Max Lentz - Napoleon (1907)

8/22/2019 Max Lentz - Napoleon (1907)

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NAPOLEONA BIOGRAPHICAL STUDY

BY

Dr. MAX LENZ

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY

FREDERIC WHYTE

WITH 50 ILLUSTRATIONS, INCLUDING PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE,ALSO MAPS, AND FACSIMILE OF AUTOGRAPHS

NEW YORKG. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

27 " 29 WEST 23RD STREET

1907


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ILLUSTRATIONS


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Vlll NAPOLEON

MAPSBattle of AusterlitzBattle of WaterlooMap of Europe

. 258

" 374


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NAPOLEON

CHAPTER I

CORSICA

WAS born when my country was dying" " thatis how Napoleon himself, with equal force and

brevity, has pointed to the moment in which he cameinto the world. For on the 9th of May, 1769, PasqualePaoli, with the Corsican militia, had taken the fieldagainst the French for the last time ; not long after-ards

an English ship conveyed the defeated generalto Naples, and that was the end of the freedom ofCorsica. It was on the 15th of August in the sameyear, the feast of the Assumption, that LaetitiaRamolino, the young and beautiful wife of CarloBuonaparte, gave birth to her illustrious son.

These words were addressed to no less a personagethan Paoli himself, then an exile in England. Theyformed the first line of the first letter that the youngBuonaparte ever wrote to the hero of Corsica, whomhe regarded as the incarnation of patriotism ; he wroteit on the 12th of June, 1789 ; that is to say, in thehour when France, who had robbed Corsica of herfreedom, was herself on the brink of disaster.


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2 NAPOLEON

The States General, called togetherby the King,had been assembled at Versailles since May, and onthe ioth of June the Abbe Sieves,the leader of theThird Estate,had called upon its representativestoconstitute themselves the government of the country.It seems natural to suppose that it was the news ofthis event, rightlyregarded as the real beginning ofthe Revolution, that moved the young officer,ho inhis garrison at Auxonne must have been followingthe course of affairs at Versailles more keenly than anyFrenchman, to the penning of his letter.

There can be no better indication,however, of thewhole colouringof Napoleon's mind from earlyboy-ood

than this pithy sentence in which the lion's claw,the Emperor's hand, reveals itself. He was not yettwenty years old, and since his tenth year he hadbeen in France and had worn the King's uniform.His whole environment and the atmosphere in whichhe lived had been French; he wrote and spokeFrench, he had almost forgottenthe Corsican dia-ect.

But all this had not weakened, it had ratherserved to stimulate and intensifyhis Corsican in-tincts.

Every word of his that has come down tous from that period of his life points to the oneemotion : the desire to win back his country'sfree-om,

togetherwith an inextinguishableatred againstthe conqueror. " Thirty thousand Frenchmen," hegoes on to say, " vomited out on our coast, floodingthe throne of freedom with rivers of blood

"that

was the hateful scene first given to my eyes. Thecries of the dying, the tears of the hopeless,sur-ounded

my cradle from the moment of my birth.You had left our island,and with you had gone ourhappinessand our hope. Slavery followed upon our


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CORSICA 3submission : subjectedto the threefold tyranny of themercenary, the magistrate,and the tax collector,urcountrymen live on despised despisedby those whohave the reins of government in their hands. Is thatnot the most hideous of all the tortures that a mancan be put to ? Did the unfortunate Peruvians meetwith a worse fate,when they fell victims to the swordof the covetous Spaniard? "

How are we to account for this fierce disaffection ofthe young officer,or his burning hatred againstthecountry to whose army he belonged, to whose Kinghe owed his education and his livelihood ? Is hisattitude justifiedby the measures adopted by theFrench in Corsica ? Were his countrymen reallytreated with contempt and placed absolutelyat themercy of the foreign administration ? Were theydeprived of their possessionsand ground down bytaxation ? Nothing of the kind. The French hadindeed come as conquerors ; but it must be admittedthat once in the positionof masters they had donetheir utmost to win over their new subjects,nd inparticularhe leading families of the island. In theprincipalourt of judicaturewhich they instituted,and to which they gave the same standing as that ofthe Parlements or high courts of France, there werefour Corsicans out of a total of twelve membershaving seats and votes ; in the eleven lower courtsthe magistratesof Corsican birth outnumbered theFrench. The villagesnd valleysof the island wereself-governingn all local matters ; the King appointedan overseer to each of its ten provinces,but theseofficials were chosen from the Corsican nobility.There was a body of representativesf the variousorders meeting at Bastia, the seat of the Government,


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4 NAPOLEONand consistingof twenty-three deputies taken fromthe clergy,the nobility,and the commons. Therewere no fixed dates for its sessions,but in the intervalsbetween them a committee of twelve members of theSecond Estate and two delegatesspeciallyhosen forthe purpose were empowered to represent the wholebody in all dealings with the King's Commissioner.The French had deliberatelyet up divisions betweenthe various classes which had not hitherto been inexistence. The children of the people of rank werebrought up in French institutions,the sons in semi-aries

and militarycolleges,he daughters in con-ents; in short,the social and politicalonditions of

the Ancien Regime in France were introduced bodilyinto the island. The country was, however, exemptedalmost entirelyfrom taxation,and its administrationinvolved the Crown in expenses far exceeding anyrevenue brought in. It is true that even the mostgenerous treatment does not make up for the loss offreedom. The real rulers of the island remained theforeigners,he Governor and the Intendant with theirofficials,ivil and military. The Corsican who wouldsecure any favour for himself or his familymust bowdown before these,and secure their goodwill. Therehad been no real institution of nobilityupon theisland before its conquest ; in dress and bearing,andin all their manners and customs, all the inhabitantshad been on a level. But the old families,thoughnot a class apart, had been the real leaders of thenation,alike in their civil feuds and in their fightforfreedom. It was no consolation to them now for allthey had lost that they were raised in rank above theheads of their fellow-countrymen,while forced to bowthe knee to the alien.


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THE HOUSE AT AJACCIO IN WHICH NAPOLEON WAS BORN.From a drawing bj' F. Clementson.


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CORSICA 5The Buonapartes, like all their fellow-countrymen,

had fought with Paoli for the liberties of theirfatherland. Carlo Buonaparte, Napoleon's father,had been a member of the National Assembly whichhad stood by the Dictator ; he was a well-educatedman and had acted as Paoli's secretary. It was hewho penned the eloquent proclamation in which theGeneral summoned the Corsicans to their last fight.His wife Laetitia had gone with him into camp, andwas present with him at the last battle ; Carlo,however, did not accompany his leader into exile:like most of the other Corsicans, including all hisown relatives,he remained at home at Ajaccio andstrove to accommodate himself to the new condition

of things. The family, which had many branches,all of which clung together,was one of the mostrespected in the island, but not one of the richest.A house in the town, a couple of farm-houses withsome meadows and vineyards hard by as well as alittle farther away among the hills,constituted thesum of Carlo Buonaparte's property. He wasobliged therefore,in course of time, as the numberof his children increased,to ingratiateimself withthe conquerors in order to better his fortunes. Hisnatural ability,togetherwith his French educationand the good repute of his family,helped him inthis. After he had taken his doctor's degree at Pisa,shortlyafter the birth of Napoleon, he was appointeda magistrateand was twice sent to the French Court,first in 1776 and then in 1778, as a representativefthe Corsican nobility. For these honours he waslargely indebted to De Marbeuf, the King's firstofficial of the island,who seems to have become anintimate friend of the family, and who stood


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6 NAPOLEON

godfather to Louis Buonaparte. It was by Marbeuf srecommendation that Carlo Buonaparte, on his secondjourney to France, took with him his sons Josephand Napoleon as well as his wife's young stepbrotherFesch, with a view to putting them to school inFrench establishments. Fesch, who was destined forthe Church, was placed in the seminary at Aix.Joseph and Napoleon were left in the collegeofAutun, where the former, who also was intended fora clerical career, was to stay, while Napoleon wasonly to remain until he had mastered the language ofthe country. It was on the ist of January, 1779,that the brothers arrived there. In May, Napoleonwas transferred to his real destination,the militaryschool of Brienne.

This was one of the twelve establishments whichKing Louis XV had founded for the trainingof hismilitary cadets. Beside the paying scholars, therewere in these institutions some six hundred King'sBursars, as they were called,free students for whomthe King paid annually 700 francs apiece. To secureone of these scholarshipsit was necessary, besidesproducing certificates of poverty and good lineage,to be provided with a recommendation from someperson of eminence. This was furnished to Napoleonby M. De Marbeuf. Save for the uniform worn bythe youths (blue coat with red waistcoat and trousers),the collegeat Brienne, which numbered from onehundred to one hundred and fiftystudents, hadnothing about it to remind them of the militaryvocation. It was under the management of theMinorites, who kept the entire work of teaching intheir own hands. The course of instruction,for themost part scanty enough, comprised the study of


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MARIE LCET1TIA RAMOLINO BUONAPARTE.

