CHAPTER XVIII. BONAPARTE’S IMPRISONMENT.
On the 25th day of March, 1794. General Bonaparte entered the headquarters of the French army in Nice. He was welcomed with joy and marks of distinction, for the fame of his heroic deeds before Toulon had preceded him; and on Bonaparte’s pale, proud face, with its dark, brilliant eyes, was written that he was now come into Italy to add fresh laurels to the victor’s crown won before Toulon.
The old commander-in-chief of the French army, General Dumerbion, confined oftentimes to his bed through sickness, was very willing to be represented by General Bonaparte, and to place every thing in his hands; and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre (the younger brother of the all-powerful dictator)—these two representatives in the army corps of Italy bound themselves in intimate friendship with the young general, who seemed to share their glowing enthusiasm for the republic, and their hatred against the monarchy and the aristocrats. They cherished, moreover, an unreserved confidence in the military capacities of young Bonaparte, and always gave to his plans their unconditional assent and approbation. Upon Napoleon’s suggestion batteries were erected on the coast of Provence for the security of the fleet and of trading-vessels; and when this had been accomplished, the general began to carry out the plan which he had laid before the representatives of the republic, and according to which the republican army, with its right and left wings advancing simultaneously on the sea-coast, was to march through the neutral territory of Genoa into Italy.
This plan of Bonaparte was crowned with the most unexpected success. Without observing the neutrality of Genoa, Generals Massena and Arena marched through the territory of the proud Italian republic, and thus began the bloody war which was to desolate the Italian soil for so many years.
Ever faithful to Bonaparte’s war-schemes, which the general-in-chief, Dumerbion, and the two representatives of the people, Ricord and Robespierre, had sanctioned, the French columns moved from the valleys, within whose depths they had so long and so uselessly shed their blood, up to the heights and conquered the fortresses which the King of Sardinia had built on the mountains for the protection of his frontiers. Thus Fort Mirabocco, on the pass of the Cross, fell into the hands of General Dumas, who then conquered the intrenched Mount Cenis; thus the pass of Tenda, with the fortress Saorgio, was captured by the French; and there, in the general depot of the Piedmontese army, they found sixty cannon and war materials of all kinds.
The French had celebrated their first victories in Italy, and both commanding officers of the fortresses of Mirabocco and Saorgio had to pay for these triumphs in Turin with the loss of their lives; whilst General Bonaparte, “as the one to whose well-matured plans and arrangements these brilliant results were due,” received from the Convention brilliant encomiums.
But suddenly the state of affairs assumed another shape, and at one blow all the hopes and plans of the young, victorious general were destroyed.
Maximilian Robespierre had fallen; with him fell the whole party; then fell his brother, who a short time before had returned to Paris, and had there endeavored to obtain from Maximilian new and more ample powers for Bonaparte, and even the appointment to the chief command of the army—there fell also Ricord, who had given to General Bonaparte the letter of secret instructions for energetic negotiations with the government of Genoa, and to carry out which instructions Bonaparte had at this time gone to that city.
As he was returning to his headquarters in Saona, from Paris had arrived the new representatives, who came to the army of Italy as delegates of the Convention, and were armed with full powers.
These representatives were Salicetti, Albitte, and Laporte. The first of these, a countryman of Bonaparte, had been thus far his friend and his party associate. He was in Corsica at the same time as Napoleon, in the year 1793; he had been, like his young friend, a member of the Jacobin Club of Ajaccio, and Salicetti’s speeches had not been inferior to those of Napoleon, either in wildness or in exalted republicanism.
But now Salicetti had become the representative of the moderate party; and it was highly important for him to establish himself securely in his new position, and to give to the Convention a proof of the firmness of his sentiments by manifesting the hatred which he had sworn to the terrorists, and to all those who, under the fallen regime, had obtained recognition and distinction.
General Bonaparte had been a friend of the young Robespierre; loudly and openly he had expressed his republican and democratic sentiments; he had been advanced under the administration of Robespierre, from simple lieutenant to general; he had been sent to Genoa, with secret instructions by the representatives of the Committee of Safety, made up of terrorists—all this was sufficient to make him appear suspicious to the moderate party, and to furnish Salicetti an opportunity to show himself a faithful partisan of the new system of moderation.
