The History of Napoleon Buonaparte Part 5

But to resume--no sooner was the negotiation in a fair train, than Napoleon, abandoning for the moment the details of its management to inferior diplomatists, hastened to retrace his steps, and pour the full storm of his wrath on the Venetians. The Doge and the Senate, whose only hopes had rested on the successes of Austria on the Adige, heard with utter despair that the Archduke had shared the fate of Beaulieu, of Wurmser, and of Alvinzi, and that the preliminaries of peace were actually signed. The rapidity of Buonaparte's return gave them no breathing-time. They hastened to send offers of submission, and their messengers were received with anger and contempt. "French blood has been treacherously shed," said Napoleon; "if you could offer me the treasures of Peru, if you could cover your whole dominion with gold--the atonement would be insufficient--the lion of St. Mark[17] must lick the dust."

These tidings came like a sentence of death upon the devoted Senate.

Their deliberations were unceasing; their schemes innumerable; their hearts divided and unnerved. Those secret chambers, from which that haughty oligarchy had for so many ages excluded every eye and every voice but their own, were invaded with impunity by strange-faced men, who boldly criticised their measures, and heaped new terrors on their heads, by announcing that the ma.s.s of the people had ceased to consider the endurance of their sway as synonymous with the prosperity of Venice.

Popular tumults filled the streets and ca.n.a.ls; universal confusion prevailed. The commanders of their troops and fleets received contradictory orders, and the city which

"--had held the gorgeous East in fee,"

seemed ready to yield everything to a ruthless and implacable enemy, without even striking a blow in defence.

Buonaparte appeared, while the confusion was at its height, on the opposite coast of the Lagoon. Some of his troops were already in the heart of the city, when (31st May) a hasty message reached him, announcing that the Senate submitted wholly. He exacted severe revenge.

The leaders who had aided the Lombard insurgents were delivered to him.

The oligarchy ceased to rule, and a democratical government was formed, provisionally, on the model of France. Venice consented to surrender to the victor large territories on the mainland of Italy; five ships of war; 3,000,000 francs in gold, and as many more in naval stores; twenty of the best pictures, and 500 ma.n.u.scripts. Lastly, the troops of the conqueror were to occupy the capital until tranquillity was established.

It will be seen in what that tranquillity was destined to consist.

Such was the humiliation of this once proud and energetic, but now worn-out and enfeebled, oligarchy: so incapable was that h.o.a.ry polity of contending with the youthful vigour of Napoleon.

[Footnote 17: The armorial bearing of Venice.]

CHAPTER IX

Pichegru--The Directory appeal to Buonaparte--The 18th Fructidor--The Court of Montebello--Josephine--The Treaty of Campo-Formio--Buonaparte leaves Italy.

In their last agony the Venetian Senate made a vain effort to secure the personal protection of the general, by offering him a purse of seven millions of francs. He rejected this with scorn. He had already treated in the same style a bribe of four millions, tendered on the part of the Duke of Modena. The friend employed to conduct the business reminded him of the proverbial ingrat.i.tude of all popular governments, and of the little attention which the Directory had hitherto paid to his personal interests. "That is all true enough," said Napoleon, "but for four millions I will not place myself in the power of this duke." Austria herself, it is said, did not hesitate to tamper in the same manner, though far more magnificently, as became her resources, with his republican virtue. He was offered, if the story be true, an independent German princ.i.p.ality for himself and his heirs. "I thank the emperor," he answered, "but if greatness is to be mine, it shall come from France."

The Venetian Senate were guilty, in their mortal struggle, of another and a more inexcusable piece of meanness. They seized the person of Count D'Entraigues, a French emigrant, who had been living in their city as agent for the exiled house of Bourbon; and surrendered him and all his papers to the victorious general. Buonaparte discovered among these doc.u.ments ample evidence that Pichegru, the French general on the Rhine, and universally honoured as the conqueror of Holland, had some time before this hearkened to the proposals of the Bourbon princes, and, among other efforts in favour of the royal cause, not hesitated even to misconduct his military movements with a view to the downfall of the government which had entrusted him with his command.

This was a secret, the importance of which Napoleon could well appreciate;[18] and he forthwith communicated it to the Directory at Paris.

The events of the last twelve months in France had made Pichegru a person of still higher importance than when he commenced his intrigues with the Bourbons as general on the Rhine. Some obscure doubts of his fidelity, or the usual policy of the Directory, which rendered them averse (wherever they could help it) to continue any one general very long at the head of one army, had induced them to displace Pichegru, and appoint Hoche, a tried republican, in his room. Pichegru, on returning to France, became a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and (the royalist party having at this season recovered all but a preponderance) was, on the meeting of the chambers, called to the chair of that in which he had his place.

