Attention has been called to the disturbances which arose in Auxonne and elsewhere, to the emigration of the nobles from that quarter, to the utter break between the parish priests and the higher church functionaries in Dauphiny; this was but a sample of the whole. When, on July fourteenth, 1790, the King accepted a constitution which decreed a secular reorganization of the ecclesiastical hierarchy according to the terms of which both bishops and priests were to be elected by the taxpayers, two thirds of all the clergy in France refused to swear allegiance to it. All attempts to establish the new administrative and judicial systems were more or less futile; the disaffection of officials and lawyers became more intense. In Paris alone the changes were introduced with some success, the municipality being rearranged into forty-eight sections, each with a primary assembly. These were the bodies which later gave Buonaparte the opening whereby he entered his real career. The influence of the Jacobin Club increased, just in proportion as the majority of its members grew more radical. Necker trimmed to their demands, but lost popularity by his monotonous calls for money, and fell in September, reaching his home on Lake Leman only with the greatest difficulty. Mirabeau succeeded him as the sole possible prop to the tottering throne. Under his leadership the moderate monarchists, or Feuillants, as they were later called, from the convent of that order to which they withdrew, seceded from the Jacobins, and before the Assembly had ceased its work the nation was cleft in two, divided into opponents and adherents of monarchy. As if to insure the disasters of such an antagonism, the Assembly, which numbered among its members every man in France of ripe political experience, committed the incredible folly of self-effacement, voting that not one of its members should be eligible to the legislature about to be chosen.

A new impulse to the revolutionary movement was given by the death of Mirabeau on April second, 1791. His obsequies were celebrated in many places, and, being a native of Provence, there were probably solemn ceremonies at Valence. There is a tradition that they occurred during Buonaparte's second residence in the city, and that it was he who superintended the draping of the choir in the principal church. It is said that the hangings were arranged to represent a funerary urn, and that beneath, in conspicuous letters, ran the legend: "Behold what remains of the French Lycurgus." Mirabeau had indeed displayed a genius for politics, his scheme for a strong ministry, chosen from the Assembly, standing in bold relief against the feebleness of Necker in persuading Louis to accept the suspensive veto, and to choose his cabinet without relation to the party in power. When the mad dissipation of the statesman's youth demanded its penalty at the hour so critical for France, the King and the moderates alike lost courage. In June the worried and worn-out monarch determined that the game was not worth the playing, and on the twenty-first he fled. Though he was captured, and brought back to act the impossible role of a democratic prince, the patriots who had wished to advance with experience and tradition as guides were utterly discredited. All the world could see how pusillanimous was the royalty they had wished to preserve, and the masses made up their mind that, real or nominal, the institution was not only useless, but dangerous. This feeling was strong in the Rhone valley and the adjoining districts, which have ever been the home of extreme radicalism. Sympathy with Corsica and the Corsicans had long been active in southeastern France. Neither the island nor its people were felt to be strange. When a society for the defense of the constitution was formed in Valence, Buonaparte, though a Corsican, was at first secretary, then president, of the association.

The "Friends of the Constitution" grew daily more numerous, more powerful, and more radical in that city; and when the great solemnity of swearing allegiance to the new order was to be celebrated, it was chosen as a convenient and suitable place for a convention of twenty-two similar associations from the neighboring districts. The meeting took place on July third, 1791; the official administration of the oath to the civil, military, judicial, and ecclesiastical authorities occurred on the fourteenth. Before a vast altar erected on the drill-ground, in the presence of all the dignitaries, with cannon booming and the air resounding with shouts and patriotic songs, the officials in groups, the people in mass, swore with uplifted hands to sustain the constitution, to obey the National Assembly, and to die, if need be, in defending French territory against invasion. Scenes as impressive and dramatic as this occurred all over France. They appealed powerfully to the imagination of the nation, and profoundly influenced public opinion. "Until then," said Buonaparte, referring to the solemnity, "I doubt not that if I had received orders to turn my guns against the people, habit, prejudice, education, and the King's name would have induced me to obey. With the taking of the national oath it became otherwise; my instincts and my duty were thenceforth in harmony."

But the position of liberal officers was still most trying. In the streets and among the people they were in a congenial atmosphere; behind the closed doors of the drawing-rooms, in the society of ladies, and among their fellows in the mess, there were constraint and suspicion. Out of doors all was exultation; in the houses of the hitherto privileged classes all was sadness and uncertainty. But everywhere, indoors or out, was spreading the fear of war, if not civil at least foreign war, with the French emigrants as the allies of the assailants. On this point Buonaparte was mistaken. As late as July twenty-seventh, 1791, he wrote to Naudin, an intimate friend who was chief of the military bureau at Auxonne: "Will there be war? No; Europe is divided between sovereigns who rule over men and those who rule over cattle and horses. The former understand the Revolution, and are terrified; they would gladly make personal sacrifices to annihilate it, but they dare not lift the mask for fear the fire should break out in their own houses. See the history of England, Holland, etc. Those who bear the rule over horses misunderstand and cannot grasp the bearing of the constitution. They think this chaos of incoherent ideas means an end of French power. You would suppose, to listen to them, that our brave patriots were about to cut one another's throats and with their blood purge the land of the crimes committed against kings." The news contained in this letter is most interesting. There are accounts of the zeal and spirit everywhere shown by the democratic patriots, of a petition for the trial of the King sent up from the recent meeting at Valence, and an assurance by the writer that his regiment is "sure," except as to half the officers. He adds in a postscript: "The southern blood courses in my veins as swiftly as the Rhone. Pardon me if you feel distressed in reading my scrawl."[25]

[Footnote 25: Buonaparte to Naudin, 27 July, 1791, in Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, XVII, 56.]

Restlessness is the habit of the agitator, and Buonaparte's temperament was not exceptional. His movements and purposes during the months of July and August are very uncertain in the absence of documentary evidence sufficient to determine them. But his earliest biographers, following what was in their time a comparatively short tradition, enable us to fix some things with a high degree of probability. The young radical had been but two months with his new command when he began to long for change; the fever of excitement and the discomfort of his life, with probably some inkling that a Corsican national guard would ere long be organized, awakened in him a purpose to be off once more, and accordingly he applied for leave of absence. His colonel, a very lukewarm constitutionalist, angry at the notoriety which his lieutenant was acquiring, had already sent in a complaint of Buonaparte's insubordinate spirit and of his inattention to duty. Standing on a formal right, he therefore refused the application. With the quick resource of a schemer, Buonaparte turned to a higher authority, his friend Duteil, who was inspector-general of artillery in the department and not unfavorable. Something, however, must have occurred to cause delay, for weeks passed and the desired leave was not granted.

While awaiting a decision the applicant was very uneasy. To friends he said that he would soon be in Paris; to his great-uncle he wrote, "Send me three hundred livres; that sum would take me to Paris. There, at least, a person can show himself, overcome obstacles. Everything tells me that I shall succeed there. Will you stop me for lack of a hundred crowns?" And again: "I am waiting impatiently for the six crowns my mother owes me; I need them sadly." These demands for money met with no response. The explanation of Buonaparte's impatience is simple enough. One by one the provincial societies which had been formed to support the constitution were affiliating themselves with the influential Jacobins at Paris, who were now the strongest single political power in the country. He was the recognized leader of their sympathizers in the Rhone valley. He evidently intended to go to headquarters and see for himself what the outlook was. With backers such as he thus hoped to find, some advantage, perhaps even the long-desired command in Corsica, might be secured.

It was rare good fortune that the young hotspur was not yet to be cast into the seething caldron of French politics. The time was not yet ripe for the exercise of his powers. The storming of the Bastille had symbolized the overthrow of privilege and absolute monarchy; the flight of the King presaged the overthrow of monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The executive gone, the legislature popular and democratic but ignorant how to administer or conduct affairs, the judiciary equally disorganized, and the army transforming itself into a patriotic organization—was there more to come? Yes. Thus far, in spite of well-meant attempts to substitute new constructions for the old, all had been disintegration. French society was to be reorganized only after further pulverizing; cohesion would begin only under pressure from without—a pressure applied by the threats of erratic royalists that they would bring in the foreign powers to coerce and arbitrate, by the active demonstrations of the emigrants, by the outbreak of foreign wars. These were the events about to take place; they would in the end evolve from the chaos of mob rule first the irregular and temporary dictatorship of the Convention, then the tyranny of the Directory; at the same time they would infuse a fervor of patriotism, into the whole mass of the French nation, stunned, helpless, and leaderless, but loyal, brave, and vigorous. In such a crisis the people would tolerate, if not demand, a leader strong to exact respect for France and to enforce his commands; would prefer the vigorous mastery of one to the feeble misrule of the many or the few. Still further, the man was as unready as the time; for it was, in all probability, not as a Frenchman but as an ever true Corsican patriot that Buonaparte wished to "show himself, overcome obstacles" at this conjuncture.

