Читать книгу The History of Napoleon Buonaparte - J. G. Lockhart - Страница 26

Napoleon was received by the ministers assembled at Rastadt with the respect due to the extraordinary talents which he had already displayed in negotiation as well as in war. But he stayed among them only two or three days, for he perceived that the multiplicity of minor arrangements to be discussed and settled, must, if he seriously entered upon them, involve the necessity of a long-protracted residence at Rastadt; and he had many reasons for desiring to be quickly in Paris. His personal relations with the Directory were of a very doubtful kind, and he earnestly wished to study with his own eyes the position in which the government stood towards the various orders of society in the all-influential capital. He abandoned the conduct of the diplomatic business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at the beginning of December. Nor was he without a feasible pretext for this rapidity. On the 2nd of October, the Directory had announced to the French people their purpose to carry the war with the English into England itself; the immediate organisation of a great invading army; and their design to place it under the command of "Citizen General Buonaparte."

During his brief stay at Rastadt the dictator of Campo-Formio once more broke out. The Swedish envoy was Count Fersen, the same nobleman who had distinguished himself in Paris, during the early period of the Revolution, by his devotion to King Louis and Marie-Antoinette. Buonaparte refused peremptorily to enter into any negotiation in which a man, so well known for his hostility to the cause of the Republic, should have any part; and Fersen instantly withdrew.

On quitting this congress Napoleon was careful to resume, in every particular, the appearance of a private citizen. Reaching Paris, he took up his residence in the same small modest house that he had occupied before he set out for Italy, in the Rue Chantereine, which, about this time, in compliment to its illustrious inhabitant, received from the municipality the new name of Rue de la Victoire. Here he resumed with his plain clothes his favourite studies and pursuits, and, apparently contented with the society of his private friends, seemed to avoid, as carefully as others in his situation might have courted, the honours of popular distinction and applause. It was not immediately known that he was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person was rarely recognised by the multitude. His mode of life was necessarily somewhat different from what it had been when he was both poor and obscure; his society was courted in the highest circles, and he from time to time appeared in them, and received company at home with the elegance of hospitality over which Josephine was so well qualified to preside. But policy as well as pride moved him to shun notoriety. Before he could act again, he had much to observe; and he knew himself too well to be flattered by the stare either of mobs or of saloons. "They have memories for nothing here"—he said at this time to his secretary—"if I remain long without doing anything, I am done. Fame chases fame in this great Babylon. If they had seen me three times at the spectacle, they would no longer look at me." Another day Bourienne could not help congratulating him on some noisy demonstration of popular favour. "Bah!" he answered, "they would rush as eagerly about me if I were on my way to the scaffold."

In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, for the most part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his manners. He had the appearance of one too much occupied with serious designs, to be able to relax at will into the easy play of ordinary conversation. If his eye was on every man, he well knew that every man's eye was upon him; nor, perhaps, could he have chosen a better method (had that been his sole object) for prolonging and strengthening the impression his greatness was calculated to create, than this very exhibition of indifference. He did not suffer his person to be familiarised out of reverence. When he did appear, it was not the ball or bon mot of the evening before, that he recalled:—he was still, wherever he went, the Buonaparte of Lodi, and Arcola, and Rivoli. His military bluntness disdained to disguise itself amidst those circles where a meaner parvenu would have been most ambitious to shine. The celebrated daughter of Necker made many efforts to catch his fancy and enlist him among the votaries of her wit, which then gave law in Paris. "Whom," said she, half wearied with his chillness, "do you consider as the greatest of women?" "Her, madam," he answered, "who has borne the greatest number of children." From this hour he had Madame de Staël for his enemy; and yet, such are the inconsistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive than he to the assaults of a species of enemy whom he thus scorned to conciliate. Throughout his Italian campaigns—as consul—as emperor—and down to the last hour of the exile which terminated his life—Buonaparte suffered himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly as if he had been a poetaster.

The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behaviour in the society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already manifested in the camp. In the course of his first campaigns, his officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a total change of demeanour. An old acquaintance of the Toulon period, joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general's arms with the warmth of the former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked him; and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with his elevation. He had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the common soldiery. He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to taste the flask of a sentinel; and the French private, often as intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, used to address the great general with even more frankness than his own captain. Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, mentions to the Directory the pleasure which he often derived from the conversation of the men: "But yesterday," says he, "a common trooper addressed me as I was riding, and told me he thought he could suggest the movement which ought to be adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations on which I had actually resolved but a little before." It has been noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the same tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, who had served him in the days of his obscurity.[21]

If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this time laboured under intense anxiety of mind. Conscious of the daring heights to which he had ere now accustomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that others had divined his secret, and was haunted with the perpetual dread that some accident might unite Royalists and Republicans in the work of his personal ruin.

