battalion the young captain of artillery, Napoleon Bonaparte, on account of his bravery in capturing some dangerous redoubts. The successor of Carteaux, the old General Dugommier, recognizing the superior mind of the young chief of battalion, willingly followed his plans, and was readily guided and led by the surer insight of the young man.

The position of new Gibraltar had to be conquered so as to secure the fall of Toulon; such was, such remained Napoleon's unswerving judgment. No effort, no cost, no blood, was to be spared to attain this result. He placed new batteries against the fort; stormed the forts Malbosquet and Ronge; a terrible struggle ensued, in which the English General O'Hara was taken prisoner by the French, and the English had to leave the fort and retreat into the city.

The first great advantage was won, but Little Gibraltar remained still in the hands of the English, and Napoleon desired, and felt it as an obligation, to subdue it at any price.

But already the Convention began to be discouraged, and to lose energy, and the deputies of the people, Barras and Freron, who until now had remained with the besieging army, hastened to Paris to implore the Convention to give up the siege, and to recall the army from Toulon.

But before they reached Paris the matter was to be decided before Toulon. The fate of the Little Gibraltar was to be fulfilled; it was to be taken, or in the storming of it the French army was to perish.

Thousands of shells were thrown into the fort, thirty cannon thundered against it. Napoleon Bonaparte mixed with the artillerymen, encouraged by his bold words their activity, their energy, and their bravery, and pointed to them the spots where to direct their balls. Whilst he was in conversation with one of the cannoneers near whom he stood, a cannon-ball from the English tore away the head of the artilleryman who had just lifted up the match to fire his cannon.

Napoleon quietly took up the burning match out of the hand of the dead man, and discharged the gun. Then, with all the zeal and tact of an experienced cannoneer, he began to load the piece, to send forth its balls against the enemy and for many hours he remained at this post, until another artilleryman was found to relieve the chief of division. [Footnote: This brave action of Napoleon was to have for him evil results. The cannoneer, from whose hand he took the match, was suffering from the most distressing skin-disease, generally breaking out with the greatest violence in the hand. The match which the cannoneer had for hours held in his hand was yet warm with its pressure, and imparted to Napoleon's hand the poison of the contagious disease. For years he had to endure the eruption, which he could not conquer, as he had conquered nations and princes, but to its destructive and painful power he had to subdue his body. The nervous agitations to which he was subject, the shrugging of his right shoulder, the white-greenish complexion of his face, the leanness of his body, were all consequences of this disease. It was only when Napoleon had become emperor, that Corvisart succeeded, by his eloquence, in persuading him to follow a regular course of treatment. This treatment cured him; his white-greenish complexion and his leanness disappeared. The nervous movement of the shoulder remained, and became a habit.—See "Memoires de Constant," vol. i.]

But whilst Napoleon made himself a cannoneer in the service of his country, he remained at the same time the chief of division, whose attention was everywhere, whose eagle glance nothing escaped, and who knew how to improve every advantage.

A body of troops was at a distant point, and Bonaparte wanted to send them an important order. Whilst loading his cannon, he called aloud to an under-officer to whom he might dictate the dispatch. A young man hastened to the call, and said he was ready to write. Upon a mound of sand he unfolded his pocket-book, drew out of it a piece of paper, and began to write what Napoleon, with a voice above the cannon's roar, was dictating to him. At this very moment, as the order was written, a cannon-ball fell quite near the officer, burrowing the ground, and scattering some of the light sand over the written paper. The young man raised his hat and made a bow to the cannon-ball, that buried itself in the sand.

"I thank you," said he, "you have saved me sand for my paper."

Napoleon smiled, and looked with a joyous, sympathizing glance at the young officer, whose handsome pleasing countenance was radiant with bold daring and harmless merriment.

"Now, I need a brave messenger to carry this order to that exposed detachment," said Napoleon.

"I will be the messenger," cried out the officer, eagerly.

"Well, I accept you, but you must remove your uniform, and put on a blouse, so as not to be too much exposed."

"That I will not do," exclaimed the young man. "I am no spy."

"What! you refuse to obey?" asked Napoleon, threateningly.

"No, I refuse to assume a disguise," answered the officer "I am ready to obey, and even to carry the order into the very hands of the devil. But with my uniform I go, otherwise those cursed Englishmen might well imagine that I am afraid of them."

"But you imperil your life if you go in your glittering uniform."

"My life does not belong to me," cried out gayly the young soldier. "Who cares if I risk it? You will not be sorry about it, for you know me not, citizen-officer, and it is all the same to me. Shall I not go in my uniform? I should be delighted to encounter those English gentlemen, for, with my sword and the sprightly grains in my patron's pocket, the conversation will not sleep, I vow. Now, then, shall I go, citizen-officer?"

"Go," said Napoleon, smiling. "But you are wrong if you think I will not be sorry in case you pay this duty with your life. You are a brave fellow, and I love the brave. Go; but first tell me your name, that when you return I may tell General Dugommier what name he has to inscribe in his papers of recommendation for officers; that will be the reward for your message."

"My name is Junot, citizen-officer," exclaimed the young man as, swinging the paper in his hand, he darted away eagerly.

The roar of the cannon was still heard, when Napoleon's messenger returned, after a few hours, and reported to him. The chief of division received him with a friendly motion of his head.

"Welcome, Junot," said he. "I am glad to see you back, and that you have successfully accomplished your task. I must now make a change of position in yonder battallion. To-morrow I will give you your commission of lieutenant, citizen-soldier."

"And to-day grant me a nobler reward, citizen-officer," said the young man, tenderly; "give me your hand, and allow me to press it in mine."

Napoleon, smiling, gave him his hand. The eyes of both young men met in radiant looks, and with these looks was sealed the covenant which united them both in a friendship enduring to the tomb. For not one of his companions-in-arms remained attached to Napoleon with so warm, true, nearly impassioned tenderness as Junot, and none of them was by the general, the consul, the emperor, more implicitly trusted, more heartily beloved than his Junot, whom he exalted to the ranks of general, governor of Lisbon, Duke d'Abrantes, who was one of the few to whom in his days of glory he allowed to speak to him in all truth, in all freedom, and without reserve.

