Corsica is united to France, Paoli recalled; and in an instant the prospect changes, and opens to your view a course of events which you could not have dared to hope for. I beg your pardon, sir; I took up my pen to defend you; but my heart revolts against so uniform a system of treason and atrocity. What! did you, a son of the same country, never feel any thing for her? What! did your heart experience no emotion at the sight of the rocks, the trees, the houses, the spots which were the scenes of your infant amusements? When you came into the world, your country nourished you with her fruits; when you came to the years of reason, she placed her hopes in you; she honoured you with her confidence; she said to you, "My son, you see the wretched state to which I am reduced by the injustice of men;-through my native vigour, I am recovering a degree of strength which promises me a speedy and infallible recovery; but I am again threatened! Fly, my son, hasten to Versailles; inform the great king of every thing, dissipate his suspicions, request his friendship." Well! a little gold made you betray her confidence; and forthwith, for a little gold, you were seen, like a parricide, tearing open her bosom. Ah, sir, I am far from wishing you ill; but there is an avenging conscience! Your countrymen, to whom you are an object of horror, will enlighten France as to your character. The wealth, the pensions, the fruits of your treasons, will be taken from you. In the decrepitude of old age and poverty, in the frightful solitude of wickedness, you will live long enough to become a prey to the torments of conscience. The father will point you out to his son, the master to his pupil, saying, "Young people, learn to respect your country, virtue, fidelity, and humanity." And you, respectable and unhappy woman, whose youth, beauty, and innocence were vilely prostituted, does your pure and chaste heart beat under a hand so criminal? In those moments in which nature gives the alarm to love, when, withdrawn from the chimeras of life, unmingled pleasures succeed each other with rapidity, when the mind, expanded by the fire of sentiment, enjoys only the pleasure of causing enjoyment, and feels only the pleasure of exciting feeling, in those moments you press to your heart, you become identified with that cold and selfish man, who has never deviated from his character, and who, in the course of sixty years, has never known any thing but the care of his own interest, an instinctive love of destruction, the most infamous avarice, the base pleasures of sense! By and by, the glare of honours, the trappings of riches, will disappear; you will be loaded with general contempt. Will you seek, in the bosom of him who is the author of your woes, a consolation indispensable to your gentle and affectionate mind? Will you endeavour to find in his eyes tears to mingle with yours? Will your failing hand, placed on his bosom, seek to find an agitation like that in your own? Alas, if you surprise him in tears, they will be those of remorse; if his bosom heave, it will be with the convulsions of the wretch who dies abhorring nature, himself, and the hand that guides him. O Lameth! O Robespierre! O Pétion! O Volney! O Mirabeau! O Barnave! O Bailly! O La Fayette! this is the man who dares to seat himself by your side! Dropping with the blood of his brethren, stained by every sort of vice, he presents himself with confidence in the dress of a general, the reward of his crimes! He dares to call himself the representative of the nation-he who sold her-and you suffer it! He dares to raise his eyes, and listen to your discourse, and you suffer it! Is it the voice of the people that sent him? He never had more than the voice of twelve nobles. Ajaccio, Bastia, and most of the districts, have done that to his effigy which they would have been very glad to do to his person. But you, who are induced, by the error of the moment, or perhaps temporary abuses, to oppose any fresh changes, will you tolerate a traitor? a man who, under the cool exterior of a man of sense, conceals the avidity of a lacquey? I cannot imagine it. You will be the first to drive him away with ignominy, as soon as you are aware of the string of atrocities of which he has been the author. From my closet at Milleli, I have the honour, &c. BUONAPARTE. No. III. THE SUPPER OF BEAUCAIRE. July 29, 1793. [See p. 14.] I HAPPENED to be at Beaucaire on the last day of the fair, and by chance had for my companions at supper two merchants from Marseilles, a citizen of Nimes, and a manufacturer from Montpelier. After the first few minutes of mutual survey, they discovered that I came from Avignon, and was in the army. The attention of my companions, which, all the week, had been fixed on the details of that traffic which is the parent of wealth, was at this moment turned to the issue of those passing events, upon which the security of all wealth so much depends. They endeavoured to come at my opinion, in order that, by comparing it with their own, they might be enabled to form probable conjectures respecting that future, which affected us so differently. The two citizens of Marseilles, in particular, appeared to be perplexed in spirit. The evacuation of Avignon had taught them to doubt of every thing. They manifested but one great solicitude as to their future fate. Confidence soon made us talkative, and our conversation ran in nearly the following terms: Nimois.