General Bonaparte was, by order of the representatives of the people, Salicetti and Albitte, arrested at his headquarters in Saona, because, as the warrant for arrest, signed by both representatives, asserted: “General Bonaparte had completely lost their confidence through his suspicious demeanor, and especially through the journey which he had lately made to Genoa.” The warrant of arrest furthermore ordered that General Bonaparte, whose effects should be sealed and his papers examined, was to be sent to Paris, under sure escort, and be brought for examination before the Committee of Safety.
If this order were carried into execution, then Bonaparte was lost; for, though Robespierre had fallen, yet with his fall the system of blood and terror had not been overthrown in Paris; it had only changed its name.
The terrorists, who now called themselves the moderates, exercised the same system of intimidation as their predecessors; and to be brought before the Committee of Safety, signified the same thing as to receive a death-warrant.
Bonaparte was lost, if it truly came to this, that he must be led to Paris.
This was what Junot, the present adjutant of Napoleon, and his faithful friend and companion, feared. It was therefore necessary to anticipate this order, and to procure freedom to Bonaparte.
A thousand schemes for the rescue of his beloved chief, crossed the soul of the young man. But how make them known to the general? how induce him to flee, since all approaches to him were forbidden? His zeal, his inventive friendship, succeeded at last in finding a means. One of the soldiers, who was placed as sentry at the door of the arrested general, was bribed by Junot; through him a letter from Junot reached Bonaparte’s hands, which laid before him a scheme of flight that the next night could be accomplished with Junot’s help.
Not far from Bonaparte’s dwelling Junot awaited the answer, and soon a soldier passed by and brought it to him.
This answer ran thus: “In the propositions you make, I acknowledge your deep friendship, my dear Junot; you are also conscious of the friendship I have consecrated to you for a long time, and I trust you have confidence in it.
“Man may do wrong toward me, my dear Junot; it is enough for me to be innocent; my conscience is the tribunal which I recognize as sole judge of my conduct.
“This conscience is quiet when I question it; do, therefore, nothing, if you do not wish to compromise me. Adieu, dear Junot. Farewell, and friendship.” [Footnote: Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 241.]
Meanwhile, notwithstanding his quiet conscience, Bonaparte was not willing to meet his fate passively and silently, and, perchance, it seemed to him that it was “not enough to be innocent,” so as to be saved from the guillotine. He therefore addressed a protest to both representatives of the people who had ordered his arrest, and this protest, which he dictated to his friend Junot, who had finally succeeded in coming to Bonaparte, is so extraordinary and so peculiar in its terseness of style, in its expressions of political sentiment; it furnishes so important a testimony of the republican democratic opinions of the young twenty-six-year-old general, that we cannot but give here this document.
Bonaparte then dictated to his friend Junot as follows:
“To the representatives Salicetti and Albitte:
“You have deprived me of my functions, you have arrested me and declared me suspected.
“I am, then, ruined without being condemned; or else, which is much more correct, I am condemned without being heard.
“In a revolutionary state exist two classes: the suspected and the patriots.
“When those of the first class are accused, they are treated as the common law of safety provides.
“The oppression of those of the second class is the ruin of public liberty. The judge must condemn only after mature deliberation, and when a series of unimpeachable facts reaches the guilty.
“To denounce a patriot as guilty is a condemnation which deprives him of what is most dear—confidence and esteem.
“In which class am I to be ranked?
“Have I not been, since the beginning of the revolution, faithful to its principles?
“Have I not always been seen at war with enemies at home, or as a soldier against the foreign foe?
“I have sacrificed my residence in my country and my property to the republic; I have lost all for her.
“By serving my country with some distinction at Toulon and in the Italian army, I have had my share in the laurels which that army has won at Saorgio, Queille, and Tanaro.
“At the time of the discovery of Robespierre’s conspiracy, my conduct was that of a man who is accustomed to recognize principles only.