But whilst the two young men were sealing this covenant of friendship with this look of spiritual recognition, the cannon was thundering forth on all sides. The earth trembled from the reports of the pieces; all the elements seemed unloosed; the storm howled as if to mingle the noise of human strife with the uproar of Nature; the sea dashed its frothy, mound-like waves with terrible noise on the shore; the rain poured down from the skies in immense torrents, and everything around was veiled in mists of dampness and smoke. And amid all this, crackled, thundered, and hissed the shells which were directed against Little Gibraltar, or whizzed from Toulon, to bring death and destruction among the besiegers.

Night sank down, and yet Little Gibraltar was not taken. "I am lost," sighed General Dugommier. "I shall have to pay with my head, if we are forced to retreat."

"Then we must go forward," cried Bonaparte; "we must have Little Gibraltar."

An hour after, a loud cry of victory announced to General Dugommier that the chief of division had reached his aim, that Little Gibraltar was captured by the French.

As the day began to dawn, the French had already captured two other forts; and Bonaparte roused all his energies to fire from Little Gibraltar upon the enemy's fleet. But the English admiral, Lord Hood, knew very well the terrible danger to which he was exposed if he did not at once weigh anchor.

The chief of division had prophesied correctly: in Little Gibraltar was the key of Toulon; and since the French had now seized the keys, the English ships could no longer close the city against them. Toulon was lost—it had to surrender to the conquerors. [Footnote: Toulon fell on the 18th of December, 1793.]

It is true, defensive operations were still carried on, but Napoleon's balls scattered death and ruin into the city; the bursting of shells brought destruction and suffering everywhere, and in the city as well as in the harbor columns of flames arose from houses and ships.

Toulon was subdued; and the chief of division, Napoleon Bonaparte, had achieved his first brilliant pass of arms before jubilant France and astonished Europe; he had made his name shine out from the obscurity of the past, and placed it on the pages of history.

The Convention showed itself thankful to the daring soldier, who had won such a brilliant victory alike over the foreign as well as over the internal enemies of the republic; and Napoleon Bonaparte, the chief of division, was now promoted to the generalship of division.

He accepted the nomination with a quiet smile. The wondrous brilliancy of his eyes betrayed only to a few friends and confidants the important resolves and thoughts which moved the soul of the young general.

In virtue of the order of the Convention, the newly-appointed General Bonaparte was to go to the army of the republic which was now stationed in Italy; and he received secret instructions from the Directory concerning Genoa. Bonaparte left Paris, to gather, as he hoped, fresh laurels and new victories.



CHAPTER XVIII.

BONAPARTE'S IMPRISONMENT.

On the 25th day of March, 1794. General Bonaparte entered the headquarters of the French army in Nice. He was welcomed with joy and marks of distinction, for the fame of his heroic deeds before Toulon had preceded him; and on Bonaparte's pale, proud face, with its dark, brilliant eyes, was written that he was now come into Italy to add fresh laurels to the victor's crown won before Toulon.

The old commander-in-chief of the French army, General Dumerbion, confined oftentimes to his bed through sickness, was very willing to be represented by General Bonaparte, and to place every thing in his hands; and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre (the younger brother of the all-powerful dictator)— these two representatives in the army corps of Italy bound themselves in intimate friendship with the young general, who seemed to share their glowing enthusiasm for the republic, and their hatred against the monarchy and the aristocrats. They cherished, moreover, an unreserved confidence in the military capacities of young Bonaparte, and always gave to his plans their unconditional assent and approbation. Upon Napoleon's suggestion batteries were erected on the coast of Provence for the security of the fleet and of trading-vessels; and when this had been accomplished, the general began to carry out the plan which he had laid before the representatives of the republic, and according to which the republican army, with its right and left wings advancing simultaneously on the sea-coast, was to march through the neutral territory of Genoa into Italy.

This plan of Bonaparte was crowned with the most unexpected success. Without observing the neutrality of Genoa, Generals Massena and Arena marched through the territory of the proud Italian republic, and thus began the bloody war which was to desolate the Italian soil for so many years.

Ever faithful to Bonaparte's war-schemes, which the general-in- chief, Dumerbion, and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre, had sanctioned, the French columns moved from the valleys, within whose depths they had so long and so uselessly shed their blood, up to the heights and conquered the fortresses which the King of Sardinia had built on the mountains for the protection of his frontiers. Thus Fort Mirabocco, on the pass of the Cross, fell into the hands of General Dumas, who then conquered the intrenched Mount Cenis; thus the pass of Tenda, with the fortress Saorgio, was captured by the French; and there, in the general depot of the Piedmontese army, they found sixty cannon and war materials of all kinds.

The French had celebrated their first victories in Italy, and both commanding officers of the fortresses of Mirabocco and Saorgio had to pay for these triumphs in Turin with the loss of their lives; whilst General Bonaparte, "as the one to whose well-matured plans and arrangements these brilliant results were due," received from the Convention brilliant encomiums.

But suddenly the state of affairs assumed another shape, and at one blow all the hopes and plans of the young, victorious general were destroyed.

Maximilian Robespierre had fallen; with him fell the whole party; then fell his brother, who a short time before had returned to Paris, and had there endeavored to obtain from Maximilian new and more ample powers for Bonaparte, and even the appointment to the chief command of the army—there fell also Ricord, who had given to General Bonaparte the letter of secret instructions for energetic negotiations with the government of Genoa, and to carry out which instructions Bonaparte had at this time gone to that city.

As he was returning to his headquarters in Saona, from Paris had arrived the new representatives, who came to the army of Italy as delegates of the Convention, and were armed with full powers.

These representatives were Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte. The first of these, a countryman of Bonaparte, had been thus far his friend and his party associate. He was in Corsica at the same time as Napoleon, in the year 1793; he had been, like his young friend, a member of the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio, and Salicetti's speeches had not been inferior to those of Napoleon, either in wildness or in exalted republicanism.

But now Salicetti had become the representative of the moderate party; and it was highly important for him to establish himself securely in his new position, and to give to the Convention a proof of the firmness of his sentiments by manifesting the hatred which he had sworn to the terrorists, and to all those who, under the fallen regime, had obtained recognition and distinction.

General Bonaparte had been a friend of the young Robespierre; loudly and openly he had expressed his republican and democratic sentiments; he had been advanced under the administration of Robespierre, from simple lieutenant to general; he had been sent to Genoa, with secret instructions by the representatives of the Committee of Safety, made up of terrorists—all this was sufficient to make him appear suspicious to the moderate party, and to furnish Salicetti an opportunity to show himself a faithful partisan of the new system of moderation.