-Is Cartaux's army strong? It is said to have lost a great many men in the attack; but if it be true that it has been repulsed, why have the Marseillese evacuated Avignon ? Militaire.-The army was four thousand strong when it assaulted Avignon; it now amounts to six thousand, and within four days will reach ten thou sand men. It lost five men killed and eleven wounded. It has never been repulsed, since it never made a formal attack: the troops only manœuvred about the place, in order to ascertain where an attempt to force the gates, by means of petards, might be made to the best advantage; a few cannon were fired, to try the courage of the garrison, and it was then necessary to draw back to the camp, to combine the attack for the following night. The Marseillese were three thousand six hundred men; they had a heavier and more numerous artillery, and yet they have been obliged to recross the Durance. This surprises you; but it is only veteran troops who can endure the uncertain events of a siege. We were masters of the Rhone, of Villeneuve, and of the open country; we had intercepted all their communications. They were under the necessity of evacuating the town, were pursued by our cavalry, and lost many prisoners, with two guns. Marseillese. This is a very different story from what we have been told. I do not dispute what you say, since you were present; but you must confess, that, after all this, they can do you no good. Our army is at Aix. Three good generals are come in place of the former ones: at Marseilles they are raising fresh battalions; we have a new train of artillery, several twenty-four pounders; in a few days, we shall be in a position to retake Avignon, or at worst we shall remain masters of the Durance. Militaire.-Such is the story you have been told, to entice you to the brink of the abyss, which is deepening every moment, and which perhaps will engulf the finest town of France-the one which has deserved most of the patriots. But you were also told, that you should traverse France-that you should give the ton to the Republic-and yet your very first steps have been checks. You were told that Avignon could resist for a long time a force of twenty thousand men-and yet a single column, without a battering train, gained possession of it in four-and-twenty hours. You were told that the south had risen-and you found yourselves alone! You were told that the Nimes cavalry were about to crush the Allobroges-and yet the Allobroges were already at Saint-Esprit, and at Villeneuve. You were told that four thousand Lyonese were marching to your assistance-and yet the Lyonese were negotiating an accommodation for themselves. Acknowledge, then, that you have been deceived-open you eyes to the want of skill among your leaders, and put no faith in their calculatíons. Of all counsellors, self-love is the most dangerous. You are naturally impetuous: they are leading you to your destruction, by the self-same means which have ruined so many nations-by inflaming your vanity. You possess considerable wealth, and a large population-these they exaggerate. You have rendered signal services to the cause of liberty of these they remind you, without, at the same time, pointing out to you, that the genius of the republic was at that time with you, that it has now abandoned you. Your army, you say, is at Aix with a large train of artillery, and skilful generals; well, do what it may, I tell you it will be beaten. You had three thousand six hundred men-a full half is dispersed. Marseilles, and a few refugees from the department, may offer you four thousand: that is the utmost. You will then have between five and six thousand troops, without unity, without order, without discipline. You have, you say, good generals. I do not know them, and shall not, therefore, dispute their abilities; but they will be absorbed in details, they will not be seconded by the subalterns, they will be unable to do any thing to maintain the reputation they may possess; for it would require at least two months to get their army into tolerable discipline; and in four days Cartaux will have passed the Durance-and with what soldiers? Why, with the excellent light troop of the Allobroges, the old regiment of Burgundy, and the brave battalion of the Cote d'Or (which has been a hundred times victorious in battle,) and six or seven other corps, all disciplined soldiers, encouraged by their successes on the frontiers, and against your army! You have some twenty-four pounders, and eighteen pounders, and you fancy yourselves impregnable. In this you but follow the vulgar opinion; but military men will tell you, and fatal experience is about to convince you, that good four-pounders and eight-pounders are preferable on many accounts to pieces of heavy calibre! You have cannoneers of the new levy-your adversaries have gunners from regiments of the line, the best masters of their art in all Europe! What will your army do if it concentrates itself at Aix? It is lost. It is an axiom in the military art, that the army which remains in its intrenchments is beaten experience and theory agree upon this point; and the walls of Aix are not equal to the worst field-intrenchment, especially if you bear in mind their extent, and the houses which skirt them on the exterior within pistolshot. Be you well assured then that this course, which to you appears the best, is the very worst. Besides, what means will you possess of supplying the town, in so short a time, with every kind of provisions? Will your army offer battle? Why, it is the weaker in