From a picture by F. Gerard. Photo by Neurdin Freres.


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CORSICA 7

French literature and composition,history,geographyand mathematics, and above all religiousdoctrine,together with a little Latin and German. Noprovisionwhatever was made for drill,r any otherkind of preparationfor militaryservice. It was, infact,a boarding-schoolentirelyin keeping with thecharacter of the Minorite Order, and its chiefcharacteristics were its religiousatmosphere andseclusion. There were no holidays,not even onSundays. None of the boys were allowed to receivefrom their homes either money or presents, nor werethey ever allowed a vacation at home. It was, inshort, an institution conducted in the true spiritofthe Ancien Regime with its combination of Church,Crown and Nobility. The families,whose sons wereNapoleon's schoolfellows,had been connected withthe service of the Court for centuries. In their eyesthere was nothing remarkable or incongruous aboutthe character of the place.

But what was this young Corsican to think of itall ? Everything about it, the sense of imprison-ent

within its cloisterlike walls, the methods ofrestraint,the arrogance of his French schoolmates,who amongst other forms of teasing twisted hisname " Napoleone " into the nickname " La pailleau nez," the bleak climate of the barren district ofChampagne, made him think longingly of all hehad lost, of the freedom and of the blue skiesof his Corsican home. As someone has wellremarked, his situation was like that of a boy fromAlsace-Lorraine placedin a Prussian militaryacademyafter the war of 1870. What wonder that hisnatural independence of spirit should have itsoutcome in a feelingof bitter hatred, and that


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8 NAPOLEON

he should fall a victim to melancholia and home-ickness!

We must not make too much, however, of this aspectof his school existence : he made some friends amonghis schoolfellows,to whom he remained faithful inafter years, and to whom he showed favour when atthe height of his power, for it should be noted thatwith all his powers of hating,Napoleon was neverguilty of ingratitude,nd was more liable to forgetinjuries than kindnesses. If we are to attachcredence to the statement of one of his chiefs (whosetrustworthiness,however, has been called in question),he gave evidence of a friendly,odest, honourable,gratefulharacter,and his bearingwas marked by self-restraint. With his teachers he seems to have hadquite good relations,and on them, as upon otherassociates of his youth, he bestowed benefits andhonours in the days of his greatness in a measureoften far beyond anything they merited from him.But he could not reconcile himself to life in thisforeignland. His entry into the corps had been dueonly to consideration of personal interest. He wasbound by no other tie to the King of France, he wasdrawn by his every feelingo the land of his birth.He did not take a leadingplaceamong the studentsin the institution. The difficulties he met with inmastering French were sufficient to keep him back, atleast in the first years. He did, however, distinguishhimself in mathematics and in history,as he hashimself told us. These things he required for hiscareer, for which he prepared himself with industryand zest from the beginning ; it was for the Navythat he was destined originally,ike an older cousin,named Casabianca, who, as Captain, lost both his


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CHARLES BUONAPARTE, FATHER OF NAPOLF.ON.From a painting by Anne-Louis Girodet.

p. 8.


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CORSICA 9

ship and his life at the Battle of the Nile. History-gave him food for the daydreams in which he waswont to indulge in a kind of wooden alcove that hehad contrived for himself in a corner of the garden.In this retreat, to which no one else ventured tocome, he would read in his Plutarch of the greatheroes of olden days who offered up their lives forfreedom and fatherland. With the stories of thosesublime figuresof the ancient world, he would, inhis own mind, connect the legends of Corsicanpatriotsdown to the days of Paoli himself, thatchampion of liberty,who personifiedto him all themartial gloriesof Greece and Rome.

He was nearlyfifteen years old when he again sawhis father,who had come to France to take his sonLucien from Autun, where he had previouslybeen,to Brienne, and his daughter Marianne to stay withtwo of her cousins at Saint-Cyr. The letter addressedto his young uncle Fesch, in which Napoleonalludes to this event, has always been regarded asa strikingindication of the maturity of his character,by reason of the coldlycalculatingone by which it ismarked. He discusses in it the wish of his elderbrother, Joseph, to abandon the idea of becominga priest and to enter the army instead ; and it is,indeed, remarkable with what seriousness and in whatclear,well-balanced language Napoleon enumeratesall the objectionsagainstthis course. He " has re-eived

an education,"he writes," for a clerical career ;it is very late now for him to turn back ; the Bishopof Autun would have given him a good bene-ice,

and in time he himself would have become abishop : what a good thing this would have been forthe family. The Bishop has done his best to get him


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io NAPOLEON

to remain, and has assured him that he would not re-retit,but it is no good, he persistsin his idea : I

applaud his decision,if it comes from the real voca-ionfor the life of a soldier,certainlyhe finest life of

any, and if the great Author of all has implantedin him, as in me, a decided bias towards the militarycareer." But what branch of the King's forces didJoseph want to enter ? His deficiencyn mathemati-al

knowledge and his rather feather-brained charac-erunfitted him either for the engineers or for the

artillerydoubtless he had the infantryin view." Good ; 1 understand. He will do nothing all day,he will just lounge about ; after all,what is a poordevil of an infantryofficer " three-fourths of his timea mauvais sujet? And that is just what neither mydear father, nor you, nor my mother, nor my dearuncle, the Archdeacon, would like to see him. ButJoseph has already shown some signs of a tendencytowards frivolitynd extravagance." " In short,"sothe letter ends, " a last effort should be made toreconcile Joseph to the idea of becoming a priest.Should this fail,it would be well for his father totake him back to Corsica where he would have himunder his own eyes and where they might try to ap-rentice

him to a notary."This letter would undoubtedly give one the im-ression

of an alarminglyprecociousmind, were itnot that the tones of his father's voice may bediscerned in its every sentence. It is quite clearthat on the occasion of this visit Carlo Buona-arte

had held forth to Napoleon in this vein uponthe elder brother, whom Napoleon himself had notseen for years. Carlo Buonaparte had intended toreturn once again to Brienne, but the condition of


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CORSICA 1 1

his health, as to which he consulted the Paris doctors,forced him to go back to Corsica direct : so this wasthe first and the last time since Napoleon's departurefrom Ajacciothat father and son came together,for inMarch of the followingyear Carlo succumbed to theillness which was to bring about the death of theEmperor himself in St. Helena. He died at Mont-ellier,

whither he had gone by the advice of the localphysicianin the hope of a cure.

Napoleon was then at the militaryschool in Paris,which he had entered in October, 1784. This institu-ion

also was a creation of Louis XV. It was a repro-uctionof the school at Brienne upon a higherplane :

it was marked by the same mixture of aristocracyndclericalism : the conditions of the life were still morearistocratic,nd were in fact,almost too elegantforstudents, some of whom were scantilyprovided for,though many of them came from the first families inthe land. Generals,ministers,and Court officials wereto be found among the administrators of this establish-ent.

Over and above the ordinary curriculum,which was on the same lines as that of the lowerinstitution,he students in this higher course weretrained in such accomplishments of a gentleman asriding,fencingand dancing,besides elementary mili-ary

drill. In view of their future calling,he studentswere divided up into companies, and the better,orolder ones amongst them were appointed non-com-issioned

officers. Among these, Napoleon nevertook his place,but that was because of the very earlydate at which he got his commission. He seemsto have come out of himself more in Paris than inthe provincialown. He made some good friends,ifhe also made some enemies. Among the latter,one


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12 NAPOLEON

was more notable than De Philipeaux from Poitou,the same who, as emigre,defended St. Jean D'Acreagainst him ; Philipeaux would seem to have beenamongst those who hurt Napoleon's Corsican sensi-ilities.

There is a caricature drawn by one of thestudents,in which Napoleon is depictedpreparingtoset out to the relief of his hero Paoli, whilst a pro-essor

is anxiouslytrying to hold him back by thequeue of his wig. He made so littleeffort to dissemblehis character as a Corsican rebel at heart,that he wouldseem to have come into conflict with his teachers inthis respect. When, upon one occasion his confessorapproached him on the subjectand reminded him ofhis duties towards the King, he quitted the confes-ional

brusquely,with the words : " I did not comehere to talk about Corsica. It is not a priest'susi-essto catechise me on the subject." Two notes

handed down to us by Las Cases, serve to give ussome idea of the strong, but at the same time singu-ar

and uncomfortable,impression he made upon hisFrench associates. One of these,from the pen of M.Demairon, who was his master in the art of Frenchcomposition,characterises his literarytyles " granite,hot from a volcano." The passionaterage animatingthe heavy-handed sentences that mark his youthfulepistles,ould not have been better described. Ourother witness uses a phrase which was afterwards tosound prophetic: " A Corsican by race and nature, hewill go far,if circumstances favour him."

