Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
We returned to dine alone at Trianon.--Bourrienne.]--
the 20th of June arrived. We met by appointment at a restaurateur's
in the Rue St. Honore, near the Palais Royal, to take one of our daily
rambles. On going out we saw approaching, in the direction of the
market, a mob, which Bonaparte calculated at five or six thousand
men. They were all in rags, ludicrously armed with weapons of every
description, and were proceeding hastily towards the Tuilleries,
vociferating all kinds of gross abuse. It was a collection of all that
was most vile and abject in the purlieus of Paris. "Let us follow the
mob," said Bonaparte. We got the start of them, and took up our station
on the terrace of the banks of the river. It was there that he witnessed
the scandalous scenes which took place; and it would be difficult to
describe the surprise and indignation which they excited in him. When
the King showed himself at the windows overlooking the garden, with the
red cap, which one of the mob had put on his head, he could no longer
repress his indignation. "Che coglione!" he loudly exclaimed. "Why have
they let in all that rabble! They should sweep off four or five hundred
of them with the cannon; the rest would then set off fast enough."
When we sat down to dinner, which I paid for, as I generally did, for
I was the richer of the two, he spoke of nothing but the scene we
had witnessed. He discussed with great good sense the causes and
consequences of this unrepressed insurrection. He foresaw and developed
with sagacity all that would ensue. He was not mistaken. The 10th of
August soon arrived. I was then at Stuttgart, where I was appointed
Secretary of Legation.
At St. Helena Bonaparte said, "On the news of the attack of the
Tuilleries, on the 10th of August, I hurried to Fauvelet, Bourrienne's
brother, who then kept a furniture warehouse at the Carrousel." This
is partly correct. My brother was connected with what was termed an
'enterprise d'encan national', where persons intending to quit France
received an advance of money, on depositing any effects which they
wished to dispose of, and which were sold for them immediately.
Bonaparte had some time previously pledged his watch in this way.
After the fatal 10th of August Bonaparte went to Corsica, and did not
return till 1793. Sir Walter Scott says that after that time he never
saw Corsica again. This is a mistake, as will be shown when I speak of
his return from Egypt.
--[Sir Walter appears to have collected his information for the Life
of Napoleon only from those libels and vulgar stories which
gratified the calumnious spirit and national hatred. His work is
written with excessive negligence, which, added to its numerous
errors, shows how much respect he must have entertained for his
readers. It would appear that his object was to make it the inverse
of his novels, where everything is borrowed from history. I have
been assured that Marshal Macdonald having offered to introduce
Scott to some generals who could have furnished him with the most
accurate, information respecting military events, the glory of which
they had shared, Sir Walter replied, "I thank you, but I shall
collect my information from unprofessional reports."--Bourrienne.]--
Having been appointed Secretary of Legation to Stuttgart, I set off for
that place on the 2d of August, and I did not again see my ardent young
friend until 1795. He told me that my departure accelerated his for
Corsica. We separated, as may be supposed, with but faint hopes of ever
meeting again.
By a decree of the 28th of March of 1793, all French agents abroad were
ordered to return to France, within three months, under pain of being
regarded as emigrants. What I had witnessed before my departure for
Stuttgart, the excitement in which I had left the public mind, and the
well-known consequences of events of this kind, made me fear that
I should be compelled to be either an accomplice or a victim in the
disastrous scenes which were passing at home. My disobedience of the law
placed my name on the list of emigrants.
It has been said of me, in a biographical publication, that "it was as
remarkable as it was fortunate for Bourrienne that, on his return, he
got his name erased from the list of emigrants of the department of
the Yonne, on which it had been inscribed during his first journey to
Germany. This circumstance has been interpreted in several different
ways, which are not all equally favourable to M. de Bourrienne."
I do not understand what favourable interpretations can be put upon a
statement entirely false. General Bonaparte repeatedly applied for the
erasure of my name, from the month of April 1797, when I rejoined him
at Leoben, to the period of the signature of the treaty of Campo-Formio;
but without success. He desired his brother Louis, Berthier, Bernadotte,
and others, when he sent them to the Directory, to urge my erasure; but
in vain. He complained of this inattention to his wishes to Bottot,
when he came to Passeriano, after the 18th Fructidor. Bottot, who was
secretary to Barras, was astonished that I was not erased, and he made
fine promises of what he would do. On his return to France he wrote to
Bonaparte: "Bourrienne is erased." But this was untrue. I was not
erased until November 1797, upon the reiterated solicitations of General
Bonaparte.
It was during my absence from France that Bonaparte, in the rank of
'chef de bataillon', performed his first campaign, and contributed so
materially to the recapture of Toulon. Of this period of his life I
have no personal knowledge, and therefore I shall not speak of it as an
eye-witness. I shall merely relate some facts which fill up the interval
between 1793 and 1795, and which I have collected from papers which
he himself delivered to me. Among these papers is a little production,
entitled 'Le Souper de Beaucaire', the copies of which he bought up at
considerable expense, and destroyed upon his attaining the Consulate.