General Bonaparte was, by order of the representatives of the people, Salicetti and Albitte, arrested at his headquarters in Saona, because, as the warrant for arrest, signed by both representatives, asserted: "General Bonaparte had completely lost their confidence through his suspicious demeanor, and especially through the journey which he had lately made to Genoa." The warrant of arrest furthermore ordered that General Bonaparte, whose effects should be sealed and his papers examined, was to be sent to Paris, under sure escort, and be brought for examination before the Committee of Safety.

If this order were carried into execution, then Bonaparte was lost; for, though Robespierre had fallen, yet with his fall the system of blood and terror had not been overthrown in Paris; it had only changed its name.

The terrorists, who now called themselves the moderates, exercised the same system of intimidation as their predecessors; and to be brought before the Committee of Safety, signified the same thing as to receive a death-warrant.

Bonaparte was lost, if it truly came to this, that he must be led to Paris.

This was what Junot, the present adjutant of Napoleon, and his faithful friend and companion, feared. It was therefore necessary to anticipate this order, and to procure freedom to Bonaparte.

A thousand schemes for the rescue of his beloved chief, crossed the soul of the young man. But how make them known to the general? how induce him to flee, since all approaches to him were forbidden? His zeal, his inventive friendship, succeeded at last in finding a means. One of the soldiers, who was placed as sentry at the door of the arrested general, was bribed by Junot; through him a letter from Junot reached Bonaparte's hands, which laid before him a scheme of flight that the next night could be accomplished with Junot's help.

Not far from Bonaparte's dwelling Junot awaited the answer, and soon a soldier passed by and brought it to him.

This answer ran thus: "In the propositions you make, I acknowledge your deep friendship, my dear Junot; you are also conscious of the friendship I have consecrated to you for a long time, and I trust you have confidence in it.

"Man may do wrong toward me, my dear Junot; it is enough for me to be innocent; my conscience is the tribunal which I recognize as sole judge of my conduct.

"This conscience is quiet when I question it; do, therefore, nothing, if you do not wish to compromise me. Adieu, dear Junot. Farewell, and friendship." [Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 241.]

Meanwhile, notwithstanding his quiet conscience, Bonaparte was not willing to meet his fate passively and silently, and, perchance, it seemed to him that it was "not enough to be innocent," so as to be saved from the guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both representatives of the people who had ordered his arrest, and this protest, which he dictated to his friend Junot, who had finally succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is so extraordinary and so peculiar in its terseness of style, in its expressions of political sentiment; it furnishes so important a testimony of the republican democratic opinions of the young twenty-six-year-old general, that we cannot but give here this document.

Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:

"To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:

"You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared me suspected.

"I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more correct, I am condemned without being heard.

"In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the patriots.

"When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the common law of safety provides.

"The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when a series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.

"To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of what is most dear—confidence and esteem.

"In which class am I to be ranked?

"Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its principles?

"Have I not always been seen at war with enemies at home, or as a soldier against the foreign foe?

"I have sacrificed my residence in my country and my property to the republic; I have lost all for her.

"By serving my country with some distinction at Toulon and in the Italian army, I have had my share in the laurels which that army has won at Saorgio, Queille, and Tanaro.

"At the time of the discovery of Robespierre's conspiracy, my conduct was that of a man who is accustomed to recognize principles only.

"It is therefore impossible to refuse me the title of patriot.

"Why, then, am I declared suspect without being heard? Why am I arrested eight days after the news of the death of the tyrant?

"I am declared suspect, and my papers are sealed!

"The reverse ought to have taken place: my papers ought to have been unsealed; I ought to have been tried; explanations ought to have been sought for, and then I might have been declared suspect if there were sufficient motives for it.

"It is decided that I must go to Paris under a warrant of arrest which declares me suspect. In Paris they will conclude that the representatives have acted thus only after sufficient examination, and I shall he condemned with the sympathy which a man of that class deserves.

"Innocent, patriotic, slandered, whatever may be the measures which the committee take, I cannot complain.

"If three men were to declare that I have committed a crime, I could not complain if the jury should declare me guilty.

"Salicetti, you know me. Have you, during the five years of our acquaintance, found in my conduct any thing which could be suspected as against the revolution?

"Albitte, you know me not. No one can have given you convincing evidence against me. You have not heard me; you know, however, with what smoothness calumny oftentimes whispers.

"Must I then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots ruin, without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless to the republic? Must the representatives place the government under the necessity of acting unjustly and impolitically?

"Mark my words; destroy the oppression which binds me down, and re- establish me in the esteem of the patriots.

"If, then, at some future hour, the wicked shall still long for my life, well, then I consider it of so little importance—I have so often despised it—yes, the mere thought that it can be useful to the country, enables me to bear its burden with courage." [Footnote: Bourienne, "Memoires sur Napoleon," etc., vol. i., p. 63.]

Whether these energetic protestations of Bonaparte, or whether some other motives, conduced to the result, Salicetti thought that with Napoleon's arrest he had furnished sufficient proof of his patriotic sentiments; it seemed to him enough to have obscured the growing fame of the young general, and to have plunged back into obscurity and forgetfulness him whose first steps in life's career promised such a radiant and glorious course!

It matters not, however, what circumstances may have wrought out; the representatives Salicetti and Albitte issued a decree in virtue of which General Bonaparte was, after mature consideration and thorough examination of his papers, declared innocent and free from all suspicion. Consequently, Bonaparte was temporarily set at liberty; but he was suspended from his command in the Italian army, and was recalled to Paris, there to be made acquainted with his future destination.

This destination was pointed out to him in a commission as brigadier-general of infantry in the province of Vendee, there to lead on the fratricidal strife against the fanatical Chouans, the faithful adherents of the king.

Bonaparte refused this offer—first, because it seemed to him an insulting request to ask him to fight against his own countrymen; and secondly, because he did not wish to enter the infantry service, but to remain in the artillery.

The Committee of Safety responded to this refusal of Bonaparte by striking his name from the list of generals appointed for promotion, because he had declined to go to the post assigned him.

This decision fell upon the ambitious, heroic young man like a thunderbolt. He had dreamed of brilliant war deeds, of laurels, of fame, of a glorious future, won for him by his own sword; and now, all at once, he saw himself dragged away from this luminous track of fame upon which he had so brilliantly entered—he saw himself thrust back into obscurity, forgetfulness, and inactivity.

