Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
everything in her power to increase the military power of Turkey.
That power possesses a numerous and brave militia but is very backward
in the scientific part of the art of war.
The organization and the service of the artillery, which, in our modern
tactics, so powerfully facilitate the gaining of battles, and on which,
almost exclusively, depend the attack and defence of fortresses, are
especially the points in which France excels, and in which the Turks are
most deficient.
They have several times applied to us for artillery officers, and
we have sent them some; but the officers thus sent have not been
sufficiently powerful, either in numbers or talent, to produce any
important result.
General Bonaparte, who, from his youth, has served in the artillery, of
which he was entrusted with the command at the siege of Toulon, and in
the two campaigns of Italy, offers his services to proceed to Turkey,
with a mission from the (French) Government.
He proposes to take along with him six or seven officers, of different
kinds, and who may be, altogether, perfect masters of the military art.
He will have the satisfaction of being useful to his country in this new
career, if he succeed in rendering the Turkish power more formidable, by
completing the defence of their principal fortresses, and constructing
new ones.
This note shows the error of the often-repeated assertion, that he
proposed entering the service of the Turks against Austria. He makes no
mention of such a thing; and the two countries were not at war.
--[The Scottish biographer makes Bonaparte say that it would be
strange if a little Corsican should become King of Jerusalem. I
never heard anything drop from him which supports the probability of
such a remark, and certainly there is nothing in his note to warrant
the inference of his having made it.--Bourrienne.]--
No answer was returned to this note. Turkey remained unaided, and
Bonaparte unoccupied. I must confess that for the failure of this
project, at least I was not sorry. I should have regretted to see a
young man of great promise, and one for whom I cherished a sincere
friendship, devote himself to so uncertain a fate. Napoleon has less
than any man provoked the events which have favoured him; no one has
more yielded to circumstances from which he was so skilful to derive
advantages. If, however, a clerk of the War Office had but written on
the note, "Granted," that little word would probably have changed the
fate of Europe.
Bonaparte remained in Paris, forming schemes for the gratification
of his ambition, and his desire of making a figure in the world; but
obstacles opposed all he attempted.
Women are better judges of character than men. Madame de Bourrienne,
knowing the intimacy which subsisted between us, preserved some notes
which she made upon Bonaparte, and the circumstances which struck her as
most remarkable, during her early connection with him. My wife did not
entertain so favourable an opinion of him as I did; the warm friendship
I cherished for him probably blinded me to his faults. I subjoin Madame
de Bourrienne's notes, word for word:
On the day after our second return from Germany, which was in May 1795,
we met Bonaparte in the Palais Royal, near a shop kept by a man named
Girardin. Bonaparte embraced Bourrienne as a friend whom he loved and
was glad to see. We went that evening to the Theatre Francais. The
performance consisted of a tragedy; and 'Le Sourd, ou l'Auberge pleine'.
During the latter piece the audience was convulsed with laughter. The
part of Dasnieres was represented by Batiste the younger, and it was
never played better. The bursts of laughter were so loud and frequent
that the actor was several times obliged to stop in the midst of his
part. Bonaparte alone (and it struck me as being very extraordinary) was
silent, and coldly insensible to the humour which was so irresistibly
diverting to everyone else. I remarked at this period that his character
was reserved, and frequently gloomy. His smile was hypocritical, and
often misplaced; and I recollect that a few days after our return
he gave us one of these specimens of savage hilarity which I greatly
disliked, and which prepossessed me against him. He was telling us
that, being before Toulon, where he commanded the artillery, one of his
officers was visited by his wife, to whom he had been but a short time
married, and whom he tenderly loved. A few days after, orders were
given for another attack upon the town, in which this officer was to be
engaged. His wife came to General Bonaparte, and with tears entreated
him to dispense with her husband's services that day. The General was
inexorable, as he himself told us, with a sort of savage exaltation. The
moment for the attack arrived, and the officer, though a very brave man,
as Bonaparte himself-assured us, felt a presentiment of his approaching
death. He turned pale and trembled. He was stationed beside the General,
and during an interval when the firing from the town was very heavy,
Bonaparte called out to him, "Take care, there is a shell coming!" The
officer, instead of moving to one side, stooped down, and was literally
severed in two. Bonaparte laughed loudly while he described the event
with horrible minuteness. At this time we saw him almost every day. He
frequently came to dine with us. As there was a scarcity of bread,
and sometimes only two ounces per head daily were distributed in the
section, it was customary to request one's guests to bring their own
bread, as it could not be procured for money. Bonaparte and his brother
Louis (a mild, agreeable young man, who was the General's aide de army)
used to bring with them their ration bread, which was black, and mixed
with bran. I was sorry to observe that all this bad bread fell to the
share of the poor aide de camp, for we provided the General with a finer
kind, which was made clandestinely by a pastrycook, from flour which we
contrived to smuggle from Sens, where my husband had some farms. Had we
been denounced, the affair might have cost us our heads.
