Empress Josephine: An Historical Sketch of the Days of Napoleon

by L. Mühlbach

But Aubry, in his functions of chief of the war department, was soon superseded by the representative Douclet de Ponte-Coulant, and this event gave to the position of the young general a different aspect. Ponte-Coulant had for some time followed with attention the course of the young general, whose military talents and warlike reputation had filled him with astonishment. He had especially been surprised at the plan for the conduct of the war and the conquest of Italy which Bonaparte had laid before the war committee. Now that Ponte-Coulant had been promoted to be chief of the war department, he sent for General Bonaparte, and attached him to the topographic committee, where the plans of campaigns were decided and the movements of each separate corps delineated.

The forgotten one, doomed to inactivity, General Napoleon Bonaparte, now arose from his obscurity, and before him again opened life, the world, and fame’s pathway, which was to lead him up to a throne. But the envy and jealousy of the party-men of the Convention ever threw obstacles before him on his glorious course, and the war-scheme which he now unfolded to the committee for the campaign did not receive the approbation of the successor of Ponte-Coulant in the war department, and it was thrust aside. A new political crisis was needed to place in the hands of Napoleon the command of the army, the ruling authority over France, and this crisis was at hand.

Paris, diseased, still bleeding in its innermost life with a thousand wounds, was devoured by hunger. The unfortunate people, wretched from want and pain, during many past years, were now driven to despair. The political party leaders understood but too well how to take advantage of this, and to prey upon it. The royalists were busy instilling into the people’s minds the idea that the return of the Bourbons would restore to miserable France peace and happiness. The terrorists told the people that the Convention was the sole obstacle to their rest and to their peace, that it was necessary to scatter it to the winds, and to re-establish the Constitution of 1793. The whole population of Paris was divided and broken into factions, struggling one against the other with infuriated passions. The royalists, strengthened by daily accessions of emigrants, who, under fictitious names and with false passports, returned to Paris to claim the benefit of the milder laws passed in their favor, constituted a formidable power in that city. Whole sections were devoted to them, and were secretly supplied by them with arms and provisions, so as finally to be prepared to act against the Convention. An occasion soon presented itself.

The Convention had, through eleven of its committee members, prepared a new constitution, and had laid it before the people for adoption or rejection, according to the majority of votes. The whole country, with the exception of Paris, was in favor of this new constitution—she alone in her popular assemblies rejected it, declared the Convention dissolved, and the armed sections arose to make new elections. The Convection declared these assemblies to be illegal, and ordered their dissolution. The armed sections made resistance, congregated together, and by force opposed the troops of the Convention—the National Guards—commanded by General Menou. On the 12th Vendemiaire all Paris was under arms again; barricades were thrown up by the people, who swore to die in their defence sooner than to submit to the will of the Convention; the noise of drums and trumpets was heard in every street; all the horrors and cruelties of a civil war once more filled the capital of the revolution, and the city was drunk with blood!

The people fought with the courage of despair, pressed on victoriously, and won from General Menou a few streets; whole battalions of the National Guards abandoned the troops of the Convention and went over to the sections. General Menou found himself in so dangerous a position as to be forced to conclude an armistice until the next day with the Section Lepelletier, which was opposed to him, up to which time the troops on either side were to suspend operations.

The Section Lepelletier declared itself at once en permanence, sent her delegates to all the other sections, and called upon “the sovereign people, whose rights the Convention wished to usurp,” to make a last and decisive struggle.

The Convention found itself in the most alarming position; it trembled for its very existence, and already in fancy saw again the days of terror, the guillotine rising and claiming for its first victims the heads of the members of the Convention. A pallid fear overspread all faces as constantly fresh news of the advance of the sections reached them, when General Menou sent news of the concluded armistice.

At this moment a pale young man rushed into the hall of session, and with glowing eloquence and persuasive manner entreated the Convention not to accept the armistice, not to give time to the sections to increase their strength, nor to recognize them as a hostile power to war against the government.

This pale young man—whose impassioned language filled the minds of all his hearers with animosity against General Menou, and with fresh courage and desire to fight—was Napoleon Bonaparte.

After he had spoken, other representatives rushed to the tribune, to make propositions to the Assembly, all their motions converging to the same end—all desired to have General Menou placed under arrest, and Bonaparte appointed in his place, and intrusted with the defence of the Convention and of the legislative power against the people.