On August fourth, 1791, the National Assembly at last decided to form a paid volunteer national guard of a hundred thousand men, and their decision became a law on August twelfth. The term of enlistment was a year; four battalions were to be raised in Corsica. Buonaparte heard of the decision on August tenth, and was convinced that the hour for realizing his long-cherished aspirations had finally struck. He could certainly have done much in Paris to secure office in a French-Corsican national guard, and with this in mind he immediately wrote a memorandum on the armament of the new force, addressing it, with characteristic assurance, to the minister of war. When, however, three weeks later, on August thirtieth, 1791, a leave of absence arrived, to which he was entitled in the course of routine, and which was not granted by the favor of any one, he had abandoned all idea of service under France in the Corsican guard. The disorder of the times was such that while retaining office in the French army he could test in an independent Corsican command the possibility of climbing to leadership there before abandoning his present subordinate place in France. In view, apparently, of this new venture, he had for some time been taking advances from the regimental paymaster, until he had now in hand a considerable sum—two hundred and ninety livres. A formal announcement to the authorities might have elicited embarrassing questions from them, so he and Louis quietly departed without explanations, leaving for the second time debts of considerable amount. They reached Ajaccio on September sixth, 1791. Napoleon was not actually a deserter, but he had in contemplation a step toward the defiance of French authority—the acceptance of service in a Corsican military force.



CHAPTER XIII.

Buonaparte the Corsican Jacobin.

Buonaparte's Corsican Patriotism — His Position in His Family — The Situation of Joseph — Corsican Politics — Napoleon's Power in the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio — His Failure as a Contestant for Literary Honors — Appointed Adjutant-General — His Attitude Toward France — His New Ambitions — Use of Violence — Lieutenant-Colonel of Volunteers — Politics in Ajaccio — His First Experience of Street Warfare — His Manifesto — Dismissed to Paris — His Plans — The Position of Louis XVI — Buonaparte's Delinquencies — Disorganization in the Army — Petition for Reinstatement — The Marseillais — Buonaparte a Spectator — His Estimate of France — His Presence at the Scenes of August Tenth — State of Paris — Flight of Lafayette.

[Sidenote: 1791-92.]

This was the third time in four years that Buonaparte had revisited his home.[26] On the plea of ill health he had been able the first time to remain a year and two months, giving full play to his Corsican patriotism and his own ambitions by attendance at Orezza, and by political agitation among the people. The second time he had remained a year and four months, retaining his hold on his commission by subterfuges and irregularities which, though condoned, had strained his relations with the ministry of war in Paris. He had openly defied the royal authority, relying on the coming storm for the concealment of his conduct if it should prove reprehensible, or for preferment in his own country if Corsica should secure her liberties. There is no reason, therefore, to suppose that his intentions for the third visit were different from those displayed in the other two, although again solicitude for his family was doubtless one of many considerations.

[Footnote 26: It is not entirely clear whether he arrived late in September or early in October, 1791. He remained until May, 1792.]

During Napoleon's absence from Corsica the condition of his family had not materially changed. Soon after his arrival the old archdeacon died, and his little fortune fell to the Buonapartes. Joseph, failing shortly afterward in his plan of being elected deputy to the French legislature, was chosen a member of the Corsican directory. He was, therefore, forced to occupy himself entirely with his new duties and to live at Corte. Fesch, as the eldest male, the mother's brother, and a priest at that, expected to assume the direction of the family affairs. But he was doomed to speedy disenchantment: thenceforward Napoleon was the family dictator. In conjunction with his uncle he used the whole or a considerable portion of the archdeacon's savings for the purchase of several estates from the national domain, as the sequestrated lands of the monasteries were called. Rendered thus more self-important, he talked much in the home circle concerning the greatness of classical antiquity, and wondered "who would not willingly have been stabbed, if only he could have been Caesar? One feeble ray of his glory would be an ample recompense for sudden death." Such chances for Caesarism as the island of Corsica afforded were very rapidly becoming better.

The Buonapartes had no influence whatever in these elections. Joseph was not even nominated. The choice fell upon two men selected by Paoli: one of them, Peraldi, was already embittered against the family; the other, Pozzo di Borgo, though so far friendly enough, thereafter became a relentless foe. Rising to eminence as a diplomat, accepting service in one and another country of Europe, the latter thwarted Napoleon at several important conjunctures. Paoli is thought by some to have been wounded by the frank criticism of his strategy by Napoleon: more likely he distrusted youths educated in France, and who, though noisy Corsicans, were, he shrewdly guessed, impregnated with French idealism. He himself cared for France only as by her help the largest possible autonomy for Corsica could be secured. In the directory of the department of Corsica, Joseph, and with him the Buonaparte influence, was reduced to impotence, while gratified with high position. The ignorance of the administrators was only paralleled by the difficulties of their work.

During the last few months religious agitation had been steadily increasing. Pious Catholics were embittered by the virtual expulsion of the old clergy, and the induction to office of new priests who had sworn to uphold the constitution. Amid the disorders of administration the people in ever larger numbers had secured arms; as of yore, they appeared at their assemblies under the guidance of their chiefs, ready to fight at a moment's notice. It was but a step to violence, and without any other provocation than religious exasperation the townsfolk of Bastia had lately sought to kill their new bishop. Even Arena, who had so recently seized the place in Paoli's interest, was now regarded as a French radical, maltreated, and banished with his supporters to Italy. The new election was at hand; the contest between the Paolists and the extreme French party grew hotter and hotter. Not only deputies to the new assembly, but likewise the superior officers of the new guard, were to be elected. Buonaparte, being only a lieutenant of the regulars, could according to the law aspire no higher than an appointment as adjutant-major with the title and pay of captain. It was not worth while to lose his place in France for this, so he determined to stand for one of the higher elective offices, that of lieutenant-colonel, a position which would give him more power, and, under the latest legislation, entitle him to retain his grade in the regular army.

There were now two political clubs in Ajaccio: that of the Corsican Jacobins, country people for the most part; and that of the Corsican Feuillants, composed of the officials and townsfolk. Buonaparte became a moving spirit in the former, and determined at any cost to destroy the influence of the latter. The two previous attempts to secure Ajaccio for the radicals had failed; a third was already under consideration. The new leader began to garnish his language with those fine and specious phrases which thenceforth were never wanting in his utterances at revolutionary crises. "Law," he wrote about this time, "is like those statues of some of the gods which are veiled under certain circumstances." For a few weeks there was little or nothing to do in the way of electioneering at home; he therefore obtained permission to travel with the famous Volney, who desired a philosopher's retreat from Paris storms and had been chosen director of commerce and manufactures in the island. This journey was for a candidate like Buonaparte invaluable as a means of observation and of winning friends for his cause.

Before the close of this trip his furlough had expired, his regiment had been put on a war footing, and orders had been issued for the return of every officer to his post by Christmas day. But in the execution of his fixed purpose the young Corsican patriot was heedless of military obligations to France, and wilfully remained absent from duty. Once more the spell of a wild, free life was upon him; he was enlisted for the campaign, though without position or money to back him. The essay on happiness which he had presented to the Academy of Lyons had failed, as a matter of course, to win the prize, one of the judges pronouncing it "too badly arranged, too uneven, too disconnected, and too badly written to deserve attention." This decision was a double blow, for it was announced about this time, at a moment when fame and money would both have been most welcome. The scanty income from the lands purchased with the legacy of the old archdeacon remained the only resource of the family for the lavish hospitality which, according to immemorial, semi-barbarous tradition, was required of a Corsican candidate.