This little pamphlet contains principles very opposite to those he
wished to see established in 1800, a period when extravagant ideas of
liberty were no longer the fashion, and when Bonaparte entered upon a
system totally the reverse of those republican principles professed in
'Le Souper de Beaucaire.
--[This is not, as Sir Walter says, a dialogue between Marat and a
Federalist, but a conversation between a military officer, a native
of Nismes, a native of Marseilles, and a manufacturer from
Montpellier. The latter, though he takes a share in the
conversation, does not say much. 'Le Souper de Beaucaire' is given
at full length in the French edition of these Memoirs, tome i. pp.
319-347; and by Iung, tome ii. p. 354, with the following remarks:
"The first edition of 'Le Souper de Beaucaire' was issued at the
cost of the Public Treasury, in August 1798. Sabin Tournal, its
editor, also then edited the 'Courrier d'Avignon'. The second
edition only appeared twenty-eight years afterwards, in 1821,
preceded by an introduction by Frederick Royou (Paris: Brasseur
Aine, printer, Terrey, publisher, in octavo). This pamphlet did not
make any sensation at the time it appeared. It was only when
Napoleon became Commandant of the Army of Italy that M. Loubet,
secretary and corrector of the press for M. Tournal, attached some
value to the manuscript, and showed it to several persona. Louis
Bonaparte, later, ordered several copies from M. Aurel. The
pamphlet, dated 29th duly 1793, is in the form of a dialogue between
an officer of the army, a citizen of Nismes, a manufacturer of
Montpellier, and a citizen of Marseilles. Marseilles was then in a
state of insurrection against the Convention. Its forces had seized
Avignon, but had been driven out by the army of Cartesna, which was
about to attack Marseilles itself." In the dialogue the officer
gives most excellent military advice to the representative of
Marseilles on the impossibility of their resisting the old soldiers
of Carteaux. The Marseilles citizen argues but feebly, and is
alarmed at the officer's representations; while his threat to call
in the Spaniards turns the other speakers against him. Even Colonel
Iung says, tome ii. p. 372, "In these concise judgments is felt the
decision of the master and of the man of war..... These marvellous
qualities consequently struck the members of the Convention, who
made much of Bonaparte, authorised him to have it published at the
public expense, and made him many promises." Lanfrey, vol. i. pp.
201, says of this pamphlets "Common enough ideas, expressed in a
style only remarkable for its 'Italianisms,' but becoming singularly
firm and precise every time the author expresses his military views.
Under an apparent roughness, we find in it a rare circumspection,
leaving no hold on the writer, even if events change."]--
It may be remarked, that in all that has come to us from St. Helena, not
a word is said of this youthful production. Its character sufficiently
explains this silence. In all Bonaparte's writings posterity will
probably trace the profound politician rather than the enthusiastic
revolutionist.
Some documents relative to Bonaparte's suspension and arrest, by order
of the representatives Albitte and Salicetti, serve to place in their
true light circumstances which have hitherto been misrepresented. I
shall enter into some details of this event, because I have seen it
stated that this circumstance of Bonaparte's life has been perverted and
misrepresented by every person who has hitherto written about him;
and the writer who makes this remark, himself describes the affair
incorrectly and vaguely. Others have attributed Bonaparte's misfortune
to a military discussion on war, and his connection with Robespierre the
younger.
--[It will presently be seen that all this is erroneous, and that
Sir Walter commits another mistake when he says that Bonaparte's
connection with Robespierre was attended with fatal consequences to
him, and that his justification consisted in acknowledging that his
friends were very different from what he had supposed them to be.
--Bourrienne.]--
It has, moreover, been said that Albitte and Salicetti explained to
the Committee of Public Safety the impossibility of their resuming the
military operations unaided by the talents of General Bonaparte. This is
mere flattery. The facts are these:
On the 13th of July 1794 (25th Messidor, year II), the representatives
of the people with the army of Italy ordered that General Bonaparte
should proceed to Genoa, there, conjointly with the French 'charge
d'affaires', to confer on certain subjects with the Genoese Government.
This mission, together with a list of secret instructions, directing him
to examine the fortresses of Genoa and the neighbouring country, show
the confidence which Bonaparte, who was then only twenty-five, inspired
in men who were deeply interested in making a prudent choice of their
agents.
Bonaparte set off for Genoa, and fulfilled his mission. The 9th
Thermidor arrived, and the deputies, called Terrorists, were superseded
by Albitte and Salicetti. In the disorder which then prevailed they were
either ignorant of the orders given to General Bonaparte, or persons
envious of the rising glory of the young general of artillery inspired
Albitte and Salicetti with suspicions prejudicial to him. Be this as it
may, the two representatives drew up a resolution, ordering that General
Bonaparte should be arrested, suspended from his rank, and arraigned
before the Committee of Public Safety; and, extraordinary as it may
appear, this resolution was founded in that very journey to Genoa