1794.

BONAPARTE AND DUROC.

25

Salicetti afterwards became the friend and confidant of young Bonaparte; but their intimacy did not continue after his elevation.

What is to be thought of the motives for Bonaparte's arrest and provisional liberation, when his innocence and the error that had been committed were acknowledged ? The importance of the General's military talents, though no mention is made about the impossibility of dispensing with them, is a pretence for restoring him to that liberty of which he had been unjustly deprived.

It was not at Toulon, as has been stated, that Bonaparte took Duroc into the artillery, and made him his aide de camp. The acquaintance was formed at a subsequent period, in Italy. Duroc's cold character and unexcursive mind suited Napoleon, whose confidence he enjoyed until his death, and who entrusted him with missions perhaps above his abilities. At St. Helena Bonaparte often declared that he was much attached to Duroc. I believe this to be true; but I know that the attachment was not returned. The ingratitude of princes is proverbial. May it not happen that courtiers are also sometimes ungrateful?2

1 Michel Duroc (1773-1813), at first only aide de camp to Napoleon, was several times entrusted with special diplomatic missions (for example, to Berlin, etc.) On the formation of the Empire he became Grand Maréchal du Palais, and Duc de Frioul. He always remained in close connection with Napoleon until he was killed in 1813. As he is often mentioned in contemporary memoirs under his abbreviated title of Marshal, he has sometimes been erroneously included in the number of the Marshals of the Empire-a military rank he never attained to.

2 It is only just to Duroc to add that this charge does not seem borne out by the impressions of those more capable than Bourrienne of judging in the matter.

CHAPTER III.

1794-1795.

Proposal to send Bonaparte to La Vendée-He is struck off the list of general officers-Salicetti-Joseph's marriage with Mademoiselle Clary-Bonaparte's wish to go to Turkey-Note explaining the plan of his proposed expedition -Madame Bourrienne's character of Bonaparte, and account of her husband's arrest-Constitution of the year III.-The 13th Vendémiaire-Bonaparte appointed second in command of the army of the interior-Eulogium of Bonaparte by Barras, and its consequences-St. Helena manuscript. GENERAL BONAPARTE returned to Paris, where I also arrived from Germany shortly after him. Our intimacy was resumed, and he gave me an account of all that had passed in the campaign of the south. He frequently alluded to the persecutions he had suffered, and he delivered to me the packet of papers noticed in the last chapter, desiring me to communicate their contents to my friends. He was very anxious, he said, to do away with the supposition that he was capable of betraying his country, and, under the pretence of a mission to Genoa, becoming a spy on the interests of France. He loved to talk over his military achievements at Toulon and in Italy. He spoke of his first successes with that feeling of pleasure and gratification which they were naturally calculated to excite in him.

The Government wished to send him to La Vendée, with the rank of brigadier-general of infantry. Bonaparte rejected this proposition on two grounds. He thought the scene of action unworthy of his talents, and he regarded his projected removal from the artillery to the infantry as a sort of insult. This last was his most powerful objection, and was the only one he urged officially. In consequence of his refusal to

1795.

BONAPARTE UNEMPLOYED.

27

accept the appointment offered him, the Committee of Public Safety decreed that he should be struck off the list of general officers.1

Deeply mortified at this unexpected stroke, Bonaparte retired into private life, and found himself doomed to an inactivity very uncongenial with his ardent character. He lodged in the Rue du Mail, in an hotel near the Place des Victoires, and we recommenced the sort of life we had led in 1792, before his departure for Corsica. It was not without a struggle that he determined to await patiently the removal of the prejudices which were cherished against him by men in power; and he hoped that, in the perpetual changes which were taking place, those men might be superseded by others more favourable to him. He frequently dined and spent the

He went as far as Paris, While in Paris he applied,

1 This statement as to the proposed transfer of Bonaparte to the infantry, his disobedience to the order, and his consequent dismissal, is fiercely attacked in the Erreurs, tome i. chap. iv. It is, however, correct in some points; but the real truths about Bonaparte's life at this time seem so little known that it may be well to explain the whole matter. On the 27th of March 1795 Bonaparte, already removed from his employment in the south, was ordered to proceed to the army of the west, to command its artillery as brigadier-general. and then lingered there, partly on medical certificate. as Bourrienne says, to go to Turkey to organise its artillery. His application, instead of being neglected, as Bourrienne says, was favourably received, two members of the Comité de Salut Public putting on its margin most favourable reports of him; one, Jean Debry, even saying that he was too distinguished an officer to be sent to a distance at such a time. Far from being looked on as the half-crazy fellow Bourrienne considered him at that time, Bonaparte was appointed, on the 21st of August 1795, one of four generals attached as military advisers to the Committee for the preparation of warlike operations, his own department being a most important one. He himself at the time tells Joseph that he is attached to the topographical bureau of the Comité de Salut Public, for the direction of the armies in the place of Carnot. It is apparently this significant appointment to which Madame Junot, wrongly dating it, alludes as "no great thing" (Junot, vol. i. p. 143). Another officer was therefore substituted for him as commander of Hoche's artillery, a fact made use of in the Erreurs (p. 31) to deny his having been dismissed. But a general re-classification of the generals was being made. The artillery generals were in excess of their establishment, and Bonaparte, as junior in age, was ordered on 13th June to join Hoche's army at Brest to command a brigade of infantry. All his efforts to get the order cancelled failed, and as he did not obey it he was struck off the list of employed general officers on the 15th of September 1795, the order of the Comité de Salut Public being signed by Cambacérès, Berlier, Merlin, and Boissy. His application to go to Turkey still, however, remained; and it is a curious thing that, on the very day he was struck off the list, the commission which had replaced the Minister of War recommended to the Comité de Salut Public that he and his two aides de camp, Junot and Livrat, with other officers under him, should be sent to Constantinople. So late as the 29th of September, twelve days later, this matter was being considered, the only question being as to any departmental objections to the other officers selected by