The first public appearance of Buonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798) when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the Directory. The great court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags; an immense concourse, including all the members of the government and of the two legislative bodies, expected the victorious negotiator; and when he appeared, followed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the trophies of his glorious campaign, the enthusiasm of the mighty multitude, to the far greater part of which his person was, up to the moment, entirely unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the already jealous hearts of the directors with dark presentiments. They well knew that the soldiery, returning from Italy, had sung and said through every village that it was high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make the "little corporal" king. With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed too like an echo of this cry, from the assembled leaders of opinion in Paris and in France. Anxious curiosity and mutual distrust were written in every face. The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been achieved to the zeal of the French soldiery—for "the glorious constitution of the year THREE"—the same glorious constitution which, in the year eight, was to receive the coup de grace from his own hand; and Barras, as presiding director, answering, that "Nature had exhausted all her powers in the creation of a Buonaparte," awoke a new thunder of unwelcome applauses.

Carnot had been exiled after the 18th Fructidor, and was at this time actually believed to be dead. The institute nominated Buonaparte to fill his place; and he was received by this learned body with enthusiasm not inferior to that of the Luxembourg. He thenceforth adopted, on all public occasions, the costume of this academy; and, laying aside as far as was possible, the insignia of his military rank, seemed to desire only the distinction of being classed with those whose scientific attainments had done honour to their country. In all this he acted on calculation. "I well knew," said he at St. Helena, "that there was not a drummer in the army, but would respect me the more for believing me to be not a mere soldier."

Some time before he left Italy, a motion had been made in one of the chambers for rewarding him with a grant of the estate of Chambord, and lost owing solely to the jealousy of the Directory. This opposition was on their part unjust and unwise, and extremely unpopular also; for it was known to all men that the general might easily have enriched himself during his wonderful campaigns, and it was almost as generally believed that he had brought with him to the Rue de la Victoire only 100,000 crowns, saved from the fair allowances of his rank. No one who considers the long series of intrigues which had passed between Buonaparte and the party that triumphed in Fructidor, can doubt how he regarded this part of their conduct. Every day confirmed them in their jealousy; nor did he take much pains on the other hand to conceal his feelings towards them. On many occasions they were willing to make use of him, although they dreaded in so doing to furnish him with new proofs of the vast superiority which he had reached in public opinion above themselves; and he was, on his part, chary of acceding to any of their proposals.

On the 21st of January, the anniversary of the death of Louis XVI. was to be celebrated, according to custom, as a great festival of the Republican calendar; and, conscious how distasteful the observance had by this time become to all persons capable of reflection, the government would fain have diverted attention from themselves, by assigning a prominent part in the ceremonial to him, on whom, as they knew, all eyes were sure to be fixed whenever he made his appearance. Napoleon penetrated their motives. He remonstrated against the ceremony altogether, as perpetuating the memory of a deed, perhaps unavoidable, but not the less to be regretted. He told them that it was unworthy of a great Republic to triumph, year after year, in the shedding of an individual enemy's blood. They answered by reminding him that the Athenians and Romans of old recorded, in similar festivals, the downfall of the Pisistratidæ and the exile of the Tarquins. He might have replied, that it is easier for a nation to renounce Christianity in name, than to obliterate altogether the traces of its humanising influence. But this view did not as yet occur to Napoleon—or if it had, could not have been promulgated to their conviction. He stood on the impolicy of the barbarous ceremony; and was at length, with difficulty, persuaded to appear in it as a private member of the institute, along with the rest of that association. His refusal to be there as the great general of the Republic annoyed the timid Directory; and yet, on his being recognised in his civic dress, and pointed out to new myriads of observers, the effect which the government had desired to produce was brought about in spite of all Buonaparte's reluctance. The purpose of the assemblage was almost forgotten: the clamours of the people converted it into another fête for Napoleon.

It has already been said that as early as October, 1797, the Directory announced their intention of committing an army, destined for the invasion of England, to the conqueror of Italy. He wholly disapproved of their rashness in breaking off the negotiations of the preceding summer with the English envoy, Lord Malmesbury, and, above all, of the insolent abruptness of that procedure.[22] But the die was cast; and he willingly accepted the appointment now pressed upon him by the government, who, in truth, were anxious about nothing so much as to occupy his mind with the matters of his profession, and so prevent him from taking a prominent part in the civil business of the state. Solely owing to his celebrity two of his brothers were already distinguished members of the legislative bodies; and there could be no doubt that the gates of either would fly open for his own admission, if he chose it, on the next election.

Whatever views of ulterior ambition might have opened themselves to Napoleon at this period, he well knew that the hour was not yet come, in which he could serve his purpose better than by the pursuit of his military career. According to De Bourienne, he had for some time flattered himself that the law, which prevented a person so young as he from being a director, might be waived in his favour; not doubting, we may conclude, that such colleagues as Barras and Rewbell would soon sink into the mere ministers of his will: but the opposition to this scheme was so determined that it was never permitted to be proposed openly. The Directory were popular with no party; but there were many parties; and, numerically, probably the royalists were the strongest. The pure republicans were still powerful: the army of Italy was distant and scattered; that of the Rhine, far more numerous, and equally well disciplined, had its own generals—men not yet in reputation immeasurably inferior to himself; and, having been less fortunate than their brethren in Italy, and consequently acquired less wealth, it was no wonder that the soldiery of the Rhine regarded the others, if not their leader, with some little jealousy. In Napoleon's own language, "the pear was not yet ripe."