END OF VOLUME I
Footnote 1: The indispensable authority for the youth of Napoleon is the collection of his own papers edited, not always judiciously, by Frédéric Masson and published by him in coöperation with G. Biagi under the title Napoléon inconnu. The originals are now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. They were intrusted by the Emperor to Cardinal Fesch as a safe depositary, probably in the hope that they would eventually be destroyed. What the cardinal actually did with them remains obscure. Some time early in the nineteenth century they came into possession of a certain Libri, one of the French government library inspectors, an unscrupulous collector and dealer. From them he excerpted enough matter for an article which, before his disgrace, was published in an early number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, but in the publication there was no statement of authority and the article was forgotten, important as it was. The originals were not found or known until in the sale catalogue of Lord Ashburnham's library appeared a lot entitled merely Napoleon Papers. This fact was brought to the author's attention by a friend, and when after a smart competition between agents of the French and Italian governments the manuscripts were deposited at Florence, he sought permission immediately to examine and study them. This was promptly granted, they proved to be the lost Fesch papers, and for the first time it was possible to obtain a clear account of Napoleon's early years. The standard authorities hitherto had been the works of Nasica, Coston, and Jung: while they still have a certain value, it is slight in view of the reliable deductions to be drawn from the original boy papers of Napoleon Bonaparte. Later on and after the publication of the corresponding portion of this Life, they were edited, printed, and published. In the main there is no room for difference with the transcript of M. Masson, but in some places where the writing is uncommonly bad the author's own transcript presents the facts as stated in these pages. Within a few years M. Chuquet has summed up admirably all our authentic knowledge of the subject—in a book entitled: La jeunesse de Napoléon. His own researches have brought to light some further valuable material. I have not hesitated in this revision to make the freest use of the latest authorities, but it is a gratification that no substantial changes, except by way of slight additions, have been found necessary.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 2: The authorities for the period are Masson: Napoléon inconnu. Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoléon. Jung: Bonaparte et son temps. Böhtlingk: Napoleon Bonaparte: seine Jugend und sein Emporkommen. Las Cases: Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. Antommarchi: Mémoires. Coston: Premières années de Napoléon, Nasica: Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 3: The sources of these statements are two letters of 5 April, 1781, and 8 October, 1783; first printed in the Mémoires sur la vie de Bonaparte, etc., etc., par le comte Charles d'Og.... This pseudonym covers a still unknown author; the documents have been for the most part considered genuine and have been reprinted as such by many authorities, including Jung. Though this author was an official in the ministry of war and had its archives at his disposal, he gives one letter without any authority and the other as in the "Archives de la guerre." Many searchers, including the writer, have sought them there without result. Latterly their authenticity has been denied on the ground of inherent improbability, since pocket money was by rule almost unknown in the royal colleges, and Corsican homesickness is as common as that of the Swiss. But rules prove nothing and the letters seem inherently genuine.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 4: Du Casse, Supplément à la Correspondence de Napoléon Ier, Vol. X, p. 50. Masson, I, 79-84.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 5: This letter, which is without date, is printed in Coston, as taken from the newspapers; again in a revised form in Nasica: Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoléon, p. 71, who claimed to have collated it with the original; and again in Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, who gives as his reference, Archives de la guerre, preserving exactly the form given by Nasica. The Napoleon papers of the War Department were freely, and I believe entirely, put into my hands for examination. This letter was not among them; in fact, my efforts to confirm the references of Jung were sadly ineffectual.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 6: Authorities as before for this and the five chapters following.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 7: This is the date given by himself on the slip of paper headed "Époques de ma vie" and contained in the Fesch papers, now deposited in the Laurentian Library at Florence. Here and there the text is very difficult to decipher, but the line "Parti pour l'école de Paris, le 30 Octobre 1784" is perfectly legible. Las Cases, in the Mémorial, Vol. I, p. 160, represents Napoleon as quoting Keralio in declaring that it was not for his birth or his attainments but for the qualities he discerned in the boy that he sent him with imperfect preparation to Paris.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 8: Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, 29.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 9: The examiner in mathematics was the great Laplace.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 10: Taken from the apocryphal Memoirs of the Count d'Og ... previously mentioned. See Masson: Napoléon inconnu, I, 123; Chuquet, I, 260; Jung, I, 125.