The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
masters of the Mediterranean, … to emancipate a large number of good patriots still to be found in that department, and to restore to their firesides the good republicans who have deserved the care of their country by the generous manner in which they have suffered for it—this, my friend, is the expedition which should occupy the attention of the government." His fortune was in a sense dependent on success: the important position of artillery inspector could not be held by an absentee and it was soon filled by the appointment of a rival compatriot, Casabianca. In the event of failure Buonaparte would be destitute. Perhaps the old vista of becoming a Corsican hero opened up once again to a sore and disappointed man, but it is not probable: the horizon of his life had expanded too far to be again contracted, and the present task was probably considered but as a bridge to cross once more the waters of bitterness. On success or failure hung his fate. Two fellow-adventurers were Junot and Marmont. The former was the child of plain French burghers, twenty-three years old, a daring, swaggering youth, indifferent to danger, already an intimate of Napoleon's, having been his secretary at Toulon. His chequered destiny was interwoven with that of his friend and he came to high position. But though faithful to the end, he was always erratic and troublesome; and in an attack of morbid chagrin he came to a violent end in 1813. The other comrade was but a boy of twenty, the son of an officer who, though of the lower nobility, was a convinced revolutionary. The boys had met several years earlier at Dijon and again as young men at Toulon, where the friendship was knitted which grew closer and closer for twenty years. At Wagram, Marmont became a marshal. Already he had acquired habits of luxurious ease and the doubtful fortunes of his Emperor exasperated him into critical impatience. He so magnified his own importance that at last he deserted. The labored memoirs he wrote are the apology for his life and for his treachery. Though without great genius, he was an able man and an industrious recorder of valuable impressions. Not one of the three accomplished anything during the Corsican expedition; their common humiliation probably commended both of his junior comrades to Buonaparte's tenderness, and thereafter both enjoyed much of his confidence, especially Marmont, in whom it was utterly misplaced.
CHAPTER XX.
The End of Apprenticeship.
The English Conquest of Corsica—Effects in Italy—The Buonapartes at Toulon—Napoleon Thwarted Again—Departure for Paris—His Character Determined—His Capacities—Reaction From the "Terror"—Resolutions of the Convention—Parties in France—Their Lack of Experience—A New Constitution—Different Views of Its Value.
1795.
The turmoils of civil war in France had now left Corsica to her own pursuits for many months. Her internal affairs had gone from bad to worse, and Paoli, unable to control his fierce and wilful people, had found himself helpless. Compelled to seek the support of some strong foreign power, he had instinctively turned to England, and the English fleet, driven from Toulon, was finally free to help him. On February seventeenth, 1794, it entered the fine harbor of St. Florent, and captured the town without an effort. Establishing a depot which thus separated the two remaining centers of French influence, Calvi and Bastia, the English admiral next laid siege to the latter. The place made a gallant defense, holding out for over three months, until on May twenty-second Captain Horatio Nelson, who had virtually controlled operations for eighty-eight days continuously—nearly the entire time—directed the guns of the Agamemnon with such destructive force against the little city that when the land forces from St. Florent appeared it was weakened beyond the power of resistance and surrendered.[44] The terms made by its captors were the easiest known to modern warfare, the conquered being granted all the honors of war. As a direct and immediate result, the Corsican estates met, and declared the island a constitutional monarchy under the protection of England. Sir Gilbert Elliot was appointed viceroy, and Paoli was recalled by George III to England. On August tenth fell Calvi, the last French stronghold in the country, hitherto considered impregnable by the Corsicans.
The presence of England so close to Italian shores immediately produced throughout Lombardy and Tuscany a reaction of feeling in favor of the French Revolution and its advanced ideas. The Committee of Safety meant to take advantage of this sentiment and reduce the Italian powers to the observance of strict neutrality at least, if nothing more. They hoped to make a demonstration at Leghorn and punish Rome for an insult to the republic still unavenged—the death of the French minister, in 1793, at the hands of a mob; perhaps they might also drive the British from Corsica. This explained the arrival of the commissioners at Nice with the order to cease operations against Sardinia and Austria, for the purpose of striking at English influence in Italy, and possibly in Corsica.
Everything but one was soon in readiness. To meet the English fleet, the shipwrights at Toulon must prepare a powerful squadron. They did not complete their gigantic task until February nineteenth, 1795. We can imagine the intense activity of any man of great power, determined to reconquer a lost position: what Buonaparte's fire and zeal must have been we can scarcely conceive; even his fiercest detractors bear witness to the activity of those months. When the order to embark was given, his organization and material were both as nearly perfect as possible. His mother had brought the younger children to a charming house near by, where she entertained the influential women of the neighborhood; and thither her busy son often withdrew for the pleasures of a society which he was now beginning thoroughly to enjoy. Thanks to the social diplomacy of this most ingenious family, everything went well for a time, even with Lucien; and Louis, now sixteen, was made a lieutenant of artillery. At the last moment came what seemed the climax of Napoleon's good fortune, the assurance that the destination of the fleet would be Corsica. Peace was made with Tuscany. Rome could not be reached without a decisive engagement with the English; therefore the first object of the expedition would be to engage the British squadron which was cruising about Corsica. Victory would of course mean entrance into Corsican harbors.
On March eleventh the new fleet set sail. In its very first encounter with the English on March thirteenth the fleet successfully manœuvered and just saved a fine eighty-gun ship, the Ça Ira, from capture by Nelson. Next day there was a partial fleet action which ended in a disaster, and two fine ships were captured, the Ça Ira and the Censeur; the others fled to Hyères, where the troops were disembarked from their transports, and sent back to their posts.[45] Naval operations were not resumed for three months. Once more Buonaparte was the victim of uncontrollable circumstance. Destitute of employment, stripped even of the little credit gained in the last half-year,[46] he stood for the seventh time on the threshold of the world, a suppliant at the door. In some respects he was worse equipped for success than at the beginning, for he now had a record to expunge. To an outsider the spring of 1795 must have appeared the most critical period of his life.[47] He himself knew better; in fact, this ill-fated expedition was probably soon forgotten altogether. In his St. Helena reminiscences, at least, he never recalled it: at that time he was not fond of mentioning his failures, little or great, being chiefly concerned to hand himself down to history as a man of lofty purposes and unsullied motives. Besides, he was never in the slightest degree responsible for the terrible waste of millions in this ill-starred maritime enterprise; all his own plans had been for the conduct of the war by land.
The Corsican administration had always had in it at least one French representative. Between the latest of these, Lacombe Saint-Michel, now a member of the Committee of Safety, and the Salicetti party no love was ever lost. It was a general feeling that the refugee Corsicans on the Mediterranean shore were too near their home. They were always charged with unscrupulous planning to fill their own pockets. Now, somehow or other, inexplicably perhaps, but nevertheless certainly, a costly expedition had been sent to Corsica under the impulse of these very men, and it had failed. The unlucky adventurers had scarcely set their feet on shore before Lacombe secured Buonaparte's appointment to the Army of the West, where he would be far from old influences, with orders to proceed immediately to his post. The papers reached Marseilles, whither the Buonapartes had already betaken themselves, during the month of April. On May second,[48] accompanied by Louis, Junot, and Marmont, the broken general set out for Paris, where he arrived with his companions eight days later, and rented shabby lodgings in the Fossés-Montmartre, now Aboukir street. The style of