“It is therefore impossible to refuse me the title of patriot.
“Why, then, am I declared suspect without being heard? Why am I arrested eight days after the news of the death of the tyrant?
“I am declared suspect, and my papers are sealed!
“The reverse ought to have taken place: my papers ought to have been unsealed; I ought to have been tried; explanations ought to have been sought for, and then I might have been declared suspect if there were sufficient motives for it.
“It is decided that I must go to Paris under a warrant of arrest which declares me suspect. In Paris they will conclude that the representatives have acted thus only after sufficient examination, and I shall be condemned with the sympathy which a man of that class deserves.
“Innocent, patriotic, slandered, whatever may be the measures which the committee take, I cannot complain.
“If three men were to declare that I have committed a crime, I could not complain if the jury should declare me guilty.
“Salicetti, you know me. Have you, during the five years of our acquaintance, found in my conduct any thing which could be suspected as against the revolution?
“Albitte, you know me not. No one can have given you convincing evidence against me. You have not heard me; you know, however, with what smoothness calumny oftentimes whispers.
“Must I then be taken for an enemy of my country? Must the patriots ruin, without any regard, a general who has not been entirely useless to the republic? Must the representatives place the government under the necessity of acting unjustly and impolitically?
“Mark my words; destroy the oppression which binds me down, and re-establish me in the esteem of the patriots.
“If, then, at some future hour, the wicked shall still long for my life, well, then I consider it of so little importance—I have so often despised it—yes, the mere thought that it can be useful to the country, enables me to bear its burden with courage.” [Footnote: Bourienne, “Memoires sur Napoleon,” etc., vol. i., p. 63.]
Whether these energetic protestations of Bonaparte, or whether some other motives, conduced to the result, Salicetti thought that with Napoleon’s arrest he had furnished sufficient proof of his patriotic sentiments; it seemed to him enough to have obscured the growing fame of the young general, and to have plunged back into obscurity and forgetfulness him whose first steps in life’s career promised such a radiant and glorious course!
It matters not, however, what circumstances may have wrought out; the representatives Salicetti and Albitte issued a decree in virtue of which General Bonaparte was, after mature consideration and thorough examination of his papers, declared innocent and free from all suspicion. Consequently, Bonaparte was temporarily set at liberty; but he was suspended from his command in the Italian army, and was recalled to Paris, there to be made acquainted with his future destination.
This destination was pointed out to him in a commission as brigadier-general of infantry in the province of Vendee, there to lead on the fratricidal strife against the fanatical Chouans, the faithful adherents of the king.
Bonaparte refused this offer—first, because it seemed to him an insulting request to ask him to fight against his own countrymen; and secondly, because he did not wish to enter the infantry service, but to remain in the artillery.
The Committee of Safety responded to this refusal of Bonaparte by striking his name from the list of generals appointed for promotion, because he had declined to go to the post assigned him.
This decision fell upon the ambitious, heroic young man like a thunderbolt. He had dreamed of brilliant war deeds, of laurels, of fame, of a glorious future, won for him by his own sword; and now, all at once, he saw himself dragged away from this luminous track of fame upon which he had so brilliantly entered—he saw himself thrust back into obscurity, forgetfulness, and inactivity.
A gloomy, misanthropic sentiment took possession of him; and, though a prophetic voice within said that the future still belonged to him, with its fame, its laurels, its victories, yet inactivity, care, and the wants of the present, hung with oppressive weight upon his mind.
He withdrew from all social joys and recreations, he avoided his acquaintances, and only to a few friends did he open his foreboding heart; only with these did he associate, and to them alone he made his complaints of broken hopes, of life’s career destroyed.
To these few friends, whom Bonaparte in his misfortune found faithful and unchanged, belonged the Ferment family, and above all belonged Junot, who had come to Paris at the same time as Bonaparte, and who, though the latter was dismissed from the service, continued to call himself the adjutant of General Bonaparte.
