Читать книгу The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4) - William Milligan Sloane - Страница 25

Table of Contents

Signs of Maturity—The Mission to Genoa—Course of the French Republic—The "Terror"—Thermidor—Buonaparte a Scapegoat—His Prescience—Adventures of His Brothers—Napoleon's Defense of His French Patriotism—Bloodshedding for Amusement—New Expedition Against Corsica—Buonaparte's Advice for Its Conduct.

1794.

Buonaparte's plan for combining operations against both Genoa and Sardinia was at first hazy. In his earliest efforts to expand and clarify it, he wrote a rambling document, still in existence, which draws a contrast between the opposite policies to be adopted with reference to Italy and Spain. In it he also calls attention to the scarcity of officers suitable for concerted action in a great enterprise, and a remark concerning the course to be pursued in this particular case contains the germ of his whole military system. "Combine your forces in a war, as in a siege, on one point. The breach once made, equilibrium is destroyed, everything else is useless, and the place is taken. Do not conceal, but concentrate, your attack." In the matter of politics he sees Germany as the main prop of opposition to democracy; Spain is to be dealt with on the defensive, Italy on the offensive. But, contrary to what he actually did in the following year, he advises against proceeding too far into Piedmont, lest the adversary should gain the advantage of position. This paper Robespierre the younger had in his pocket when he left for Paris, summoned to aid his brother in difficulties which were now pressing fast upon him.

Ricord was left behind to direct, at least nominally, the movements both of the armies and of the embassy to Genoa. Buonaparte continued to be the real power. Military operations having been suspended to await the result of diplomacy, his instructions from Ricord were drawn so as to be loose and merely formal. On July eleventh he started from Nice, reaching his destination three days later. During the week of his stay—for he left again on the twenty-first—the envoy made his representations, and laid down his ultimatum that the republic of Genoa should preserve absolute neutrality, neither permitting troops to pass over its territories, nor lending aid in the construction of military roads, as she was charged with doing secretly. His success in overawing the oligarchy was complete, and a written promise of compliance to these demands was made by the Doge. Buonaparte arrived again in Nice on the twenty-eighth. We may imagine that as he traveled the romantic road between the mountains and the sea, the rising general and diplomat indulged in many rosy dreams, probably feeling already on his shoulders the insignia of a commander-in-chief. But he was returning to disgrace, if not to destruction. A week after his arrival came the stupefying news that the hour-glass had once again been reversed, that on the very day of his own exultant return to Nice, Robespierre's head had fallen, that the Mountain was shattered, and that the land was again staggering to gain its balance after another political earthquake.

The shock had been awful, but it was directly traceable to the accumulated disorders of Jacobin rule. A rude and vigorous but eerie order of things had been inaugurated on November twenty-fourth, 1793, by the so-called republic. There was first the new calendar, in which the year I began on September twenty-second, 1792, the day on which the republic had been proclaimed. In it were the twelve thirty-day months, with their names of vintage, fog, and frost; of snow, rain, and wind; of bud, flower, and meadow; of seed, heat, and harvest: the whole terminated most unpoetically by the five or six supplementary days named sansculot-tides—sansculottes meaning without knee-breeches, a garment confined to the upper classes; that is, with long trousers like the common people—and these days were so named because they were to be a holiday for the long-trousered populace which was to use the new reckoning. There was next the new, strange, and unhallowed spectacle, seen in history for the first time, the realization of a nightmare—a whole people finally turned into an army, and at war with nearly all the world. The reforming Girondists had created the situation, and the Jacobins, with grim humor, were unflinchingly facing the logical consequences of such audacity. Carnot had given the watchword of attack in mass and with superior numbers; the times gave the frenzied courage of sentimental exaltation. Before the end of 1793 the foreign enemies of France, though not conquered, had been checked on the frontier; the outbreak of civil war in Vendée had been temporarily suppressed; both Lyons and Toulon had been retaken.