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 11: Las Cases, I, 112. Napoleon confessed his inability to learn German, but prided himself on his historical knowledge.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 12: For an amusing caricature by a comrade at Paris, see Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoléon, I, 262. The legend is: "Buonaparte, cours, vole au secours de Paoli pour le tirer des mains de ses ennemis."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 13: Masson (Napoléon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 160) denies all the statements of this paragraph. He likewise proves to his own satisfaction that Bonaparte was neither in Lyons nor in Douay at this time. The narrative here given is based on Coston and on Jung, who follows the former in his reprint of the documents, giving the very dubious reference, Mss. Archives de la guerre. Although these manuscripts could not be found by me, I am not willing to discard Jung's authority completely nor to impugn his good faith. Men in office frequently play strange pranks with official papers, and these may yet be found. Moreover, there is some slight collateral evidence. See Vieux: Napoleon à Lyon, p. 4, and Souvenirs à l'usage des habitants de Douay. Douay, 1822.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 14: The volumes of Napoléon inconnu contain the text of these papers as deciphered for M. Masson and revised by him. My own examination, which antedated his transcription by more than a year (1891), led me to trust their authenticity absolutely, as far as the writer's memory and good faith are concerned. I cannot rely as positively as Masson does on the Époques de ma vie, which has the appearance of a casual scribbling done in an idle moment on the first scrap that came to hand.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 15: Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 16: Souvenirs d'un officier royaliste, par M. de R..., Vol. I, p. 117.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 17: Printed in Napoléon inconnu, Vol. II, p. 167.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 18: Similar instances of repeated and lengthened absence from duty among the young officers are numerous and easily found in the archives. Nevertheless, Buonaparte's case is a very extraordinary example of how a clever person could work the system. The facts are bad enough, but as many cities claimed Homer, so in the Napoleonic legend events of a sojourn at Strasburg about this time were given in great detail. He was in relations with a famous actress and wrote verses which are printed. Even Metternich records that the young Napoleon Bonaparte had just left the Alsatian capital when he himself arrived there in 1788. Later, in 1806, a fencing-master claimed that he had instructed both these great men in the earlier year at Strasburg. Yet the whole tale is impossible. See Napoléon inconnu, Vol. I, p. 204.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 19: Printed in Coston, II, 94.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 20: Correspondence of Sir John Sinclair, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 21: For the text see Napoléon inconnu, II, 92.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 22: These phrases may nearly all be found in the notes which he had taken or jottings he had made while reading Voltaire and Rousseau: Napoléon inconnu, II, 209-292.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 23: "I am in the cabin of a poor man whence I like to write you after long conversation with these good people." Nasica, p. 161.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 24: Napoléon inconnu, II, 108 et seq.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 25: Buonaparte to Naudin, 27 July, 1791, in Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, XVII, 56.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 26: It is not entirely clear whether he arrived late in September or early in October, 1791. He remained until May, 1792.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 27: The rare and curious pamphlet entitled "Manuscrit de l'Île 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.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 28: Las Cases: Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, V, 170.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 29: Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, 47.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 30: Napoléon inconnu, II, 408.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 31: Reported by Arrighi and Renucci and given in Napoléon inconnu, II, 418.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 32: For the original of this protest see Napoléon inconnu, II, 439.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 33: Both these men were generously remembered in the secret codicils of Napoleon's will.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 34: For this paper, see Napoléon inconnu, II, 462. Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, II, 266 and 498. There appear to have been an official portion intended to be filed, and a free, carelessly written running commentary on men and things. The passage quoted is taken from the latter.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 35: The memoirs of Joseph and Lucien, supported by Coston and the anonymous local historian of Marseilles, all unite in declaring that the Buonaparte family landed there; on the other hand, Louis, in the Documents historiques sur la Hollande, I, 34, asserts categorically in detail that they took up their abode in La Valette, a suburb of Toulon, where they had landed.