Napoleon: A Sketch of His Life, Character, Struggles, and Achievements

by Thomas E. Watson

Foiled in his attempt on the committees as then constituted, Napoleon’s only hope was to wait until these members should go out and others come in by the system of rotation.

In the meantime he stuck to Paris with supple tenacity. By producing certificates of ill-health, he procured and then lengthened leave of absence from this obnoxious post in the West. He clung to old friends, and made new ones. Brother Lucien having been cast into prison as a rabid Jacobin, Napoleon was able to secure his release. Peremptory orders were issued that Napoleon should go to his post of duty, but he succeeded, through his friends, in evading the blow. Louis, however, lost his place as lieutenant, and was sent back to school at Châlons.

In spite of all his courage and his resources, Napoleon became, at times, very despondent. He wrote his brother Joseph that “if this continues, I shall not care to get out of the way of the carriages as they pass.” The faithful Junot shared with his chief the money he received from home, and also his winnings at the gaming table;—for Junot was a reckless gambler, and, being young, sometimes had good luck. Bourrienne and Talma may also have made loans to Napoleon in these days of distress, but this is not so certain. There is a letter which purports to have been from Napoleon to Talma, asking the loan of a few crowns, and offering repayment “out of the first kingdom I win with my sword.” But Napoleon himself declared that he did not meet Talma before the time of the consulate.

Idle, unhappy, out of pocket, Napoleon became morose and unsocial. If he seemed gay, the merriment struck his friends as forced and hollow. At the theatre, while the audience might be convulsed with laughter, Napoleon was solemn and silent. If he was with a party of friends, their chatter seemed to fret him, and he would steal away, to be seen later sitting alone in some box of an upper tier, and “looking rather sulky.”

Pacing the streets from day to day, gloomy, empty of pocket, his career seemingly closed, his thoughts were bitter. He envied and hated the young men who dashed by him on their fine horses, and he railed out at them and at fate. He envied his brother Joseph, who had married the daughter of a man who had got rich in the business of soap-making and soap-selling. “Ah, that lucky rogue, Joseph!” But might not Napoleon marry Désirée, the other daughter of the soap man? It would appear that he wished it, and that she was not unwilling, but the soap-boiler objected. “One Bonaparte in the family is enough.”

Napoleon traced his misfortunes back to the date of his arrest: “Salicetti has cast a cloud over the bright dawn of my youth. He has blighted my hopes of glory.” At another time he said mournfully, striking his forehead, “Yet I am only twenty-six.” Ruined by a fellow-Corsican! Yet to all outward appearance Salicetti and Napoleon continued to be good friends. They met at Madame Permon’s from time to time, and Salicetti was often in Napoleon’s room. Bourrienne states that the two men had much to say to each other in secret. It was as though they were concerned in some conspiracy.

On May 20, 1795 (1st of Prairial), there was a riot, formidable and ferocious, directed by the extreme democrats against the Convention and its moderates. The Tuileries was forced by the mob, and a deputy killed. Intending to kill Fréron, the crowd slew Ferraud. The head of the deputy was cut off, stuck on a pike, and pushed into the face of Boissy d’Anglas, the president. Gravely the president took off his hat and bowed to the dead. The Convention troops arrived, cleared the hall, and put down the riot.

Napoleon was a witness to this frightful scene. After it was over, he dropped in at Madame Permon’s to get something to eat. The restaurants were all closed, and he had tasted nothing since morning. While eating, he related what had happened at the Tuileries. Suddenly he inquired, “Have you seen Salicetti?” He then went on to complain of the injury Salicetti had done him. “But I bear him no ill-will.” Salicetti was implicated in the revolt, and the conspiracy which preceded it may have been the subject of those private conversations he had been having at Napoleon’s room—conversations which, according to Bourrienne, left Napoleon “pensive, melancholy, and anxious.”

The conspiracy had ripened, had burst into riot, and the riot had been crushed. “Have you seen Salicetti?” A very pertinent inquiry was this, for Salicetti was being hunted, and in a few days would be proscribed. If caught, he would probably be executed. Madame Junot says that while Napoleon spoke of Salicetti he “appeared very abstracted.” Briefly to conclude this curious episode, Salicetti was proscribed, fled for refuge to Madame Permon’s house, was hidden by her, and was finally smuggled out of Paris disguised as her valet. Napoleon had known where Salicetti lay concealed, but did not betray him. Was his conduct dictated by prudence or by generosity? There was something generous in it, no doubt; but the conclusion is almost unavoidable that there was policy, too. If driven to the wall, Salicetti could have disclosed matters hurtful to Napoleon. Those private interviews, secret conferences, daily visits to Napoleon’s room on the days the conspiracy was being formed—would they not look bad for a young officer who was known to have a grievance, and who had been heard frequently and publicly to denounce the government? This may have been what was on Napoleon’s mind while he was so much buried in thought at Madame Permon’s.

It was fine proof of Napoleon’s judgment that he did not allow himself to be drawn into the conspiracy. Angered against the government, despising many of the men who composed it, restlessly ambitious, and intensely yearning for action, the wonder is that he came within the secrets of the leaders of the revolt and yet kept his skirts clear.