Robespierre, St. Just, Couthon, and Billaud-Varennes were theorists after the manner of Rousseau. Their new gospel of social regeneration embraced democracy, civic virtue, moral institutions, and public festivals. These were their shibboleths and catch-words. Incidentally they extolled paternalism in government, general conscription, compulsory military service, and, on the very eve of the greatest industrial revival known to history, a return to agricultural society! The sanction of all this was not moral suasion: essential to the system was Spartan simplicity and severity, compulsion was the means to their utopia.[40] The Jacobins were nothing if not thorough; and here was another new and awful thing—the "Terror"—which had broken loose with its foul furies of party against party through all the land. It seemed at last as if it were exhausting itself, though for a time it had grown in intensity as it spread in extent. It had created three factions in the Mountain. Early in 1794 there remained but a little handful of avowed and still eager terrorists in the Convention—Hébert and his friends. These were the atheists who had abolished religion and the past, bowing down before the fetish which they dubbed Reason. They were seized and put to death on March twenty-fourth. There then remained the cliques of Danton and Robespierre; the former claiming the name of moderates, and telling men to be calm, the latter with no principle but devotion to a person who claimed to be the regenerator of society. These hero-worshipers were for a time victorious. Danton, like Hébert, was foully murdered, and Robespierre remained alone, virtually dictator. But his theatrical conduct in decreeing by law the existence of a Supreme Being and the immortality of the soul, and in organizing tawdry festivals to supply the place of worship, utterly embittered against him both atheists and pious people. In disappointed rage at his failure, he laid aside the characters of prophet and mild saint to give vent to his natural wickedness and to become a devil.

During the long days of June and July there raged again a carnival of blood, known to history as the "Great Terror." In less than seven weeks upward of twelve hundred victims were immolated. The unbridled license of the guillotine broadened as it ran. First the aristocrats had fallen, then royalty, then their sympathizers, then the hated rich, then the merely well-to-do, and lastly anybody not cringing to existing power. The reaction against Robespierre was one of universal fear. Its inception was the work of Tallien, Fouché, Barras, Carrier, Fréron, and the like, men of vile character, who knew that if Robespierre could maintain his pose of the "Incorruptible" their doom was sealed. In this sense Robespierre was what Napoleon called him at St. Helena, "the scapegoat of the Revolution." The uprising of these accomplices was, however, the opportunity long desired by the better elements in Parisian society, and the two antipodal classes made common cause. Dictator as Robespierre wished to be, he was formed of other stuff, for when the reckoning came his brutal violence was cowed. On July twenty-seventh (the ninth of Thermidor), the Convention turned on him in rebellion, extreme radicals and moderate conservatives combining for the effort. Terrible scenes were enacted. The sections of Paris were divided, some for the Convention, some for Robespierre. The artillerymen who were ordered by the latter to batter down the part of the Tuileries where his enemies were sitting hesitated and disobeyed; at once all resistance to the decrees of the Convention died out. The dictator would have been his own executioner, but his faltering terrors stopped him midway in his half-committed suicide. He and his brother, with their friends, were seized, and beheaded on the morrow. With the downfall of Robespierre went the last vestige of social or political authority; for the Convention was no longer trusted by the nation—the only organized power with popular support which was left was the army.

This was the news which, traveling southward, finally reached Toulon, Marseilles, and Nice, cities where Robespierre's stanchest adherents were flaunting their newly gained importance. No wonder if the brains of common men reeled. The recent so-called parties had disappeared for the moment like wraiths. The victorious group in the Convention, now known as the Thermidorians, was compounded of elements from them both, and claimed to represent the whole of France as the wretched factions who had so long controlled the government had never done. Where now should those who had been active supporters of the late administration turn for refuge? The Corsicans who had escaped from the island at the same time with Salicetti and the Buonapartes were nearly all with the Army of Italy. Employment had been given to them, but, having failed to keep Corsica for France, they were not in favor. It had already been remarked in the Committee of Public Safety that their patriotism was less manifest than their disposition to enrich themselves. This too was the opinion of many among their own countrymen, especially of their own partisans shut up in Bastia or Calvi and deserted. Salicetti, ever ready for emergencies, was not disconcerted by this one; and with adroit baseness turned informer, denouncing as a suspicious schemer his former protégé and lieutenant, of whose budding greatness he was now well aware. He was apparently both jealous and alarmed. Possibly, however, the whole procedure was a ruse; in the critical juncture the apparent traitor was by this conduct able efficiently to succor and save his compatriot.