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 36: These are the most probable reasons for the retreat. Several local chroniclers, Soullier, Audri, and Joudou, writing all three about 1844, declare each and all that Buonaparte with his battery followed the right bank of the Rhone as far as the Rocher de Justice where he mounted his guns and opened fire on the walls of the city. His fire was so accurate that he destroyed one cannon and killed several gunners. The besieged garrison of federalists were thrown into panic and decamped. Neither the contemporary authorities nor Napoleon himself ever mentioned any such remarkable circumstances. In fact, a passage of the "Souper de Beaucaire" attributes the retreat to the inability of any except veteran troops to withstand a siege. Finally, Buonaparte would surely have been promoted for such an exploit. Dommartin, a comrade, was thus rewarded for a much smaller service.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 37: The Archive Russe for 1866 states that in 1788 Napoleon Buonaparte applied for an engagement to Zaborowski, Potemkin's lieutenant, who was then with a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. The statement may be true, and probably is, but there is no corroborative evidence to sustain it.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 38: The very first impression appears to have been a reprint from the Courier d'Avignon: it was a cheap pamphlet of sixteen pages in the same type and on the paper as that used by the journal. The second impression was in twenty pages, printed by the public printer as a tract for the times, to be distributed throughout the near and remote neighborhood.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 39: The authorities for this important epoch are, primarily, Jung: Bonaparte et son temps; Masson: Napoléon inconnu; but above all, Chuquet: La jeunesse de Napoléon, Vol. III, Toulon. The Mémoires of Barras are utterly worthless, the references in Las Cases, Marmont, and elsewhere have value, but must be controlled. The archives of the war department have been thoroughly examined by several investigators, the author among the number. The results have been printed in many volumes to which the above-mentioned authors refer, and many of the original papers are printed in whole or in part by them.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 40: In Buchez et Roux, Histoire Parlementaire, XXXI, pp. 268-290, 415-427; XXXII, pp. 335-381 et seq., and in Œuvres de St. Just, pp. 360-420, will be found a few examples of their views in their own words.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 41: Jung: Bonaparte et son temps, II, 455.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 42: Correspondance de Napoléon, I, No. 35.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 43: Las Cases: Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène, I, 141.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 44: For a full account of these important operations see Mahan: Life of Nelson, I, 123 et seq.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 45: Marmont: Mémoires, I, 77-78.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 46: Inspection report in Jung, II, 477. "Too much ambition and intrigue for his advancement."[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 47: He was far down the list, one hundred and thirty-ninth in the line of promotion.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 48: Possibly the twelfth. See Jung, III, I.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 49: Correspondance, I, No. 40.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 50: For this chapter the Mémoires du roi Joseph, I, and Böhtlingk: Napoleon Bonaparte, etc., I, are valuable references, in addition to those already given. The memoirs of Barras are particularly misleading except for comparison. For social conditions, cf. Goncourt, Histoire de la Société Française sous le Directoire, and in particular Adolph Schmidt: Tableaux de la Révolution Française; Pariser Zustände während der Revolutionszeit.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 51: Napoleon to Joseph, July, 1795; in Du Casse: Les rois frères de Napoléon, 8, and in Jung, III, 41.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 52: Chaptal: Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon, p. 198.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 53: My account of this momentous crisis in Buonaparte's life was written after a careful study of all the authorities and accounts as far as known. The reader will find in the monograph, Zivy: Le treize Vendémiaire, many reprints of documents and certain conclusions drawn from them. The result is good as far as it goes, but, like all history written from public papers solely, it is incomplete. Buonaparte was only one of seven generals appointed to serve under Barras. It seems likewise true that his exploits did not bring him into general notice, for Mallet du Pan speaks of him as a "Corsican terrorist" and Rémusat records her mother's amazement that a man so little known should have made so good a marriage. But, on the other hand, Thiébault declares that Buonaparte's activities impressed every one, Barras's labored effort is suspicious, and then, as at Toulon, there are the results. Some people in power gave him credit, for they bestowed on him an extraordinary reward. Then, too, why should we utterly discard Buonaparte's own evidence, which corroborates, at least as far as the text goes, the evidence drawn from other sources?[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 54: Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, II, 246.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 55: This important exploit has been questioned. But see the American edition of Martin's History of France, II, 16. Babœuf reopened at the Panthéon the club which had been closed at the Évêché by the Convention and reorganized a secret society in connection with it. This Panthéon club was shut by Napoleon in person on February 26, 1796. See likewise the Mémorial, II, 257, 258.