A peremptory order was now issued from Paris that those officers of the line who had been serving in the National Guard with a grade lower than that of lieutenant-colonel should return to regular service before April first, 1792. Here was an implication which might be turned to account. As a lieutenant on leave, Buonaparte should of course have returned on December twenty-fifth; if, however, he were an officer of volunteers he could plead the new order. Though as yet the recruits had not come in, and no companies had been formed, the mere idea was sufficient to suggest a means for saving appearances. An appointment as adjutant-major was solicited from the major-general in command of the department, and he, under authorization obtained in due time from Paris, granted it. Safe from the charge of desertion thus far, it was essential for his reputation and for his ambition that Buonaparte should be elected lieutenant-colonel. Success would enable him to plead that his first lapse in discipline was due to irregular orders from his superior, that anyhow he had been an adjutant-major, and that finally the position of lieutenant-colonel gave him immunity from punishment, and left him blameless.

He nevertheless was uneasy, and wrote two letters of a curious character to his friend Sucy, the commissioner-general at Valence. In the first, written five weeks after the expiration of his leave, he calmly reports himself, and gives an account of his occupations, mentioning incidentally that unforeseen circumstances, duties the dearest and most sacred, had prevented his return. His correspondent would be so kind as not to mention the letter to the "gentlemen of the regiment," but the writer would immediately return if his friend in his unassisted judgment thought best. In the second he plumply declares that in perilous times the post of a good Corsican is at home, that therefore he had thought of resigning, but his friends had arranged the middle course of appointing him adjutant-major in the volunteers so that he could make his duty as a soldier conform to his duty as a patriot. Asking for news of what is going on in France, he says, writing like an outsider, "If your nation loses courage at this moment, it is done with forever."

It was toward the end of March that the volunteers from the mountains began to appear in Ajaccio for the election of their officers. Napoleon had bitter and powerful rivals, but his recent trip had apparently enabled him to win many friends among the men. While, therefore, success was possible by that means, there was another influence almost as powerful—that of three commissioners appointed by the directory of the island to organize and equip the battalion. These were Morati, a friend of Peraldi, the Paolist deputy; Quenza, more or less neutral, and Grimaldi, a devoted partisan of the Buonapartes. With skilful diplomacy Napoleon agreed that he would not presume to be a candidate for the office of first lieutenant-colonel, which was desired by Peretti, a near friend of Paoli, for his brother-in-law, Quenza, but would seek the position of second lieutenant-colonel. In this way he was assured of good will from two of the three commissioners; the other was of course hostile, being a partizan of Peraldi.

The election, as usual in Corsica, seems to have passed in turbulence and noisy violence. His enemies attacked Buonaparte with every weapon: their money, their influence, and in particular with ridicule. His stature, his poverty, and his absurd ambitions were held up to contempt and scorn. The young hotspur was cut to the quick, and, forgetting Corsican ways, made the witless blunder of challenging Peraldi to a duel, an institution scorned by the Corsican devotees of the vendetta. The climax of contempt was Peraldi's failure even to notice the challenge. At the crisis, Salicetti, a warm friend of the Buonapartes and a high official of the department, appeared with a considerable armed force to maintain order. This cowed the conservatives. The third commissioner, living as a guest with Peraldi, was seized during the night preceding the election by a body of Buonaparte's friends, and put under lock and key in their candidate's house—"to make you entirely free; you were not free where you were," said the instigator of the stroke, when called to explain. To the use of fine phrases was now added a facility in employing violence at a pinch which likewise remained characteristic of Buonaparte's career down to the end. Nasica, who alone records the tale, sees in this event the precursor of the long series of state-strokes which culminated on the eighteenth Brumaire. There is a story that in one of the scuffles incident to this brawl a member of Pozzo di Borgo's family was thrown down and trampled on. Be that as it may, Buonaparte was successful. This of course intensified the hatred already existing, and from that moment the families of Peraldi and of Pozzo di Borgo were his deadly enemies.

Quenza, who was chosen first lieutenant-colonel, was a man of no character whatever, a nobody. He was moreover absorbed in the duties of a place in the departmental administration. Buonaparte, therefore, was in virtual command of a sturdy, well-armed, legal force. Having been adjutant-major, and being now a regularly elected lieutenant-colonel according to statute, he applied, with a well-calculated effrontery, to his regimental paymaster for the pay which had accrued during his absence. It was at first refused, for in the interval he had been cashiered for remaining at home in disobedience to orders; but such were the irregularities of that revolutionary time that later, virtual deserter as he had been, it was actually paid and he was restored to his place. He sought and obtained from the military authorities of the island certificates of his regular standing and leave to present them in Paris if needed to maintain his rank as a French officer, but in the final event there was no necessity for their use. No one was more adroit than Buonaparte in taking advantage of possibilities. He was a pluralist without conscience. A French regular if the emergency should demand it, he was likewise a Corsican patriot and commander in the volunteer guard of the island, fully equipped for another move. Perhaps, at last, he could assume with success the liberator's role of Sampiero. But an opportunity must occur or be created. One was easily arranged.

Ajaccio had gradually become a resort for many ardent Roman Catholics who had refused to accept the new order. The town authorities, although there were some extreme radicals among them, were, on the whole, in sympathy with these conservatives. Through the devices of his friends in the city government, Buonaparte's battalion, the second, was on one pretext or another assembled in and around the town. Thereupon, following the most probable account, which, too, is supported by Buonaparte's own story, a demand was made that according to the recent ecclesiastical legislation of the National Assembly, the Capuchin monks, who had been so far undisturbed, should evacuate their friary. Feeling ran so high that the other volunteer companies were summoned; they arrived on April first. At once the public order was jeopardized: on one extreme were the religious fanatics, on the other the political agitators, both of whom were loud with threats and ready for violence. In the middle, between two fires, was the mass of the people, who sympathized with the ecclesiastics, but wanted peace at any hazard. Quarreling began first between individuals of the various factions, but it soon resulted in conflicts between civilians and the volunteer guard. The first step taken by the military was to seize and occupy the cloister, which lay just below the citadel, the final goal of their leader, whoever he was, and the townsfolk believed it was Buonaparte. Once inside the citadel walls, the Corsicans in the regular French service would, it was hoped, fraternize with their kin; with such a beginning, all the garrison might in time be won over.

This further exasperated the ultramontanes, and on Easter day, April eighth, they made demonstrations so serious that the scheming commander—Buonaparte again, it was believed—found the much desired pretext to interfere; there was a melee, and one of the militia officers was killed. Next morning the burghers found their town beset by the volunteers. Good citizens kept to their houses, while the acting mayor and the council were assembled to authorize an attack on the citadel. The authorities could not agree, and dispersed; the following forenoon it was discovered that the acting mayor and his sympathizers had taken refuge in the citadel. From the vantage of this stronghold they proposed to settle the difficulty by the arbitration of a board composed of two from each side, under the presidency of the commandant. There was again no agreement.

Worn out at last by the haggling and delay, an officer of the garrison finally ordered the militia officers to withdraw their forces. By the advice of some determined radical—Buonaparte again, in all probability—the latter flatly refused, and the night was spent in preparation for a conflict which seemed inevitable. But early in the morning the commissioners of the department, who had been sent by Paoli to preserve the peace, arrived in a body. They were welcomed gladly by the majority of the people, and, after hearing the case, dismissed the battalion of volunteers to various posts in the surrounding country. Public opinion immediately turned against Buonaparte, convinced as the populace was that he was the author of the entire disturbance. The commander of the garrison was embittered, and sent a report to the war department displaying the young officer's behavior in the most unfavorable light. Buonaparte's defense was contained in a manifesto which made the citizens still more furious by its declaration that the whole civic structure of their town was worthless, and should have been overthrown.

The aged Paoli found his situation more trying with every day. Under a constitutional monarchy, such as he had admired and studied in England, such as he even yet hoped for and expected in France, he had believed his own land might find a virtual autonomy. With riot and disorder in every town, it would not be long before the absolute disqualification of his countrymen for self-government would be proved and the French administration restored. For his present purpose, therefore, the peace must be kept, and Buonaparte, upon whom, whether justly or not, the blame for these recent broils rested, must be removed elsewhere, if possible; but as the troublesome youth was the son of an old friend and the head of a still influential family, it must be done without offense. The government at Paris might be pacified if the absentee officer were restored to his post; with Quenza in command of the volunteers, there would be little danger of a second outbreak in Ajaccio.