Napoleon became an officer in the autumn of 1785.On the 30th of October, he made his way to Valois withhis friend and comrade Desmazis, there to join theDe la Fere regiment of artillery.It was one of thebest regimentsin the army, and it was a distinction


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CORSICA 13for the young officer to be attached to it. It washere that Napoleon acquired the rudiments of hismilitaryeducation. On the 10th of January, 1786,he received his epaulettes,is commission being madeto date from the previous ist of September. Hispay came in all to 11 20 francs a year. He receivedno allowance from home, but by careful economy hemanaged to get along on these slender means, andhe may be said,therefore,to have been quite inde-endent

now at the age of sixteen. In the followingSeptember he returned home on leave,after seven years'absence from the island. After he had alreadybeenat home six months, Napoleon's leave was prolongeduntil September, 1787, as the result of an appealwhichhe made in the springfor this extension on the scoreof sickness ; on returning to France in that month,instead of rejoining his regiment he proceeded toParis, where his " semestre," to use the technicalexpression,was extended once again,so that he wasable to return to Corsica on the ist of January, 1788,and to remain there until the end of May: anabsence from his corps of, in all,twenty-one months.Strange as may seem to us this long interruptionofhis militaryservice,there was nothing unusual aboutit in those days. Napoleon's messmates were almostequallywell treated in the matter of leave. Andnow, owing to the death of his father,his presencein Corsica once again became necessary for familyreasons, his brother Joseph (who had taken to thelaw) not having yet completed his studies in Pisa.This involved a visit to Paris in the autumn of 1788.

In the meantime the regiment had several timeschanged its station. During the Dutch disturbancesupon the northern frontier it had been sent first to


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i4 NAPOLEON

Douai, then to the coast, and later,in December,1787, to Auxonne on the Saone. It was at Auxonnethat Buonaparte rejoinedit,to remain with it for morethan five years, and it was now that his education as asoldier began in real earnest. Papers on artillery,tillextant in his handwriting,give evidence of his zealand of his clear grip of his specialwork both intheory and practice. That he won the approval ofhis superiorofficers is shown by the fact that he wasappointed a member of a committee of officers byGeneral du Teil, an authorityupon the science ofartillery.His lot here at Auxonne, as at Valois,wasthe life of a small garrison town. He provedhimself a good comrade, settingstore by the goodname of the corps, and by the maintenance of unitybetween all its members, the younger officers inparticular of this fact also we have written evidencein the shape of a scheme drawn up by the lieutenantsof the regiment, for the establishment of a militaryCourt of Honour, the task of the actual wording ofthis scheme having been entrusted to him. He hadthe entree to the houses of the best families in thelittle town, and established friendlyrelations withthem, to which in later years he often gratefullylooked back.

But all this left his inner nature untouched. Hissoul remained weighted with feelingsof lonelinessand vague melancholy; feelingscommon to mostmen of mark in the days of their youth, and duemerely to unsatisfied cravingsafter action and powerand fame. But in Napoleon's case these feelingsereblended with the Corsican's hatred against the racethat had robbed him of his home

"the race amongst

whom he was condemned to live,almost like a host-


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CORSICA 15

age for the submission of his vanquished country-en.Letters which he wrote at this time give us

glimpses into his state of mind. In one of them,written on the 26th of April, Pasquale Paoli's six-ieth

birthday, we find him expressing himself asfollows : " Did the thought ever occur to his father,Hyacinth Paoli,on the occasion of his birth,that oneday this son of his would be reckoned among thebravest heroes of the new Italy? The Corsicans inthose unhappy days were bowed down more thanever under the tyranny of the Genoese. Theydragged on their wretched and humiliating existenceunder conditions lower than that of the beasts. In1715 the inhabitants of some of the valleyshad risenin arms againsttheir tyrants, but it was not until1729 that that revolution came about which wasmarked by so many deeds of bravery and patriotismthat it may be compared to the great days of Rome.. .

." " Eh bien ! " he exclaims, " let us go into thismatter a little. Did the Corsicans do well to throwoff the yoke of Genoa ? " And having invoked thehistoryof the island and the teachingsof Rousseauin their defence, he concludes with the words, " Thusby all the dictates of justice,he Corsicans were rightto shake off the Genoese yoke, and would be rightto do the same with that of the French. Amen."Eight days later we get another peep into the sombreworkings of his mind. " For ever lonely in themidst of men, I continuallywithdraw into my inner-ost

self,to give myself up entirelyo sad musings.Whither do my thoughts take me ? Towards death.In this earlymorning of my days,I have a long lifeto look forward to. For six or seven years I havebeen far from my fatherland. How keen will be my


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joy, four months hence, when I see my countrymenand my relatives once again ! Can 1 not make surefrom the sweet feelingsalled up in my heart by thememory of the happy hours of my childhood that mybliss will be complete ? What madness is it thenthat makes me wish for death ? " That is the ques-ion

he asks himself,and his answer is,that he wishesto die because freedom has vanished from the world,and because men have become knaves and cowards." What will be the spectaclethat my home will pre-ent

to my eyes ? My countrymen burdened withchains and on tremblingknees kissingthe hand ofthe oppressor." His thoughts go back to that proudpast when the Corsican held himself erect and re-urned

home happilyto his wife as soon as his day'swork was done. To-day the French have put anend to virtue as well as to freedom. " What haveI to do in a world which forces me to give praiseto men who bid me hold virtue in contempt " ?" Were I able,"he exclaims," to set free my countryby a singleblow, I would at once plunge the avengingsword in the heart of the tyrant." And the wholepassage, with its strange mixture of a sombre melan-holy,

misanthropy, and self-pity,concludes withthese words, reminiscent of Faust : " Life is a burdento me, for I can no longer experiencejoy or pleasure,and everything adds to my pain. It is a burdento me because the men amongst whom I live andmust continue to live are as far removed from mein their ideas and modes of thought as moonshine isfrom sunshine. I have nothing that makes life worthliving hence my disgust with everything." At alater date, when Napoleon had learnt to masterthese feelings,e traced them to three different and


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GENERAL PAOLI.

From an engraving by Houbraken.


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CORSICA 17successive frames of mind : sheer boredom to beginwith, then low spirits,nd then a mood of despairtending towards suicide. The man who has to dragon his existence in surroundings of depressingmono-ony

without prospect of change, asking himself dayafter day why he was born, is in truth the mostmiserable of mortals.

It is noteworthy that the first ambition that enteredinto the head of this genius of action,this mightiestof world-conquerors,was to achieve fame as a writer :he wished to be the historian of Corsica " a wish intruth natural enough in view of his circumstances atthe time and those of his country. I can find noevidence of Napoleon's thinking of himself at thisperiod as the liberator of Corsica,as Paoli's successor.The bonds of subjugationwere still too heavy, so itseems, to be shaken off : but to kindle a sacred fire ofhatred in the hearts of his countrymen, to evokeproud memories of the heroic actions of their fore-athers,

and thus to make ready for the longed-forday of freedom, seemed to him a goal worth strug-ling

for. Already in Brienne he had sought tomaster the historyof his island ; his notes written atValence show him well acquainted with it,and per-aps

the idea had come to him even then of tellingthe story himself anew. The projectis revealed un-istakably

in a manuscript which he produced inParis in November, 1787. This is the rough draftof a prefaceto what he calls "A Rapid Sketch of OurMisfortune," a work which he proposes to dedicate tohis fatherland,impelled thereto by the enthusiasm ofyouth and aiming at nothing but an accurate statementof facts. "Dear countrymen," he exclaims, "wehave always been unfortunate " for the moment we


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1 8 NAPOLEON

are the subjectsof a mighty monarchy of whoseadministration we experienceonly the defects,and wecan foresee no solace for our woes but in the courseof centuries." On his return to Corsica he set aboutcollectingresh material for his work and began torenew his knowledge of Italian. He returned toAuxonne full of his projects,nd it was here thatthe coming collapseof the France of the old regimeforced the pen into his hand and led to his writingthe first pages of his historical sketch. The King,when he had called together the States General, hadappealedto all his subjectsto bring their complaintsand their wishes before the steps of his throne.While from all the provinces of France and fromCorsica itself the official national representativeseremaking their way to Versailles with their portfolios,Napoleon decided that he would submit a Corsicandocument on his own account ; speaking, not likethose others for a party or for a class,but on behalfof his own ideas of politicalreedom. This I thinkexplainsthe form which Napoleon gave to his historicalessay : that of a letter to the Minister Necker, thechampion of reform in the King's council. Napoleonwrites in the person of a venerable man who, in thecourse of a life of eightyyears, has seen the days ofhis island's freedom, of its struggles,nd of its bond-ge

" a favourite idea of his, to which he comes backin other writings of this time. Unfortunately theyoung lieutenant did not proceed with his undertaking,in fact we know of it only from two letters fromDupuys, who had been Napoleon'steacher at Briennein the art of compositionand to whom the manuscriptwas sent for perusal. But from the few sentencescited by Dupuys and from the anxious warnings given


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by the good priestto his hot-blooded pupil to whomhe is constantlyappealingfor " discretion ! discretion ! "" it seems clear that its revolutionarycharacter waspronounced.