In the Permont family Napoleon was received with the same friendship and attention as in former days; Madame de Permont retained ever for the son of the friend of her youth, Letitia, a kindly smile, a genial sympathy, an intelligent appreciation of his plans and wishes; her husband manifested toward him all the interest of a parental regard; her son Albert was full of tenderness and admiration for him; and her younger daughter Laura jested and conversed with him as with a beloved brother.
In this house every thing seemed pleasant and friendly to Bonaparte; thither he came every day, and mixed with the social circles, which gathered in the evening in the drawing-rooms of the beautiful, witty Madame de Permont; and where men even of diverging political sentiments, aristocrats and ci-devants of the first water, were to be found. But Madame de Permont had forbidden all political discussion in her saloon; and General Bonaparte, now compelled to inactivity, dared no more show his anger against the Committee of Safety, or against the Convention, than the Count de Montmorency or any of the proud ladies of the former quarter of St. Germain.
Not only the inactivity to which he was condemned, not only the destruction of all his ambitious hopes, burdened the mind of Bonaparte, but also the material pressure under which he now and then found himself, and which seemed to him a shame and a humiliation. With gloomy grudge he gazed at those young elegants whom he met on the Boulevards in splendid toilet, on superb horses—at these incroyables who, in the first rays of the sun of peace, from the soil of the republic, yet moist with blood, had sprung up as so many mushrooms of divers colors and varied hues.
“And such men enjoy their happiness!” exclaimed Bonaparte, contemptuously, as once in the Champs Elysees he sat before a coffee-house, near one of those incroyables, and with violent emotion starting up, he pushed his seat back and nearly broke the feet of his exquisitely dressed neighbor.
To be forgotten, to be set in the background, to be limited in means, was always to him a source of anger, which manifested itself now in impassioned vehemence, now in vague, gloomy dreaminess, from which he would rise up again with some violent sarcasm or some epigrammatic remark.
But whilst he thus suffered, was in want, and had so much to endure, his mind and heart were always busy. His mind was framing new plans to bring to an end these days of inactivity, to open a new path of fame and glory; his heart dreamed of a sweet bliss, of another new love!
The object of this love was the sister of his brother’s wife, the young Desiree Clary. Joseph Bonaparte, who was now in Marseilles as war-commissioner, had married there one of the daughters of the rich merchant Clary; and her younger sister Desiree was the one to whom Napoleon had devoted his heart. The whole Bonaparte family was now in Marseilles, and had decided to make their permanent residence in France, as their return to Corsica was still impossible; for General Paoli, no longer able to hold the island, had called the English to his help, and the assembled Consulta, over which Paoli presided, had invited the King of England to become sovereign of the island. The French party, at whose head had been the Bonaparte family, was overcome, and could no longer lift up head or voice.
Bonaparte came often to Marseilles to visit his family, which consisted of his mother Letitia, her three daughters, her two younger sons, and her brother, the Abbe Fesch. There, he had seen every day, in the house of his brother, Desiree Clary, and the beautiful, charming maid had not failed to leave in the heart of the young general a deep impression. Desiree seemed to return this inclination, and a union of the two young lovers might soon have taken place, if fate, in the shape of accident, had not prevented it.
Joseph was sent by the Committee of Safety to Genoa, with instructions; his young wife and her sister Desiree accompanied him. Perhaps the new, variable impressions of the journey, perhaps her separation from Bonaparte, and her association with other officers less gloomy than the saturnine Napoleon, all this seemed to cool the love of Desiree Clary; she no more answered Napoleon’s letters, and, in writing to his brother Joseph, he made bitter complaints: “It seems that to reach Genoa the River Lethe must first be crossed, and therefore Desiree writes no more.” [Footnote: See “Memoires du Roi Joseph,” vol. i.]
The only confidant to whom Bonaparte imparted these heart-complaints, was Junot. He had for him no secrecy of his innermost and deepest inclinations; to him he complained with grave and impassioned words of Desiree’s changeableness; and Junot, whose worshipful love for his friend could not understand that any maiden, were she the most beautiful and glorious on earth, could ever slight the inclination of General Bonaparte, Junot shared his wrath against Desiree, who had begun the rupture between them by leaving unanswered two of Napoleon’s letters.