The Five Directors had in truth done everything to undermine their own authority. They were known to be divided in opinion among themselves; three only of their number adhered heartily to the existing const.i.tution: one was a royalist: another was a democrat of the Robespierre school. One of these new and uncourtly men excited laughter by affecting a princely state and splendour of demeanour and equipage.

Another disgusted one set of minds, and annoyed all the rest, by procuring a law for the observation of the tenth day as the day of repose, and declaring it a crime to shut up shops on the Sabbath. A ridiculous ritual of an avowedly heathen worship followed, and was received with partial horror, universal contempt. A tyrannical law about the equalisation of weights and measures spread confusion through all mercantile transactions, and was especially unpopular in the provinces.

A contemptible riot, set on foot by one who called himself Gracchus Barbuf, for the purpose of bringing back the reign of _terrorism_ was indeed suppressed; but the mere occurrence of such an attempt recalled too vividly the days of Robespierre, and by so doing tended to strengthen the cause of the royalists in public opinion. The truth is, that a vast number of the emigrants had found their way back again to Paris after the downfall of Robespierre, and that the old sway of elegant manners and enlightened saloons was once more re-establishing itself where it had so long been supreme. The royalist club of Clichy corresponded with the exiled princes, and with the imperial government, and was gaining such influence as to fill Buonaparte himself with alarm.

Everything indicated that the Directory (the _five majesties_ of the Luxembourg, as they were called in derision) held their thrones by a very uncertain tenure; and those gentlemen, nothing being left them but a choice among evils, were fain to throw themselves on the protection of the armies which they dreaded, and of Hoche and Buonaparte--which last name in particular had long filled them with jealousy proportioned to its splendour and popularity.

Napoleon's recent conduct, in more important points than one, had excited powerfully the resentment of the Directory, which now appealed to him for aid. He had taken upon himself the whole responsibility of the preliminary treaty of Leoben, although the French government had sent General Clarke into Italy for the express purpose of controlling him, and acting as his equal at least in the negotiation. A clause in that treaty, by which Mantua, the strongest fortress in Italy, was to be surrendered back to Austria, had been judged necessary at the time by the general, in order to obtain from the emperor the boundary of the Rhine and the cession of Belgium. But the Directory thought the conqueror underrated the advantages of his own position and theirs in consenting to it, and but for Carnot would never have ratified it.[19]

At the other side of the Italian Peninsula, again, the victorious general, immediately after the fall of Venice, had to superintend the revolution of Genoa; in which great city also the democratic party availed themselves of the temper and events of the time, to emanc.i.p.ate themselves from their hereditary oligarchy. They would fain have excluded the n.o.bility from all share in the remodelled government; and Napoleon rebuked and discountenanced this attempt in terms little likely to be heard with approbation by the "_Sires_ of the Luxembourg." He told the Genoese, that to exclude the n.o.bles was in itself as unjust as unwise, and that they ought to be grateful for the means of re-organising their const.i.tution, without pa.s.sing _like France_ through the terrible ordeal of a revolution. The rulers of France might be excused for asking at this moment--Does the lecturer of the Ligurian Republic mean to be our Washington, our Monk, or our Cromwell?

He, however, received with alacrity the call of the trembling Directory.

He harangued his soldiery, and made himself secure of their readiness to act as he might choose for them. He not only offered large pecuniary supplies, and sent his lieutenant Augereau to Paris to command the National Guard for the government, should they find it necessary to appeal immediately to force, but announced that he was himself prepared to "pa.s.s the Rubicon," (an ominous phrase) and march to their a.s.sistance, with 15,000 of his best troops.

The Directory, meanwhile, had in their extremity ventured to disregard the law against drawing regular troops within a certain distance of the capital, and summoned Hoche to bring a corps of his Rhenish army for their instant protection.

It was by this means that the new revolution, as it may be called, of the 18th Fructidor was effected. On that day, (Sept. 4, 1797,) the majority of the Directory, marching their army into Paris, dethroned their two opposition colleagues. Pichegru and the other royalists of note in the a.s.semblies, to the number of more than 150, were arrested and sent into exile. The government, for the moment, recovered the semblance of security; and Buonaparte heard, with little satisfaction, that they had been able to accomplish their immediate object without the intervention of his personal appearance on the scene. He remonstrated, moreover, against the manner in which they had followed up their success. According to him, they ought to have executed Pichegru and a few ring-leaders, and set an example of moderation, by sparing all those whose royalism admitted of any doubt, or, if it was manifest, was of secondary importance. It would have been hard for the Directory at this time to have pleased Buonaparte, or for Buonaparte to have entirely satisfied them; but neither party made the effort.

