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

by Thomas E. Watson

CHAPTER XVI

On December 5, 1797, Napoleon returned to Paris. With studious eye for effect, he adopted that line of conduct most calculated, as he thought, to preserve his reputation and to inflame public curiosity. He was determined not to stale his presence. Making no display, and avoiding commonplace demonstrations, he doffed his uniform, put on the sober dress of a member of the Institute, to which he was elected in place of Carnot, screened himself within the privacy of his home, and cultivated the society of scholars, authors, scientists, and non-combatants generally. When he went out, it was as a private citizen, his two-horse carriage unattended by aides or escort. He demurely attended the meetings of the Institute, and on public occasions was to be found in his place, in his class, among the savants, just as though he had set his mind now on literary matters and was going to write a book. His brother Joseph gave it out that Napoleon’s ambition was to settle down and be quiet, to enjoy literature, friends, and, possibly, the luxuries of the office of Justice of the Peace. It must have been a queer sight to have seen the little Corsican dress-parading as a guileless man of letters; it is very doubtful whether many were deceived by his exaggerated modesty. Those who were in place and power, the men whom he would have to combat and overcome, were not for a moment duped. They suspected, dreaded, and watched him. Prepare for him they could not, for they had not the means. He had said nothing and done nothing which they had not indorsed; with hearts full of repugnance, with faces more or less wry, they had sanctioned even when their instructions had been disobeyed. They could not seize him by brute force, or put him out of the way. They were too weak; he too strong. He was the idol of soldiers and civilians alike; the Directors were not the idols of anybody. They could not even have him poisoned, or stabbed, for he was on his guard against that very thing. Soon after his return to Paris he had received warning of a plot to poison him; he had caused the bearer of the note to be accompanied by a magistrate to the house of the woman who had furnished the information, and she was found lying dead on the floor, her throat cut and her body mutilated. The would-be murderers had, doubtless, discovered her betrayal of them, and had in this manner taken vengeance and assured their own safety. After such an occurrence, Napoleon was not the man to be caught napping; and it was noticed that at the official banquets to which he was invited he either ate nothing, or slightly lunched on wine and bread brought by one of his aides.

The Directory gave him, in due time, a grand public reception at the Luxembourg, which was attended by immense numbers, and which was as imposing as the pomp of ceremony and the genuine enthusiasm of the people could make it. But the part played by the Directory and Talleyrand was theatrically overdone, and gave a tone of bombast and insincerity to the whole.

What now must Napoleon do? There was peace on the Continent; he was too young for a place in the Directory, and if he remained in Paris too long, France would forget him. This was the reasoning of Napoleon, the most impatient of men. Evidently the reasoning was unsound; it was dictated only by his feverish, constitutional need of action. There was no danger of his sinking out of notice or importance in France. There was the danger of his being identified with a party, but even this peril has been exaggerated. Astute and coldly calculating as he was, the party he would have chosen, had he seen fit to choose one at all, would probably have been the strongest, and political success comes to that in the long run.

He had been too impatient in Corsica in his earlier struggles; he had there alienated the wise and lovable Paoli, who wanted to be his friend, but could not sympathize with his too violent, too selfishly ambitious character. He had been too impatient to get on in France, and had been perilously near losing his head as a terrorist in the fall of Robespierre. Too anxious for social recognition and independent military command, he had fallen into the snares of Barras and the shady adventuress of whom the libertine Director was tired, and had rushed into a marriage which proved fatal to him as a man and a monarch. The same feverish haste was again upon him, and was to continue to be upon him all the days of his life, until his final premature rush from Elba was to lead him, through the bloody portals of Waterloo, to his prison on the bleak rock of St. Helena.

How could a few months of quiet in Paris have tarnished his fame? Had he not seen the heart of liberalism throughout all Europe warm to Paoli,—the time having come,—although the patriot exile had been sitting quietly at English firesides for twenty-one years?

Who in France was likely to outstrip Napoleon in one year, two years, ten years? Hoche was dead, Moreau in disgrace, Jourdan under the cloud of defeat, Augereau on the shelf, Carnot an exile, Pichegru banished. In the Directory there was not a man who could give him the slightest concern.

But to Napoleon it seemed absolutely necessary that he must be actively engaged—publicly, and as master. He could not get the law changed so that he could become a director; he could not quite risk an attack in the Directory. That pear was not yet ripe. He had wished to be sent to Rastadt to straighten matters there, but the Directory chose another man. Napoleon, resenting the slight, threatened, once too often, to resign. A Director (some say Rewbell, others Larévellière) handed him a pen, with the challenge, “Write it, General!” Moulins interposed, and Napoleon beat a retreat, checkmated for the time.

Apparently, as a last resort, the expedition to Egypt was planned, both Napoleon and the Directory cordially agreeing upon one thing—that it was best for him to leave France for a while.

The attack on Egypt suggested itself naturally enough as a flank movement against England. The idea did not originate with Napoleon; it was familiar to the foreign policy of France, and had been urged upon the Bourbon kings repeatedly. With his partiality for the East, whose vague, mysterious grandeurs and infinite possibilities never ceased to fascinate him, the oft-rejected plan became to Napoleon a welcome diversion. Veiling his design under the pretence of a direct attack upon England, he bent all his energies to the preparations for the invasion of Egypt. Nominally belonging to Turkey, the ancient ally of France, Egypt was in fact ruled by the Mamelukes, a military caste which had, in course of time, evolved from the personal body-guard of Saladin. The reign of the Mamelukes was harsh and despotic; they paid little respect to religion, and none to law; and Napoleon thought that by telling the Sultan he would overthrow the Mamelukes in the Sultan’s interest, while he assured the subject Egyptians that he came to liberate them from Mameluke tyranny, he would deceive both Sultan and Egyptians. As it happened, he deceived neither.