evening with me and my elder brother; and his pleasant conversation and manners made the hours pass away very agreeably. I called on him almost every morning, and I met at his lodgings several persons who were distinguished at the time; among others Salicetti, with whom he used to maintain very animated conversations, and who would often solicit a private interview with him. On one occasion Salicetti paid him three thousand francs, in assignats, as the price of his carriage, which his straitened circumstances obliged him to dispose of.1 I could easily perceive that our young friend either was or wished to be initiated in some political intrigue; and I moreover suspected that Salicetti had bound him by an oath not to disclose the plans that were hatching.

him, a point which was just being settled. But on the 13th Vendémiaire (5th October 1795), or rather on the night before, only nineteen days after his removal, he was appointed second in command to Barras, a career in France was opened to him, and Turkey was no longer thought of.

Thiers (vol. iv. p. 326) and most writers, contemporary and otherwise, say that Aubry gave the order for his removal from the list. Aubry, himself a brigadier-general of artillery, did not belong to the Comité de Salut Public at the time Bonaparte was removed from the south; and he had left the Comité early in August, that is, before the order striking Bonaparte off was given. Aubry was, however, on the Comité in June 1795, and signed the order, which probably may have originated from him, for the transfer of Bonaparte to the infantry. It will be seen that, in the ordinary military sense of the term, Napoleon was only in Paris without employment from the 15th of September to the 4th or 5th of October 1795; all the rest of the time in Paris he had a command which he did not choose to take up. The distress under which Napoleon is said to have laboured in pecuniary matters was probably shared by most officers at that time; see Erreurs, tome i. p. 32. This period is fully described in lung, tome ii. p. 475, and tome iii. pp. 1-93.

1 Of Napoleon's poverty at this time Madame Junot says, "On Bonaparte's return to Paris, after the misfortunes of which he accused Salicetti of being the cause, he was in very destitute circumstances. His family, who were banished from Corsica, found an asylum at Marseilles; and they could not now do for him what they would have done had they been in the country whence they derived their pecuniary resources. From time to time he received remittances of money, and I suspect they came from his excellent brother Joseph, who had then recently married Mademoiselle Clary; but with all his economy these supplies were insufficient. Bonaparte was therefore in absolute distress. Junot often used to speak of the six months they passed together in Paris at this time. When they took an evening stroll on the Boulevard, which used to be the resort of young men, mounted on fine horses, and displaying all the luxury which they were permitted to show at that time, Bonaparte would declaim against fate, and express his contempt for the dandies with their whiskers and their oreilles de chien, who, as they rode past, were eulogising in ecstasy the manner in which Madame Scio sang paole pafumée, paole panachée. And it is on such beings as these,' he would say, that Fortune confers her favours. Grand Dieu! how contemptible is human nature !'" (Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, vol. i. p. 80, edit. 1883).

1795. PROPOSES TO JOIN THE GRAND SEIGNIOR. 29

He became pensive, melancholy, and anxious; and he always looked with impatience for Salicetti's daily visit.1 Sometimes, withdrawing his mind from political affairs, he would envy the happiness of his brother Joseph, who had just then married Mademoiselle Clary, the daughter of a rich and respectable merchant of Marseilles. He would often say, "That Joseph is a lucky rogue."

He

Meanwhile time passed away, and none of his projects. succeeded-none of his applications were listened to. was vexed by the injustice with which he was treated, and tormented by the desire of entering upon some active pursuit. He could not endure the thought of remaining buried in the crowd. He determined to quit France; and the favourite idea, which he never afterwards relinquished, that the East is a fine field for glory, inspired him with the wish to proceed to Constantinople, and to enter the service of the Grand Seignior. What romantic plans, what stupendous projects he conceived! He asked me whether I would go with him? I replied in the negative. I looked upon him as a half-crazy young fellow, who was driven to extravagant enterprises and desperate resolutions by his restless activity of mind, joined to the irritating treatment he had experienced, and, perhaps, it may be added, his want of money. He did not blame me for my refusal to accompany him; and he told me that Junot, Marmont, and some other young officers whom he had known at Toulon, would be willing to follow his fortunes. He drew up a note, which commenced with the words Note for It was addressed to no one, and was merely a plan. Some days after he wrote out another, which, however, did not differ very materially from the first, and which he addressed to Aubert and Coni. I made him a fair copy of it, and it was regularly forwarded. It was as follows:

NOTE.

At a moment when the Empress of Russia has strengthened her union with the Emperor of Germany (Austria), it is the interest of France to do everything in her power to increase the military power of Turkey.

1 Salicetti was implicated in the insurrection of the 20th May 1795, 1st Prairial, year III., and was obliged to fly to Venice.