A gloomy, misanthropic sentiment took possession of him; and, though a prophetic voice within said that the future still belonged to him, with its fame, its laurels, its victories, yet inactivity, care, and the wants of the present, hung with oppressive weight upon his mind.

He withdrew from all social joys and recreations, he avoided his acquaintances, and only to a few friends did he open his foreboding heart; only with these did he associate, and to them alone he made his complaints of broken hopes, of life's career destroyed.

To these few friends, whom Bonaparte in his misfortune found faithful and unchanged, belonged the Ferment family, and above all belonged Junot, who had come to Paris at the same time as Bonaparte, and who, though the latter was dismissed from the service, continued to call himself the adjutant of General Bonaparte.

In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friendship and attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son of the friend of her youth, Letitia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy, an intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband manifested toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son Albert was full of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger daughter Laura jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.

In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte; thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments, aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon; and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, than the Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former quarter of St. Germain.

Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte, but also the material pressure under which he now and then found himself, and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards in splendid toilet, on superb horses— at these incroyables who, in the first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and varied hues.

"And such men enjoy their happiness!" exclaimed Bonaparte, contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his exquisitely dressed neighbor.

To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means, was always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in impassioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which he would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic remark.

But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to bring to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and glory; his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!

The object of this love was the sister of his brother's wife, the young Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Marseilles as war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in Marseilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France, as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and the assembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King of England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose head had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer lift up head or voice.

Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted of his mother Letitia. her three daughters, her two younger sons, and her brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression. Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident, had not prevented it.

Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions; his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; she no more answered Napoleon's letters, and, in writing to his brother Joseph, he made bitter complaints: "It seems that to reach Genoa the River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no more." [Footnote: See "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. i.]

The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart- complaints, was Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words of Desiree's changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon's letters.

After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte, Junot's turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blushing like a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon's younger sister, the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.

Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot ended by asking his mediation with Pauline's mother, Napoleon asked in a grave tone, "But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline? Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against want?"

Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would amount to twenty thousand francs.

"I shall be one day rich," exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to Napoleon the letter of his father, "for with my pay I will have an income of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my father, and say a good word in my favor."

Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of Junot, senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down upon his breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.

"You answer not, general," exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. "You do not wish to be my mediator?"

Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a gloomy expression was in his eyes.

"I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition," said he, in a rough, severe tone. "That is impossible, my friend. You say that one day you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed, very fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father's health is remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present you have nothing; for your lieutenant's epaulets can be reckoned as nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then sum up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount? Nothing. You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall, perhaps, friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them, even if I have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion of the world! Let us, then, wait!" [Footnote: Bonaparte's words.—See Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 284.]

And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of General Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, "Let us wait!"

Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which hid the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon, and did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to be his? However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams, however wide his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpassed by the reality. For would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this hour, would have told him: "Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte; be not downcast about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust aside; forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good cheer, you will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your feet. You love the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles you; but be of good cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of a Caesar, and the little Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from Marseilles, will one day be Sweden's queen! You refuse to Junot, your friend, the gratification of his wishes, because he possesses nothing but his officer's epaulets: but be of good cheer, for you will one day convert the little Lieutenant Junot into a duke, and give him a kingdom for a dowry! You feel downhearted and ashamed, because your sister Pauline is not rich, because she possesses nothing but her beauty and her name: but be of good cheer, she will one day be the wife of the wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of art will be gathered in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious ornament of that palace!"

Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in the year 1795, should have thus spoken to him—and yet a mere decade of years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to turn the incredible into a reality.



CHAPTER XIX.

THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE.

The days of terror, and of blood, under which France has sighed so long, were not to end with the fall of Robespierre. Another enemy of the rest and peace of France had now made its entrance into Paris— hunger began to exercise its dreary rale of horror, and to fill the hearts of men with rage and despair.

Everywhere throughout France the crops had failed, and the republic had too much to do with the guillotine, with the political struggles in the interior, with the enemies on the frontier, she had been so busy with the heads of her children, that she could have no care for the welfare of their stomachs.

The corn-magazines were empty, and in the treasury of the republican government there was no money to buy grain in foreign markets. Very soon the want of bread, the cry for food, made itself felt everywhere; soon hunger goaded into new struggles of despair the poor Parisian people, already so weary with political storms, longing for rest, and exhausted by conflicts. Hunger drove them again into politics, hunger converted the women into demons, and their husbands into fanatical Jacobins. Every day, tumults and seditious gatherings took place in Paris; the murmuring and howling crowd threatened to rise up. Every day appeared at the bar of the Convention the sections of Paris, entreating with wild cries for a remedy for their distress. At every step in the streets one was met by intoxicated women, who tried to find oblivion of their hunger in wine, and to whom, notwithstanding their drunkenness, the consciousness of their calamity remained. These drunken women, with the gestures of madness, shouted: "Bread! give us bread! We had bread at least in the year '93! Bread! Down with the republic! Down with the Convention, which leaves us to starve!"

To these shouts responded other masses of the people: "Down with the constitutionalists! Long live the Mountain! Long live the Convention!"

Civil war, which in its exhaustion had remained subdued for a moment, threatened to break out with renewed rage, for the parties stood face to face in determined hostility, and "Down with the constitutionalists!—down with the republicans!" was the watchword of these parties.

For a moment it seemed as if the Mountain, as if the revolution, would regain the ascendency, as if the terrorists would once more seize the rudder which had slipped from their blood-stained hands. But the Convention, which for a time had remained undecided, trembling and vacillating, rose at length from its lethargy to firm, energetic measures, and came to the determination to restore peace at any price.

The people, stirred up by the terrorists, the furious men of the Mountain, had to be reduced to silence, and the cry, "Long live the constitution of '93!—down with the Convention!"—this cry, which every day rolled on through the streets of Paris like the vague thunderings of the war-drum,—had to be put down by armed force. Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud Varennes, the remnant of the sanguinary administration of Robespierre, the terrorists who excited the people against the Convention, who pressed on the Thermidorists, and wanted to occupy their place, these were the ones who with their adherents and friends threatened the Convention and imperilled its existence. The Convention rose up in its might and punished these leaders of sedition, so as through fear and horror to disperse the masses of the people.