numbers-it has no cavalry-its artillery is less adapted for the field-it would be broken, and from that moment defeated without resource, for the cavalry would prevent it from rallying. Expect, then, to see the war carried into the Marseilles territory. There a tolerably powerful party is for the Republic; this will be the moment for the struggle; the junction will be made; and your city, the centre of the commerce of the Levant, the entrepôt of the south of Europe, is lost! Recollect the recent example of Lisle, and the barbarous laws of war. What infatuation has all at once possessed your townsmen? What fatal blindness is leading them to their ruin? How can they fancy themselves powerful enough to oppose the whole Republic? Even should they compel this army to fall back upon Avignon, can they doubt that, in a few days, fresh troops would come to supply the place of the former? The Republic, which gives the law to Europe, will she receive it from Marseilles? United with Bourdeaux, Lyons, Montpellier, Nimes, Grenoble, the Jura, the Eure, the Calvados, you undertook a revolution. You had a probability of success: those who spurred you on might be ill-intentioned men; but you were an imposing mass of strength. On the contrary, now that Lyons, Nimes, Montpellier, Bourdeaux, the Jura, the Eure, Grenoble, Caen, have accepted the constitution;-now that Avignon, Tarascon, Arles, have submitted, acknowledge that in obstinacy there is folly. The fact is, that you are under the influence of individuals who, having no property of their own to look after, are involving you in their ruin. Your army will be composed of the best-conditioned, the richest portion of your city; for the Sans-Culottes could but be too easily turned against you. You are about, then, to risk the elite of your youthful population, young men accustomed to hold the commercial balance of the Mediterranean, and enrich 1 A small town in the department of Vaucluse, four leagues east of Avignon, having resisted Cartaux's army, was carried by assault, 26th July, 1793.-S. you by their economy and their speculations, against veteran soldiers a hundred times stained with the blood of the desperate aristocrat or the ferocious Prussian. Let poor countries fight to the last extremity. The inhabitant of the Vivarais, of the Cevennes, of Corsica, exposes himself without fear to the issue of a battle; if he gains it, he has obtained his object; if he is beaten, he finds himself as before, in the condition to make peace, and in the same position. But you!-lose but a battle, and the fruits of a thousand years of industry, of economy, of prosperity, become the prey of the soldier. Marseillese. You get on a great rate, and you alarm me. I agree with you that our situation is critical. It is perhaps true, that we do not sufficiently consider the position in which we now stand; but you cannot but acknowledge that we have still immense resources to oppose you. You have persuaded me that we could not resist at Aix: your observation as to the want of subsistence is perhaps unanswerable, as applied to a siege of long duration; but do you imagine that all Provence can, for a long period, witness with indifference the blockade of Aix? It will rise spontaneously; and your army, hemmed in on all sides, will be but too happy to repass the Durance. Militaire.-Ah! how little you know of the spirit of men, and of the times, to talk thus! Everywhere there are two parties. The moment you are besieged, the Sectionary party will be put down in all the country places. The example of Tarascon, Saint-Remy, Organ, Arles, should convince you of this; a score of dragoons have sufficed to restore the old authorities, and put the new ones to flight. Henceforward, in your department, any powerful movement in your favour is impossible. It might have taken place when the army was on the other side the Durance, and you were unbroken. At Toulon, the active spirits are much divided; and there the Sectionaries have not the same superiority as at Marseilles; they must therefore remain in the city to keep down their adversary. As for the department of the Lower Alps, nearly the whole of it, as you know. has accepted the constitution. Marseillese. We shall attack Cartaux in our mountains, where his cavalry will be of no service to him. Militaire.-As if an army engaged in protecting a town could choose the point of attack. Besides, it is a fallacy to suppose there are any mountains near Marseilles sufficiently inaccessible to render cavalry ineffective: your hills are just steep enough to render the use of artillery more difficult, and to give a great advantage to your enemy; for it is in a country intersected by rivers that the skilful artilleryman, by the rapidity of his movements, the exactness in serving his pieces, and the accuracy of his elevations, is the most sure of having the superiority. Marseillese. You fancy us, then, to be without resources: Is it then possible, that it can be the destiny of a town who resisted the Romans, and preserved a portion of its laws under the despots who succeeded them, to become the prey of a handful of brigands? What! the Allobroge, laden with the spoils of Lisle, shall he give law to Marseilles? What! Dubois du Crancé, and Albitte, shall they rule over us uncontrolled? Those men, steeped in blood, whom the miseries of the times have placed at the head of affairs, shall they be our absolute masters? Sad, indeed, is the prospect you set before us! Our property, under different pretences, would be invaded; at every instant we should be the victims of a soldiery, whom plunder unites under the same banner: our best citizens would be imprisoned, and perish by violence. The Club would again rear its monstrous head to execute its infernal projects! Nothing can be worse than this; better to expose ourselves to the chance of warfare, than become victims without alternative! Militaire.