The fall of Venice, however, gave Napoleon the means, which he was not disposed to neglect, of bringing his treaty with Austria to a more satisfactory conclusion than had been indicated in the preliminaries of Leoben.

After settling the affairs of Venice, and establishing the new Ligurian Republic, the general took up his residence at the n.o.ble castle of Montebello, near Milan. Here his wife, who, though they had been married in March, 1796, was still a bride, and with whom, during the intervening eventful months, he had kept up a correspondence full of the fervour, if not of the delicacy of love,[20] had at length rejoined him. Josephine's manners were worthy, by universal admission, of the highest rank; and the elegance with which she did the honours of the castle, filled the ministers and princes, who were continually to be seen in its precincts, with admiration. While Napoleon conducted his negotiations with as much firmness and decision as had marked him in the field, it was her care that nature and art should lend all their graces to what the Italians soon learnt to call _the Court_ of Montebello. Whatever talent Milan contained, was pressed into her service. Music and dance, and festival upon festival, seemed to occupy every hour. The beautiful lakes of Lombardy were covered with gay flotillas; and the voluptuous retreats around their sh.o.r.es received in succession new life and splendour from the presence of Napoleon, Josephine, and the brilliant circle amidst whom they were rehearsing the imperial parts that destiny had in reserve for them. Montebello was the centre from which Buonaparte, during the greater part of this autumn, negotiated with the emperor, controlled all Italy, and overawed the Luxembourg.

The final settlement with the emperor's commissioners would have taken place shortly after the fall of Venice, but for the successful intrigues of the royalist Clichyens, the universal belief that the government of France approached some new crisis, and the Austrians' hope that from such an event their negotiation might derive considerable advantages.

Buonaparte well knew the secret motive which induced Cobentzel, the emperor's chief envoy, to protract and multiply discussions of which he by this time was weary. One day, in this amba.s.sador's own chamber, Napoleon suddenly changed his demeanour; "you refuse to accept our ultimatum," said he, taking in his hands a beautiful vase of porcelain, which stood on the mantelpiece near him. The Austrian bowed. "It is well," said Napoleon, "but mark me--within two months I will shatter Austria like this potsherd." So saying, he dashed the vase on the ground in a thousand pieces, and moved towards the door. Cobentzel followed him, and made submissions which induced him once more to resume his negotiations.

The result was the treaty of Campo-Formio, so-called from the village at which it was signed, on the 3d of October, 1797. By this act the emperor yielded to France, Flanders and the boundary of the Rhine, including the great fortress of Mentz. The various new republics of Lombardy were united and recognised under the general name of the Cisalpine Republic.

To indemnify Austria for the loss of those territories, the fall of Venice afforded new means--of which Napoleon did not hesitate to propose, nor Austria to accept the use. The French general had indeed conquered Venice, but he had entered into a treaty subsequently, and recognised a wholly new government in place of the oligarchy. The emperor, on the other hand, well knew that the Doge and Senate had incurred ruin by rising to his own aid. Such considerations weighed little on either side. France and Austria agreed to effect a division of the whole territories of the ancient republic. Venice herself, and her Italian provinces, were handed over to the emperor in lieu of his lost Lombardy; and the French a.s.sumed the sovereignty of the Ionian islands and Dalmatia. This unprincipled proceeding excited universal disgust throughout Europe. It showed the sincerity of Buonaparte's love for the cause of freedom; and it satisfied all the world of the excellent t.i.tle of the imperial court to complain of the selfishness and rapacity of the French democracy.

The emperor set his seal at Campo-Formio to another of Buonaparte's acts of dictatorship, which, though in one point of view even more unjustifiable than this, was not regarded by the world with feelings of the same order. The Italian territory of the Valteline had for ages been subject to the Grison League. The inhabitants, roused by the prevailing spirit all around them, demanded Napoleon's intercession with their Swiss masters, to procure their admission to all the political privileges of the other cantons. They refused; and Napoleon, in the plenitude of his authority, immediately supported the Valteline in throwing off the Grison yoke, and a.s.serting its utter independence. This territory was now annexed to the Cisalpine Republic. A government, with which France was on terms of alliance and amity, was thus robbed of its richest possession; but the Valteline belonged by natural position, religion, and language, to Italy, and its annexation to the new Italian republic was regarded as in itself just and proper, however questionable Buonaparte's t.i.tle to effect that event. He himself said at the time, "It is contrary to the rights of man that any one people should be subject to another;" a canon on which his after history formed a lucid commentary.

