Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
Directory, hitherto not very pacifically inclined, after having
effected a 'coup d'etat', at length saw the necessity of appeasing the
discontented by giving peace to France. On the other hand, the Cabinet
of Vienna, observing the complete failure of all the royalist plots in
the interior, thought it high time to conclude with the French Republic
a treaty which, notwithstanding all the defeats Austria had sustained,
still left her a preponderating influence over Italy.
Besides, the campaign of Italy, so fertile in glorious achievements
of arms, had not been productive of glory alone. Something of greater
importance followed these conquests. Public affairs had assumed a
somewhat unusual aspect, and a grand moral influence, the effect
of victories and of peace, had begun to extend all over France.
Republicanism was no longer so sanguinary and fierce as it had been some
years before. Bonaparte, negotiating with princes and their ministers
on a footing of equality, but still with all that superiority to which
victory and his genius entitled him, gradually taught foreign courts to
be familiar with Republican France, and the Republic to cease regarding
all States governed by Kings as of necessity enemies.
In these circumstances the General-in-Chief's departure and his expected
visit to Paris excited general attention. The feeble Directory was
prepared to submit to the presence of the conqueror of Italy in the
capital.
It was for the purpose of acting as head of the French legation at
the Congress of Rastadt that Bonaparte quitted Milan on the 17th of
November. But before his departure he sent to the Directory one of those
monuments, the inscriptions on which may generally be considered as
fabulous, but which, in this case, were nothing but the truth. This
monument was the "flag of the Army of Italy," and to General Joubert
was assigned the honourable duty of presenting it to the members of the
Executive Government.
On one side of the flag were the words "To the Army of Italy, the
grateful country." The other contained an enumeration of the battles
fought and places taken, and presented, in the following inscriptions, a
simple but striking abridgment of the history of the Italian campaign.
150,000 PRISONERS; 170 STANDARDS; 550 PIECES OF SIEGE ARTILLERY;
600 PIECES OF FIELD ARTILLERY; FIVE PONTOON EQUIPAGES; NINE 64-GUN
SHIPS; TWELVE 32-GUN FRIGATES; 12 CORVETTES; 18 GALLEYS; ARMISTICE
WITH THE KING OF SARDINIA; CONVENTION WITH GENOA; ARMISTICE WITH THE
DUKE OF PARMA; ARMISTICE WITH THE KING OF NAPLES; ARMISTICE WITH THE
POPE; PRELIMINARIES OF LEOBEN; CONVENTION OF MONTEBELLO WITH THE
REPUBLIC OF GENOA; TREATY OF PEACE WITH THE EMPEROR OF GERMANY AT
CAMPO-FORMIO.
LIBERTY GIVEN TO THE PEOPLE OF BOLOGNA, FERRARA, MODENA,
MASSA-CARRARA, LA ROMAGNA, LOMBARD, BRESCIA, BERGAMO, MANTUA, CREMONA.
PART OF THE VERONESE, CHIAVENA, BORMIO, THE VALTELINE, THE GENOESE,
THE IMPERIAL FIEFS, THE PEOPLE OF THE DEPARTMENTS OF CORCYRA, OF THE
AEGEAN SEA, AND OF ITHACA.
SENT TO PARIS ALL THE MASTERPIECES OF MICHAEL ANGELO, OF GVERCINO,
OF TITIAN, OF PAUL VERONESE, OF CORREGGIO, OF ALBANA, OF THE
CARRACCI, OF RAPHAEL, AND OF LEONARDO DA VINCI.
Thus were recapitulated on a flag, destined to decorate the Hall of the
Public Sittings of the Directory, the military deeds of the campaign in
Italy, its political results, and the conquest of the monuments of art.
Most of the Italian cities looked upon their conqueror as a
liberator--such was the magic of the word liberty, which resounded from
the Alps to the Apennines. On his way to Mantua the General took up his
residence in the palace of the ancient dukes. Bonaparte promised the
authorities of Mantua that their department should be one of the most
extensive; impressed on them the necessity of promptly organising
a local militia, and of putting in execution the plans of Mari,
the mathematician, for the navigation of the Mincio from Mantua to
Peschiera.
He stopped two days at Mantua, and the morrow of his arrival was devoted
to the celebration of a military funeral solemnity, in honour of General
Hoche, who had just died. His next object was to hasten the execution
of the monument which was erecting to the memory of Virgil. Thus, in one
day, he paid honour to France and Italy, to modern and to ancient glory,
to the laurels of war and to the laurels of poetry.
A person who saw Bonaparte on this occasion for the first time thus
described him in a letter he wrote to Paris:--"With lively interest
and extreme attention I have observed this extraordinary man, who has
performed such great deeds, and about whom there is something which
seems to indicate that his career is not yet terminated. I found him
very like his portraits--little, thin, pale, with an air of fatigue,
but not of ill-health, as has been reported of him. He appears to me
to listen with more abstraction than interest, and that he was more
occupied with what he was thinking of than with what was said to him.
There is great intelligence in his countenance, along with which may be
marked an air of habitual meditation, which reveals nothing of what
is passing within. In that thinking head, in that bold mind, it is
impossible not to believe that some daring designs are engendering which
will have their influence an the destinies of Europe."