After having been angry and having complained in concert with Bonaparte, Junot’s turn to be confidential had come. Bewildered, and blushing like a young maid, he avowed to his dear general that he also loved, and that he could hope for happiness and joy only if Napoleon’s younger sister, the beautiful little Pauline, would be his wife.
Bonaparte listened to him with a frowning countenance, and when Junot ended by asking his mediation with Pauline’s mother, Napoleon asked in a grave tone, “But, what have you to live upon? Can you support Pauline? Can you, with her, establish a household which will be safe against want?”
Junot, radiant with joy, told him how, anticipating this question of Napoleon, he had written to his father, and had asked for information in regard to his means; and that his father had just now answered his questions, and had replied that for the present he could not give him anything, but that after his death the inheritance of his son would amount to twenty thousand francs.
“I shall be one day rich,” exclaimed Junot, gayly, as he handed to Napoleon the letter of his father, “for with my pay I will have an income of twelve hundred livres. My general, I beseech you, write to the Citoyenne Bonaparte; tell her that you have read the letter of my father, and say a good word in my favor.”
Bonaparte did not at once reply. He attentively read the letter of Junot, senior, then returned it to his friend, and with head sunk down upon his breast he stared gloomily, with contracted eyebrows.
“You answer not, general,” exclaimed Junot, in extreme anguish. “You do not wish to be my mediator?”
Bonaparte raised his head; his cheeks were paler than before, and a gloomy expression was in his eyes.
“I cannot write to my mother to make her this proposition,” said he, in a rough, severe tone. “That is impossible, my friend. You say that one day you will have an income of twelve hundred livres. That is, indeed, very fair, but you have them not now. Besides, your father’s health is remarkably good, and he will make you wait a long time. For the present you have nothing; for your lieutenant’s epaulets can be reckoned as nothing. As regards Pauline, she has not even that much. Let us then sum up: you have nothing; she has nothing! What is the total amount? Nothing. You cannot, therefore, be married now: let us wait. We shall, perhaps, friend, outlive these evil days. Yes, we shall outlive them, even if I have to become an exile, to seek for them in another portion of the world! Let us, then, wait!” [Footnote: Bonaparte’s words.—See Abrantes, “Memoires,” vol. i., p. 284.]
And a wondrous, mysterious brilliancy and flash filled the eyes of General Bonaparte, as with a commanding voice he repeated, “Let us wait!”
Was this one of those few and pregnant moments in which the mind with prophetic power gazes into the future? Had a corner of the veil which hid the future been lifted up before the glowing eagle-eye of Napoleon, and did he see the splendor and the glory of that future which were to be his? However great his imagination, however ambitious his dreams, however wide his hopes, yet they all were to be one day surpassed by the reality. For would he not have considered a madman him, who, at this hour, would have told him: “Smooth the furrows on your brow, Bonaparte; be not downcast about the present. You are now in want, you are thrust aside; forgetfulness and obscurity are now your lot; but be of good cheer, you will be emperor, and all Europe will lie trembling at your feet. You love the young Desiree Clary, and her indifference troubles you; but be of good cheer, you will one day marry the daughter of a Caesar, and the little Desiree, the daughter of a merchant from Marseilles, will one day be Sweden’s queen! You refuse to Junot, your friend, the gratification of his wishes, because he possesses nothing but his officer’s epaulets: but be of good cheer, for you will one day convert the little Lieutenant Junot into a duke, and give him a kingdom for a dowry! You feel downhearted and ashamed, because your sister Pauline is not rich, because she possesses nothing but her beauty and her name: but be of good cheer, she will one day be the wife of the wealthiest prince of Italy; all the treasures of art will be gathered in her palace, and yet she will be the most precious ornament of that palace!”
Surely the General Bonaparte would have laughed at the madman, who, in the year 1795, should have thus spoken to him—and yet a mere decade of years was to suffice for the realization of all these prophecies, and to turn the incredible into a reality.