When in the autumn of 1789 Napoleon receivedfresh leave of absence and returned once again toCorsica,the Ancien Regime had fallen upon evil days inFrance, but upon the island he found it stillin its fullforce, and the white flag waving over the castlesof Ajaccio, Bastia, Calvi ; its officials,intendants,customs employes, magistratesand officers,werestill in power. In the States General the nobilityand clergy were represented by two adherentsto the old monarchy : Count Buttafuoco, whoin the war for freedom had already gone over tothe side of France, and who was regarded thereforeby Corsican patriotss a traitor to his country; andthe Abbe Perretti della Rocca, who had followedButtafuoco's lead ; while in the lawyer Salicetti deRostino, and Count Colonna da Cesario Rocca, anephew of Paoli's,the party of Progress could boasttwo convinced advocates among the representativesfthe Third Estate. But if these were to achieve any-hing

they must attach themselves to the revolutionaryparty in France. Their ideas and aspirationsalltended in the same direction : the France of yester-ay

had been Corsica's enemy ; the France of to-orrowmust be momentarily at least its ally.

Napoleon arrived at Ajacciojust at the moment whenthe movement, which here, as in France, took shapefirst in the large towns, began to assume dangerousproportions. We can imagine with what zest theyoung officer threw himself into it. Tradition has itthat it was he who induced his fellow-citizens to hoist


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the tricolour and to institute a National Guard. Theeffort at revolt was put down, but it broke out onlythe more vigorously in Bastia, the seat of theGovernment. There were sanguinary encountersbetween the people and the troops, some of whomsided with the insurgents. An entrance was forcedinto the citadel,and the governor was compelledto put on the tricolour cockade and to authorise theraisingof a National Guard. According to a trust-orthy

witness,it was Napoleon who, hurrying overthe mountains, had brought about this outbreak also.He and his friends scarcelyhoped at this moment tobring about the freedom of the country, nor did therevolutionaryarty in France entertain any fears as tothe loss of the island. On the contrary, good rela-ionsexisted between the revolutionaries on both sidesof the water. The addresses and appealswhich weredespatched to the French National Assembly by theCorsican patriots,and which Napoleon not onlysigned but for the composition of which he wasto some extent responsible,et with cordial responseand led to the decision come to on the 30th of Novem-er

to accord to the island the rank of a departmentof the French State and to repatriatets exiled defen-ers

with Paoli at their head in their fatherland. y_The change that had come over the positionof

affairs is made very clear in a new version of theletter on Corsica which Napoleon undertook in thespringof 1790. Just as Necker was put on one sidein France as the result of the revolution, so we findhim superseded in regard to this communication. Itis addressed to the Abbe Raynal, the author of aphilosophicalistory of the East and West Indies,whose writingshad exerted a greater influence upon


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publicopinion than those of almost any other Frenchauthor of the period, and who must have been insympathy with Napoleon inasmuch as he had foretoldthe liberation,not only of the French, but also of theCorsicans, from the hated rule of the monarchy.Napoleon had visited him in Marseilles,where hehad been residingsince his return from exile (1787),and the Abbe had encouraged him to give a historyofCorsica to the French literaryorld. He had beguncollectingis materials,so we gather from the intro-uction,

and had made some progress with the book,when the Revolution broke out, giving Corsica backher freedom, and thus deprivinghis task of its originalaim, that of contrastingthe glorious past with thepitiablepresent. " From the bosom of the nation,"he writes, " which has overthrown our tyrants, theelectric spark has gone forth ; this great noble andenlightenednation has become conscious of her powerand her rights. She has become free and she haswilled that we should become free as well. She hasopened her arms to us and henceforth we have thesame interests,the same cares. There is no longerthe sea between us." It is Napoleon himself who isutteringthese words ; he does not put them into themouth of the old veteran whom he made his spokes-an

in the earlier composition. In form the treatiseis no longer a singleletter ; it would seem to havebeen originally series of three letters,f which onlytwo have come down to us complete. Its tone hasbecome in every way more moderate ; it is a victor, afriend of the newborn France, who is holding forth onthe great deeds of his own people. There can be nodoubt that it reflects Napoleon's new mood. Togetherwith his relatives and adherents, he has sided


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22 NAPOLEON

definitelyith the French Revolution. The insti-utionswhich it established ; the fact that it threw

open to the natives of the island employment indistrict and departmental administration in theNational Guard and in the magistracy,the footingofequalitywith France upon which Corsica was placed,the fair prospects held out to Corsicans upon themainland, no less than at home : all these thingswere calculated to minister to their self-esteem,tosilence their old grievances,and to bind them closelyand securelyto France.

Napoleon's leave would seem to have been ex-endedfor six months, a fever which seized him in the

springinvolving further extension until the autumn ;and he then found himself obligedto prolonghis stayuntil January, 1 79 1, so that in all he had once againabsented himself from his regiment for more than ayear. He was stayingat the Baths of Orezza, in theinterior of the island,seeking to regain his health atthat small wateringplace,when PasqualePaoli, whohad been loaded with honours in Paris and was beingwelcomed home in triumph by his countrymen,returned to Corsica. Joseph Buonaparte was amember of the deputation which the Corsicans hadsent to greet their General at Lyons, and Napoleon,it would seem, had drawn up the address in which hisnative city hailed the arrival of the old hero. If,however, we are to believe what Joseph tells us in hisMemoirs, the very firstmeeting between the two greatCorsicans was marked by the first sign of thatantagonism which was so soon to sunder them.Paoli, we are told, had been pointingout upon thebattlefield of Ponte Nuovo, the positionsthat hadbeen occupied by the two forces, and had been


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explaining the course of the engagement, whenNapoleon remarked drily," Such dispositionswerebound to have such a result." In any case, it wouldseem clear that Napoleon had already becomeconscious of a certain feelingf oppositionto the oldGeneral. The mistrust that had been shown towardsPaoli,due to the suspicionthat he was only awaitingthe opportunityof settingCorsica free from France,may have been unwarranted ; an old man now andno longer in full possessionof his strength,he maywell have cherished the hope that the island might beable to secure the essential attributes of independence,while maintaining its politicallliance with France.But he cannot be regarded as a friend of the newFrance at this time. The French world of thoughtin which Napoleon was brought up and by which,despitehis hatred of the oppressor, his whole naturewas permeated, was quite foreignto the mind ofPaoli. Whilst Napoleon had almost forgottenthelanguage of his own country during his sojourn inFrance, Paoli could only write Italian. For him theindependence of Corsica remained the one goalto beaimed at. The receptionwhich had been accordedhim, alike by the French and by his own people,thepositionin which he had been placed by the Frenchrevolutionaryovernment at the head of the depart-ent

and of the National Guard of the island,couldbut fortifyhim in his views and aspirations.Surrounded by parties,ach of which sought to winhim for itself,he endeavoured from the first tomaintain his independence of them, and assumed anattitude of expectant reserve, even towards a manlike Buttafuoco and his associates. Thanks to thismethod of proceeding, the differences between him


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24 NAPOLEON

and Napoleon remained for a time undeveloped.The positionof the " General," as he was alwayscalled,as so strong, and the common interest in theparty of progress still so great, that the rivalryof theambitious leaders had to be kept in the background.\; In February, 1791, Napoleon at last returned to hisgarrison. He had taken with him his brother Louis,at that time a boy of thirteen,whom the familyhadalso destined for the career of an artilleryfficer,anadditional proof of the way in which they had linkedtheir fates with France. The letter to his brotherJoseph in which a few weeks later he gives anaccount of the boy's course of study, which hehimself directed, is one of the most pleasingthatever came from his pen, and shows us anew, notonly the serious spiritwith which he set himself tothis, as to every other task, but also the close andtender relations which united him with his own kin." He is getting on capitallyt his work," he writes," and is now learningto write French ; I myselfamhelpinghim with mathematics and geography ; he isreadinghistory,nd altogethere is becoming a greatfellow. All the ladies here are losingtheir hearts tohim. He has acquired quite a French style,lightand bright. He goes out into Society,bears himselfgracefully,nd gives out all the customary socialpasswords with the gravityand unction of a man ofthirtyyears. I can see already that he is goingto be the best fellow of the four of us."

In view of the growing disorganisationf the armythe militaryauthorities rejoiced to such an extentover every officer who came back to the colours thatno difficulties were made when Napoleon went beyondthe limits of his leave. Indeed, he was not only


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NAPOLEON BONAPARTE.mi a painting- by Philippoteaux. Photo by W. Mansell " Co.


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excused, but in addition he was accorded his full payfor the extra three and a half months, and when hisregiment was reconstructed upon a new basis in thespring he v/as promoted to the rank of first lieu-enant.

However, he was not able to remain inAuxonne, as he would have wished for Louis'ssake, but had to return to his first garrison atValence, where a detachment of his regiment wasquartered.