It was more than easy, therefore, for the discredited revolutionary, on the implied condition and understanding that he should leave Corsica, to secure from the authorities the papers necessary to put himself and his actions in the most favorable light. Buonaparte armed himself accordingly with an authenticated certificate as to the posts he had held, and the period during which he had held them, and with another as to his "civism"—the phrase used at that time to designate the quality of friendliness to the Revolution. The former seems to have been framed according to his own statements, and was speciously deceptive; yet in form the commander-in-chief, the municipality of Ajaccio, and the authorities of the department were united in certifying to his unblemished character and regular standing. This was something. Whither should the scapegoat betake himself? Valence, where the royalist colonel regarded him as a deserter, was of course closed, and in Paris alone could the necessary steps be taken to secure restoration to rank with back pay, or rather the reversal of the whole record as it then stood on the regimental books. For this reason he likewise secured letters of introduction to the leading Corsicans in the French capital. His departure was so abrupt as to resemble flight. He hastened to Corte, and remained just long enough to understand the certainty of his overwhelming loss in public esteem throughout Corsica. On the way he is said to have seen Paoli for a short time and to have received some encouragement in a plan to raise another battalion of volunteers. Joseph claimed to have advised his brother to have nothing to do with the plan, but to leave immediately for France. In any case Napoleon's mind was clear. A career in Corsica on the grand scale was impossible for him. Borrowing money for the journey, he hurried away and sailed from Bastia on May second, 1792. The outlook might have disheartened a weaker man. Peraldi, the Corsican deputy, was a near relative of the defeated rival; Paoli's displeasure was only too manifest; the bitter hate of a large element in Ajaccio, including the royalist commander of the garrison, was unconcealed. Napoleon's energy, rashness, and ambition combined to make Pozzo di Borgo detest him. He was accused of being a traitor, the source of all trouble, of plotting a new St. Bartholomew, ready for any horror in order to secure power. Rejected by Corsica, would France receive him? Would not the few French friends he had be likewise alienated by these last escapades? Could the formal record of regimental offenses be expunged? In any event, how slight the prospect of success in the great mad capital, amid the convulsive throes of a nation's disorders!

But in the last consideration lay his only chance: the nation's disorder was to supply the remedy for Buonaparte's irregularities. The King had refused his sanction to the secularization of the estates which had once been held by the emigrants and recusant ecclesiastics; the Jacobins retorted by open hostility to the monarchy. The plotting of noble and princely refugees with various royal and other schemers two years before had been a crime against the King and the constitutionalists, for it jeopardized their last chance for existence, even their very lives. Within so short a time what had been criminal in the emigrants had seemingly become the only means of self-preservation for their intended victim. His constitutional supporters recognized that, in the adoption of this course by the King, the last hope of a peaceful solution to their awful problem had disappeared. It was now almost certain and generally believed that Louis himself was in negotiation with the foreign sovereigns; to thwart his plans and avert the consequences it was essential that open hostilities against his secret allies should be begun. Consequently, on April twentieth, 1792, by the influence of the King's friends war had been declared against Austria. The populace, awed by the armies thus called out, were at first silently defiant, an attitude which changed to open fury when the defeat of the French troops in the Austrian Netherlands was announced.

The moderate republicans, or Girondists, as they were called from the district where they were strongest, were now the mediating party; their leader, Roland, was summoned to form a ministry and appease this popular rage. It was one of his colleagues who had examined the complaint against Buonaparte received from the commander of the garrison at Ajaccio. According to a strict interpretation of the military code there was scarcely a crime which Buonaparte had not committed: desertion, disobedience, tampering, attack on constituted authority, and abuse of official power. The minister reported the conduct of both Quenza and Buonaparte as most reprehensible, and declared that if their offense had been purely military he would have court-martialed them.

Learning first at Marseilles that war had broken out, and that the companies of his regiment were dispersed to various camps for active service, Buonaparte hastened northward. A new passion, which was indicative of the freshly awakened patriotism, had taken possession of the popular fancy. Where the year before the current and universal phrase had been "federation," the talk was now all for the "nation." It might well be so. Before the traveler arrived at his destination further disaster had overtaken the French army, one whole regiment had deserted under arms to the enemy, and individual soldiers were escaping by hundreds. The officers of the Fourth Artillery were resigning and running away in about equal numbers. Consternation ruled supreme, treason and imbecility were everywhere charged against the authorities. War within, war without, and the army in a state of collapse! The emigrant princes would return, and France be sold to a bondage tenfold more galling than that from which she was struggling to free herself.

When Buonaparte reached Paris on May twenty-eighth, 1792, the outlook was poor for a suppliant, bankrupt in funds and nearly so in reputation; but he was undaunted, and his application for reinstatement in the artillery was made without the loss of a moment. A new minister of war had been appointed but a few days before,—there were six changes in that office during as many months,—and the assistant now in charge of the artillery seemed favorable to the request. For a moment he thought of restoring the suppliant to his position, but events were marching too swiftly, and demands more urgent jostled aside the claims of an obscure lieutenant with a shady character. Buonaparte at once grasped the fact that he could win his cause only by patience or by importunity, and began to consider how he should arrange for a prolonged stay in the capital. His scanty resources were already exhausted, but he found Bourrienne, a former school-fellow at Brienne, in equal straits, waiting like himself for something to turn up. Over their meals in a cheap restaurant on the Rue St. Honore they discussed various means of gaining a livelihood, and seriously contemplated a partnership in subletting furnished rooms. But Bourrienne very quickly obtained the post of secretary in the embassy at Stuttgart, so that his comrade was left to make his struggle alone by pawning what few articles of value he possessed.

The days and weeks were full of incidents terrible and suggestive in their nature. The Assembly dismissed the King's body-guard on May twenty-ninth; on June thirteenth, the Girondists were removed from the ministry; within a few days it was known at court that Prussia had taken the field as an ally of Austria, and on the seventeenth a conservative, Feuillant cabinet was formed. Three days later the popular insurrection began, on the twenty-sixth the news of the coalition was announced, and on the twenty-eighth Lafayette endeavored to stay the tide of furious discontent which was now rising in the Assembly. But it was as ruthless as that of the ocean, and on July eleventh the country was declared in danger. There was, however, a temporary check to the rush, a moment of repose in which the King, on the fourteenth, celebrated among his people the fall of the Bastille. But an address from the local assembly at Marseilles had arrived, demanding the dethronement of Louis and the abolition of the monarchy. Such was the impatience of the great southern city that, without waiting for the logical effect of their declaration, its inhabitants determined to make a demonstration in Paris. On the thirtieth a deputation five hundred strong arrived before the capital. On August third, they entered the city singing the immortal song which bears their name, but which was written at Strasburg by an officer of engineers, Rouget de Lisle. The southern fire of the newcomers kindled again the flame of Parisian sedition, and the radicals fanned it. At last, on August tenth, the conflagration burst forth in an uprising such as had not yet been seen of all that was outcast and lawless in the great town; with them consorted the discontented and the envious, the giddy and the frivolous, the curious and the fickle, all the unstable elements of society. This time the King was unnerved; in despair he fled for asylum to the chamber of the Assembly. That body, unsympathetic for him, but sensitive to the ragings of the mob without, found the fugitive unworthy of his office. Before night the kingship was abolished, and the royal family were imprisoned in the Temple.

There is no proof that the young Corsican was at this time other than an interested spectator. In a hurried letter written to Joseph on May twenty-ninth he notes the extreme confusion of affairs, remarks that Pozzo di Borgo is on good terms with the minister of war, and recommends his brother to keep on good terms with Paoli. There is a characteristic little paragraph on the uniform of the national guard. Though he makes no reference to the purpose of his journey, it is clear that he is calm, assured that in the wholesale flight of officers a man like himself is assured of restoration to rank and duty. Two others dated June fourteenth and eighteenth respectively are scarcely more valuable. He gives a crude and superficial account of French affairs internal and external, of no value as history. He had made unsuccessful efforts to revive the plea for their mother's mulberry subsidies, had dined with Mme. Permon, had visited their sister Marianna at St. Cyr, where she had been called Elisa to distinguish her from another Marianna. He speculates on the chance of her marrying without a dot. In quiet times, the wards of St. Cyr received, on leaving, a dowry of three thousand livres, with three hundred more for an outfit; but as matters then were, the establishment was breaking up and there were no funds for that purpose. Like the rest, the Corsican girl was soon to be stripped of her pretty uniform, the neat silk gown, the black gloves, and the dainty bronze slippers which Mme. de Maintenon had prescribed for the noble damsels at that royal school. In another letter written four days later there is a graphic account of the threatening demonstrations made by the rabble and a vivid description which indicates Napoleon's being present when the mob recoiled at the very door of the Tuileries before the calm and dignified courage of the King. There is even a story, told as of the time, by Bourrienne, a very doubtful authority, but probably invented later, of Buonaparte's openly expressing contempt for riots. "How could the King let the rascals in! He should have shot down a few hundred, and the rest would have run." This statement, like others made by Bourrienne, is to be received with the utmost caution.