Barrere, Collot d'Herbois, and Billaud Varennes, were arrested and sent to Cayenne; six of their friends, six republicans and terrorists, were also seized, and as they were convicted of forging plots against the Convention and the actual administration, they were sentenced to death. A seventh had also been at the head of this conspiracy; and this seventh one, who with the others had been sentenced to death, and whom the Committee of Safety had watched for everywhere, to bring down upon him the chastisement due, this seventh one was Salicetti—the same Salicetti who after the fall of Robespierre had arrested General Bonaparte as suspect. Bonaparte had never forgiven him, and though he often met him in the house of Madame de Permont, and appeared to be reconciled with him, yet he could not forget that he was the one who had stopped him in the midst of his course of fame, that it was he who had debarred him from his whole career.

"Salicetti has done me much harm," said Bonaparte to Madame de Permont, and a strange look from his eyes met her face—"Salicetti has destroyed my future in its dawn. He has blighted my plans of fame in their bud. I repeat, he has done me much harm. He has been my evil spirit. I can never forget it," but added he, thoughtfully, "I will now try to forgive." [Footnote: Abrantes, vol. i, p. 300.]

And again a peculiar, searching look of his eyes met the face of Madame de Permont.

She, however, turned aside, she avoided his look, for she dared not tell him that Salicetti, for whom the Convention searched throughout Paris so as to bring upon him the execution of his death-warrant— that Salicetti, whom Bonaparte so fiercely hated, was hid a few steps from him in the little cabinet near the drawing-room.

Like Bonaparte, Salicetti was the countryman of Madame de Permont; in the days of his power, he had saved the husband and the son of Panonia from the persecution of the terrorists, and lie had now come to ask safety from those whom he had once saved.

Madame de Permont had not had the courage to refuse an asylum to Salicetti; she kept him secreted in her house for weeks; and during all these weeks, Bonaparte came daily to visit Madame de Permont and her children, and every day he turned the conversation upon Salicetti, and asked if they knew not yet where he was secreted. And every time, when Madame de Permont answered him in the negative, he gazed at her with a piercing look, and with his light, sarcastic smile.

Meanwhile Salicetti's danger for himself, and those who secreted him, increased every day, and Madame de Permont resolved to quit Paris. The sickness of her husband, who was in Toulon, furnished her with the welcomed opportunity of a journey. She made known to the friends and acquaintances who visited her house, and especially to Bonaparte, that she had received a letter from the physician in Toulon, requesting her presence at her husband's bed of sickness. Bonaparte read the letter, and again the same strange look met the face of Madame de Permont.

"It is, indeed, important," said he, "that you should travel, and I advise you to do so as soon as possible. Fatal consequences might ensue to M. de Permont, were you to delay any longer in going to Toulon."

Madame de Permont made, therefore, all her arrangements for this journey. Salicetti, disguised as a servant, was to accompany her. Bonaparte still came as usual every day, and took great interest in the preparations for her journey, and conversed with her in the most friendly and pleasant manner. On the day of departure, he saluted her most cordially, assured her of his true, unswerving attachment, and, with a final, significant look, expressed a wish that her journey might be accomplished without danger.

When Madame de Permont had overcome all difficulties, and she and her daughter had left Paris and passed the barriere, as the carriage rolled on without interruption (Salicetti, disguised as a servant, sitting near the postilion on the driver's seat), the housemaid handed to her a letter which General Bonaparte had given her, with positive orders to hand it to her mistress only when they should be beyond the outer gates of Paris.

The letter ran thus: "I have never been deceived: I would seem to be in your estimation, if I did not tell you that, for the last twenty days, I knew that Salicetti was secreted in your house. Remember what I told you on the first day, Prairial, Madame de Permont—I had then the mental conviction of this secrecy. Now it is a matter of fact.—Salicetti, you see I could have returned to you the wrong which you perpetrated against me, and by so doing I should have revenged myself, whilst you wronged me without any offence on my part. Who plays at this moment the nobler part, you or I? Yes, I could have revenged myself, and I have not done it. You will, perhaps, say that your benefactress acted as a protecting shield. That is true, and it also is taken into consideration. Yet, even without this consideration, such as you were—alone, disarmed, sentenced—your head would even then have been sacred to me. Go, seek in peace a refuge where you can rise to nobler sentiments for your country. My mouth remains closed in reference to your name, and will no more utter it. Repent, and, above all things, do justice to my intentions. I deserve it, for they are noble and generous.

"Madame de Permont, my best wishes accompany you and your daughter. You are two frail beings, without protection. Providence and prayers will accompany you. Be prudent, and during your journey never stop in large towns. Farewell, and receive the assurance of my friendship." [Footnote: Abrantes, "Memoires," vol. i., p. 351.]

The nobility of mind which Bonaparte displayed toward his enemy was soon to receive its reward; for, whilst Salicetti, a fugitive, sick, and sentenced to death, was compelled to remain hidden, Bonaparte was emerging from the oblivion to which the ambitious zeal of Salicetti would have consigned him.

When Napoleon, dismissed from his position, arrived in Paris, and appealed to Aubry, the chief of the war department, to be re- established in his command, he was told: "Bonaparte is too young to command an army as general-in-chief;" and Bonaparte answered: "One soon becomes old on the battle-field, and I come from it." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de Napoleon," vol. i., p. 60.]

But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this event gave to the position of the young general a different aspect. Ponte-Coulant had for some time followed with attention the course of the young general, whose military talents and warlike reputation had filled him with astonishment. He had especially been surprised at the plan for the conduct of the war and the conquest of Italy which Bonaparte had laid before the war committee. Now that Ponte- Coulant had been promoted to be chief of the war department, he sent for General Bonaparte, and attached him to the topographic committee, where the plans of campaigns were decided and the movements of each separate corps delineated.

The forgotten one, doomed to inactivity, General Napoleon Bonaparte, now arose from his obscurity, and before him again opened life, the world, and fame's pathway, which was to lead him up to a throne. But the envy and jealousy of the party-men of the Convention ever threw obstacles before him on his glorious course, and the war-scheme which he now unfolded to the committee for the campaign did not receive the approbation of the successor of Ponte-Coulant in the war department, and it was thrust aside. A new political crisis was needed to place in the hands of Napoleon the command of the army, the ruling authority over France, and this crisis was at hand.