-Such is civil war! men revile one another-detest one anotherkill one another, without knowing one another! The Allobroges! what do you suppose them to be? Africans? inhabitants of Siberia? Oh, not at all! They are your countrymen,-the men of Provence, of Dauphiny, of Savoy. Some people fancy them to be barbarians, because the name they have taken sounds oddly. If your own troops were to be called the Phocæan phalanx, every species of fable would be accredited respecting them You have reminded me of one fact, the assault of Lisle. I do not justify it, but will explain to you how it happened. The inhabitants killed the trumpeter who was sent to them; they resisted without the slightest chance of success; the town was taken by assault; the soldiers entered it amidst fire and slaughter: it was impossible to restrain them, and fury did the rest. Those soldiers whom you call brigands, are our best troops, and most disciplined battalions: their reputation is above calumny. Dubois-Crancé and Albitte, constant friends of the people, have never deviated from the right line. Certainly they are "wicked men" in the eyes of the bad: but Condorcet, Brissot, Barbaroux, were also "wicked men," so long as they remained uncontaminated. It will ever be the fate of the good to be ill-spoken of by the worthless. You imagine they show you no mercy; on the contrary, they are treating you like wayward children. Do you think, if they had been otherwise disposed, that the merchants of Marseilles would have been suffered to withdraw the goods which they had at Beaucaire? They could have sequestered them till the war was over. They were unwilling to do so; and, thanks to them, you can now return quietly to your homes. You call Cartaux an assassin. Well! let me tell you, that that general takes the greatest pains to preserve order and discipline; witness his conduct at St. Esprit and at Avignon. He ordered a sergeant to prison because he had violated the asylum of a citizen who concealed one of your soldiers. In the eyes of the general, this sergeant was culpable for having entered, without direct orders, a private dwelling. Some people of Avignon were punished for pointing out a house as belonging to an aristocrat. A prosecution is now going on against a soldier, on a charge of theft. On the contrary, your army killed, assassinated more than thirty persons, violated the asylums of families, and filled the prisons with citizens, on the vague pretence that they were brigands. Do not be in alarm about the army. It esteems Marseilles, because it knows that no town has made so many sacrifices for the public good. You have eighteen thousand men on the frontier; and you have not spared yourselves under any circumstances. Shake off, then, the yoke of the few aristocrats who govern you; return to sounder principles, and you will have no truer friend than the army. Marseillese.-Ah! your army! It has greatly degenerated from the army of 1789. That army would not take up arms against the nation. Yours should imitate so worthy an example, and not turn their arms against their fellowcitizens. Militaire.-With such principles, La Vendée would now have planted the white flag on the again reared walls of the Bastile, and the Camp of Jalès been dominant at Marseilles. Marseillese.-La Vendée is anxious for a king-a counter-revolution: the war of La Vendée, of the camp of Jalès, is that of fanaticism, of despotism. Ours, on the contrary, is that of true Republicans, friends of the laws, of order; enemies of anarchy and of bad men. Is not ours the tri-coloured flag? and what interest could we have in wishing for slavery? Militaire.-I well know that the people of Marseilles differ widely from those of La Vendée as to the subject of counter-revolution. The people of La Vendée are robust and healthy: the people of Marseilles weak and sickly. They stand in need of honey, to induce them to swallow the pill: to establish among them the new doctrine, they must be deceived. But after four years of revolution, after so many plots, and counterplots, and conspiracies, all the perversity of human nature has been developed under all its different aspects, and bad men have perfected their subtlety. You have, you say, the tri-coloured flag? Paoli also hoisted it in Corsica to have time to deceive the people, to crush the true friends of liberty, to entice his countrymen to join him in his ambitious and criminal projects; he hoisted the tri-coloured flag, and he nevertheless fired upon the vessels of the Republic, and drove our troops from the fortresses; he disarmed all the detachments he could surprise; he collected forces to drive the garrison from the island; he plundered the magazines, selling at a low price every thing found within them, to secure money to carry on his revolt; he confiscated the property of the wealthiest families, because they were at tached to the unity of the Republic; he got himself appointed generalissimo; and he declared all those who should continue in our armies enemies of their country. Before this, he had caused the failure of the expedition to Sardinia; |