In a letter written about the beginning of July, probably to Lucien or possibly to Joseph, and evidently intended to be read in the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio, there are clear indications of its writer's temper. He speaks with judicious calmness of the project for educational reform; of Lafayette's appearance before the Assembly, which had pronounced the country in danger and was now sitting in permanence, as perhaps necessary to prevent its taking an extreme and dangerous course; of the French as no longer deserving the pains men took for them, since they were a people old and without continuity or coherence;[27] of their leaders as poor creatures engaged on low plots; and of the damper which such a spectacle puts on ambition. Clearly the lesson of moderation which he inculcates is for the first time sincerely given. The preacher, according to his own judgment for the time being, is no Frenchman, no demagogue, nothing but a simple Corsican anxious to live far from the madness of mobs and the emptiness of so-called glory.

[Footnote 27: The rare and curious pamphlet entitled "Manuscrit de l'Ile d'Elbe," attributed to Montholon and probably published by Edward O'Meara, contains headings for ten chapters which were dictated by Napoleon at Elba on February twenty-second, 1815. The argument is: The Bourbons ascended the throne, in the person of Henry IV, by conquering the so-called Holy League against the Protestants, and by the consent of the people; a third dynasty thus followed the second; then came the republic, and its succession was legitimated by victory, by the will of the people, and by the recognition of all the powers of Europe. The republic made a new France by emancipating the Gauls from the rule of the Franks. The people had raised their leader to the imperial throne in order to consolidate their new interests: this was the fourth dynasty, etc., etc. The contemplated book was to work out in detail this very conception of a nation as passing through successive phases: at the close of each it is worn out, but a new rule regenerates it, throwing off the incrustations and giving room to the life within. It is interesting to note the genesis of Napoleon's ideas and the pertinacity with which he held them.]

It has been asserted that on the dreadful day of August tenth Buonaparte's assumed philosophy was laid aside, and that he was a mob leader at the barricades. His own account of the matter as given at St. Helena does not bear this out. "I felt," said he, "as if I should have defended the King if called to do so. I was opposed to those who would found the republic by means of the populace. Besides, I saw civilians attacking men in uniforms; that gave me a shock." He said further in his reminiscences that he viewed the entire scene from the windows of a furniture shop kept by Fauvelet de Bourrienne, brother of his old school friend. The impression left after reading his narrative of the frightful carnage before the Tuileries, of the indecencies committed by frenzied women at the close of the fight, of the mad excitement in the neighboring cafes, and of his own calmness throughout, is that he was in no way connected either with the actors or their deeds, except to shout, "Hurrah for the nation!" when summoned to do so by a gang of ruffians who were parading the streets under the banner of a gory head elevated on a pike.[28] The truth of his statements cannot be established by any collateral evidence.

[Footnote 28: Las Cases: Memorial de Sainte Helene, V, 170.]

It is not likely that an ardent radical leader like Buonaparte, well known and influential in the Rhone valley, had remained a stranger to the Marseilles deputation. If the Duchesse d'Abrantes be worthy of any credence, he was very influential, and displayed great activity with the authorities during the seventh and eighth, running hither, thither, everywhere, to secure redress for an illegal domiciliary visit which her mother, Mme. Permon, had received on the seventh. But her testimony is of very little value, such is her anxiety to establish an early intimacy with the great man of her time. Joseph, in his memoirs,[29] declares that his brother was present at the conflict of August tenth, and that Napoleon wrote him at the time, "If Louis XVI had appeared on horseback, he would have conquered." "After the victory of the Marseillais," continues the passage quoted from the letter, "I saw a man about to kill a soldier of the guard. I said to him, 'Southron, let us spare the unfortunate!' 'Art thou from the South?' 'Yes.' 'Well, then, we will spare him.'" Moreover, it is a fact that Santerre, the notorious leader of the mob on that day, was three years later, on the thirteenth of Vendemiaire, most useful to Buonaparte; that though degraded from the office of general to which he was appointed in the revolutionary army, he was in 1800 restored to his rank by the First Consul. All this is consistent with Napoleon's assertion, but it proves nothing conclusively; and there is certainly ground for suspicion when we reflect that these events were ultimately decisive of Buonaparte's fortunes.

[Footnote 29: Memoires du roi Joseph, I, 47.]

The Feuillant ministry fell with the King, and an executive council composed of radicals took its place. For one single day Paris reeled like a drunkard, but on the next the shops were open again. On the following Sunday the opera was packed at a benefit performance for the widows and orphans of those who had fallen in victory. A few days later Lafayette, as commander of the armies in the North, issued a pronunciamento against the popular excesses. He even arrested the commissioners of the Assembly who were sent to supplant him and take the ultimate direction of the campaign. But he quickly found that his old prestige was gone; he had not kept pace with the mad rush of popular opinion; neither in person nor as the sometime commander of the National Guard had he any longer the slightest influence. Impeached and declared an outlaw, he, like the King, lost his balance, and fled for refuge into the possessions of Liege. The Austrians violated the sanctuary of neutral territory, and captured him, exactly as Napoleon at a later day violated the neutrality of Baden in the case of the Duc d'Enghien. On August twenty-third the strong place of Longwy was delivered into the hands of the Prussians, the capitulation being due, as was claimed, to treachery among the French officers.



CHAPTER XIV.

Buonaparte the French Jacobin.

Reinstatement — Further Solicitation — Promotion — Napoleon and Elisa — Occupations in Paris — Return to Ajaccio — Disorders in Corsica — Buonaparte a French Jacobin — Expedition against Sardinia — Course of French Affairs — Paoli's Changed Attitude — Estrangement of Buonaparte and Paoli — Mischances in the Preparations against Sardinia — Failure of the French Detachment — Buonaparte and the Fiasco of the Corsican Detachment — His Commission Lapses — Further Developments in France — Results of French Victory — England's Policy — Paoli in Danger — Denounced and Summoned to Paris.

[Sidenote: 1792-93.]

The committee to which Buonaparte's request for reinstatement was referred made a report on June twenty-first, 1792, exonerating him from blame. The reasons given were avowedly based on the representations of the suppliant himself: first, that Duteil, the inspector, had given him permission to sail for Corsica in time to avoid the equinox, a distorted truth; and, second, that the Corsican authorities had certified to his civism, his good conduct, and his constant presence at home during his irregular absence from the army, a truthful statement, but incomplete, since no mention was made of the disgraceful Easter riots at Ajaccio and of Buonaparte's share in them. The attitude of the government is clearly expressed in a despatch of July eighth from the minister of war, Lajard, to Maillard, commander of the Ajaccio garrison. The misdeeds of Quenza and Buonaparte were of a civil and not a military nature, cognizable therefore under the new legislation only by ordinary courts, not by military tribunals. The uprisings, however, had been duly described to the commissioners by Peraldi: they state as their opinion that the deputy was ill-informed and that his judgment should not stand in the way of justice to M. de Buonaparte. On July tenth the minister of war adopted the committee's report, and this fact was announced in a letter addressed by him to Captain Buonaparte!

The situation is clearly depicted in a letter of August seventh from Napoleon to Joseph. Current events were so momentous as to overshadow personal considerations. Besides, there had been no military misdemeanor at Ajaccio and his reinstatement was sure. As things were, he would probably establish himself in France, Corsican as his inclinations were. Joseph must get himself made a deputy for Corsica to the Assembly, otherwise his role would be unimportant. He had been studying astronomy, a superb science, and with his knowledge of mathematics easy of acquisition. His book—the history, no doubt—was copied and ready, but this was no time for publication; besides, he no longer had the "petty ambition of an author." His family desired he should go to his regiment (as likewise did the military authorities at Paris), and thither he would go.