Paris, diseased, still bleeding in its innermost life with a thousand wounds, was devoured by hunger. The unfortunate people, wretched from want and pain, during many past years, were now driven to despair. The political party leaders understood but too well how to take advantage of this, and to prey upon it. The royalists were busy instilling into the people's minds the idea that the return of the Bourbons would restore to miserable France peace and happiness. The terrorists told the people that the Convention was the sole obstacle to their rest and to their peace, that it was necessary to scatter it to the winds, and to re-establish the Constitution of 1793. The whole population of Paris was divided and broken into factions, struggling one against the other with infuriated passions. The royalists, strengthened by daily accessions of emigrants, who, under fictitious names and with false passports, returned to Paris to claim the benefit of the milder laws passed in their favor, constituted a formidable power in that city. Whole sections were devoted to them, and were secretly supplied by them with arms and provisions, so as finally to be prepared to act against the Convention. An occasion soon presented itself.

The Convention had, through eleven of its committee members, prepared a new constitution, and had laid it before the people for adoption or rejection, according to the majority of votes. The whole country, with the exception of Paris, was in favor of this new constitution—she alone in her popular assemblies rejected it, declared the Convention dissolved, and the armed sections arose to make new elections. The Convection declared these assemblies to be illegal, and ordered their dissolution. The armed sections made resistance, congregated together, and by force opposed the troops of the Convention—the National Guards—commanded by General Menou. On the 12th Vendemiaire all Paris was under arms again; barricades were thrown up by the people, who swore to die in their defence sooner than to submit to the will of the Convention; the noise of drums and trumpets was heard in every street; all the horrors and cruelties of a civil war once more filled the capital of the revolution, and the city was drunk with blood!

The people fought with the courage of despair, pressed on victoriously, and won from General Menou a few streets; whole battalions of the National Guards abandoned the troops of the Convention and went over to the sections. General Menou found himself in so dangerous a position as to be forced to conclude an armistice until the next day with the Section Lepelletier, which was opposed to him, up to which time the troops on either side were to suspend operations.

The Section Lepelletier declared itself at once en permanence, sent her delegates to all the other sections, and called upon "the sovereign people, whose rights the Convention wished to usurp," to make a last and decisive struggle.

The Convention found itself in the most alarming position; it trembled for its very existence, and already in fancy saw again the days of terror, the guillotine rising and claiming for its first victims the heads of the members of the Convention. A pallid fear overspread all faces as constantly fresh news of the advance of the sections reached them, when General Menou sent news of the concluded armistice.

At this moment a pale young man rushed into the hall of session, and with glowing eloquence and persuasive manner entreated the Convention not to accept the armistice, not to give time to the sections to increase their strength, nor to recognize them as a hostile power to war against the government.

This pale young man—whose impassioned language filled the minds of all his hearers with animosity against General Menou, and with fresh courage and desire to fight—was Napoleon Bonaparte.

After he had spoken, other representatives rushed to the tribune, to make propositions to the Assembly, all their motions converging to the same end—all desired to have General Menou placed under arrest, and Bonaparte appointed in his place, and intrusted with the defence of the Convention and of the legislative power against the people.

The Assembly accepted this motion, and appointed Bonaparte commanding officer of the troops of the Convention, and, for form's sake, named Barras, president of the Convention, commander-in-chief.

Bonaparte accepted the commission; and now, at last, after so much waiting, so many painful months of inactivity, he found himself called to action; he stood again at the head of an army, however small it might be, and could again lift up the sword as the signal for the march to the fight.

It is true this fight had a sad, horrible purpose; it was directed against the people, against the sections which declared themselves to be the committee of the sovereign people, and that they were fighting the holy fight of freedom against those who usurped their rights.

General Bonaparte had refused to go to Vendee, because he wished not to fight against his own countrymen, and could not take part in a civil war; but now, at this hour of extreme peril, he placed himself in opposition to the people's sovereignty, and assumed command over the troops of the Convention, whose mission it was to subdue the people.

Every thing now assumed a more earnest attitude; during the night the newly-appointed commanding officer sent three hundred chasseurs, under Murat, to bring to Paris forty cannon from the park of artillery in Sablons, and, when the morning of the 13th Vendemiaire began to dawn, the pieces were already in position in the court of the Tuileries and pointed against the people. Besides which, General Bonaparte had taken advantage of the night to occupy all the important points and places, and to arm them; even into the hall of session of the Convention he ordered arms and ammunition to be brought, that the representatives might defend themselves, in case they were pressed upon by the people.

As the sun of the 13th Vendemiaire rose over Paris, a terrible street-fight began—the fight of the sovereign people against the Convention. It was carried on by both sides with the utmost bitterness and fierceness, the sections rushing with fanatic courage, with all the energy of hatred, against these soldiers who dared slay their brothers and bind their liberty in chains; the soldiers of the Convention fought with all the bitterness which the consciousness of their hated position instilled into them.

The cannon thundered in every street and mingled their sounds with the cries of rage from the sectionnaires—the howlings of the women, the whiz of the howitzers, the loud clangs of the bells, which incessantly called the people to arms. Streams of blood flowed again through the streets; everywhere, near the scattered barricades, near the houses captured by storm, lay bloody corpses; everywhere resounded the cries of the dying, the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the wild shouts of the combatants. In the Church of St. Roche, and in the Theatre Francaise, the sectionnaires, driven from the neighboring streets by the troops of General Bonaparte, had gathered together and endeavored to defend these places with the courage of despair. But the howitzers of Bonaparte soon scattered them, and the contest was decided.

The sections were defeated; the people, conquered by the Convention, had to recognize its authority; they were no more the sovereigns of France; they had found a ruler before whom they must bow.

This ruler was yet called the Convention, but behind the Convention stood another ruler—General Bonaparte!

It was he who had defeated the people, who had secured the authority to the Convention, and it was therefore natural that it should be thankful and exhibit its gratitude. General Bonaparte, in acknowledgment for the great services done to his country, was by the Convention appointed commander-in-chief of the army of the interior, and thus suddenly he saw himself raised from degrading obscurity to pomp and influence, surrounded by a brilliant staff, installed in a handsome palace by virtue of his office as chief officer, entitled to and justified in maintaining an establishment wherein to represent worthily the dignity of his new position.

The 13th Vendemiaire, which dethroned the sovereign people, brought General Bonaparte a step nearer to the throne.



CHAPTER XX.

THE WIDOW JOSEPHINE BEAUHARNAIS.