From the last phrase, in particular, of this letter, one might suspect
that it was written after Bonaparte had made his name feared throughout
Europe; but it really appeared in a journal in the month of December
1797, a little before his arrival in Paris.
There exists a sort of analogy between celebrated men and celebrated
places; it was not, therefore, an uninteresting spectacle to see
Bonaparte surveying the field of Morat, where, in 1476, Charles the
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, daring like himself, fell with his powerful army
under the effects of Helvetian valour. Bonaparte slept during the
night at Maudon, where, as in every place through which he passed, the
greatest honours were paid him. In the morning, his carriage having
broken down, we continued our journey an foot, accompanied only by some
officers and an escort of dragoons of the country. Bonaparte stopped
near the Ossuary, and desired to be shown the spot where the battle of
Morat was fought. A plain in front of the chapel was pointed out to him.
An officer who had served in France was present, and explained to him
how the Swiss, descending from the neighbouring mountains, were enabled,
under cover of a wood, to turn the Burgundian army and put it to the
rout. "What was the force of that army?" asked Bonaparte.--"Sixty
thousand men."--"Sixty thousand men!" he exclaimed: "they ought to have
completely covered these mountains!"--"The French fight better now,"
said Lannes, who was one of the officers of his suite. "At that
time," observed Bonaparte, interrupting him, "the Burgundians were not
Frenchmen."
Bonaparte's journey through Switzerland was not without utility; and his
presence served to calm more than one inquietude. He proceeded on his
journey to Rastadt by Aix in Savoy, Berne, and Bale. On arriving at
Berne during night we passed through a double file of well-lighted
equipages, filled with beautiful women, all of whom raised the cry of
"Long live, Bonaparte!--long live the Pacificator!" To have a proper
idea of this genuine enthusiasm it is necessary to have seen it.
The position in society to which his services had raised him rendered
it unfit to address him in the second person singular and the familiar
manner sometimes used by his old schoolfellows of Brienne. I thought,
this very natural.
M. de Cominges, one of those who went with him to the military school at
Paris, and who had emigrated, was at Bale. Having learned our arrival,
he presented himself without ceremony, with great indecorum, and with a
complete disregard of the respect due to a man who had rendered himself
so illustrious. General Bonaparte, offended at this behaviour, refused
to receive him again, and expressed himself to me with much warmth on
the occasion of this visit. All my efforts to remove his displeasure
were unavailing, this impression always continued, and he never did for
M. de Cominges what his means and the old ties of boyhood might well
have warranted.
On arriving at Rastadt
--[The conference for the formal peace with the Empire of Germany
was held there. The peace of Leoben was only one made with
Austria.]--
Bonaparte found a letter from the Directory summoning him to Paris. He
eagerly obeyed this invitation, which drew him from a place where he
could act only an insignificant part, and which he had determined to
leave soon, never again to return. Some time after his arrival in Paris,
on the ground that his presence was necessary for the execution of
different orders, and the general despatch of business, he required that
authority should be given to a part of his household, which he had left
at Rastadt, to return.
How could it ever be said that the Directory "kept General Bonaparte
away from the great interests which were under discussion at Rastadt"?
Quite the contrary! The Directory would have been delighted to see him
return there, as they would then have been relieved from his presence
in Paris; but nothing was so disagreeable to Bonaparte as long and
seemingly interminable negotiations. Such tedious work did not suit
his character, and he had been sufficiently disgusted with similar
proceedings at Campo-Formio.
On our arrival at Rastadt I soon found that General Bonaparte was
determined to stay there only a short time. I therefore expressed to
him my decided desire to remain in Germany. I was then ignorant that my
erasure from the emigrant list had been ordered on the 11th of November,
as the decree did not reach the commissary of the Executive Directory at
Auxerre until the 17th of November, the day of our departure from Milan.
The silly pretext of difficulties by which my erasure, notwithstanding
the reiterated solicitations of the victorious General, was so long
delayed made me apprehensive of a renewal, under a weak and jealous
pentarchy, of the horrible scenes of 1796. Bonaparte said to me, in
atone of indignation, "Come, pass the Rhine; they will not dare to seize
you while near me. I answer for your safety." On reaching Paris I found
that my erasure had taken place. It was at this period only that General
Bonaparte's applications in my favour were tardily crowned with success.
Sotin, the Minister of General Police, notified the fact to Bonaparte;
but his letter gave a reason for my erasure very different from that
stated in the decree. The Minister said that the Government did not
wish to leave among the names of traitors to their country the name of a
citizen who was attached to the person of the conqueror of Italy; while
the decree itself stated as the motive for removing my name from the
list that I never had emigrated.
At St. Helena it seems Bonaparte said that he did not return from Italy
with more than 300,000 francs; but I assert that he had at that time in
his possession something more than 3,000,000.
--[Joseph says that Napoleon, when he exiled for Egypt, left with
him all his fortune, and that it was much nearer 300,000 francs than
3,000,000. (See Erreurs, tome i. pp. 243, 259)]--
How could he with 300,000 francs have been able to provide for the
extensive repairs, the embellishment, and the furnishing of his house
in the Rue Chantereine? How could he have supported the establishment
he did with only 15,000 francs of income and the emoluments of his rank?
The excursion which he made along the coast, of which I have yet to
speak, of itself cost near 12,000 francs in gold, which he transferred