It was here that he heard of the great events of21 June, 1 79 1, of the attempt of Louis XVI and hisfamily to seek safetyin flight one of the mostmomentous incidents in the French Revolution, tear-ng

aside the thin veil that covered the ever-wideningbreach between the crown and the new France. Bythis act the King made it manifest that he wouldhave nothing to say to the revolutionarymovement.The leaders of the National Assembly made vainefforts to postpone the inevitable. The ever-growingbreach was especiallyarked in the south, as Napo-eon

had been able to note on his journey to Au-onne.He had found the people strong for the

Revolution, the soldiers particularlys patriots,utthe officers againstit as aristocrats. " The women,"he writes,"are everywhere royalists.here is nothingto be surprisedat in that, for freedom is a far morebeautiful spouse than them all and cuts them out."His own regiment was a victim to these dissensions ;half of his comrades, amongst them his best friends,left the colours,which they felt were soiled by theRevolution. He himself plunged only the morereadilyinto the revolutionaryvortex. As in Ajaccio,so in Auxonne and Valence, he frequentedthe politicalclubs and gatherings he gave his signatureto revo-


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26 NAPOLEON

lutionaryddresses,amongst others a document callingfor the sentencingof the King to death, came forwardhimself as a speaker,and dailygathered togetherhisnon-commissioned officers to read to them the Parisnewspapers. "At ease in my mind," so he writes toa friend, over the lot of my country and the fameof my friend (he means Paoli),I have now no caresave for the common fatherland ; so in this hour ofleisure left to me from the day, I shall just indulgein a chat with you, and rest a brain full of importantaffairs of State, and a heart full of the thoughts ofmen for whom one has regard and from whom oneis unwillinglyevered."

Absorbed though he was in all the great questionsof the day, the course of his reading,to which heset himself systematicallyith his pen in his hand,may be traced with precision. Previouslyhe hadbeen given to reading at random, now books abouthistory,ow geography,now natural history; but fromthis time onwards he devotes himself to the perusalof politicalreatises. From a historyof the Sorbonne,from the Memoirs of Duclos and from a History ofthe French Nobilityby Dullaur, he extracts instancesof the crueltyand treacheryf the Anden Regime^ ofthe degeneracy of the nobilityand clergy,nd of thedespotism of the Church and the throne. Nor didhe put aside his own literaryrojects; he resumedhis old idea of writing a historyof Corsica; he nowthought of producingit in the form of two volumes ;he entered into negotiationwith two publishersonthe matter, and applied to Paoli for assistance inregard to material for the work. He was, however,to be disappointedin both respects ; neither the pub-ishers

nor the general would have anything to say


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to the undertaking. He had sent Paoli at the sametime a pamphlet full of violent accusations againstButtafuoco, which he had delivered as a lecture inthe club at Ajaccio,and which he had now hadprinted. But the generallooked with equal disfavouron the attack upon his old friend and on the pro-ects

for the History of Corsica. He was not in aposition to get out his documents from the boxesin which they were kept ; moreover, historywas nota task to be undertaken by a man in his youth ; heheld also that the historyof Corsica was not of suffi-ient

importance for the world at large. He advisedNapoleon to follow the advice that had been givenhim by the Abbe Raynal, and to content himself withmaking a collection of such brief records and anec-otes

as might be adapted for portraying the heroismof the Corsican character.

The young officer,owever, had alreadybegun tobusy himself with another project,in which the AbbeRaynal seems also to have encouraged him. TheAcademy of Lyons had announced that a prize,founded by Raynal himself,should be awarded for anessay upon the questionwhat truths and what feelingswere of most importance to men for the achievementof happiness. This was a task that fitted in verywell with Napoleon's mood of the moment ; he sentin his essay in August. It is difficult to give a clearresume of its contents, for it is badly put togetherandfull of repetitions.But it is necessary for us to con-ider

it side by side with the other products of hispen, for none of them affords us a deeper insightintohis soul. It is more than a study of politicsndphilosophy : it constitutes a series of self-revelations,conscious and unconscious, comparable with those of


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28 NAPOLEON

Jean-Jacques,and callingalmost for as much con-iderationas actual incidents in his life.

It is impossible,for instance, not to have Napoleonhimself in mind when we read his descriptionof thefeelingsne experienceson returning to the land ofone's birth. " You hasten through the scenes of yourchildhood's joys, the witnesses of the emotions thatattended on your first experiencesof human natureand the first awakenings of sorrow in your heart. Inspirityou live those days over again,and taste theirhappiness afresh. Your love for your fatherland isrekindled in your heart." He conducts the readerto the summit of the Corsican hills,in the glow ofthe settingun, or to the shore of the sea that foamsaround the island cliffs,here the spectaclef the daystar settingin the bosom of the infinite expanse fillsone with melancholy. He shows us the interior of apeasant'shut at the close of the day'swork ; we standwith him on the height crowned by the monument ofSt. Remy ; below it extends the plainof Provence, onwhich the Romans set their mark two thousand yearsago, and where a hundred thousand of the Cimbri lieburied. The Rhone flows in the distance, swifterthan an arrow. A road runs on the left : at some dis-ance

is a small town ; nearer at hand a herd in ameadow. " You feel as though you were livingin adream : your heart is a prey to emotion." Picturessuch as these do not merely recall Rousseau's picturesof Nature ; they are the records of feelingsactuallyexperiencedby the writer in the course of those longroamings,of which, like Rousseau, he was so fond.

No doubt his further reflections on the nature andsignificancef our feelingsowards the State show alsorecollections of Rousseau. So too the principlethat


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CORSICA 29is made the basis of the whole, that feelingsrisingtothe height of passion must be controlled and curbedby reason, is, as has been rightlyremarked, a leadingidea ,in Emile. But far more striking than suchsimilarities of thought is what is peculiaro Napoleon,and even more directlyopposed to his teacher. Thisshows itself not merely in his direct commendation ofthe studies that had delightedhim since his days atBrienne ; as when he praisesmathematics and logic,and in the same way history," that basis of moralscience, that light of truth, that destroyer of pre-udice,"

as the surest guides for the path of life ; butthe contrast goes much deeper. To use his own ex-ression,

the great emotions " that is to say, thosewhich are directed to the world of the State and itsideals

" are those that are characteristic of the soul ofNapoleon. With him they amount to a passionfor thepeculiarcreative power of the State and of organisedsociety,s contrasted with those more common desiresthat are destructive of such ideals. What he admiresare the great men, who, filled with such emotions,build up states, and give them freedom and power ;his heroes from Plutarch,and the peopleswhom theypenetrate with their spirit.And yet these nobleststirringsf the soul can work destruction if,ike over-lowing

mountain torrents, they break over their banks." Emotion is like the Danube at Donaueshingen :

a child could turn it from its course ; but a couple ofhours' journey down the valley it may flood wholeprovinces and bring whole cities to destruction."Reason must ever be stronger than the stream of thefeelings,owever generously it may flow ; but, underthe restraint of reason, the power of the feelingsshould become mightierand more creative.


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30 NAPOLEON

Rousseau also has written that in strengthlie thefoundations of every virtue. But the heroic toneringing through Napoleon's every sentence is notwithin the compass of the author of the new Heloise.His gospel of nature preaches gentlenessand idyllicjoys you seem to hear the notes of the shepherd'sflute ; while it is the warrior's trumpet that resoundsthrough these youthful writings of the youngNapoleon. Like Napoleon, the Citizen of Genevawas a foreignerin France, having been taken fromhis own country while still a boy ; but the city ofhis origincould scarcelyboast a historyof its own ;its great days dated from many generations back.Although a free state and independent, it was per-eated

by the French spirit,nd its sons had soughtand found riches and honours in Paris. So thegreatest of them all had neither tasted the bitternessof such national memories as had poisoned Napoleon'syouth, nor experienced the growth in his heart ofthat sentiment for the State which had been implantedin the young Corsican by the historyof his father-and.

For Rousseau the State has no other use thanto protect the weak, to curb the ambitious, to ensureto every man that to which he is entitled ; andfinallyo produce men who, like himself,should beable to taste life's joys and appreciateits beautiesin full liberty. He is more disposed to hate theState than to serve it. In his eyes the soul of manis disfiguredand distorted through the constrain-ng

influences of societyand civilisation,n whichhe finds the first cause of all social differences. Bynature men are equallike the denizens of the wild,andcivilisation is nothing but a fallingway of manhoodfrom itself. For Napoleon, on the contrary, man


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exists for the sake of the State. Man is born foraction ; he must strive for freedom and for the powerof the State : for him freedom and power are insepar-ble.

In Rousseau's theories, as in his life,ven thefamily is placed in the background, while Napoleon,like a true Corsican, is rooted in his family. Finally,Rousseau is absorbed entirelyin his own existence,inhis own happiness ; whilst Napoleon gives his wholemind to the fate of his country and his family,nd thecourse of the Revolution.

Napoleon himself was conscious of these differ-ncesof outlook. In a brief note which he penned

upon Rousseau's famous treatise on the originand causes of human inequality,e characterises it asbeing written from the standpointof the man withouthome, family or social ties who has existed withoutstrife and without friendship. And he protests hisdisagreementwith the doctrine emphatically.Fromhis own standpoint as citizen of a State it was un-hinkable

to him that men should ever have been ableto exist without the need of wife or home or friends." In the progress of centuries,"he says, " the peoplesthus growing up in a state of nature have multipliedside by side,till as they came to deal with each other,and the earth no longer yielded its treasures withoutcultivation,there came into existence property, socialdistinctions and governments, and in their train therecame self-seeking,pride and ambition. Man pos-essed

from the beginning sense and reason, other-isehe could never have had the feelingof obliga-ionto virtuous conduct, and the happiness that

virtue gives. It is not our Citizen of Geneva thatcan teach us this."