Meanwhile Josephine had passed the first months of her newly- obtained freedom in quiet contentment with her children in Fontainebleau, at the house of her father-in-law. Her soul, bowed down by so much misery and pain, needed quietness and solitude to allow her wounds to cease bleeding and to heal; her heart, which had experienced so much anguish and so many deceptions, needed to rest on the bosom of her children and her relatives, so as to be quickened into new life. Only in the solitude and stillness of Fontainebleau did she feel well and satisfied; every other distraction, every interruption of this quiet, orderly existence brought on a nervous trembling, which mastered her whole body, as if some other adversity was about to break upon her. The days of terror which she had passed in Paris, and especially the days she had outlived in prison, were ever fresh before her mind, and tormented her with their reminiscences alike in her vigils and in her dreams.

She wanted to hear nothing of the world's events, nothing from Paris, the mention of which place filled her with fear and horror; and with tears in her eyes she entreated her father-in-law to omit all mention of the political changes and revolutions which took place there.

But, alas! the politics from which Josephine fled, to which she closed her ears, rushed upon her against her will—they came to her in the shape of want and privation.

Josephine, who wished to have nothing more to do with the affairs of this world, learned, through the deprivations which she had to endure, the want to which she and her family were exposed, that the world had not yet been pushed back into the old grooves, out of which the revolution had so violently lifted it up; that the republic yet exercised a despotic authority, and was not prepared to return to the heirs the property of the victims of the guillotine! The income and property of General Beauharnais had all been confiscated by the republic, for he had been executed as a state criminal, and the procedure had this in common with the ordinary actions of the government, that it never returned what it had once usurped. Even Josephine's father-in-law, as well as her aunt—Madame de Renaudin, who, after her husband's death, had been married to the Marquis de Beauharnais—had both in the revolutionary storms lost all their property, and saw themselves reduced to the last extremity. They lived from day to day with the greatest economy, upon the smallest means, and flattered themselves with the hope that justice would be done to the innocent victims of the revolution; that at last to the widow and children of the murdered General Beauharnais his income and property would be returned.

Another hope remained to Josephine: reliance upon her relatives, especially upon her mother in Martinique. She had written to her as soon as she had obtained her liberty; she had entreated her mother, who had been a widow for two years, to rent all her property in Martinique, and to come to France, and at her daughter's side to enjoy a few quiet years of domestic happiness.

But this hope also was to be destroyed, for the revolution in Martinique had committed the same devastations as in France, and the burning houses of their masters had been the bonfires whose flames were sent up to heaven by the newly-freed slaves in the name of the republic and of the rights of man. Madame Tascher de la Pagerie had experienced the same fate as all the planters in Martinique; her house and outbuildings had been burnt, her plantations destroyed, and a long time would be required before the fields could again be made to produce a harvest. Until then, Madame Tascher would be sorely limited in her means, and, if she did not succeed in selling some of her property and raising funds, would be without the money necessary to bring under cultivation the remnant of her large plantation. She was, therefore, not immediately prepared to supply her daughter with any considerable assistance, and Josephine endured the anguish of seeing not only herself and children, but also her dear mother, suffer through want and privation.

To the need of gold to procure bare necessaries, was soon added the very lack of them. Famine, with all its horrors, was at hand; the people were clamoring for food, and the land-owners as well as the rich were suffering from the want of that prime necessary of life- bread! The Convention had adopted no measures to satisfy the demands of the howling populace, and it had to remain contented with making accessible to all such provisions as were in the land. One law, therefore, ordered all land-owners to deliver to the state their stores of meal; a second law prohibited any person from buying more than one pound of bread on the same day. The greatest delicacy in those days of common wretchedness was white bread, and there were many families that for a long time were unable to procure this luxury.

Josephine herself had with many others to endure this privation: the costly white loaf was beyond her reach. In her depressed and sad lot the unfortunate widowed viscountess remained in possession of a treasure for which many of the wealthy and high-born longed in vain, and which neither gold nor wealth could procure—Josephine possessed friends, true, devoted friends, who forsook her not in the day of need, but stood the more closely at her side, helping and loving.

Among these friends were, above all, Madame Dumoulin and M. Emery. Madame Dumoulin, the wife of a wealthy purveyor of the republican army, was at heart a true royalist, and had made it her mission, as much as was within her power, to assist with her means the most destitute from whom the revolution had taken their family joys and property. She aided with money and clothing the unfortunate emigrants, who, as prominent and influential friends of the king and of Old France, had abandoned their country, and who now, as nameless, wretched beggars, returned home to beg of New France the privilege at least to hunger and starve, and at last to die in their motherland. Madame Dumoulin had always an open house for those aristocrats and ci-devants who had the courage not to emigrate and to bow their despised heads to all the fluctuations of the republic, and had remained in France, though deprived by the republic of their ancestral names, property, and rank. Those aristocrats who had not migrated found a friendly reception in the house of the witty and amiable Madame Dumoulin, and twice a week she gathered those friends of the ancient regime to a dinner, which was prepared with all the luxury of former days, and which offered to her friends, besides material enjoyment, the pleasures of an agreeable and attractive company.

Among Madame Dumoulin's friends who never failed to be present at these dinners was Josephine de Beauharnais, of whom Madame Dumoulin said she was the sunbeam of her drawing-room, for she warmed and vitalized all hearts. But this sunbeam had not the power to bring forth out of the unfruitful soil of the fatherland a few ears of wheat to turn its flour into white bread. As every one was allowed to buy bread only according to the numbers in the household, Madame Dumoulin could not give to her guests at dinner any white bread, and on her cards of invitation was the then usual form, "You are invited to bring a loaf of white bread."

But it was beyond the means of the poor Viscountess de Beauharnais to fulfil this invitation; her purse was not sufficient to afford her twice a week the luxury of white bread. Madame Dumoulin, who knew this, came kindly to the rescue of Josephine's distress, and entreated her not to trouble herself with bringing bread, but to allow her to procure it for her friend.

Josephine accepted this offer with tears of emotion, and she never forgot the goodness and kindness of Madame Dumoulin. In the days of her highest glory she remembered her, and once, when empress, radiant with jewels and ornaments of gold, as she stood in the midst of her court, related with a bewitching smile, to the ladies around her, that there was a time when she would have given a year of her life to possess but one of those jewels, not to adorn herself therewith, but to sell it, so as to buy bread for her children, and that in those days the excellent Madame Dumoulin had been a benefactress to her, and that she had received at her hands the bread of charity. [Footnote: "Memoires sur l'Imperatrice Josephine," par Mad. Ducrest, chap XXXVI.]