A formal report in his favor was drawn up on August twentieth. On the thirtieth he was completely reinstated, or rather his record was entirely sponged out and consigned, as was hoped, to oblivion; for his captain's commission was dated back to February sixth, 1792, the day on which his promotion would have occurred in due course if he had been present in full standing with his regiment. His arrears for that rank were to be paid in full. Such success was intoxicating. Monge, the great mathematician, had been his master at the military school in Paris, and was now minister of the navy. True to his nature, with the carelessness of an adventurer and the effrontery of a gambler, the newly fledged captain promptly put in an application for a position as lieutenant-colonel of artillery in the sea service. The authorities must have thought the petition a joke, for the paper was pigeonholed, and has been found marked S. R., that is, sans reponse—without reply. Probably it was written in earnest, the motive being possibly an invincible distaste for the regiment in which he had been disgraced, which was still in command of a colonel who was not disposed to leniency.

An easy excuse for shirking duty and returning to the old habits of a Corsican agitator was at hand. The events of August tenth settled the fate of all monarchical institutions, even those which were partly charitable. Among other royal foundations suppressed by the Assembly on August eighteenth was that of St. Cyr, formally styled the Establishment of St. Louis. The date fixed for closing was just subsequent to Buonaparte's promotion, and the pupils were then to be dismissed. Each beneficiary was to receive a mileage of one livre for every league she had to traverse. Three hundred and fifty-two was the sum due to Elisa. Some one must escort an unprotected girl on the long journey; no one was so suitable as her elder brother and natural protector. Accordingly, on September first, the brother and sister appeared before the proper authorities to apply for the traveling allowance of the latter. Whatever other accomplishments Mlle. de Buonaparte had learned at the school of St. Louis, she was still as deficient in writing and spelling as her brother. The formal requisitions written by both are still extant; they would infuriate any conscientious teacher in a primary school. Nor did they suffice: the school authorities demanded an order from both the city and department officials. It was by the kind intervention of the mayor that the red tape was cut; the money was paid on the next day, and that night the brother and the sister lodged in the Holland Patriots' Hotel in Paris, where they appear to have remained for a week.

This is the statement of an early biographer, and appears to be borne out by an autograph letter of Napoleon's, recently found, in which he says he left Paris on a date which, although the figure is blurred, seems to be the ninth.[30] Some days would be necessary for the new captain to procure a further leave of absence. Judging from subsequent events, it is possible that he was also seeking further acquaintance and favor with the influential Jacobins of Paris. During the days from the second to the seventh more than a thousand of the royalists confined in the prisons of Paris were massacred. It seems incredible that a man of Napoleon's temperament should have seen and known nothing of the riotous events connected with such bloodshed. Yet nowhere does he hint that he had any personal knowledge. It is possible that he left earlier than is generally supposed, but it is not likely in view of the known dates of his journey. In any case he did not seriously compromise himself, doing at the most nothing further than to make plans for the future. It may have become clear to him, for it was true and he behaved accordingly, that France was not yet ready for him, nor he for France.

[Footnote 30: Napoleon inconnu, II, 408.]

It is, moreover, a strong indication of Buonaparte's interest in the French Revolution being purely tentative that as soon as the desired leave was granted, probably in the second week of September, without waiting for the all-important fifteen hundred livres of arrears, now due him, but not paid until a month later, he and his sister set out for home. They traveled by diligence to Lyons, and thence by the Rhone to Marseilles. During the few hours' halt of the boat at Valence, Napoleon's friends, among them some of his creditors, who apparently bore him no grudge, waited on him with kindly manifestations of interest. His former landlady, Mme. Bou, although her bill had been but insignificantly diminished by payments on account, brought as her gift a basket of the fruit in which the neighborhood abounds at that season. The regiment was no longer there, the greater portion, with the colonel, being now on the northeastern frontier under Dumouriez, facing the victorious legions of Prussia and Austria. On the fourteenth the travelers were at Marseilles; in that friendly democratic city they were nearly mobbed as aristocrats because Elisa wore feathers in her hat. It is said that Napoleon flung the offending object into the crowd with a scornful "No more aristocrats than you," and so turned their howls into laughing approval. It was about a month before the arrears of pay reached Marseilles, two thousand nine hundred and fifty livres in all, a handsome sum of money and doubly welcome at such a crisis. It was probably October tenth when they sailed for Corsica, and on the seventeenth Buonaparte was once more in his home, no longer so confident, perhaps, of a career among his own people, but determined to make another effort. It was his fourth return. Lucien and Fesch were leaders in the radical club; Joseph was at his old post, his ambition to represent Ajaccio at Paris was again thwarted, the successful candidate having been Multedo, a family friend; Louis, as usual, was disengaged and idle; Mme. Buonaparte and the younger children were well; he himself was of course triumphantly vindicated by his promotion. The ready money from the fortune of the old archdeacon was long since exhausted, to be sure; but the excellent vineyards, mulberry plantations, and gardens of the family properties were still productive, and Napoleon's private purse had been replenished by the quartermaster of his regiment.

The course of affairs in France had materially changed the aspect of Corsican politics; the situation was, if anything, more favorable for a revolutionary venture than ever before. Salicetti had returned to Corsica after the adjournment of the Constituent Assembly with many new ideas which he had gathered from observing the conduct of the Paris commune, and these he unstintingly disseminated among his sympathizers. They proved to be apt scholars, and quickly caught the tricks of demagogism, bribery, corruption, and malversation of the public funds. He had returned to France before Buonaparte arrived, as a member of the newly elected legislature, but his evil influence survived his departure, and his lieutenants were ubiquitous and active. Paoli had been rendered helpless, and was sunk in despair. He was now commander-in-chief of the regular troops in garrison, but it was a position to which he had been appointed against his will, for it weakened his influence with his own party. Pozzo di Borgo, his stanch supporter and Buonaparte's enemy, was attorney-general in Salicetti's stead. As Paoli was at the same time general of the volunteer guard, the entire power of the islands, military and civil, was in his hands: but the responsibility for good order was likewise his, and the people were, if anything, more unruly than ever; for it was to their minds illogical that their idol should exercise such supreme power, not as a Corsican, but in the name of France. The composition of the two chief parties had therefore changed materially, and although their respective views were modified to a certain extent, they were more embittered than ever against each other.

Buonaparte could not be neutral; his nature and his surroundings forbade it. His first step was to resume his command in the volunteers, and, under pretext of inspecting their posts, to make a journey through the island; his second was to go through the form of seeking a reconciliation with Paoli. Corsican historians, in their eagerness to appropriate the greatness of both Paoli and Napoleon, habitually misrepresent their relations. At this time each was playing for his own hand, the elder exclusively for Corsica's advantage as he saw it; the younger was more ambitious personally, although he was beginning to see that in the course of the Revolution Corsica would secure more complete autonomy as a French department than in any other way. It is not at all clear that as late as this time Paoli was eager for Napoleon's assistance nor the latter for Paoli's support. The complete breach came soon and lasted until, when their views no longer clashed, they both spoke generously one of the other. In the clubs, among his friends and subordinates at the various military stations, Napoleon's talk was loud and imperious, his manner haughty and assuming. A letter written by him at the time to Costa, then lieutenant in the militia and a thorough Corsican, explains that the writer is detained from going to Bonifacio by an order from the general (Paoli) to come to Corte; he will, however, hasten to his post at the head of the volunteers on the very next day, and there will be an end to all disorder and irregularity. "Greet our friends, and assure them of my desire to further their interests." The epistle was written in Italian, but that fact signifies little in comparison with the new tone used in speaking about France: "The enemy has abandoned Verdun and Longwy, and recrossed the river to return home, but our people are not asleep." Lucien added a postscript explaining that he had sent a pamphlet to his dear Costa, as to a friend, not as to a co-worker, for that he had been unwilling to be. Both the brothers seem already to have considered the possibility of abandoning Corsica.

No sooner had war been declared against Austria in April, than it became evident that the powers whose territories bordered on those of France had previously reached an agreement, and were about to form a coalition in order to make the war general. The Austrian Netherlands, what we now know as Belgium, were already saturated with the revolutionary spirit. It was not probable that much annoyance would come from that quarter. Spain, Prussia, and Holland would, however, surely join the alliance; and if the Italian principalities, with the kingdom of Sardinia, should take the same course, France would be in dire straits. It was therefore suggested in the Assembly that a blow should be struck at the house of Savoy, in order to awe both that and the other courts of Italy into inactivity. The idea of an attack on Sardinia for this purpose originated in Corsica, but among the friends of Salicetti, and it was he who urged the scheme successfully. The sister island was represented as eager to free itself from the control of Savoy. In order to secure Paoli's influence not only in his own island, but in Sardinia, where he was likewise well known and admired, the ministers forced upon him the unwelcome appointment of lieutenant-general in the regular army, and his friend Peraldi was sent to prepare a fleet at Toulon.