It follows from this that the Socialistic element in


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32 NAPOLEON

Rousseau's theory of the State is excluded at the veryoutset from Napoleon'spoliticalystem. He recog-ises

the existinginequalitiesf society.The Govern-entmay be the highestlink in the social chain, pro-idedonly that the beggar is not the lowest. " Let

this link be," he writes in the Discours de Lyon, " thesmall proprietor,he small shopkeeper, or the skilledartisan,or every other man who with a reasonableamount of work can feed, clothe, and provide ahome for his family." Here again Paoli is hisexample. He appeals to the agrarian policy andcalls it his greatest service to his people that hesecured for each sufficient property to supply himwith sustenance at a cost of littlelabour. We alreadyrecognisein this and in other points the system ofthe Emperor, which included among its fundamentalprinciplesthe security and contentment of thepeasants and manual labourers.

The theory of the State put forward by Napoleonin this essay of his is essentiallyhat of the ruler.For the emotions and the aspirationsby which hesets store are those of the ruler,the hero. " Theoccupations of the husbandman and the artisan,"sohe writes,"have a restrainingffect upon the imagina-ion

: the man who is fortunate enough to dwell inthe country is free from that restlessness which workshavoc with the idler ; he does not stand in need of sohighlydeveloped a reasoningpower in order to keephis feelingsn check." "The man who undertakes nomanual labour requiresa stronger will : the force ofthe current is more powerful,and it is necessary thatthe dams should be more powerful too ; he standsmore in need of self-study,e needs the whole forceof his reason." These words picturebetter than any


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CORSICA 33others that could be used Napoleon's frame of mind" they tell us of his heart full to overflowing withlongings after action and power, and at the sametime,of a force of will which controlled these emotionswith the iron bands of cool observation and calcula-ion.

How hard he had to struggle,owever, againstthe force of the fire within him, how keenly alivehe was to the tragedy that like a dark cloud attendsupon all human happiness and greatness, is mademanifest by the trulyimpressivewords with which heproceeds : " does he feel the fire of genius in hisveins ? Luckless man if so " I pity him : he willbe the wonder and the envy of all those who feel ashe does, but the most miserable of them all. Thebonds of equalityre broken : his whole life will beunhappy ! Ah that fire of genius. But let us nottake it too much to heart, for it comes so rarely!How many years must pass by before even one suchindividual comes into the world ! Men of geniusare like meteors destined to burn in order to illuminethe century in which they live."

It is curious to note the placethat Napoleon givesto ambition. He reckons it among the destructiveimpulses,three in number, which in his eyes are butforms of egoism : he calls it the vice of a man'smaturity, the vice that seizes a man when he hasgrown weary of the enervatingpassionsof his youth,and that danglesbefore his eyes deceptivedreams ofnew delights,only to leave him a victim in his oldage to his unsatisfied cravingsfor power. He thinksof this sentiment of ambition as a hideous phantomwith pallidfeatures,wild eyes, unsteady gait,andwith a sardonic smile upon its lips; to the man whofalls under its mastery misdeeds become moves in a


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34 NAPOLEON

game, cabals mere means to an end : lies,slanders,and abuse, mere arguments and figuresof speech.And when at length he reaches the pinnacleof power,the homages of the peoples are a weariness to him.Napoleon instances the great men of theworld who havefallen victims to this vice of ambition : those great menin whose ranks he himself was one day to be numbered.They beginwith Alexander and Caesar,and come downto Cromwell and Charles V and PhillipII,Richelieuand Louis XIV. " Ambition," he proceeds," takesAlexander from Thebes to Persia,from the Granicusto lssus,from Issus to Arbela, and from thence toIndia ; ambition drives him on to conquer and devas-ate

the world, without ever satisfyingis lust,untilat last,onsumed by his own flame,he takes leave ofhis senses, imagines himself to be a god, the son ofJupiter,and insists upon others sharingthis belief."Surely,when he wrote these words Napoleon him-elf

must have looked Ambition in the eyes. Does itnot seem in truth that it must have been given to thisyouth to have looked into the future as in a mirror,and to have seen himself picturedin it as the world-conqueror ? Does it not seem as though he weretrembling over his own destiny? He turns awayfrom it as from some spectaclef mad frenzy,and hesummons up a vision in its place of a different raceof heroes, as though he would claim their succour inhis resistance againstthe phantom that has disquietedhim : Dion, who rescued the cityof his birth fromthe yoke of tyrants, Fabricius, Cincinnatus, andLycurgus, all the champions of libertyin the spiritfcitizenship,hose loftyfeatures he had pictured tohimself as a boy in Brienne, in the days when he wasreading his Plutarch and beguiled away the sadness,


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that came from his consciousness of subjugation,ithdazzlingvisions of the great days of old. Paoli alsotakes his placeamong these ; indeed, he stands out inNapoleon'sjudgment as the noblest exemplar of thechampions of freedom and justice.

But is there not ambition underlying the actionseven of these heroes ? It is noteworthy how Napoleon,even where he has been describingthe aspect of thisphantom of ambition, comes upon this reflection andhow he deals with it : " But the ambitious men maydo good ; is it not comfortingfor the reasoning con-cience

to be able to say to oneself : I have securedthe happiness of a hundred families : I have allowedmyself to become a prey to anxiety,but the State hasreaped the benefit ; my fellow-citizens live in quiet,thanks to my own unrest : they have reaped comfortfrom my cares, joy from my sorrows." " That istrue undoubtedly," Napoleon proceeds triumphantly(and it would seem as though he were justifyingbyanticipationhe Eighteenth Brumaire) : " but you donot reflect that Fabricius,Cincinnatus, Catinat,thoughtso too, and these were not ambitious men. He whowishes to come to the front by his own efforts,nd tocontribute to the happiness of the State, is the manof virtuous principle,ull of courage, strength,andgenius: such a man will master Ambition insteadof being mastered by it,he will turn both emotionand will to account : he is possessed by the spiritof moral liberty."

So much for the ideal world of which Napoleondreams in his twenty-second year. But he is awarealready that the realitydoes not correspond withit,that three-fourths of mankind, as he says, are theslaves of their passions,ver seeking,never attaining


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36 NAPOLEONhappiness. That sentiment of misanthropy whichdogs the footstepsof genius, and which Napoleonhimself saw lurking behind the visionary eyes ofRousseau and behind the mocking smile of Voltaire,and which had laid long since its frigidand upon hisown burning brow, confronts us in this very writingamid all his enthusiastic glorificationsf heroism'.Alas, if that ideal world should reveal itself to him asa world of illusion,f that enthusiasm for libertythathad drawn him close to the race he once hated shoulddisappear,if the land of his birth should be given upas a prey to the ambitious, and even the hero of hisyouth be estrangedfrom him in the strife of parties!And if that sense of isolation,which so often hadcontracted his heart in those young days of his,shouldtake him captiveagain in the hour of his greatness,and his thinlydisguisedmisanthropy,grown intensi-ied,

should lead him to despisehis ideals !In the autumn of 1791 Napoleon returned to

Corsica on a fresh six months' leave, his presencehaving become more necessary than ever, from familyconsiderations. The National Assembly, which hadcome into existence as the result of the Revolutionof 1789, had done its work. The new Constitutionhad been proclaimed and acquiescedin by the King,and France had begun to breathe afresh. It wasalmost felt that the Revolution was at an end, thatthe final victory had been won. In all the depart-ents

of the country, as in Corsica, the new insti-utionshad come into being,but it was just at this

moment that the movement, which had hithertomanifested itself by a series of heavy isolated blowsand in the ever-increasingupheaval of the AncienRegime^ began to assume, day by day, more universal


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CORSICA 37and more threatening proportions. The wholeorganisation of the State was being recast uponthe basis of the broadest democracy. The electiveprinciplebecame established, alike in the Church, inthe Government offices,in the Courts of Law, andeven in the Army, with which the National Guardhad thrown in its lot. This gave the freest scope tothe agitation,very election put to the test thoseprinciplesupon which the central authority of theState had taken its stand,but againstwhich a thousandforces of the Anden Regime^ using the legalformsthus provided, offered a fierce resistance. Electionafter election added to the forces of destruction.Differences and enmities, dating from hundreds ofyears ago, but kept within bounds under the oldmonarchy, broke out afresh with redoubled force.Loyaltyand reverence towards the throne and towardstraditional customs, conscientious objections andclerical obstinacy,devotion to the ideals of libertyand patriotism,and all the impulses of unbridledambitions, clashed togetherand grew into a ragingwhirlpool of passions and emotions. The noblestand the meanest mingled together. While in Francethe great majority of the aristocracyhad felt them-elves

tied to the monarchy, and had been crushedand almost annihilated by the Revolution, in Corsicathe leading families who had been robbed of theirpower by the zAncien Regime^ had now been quicklyreinstated in their old position of influence,for itwas clear that in view of the generalhostilitygainstthe old monarchy, their members alone would beheld eligibleor election to posts in the government.But all the old feuds and strugglesfor powerimmediately broke out amongst them, everyone