In concluding, and in celebrating the conclusion of his treaty, Napoleon's proud and fiery temperament twice shone out. Cobentzel had set down as the first article, "The Emperor recognises the French Republic." "Efface that," said Napoleon, sternly, "it is as clear as that the sun is in heaven. Woe to them that cannot distinguish the light of either!" At the TE DEUM after the proclamation of the peace, the imperial envoy would have taken the place prepared for Buonaparte, which was the most eminent in the church. The haughty soldier seized his arm and drew him back. "Had your master himself been here," said he, "I should not have forgotten that in my person the dignity of France is represented."

Various minor arrangements remained to be considered; and a congress of all the German powers being summoned to meet for that purpose at Rastadt, Napoleon received the orders of the Directory to appear there, and perfect his work in the character of amba.s.sador of France. He took an affecting leave of his soldiery, published a temperate and manly address to the Cisalpine Republic, and proceeded, by way of Switzerland, (where, in spite of the affair of the Valteline, he was received with enthusiasm,) to the execution of his duty. He carried with him the unbounded love and devotion of one of the finest armies that ever the world had seen; and the attachment, hardly less energetic, of all those cla.s.ses of society throughout Italy, who flattered themselves with the hope that the Cisalpine Republic, the creature of his hands, would in time prepare the way for, and ultimately merge in a republican const.i.tution common to the whole Italian people. With what hopes or fears as to his future fortunes he abandoned the scene and the companions of his glory, the reader must form his own opinion.

[Footnote 18: Moreau knew it some months sooner, and said so _after_ Napoleon had communicated it to the Directory. This is a suspicious circ.u.mstance when considered along with the sequel of Moreau's history.]

[Footnote 19: Mantua, as will appear hereafter, was saved to France under Napoleon's final treaty with Austria; but the events which rendered this possible were as yet unknown and unexpected.]

[Footnote 20: It would be painful to show, as might easily be done, from this correspondence, the original want of delicacy in Napoleon's mind.

Many of his letters are such as no English gentleman would address to a _mistress_. In others, the language is worthy of a hero's pa.s.sion.

"Wurmser," says he, "shall pay dearly for the tears he causes you to shed."]

CHAPTER X

Napoleon at Rastadt--He arrives in Paris--His reception by the Directory--His Conduct and Manners--He is appointed to command the Army for the Invasion of England--He recommends an Expedition to Egypt--Reaches Toulon--Embarks.

Napoleon was received by the ministers a.s.sembled at Rastadt with the respect due to the extraordinary talents which he had already displayed in negotiation as well as in war. But he stayed among them only two or three days, for he perceived that the multiplicity of minor arrangements to be discussed and settled, must, if he seriously entered upon them, involve the necessity of a long-protracted residence at Rastadt; and he had many reasons for desiring to be quickly in Paris. His personal relations with the Directory were of a very doubtful kind, and he earnestly wished to study with his own eyes the position in which the government stood towards the various orders of society in the all-influential capital. He abandoned the conduct of the diplomatic business to his colleagues, and reached Paris at the beginning of December. Nor was he without a feasible pretext for this rapidity. On the 2nd of October, the Directory had announced to the French people their purpose to carry the war with the English into England itself; the immediate organisation of a great invading army; and their design to place it under the command of "Citizen General Buonaparte."

During his brief stay at Rastadt the dictator of Campo-Formio once more broke out. The Swedish envoy was Count Fersen, the same n.o.bleman who had distinguished himself in Paris, during the early period of the Revolution, by his devotion to King Louis and Marie-Antoinette.

Buonaparte refused peremptorily to enter into any negotiation in which a man, so well known for his hostility to the cause of the Republic, should have any part; and Fersen instantly withdrew.

On quitting this congress Napoleon was careful to resume, in every particular, the appearance of a private citizen. Reaching Paris, he took up his residence in the same small modest house that he had occupied before he set out for Italy, in the _Rue Chantereine_, which, about this time, in compliment to its ill.u.s.trious inhabitant, received from the munic.i.p.ality the new name of _Rue de la Victoire_. Here he resumed with his plain clothes his favourite studies and pursuits, and, apparently contented with the society of his private friends, seemed to avoid, as carefully as others in his situation might have courted, the honours of popular distinction and applause. It was not immediately known that he was in Paris, and when he walked the streets his person was rarely recognised by the mult.i.tude. His mode of life was necessarily somewhat different from what it had been when he was both poor and obscure; his society was courted in the highest circles, and he from time to time appeared in them, and received company at home with the elegance of hospitality over which Josephine was so well qualified to preside. But policy as well as pride moved him to shun notoriety. Before he could act again, he had much to observe; and he knew himself too well to be flattered by the stare either of mobs or of saloons. "They have memories for nothing here"--he said at this time to his secretary--"if I remain long without doing anything, I am done. Fame chases fame in this great Babylon. If they had seen me three times at the spectacle, they would no longer look at me." Another day Bourienne could not help congratulating him on some noisy demonstration of popular favour. "Bah!"

he answered, "they would rush as eagerly about me if I were on my way to the scaffold."

