The French Revolution was now in full career. Napoleon returned to Paris, and witnessed the awful scenes of the 10th of August, 1792, when the palace of the Tuileries was stormed, the royal family outraged, and the guard massacred. He wrote to Joseph,
Anecdote.
"If the king had shown himself on horseback at the head of his troops, he would have gained the victory; at least so it appeared to me, from the spirit which that morning seemed to animate the groups of the people.
"After the victory of the Marseillaise, I saw one of them upon the point of killing one of the body-guard; 'Man of the South,' said I, 'let us save the poor fellow.' 'Are you from the South?' said he. 'Yes,' I replied. 'Very well,' he rejoined, 'let him be saved then.'"
The Emigrants.
The Republicans.
The French monarchy was destroyed. France, delivered from the despotism of kings, was surrendered to the still greater despotism of irreligion and ignorance. Faction succeeded faction in ephemeral governments, and anarchy and terror rioted throughout the kingdom. Thousands of the nobles fled from France and joined the armies of the surrounding monarchies, which were on the march to replace the Bourbons on the throne. The true patriots of the nation, anxious for the overthrow of the intolerable despotism under which France had so long groaned, were struggling against the coalition of despots from abroad, while at the same time they were perilling their lives in the endeavor to resist the blind madness of the mob at home. With these two foes, equally formidable, pressing them from opposite quarters, they were making gigantic endeavors to establish republican institutions upon the basis of those then in successful operation in the United States. Joseph and his brother Napoleon with all zeal joined the Republican party. They were irreconcilably hostile to despotism on the one hand, and to Jacobinical anarchy upon the other. In devotion to the principles of republican liberty, they sacrificed their fortunes, and placed their lives in imminent jeopardy. Anxious as they both were to see the bulwarks of the old feudal aristocracy battered down, they were still more hostile to the domination of the mob.
"I frankly declare," said Napoleon, "that if I were compelled to choose between the old monarchy and Jacobin misrule, I should infinitely prefer the former."
Paoli.
His Appreciation of Napoleon.
General Paoli had been appointed by Louis XVI. lieutenant-general of Corsica. This illustrious man, disgusted with the lawless violence which was now dominant in Paris, and despairing of any salutary reform from the revolutionary influences which were running riot, through an error in judgment, which he afterward bitterly deplored, joined the coalition of foreign powers who, with fleets and armies, were approaching France to replace, by the bayonet, the rejected Bourbons upon the throne. Both Joseph and Napoleon were exceedingly attached to General Paoli. He was a family friend, and his lofty character had won their reverence. Paoli discerned the dawning greatness of Napoleon even in these early years, and on one occasion said to him,