To one of his traveling companions with whom he conversed on the journey to Paris about his remarkable victory at Marengo, he said: "Well, a few grand deeds like this campaign and I may be known to posterity." "It seems to me," said his companion, "that you have already done enough to be talked about everywhere for a time." "Done enough," said Bonaparte quickly, "You are very kind! To be sure in less than two years I have conquered Cairo, Paris and Milan; well, my dear fellow, if I were to die to-morrow, after ten centuries I shouldn't fill half a page in a universal history!"
At night the city of Paris was brilliantly illuminated and the inhabitants turned out en masse. Night after night every house was illuminated. The people were so anxious to show their pleasure at Napoleon's miraculous victory that they stood in crowds around the palace contented if they could but catch a glimpse of the preserver of France. These receptions so deeply touched him that twenty years afterwards, in loneliness and in exile, a prisoner at St. Helena, he mentioned it as one of the proudest and happiest moments of his life.
On the day following his return to the capital the president of the Senate—the entire body having waited upon him in state—complimented the conqueror of Marengo in language such as kings were formerly addressed in, and in closing his address said: "We take pleasure in acknowledging that to you the country owes its salvation; that to you the Republic will owe its consolidation, and the people a prosperity, which you have in one day made to succeed ten years of the most stormy of revolutions."
In November following Napoleon's return to the capital he received a letter addressed to him by Count de Lille (afterwards Louis XVIII.) which the exiled prince of the House of Bourbon evidently believed would place him on the throne of France. He said: "You are very tardy about restoring my throne to me; it is to be feared that you may let the favorable moment slip. You cannot establish the happiness of France without me; and I, on the other hand, can do nothing for France without you. Make haste, then, and point out, yourself, the posts and dignities which will satisfy you and your friends."
The First Consul answered thus: "I have received your Royal Highness' letter. I have always taken a lively interest in your misfortunes and those of your family. You must not think of appearing in France—you could not do so without marching over five hundred thousand corpses. For the rest, I shall always be zealous to do whatever lies in my power towards softening your Royal Highness' destinies, and making you forget, if possible, your misfortunes. Bonaparte."
The battle of Marengo was celebrated at Paris by a fête on the 14th of July, which presented a singularly interesting spectacle owing to the appearance of the "wall of granite," the members of which, just as the games were about to begin, marched into the field. The sight of those soldiers, covered with the dust of their march, sun-burned and powder-stained, and bearing marks of heroic deeds on the battlefield, formed a scene so truly affecting that the populace could not be restrained by the guards from violating the limits, in order to take a nearer view of those interesting heroes.
[V]
ULM AND AUSTERLITZ
Napoleon had now reached such a point of power that the Bourbons resigned all hopes of restoration through his agency, and as the next best means of obtaining control of the throne of France assassination was decided upon. The First Consul had scarcely been in Paris a month, after the engagement at Marengo when Ceracchi, a sculptor of some fame, attempted Bonaparte's life as he was entering the theatre. But for his betrayal by a co-conspirator the plot would have succeeded. This attempt by means of the dagger was followed by the explosion of an infernal machine, which consisted of a barrel of gunpowder surrounded by an immense quantity of grape shot. On the night of October 10th the machine was placed at Nacaise, a narrow street through which Napoleon was to pass on his way to the opera house.
Some years later, in telling of the narrow escape he had on that night, he said: "I had been hard at work all day, and was so overpowered by sleep after dinner that Josephine, who was quite anxious to go to the opera that night, found it quite difficult to arouse me and persuade me to go. I fell asleep again after we had entered the carriage, and I was dreaming of the danger I had undergone some years before in crossing the Tagliamento at midnight by the light of torches, during a flood, when I was waked by the explosion of the infernal machine. 'We are blown up,' I said to Bessieres and Lannes, who were in the carriage, and then quickly commanded the coachman to drive on."