Buonaparte's mission to Genoa had been openly political; secretly it was also a military reconnaissance, and his confidential instructions, virtually dictated by himself, had unfortunately leaked out. They had directed him to examine the fortifications in and about both Savona and Genoa, to investigate the state of the Genoese artillery, to inform himself as to the behavior of the French envoy to the republic, to learn as much as possible of the intentions of the oligarchy—in short, to gather all information useful for the conduct of a war "the result of which it is impossible to foresee." Buonaparte, knowing now that he had trodden dangerous ground in his unauthorized and secret dealings with the younger Robespierre, and probably foreseeing the coming storm, began to shorten sail immediately upon reaching Nice. Either he was prescient and felt the new influences in the air, or else a letter now in the war office at Paris, and purporting to have been written on August seventh to Tilly, the French agent at Genoa, is an antedated fabrication written later for Salicetti's use.[41] Speaking, in this paper, of Robespierre the younger, he said: "I was a little touched by the catastrophe, for I loved him and thought him spotless. But were it my own father, I would stab him to the heart if he aspired to become a tyrant." If the letter be genuine, as is probable, the writer was very far-sighted. He knew that its contents would speedily reach Paris in the despatches of Tilly, so that it was virtually a public renunciation of Jacobinism at the earliest possible date, an anchor to windward in the approaching tempest. But momentarily the trick was of no avail; he was first superseded in his command, then arrested on August tenth, and, fortunately for himself, imprisoned two days later in Fort Carré, near Antibes, instead of being sent direct to Paris as some of his friends were. This temporary shelter from the devastating blast he owed to Salicetti, who would, no doubt, without hesitation have destroyed a friend for his own safety, but was willing enough to spare him if not driven to extremity.

As the true state of things in Corsica began to be known in France, there was a general disposition to blame and punish the influential men who had brought things to such a desperate pass and made the loss of the island probable, if not certain. Salicetti, Multedo, and the rest quickly unloaded the whole blame on Buonaparte's shoulders, so that he had many enemies in Paris. Thus by apparent harshness to one whom he still considered a subordinate, the real culprit escaped suspicion. Assured of immunity from punishment himself, Salicetti was content with his rival's humiliation, and felt no real rancor toward the family. This is clear from his treatment of Louis Buonaparte, who had fallen from place and favor along with his brother, but was by Salicetti's influence soon afterward made an officer of the home guard at Nice. Joseph had rendered himself conspicuous in the very height of the storm by a brilliant marriage; but neither he nor Fesch was arrested, and both managed to pull through with whole skins. The noisy Lucien was also married, but to a girl who, though respectable, was poor; and in consequence he was thoroughly frightened at the thought of losing his means of support. But though menaced with arrest, he was sufficiently insignificant to escape for the time.

Napoleon was kept in captivity but thirteen days. Salicetti apparently found it easier than he had supposed to exculpate himself from the charge either of participating in Robespierre's conspiracy or of having brought about the Corsican insurrection. More than this, he found himself firm in the good graces of the Thermidorians, among whom his old friends Barras and Fréron were held in high esteem. It would therefore be a simple thing to liberate General Buonaparte, if only a proper expression of opinion could be secured from him. The clever prisoner had it ready before it was needed. To the faithful Junot he wrote a kindly note declining to be rescued by a body of friends organized to storm the prison or scale its walls.[42] Such a course would have compromised him further. But to the "representatives of the people" he wrote in language which finally committed him for life. He explained that in a revolutionary epoch there are but two classes of men, patriots and suspects. It could easily be seen to which class a man belonged who had fought both intestine and foreign foes. "I have sacrificed residence in my department, I have abandoned all my goods, I have lost all for the republic. Since then I have served at Toulon with some distinction, and I have deserved a share with the Army of Italy in the laurels it earned at the taking of Saorgio, Oneglia, and Tanaro. On the discovery of Robespierre's conspiracy, my conduct was that of a man accustomed to regard nothing but principle." The letter concludes with a passionate appeal to each one of the controlling officials separately and by name, that is, to both Salicetti and Albitte, for justice and restoration. "An hour later, if the wicked want my life, I will gladly give it to them, I care so little for it, I weary so often of it! Yes; the idea that it may be still useful to my country is all that makes me bear the burden with courage." The word for country which he employed, patrie, could only be interpreted as referring to France.