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 56: The best references for the history of Josephine de Beauharnais are Masson: Joséphine de Beauharnais, 1763-1796, and Joséphine, impératrice et reine; Hall: Napoleon's letters to Josephine; Lévy: Napoléon intime; together with the memoirs of Joseph, Bourrienne, Ducrest, Dufort de Cheverney, and Rémusat.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 57: See Hochschild: Désirée, reine de Suède.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 58: The authorities for this chapter are as for the last.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 59: See Pulitzer: Une idylle sous Napoléon I.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 60: Mémorial, II, 258; III, 402.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 61: Given in Aubenas: Histoire de l'impératrice Joséphine, I, 293. This writer is frankly not an historian but an apologist.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 62: Coston: Premières années de Napoléon Bonaparte.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 63: Carnot thoroughly understood and appreciated the genius shown in Buonaparte's plan for an Italian campaign, and converted the Directorate to his opinion. They sent a copy to Schérer, then in command at Nice, and he returned it in a temper, declaring that the man who made such a plan had better come and work it. The Directory took him at his word.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 64: For this and the succeeding chapters we have the memoirs of Thibaudeau, Marmont, Doulcet de Pontécoulant, Hyde de Neuville, and the duchess of Abrantès—Madame Junot. Among the histories, the most important are those of Blanc, Taine, Sybel, Sorel, and Mortimer-Ternaux. Special studies: C. Rousset, Les Volontaires de 1791-1794. Chassin: Pacifications de l'Ouest and Dictature de Hoche. Mallet du Pan: Correspondance avec la cour de Vienne. Also the Correspondence of Sandoz. Many original papers are printed in Hüffer: Oesterreich und Preussen; Bailleu: Preussen und Frankreich, 1795-1797; and in the Amtliche Sammlung von Akten aus der Zeit der Helvetischen Republik.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 65: See the author's French Revolution and Religious Reform.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 66: The state of Europe may be studied in the Correspondence of Mallet du Pan and in the Archives Woronzoff; in Vivenot: Thugut and Clerfayt; Daudet: Les Bourbons et la Russie; La Conspiration de Pichegru; Sorel: L'Europe et la Révolution Française; Lecky: England in the XVIII century; Stanhope's Life of Pitt; the memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski; also the diplomatic papers of Thugut, Clerfayt, Hermann, and Sandoz.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 67: The latest important authorities on this campaign and its results are, in addition to those already given, Sargent: Napoleon Bonaparte's First Campaign. Sorel: Bonaparte et Hoche en 1797. Bonaparte et le Directoire, Vol. V of his large work. Colin: Études sur la Campagne de 1796 en Italie. Fabry: Histoire de l'armée d'Italie, 1796-1797. Bouvier: Bonaparte en Italie, 1796. Graham's Despatches, edited by Rose, in English Historical Review, Vol. XIV. Tivaroni: Storia del risorgimento italiano. The Dropmore Papers. Of primary value are Napoleon's "Correspondance," official edition, and the unofficial edited by Beauvais. Hueffer: Ungedruckte Briefe Napoleon's in the Archiv für Oest. Geschichte, Vol. XLIX. Of value are also the memoirs of Marmont, Masséna, and Desgenettes, of Landrieux in Revue du Cercle Militaire, 1887. Yorck von Wartenberg: Napoleon als Feldherr, almost supersedes the older authority of Clausewitz, Jomini, Ruestow, and Lossau. There are also Malachowski: Entwickelung der leitenden Gedanken zur ersten Campagne Bonaparte's, and Delbrueck: Unterschied der Strategie Friederich's des Grossen und Napoleon's.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 68: Somewhat under 40,000. Bonaparte guessed, and his guess was very shrewd, that all told he was then confronted by 45,000. The Austrians have never made the facts clear, though their initial strength is set at 28,000. I have found no estimate of the reinforcements. In any case they lost 10,000 here, the whole of Provera's corps at La Favorita, and 18,000 were captured at Mantua: their fighting force in Italy was annihilated.[Back to Main Text]
Footnote 69: The authorities for the following three chapters are partly as before, but in particular the following: Vivenot: Thugut, Clerfayt. Correspondance de Thugut avec Colloredo. Hüffer: Oesterreich und Preussen, etc.; Der Rastatter Congress. Von Sybel: Geschichte der Revolutions Zeit. Bailleu: Preussen und Frankreich. Sandoz-Rollin: Amtliche Sammlung von Akten aus der Zeit der Helvetischen Republic. Sorel: Bonaparte et Hoche; Bonaparte et le Directoire; also articles in the Revue Historique, 1885. Sciout: Le Directoire, also article in Revue des questions historiques, 1886. Boulay de la Meurthe: Quelques lettres de Marie Caroline; Revue d'histoire diplomatique, 1888. Barante: Histoire du Directoire and Souvenirs. McClellan: The Oligarchy of Venice. Bonnal: Chute d'une république. Seché: Les origines du Concordat. Dandolo: La caduta della republica di Venetia. Romanin: Storia documentata di Venezia. Sloane: The French Revolution and Religious Reform. In general and further, the memoirs of Marmont, Chaptal, Landrieux, Carnot, Larévellière-Lépeaux (probably not genuine), Mathieu Dumas, Thibaudeau, Miot de Melito, and the correspondence of Mallet du Pan.[Back to Main Text]