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38 NAPOLEONendeavouringto secure the most influential and lucra-ive

posts for himself and his relatives. Paoli was nowmore than ever the rulingspiritf the island. In Paristhe fullest confidence was placedin him : he was at oncePresident of the governing body of the Departmentand Chief of its National Guard, thus combining thehighest administrative and militaryauthority. No-election was made to any high office without hissanction, and thus he soon became surrounded byall would-be officials. The Buonapartes,Napoleon in-luded,

were amongst those who sought his patronage,but their hopes of seeing the eldest son, Joseph,chosen as representative of Ajaccio among the sixmembers for the island in the National Assembly,were destined to disappointment. It cannot bedenied that the General in gettingJoseph Buonaparte'srivals,Pozzo di Borgo and Mario Peraldi,elected forAjaccio, seems to have acted in the interests ofCorsican independence better than if he had favouredthe claims of the Francophil Buonapartes. It wasonly a partialconsolation for Joseph to be made amember of the governing body of the Department,and shortly afterwards to be given a post in theAdministration by Paoli,especiallys this involvedhis going to Corte, the seat of the Government, andbeing thus severed from his friends in Ajaccio.The brothers, however, were soon to find theirinfluence increased through the death of their great-uncle the Archdeacon, for they thus had placed attheir entire disposal,ources of income, the controlof which the latter had kept entirelyin his ownhands. Joseph tells us in his Memoirs how the oldpriestcalled togetherround his bedside the membersof the familyof which he had so long been head, and


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CARDINAL FESCH.

From a lithograph by Delpech.

p. 38.


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CORSICA 39comforted the weeping mother by his assurances as tothe abilities of her sons. To Napoleon, we are told,he said : " Tu poi, Napoleone, sarai un omone ""

" You, Napoleon, will be a great man."Napoleon devoted a portionof the money to pur-hasing,

in conjunctionwith his uncle Fesch, nationalproperty (probablyconfiscated church lands) upon theisland. How closelyhe bound up his destinies withCorsica is shown by another step which he took atthe same time. The decree of the National Assemblyin regard to the constitution of the National Guardhad provided for the establishment of four battalionsin Corsica. It seemed desirable for Napoleon, andto the interest of his family,that he should securea commission in the Ajaccio battalion,and the par-icular

post which he coveted was that of adjutant-major, the third rank in a battalion ; he was justifiedin hoping to get it,as, unlike most other such posts,it was in the giftof the commander-in-chief of theisland, General Rossi, a distant relative and goodfriend of the family,and his appointment would notnecessitate his giving up his commission in theArtillery.Rossi was favourablydisposed,and at oncerequestedthe Minister of War to sanction his nomi-ation

of Napoleon.He made this appealon the ist of November, 1791,

but there was no answer until January. Napoleonhad already begun to feel uneasy, as a decree hadbeen issued to the effect that every officer shouldrejoin his regiment by the ist of January, onpain of instant dismissal. Moreover, the NationalAssembly had put the fillingf this post into the handsof the volunteers themselves, and, in addition, hadordered the return of every officer on active service


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attached to the National Guard by the ist of April,with the exceptionof the chiefs of each battalion andits two lieutenant-colonels. As, however, this decisionhad not yet been promulgated (althoughit had re-eived

the assent of the Minister),Rossi did nothesitate to nominate Napoleon for the post.

Then came the promulgation,however ; and nowthere was nothing left for Napoleon to do if hewished to remain upon the island and yet avoidhaving his name struck off the roll of his regi-ent,

but to secure his appointment as first orsecond in command. He succeeded in this,despitethe active opposition organised by his rivals,byabandoning the first placein the battalion to the mostformidable of them, Giovanni Battista Quenza. Withthe co-operationof the Departmental authorities " theprocurator-syndicf which, Salicetti,he chief execu-ive

officer of the island,hasteningback speciallyorthe purpose " the choice was made on the ist ofApril,not without scenes of violence and uproar, andfell upon Quenza and Buonaparte. Their opponentshad been intimidated by the fact that the four com-anies

of the district had been speciallyrought intothe city,alicetti having been given full authorityforthis by the Government; and Napoleon himself hadnot hesitated to forciblyemove to his home fromthe house of a rival candidate one of the three Com-issioners

of the Department whom he had reasonto mistrust.

But this skilfullyxecuted coup " his first coupd'etat " was to have unpleasant consequences forhimself and his friends. His competitors,who hadthe greater number of sympathisers among the in-abitants

of Ajaccio,were, of course, by no means


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pleased at the way things had gone. Eight dayslater,as the result of continual provocations,herewas a sanguinary encounter with the military,or thebattalion had remained in the cityafter the musterand selection of officers. It began with a quarrelthat broke out in the main street in the course ofsome game, the playerswhipping out their knives,with which the Corsican is alwaysprovided. A patrolof the National Guard, led by an officer,came alongto bring the disturbance to a close ; but the dis-utants

now turned upon the soldiers, and werebacked up by the graduallyincreasingcrowd of on-ookers,

disarmed three of them, wounded a fourthwith stabs,and forced the patrol,ow the target forbullets from all the windows, to take speedily toflight,o the accompaniment of cries : Addosso alleberrette ! Napoleon, on hearing the sounds of strifeand the shots,decided at once to go to the disturbeddistrict. He hurried to the barrack gate, where adetachment of the 42nd regiment of the line wasmounting guard ; he called on the officer in commandto beat " the assembly,"but the latter refused,evenwhen the request was supported by members of themunicipality. Thus repulsed, Napoleon collectedtogether a dozen of his own officers to accompanyhim to the district. In front of the cathedral theycame upon a young citizen carrying a gun, which helevelled at them. Napoleon advanced towards himto speak with him, whereupon the man lowered hisgun and took a step in advance. Suddenly, seeingfive of his comrades coming out of the cathedral tohis help,he fired and wounded mortallyLieutenantRocca della Serra. The alarm was now raised on allsides,and the officers being unarmed took hastilyo


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flight. No more blood was shed on that day,but theofficers and soldiers of the battalion now assembledin the barracks near the seminary, and proceeded tomake preparationsfor resistingttack.

On the followingday there was more shooting,ndthis time on the part of the volunteers,who, enragedat the murder of their officer and bent upon revenge,fired at armed and unarmed alike. Women andchildren, as well as the Abbe Peraldi, the nephewof the deputy,were among the victims. This stateof things lasted,with brief intervals for parleyings,four days longer,the situation becoming more andmore serious hour by hour. The National Guardoccupied the Capucine monastery of the Genoesetower, whence they commanded all approaches to thecity. They cut off the water and food supply,andtheir numbers being increased by reinforcements fromthe country, they proceeded to laywaste the vineyardsand fields in front of the gates. The civil authoritiesof the citywere at first divided in their sympathies,but presently were carried along by the enragedpopulation,and exerted all their efforts to expel theNational Guard. When on top of this M. de Mayard,the regularofficer in command of the citadel,ho atfirst had maintained a neutral attitude,decided tocomply with their demands, and ordered a hundredmen of his regiment with two cannon to advanceupon the National Guard, a catastropheseemed un-voidable.

" We decided," writes Napoleon, " tomarch out in column form and capture the guns ;it was a case for bold action, for the combinationagainst us had proved entirelysuccessful,and wecould only cut our way out of the net with thesword." At this moment the news arrived that two


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CORSICA 43Commissaries of the Department were on their wayfrom Corte, and would soon be on the spot ; where-pon

Mayard, to whom this news had been com-unicatedby Quenza and Napoleon, ordered back

the cannon and a period of quiet immediately set in.We are in possessionof the reports of this episode

which were drawn up by the various Courts of theDepartment, together with the strikinglywrittenmemorandum from Napoleon'sown pen relatingtohis battalion ; but these documents are all animatedby a partisanspirit,nd they give us no insightintothe imbroglio of hatred, treachery,and intrigue.This much, however, is certain,that it was not a casemerely of personal feelings,jealousy on the partof the leaders, revengefulnessn the part of theordinarycitizen,but that the influences of the revolu-ionary

administration were involved, graduallydis-ntegratinall the social conditions of Corsica. It is

clear, too, that the influence of the Church hadproduced a division in the ranks of the populace,which had been unanimous two years before inacclaiming the Revolution as bringing with it thedawn of Corsican freedom. Ajacciowas a clerical city.The decrees of the National Assembly againstthe non-juringpriests,nd the expulsionof the Capucines anorder of monks standinghigh in the affections of thecitizens " had produced very bad blood. It was onthis account that the Companies of the NationalGuard had been ordered into the city. The clericalparty had gone so far as to send representativesoCorte to demand permission for the Capucines toreturn. The return of these envoys on the Mondayin Easter week with an unfavourable reply hadnaturallyintensified the feeling of bitterness ; the


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non-juringpriestshad said mass openly on that dayin the Franciscan convent and thus called publicattention to the schism ; they had contemplatedhaving a processionthrough the streets, againstwhichthe city authorities had set their face a fortnightbefore ; wild rumours were current to the effect thatthe constitutional priestswere to be driven out andthe country people massacred. Napoleon's rivals,Peraldi and Pozzo di Borgo, took no part in thesematters ; they stillposed as friends of the constitution,and they protestedagainstthe way in which Napoleonsought to identifythem with the fanatics and re-ctionaries.