Salicetti in person went through the form of examining the papers offered in proof of Buonaparte's statements; found them, as a matter of course, satisfactory; and the commissioners restored the suppliant to partial liberty, but not to his post. He was to remain at army headquarters, and the still terrible Committee of Safety was to receive regular reports of his doings. This, too, was but a subterfuge; on August twentieth he was restored to his rank. A few weeks later commissioners from the Thermidorians arrived, with orders that for the present all offensive operations in Italy were to be suspended in order to put the strength of the district into a maritime expedition against Rome and ultimately against Corsica, which was now in the hands of England. Buonaparte immediately sought, and by Salicetti's favor obtained, the important charge of equipping and inspecting the artillery destined for the enterprise. He no doubt hoped to make the venture tell in his personal interest against the English party now triumphant in his home. This was the middle of September. Before beginning to prepare for the Corsican expedition, the army made a final demonstration to secure its lines. It was during the preparatory days of this short campaign that a dreadful incident occurred. Buonaparte had long since learned the power of women, and had been ardently attentive in turn both to Mme. Robespierre and to Mme. Ricord. "It was a great advantage to please them," he said; "for in a lawless time a representative of the people is a real power." Mme. Turreau, wife of one of the new commissioners, was now the ascendant star in his attentions. One day, while walking arm in arm with her near the top of the Tenda pass, Buonaparte took a sudden freak to show her what war was like, and ordered the advance-guard to charge the Austrian pickets. The attack was not only useless, but it endangered the safety of the army; yet it was made according to command, and human blood was shed. The story was told by Napoleon himself, at the close of his life, in a tone of repentance, but with evident relish.[43]

Buonaparte was present at the ensuing victories, but only as a well-informed spectator and adviser, for he was yet in nominal disgrace. Within five days the enemies' lines were driven back so as to leave open the two most important roads into Italy—that by the valley of the Bormida to Alessandria, and that by the shore to Genoa. The difficult pass of Tenda fell entirely into French hands. The English could not disembark their troops to strengthen the Allies. The commerce of Genoa with Marseilles was reëstablished by land. "We have celebrated the fifth sansculottide of the year II (September twenty-first, 1794) in a manner worthy of the republic and the National Convention," wrote the commissioners to their colleagues in Paris. On the twenty-fourth, General Buonaparte was released by them from attendance at headquarters, thus becoming once again a free man and his own master. He proceeded immediately to Toulon in order to prepare for the Corsican expedition. Once more the power of a great nation was, he hoped, to be directed against the land of his birth, and he was an important agent in the plan.

To regain, if possible, some of his lost influence in the island, Buonaparte had already renewed communication with former acquaintances in Ajaccio. In a letter written immediately after his release in September, 1794, to the Corsican deputy Multedo, he informed his correspondent that his birthplace was the weakest spot on the island, and open to attack. The information was correct. Paoli had made an effort to strengthen it, but without success. "To drive the English," said the writer of the letter, "from a position which makes them masters of the Mediterranean, … to emancipate a large number of good patriots still to be found in that department, and to restore to their firesides the good republicans who have deserved the care of their country by the generous manner in which they have suffered for it—this, my friend, is the expedition which should occupy the attention of the government." His fortune was in a sense dependent on success: the important position of artillery inspector could not be held by an absentee and it was soon filled by the appointment of a rival compatriot, Casabianca. In the event of failure Buonaparte would be destitute. Perhaps the old vista of becoming a Corsican hero opened up once again to a sore and disappointed man, but it is not probable: the horizon of his life had expanded too far to be again contracted, and the present task was probably considered but as a bridge to cross once more the waters of bitterness. On success or failure hung his fate. Two fellow-adventurers were Junot and Marmont. The former was the child of plain French burghers, twenty-three years old, a daring, swaggering youth, indifferent to danger, already an intimate of Napoleon's, having been his secretary at Toulon. His chequered destiny was interwoven with that of his friend and he came to high position. But though faithful to the end, he was always erratic and troublesome; and in an attack of morbid chagrin he came to a violent end in 1813. The other comrade was but a boy of twenty, the son of an officer who, though of the lower nobility, was a convinced revolutionary. The boys had met several years earlier at Dijon and again as young men at Toulon, where the friendship was knitted which grew closer and closer for twenty years. At Wagram, Marmont became a marshal. Already he had acquired habits of luxurious ease and the doubtful fortunes of his Emperor exasperated him into critical impatience. He so magnified his own importance that at last he deserted. The labored memoirs he wrote are the apology for his life and for his treachery. Though without great genius, he was an able man and an industrious recorder of valuable impressions. Not one of the three accomplished anything during the Corsican expedition; their common humiliation probably commended both of his junior comrades to Buonaparte's tenderness, and thereafter both enjoyed much of his confidence, especially Marmont, in whom it was utterly misplaced.