The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

Pichegru—The Directory appeal to Buonaparte—The 18th Fructidor—The Court of Montebello—Josephine—The Treaty of Campo-Formio—Buonaparte leaves Italy.

In their last agony the Venetian Senate made a vain effort to secure the personal protection of the general, by offering him a purse of seven millions of francs. He rejected this with scorn. He had already treated in the same style a bribe of four millions, tendered on the part of the Duke of Modena. The friend employed to conduct the business reminded him of the proverbial ingratitude of all popular governments, and of the little attention which the Directory had hitherto paid to his personal interests. "That is all true enough," said Napoleon, "but for four millions I will not place myself in the power of this duke." Austria herself, it is said, did not hesitate to tamper in the same manner, though far more magnificently, as became her resources, with his republican virtue. He was offered, if the story be true, an independent German principality for himself and his heirs. "I thank the emperor," he answered, "but if greatness is to be mine, it shall come from France."

The Venetian Senate were guilty, in their mortal struggle, of another and a more inexcusable piece of meanness. They seized the person of Count D'Entraigues, a French emigrant, who had been living in their city as agent for the exiled house of Bourbon; and surrendered him and all his papers to the victorious general. Buonaparte discovered among these documents ample evidence that Pichegru, the French general on the Rhine, and universally honoured as the conqueror of Holland, had some time before this hearkened to the proposals of the Bourbon princes, and, among other efforts in favour of the royal cause, not hesitated even to misconduct his military movements with a view to the downfall of the government which had entrusted him with his command.

This was a secret, the importance of which Napoleon could well appreciate;[18] and he forthwith communicated it to the Directory at Paris.

The events of the last twelve months in France had made Pichegru a person of still higher importance than when he commenced his intrigues with the Bourbons as general on the Rhine. Some obscure doubts of his fidelity, or the usual policy of the Directory, which rendered them averse (wherever they could help it) to continue any one general very long at the head of one army, had induced them to displace Pichegru, and appoint Hoche, a tried republican, in his room. Pichegru, on returning to France, became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and (the royalist party having at this season recovered all but a preponderance) was, on the meeting of the chambers, called to the chair of that in which he had his place.

The Five Directors had in truth done everything to undermine their own authority. They were known to be divided in opinion among themselves; three only of their number adhered heartily to the existing constitution: one was a royalist: another was a democrat of the Robespierre school. One of these new and uncourtly men excited laughter by affecting a princely state and splendour of demeanour and equipage. Another disgusted one set of minds, and annoyed all the rest, by procuring a law for the observation of the tenth day as the day of repose, and declaring it a crime to shut up shops on the Sabbath. A ridiculous ritual of an avowedly heathen worship followed, and was received with partial horror, universal contempt. A tyrannical law about the equalisation of weights and measures spread confusion through all mercantile transactions, and was especially unpopular in the provinces. A contemptible riot, set on foot by one who called himself Gracchus Barbœuf, for the purpose of bringing back the reign of terrorism was indeed suppressed; but the mere occurrence of such an attempt recalled too vividly the days of Robespierre, and by so doing tended to strengthen the cause of the royalists in public opinion. The truth is, that a vast number of the emigrants had found their way back again to Paris after the downfall of Robespierre, and that the old sway of elegant manners and enlightened saloons was once more re-establishing itself where it had so long been supreme. The royalist club of Clichy corresponded with the exiled princes, and with the imperial government, and was gaining such influence as to fill Buonaparte himself with alarm. Everything indicated that the Directory (the five majesties of the Luxembourg, as they were called in derision) held their thrones by a very uncertain tenure; and those gentlemen, nothing being left them but a choice among evils, were fain to throw themselves on the protection of the armies which they dreaded, and of Hoche and Buonaparte—which last name in particular had long filled them with jealousy proportioned to its splendour and popularity.

Napoleon's recent conduct, in more important points than one, had excited powerfully the resentment of the Directory, which now appealed to him for aid. He had taken upon himself the whole responsibility of the preliminary treaty of Leoben, although the French government had sent General Clarke into Italy for the express purpose of controlling him, and acting as his equal at least in the negotiation. A clause in that treaty, by which Mantua, the strongest fortress in Italy, was to be surrendered back to Austria, had been judged necessary at the time by the general, in order to obtain from the emperor the boundary of the Rhine and the cession of Belgium. But the Directory thought the conqueror underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs in consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have ratified it.[19] At the other side of the Italian Peninsula, again, the victorious general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the revolution of Genoa; in which great city also the democratic party availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emancipate themselves from their hereditary oligarchy. They would fain have excluded the nobility from all share in the remodelled government; and Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little likely to be heard with approbation by the "Sires of the Luxembourg." He told the Genoese, that to exclude the nobles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of re-organising their constitution, without passing like France through the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be excused for asking at this moment—Does the lecturer of the Ligurian Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell?

He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling Directory. He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to act as he might choose for them. He not only offered large pecuniary supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to command the National Guard for the government, should they find it necessary to appeal immediately to force, but announced that he was himself prepared to "pass the Rubicon," (an ominous phrase) and march to their assistance, with 15,000 of his best troops.

The Directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity ventured to disregard the law against drawing regular troops within a certain distance of the capital, and summoned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for their instant protection.

It was by this means that the new revolution, as it may be called, of the 18th Fructidor was effected. On that day, (Sept. 4, 1797,) the majority of the Directory, marching their army into Paris, dethroned their two opposition colleagues. Pichegru and the other royalists of note in the assemblies, to the number of more than 150, were arrested and sent into exile. The government, for the moment, recovered the semblance of security; and Buonaparte heard, with little satisfaction, that they had been able to accomplish their immediate object without the intervention of his personal appearance on the scene. He remonstrated, moreover, against the manner in which they had followed up their success. According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru and a few ring-leaders, and set an example of moderation, by sparing all those whose royalism admitted of any doubt, or, if it was manifest, was of secondary importance. It would have been hard for the Directory at this time to have pleased Buonaparte, or for Buonaparte to have entirely satisfied them; but neither party made the effort.