The events of August tenth put an end for the time being to constitutional government in France. The commissioners of the Paris sections supplanted the municipal council, and Danton, climbing to power as the representative "plain man," became momentarily the presiding genius of the new Jacobin commune, which was soon able to usurp the supreme control of France. A call was issued for the election by manhood suffrage of a National Convention, and a committee of surveillance was appointed with the bloodthirsty Marat as its motive power. At the instigation of this committee large numbers of royalists, constitutionalists, and others suspected of holding kindred doctrines, were thrown into prison. The Assembly went through the form of confirming the new despotism, including both the commune of the sections and a Jacobin ministry in which Danton held the portfolio of justice. It then dispersed. On September second began that general clearance of the jails under mock forms of justice to which reference has been made. It was really a massacre, and lasted, as has been said, for five days. Versailles, Lyons, Meaux, Rheims, and Orleans were similarly "purified." Amid these scenes the immaculate Robespierre, whose hands were not soiled with the blood spilled on August tenth, appeared as the calm statesman controlling the wild vagaries of the rough and impulsive but unselfish and uncalculating Danton. These two, with Philip Egalite and Collot d'Herbois, were among those elected to represent Paris in the Convention. That body met on September twenty-first. As they sat in the amphitheater of the Assembly, the Girondists, or moderate republicans, who were in a strong majority, were on the right of the president's chair. High up on the extreme left were the Jacobins, or "Mountain"; between were placed those timid trimmers who were called the "Plain" and the "Marsh" according to the degree of their democratic sentiments. The members were, of course, without exception republicans. The first act of the Convention was to abolish the monarchy, and to declare France a republic. The next was to establish an executive council. It was decreed that September twenty-second, 1792, was the "first day of the year I of the republic." Under the leadership of Brissot and Roland, the Girondists asserted their power as the majority, endeavoring to restore order in Paris, and to bridle the extreme Jacobins. But notwithstanding its right views and its numbers, the Girondist party displayed no sagacity; before the year I was three months old, the unscrupulous Jacobins, with the aid of the Paris commune, had reasserted their supremacy.

The declaration of the republic only hastened the execution of Salicetti's plan regarding Sardinia, and the Convention was more energetic than the Legislative had been. The fleet was made ready, troops from France were to be embarked at Villefranche, and a force composed in part of regulars, in part of militia, was to be equipped in Corsica and to sail thence to join the main expedition. Buonaparte's old battalion was among those that were selected from the Corsican volunteers. From the outset Paoli had been unfriendly to the scheme; its supporters, whose zeal far outran their means, were not his friends. Nevertheless, he was in supreme command of both regulars and volunteers, and the government having authorized the expedition, the necessary orders had to be issued through him as the only channel of authority. Buonaparte's reappearance among his men had been of course irregular. Being now a captain of artillery in the Fourth Regiment, on active service and in the receipt of full pay, he could no longer legally be a lieutenant-colonel of volunteers, a position which had also been made one of emolument. But he was not a man to stand on slight formalities, and had evidently determined to seize both horns of the dilemma.

Paoli, as a French official, of course could not listen for an instant to such a preposterous notion. But as a patriot anxious to keep all the influence he could, and as a family friend of the Buonapartes, he was unwilling to order the young captain back to his post in France, as he might well have done. The interview between the two men at Corte was, therefore, indecisive. The older was benignant but firm in refusing his formal consent; the younger pretended to be indignant that he could not secure his rights: it is said that he even threatened to denounce in Paris the anti-nationalist attitude of his former hero. So it happened that Buonaparte returned to Ajaccio with a permissive authorization, and, welcomed by his men, assumed a command to which he could have no claim, while Paoli shut his eyes to an act of flagrant insubordination. Paoli saw that Buonaparte was irrevocably committed to revolutionary France; Buonaparte was convinced, or pretended to be, that Paoli was again leaning toward an English protectorate. French imperialist writers hint without the slightest basis of proof that both Paoli and Pozzo di Borgo were in the pay of England. Many have believed, in the same gratuitous manner, that there was a plot among members of the French party to give Buonaparte the chance, by means of the Sardinian expedition, to seize the chief command at least of the Corsican troops, and thus eventually to supplant Paoli. If this conjecture be true, Paoli either knew nothing of the conspiracy, or behaved as he did because his own plans were not yet ripe. The drama of his own personal perplexities, cross-purposes, and ever false positions, was rapidly moving to an end; the logic of events was too strong for the upright but perplexed old patriot, and a scene or two would soon complete the final act of his public career.

The plan for invading Sardinia was over-complex and too nicely adjusted. One portion of the fleet was to skirt the Italian shores, make demonstrations in the various harbors, and demand in one of them—that of Naples—public reparation for an insult already offered to the new French flag, which displayed the three colors of liberty. The other portion was first to embark the Corsican guards and French troops at Ajaccio, then to unite with the former in the Bay of Palma, whence both were to proceed against Cagliari. But the French soldiers to be taken from the Army of the Var under General Anselme were in fact non-existent; the only military force to be found was a portion of the Marseilles national guard—mere boys, unequipped, untrained, and inexperienced. Winds and waves, too, were adverse: two of the vessels were wrecked, and one was disabled. The rest were badly demoralized, and their crews became unruly. On the arrival of the ships at Ajaccio, a party of roistering sailors went ashore, affiliated immediately with the French soldiers of the garrison, and in the rough horse-play of such occasions picked a quarrel with certain of the Corsican militia, killing two of their number. The character of the islanders showed itself at once in further violence and the fiercest threats. The tumult was finally allayed, but it was perfectly clear that for Corsicans and Marseillais to be embarked on the same vessel was to invite mutiny, riot, and bloodshed.

Buonaparte thought he saw his way to an independent command, and at once proposed what was manifestly the only alternative—a separate Corsican expedition. The French fleet accordingly embarked the garrison troops, and proceeded on its way; the Corsicans remained ashore, and Buonaparte with them. Scenes like that at Ajaccio were repeated in the harbor of St. Florent, and the attack on Cagliari by the French failed, partly, as might be supposed, from the poor equipment of the fleet and the wretched quality of the men, partly because the two flotillas, or what was left of them, failed to effect a junction at the appointed place and time. When they did unite, it was February fourteenth, 1793; the men were ill fed and mutinous; the troops that landed to storm the place fell into a panic, and would actually have surrendered if the officers had not quickly reembarked them. The costly enterprise met with but a single success: Naples was cowed, and the court promised neutrality, with reparation for the insult to the tricolor.

The Corsican expedition was quite as ill-starred as the French. Paoli accepted Buonaparte's plan, but appointed his nephew, Colonna-Cesari, to lead, with instructions to see that, if possible, "this unfortunate expedition shall end in smoke."[31] The disappointed but stubborn young aspirant remained in his subordinate place as an officer of the second battalion of the Corsican national guard. It was a month before the volunteers could be equipped and a French corvette with her attendant feluccas could be made ready to sail. On February twentieth, 1793, the vessels were finally armed, manned, and provisioned. The destination of the flotilla was the Magdalena Islands, one of which is Caprera, since renowned as the home of Garibaldi. The troops embarked and put to sea. Almost at once the wind fell; there was a two days' calm, and the ships reached their destination with diminished supplies and dispirited crews. The first attack, made on St. Stephen, was successful. Buonaparte and his guns were then landed on that spot to bombard, across a narrow strait, Magdalena, the chief town on the main island. The enemy's fire was soon silenced, and nothing remained but for the corvette to work slowly round the intervening island of Caprera, and take possession. The vessel had suffered slightly from the enemy's fire, two of her crew having been killed. On the pretense that a mutiny was imminent, Colonna-Cesari declared that cooeperation between the sloop and the shore batteries was no longer possible; the artillery and their commander were reembarked only with the utmost difficulty; the unlucky expedition returned on February twenty-seventh to Bonifacio.