In his intercourse with society at this period, he was, for the most part, remarkable for the cold reserve of his manners. He had the appearance of one too much occupied with serious designs, to be able to relax at will into the easy play of ordinary conversation. If his eye was on every man, he well knew that every man's eye was upon him; nor, perhaps, could he have chosen a better method (had that been his sole object) for prolonging and strengthening the impression his greatness was calculated to create, than this very exhibition of indifference. He did not suffer his person to be familiarised out of reverence. When he did appear, it was not the ball or _bon mot_ of the evening before, that he recalled:--he was still, wherever he went, the Buonaparte of Lodi, and Arcola, and Rivoli. His military bluntness disdained to disguise itself amidst those circles where a meaner _parvenu_ would have been most ambitious to shine. The celebrated daughter of Necker made many efforts to catch his fancy and enlist him among the votaries of her wit, which then gave law in Paris. "Whom," said she, half wearied with his chillness, "do you consider as the greatest of women?" "Her, madam," he answered, "who has borne the greatest number of children." From this hour he had Madame de Stael for his enemy; and yet, such are the inconsistencies of human nature, no man was more sensitive than he to the a.s.saults of a species of enemy whom he thus scorned to conciliate.

Throughout his Italian campaigns--as consul--as emperor--and down to the last hour of the exile which terminated his life--Buonaparte suffered himself to be annoyed by sarcasms and pamphlets as keenly and constantly as if he had been a poetaster.

The haughtiness, for such it was considered, of his behaviour in the society of the capital, was of a piece with what he had already manifested in the camp. In the course of his first campaigns, his officers, even of the highest rank, became sensible, by degrees, to a total change of demeanour. An old acquaintance of the Toulon period, joining the army, was about to throw himself into the general's arms with the warmth of the former familiarity. Napoleon's cold eye checked him; and he perceived in a moment how he had altered with his elevation.

He had always, on the other hand, affected much familiarity with the common soldiery. He disdained not on occasion to share the ration or to taste the flask of a sentinel; and the French private, often as intelligent as those whom fortune has placed above him, used to address the great general with even more frankness than his own captain.

Napoleon, in one of his Italian despatches, mentions to the Directory the pleasure which he often derived from the conversation of the men: "But yesterday," says he, "a common trooper addressed me as I was riding, and told me he thought he could suggest the movement which ought to be adopted. I listened to him, and heard him detail some operations on which I had actually resolved but a little before." It has been noticed (perhaps by over-nice speculators) as a part of the same system, that Napoleon, on his return to Paris, continued to employ the same tradespeople, however inferior in their several crafts, who had served him in the days of his obscurity.[21]

If we may follow M. de Bourienne, Napoleon at this time laboured under intense anxiety of mind. Conscious of the daring heights to which he had ere now accustomed his ambitious imagination, he was fearful that others had divined his secret, and was haunted with the perpetual dread that some accident might unite Royalists and Republicans in the work of his personal ruin.

The first public appearance of Buonaparte occurred (January 2, 1798) when the treaty of Campo-Formio was to be formally presented to the Directory. The great court of the Luxembourg was roofed over with flags; an immense concourse, including all the members of the government and of the two legislative bodies, expected the victorious negotiator; and when he appeared, followed by his staff, and surrounded on all hands with the trophies of his glorious campaign, the enthusiasm of the mighty mult.i.tude, to the far greater part of which his person was, up to the moment, entirely unknown, outleaped all bounds, and filled the already jealous hearts of the directors with dark presentiments. They well knew that the soldiery, returning from Italy, had sung and said through every village that it was high time to get rid of the lawyers, and make the "little corporal" king. With uneasy hearts did they hear what seemed too like an echo of this cry, from the a.s.sembled leaders of opinion in Paris and in France. Anxious curiosity and mutual distrust were written in every face. The voice of Napoleon was for the first time heard in an energetic speech, ascribing all the glories that had been achieved to the zeal of the French soldiery--for "the glorious const.i.tution of the year THREE"--the same glorious const.i.tution which, in the year _eight_, was to receive the _coup de grace_ from his own hand; and Barras, as presiding director, answering, that "Nature had exhausted all her powers in the creation of a Buonaparte," awoke a new thunder of unwelcome applauses.