We spent six weeks in Paris, and we went frequently with Bonaparte to
the theatres, and to the fine concerts given by Garat in the Rue St.
Marc. These were the first brilliant entertainments that took place
after the death of Robespierre. There was always something original in
Bonaparte's behaviour, for he often slipped away from us without saying
a word; and when we were supposing he had left the theatre, we would
suddenly discover him in the second or third tier, sitting alone in a
box, and looking rather sulky.
Before our departure for Sens, where my husband's family reside, and
which was fixed upon for the place of my first accouchement, we looked
out for more agreeable apartments than we had in the Rue Grenier St.
Lazare, which we only had temporarily. Bonaparte used to assist us in
our researches. At last we took the first floor of a handsome new house,
No. 19 Rue des Marais. Bonaparte, who wished to stop in Paris, went
to look at a house opposite to ours. He had thoughts of taking it for
himself, his uncle Fesch (afterwards Cardinal Fesch), and a gentleman
named Patrauld, formerly one of his masters at the Military School.
One day he said, "With that house over there, my friends in it, and a
cabriolet, I shall be the happiest fellow in the world."
We soon after left town for Sens. The house was not taken by him, for
other and great affairs were preparing. During the interval between
our departure and the fatal day of Vendemiaire several letters passed
between him and his school companion. These letters were of the most
amiable and affectionate description. They have been stolen. On our
return, in November of the same year, everything was changed. The
college friend was now a great personage. He had got the command of
Paris in return for his share in the events of Vendemiaire. Instead of
a small house in the Rue des Marais, he occupied a splendid hotel in
the Rue des Capucines; the modest cabriolet was converted into a superb
equipage, and the man himself was no longer the same. But the friends of
his youth were still received when they made their morning calls.
They were invited to grand dejeuners, which were sometimes attended
by ladies; and, among others, by the beautiful Madame Tallien and her
friend the amiable Madame de Beauharnais, to whom Bonaparte had begun
to pay attention. He cared little for his friends, and ceased to address
them in the style of familiar equality.
After the 13th of Vendemiaire M. de Bourrienne saw Bonaparte only at
distant periods. In the month of February 1796 my husband was arrested,
at seven in the morning, by a party of men, armed with muskets, on the
charge of being a returned emigrant. He was torn from his wife and his
child, only six months old, being barely allowed time to dress himself.
I followed him. They conveyed him to the guard-house of the Section, and
thence I know not whither; and, finally, in the evening, they placed him
in the lockup-house of the prefecture of police, which, I believe, is
now called the central bureau. There he passed two nights and a day,
among men of the lowest description, some of whom were even malefactors.
I and his friends ran about everywhere, trying to find somebody to
rescue him, and, among the rest, Bonaparte was applied to. It was with
great difficulty he could be seen. Accompanied by one of my husband's
friends, I waited for the commandant of Paris until midnight, but he did
not come home. Next morning I returned at an early hour, and found him.
I stated what had happened to my husband, whose life was then at stake.
He appeared to feel very little for the situation of his friend, but,
however; determined to write to Merlin, the Minister of Justice. I
carried the letter according to its address, and met the Minister as
he was coming downstairs, on his way to the Directory. Being in grand
costume, he wore a Henri IV. hat, surmounted with a multitude of plumes,
a dress which formed a singular contrast with his person. He opened the
letter; and whether it was that he cared as little for the General as
for the cause of M. de Bourrienne's arrest, he replied that the matter
was no longer in his hands, and that it was now under the cognisance of
the public administrators of the laws. The Minister then stepped into
his carriage, and the writer was conducted to several offices in his
hotel. She passed through them with a broken heart, for she met with
none but harsh men, who told her that the prisoner deserved death. From
them she learned that on the following day he would be brought before
the judge of the peace for his Section, who would decide whether there
was ground for putting him on his trial. In fact, this proceeding took
place next day. He was conveyed to the house of the judge of the peace
for the Section of Bondy, Rue Grange-sue-Belles, whose name was Lemaire.
His countenance was mild; and though his manner was cold, he had none of
the harshness and ferocity common to the Government agents of that time.
His examination of the charge was long, and he several times shook
his head. The moment of decision had arrived, and everything seemed
to indicate that the termination would be to place the prisoner under
accusation. At seven o'clock be desired me to be called. I hastened to
him, and beheld a most heart rending scene. Bourrienne was suffering
under a hemorrhage, which had continued since two o'clock, and had
interrupted the examination. The judge of the peace, who looked sad,
sat with his head resting on his hand. I threw myself at his feet and
implored his clemency. The wife and the two daughters of the judge
visited this scene of sorrow, and assisted me in softening him. He was