The same abiding friendship was shown to Josephine by M. Emery, a banker who had a considerable business in Dunkirk, and who for many years had been in mercantile relations with the family of Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinique. Madame de la Pagerie had every year sent him the produce of her sugar plantations, and he had attended to the sale to the largest houses in Germany. He knew better than any one else the pecuniary circumstances of the Pagerie family; he knew that, if at present Madame de la Pagerie could not repay his advanced sums, her plantations would soon produce a rich harvest, and even now be a sufficient security. M. Emery was therefore willing to assist the daughter of Madame Tascher de la Pagerie, and several times he advanced to Josephine considerable sums which she had drawn upon her mother.

The cares of every-day life, its physical necessities, lifted Josephine out of the sad melancholy in which she had lulled her sick, wounded heart, within the solitude of Fontainebleau. She must not settle down in this inactive twilight, nor wrap herself up in the gloomy gray veil of widowhood! Life had still claims upon her; it called to her through her children's voices, for whom she had a future to provide, as well as through the voice of her own youth, which she must not intrust hopelessly to the gloomy Fontainebleau.

And the young mother dared not and wanted not to close her ears to these calls; she arose from her supineness, and courageously resolved to begin anew life's battle, and to claim her share from the enjoyments and pleasures of this world.

She first, by the advice of M. Emery, undertook a journey to Hamburg, to make some arrangements with the rich and highly respectable banking-house of Mathiesen and Sissen. Mathiesen, the banker, who had married a niece of Madame de Genlis, had always shown the greatest hospitality to all Frenchmen who had applied to him, and he had assisted them with advice and deeds. To him Josephine appealed, at the request of M. Emery, so as to procure a safe opportunity to send letters to her mother in Martinique, and also to obtain from him funds on bills drawn upon her mother.

M. Mathiesen met her wishes with a generous pleasure, and through him Josephine received sufficient sums of money to protect her from further embarrassments and anxieties, at least until her mother, who was on the eve of selling a portion of her plantation, could send her some money.

On her return from her business-journey to Hamburg, as she was no longer a poor widow without means, she adopted the courageous resolution of leaving her asylum and returning to dangerous and deserted Paris, there to prepare for her son an honorable future, and endeavor to procure for her daughter an education suited to her rank and capacities.

At the end of the year 1795, Josephine returned with her two children to Paris, which one year before she had left so sorrowfully and so dispirited.

What changes had been wrought during this one year! How the face of things had been altered! The revolution had bled to death. The thirteenth Vendemiaire had scattered to the winds the seditious elements of revolution, and the republic was beginning quietly and peacefully to grow into stature. The Convention, with its Mountain, its terrorists, its Committee of Safety, its persecutions and executions, had outlived its power, which it had consigned to the pages of history with so many tears and so much blood. In a strange contradiction with its own bloody deeds, it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a farewell to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution, it had printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the Convention gave to France this last law: "Capital punishment is forever abolished." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de Napoleon," vol. i., p. 82.]

With this farewell kiss, this love-salutation to the France of the future, to the new self-informing France, the Convention dissolved itself, and in its stead came the Council of Elders, the Council of Five Hundred, and lastly the Directory, composed of five members, among whom had been elected the more eminent members of the Convention, namely, Barras and Carnot.

Josephine's first movement in Paris was to find the lovely friend whom she made in the Carmelite prison, and to whom she in some measure owed her life, to visit Therese de Fontenay and see if the heart of the beautiful, celebrated woman had in its days of happiness and power retained its remembrances of those of wretchedness and mortal fears.

Therese de Fontenay was now the wife of Tallien, who, elected to the Council of the Five Hundred, continued to play an influential and important part, and therefore had his court of flatterers and time- serving friends as well as any ruling prince. His house was one of the most splendid in Paris; the feasts and banquets which took place there reminded one, by their extravagant magnificence, of the days of ancient Rome, and that this remembrance might still be more striking, ladies in the rich, costly costumes of patrician matrons of ancient Rome appeared at those festivities not unworthy of a Lucullus. Madame Tallien—in the ample robe of wrought gold of a Roman empress, shod with light sandals, from which issued the beautiful naked feet, and the toes adorned with costly rings, her exquisitely moulded arms ornamented with massive gold bracelets; her short curly hair fastened together by a gold bandelet, which rose over the forehead in the shape of a diadem, bejewelled with precious diamonds; the mantle of purple, fringed with gold and placed on the shoulders—was in this costume of such a wonderful beauty, that men gazed at her with astonishment and women with envy.

And this beautiful woman, often worshipped and adored, though sometimes slandered, had amid her triumphs kept a faithful remembrance of the past. She received Josephine with the affection of a true friend. In her generosity she allowed her no time to proffer any request, but came forward herself with offers to intercede for her friend, and to use all the means at her disposal, omitting nothing that would help Josephine to recover her fortune, her lost property. With all the eagerness of true love she took the arm of her friend and led her to Tallien, and with the enchanting smile and attitude of a commanding princess she told him that he must help Josephine to become happy again, that every thing he could do for her would be rewarded by an increasing love; that if he did not do justice to Josephine, she would punish him by her anger and coldness.

Tallien listened with complacency to the praiseworthy commands of his worshipped Therese, and promised to use all his influence to have justice done to the will of the sacrificed General de Beauharnais. He himself accompanied Josephine to Barras, that she might present her application to him personally and request at his hands restitution of her property. She was received by Barras, as well as by the other four directors, with the greatest politeness; each promised to attend to her case and to return to the widow and to the children of Alexandre de Beauharnais the property which had been so unjustly taken from them.

It is true, weeks and months of waiting and uncertainty passed away, but Josephine had hope for a comforter; she had, besides, her beautiful friend Therese Tallien, who with affectionate eloquence endeavored to instil courage into Josephine, and by her constant petitions and prayers did not allow the Directory, amid its many important affairs of government, to forget the case of the poor young widow. Therese took care also that Josephine should appear in society at the receptions and balls given by the members of the new government; and when made timid through misfortune, and depressed at heart by the uncertainty of her narrow lot, she desired to keep aloof from these rejoicings, Therese knew how to convince her that she must sacrifice her love of retirement to her children; that it was her duty to accept the invitations of the Directory, so as to keep alive their interest and favor in her behalf; and that, were she to retreat into solitude and obscurity, she would thereby imperil her future and that of her children.