The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte (Vol. 1-4). William Milligan Sloane
to glitter. Readings, lecture courses in history, botany, astronomy, etc., follow one another. Everything is here collected to amuse and render life agreeable; you are taken out of your thoughts; how can you have the blues in this intensity of purpose and whirling turmoil? The women are everywhere, at the play, on the promenades, in the libraries. In the scholar's study you find very charming persons. Here only of all places in the world they deserve to hold the helm: the men are mad about them, think only of them, and live only by means of their influence. A woman needs six months in Paris to know what is her due and what is her sphere."[51] As yet he had not met Mme. Beauharnais. The whole tone of the correspondence is cheerful, and indicates that Buonaparte's efforts for a new alliance had been successful, that his fortunes were looking up, and that the giddy world contained something of uncommon interest. As his fortunes improved, he grew more hopeful, and appeared more in society. On occasion he even ventured upon little gallantries. Presented to Mme. Tallien, he was frequently seen at her receptions. He was at first shy and reserved, but time and custom put him more at his ease. One evening, as little groups were gradually formed for the interchange of jest and repartee, he seemed to lose his timidity altogether, and, assuming the mien of a fortune-teller, caught his hostess's hand, and poured out a long rigmarole of nonsense which much amused the rest of the circle.
These months had also improved the situation of the family. His mother and younger sisters were somehow more comfortable in their Marseilles home. Strange doings were afterward charged against them, but it is probable that these stories are without other foundation than spite. Napoleon had received a considerable sum for mileage, nearly twenty-seven hundred francs, and, good son as he always was, it is likely that he shared the money with his family. Both Elisa and the little Pauline now had suitors. Fesch, described by Lucien as "ever fresh, not like a rose, but like a good radish," was comfortably waiting at Aix in the house of old acquaintances for a chance to return to Corsica. Joseph's arrangements for moving to Genoa were nearly complete, and Louis was comfortably settled at school in Châlons. "Brutus" Lucien was the only luckless wight of the number: his fears had been realized, and, having been denounced as a Jacobin, he was now lying terror-stricken in the prison of Aix, and all about him men of his stripe were being executed.
On August fifth the members of the new Committee of Safety finally entered on their duties. Almost the first document presented at the meeting was Buonaparte's demand for restoration to his rank in the artillery. It rings with indignation, and abounds with loose statements about his past services, boldly claiming the honors of the last short but successful Italian campaign. The paper was referred to the proper authorities, and, a fortnight later, its writer received peremptory orders to join his corps in the west. What could be more amusingly characteristic of this persistent man than to read, in a letter to Joseph under date of the following day, August twentieth: "I am attached at this moment to the topographical bureau of the Committee of Safety for the direction of the armies in Carnot's place. If I wish, I can be sent to Turkey by the government as general of artillery, with a good salary and a splendid title, to organize the artillery of the Grand Turk." Then follow plans for Joseph's appointment to the consular service, for a meeting at Leghorn, and for a further land speculation. At the close are these remarks, which not only exhibit great acuteness of observation, but are noteworthy as displaying a permanent quality of the man, that of always having an alternative in readiness: "It is quiet, but storms are gathering, perhaps; the primaries are going to meet in a few days. I shall take with me five or six officers. … The commission and decree of the Committee of Safety, which employs me in the duty of directing the armies and plans of campaign, being most flattering to me, I fear they will no longer allow me to go to Turkey. We shall see. I may have on hand a campaign to-day. … Write always as if I were going to Turkey."
This was all half true. By dint of soliciting Barras and Doulcet de Pontécoulant, another well-wisher, both men of influence, and by importuning Fréron, then at the height of his power, but soon to display a ruinous incapacity, Buonaparte had actually been made a member of the commission of four which directed the armies, and Dutot had been sent in his stead to the west. Moreover, there was likewise a chance for realizing those dreams of achieving glory in the Orient which had haunted him from childhood. At this moment there was a serious tension in the politics of eastern Europe, and the French saw an opportunity to strike Austria on the other side by an alliance with Turkey. The latter country was of course entirely unprepared for war, and asked for the appointment of a French commission to reconstruct its gun-foundries and to improve its artillery service. Buonaparte, having learned the fact, had immediately prepared two memorials, one on the Turkish artillery, and another on the means of strengthening Turkish power against the encroachments of European monarchies. These he sent up with an application that he should be appointed head of the commission, inclosing also laudatory certificates of his uncommon ability from Doulcet and from Debry, a newly made friend.
But the vista of an Eastern career temporarily vanished. The new constitution, adopted, as already stated, on August twenty-second, could not become operative until after the elections. On August thirty-first Buonaparte's plan for the conduct of the coming Italian campaign was read by the Convention committee, found satisfactory, and adopted. It remains in many respects the greatest of all Napoleon's military papers, its only fault being that no genius inferior to his own could carry it out. At intervals some strategic authority revives the charge that this plan was bodily appropriated from the writings of Maillebois, the French general who led his army to disaster in Italy during 1746. There is sufficient evidence that Buonaparte read Maillebois, and any reader may see the resemblances of the two plans. But the differences, at first sight insignificant, are as vital as the differences of character in the two men. Like the many other charges of plagiarism brought against Napoleon by pedants, this one overlooks the difference between mediocrity and genius in the use of materials. It is not at all likely that the superiors of Buonaparte were ignorant of the best books concerning the invasion of Italy or of their almost contemporary history. They brought no charges of plagiarism for the excellent reason that there is none, and they were impressed by the suggestions of their general. It is even possible that Buonaparte formed his plan before reading Maillebois. Volney declared he had heard it read and commentated by its author shortly after his return from Genoa and Nice.[52] The great scholar was already as profoundly impressed as a year later Carnot, and now the war commission. A few days later the writer and author of the plan became aware of the impression he had made: it seemed clear that he had a reality in hand worth every possibility in the Orient. He therefore wrote to Joseph that he was going to remain in Paris, explaining, as if incidentally, that he could thus be on the lookout for any desirable vacancy in the consular service, and secure it, if possible, for him.
Dreams of another kind had supplanted in his mind all visions of Oriental splendor; for in subsequent letters to the same correspondent, written almost daily, he unfolds a series of rather startling schemes, which among other things include a marriage, a town house, and a country residence, with a cabriolet and three horses. How all this was to come about we cannot entirely discover. The marriage plan is clearly stated. Joseph had wedded one of the daughters of a comparatively wealthy merchant. He was requested to sound his brother-in-law concerning the other, the famous Désirée Clary, who afterward became Mme. Bernadotte. Two of the horses were to be supplied by the government in place of a pair which he might be supposed to have possessed at Nice in accordance with the rank he then held, and to have sold, according to orders, when sent on the maritime expedition to Corsica. Where the third horse and the money for the houses were to come from is inscrutable; but, as a matter of fact, Napoleon had already left his shabby lodgings for better ones in Michodière street, and was actually negotiating for the purchase of a handsome detached residence near that of Bourrienne, whose fortunes had also been retrieved. The country-seat which the speculator had in view, and for which he intended to bid as high as a million and a half of francs, was knocked down to another purchaser for three millions or, as the price of gold then was, about forty thousand dollars! So great a personage as he now was must, of course, have a secretary, and the faithful Junot had been appointed to the office.
The application for the horses turned out a serious matter, and brought the adventurer once more to the verge of ruin. The story he told was not plain, the records did not substantiate it, the hard-headed officials of the war department evidently did not believe a syllable of his representations—which, in fact, were untruthful—and, the central committee having again lost a