They turned to account, however, thefanatical antagonism of the masses againstthe enforc-ng

of the civil constitution of the clergy. This wasthe strongest support for all oppositionagainst theparty of progress, who, for their part, had to relychieflyupon the revolutionarynarchical instinct ofthe people. The gulf was already too wide to bebridged: the Church had no thought of giving in,and the defenders of the Constitution had no mindfor a compromise. Whoever, therefore, sought todraw nearer to the Church found himself inevitablydrawn into the ranks of the party that would havenothing to say to the Revolution. Paoli was at heartas far from being a clerical as were the Buonapartesand their friends ; but he had been brought into con-lict

with revolutionaryendencies at Bastia to a verypronounced degree : there had been bloodshed in thecity,and this,indeed, had been the cause of theGeneral's decision to remove the seat of governmentfrom that port into the interior of the island. But hewas in no way responsiblefor aggravatingthe differ-nces,

and he had no sympathy with the aggressive-


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ness displayed throughout by Napoleon and hisassociates. Moreover, he had some reason to feelpersonally offended by Napoleon's action on theoccasion of the riotous outbreak : when Mayard'scannon had been directed againstthe battalion andeverything pointed to a catastrophe,Napoleon hadsent a message to the Commandant to the effect thathe had been ordered by the General to hold theposition in the city,although no such order hadreallybeen given. Paoli would perhaps have beenglad if the National Guard had made its way on thisoccasion into the citadel of Ajaccio,hich the RoyalistMayard had carefullykept closed againsthim, but, onthe whole, he held rather with the peopleof the stampof Pozzo di Borgo, who aimed not so much at thecarrying out of the Constitution,as at securingtheindependence of Corsica.

The sequel, as it turned out, was not all thatNapoleon would have wished. The Commissionersof the Department, although sympathising with theBuonaparte faction,decided that it was necessary toremove the battalion from the city. It was sentto Corte : hither also Napoleon made his way, but hewould seem to have had an interview previouslywithPaoli with reference to the questionof puttinghim incommand of a new battalion. The General,however,abandoned this idea, and the three brothers learntnow just how they stood in his eyes. He refused toentertain the applicationof Lucien that he shouldmake him his secretary. " He recogniseshis talents,"wrote Joseph to Napoleon, " but he wishes to holdaloof from us, that is his reason. He is afraid ofevoking cries of jealousy,hich have been becomingall too frequentof late." Napoleon had intended,


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46 NAPOLEONimmediatelyafter his appointment, to go to Paris onfamilybusiness,and also in connection with personalaffairs of his own " amongst them it would seemthe production of a book, as to the nature of whichwe have no information. One of the chief objectsofthis visit was to see after his sister,Marianne, at St.Cyr, of whose marriage there was question; it wasdoubtful whether she could remain on at St. Cyrpending the forthcoming reorganisation of thatinstitution. There was now another matter to beattended to. The positionheld in the legislatureythe representativesf Corsica held out scant promisefor a favourable judgment upon the whole episode,and rendered Napoleon's presence in person abso-utely

necessary ; the more so in that he could not tellhow his absence from the roll-call of his regiment inJanuary had been taken, and there was danger that hemight be deprived of his militaryrank in France aswell as in Corsica. Without delay,therefore,e nowset out for Paris on the 28th of May.

These were the weeks duringwhich the catastropheto the monarchy was in progress. There had been astate of war since the end of April,and the firstencounters had been defeats. The former leaders ofthe Revolution, those who had won Napoleon's en-husiasm

in the summer of 1791, had begun toquarrel angrily,just like their contemporaries inCorsica. The new Ministry,which had taken up thereins of government after the fall of Feuillants andwhich had begun the war, had alreadyfallen a victim todissensions. Its Girondist wing had been forced toyield to Danton and Robespierre, while the blood-hirsty

faction of Marat cried out for a dictatorship,


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CORSICA 47and the destruction of the King and all aristocrats.Napoleon only saw, like most of his contemporaries,what was happening on the surface ; the irreconcil-ble

nature and the subtle hostilityof the anti-revolutionarypolicyof the Tuileries was as imper-eptible

to him as the forces and motives whichactuated the various factions and their leaders,and theindirect means and secret paths by which they soughtto attain their ends. The various partiespresentedthemselves to him only in their rough outlines. Onething only was quiteclear to him, as to the rest of theworld : namely, that this state of things could notlast,that the Constitution, if not the State itself,ustexperience a general upheaval. That Constitutionwas at stake to which years before he had taken theoath of fidelity,nd which had bridged the sea forhim and established bonds of brotherhood betweenhim and the race for which he had felt such hatred.Yet he had begun to look forward to its overthrow andto all that the future might bring,with a sinister calm-ess

and indifference. He despised the populacemore than ever ; and the demeanour of the Kingwhen the Parisians broke into the Tuileries,had madea strong impression on his mind. " The King borehimself well," he writes : " the Jacobins are fools."Lafayette'sppositionto the Jacobins, his letter to theNational Assembly, his appearance before it in personon the 28th of June, did not displeasehim. " Allsensible and reasonable people approve of his pro-eedings,"

he writes ; but he draws attention to theserious and dangerous side of the matter : " Thepeople,that is to say, the lower classes,re fascinated ;without a doubt it will lead to a conflict which willperhaps make an end of the Constitution." " Those


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48 NAPOLEONwho are at the head," he proceeds to remark, " arepitiablereatures ; it must be admitted, when onesees all this at close quarters, that the populace isscarcelyworth all the trouble that is taken to win itsfavour. You know the historyof Ajaccio; that ofParis is very much the same ; perhaps its inhabitantsare worse still and more petty, more given togrumbling and slandering.You must get the closeview of the thing to realise that enthusiasm is merelyenthusiasm and that the French race has becomesenile and has lost its sinews and muscles."

These words are addressed to his brother Lucien,whose revolutionaryardour had begun to disquietNapoleon, seeming to him inimical to the family'sinterests ; their purpose was to produce a coolinginfluence upon the emotions of the hot-headed youth.They are, however, a trustworthy indication to hisreal attitude. Patriotism and the love of libertyhadbeen a safeguard to himself against misanthropy.Now he saw things as they were. " Everyone," heproceeds, " is working for his own interests and isfightingor his own hand with every weapon of fearand calumny. Lower methods of intrigueare beingemployed now more than ever ; these things destroyone's ambition. Those men are to be pitied whohave the misfortune to play a part " even those ofthem who do not need it : to live in peace and quiet,devoting one's self to one's own needs and to those ofone's family,that is the kind of life for a man to leadwhen he is in possessionof from four thousand to fivethousand livres a year " for the man of from twenty-five to forty,hat is to say, who is no longera prey towild imaginings." It is to be noted here that Napo-eon

no longer contrasts ambition, as he did a year


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before, with the eager aspirationsf the heart towardshigh ends. He is talking of the kind of ambitionthat involves desire for fame as well as devotion tofatherland and to noble ideals,and which he now dis-laims

for himself. He has lost even his desire towin immortalityby his pen. " My work," he writesa week later,n the 7th of August, "is finished,evisedand copied out, but this being so, nobody will printit.So be it,I have not the least desire to shine as anauthor."

But Napoleon would not have been himself if thefire in his heart had reallyburnt out. In the midstof all the agonising experiencesthat the country wasgoing through " in the midst of all the intereststo which he devotes himself,restlesslyut cautiously" he managed to find time to take up the study ofastronomy. " During my sojourn here," he writesin the same letter," I have been occupying myself agood deal with astronomy. It is at once a noblescience and a very pleasantdistraction,and my mathe-atical

knowledge enables me to master it with verylittleapplication.This has been a great gain for me."" Believe, obey, work, judge not " these are yourduties." He had put these words into the mouth ofa man of the people,speaking to his son in his Dis-ours

de Lyon; but " a loftysoul,"he had proceeded atonce to say, " a sensitive heart, a wholesome brain, cannever be satisfied with this answer." "Virtue," hesays, " has its being in courage and strength: energyis the life of the soul as it is the source of the facultyof discernment.

. . .The emotions of a Spartanwere

the emotions of a strong man ; only the strong manis good : the weak man is wicked. . . . Withoutstrength,without

Max Lentz - Napoleon (1907)

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