[Footnote 31: Reported by Arrighi and Renucci and given in Napoleon inconnu, II, 418.]

Both Buonaparte and Quenza were enraged with Paoli's nephew, declaring him to have acted traitorously. It is significant of the utter anarchy then prevailing that nobody was punished for the disgraceful fiasco. Buonaparte, on landing, at once bade farewell to his volunteers. He reported to the war ministry in Paris—and a copy of the memorial was sent to Paoli as responsible for his nephew—that the Corsican volunteers had been destitute of food, clothing, and munitions; but that nevertheless their gallantry had overcome all difficulties, and that in the hour of victory they were abased by the shameful conduct of their comrades. He must have expressed himself freely, for he was mobbed by the sailors in the square of Bonifacio. The men from Bocagnano, partly from the Buonaparte estates at that place, rescued him from serious danger.[32] When he entered Ajaccio, on March third, he found that he was no longer, even by assumption, a lieutenant-colonel; for during his short absence the whole Corsican guard had been disbanded to make way for two battalions of light infantry whose officers were to be appointed by the directory of the island.

[Footnote 32: For the original of this protest see Napoleon inconnu, II, 439.]

Strange news now greeted his ears. Much of what had occurred since his departure from Paris he already knew. France having destroyed root and branch the tyranny of feudal privileges, the whole social edifice was slack in every joint, and there was no strong hand to tighten the bolts; for the King, in dallying with foreign courts, had virtually deserted his people. The monarchy had therefore fallen, but not until its friends had resorted to the expedient of a foreign war as a prop to its fortunes. The early victories won by Austria and Prussia had stung the nation to madness. Robespierre and Danton having become dictators, all moderate policy was eclipsed. The executive council of the Convention, determined to appease the nation, gathered their strength in one vigorous effort, and put three great armies in the field. On November sixth, 1792, to the amazement of the world, Dumouriez won the battle of Jemmapes, thus conquering the Austrian Netherlands as far north as Liege.

The Scheldt, which had been closed since 1648 through the influence of England and Holland, was reopened, trade resumed its natural channel, and, in the exuberance of popular joy, measures were taken for the immediate establishment of a Belgian republic. The other two armies, under Custine and Kellermann, were less successful. The former, having occupied Frankfort, was driven back to the Rhine; the latter defeated the Allies at Valmy, but failed in the task of coming to Custine's support at the proper moment for combined action. Meantime the agitation in Paris had taken the form of personal animosity to "Louis Capet," as the leaders of the disordered populace called the King. In November he was summoned to the bar of the Convention and questioned. When it came to the consideration of an actual trial, the Girondists, willing to save the prisoner's life, claimed that the Convention had no jurisdiction, and must appeal to the sovereign people for authorization. The Jacobins insisted on the sovereign power of the Convention, Robespierre protesting in the name of the people against an appeal to the people. Supported by the noisy outcries not only of the Parisian populace, but of their followers elsewhere, the radicals prevailed. By a vote of three hundred and sixty-six to three hundred and fifty-five the verdict of death was pronounced on January seventeenth, 1793, and four days later the sentence was executed. This act was a defiance to all monarchs, or, in other words, to all Europe.

The younger Pitt was at this juncture prime minister of England. Like the majority of his countrymen, he had mildly approved the course of the French Revolution down to 1789; with them, in the same way, his opinions had since that time undergone a change. By the aid of Burke's biased but masterful eloquence the English people were gradually convinced that Jacobinism, violence, and crime were the essence of the movement, constitutional reform but a specious pretext. Between 1789 and 1792 there was a rising tide of adverse public sentiment so swift and strong that Pitt was unable to follow it. By the execution of Louis the English moderates were silenced; the news was received with a cry of horror, and the nation demanded war. Were kings' heads to fall, and republican ideas, supported by republican armies, to spread like a conflagration? The still monarchical liberals of England could give no answer to the case of Louis or to the instance of Belgium, and were stunned. The English anti-Jacobins became as fanatical as the French Jacobins. Pitt could not resist the torrent. Yet in his extreme necessity he saw his chance for a double stroke: to throw the blame for the war on France, and to consolidate once more his nearly vanished power in parliament. With masterly adroitness France was tempted into a declaration of war against England. Enthusiasm raged in Paris like fire among dry stubble. France, if so it must be, against the world! Liberty and equality her religion! The land a camp! The entire people an army! Three hundred thousand men to be selected, equipped, and drilled at once!

Nothing indicates that Buonaparte was in any way moved by the terrible massacres of September, or even by the news of the King's unmerited fate. But the declaration of war was a novelty which must have deeply interested him; for what was Paoli now to do? From gratitude to England he had repeatedly and earnestly declared that he could never take up arms against her. He was already a lieutenant-general in the service of her enemy, his division was assigned to the feeble and disorganized Army of Italy, which was nominally being equipped for active service, and the leadership, so ran the news received at Ajaccio, had been conferred on the Corsican director. The fact was that the radicals of the Convention had long been aware of the old patriot's devotion to constitutional monarchy, and now saw their way to be rid of so dangerous a foe. Three successive commanders of that army had already found disgrace in their attempts with inadequate means to dislodge the Sardinian troops from the mountain passes of the Maritime Alps. Mindful, therefore, of their fate, and of his obligations to England, Paoli firmly refused the proffered honor. Suspicion as to the existence of an English party in the island had early been awakened among the members of the Mountain; for half the Corsican delegation to the Convention had opposed the sentence passed on the King, and Salicetti was the only member who voted in the affirmative. When the ill-starred Sardinian expedition reached Toulon, the blame of failure was laid by the Jacobins on Paoli's shoulders.

Salicetti, who was now a real power among the leaders at Paris, felt that he must hasten to his department in order to forestall events, if possible, and keep together the remnants of sympathy with France; he was appointed one of a commission to enforce in the island the decrees of the Convention. The commission was well received and the feeling against France was being rapidly allayed when, most unexpectedly, fatal news arrived from Paris. In the preceding November Lucien Buonaparte had made the acquaintance in Ajaccio of Huguet de Semonville, who was on his way to Constantinople as a special envoy of the provisory council then in charge of the Paris administration. In all probability he was sent to test Paoli's attitude. Versatile and insinuating, he displayed great activity among the islanders. On one occasion he addressed the radical club of Ajaccio—but though eloquent, he was no linguist, and his French rhetoric would have fallen flat but for the fervid zeal of Lucien, who at the close stood in his place and rendered the ambassador's speech in Italian to an enthralled audience. This event among others showed the younger brother's mettle; the intimacy thus inaugurated ripened quickly and endured for long. The ambassador was recalled to the mainland on February second, 1793, and took his new-found friend with him as secretary or useful man. Both were firm Jacobins, and the master having failed in making any impression on Paoli during his Corsican sojourn, the man, as the facts stand, took a mean revenge by denouncing the lieutenant-general as a traitor before a political meeting in Toulon. Lucien's friends have thought the words unstudied and unpremeditated, uttered in the heat of unripe oratory. This may be, but he expressed no repentance and the responsibility rests upon his memory. As a result of the denunciation an address calumniating the Corsican leader in the most excited terms was sent by the Toulon Jacobins to the deputy of the department in Paris. Of all this Napoleon knew nothing: he and Lucien were slightly alienated because the latter thought his brother but a lukewarm revolutionary. The news of the defection of Dumouriez had just arrived at the capital, public opinion was inflamed, and on April second Paoli, who seemed likely to be a second Dumouriez, was summoned to appear before the Convention. For a moment he became again the most popular man in Corsica. He had always retained many warm personal friends even among the radicals; the royalists were now forever alienated from a government which had killed their king; the church could no longer expect protection when impious men were in power. These three elements united immediately with the Paolists to protest against the arbitrary act of the Convention. Even in that land of confusion there was a degree of chaos hitherto unequaled.



CHAPTER XV.

A Jacobin Hegira.

The Waning of Corsican Patriotism — Rise of French Radicalism — Alliance with Salicetti — Another Scheme for Leadership — Failure to Seize the Citadel of Ajaccio — Second Plan — Paoli's Attitude Toward the Convention — Buonaparte Finally Discredited in Corsica — Paoli Turns to England — Plans of the Buonaparte Family — Their Arrival in Toulon — Napoleon's Character — His Corsican Career — Lessons of His Failures — His Ability, Situation, and Experience.